|
PROLOGUE
THE TWO YOUNGSTERS sneaked through the hole in the fence as so many others had done before them. That their parents didn't know where they were only increased their guilty pleasure.
Twelve years old and sneaking into Palisades at night. How cool! They had done it often enough during the day, when the amusement park was open for business. Just behind the Free Act Stage, there was a hole in the fence that circled the park. Lots of local kids knew about the opening and slipped through it so as to avoid paying the admission fee. Little did they know that the park's good-hearted owner was well aware of the hole but had instructed security guards to turn a blind eye to the young trespassers. He didn't want any child turned away from Palisades Park. And, after all, once inside, the interlopers would have to spend their money just like anyone else.
Sneaking in during the day was one thing. Sneaking in at night, after the park was closed, was another. But with school starting in a few days and the park closing for the winter, they could not wait any longer. If they were going to collect their payment from Emmett, this was the night to do it.
With only the light of the early September moon to guide them, the children hurried down the darkened midway, eager to collect their reward. Past the boarded-up Balloon Game and Cat Game, past the closed birch beer and roast beef stands. Past the bingo parlor, where just hours before, men and women in their short-sleeved cotton shirts and summer frocks sat eagerly sliding red plastic discs across cardboard game sheets.
And then, there it was. The granddaddy of them all, the Cyclone. The world's largest, fastest, scariest roller coaster loomed before them, darkly sinister against the moonlit sky: their payoff for a season of running errands for Emmett.
The tip of a burning cigarette glowed in the dark, signaling that Emmett was waiting for them. As they drew closer, they saw that Emmett was not alone. That curvy brunette in her tight Wrangler shorts who had been hanging around him all summer was wrapped around him again tonight.
"Hey, squirts. You all set?"
They looked at one another and nodded apprehensively. What had seemed like such a great idea during the day, now, at night, took on a different cast. Their enthusiasm turned to excited fright. What would it feel like to ride the Cyclone, in the dark, all by themselves? Would they really be able to carry out their plan and follow through on the dare they had made to each other?
Neither one wanted to be the first to chicken out, so they climbed into the first white wooden car of the roller coaster. They took their seats side by side, and their hands gripped the metal guard bar. Their hearts pounded against their chest walls as the car slowly pulled out from its starting place; the metallic clanking of the pulling chain echoed eerily in the late summer night.
Excruciatingly slowly, they made their ascent, high above the Palisades. The New York City skyline glimmered beneath them as they crept inexorably to the Cyclone's summit.
What exactly happened after that would take decades to discover. But when the ride came to an end, the car pulled into the station carrying only one child.
|
