The Beast 2

  And what was I supposed to tell my parents when they came to get me?

  What was I supposed to tell Ashley’s parents?

  I was in serious trouble. And Ashley wouldn’t even be there to help me.

  Ashley always came up with great explanations to keep us out of trouble. She handles grown-ups like a real pro. Parents love her, especially mine. In fact, they hardly ever get mad at me when she is visiting.

  But they’d get mad at me now, that was for sure.

  The dim lights glistened in the rain puddles as they marched me down International Street toward the main gate.

  They’d be taking me to their cold, brightly lit security office. They’d phone my parents. There would be all sorts of questions.

  I felt tears sting my eyes. Maybe I’d never see my cousin again.

  The rain fell harder. The fog seemed to thicken near the ground, swirling and bubbling around our feet.

  Then it shot up like a geyser in front of us, towering over our heads.

  I gasped in surprise as the fog slowly took on the shape of a face. I stared at two huge hollow eyes and a long flaming beard. The face began to swarm with millions of insects, feasting on its flesh.

  A smell like rotted flesh filled the air. The eyes widened, boring into me. Then the disgusting insects poured out of the eye sockets, spilling over onto the pavement at our feet.

  The gruesome skull opened its mouth wide and let out a bellowing howl.

  9

  Horrified, the guards let go of me and staggered back.

  I didn’t think. I just ran.

  I ran into the thick, swirling fog. Then I dived into the bushes and hid.

  I heard footsteps splattering on the pavement. Other men came running to the rescue. Doors squeaked open and slammed shut. Flashlight arcs crisscrossed the gloomy wetness.

  I heard a babble of conversation from the guards.

  “I tell you, it was some kind of a weird monster.”

  “A giant zombie or something! You shoulda seen the size of it!”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “No! We’re not makin’ this up.”

  “Yeah, sure. You two guys watch too many horror movies.”

  “I know what I saw!”

  “Then what did you see?”

  “I don’t know! But I’ll be seeing it in my dreams!”

  “Hey, where’s the kid?”

  “The kid? He was here just a minute ago.”

  “He must have slipped away.”

  Then more footsteps. More scrambling and shouting. Flashlights cutting through the rain.

  I huddled in the bushes, shivering, hoping they wouldn’t find me.

  I bent down to tie one sopping shoelace—when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder.

  My heart stopped beating.

  Oh, no!

  I spun around to see P.D. He grinned like a small boy. “Pretty good show, eh?” he whispered.

  I sagged in relief. “That was you back there? You scared me to death!”

  “Thank you.” He snickered. “I’m glad to see I still have it in me. I haven’t haunted anyone for years. That was fun.”

  He rose beside me and reached a hand down to pull me up. He was so strong. It was as if I had flown to my feet.

  “Come on,” he said. “We haven’t got much time.”

  “Does this mean you can help me?” I asked hopefully.

  “It means I’m going to try,” he replied. “There have been some strange events lately.”

  “Strange?” I echoed.

  He nodded, stroking his long white beard. “Objects from the past that have strayed into the present.”

  “What kind of objects?” I wanted to know.

  “A lady’s umbrella. Some loose change. Random odds and ends from the old days . . . ” he trailed off. “We must get back to The Beast. The Beast is our only hope.”

  I followed his ghostly form through the rain. It was hard going. I had to dodge puddles and guards. Both seemed to be everywhere.

  It was hard keeping up with P.D.’s long, stalking stride. My soaked sneakers slipped and slid through the mud as I scrambled after him.

  Sometimes his body seemed to blend into the rain and mist. A few times I nearly lost him.

  But at least I knew where we were going. We were going back to The Beast.

  Finally I staggered up the ramp and onto the platform.

  P.D. was already there, standing at the controls. He brought the train of cars rattling swiftly around to the loading station. “Hurry,” he urged me, “before they find you. Get in the coaster.”

  My glance flickered over the rows of shiny wet seats. Where should I sit?

  Reading my mind, P.D. knew the answer. “Take Ashley’s seat,” he instructed me. “Might as well sit in the exact spot she disappeared from.”

  I nodded and ran to the head of the coaster. I jumped into Ashley’s seat and brought the safety bar down with a crash.

  The Beast began to roll.

  It felt creepy, sitting here in the rain, all by myself at the head of a train full of empty cars. The coaster clattered up the slick, dark tracks.

  A thought flashed through my mind: The park closes The Beast when it rains this hard.

  Too late to worry about that now.

  Besides, I was way beyond worry. Halfway to terrified.

  My heart was pounding painfully. I gripped the cold slippery bar so hard my hands hurt. Higher and higher into the rainy darkness I climbed.

  I couldn’t see anything. Only a swirling darkness.

  Suddenly the car whipped forward and picked up speed. Faster and faster, roaring up the tracks.

  I found myself bracing for the moment when I would reach the peak of that first hill and plunge down.

  Then I thought, Shouldn’t we have reached the peak by now?

  But that moment didn’t come. And didn’t come. And each moment it didn’t come, the terror inside me grew.

  Faster and faster and higher and higher, like a missile shooting blindly into the darkness.

  The wind whistled past me. My shoulders were stiff and aching. My ears popped painfully.

  Then I opened my mouth and screamed as the wheels ripped loose from the track—and the car rocketed into the sky.

  10

  I shut my eyes. I waited for the crash.

  Waited.

  The car came to a gentle stop.

  I opened my eyes to total darkness.

  “Hey—!” My voice came out choked and tiny. “Where am I?”

  A door opened. Light poured in.

  I blinked rapidly and squinted into the light.

  “Huh?” I found myself sitting in some sort of booth or capsule. It was round, like a hollowed-out sphere, with thick metal seams studded with hefty bolts.

  The seat felt dry and soft, upholstered in rich red velvet.

  Before me lay a control panel, dials and knobs and levers.

  A large wheel, like something from a submarine, jutted out of the wall to the right of me, half a foot above my head.

  Where in the world am I? What happened to the roller coaster car?

  Before I could cry out, a white-gloved hand shot through the open porthole door. It grabbed me by my collar.

  “Hey—whoa!” I blurted as I was yanked out of the capsule and out into the open.

  A man towered over me, examining me with cold, dark eyes. Something in his expression made me feel like a bug squirming beneath a glass.

  I tried to be brave and stare back at him. But it was hard because I was so completely terrified.

  His black hair was slicked back. On his upper lip was a mustache so thin it looked as if he had drawn it on with a pen. He wore gray flannel trousers and a red pin-striped vest over a starched white shirt.

  He looked neat and respectable enough. But there was something slightly strange about him.

  Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  “You’re a good one!” he cried.

 
A good what? I opened my mouth to ask him just that.

  “Be quiet!” he bellowed before I got a word out.

  I snapped my mouth shut and stared at him. His dark eyes burned into mine.

  “Take off those clothes!” he shouted.

  “Excuse me?” I cried.

  My clothes were sopping wet from the rain, but there was no way I was going to take them off. I didn’t even change in the locker room in front of kids I had known all my life.

  The man grabbed me and started to pull my shirt off over my head.

  “All right, all right!” I protested, wriggling away from him. I wasn’t going to let him undress me, that was for sure.

  I jumped behind the capsule where he couldn’t see me and pulled off my clothes. Then I threw them over to the man.

  Panic surged through me as I watched him scoop up my clothes and take them over to a closet. I shivered as he unlocked the closet with a key from a heavy, jangling key ring.

  While he worked, he muttered to himself. I couldn’t make out any words.

  He stuffed my clothes into the closet. Then he returned with a pile of shiny, silvery fabric. He thrust it at me.

  “Put it on!” he snapped.

  “But—”

  “Just do it,” he ordered. “Let’s not start off on the wrong foot. There’s no room for rebels and upstarts in my show.”

  What show?

  With cold, trembling hands I climbed into the silver outfit.

  It was all one piece, made of a silver fabric. A row of silver hooks ran from the collar to the inside ankle of the right leg. My hands were trembling so hard, I kept mismatching the hooks and eyes.

  Finally I managed to do up every last hook and eye. I looked down at myself.

  I was so embarrassed!

  I like my clothes loose, preferably baggy. This outfit was nearly as tight as a wetsuit. I wouldn’t wear something like this—even on Halloween.

  The man walked around me, studying me. He seemed to be pleased.

  “Good,” he muttered with a sharp nod. “Very good. No traces. No traces whatsoever.”

  No traces?

  “No traces of what?” I asked in a squeaky voice.

  “SHUT UP!” he shouted and slapped me across the face.

  I rubbed my stinging cheek as tears sprang to my eyes.

  He smiled almost kindly then and waggled his finger at me. “Be a good boy and that won’t happen again,” he told me in a soft, silky voice.

  I nodded numbly.

  Then he grabbed my arm and led me away from the capsule.

  I stared back at it. That capsule, whatever it was, was my only link to my real life. My only way out of this nightmare.

  We were in a huge building, as big as an airplane hangar. It was cold and poorly lit. But I could make out low walls on either side of us as he dragged me down a long hall.

  Doors flashed past me, most of them closed. The open rooms were too dark to see inside.

  I didn’t have time to look, anyway. Every time I slowed down to get a look, the man gave my arm such a jerk it practically came out of its socket.

  I heard muffled voices coming from behind the low walls.

  Someone shouted. A girl.

  Not Ashley.

  Several men and women stood talking in the hall. The men wore striped shirts and baggy pants, pleated in front. The women wore long dark dresses down to their ankles, with big shoulder pads. They wore dark lipstick.

  The fashions told me what I had already guessed. I had traveled back in time. But to when?

  Where was I? What was going on? I had absolutely no idea.

  The people fell silent as we edged past them. I could feel their eyes on me, following me.

  I wanted to cry out for help. But their expressions were cold and unfriendly.

  They were staring at me as if I were from Mars.

  The hall widened as we passed a giant glass tank filled with water. Long tendrils of pink and orange seaweed floated in the water.

  A large fish fluttered out from behind a huge purple sea fan.

  I looked at the fish more closely. My heart nearly stopped.

  The fish had a human face! The face of a boy, eight or nine years old.

  The body was covered with shimmering green scales. And he had a long swishing fishtail in place of legs and feet.

  “You like my little pet?” the man asked me.

  I stared after it in horror as the man dragged me away.

  I heard my voice rise to a panicky shriek. “What is this place?”

  His only answer was an arm-wrenching yank.

  I cast one last backward glance at the tank. The fish-boy had swum up to the glass and pressed his face to it. He stared at me, with large, dark, terrified eyes.

  A stream of bubbles flew out of his mouth.

  He was mouthing a word through the water and the glass, trying desperately to be understood.

  “Run!” he said. “Run!”

  11

  The man tightened his grip on me. There was no way I could run.

  Where was I going? What was going to happen to me?

  Would I wind up in a fish tank like that boy?

  Finally the man pushed me through a dark doorway. I stumbled and fell up a set of stairs. “Climb up,” he ordered. I crawled up the stairs on my hands and knees.

  I stood up slowly, my heart thundering in my chest.

  It was dark and stuffy. I reached out. My trembling fingers felt a drape or a curtain.

  I groped around, searching frantically for an opening in the curtain. Then, with a sickening jolt, I became aware of others beside me in the darkness, breathing softly.

  I shrank back into my own space and froze, waiting, listening.

  I heard a sniffling sound. Then a cry.

  A human cry.

  I sagged in relief. Whoever it was sounded as scared as I was.

  “Hurry, hurry! Ladies and gents!” A loud voice pierced the darkness.

  “Step right up and see the A-mazing Cheeildren of the Future! You won’t believe your eyes. They will astound and astonish you. Ask them questions. Ask them anything you like. You won’t believe your ears as they tell you of the untold wonders of the near and distant future.”

  Suddenly bright lights hit my eyes as the curtain scraped back.

  A crowd of people in old-fashioned clothes gasped and jostled each other to get a better look.

  They were gawking and shouting, pointing up through a row of thick metal bars.

  I was standing in a large cage!

  In the cage with me stood a dozen or so other kids.

  Some were dressed in silvery costumes like mine. Others wore jumpsuits and helmets that resembled space suits in bad science fiction movies. The kid to my left was crying and wiping his nose on his silver sleeve.

  But no one noticed or cared.

  “Ladies and gents, feast your eyes on Captain Time’s Children of the Future.” The man who had brought me here now stood to one side of the cage talking to the audience.

  He wore a blue blazer and a white captain’s hat with a shiny black visor. He thumped the cage bars with a wooden club.

  “Go ahead, ladies and gents, don’t be afraid. Ask them anything you like. They won’t bite.”

  The crowd murmured softly and continued to stare up at us in disbelief.

  “How do you sleep in the future?” a young woman piped up. “In regular beds—or what?”

  “Standing up,” the kid on the other side of me answered in a droning voice, like a robot. “With our eyes open. Children of the Future never dream. Never have nightmares. It is a perfect world. We are lucky Children of the Future.”

  “What do you eat?” a man called out from the back of the room.

  “We do not eat food,” a skinny kid answered in that same zombie-like voice. “The Children of the Future eat only vitamin pills! We are very healthy. We are lucky Children of the Future.”

  No sleep. No food. What kind of a future did these kids
come from? Not my future.

  What was wrong with them?

  “Vitamin pills?” an audience member piped up. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You’re totally right not to believe it!” a girl’s voice rang out from behind me.

  The noise level of the crowd rose.

  “Don’t listen to him!” the girl went on. “Kids of the future eat and dream and sleep just like you do. We eat food, too. We eat junk food. Lots of junk food. Fast food, we call it. Microwave burritos and frozen garbage pizza.”

  My heart leaped. There was only one person I knew who liked frozen garbage pizza.

  “Ashley!” I shouted over the rising noise of the crowd. “Ashley—I’m here!”

  12

  “James!”

  Ashley pushed her way through the cage. Grabbing my hand, she squeezed it hard as if she were making sure I was real.

  I squeezed back. It was great to see her.

  My cousin was wearing a silver outfit like mine. Her long blond hair was tucked up into an ugly silver bonnet. It fit tight like a bathing cap.

  “Can you believe it, James?” she whispered. “We’re the kids of the future!”

  A woman tapped the bars with the tip of her umbrella. “What’s that girl have on her teeth?” she asked.

  “It’s a mark of royalty of a princess from the future,” Captain Time explained.

  “No, it’s not,” Ashley broke in. “They’re braces.”

  “False teeth?” someone asked.

  “No,” Ashley corrected him. “Braces to straighten my teeth. You know, from an orthodontist? Kids of the future have straight teeth, whether they want them or not.”

  The people in the crowd murmured.

  “Don’t listen to her!” Captain Time spoke out. “This girl is a princess from the future. That strange pink and purple substance on her teeth was put on her teeth at birth. It’s the special mark of a princess!”

  “What is that man talking about?” I whispered.

  Ashley frowned. “Actually, that’s what I told him when he first yanked me out of the capsule. I think he likes the idea that he’s caught himself a real live princess for his freak show.”

  “Let’s hear a round of applause for the Princess of the Future!” Captain Time shouted.