Husk

Mallory chuckled. “You are so full of it.”

“I am not,” he laughed. “It was in the paper.”

She nudged against him and said, “Blaugh!” into his ear.

Tim wiped his cheek. “Oh, raunchy! You goobered on me.”

Mallory gasped, stopping in her tracks. She covered her mouth with both hands. “Seriously?”

Tim beamed. “Only joking.”

“You little shit,” she laughed. “Now I’m going to do it for real!”

“That’s not ladylike!”

Mallory sucked in a long breath, and Tim broke into a run. She chased him down the ramp, both of them snaking their way past the other people who had come off the coaster. At the bottom, Tim skidded to a halt beside the exit gate and held up a hand.

Mallory stopped.

Like the other rides they’d been on, he held the gate open for her, this time adding a theatrical sweeping gesture with his free hand, showing her the way out.

“After you, Madam.”

She straightened her posture and walked gracefully past him.

“Ah, such a gentleman,” she replied in an English accent.

An older couple passing by watched them with bemused expressions, and Mallory curtsied in return. Tim pointed at her and told them, “She’s raunchy.”

“That does it!”

They took off again, running along the concourse until the crowds got too thick to maneuver through. A gathering had formed beside the main road, making room for the marching band that preformed regular rounds of the park. The music boomed, drums crackling like action-movie gunfire and horns blaring louder than a fire engine siren. Behind them, the towering Ferris wheel gleamed with a luminous exoskeleton of multicolored tube- bulbs.

Mallory huddled close to Tim.

“Where to next?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to see.”

Tim stepped onto a bench set against a retaining wall topped with clusters of marigolds, and Mallory climbed up beside him. From their new vantage point she had a clear view over the heads of all the people.

Tim pointed. “Look, The Monster line has thinned out.”

On the far side of the assembly The Monster made its revolutions, rising and dipping as it moved. The ride looked like a giant black octopus with four rotating gondolas at the end of each outstretched arm, all outlined by rows of glowing yellow lights.

Mallory looked left and right. “We’ll have to wait for the band to pass before we cross.”

“Not if we go now,” Tim said.

He grabbed her hand and jumped off the bench, towing her with him, weaving a path around the spectators. The band roared directly ahead.

“Tim, we’ll never make it!”

“Yes we will!”

Mallory laughed as they broke from the crowd and dashed across the thoroughfare, racing through the ten- foot gap between the drum major and the first rank of players. The music enveloped her, every blast of the horns and beat of the drums vibrating her body like the shockwave of an explosion. Her laughter escalated into a cry of delight, mixing with the noise. In her peripheral vision she saw the faces of the crowd turn to follow her, making her feel like a starlet in some old romantic movie.

They plunged into the throng of people lining the other side of the road and rushed on, moving like they had only one last chance to experience the park’s selection of mechanical wonders before Doomsday.

“Hey!” a voice shouted.

Tim stopped and looked to the left. Mallory traced his line of sight to see a man in a white shirt and black pants emerging from the crowd. He had a radio clipped to his belt and uniform patches with the word ‘SECURITY’ in capital letters on his shoulders, breast pocket, and ball cap. He was already coming toward them at a brisk walk.

Tim gasped. “Oh, crap. We’re busted.”

“Not if we keep going,” Mallory replied.

She sprinted away, pulling Tim with her the way he’d pulled her. They hurried to the entrance of The Monster, finding only a handful of other fairgoers waiting for the ride’s next boarding. They threaded themselves through the railings meant to corral the crowds, ducking under the metal beams rather than walking around them. Black cargo netting made up the walls and ceiling of the waiting area, and green lights glowed from concealed locations. They reached the end of the line and climbed over the railing along the northernmost wall. Tim held up the cargo netting, and Mallory slipped into the shadows.

“Stop!” the security officer’s voice shouted from somewhere far behind them.

Mallory glanced around, unable to hold back the smile of excitement that had taken hold of her lips.

“Where to?” Tim asked.

“I don’t know. We’re off the map now.”

Around them loomed the wooden superstructure of the fair’s oldest roller coaster, The High Roller. In daytime the forest of tall support beams and crisscrossing braces appeared bright and airy, but now, at night, with minimal lighting from the other rides, the shadows heaped on each other like a pile of fallen trees. They stood at the far end of the ride, where the tracks rose skyward and made a U-turn sixty feet in the air, sending its train of cars racing downhill and back to its start point. On the far side of the open space in the middle of the turnaround, the darkness beyond the towering struts seemed infinite.

Mallory spotted a small shed under the tracks thirty yards to her left. “This way!”

She resumed running, dodging around the concrete footings of support posts and ducking diagonal crossbeams. The tall grass licked at her ankles. They passed under one of the coaster’s rises just as the train of cars roared past above them, overpowering her cry of surprise. She looked back at Tim, exchanging silent laughs as her hearing recovered from the noise.

They reached the shed and hunkered down behind it, kneeling in the shadows. The building hummed with some internal contraption, radiating enough heat to add an extra ten degrees to the air. Tim peered around the corner and looked back the way they’d come.

“I think we lost him,” he whispered, chest heaving.

Mallory slumped against his shoulder, catching her breath. “And I worried I wouldn’t get my jog in today.”

Tim gave the terrain another glance then turned to face her, his expression uncertain. “We should probably try and get back to the main road as soon as possible. I didn’t mean to get us in trouble.”

Mallory smiled. “We didn’t do anything wrong. That was just some rent-a-cop trying to feel important.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It was fun, though, wasn’t it?”

The worry ebbed from his eyes. “It was pretty exciting.”

“I’ll say. I’m still shaking from when the roller coaster blasted over us. How freaky was that? Feel my heart beat.”

Mallory took Tim’s hand and held it to her chest, pressing his palm against her shirt. She gazed at him in the shadows, realizing a moment too late what she’d done. A blush heated her cheeks, and she recognized the tongue- tied look on Tim’s face as his eyes darted between her stare and where his hand rested above her breast.

He pulled his hand back.

The High Roller made another circuit of the tracks, wheels squealing around the curves and passengers screaming with each plunge. They both seized the distraction, watching the coaster race past them.

Tim fidgeted beside her. “Um… On second thought, maybe we should stay here a little longer. You know, just in case that guy is still looking for us.”

Mallory grinned knowingly, but nodded her agreement.

They settled into the grass next to each other, listening to the keen of the roller coaster’s brakes in the