Things Beyond Midnight (19 page)

“Sounds a little crazy.”

“Funhouse is for fun!” I said. “It’s not even noon yet. You can take the tour with me, come out of the park and still grab a hitch with one of the truckers.”

He slapped the countertop. “Why not? Why the hell not?”

I grinned at him. “Be fun for me, too. Haven’t been out to Happyland for a longish while. Be like going home.”

I own a Ford pickup. Old, like I am. Got a missing taillight. Clutch is bad. Needs a ring job. Tires are mostly bald. And the paint’s gone altogether. But it putters along. Gets me where I have to go.

Happyland’s only ten minutes out from town. As I said, right on the lake, at the deep end. Lot of boats used to be on the lake, but its quiet now. Just black water, and too cold to swim in most of the year. Deep and black and quiet.

I parked next to the gate and we slipped under the rusted chain fence. The park was sad to see, all deserted and boarded up and with old newspapers and empty beer cans and trash everywhere. Vines growing right into the boards. Holes in the ground. I told the stranger to watch where he walked.

“Break an ankle out here at night,” I said.

“I’ll bet.”

We passed the old Penny Arcade. All the machines were gone. It was like a dirty barn inside. No color or movement or sound in there now. Just a rat or two, maybe. Or a spider trapping flies.

Sad.

We walked on in the noon heat, past the Loop and the Whip and the Merry-go-Round, with broken holes in the floor where all the painted horses had galloped.

“No gorillas today,” I said as we approached the Funhouse. “Electricity’s shut down, and they took all the trick stuff away to Chicago. But at least we can run the tunnels. They’re still the same.”

“This is crazy.” said the bearded man. “I’ve gotta be nuts, doing a thing like this.”

“Be proud of yourself!” I told him. “You’re not afraid to let out the boy in you! Every man would like to, but most are chicken about it. You’ve got guts.”

We stood outside, looking at the place. The big laughing fatman at the entrance was gone. I can still hear his booming Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha like it was yesterday. Twenty years of a laugh you don’t forget.

The ticket booth was shaped like the jaws of a shark—but now most of the teeth were missing and the skin was peeling in big curling blisters along the sides. The broken glass in the booth had two boards nailed over it, like a pair of crossed arms.

“How do we get in?” the stranger asked me.

“There’s bound to be a loose board,” I told him. “Let’s take a look.”

“Oke,” he nodded with a grin. “Lead on.”

I found the loose board, pulling some brush away to clear it. Illinois is a green state; we get a lot of rain here, and things grow fast. The Funhouse was being choked by vines and creepers and high grass. It looked a thousand years old.

Sad.

The sky was clouding over. Late summer storm coming. They just pop up on you. It would be raining soon.

More rain, more growth. At this rate, in another fifty years, Happyland would be covered over—like those jungle temples in Mexico. No one could ever find it.

“Watch that nail near the top,” I warned, as the stranger stooped to squeeze through with me. “Tear your shirt easy on a nail like that.”

“Thanks.”

“Got to watch out for my customers,” I said.

Now we were inside. It was absolutely tar-pit black in the Funhouse. A jump from daylight to the dark side of the moon. And hot. Muggy hot inside.

“Can’t see an inch in front of me,” the stranger said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through. I’ve got a flash. It could use a new battery. Kind of dim, but we should be all right with it.”

For emergencies, I always keep a flash in the Ford’s glove compartment, with a couple of spare batteries. Never know when a tire might let go on you at night. But I keep forgetting to put in the new batteries when the old ones wear out. I guess nobody’s perfect!

“Lot of cobwebs in here,” I said, as we moved along. “Hope you don’t mind spiders.”

“I’m not in love with ’em,” said the big man. “Not poisonous, are they?”

“No, no. Not these. Mostly little fellers. I’ll clear the way for you.” And I did that, using a rolled newspaper to sweep the tunnel as I moved through it.

“Where are we?” he asked. “I mean—what part of the Funhouse?”

“About midway through from where you start,’” I said. “But the fun part is ahead. You haven’t missed anything.”

“This is crazy,” he repeated again, half to himself. Then: “Ouch!”

I stopped, flashed the dimming light back at him. He was down on one knee.

“Hurt yourself?”

“I’m okay, just stumbled. A loose board.”

“Lots of those in here,” I admitted. “Not dangerous, though. Not the way I’m taking you.”

As
we moved down the narrow wooden tunnel there was a wet, sliding sound.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The lake,” I told him. “This part of the tunnel is built over the shore. That’s the sound the lake water makes, hitting the pilings. The wind’s up. Storm’s coining.”

We kept walking—going down one tunnel, turning, entering another, twisting, turning, reversing in the wooden maze. Maze to him, not to me. It was my world.

The rain had started, pattering on the wooden roof—dripping down into the tunnels. And the end-of-summerheat had given way to a sudden chill.

“This is no fun,” said the stranger. “It’s not what I remembered. I don’t like it.”

“The fun’s up ahead,” I promised him.

“You keep saying that. Look, I think we’d better—”

Suddenly my flash went out.

“Hey!” he shouted. “What happened?”

“Battery finally died,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got another in the pickup. Wait here and I’ll get it.”

“Not on your life,” the stranger protested. “I’m not staying alone herein the pitch dark in this damned place.”

“You
afraid
of the dark?” I asked him.

“No, dammit!”

“Then wait for me. I can’t lead you back without a flash. Not through all the twists and turns. But I know the way. I can move fast. Won’t be ten minutes.”

“Well... I—”

“One thing, though. I want to warn you carefully about one thing.
Don’t
try to move. Just stay right where you are, so I’ll know where to find you. Some of the side tunnels are dangerous. Rotting boards. You could break a leg. The tunnels are tricky You have to know which ones to stay out of.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll stick right here like a bug on a wall.”

“Ten minutes,” I said.

And I left him there in the tunnel.

Of course I didn’t go back to the pickup for any batteries. Instead, I went to the control room at the end of B Tunnel.

The door was padlocked, but I had the key. Inside, feeling excited about the stranger, I let Ed know I was here. Which was easy. I’d rigged a low-voltage generator in the control room, and when I pulled down a wall switch a red light went on under the tunnels and Ed knew I was back with a stranger.

I’ll bet he was excited, too. Hard to tell with Ed. But
I
sure was. My heart was pounding.

Fun in the Funhouse!

I didn’t waste any time here. I’d done this many times before, so it was routine now: unlock the door, go inside, throw the switch for Ed, then activate the trap.

Trapdoor.

Right under the bearded stranger’s feet. Even if he moved up or down the tunnel for a few yards (some of the nervous ones did that) there was no problem because the whole section of flooring was geared to open and send whoever was inside the tunnel down onto the slide. And the slide ended on the sand at the lakefront.

Where Ed was.

He would come up out of the lake when he saw the light. It would shine on the black water and he would see it from where he lived down there in the deep end and he would come slithering up.

Ed wasn’t much to look at. Kind of weird, really. His father was one of those really big rats that live in the burrows under the cemetery, and his mother was something from deep in the lake. Something big and ugly and leathery They’d made love—the rat and the lake thing—and Ed was the result. Their son. He doesn’t really have a name, but I call him Ed the way Gramps called me Tad. It fits him somehow, makes him more appealing. More... human.

Ed and me, we get along fine as partners. I bring him things to eat, and he saves the “goodies” for me. Like wallets, and cash and rings (that big one Sally was joshing me about came from one of Ed’s meals) and whatever else the strangers have that I can use.

Ed is smart.

He seems to know that I need these things to keep going now that the factory’s shut down and I’ve lost my job here and all. That’s why the partnership works so well. We each get our share. After I take what I want (one time I got a fine pair of leather boots) he drags the body back into the lake.

Then he eats.

Lucky for me, one meal lasts Ed for almost a month. So I don’t have to worry if no stranger shows up at Sally’s for two, three, even four weeks. One always ambles along sooner or later. Like Mama always said, Everything comes to those that wait. Mama was a very patient woman. But she could be nasty. I can testify to that.

It gets bad in winter—for strangers, I mean—when the roads are closed, but that’s when Ed sleeps anyhow, so things even out.

By the time I got back to the stranger’s tunnel that afternoon it was really coming down. Rain, I mean. Dripping and sliding along the cold wood, and getting under my collar. Most uncomfortable, Somehow, rain always depresses me. Guess I’m too moody.

The stranger was down there with Ed where I expected him to be. Sometimes there’s a little yelling and screaming, but nobody ever hears it, so that’s no problem either. One fellow tried to use a knife on Ed, but Ed’s skin is very tough and rubbery and doesn’t cut easy. The stranger was just wasting his time, trying to use a knife on Ed.

I took a ladder down to the sand where the body was.

Ed was off by the water’s edge, kind of breathing hard, when I got there. His jaw was dripping and his slanted black eyes glittered. Ed never blinked. He was watching me the way he always does, with his tail kind of moving, snakelike. He looked kind of twitchy, so I hurried. I don’t think Ed likes the rain. Ed makes me nervous when it rains. He’s not like himself. I never hang around the Funhouse when he’s like that.

The bearded stranger was already dead, of course. Most of his head was gone, but Ed had been careful not to muss up his clothes—so it was no problem getting his wallet, rings, cash, coins...

When I climbed the ladder again Ed was already sliding toward the body.

Guess he was hungry.

Three and a half weeks later the stranger at the counter in Sally’s was looking at my watch.

“I’ve never seen one like that,” he said.

“Tells you the time in ten parts of the world,” I said. “Tells you the month of the year and the day of the week. And it rings every hour on the hour.”

The stranger was impressed.

After a while, I grinned, leaned toward him across the counter and said, “You ever go to amusement parks as a kid?”