“Yes we will!”
Mallory laughed as they broke from the crowd and dashed across the thoroughfare, racing through the ten-foot gap between the drum major and the first rank of players. The music enveloped her, every blast of the horns and beat of the drums vibrating her body like the shockwave of an explosion. Her laughter escalated into a cry of delight, mixing with the noise. In her peripheral vision she saw the faces of the crowd turn to follow her, making her feel like a starlet in some old romantic movie.
They plunged into the throng of people lining the other side of the road and rushed on, moving like they had only one last chance to experience the park’s selection of mechanical wonders before Doomsday.
“Hey!” a voice shouted.
Tim stopped and looked to the left. Mallory traced his line of sight to see a man in a white shirt and black pants emerging from the crowd. He had a radio clipped to his belt and uniform patches with the word ‘SECURITY’ in capital letters on his shoulders, breast pocket, and ball cap. He was already coming toward them at a brisk walk.
Tim gasped. “Oh, crap. We’re busted.”
“Not if we keep going,” Mallory replied.
She sprinted away, pulling Tim with her the way he’d pulled her. They hurried to the entrance of The Monster, finding only a handful of other fairgoers waiting for the ride’s next boarding. They threaded themselves through the railings meant to corral the crowds, ducking under the metal beams rather than walking around them. Black cargo netting made up the walls and ceiling of the waiting area, and green lights glowed from concealed locations. They reached the end of the line and climbed over the railing along the northernmost wall. Tim held up the cargo netting, and Mallory slipped into the shadows.
“Stop!” the security officer’s voice shouted from somewhere far behind them.
Mallory glanced around, unable to hold back the smile of excitement that had taken hold of her lips.
“Where to?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know. We’re off the map now.”
Around them loomed the wooden superstructure of the fair’s oldest roller coaster, The High Roller. In daytime the forest of tall support beams and crisscrossing braces appeared bright and airy, but now, at night, with minimal lighting from the other rides, the shadows heaped on each other like a pile of fallen trees. They stood at the far end of the ride, where the tracks rose skyward and made a U-turn sixty feet in the air, sending its train of cars racing downhill and back to its start point. On the far side of the open space in the middle of the turnaround, the darkness beyond the towering struts seemed infinite.
Mallory spotted a small shed under the tracks thirty yards to her left. “This way!”
She resumed running, dodging around the concrete footings of support posts and ducking diagonal crossbeams. The tall grass licked at her ankles. They passed under one of the coaster’s rises just as the train of cars roared past above them, overpowering her cry of surprise. She looked back at Tim, exchanging silent laughs as her hearing recovered from the noise.
They reached the shed and hunkered down behind it, kneeling in the shadows. The building hummed with some internal contraption, radiating enough heat to add an extra ten degrees to the air. Tim peered around the corner and looked back the way they’d come.
“I think we lost him,” he whispered, chest heaving.
Mallory slumped against his shoulder, catching her breath. “And I worried I wouldn’t get my jog in today.”
Tim gave the terrain another glance then turned to face her, his expression uncertain. “We should probably try and get back to the main road as soon as possible. I didn’t mean to get us in trouble.”
Mallory smiled. “We didn’t do anything wrong. That was just some rent-a-cop trying to feel important.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“It was fun, though, wasn’t it?”
The worry ebbed from his eyes. “It was pretty exciting.”
“I’ll say. I’m still shaking from when the roller coaster blasted over us. How freaky was that? Feel my heart beat.”
Mallory took Tim’s hand and held it to her chest, pressing his palm against her shirt. She gazed at him in the shadows, realizing a moment too late what she’d done. A blush heated her cheeks, and she recognized the tongue-tied look on Tim’s face as his eyes darted between her stare and where his hand rested above her breast.
He pulled his hand back.
The High Roller made another circuit of the tracks, wheels squealing around the curves and passengers screaming with each plunge. They both seized the distraction, watching the coaster race past them.
Tim fidgeted beside her. “Um… On second thought, maybe we should stay here a little longer. You know, just in case that guy is still looking for us.”
Mallory grinned knowingly, but nodded her agreement.
They settled into the grass next to each other, listening to the keen of the roller coaster’s brakes in the distance. Ambient sounds from the park filled the silence between them, and Mallory brushed her hair back with one hand as an excuse to look at Tim out of the corner of her eye.
He cleared his throat. “So, you like to go jogging, huh?”
“Three times a week at least.”
“Cool, me too.”
“We should go together sometime.”
“I’d like that. There’s a ton of great trails around your house.”
Mallory chewed her lower lip before replying. “Yeah, I explored some before you came over the other day. Did you know there’s an old barn in the woods?”
Tim grinned. “Pretty neat place, isn’t it? My friends and I used to play there all the time.”
She waited, letting her words sink in. After a second his expression shifted to a look of understanding.
“Oh, I take it you saw the hillbilly Internet?”
Mallory laughed. “Who wrote all that garbage about you?”
Tim shrugged. “Probably Brad Hill or one of his cronies. He’s kind of the local thug. I’ve been meaning to warn you about him. He lives on the other end of your neighborhood, so you’ll probably run into him sooner or later.”
“What’s his problem with you?”
Tim picked at the grass. “He’s pissed because he blames me for getting him expelled from school last year.”
Mallory gaped. “What did you do?”
Tim waved the conversation away.
“Come on! Tell me what happened?”
“No. It’s embarrassing.”
“So? You’ve seen me in just a towel! You owe me an embarrassing story.”
Tim laughed. “Yeah, I guess you’ve got me there.”
Mallory nodded. “Damn right. Now talk.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Tim admitted. “I was helping the coach set up for track practice one day and Brad’s class was playing dodge ball in the gym. I had to get in the equipment room, but when Brad saw me, he decided to include me in the game. He called my name, and when I looked, he nailed me with a headshot.”
Mallory scoffed. “What a jerk.”
Tim plucked more grass. “That wasn’t the end of it. His buddies joined in. I managed to avoid the next few shots, but that just made them try harder. Eventually they started working together, throwing from different directions at once. Pretty soon I was blocking shots instead of dodging them. And they kept closing in, picking up the balls that bounced off me to throw them again.”
“Oh, my God,” Mallory said.
“Makes me seem like a wimp, huh?”
“No. It makes them seem like assholes.”
Tim’s eyes remained directed at the grass, but he smiled at the remark. “They backed me into the equipment room, where I had nowhere else to go. That’s when I saw Brad closing in for the kill. I’ll never forget the look on his face. I don’t know what he gets from picking on people, but at that moment I swear he wanted to see blood.”