Funland (22 page)

Standing there, he hesitated. With the stiff brim of the derby, he nudged his glasses more firmly against his face.

“You don’t have to jump,” Shiner told him.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Liz isn’t here to razz you.”

“Tanya jumped, I can jump.” And he did. His feet hit the sand, his knees folded, and he seemed to dive forward. After getting up, he watched Shiner and Jeremy climb over the railing.

Hanging on to the outside of the bars, Jeremy could see why the smaller kid had been reluctant to leap from such a height. But the others had done it. He didn’t want to look like a chicken by turning around and trying to lower himself off the boardwalk so the drop wouldn’t be as great.

Shiner leapt.

As she fell, Jeremy stepped into space. He didn’t want to think about the troll, but suddenly he imagined himself as the old man plummeting from the top of the Ferris wheel, knowing he was as good as dead. For just an instant, terror seized him.

Then his feet struck the sand. The impact collapsed his knees. His rump was pounded, and a knee clipped him on the chin, jarring his teeth together. He flopped onto his back. As he sat up, Shiner reached down to give him a hand. He took hold of it. She pulled, helping him to rise.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Nodding, he ran his tongue across the edges of his teeth. He half-expected to find some chipped, but they seemed all right.

“You should’ve rolled,” she told him.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“If you two don’t require my assistance,” Randy said, “I’ll catch up with Tanya.”

“Sure,” Shiner said.

The boy rushed off into the fog.

Jeremy and Shiner wandered around, bending over and gathering the troll’s scattered clothes.

“I kind of feel sorry for Randy,” she said. “He’s a pretty sensitive kid. This was rough tonight.”

“That’s for sure.”

“He’s not…into this like some of us. He’s only here because he’s got some kind of crush on Tanya.”

“Really?”

Shiner stepped up close to a piling and tossed the troll’s jacket and pants into the darkness.

“Shouldn’t we take the stuff in under there? Maybe like scatter it around some?”

“No. Just throw it. There’s probably trolls.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. We’d better not hang around too long.”

Jeremy hurled the shoes, socks, and shirt, then backed away. “You think anybody saw what happened?”

“You mean trolls? Some might’ve. They’re always hidden around. I bet they know everything that goes on.” She picked up the long johns, pulled the cane out of the sand, and retrieved the feathered derby.

Jeremy lifted the duffel bag. It was awfully heavy. “Will they tell?” he asked.

“Not a chance.”

They stopped just under the edge of the boardwalk, and Shiner threw the troll’s things into the darkness.

“I’d better carry this in a little ways,” Jeremy said.

“No, don’t. Just toss it under. It’ll be picked clean by morning anyway.”

Holding the canvas bag by its strap, he swung it forward and let go. It vanished. A second later, it landed with a soft thump and a clinking of glass, as if bottles were knocking together.

“Some trolls’ll be glad to find that,” he said.

“Tha’s a fack.” The dry, withered voice came out of the blackness in front of him.

He flinched rigid. Shiner grabbed his arm. He wanted to spin around and run, but she held on to him and walked slowly backward. He heard her breathing hard.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t go under there?” she asked after several strides.

“God.”

“I have all kinds of nightmares about getting caught by them. That’s about the worst thing I can imagine, you know?”

She let go of his arm and turned around.

Jeremy turned around too. Then he looked back over his shoulder. The black space beneath the boardwalk was a vague blur through the fog. He tried to spot the Ferris wheel, but it was out of sight.

“I bet you never thought you’d get into anything like this,” Shiner said.

“That guy biting it.” He shook his head.

“Bad. Real bad. Makes me feel kind of sick, you know? I mean, he was a troll, but still…” She leaned against his side, and Jeremy put an arm across her back. “It was pretty terrible, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

They kept walking. He could see nothing in front of him except sand and the fog.

“I hope he doesn’t wash in sometime,” Shiner said. “That’d be awful if people are on the beach and he comes in, you know?”

From the sound of the surf, Jeremy guessed they must be getting close to the shore. But he still couldn’t see the water, or Tanya and the others.

“Nate’s going to take him out on a surfboard?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

“Does he have to go all the way home to get it?”

“No. Shouldn’t take him very long. He keeps it in a storeroom in the arcade. He surfs in the morning sometimes before the place opens.”

“He’s Tanya’s boyfriend, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Jeremy noticed that his feet no longer pushed into the sand. The beach felt solid. It slanted downward slightly. Here and there, it was littered with dark clumps of kelp that looked less like seaweed than like strange tentacled creatures dead on the shore.

A ragged fringe of white foam spread toward him. Shiner stopped walking. A couple of yards before reaching their feet, the foam settled and faded away. Jeremy heard the water receding, a fresh wave washing in.

“The others must be over there,” he said, nodding to the left.

Shiner turned her head that way. Then she looked forward again. Her hand tightened against his side, so Jeremy pressed her a little bit closer.

“I guess we should go over there,” she said.

“Yeah.”

But she didn’t move, so neither did Jeremy. He realized his heart was beating more rapidly than before.

This is fine, just standing here, he told himself.

He wondered what she was thinking about.

“You’d think we could hear them,” Shiner said.

“Should we try to find them?”

“Do you want to?” she asked.

He shrugged. He wanted to stay right here. And
that
was weird too. Tanya was the one he was crazy about, not Shiner. He could be with Tanya right now—looking at her, hearing her voice.

But I wouldn’t be holding her like this, he thought. She’s Nate’s girl. I don’t stand a chance with her.

“I think I might quit trolling,” Shiner said.

“Really?”

“I don’t know. Killing a guy like that. I hate the trolls, but killing them…”

“If you quit, when’ll I see you?” The words were out before he had a chance to think about them and back off.

She turned her face toward Jeremy.

“Why don’t you give me your number?” she said.

His heart felt like a drumming fist.

“I…we just got our phone. I don’t know the number. If you give me yours…”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’d like to, but I’m not allowed to get calls from boys.”

“Huh?”

“My mother, she’s…a little peculiar. She thinks I’m too young to have a boyfriend.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Same here.”

“Maybe we could meet somewhere,” she suggested.

“Sure.” He felt as if he could barely breathe. “Yeah. That’d be great.”

“How about here at the beach tomorrow afternoon? The fog’ll probably burn off by noon. How about one o’clock? We could meet over by the lifeguard station.”

“Great.”

Shiner squeezed him against her side.

Then someone came striding along the beach in front of them, and they both flinched.

Nate. Barefoot and wearing a wet suit. Carrying a surfboard under one arm.

He turned and came toward them. A few strides away, he stopped. His head swiveled from side to side. “Where are the rest of them?” he asked.

“Over there someplace,” Shiner said. She raised her left arm and pointed.

He started away. “You coming?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Shiner let go of Jeremy, and they both started walking along behind Nate. Jeremy’s side felt cold where she had been pressed against it.

“Tanya?” Nate called.

“Over here.” Tanya’s voice sounded far away, but straight ahead.

Shiner took hold of Jeremy’s hand. Her warmth seemed to flow up his arm and fill him.

He found himself thinking about tomorrow. It would be like having a real date with her. He hoped she was as pretty in the sunlight as she seemed in the darkness. She would probably be wearing a swimsuit—maybe some kind of a bikini. And they’d be meeting near the lifeguard station, so Tanya would be there. He could look at both of them.

It’ll be great, he thought.

Then he saw three faint dark figures standing in the fog ahead of Nate. The naked body of the troll lay at their feet. The cuffs had been removed.

Shiner didn’t let go of his hand when they joined the group. Jeremy was glad. In a way, it seemed as if she were showing him off, saying, “Look what I’ve got.”

He felt as if the two of them had suddenly become a “couple.”

“Anybody see you?” Tanya asked Nate as he set his surfboard down beside the corpse.

“Nope. Maybe some trolls, but I didn’t spot any.”

“This is one troll they won’t be getting their hands on,” Samson said.

He and Nate crouched at the other side of the body. They rolled it over onto the surfboard. Jeremy’s stomach clutched a little when he saw the broken legs flop loosely. But he was relieved that the troll was facedown now, penis out of sight. There was a dark splotch on one of the buttocks. A birthmark?

“He’s going to slide right off there if we don’t strap him down,” Nate said. “I couldn’t find any rope. Any of you wearing belts?”

“Yeah,” Samson said. “Won’t go around him
and
the board, though.”

“We’ll need a couple, at least.”

“I’ve got one,” Jeremy said.

Shiner said, “Me too.”

“Sorry,” said Randy, and lifted his jacket as if he felt the need to prove he had no belt.

While Jeremy removed his belt, he watched Shiner raise her windbreaker above her waist, open her belt, and slide it through the loops of her jeans. She wore a plaid shirt. The side of it was untucked and bunched up. A small pale patch of skin showed near her hip. Once the belt was off, she tugged the windbreaker down again.

“Are you going to bring them back?” she asked Nate as she gave it to him.

“I’ll sure try.”

“It was a present from my sister,” she added.

Her sister. The one who had vanished. The one the trolls got. When Jeremy had heard about it earlier, Shiner had been a stranger. Now she was special to him and he felt a tug of sorrow for her loss.

Nate buckled Jeremy’s belt to Samson’s. While Samson held an end of the surfboard off the sand, Nate slipped the joined belts underneath it. Samson lowered the board. Nate straddled the body, brought up the ends of the belts, and fastened them in the middle of the troll’s back. He used Shiner’s belt to strap the troll’s ankles against the surfboard’s tail.

“Okay,” he said. “All set.”

“Not quite,” Tanya said. She stepped around the body and approached Jeremy. “Let me have the card,” she told him.

He was confused. What card? Didn’t she mean the whistle? Then he remembered. He dug into his pocket, found the Billy Goat Gruff calling card, and handed it to her.

She smiled at him.

“Here,” he said. “You can have your whistle back.” He took it off and dropped it into her hand.

“I guess you didn’t need it,” she said, and slipped the chain over her head. A finger of the hand that held the card hooked the neck of her sweatshirt out, and she dropped the whistle down her front. “Let’s just say you got initiated,” she told him.

“We
all
got initiated,” Nate said.

Tanya stepped to the front of the surfboard and squatted down. Reaching between her knees, she turned the troll’s face toward her. She pulled the chin. The mouth opened. She stuffed the card inside, then clapped the mouth shut.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Nate said.

She left it there, and stood up. “The guy’s fish bait,” she said. “Besides, nobody’ll be able to read it anyway by the time he’s been in the water a few minutes.”

Nate shrugged. He muttered, “What the hell.”

Then he and Samson lifted the surfboard off the sand. They carried it like a stretcher down the beach.

The others followed. Jeremy saw the thin, foamy edge of the water sliding toward him, but he kept going. Cold wetness soaked through his shoes and socks.

He saw the ocean. Black waves, crested with white, rolled toward him out of the fog.

He imagined the troll sinking out there, all alone in the cold dark water, and felt himself go frozen inside.

It’s not like the guy’s alive, he told himself. He’s dead. He won’t feel a thing. He won’t
know.

But the awful frigid feeling stayed.

They all halted except Samson and Nate. Randy moved over close to Tanya. Shiner curled her fingers around Jeremy’s hand.

The two boys waded out with their cargo. They set the surfboard down in knee-deep water. As Samson hurried back, Nate pushed the board farther out.

A wave broke over the head and back of the dead man.

After it washed by, Jeremy saw Nate behind the surfboard, pushing it in front of him.

Shiner turned Jeremy toward her and held him tightly against her body and pressed her face to the side of his neck.

When he looked again toward the ocean, he saw only the surf and the fog.

Twenty-one

After roll call, Dave sat at his desk to prepare his report on yesterday’s incident at Funland. He relived it all in his mind as he pecked the typewriter keys. When he wrote of Joan’s decisive moves against the knife-wielding perpetrator, his thoughts drifted away to the other, vulnerable Joan in her anguish over demolishing the kid. He lingered on the way she’d felt in his arms, and how it had been, kissing her.

Joan’s desk was off to the side. He looked at her. She was leaning back in her swivel chair, phone at her ear, legs stretched out. Like Dave, she wore her bright blue BBPD jacket over her beach uniform. The jacket wasn’t fastened. It hung open in a way that showed her right breast stretching the fabric of her T-shirt.