“You hear what she called us?”
“Those guys’d clean our clocks.”
“They don’t scare me.”
Jeremy saw that the others had wandered farther down the corridor. They weren’t stopping to inspect the photos. Apparently they felt the same way as Woody and wanted to get to the real stuff.
Jeremy stopped at the photo of Jim and Tim, the Siamese twins. The two young men were joined at the hip. They shared something that looked like a double-pouched G-string. The sight of them made Jeremy feel queasy, but he stayed in front of the picture and stared at it.
“They’re getting away from us,” Cowboy said.
“I want to see this stuff,” Jeremy lied.
“Well, shoot. Stay, then.” Cowboy went on ahead.
Jeremy hurried after him. He gave the photographs only quick glances as he passed by them, and was rather glad he didn’t have a chance to look more closely. What he glimpsed as he rushed along wasn’t pleasant: a man with an extra arm, a small, withered thing that grew out of his chest; a furry woman in a bikini who had a face with a canine snout; a man with his tongue sticking out, a tongue that looked eight or ten inches long; a legless man doing a handstand; a woman with two heads; a woman with three breasts in a row, bare except for sparkling pasties with tassels; a giant man standing beside a midget who came up to his knees; and a man with arms so long that his hands almost touched the floor.
The photograph of the long-armed man was the last in the corridor. Jasper no longer stood in the corner. He must’ve followed the punkers.
Jeremy took a deep breath. He felt shaky and a little nauseous. The close, stifling air didn’t help. It smelled like an old house, abandoned and sealed tight for years. Lifting the front of his shirt, he wiped the sweat off his face. Then he followed Cowboy around the corner.
They stepped past the wall. A second corridor, similar to the one they’d just left, stretched toward the front of the building. The four jerks were gathered at the first display. Jasper stood beyond them, almost invisible except for his pale face.
“Let’s wait,” Jeremy whispered.
“Don’t be a woos,” Cowboy told him, and walked toward the group. But not quickly.
“It winked at you,” said the tattooed guy. His hand was on Jingles’ back, up under her T-shirt.
“Did not,” she said. She sounded worried, though.
“Which head?” Woody asked, and laughed.
They moved on toward the next exhibit, and Jeremy saw that they’d been looking at a human fetus in a jar. “Farout,” Cowboy said. He stopped in front of the platform and leaned close to the lighted bottle. Jeremy stayed beside him, but didn’t bend down. He could see just fine from where he stood.
The fluid in the bottle was yellowish and murky. The skin of the suspended fetus looked yellow too. The thing had two heads. Its eyes were open.
Jeremy wondered if the thing might’ve come from the two-headed woman whose photo he’d seen in the Gallery of the Weird.
Cowboy stuck his face so close to the jar that his nose nearly touched it. “Looks just like a little old man,” he said.
Jeremy swallowed hard and turned away. The group was clustered near the next oddity. Hairless and Woody stood together, arms across each other’s backs. Tattoo was standing partly behind Jingles, his hand moving slowly up and down her side.
“Check it out,” Cowboy said.
Jeremy looked at him.
Cowboy clutched the jar in both hands and gave it a quick shake. The fetus tilted, swayed, turned. Bits and flecks of something swirled in the fluid.
Jeremy gagged. He clutched his mouth. Praying he wouldn’t vomit, he whirled away. He blinked tears from his eyes and saw Jasper standing motionless in the dark. The old man must’ve seen what Cowboy did. But he raised no protest. Apparently he didn’t care.
By the time Cowboy lost interest in the fetus, Jingles and the others had moved on. A mummy remained—brightly illuminated by a spotlight at its feet.
“That ain’t Karloff,” Cowboy commented, heading for it.
It looked like no mummy Jeremy had ever seen in horror movies or museums.
It wasn’t wrapped.
It was a dried-up, brown cadaver, held into a standing position by a harness of leather straps nailed to the wall.
It had no eyes. Its jaw hung open. Its right arm was gone.
“Looks like he’s made outta beef jerky,” Cowboy said.
For the sake of decency, a rag had been tied around its pelvic girdle. Jeremy supposed the old man had done that.
When Cowboy crouched and lifted the rag, Jeremy shut his eyes.
“Ooooph,” Cowboy said. “Who let the air out? Come here and check this out.”
Jeremy opened his eyes, but averted them from the mummy. There were two more exhibits in this corridor. The four geeks had finished looking at both, and were turning the corner. “The gals are getting away,” he warned.
“Well, shoot.” Cowboy stood up and hurried forward. Approaching the next display, he slowed his pace. He angled toward it, but turned his head toward the end of the corridor as if he were torn between inspecting the oddity and catching up to the girls.
The oddity won.
Jeremy had caught a glimpse of it, so he stayed as far away as he could. “Haven’t you ever been in here before?” he asked.
“Never had the urge before. Can’t stand that crud, Jasper. Jesus, look at this sucker.”
This sucker was a black spider nearly three feet in height.
Jeremy took another quick look at it, and kept walking.
He supposed it must be dead, stuffed.
If it weren’t, it would be in a cage, not standing there on its display platform with nothing between it and the customers.
He hurried toward three shrunken heads on pedestals. He was glad to see them. Their monkeylike faces with stitched eyelids and lips seemed almost friendly compared to the other things he’d seen.
From behind him came Cowboy’s voice. “‘Jasper’s Giganticus.’” He sounded as if he were reading. Probably from one of the hand-lettered cards tacked up close to each exhibit. “‘Discovered by Jasper Dunn in the jungles of New Zealand, April 10, 1951.’ Poor critter,” he added in his regular voice. “Reckon its mother whacked it with an ugly stick.”
“Some shrunken heads over here,” Jeremy said, wishing Cowboy would come away from the damn spider.
“Yeah? Anyone we know?”
He heard Cowboy’s footsteps. They came up behind him. “Yeah. Hmm. Let’s go.” Cowboy didn’t stop for a close look at the heads, but kept walking.
Jeremy went after him. Before turning the corner, he glanced back at the spider. It was still on its pedestal. Of course, he told himself. What did you expect?
He stepped around the wall, and halted abruptly. He’d thought the punkers would be halfway down the corridor by now, but they were still gathered in front of the first exhibit.
This oddity
was
in a cage. More of a display case, actually. Jeremy had a good view of it through the glass or clear plastic side. It didn’t seem to be alive.
Like the mummy, it was held upright by leather straps.
“That ain’t no hairless orangutan of Borneo,” Tattoo said.
“Why, you seen one before?” Jingles asked.
“I seen orangutans at the zoo, and that ain’t one.”
It didn’t look like an orangutan to Jeremy either. More like what you’d get, he thought, if you took the Creature from the Black Lagoon and gave it claws instead of flippers and changed its lizardy skin to flesh that was white and smooth. Though it looked more than six feet tall and powerfully muscled, something about the texture of its flesh made it seem soft and a little sluglike.
It wore nothing except a G-string. The garment’s black pouch was enormous.
“What is this thing, really?” Tattoo asked, turning his head toward Jasper, who was standing some distance off.
“I was requested to remain ‘out of your faces,’” Jasper replied, “such as they are.”
“It’s nothing but a rubber suit,” Woody said. “The worldwide explorer picked it up at a rummage sale in Hollywood.”
“Yeah,” his girlfriend agreed. “I seen it in a flick.”
“I assure you,” Jasper said, “the creature before you is authentic, as are all my Oddities. Less than a decade ago, it lived and breathed. It rampaged, committing murder and rape.”
“Gimme a break,” Woody muttered.
“I think it’s your old man, Chingachgook.”
Jeremy’s stomach dropped.
Woody whirled around. His eyes seemed to be bulging from their sockets. His mouth hung open. He was breathing hard. Except for the quick rise and fall of his chest, he didn’t move.
Then his hand moved to the knife case on his belt. He unsnapped the flap and drew out a folding knife. He started to pry the blade from the handle.
“Uh-oh,” Cowboy said. He grinned, tipped his hat, then spun around and lunged around the corner.
Jeremy raced after him.
“Let’s get ’em!” he heard Woody yell.
Cowboy blasted open the door. Sunlight struck Jeremy’s eyes. Squinting, he saw Cowboy vault the wooden railing and drop to the boardwalk. He did the same. His feet hit the planking. His legs folded and his knees pounded the wood. Wincing, he scurried forward and tried to stand.
Someone landed on his back, smashing him down.
“Gonna trash you, fuckhead.” Woody’s voice.
He felt his hair being grabbed. His head was yanked up, scalp burning with pain, and he
knew
Woody was about to slash his throat. Instead, the guy jerked his hair downward, bouncing his forehead on the boardwalk.
“Hey, creepo,” Jeremy heard. “He didn’t do nothing.”
Cowboy’s voice.
Woody crawled off his back, making sure to dig in with his knees before leaving.
“Come ’n get it, jack-off,” Woody said.
Jeremy got to his hands and knees. Lifting his head, he saw all four of the creeps in front of him. They had Cowboy surrounded. Cowboy wasn’t even trying to run away. He just stood there, turning around slowly, grinning at each of them.
Woody and Tattoo both had their knives out. They were grinning back at him.
Spectators had formed a semicircle around the group. They looked excited, eager to see what might happen next. Did they think this was some kind of
performance?
“Last time I saw turds like you,” Cowboy said, turning from Jingles to Woody, “was just before I flushed.”
You idiot! Jeremy thought.
Tattoo darted in from the side. Cowboy danced out of the way, but the knife jumped at him and sliced his forearm.
“Hey, now, ratface…”
Woody charged at him from the rear.
Jeremy threw himself forward. Diving, he caught one of Woody’s ankles. As the guy flopped flat, Jingles rushed over and stomped Jeremy’s forearm. He cried out. She raised her boot to stomp again, and he pulled his arm in quickly and started to roll away from her. Jingles pranced after him. She stopped his roll when Jeremy was on his back—by ramming her boot down on his belly.
For an instant, as the foot descended, he realized he had a wonderful view right up the front of her chopped-off T-shirt. He saw the round undersides of her breasts, even the bottom parts of her nipples. Just the sort of view he’d been hoping for.
Great, he thought.
Then his body seemed to explode with pain and his breath blasted out.
Up ahead, a bum swatted at the woman standing in front of him. The miniature cassette recorder flew from her hand. It tumbled, nearly striking a passerby in the face. As the woman whirled away from the bum to go after the recorder, Dave got a side view and saw that it was Gloria.
“Ace reporter in action,” Joan said.
“Christ,” Dave muttered.
Joan drew her nightstick from the ring on her belt and headed for the bum. Dave strode toward Gloria. She scooped the recorder off the boardwalk and shook it near her ear as if to find out whether it had developed a rattle.
“Gloria.”
Her head snapped toward him. For an instant she looked startled and disoriented. Then she smiled. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yes, it’s me.” He couldn’t keep the annoyance out of his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I was trying to conduct an interview, but—”
“No please, no please!”
“Shut up.” Joan prodded the bum closer to Gloria. His watery eyes looked terrified.
Sighing, Gloria shook her head. “Don’t hurt him. Leave him alone. He didn’t do anything. I…intruded on his territory.” She met his eyes. “I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“Let him go,” Dave said.
“Take a hike, mister,” Joan told the bum, and slipped the nightstick into her belt.
He wandered away, muttering to himself.
“I’m sorry, you two,” Gloria said.
Joan shrugged, smiled, and said, “No problem. Are you all right?”
“Fine. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I’ve been trying to get
their
side of the trolling story…and meeting with a good deal of resistance. They just don’t trust me.”
“They’re all paranoid,” Joan told her.
“Why don’t you find yourself a different story?” Dave said. “You’re never going to get any straight answers from—”
“Cops!”
Dave pivoted away from Gloria. A kid ten or eleven years old was racing through the crowd. He turned and pointed behind him.
“Cops!”
he yelled again. “A fight! Knives!” He slowed down as he got close to them. “Somebody gonna get killed! Fronta the Funhouse!”
Dave yanked the radio from his belt. He thumbed the speak button. “Officers need assistance. Funland. In front of Dunn’s.” For good measure he added, “Send ambulance.” He jammed the radio back onto his belt, and took off after Joan.
She had already sprinted past the huffing boy. Dave put on the steam, but couldn’t catch up to her. He didn’t like the idea of Joan being first—not heading into a situation they knew so little about. The kid had said there were knives. Plural. At least two knives, but how many? Dave wished he’d taken a second to get more information.
Find out soon enough, he thought.
“Wait up!” he called to Joan.
She didn’t wait up.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
Worried and frustrated as he felt, Dave had to admire her moves. God, she was fast! And the way she darted and dodged around the people in her way reminded him of O. J. Simpson in the old days, going for a touchdown.