The Funhouse

know what you are? You're a pig, that's what.”
        “Let go of me,” she said sharply, trying to pry herself loose of him. “If you don't let go, I just might tell you how that pathetic little thing between your legs measures up to Eddie Talbot, and I'm sure you don't want to hear that.”
        She heard herself, and she didn't like how hard and sluttish she sounded, however, at the same time, she took a fierce, primitive delight in the shock that was visible in his face.
        Several times over the past six months, she had sensed his sexual insecurity, and now it was quite evident indeed. He was furious. He did not merely let go of her wrist, he flung it away from him, as if he suddenly realized he was holding onto a snake.
        As she got out of the car, he said, “You bitch! I hope your old lady does make you keep the kid. And you know what? I hope the damned thing's not right. Yeah. I hope it's not right. I hope it's not normal. You're such a smart-mouthed bitch, I hope you're stuck with some drooling little creep who's not normal. Your smart mouth wouldn't get you out of that one.”
        She looked in at him and said, “You're disgusting.” Before he could respond, she slammed the door.
        He threw the Chevy in gear, stomped on the accelerator, and drove away with a protracted squeal of tires.
        In the ensuing silence, a night bird shrieked.
        Amy moved through a cloud of acrid blue smoke that smelled of burning rubber, and she started up the walk toward the house. After a couple of steps, she began to tremble violently.
        When her father had approved of her staying out later than usual, he had said, The senior prom is a special night in a girl's life. It's an event. Like a sixteenth birthday or a twenty-first. There's really not another night quite like the night of a girl's senior prom.
        As it turned out, there was a perverse sort of truth in what he had said. Amy had never lived through a night quite like this one. And she hoped she'd never know another one like it, either.
        Prom night. Saturday, May 17, 1980.
        That date would be burned in her memory forever.
        When she reached the front door, she paused, her hand resting on the knob. She dreaded going into the house. She didn't want to face her mother tonight.
        Amy didn't intend to reveal the fact that she was pregnant. Not just yet. In a few days, perhaps. In a week or two. And only if she were left with no other choice. In the meantime she would search diligently for other exits from her predicament, even though she didn't have much hope of finding another way out.
        She didn't want to talk to her parents now because she was so nervous, so upset over Jerry's treatment of her that she didn't trust herself to keep the secret. She might let something slip by accident or out of a subconscious need for punishment and pity.
        Her hand, damp with sweat, was still on the doorknob.
        She considered just walking away, leaving town, starting a new life. But she had nowhere to go. She had no money.
        The load of responsibility she had shouldered was almost too much for her. And when Jerry had lashed out in a childish attempt to hurt her, when he had wished a deformed baby on her, he had added another weight to the burden she bore. She didn't believe that Jerry's curse had any real power, of course. But it was possible that her mother would force her to have the baby, and it was possible that the baby would be deformed and forever dependent upon her. The chance of that happening was small, but not so small that she could put it out of her mind, misfortune of that nature befell people all the time. Crippled children were born every day. Legless and armless babies. Misshapen babies. Brain-damaged children. The list of possible birth defects was very long-and very frightening.
        Again, a night bird cried. It was a mournful sound that matched her mood.
        Finally she opened the door and went into the house.

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    2
        
        Thin, talcum-white, with streaming hair the color and texture of spider webs, dressed all in white, Ghost hurried along the busy carnival midway. He moved like a pale column of smoke, slipping effortlessly through the narrowest gaps in the crowd, he appeared to flow with the currents of the night breeze.
        From the funhouse barker's platform, four feet above the midway, Conrad Straker watched the albino.