Scary Out There by Jonathan Maberry Page B

Without waiting for an answer, she said to herself, “I bet it will. Anyhow, it’s worth a nickel to find out.
    â€œExcuse me, ma’am?” She waved her hands and held up the silly tiara. “I found this in the shoe bin.”
    The old lady on the porch squinted down at the yard sale and at Tammy with her treasure. “I forgot that was in there. It’s part of an old Halloween costume.”
    â€œGreat! Now I can wear it with my costume.” Tammy grinned big. “We’re going to be mermaids. It’s our job, starting tomorrow.”
    â€œOh.” The old lady’s face went tight and sour. She put one hand on the porch rail and one on her hip. “Over at the springs, you mean. At Weeki Wachee.”
    Elaine nodded and stepped up to stand beside her sister. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve joined the mermaid show. We got hired yesterday, and we start tomorrow. Mr. Newton’s going to teach us how to breathe through the air tubes and everything.”
    The woman on the porch sniffed, like whatever the girls weretalking about didn’t smell very good. “That’s not a decent job.”
    â€œHave you ever seen the mermaid show?” Tammy asked, still holding the tiara aloft.
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œThen, how do you know it isn’t decent?”
    She crinkled the edge of her nose and frowned harder. “I’ve seen those girls, running around in their bikinis, flagging down cars to bring people into the springs. I remember when it didn’t used to be that way.”
    Tammy rubbed her foot into the grass and rolled her eyes. “Ma’am, can I buy the tiara or not?”
    â€œFor a dime.”
    â€œBut the sign on the trunk said—”
    â€œThat was for the shoes. It says the shoes are a nickel, and it doesn’t say anything about costume trinkets.”
    Tammy gave Elaine a look that asked what she thought about the deal.
    Elaine shrugged. “It’ll look good with a fish tail. I say you should buy it.”
    â€œAll right. Asking a whole dime for this thing is practically highway robbery, but I’ll pay it.”
    â€œWe don’t have no highway here.” One pointed foot at a time, the woman tiptoed down the wood porch steps.
    â€œI guess 19 don’t count,” Tammy said of the nearest proper road, wiggling her fingers around in her pocket. She pulled out a dime and made a show of presenting it.
    â€œI guess it don’t.” The woman took the coin and pushed it into her purse. “Is that all, then? Y’all don’t want anything else?”
    â€œNo, ma’am,” the girls said together. “Thank you,” Tammy added.
    The old lady nodded and turned her back to them. She went up the porch stairs again, returning to her post, where she could oversee the sale on her broad, green lawn.
    Tammy toyed with the tiara as they left, wandering back down into the dirt road and toward U.S. 19, the only paved strip in that part of Florida—a two lane road that ran along the Gulf Coast past all the little towns, joints, and junctures . . . including the springs at Weeki Wachee.
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    But Weeki Wachee wasn’t a proper town; it was just a freshwater pool that a sharp ex-navy man had turned into a roadside attraction. How Frank Newton got the idea to dig an underwater auditorium and fill it with mermaids, no one knew—but word sure did get around about the show. People came from all over the country to see the aquatic acrobatics, and girls came from miles away, hoping to make the cut and wear the fins.
    The yard sale lady was right about the bikinis, too. And maybe she was right that it wasn’t decent to go running around half-naked all the time, but in 1951 there weren’t many visitors passing through that part of Florida. People brought in tourist money however they could, and teenage girls in bikinis brought in a lot of