He went to her, pulling the wadded handkerchief out of his pocket. He took the razor blade from it, dropped the blade into his shirt pocket, and gave the handkerchief to her.
“Thanks,” she muttered, pressing it to her wound. “Guess what, Duke? Now you’ve got a good excuse for your face. You can tell your mom the trolls nailed you.”
“If I ever see her again,” he said.
“Don’t worry, you will.” Looking toward the others, Tanya said, “We’ll all get out of here. Right?”
Only Samson answered. He said, “Yeah, sure.”
“Let’s get to it.” Tanya waited while the others gathered in close to her. Shiner took Jeremy’s hand again. Her mouth twitched as she tried to smile. There was dread in her eyes.
Tanya took the lead.
This section of hallway had no barred openings in its walls. There was no sign of trolls.
Not until Jeremy’s shoes scraped a metal grating on the floor and he looked down and saw the blur of a face. He sprang off the grille. “They’re under us!” he blurted.
Samson, standing on a similar panel just ahead of him, leapt forward.
Jeremy looked back. Cowboy swooped Liz up. Cradling her in his arms, he stepped onto the grate. He danced on it, stomping it with his boots.
Jeremy and Shiner continued through the hallway. Beneath the next grille were two faces. The trolls watched in silence as they took long strides and cleared the grate without stepping on it.
Jeremy heard Cowboy, still back there, prancing on the first grate. “I’ll be durned if I’m not starting to—”
A deafening clap pounded Jeremy’s ears. Even as he whirled around, he knew he would see Cowboy dropping through the floor, Liz in his arms.
But he was wrong.
Cowboy still stood on the grate. Liz was falling. He was bringing up his knife as something swept down at him.
A man. A naked burly man with a hairy back and a bald head. Swinging down headfirst like a live pendulum from the trapdoor in the ceiling. Ropes around his ankles. A meat cleaver in each hand.
He yelled, “Wheeeee!” as he flew toward Cowboy.
Cowboy hopped backward. The cleavers flashed, trying for Liz. But she was flat on the floor. The blades chopped the air above her, missing by inches. The man began his upward arc, going for Cowboy with the cleavers.
Cowboy lunged at him and leapt backward again. The body jerked, twisted on its ropes like a swing knocked crooked, and crashed against the wall. One of the cleavers sank into the wall. The other dropped to the floor.
Cowboy snatched that one up as the man swung downward. Swung over Liz, showering her. Swung toward Jeremy and Shiner, spinning. The handle of Cowboy’s knife jutted from his throat. He spouted blood and urine.
Cowboy jumped over Liz and threw himself against the man. Slammed him against the wall. Went at him with the cleaver. Shiner twisted her head away as Cowboy hacked him. The blow split him down the middle. Intestines slopped out like coils of wet snakes.
Jeremy doubled over, retching.
His vomit cascaded onto the grate at his feet.
Someone below him gasped, “Ugh!”
When he finished and straightened up, Cowboy was helping Liz to her feet. The body hung in the middle of the hallway, swaying and turning. Jeremy didn’t let himself focus on it. Instead, he watched Cowboy and Liz step past it.
Cowboy had a cleaver in one hand, his knife in the other. Liz held the second cleaver.
As she stepped past the body, she gave it a whack in the chest. The blow severed a small section of hanging guts, which fell past the man’s face and hit the floor with a soft wet smack.
Jeremy gagged and covered his mouth. This time, he didn’t throw up.
Cowboy grinned. His eyes and teeth were white. The rest of him was red. He looked as if a tub of gore had been dumped over his head. Jeremy could smell it. “Weak stomach, Duke?”
“You sure creamed him.”
“Massacred the son of a whore, huh? No quarter.”
“Thought you were goners,” Samson said.
“Are you both all right?” Tanya asked. Her voice came from close behind Jeremy.
“I reckon I could use a bath,” Cowboy said.
Liz laughed and slapped his chest. Blood flew off his shirt like red dust.
“Okay,” Tanya said. “Let’s keep going. Everybody look sharp. God knows what we’re gonna run into next.”
They started to walk. Jeremy stepped on gratings without any hesitation. They all stepped on the grates. As if the weird attack and Cowboy’s slaughter of the swinging man had numbed them to such matters as trolls lurking below their feet.
They watched the ceiling. They watched the walls.
They came to the end of the hall.
On the right was a closed door. On the left was a dark opening.
Tanya pulled a candle from its holder, knelt in front of the opening, and leaned forward. The candle and her head vanished for a moment. Then she stood up. “I don’t know,” she said.
“What is it?”
“A slide.”
“A slide?” Samson asked.
“This is a fucking funhouse,” Liz reminded him.
“Where does it go?”
“It goes down,” Tanya said. “I couldn’t see much of it. But it should take us down to the ground floor.”
“Yeah,” Samson said. “And whatever’s waiting for us there.”
“Better than being up here.”
“Why don’t we try that door?” Shiner asked.
“Good thought,” Liz said. “You try it,”
“No, don’t,” Jeremy warned.
“I’ll try the slide,” Tanya said.
“Don’t,” Jeremy told her.
“What’re we supposed to do, stay here? Let me borrow that chopper of yours, Cowboy.”
He held it out. Samson took it from him. “I’ll go down first,” he said. “You guys wait up here till you hear from me.”
Tanya kissed his mouth.
Jeremy expected to feel a pang of jealousy, but he didn’t. The guy deserves a kiss, he thought. Better him than me.
“Good man,” Tanya said. “This is one I owe you.”
He made a sick-looking smile. Turning away, he sat on the floor. He scooted into the opening. Tanya gave him the candle. “It’ll probably blow out anyway,” he said, but he kept it. He clutched the cleaver against his chest, hunched forward, and dropped out of sight.
Tanya knelt and peered in after him.
“Get ready to go fast,” she said. “He’ll need us.”
Suddenly a shriek welled out of the opening. Not a shriek of fright, but a high ragged cry of agony.
“Samson!” Tanya yelled.
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” Samson wailed. “Oh, mother of…Ahhhh! Ahhhh!”
“What is it?” Tanya called.
“I’m…I’m…God, it hurts!”
“Should we come down?”
“No! No! For Godsake!”
“Maybe the door,” Shiner said. She squeezed Jeremy’s arm, then rushed across the hallway.
“Wait!” he yelled.
She yanked the door open and lurched back fast.
She whirled around, gasping, as the troll sprang out. A gawky gray-faced man with a wild black beard. He grabbed the back of Shiner’s blouse and yanked her off her feet. Jeremy leapt to save her. She was falling backward, eyes bulging, hands reaching out for him. A cleaver, apparently thrown by Liz, flipped end over end and flashed past the man’s head, just missing him, and vanished into the dark room at his back. Jeremy’s fingers grazed Shiner’s fingers. They flew away from him. He cried out, “No!” as she was hurled into the room. The door struck his upper arm, knocking him sideways, and slammed shut.
An instant before he threw himself against the door, Jeremy heard the clack of a sliding bolt. He clutched the knob, twisted it, tugged at it, crying “No! Let her out! Let her out, you bastard!”
He pounded the door, smashed at it with his
shoulder, kicked at it.
The door stayed shut.
He sank to his knees, weeping.
Forty-two
Seconds after hearing the faint sound of the whistle, Robin saw a kid run out onto the boardwalk. He was the one, she guessed, who’d been left behind by the others to stand watch for the cops.
That’s what the whistle meant.
The cops are coming.
I just have to last, she thought. They’ll get me down.
If they know I’m here.
The kid was so far away.
He stopped in the middle of the boardwalk. There he turned around in circles, probably wondering where his friends had gone. He looked like a little kid lost in a supermarket, trying to find his mom.
If he was calling, Robin couldn’t hear him.
His head swung around as he glanced over his shoulder toward the Funland entrance. Then he ran straight ahead. Robin saw him start down the beach stairs. After that, her left arm blocked her view.
She looked down again.
No sign of the three trolls. But she knew where they had to be. Behind her. Probably on the Ferris wheel’s platform. Probably trying to start the thing going.
She wished she could see what was happening back there.
A handcuff suddenly slipped up her left hand, scraping over the knuckle of her thumb. Her stomach seemed to drop out from under her. Gasping, she willed her fist to clench.
Her fingers tingled with the effort.
The cuff slipped up her hand.
Christ!
Her fingers hooked the curved rim of the bracelet, and she held on, heart suddenly thundering, feet kicking.
Now! her mind shouted. Now or never! Christ!
Right hand balled in a tight fist, left hand clinging to the cuff, she bent her arms at the elbows and drew herself upward. Higher, higher. The edge of the footrest rubbed against her rump, then against the backs of her thighs. Her muscles ached. The cuffs felt like knife blades pressing into her fingers and fist. She whimpered and groaned, pumped her legs as if trying to climb the rungs of a ladder that wasn’t there. The gondola rocked, its footrest nudging her forward and easing away, swinging her.
Slowly she rose until her bleeding left wrist was in front of her eyes. Then she came to her fingers squeezed tight over the curved steel of the bracelet, her other hand pinched inside the right cuff. She forced herself higher. Her eyes were inches from the connecting chain. Higher. Up to the safety bar. Higher, until the bar was even with her chin.
Now what? she wondered.
Her arm muscles burned. She gritted her teeth. Sweat stung her eyes. Sweat or blood trickled down her sides and was turned cold by the ocean breeze.
Go for it!
Robin gripped the safety bar with her right hand, released the cuff, and grabbed hold with her left hand. She thrust her head forward, catching the bar under her chin.
Her sudden motions set the gondola rocking. Its footrest shoved at the backs of her knees.
Swinging by the bar, she jerked her legs up. When the footrest swept forward again, it brushed the bottoms of her feet. She flung herself away from the bar, thrusting her body backward, and tumbled onto the seat. The gondola pitched madly, as if it wanted to toss her out. She spread-eagled herself, jamming her heels against the metal lip of its floor, shoving herself hard against the seat back, grabbing the sides.
Soon the gondola slowed to a gentle sway.
Robin brought her arms down, slid her legs together. She sat there for a few moments, shuddering and gasping for breath.
I made it, she thought.
My God, I made it!
With the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, she pinched the head of the pin and gave it a quick pull. The pin slid out of her chest. The breeze lifted the card free and sent it tumbling away into the night. Robin tossed the pin after it. The hole felt sore and itchy. In a way, it seemed more irritating than her other wounds. They were serious hurts, but this one was pesky. She rubbed it with the heel of her hand.
When it felt better, she lowered the hand onto her lap and pulled the cuff off. She dropped the cuffs onto the seat. She flexed her hands. Though they still felt a little numb, blood was beginning to circulate better. Her fingers tingled as if they’d been asleep.
A chilly gust buffeted her. Gritting her teeth, she folded her arms across her chest, cupped a breast in the warmth of each hand, and squeezed her legs together.
Now all I’ve got to worry about, she thought, is dying of exposure.
She suddenly remembered the three trolls somewhere below.
Icy fear spread through the pit of her stomach.
They can’t get me, she told herself.
If they could start the wheel going, they would’ve done it before now.
Maybe they’re just lying low until the cops…
The cops!
Robin leaned slowly forward and gripped the safety bar. She peered past the side of the gondola. The area near Funland’s main entrance was deserted. She scanned the entire length of the boardwalk. The moon-washed planking looked as gray as driftwood. The shadows were black smudges.
Maybe the kid’s whistle had been a false alarm.
Maybe he had seen cops, but they were on the way to some other destination.
Give them time, she told herself.
Though it seemed like forever since the kid had blown his whistle, it was probably no more than two or three minutes ago.
They might still show up.
The thought no sooner passed through her mind than a dark figure stepped out of the entryway’s shadows. Robin caught her breath. Then let it out, sighing with frustration.
This wasn’t a cop, it was a goddamn troll. She shuffled along, hunched over like an old witch, wrapped in a blanket that covered her head.
Wait!
That girl who’d warned the others—she’d said her sister the cop would be coming dressed as a troll.
That’s her!
Robin scooted across the seat, leaned out as far as she dared over the safety bar, thrust an arm out, waved, and shouted.
In the middle of the boardwalk, Joan slowly turned around.
No one.
Where the hell are they? she wondered.
Somebody had to be here. There’d been the whistle. There was the car parked in front, its engine running.
Shouldn’t have wasted time at the car, she thought. That had eaten up a minute or two.
The car might be all we’ll get, she told herself. It had been hot-wired, obviously stolen. Maybe by the same people who nailed Gloria.
But where are they now?
And where’s their victim?
Somebody in the backseat had bled.
They must be around here.
At least they won’t be driving off on us, she thought.
While Dave was copying the license number, Joan had cut the ignition wires with her knife, then rolled up the windows and locked the doors.
They aren’t going anywhere. Not in that car.
She turned around and shook her head. “The place looks deserted,” she said.
A silhouette, backlighted by the glow from the parking lot, appeared in the darkness beside the ticket booth. “What do you want to do?” Dave asked.
“They’ve gotta be somewhere.”
“Do you want me out there with you?”
“It’d blow the cover.”
“If they’ve already got someone, they might not try for you anyway.”
That was true enough. And the whistle might’ve been blown by a sentry, warning his friends that intruders were on the way. They might have fled up the beach, or scattered and hidden themselves somewhere among the rides or buildings of Fun-land.
“Just stay close enough to keep an eye on me,” Joan said. “I’ll head on down the boardwalk, see if I can draw them—”
“Behind you!”
She whirled around.
Two pale figures rushing up the stairs from the beach.
Their hands were empty.
A boy and a girl.
No threat from these two, Joan thought.
The guy had a slight build, and wore glasses that gleamed in the moonlight. A chrome whistle hung from a chain around his neck. The huffing girl beside him had a face as round as a bowling ball. She was dressed in a jumpsuit that bulged over bouncing piles of fat.
Could these be trollers?
A wimp and a blimp.
But they might have friends nearby, watching, waiting to pounce.
Joan released the grips of her .38 and took her hand out from under her sweatshirt. She held the hand toward them, palm up.
Might as well play it to the hilt, she thought.
Hope they didn’t hear Dave.
Still a few strides away from her, the two kids halted. They glanced at each other. They were both out of breath.
“How’s about a coupla bits?” Joan croaked. “Ain’t had me a bite t’eat in—”
“I think we need help, Officer,” the boy said.
Officer?
“Something awful’s happening,” the girl suddenly blurted. “I got away. I got out and I don’t know what’s going on, but I think it’s awfully bad. The trolls. Trolls in the walls. You gotta come.”
“Dave!” Joan called over her shoulder.
He hurried forward. He had his Beretta out, barrel raised beside his head.
“They’ve made me. They say there’s some kind of trouble.”
“Pat ’em down,” Dave said. “Hands on your heads, kids, and interlace your fingers.”
“We haven’t done anything,” the boy protested, but he followed instructions. So did the girl.
“What’re you doing out here?”
“Nothing.”
“We’d better let them talk,” Joan said. Flinging her blanket off, she stepped behind the boy and started to frisk him. “Something’s going down.”
“The others…” the girl said. “We went in a…a basement…and…”
“Let’s hear about last night,” Dave said. “Tell us about the troll you got last night.”
Joan felt a long hard bulge in the boy’s right-front pocket. “Got something here.”
“We didn’t do anything last night,” the boy said. “If you waste time giving us the third degree about some stupid—!”