Full Tilt

And I was back in the twisted mockery of old Chicago. The vision was gone, and although I didn’t quite know where it had come from or what it meant, I knew it had unlocked a door somewhere deep inside me. It was a door that could come swinging open at any time, and, not knowing what was behind it, I wasn’t so sure I liked it unlocked.

The orange car was gone. I climbed out through the broken window of my car and slipped away down an alley so narrow that I had to walk sideways. The alley opened into another street and up ahead there was a little tavern, its neon sign flickering red. A wave intersecting a spiral. The ride symbol. And as I looked at the symbol on the back of my hand, it began to glow. I slowly approached the tavern and pushed open the door.

A bell jingled, and as I let the door close behind me the dangerous sounds of the city became distant, like a low rumble of thunder—far enough away to know you were safe, but close enough to keep you on edge.

The place smelled of spilled beer and polished wood. It was deserted except for the bartender, who wiped down the bar with a rag.

“Hello, Blake,” he said, with a broad smile. “Rough night out there?”

“How come you know my name?”

The smile never left his face. “I know all my customers.”

I looked the place over, peering under tables, behind the bar, but I couldn’t find a turnstile.

“Can I help you find something, sir?”

It seemed bizarre to me, this middle-aged man calling me “sir.” I didn’t feel like a sir. “I’m looking for the next ride.”

“A ride?” He put down his rag, then pulled out an old-fashioned black telephone, with a circular dial, and left it on the counter. “If it’s a ride you need, I could call you a taxi. But around here, I can’t vouch for the drivers.”

Out of curiosity, I picked up the receiver, wondering if it actually reached out of this place, like some landline to sanity. Instead of a dial tone, all I heard in the receiver was calliope music. I hung up quickly.

“Never mind.”

The bartender pulled out a glass and deftly filled it with what appeared at first to be beer. Then he poured in some of that red cherry-flavored stuff—grenadine, I think it’s called—and topped it off with a cherry. He slid it down the bar toward me, not spilling a single drop.

“Compliments of the lady,” he said, and nodded toward a tall-backed booth deep in the recesses of the pub.

I tasted my drink. Ginger ale and cherry syrup. A Shirley Temple. It was the kind of drink served to little kids too young to be humiliated by it.

I walked deeper into the bar to see what I had already suspected. The girl in the booth was Cassandra. She wore a flowing orange gown and a wide-brimmed hat, looking like something right out of a painting. Her copper hair flowed over her shoulders in a perfect fall. Smooth attitude poured from her like a scent. All the wires of everything I was feeling suddenly crossed at the sight of her, and I was at a loss.

“Was that you in the orange car, trying to kill me?”

“Do you want it to be?”

If I had chased her and cornered her, I might have acted differently. I might have demanded more answers right away, pushing until I got them. But she wasn’t cornered. I didn’t think she could be cornered in any situation. She just tried to kill you! I reminded myself, but the way she was looking at me now defused all my defenses. It was the same way she’d looked at me back at the ball-toss booth. As if she was drawn to me. As if she was somehow intrigued by me.

Who do you think you are? I said to myself. Look at you, standing here with your zits and your Shirley Temple. You look like an idiot, and she knows it.

Well, I didn’t have to be. I wouldn’t be.

I suavely slipped into the booth, pretending it didn’t hurt when I smashed my knee on the way in. “Thanks for the Shirley Temple. But couldn’t you at least have gotten me a root beer?” I tried to match her mysterious grin, but I had no idea whether I looked mysterious or dorky. I tried to focus on her eyes, but whenever I did, I couldn’t hear a word she said.

Better get used to it, I thought. There’ll be Cassandras everywhere once you get to college. If any girl there is ever going to give you the time of day, you’d better work up some major charisma. Fast.

For an instant I thought of Maggie, with whom I never had to work up anything but my own clunky self. But seeing Cassandra right in front of me kind of blew all other thoughts to smithereens.

“Enjoying yourself?” she asked.

I didn’t care to answer that one, because my answer wouldn’t exactly be suave and charismatic. “It looks like you sure are.”

She shrugged. “I pass the time well.”

“Is that what you call it—passing the time? Luring people onto rides and watching them die?”

“They don’t die,” she said. “Not exactly.”

“Exactly what happens to them, then?”

“You’re in no position to ask questions.”

“I’m asking anyway.”

She considered that, then said, “If you lose your life on a ride, the park just . . . absorbs you. Simple as that.” She stirred her drink, then touched the tip of my nose with her straw. “There are worse things.”

I didn’t know if I was more taken or terrified by her. “Who are you?” I finally asked.

She looked into me with those strange icy-hot eyes. “Who am I? The sum of your dreams; the thrills you refuse to grasp; the unknown you fear.”

“Gee, thanks for the haiku, but a picture ID would have been enough.”

She wrinkled her nose, annoyed that I was no longer falling for the mysterious-woman act. Score one for me.

She sighed, looking down into her drink. “If this amusement park were flesh, then you could say I’m its soul.”

I grinned in spite of myself. “The spirit of adventure.”

Then her expression darkened. “Yes. . . . And I’m very, very bored.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I felt a certain pressure in my back that radiated outward, making my fingers grow warm. An adrenaline rush. The kind that takes hold when some primal part of you senses danger.

Suddenly Cassandra grabbed my hand. “Is that fear you’re feeling?”

I pulled my hand back. “It’s none of your business what I’m feeling.”

She gave me an abrupt glare, as if I had slapped her, but like all of her expressions, it quickly changed. She was seductive and mysterious once more, but at least now some of her mysteries had been exposed. “I shouldn’t be keeping you,” she said. “After all, you’ve got five more rides to get through.”

“Or else what?”

She smiled. “Sammy can answer that one for you.” She turned to the bartender, who was still endlessly wiping down the dry, clean bar. “Sammy?”

“Yes, Miss Cassandra?”

“How long have you been with us?”

The smile drained from the bartender’s face, and his eyes darted back and forth like it was a trick question.

“It’s all right. You can answer,” Cassandra said.

Sammy swallowed hard. “Of course, I’d be guessing . . . but I’d say about thirty years now. I was fifteen then. I was on my third ride when I got caught.”

“Caught?”

“You know . . . dawn,” said Sammy.

“The sun rises, and we close our gates,” Cassandra said. “If you’re not out of the park by dawn, then you stay.”

I finally got the picture. Die on the ride and you’re part of the scenery. Get caught alive and you’re a slave of the park.

“There,” said Cassandra. “Consider that incentive to play hard.”

“It’s not all that bad here,” Sammy said, nervously wringing his hands. “I’d rather be here than in The Works, that’s for sure.”

“The Works? What’s that?”

But Sammy looked down, refusing to say another word about it. Instead, he took up his role as bartender again. “Can I get anything more for you, sir?”

“I’m sure Blake must be hungry. Why don’t you bring him the blue plate special?”

“Coming right up.” Sammy disappeared into a small kitchen void of any chef.

I finished my stupid Shirley Temple, crunching the ice and gnawing at the cherry stem as I thought of my possible fates. Which was worse? Scenery or slavery?

Cassandra studied me. “You’re not like the others who come here,” she said. “You really don’t want to ride.”

That much was true. It seemed everyone else here—all the other invitees—couldn’t wait to be a part of the thrills and chills.

“I guess you invited the wrong guy.”

Suddenly a plate covered with a silver dome was deposited in front of me with a clatter.

“Here you are, sir. The blue plate special.” Sammy returned to the bar, and the instant he was gone, Cassandra leaned forward and whispered with the kind of hushed intensity reserved for the most important of secrets.

“You’re not here by mistake or by accident. I wanted you here tonight. You more than anyone.”

Hearing that sucked the breath right out of me. I began to feel light-headed. “But . . . why would you want me?”

“Enjoy your meal.” She stood up and sauntered casually away. She pulled open the door, setting off a jingle of bells and letting in the awful sounds of crashing cars.

After she was gone, I could still feel the residue of her presence—both her malevolence and her allure. I was attracted and repelled at the same time.

I wanted you here tonight, she had said. You more than anyone.

It stunned me to think I was singled out. Me, who never looked for attention the way Quinn did. Did she know I would never have come here if my brother hadn’t stolen the invitation and come here first? Or was luring my brother here all part of her plan? If Cassandra was the soul of this place, that meant the amusement park was alive, and it wanted me—specifically wanted me.

I closed my eyes and took a few moments to try to defragment my brain. Then I opened my eyes again, and looked down to the platter in front of me, wondering exactly what the blue plate special might be. I hoped it wasn’t the broiled head of anyone I knew. A puff of steam escaped as I pulled away the dome, revealing that the plate was, indeed, blue. But there was nothing on it. Nothing but two words written across the plate:

I had no idea what that meant until I realized that the D was printed backward. I rotated the plate around.

The glowing ride symbol on my hand went dark, as if it had been scanned by the blue plate special, and then the booth suddenly spun like one of those haunted-house bookshelves that leads to a tunnel. The booth was revolving into the wall like . . .

Like a turnstile!

The entire booth turned 180 degrees, closing out the restaurant and leaving me sitting on the other side of the wall.

7

Big Blue Mother

I was in a warehouse, and I was alone. That was what struck me instantly—being alone. Through everything, I’d been surrounded by others: wild riders on the carousel, frenzied drivers on the streets of Chicago. But the revolving tavern booth deposited me in a lonely warehouse graveyard of battered cars and piles of rusted automotive parts, the waste products of my last ride.