Sharp Shot (6 page)

How long was the ride? They were rising up another sharp incline. He
had to be ready to go. Mustn't get dizzy from the height or the twists.
Mustn't let the hitman know he'd been spotted. How much time would he
have?

The rollercoaster screamed down again as Rich tried to remember how
long a delay there had been between the locking bars lifting. The ride
twisted suddenly sideways along a banked curve. The sound of the wheels
rumbling on the track was like thunder.

Rich glanced back as the carriages slowed again,
rising up for the
next drop. It was a long slow incline, the carriages locking into a chain
that hauled them slowly upwards, drawing out the tension as the
rollercoaster rose higher and higher. The people in the park below were
little more than dots.

But Rich wasn't looking at them. He was staring in horror at the
hitman three carriages behind. He was watching the man haul himself out
from under the locking bar and climb into the carriage in front. He was
coming for Rich.

People yelled and shouted. The man stepped into the next carriage, his
foot between the two people sitting there, as he took another huge step
over the back of the next seat.

The rollercoaster inched its way up the slope. Would the man get to
Rich before it reached the top and headed down the slope again?

A woman with a small boy grabbed at the man as he stepped past them.
She was shouting at him, her face red with anger and fear as he jostled
past. The man ignored them and kept going. He reached the front of the
carriage. There was a gap between it and the next one, but the man just
jumped. He landed on the back of the carriage in front, and hauled himself
onwards.

He was getting into a rhythm now. The metronomic clack of the chain
was slowing by comparison to the man's movements. He'd reach Rich well
before the rollercoaster arrived at the top of the slope.

Rich looked down. It must be over twenty metres to the ground. The
ride was built out of linked and braced struts of steel, but they were too
far apart for him to have any hope of climbing down the side.

There was only one carriage ahead of Rich. He could see an empty seat
right at the back of it. A woman had put her bag beside her to stop anyone
else getting in.

The girl clung tightly to Rich's arm. “This is going to be
soooo
scary,” she wailed happily.

“You're telling me,” said Rich, pulling his arm free.

The girl watched him in open-mouthed astonishment as he heaved the
locking bar up an inch, and prised his legs out from underneath.

“It was fun,” Rich told her, “but not really scary
enough for me. See you.” And he climbed over into the seat in
front.

The look on the girl's face was mirrored on those of the two young
men in the seat in front.

“Coming through!” Rich yelled. There was just
room for
his foot between them. He balanced on the bench seat before taking a giant
stride over to the next one.

The carriage jumped slightly as it went over a join in the rails. For
a moment Rich wobbled, unbalanced. He grabbed for one of the men's
shoulders, but missed. His arms windmilled and he felt himself falling to
one side.

A hand grabbed him. It was the girl he'd been sitting next to. She
caught his arm from behind and held on tight until he was steady again.

“Thanks,” said Rich.

Further down the rollercoaster there were people shouting and
pointing. The hitman was only a few seats back now.

“If you don't like me,” the girl told him, “just
say so.”

“You're great,” Rich assured her. “But I have to
go. Sorry.” He added another “sorry” to the two men,
and took the next step, into the front of the carriage. A mother and small
boy stared at him in undisguised amazement as he stepped between them.
Rich forced a smile.

They were almost at the top of the incline now. The
hitman stepped on
to Rich's old seat. He was shouting something, but Rich couldn't hear him
above the yelling of everyone else, the thunder of the wheels on the
rails, the wind buffeting him as they rose ever higher.

He had to jump to get to the front carriage. He braced himself. What
if the man shot him as he leaped
—would it look like an accident? Like he cared, he thought. And
jumped.

The back of the carriage rushed up to meet him. But Rich could see he
wasn't going to make it. The rollercoaster was moving away as it tipped,
as it gathered speed to head down the slope. For a split-second Rich could
see down the rails to the bottom. He could see just how far he was going
to fall.

Then the whole rollercoaster stopped. It teetered on the brink, just
about to fall—a final planned moment of terror for the occupants as they
stared down at the abyss. A final planned moment that saved Rich's life as
he scrabbled at the back of the carriage and managed to grab hold.

He tumbled over the back and into the empty seat. There was no time
to wriggle under the locking bar, so he grabbed hold of it and braced
himself. His foot
connected with something on the seat. The woman stared
at him in horror as her bag went flying over the side. Then the whole
rollercoaster was falling.

A sudden flash of light blinded him for a second. He thought for a
moment he'd been shot, but there was no blood, no pain.

Rich was sprawled awkwardly across the seat, holding tight to the
locking bar as the rollercoaster hurtled down the slope. He felt like his
stomach was still somewhere at the top of the ride; he could hear the
blood throbbing in his ears.

Then the rollercoaster was levelling out, slowing down. Rich twisted
until he was more comfortable, but he couldn't afford to stay where he
was. The hitman would be climbing after him any second. The woman beside
him was yelling about her bag and hitting Rich. He wanted to tell her it
was just a bag, and there were people trying to
kill
him
so why was she so annoyed? But the descent had knocked the wind from him
and he was still gasping to get it back.

The carriage was almost still now. They were back at the station
where they'd got on. The rollercoaster slowed as it reached the platform
and somehow Rich managed to roll sideways. His feet met the wooden
platform while the carriage was still moving and he
almost fell as he staggered clear.

“Hey!” the attendant yelled.

But Rich didn't wait to get told off. He lurched away from the
rollercoaster, giddily heading for the exit. How long did he have? How
soon before the hitman was after him? Would the girl he'd been sitting
next to try to slow the man down or get help?

He didn't have time to find out. The exit tunnel loomed ahead and
Rich charged towards it.

Only when he was inside the tunnel did he realise there was someone
with him, keeping pace as they ran.

The man was grinning. He popped a green peppermint into his mouth as
they ran. Then he grabbed Rich's arm and pushed him hard against the
tunnel wall.

“I just want to talk to you, Rich,” he said in an
American accent.

“Yeah right,” said Rich.

The hitman's sunglasses reflected Rich's pale face back at him.

They couldn't go back, Jade knew that. Rich would have to fend for
himself. For now the important thing
was to get away from the people in
dark suits and even darker glasses who were after them. Jade would worry
about finding Rich again later, once they were safe.

She stuck close to Ferdy McCain as he pushed through the crowds round
the rides. But whatever way she looked, Jade could see one of the men
searching for them. She watched in horror as a broad shouldered man in a
dark suit suddenly lunged into the crowd just yards away. He hauled out a
girl with shoulder-length blonde hair cut a bit like Jade's.

The similarity was superficial, and the man let her go at once. He
muttered an apology and moved on, but it scared Jade. “We have to
get out of sight, out of the open,” she told McCain.

They were in the middle of a group moving slowly towards an old
house. The queue looped up a narrow, cobbled driveway to a crooked front
door. The door opened and the queue moved forwards. They passed a sign
that said:
Professor Horror's House of Terror.

“As good a place to hide as any,” said McCain. The queue
stopped and the door closed again.

“If we ever get there,” said Jade.

They were near the front now. “We should get inside with the
next group,” McCain pointed out.

Jade looked round, but they seemed to have got away from their
pursuers for the moment. She could see the woman from the helicopter
pushing through the back of the queue and hurrying away.

After what seemed an age, the door opened again and an overly
cheerful young man ushered in the next group of people.

“Don't get scared in there now,” he told Jade as she
went in.

Jade glared at him. “Takes more than a visit to Scooby-Doo's
house to scare me.”

The young man grinned. “Really?”

But Jade wasn't listening. The woman with long dark hair was back.
She was standing at the far end of the queue, and she was looking up at
Jade. Her eyes were hidden behind her shades, but Jade was sure the woman
had seen her. Jade turned and hurried through the door.

A few more people followed, then the door closed. Jade let out a long
breath. Maybe the woman hadn't seen her after all.

“You OK?” McCain asked.

“Oh yeah. I just love haunted houses and ghost trains and stuff
like that.”

They were in a wood-panelled room. Portraits of sinister-looking
people were painted directly on to the walls, frames and all. The eyes
rolled ridiculously as the portraits watched the people in the room. A
small boy laughed and pointed. A girl tried to hide behind her mother.

Electric lights designed to look like candles flickered
unconvincingly. A large chandelier hung from the ceiling on a chain,
swinging dangerously—it seemed—to and fro.

“At least we're safe in here,” said Jade.

But as soon as she said it, the door was flung open again. The woman
following them stood silhouetted in the doorway. The young man tried to
close the door on her, but she pushed him roughly aside.

Jade looked around frantically for another way out. There wasn't one.

The woman pushed into the room. She reached up and took off her
sunglasses. The eyes beneath were almost as dark and sinister, and at once
she caught sight of Jade and McCain. Her lips twisted into a smile and she
moved through the crowd towards them.

McCain grabbed Jade's hand, dragging her away. Soon they were facing
a fireplace painted on to the wall
like the portraits. McCain hammered at
the wooden panelling, but there was no way out.

They spun round, just as the woman pushed past the last people and
stood in front of them. There was no escape now.

Jade and McCain had their backs to the fake fireplace. The woman
reached inside her jacket, and Jade could guess what she kept there. Would
she just shoot them where they stood—in front of so many witnesses?

Suddenly the floor of the room tilted, as if the whole house had been
tipped up. The woman staggered back, just as surprised as everyone else.
McCain and Jade grabbed for the ridges of the wooden panelling, desperate
to avoid being flung after the woman. But they were still easy targets.

Then the lights went out. In the complete and utter darkness people
screamed with a mix of terror and delight.

The panel that Jade was holding began to move; it
was sliding away
from her. Light spilled into the room from behind the panel. It was a
door, and beyond it was a corridor, the floor at an angle and lights
flickering on the skewed walls.

“Go!” McCain yelled in Jade's ear.

She didn't need telling twice. Jade ran. She hoped McCain was close
behind—and that the woman in the suit, the woman with the gun, was a
long way back.

Most people were walking slowly, looking at the pictures on the walls
of the passage. Some were optical illusions; some were of fainting
Victorian ladies menaced by ghosts and demons. One transformed from a
handsome man into a rotting skull as Jade ran past.

“Kids' stuff,” she muttered, and kept running.

Straight into a mass of cobwebs strung across the passage. To her
horror and embarrassment, Jade shrieked. She clawed at the strands
clinging to her face, and kept running. There was a loud bang behind her.
Was it part of the haunted house stuff, a door banging or a gunshot?

The passageway turned so abruptly that Jade almost ran into the wall.
A continuation of the passage was painted on it—another illusion. But to
the side,
the passage opened out into a large ballroom.

A glass screen separated off the side of the room, so that Jade was
in effect still in a corridor. Through the glass she could see the rest of
the ballroom. An enormous chandelier hung from the ceiling. Classical
statues stood in alcoves. Huge windows were covered with lavish velvet
curtains. And through the room, dancers moved elegantly and effortlessly
to the slightly tinny sound of Sait-Saens' distinctive
Danse
Macabre
.

Yet, as they danced, Jade realised they were not real. They were
becoming insubstantial, like ghosts, and Jade could see through them. The
dancers then reappeared as if solid, only now their clothes were faded and
torn, dusty and grey. And the faces of the handsome men and beautiful
women were pale, fleshless skulls.

Another illusion, Jade realised, but she didn't have time to admire
it. More people were pushing into the ballroom area behind her, marvelling
at the dance. They gasped as the dancers changed again. For the moment
there seemed to be no way out. A hidden door would open, but only after
everyone was in the ballroom and had enjoyed the illusion. Everyone—
including the woman with the gun.

She couldn't see McCain. Maybe he'd managed to slip away and get out
of this nightmare haunted house, but for Jade it was a trap. There was
only one quick way out. The glass partition between the audience and the
dance floor came up to Jade's shoulder. She braced her hands on the top of
it, then hauled herself up and over.

She tilted and twisted over the top, landing heavily on her back, but
she was up at once. She needed to hide somewhere before the woman saw her
—assuming she hadn't watched Jade vault over the screen.

It was at this point that Jade realised how the illusion of the dance
was achieved. The dancers were on film, projected on to a glass screen
behind the partition, reaching up almost to the ceiling. And now Jade was
trapped between the partition and that screen, in a narrow glass-walled
corridor.

The woman was pushing through the crowd. People were shouting at
Jade, telling her not to be so stupid and to stop mucking about.

“There's always one person who has to spoil it all, isn't
there,” a fat man said.

Jade got some satisfaction from seeing him shoved heavily against the
partition as the woman in the
trouser suit barged through. But it didn't
last. As the woman prepared to vault the partition after Jade, her jacket
flapped open, revealing a shoulder holster at her left armpit.

Jade ran. She had no idea if there was a way out, or if she'd be
trapped by the wall. But she put her hand against the glass and ran. When
her hand disappeared into space just a metre from the ballroom wall, she
almost cried out for joy. The screen didn't reach right to the end; there
was just room for Jade to squeeze through.

The woman could probably follow, but Jade was slim, and even if she
was pretty slim too the woman had a bulky jacket—and a gun. It was a
struggle, but Jade got painfully round the end of the screen, and on to
the empty dance floor.

Looking back, she could see the dancers reflected on the glass. This
time they were dancing the other way. A skull stared out at Jade, and from
behind it she saw the woman's determined face as she watched Jade for a
second, before running for the gap at the end of the glass wall.

There was a door at the back of the ballroom. Jade had no idea if it
was even a real door, but she wrenched
it open, and was relieved to find
it gave out into another corridor. From the other side, it looked like a
panel in the wall—probably for maintenance access.

She was in another corridor, obviously further round the tour. With
luck she was close to the end, but she had no way of knowing. And the
woman would be after her soon. Jade set off at a run down the corridor,
but she didn't know if she was heading for the exit, or would meet the
rest of the tour coming the other way…

The ceiling ahead of her was moving. It was lower than the part of
the corridor she was leaving, and curved. In fact, as she approached, Jade
could see that the corridor floor became a bridge through a cylinder that
was turning slowly. The cylinder's surface was covered with shining stars
and planets like the night sky.

There didn't seem to be much point to the turning cylinder, so Jade
ran on. And wished she hadn't. There were handrails along the side of the
corridor and she grabbed at one of them. Even though Jade knew it was the
ceiling and walls that were turning and not the floor, her mind and body
were telling her the floor was tilting and she clung desperately to the
rail as she tried to keep her balance.

She inched her way along, one foot in front of the other, one step at
a time. Jade tried to fix her attention on the dark end of the bridge
where it became a corridor again. She told herself the floor was steady,
that she wasn't being turned upside down, but everything she saw told her
that wasn't true.

Her head was spinning as much as the cylinder and she began to feel
dizzy and a bit sick. She wasn't even halfway over yet. The woman couldn't
be far behind. Just focus, Jade told herself; just don't look at the walls
or the ceiling.

Then she realised. She shouldn't look at anything. The way to get
across quickly was simple. She closed her eyes and immediately she felt
better—she could tell her feet were steady on a solid floor. Keeping
hold of the rail, she hurried across the bridge.

When she felt the end of the rail, Jade opened her eyes again—just
in time to avoid walking into the wall at the end of the corridor where it
turned sharply.

She looked back at the bridge that had caused her so much trouble.
The woman in the suit was running towards her, and had reached the far end
of the bridge. Jade hesitated, expecting the woman to stagger and clutch
at the handrail, and look as daft and
disorientated as she must have done.

But she just kept running, like there was no problem. Like she'd been
trained for this sort of thing. Jade didn't hesitate any longer.

The corridor opened out into a platform area, with metal barriers to
guide the people into queues beside a set of rails in the floor. The rails
arrived from and disappeared into a low tunnel that looked like it was
hewn from solid rock. As Jade was debating which way to go down the
tunnel, there was a rumble of sound and a small carriage arrived.

It was like a miniature horse-drawn open-topped carriage, only with
no horse. A swirl of mist puffed out from under its wheels so that it
seemed almost to float along its track. The sides were daubed with swirls
of luminous paint. When the carriage stopped beside the platform, Jade
climbed in without a second thought.

The carriage didn't move. The sound of the woman's footsteps echoed
down the corridor. Her shadow fell distorted across the platform where
Jade had been standing. Jade was trapped.

Then the carriage gave an unsteady lurch and started to move off. The
woman skidded to a halt on the platform area, and Jade ducked down, but
behind
her, she could hear the faint rumble of another carriage arriving.

Jade wasn't sure if the woman had seen her, but she had to assume so.
There wasn't really anywhere else she could have gone. The carriage was
moving steadily, and a locking bar had come down over her legs so it would
be hard to get out. Not that there was anywhere to go, as the carriage was
running through the rocky tunnel. Jade's best hope was to get to the other
end of this ride, then make a run for it before the woman could get out of
her own carriage.

She could see the tunnel ending up ahead. A spray of mist drifted
down from the roof forming a curtain. It was cold and clammy against
Jade's face and she blinked it away.

When she opened her eyes again, she almost screamed. A pirate was
coming at her. A black patch covered one of the pirate's eyes, while the
other was an empty socket. His clothes were ragged and torn, his bony
hands clutching a rusty cutlass that curved through the air towards Jade.

At the last moment it stopped. The pirate figure swayed at the end of
its mechanism before being hauled back to lunge again at the next
carriage.

“There's a seriously sick mind behind this ride,” Jade
muttered. Rich would love it, she thought. But it wasn't her sort of thing
at all. Past the zombie pirate, Jade could see she was now travelling
through a foggy graveyard. Tombstones leaned at drunken angles, chipped
and cracked. Two spades were stuck in a mound of earth by a freshly dug
grave.

With the fog swirling round the fake grass and polystyrene monuments,
this might be her best chance of escape. Jade hauled herself out from
under the locking bar, scraping her knees painfully. She glanced back,
waiting until the fog seemed even deeper, then jumped from the small
carriage.

The ground was hard—wooden. Jade stifled a cry of pain, and kept
low so she was wreathed by the smoky mist. She crawled quickly away into
the cemetery, and slumped behind the largest tombstone she could find.

The rails curved round, snaking through the graveyard area to get
maximum use from it. Jade's empty carriage was soon passing close by, and
she realised there wouldn't be much cover when the next carriage passed—
the woman would have a clear view of Jade crouching behind the grave
stone.

Except that when the carriage did go past a few moments later, it was
also empty. The woman had gone.

Jade almost stood up in surprise, but immediately realised that
wouldn't be a good idea, and instead pressed herself low to the damp,
misty ground. The woman must be out in the graveyard too—looking for
Jade. She crawled after the carriages, keeping as low to the ground as she
could, and making as little noise as possible. With hindsight, maybe she'd
have done better to stay on board—the woman must have seen her getting
out and followed. Her best option now was to follow the carriages to the
way out of this smoky deathtrap.

Suddenly, the ground that Jade was on moved. It was heaving itself
upwards—tilting and turning. She gasped out loud in fear and surprise as
she was rolled aside. The wooden lid of a coffin sprang up and fell to one
side. The pale form of a skeleton sat up. Its head turned and it stared
sightlessly at Jade. Then the jaw dropped open and it started to cackle
with unearthly laughter.

Jade rolled quickly away, shaking with fear. “Just for
kids,” she muttered to herself over and over. Another
dark
tombstone loomed out of the swirling mist. “It's just for kids. It's
not real. It's
not
real.”

“It may not be real,” an American voice said. “But
this
is. And believe me, you're in big trouble.”

What Jade had taken for a tombstone was the woman. As Jade looked up,
she reached into her jacket. She was taking something out—not the gun,
something from her pocket. It looked like a leather wallet.

Jade froze. The woman was staring down at her. There was nowhere to
go, nowhere to hide.

Then a spade split through the misty air and slammed into the woman's
back. She staggered forwards, her face a mask of surprise and pain. The
spade flashed again. It caught her only a glancing blow on the head, but
it was enough to send the woman crashing to the floor. McCain chucked the
spade down after her, and hauled Jade to her feet.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's get out of
here.”

Together they ran after one of the carriages that was disappearing
into the side of a cobwebbed mausoleum.

The rails dipped into a dark tunnel. There was a dim light at the end
of it. McCain and Jade ran towards the light. Another of the carriages
turned into
the tunnel behind them, picking up speed as it started
down the slope.

“It's going to catch us!” said Jade.

Ahead of them, the dim light suddenly flared and brightened. Then,
just as abruptly it faded again.