Page 5 (1/2)
All the bottles looked old They were brown, dark blue, green, even pink, and they bore imprints like
AVEN HOBOKEN & CO and PEARSON’S SODA WORKS
"Very authentic," she said "I didn’t think Joyland took so lances, but said nothing
"We’d better keep looking," Jenny added
They passed another trappedover his face Jenny was liking the figures less and less-the feeling that theyat any e waterfalls where purple water flowed like glass down broad steps of rock into a colored pool
"There!" Dee said as they rounded a corner "Picks!"
Miners were standing around a strea pickaxes Several had Bowie knives or pistols thrust through their belts
Dee was already boosting herself up into the scene "Look at this, it’s great!" It was a tool with a wooden handle as long as a yardstick and an iron head Neither side of the head was very sharp One ended in a sort of blunt spike as long as Jenny’s little finger; the other was flat and triangular For scooping? Jenny wondered
Dee was et it out of thewearily, stood irimly She’d found a pick that was sharp on both sides
Dee shook her head "Too flimsy See how the head’s just tied on to the handle with rawhide? Itthe tall pick loose and held it up triumphantly "Now this is a weapon"
Michael was holding up an iron forklike thing with six heavy, curved tines "Nightmare on Elm Street," he said
Jenny put the Swiss Arht in her teeth, and wrestled free a tool of her own It had a short wooden handle and an iron head with a five-inch-long projection She couldn’t tell if it was a ha it once or twice for practice
That hy she wasn’t sure if the ground really moved a moing
"Did anybody feel that?"
Dee was looking at the platfor is too stable"
"I didn’t feel anything," Michael said
Jenny felt a flicker of apprehension Maybe it was just the platforet out of there
"Let’s go back"
"You got it, Sunshine," Dee said, swinging the pick onto her shoulder They all scraravel onto the track with a sound like popcorn in a pan
"Follow the yellow brick road," Michael said, waving his flashlight beaet lost, Jenny coht in her mind We can’t We’ll be fine
So why did she have a cold knot in her sto "I’ve been working on the railroad" Suddenly his flashlight stopped swinging
"Hey What the-hey!"
Jenny sucked in her breath, feeling her chest tighten even as she pushed her way past Audrey
Michael was sputtering indignantly, staring down at his feet Jenny saw the problem immediately
The railroad tracks split
"Did they do this before?" Jenny swept her flashlight beam first one way, then the other Both sides were the same: metal rails laid over thick wooden boards But they went in different directions
"No They never split I would have noticed," Dee said positively
Audrey let her pick doith a solid thump "But it wouldn’t have looked like a split fro"
"Splitting, joining, it doesn’t matter I’d have noticed"
"But it would have been behind us In the dark-"
"I would have noticed!"
"Hey, guys, guys-" Michael began, ht It was couy," Audrey snapped and turned
back on Dee It didn’tinto another Dee-Audrey jihad
"Oh, fine, yell at an
"Shut the hell up-all of you!" Jenny shouted
Startled, everyone shut up
"Are you people crazy? We don’t have ti Maybe the track split before and maybe it didn’t, but we cao that way and it should take us out"
Except, she thought, that nothing is what it should be when Julian’s involved And that treround really hadas if a suone in their midst, meekly set out in the direction she’d indicated But Dee said quietly, "If we are going the right e should see that miner with the ants all over him pretty soon"
They didn’t
The knot in Jenny’s stoht-hand as blank-and it see less like a tunnel for a train ride and more like a real mine shaft all the time
It was almost a relief to finally run into the proof She rounded a slight curve and saw an ore car sitting squarely on the track in front of her
A real ore car-at least as far as Jenny could tell It was four or five feet long with rounded corners and solid wheels set close together under its center It smelled like rusty iron-like a witch’s cauldron, Jenny thought-and echoed slightly when she spoke while bending over it
"This isn’t part of the ride," she said
"It would be stupid of a park to leave it here," Dee said and tried to pull it by the hitch in front It clanged, but didn’t move far
Jenny had a wild impulse to jump into it and stay there
She looked up slowly at the others
Michael’s flashlight lit up Audrey’s hair fro her a copper halo Dee was just a slim black shadow at Jenny’s side Jenny didn’t need to see their faces to knohat they were feeling
"Okay, so we’re in trouble," she said "We should have known, really So whose nightliuess I’m not in love with enclosed spaces"
Jenny was surprised The last time they’d been down in a cavern, she hadn’t noticed Dee having any problems-but then, the last time her attention had been focused pretty exclusively on Audrey
"I’m just a little claustrophobic Iany dreauess if you asked me what’s the worst way to die, I’d have to say a cave-in would rank right up there"
"God, do we have to worry about that? Horrible ways to die?" Michael exploded "I could fill a book"
"What am I most afraid of, I wonder?" Audrey said, rather emotionlessly "Pain? A lot of pain?"
Jenny didn’t want to think about it "We’ve got to go back and follow the tracks the other way It’s our only chance"
They were headed deeper into the ly on Jenny’s shoulder
Since they were retracing their steps, the shaft should have opened up again But it didn’t The walls closed in until Jenny could have touched irregular outcrops with her fingertips The ceiling got lower and lower until it brushed Jenny’s hair
She gathered the flashlight and hammer in one hand so she could touch the cavern ith the other "Definitely not fiberglass," she ly beautiful rock She could see veins offrom palest apricot to a rusty burnt sienna It all sparkled with millions of infinitesimal pinpricks of quartz
"Ore," Michael said "You know, the kind gold comes in"
"This park was built on a coal mine," Jenny said, "They hteen hundreds"
"Different kind of old h, ular It was like being in a castle, Jenny decided