The Lonely One

At the Santa Monica pier, Doreen rides alone on the merry-go-round until a handsome young man named Ron takes an interest. Despite her warnings that anyone who gets close to her ends up dead, Ron persists, convincing her to let him win her a stuffed animal at the carnival games. As he tries, she flees and hides beneath the pier. There, a vagrant assaults her. Ron comes to her rescue—only to reveal that the attacker is the least of his problems.

The Lonely One is another of Laymon’s stories published in the FastBack series of books. With a focus on action and a low vocabulary, the series strove to foster an interest in reading for pleasure in young adults. To keep the words-per-page low, the books were passport-sized and came in just under thirty pages. Laymon’s terse writing style proves a natural fit for the format, and you never feel like he’s “dumbing down” his material.

This proves one of Laymon’s superior FastBack entries. The location—a pier carnival at night—provides great atmosphere, which Laymon would revisit for his later novel, Funland, a work that also features a seaside carnival with menacing vagrants lurking beneath its pier. Doreen’s ominous warnings establish tension early, while also lending her character nuance. This story’s obligatory twist is also well-handled, with Laymon offering ample hints, like Ron’s necklace, and Doreen refusing the cotton candy, without telegraphing the reveal. It’s not a great work, but unlike most of the FastBack stories, it would feel at home in a Laymon collection.