“Where is she?”
“Tiny’s watching her,” George managed to blubber through mashed and bloody lips. “Nabo’s trailer by the Ten-in-One. I hope they kill you!”
Martin knelt down, picked up a leg of the broken chair, and conked George on his noggin, the hickory whanging under the impact.
His Colt in leather, Martin shoved the .44 behind his belt and kept the hickory club. He opened the door and came face to face with Dr. Rhodes.
The doctor’s face changed into a mask of hate and he opened his mouth to yell just as Martin brought his hickory club down on the man’s head.
Using the man’s belt, he bound his wrists and tore off a piece of canvas to double the bond and to tie his feet and gag his mouth.
Sticking the club behind his belt, he picked up the smaller man and slung him over his shoulder. He carried him to a trailer and rolled him under it. If the doctor got away, it just couldn’t be helped; Martin had more important things to do.
Staying behind the midway, Martin ran to the Ten-in-One. He stopped when he had the silver trailer in sight and worked a tent stake out of the ground, scraping the dirt off the end. If Tiny was in the trailer, Martin was going to do his best to ram the stake through his heart.
Martin almost jumped out of his shoes when fingers touched his arm.
He swung the stake and would have killed his son had not Mark ducked.
“Easy, Dad! It’s me. Boy, you’re quick!”
“For an old dude.” Martin tried a grin. “Where are the others?”
“Out looking for Miss Frenchy.”
“Find them and tell them to get Dr. Rhodes.” He told his son where he’d stashed the doctor. “I’ll get Frenchy and meet you all back behind the livestock pavilion. For some reason I can’t fathom, I get the feeling that’s the safest spot for us.”
“That’s what Reverend Alridge said, too. Dad, Mr. Hudson’s one of them. Nicole tried to drive a stake through his chest, but he rolled away and ran off. He’s out here somewhere.”
“Wonderful,” Martin said wearily.
* * *
“I can’t do it,” the Dog Man told Balo. “I had the club in my hands and still could not strike the man. Even though I know he helped set the fires that killed us.”
“I, too, could not kill,” Baboo said. “I found an evil man and could not drive the knife into his heart. What is wrong with us?”
“I think perhaps we are only permitted to do harm to our own kind,” JoJo suggested.
“But we are not like them!” Balo said. “I don’t understand what you mean?”
“I think I understand,” the Dog Man whined the words, then licked his chops.
“Explain it to me,” Balo urged him.
“And to me,” Baboo added. “We came for revenge and now find we cannot attain it.”
“We are not a part of the Dark One’s forces here in Holland,” Ralph Stanley McVee spoke slowly, so he could be understood. “But we are alike in one respect: we are all dead!”
NINE
Martin made his way to the trailer, moving silently between the trucks and trailers. He had spotted movement outside the trailer where Frenchy was supposed to be held. It wasn’t the giant, Tiny. Nearly there, Martin crouched down beside a pickup truck and listened as another man walked up.
“How’s the woman, Jake?”
“Tiny is with her, Monroe. Holland?”
“As far as I know, he’s still out. I’ll check on him soon as I leave here. I don’t understand what Nabo is waiting on.”
“He’s worried about something. He didn’t tell me what. Monroe? Be careful. I don’t understand all my feelings.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There is a presence here that is foreign to me. I don’t like it.”
“What kind of presence are you talking about, Jake?”
The road manager hesitated. Martin could see and hear them clearly. “A strong presence that is working to defeat us. The old doctor with the third eye has been on the grounds for hours. He’s killed many times. Yet no one makes any effort to stop him. The old man and his wife penetrated the screen with ease. Our brothers and sisters in the town made themselves known too soon. Things are not going well and I feel they’ll only worsen. I feel there is a possibility we could all be destroyed here.”
“That’s nonsense, Jake! There is no indication of any representative of God here. God does not interfere in earthly matters. Those are the rules and you know it. Calm yourself. We’ll be gone by midnight, our mission concluded. I’m going to check on Holland.”
Jake opened the door to the trailer and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Monroe walked to the spot where Martin was crouching and paused. He turned around and looked back at the trailer.
Martin drove the iron stake into the man’s back, putting all his strength behind it. Monroe gasped just once as the point tore through his heart and rammed out his chest. He fell face down onto the earth. Martin stood and waited for the human form to leave the man, and a beast to take his place. But there was no transformation. The human form remained.
Not understanding what was taking place, Martin hesitated, and then gripped the stake and worked it back and forth to loosen it. He pulled the iron stake free of the man. Nothing happened. The man remained in very dead human form.
“What the—” he whispered.
“Most of them are not demons,” the woman’s voice came from behind him.
Martin spun around. Balo stood before him, her huge python wrapped around her. The Dog Man was with her in the darkness.
Martin was tired, his head hurt, and he was confused. “Now what?”
“Only Nabo and perhaps thirty percent of the other carnival people are the devil’s own,” the Dog Man said, speaking very slowly so Martin could understand him. “Unfortunately for you, Tiny is among that demonic percent. You cannot defeat him alone with that bloody stake. He will kill you.”
“I have to try.”
“No. Stay here. We will rescue your lady friend. Be alert, Mayor. You have more to fear from your own townspeople than from the living dead.”
“I don’t understand the point of all this... tragedy. I don’t understand why you’re helping me.”
“So we can go home and live in peace,” Balo told him.
The Dog Man and Balo walked away, toward the trailer, leaving a very confused Martin holding a bloody stake in his hand and standing over a dead man. He sensed movement behind him and turned.
“Relax, Mr. Mayor,” Baboo told him. “You have no reason to fear me or JoJo. We may only harm our own kind.”
A thump came from within the trailer. The door was literally torn from its hinges as Tiny charged out into the night, lumbering away into the darkness, shouting curses as he ran.
Jake fell out of the open doorway, King wrapped around the man. The road manager was wailing as the coils tightened around him. The python’s big head struck at the man’s neck again and again, the teeth puncturing the neck with each strike. Jake slumped to the ground as the sounds of his bones cracking reached Martin. The wailing abruptly ceased.
Balo stepped out of the trailer, Frenchy behind her. Martin walked to her and put his arms around the woman.
“You mind if I kiss a cop?” he asked.
“Not as long as the cop is me.”
“You don’t have time for that,” JoJo cautioned them. “There is danger all around you. If you can survive the next few hours, you might live to see the dawning. And I stress might.”
“Good luck,” Ralph Stanley McVee yapped.
The four carnies vanished as silently as they had appeared.
“I’m more confused now than I was before,” Martin said, still holding Frenchy in his arms.
“Martin... while I do like what we’re doing, can we make kissy-kissy some other time? Right now, let’s get out of here.”
They walked toward the end of the midway, and there, stopped in shock and horror.
Alma Sessions was standing with a crowd around her. She was holding her mother’s head, by the hair, in one hand, her father’s head, by one ear, in her other hand. The crowd was applauding her.
“Oh, good show, Alma!” Alicia gushed while Mike Hanson clapped his hands and grinned.
“Really neat, Alma!” Binkie yelled. “I love the look on their faces.”
Mr. and Mrs. Sessions wore looks of confusion and pain, their mouths open in that last hot moment of agony. Alma’s clothing was blood-splattered.
“How’d you do it, Alma?” Hal Evans asked.
“With my daddy’s electric saw. The one he uses to cut off limbs and stuff,” she proudly stated, grinning. “I caught Daddy taking a nap and Mommy drinking coffee in the kitchen.”
“Let’s stick ‘em up on poles!” Karl Steele yelled. “So’s everybody can see ’em.”
Martin and Frenchy slipped away while the crowd looked for poles.
The music from the midway began anew; the oom-papa of the merry-go-round was unnaturally loud in the deadly and dangerous night. The pair skirted the midway and made their way to the far end, closest to the livestock pavilion.
“Martin!” the voice called. “Over here. It’s Doc.”
Both turned, eyes searching the gloom behind the midway, and saw Reynolds.
They walked to the old man, leaning on his cane. “I had to leave the center of the carnival,” Doc told them. “It was getting too crowded with folks I conked on the head.”
Martin brought the doctor up to date.
“Really getting cranked up good,” Doc said. He glanced at his watch. “By now, the sheriff’s department has tried to contact Audie a dozen times and can’t reach him. If I know Sheriff Grant, and I do, I delivered him, he’ll have called the state police and asked for their help. So people are on their way in. What me and your dad have to do, son, is get on over to the main highway and stop the cops, warn them what they’re getting into. So you have to get me over that damned fence. Can you do that?”
“My... dad?”
“Yeah. He’ll be here any minute now. I got to keep him from just blasting on in here.”
Frenchy walked to a pickup truck and opened the tool box, rummaging around until she found wire cutters. She rejoined Martin and Doc Reynolds. “We can get you through the fence with these. But how about the guards on the other side?”
“That’s up to you folks.”
“We’ll have to... kill them, Doc,” Martin told him.
Reynolds shrugged. “They’re lost anyway. There might be a few who come to their senses before this is over; but not many. This is not time to be squeamish, boy. Can you handle it?”
“Anything that will help bring this town back to normal.”
“It’ll never be normal, boy. Not ever again. Don’t even think that. We have Nabo running scared, and there is a chance you and your little bunch will come out of this alive. I didn’t think so for a time. Now I do . . .”
Martin opened his mouth and Doc told him to close it and listen. “Even if you win, Martin... you haven’t won much. Think about it. You just try to bring charges against any of these people. You think there is a jury in the world who would convict solely on your word that the accused are really demons in disguise? Not a chance, my boy. The authorities would stick your butt in a crazy house and leave you there—forever! Now, I’m not going to make it, son. I’m going back with your dad. We’ve got a lot of jibber-jabberin’ to do. Years of catching up. If you come out of this alive, Martin, don’t stay in this town. Get out. I’ve seen the way you and this good lookin’ heifer have been makin’ moo-eyes at each other. That’s fine. Sure beats what you were married to. And I say ‘were‘ ’cause you’re gonna have to kill your wife, boy. And your daughter. You. No one else. Now get me over that fence, people. I got to meet a man and bring this shindig to a head.”
There was still plenty to say as the three of them made their way to the fence; but no one spoke.
“Git away from this fence! ” a man ordered, stepping out from behind a car.
Martin lifted the.44 mag and shot as he’d been trained to do: just like pointing your finger. He’d never fired a. 44 magnum before but had a pretty good idea of what the recoil would be like. It was tough in his hand, but not nearly as tough as what the slug did to the guard.
His aim was deadly accurate, the bullet taking the guard in the center of his chest.
A second man appeared and Martin put one round in the man’s belly as Frenchy was working at the fence, cutting a hole for Doc Reynolds to slip through.
Doc looked back at them. “Now is the time for you to save yourselves, people.”
“No dice, Doc,” Martin told him. “Frenchy?”
“I always was a sucker for the underdog,” she replied.
“See you people in the Middle Level,” Doc said with a smile.
“How about Heaven, Doc?” Martin asked.
“Not for us, son.” He looked at Frenchy. “Not for you, either, pretty lady. Martin here has a third eye. And you’re probably too randy in the sack to suit the pious types manning the Pearly Gates. Bye, folks.”
The old man went walking calmly up the road, leaning on his cane, his step still spry for his age.
Martin reloaded the 44 mag. “Randy in the sack?” He said with a smile.
“Think you can handle it?”
“I plan to try.”
Before she could reply, the sound of footsteps behind them turned Martin and Frenchy around. Cowboys from Jim Watson’s Double-W spread. They held clubs and iron stakes in their hands.
There was no evidence of any demons among them. Just drunked-up and willingly evil.
“Now you get yours, rich man,” one told Martin.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, boys,” Martin tried to talk them out of it. “You can shake this thing. Try hard. Think of God, of Jesus and Mary.”
“Shut up, Mayor. Your time is up!” a cowboy sneered.
Martin shot him in the face with the mag just as Frenchy’s Colt Python began barking and sparking in the night.
Martin and Frenchy took off running before the echoes of the last shot was swallowed by the music from the brightly lighted midway. They left a half dozen cowboys dead or dying on the ground.
“I have an idea! ” Martin said, panting the words as they ran.
Frenchy glanced over her shoulder and slowed. “We’re not being followed. What’s your idea?”
They stopped, catching their breath. “Getting little Gary out of this mess.”
She looked at him. “Drop the other shoe, buddy.”
“And you with him.”
“Now look, I—”
“No, Frenchy. Think about it. If Doc is right, and some troopers are on the way, we’ve got to get you out of here and to your car. It’s radio-equipped, isn’t it?”
“Well... yes.”
“So? I figure we can bust you through the back gate.”
They reloaded as they spoke. “All right, Martin. Let’s go get him out of here.”
* * *
Dick slipped back to his truck and got his long guns out, giving the shotgun to Mark and the rifle to Ed. Frenchy had found a van with the keys hung on the sun visor. It would do.
Martin looked at Ned. “You want to go, Ned?”
“Reason says yes. But I think my obligation is here, Martin. I’ll stay.”
“All right, kids,” Martin told the young people. “In you go. Get them to the house, Frenchy, and arm yourselves with everything I’ve got in there.” He winked at the pale face of Janet. “Hang in there. Good luck to you all.”
Frenchy leaned out the window and kissed him while Mark grinned at them both, then she dropped the van into gear and moved out. Dick and Audie and Don were in position at the back gate.
Martin glanced at Nicole. “What’d you do with Dr. Rhodes?”
“Taped his mouth shut and handcuffed him to a steel bull cage behind the pavilion. He’ll keep.”
&nbs
p; “He have anything to say?”
“Lots of cuss words. Said we might win this round, but the fight would never be over.”
“Essentially what Doc Reynolds said.” It was odd to his mind, but Martin was experiencing no fear. He did not have the vaguest idea what the next moment might bring, but he felt he was up to facing it and beating it. He looked at his watch. It had stopped. “What time is it, somebody?”
“I’ve got fifteen past nine,” Ned said.
“Same here,” Nicole agreed.
“That’s what time I have. But the second hand isn’t working.”
All the watches had stopped at the same time.
“What’s it mean?” Nicole asked.
All the music on the midway had ceased. It was as quiet as a tomb.
The calliope began playing.
“I’m not familiar with that tune,” Nicole said. “What is it?”
“Brook Benton sang it years ago,” Martin told her. “The title is: ‘It’s Just A Matter of Time.”’
TEN
Nebraska State Troopers Davidson and Walton, in the lead vehicle, slowed and stopped at the sight several hundred yards up the road from them. Troopers Malvern and King, in the second car pulled up alongside and stopped. All of them stared at the slow-moving vehicle, clashing and crashing along, throwing up sparks.
“That truck doesn’t have a tire on it!” King finally blurted.
“That thing is ridiculous!” Sergeant Davidson said, dropping his unit in gear and moving out. He pulled up behind the rusted old pickup.
“It’s got plates on it,” Walton said, staring hard. “But I can’t make them out.”
Davidson clicked on his bar-lights. The truck made no attempt to slow down or pull over.
Davidson hit the siren. Nothing. The truck kept on trucking and throwing up sparks.
Davidson turned off the siren and clicked on his outside speakers. “You in the truck. This is the state police. Pull that vehicle over.”
A leathery-looking arm flopped out the driver’s side window and waved at the cops, then made a motion indicating the cops should follow him.
“Black fellow, maybe?” Davidson asked.
“Or Indian,” Walton suggested. “Gray hair hanging down to his shoulders. And he doesn’t appear to be wearing a shirt.”
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