خیابان های پارک وحشت فصل 08

Streets of Panic Park - Chapter 08

Oh, no … Oh, nooooo!

I heard a sickening crash in the movie.

My flying chair had spun the wrong way. I couldn’t see the movie screen. But I pictured those poor kids … pictured them crashing to the ground.

And then my chair started to spin. It whirled faster, like a top. I shut my eyes.

When I opened them, my chair was back on the floor. In the second row behind Carly Beth and Sabrina. I tried to shake off my dizziness. The two girls were trembling, too.

The movie screen went gray.

The voice of The Menace boomed through the loudspeakers. “Well, we went off the tracks there. I hate when that happens — don’t you?” He laughed.

His red face chimed in: “That was the beginning of it all. Back in 1974. Things started to go wrong in the park. We lost a few kids that day. Big whoop — right? Win a few, lose a few!” The movie began again. It showed a tall, narrow stone tower. The tower stretched high above the park.

A sign in front read: TOWER TO NOWHERE.

The camera moved inside the tower. People were climbing stone stairs. The stairs wound around and around.

As I watched them climb, the air in the theater grew warmer.

People leaned forward as they climbed. The steps grew steeper. The people climbed in small circles. The tower seemed to grow even more narrow.

The air grew hotter. Hot and wet. So hot, my nostrils started to burn. Drops of sweat ran down my forehead.

“It’s … hard … to … breathe,” Luke whispered beside me.

Yes. The air was suffocating!

My face burned from the stifling hot air. I began breathing through my mouth. My deep breaths made my chest burn, too.

In the movie, people kept climbing. Jammed together, they kept circling the tower, trudging higher.

The screen went gray again. A spotlight flashed on at the side of the screen.

The Menace stood behind a small podium. His hat rested on the podium shelf. His dark face peered out at us.

“More annoying problems for Panic Park that year,” he said. “People climbed to the top of the Tower to Nowhere — and never came back down. We got into a little trouble for that.” He sighed. “No one understood me. My experiments with the outer limits of fear became more and more brilliant. But no one appreciated me.” His head spun around, and his second face snapped at him. “You think you were so brilliant? You were brilliant like an ox! I TOLD you the Tower to Nowhere was an awful idea. But did you listen to me?” The head spun around. “Shut up!” the dark face barked. “Shut up! Shut up! When I want your opinion, I’ll rattle your cage!” The head spun again. “You’re not too big to SLAP!”

“Who’s going to do it? YOU? Please don’t make me laugh. I’ve got chapped lips!” “Think I can’t give you a SLAP that’ll set your head spinning?”

“Go ahead. See who it hurts!”

Imprisoned in the chair, I sat staring as the two faces argued. I couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe.

The man is a MONSTER, I told myself.

Look at him, fighting with his second face. A monster.

Did he do that to himself? Give himself a second face in his experiments in fear?

He will do anything. Anything …

How can we survive a total monster?

The spotlight went out. The movie started again.

I saw a white building. A sign above the entrance read: RIDE THE WHIRLWIND.

The camera went inside. Dark at first. And then the picture brightened, and I saw people in a long tunnel. People being blown off their feet. Lifted by a powerful, roaring wind.

A boy flew across the screen. His shirt had blown over his head. A girl held on to his leg as the wind carried them down the tunnel. Her hair blew high above her head. They were both screaming in horror, helpless in the powerful, raging wind.

And then I felt a burst of cold wind brush my face. Another strong gust blew my hair up high on my head.

A swirling wind blew through the movie theater. Some kids screamed as the wind pressed us back into our living seats … pushed against us as if trying to blow us away.

“Can’t … breathe …” The words escaped my throat.

And then I heard kids screaming all around me.

“I can’t breathe!”

“Stop it! Please — STOP it!”

“Turn it off! Can’t you turn it off?”

“Experience The Whirlwind!” The Menace screamed from beside the screen.

I could hear people shrieking and wailing in the movie. But I couldn’t see them. My eyes were shut tight against the roaring wind.

“Experience The Whirlwind!” The Menace repeated. He laughed his cold laugh. “Live it! Live it!” My chest was about to burst. I couldn’t suck air in or out. The raging waves of wind were too powerful.

And then I heard The Menace’s other face shout: “Stop it, you fool! You’ve gone too far! You’re going to KILL them all!”