Chris Grabenstein: Fun House

I don’t bother checking my watch.

I’m sure there’s less than two minutes left.

I need to keep moving forward.

I climb the undulating stairs. They’re split down the middle. One side rocks up while the other rocks down. It’s like a spastic escalator.

Now I’m in the side show with the dummies cracking corny jokes. I move past them fast and step onto a spinning disc that’ll make you all kinds of dizzy because you see a dozen reflections bouncing back at you.

I’ve reached the entrance to the second maze of mirrors.

The frames up here are painted colors that radiate bright pinks, purples, and greens under the influence of ultraviolet light.

My reflection moves forward.

No. Wait. That’s not me.

I’m not wearing a knit cap.

Knit cap has his compact semi-automatic up in a two-handed grip.

I do the same with my Glock.

Sixteen images of him creep forward.

I don’t know which one is really him, which ones are his reflection.

I inch ahead, match him step for step.

Now the killer repeats to infinity. His reflection is reflected back so many times, it looks like a receding mineshaft full of shooters. I notice he has a communicator headset, the same as the backdoor lookout’s, strapped on underneath his ski cap.

A new image flickers off a mirror.

A blazingly bright light.

From the camera crew. It swings into a full-filament burn and bounces off the mirrors all around me. I am momentarily blinded.

I blink. Try to clear the floating sunspots singed into my retina.

Becca and Soozy jitter into view on half of the endless array of glass panels surrounding me. The shooter is still in the other half. He’s aiming left and right and straight at me. The girls keep moving, bumping into mirrored walls, feeling their way in the dark.

Knit cap keeps following them, moving stealthily. He is a killer cat. A never-ending column of death.

The effervescent mirror frames glow under the black light.

So do the killer’s teeth. Bright white. He’s smiling like a shark.

And I don’t dare take the shot because I have no idea which image is real, which is a reflection. I’m trapped inside a crazy kaleidoscope of killers.

Now the shooter’s white teeth move. I read his lips: Roger that .

He pivots to take his shot.

His orange I.D. badge glows under the ultraviolet lights.

Big block letters all around me spell out: WERC

And in one flat space: C R E W

That’s the panel I target.

I don’t have time to try something cute, like shooting the weapon out of his hands.

I aim for his chest. The floating I.D. badge.

My Glock explodes. The cramped maze reverberates. Glass shatters as the bullet rips through knit cap’s chest and cracks open the mirror behind him.

The impact spins him around. He drops to one knee.

Becca and Soozy are screaming. Their camera crew is panicking. They drop their handheld light. The tungsten filament sizzles and sputters out. I hear stampeding feet as the hit man raises his weapon.

He sees me. Maybe my reflection.

His chest wound oozing DayGlo red, he squeezes off a round. A mirror to my right explodes.

I fire again.

He won’t be able to.

He flies backward into a sheet of silver glass that crackles into a spider web of slivers.

He is dead.

I glance at my watch.

It’s 9:54:30.

I just gave Layla Shapiro her big ending.

Turns out that the instant Ceepak heard me fire that first round, he took down the backdoor dude with a single bullet to his left kneecap.

“I had several minutes to line up the shot,” he tells me. “You, Danny, did not.”

They haul scuba man to the hospital.

I tremble.

I’ve killed yet another human being. Make that two indelible ink spots on my immortal soul. My chances of skating into heaven grow slimmer and slimmer the longer I stay on the job. Pretty soon I’ll be a camel facing the eye of a needle, and not because I’m rich.

Of course Becca Adkinson hugged me and kissed me when she found out I was the one who had taken down the bad guy who’d had his sights set on her.

Then Soozy K bopped over and made a big show of planting wet sloppy kisses all over my face because Jimbo and his crew had found a fresh camera light and were shooting us live for the network and local news feeds.

I thanked Soozy and went back to Becca, who needed a blanket. She was shivering in her bikini, never the best costume to be wearing when you have that much adrenaline coursing through your veins.

“When did you become this awesome?” Becca asked me, realizing, maybe for the first time, that I’m no longer the kid who used to swing with her upside down on the monkey bars back at Holy Innocents Elementary. “You totally saved my life, Danny Boy.”

I tried to shrug off the compliment. “We’re pals. You would have done the same thing for me.”

“Nuh-unh. I hate guns. They’re so freaking loud!”

On Monday morning, after my big weekend of fame and doing TV interviews, I went to work and discovered I had a brand-new boss.

Because this time, when they offered him the full-time police chief job, Ceepak took it.

Seems he needs the pay bump so he and Rita can buy a house with what they call a mother-in-law apartment. Mrs. Ceepak-my partner’s mom, not Rita-is moving to Sea Haven “right after Halloween.” Guess she wants to see the Ohio trick-or-treaters one last time. Drop a big ol’ slab of walleye candy in their bags.

Roberto Lombardo goes to trial next spring. He is currently being held without bail in a jail somewhere with lots of barbed wire and guards.

Layla Shapiro is undergoing psychiatric evaluation to see if she is mentally fit to stand trial. If not, they’ll just keep her locked up in a hospital ward for the rest of her life. She’ll be able to watch TV all day, every day.

Martin Mandrake has disappeared into the Federal Witness Protection Program. But if you start hearing about plans for a reality TV Series based in, say, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, chances are it’ll be another Marty The Old Farty production.

Oh, and here’s the best news about the coming off-season down the shore: Becca’s dad is officially running for mayor. After the shootout in the Fun House, when his daughter nearly died because of the grubby deal Hugh Sinclair made with even grubbier TV people, Mr. A. pulled out that clipboard and got double the number of signatures he needed.

Come the first Tuesday in November, Mayor Hugh Sinclair will be just like the star of that other reality TV series: America’s Biggest Loser .

Which is a good thing.

We need to clean this place up.

Throw out the trash.

Air out our dirty laundry.

Quit sweeping stuff under the rug.

Because, like I said, Ceepak’s mom is coming to town.