Tremor (3 page)

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” Faith whispered, walking down the main thoroughfare of the park. There was something altogether wrong about a theme park with no lights or throngs of people, but it was also peaceful in a way that she could never quite explain. Maybe it was the idea that it was a place that should have been full of life but wasn't that had a heightening effect.

She felt a presence and knew, before she saw it, that she was being tracked by at least one cougar. They were stealth creatures, quiet as mice when they wanted to be. And they were big, seven or eight feet long and loaded with claws and teeth for killing.

The attack came from behind, and the jaws were wrapped around the back of her neck before her face hit the pavement. Faith felt her shirt ripping, the slight pressure of teeth against the skin. It was a big cat, the jaws clenched tight as they reached all the way around to the front of her throat. Faith raised her back, and the cougar moved as if it had been blown out of a rocket launcher. It flew end over end into the air, and, looking up, Faith deposited the beast inside a stranded roller- coaster car on the highest part of Goliath, a ride with a peak turn at twenty-six stories high.

“Maybe next time you'll think twice before hitting a girl from behind,” Faith said. She stood up, felt the shirt on her back.

“Damn. I really liked this one.”

It was a blue-and-gray-plaid shirt from Old Navy, the only one like it she'd found at the mall.

Maybe Glory can sew it back together again
, she thought.

She'd arrived at the edge of
Bugs Bunny
World, where the kiddie rides were located. She and Dylan had grown to love this part of the park because the rides were small and harmless. They could make the rides move without much risk of being seen, because the rides were so quiet and low to the ground and because
Bugs Bunny
World was hidden away, deep inside the park, below the big rides that dominated the night sky.

“Dylan?” Faith searched with her voice. “You in there?”

She felt nervous, never having gotten totally used to the idea that she couldn't be harmed, not by a big cat or a piano falling on her head. She kept walking, past a boarded-up concession stand and the WONDER WOMAN Lasso of Truth, a glorified fair ride guarded by a twenty-foot-tall wooden Wonder Woman. She had a very serious look on her face.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Faith said. “Weight of the world on your shoulders, right?”

She saw movement ahead, but it didn't worry her. Faith knew the soft, whispery sound of a ride being operated without the power of electricity.

“Sorry I'm late,” Faith said as she saw Dylan glide by inside a teacup, turning circles as he spun the wheel with his hands.

“It's okay; I've been having a pretty good time all by myself. Good ride.”

Dylan leaned his head back, staring up into the night sky as the cougar screeched from its roost far overhead, the sound echoing through the park.

“You didn't,” Dylan said.

Faith, a little embarrassed that she'd imprisoned a giant cat, turned around so Dylan could see her shirt in the dim light.

“The crazy thing attacked me. It's not helpless. It's a monster.”

“Whatever you say,” Dylan said, half smiling, as the ride carried him away and back again. He brought the ride to stop with his thoughts and held out his hand. His gaze fell on Faith. It was a look that pushed the rest of the world into shadow, leaving only the two of them in a place that was just their own. Belonged only to them. When Dylan looked at Faith with a smile that told her she was his everything, her prickly mood melted away.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's ride this crazy thing.”

Faith climbed into the same cup in which Dylan was sitting, the Pepe LePew's Tea Party, and sat down, laying her head heavily on his shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked, slowly starting the ride and letting it turn the teacup in a gentle circle. They'd decided it was one of their favorites, because it was easy to make it move and it made them feel like kids again. Faith lifted her head and pushed the dark strands of thick hair away from his forehead. He kissed her, and she closed her eyes, feeling the softness of his lips and the spinning of the teacup as one unbroken sensation. She couldn't say which was making her light-headed, the kiss or the turning of the ride.

“Do you ever wonder what this place was like before the States?” Faith asked, pulling away as their eyes met.

Dylan put a hand on Faith's knee and let his mind send the cup spinning in circles.

“They have better theme parks than this in the States. Disneyland West is supposed to be a million times better. I don't think humankind is hurting for rides.”

“But this is different, isn't it?” she asked.

“How?”

She couldn't figure out how to put it into words, so she just sat there, feeling a slight faintness as the teacup moved around and around. A theme park outside the walls of the States was different from one inside. It just was. Like the library they used to go to. The books were different from the stories on the Tablets.

“You wouldn't understand,” she finally said.

“I'd like to fight you on that, but I think you're probably right,” Dylan said. “Magic Mountain is the same inside or out. They
have
a Magic Mountain inside the States. The difference is, this one is empty and the rides aren't as good.”

Dylan let the ride come to a stop.

“In there we'd be fighting off an army of five-year-olds trying to get inside one of these teacups,” Faith said.

“Yeah,” Dylan agreed. “And they'd be making a lot of noise.”

“Some of them would be crying for their moms.”

Dylan looked up into the night sky and thought about what the park might have been like. “But most of them would be laughing. People would be crowded around, eating cotton candy and taking pictures. And the big rides would be going by, making everyone look up. Our friends would talk us out of these dumb kiddie rides, and we'd work our way through the crowds until we found ourselves standing in line for Goliath. I'd be nervous, but I wouldn't let it show; and when we got on, we'd all be laughing. We'd go up that first long climb, all of us looking over our shoulders at the people and the lights down below. And then we'd reach the top, flatten out for a few seconds, and you'd squeeze my hand really hard. Then we'd start screaming.”

This was one of the reasons Faith loved Dylan. He found his way to what she was trying to say without her having to say it.

“It's lonely out here sometimes,” Faith whispered. She hated crying, but she was so angry and sad about so many things the tears were starting to form.

“I'm not going anywhere,” Dylan said, taking her hand as Faith made the teacup spin around in a soft circle. She closed her eyes and imagined them at the top of the roller coaster, the wind just about to start blowing her hair back, her best friend, Liz, in the front seat. She imagined Liz leaning back, the curls of her dark hair flopping over her shoulder. And reaching out to her, she held on to Liz's outstretched hand, like Liz had always liked.

The cup started spinning faster, and the ride was moving along its usual route again. The ride kept going around and around, faster and faster. In her imagination, they were all flying down the roller coaster, laughing and screaming. Faith leaned back, let her hair fly in the wind, and then her little fantasy turned dark and terrible. In her imagination she looked down at the ground, but it was too late. The hammer was already flying through the air; Clara Quinn was already smiling up at her. The two parts of the hammer—the ball and the chain—slammed into Liz's head. She didn't even see it coming, so the last thing Faith heard in her mind was Liz laughing. Liz's head moved violently sideways, an anvil carrying the rest of her body out of the ride, because of course they weren't wearing seat belts—who wore seat belts in a nightmare? The last thing Faith felt was the soft skin of Liz's hand as it pulled free.

“Faith, I'm going to slow this thing down now,” Dylan said.

Faith couldn't feel the tears leaving the corners of her eyes as the wind pushed them back into narrow tracks. She couldn't see that she had let go of Dylan's hand, that she was groping in the air, trying to hold on.

When the ride came to a stop, Faith rolled over into Dylan's lap and took a deep, exhausted breath. She was like a girl with a split personality: either sad beyond all hope or trying to hold back a furious rage. Both threatened to destroy her, and keeping them in balance was wearing her down.

“Take me to the Looney Bin,” she said. “I need to lie down.”

Dylan kissed her cheek softly and then took Faith in his arms; and, rather than lift her up in the air, he walked like a normal sixteen-year-old. He wanted to feel his body heating up from the effort, to match the heat of frustration and tears coming off this girl. He passed by the darkened rides—
Elmer's
Weather Balloon,
Taz's
Trucking Co.,
Tweety's
Escape,
Yosemite Sam's
Flight School—and imagined the echoing, distant sound of small children laughing.

“We need to fire up
Foghorn Leghorn's
Railway one of these days,” Dylan said. “I think you'd like that one.”

He used his mind to open the door to the area called the Looney Bin, which was actually called the Looney Tunes Lodge, and carried Faith inside, closing the door behind him.

“Don't forget to let the cat out,” Faith said, half asleep already.

Dylan turned back with Faith still in his arms and looked up through the grated metal fence that surrounded the Looney Tunes Lodge. The cougar was a predator he should probably let fall to its death. It could take out a single-pulse drifter, and they were down to so few. Every person counted. But he couldn't bring himself to do it once he had the big cat moving through the air. Besides, there were thousands of wolves and big cats out there. Killing one wasn't going to make much of a difference either way. He flew the beast in close, a few feet away, letting it hover in the air like a helpless rag doll. Then he looked it in the eye and it looked back, confused and afraid. He dropped the cougar the final ten feet, where it landed on all fours.

I could have killed you,
Dylan thought as the two stared at each other.
Don't forget that.

The animal turned and darted away with dazzling speed, disappearing around a sharp corner.

“I was just thinking you and me, we're like cartoon characters,” Faith said. “That's why we like this place so much.”

“Are you saying I look like Elmer Fudd? Because that's not cool.”

Faith yawned, smiling softly, and Dylan carried her into the darkness. The Looney Tunes Lodge was, essentially, a glorified McDonald's play place. Larger, and with a few more plastic balls, but otherwise filled with the same kinds of slides and ladders and secret rooms.

“You do look a little like Fudd,” Faith said as Dylan set her down on a wide trampoline.

“Be thankful you're not a wascally wabbit,” Dylan said. “I'd have to shoot you.”

Faith rolled forward and Dylan lay down beside her, curling around her and smelling the rose-petal scent of her hair.

“I mean we can't get hurt,” Faith said. She was drifting away, Dylan could tell. “Like earlier, I was thinking a piano could fall on my head and I'd just pop right up, like nothing happened. Like Daffy Duck.”

Dylan wanted to remind her that Daffy Duck was, more often than not, gravely injured before he shook off the damage and charged ahead. But he didn't see what good it would do. And besides, Faith had rolled over in his direction, unexpectedly more awake, and there were far more enjoyable activities to attend to.

They kissed, long and passionately, and Dylan's hand found the softness of skin through Faith's ripped shirt.

“I'll have to thank that tomcat when I see him again,” Dylan said, moving his hand along her spine until it rested on her bare skin just below her neck.

“You boys are all in this together,” Faith said. They kissed again as he pulled her close. “I should have made you leave him up there.”

“He's got a lady friend somewhere around here,” Dylan joked. “Think of the trouble he'd be in if he stayed out all night.”

Faith pulled off Dylan's shirt and ran her hands up the length of his back and then down his muscular chest.

Dylan smiled, and his lips stretched playfully along Faith's own. She loved it when he smiled and they were kissing, as if his happiness were seeping into her, making her whole.

“How long before we make our escape?” Faith asked. She'd asked this question many times before, like a story she wanted to hear over and over again.

Dylan didn't hesitate. He pulled back and looked into her eyes, touched her cheek.

“One day, Faith Daniels, this
will
be over. We won't be a part of something we didn't ask to participate in. We won't be counted on to fix anything we didn't break. We'll be free. Free of the rebellion and the States—all of it.”

“And then what?” Faith asked, feeling her pulse quicken as she kissed him again and again. “Where will we go?”

Dylan rolled her over on her back and leaned in close.

“We'll go to the mountains, high enough where no one can find us. And we'll build a cabin together. We'll stay in bed until noon, get up, and make omelets full of wild mushrooms. We'll take long walks in the woods.”

“We'll need chickens,” Faith said as she stared deep into his golden-brown eyes.

“And a house cat. Should we bring the cougar?”

“Whatever you say.”

They rolled playfully across the trampoline, and Faith ended up on top. She looked down at Dylan, her hair falling in waves.

“I love you,” Dylan said, pulling her closer.