The brake test came next—the car racing headlong toward a barrier. Finn held a dozen thoughts in his head at this point, one of which was the notion that if the mannequin had attacked them, then the Overtakers had been expecting them; and if the Overtakers had been expecting them, then would they have sabotaged the test car? And if they had sabotaged the test car, wouldn’t the brakes be the first thing to go?
The test car flew toward the end of the line. Finn knew where to expect the sensation of being slowed by the brakes, and it didn’t come. Instead, the car maintained speed as it swung left, following the track. The left wheels lifted off the concrete, then thumped back down. The car swung right as the narrators both said something but the car was moving too fast for Finn to hear it. Finn reached out and grabbed for the dash as the car entered a second brake test at a speed he’d never felt before. Propelled down a straightaway at an unbelievable speed, it seemed certain to crash. Again Finn fought the seat belt. Again, he did nothing but tighten it a notch across his waist.
“Braking!” the woman’s voice shouted.
But the car didn’t brake. It swung left again and, as before, nearly jumped the track—throwing Finn to his right, the left wheels lifting, the car balanced only on its two right wheels, then slamming down as it turned right.
It rolled to a stop inside the heat chamber, the narrator saying something about “extreme test conditions.” Banks of infrared lights came on and the room quickly warmed. Finn knew the ride, knew the car was supposed to continue right on through to the next chamber. He could see it ahead: the cold room.
But the car stopped. The hundreds of heat lamps remained on and Finn felt the temperature quickly rising, dangerously rising. For a moment the heat had actually felt good, but now it did not. He guessed it was well over a hundred degrees inside the car and gaining rapidly.
105….
110….
He was beginning to bake. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging. He struggled against the restraints. His face was burning. The metal of the car was too hot to touch. He pulled his hands in. He thought he smelled his hair burning.
Plastic began to melt. The disintegration moved toward him from both sides, trying to meet in the middle. If that kind of heat reached him…
Smoke rose from the vehicle. A label adhered to the side caught fire, flames licking up to his right.
Finn was crazy now, jumping and bucking and fighting the seat belt restraint, trying to slip up and out. The thing was impossibly tight. If he hadn’t tried so hard to break out earlier he might have made it; but it had cinched so tight that he felt choked around the waist, and he wasn’t coming out of it. If he could calm down he might all-clear his way out, but he was anything but calm.
“Welcome…”
He looked up through his blurred vision—it felt as if his eyelashes had burned off—and into the blue-and-white cold room only twenty feet in front of him.
She was taller than he remembered, her green face longer, her chin more pointed, the purple lining of her robe more…purple. Smoke swirled around the car. The melting plastic inched toward him, a thermometer warning him of how little time he had. He was going to combust.
“You never know when to quit, do you, Finn?”
He had never liked that she knew his name. Did not like to hear her say it now. He understood the heat now—it had less to do with the lights, and much more to do with this witch. Her association with electricity—was she part electricity herself?—explained the intense temperature. And what better place to trap him than in a room adjoined by a walk-in freezer big enough for a car?
“Where is he?” Finn called out.
“You never let well enough alone, young man.” She raised her hand and pointed at him and what looked like the trail left by a laser welder crept up the car’s hood, melting a line into the metal.
Finn could smell burning rubber. The tires were going.
“You are dabbling where you shouldn’t be dabbling,” she said.
“You and Chernabog should have kept moving, should have moved on. But you can’t, can you? You can’t leave the parks. You’re stuck here, where you were created. You want so badly to scare us—to scare everyone—but you’re pitiful really. A sad, silly witch who can’t do anything but make trouble. How sick is that?”
She moved her green finger and the red laser line melting through the sheet metal of the hood changed direction as well.
“Silly? You still think so? It’s fun to watch you burn. To watch you pay for all the trouble you’ve brought me. You and your self-righteous friends. You will come and go, the five of you, your friend Wayne. You’ll see. But I will live here forever. I am immortal, am I not? Fifty years old and I haven’t aged a day. You try that.”