The Fall of Candy Corn (17 page)

“Competitors. There are three other theme parks within an hour's drive of here that put on Halloween events. The Zone's is the biggest, best, and by far the most popular. If it got out that The Zone was haunted, referees might quit.”

“Just like they're quitting now,” she pointed out. “And then?”

“If there weren't enough referees, some of the mazes would have to shut down.”

“And suddenly word gets out that The Zone isn't the biggest and the best.”

“And the players go elsewhere,” Josh confirmed. “Worse, if the damage was extensive enough, the accidents numerous enough, it might extend beyond this Halloween. It might put The Zone out of the Halloween business all together.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a motive to me,” she said.

“The only question is, how do we prove it?”

“I have no idea. But I'd be willing to bet you a pizza that there are going to be more accidents this weekend.”

“I'm betting you're right.”

“I wonder if the targets are random, or if there is some kind of sense to it?”

“Well, going after you first makes perfect sense,” Josh said.

“How?” she asked, startled.

“You were the star of the new maze, the flagship of this Scare. Better than that, you were the person the maze was designed around. Whoever loosened that board was probably hoping to either get the maze shut down or gain a great deal of publicity.”

“They miscalculated,” Candace said grimly.

“Which might explain why the attacks moved from the subtle to the more obvious. A maniac slashing a girl is a lot more newsworthy than a loose board causing a concussion.”

“And the train today. Someone could have been seriously hurt or even killed.” The thought sickened her. Would someone really go to such lengths to sabotage the Halloween events at The Zone?

“Candace, I've got a bad feeling about all this.”

“So do I.”

14

The next day at school, Candace thought she was having déjà vu. Everyone was staring and talking about her. She looked around suspiciously, but Tamara didn't seem to have hung any fresh banners.

She joined up with Tamara in homeroom where everyone continued to stare and whisper. “Do I have something on my face, or what?” Candace asked Tamara.

“I don't know what's going on,” her best friend said, sounding just as puzzled as Candace. “But five people stopped me between my locker and here this morning to ask if my friend Candace worked at The Zone.”

“What is this, delayed reaction? You hung that banner a couple of weeks ago.”

“I know, it's kinda creepy. Either some people are just really slow, or something else is going on that we don't know about.”

Candace was personally hoping people were slow. The other thought made her nervous.

Finally, a girl leaned forward and asked, “Candace, you worked at The Zone over the summer, right?”

“Yeah.”

A dozen people started murmuring at that.

“What was your job?”

“I was a cotton candy vendor,” Candace said.

This was followed by more murmuring.

“Were you locked in the theme park overnight?” the girl asked, eyes wide.

“Yes.”

“I knew it!” The girl lurched to her feet and shouted, “Hey, everyone, it's true! Candace is Candy, the girl who got chased through the park by the psycho!”

The entire class erupted at that, and suddenly people were swarming around Candace's desk.

“What was it like?”

“Were you scared?”

“Do you have any scars?”

“How did you escape?”

“Is The Zone paying you like a billion dollars for your story?”

“None of that happened!” Candace tried to shout above the hubbub, but her voice was drowned out by the crowd.

She turned in desperation to Tamara. Her friend looked stunned but slowly began to laugh. “It's not funny!” Candace shouted.

“Are you sure?” Tamara shouted back.

Just great. The whole school had known she was playing Candy. Now apparently they realized she was Candy.

A group of guys started up a chorus of “I Want Candy,” and she just groaned and put her head on the desk.

By the time drama class rolled around, the news was all over the school. Somehow, no matter what acting or improv task Mr. Bailey assigned to an individual or a group, cotton candy and psycho killers found their way into it. Fortunately they ran out of time, and she didn't have to get on stage to perform. She didn't think she could have handled it.

She'd been home only a few minutes when Pastor Bobby called. Candace was surprised. She had been called about retreats and things by some of the youth counselors before, but never by Pastor Bobby. Once the preliminaries were out of the way, he began.

“Candace, I just wanted to call because I have this concern.”

And now everyone at church knows too. Just great.

“Let me just tell you right now that it never really happened. Yes, I was trapped in The Zone overnight. Yes, I was a cotton candy vendor all summer. No, there was no serial killer, no psycho, nothing like that.”

“That was actually you?” he asked, sounding awed. “I knew you were playing the character in the maze, but I had no idea that story was based on you.”

She groaned. Fabulous. Apparently it hadn't gotten around church quite yet, but it would now. “Why were you calling?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. I'm concerned that not enough juniors or seniors are going to volunteer to lead the small group Bible studies starting in November.”

Thanks to Scare, she had missed the last couple youth group meetings, so she wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about. “Bible studies?”

“Yes, it's this new program we're trying out, and we need volunteers to lead and facilitate.”

“And so you called me?”

“Yes.”

“To volunteer?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to gather her thoughts. It was probably going to be a big time commitment, and she wasn't sure she could handle it.

“Great, I knew I could count on you. See you Sunday!”

“Wait! I didn't mean ‘okay, I'll do it — '”

It was too late, he had already hung up.

She thought about calling him right back, but she didn't. She had been learning firsthand how hard it was to get volunteers. Besides, it would look good on her college application. She sighed and hung up the phone. Hopefully Tamara could at least tell her something about what she had just volunteered for. In the meantime, she had some recruitment of her own to do.

“Come on, won't you volunteer . . . for me?” Candace asked, batting her eyelashes.

“No,” Kurt said, smiling.

“No?”

“No.”

She was surprised. She had figured the girlfriend card would trump the Halloween night card. Once the surprise faded, the disappointment set in.

“Seriously, you won't help me out?”

“Not with Sugar Shock,” he said.

“Honestly, I don't get what the big deal is.”

“That's because you've never worked Halloween night. It's long, it's exhausting, and people are lucky to survive — and that's if they managed to sleep all day in anticipation of it.”

“Would it help if I begged?” she asked, thinking of Martha's advice.

“Not even a little bit. You'd just embarrass both of us.”

She sighed in frustration before heading off to try and scare up some other volunteers. So far she had only four names on her list. Josh had agreed the night before to volunteer, and since then she had found only three other people willing to help. Of course, the truth was the overtime pay had enticed them and not the chance to entertain the kids.

She continued on through the History Zone, asking every referee she came across. Thirty minutes later she still didn't have a new name for her list. She headed for the Exploration Zone, hoping to find better luck there. No sooner had she stepped foot in the zone, than she saw Gib from the Muffin Mansion approaching her.

He looked grim, and she was reminded of when he had confronted her over the summer and told her about Becca's allergy to sugar and forbidden her to give Becca any more cotton candy.

He stopped in front of her, feet spread slightly apart, hands on his hips. He was already in costume. Everyone from the Muffin Mansion was a pirate. Candace had seen several of them walking around the park. They all looked good, but not like Gib.

Gib, with his grim look and grizzled face, looked the part. He sounded a little like a pirate even when he wasn't in character, so it was easy to see him in the clothes and believe it.

“I've been looking for you, Candace,” he grumbled.

“Sure, you've come to the proper place,” Candace joked.

“I've been wanting to talk to you about your Sugar Shock.”

It was hardly her Sugar Shock, but she figured it was best not to point that out. Clearly he had something to say, and she should let him say it.

“I hear you've been recruiting.”

“You hear right,” she said. What on earth could he want? Had he come to volunteer? Somehow she didn't think so.

“I'm here to give you a friendly warning. Don't recruit Becca.”

She stared deep into his eyes and knew better than to ask if he was kidding. She knew about Becca's allergy to sugar and had seen firsthand how hyper it could make her. But surely Becca had to have some bit of self-control.

“She would only be passing out candy, not eating it.”

“That's what you think.”

“She must have a little self-control.”

“None.”

“But at the Muffin Mansion you put sugar in the muffins.”

“And we keep that sugar locked up at all times. There's only one key,” Gib said, hooking a finger under the chain around his neck and bringing into view the key in question. He lowered it back under his shirt, and Candace shivered.

“But the muffins have sugar in them. Surely she eats them.”

“Only four types of muffins have real sugar in them. We also keep those locked up.”

“That's insane! Why isn't she working at one of the rides instead?”

“She's Muffin Mansion crew, and we take care of our own. We don't need outside interference,” Gib said, eyes blazing fiercely.

“Okay, fine, I won't ask her to work Sugar Shock.”

“It's more than that. You have to swear to do everything in your power to keep her away from Sugar Shock.”

“Okay, now that's just going too far,” Candace protested. Muffin Mansion people might take care of their own, but she wasn't one of them, and she was not obligated to watch out for Becca.

Gib stepped closer, his manner subtly threatening. “You know how this event came to be named Sugar Shock?”

“No,” Candace said. Could Gib actually have the answer to that?

“Twelve years ago, The Zone held its first Halloween event for children. They called it the Trick-or-Treat Zone.”

That made a lot more sense to Candace than Sugar Shock.

“An unsuspecting relative brought a sweet, seven-year-old girl to that event, not knowing that the girl was allergic to sugar.”

Gib had to be talking about Becca. The air seemed to grow suddenly colder, and Candace wrapped her arms around herself.

“The little girl trick-or-treated throughout the entire park, collecting an enormous bag of candy. And then she took the first bite,” Gib said, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes fixed as though upon that moment so long ago.

“Three hours later they caught her,” Gib said, his voice suddenly booming. “But by then she had cut a sugary swathe through seven zones, leaving carnage in her wake. She splattered the paints from the Painting Wall throughout the park and finally dumped the jars in the waters of the Splash Zone where they clogged up the machinery that kept the water and rides moving. Hundreds of players were stranded on rides throughout the park. The fire department was called. The police arrived. The park was evacuated. It took three of us from the Muffin Mansion to hold her when we finally caught her. I still bear the scars,” Gib said, rolling up the sleeve of his left arm.