Scared Stiff (15 page)

“Tough. I'll break the other one,” Zimmer told him angrily, “if I don't catch up with the Van Huler kids in short order. Where are they?”

We were lying flat on the base of the Bumper Buggy area. There was a blue car on one side of me, a red one on the other side. Kenny drew in a whimpering breath. “Are they going to kill us, Rick?” he whispered.

I didn't have enough wind to reply. I began
to squirm around so I could look out, and found that I could see their legs, Zimmer's and Connie's. I hoped Connie didn't really have a broken arm.

Cautiously, I edged between a pair of the bumper cars, hoping to get far enough inside the layout so that if Zimmer squatted down and peered under the canvas I wouldn't be in sight. “Follow me,” I whispered, and took it for granted that Kenny was coming along behind me.

The first I knew that he wasn't was when I heard him sneeze.

I turned my head so fast I bumped it on the corner of a car. For a few seconds I was stunned. I could hardly see, and then what happened made my heart stop.

Zimmer reached under the edge of the canvas tarp and caught hold of Kenny and hauled him out.

Kenny kicked and screamed and I think bit Zimmer's hand, but the man held on. He couldn't hold on to a fighting Kenny and Connie at the same time, though. Connie jerked free and fled in the direction we'd come from, maybe with the
same hope I'd had, that the telephone in the office might still be working.

Or maybe he'd go back through the fence and call the cops from Mrs. Bigger's trailer, I thought hopefully. My little brother was being subdued by that thug of a Zimmer, and Connie was our best hope.

Almost at once, though, that hope died. I heard Packard's voice. They were both here.

“Good! You got one. Where's the other one?”

“He can't be far away. He wouldn't have left the little one. Shall we settle for him? Sophie's going to cave in if we start pulling this one apart.”

I felt sick to my stomach, and helpless to do anything to save Kenny.

“I don't know why I thought you'd be any use to me,” Packard said coldly, “except for your ability to unhook a trailer and hook it up to another cab. Where's your brain? We going to let the bigger one run loose and sick the cops on us before we can persuade Sophie it's too dangerous to tell what she knows?”

“They don't know where we got Sophie,” Zimmer said, sounding a bit uncertain.

“No, but we don't want the cops nosing into this at all, do we? Give me this one, and I'll guard the hole in the fence so they can't get back out. You find the other one. Fast!”

Kenny was crying, but he hung limp, now, allowing himself to be handed over to Packard. Zimmer stood staring after them, swearing under his breath. “Find him fast!” he muttered angrily. “Sure! How?”

At first the sounds I heard behind me didn't register. I was concentrating on watching Zimmer, or what I could see of him between the bumper cars. He didn't seem to be able to decide which direction to go, but almost as I thought that, he took a step toward me.

“Well, the little one was under that tarp. Let's take it off and see if the bigger rat is in the same hole,” he said, practically snarling.

I backed farther from the opening where we'd crawled in, and he started jerking back the heavy canvas.

I heard the sounds again, then, and twisted my head to look behind me, opposite where Zimmer was going to peel me out like taking the skin off an onion. The bumper cars didn't
offer much to hide behind by themselves, once he got the tarp pulled off.

Was there a third man coming up on me from the rear?

There was somebody else, all right, but I felt a surge of hope when I recognized Connie.

He put a finger on his lips and lifted something I couldn't make out. Then he made gestures, but it wasn't until I heard the faint jangle of metal on metal that I realized what he had.

He'd gone to the castle-office, all right, and found the broken window and the dead phone. But he'd taken time to look further, and he'd found keys.

I wasn't sure what good it was going to do us, not with Packard having Kenny and guarding the hole in the fence so nobody could go for help, but I felt better knowing I wasn't alone. Connie was here, and he had an idea.

Zimmer was making enough rasping sounds turning back the canvas, cursing when it caught and wouldn't pull free, that he didn't hear that slight rattle of the keys.

I crawled rapidly toward Connie, and he put
his mouth right up to my ear to whisper his plan. For a moment I gaped at him, then nodded and began to crawl again as Connie retreated, keeping low so Zimmer wouldn't see him.

My pursuer gave a grunt of satisfaction at last as he pulled off one end of the tarp. I felt nakedly exposed as half the Bumper Buggies were suddenly in daylight, but I tried to ignore Zimmer and follow Connie's plan.

I dove for the pole where I pushed one button at the same time as Connie hit the other one; he'd already used the key to turn on the electricity that powered the little cars through whips that reached to its source in the ceiling. It only took seconds, and I was in the nearest buggy by the time I heard Zimmer bellow. He'd seen us.

Connie's arm had been hurt, but it obviously wasn't broken, because he was using it. He dove for a buggy, too—he had a yellow one and mine was orange—and we slammed down on the pedals and headed straight for our enemy.

Zimmer was threading his way between stalled buggies all over the place, starting to
grin, before he realized what we were going to do.

The grin slid off his face just before Connie's buggy slammed into him.

It had rubber bumpers, but they were hard enough to hurt when they hit. Zimmer was thrown off balance, and then my buggy knocked him sideways. We quickly reversed and hit him again before he could get up. Then we abandoned the buggies and ran.

Zimmer was hurt, though not seriously enough to matter. He was cursing and fighting his way free of the bumper buggies before we had any chance to get out of his sight.

“The Splasher,” Connie gasped as we pelted away, and I didn't waste breath responding.

It was only when we reached the top of the ramp where we were to board the cars for the Splasher that it dawned on me.

“We can't push both buttons at once and get into a car before it starts!” I cried, looking back to see Zimmer gaining on us.

Connie was already sticking the key in the lock beside the first control button. He was puffing from the exertion. “Jump in, and I'll
follow you if I have time to get the next car. Anyway, after we hit the water, we'll split up. I'll go left, you go right, okay?”

There wasn't time for more. I fell into the first car poised at the top of the slope over the pond, bumping an elbow painfully, then looked back.

Connie had punched the second button, and the line of cars started to move. He dove toward the track and made it into the fourth car back.

Far off across the park, by the hole in the fence, I saw Packard and Kenny, who was so limp I was afraid Packard had knocked him out.

We were picking up speed when I looked back for the last time and saw Zimmer barely make it into the rear car.

And then the front one went over the edge, plunging down toward the pond below. I hadn't had time to fasten the bar in front of me, and I hung onto one side of the car to keep from being pitched out before we got that far.

When we hit the water it rose in a heavy spray all around our cars.

I almost fell in the pond in my hurry to get out of the car before it had quite reached the unloading dock.

I didn't look back this time, but headed right, as Connie had instructed. Within seconds I heard his feet pounding on the dock behind me, and I ran for all I was worth.

I knew who Zimmer would follow. It was me he wanted, not Connie, though no doubt they planned to catch him too, after I was in their grasp. At the very least, they'd keep him trapped inside Wonderland so he couldn't go to the police until they'd used Kenny and me to force Ma to do what they wanted.

Of course Zimmer didn't know about the
drainpipe. Even if he noticed it, he'd see only a grille that would presumably keep anybody out of it, and it wouldn't mean anything to him.

On the way down the Splasher, waiting for the water to soak me when I hit, I'd tried to plan. That isn't easy when your mind is racing around in circles and you're scared stiff. I tried not to think about how Kenny must be feeling.

My best bet, I decided, was the Pirate's Cave, after all. Zimmer could keep me cornered in there by simply standing on the loading and unloading platform, but if Packard stayed over by the hole in the fence,
he
couldn't help get me out. If Zimmer left to get help, he'd have to leave the exit to the cave unguarded, and he wouldn't be able to see which way I went.

Even if he ran to get Packard, I figured I could get out the drainpipe before he knew where I'd gone.

I didn't have a key to anything at the cave, but the gondolas just went through by themselves anyway, because the water kept circulating, round and round. I jumped in the first one and pushed off.

I didn't relish going into the dark, with no flashlight and by myself, but I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't tell if Zimmer was hot on my heels, seeing where I went, but I didn't have any other choices anyway.

Just as the little boat reached the entrance to the tunnel I heard breaking glass.

Instinctively, I put out a hand to the edge of the opening and held my position.

Where had it come from? I couldn't tell. Being down in the water, below the top edge of the fake rocks that formed the cave, distorted the sounds.

More glass smashed, somebody yelled. Zimmer or Packard? Not Connie, I was sure.

And suddenly, overhead, colored lights came on.

If Zimmer was just about to bound up the steps, and then down to the loading dock, it was risky to stick my head up. But maybe he'd been diverted by the sounds and it might give me more options than trapping myself in a pitch-black cave.

I hesitated. I didn't hear running feet on the boards, nor any more shouting. Did I dare
creep back up to the top of the loading platform, above the dock, and sneak a look?

I did. I kept low and moved slowly, so as to attract as little attention as possible. Maybe Connie had managed to do something that would lead Zimmer on a wild-goose chase long enough for a miracle to happen. Like somebody calling the cops, and the cops actually taking them seriously and showing up, sirens screaming.

I reached the top of the platform, where the walkway climbed over the rock wall before going back down to the boats. And right at that very moment, I heard the music.

A calliope, I thought, incredulous. Somebody had started the merry-go-round!

I saw Zimmer, then, only a few yards away from me, but he was looking back over his shoulder. I saw him yell, but couldn't make out his words.

If I couldn't hear him from this close, Packard wouldn't be able to, either.

As I crouched there, only my head above the floor of the platform, lights began to come on in the approaching dusk.

All over Wonderland, bright white lights and colored lights and neon signs advertising food and souvenirs and rides blinked on.

Not all at once, but a cluster at a time, spreading out from the area around the carousel the way ripples spread on the water when you drop in a stone.

No, not quite the same way. It was more like a wave going in one direction, sweeping over first one area, then the next.

Somebody was moving from one attraction to another, as fast as he could reach them, turning on lights and music. A window crashed as it broke, and moments later there was dance-hall music from the Wild West Village Saloon.

Connie and his keys, I thought, excitement almost suffocating me. Only he couldn't be doing it all alone. He couldn't reach both control buttons at the same time.

Julie? I thought suddenly. Could Julie be helping him? But we'd left Julie behind, outside in the RV park.

I saw Zimmer start to turn in my direction, and I jerked back. I wasn't fast enough. I
bumped my chin on the top step and bit through my tongue so I tasted blood, and then I heard him running up the wooden steps toward me. I gave up trying to be careful.

I half fell down the steps and leaped into a gondola, and pushed off with my hands.

This time I didn't hesitate about entering the cave. Even a spooky dark pit was better than dealing with Zimmer, who didn't care if he broke both a guy's arms.

I only let the boat drift a little way on the circulating stream before I stopped it with a hand on the wall and listened.

Now Zimmer was closer, down inside the artificial rock mountain, standing on the loading dock.

“Come out, kid, and you won't get hurt,” he said. I heard that quite clearly.

I didn't answer. Maybe I couldn't have, because it was hard enough just to breathe. Fat chance, I thought.

“If I have to come in after you,” Zimmer said, “you'll be sorry.”

I swallowed, steadying myself against the wall. The current wanted to carry my gondola
along, and I searched for a bigger projection on the fake rock and held on harder.

Far in the distance, the calliope music came to an end. Only the whisper of the water beneath me broke the silence, except that the dance-hall music, a long way off, kept playing for another few minutes while I waited.

“You want to see your ma again, don't you?”

His voice sent shivers down my back.

“We got your ma and your little brother,” Zimmer reminded me. He could speak more quietly now, and somehow that made his words more deadly. “Even without you, we're in control. You be nice and come out, and we'll take you to your mama. How's that?”

I jerked in alarm when I heard the other voice, sounding almost as nearby as Zimmer's. Packard had come to join him.