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But he was alive, alive, and she felt a tightness in her chest and throat that presaged tears as surely as lightning was a sign of onco her breath

Froone over the brink and into the ravine, through the entire physical and eht just passed, Lindsey had never cried She didn’t pride herself on stoicism; it was just the way she was

No, strike that

It was just the way she had to beconosis until the end, her boy had taken nine ly shape hi, Lindsey had wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with the covers over her head and cry, just let the tears pour forth until all the one, until she dried up and crumbled into dust and ceased to exist She had wept, at first But her tears frightened Jimmy, and she realized that any expression of her inner turence Even when she cried in private, Jimmy knew it later; he had always been perceptive and sensitive beyond his years, and his disease see Current theory of iht to the ihter, and confidence as weapons in the battle against life-threatening illness So she had learned to suppress her terror at the prospect of losing hie--and never a reason to doubt her conviction that he would beat the nancy

By the ti her tears that she could not siain Denied the release that easy tears iven her, she spiraled down into a lost tiht--ten pounds, fifteen, twenty--until she was emaciated She could not be bothered to wash her hair or look after her complexion or press her clothes Convinced that she had failed Jied hih to help him reject his disease, she did not believe she deserved to take pleasure from food, fro Eventually, with much patience and kindness, Hatch helped her see that her insistence on taking responsibility for an act of blind fate was, in its way, as h she had still not been able to cry, she had cli for herself Ever since, however, she had lived on the rim of it, her balance precarious

Now, her first tears in a long, long ti, beca, she raised one shaky hand to touch the warm tracks on her cheeks

Nyebern plucked a Kleenex froave it to her

That small kindness affected her far out of proportion to the consideration behind it, and a soft sob escaped her

"Lindsey …"

Because his throat was raw from his ordeal, his voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper But she knew at once who had spoken to her, and that it was not Nyebern

She wiped hastily at her eyes with the Kleenex and leaned forward in the wheelchair until her forehead touched the cold bed railing Hatch’s head was turned toward her His eyes were open, and they looked clear, alert

"Lindsey …"

He had found the strength to push his right hand out fro it toward her

She reached between the railings She took his hand in hers

His skin was dry A thin bandage was taped over his abraded palive her hand more than the faintest squeeze, but he ar," Hatch said

She was, too, harder than ever, a storh them Grief had not been able to free her first tears in five terrible years but joy had at last unleashed the She felt a loosening of long-sustained tensions in her heart, as if the knotted adhesions of old wounds were dissolving, all because Hatch was alive, had been dead but was now alive

If a miracle couldn’t lift the heart, what could?

Hatch said, "I love you"

The storod, an ocean, and she heard herself blubber "I love you" back at hily, another se, which onlyeven as she eeping, and she saw that Hatch was s, too

"It’s okay," Hatch said hoarsely "The worst … is over The worst is … behind us now …"

19

During the daylight hours, when he stayed beyond the reach of the sun, Vassago parked the Cae that had once been filled with electric trams, carts, and lorries used by the park-one, reclaimed by creditors The Camaro stood alone in the center of that dank, less space

Froo descended wide stairs--the elevators had not operated in years--to an even deeper subterranean level The entire park was built on a basement that had once contained the security headquarters with scores of video rounds, a ride-control center that had been an even h-tech nest of computers and monitors, carpentry and electrical shops, a staff cafeteria, lockers and changing roo each shift, an eo passed the door to that level without hesitating and continued down to the sub-basement at the very bottom of the complex Even in the dry sands of southern California, the concrete walls exuded a damp lime smell at that depth

No rats fled before hi his first descent into those realo He had seen no rats at all, anywhere, in all the weeks he had roamed the tenebrous corridors and silent rooh he would not have been averse to sharing space with them He liked rats They were carrion-eaters, revelers in decay, scurrying janitors that cleaned up in the wake of death Maybe they had never invaded the cellars of the park because, after its closure, the place had been pretty much stripped bare It was all concrete, plastic, and radable for rats to feed on, a little dusty, yes, with some crumpled paper here and there, but otherwise as sterile as an orbiting space station and of no interest to rodents

Eventually rats ht find his collection in Hell at the botto fed, spread out froht hours when he could not venture out in coht of stairs, two levels below the underground garage, Vassago passed through a doorway The door was , as were virtually all the doors in the coers and resold for a few bucks apiece

Beyond was an eighteen-foot-wide tunnel The floor was flat with a yellow stripe painted down the center, as if it were a highhich it had been, of sorts Concrete walls curved up to

Part of that lowest level was coe quantities of supplies Styrofoaes, cardboard popcorn boxes and french-fry holders, paper napkins and little foil packets of ketchup and rounds Business fores of fertilizer and cans of insecticide for the landscape crew All of that--and everything else a so The rooe chambers to elevators that led upward into all the main attractions and restaurants Goods could be delivered--or repair the paying custo the fantasy they had paid to experience Numbers were painted on the walls every hundred feet, to ns with arrows to provide better directions:

< HAUNTED HOUSE

< ALPINE CHALET RESTAURANT

COSMIC WHEEL >

BIG FOOT MOUNTAIN >

Vassago turned right at the next intersection, left at the one after that, then right again Even if his extraordinary vision had not permitted him to see in those obscure byways, he would have been able to follow the route he desired, for by now he knew the desiccated arteries of the dead park as well as he knew the contours of his own body

Eventually he can--FUNHOUSE MACHINERY--beside an elevator The doors of the elevator were gone, as were the cab and the lift mechanism, sold for reuse or for scrap But the shaft re about four feet below the floor of the tunnel, and leading up through five stories of darkness to the level that housed security and ride-control and park offices, on to the lowest level of the funhouse where he kept his collection, then to the second and third floors of that attraction

He slipped over the edge, into the bottom of the elevator shaft He sat on the old ht in to make his hideaway more comfortable

When he tilted his head back, he could see only a couple of floors into the unlighted shaft The rusted steel bars of a service ladder dwindled up into the gloom