Thunderland (25 page)

* * *

In the seemingly suspended period of time that marked Jason’s fall, he imagined his body as a big, thick pillow that would strike the ground with only a feather-light thump; He saw himself landing on his back and feeling jubilation as he realized that he’d sustained no injuries whatsoever. His fantasy was hopeless, he knew, like the optimistic yet doomed thoughts of everyone on the brink of a lethal accident, but he imagined it anyway-imagined it so intensely that, in his mind, his miraculous landing had become fact. He experienced it so vividly that his desired outcome seemed
inevitable.

Imagining feverishly, he squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the agony of the impact.

Nothing happened.

Heart hammering, he opened his eyes.

He lay on the ground. Puddles bubbled around him.

High above, shadows cloaked the Ferris wheel, pulsating eerily with each discharge of lightning.

He lay there, cold raindrops splattering his face.

He lifted his arm, flexed it. It was okay, not broken.

He wriggled his fingers. They were fine, too.

He did a mental inventory of the remainder of his body, trying to detect any injuries. Nothing hurt. He was in good shape.

And he had fallen from a height of more than twenty feet.

And had not felt the impact.

As if what he had imagined during his fall had become reality.

Trembling, he sat up.

He did not know how this discovery would affect his attempts to solve the mystery of the Stranger; in fact, he was not convinced that it was more than a freak occurrence. But ... if he could create whatever he imagined in this quasi-world, that meant he had some control. No, not control—power. Power. The power to fight back and maybe win this bizarre game the Stranger had made him play.

Excitement coursed through him.

He got to his feet. He searched the concourse, wondering how he should test his newfound ability. Then he saw a large canvas tent, standing a hundred yards ahead.

The huge, colorful banner read:
FREAK TOWN.

It was not the idea of a freak show that had hooked his attention. What grabbed him was the open, fluttering flap that formed the tent’s entrance, and the pale-yellow radiance that emanated from within.

Inexplicably, he was drawn to the tent. He did not expect to see any carnival freaks inside. He anticipated something much more extraordinary—although he could not explain why he expected to see anything at all.

Once he reached the entrance, he halted.

The rainfall had ceased. The sky was still black with swollen thunderclouds, but the lightning and thunder had stopped as well. The cool wind that blew sporadically was soft, refreshing.

From his position a couple of feet beyond the doorway, he saw that the pale-yellow incandescence was emitted by rows of lightbulbs. The naked bulbs dangled above the roped-off walkway and the dozen or so stalls behind the ropes.

He stepped inside the chamber.

The motionless air was thick with humidity. It smelled of wet canvas and sawdust.

“Is anybody here?” he said.

No answer.

It seemed empty, but he could not discard his feeling that something awaited him in there. He strolled down the walkway, peering into each stall he passed. All of the stalls were empty. Except the last one.

On the blanketed platform of the last compartment, Michelle reclined languorously.

“What are
you
doing in here?” he said.

“Waiting.” She sat up, ran her fingers through her hair.

“Waiting for who?”

“For you.” She smiled.

He approached her. “Hold on, this isn’t making any sense. First of all, do you know where we are?”

“Sure.”

“Where are we?”

“The carnival, silly.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant this place, this world where is it?”

She giggled. “This world? You’re the one who isn’t making any sense, Jason.”

“Okay, forget about that. Tell me how you got here.”

“I walked with you. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I do. But before I came here, we were riding the Ferris wheel.”

“Yes. About to kiss.” Giggling, she scooted closer to him.

He dragged his hand down his sweaty face. “I’m confused. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve gone crazy. None of this is making any sense at all.”

“Sure, it is.”

“No, it isn’t. I mean, when I first saw you here, you said that you’ve been waiting for me.”

“I have been waiting.” She moved closer until she sat directly in front of him. Her knees pressed against his legs.

“But how did you know I was going to come in here in the first place?”

“Because I know you.”

“What do you mean?”

She picked up his hand, rubbed his fingers. “I know you as well as you know yourself.”

“Come on. I like you, but we’ve only known each other for a couple of months.”

Smiling, she shook her head. “No, longer than that. Much longer.”

“What does that mean?”

Instead of answering, she wrapped her arms around his neck, drew him forward, and kissed him softly on the lips. Her lips were warm and sweet, and he felt a strong urge to forget about everything and go on kissing her forever. He slid his hands down to her waist, then to her hips, while her soft hands kneaded the back of his neck.

Their lips parted.

“That was a first kiss to remember,” she said.

“It was,” he said, breathing hard. “It really was. But you haven’t answered my question.”

She kissed both corners of his mouth. “I’ll answer it later. When I’ve finished.”

“When you’ve finished what?”

“Doing things for you.” She kissed his chin.

“What are you going to do for me?”

“Give you things. Fulfill your most secret wishes. Like I promised you the other night.”

A chill seized him.

“What did you say?” he said, the unthinkable flashing in his mind.

Not answering, smiling as if amused at his sudden horror, she lowered her hand to his crotch, unzipped his jeans, and slipped her fingers inside his boxer shorts. She squeezed him gently. That soft pressure and the feeling of her smooth, warm hand filled his chest with a delicious tension. He moaned.

Slowly, she stroked him up and down.

“Oh, God,” he said. In spite of his terrifying knowledge of this girl’s true identity, he was unable to push her away and run. She had discovered his sexual fantasy, had taken his hand and enticed him to
live
it, and he was helpless to resist. Overwhelmed by the power of his own secret desire.

With every fluid motion of her expert hand, a flash of pleasure shot through him. His knees weakening, he leaned against her. She curled her free arm around his waist and leaned back until she lay on the blanketed platform and he lay beside her.

She placed her hand on his chest, pushed him onto his back.

“I can’t do this,” he said. “I shouldn’t do this.”

She helped him remove his shirt.

“I have to get out of here,” he said. “This is nuts.”

She sat up and began to take off her tank top.

“This is insane.”

She whipped off her shirt, then slid off her shorts, too.

He gaped at her nude body. Her body was fabulous, better than he had dreamed it would be. As he stared at her, the front of his boxer shorts rose into a pyramid. He blushed.

“Looks like a friend wants to be let out.” She rolled his jeans down his legs, freeing him.

“I can’t do this,” he said, aroused anyway. “I just
can’t.”

She straddled him, placed his hands on her hips, and lowered her face to his. She kissed him. “You can,” she said, and started to prove her point.

When Jason awoke, he was sprawled on the platform, alone. His pants and shirt lay crumpled beside him. The sweet scent of Michelle’s perfume hung like a lingering spirit in the humid air.

No, not Michelle’s perfume.
Its
perfume. The Stranger’s.

Grimacing, he sat up. The idea of having done it with the Stranger, regardless of the beautiful body he had assumed and the pleasure he had given him, was sickening. He had a compulsion to wash himself, to scrub until his skin was raw, as though by giving himself a thorough cleansing he could wipe the experience out of his memory. Something within him felt dirty.

He put on his shirt, zipped his jeans. Jumping off the platform, he left the stall and stepped onto the roped-off walkway.

When he had approached the tent, he had sensed a presence within. Now he sensed nothing.

He wanted to track down the Stranger, learn who he was and why he was doing these things, but he did not know where he had gone. Soon after he climaxed, things had got blurry and he passed out. When he awoke, the Stranger had vanished.

The prospect of searching the carnival for the Stranger was daunting. In this nightmare place, the Stranger was king. There was no telling what obstacles he might throw at Jason in an attempt to keep him away.

Because he had no alternative, Jason walked down the passageway, toward the fluttering flaps of the entrance. Each naked lightbulb that he walked under mysteriously extinguished itself when he passed it, the darkness behind him tightening into a black womb.

He arrived at the tent doorway. A dilapidated ticket booth stood beside the entrance. It was empty.

No one was in sight.

Outside, the carnival was silent.

He stood inside the doorway, soaking up the peculiar atmosphere of the place. Where, exactly, was this amusement park located? In another dimension? In a dream world? Figuring that a walk would kick his mind into gear, he stepped outside

... and found himself sitting in the gondola on the Ferris wheel, beside Michelle. She frowned at him.

“I thought we agreed to kiss on the count of three,” she said. “You sat there with your lips puckered. I ended up kissing your shirt.”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“If you didn’t want to do it, you should have told me,” she said. “I would’ve understood. I admit, kissing on a Ferris wheel is kind of silly.”

He stared at her, heart ramming against his rib cage. He looked around. The basket in which they sat had passed the top of the wheel. It descended slowly, creaking gently. The carnival was crowded, music and other noises bursting from everywhere.

The day was clear, sunny, warm.

His watch functioned. It read 1:39, and the seconds steadily ticked away. His clothes were dry, too, even though, only a short while ago, he had been walking through rain.