Joyland

a new pair at the hardware store in town, and good ones didn’t come cheap. I amused myself briefly by imagining how Eddie would react if I asked him to pay for them.
    I stashed my basket of dirty rags and Turtle Wax (the can now mostly empty) by the exit door in the arcade. It was ten past noon, but right then food wasn’t what I was hungry for. I tried to stretch the ache out of my arms and legs, then went back to the loading-point. I paused to admire the cars gleaming mellowly beneath the lights, then walked slowly along the track and into Horror House proper.
    I had to duck my head when I passed beneath the Screaming Skull, even though it was now pulled up and locked in its home position. Beyond it was the Dungeon, where the live talent from Eddie’s Team Doberman had tried (and mostly succeeded) in scaring the crap out of children of all ages with their moans and howls. Here I could straighten up again, because it was a tall room. My footfalls echoed on a wooden floor painted to look like stone. I could hear my breathing. It sounded harsh and dry. I was scared, okay? Tom had told me to stay away from this place, but Tom didn’t run my life any more than Eddie Parks did. I had the Doors, and I had Pink Floyd, but I wanted more. I wanted Linda Gray.
    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 it 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! Beyond the last curve, riders were dazzled by a mix of stuttering, multi-colored strobes. Although Tom had never said it in so many words, I was positive it was where he had seen what he’d seen.
    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, the way Erin had taken my hand that last night on the beach?
    The lights stayed on. No bloody shirt and gloves appeared beside the track, glowing spectrally. And when I came to what I felt sure was the right spot, just before the entrance to the Torture Chamber, there was no ghost-girl holding her hands out to me.
    Yet something was there. I knew it then and I know it now. The air was colder. Not cold enough to see my breath, but yes, definitely colder. My arms and legs and groin all prickled with gooseflesh, and the hair at the nape of my neck stiffened.
    “Let me see you,” I whispered, feeling foolish and terrified. Wanting it to happen, hoping it wouldn’t.
    There was a sound. A long, slow sigh. Not a human sigh, not in the least. It was as if someone had opened an invisible steam-valve. Then it was gone. There was no more. Not that day.

    “Took you long enough,” Eddie said when I finally reappeared at quarter to one. He was seated on the same apple-box, now with the remains of a BLT in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other. I was filthy from the neck down. Eddie, on the other hand, looked fresh as a daisy.
    “The cars were pretty dirty. I had to wash them before I could wax them.”
    Eddie hawked back phlegm, twisted his head, and spat. “If you want a medal, I’m fresh out. Go find Hardy. He says it’s time to drain the irry-gation system. That should keep a lag-ass like you busy until quittin time. If it don’t, come see me and I’ll find something else for you to do. I got a whole list, believe me.”
    “Okay.” I started off, glad to be going.
    “Kiddo!”
    I turned back reluctantly.
    “Did you see her in there?”
    “Huh?”
    He grinned unpleasantly. “Don’t ‘huh’ me. I know what you were doin. You weren’t the first, and you won’t be the last. Did you see her?”
    “Have you ever seen her?”
    “Nope.” He looked at me, sly little gimlet eyes peering out of a narrow sunburned face. How old was he? Thirty? Sixty? It was impossible to tell, just as it was impossible to tell if he was speaking the truth. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be away from him. He gave me the creeps.
    Eddie raised his gloved hands. “The guy who did