Carnival

by William W. Johnstone

  Holland, grinning wildly, spun the wheel and sent half a dozen flying off the truck. Some crashed into the crowds, sending more to the sawdust; others flew into poles and onto the wooden counters of the concessions. The sounds of bones breaking could be heard. The old pickup truck roared to the end of the midway, turned around, and stopped, the engine running, the broken lights like deadly eyes, the grill looking like a shark’s mouth about to rip and mangle its prey.

  The music stopped. The angry crowd, all of them waving clubs of some sort, faced the growling old rusted truck, shouting curses at it and its occupants.

  The driver’s side door squeaked open and the dead, leather-like shell of a man stepped out. “We’re doing this for you, boy!” the old man clacked and whistled the words. “They’ll eventually stop us. And when they do, it’s all up to you and your group. Go with God, boy. I’ll see you years from now.”

  Martin felt the sting of tears in his eyes. Turning his head, looking at his son, he saw the boy was crying, tears running down his face for a grandfather that he had never known.

  Holland stepped back into the truck and slammed the door. When he did, one fender finally gave up and fell off, the sawdust quickly soaking up the blood that dripped from it. Holland gunned the engine and ground the transmission into gear. He floorboarded the pedal and the truck lurched forward. The crowd would not move.

  Nabo’s voice boomed over the loudspeakers. “Get out of the way, you fools!”

  The crowd stood their ground, yelling curses at the men in the truck. They were still yelling and cursing as the truck slammed into them, knocking men and women to both sides and into the air.

  “It’s so ... senseless!” Janet said, her eyes taking in all the gore that splattered the sawdust and the concessions. “Why? They’re rushing like lemmings to their deaths.”

  “Senseless?” Ned spoke over the roaring of the pickup truck, the screaming of the people and the almost maddened howling of Nabo. The minister’s voice was very calm. “Not at all. It’s simply more grist for the devil’s mill, that’s all. Probably that’s all it ever was. Nabo pulled in any unsuspecting carnival people with the promise of revenge.”

  “Pulled them in!” Her voice was horror-filled. “But they were all dead!”

  “We shall never know what voices speak to and from the grave until we hear the dirt shoveled over us,” Don said.

  “That’s awesome!” Jeanne looked at him, all the love in her being shining at him through her eyes.

  The cowboy blushed.

  The pickup truck came roaring back down the midway, coming with a full head of steam, rolling over people, knocking them bloody and battered to either side. Doc would occasionally reach out of the open window with his heavy cane to bash a head.

  But it was Doc’s turn to meet his Maker—for the first time. Who knew whether he would come back, like Holland.

  Fat Binkie ran up to the truck as it had slowed after impacting with half dozen men and women and shot the old doctor in the head with a pistol.

  “I killed the old geezer!” Binkie shouted, dancing around on the midway, his beer belly jumping up and down like a sack full of Jello.

  John Stacker, Karl Steele, Robie, Hal and the others applauded and cheered. Binkie took a bow on the bloody midway.

  He was still bowing and grinning when Holland backed the truck up and ran him over.

  He stopped grinning and started howling as the rims crushed his legs.

  Holland, cursing the devil and all who followed him, did a state trooper turnaround in the middle of the midway and began wreaking his vengeance with gruesome results.

  Around and around in an ever widening circle he roared, the rear rims kicking up sand and sawdust as they dug down, spinning as they searched for traction. He ended the earthly lives of too many for Martin and the others in his group to count, and tore down concessionaires’ tents on both sides of the midway.

  Then the old pickup stopped abruptly. It had run out of gas. The mob stormed the truck and jerked the bony old man out of the cab before Martin could react.

  The cheering crowd hacked him into dry dusty pieces with knives and fire axes, beating him into nothing with clubs and iron stakes.

  But they failed to notice a leather-like object, with fingers attached, pull slowly away from the screaming mob and slip under the old pickup. The hand, wrist and forearm slipped behind a rim and waited.

  Before Martin could react, Dick and Audie had grabbed him, holding him, preventing him from running out onto the midway.

  “Nothing you can do, Martin,” Dick told him. “Except get yourself killed. It’s like Doc said: they bought us some time. And they sure knocked down the odds for us.”

  Frenchy led him away, back behind a concession. She put her arms around him and he responded, drawing from her woman’s strength. They stood for a time, each seeking and taking comfort from the other.

  Frenchy pulled away and looked up at him. “Why don’t they just come after us and end it, Martin? They could easily overwhelm us.”

  He shook his head. “Maybe that isn’t in the rules, Frenchy. I don’t know.” The sight of his father, bony and leathery and grinning his death’s head grin would not leave his mind. The image was sharp and clear.

  “They’ve pulled old Doc Reynolds out of the truck and are having a good time chopping him to bloody pieces,” Dick said, joining them.

  “Did any of them see you?” Frenchy asked.

  “Looked right at us. Some of them waded through the gore and got close, grinning at us. Didn’t make a hostile move. I’m getting a funny feeling that we’re really going to win this ... war—for want of a better word—but we’re going to lose it all in the long run. Does that make any sense to either of you?”

  Before either could answer, the lights of the midway dimmed and then went dark. The gloom settled around the embattled little group, enveloping them, almost smothering in its too real touch.

  The music from the calliope began, a slow melodious tune.

  “Now what?” Frenchy muttered, standing very close to Martin.

  “Martin?” Ned called. “You people better see this.”

  They made their way to the space between the concessions, the passageway illuminated by a strange glow from the midway floor.

  Martin almost lost it. All his cold control almost shattered at the sight before him. Looking at the others, he could see that their reservoir of strength was shrinking; the dam of resilience leaking badly.

  The dead were dancing.

  In the dark.

  Dark except for a strange illumination emanating from their bodies. As the macabre dance continued, a greenish glow sprang from the grinning townspeople as they slowly turned in the bloody, gore-covered sawdust. The ladies pirouetted gracefully and the men bowed in a strange dance of the dead.

  The scene was so hypnotic, so spellbinding; the music from the calliope so low and soothing that Martin and the others could not take their eyes from the midway bathed in eerie light.

  Ned uttered a strange cry; a choking pain-filled exclamation. Martin literally had to tear his eyes from the dancing dead and turn to see why the almost silent scream from the minister.

  Eddie was standing behind the minister, his face a tortured and altered head of a beast. Blood leaked from a heavy and fanged jaw.

  Ned’s neck had been ripped open. The one savage bite had almost decapitated the minister. Eddie was holding the minister upright in his thick hairy arms, the massive muscles having torn his jacket into rags as they had grown. He roared, the jaws opening wide, and took a bite out of the pastor’s head, the long teeth penetrating skullbone.

  Mark’s crossbow twanged. The bolt, coming at full strength from only a few yards away, tore into the lawyer’s side and disappeared into the man-beast’s body, the ribbed arrow destroying the heart.

  Both beings dropped to the ground. Eddie lost his hold on the minister as death reached his clawed hands. The thud of the bodies was lost in the music that fi
ltered through the gloomy light.

  “Goddamn you all!” Young Ed screamed his shock and outrage at the dancers in the sawdust.

  Before anyone could stop him, he ran onto the midway, the .30-30 rifle in his hands.

  His sister, Missy, and Karl Steele were on the boy as he shoved his way through the gory dancers. They brought him down.

  With a presence of mind that belied his age and his circumstances, Ed looked back at the group, terror in his eyes and etched on his face, and threw the rifle with all his strength. Susan caught the weapon, eared the hammer back, and shot Missy in the chest, the recoil of the .30-30 jarring her back on her heels.

  Missy jerked as the lead struck her, then turned her head and grinned at Susan as her face changed into a snarling demon. She reached down and tore out the boy’s throat. Ed jerked in pain and the beginnings of death as his blood gushed out onto the sawdust.

  Mark’s crossbow twanked, the bolt catching the girl-beast in the temple, the impact knocking her down. The bolt had penetrated all the way through, with about three inches of steel sticking out each side of her head.

  Karl screamed. Like the coward he was, he jumped to his feet and ran off into the gloom. Missy struggled to her feet and staggered after him, shoving her snarling way through the seemingly uncaring and unnoticing dancers. The arrowed bolt ripped the flesh of the dancers as she ran staggering and howling after Karl.

  The dancers did not notice as their flesh was torn.

  The calliope continued its playing.

  Young Ed lay still on the sawdust.

  The music stopped. The dancers paused in place. The lights popped back on, lighting the body-littered midway. The ferris wheel began turning. The merry-go-round began slowly whirling, the wooden horses grinning and moving up and down on their chromed poles.

  “Fun! Fun! Fun!” the loudspeakers called. “Come one, come all. The carnival’s in town!”

  FIFTEEN

  The group, minus two, shifted locations, moving to the space between two other concessions. The dancing had stopped. The midway was fully lighted. The concession operators were once more calling for the marks to play. Many of the townspeople would glance over at Martin and his group, but not one of the blood-splattered and ’50s-dressed townspeople made any move toward them. It was as if they could not be seen by the townspeople.

  Martin automatically looked at his watch, blinked, and glanced at it again. The second hand was moving, ticking off the seconds. The watch read 9:40. “Check your watches,” he told the group.

  Time had once more started for all of them. At 9:40.

  “What’s it mean?” Janet asked, her voice as trembly as the shaking of her hands.

  “I think it means we have two hours and twenty minutes to win this war,” Martin answered her.

  “And if we don’t? ...” his son asked.

  “I don’t know for sure,” the father replied truthfully. “However, if we don’t win, this thought comes to mind: We start all over again.”

  “And we do it over and over and over,” Frenchy added.

  “Until someone wins?” Amy asked hopefully.

  “No.” Martin shook his head. “Forever. Dick, pull out one of those tent stakes. Rest of you get one apiece from behind other tents. We’re going to attack.” Stake in one hand, he reached into his pocket, took out a pocket knife, and slashed the canvas wall of the concession, ripping it open from top to bottom, stepping into the game tent.

  The concessionaire turned his head and grinned at Martin. His eyes shone with undisguised evil, but he was not a shape-changer and remained in his human form. He held up a doll. “Spin the wheel and win one, Mayor. You can take it to Hell with you.”

  “Take this to Hell! Martin told him, then drove the stake into the man’s chest.

  The evil in the man’s eyes faded as his heart was shattered. He slumped to the sawdust floor and within seconds nothing was left except a mass of charred clothing and baked bones, a tent stake lying amid the mess.

  Frenchy looked at the small pile on the sawdust. “The fire. They’ve returned to what they were back in 1954.”

  “My, how intelligent we are!” the sarcastic voice came from the midway side of the counter. “We all wondered when some of you would finally put it all together.”

  Slim Rush, the carnival’s front man stood smiling at them. The townspeople had frozen in place on the midway. Standing like human statues amid the body-littered and blood-highlighted midway.

  Nicole stepped out onto the midway, a long metal tent stake in her hands. Slim sensed movement behind him and turned just as the long stake drove into his chest and nicked his heart.

  He sat down on the sawdust with a thud, fell over on his face, and became a pile of burned rags. Nicole reached down to retrieve the stake and cried out as her fingers wrapped around the metal. The smell of burning flesh touched the nostrils of the group.

  Nicole’s fingers and palm had been cooked to raw meat.

  “We’ve got to find a first-aid kit!” Jeanne said, staring at the cooked hand.

  “No time,” Nicole told her, biting her lip as the pain settled in for a long stay. “Can you shoot a pistol, Jeanne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take mine.” Pain filled her voice. “I can’t shoot left-handed and I sure can’t use my right hand.”

  “There you are!” a woman’s voice boomed from the dark end of the midway.

  “Jesus God!” Dick summed it up for all of them.

  Ruth Horton stood naked and hideous in the glare of lights. She came clumping up the midway, a meat cleaver in her head and one in her hand.

  “You’re dead!” Matt screamed. “Dead! I killed you.” His voice was working, but his legs and arms remained locked in position in the sawdust. His eyes were wide with fear.

  Nicole hurriedly left the midway to join the others, but not before she noticed that the other concessionaires had not left their tents. They were standing, watching. They seemed to be waiting for something.

  “Damn you all!” Nabo’s voice came squalling over the loudspeakers. “Fight them. Kill them. You traitorsl”

  The concessionaires did not move from behind their counters.

  Ruth Horton came staggering and lurching up the midway.

  “Get away from me!” Matt squalled.

  She reached him and swung the meat cleaver, neatly lopping his head off.

  The Geek came rushing out of the tented darkness, screaming some unintelligible, hate-filled words. A crazied look filled his eyes and uglied his face. Martin stared at him, concentrating on the Geek alone. The Geek’s long, tangled, dirty hair exploded in flames, the fire rolling around his head and spreading downward. Within seconds it covered his entire body. He threw himself to the sawdust as his body exploded, flinging dusty and charred bones in all directions.

  Martin closed his eyes, sweat beading his forehead. The fire abruptly ceased.

  “You slimy Christian punk!” Nabo’s voice ripped from the loudspeakers.

  “I think he’s referring to me,” Martin said.

  Ruth Horton had lurched off behind the tents on the other side of the midway.

  “What’s that sound, Dad?” Mark asked.

  Martin listened. “Dogs,” he finally said. “Barking. Sounds like hundreds of them; and getting closer.”

  * * *

  As the pack of mangled dogs, cats, wolves and coyotes made their way slowly past the highway patrol car, Capt. Mayfield and Sgt. Davidson sat and stared in horror at the sight. The animals mingled around the front gates, seeming to be waiting for something or someone.

  Both cops were startled at the sight that appeared at the now-open gate. “What is that thing!” Mayfield blurted, as his eyes touched Ralph Stanley McVee.

  The dogs fell silent. They sat on their haunches or lay on the ground, panting from their exertions and their pain.

  Before Davidson could reply, the voice of the Dog Man reached them. “Now I can help. Now I am free!” The words were diffi
cult to understand, part yap, part human tongue.

  “It looks like a human dog!” Davidson finally found his voice.

  The Dog Man stepped out of the gate to walk among the animals. He petted them, talked to them, shook his head and made animal sounds of dismay at their injuries, their pain and suffering brought on by uncaring, and, for the most part, worthless human beings.

  “You know who did these terrible things to you?” the Dog Man’s words reached the state cops.

  The animals spoke in body and head movements.

  The Dog Man moved to the huge gray wolf’s side and looked at his gunshot wound. “Why?” he asked.

  The wolf’s reply angered the Dog Man.

  “Sport.”

  The animals snarled in rage at the inhumanity humans exhibited toward their kind. This was not sport. This was murder.

  “Kill him!” Nabo’s voice surged through the loudspeakers. “Kill the traitor!”

  Ralph Stanley McVee turned around. Samson was running up the midway, knocking the statue-like townspeople to one side or the other as he mindlessly rushed toward the front gate.

  “Kill him, Samson!” Nabo’s voice screamed.

  Samson charged through the front gate, his massive arms outstretched, his one thought to crush the life out of the Dog Man.

  The shepherd, the wolf, and several more animals had a different thought in their minds.

  A big house cat leaped onto Samson’s head, its claws ripping and tearing at the big man’s eyes. A husky threw herself at the man’s midsection and tore out a fist-sized hunk of meat as the wolf and the shepherd mangled the strong man’s arms and legs.

  Time had once more begun; the world outside could now enter the area that Nabo had sealed off; the powers of the dark forces had been greatly diminished as the howling hairy Prince of Filth pulled his presence away rather than witness a loss. A loss brought about by a tiny handful of humans who refused to bend or break away from their beliefs.