Mystery Walk

commanding all of his time and attention, using him as its puppet. There were revenants caught within the Octopus, crying out in their confusion and terror. Perhaps now, Billy thought, it possesses some part of the snakeman as well. He could hear the faint screaming, and he knew the Octopus wanted him too. It wanted to consume him, to draw his spirit and power into its black, greedy gears and pistons.

Are you strong? Are you strong in your heart, where strength counts?

Billy's hand had gone into his pocket. Now he brought the hand out and looked at the nugget of coal in his palm. He didn't remember putting it in these pants; he'd thought it was still with his belongings, in his suitcase under the cot at the rear of the Ghost Show tent. It reminded him of the strength he possessed, the risks he must take if he was to continue his Mystery Walk. If he backed down, if he failed to trust his own inner will, then whatever inhabited the Octopus would win, and in some terrible way it might even grow stronger still. He clenched the coal in his fist and returned it to his pocket.

'Billy?' Dr. Mirakle said. 'Where are you going?'

'You can come with me, if you like. But don't try to stop me. I have to do this right now. Right now.'

'Do . . . what? My God, have you lost your mind?' But he was following along, holding the pistol out to his side as if it were a dead fish.

Before Billy reached the Octopus, Edgers stopped hammering. He straightened up from his work, and turned to face the boy. Across his features was a hideous grin that stretched his mouth wide in eager anticipation. The Octopus had him, Billy knew. It was not Buck Edgers grinning.

When Dr Mirakle saw that grin, he was shocked motionless for a moment. He said in a nervous voice, 'Billy, I don't . . . think you should ...'

'Step right up, pard!' Edgers boomed, shuffling forward. 'Thought you'd never come!'

'I'm here. Start it up.'

'Come on, then! Yessir! Oh, you're a special guest, you don't even need a fuckin' ticket! Been savin' a ride just for you.' He moved to the shrouded gondola and tugged at the tarpaulin until it tore away. There were holes in the rusted metal, and faint streaks of bright orange paint. He pulled the warped metal- mesh canopy open, exposing the rust-riddled interior. 'Perfect fit, I'd say.'

'I wouldn't get in that rust-bucket if I were you,' Dr. Mirakle said, tugging at Billy's arm. 'No, I forbid it! I told your mother I'd take care of you, and I forbid you to do it! Now listen, come on back to the tent and we'll—'

'Shut your mouth, you old cocksucker,' Edgers said softly, his eyes blazing into Billy's. 'The boy's grown up now. He's a man. He's got a mind, and he knows what he wants to do. Show's about to start!' He gestured toward the open gondola.

Billy pulled free of Dr. Mirakle. He had to do this now, while there was still a rage burning in him. He moved forward, but suddenly Edgers's wife stepped out of the shadows, her round-cheeked face pasty with dread. She said, 'No, please . . . don't do it, boy. You don't understand it. You don't see—'

'SHUT UP YOU GODDAMNED BITCH!' the man howled, brandishing the hammer at her. She flinched but did not step back.

'That machine,' she said, staring at Billy, 'is Satan's handiwork. Buck bought it out of a junkyard in Georgia, and from the first day he couldn't do anything but work on it, trying to put it back together. It slashed his face, and broke both his legs, and—'

'SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!'

He hobbled toward her, raising the hammer, and she screamed, 'Please Buck, don't!' and dodged a vicious blow that might've broken her shoulder. She slipped and fell to her hands and knees; her husband stood over her, panting like an animal. She looked up at him, an awful pleading expression in her eyes, and said, 'I love you, Buck. ...'

Billy saw the man's face change; he blinked uncertainly, and his terrible grimace slipped a few notches. For an instant, he resembled nothing more than a tormented man who'd been down on his luck for most of his life; then the savage grin came back, and his eyes flared. He put his booted foot against his wife's side and pushed her down into the sawdust. He said, 'Now you stay right there, like a good little girl.'

'Come on!' Billy said. 'I'm waiting for you!'

'Oh, yes. Of course. The master speaks, the servant obeys. Of course, of course!' He giggled and watched as Billy climbed into the gondola. The seat was a hard mass of cracked vinyl and Billy could see the ground through a few quarter-sized holes in the metal. He stretched his legs out into the gondola's nose, his back straight against the seat. There was a seatbelt, and Billy drew it tightly across his lap. Edgers rushed forward and clanged the mesh canopy down, drawing a small metal bar through a safety clasp. He grinned in through the mesh. 'All comfy-cozy? Good. Then we're ready to begin, aren't we?'

Edgers scuttled to the generator that powered the Octopus and switched it on; it hummed, sending electricity through cables as thick as a man's wrist. The ride's lights flickered, flickered again, and then blazed brightly. The remaining bulbs that spelled out OCTOPUS buzzed like angry hornets. Edgers stood over a small control board and turned on the ride's engine; it hooted and moaned, gears and wheels spinning. 'I've got you!' he shouted. His face was ruddy and demonic as he let off the brake's foot pedal and slowly pushed forward the lever that engaged the drive-train.

'Billy!' Dr. Mirakle shouted, stepping back as the Octopus began to move.

The gondolas slowly gained momentum. Billy's head was forced back by centrifugal motion. Edgers bore down on the lever;

Billy's cheeks rippled with the rising g-forces. The gondolas began rising—five feet, ten feet, fifteen feet.

And then a garble of screams, moans, and sobbings—agonized sounds, some high-pitched and others so low Billy felt them in his bones rather then heard them—began to rise up around him, faintly at first, then with increasing intensity. He could hear a cacophony of voices, cries for help, sudden shrieks that seemed to pierce him. This gondola was the evil heart of the Octopus, Billy knew, and within it were the disembodied revenants of its victims—God only knew how many.

The gondola pitched upward suddenly, then fell with a frightening speed. It stopped with a squeal of cables and pistons, then jerked upward again. The Octopus was spinning faster, the world beyond the gondola a dizzying blur. Billy, his face twisted into a rictus, tried to force his concentration on the voices, tried to focus his energy on drawing the revenants to him.

No fear, he thought. No fear. I can help you. I can . .

A roar filled his head: No you can't! You can't reach them! I won't let you reach them!

The gondola was rising and falling, faster and faster, Billy's head brushing the mesh canopy with its upward sweep. He shut his eyes, his hands gripping the cracked vinyl armrests. There was a coldness in the air, gradually creeping up his body; he let it overtake him, and suddenly his brain was crackling with the last thoughts and images of perhaps a dozen people the Octopus had destroyed.

'No fear,' Billy breathed. 'Just touch me . . . no fear. . . .'

And suddenly electricity seemed to sear through him, and there was something else in the gondola with him, something laughing and shrieking.

The voice came in a triumphant cackle: 'You're mine now, boy!'

Billy shouted, 'NO!' The voice rippled and faded, and he knew he'd touched the pulse of wickedness in this machine. 'I know you! I know what you are now!'

Do you, boy? Then come join me.

Billy heard something grind and rip. He opened his eyes, and saw with horror that the long bolts securing the mesh canopy in place were slowly unscrewing. Smaller screws that held the safety bar were being ripped out. The canopy assemblage tore away and flew into the air. Wind screamed into Billy's face, forcing his chin backward. Another bolt clattered loose down around Billy's knees. The quarter-sized holes tore open still wider, like rotten cloth. The gondola was coming to pieces around him, and when it pitched him out to his death the entire machine would break loose, off-balance, and go spinning down the midway trailing live electric cables.

'STOP IT!' Billy yelled to Buck. He caught a quick glimpse of the man, bent over the control board like a hunchback, his hand pressed down on the lever. Above him more bolts unscrewed, in the central mechanism that