Sideshow

by William Ollie

  “He’s much more than that.”

  “But… what?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of monster, some kind of nightmare.”

  “You think we could be dreaming all of this?”

  Justin pounded a fist down into Reardon’s thigh. “Did that hurt?” he said.

  “Hell yes, it hurt!”

  “Then you ain’t dreaming.”

  “Damn, Justin,” Reardon said, as he rubbed the flat of his hand over his leg.

  They were on the main road leading into Pottsboro, two thirteen year old boys who should have been sleeping soundly in their beds, safe from all the evils of the world. But they weren’t in the safety of their homes, and evil had found them. They went past the schoolyard, down into town, past the courthouse, whose ancient clock now read: 2:07.

  They were halfway down the street, when Reardon said, “Look.”

  Rusty Piersol’s patrol car was still parked in front of the general store, the store lit up just as it had been when they’d ridden by on their bikes, earlier in the night.

  Relief washed over Justin—Reardon too, probably, though he never would have admitted it.

  “Thank God,” Justin said, as Reardon pulled up next to the patrol car, and slipped the gearshift into Park.

  They got out of the car, and up onto the porch they went, through the screen door, where they stepped into a scene as ugly as the one they had just walked out of, as horrifying as any they had so far encountered.

  Rusty Piersol lay sprawled on the hardwood floor, a pool of sticky, coagulated blood surrounding him. Half his face and most of his head was gone, leaving one wide eye staring up at the ceiling from the gory and misshapen lump of flesh it now resided in. There were pieces of skull in that pool of blood, and dark bits of meat that could only have been the brains that had been blown out of him. The store was a mess, too, shelves knocked over, all the snacks and candy bars from the front display table dumped onto the floor, as if Rusty Piersol had walked into a robbery in progress, and been gunned down before he could even draw his weapon from its holster. Or maybe old man Terwillegher and some of his cloud-watching cronies, not content with slaughtering just their own families, had flooded into the place like a pack of rabid animals looking for something else to sink their teeth into.

  Justin looked up past the counter at yet another gruesome sight, framed by the doorway which led into Jim Kreigle’s back office. “Oh, God,” he said, Reardon’s eyes widening with shock as they followed Justin’s gaze past the cash register, straight to Helen Kreigle, who hung like a broken mannequin in front of her computer monitor. The cratered remains of her ruined skull looked no better than the slain sheriff’s, and quite possibly looked worse.

  Reardon stepped forward into the drying blood that surrounded Rusty Piersol’s corpse.

  “What are you doing?” Justin said, as Reardon knelt beside the body.

  “Getting his gun,” Reardon said. “What do you think?”

  Footsteps thudded across the porch as he pulled the gun free.

  The door banged open, and in walked Bo Johnson, a pump-action shotgun held out before him.

  Reardon stood up, Rusty Piersol’s pistol in his hand as Bo jacked a round into place. There was a crazed look in Bo Johnson’s eyes, a look of intense anger, one that made Justin wonder if he might have been lined up with the rest of the men in front of Ziggy Bowers’ Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill this afternoon.

  “The fuck’s going on here?” Bo said as he shouldered his weapon, pointing the barrel directly at Mickey Reardon. “What’d you do to him, you pizza-faced freak?”

  “We didn’t do nothing,” Justin said, as Reardon called out, “Whoa, man, wait a minute!”

  “He was like that when we got here!”

  “Do anything I don’t like,” Bo said. “Just one little hinky, geeked-up move, Reardon, and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  “You don’t understand. He didn’t—”

  “What I understand is it looks like your pal here just shot Rusty Piersol with his own gun.”

  Justin stood there, wondering if Bo Johnson’s angry face would be the last they’d ever see.

  “Step over there by your geeky little buddy, Reardon. Then drop the gun on the floor, kick it over and tell me what the fuck just happened here.”

  Bo kept his weapon trained on Reardon as he made his way to Justin’s side.

  Rusty Piersol’s gun was laid on the floor. When Reardon kicked it away from him, Bo lowered his weapon. “I’m waiting,” he said.

  “We just came from Danny Roebuck’s house,” Reardon said. “Somebody cut off his mom’s ears and strangled her. We think Danny’s dad did it and went off to the carnival.”

  “We came in here to tell Rusty Piersol—that’s when you showed up.”

  “Carnival, huh?” Bo said. “That’s why I’m here, myself. My crazy old man came home crowing about the carnival this afternoon. Slaughtered damn near my whole family and ain’t nobody seen him since. Would’ve killed me too if I hadn’t gone out for a while. Came in here to get Rusty Piersol to go track his ass down, and here you are standing over Rusty’s dead body. Guess I’ll just have to go out and find the prick myself now.”

  “He’s at the carnival,” Justin said. “They’re all at the carnival. They slaughtered their families and ran off to Godby’s field.”

  “My mom, too,” Reardon said.

  “Oh yeah? Who’d she kill?”

  “Nobody,” Justin said. “Jack Everett kidnapped her.”

  Bo looked at Justin, and then trained his cold, blue eyes on Reardon.

  “The fuck’re we standing around here for then?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Byrum Terwillegher didn’t care for children, his own or anyone else’s. Of course, there wasn’t much about Byrum’s boys to care for. One was gay and the other was a high school dropout, both of them a major disappointment to their father, although Bruce was the proud owner of a graphics design firm. Bruce. What kind of name was that to hang on a child, anyway? Hell, half the gay guys in every cornball movie Byrum’s wife had ever forced him to sit through was named Bruce. It was her fault. She named him. She was the one babying him his entire life. And she still did it. She didn’t breast feed the boy. That was the problem. Always dipping her finger in the milk and sticking it down his throat, dressing him up in frilly little pink outfits all the time ‘cause she thought it was cute.

  Oh, look, Byrum. He’s so dang cute. Isn’t he cute, Byrum?

  No wonder the boy ended up fruity as a can of Del Monte peaches.

  No wonder he ended up sucking cock.

  Byrum didn’t like kids, and he didn’t much care for his wife anymore. The way she sat around smoking Lucky Strikes all day while he trudged his fat ass off to the plant every morning was downright ridiculous, watching the Game Show Channel with a cold brew in her fist while he stood around all day with a cold metal wrench in his. It wasn’t right, and he didn’t appreciate it. And he damn sure didn’t appreciate those kids running up and down the neighborhood at all hours of the day or night, laughing and giggling and playing their stupid little games.

  Laughing and giggling.

  They were laughing and giggling, all right.

  At him!

  It wasn’t his fault he’d busted his knee while out hunting all those years ago, wasn’t his fault he’d gained all that weight. Hell, it was an affliction like anything else, a byproduct of an unfortunate accident. People didn’t make fun of crash victims who ended up crippled, wheelchair-bound for the rest of their days. They didn’t make fun of water-heads or senile old Alzheimer patients. Well, maybe these kids did, ‘cause they sure as hell made fun of Byrum Terwillegher, laughing right at him, saying things well within his earshot as if they didn’t care if he heard them or not.

  He heard them, all right.

  Loud and clear.

  Too bad he couldn’t get his hands on one or two of those little pricks. Drag ‘em down to that cold da
rk basement and make them wish they’d never laid eyes on Byrum Terwillegher, is what he’d do.

  If he thought he could get away with it, which he knew he probably couldn’t.

  He was sitting in his car, swigging down a shot of Southern Comfort when two of those little neighborhood pricks came riding their bikes across the clearing. God, wouldn’t he have loved to get his hands on those two. Hell, they’d pissed him off already this afternoon when they went riding by his house. Of course, that wasn’t anything new—they always pissed him off. All those little pricks did.

  He sat there, swigging his whiskey and chasing it, while Reardon and his pal peddled their way up the dirt road, back toward town. Like they should ever have been out this late to begin with. He had a good mind to tell their parents he’d seen them out here at eleven o’clock at night. That would serve them right, by God. And by God, that was just what Byrum thought he would do the very next time he got within shouting distance of Justin Henry’s mom. ‘Well hey there, Sara. Saw that boy of yours out at Godby’s field last night… oh, I don’t know, ‘bout eleven o’clock?’ Boy, would he just love to see the look on Sara Henry’s face when he laid that jewel on her. Maybe he’d say it had been midnight instead. That should get the good old ‘mommy meter’ running in the red.

  Maybe he wouldn’t bother telling Tricia Reardon at all. Maybe he’d just get her boy alone somewhere and make him wish he’d never been born. Right after he told him what a worthless piece of shit that old man of his was. No wonder Mickey Reardon was so fucked up. Oh, well, at least he wasn’t gay… like Bruce.

  Byrum took one last swig of Southern Comfort, one last chug on his nice cold bottle of Coke. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the crisp, cool air. It was a fine night to be out and about. The stars were in the sky. So was that big old full moon. Byrum always liked a full moon, even though it reminded him of how Myra had trapped him in the backseat of his daddy’s old Dodge Plymouth all those years ago. Pregnant on their first go round, married six weeks after that, and still married twenty-five long years later with no end in sight. No end in sight and no way out.

  He crossed the field, past Jack Everett’s slick black Caddy on his way to the carnival’s entrance. There was a man at the entrance, standing under a flat wooden sign that swayed gently back and forth in the breeze. He was a tall man with long grey hair and a long black coat that draped his narrow shoulders. A field of grizzled grey whiskers lay across his lean jaw line. The top hat he wore looked vaguely familiar to Byrum, who was sure he’d seen it somewhere before. He stood beside a cruel-looking guy in clown makeup and baggy old clothes, which struck Byrum’s funny bone in just the right fashion. A clown for the kiddies. One that would scare the ever-living shit right out of them.

  The tall man greeted Byrum upon his arrival, a professional and courteous salutation befitting a man such as himself, a southern gentleman in such fine standing with the community, one whose roots stretched much further back than most.

  “Hannibal Cobb,” he said. “Owner and proprietor of the fine establishment you now find yourself in.”

  To which Byrum replied, “Byrum Terwillegher, the fine country gentleman you now find yourself addressing.”

  He was addressed by the clown, too, a man, Byrum thought, of some fair breeding himself.

  He smiled at Byrum, smiled and said, “We’ve been waiting.”

  “As have I,” Byrum said. “Waiting all evening to make your acquaintance.”

  “Well then,” the man said. “Step up, my friend. Step right up to Hannibal Cobb’s Kansas City Carnival!”

  “Yes,” said Cobb. “Come on in. Come one and all. Step up to my Kansas City Carnival and have yourselves a ball!”

  Byrum stood there, looking out at the midway, and what a midway it was: tents of crisp white canvas so new they smelled like sails dotted the clearing, interspersed between booths and stalls housing a variety of games. And best of all? No kids could be seen running around the place, no snotty-nosed children laughing and giggling and pointing their fat little fingers at him. It was as if the twenty-third hour of the day had brought with it a curfew, running all those insubordinate little shits right out of there.

  Of course that was it.

  A curfew.

  And wasn’t it grand!

  He passed between Cobb and his smiling companion, into the carnival grounds, happy to have finally made it there.

  He’d heard there was a carnival in town, and now here he was to take full advantage of it.

  He strolled up the midway, his knee a little stronger now, his step a little lighter.

  The place was packed, of course, full of men and women, all of them fine southern folks just like himself. Men and women both young and old. But not too young, praise the Lord. And this place, this fantastic event, was just as he had imagined it. Women walking by in their nice little Sunday dresses, men in their fine, tailored clothes; some smoking cigars, others with pipes in their hands. The women attentive to their men, just as their fine southern upbringing dictated they must be. They strolled up and down the midway with smiles on their faces. Stopping here for a go with the darts, there to see if they might land one of those plastic rings around a long-necked wine bottle.

  Byrum stopped and watched Freddie Hagen hoist a huge mallet like a lumberjack over his back shoulder, and then slam it down onto a painted bulls-eye that sat in the middle of the square wooden platform Freddie stood upon, sending a steel ball hurtling skyward up a narrow wooden channel. DING! went the bell, and Freddie Hagen released the mallet and threw his arms straight up into the air, clenching his fists like a boxer who’d just knocked somebody out, while all around him people clapped and people cheered, and his grandfather clapped a proud hand against his back.

  It really was a sight to see, Byrum thought, as he once again began moving up the midway, past the Sideshow tent with its assortment of freaks, past a shooting gallery whose counter was filled with young men who held rifles steady against their firm, broad shoulders, while their women stood behind them and a line of large plastic ducks moved slowly from one side of the far end of the stall to the other.

  There was a tent here and a tent there, stalls and booths on either side of the thoroughfare. Every ride was full, every seat taken, except for the Ferris wheel, which, for some odd reason, turned round and round with no one occupying its empty seats. And the smells wafting off those food wagons, the finest of southern fare: barbecued ribs turning slowly over a smoky, wood fire; chicken grilled so long the meat would barely stay on the bone; thinly-sliced pork brisket, fresh off the grill; pulled pork swimming in a thick and tangy sauce that set Byrum’s mouth to watering. Barrels of fine southern tea to wash all that fine southern food down. Yep, Byrum was in the right place, all right, just where he wanted to be.

  Exactly where he belonged.

  He stepped up to a canvas-covered stall. There was a curious game of skill set up in that booth, one he had never seen before. A bucket full of baseballs sat on the counter in front of him, a child-sized dummy with a blank and vacuous face at the rear of the place. The man on the other side of the counter wore a blue and white-striped t-shirt and faded jeans. He was a thin guy, with a gold hoop in one ear and one in his nose. He smiled when Byrum picked up a ball and began running his hands around it as if checking the ripeness of a piece of fruit.

  “Ten dollars, please,” he said, and Byrum slapped a ten-spot on the counter.

  He stood in stunned fascination as the shape at the far end of the stall slowly began to change, and clothes began to grow like a fresh new skin over its dull, pink plastic body. A split second later, the blank and featureless face began to fill in, as if a dial was being turned and each revolution brought its features more into focus. First the jeans, then the red t-shirt and soiled Converse tennis shoes. Then came the eyes and the hair, followed by an acne-riddled face that could only have belonged to Mickey Reardon, the smart-assed little prick Byrum Terwillegher had been longing to haul off to a seclud
ed little spot so he could teach him a lesson or two he would never forget.

  Byrum looked to his left, looked to his right and over his shoulder. All around him were the fine southern ladies and gents he’d been walking the midway with, all smiling and egging him on.

  “Let him have it,” somebody said.

  “Get him, son,” said another, as Byrum turned his attention back to the neatest, the most awesome and extraordinary game he had ever borne witness to; the process complete now, the metamorphous having run its course, until standing before him in all his glory was the smug little prick who’d been laughing behind his back and right into his face longer than he cared to remember. He squeezed the ball a couple of times, rubbing it into his palm like a big-league pitcher. Then he reared back and let it fly, grinning while the seams turned round, and Mickey Reardon’s smug little face quickly became a mask of stunned confusion as the ball found his stomach and all of his air rushed out.

  And Byrum Terwillegher, really smiling now, picked up another ball and sent it speeding toward its target, which this time turned out to be Mickey Reardon’s forehead, as the ball bounced off it, leaving a rapidly swelling lump of purple flesh where it had landed. It was too neat, so damn fantastic, and Byrum was so glad he had come, so glad he’d been out in the yard this afternoon to get the word, happy now to have rammed Myra’s insolent little head through the screen of her thirty-two-inch color TV while a 1970’s version of Bob Barker called out ‘Come on down’, and the glass burst and sparks danced all around Myra’s sizzling flesh, while her hands shook and her hair caught fire, and the rest of her spasmed uncontrollably.

  He was happy he’d come, all right.

  Nothing could beat this.

  He grabbed a ball and fired it off, grabbed another and did the same with it, laughing as they bounced one after another off that smug little neighborhood prick, who wasn’t so smug now, and sure as hell wasn’t laughing and pointing his fat little fingers—he stood at the rear of the tent, one bloodshot eye closed and another swelled, spitting out blood and pieces of teeth, as Byrum grabbed the balls and let them fly, and kept grabbing them until the bucket was empty and Mickey Reardon’s head hung over his bruised and battered body, ropey strings of bloody drool hanging off his split-open lips.