Joyland

stay away from this place, but Tom didn’t run my life any more than Eddie Parks did.
    Between the Dungeon and the Torture Chamber, the track descended and described a double-S curve where the cars picked up speed and whipped the riders back and forth. Horror House was a dark ride, but when if was in operation, this stretch was the only completely dark part. It had to be where the girl’s killer had cut her throat and dumped her body. How quick he must have been, and how certain of exactly what he was going to do!
    I walked slowly down the double-S, thinking it would not be beyond Eddie to hear me and shut off the overhead work-lights as a joke. To leave me in here to feel my way past the murder site with only the sound of the wind and that one slapping board to keep me company. And suppose . . . just suppose . . . a young girl’s hand reached out in that darkness and took mine . . .?

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS
YOU WILL ENJOY:
    FIFTY-TO-ONE by Charles Ardai
KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block
THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny
THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake
HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt
CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner
FAKE I.D. by Jason Starr
PASSPORT TO PERIL by Robert B. Parker
STOP THIS MAN! by Peter Robe
LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood
HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent
QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins
THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES by Jonny Porkpie
THE VALLEY OF FEAR by A C. Doyle
MEMORY by Donald E. Westlake
NOBODY’S ANGEL by Jack Clark
MURDER IS MY BUSINESS by Brett Holliday
GETTING OFF by Lawrence Block
QUARRY’S EX by Max Allan Collins
THE CONSUMMATA
by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust
THE COMEDY IS FINISHED by Donald E. Westlake
BLOOD ON THE MINK by Robert Silverberg
FALSE NEGATIVE by Joseph Koenig
THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter
THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS by James M. Cain
SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT by Max Allan Collins
WEB OF THE CITY by Harlan Ellison



A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-112)
First Hard Case Crime edition: June 2013
    Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London SE1 OUP
    in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
    Copyright © 2013 by Stephen King
Cover painting copyright © 2013 by Glen Orbik
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-78116-264-4
    Design direction by Max Phillips
www.maxphillips.net
    The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America
    Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

For Donald Westlake

J O Y L A N D

I had a car, but on most days in that fall of 1973 I walked to Joyland from Mrs. Shoplaw’s Beachside Accommodations in the town of Heaven’s Bay. It seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing, actually. By early September, Heaven Beach was almost completely deserted, which suited my mood. That fall was the most beautiful of my life. Even forty years later I can say that. And I was never so unhappy, I can say that, too. People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You’ve heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What’s so sweet about that?

    Through September and right into October, the North Carolina skies were clear and the air was warm even at seven in the morning, when I left my second-floor apartment by the outside stairs. If I started with a light jacket on, I was wearing it tied around my waist before I’d finished half of the three miles between the town and the amusement park.
    I’d make Betty’s Bakery my first stop, grabbing a couple of still-warm croissants. My shadow would walk with me on the sand, at least twenty feet long. Hopeful gulls, smelling the croissants in