The Beast 2 Page 2

  Ever since we first saw it, Ashley and I have wondered what it would be like to sneak underneath the Vortex and collect all the loose change that must fly out of people’s pockets when the coaster spins them upside down.

  Maybe Ashley was underneath the Vortex right now, grubbing around on her hands and knees for loose change.

  Maybe not.

  I passed the old-time fifties café where they serve burgers and shakes. A woman was pulling down the shutter.

  I trotted over to the café, where a man was sponging off tables.

  “Did a girl with long blond hair and pink clogs happen to grab a quick burger just now?” I asked breathlessly. “She likes her burgers plain. No ketchup or anything.”

  The man with the sponge straightened up. “Kitchen is closed for the night. She didn’t stop here,” he said.

  I continued on. People streamed past me, tired and happy, heading for the parking lot. I searched among them for Ashley, my chest tightening by the second.

  The park was about to close. And my cousin was nowhere in sight.

  What was I supposed to do? Leave without her?

  I passed the basketball game booth, its lights out, its hoops still and empty.

  Only this afternoon Ashley had bet me five dollars I couldn’t sink eight free throws in a row. Ashley lost.

  I reached into my pocket and felt the wilted five-dollar bill I had won from her.

  “Ashley!” I yelled, turning in a tight circle and scanning the crowd. “I’ll give you back your five dollars if you show your face . . . right now!”

  A few strangers flashed me funny looks. But no Ashley popped up among them to claim her five dollars.

  I jogged along, checking to the left and right, scanning the darkened game booths, souvenir stands, and snack bars. Was she hiding in the shadows, peering out at me? Was she having a good laugh?

  How could she put me through this? Did she actually think it was funny?

  It wasn’t funny.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker system, “Paramount’s Kings Island is now closing. Please make your way to the exits and have a nice night.”

  I was most definitely not having a nice night.

  I felt myself being pushed along with the crowd as it streamed toward the Eiffel Tower, and the gates beyond. Then I froze and let the crowd flow around me.

  I turned slowly and looked back in the direction of The Beast.

  Maybe I was going the wrong way.

  Maybe she had never really left The Beast.

  Maybe if I went back right now, I would find her.

  Ashley would be waiting for me on the darkened platform, hugging herself, her big blue eyes wide and scared.

  Then again, maybe she was waiting for me at the gate, arms crossed, tapping her foot, angry because I had wandered off.

  I stood on the path and looked one way, then the other.

  I didn’t know which way to go, backward or forward.

  I didn’t know whether to be angry or scared.

  One thing I did know.

  I wasn’t leaving this park tonight. No way.

  Not without my cousin.

  4

  I had to stay in the park after the gates were closed and locked. Where could I hide? At closing time the place was crawling with security guards in blue suits.

  I whipped around and raced back along International Street, past the still fountains, back into the heart of the park.

  The air had grown damp and the orange moon was now shrouded in a thick, green mist.

  I felt cold. Maybe it was the sudden darkness. The emptiness. The quiet.

  Only minutes ago the park had been brightly lit and crowded. The fountains had been gushing, and cheerful music had blared over the loudspeakers.

  Now the lights were dim. The fountains were turned off. The loudspeakers silent. As I jogged along, the tiny lights in the soles of my sneakers blinked, first one, then the other, like a signal.

  An SOS signal.

  But there was no one here to help me. If I told one of the guards, he’d make me go to the office.

  The restaurants, the stores, the booths—everything was closed and padlocked and dark. The only sound I heard was the breeze riffling the treetops.

  I stopped and stared down into a reflecting pool. It shimmered like black glass. My face stared up at me, pinched and worried.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. A sick, panicky feeling squeezed my throat.

  My head jerked up at a sudden noise.

  Someone was coming from the direction of the games alley. I ran and ducked behind a wastebasket next to a lemonade stand.

  The wastebasket smelled like lemons. My nose twitched.

  Two security guards strolled past, the beams of their flashlights sweeping the path. They paused in front of the stand.

  My stomach flip-flopped. My nose twitched again. I felt a sneeze tickling at the back of my throat. Don’t tell me I had developed a sudden allergy to lemons!

  They played their flashlight beams across the bushes behind me and came to rest on the wastebasket. I curled myself into a tiny ball and pinched my nose to stifle a sneeze.

  “Wish I’d bet on that game,” one of them said to the other. “I’d be a rich man today.”

  “You and me both,” the other replied. “I could use a glass of lemonade right about now.”

  “A cup of hot tea would be more like it,” his partner replied. “I think we’re in for some rain tonight.”

  The flashlight beam swept away from me as the guards resumed their patrol.

  I let out my breath in a whoosh of relief. I sneezed quickly three times.

  I felt awful.

  I couldn’t believe I was hiding from the guards again. I couldn’t believe any of this was happening again.

  But it was.

  Last summer Ashley and I were locked in the park after it closed. On a dare I went along with my cousin’s crazy plan to spend the night in the park.

  At the foot of The Beast we had met an old bearded man in overalls who tested the cars at night. His name was P. D. Walters.

  P.D. had told us all about Firelight Park, the amusement park that had once stood on the same spot as Paramount’s Kings Island. Sixty years ago it had been destroyed by a tornado. Hundreds of people were killed. It was a tragic story.

  Then P.D. offered to let us have a ride on The Beast through the swirling nighttime fog.

  The ride had been awesome.

  There had been only one problem.

  We traveled into the past.

  Sixty years into the past.

  To Firelight Park.

  We met a boy named Paul. He was showing us a great time until a newspaper blew by. The date on the newspaper was the day the tornado was due to hit.

  Nobody believed us when we tried to warn them. It was only as the tornado was practically on top of us that we made an amazing discovery. Our young friend Paul and P. D. Walters, were the exact same people, from two different times.

  Luckily for us, we found The Beast and jumped on just in time. We escaped the tornado and went tearing back to the present.

  But we had failed to get Paul to come along with us.

  I’ll never forget.

  As we were leaving the park that night, we spied Paul’s name, among many others, engraved on a memorial plaque near the front gate.

  Then we knew two things.

  Our friend Paul had not survived the tornado.

  And P.D., the old man in the overalls, wasn’t really a special nighttime worker of the amusement park.

  P.D. was a ghost. The ghost of young Paul, who died in flames so many years ago.

  The stories people told were true.

  The Beast really was haunted.

  I could barely stand to think about it. But I had a terrible feeling Ashley wasn’t just lost somewhere in the park.

  Ashley was lost in time!

  5

  I knelt there behin
d the trash can, hugging myself to keep warm. A fine rain had begun to sift down from the low mist hanging overhead.

  Just my luck. And me without so much as a windbreaker to keep me dry.

  I pulled up the damp collar of my maroon-and-white striped soccer jersey.

  I’ve wondered a lot about time travel since that night last summer.

  Did The Beast itself send us roaring backward into the past? Or did P.D. flick the switches that sent us back?

  In the last year I’ve read every book on the subject of time travel I could get my hands on.

  Some of them are hard to understand. Most are pretty fascinating.

  I’ve read H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. Plus dozens of fantasy and science fiction stories.

  I’ve also rented every movie about time travel ever made.

  What I’ve learned is that there are lots of different ways to travel through time. All kinds of time machines and ways to send yourself back and forth.

  And somehow last summer when we were riding The Beast, we were sucked back sixty years in time to Firelight Park. I don’t know how or why. It just happened.

  Now, huddling in the rain, an idea flashed into my mind. I pushed the wet hair off my forehead and rose to my feet.

  Last summer The Beast had carried us both back in time.

  This time, for some reason, Ashley had been pulled back alone.

  I imagined her, all by herself, stuck in some other time, her blue eyes filling with tears. She’d be a mess without me.

  She might even be in trouble.

  I had to help her. But I couldn’t do it alone. I needed a helper.

  I had to get back to The Beast.

  Maybe P.D. was standing there on the platform, waiting for me.

  Maybe the old ghost could help me rescue Ashley from the past.

  I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I nearly didn’t duck down in time to hide from the guards on their return trip.

  I hit the ground seconds before they passed.

  Close call.

  One of them stepped off the path.

  He was marching straight toward the wastebasket.

  Straight toward me.

  The beam of his flashlight shone into my face.

  “Well, lookee here what I found!” he called out to his partner.

  6

  The guard dived toward me.

  I knew I should run while I still had the chance, but my sneakers felt rooted to the spot.

  Besides, my right foot had fallen fast asleep. I’d have to drag it after me, like a sack of potatoes.

  Maybe my brain was asleep, too, because I didn’t even have a good story ready to blurt out to him.

  I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to talk. My tongue felt as if it had swollen to the size of knockwurst!

  The guard bent down. His tall shadow fell across me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for him to grab me by my shoulders and yank me to my feet.

  But nothing happened.

  I opened my eyes, one at a time.

  The guard had straightened up again.

  He was staring down into his hand.

  “Well, lookee what I found,” he called out to his buddy. “It’s a genuine silver dollar.”

  I practically fainted in relief as he ran over to show his partner.

  “What do you know! It’s a nineteen twenty-eight!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know there were any of these around anymore.”

  “You might be a rich man yet!” His partner chuckled as the two of them strolled off.

  It was drizzling harder now. My shirt and pants were sopping, and my sneaker soles were coated with mud.

  I waited until the guards were out of earshot. Then I rose slowly, stamping my foot to work out the pins and needles.

  Then I made a beeline for The Beast.

  The park felt eerie. The buildings and rides hunched behind a thin curtain of falling rain.

  I kept to the grassy alley behind the buildings. I didn’t want to run into any more guards. My sneakers squeaked as I made my way across the wet grass.

  Running wasn’t easy. My breath came out in painful little puffs. I had that heavy feeling again, as if I had a rock weighing me down.

  I had a bad feeling about Ashley. I had the feeling that she needed me.

  I had to get to her. I had to help her before something really terrible happened.

  I wasn’t doing so great myself. I was wet all the way through to my underwear, and I was shivering from the cold.

  Then I heard something.

  I pulled up short and held my breath, listening.

  I heard the splatter of raindrops, sifting down like fine sand on the rooftops of the buildings and on the leaves of the small trees.

  But I heard something else, too.

  The ghostly clatter of wheels over wooden tracks.

  I’d know that sound anywhere.

  The rattle of the coaster wheels, the hollow sound of the empty cars rolling over the creaking wooden tracks.

  The Beast!

  I dashed up the ramp and skidded to a stop on the platform.

  Then I saw him. He stood with his hands on the control levers, his head lowered.

  He wore the same big, old-fashioned-looking overalls over a black, long-sleeved sweater.

  I shivered as a sudden damp gust of wind swept across the platform. It lifted his white hair up around his head like a loose, silvery hood.

  My heart was pounding. I cleared my throat nervously.

  He didn’t glance up from the controls.

  I guess he hadn’t noticed me yet. I wasn’t sure I even wanted him to notice me.

  There was still time to turn around and run.

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. But I stood my ground.

  Sure, I had come back here to find P.D. because somehow I knew that he was my only hope.

  But that didn’t mean I had the nerve to approach him.

  I found myself wishing Ashley were here.

  She would have just bopped up to him and said, “Hey, P.D., how’s it going?”

  I wasn’t feeling very bold. I was cold and wet and exhausted, and scared out of my mind.

  But I swallowed hard and opened my mouth to speak to the ghost.

  7

  “H-Hi,” I squeaked out feebly.

  P.D. raised his eyes from the control panel and stared at me. His eyes were dark and sunk deep in his pale face. His lips remained in a straight, grim line.

  Over the sound of the rain pelting the platform roof, I could hear the coaster cars as they clattered somewhere above us.

  Still he didn’t say anything.

  This year my hair was shorter on the sides but longer in the back. And I’d grown three-and-a-quarter inches.

  Was it possible he didn’t recognize me?

  I pushed the damp hair off my forehead and stammered, “Don’t you remember me?”

  “Of course I remember you, James,” his voice boomed back at me. It seemed to stir up the mist that swirled across the platform like wisps of smoke from a cauldron.

  “Great!” I broke into a relieved grin and moved a few steps closer to him.

  The moisture in the air had beaded on the white hairs of his beard and mustache. It looked like hundreds of tiny diamonds, sparkling in the darkness.

  He began to speak, his voice a low rumble in the smoky mist. “I’ll never forget that night in Firelight Park. You and your cousin Ashley really showed me a good time.” His lips curled into a smile. “I have very warm memories of that night.”

  He patted his belly. “I must have eaten half a dozen Coney Island Dogs. You were flush that night.”

  “Flush?” I asked.

  “Rich!” He threw back his head and laughed, the sound bouncing off the platform roof.

  It wasn’t that I was rich. It was just that a little bit of modern money went a long way back then. I mean, a hot dog cost only three cents.

  P.D. went on, “You had more m
oney than any kid I had ever met. Then again, most kids I knew were as dirt poor as I was. Still, it was the best night I’d ever spent in Firelight Park.”

  His face clouded over. “The last one, too,” he said sadly.

  I nodded without saying anything.

  What could I say? I’m real sorry you died?

  “It’s good to see you again, James. But why are you here?” he asked.

  And then it all came spilling out of me. How I had opened my eyes after the ride was over and Ashley was gone.

  “That’s why I came back here,” I explained, “to get your help.”

  He stroked his long white beard in silence. When he spoke at last, his voice was a ghostly whisper. “I still don’t understand, James. How is it that you think I can help you?”

  “You’re my only hope, P.D.,” I pleaded. “I think you’re the key—”

  I broke off as two security guards came up behind me through the mist. “What are you doing here?” one of them demanded.

  “I’m talking to P.D.,” I explained, gesturing toward the control booth.

  The two guards stared into the fog swirling across the platform.

  “Talking to who?” the guard demanded.

  I turned over to the control panel. Only a misty swirl remained where P.D. had stood moments ago.

  The ghost had vanished.

  But the guards were definitely there.

  And they had me.

  I was trapped.

  8

  One on either side of me, the guards firmly guided me down the ramp, away from The Beast.

  I threw a helpless look over my shoulder.

  “Don’t you know the park is closed, son?” one asked.

  “This is trespassing,” the other added. “You’re breaking the law.”

  “We’ll have to call your mom and dad,” the other guard said. “They won’t be too pleased.”

  I let them practically carry me through the park, past the silent rides, the darkened booths.

  I don’t think I could have walked on my own even if they’d let me. My legs felt limp and lifeless.

  I hung my head.

  Ashley was really in trouble now.

  How could I get Ashley back if they were going to make me leave the park?