"Come on, come on," Jeremy urged. "We're almost to the top."
Tod squeezed over the lap bar, into the leg well where Jeremy stood.
He caught his foot in that restraining mechanism, and almost fell out of
the to take a fall. They weren't moving fast enough. At most he'd
suffer a couple of bruises.
Then they were side by side, their feet planted wide on the floor of the
car, leaning back against the restraint from under which they had
escaped, arms behind them, hands locked on the lap bar, grinning at each
other, as the train reached the top of the incline. It slammed through
swinging doors into the next stretch of lightless tunnel. The track
remained flat just long enough to crank up the riders' tension a couple
of notches. An-tic-ipaaa-aa-tion. When Jeremy could not hold his
breath any longer, the front car tipped over the brink, and the people
up there Bed in the darkness. Then in rapid succession the second and
third and fourth and fifth cars "Rocket jockeys!" Jeremy and Tod shouted
in unison.
and the final car of the train followed the others into a steep plunge,
building speed by the second. Wind whooshed past them and whipped their
hair out behind their heads.
Then came a swooping turn to the right when it was least expected, a
little upgrade to toss the stomach, another turn to the right, the track
tilting so the cars were tipped onto their sides, faster, faster, then a
straightaway and another incline, using their speed to go higher than
ever, slowing toward the top, slowing, slowing. An-tic-ipaaation They
went over the edge and down, down, down, waaaaaay down so hard and fast
that Jeremy felt as if his stomach had fallen out of him, leaving a hole
in the middle of his body. He knew what was coming, but he was left
breathless by it nonetheless. The train did a loop-de-loop, turning
upside down. He pressed his feet tight to the floor and gripped the lap
bar behind him as if he were trying to fuse his flesh with the steel,
because it felt as if he would fall out, straight down onto the section
of the track that had led them into the loop, to crack his skull open on
the rails below. He knew centripetal force would hold him in place even
though he was standing up where he didn't belong, but what he knew was
of no consequence: what you felt always carried a lot more weight than
what you knew, emotion mattered more than intelect. Then they were out
of the loop, banging through another pair of swinging doors onto a
second lighted inclihe, using their tremendous speed to build height for
the next series of plunges and sharp turns.
Jeremy looked at Tod.
The old rocket jockey was a little green.
"No more loops," Tod shouted above the clatter of the train wheels.
"The worst is behind us."
Jeremy exploded with laughter. He thought: The worst is still ahead for
you, dickhead. And for me the best is yet to come.
An-tic-ipaaa-aa-tion.
Tod laughed, too, but certainly for different reasons.
At the top of the second incline, the rattling cars pushed through a
third set of swinging doors, returning to a grave-ark world that
thrilled Jeremy because he knew Tod Ledderbeek had just seen the last
light of his life. The train snapped left and right, swooped up and
plummeted down, rolled onto its side in a series of corkscrew turns.
Through it all Jeremy could feel Tod beside him. Their bare arms
brushed together, and their shoulders bumped as they swayed with the
movement of the train. Every contact sent a current of intense pleasure
through Jeremy, made the hairs stand up on his arms and on the back of
his neck, pebbled his skin with gooseflesh. He knew that he possessed
the ultimate power over the other boy, the power of life and death, and
he was different from the other gutless wonders of the world because he
wasn't afraid to use the power.
He waited for a section of track near the end of the ride, where he knew
the undulant motion would provide the greatest degree of instability for
daredevil riders. By then Tod would be feeling confident-the worst is
behind us-and easier to catch by surprise. The approach to the kicking
ground was announced by one of the most unusual tricks in the ride, a
three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn at high speed, with the cars on
their sides all the way around. When they finished that circle and
leveled out once more, they would immediately enter a series of six
hills, all low but packed close together, so the train would move like
an inchworm on drugs, pulling itself up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down
toward the last set of swinging doors, which would admit them to the
cavernous boarding and disembarkation chamber where they had begun.
The train began to tilt.
They entered the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn.
The train was on its side.
Tod tried to remain rigid, but he sagged a little against Jeremy, who
was on the inside of the car when it curved to the right. The old
rocket jockey was whooping like an air-raid siren, doing his best to
hype himself and get the most out of the ride, now that the worst was
behind them.
An-tic-i-paa-aa-tion.
Jeremy estimated they were a third of the way around the circle.
halfway around... two-thirds....
The track leveled out. The train stopped fighting gravity.
With a suddenness that almost took Jeremy's breath away, the train hit
the first of the six hills and shot upward.
He let go of the lap bar with his right hand, the one farthest from Tod.
The train swooped down.
He made a fist of his right hand.
And almost as soon as the train dropped, it swooped upward again toward
the crown of the second hill.
Jeremy swung his fist in a roundhouse blow, trusting instinct to find
Tod's face.
The train dropped.
His fist hit home, smashing Tod hard in the face, and he felt the boy's
nose split.
The train shot upward again, with Tod screaming, though no one would
hear anything special about it among the screams of all the other
passengers.
Just for a split second, Tod would probably think he'd smacked into the
overhang where, in legend, a boy had been decapitated. He would let go
of the lap bar in panic. At least that was what Jeremy hoped, so as
soon as he hit the old rocket jockey, when the train started to drop
down the third hill, Jeremy let go of the lap bar, too, and threw
himself against his best friend, grabbing him, lifting and shoving, hard
as he could. He felt Tod trying to get a fistful of his hair, but he
shook his head furiously and shoved harder, took a kick on the hid the
train shot up the fourth hill Tod went over the edge, out into the
darkness, away from the car, as if he had dropped into deep space.
Jeremy started to topple with him, grabbed frantically for the lap bar
in the seamless blackness, found it, held on down, the train swooped
down the fourth hill Jeremy thought he heard one last scream from Tod
and then a solid thunk! as he hit the tunnel wall and bounced
back onto
the tracks in the wake of the train, although it might have been
imagination up, the train shot up the fifth hill with a rollicking
motion that made Jeremy want to whoop his cookies Tod was either dead
back there in the darkness or stunned, halfconscious, trying to get to
his feet down the fifth hill, and Jeremy was whipped back and forth,
almost lost his grip on the bar, then was soaring again, up the sixth
and final hill and if he wasn't dead back there, Tod was maybe just
beginning to realize that another train was coming down, down the sixth
hill and onto the last straightaway.
As soon as he knew he was on stable ground, Jeremy scrambled back across
the restraint bar and wriggled under it, first his left leg, then his
right leg.
The last set of doors was rushing toward them in the dark. Beyond would
be light, the main cavern, and attendants who would see that he had been
daredevil riding, He squirmed frantically to pass his hips through the
gap between the back of the seat and the lap bar. Not too difficult,
really. It was easier to slip under the bar than it had been to get out
from beneath its protective grip.
They hit the swinging doors-wham!-and coasted at a steadily declining
speed toward the disembarkation platform, a hundred feet this side of
the gates through which they had entered the roller coaster. People
were jammed on the boarding platform, and a lot of them were looking
back at the train as it came out of the tunnel mouth. For a moment
Jeremy expected them to point at him and cry, "Murderer!', Just as the
train coasted up to the disembarkation gates and came to a full stop,
red emergency lights blinked on all over the cavern, showing the way to
the exits. A computerized alarm voice echoed through speakers set high
in the fake rock formations: "The Millipede has been brought to an
emergency stop. All rilers please remain in your seats-" As the lap bar
released automatically at the end of the ride, Jeremy stood on the seat,
grabbed a handrail, and pulled himself onto the disembarkation platform.
"All riders please remain in your seats until attendants arrive to lead
you out of the tunnels-" The uniformed attendants on the platforms were
looking to one another for guidance, wondering what had happened.
"-all riders remain in your seats-" From the platform, Jeremy looked
back toward the tunnel out of which his own train had just entered the
cavern. He saw another train pushing through the swinging doors.
"All other guests please proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest
exit-" The oncoming train was no longer moving fast or smoothly. It
shuddered and tried to jump the track.
With a jolt, Jeremy saw what was jamming the foremost wheels and forcing
the front car to rise off the rails. Other people on the platform must
have seen it, too, because suddenly they started to scream, not the
we-sure-are-having-a-damned-fine-time screams that could be heard all
over the carnival, but of horror and revulsion.
"All riders remain in your seats-" The train rocked and spasmed to a
complete stop far short of the disembarkation platform. Something was
dangling from the fierce mouth of the head that protruded from the front
of the first car, snared in the jagged mandibles. It was the rest of
the old rocket jockey, a nice bite-sized piece for a monster bug the
size of that one.
"All other guests please proceed in orderly fashion to the nearest
exit-"
"Don't look, son," an attendant said compassionately, turning Jeremy
away from the gory spectacle. "For God's sake, get out of here."
The shocked attendants had recovered enough to begin to direct the
waiting crowd toward exit doors marked with glowing red signs.
Realizing that he was bursting with excitement, giggling like a fool,
and too overcome with joy to slowly play the bereaved best friend of the
dead, Jeremy joined the exodus, which was conducted in a panicky rush,
with some pushing and shoving.
In the night air, where Christmasy lights continued to sparkle and the
laser beams shot into the black sky and rainbows of neon rippled on
every side, where thousands of customers continued their pursuit of
pleasure without the slightest idea that Death walked among them, Jeremy
sprinted away from the Millipede. Dodging through the crowds, narrowly
avoiding one collision after another, he had no idea where he was going.
He just kept on the move until he was far from the torn body of Tod
Ledderbeck.
He finally stopped at the manmade lake, across which a few Hovercraft
burred with travelers bound to and from Mars Island. He felt as if he
were on Mars himself, or some other alien planet where the gravity was
less than that on earth. He was buoyant, ready to Boat up, up, and
away.
facing a flower-bordered promenade along which passed an endless parade
of people, and he surrendered to the giddy laughter that insistently
bubbled in him like Pepsi in a shaken bottle. It gushed out, such
effervescent giggles in such long spouts that he had to hug himself and
lean back on the bench to avoid falling off. People glanced at him, and
one couple stopped to ask if he was lost. His laughter was so intense
that he was choking with it, tears streaming down his face.
They thought he was crying, a twelve-year-old ninny who had gotten
separated from his family and was too much of a pussy to handle it.
Their incomprehension only made him laugh harder.
When the laughter passed, he sat forward on the bench, staring at his
sneakered feet, working on the line of crap he would give Mrs.
Ledderbeek when she came to collect him and Tod at ten o'clock-assuming
park officials didn't identify the body and get in touch with her before
that. It was eight o'clock. "He wanted to ride daredevil," Jeremy
mumbled to his sneakers, "and I tried to talk him out of it, but he
wouldn't listen, he called me a dickhead when I wouldn't go with him.
I'm sorry, Mrs. Ledderbeek, Doctor Ledderbeck, but he talked that way
sometimes. He thought it made him sound cool."
Good enough so far, but he needed more of a tremor in his voice: "I
wouldn't ride daredevil, so he went on the Millipede by himself. I
waited at the exit, and when all those people came running out, talking
about a body all torn and bolldy, I knew who it had to be and I. ..
and I. ..
just sort of, you know, snapped. I just snapped." The boarding
attendants wouldn't remember whether Tod had gotten on the ride by
himself or with another boy; they dealt with thousands of passengers a
day, so they weren't going to recall who was alone or who was with whom.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Ledderbeck, I should've been able to talk him out
of it. I should've stayed with him and stopped him somehow. I feel so
stupid, so... so helpless. How could I let him get on the Millipede?
What kind of best friend am I?"
Not bad. It needed a little work, and he would have to be careful not
to
overdramatize it. Tears, a breaking voice. But no wild sobs, no
thrashing around.
He was sure he could pull it off.
He was a Master of the Game now.
As soon as he felt confident about his story, he realized he was hungry.
Starving. He was literally shaking with hunger. He went to a
refreshment stand and bought a hot dog with the works-onions, relish,
chili, mustard, ketchup-and wolfed it down. He chased it with Orange
Crush. Still shaking. He had an ice cream sandwich made with
chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies for the "bread."
His visible shaking stopped, but he still trembled inside. Not with
fear.
It was a delicious shiver, like the flutter in the belly that he'd
experienced during the past year whenever he looked at a girl and
thought of being with her, but indescribably better than that. And it
was a little like the thrilling shiver that caressed his spine when he
slipped past the safety railing and stood on the very edge of a sandy
cliff in Laguna Beach Park, looking down at the waves crashing on the
rocks and feeling the earth crumble slowly under the toes of his shoes,
working its way back to mid-sole... waiting, waiting, wondering if the
treacherous ground would abruptly give way and drop him to the rocks far
below before he would have time to leap backward and grab the safety
railing, but still waiting ... waiting.
But this thing was better than all of those combined. It was growing by
the minute rather than dimmishing, a sensuous inner heat which the
murder of Tod had not quenched but fueled.