Everybody Scream! (12 page)

There was Magdilon Perimeter, naked as always (though looking over her shoulder to hide her breasts), with long dark hair and a hauntingly gorgeous and impassive face. She had committed suicide at the height of her career. There was Lotti, the Tikkihotto idol. He’d been assassinated. There was Zodiac Jones, still going strong today after over thirty years of performing;
his
style had changed considerably over the years, as he incorporated every popular new style that developed, without his fading into obscurity…but the partying exuberant
tone
had never varied in thirty-some-odd years. In his muvids, Jones–artificially young and smooth-looking–cavorted and pouted and panted and growled like the teenage boys and girls who played him.

Huge on the side of the circular metal canvas loomed the face of Del Kahn, eyes passionately squeezed shut, mouth wide as if to fellate, Sophi teased, the microphone clenched in his fist. On his head was the black beret he had taken to wearing for several years, at first because he wanted it but which he later maintained as a helpful visual identification symbol at the urging of his ex-manager. Men, boys, even women had followed suit with their own black berets. Del stopped wearing it when it had worn itself thin.

The painting hadn’t been painted since Sophi had bought and assembled the carnival, ironically enough–it had already been there, and had been there since Del’s great successful days. Del was embarrassed, had asked Sophi to have it repainted. “With who–Chauncy Carnal? You want that?”

“I feel like you’re keeping this stupid dated thing for my sake. It makes me feel pathetic.”

“Don’t be stupid–you should be proud of it. Never mind if some kids think it’s dated. I don’t think they even notice or care.”

Del thought it ironic that people were exposed to this huge portrait all day, and yet passing him on the midway had never identified him from it. Talk about embarrassing. Talk about salt in one’s wounds.

“Oh well, should move along,” Del muttered to Too. “I’ll be around later, if I can.”

“If you
can?
Thanks a lot.”

“Have a nice day.” Del raised his candyfloss in a salute, started away. Behind him, the Screamer yelled a song by Sputum as the first riders of the day filed up to the mounting ramp.

Noelle wanted to walk about first, get her bearings, but Bonnie said, “I want to spin around a little, get in the right frame of mind. Get the juices whipped up.” She flicked a silvery “button” into her mouth, gulped it. Presumably, she saw the Screamer as a blender which would violently mix the blood and adrenaline and drugs in her body into one high energy fuel. The line wasn’t too bad and they paid the man at the foot of the metal ramp a certain amount of the tickets from those they had purchased at a booth near the gate. Bonnie ran up the hollowly clanking ramp, lifted the restraining bar of a cab and slipped in. Noelle climbed into the cab ahead of Bonnie. The cab rocked from side to side. Noelle watched an insectoid alien, squat and tiny-headed, its naked body a lovely sky blue, pass her on the walkway and enter the car ahead of her. She couldn’t see its cat-sized head over the backrest of the car but heard it chittering, maybe in excited anticipation.

Deafening music blasted; Noelle didn’t recognized the group. Punktown’s menu of music was as diverse as its inhabitants, and it wasn’t until the song was half through that she noted the racing, growling vocals weren’t in English, obscured as they were under bombastic layers of music like a multiple car collision, with flipping cars rolling over and over, while a further background layer was of pigs being slaughtered. “Noelle!” She twisted around in her seat. Bonnie was rocking her cab with her weight. “Get it moving–it’ll be wilder when it starts running.”

The last rider was locked in; an operator in an army jacket thumped down the walkway past Noelle, out of sight. A man’s voice cut into the music over the intercom.

“Okay, we’re just about ready to roll…rock and roll, that is. Keep your limbs inside the cars, please, and hold on tight.” The music came back. The cars slowly began to turn around their axis. Noelle had ignored Bonnie’s suggestion, scrunched down in her seat and gripped the bar as casually as she could appear. Her car rode up a hill in the surrounding metal catwalk, and as it came down the machine began to engage. Speed was picked up quickly.

With each revolution, the speed increased. The alien song ended, a new song started up, rousing and wild. Columns upholding the circular roof whizzed by like archaic telephone poles on a highway. Beyond, the whole world spun like a tornado around Noelle. A train of faces, the next batch of riders waiting in line, all seemed to be staring up at her as if to gauge her fear or dizziness, like scientists observing an astronaut in a training machine. The Screamer had reached, and leveled at, its apparent highest speed. Noelle rocketed up a hill, down into a gully, up again, and the cab was flying sideways in the wind, rocking without her intervention. Noelle didn’t like the rocking and tried to stabilize against it, bracing her feet on the floor and firmly planting herself in the middle of her seat so as to maintain a balance. When the cab dove down into the gully her organs scrambled high into her rib-cage. When it climbed the hill the cab inclined more sideways and Noelle was a little afraid of it ultimately flipping upside-down to dump her out. The other cabs would slam over her body one after another.

It was exhilarating; despite or because of her fear, she loved it. She heard Bonnie scream her name and dared to twist around. Bonnie’s pod was rocking madly, almost turning upside-down, but the restraining bar and centrifugal force held her in. She had one hand on the bar and waved at Noelle crazily. Noelle wore a big foolish grin, her hair snapping like tangled whips.

The young man in the army jacket, with a baseball cap over long greasy black hair, his face hard and grim, stood in front of the adjacent control booth, in which at least one shadowy man sat. On each revolution Noelle was afraid she’d bash into him, and flinched as he whipped past. He seemed to be standing there daring the cabs to hit him; Noelle could almost feel her car tick his clothing. Was this something he did to show off to the riders and impress himself or was he paid extra to add to the delicious mood of dangerousness?

The voice of the DJ or operator or whatever he was inside the booth came back in place of the music: “Okay…we’re gonna pick things up a little bit…I think she can handle the strain. Are you having a good time? Let’s hear it!” A few yelled “yeahs.” The DJ had a slight Outback accent in his drawl, and he savored this like an actor playing a sinister role. “Now let’s see how fast this baby will go. Y’all ready, now? I wanna hear ya. Here we go…everybody
screeeam!
”

This time there was a more enthusiastic response, and because Noelle heard Bonnie shrieking-laughing hysterically (and the insect being letting out a high cicada buzz) she cried out herself loudly. The man standing in front of the control booth was a blur indistinguishable from the zipping columns, and a siren wailing over the crazy beat of the music marked the climax. Soon the ride began to slow, slow, crawl to a halt.

The army-jacketed man trotted down the clanging ramp and put his hands on Bonnie’s cab to keep it from rocking so profoundly. He then strode past Noelle. Noelle thought it was over and pushed at her bar but it wouldn’t give; it had locked automatically, and a moment later the circular train of cabs began to rotate in the opposite direction–backwards. “Oh no!” she laughed, glancing back at Bonnie. Bonnie was exuberant. Maybe she should take a button from her, seeing as how she’d missed out on this morning’s golden sunrise breakfast. Maybe that would help to disperse the gray shreds of fog which still crept between her and her excitement, still muffled her exhilaration and weighted her smile, a haunting distraction. Vague, but there.

The rotation increased in speed; now her car swept backwards up the hill, plunged backward into the gully, though her innards still piled up against her heart. The physical stimuli helped distract her from the distraction of the nameless, obscure fog and Noelle grinned stupidly again, squinting against the flagellations from her own living head of dark medusa-serpents.

The spinning having nearly reached its apex, the DJ broke in a last time.

“Okay, we’re about ready to call it quits. Hope you folks aren’t too shaken up, now. Thanks for your time. I think we can still squeeze in a little more speed before you leave us, though. Are you ready now? Let me get my hands on the controls here. Hey, what’s this red button? It says ‘light speed’, looks like. Let’s give it a try.” The speed picked up and the cabs surfed its highest crest. “Has anybody got a beer for me?” the DJ said to one side of his mic. “Oh–sorry–are we still on?” He chuckled with feigned embarrassment. “Okay, folks, looks like we’re right there. Are y’all ready now? Oh-kay…everybody
SCREEEAM!
”

Noelle screamed at the top of her lungs shrilly.

“What’s the problem here?” said Mitch Garnet even before he stopped walking up to the game booth at which he had distantly spotted some friction.

It was one of many games in the long aisle where most of the games were congregated, like close prison cells in which inmates were trapped by the bulk of cheap stuffed animals. At this one, two tall, heavyset boys in crew cuts and long black overcoats had been thrusting their jaws and words at the wiry shirtless Choom inside the booth. Mitch didn’t have an advance idea of whom to side with so he kept it open. One boy had his hands in his pockets but they looked like high school or college jocks, all muscle, insulated at school, maybe, from the need for guns–maybe–but it was the way the Choom was sitting with his arms under the booth that had made Mitch intervene; he knew the Choom was even now aiming some weapon at the boys under the counter, ready to fire through the wood.

“Who are you?” growled one of the youths.

“Chief of Security–what’s going on?”

“Nothing, man,” said the Choom.

“This little snake cheated us, man–he said if you get the ball in the hoop you win a prize, right? I
got
it in the hoop but he says I leaned over the counter.”

“He practically leaned over and put it in the basket,” said the Choom, sticking to his casual pose of readiness.

“Blast
you
, twinkledink!”

“Alright, alright,” said Garnet. “You–what’s your name?”

“Rum.”

“Rum
what?
”

“Rum Helsinki.”

“Okay, Helsinki. A compromise. Give the kid another shot and I’ll watch.”

The boy disapproved. “What if I don’t get it
in
again. man? I had it in!”

“Don’t push your luck, kid. I’m trying to be fair–alright? Take your shot.”

Grumbling, the huge boy took up the ball, barely aimed, and casually tossed it. Right through the hoop without even nicking the sides, it seemed. He had made a point to step back clear of the counter.

Mitch gave the Choom a moment’s long weary look. “Give the kid two prizes, Helsinki.”

“Look, man, this is my game!”

“Do I have to come in there and take them myself? It’s pretty crowded in there, Helsinki, you might get an elbow in the eye. Give him the fucking prizes, and it isn’t your fucking game. The Kahns run a clean midway, they make a point to keep the games fresh. Don’t think you’re gonna make an extra profit because it’s last night. I’m gonna keep you in my sights. Don’t fuck with me. I won’t even go to the Kahns, I’ll deal with you myself–understood?”