Except to witness the horror of it all.
And to never forget.
Now the carnival was back. And very soon, within a couple of days, the doctor felt, the town was going to pay for that terrible night. The aura of vengeance was an almost tangible thing. Every time Reynolds stepped out onto his front porch he could feel it.
Old Doc Reynolds knew the invisible, silently choking, almost claustrophobic sensation very well. And he also knew the message it carried, as it floated throughout the town, wrapping an invisible, stinking shroud around the town and its people.
To those few who possess the insight, the message was plain and frightening.
Death.
* * *
The group was still at it when Mark and Linda returned from school. Martin excused himself and went upstairs with his children, to Mark’s room.
He sat down on the bed and spread his big hands. “What can I say, kids? Except to say that it came as a shock to me and I’m very, very sorry.”
“It didn’t come as any shock to either of us,” his daughter bluntly informed him. She jerked a thumb toward her brother. “We’ve seen it coming for about a year. Maybe longer.”
Martin stared at first one kid, then the other. “How come I didn’t see it?”
Sister looked at brother. Mark took it. “Maybe, dad, there’s that old saying about being too close to the forest to see the trees.” He sighed and shook his head, looked at his sister and received a slight nod. “Dad, if I tell you something, will you promise not to get all nuts and beat the hell out of somebody else?” He grinned boyishly. “Not that Lyle Steele didn’t need it.”
Martin chuckled and nodded his head. “I give you my word, son.”
“Mother’s been seeing Mr. Hanson for about a year.” The boy seemed relieved to have it out into the light.
Martin understood that the knowledge must have been a mental burden for both his kids. And the husband and father waited for the hot, wild rage to fill him. It did not come, and he was grateful for that. He slowly expelled his breath. “She told me there was no other man. Tell you the truth, I didn’t believe her.”
“Maybe it’s been platonic so far?” Linda suggested, but her tone read that she didn’t believe that anymore than she believed pigs could sing.
Martin left that alone. “I wonder why Gary didn’t tell me about it?”
“I doubt that he knew, dad,” Mark said. “Very few people did know. But you can bet all the people in that little theatre bunch knew about it.”
“Yeah,” Martin agreed, and that pissed him off. Mike Hanson taught English Lit and doubled as assistant band director at the high school. Big worker in and supporter of the Holland theatre group. The scattered pieces of the sudden and unexpected departure of his wife were beginning to come into place in Martin’s head. He rose from the bed.
“You two change clothes and get you something to eat, if you’re hungry, and then come down to the den and join us. I want you both to talk with Audie and with Sergeant McClain.”
“Sergeant McClain that dark-haired fox?” his son asked with a smile.
Embarrassed, Martin opened the bedroom door. “I wouldn’t know about that ‘fox’ bit, son.”
“Sure you wouldn’t, dad,” his son needled him. “I guess that means you’re over the hill.”
Chuckling, Martin closed the door on his kids’ laughter and rejoined the group in the den. He sat down and looked at Gary. “They’re taking it better than I am, Gary. Did you know about Alicia and Mike Hanson?”
The doctor almost dropped his pipe. “Mike Hanson! That wimp? Are you serious?”
“Apparently so. The kids knew. They seemed to think that everyone connected with the Holland theatre group knew all about it. Said it’s been going on for about a year. Linda said that maybe it was platonic. But from the tone of her voice, she doesn’t believe it anymore than I do. Probably saying that to make me feel better.”
Frenchy and Audie stayed out of it, Frenchy studying some notes and Audie gazing at the ceiling.
Gary’s face tightened in anger. “And you can bet that Janet knew all about it as well. I’ll tell you one thing. When I get home, I’m going to have a little chat with Janet about this matter. I will never be convinced that Alicia didn’t confide in Janet about it. I’ll find out.”
“That won’t help matters, Gary.”
“It doesn’t matter! I don’t like for something like this to rear up and hit me in the face out of the blue. I really resent it.”
Martin shook his head, conscious that Frenchy was looking at him. “Forget it, Gary. Men share secrets with other men, women share secrets with other women. It’s over, and I’ve got to accept that it’s all for the best. I didn’t even get angry when the kids told me about it. I got hot about the whole town knowing it, though.” He met Frenchy’s eyes. “Is Frenchy your real name?”
“Oh, yes. My dad had a weird sense of humor. It was either that or the terrible name my mother picked out.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Penelope.”
ELEVEN
Martin was the closest to the den phone. He stilled the ringing, listened for a moment, then said, “Okay, right.” He hung up, turning to Gary. “There’s been an accident at the school playgrounds. It appears that Alma Sessions deliberately hit the Dennison girl with a swing board. Doctor Rhodes is out of pocket. The school nurse is taking the girl to your offices.”
Audie grunted. “Alma Sessions,” he said, disgust in his voice.
Frenchy looked at him, a curious light in her eyes.
Gary stood up. “On my way.” He paused. “Alma Sessions?”
“Yeah.”
“How interesting.”
After Gary had left, Frenchy asked, “What’s all this about Alma Sessions?”
Martin explained about the girl’s seizure and then about her speaking in tongues and about the strange behavior of Alma and her parents.
“That is a bad kid,” Linda tossed in. “I mean, a real little creep.”
Frenchy looked at her. “You want to explain that?”
“She’s bad, that’s all. Likes to torture animals, if she can catch them. She set one little boy on fire. The flames were put out before a lot of damage was done; but he’ll carry scars all his life ...”
“How come you didn’t tell me that, Audie?” Martin asked.
“She’s a juvenile. Those records are sealed. You can’t release the name for print or broadcast of a juvenile charged with a crime. Stupid law.”
“I agree,” Linda said. “And I’m a juvenile. Anyway, that whole group that runs with Alma is bad. They’re nothing but a younger, smaller version of Karl Steele and his thugs, and you can’t get much lower than that.”
Audie again nodded his agreement.
“You men were right,” Frenchy said. “There is definitely a pattern emerging.” She looked at Martin. “I hate to toss gasoline on a fire, or even the coals, but I have to ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“Your wife.”
“What about her?”
“Her behavior. Do you think it’s connected, somehow, with all these strange occurrences. I don’t think I said that right.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t know, Frenchy. Alicia was reluctant to admit to any pulling toward the fairground. But I think she was. I know several of her friends were.”
“But you, personally, experienced no such pull?”
“No. None.”
“I had a weird feeling the first night they were in town,” Audie said. “The carnival, I mean. But it wasn’t pulling at me to come over there. More like, well, a feeling of dread. Something like that. Confusion, I’d have to add to it.”
Frenchy stared at him, but didn’t pursue the confusion bit. She looked at Linda and Mark. “Either of you feel any sort of compulsion to go to the fairgrounds?”
They shook their heads.
“Any of your close friends?”
Again, a negat
ive response.
“You mentioned a pattern, Frenchy,” Audie said. “Let’s see how close it is to ours.”
“Yes. Well, this ... peculiar behavior, at least the deadly form of it, seems to be striking only those whose character is, well, not of the best, so to speak. Red, like Hank Rinder, had something to do with the carnival fire thirty-odd years ago. The Harold boy was a punk; Alma Sessions is a little no-good. But how about the behavior in the cafe? That doesn’t make any sense.” She looked at Linda. “Tell me again what your friend Jeanne told you this Nabo person said to her after she’d explained what the boys had done.”
“He said that nothing ever changes in this dreadful place.”
Frenchy nodded her head. Expelled a long sigh. “I’ve worked on some weird cases in my eleven years, but this one is shaping up to be the oddest of them all. All right, people, here is what I have so far: Sam Nabo died in a fire right here in Holland back in 1954. That’s firm. He died and was positively identified. Nearly everybody connected with the carnival died that night... or two or three days later, from burns, gunshot wounds, stabbings, what-have-you. According to what I’ve been able to find out, sixteen people actually survived that fire; but that figure is coming out of the heads of state investigators—all of them now retired—who worked the fire back in ’54. We have a few records of it, of course, but damn few, and not all of them gone because of some rogue cop who light-fingered them years ago. That fire was a long time ago, and a lot can happen to paper in almost thirty-five years.
“Now then, I prowled around the fairgrounds this morning. Early. Taking down the license numbers of cars and trucks. Haven’t any of you noticed the age of the vehicles and the plates on them?”
No one had paid that much attention.
Then Martin remembered that strange sensation of his: the hearing of 1950’s music, seeing the old cars, all models manufactured back in the ’40s and ’50s. He told the group about it.
Frenchy asked if anyone else had experienced anything like it?
No one had.
“Strange,” she said with another sigh. “Anyway, every vehicle belonging to the carnival can be classified as an antique. And the license plates all ran out back in ’54 to ’55.”
“I am ashamed of myself for not noticing that,” Audie said, then snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute! I just remembered this. I wasn’t even in town the day the carnival began arriving. I was gonna jump all over Dr. Rhodes’ case for sending me way out to Harrisville on some wild goose hunt about a child abuse case he said he had. Said it had to be done that day; a kid’s life was in danger. I got down there, and nobody knew what I was talking about. No such people lived there. I felt like a fool.”
“Don Rhodes sent you down there?” Martin beat Frenchy to the question.
“Sure did. I was gone all day looking for those people. Who don’t exist. And I was some hot about that. I made me a mental note to get all up in his face about it. But it just now came back to me.”
Frenchy punched a finger in the deputy’s direction. “Audie, get me everything you can on this doctor. Get on the horn now, please.”
“I’m gone. See you people.” He left the house.
“Stranger and stranger,” Martin said. “Getting back to the carnival trucks and cars—why wouldn’t some highway cop or local cop or deputy have stopped them somewhere along the way?”
The sergeant sighed and rubbed her hands together. Chuckling softly, the laughter void of any sort of humor, she said, “Well, folks ... maybe the route they took is not one that’s on any highway map.”
Linda shuddered and Mark put his arm around his sister’s shoulders.
“Let’s don’t jump off into the unknown just yet,” Martin said with a caution he did not feel. “However ...” he let that wander off.
“Yeah,” Frenchy agreed with him. “That’s one reason I don’t want to call this in and ask for official help just yet. It’s difficult enough for a woman to make it in this business. I don’t want to be made to look like some fool. Now you know the second reason.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. Frenchy took a sip of coffee and continued. “Audie has been doing some legwork on his own. He’s a fine cop. Since the carnival people have been in town, they have not purchased one single item of food in this town. And they have not, as near as he could tell, left the fairgrounds area. Not once. Audie has been observing them through long lenses at various times over the past two days. Nobody eats. Nobody appears to drink—anything. The carnival has several kinds of animal acts with them: elephants, horses, tigers, lions, monkeys, baboons ... the animals don’t eat or drink or defecate. The fair people, locally, put in a dozen porta-potties. They have never been used by anyone connected with the carnival—that Audie has observed. You with me so far?”
“Interesting little tidbits,” Martin said. He glanced up. Audie was standing in the door. “What are we dealing with here?”
“People who aren’t human,” the deputy said, entering the den and taking his seat. He looked at Frenchy. “I got the ball rolling. But the computer at headquarters doesn’t have anything on Don Rhodes—not our Don Rhodes, anyway—not under that name or physical description. I gave him a warning ticket for speeding a couple of weeks ago. Still had his driver’s license and plates. He doesn’t like me very much. The computer is working on the latest. It’ll be awhile.”
“I didn’t expect him to be in there,” Frenchy said, glancing at Martin. “You have a funny look on your face.”
He didn’t reply. He picked up the phone at his elbow and called his offices. “Mary? Martin Holland. Your husband belongs to the Young Holland Club, doesn’t he? Yes. Good. Fine organization. Look, could you give him a call and ask him if he remembers what member originally brought up the idea of bringing in a carnival? Oh, you do? I ... see. Thank you, Mary. No. Just curious, that’s all.” He slowly hung up the phone.
“Who recommended the carnival?” Audie was first with the question.
“Dr. Don Rhodes. And I just remembered something else about the good doctor and his pretty wife, Colleen. She told Alicia they were both from West Virginia.”
“Bingo!” Frenchy said. “That’s where Nabo’s Show of Shows was home-based, right? It’s going to be interesting to see the package on Dr. Rhodes.”
Martin nodded his head. “Let’s sum up what we have, Frenchy.”
“All right. Since the moment the carnival began arriving in town, some rather, well, bizarre happenings have taken place. Several deaths. Wild nightmarish hallucinations. The townspeople in a brawl that none of them can remember. The preacher’s sermons are rambling and disjointed. Don Talbolt hears voices and what appears to be a car or truck trying to start, in the middle of grasslands; the sounds seems to be coming from under the ground. Violence is on the upswing in town. I drove by the fairgrounds last night—must have been five or six hundred people just milling around outside the fence. Others just standing and staring into the darkness.
“Okay. Let’s add it up and see what we can get a warrant on.” Again, she chuckled, and again, it was totally void of mirth. “I can see it now: ‘Oh, Mr. County D.A. I’d like to have some warrants for a bunch of people who don’t eat or drink. What have they done? Well ... nothing, really. They’re traveling in classic cars and trucks and it appears they have driven a couple of thousand miles with license tags that expired back in 1955 or so. Based where, sir? Oh ... well, they’re not based anywhere, sir. Not on this earth. You see, it seems they all died back in ’54.’”
The laughter was strained, but still felt good to them all. It helped to drain off the tension that had been building.
“So we have nothing to take to court?” Martin asked.
“Well, Audie could go down there and write a bunch of tickets. But that would tip our hand to them that we know something dirty is going on. Or is something dirty going on? We have no proof that anyone connected with the carnival is responsible for any of the deaths or bizarre happenings in town.
”
“So we’re back to square one?” Mark asked.
“Not necessarily. We feel the carnival people are up to something; we just don’t know how they’re doing it.”
“So how much time do we have, Miss Frenchy?” Mark asked.
“Just Frenchy, Mark. How much time? Well, let’s add it all up. The carnival was torched back in ’54. On a Thursday night. Beatings, shootings, stabbings, whippings. A mob went berserk—as mobs usually do. That was the opening day of the fair. Now then, we’re all in agreement that, as impossible as it seems, or is, the carnival is back. The same carnival, the same people. To do what? I don’t know. My guess would be—and I’m hoping this is all a bad dream and I’m going to wake up in my bed back in Alliance—revenge. So how much time do we have?”
Linda took it. “Until Thursday night. Whatever is going to happen, will happen then.”
“The main thrust will happen then. But it’s already beginning to happen,” Martin said.
Frenchy put dark eyes on the man. “I agree. And the events are going to intensify as the week progresses.”
“I believe that, too.”
“While we were riding around today, Audie and I worked out some possibilities. They seem to fit in this craziness. We think. Audie, who killed Hank Rinder?”
“Nabo. He deals in fire.”
“Who killed Red?”
“Samson. The strong man.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“So what’s next?”
“That’s anybody’s guess. But I agree with Martin, adding this: Unless we can stop it, it’s going to get much worse.”
“How do we stop them?”
“Confront them and hope for the best.”
Frenchy met the eyes of all in the den. “That’s it, people.”
“What would we gain by confronting Nabo?” Martin asked.
“Probably nothing,” Frenchy replied. “And we just might be putting our own lives on the line, and in the end, accomplish nothing. Remember this: If what we think is true, they have nothing to lose.”
Martin looked at his children. “Both of you stay away from the fairgrounds. Tell Jeanne and Susan the same. Mark, tell Amy.”
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