by Matt Drabble
“It doesn’t bloody fit,” he grumbled.
“Use an arc,” SJ offered unhelpfully.
“I’ll bloody arc you,” he mumbled grumpily.
They were now sitting on the blanket that Michael had unfurled from his backpack; Emily was often irritated by his foresight, even when it benefitted her the most. It was often annoying to see your own limitations illuminated by another. The three of them squeezed onto the tartan rug, and Emily smiled at SJ’s gasp as Michael inadvertently brushed her leg. The fireworks were scheduled for ten thirty and her watch read ten twenty seven. If she’d learnt anything from their time here, it was that Eden ran to an unfailing timetable.
“Emily?”
She looked up to see Dr Samuel Creed’s smiling face; his bushy beard was full of powdered sugar from an army of doughnuts that he’d obviously consumed ineffectively.
“Samuel,” she greeted him warmly, attempting to stand.
“Sit, sit,” he ushered her.
“You too,” she offered the large doctor. “This is my husband, Michael, and my good friend, Sarah-Jane,” she introduced.
Michael shook the bulky doctor’s hand, “Pleased to meet you, doc. I understand that my wife is in your hands.” He held Samuel’s hand for a second longer and held his gaze firmly.
“It’s a position that I take very seriously, Michael,” came Dr Creed’s sober response.
Emily watched as her husband relaxed, male sensibilities satisfied. She knew that Michael worried over the baby despite his protestations to the contrary. She had been eager for Michael to accompany her to the next appointment and was relieved to have avoided the maneuvering involved in getting him there.
“What brings you here, Samuel?” she asked.
“I love the carnival, especially the food.” He patted his stomach.
“So do I,” came a quiet voice, as Sarah-Jane utilized her newly found confidence to speak to a stranger.
Emily glanced quickly at Michael and they shared a grin. “Help me stretch my legs for a minute, Michael,” she encouraged him. They wandered around the square leaving SJ and the doctor to talk, ignoring Sarah-Jane’s frantic terrified glance as they left, figuring that sometimes, you really had to be cruel to be kind.
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Michael walked his wife around, not quite understanding why she suddenly wanted to leave their comfy spot, but thinking that she often had motivations that were blind to him, so he often just followed. His mind was on hold for the evening; his talk with Darnell had raised many questions and piqued his writer’s curiosity, and the idea of Casper having a blackened ancestral legacy was pretty juicy. His book was lacking a supernatural element - the idea of the haunted woodland that held sway over the town could be just the thing to spark his morbid intellect. It could be all the more interesting if some of the facts were actually true. The Christians’ dark legacy, wrapped in visions of demonic sacrifice, would more than suffice to tantalize his audience. There were two wrinkles in this idea, however; the first was Eden. The town had given him and his wife everything. They had been welcomed like family, and could he really trample over their lives? The second problem was the actual woods themselves. He’d suffered a blackout there; he’d cycled into the forest and emerged having lost a couple of hours. The more he probed, the more he’d likely uncover, and what if he didn’t like what he found? Darnell had warned him to leave it alone, to just be happy here, but could he? Could he really just turn his instincts off like that? Could he be happy with his wife and child with such a mystery hanging over him? It was a crusty scab that he should ignore, but he was a picker.
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Richie Duchamp looked around furtively; the street was deserted as the entire town seemed to be streaming into the carnival to watch the upcoming fireworks. He’d hung back deliberately as the stores emptied and closed, ignoring Gino’s constant calls for him to take over on the bumper cars, ending the debate with one hard, icy stare. Richie was nineteen, and he was as hard as nails, and twice as mean. He’d hooked up with the carnival for the start of the season and had quickly discovered enough side enterprises to make it worth his while. The travelling nature of the business meant that he was never around for the morning enquiries when the local sheriff came around calling for suspects. He had already stolen enough money for the season to be profitable - whether it was snatching handbags, muggings, short-changing, or rolling drunks, there was always money to be made. Preston D’Amour had taken all of the newbies aside before they’d gotten to Eden; he’d made it abundantly clear that nothing untoward went on within these walls. The other carnies had toed the line, afraid of losing their additional income by getting not only fired from the carnival, but finding themselves dumped way out in the middle of nowhere, in one state of health or another. Richie, however, was not so easily dissuaded. He’d certainly made a valiant attempt to keep his fingers out of the cookie jar, but the store owner had made it far too tempting.
He had watched as the Starbucks did a roaring trade; the large fronted display window allowed him access to watch the tills being stuffed with lush green notes. The final straw had been when the last member of staff had left the building, turning off the lights, but not locking the doors in her haste. Richie had watched in disbelief as the unlocked door to a deserted store with fat stuffed tills teased him from across the street. He would be a fool to risk it, but he would be a bigger fool to ignore it.
With a last look around he crossed the road, walking casually, hands in pockets, and head down. He leant with his back against the door and reached behind to pull the handle down. The door swung open easily, and no alarms shattered the silence. He eased in quickly and shut the door behind him. He ducked down low beneath the sightline of the front window so as to remain invisible from the street. He efficiently emptied the three tills, grabbing fistfuls of abundant green notes and stuffing them deep into his pockets, leaving the coins despite the value. He turned to leave when he spotted the rear office door; he stood and considered. He had a few thousand dollars in his pockets already; it was the easiest score that he had ever made and yet … the back office. What if there was a safe? If the front door had been left open so invitingly, what about a safe?
Eventually his greed won out and he moved quickly beyond the large oak door marked private and stepped inside. The office was small, and he was about to search for more delicacies when the light in the doorway was blocked. A large man with broad shoulders filled the gap. Richie panicked; his stomach rolled and dropped. Preston, he thought. Preston had the reputation for extracting his own form of justice when his rules weren’t met. The large man raised a gun aimed at his chest, but a strange sense of relief flooded through him when he spotted the patchy light catch the gleam of the badge on the monster's chest.
“Hey, officer,” he started, when he suddenly saw that the weapon held aloft was longer than it should have been - the elongated barrel extension didn’t belong on a 38 special.
The silenced gun spat venom and three fast blows collapsed Richie to the floor. He sank onto his knees, staring down disbelievingly at the small red holes that had formed on his shirt. His chest hitched and wheezed as he struggled for breath and a distant gurgle bubbled in his throat as the world turned black.
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The fireworks were spectacular. The ooohs and aaahs radiated from mesmerized faces across the square and the black, clear night was illuminated in a million different rays and colours.
Emily sat with Michael as his childlike expression glowed with the display. She sat between his legs on the blanket, his arms wrapped around her, and occasionally she chanced a glance over to Sarah-Jane. SJ and the doctor sat beside them, huddled pleasantly without excessive intimacy. Sarah-Jane’s beetroot face was fading as the evening passed. Dr Creed had an agreeable manner that seemed to set everyone at ease including, apparently, the world’s shyest elementary school teacher. A sneaky gentle dig in the ribs from her husband caught her staring - his grin and a slight shake of
the head spoke of his rebuke. She shrugged and smiled. If being a romantic was a crime then she was guilty. Despite their age gap, she could see potential between her two new friends.
After the light show, they made their respective ways home. Samuel offered to walk Sarah-Jane home, despite there being no need, given Eden’s non-existent crime rate. Emily was flushed to see that she agreed in a warm manner that bordered on the charmingly bashful. As the doc and the teacher said their goodnights, Emily and Michael headed for home. The night was warm and the sky was clear. Their baby was healthy -and so were they -, their finances were stronger than ever and life was good.
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The carnival broke into its many pieces. Steel skeletons were stripped bare of their decorative collage, and ugly machinery innards were exposed. The breaking operation was effective and efficient, a procedure that ran on autopilot during the silent night hours. Workers went about their business with precision borne of experience; most did not need the light to unbolt and unplug, and the large flatbed trucks were soon laden with sections of the whole. Preston checked the headcount again. Still one missing - Richie Duchamp, his nephew no less. That punk had been nothing but trouble ever since he’d hitched his illicit wagon to the carnival. They often attracted the criminal element; he supposed that it was the travelling nature that drew those looking to keep on the move and away from recognizable addresses. A little thievery was always to be expected; he knew that many of the game operators ran crooked shows, and some of the female members of staff liked to offer shows of a more private and intimate nature after hours. Crime rates tended to rise whenever they rolled through town, and most local law enforcers tended to turn a blind eye as long as they were gone by morning and didn’t leave a mess behind. For some reason, most town sheriffs tended to be more concerned with litter than larceny - he paid a little contribution here and there to grease the wheels and expedite their way out of town. To date, he had yet to allow any of his staff to sully the carnival’s reputation. He ran his business with an iron fist that allowed for no debate as to conduct, but Richie was a growing problem. He’d had to cover two muggings, a house burglary and a nasty sexual assault that had cost a small fortune to silence. He was sure that Richie was the culprit, but not sure enough to act decisively. He was already planning on dumping Richie off on one of his other businesses. Richie may be his sister's son, but she was not his favourite sister.
“Hey, Carlo,” Preston called out as the Ferris wheel operator walked past wearily.
“What’s up, boss?”
“You seen Richie?”
“Your Richie?”
Preston cringed. Was that how the staff saw the little fuckup - his Richie? “Duchamp,” he snapped.
“Sorry, boss, not tonight. Jesse said that he was supposed to be on trash around the Candy Hut, but he never showed.”
Preston dismissed the underling with a contemptuous wave of the hand. Fucking Richie, he thought angrily. His ageing, aching bones longed for his bunk and a sound sleep through the night as they left this weird place behind. Eden made his skin crawl more and more, each year that they played here - he wanted nothing more than to crawl into his cabin and sleep as they put the town in their dust. Sighing, he trooped off to find the errant pain in his ass.
He headed through the now almost fully packed away rides and stands; he stood opposite the darkened town hall, wondering where to start.
“About time you were gone, boy.”
The voice startled him from the darkness. He turned, uncharacteristically scared; it was an alien emotion to him, and one that did not sit well. He attempted to find his bluster as he stared at the large sheriff before him. Quinn was a hard-ass of the old school variety, a six feet five and three hundred pound ball breaker. He moved with the slow grace of a man who had always been big, and greatly enjoyed the power that derived from his physical superiority. Preston drew his not-inconsiderable confidence up to its full level, determined not to be intimidated by the bullying tactics of some hick Sheriff of Stepford.
“I haven’t got all of my workers yet,” he said.
“Really?” The sheriff’s tone was condescending; he looked over Preston’s shoulder at the square and the breaking carnival. “I think that you’ve got all you’re going to get.” He turned his casual gaze from the square back fully onto Preston.
Preston stared back hard at the much larger man, attempting to take in the inference. “I’m missing one man.” He attempted to speak with an angry tone, but it fell firmly into the pleading spectrum.
“Oh, Casper wanted me to give you this.” Quinn spoke as though Preston hadn’t. “Here.” He handed over a thick envelope, “Some sort of bonus for a good job well done I guess.” Quinn hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked around nonchalantly as though they weren’t dancing.
Preston hefted the weight of the envelope; he didn’t have to open it to guess at the sort of amount it contained. He weighed the contents and the sheriff’s intimidation, over the fact that Richie wasn’t even his favourite sister's son. “Maybe everyone is here after all,” he relented; self-preservation was a powerful ally after all.
“Well then, I guess we’ll see you all again next year,” Quinn offered magnanimously.
“Guess so,” Preston said, thinking never in a million years. Tonight, when he put Eden in the dust, it would be for the last time; he’d never set foot in the town again.
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Thom Bray viewed the house; it was empty and deserted, but in this town there was always someone listening. His mother worked for Christian Realty, showing homes in Eden. She made a good living and provided him with everything that he had never asked for. They were not on good terms since his dad had upped and left town last year. His mother seemed determined to avoid the subject at all costs, no matter how much he pleaded for his father’s address so that he could write and find the truth.
Thom was fourteen, short and skinny for his age, but no one seemed to care or mind, as the school had an effective zero tolerance policy when it came to bullying. Sometimes Thom felt that his life could use a little reality, maybe even a little dose of adversity. Since they’d moved here from LA almost two years ago, his world had become hermetically sealed. There was no crime here, no trouble, no poverty, and everyone seemed to smile all the time. His memories of LA were not particularly pleasant. His parents had fought a lot and life had been stressful and he remembered it as a world of rules and restrictions. His mother was constantly fretting over him and the city that they lived in. His father had spent most mornings scanning the newspaper for signs that the darkness was getting closer to their front door. He’d had a few close friends from the neighborhood, but none had stayed in contact after the move like they’d promised. He’d written a few times to Dominic, his closest friend, but had never received a reply.
At first, Eden had been a paradise for him; the whole town was open to him, and his parents were no longer constantly peering over his shoulder, terrified if he left their sight for even a moment. The school was clean and friendly, there were no cliques or gangs, no discriminations or segregations by race or religion. There was no bullying or tormenting like in his previous school, where it was a free-for-all jungle ruled by Darwin’s theories. In Eden, the classes were small and the teachers all had time. The activities and facilities at the school were fantastic; every interest that he had was catered for. He had joined many of the after school clubs and his life was supposedly wonderful. But just lately he was beginning to feel smothered by the encased world. Since his father had left, his mother had become more and more detached behind a wall of politeness, and her smiles were starting to look as plastic as the neighbors’.
The house that he now stood outside of was one of the large mansions over on Fairfax. Apparently some lady had killed herself in the bath, and her husband had just upped and left without a word. He’d read all of this in his mom’s files that she kept on the Christians’ properties. She didn’t know that he had access to he
r computer system, but he’d gained the address and the keys from her office. The large house was more luxurious than even their own; the rear garden backed on to open fields and he’d had little trouble in clambering over the short fence that looked designed more for style than substance. He’d wanted to go inside the house but now felt his feet drag. A woman had died in there, and he was excited and scared in equal measure of just what might await him. The feeling of being scared was delicious; it was a real emotion that pierced through the bubble of Eden and lit his senses. His mind tantalized itself with thoughts of ghosts and vengeful spirits. His was a secret love of horror that was frowned upon beneath his teacher and mother’s disapproving stares. His father had shared his love of the genre, passing on book recommendations, showing him the quality that existed in the field. He’d read the likes of King, Campbell, Matheson, Straub and Barker. They’d watched movies huddled on the sofa, beneath blankets and face-covering hands. He missed his father and did not even have an explanation as to his disappearance from his life. His mother had only once spoken of a betrayal, one so black as to threaten them all; from then on, she point blank refused to so much as even discuss the matter further.
From his mother’s records, he knew that the writer Michael Torrance had moved in next door to the now empty property in which he hovered outside. Torrance was not one of his favourite writers; his prose could be a touch flowery at times and he skirted the horror genre on the tails of thriller. He had read one book that he’d enjoyed about vampires and gangsters; it had been gruesome enough to satisfy, whilst still engaging him with intelligence. He had thought of approaching the writer, but his mother had been mortified at his ill-advised public suggestion over breakfast, and he’d had to promise that he would not bother one of her more important clients.
He moved towards the rear patio doors. Even though the house was deserted, the glass still sparkled perfectly in the sunshine. Inexplicably, he gleefully smeared a sweaty palm across the pristine surface. He used one of the smaller keys on the bunch that he had brought from his mother’s office and unlocked the door. He slid them apart and stepped quickly inside. The kitchen felt cool; the counters were clean and polished, the furniture looked new and untouched, and the house lay empty waiting to be filled again.