know. Maybe you’d better let go of my feet.” He felt Tanya release him. He raised his head. Samson’s eyes and mouth were wide open. The arms were raised from the elbows, fingers hooked down, as if he had died clawing at the darkness.
“Do something,” Tanya said.
“Yeah. Okay.” He lifted his fists and slid until his throat pushed against the top of Samson’s head and his elbows met the dead boy’s shoulders.
There, with the candle high, he gazed down the length of the body. He saw no wounds. But Samson’s legs were spread, and below them the slide gleamed with blood.
Not far beyond Samson’s feet was the end of the slide.
“I see the bottom,” Jeremy announced.
“What happened with Samson?”
“I think there must be knives or something under him. I think they’re in the slide.”
“Jesus,” Tanya muttered.
“Okay, I’m going over him.”
Jeremy pushed himself up, clamped Tanya’s knife in his teeth to free his right hand, and began to move forward, squirming, lifting himself onto the body. The head turned sideways under his chest. He felt the tickle of Samson’s hair, the bristle of his whiskers. He had a sudden fear of the clawed hands, so he pushed Samson’s arms down before squirming further. The body wobbled under him. It slipped a few inches, and he heard wet ripping sounds as he rode it. When the body halted, Jeremy studied the bloody slide to make sure there were no blades waiting for him, then scurried over the rest of Samson, wanting off him fast, no matter what might be in the darkness below. He felt the head press against his groin. He felt the cool damp of Samson’s jeans against his chest, then the slippery metal of the slide. He grabbed the boy’s leg as if it were a banister, using it to ease him along, to slow his descent and prevent the candle from blowing out.
Holding on to Samson’s shoe, he glided to the lip of the slide. He listened. He heard nothing except his thudding heart, his gasping breath, and sounds of movement on the slide behind him.
If trolls were waiting for him, they were being very quiet.
Candle in front of him, he dragged himself forward. The floor was a yard below his face. He raised his head and swung it from side to side. In the light of the candle he saw a section of hallway.
He saw no trolls.
He scurried off the slide and stood up. He scanned the darkness beyond the candle’s glow. Then he turned to the slide. “I’m down,” he called, his voice rasping and shaky. “I don’t see anyone. It looks okay.”
“I’m on my way,” Tanya said.
“Hurry.”
“There,” the girl said. She pointed. Dave swept his flashlight past a piling. It lit the concrete wall of a building’s foundation. The wall was scribbled with graffiti. “More to the right,” the girl said. He moved the light. The pale disk of its beam found a patch of boards. “It’s a door. It opens up. They went in there. It’s the Funhouse. We were chasing some guy.”
Dave stepped past Joan and rushed to the wall. He clamped the flashlight under his arm and pulled at the edge of the boards. They swung outward. He leaned into the opening. A small enclosure. Lighted candles on the walls. A staircase leading upward. He looked over his shoulder but couldn’t see anyone back there. “They went up the stairs?” he asked.
“Yeah,” came the girl’s voice. “We all did. But I chickened out and ran. All those trolls.”
“All right,” Joan said. “You two get out of here. Go home.”
“Aren’t you arresting me?” the boy asked.
“No. Go home.”
“Jeez. Thanks.”
“Sorry I hit you, kid. Now, go!”
Seconds later, Dave saw the dim shape of Joan rushing toward him. She came into the faint light from the candles, reached under her sweatshirt, and pulled out her revolver. Her face, smeared with grime from the tire of her car, was intended to make her resemble a troll. Instead, she looked like a commando camouflaged for a night raid. Dave saw fear in her eyes. And outrage.
“We’ll get her,” he said.
“Bet your ass we will,” Joan said, and rushed past him.
“Hold it!” he snapped.
She stopped and looked around.
“I go first. Stay with me. Stay glued to me, dammit.”
Joan nodded.
Flashlight in one hand, pistol in the other, Dave bounded up the stairs, taking them three at a time. At the first landing he covered Joan while she tried the door. It was locked. They raced up the stairway to