What she was looking for? A corpse? But someone would have seen a body in the water and called the cops hours ago. Maybe the girl had climbed out of her boat and, like Pin, found her way onto the ledge and gotten lost in the dark. She could have hit her head. Or fallen asleep, though that seemed unlikely with all this racket. Maybe the man hadn’t noticed she was gone till he got out at the end of the ride. Maybe he’d hurried off to get help.

Pin rubbed her arms, chilled. The ledge was just wide enough for someone to walk along when it was necessary to change an electrical bulb or adjust one of the spook-house figures. Underfoot, the concrete surface was slick and uneven. She took a step and slipped, banging her knee so hard it brought tears to her eyes.

She hauled herself back up until she was half standing, half crouched, and began to walk crabwise with her back to the canal, hands splayed across the moist wall. She tried not to gag: the air smelled strongly of mildew and sulfur from the flash pot. She moved quickly, ready to duck when the next boat approached. Every flare of the flash pots revealed walls black with mold. She stepped among trash on the ledge—cigar stubs, a Coca-Cola bottle, hair ribbons.

From behind her she heard voices. Another boat. There was nothing here to hide behind, so she bellied onto the ledge, grimacing when her hand touched something moist and soft. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the violent play of light and shadow. She could pick out shapes on the other side of the canal, wax mannequins slumped over fake boulders like drunks in a saloon.

“They had a long night,” remarked the man in the boat below her, and the woman beside him laughed.

A few inches from where Pin lay, something scurried. The woman in the boat gasped. “What was that!”

Pin held her breath. “Nothing, sweetheart,” the man murmured. “Don’t you worry…”

Pin heard the rustle of fabric, a sudden intake of breath. The boat floated on, and she crept forward.

Two more boats passed. Each time she crouched, unseen by their passengers. She wondered if they mistook her for one of the waxworks.

Crimson light streaked the water’s surface as the tunnel began to curve. Another flash pot flared, revealing a row of large, flaccid skeleton balloons suspended from the arched ceiling. The canal blazed into a river of fire and plunged back into darkness. The recorded howls and shrieks grew louder.

Pin gnawed her lip. She’d neared the end of the tunnel, where the actor playing Satan attacked each boat as it went by. It would be difficult if not impossible to creep past him unseen.