Mad Skills Read Online Free Page B

curve.
    Their faces were so close together that it would have required only the slightest effort to kiss. Suddenly, before Maddy knew it, Ben’s lips were touching hers. She felt the warmth of his body in the dark, his arms around her, and she responded, heart hammering with fear and yearning. Fear that what they were doing was wrong, but even more that she might screw up her first real kiss—she wanted to do it right.
    He sat back. “Oh my God,” he said.
    “It’s okay,” Maddy said. “I mean, we’re not really related or anything.”
    “I know, but still …”
    “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
    “I must be insane.”
    “Why? Because I’m not pretty enough for you? Like Stephanie ?”
    “No, because you’re gonna be my stepsister .”
    “So what? That doesn’t make you a pervert.”
    “Oh no?”
    “No—we just kissed, that’s all.”
    “Oh, that’s all, huh?”
    “Yeah.”
    He mulled it over. “I don’t know, man. That was a pretty intense kiss.”
    “Really?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “I thought so, too.”
    Around them, all was red and rumbling. Lava glimmered in the crevices, and blackened skeletons littered the floor. Screams echoed as if from a deep pit. Something about the room made Maddy’s head hurt; suddenly, she didn’t feel so well. She hoped the ride was almost over.
    Entering the final straightaway, they saw the other car again. It was not far ahead.
    “There she is,” Maddy said.
    “Watch this,” Ben said, unbuckling his seat belt.
    “Ben! Don’t!”
    “No, it’ll be funny, watch.”
    As he jumped off the slow-moving car, the lights suddenly winked out. Everything went silent, and both cars shuddered to a total stop.
    “Ben?”
    There was no sound, nothing.
    “Ben, this isn’t funny. Get back … get back here buh … before you get …”
    That was weird—Maddy could barely say the words. Her head felt all woozy, and her stomach began to whirl. She could feel the blood throbbing in her temples like a kettledrum. Seasick, she thought. Nearly retching, she knew something was seriously wrong, but she was tired, so tired. Feeling her head start to droop, she roused herself to stand, hanging on to the car for dear life. The floor rocked like the deck of a ship. I have to get out of here. Steadying herself, she let go and tried to walk.
    “Help … help us …”
    Outside. If she could just reach the outdoors. Follow the tracks—the tracks lead outside. Barely coherent, Maddy clung to this basic fact like a lifeline. Feeling her way along, swaying through the dark, she saw something looming up in her path. Someone or something …
    “Ben?”
    Not Ben. The other car, with its lone passenger still seated, as though primly waiting for the ride to resume. The car sat on the brink of a gaping devil’s mouth, a leering Day-Glo-colored face with twining black horns and demonic tattoos.
    Trying to speak, to say, Marina … please … need help , Maddy reached for the hooded figure.
    When it turned, she screamed.

TWO
     
    NEWS CYCLE
     

FUN-HOUSE TRAGEDY
     
    Special to The Examiner
    Every year, millions of teenagers attend traveling carnivals, lured away from their PlayStations and TiVos by the lights, the sights, the sounds, and the smells of an earlier generation’s notion of interactivity. Like their parents and grandparents before them, they go seeking old-time fun and thrills, and perhaps the slight aura of danger: the time-honored sleaze of the traveling show.
    Sometimes they get more than they bargained for.
    Sunday night at the Denton Fairgrounds, teenagers Benjamin Blevin and Madeline Grant climbed into car four of the fun-house ride at Ridley’s Laff-O-Rama. As they clattered along the dark track, ducking plaster zombies and rubber skeletons, they could hardly have imagined that the corny fake horror was about to turn very real.
    Just as the teens jerked around the ride’s final curve, less than twenty feet from the swinging exit doors, the car stopped. They