The Funhouse

I and would have screamed if her throat hadn't frozen.
        A man was standing on the tracks behind her. He was extremely tall, at least six and a half feet, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, and he was wearing a Frankenstein outfit: a black suit, a black turtleneck, monster gloves, and a rubber mask that covered his entire head.
        “Scared?” he asked. His voice was exceptionally deep and hoarse.
        She swallowed hard, finally breathed, and said, “Yes, my God! You scared me half to death.”
        “My job,” he said.
        “What?”
        “Scare the marks. My job.”
        “Oh. You work here at the funhouse?”
        “My job,” he said.
        She decided that he must be dull-witted. His simple, halting declarations resembled the speech patterns of a severely retarded child. Trying to be friendly, hoping to keep him friendly, she said, My name's Janet. What's yours?”
        “Huh?”
        “What's your name?”
        “Gunther.”
        “That's a nice name.”
        “Don't like.”
        “You don't like your name?”
        “No.”
        “What would you like to be called?”
        “Victor.”
        “That's a nice name, too.”
        “Victor his favorite.”
        “Whose favorite?”
        “His,”
        She realized that she was in a bad spot-in a strange and poorly lighted place, out of sight and perhaps out of earshot of anyone who might be inclined to help her, alone except for a badly retarded man big enough to break her in half the way she might break a breadstick.
        He took a step toward her.
        She backed up.
        He stopped.
        She stopped, too, shaking, aware that she couldn't outrun him. His legs were longer than hers, and he was probably more familiar with the terrain than she was.
        He made an odd sound behind the mask, it was like a dog sniffing busily at a scent.
        “I'm a government official,” she said slowly, hoping he would understand. “A very important government official.”
        Gunther said nothing.
        “Very important,” Janet said nervously. She tapped the VIP badge that Max Freed had given her. “Mr. Frederickson told me I could go anywhere I wanted on the midway. Do you know who he is? Do you know Mr. Frederickson?”
        Gunther didn't reply. He just stood there, big as a truck, looking down at her, his face hidden behind that mask, his arms dangling limply at his sides.
        “Mr. Frederickson owns this carnival,” she said patiently. “You must know him. He's probably… your boss. He told me I could go wherever I Wanted.”
        Finally Gunther spoke again. “Smell woman.”
        What?”
        Smell woman. Smell good. Pretty.”
        “Oh, no,” she said, starting to sweat.
        “Want pretty.”
        “No, no,” she said. “No, Gunther. That wouldn't be right. That would only get you in trouble.”
        He was sniffing again. The mask seemed to interfere with the scent he was trying to catch, and he reached up and pulled the Frankenstein monster face off, revealing his own face.
        When Janet saw what had been hidden by the mask, she stumbled backwards on the track and screamed.
        Before anyone could possibly have heard her cry, Gunther sprang at her and cut the scream short with one blow of his big hand.
        She fell.
        He dropped on top of her.
        
        * * *
        
        Fifteen minutes before the fairground gates opened to the public, Conrad made a final inspection tour of the funhouse. He walked the length of the track to be sure there were no obstructions on it, no forgotten tools or misplaced pieces of lumber that might derail one of the gondolas.
        In the Hall of the Giant Spiders he found the dead woman. She was on the tracks, below one of the big, phony tarantulas. She was sprawled on top of her bloody clothes-naked, bruised, slashed. Her head had been torn off, it rested, face up, a yard away from her body.
        At first he thought Gunther had killed a carnival woman. That was unquestionably the worst thing that could happen. The bodies of outsiders could be disposed of in such a fashion as to direct the police away from everyone connected with Big American Midway Shows. But if one of the carnival's own was found raped and mutilated, the police would be summoned onto the lot, and Gunther would interest them sooner or later. The carnies accepted the boy now, as they accepted