Dean Koontz - (1980)

by The Funhouse(Lit)

  "The ax isn't even sharp," Liz said petulantly. "What the hell good is it?" "It's sharp enough to hold that thing off," Buzz said, hefting the ax in both hands. "Maybe it's too dull to cut wood, but it'll sure do some damage to that bastard's face." "The only way you're going to hold off that freak is with a shotgun," Liz said shakily.

  As the flame neared Amy's fingers, she dropped the match she was holding. It was burnt out by the time it reached the floor. For a couple of seconds they stood in a darkness like no other that Amy had ever experienced.

  The darkness did not merely seem to contain a threat, it was the threat. It seemed to be a living, evil, purposeful darkness that pressed close around her, seeking, touching with its cool, black hands.

  Liz whimpered softly.

  Amy struck another match, and in the welcome burst of light, she said, "Buzz is right. We've got to arm ourselves. But that won't be enough.

  Even a shotgun might not be enough. That freak could drop out of the ceiling or pop up from the floor so fast that you wouldn't have time to pull the trigger anyway. What we've got to do is find another way out."

  "There isn't a way out," Liz said. "The exit door will be just like this one.

  You won't be able to open it or chop it down. We're trapped." "There's probably an emergency exit," Amy said.

  "That's right!n Buzz said. "There has to be an emergency door somewhere. And maybe a service entrance, too." aWe'll arm ourselves as best we can," Amy said, "and then we'll go looking for a way out." "You want to go deeper into this place?" Liz asked incredulously.

  "Are you out of your fuckin' minds? It'll get us if we go in there." I "It's just as likely to get us if we stand here by the doors," Amy said.

  "Right," Buzz said. "Let's get moving." "No, no, no!" Liz said, shaking her head violently.

  The flame flickered.

  Darkness.

  Amy struck another match.

  The renewed light revealed Liz crouching very i = low against the sealed doors, looking up at the ceiling, shivering like a cornered rabbit.

  Amy took the girl by the arm and pulled her to her feet. "Listen, kid," Amy said gently, "Buzz and I aren't going to just stand here until that thing comes back for us. So you have to go with us now. If you stay here alone, you're finished for sure. Do you want to stay here all by yourself in the dark?"

  Liz put her hands to her eyes, wiped away the tears, droplets still glistened in her lashes, and her face was wet. "All right," she said unhappily, "I'll go. But I'm sure as hell not going to go first."

  "I'll lead the way," Buzz assured her.

  "I won't go last, either," Liz said. , "I'll bring up the rear," Amy said. "You'll be safe in the middle, Liz. Now let's gO.

  They fell into line and took only three cautious '5.

  steps before Liz stopped and said, aMy God, how did she know?" "How did who know what?" Amy asked impatiently.

  "How did that fortune-teller know something like this was going to happen?"

  They stood in baffled silence for a moment, and the match went out, and Amy fumbled for a long time with the next one before she finally got it burning, suddenly her hands were shaking. Liz's unanswerable question about the fortune-teller had sparked a strange feeling in Amy--a tingle along her spine, not a shiver of fear, but an unnerving quiver of deja vu. She felt that she had been in this situation before--trapped in a dark place with exactly this same horrible freak. For a few seconds that feeling was so shatteringly powerful, so overwhelming, that she felt as if she might faint, but then it passed.

  "Did Madame Zena really see into the future?" Liz asked. "That isn't possible, is it? That's too damned weird. What the hell is going on here?" Y don't know," Amy said. aBut we don't have time to worry about that now.

  First things first. We've got to find that emergency exit and get out of here." Outside, the clown laughed.

  Amy, Liz, and Buzz moved deeper into the funhouse.

  For a minute after Joey asked for a rain check on the guided tour, Conrad stood behind the boy, staring at the double exit doors, pretending to wait for the sister and her friends to come out of the funhouse.

  "What's taking them so long?" Joey asked.

  "Oh, it's the longest ride on the midway," Conrad said quickly.

  He pointed to a poster that proclaimed precisely that virtue of the funhouse.

  "I saw that," Joey said. aBut it can't be this lOng." "Twelve full minutes." "They've been in there longer than that." Conrad looked at his watch and frowned.

  "And why haven't any other cars come out?" Joey asked. "Weren't there cars ahead of them?" Conrad stepped up to the gondola channel by the exit ramp and looked down at the tracks. Faking surprise, he said, "The center drive chain isn't moving." "What's that mean?" Joey asked, stepping up beside him.

  "It means the damned machinery has broken down again," Conrad said.

  "It happens every once in a while. Your sister and her friends are stuck in there.

  I'll have to go inside and see what's wrong with the equipment." He turned away and started around the side of the funhouse. Then he stopped and looked back as if he had forgotten Joey for a moment.

  "Come along, son.

  I might need your help."

  The boy hesitated.

  "Come on," Conrad said. "Let's not leave your sister sitting in the dark."

  The boy followed him to the rear of the funhouse.

  Conrad opened the door that led to the room beneath the main floor of the structure. He went inside, felt for the light chain, pulled on it.

  Joey entered after him. "Wow!n the boy said. "I didn't realize there'd be so many machines!n Conrad closed and locked the door behind them. When he turned to Joey, he grinned and said, You lying little shit. Your mother's name isn't Leon"."

  , Amy, Liz, and Buzz were deep in the funhouse when a string of lights came on above the track. They had turned several sharp bends, had edged nervously down a couple of long, dark straightaways, and had just started up a steep slope, past wax dummies of monsters from various science fiction movies.

  The lights didn't completely dispel the darkness. Deep shadows lay close by.

  But any light at all was welcome, for Amy had only one match left.

  "What's happening?" Liz asked anxiously. She was frightened of any change in their situation, even if that change meant light instead of darkness.

  "I don't know,' Amy said uneasily.

  "It's turned the lights on so it can look for us more easily," Liz said.

  "That's what's happening, and you know it." "Well, if that is the case," Amy said, "we'll be a lot harder to find if we keep moving." aRight," Buzz said. "Let's don't just stand here. Let's find a way out."

  "There isn't one," Liz said. But she moved uphill with them.

  When they reached the top of the rise, they found a large display featuring six man-sized, tentacled, bug-eyed monsters. The aliens were disembarking from a flying saucer, absurd shapes frozen in the frost-pale backwash from the lights above the tracks.

  "That saucer's pretty damned big," Buzz said. Y'll bet we could all three hide in it." "They'd be sure to look in there," Amy said. aWe can't stand still, and we can't hide. We have to get out." Just as she finished speaking, the drive chain in the center of the tracks started to move.

  They all jumped, startled.

  In the distance an approaching gondola rattled noisily along the rails-clatter-clunk-clatterclunk--a hard, sharp sound, audible above the music and the recorded laughter, growing louder by the second.

  "It's coming for us," Liz said. "Oh, Jesus, Jesus, that freak is coming to get us!"

  The dull, rusty knife that Amy had taken off one of the monster models now seemed like a laughable weapon.

  Clatter-clunk -clatter-clunk . . .

  "Quick," Buzz said. "Get off the tracks."

  They clambered onto the wide ledge where the six aliens were coming out of the flying saucer.

  Clatter-clunk-clatter-clunk . . .

  "You two go
over by the spaceship," Buzz said.

  Make yourselves visible. Make sure his attention is on you."

  ~ "What are you going to do?" Amy asked.

  Buzz grinned. It was a strained, frightened, utterly humorless grin.

  He was struggling to maintain his macho image. He pointed to a papier-mache boulder and said, "I'm going to stand over there by that rock. When the car comes up the hill . . . when the bastard in it sees - the two of you, I'm going to chop him before he has a chance to jump out onto the tracks." "It might work," Amy said.

  Sure," Buzz said. "I'll split him wide open."

  Clatter-clunk-clatter-clunk . . .

  The gondola turned the nearest corner and ~ started up the slope toward them.

  Liz tried to run and hide.

  Amy grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her over to the flying saucer, where the occupant of the gondola would spot them just as he reached the crest of the hill.

  Buzz positioned himself beside the rock, completely visible to Liz and Amy, but hidden from the oncoming car. He held the ax in both hands.

  : Clatter-clunk . . . clatter-clunk . . . clatter . . . clunk . .

  .

  The car was slowing down as the grade of the tracks increased.

  Buzz lifted the ax over his head.

  Amy saw the front of the gaily painted car move into sight.

  "Jesus, let me go, let me go, Amy," Liz said.

  Amy held her wrist even more firmly.

  The first seat of the car was visible now. It appeared to be empty.

  Clatter . . . clunk . . . clatter . . .

  Very slowly now.

  Hardly moving now.

  Finally the rear seat came into view.

  Amy squinted. If the lights had been just a fraction dimmer than they were, she wouldn't have been able to see the thing in the backseat of the gondola.

  But she did see it. Just a lump. A formless shadow. It was crouched on the floor of the car, trying to deceive them.

  Buzz saw it, too. With a karate-like yell of fury, he stepped out from behind the boulder and swung the ax down, below the level of his feet, into the gondola. It connected with such force at the extreme end of its arc that it was jerked out of his hands.

  The thing in the car didn't move, and the car itself ground to a complete stop.

  "I got him!" Buzz shouted.

  Liz and Amy rushed to him.

  Buzz got down on his knees, reached into the gondola channel, into the car, and seized the ax handle again. He pulled up, and the thing into which the dull blade had sunk was lifted up with it.

  A head.

  Not the freak's head.

  The freak hadn't been on that rear seat.

  The dull blade of the ax was embedded deeply in Richie's skull.

  Brains oozed from the fissures I in the bone and slid down his bloody face.

  Liz screamed.

  Buzz dropped the ax and turned away from the gondola. He vomited on the papier-mfiche boulder.

  Amy was so stunned that she let go of Liz's hand.

  Liz was screaming at Buzz now. "You stupid son of a bitch! You killed him! You killed Richie!n Both Liz and Amy had armed themselves with dull, rusty knives that they had taken from the funhouse displays, and now Liz raised her knife as if she might attack Buzz with it. "You stupid asshole! You killed Richie!n "No," Amy said. "No, Liz. Baby, listen. Buzz didn't kill him.

  Listen, Richie was already dead. It was just his corpse in that car." Sobbing with terror, her fear magnified by the drugs that she had taken all evening, Liz turned and ran before Amy could grab her. She fled across the flying saucer display, between two tentacled aliens whose rubbery appendages wobbled in the air after she brushed past them. She vanished in shadows, behind the papier-mfiche rocks.

  aLiz, damn it!n Amy said.

  The sound of the other girl's panicked flight faded rapidly. She disappeared into the bowels of the funhouse.

  Amy turned to Buzz again.

  He was on his knees. He had just finished being violently sick.

  The stink was terrible. He wiped the back of his hand across his soiled mouth.

  "Are you okay?" Amy asked.

  "Holy Christ, it was Richie," he said weakly.

  "He was already dead," Amy said.

  aBut it was Richie!n "Don't flake out on me," Amy said.

  "I . . . I won't." "You're okay?" "I guess . . . yeah." "Get hold of yourself."

  "I'm all right." aWe have to keep our cool if we're going to survive." aBut this is crazy," Buzz said.

  "It's crazy," Amy agreed. aBut it's happening." "Locked in a funhouse with a . . . a monster." ~ "It's happening, and we have to deal with it," she said patiently.

  Buzz nodded, sucked in his stomach, struggled to regain his macho self-confidence. "Yeah. We'll , deal with it. We can handle it. I'm not afraid of any freak."

  The instant he finished speakin g, a blossom of blood appeared in the center of Buzz's forehead.

  At first Amy didn't even realize it was blood. It A' looked black, like a spot of ink. But then the wan light caught it at a slightly different angle, and she could see that it was red.

  Then there was a follow-up noise that echoed through the cavern an instant after the blood appeared, it was barely louder than the clatter that the moving gondola had made--crack!

  Buzz's mouth fell open.

  .

  ....

  . .

  Less than a second after that, while Amy was still unaware of what was happening, Buzz's right eye exploded in a spray of blood and ruined tissue and splintered bone, and the dark, empty socket looked like a screaming mouth.

  Again: crack!

  Blood and pieces of flesh spattered the front of Amy's green T-shirt.

  She whirled around.

  The barker was standing only ten feet away. He was pointing a small handgun at Buzz. It wasn't a very big gun, it looked like a toy.

  Behind Amy, Buzz sighed and made an odd gurgling sound and slumped over in his own vomit.

  This can't be happening! Amy thought.

  But she knew it was. She knew that this night had been waiting to happen for a long, long time, it was a night written into her life before she was born.

  The barker smiled at her.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  "The new Joseph," he said.

  "What?" "I'm the father of the new God," he said. His smile was sharklike.

  Amy held her rusted knife at her side, hoping the barker wouldn't see it and that somehow she would get close enough to him to use the blade.

  "Say hello to your little brother," the barker said. He was holding a rope in one hand. He pulled on it. Joey staggered out of the darkness, at the other end of the leash.

  "Oh, God," Amy said. "God, help us."

  "He can't help you," the barker said. "God is weak. Satan is strong.

  God can't help you this time, bitch."

  LIZ STUqBLED INTO someone in the shadows. He was big. She cried out before she realized that it wasn't the freak. She had walked into another of the mechanical monsters, which were all motionless and silent now.

  LiZ was sweating, shaking, disoriented. She kept colliding with things in the darkness, and each time her heart nearly stopped. She knew she should either sit down until she was calm again--or go back to the gondola channel, where there was some light, but she was too frightened to do what she ought to.

  She staggered forward, hands out in front of her, the knife in one hand, gagging when she thought of Richie with the ax buried in his head, resisting the urge to throw up, her head light from the effects of adrenaline and dope, just trying to save herself, gasping, whimpering, aware that all the noise she was making might be the death of her, but unable to be silent, just trying to save herself any way she could, hoping she would luck into an exit, counting on the fact that she'd always been a very lucky girl, wishing (crazily) that she had time to stop and smoke another joint, and that was when she tripped over something and fell, hard
, onto the plank floor, and she reached back to free her foot, and she discovered a metal ring in the floor, a large ring in which she had caught the toe of her shoe, and she cursed the pain in her twisted ankle, but then she saw a thread of light coming up through the floor, light from a room below, and she realized that the ring was a handle on a trapdoor.

  A way out.

  Laughing excitedly, Liz scrambled off the trap, on which she had been sprawled. She knelt in front of the door and took hold of the ring.

  The door was warped, it didn't want to open. She grunted, put all her strength into one hard tug, and finally the trap swung up.

  Light filled the funhouse around her.

  The huge, hideous freak was standing on the ladder directly under the trapdoor. He reached up, fast as a striking snake, seized a handful of Liz's long blond hair, and dragged her, screaming, through the hole in the floor, into the funhouse basement.

  "Let my brother go," Amy said.

  "Not likely," the barker said.

  , , .i, , ,.t.

  i.

  ú, Joey's hands were tied behind his back. Another rope was tightly knotted around his neck, the barker held the loose end of that leash.

  Joey's throat was rope-burned, and he was crying.

  Amy looked into the brilliantly blue but inhuman eyes of the barker, and for the first time in her life she knew beyond all doubt that she wasn't the evil person her mother had always insisted she was. This was evil.

  This man was evil. This maniac. And the murderous freak that had killed Richie. This was the quintessence of evil, and it was as utterly different from her as she was different from . . . Liz.

  Suddenly, incredibly, in spite of the fact that both she and Joey seemed close to death at that moment, Amy was filled with a bright, cascading river of self-confidence, with a great and good feeling about herself that she had never experienced before. That river washed away all the dark, confused, and bitter emotions with which she had been plagued for so long.