Full Tilt Part 3

What he was "on"? The question infuriated me. "He wasn't 'on' anything," I said. They turned to see me there for the first time. "Quinn doesn't do drugs."

But he does other things, I thought. Things that can get into his bloodstream as quickly as drugs. Things that are just as addictive. He does acceleration instead of speed.

But I didn't tell them that, and they just looked at me, not believing me. Not even Mom. She ran off to check his drawers for whatever stash he might have.

The paramedics lifted Quinn onto a gurney, and as they did, something fell off the couch: a stuffed bear with a lopsided head wearing a yellow shirt with a pocket. I picked up the bear. The pocket was empty. The invitation was gone.

There was a logical, sensible explanation for that-there had to be-but I wasn't feeling sensible at that moment. I hurried over to Quinn. His eyes were half open as if he were dead, but he was still breathing. It was as if Quinn weren't really there. His body was, but Quinn himself was gone.

I go places sometimes.

"Where did you go, Quinn?" I said aloud. "Where did you go?" And as I peered into his eyes I got something of an answer.

Because reflected from the shine of his wide pupils I could see lights-spinning carnival lights, and I could swear I heard the faint echoes of calliope music and screams.

The paramedics shouldered me out of the way and rolled Quinn out the door.

4.

True Void I'm not the kind of guy to make huge leaps into the impossible. I don't believe in aliens, I have no faith in psychics, and tales of the Loch Ness monster leave me cold. So I can't begin to explain what made me believe that Quinn had stolen my invitation and taken some sort of spiritual road trip to G.o.d-knows-where. Call it unwanted intuition, but whatever it was, I simply knew.

"It's not that we don't believe you, Blake," Maggie said. "It's just that you need to see this from our side."

By twenty past two I was in the Volvo with Russ and Maggie, because I knew I couldn't face this trip alone. I had driven to their houses and woken them up with long blasts of my horn-woken up half the neighborhood, I imagine-and practically dragged them out of bed.

"You wanted to go," I'd told them. "Now you've got your chance."

I slammed my brakes at a stop sign. Russ and Maggie jolted forward from the backseat, their seat belts digging into their shoulders.

"Thanks. That woke me up," said Russ.

"This is crazy," Maggie said. "I mean, you've put two and two together and come up with pi."

I floored the accelerator and pulled through the intersection. "You didn't see Quinn's eyes. I'm telling you, he wasn't there. Maybe his body was, but he wasn't. Don't ask me how to explain it, but somehow he's at that freaking amus.e.m.e.nt park."

"You mean like an out-of-body experience?" Maggie asked.

"I don't know! I just know he's there." I screeched to a halt at the next stop sign, then hurled forward again.

"I think I just had an out-of-body experience," Russ said.

"But . . . if he went there in his head," Maggie asked, "how are we supposed to get there in a Volvo?"

"All I know is that we had an invitation to an address on Hawking Road. It's the only clue we have, so I'm following it."

I turned onto the deserted stretch of Hawking Road. It wound through a forest, leading nowhere anyone would ever want to go.

Maggie put her hand on my shoulder. Russ was too tired to even notice. "Listen," she said, "we'll get there, and you'll see it's just a carnival. Then we can all drive to the hospital and wait to find out what's up with Quinn." She spoke to me like someone talking to a leaper on a ledge. Well, maybe she was right. The best thing that could happen to me was to prove that I was a deranged idiot. It was better than the alternative.

We pa.s.sed a sign that said SPEED LIMIT 45. From habit, I looked down at the speedometer. The pin wavered at 45. That wouldn't do. I extended my foot and watched as our speed pa.s.sed 50.

"Blake," said Russ. "You're speeding."

"I know."

"All right. Now I'm scared."

Up ahead a wooden sign nailed to a tree bore a red symbol-a wave intersecting a spiral-just like the one on the invitation. An arrow pointed to the left, down a dirt road, and I took a sharp turn, feeling the car almost lose its grip on the asphalt. The smoothness of the paved road gave way to bone-jarring, uneven b.u.mps. Deep down, I knew this place we were headed wasn't really an amus.e.m.e.nt park.

Am I nuts? Am I nuts to think what I'm thinking?

"Watch out!" screamed Maggie.

Suddenly the road took a sharp turn, and a huge oak tree loomed in my headlights. I spun the wheel and stomped on the brake. The wheels lost traction, and the car narrowly missed the tree. We careened through the underbrush until finally the car skidded to a halt.

I shut my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to pull myself together. Somehow everything around me felt different in some fundamental way that's still hard to describe. You know how when there's a noise that's so constant, you forget there's any noise at all? Like the hum of an air conditioner? You don't notice the sound until it's gone, and then, for a moment, the deeper silence is so eerily empty, your brain kind of gets thrown off balance. That's the best way I can describe what I felt as I sat there behind the wheel-only it wasn't just sound, it was every other sense as well. It was like ripping through the normal fabric of life's noise into a true void.

I stepped out of the car. We'd come to a stop just short of a canyon rim. There before us was the old quarry, which had been shut down for years. Only now it didn't look much like a quarry. The creva.s.se below was a fog-filled rift, glowing with colored lights. I could smell cotton candy and popcorn. I could hear the sound of grinding gears, punctuated by the ghostly echoes of screaming riders. In the center of the breach I could see the very top of a Ferris wheel rising above the fog, churning the moonlit mist like a riverboat paddle.

"I think we've all gone schizo," Russ said, holding Maggie tightly, as if she were the one who was unnerved.

I turned at the sound of nearby laughter. Other kids. Where had they come from? They sifted through the woods, invitations in hand, descending a path down into the canyon. Was this how Quinn came here? I wondered. Was this ridge some interface between mind and matter, and were all these kids actually lying unconscious somewhere? I hadn't seen any other cars, and this place was too far out of the way to walk. But that would mean . . . No. I didn't want to think about it.

With my friends close behind, I joined the other kids in the procession toward the park.

Russ looked at the narrow, winding path down into the creva.s.se. "How do you suppose they got all those rides down there? You think there's a back road?"

Neither Maggie nor I answered him.

"I mean, it was a quarry, right? There has to be a road. .. ."

We came through the layer of fog. There before us was the entrance to the park. Ticket booths and turnstiles. Pretty ordinary, except for the fact that every theme park I've ever been to has its name written on all available surfaces, from benches to soda cups, just in case you might forget where you are. This park didn't seem to have a name.

"I'll need to see your invitations," a cashier demanded as we came to his booth. He had a little computer console but no cash register. The guy didn't look too healthy. He was kind of malnourished and crater-eyed. His skin was so pale, it looked like he hadn't seen the sun in a long time.

I pretended to check my pockets. "Wouldn't you know it. It's in my other pants."

"Sorry," the cashier said. "No one gets in without an invitation."

I leaned in close to him. "Listen, my kid brother stole it, and I have to get in there and kick his b.u.t.t."

Suddenly he stiffened, putting a hand to his ear. That's when I noticed he was wearing one of those earpieces. You know, the kind that the secret service wear. He listened to something in his earphone. "Yes," he said. "All right."

Russ tapped me on the shoulder and whispered uneasily, "Look at that earpiece."

Only then did I notice that the wire from the earphone didn't wrap around his ear. It went directly into his head. I suppressed a shiver.

The cashier turned to us. "You have permission to enter."

"Permission from whom?"

"If you have to ask, then you haven't met her."

"Maybe I have."

He punched some keys on the computer. "It looks like your brother's been inside for an hour."

So there it was. Confirmation. I looked to Maggie and Russ. There was surprise in their faces but not all that much. Deep down, they had known, just as I had.

"So will you be riding with us today or not?" the cashier asked impatiently.

I nodded. "I'll ride."

"We all will," Maggie said. She pulled Russ forward, who, big talker that he was, suddenly had cold feet for this amus.e.m.e.nt park.

"Alrighty, then," said the cashier. "Take a look at your right hand."

I looked down. The wave-and-spiral symbol was branded in red across the back of my hand. Maggie and Russ had the symbol too.

"Where'd that come from?" Maggie asked.

"Trick of the trade," the cashier answered.

"Yeah, but can he pull a coin out of an ear?" Russ said nervously.

At the suggestion the cashier glanced at Russ thoughtfully, as if he might actually shove a hand through his ear and pull a coin out of Russ's brain.

"Run your hand across the scanners in the park to activate a turnstile," the cashier said. "The mark is good for seven rides. No more, no less. You can't leave the park until you ride all seven, and you've got to do it by dawn. Did you get that? Is there any part of that you don't understand? Do I need to repeat it?"

"Our hands activate the turnstiles, and we have to ride seven rides by dawn. Got it."

"Dawn today is at 6 A.M. That gives you more than three hours. Enjoy yourselves."

"What happens if we're not done by dawn?" Russ asked, but the cashier had already shifted his attention to the next people in line.

Before us stood the arched entrance, painted with the bright trappings of amus.e.m.e.nt. Happy faces and balloons. The promise of thrills. The iron gate was open wide, and a force pulled us toward the arch, as if the ground were at an awkward tilt. Other excited guests pushed in front of us to get through. I thought about Quinn. Somewhere in the outside world Quinn's body was being shuttled through an emergency room, pored over by doctors, but nothing they could do would help him, because he wasn't there. His mind and his spirit were here, and I had to go in, body and soul, to bring him back.

I turned to my friends. "You don't have to come," I told them. "He's my brother."

Maggie looked at the entry gate. I could see she was afraid, but she pushed the fear back. If we stepped through the gate, I knew the last threads of sanity that bound together the world we knew, the real world, would pull part. I could almost feel my fingers holding tightly on to those threads, ready to pull on them and make them all unravel.

"Are you kidding?" Maggie said. "Let you ride all alone?"

"Yeah," said Russ, glancing around anxiously, as if already looking for a way out. "We're here for you, pal."

I turned toward the flashing lights and led us under the arch, crossing the threshold into the park with no name.

5.

Carousel "So what's the big deal?"

Russ was unimpressed by the place, and kind of relieved. I can't say that I blamed him. There was one main path winding through the park with rides on either side. To our right was a mural of a tall ship lurching on a wild sea, its sails shredded by a storm. The once-bright colors had faded, and the peeling paint revealed warping plywood beneath. Beyond the mural was the swinging boat ride it advertised: a miniature ship, swinging back and forth on a single axle-a typical carnival ride. In fact, everything seemed typical. There was a pint-size b.u.mper car arena, a carousel piping out calliope music, and any number of spinning rides. Each one was the kind of attraction that could easily be taken down and rea.s.sembled in a day.

Russ picked at the peeling paint of the ocean mural. "This is nothing but a kiddie park."

I began to doubt the intuition that led me here. Maybe my mind had connected the dots and found an unlikely pattern, the way people once looked at the stars and found the figures of G.o.ds in the constellations. Maybe the lights spinning in Quinn's eyes had just been a reflection of the ambulance lights. Maybe this place was exactly what it claimed to be and the cashier mentioning my brother was just making it up. I found myself wanting to believe that more and more.

To our right a black-and-white eggbeater ride picked up speed. It was a Tilt-A-Whirl with eight spinning arms. At the end of each arm a pair of pods revolved around each other, and in each of the pods disoriented riders screamed with the thrill of the speed.

Maggie was the first to notice something strange. "Look at them," she said. "What's wrong with them?"

I caught glimpses of the kids on the ride as they swooped past. Their faces were blurry, and the color of their clothes bled off into the air around them, until the ride spun so fast that I couldn't see them anymore. No ride I'd ever seen could move that fast! Then all at once the lights on the ride went out. The hydraulic pistons that held the revolving cars in the air began to hiss, bringing the pods back down to the ground. When the ride beat itself to a halt, the pods were empty. The riders were gone. Lap bars popped up with a clang; the lights of the ride flickered back on. A new crew of excited riders hurried to take their seats.

"Maybe we'll pa.s.s on the particle accelerator," Russ said, backing away. If we had any doubts as to the nature of this place, they were gone now. We were all believers-although I wasn't quite sure what we were being asked to believe.

Maggie gripped Russ's arm. I could see her nails practically digging into his skin, but she was looking at me.

"Don't get on it, Blake," she said.

"I don't intend to." I looked at the new riders taking their seats, pulling down the lap bars, waiting for the ride to start. I wondered if they saw what had happened to the riders before them. Were they so blinded by their own excitement that they couldn't see? Or didn't they care?

"What do you suppose happened to them?" Maggie asked. "Where do you suppose they went?"

"I think it's best if we don't suppose anything."

I turned away from the ride as it started up again. I'm here for a reason, I told myself. My stinking lousy brother is here. If I remembered that, then maybe I'd keep from losing my mind.

We walked into a crowd of kids. I'm pretty tall and could see over almost everyone. Far up ahead I spotted a kid wearing a black hat, walking away from me. Earrings dangled from his left ear. Was it Quinn? I was too far away to tell. I bolted forward, but once I'd fought my way through the crowd, the kid with the hat was nowhere to be seen. Had he dissolved into the park too, or did he just get lost in the mob? There was no telling. For an instant I felt the earth shifting beneath me, tilting to the left and to the right. It was only me. My equilibrium had been thrown off by the crowds, the lights, and the sound of gears grinding louder than the music that echoed around me. I turned to look for Russ and Maggie, but I instead caught sight of a girl with copper hair, watching me from a distance.

Ca.s.sandra.

She wasn't flirting. She just seemed to be observing. Studying me. Although she stood in the midst of the moving ma.s.ses, their footsteps avoided her, as if she were in a protective bubble. As if s.p.a.ce itself were warped around her. She was more than just an agent of this place, pa.s.sing out invitations. Even from this distance, I could feel a sense of . . . of propriety about her. This place is hers, I realized. I don't know how I knew that, but I did.