just knock it off lets have some laughs and be happy with that.
Okay?
But he did not say anything of the sort because, of course, good players
in lite never admitted that they knew it was all just a game.
If you let the other players see you didn't care about the rules and
regulations, they wouldn't let you play. Go to Jail. Go directly to
Jail. Don't pass Go. Don't have any fun.
By seven o'clock that evening, after they had eaten enough junk food to
produce radically interesting vomit if they really did decide to puke on
anyone, Jeremy was so tired of the rocket jockey crap and so irritated
by Tod's friendship rap, that he couldn't wait for ten o'clock to roll
around and Mrs. Ledderbeck to pull up to the gate in her station wagon.
They were on the Millipede, blasting through one of the pitch-black
sections of the ride, when Tod made one too many references to the two
best rocket jockeys in the universe, and Jeremy decided to kill him.
The instant the thought flashed through his mind, he knew he had to
murder his "best friend." It felt so right. If life was a game with a
zillion-page book of rules, it wasn't going to be a whole hell of a lot
of fun-unless you found ways to break the rules and still be allowed to
play. Any game was a bore if you played by the rules-Monopoly, 500
rummy, baseball. But if you stole bases, filched cards without getting
caught, or changed the numbers on the dice when the other guy was
distracted, a dull game could be a kick.
And in the game of life, getting away with murder was the biggest kick
of all.
When the Millipede shrieked to a halt at the debarkation platform,
Jeremy said, "Let's do it again."
"Sure," Tod said.
They hurried along the exit corridor, in a rush to get outside and into
line again. The park had filled up during the day, and the wait to
board any ride was now at least twenty minutes.
When they came out of the Millipede pavillion, the sky was black in the
east, deep blue overhead, and orange in the west. Twilight came sooner
and lasted longer at Fantasy World than in the western part of the
county, because between the park and the distant sea rose ranks of high,
sun-swallowing hills. Those ridges were now black silhouettes against
the orange heavens, like Halloween decorations out of season.
Fantasy World had taken on a new, manic quality with the approach of
night. Christmas-style lights outlined the rides and buildings. White
twinkle lights lent a festive sparkle to all the trees, while a pair of
unsynchronized spotlights swooped back and forth across the snow-covered
peak of the manmade Big Foot Mountain. On every side neon glowed in all
the hues that neon offered, and out on Mars Island, bursts of brightly
colored laser beams shot randomly into the darkening sky as if fending
off a spaceship attack. Scented with popcorn and roasted peanuts, a
warm breeze snapped garlands of pennants overhead.
Music of every period and type leaked out of the pavilions, and
rock-'n'-roll boomed from the open air dance floor at the south end of
the park, and from somewhere else came the bouncy strains of Big Band
swing. People laughed and chattered excitedly, and on the thrill rides
they were screaming, screaming.
"Evil this time," Jeremy said as he and Tod sprinted to the end of the
Millipede boarding line.
"Yeah," Tod said. The Millipede was essentially an indoor roller
coaster, like Space Mountain at Disneyland, except instead of shooting
up and down and around one huge room, it whipped through a long series
of tunnels, some lit and some not. The lap bar, meant to restrain the
rider's lap, was tight enough to be safe, but if a kid was slim and
agile, he could contort himself in such a way as to squeeze out from
under it, scramble over it, and stand in the leg well. Then he could
lean against the lap bar and grip it behind his back or hook his arms
around it-riding daredevil.
It was a stupid and dangerous thing to do, which Jeremy and Tod knew.
But they had done it a couple of times anyway, not only on the Millipede
but on other rides in other parks. Kidding pumped up the excitement
level at least a thousand percent, even in pitch tunnels where it was
impossible to see what was coming next "Rocket jockeys!"
Tod said when they were halfway through the line.
He insisted on giving Jeremy a low five and then a high five, though
they looked like a couple of asshole kids. "No rocket jockey is afraid
of daredeviling the Millipede, right?"
"Right," Jeremy said as they inched through the main doors and entered
the pavilion. Shrill screams echoed to them from the riders on the cars
that shot away into the tunnel ahead According to legend (as kids'
legends went at every amusement park with a similar ride, a boy had been
killed riding daredevil on the Millipede because he'd been too tall. The
ceiling of the tunnel was high in all lighted stretches, but they said
it dropped low at one spot in a darkened passage-maybe because
airconditioning pipes through at that point, maybe because the epa made
the contractor put in another support that hadn't been planned for,
maybe because the architect was a no-brain.
Anyway, this tall kid, sag up, smacked his head into the low part of the
ceiling, never even saw it coming, It instantly pulverized his face,
decapitated him. All the unsuspecting bozos riding behind him were
splattered with blood and brains and broken teeth.
Jeremy didn't believe it for a minute. Fantasy World hadn't been built
by guys with horse turds for brains. They had to have figured kids
would find a way to get out from under the lap bars, because nothing was
entirely kid-proof, and they would have kept the ceiling high all the
way through.
Legend also had it that the low overhang was still somewhere in one of
the dark sections of the tunnel, with bloodstains and flecks of dried
brains on and expectations. Something about being securely in the
middle of the tunnel, which was total cow flop.
For anybody riding daredevil, standing up, the real danger was that he
would fall out of the car when it whipped around a sharp turn or
accelerated Unexpectedly. Jeremy figured there were six or eight
particularly radical curves on the Millipede course where Tod Ledderbeck
might easily topple out of the car with only minimal assistance.
The line moved slowly forward.
Jeremy was not impatient or afraid. As they drew closer to the boarding
gates, he became more excited but also more confident. His hands were
not trembling. He had no butterflies in his belly. He just wanted to
do it.
The boarding chamber for the ride was constructed to resemble a cavern
with immense stalactites and stalagmites. Strange benighted creatures
swam in the murky depths of green pools, and albino mutant crabs prowled
the shores, reaching up with huge wicked claws toward the people on the
boarding platform, snapping at them but not quite long-armed enough to
snare any dinner.
; Each train had six cars, and each car carried two people. The cars were
painted like segments of a Millipede; the first had a big insect head
with moving jaws and multifaceted black eyes, not a cartoon but a really
fierce monster face; the one at the back boasted a curved stinger that
looked more like part of a scorpion than the ass of a Millipede. Two
trains were boarding at any one time, the second behind the first, and
they shot off into the tunnel with only a few seconds between them
because the whole operation was computer-controled, eliminating any
danger that one train would crash into the back of another.
Jeremy and Tod were among the twelve customers that the attendant sent
to the first train.
Tod wanted the front car, but they didn't get it. That was the best
position from which to ride daredevil because everything would happen to
them first: every Plunge into darkness, every squirt of cold steam from
the wall vents, every explosion through swinging doors into whirling
lights.
Besides, part of the fun of riding daredevil was showing off, and the
front car provided a perfect platform for exhibitionism, with the
occupants of the last five cars as a captive audience in the lighted
stretches.
With the first car claimed, they raced for the sixth. Being the last to
experience every plunge and twist of the track was next-best to being
first, because the squeals of the riders ahead of you raised your
adrenaline level train just didn't go with daredevil riding.
The lap bars descended automatically when all twelve people were aboard
An attendant came along the platform, visually inspecting to be sure all
of the restraints had locked into place.
Jeremy was relieved they had not gotten the front car, where they would
have had ten witnesses behind them. In the tomb-dark confines of the
unlit sections of tunnel, he wouldn't be able to see his own hand an
inch in front of his face, so it wasn't likely that anyone would be able
to see him push Tod out of the car. But this was a big-time violation
of the rules, and he didn't want to take any chances. Now, potential
witnesses were all safely in front of them, staring straight ahead; in
fact they could not easily glance back, since every seat had a high back
to prevent whiplash.
When the attendant finished checking the lap bars, he and signaled the
operator, who was seated at an instrument panel on a rock formation to
the right of the tunnel entrance.
"Here we go," Tod said.
"Here we go," Jeremy agreed.
"Rocket jockeys!" Tod shouted.
Jeremy gritted his teeth.
"Rocket jockeys!" Tod repeated.
What the hell. One more time wouldn't hurt. Jeremy yelled: "Rocket
jockeys!"
The train did not pull away from the boarding station with the jerky
uncertainty of most roller coasters. A tremendous blast of compressed
air shot it forward at high speed, like a bullet out of a barrel, with a
whoosh!
that almost hurt the ears. They were pinned against their seats as they
flashed past the operator and into the black mouth of the tunnel.
Total darkness.
He was only twelve then. He had not died. He had not been to Hell.
He had not come back. He was as blind in darkness as anyone else, as
Tod.
Then they slammed through swinging doors and up a long incline of
well-lit track, moving fast at first but gradually slowing to a crawl.
On both sides they were menaced by pale white slugs as big as men, which
reared up and shrieked at them through round mouths full of teeth that
whirled like the blades in a garbage disposal. The ascent was six or
seven stories, at a steep angle, and other mechanical monsters gibbered,
hooted, snarled, and squealed at the train; all of them were pale and
slimy, with either glowing eyes or blind black eyes, the kind of
critters you might think would live miles below the surface of the
earth-if you didn't know any science at all.
That initial slope was where daredevils had to take their stand.
Though a couple of other inclines marked the course of the Millipede, no
other section of the track provided a sufficiently extended period of
calm in which to execute a safe escape from the lap bar.
Jeremy contorted himself, wriggling up against the back of the seat,
inching over the lap bar, but at first Tod did not move. "Come on,
dickhead, you've gotta be in position before we get to the top."
Tod looked troubled. "If they catch us, they'll kick us out of the
park-"
"They won't catch us." at the far end of the ride, the train would coast
along a final stretch of dark tunnel, giving riders a chance to calm
down. In those last few seconds, before they returned to the fake
cavern from which they had started, it was just possible for a kid to
scramble back over the lap bar and shoehorn himself into his seat.
didn't have to worry about getting under the lap bar again, either,
because by then Tod would be dead; he wouldn't have to worry about
anything ever.
"I don't want to be kicked out for daredeviling," Tod said as the train
approached the halfway point on the long, long initial incline. "It's
been a neat day, and we still have a couple hours before Mom comes for
us."
Mutant albino rats chattered at them from the fake rock ledges on both
sides as Jeremy said, "Okay, so be a dorkless wonder." He continued to
extricate from the lap bar.
"I'm no dorkless wonder," Tod said defensively.
"Sure, sure."
"I'm not."
"Maybe when school starts again in September, you'll be able to get into
the Young Homemakers Club, learn how to cook, knit nice little doilies,
do flower arranging."
"You're a jerkoff, you know that?" o, you've broken my heart now,"
Jeremy said as he extracted both of his legs from the well under the lap
bar and crouched on the seat. "You girls sure know how to hurt a guy's
feelings."
"Creepaaoid."
The train strained up the slope with the hard clicking and clattering so
sacred to roller coasters that the sound alone could make the heart pump
faster and the stomach flutter.
Jeremy scrambled over the lap bar and stood in the well in front of it,
facing forward. He looked over his shoulder at Tod, who sat scowling
behind the restraint. He didn't care that much if Tod joined him or
not.
He had already decided to kill the boy, and if he didn't have a chance
to do it at Fantasy World on Tod's twelfth birthday, he would do it
somewhere else, sooner or later. Just thinking about doing it was a lot
of fun.
Like that song said in the television commercial where the Heinz ketchup
was so thick it took what seemed like hours coming out of the bottle:
An-tic-ipaaa-aa-tion. Having to wait a few days or even weeks to get
another good chance to kill Tod would only make the killing that much
more fun. So he didn't rag Tod any more, just looked at him scornfully
.
An-tic- i-paaa-aa--tion.
"I'm not afraid," Tod insisted.
"Yeah."
"I just don't want to spoil the day."
"Sure."
"Creepazoid," Tod said again.
Jeremy said, "Rocket jockey, my ass."
That insult had a powerful effect. Tod was so sold on his own
friendship con that he could actually be stung by the implication that
he didn't know how a real friend was supposed to behave. The expression
on his broad and open face revealed not only a world of hurt but a
surprising desperation that startled Jeremy. Maybe Tod did understand
what life was all about, that it was nothing but a brutal game with
every player concentrated on the purely selfish goal of coming out a
winner, and maybe old Tod was rattled by that, scared by it, and was
holding on to one last hope, to the idea of friendship. If the game
could be played with a partner or two, if it was really everyone else in
the world against your own little team, that was tolerable, better than
everyone in the world against just you. Tod Ledderbeck and his good
buddy Jeremy against the rest of humanity was even sort of romantic and
adventurous, but Tod Ledderbeck alone obviously made his bowels quiver.
Sitting behind the lap bar, Tod first looked stricken, then resolute.
Indecision gave way to action, and Tod moved fast, wriggling furiously
against the restraint.