Carnival (24 page)

He averted his eyes from Eddie's head and returned his gaze to the young people “What I'm about to say is going to be very hard for you to accept, gang.” He met his son's eyes. “Especially you, son.” He looked at Susan. “And for you, honey. But . . .”

“I looked at my father about half an hour ago, Mr. Holland,” Susan interrupted him, her voice low. “But it wasn't my father I was seeing. I don't know what it was. Whatever it was, it was horrible. Demon-like. I couldn't see it in Joyce and Linda, but I could feel it. That's it, isn't it?”

Martin did not trust his voice. He nodded his head and cut his eyes to his son.

“The daughter is like the mother and the son is like the father, right, dad?” Mark asked.

Martin found his voice. “Yes, son. I'm afraid so.”

“Me, Sis and Gary?” Rich asked, a touch of fear in the question.

“You're not affected.” He leveled with the kids about what he'd seen while on the speaker's platform. About Alicia, Mike Hanson, Matt Horton, Chief Kelson. The townspeople who were the devil's own in disguise. He told them every word that Doc Reynolds had said to him.

“Grandpa is coming... back?” Mark asked.

“Yes. According to Doc Reynolds. After all this,” he waved his hand at the carnival midway, “I think anything is possible.” He looked at the kids and marveled at the way they were taking it. Or was it that they really did not understand? He rejected that. They knew. But like the adults, they had deliberately numbed their minds. “I'll ask Ned to speak to Eddie.”

“I'll tell mother,” Susan volunteered.

“I'll tell Don,” Jeanne said.

Martin hid a smile. Young romance in the midst of fear and death. Well, he thought, she could do a lot worse than Don Talbolt. “All right, kids. You hang in there. We'll make it.”

“We don't have a choice,” his son summed it up.

* * *

An hour later, Martin knew that his daughter, his best friend, and Joyce would not be back. They had deserted the
group,
their families, to join their true kind. It made things much easier to Martin's way of thinking. He walked over to Eddie and sat down on the ground beside the lawyer.

“I was married to that...
creature,”
he spat out the last. “Loved her. I don't think I'll ever feel clean again.”

“Believe me, Eddie, I do know the feeling.”

The lawyer cut his eyes and tried a smile that almost made it. “Yeah, I guess you do at that, Martin. We've both lost a wife and a kid.”

“You can't be sure about Missy, Eddie.”

“Don't try to con a good lawyer, buddy. We both know her soul is as black as a coal mine. It's amazing to me that we're all taking this as well as we are. It's tough on young Ed, though.”

Martin kept silent, letting the man talk it out of his system.

“What do you figure our odds, Martin?”

“Fifty-fifty,” he replied honestly. “Maybe not that much. But I have the strangest feeling that I'm getting more and more powerful—mentally.”

“You really read my thoughts awhile back?”

“Yes.”

“I don't think that is a gift I'd want.” He cut his eyes. “Powerful, how?”

“In all ways. I know now why it's called insight. I can see fear, joy, distrust, uncertainty. And I'm getting the feeling that I can destroy with this gift. Strange term for it, I guess.”

The attorney looked at his watch. “Getting down to the wire, buddy.”

“Not long.”

Frenchy joined them. “Have you noticed the subtle change in the noise coming from the midway?”

They listened, with Eddie saying, “I can't tell any difference.”

Martin nodded his head. “It's grown impatient, angry—no, sullen. Yes, a definite change in the crowd.” With his eyes on Frenchy, he added, “You do have the gift.”

“I guess.” She shrugged it off. “If I do, I never knew it before now.”

“Nor did I. You feel brave?”

“Not particularly. What do you have in mind?”

“Taking a walk. Let's size things up before it gets full dark.”

* * *

Martin Holland rattle-banged along on the pavement, the rotted rubber long since thrown off the rims. The rims were kicking up sparks on the concrete as he rolled along at a stately 25 MPH. One leathery arm was hanging out the window, his bony right hand on the steering wheel. He was still many miles away from the town of Holland. But he wasn't worried; he'd get there in plenty of time to help his son and a few of his old friends. By now, he felt, his son would have learned he had the gift, and would be experimenting with it. And the father knew the son would soon discover how dangerous it was. He only hoped he learned it in time.

And, although the second mental request was not nearly so important as the first, the man hoped he got to the Holland fairgrounds in time to see his son put the gift to work.

Over the objections of the others, Frenchy and Martin went for a walk along the midway. Both of them were armed, with the pistols concealed. They were shocked at the change of attitude of the people who milled around on the midway. Fights were breaking out every few yards, men fighting men, women fighting women, and men fighting women. The crowds pushed and shoved and cussed. They saw two women holding a man down on the ground, forcing him to eat huge wedges of cherry pie.

“Tell me my pie is no good, huh, you son of a bitch!” a woman swore at him. She drew back and slugged the man on the jaw. The second woman knee-tackled another man and brought him down, straddling him, sitting on his chest, and hitting him in the face with both fists.

“And they're not even married,” Martin tried a joke.

Frenchy chuckled until her eyes drifted to a dark space between two concessions. A body of a young man lay on the ground, naked and bloody.

Frenchy walked over to the body and knelt down, touching his dead flesh. “Still warm. This wasn't done that long ago.”

“Sure wasn't,” Linda's voice came from behind Martin.

He turned to face his daughter. Blood was splattered all over her clothes.

She laughed at the expression on her father's face.

Martin backhanded her, knocking the girl flat on her back in the sawdust.

A man who worked just up the street from Martin's hardware store began screaming curses at Martin, charging at him with a club in his hand.

Frenchy's .357 barked once, the slug striking the cursing man in the neck, turning him around like a bloody human top on the midway. He danced for a few seconds, then fell to the sawdust, a gaping hole in one side of his neck.

Linda had scrambled off, but not before Martin had watched the girl almost begin her demonic metamorphosis. She had crawled off into the darkness before the change could be completed.

Sudden hate almost consumed the man, heating his blood to a blinding fever. He turned and saw Jim Watson looking at him, grinning, his face melting into a hideous mask. The words that rolled from the beast-like mouth forever damned the man. “We're one with the devil, Holland.” The laughter was tinged with evil from the darkest places of Hell.

Martin felt a trembling take hold of him as his eyes bored into Satan's own.

Jim Watson began changing back to human form as flames licked at him, the fire coming from out of the air. Martin's eyes changed into yellow embers as Frenchy stood back and watched the crowds vacate the area. Within seconds there was no one within a hundred yards of the three of them. And one of them was a rolling mass of flames. Howling came from within the lashing flames; a screaming like nothing she had ever heard before.

“That's enough, Martin!” she yelled at him.

Martin's eyes changed. His trembling ceased. Jim Watson fell to the earth and sawdust and sizzled and bubbled and kicked as whatever sort of life was in him died yet another death.

Frenchy grabbed Martin by the arm and literally shoved him out of the main midway, to the darkness between concessions. She pushed him behind the concessions and toward the livestock pavilions.

“I'm all right,” he finally spoke. “You can turn me loose, Frenchy! Can you believe that I did that back there? I just thought it and it happened!”

“It couldn't have happened to a more deserving... creature. I can assure you of that. How do you feel?”

“Drained. Tired. But I'm recovering fast.”

“He admitted he was the devil's own. I wonder if he has known that all along?”

“I doubt it. Doc told me that someone like Nabo has to come along; that brings it out. Old Doc. I forgot about him. Did you see him on the midway?”

“No. Where was it he said he was going?”

“To buy us a little time and to meet my father. He said something about a ride. I don't know what he was talking about.”

“I hope he's all right. He sounds like a very brave old man.”

* * *

Doc Reynolds brought his heavy cane down on the head of a man and smiled in satisfaction as the man dropped to the earth, his skull caved in. Doc took a closer look at the man. He had delivered him forty-odd years back.

“Trash,” the old man muttered, as he stepped back into the darkness between concessions. “And didn't have to be.” After more than a half century of practicing medicine, Old Doc Reynolds was as knowledgeable about human nature as most psychiatrists: he had seen the best and the worst. The dead man was no demon, but he was just as bad: he would follow anyone with a half-baked idea—just as long as that idea involved violence against some decent person.

Doc glanced at his watch. His old friend Martin should be coming along in about an hour, and Doc wanted to be sure to stay alive long enough to see him.

He looked up and down the midway; what he could see of it from his hiding place in the darkness. His smile was grim. He had guessed correctly: most of the people were resting, gathering strength for the destruction they would wreak between the hours of eight and midnight. Just like back in '54. It was being repeated almost to the second.

Movement at the far end of the midway caught his eyes. He squinted, trying to make out who it was walking up the deserted midway. He softly cursed under his breath.

Old man Tressalt, and from the way he walked, he looked like he'd fallen off the wagon and taken him several good snootfulls of hooch. As he drew closer, Doc could see the pistol shoved down in the man's pants. “No!” Doc whispered softly.

“Gary! Pete! Frank!” the father shouted, his voice carrying over the now-softened voices of the midway. “I know what you are, boys. Come out here and face me. Damn you all to the pits of Hell—come out here.”

The music from the empty rides stopped. No loudspeakers blared. The old man stood alone on the midway.

Doc didn't know where all the people could have gone to. Only that they were gone.

All but the carnies. Those manning the concessions stood or sat and watched as the old man began walking slowly up the midway. Doc could see that their faces were no longer of a human form. They were dreadful looking creatures. Their laughter was demonic as the slobber leaked from fanged mouths and dripped over animal lips. They snarled at Tressalt and pointed clawed fingers at the old man.

“Spawns of Hell!” Tressalt shouted at the creatures behind the game concessions. “Filth of Satan!”

The creatures hooted, snarled, and howled at the man.

Gary, Pete and Frank stepped out onto the midway, about a hundred feet from their father. They stood looking at him.

“Your dear mother passed away this afternoon, boys. But not before she told me about her suspicions of all of you. It didn't come as much of a surprise. Only you, Gary. That was something I could not believe. Now I guess I don't have much choice in the matter do I?”

His sons stood in the center of the sawdust midway and stared at him.

Martin, Frenchy, Dick and Ned had slipped back to the midway after hearing the music fade. They stood in the shadows, listening and watching.

It was Frenchy who first noticed the slight white movement at the very end of the midway, just before the concessions began. She pointed it out.

“I don't know what it is,” Ned whispered. “I can't make out anything except a blur.”

Frank, Pete and Gary had not moved; continued to stare at their father.

Martin Holland, behind the wheel of the rusted old pickup truck, was clatter-banging his way closer to the fairgrounds. Only a few more miles.

Billie Watson had awakened from her swoon and managed to push the bloody, battered body of Jim Carrol off her. She had run screaming, naked, into the late afternoon, blind and mindless with fear.

Joyce was only a few yards away from Eddie, who was sitting by himself, away from the main group behind the livestock pavilion. Her daughter, Missy, was with her, both of them on hands and knees, inching closer to husband and father.

“I left your mother in her bed,” Tressalt told his sons. “I dressed her in her favorite white gown and folded her hands across her chest; put her little Bible under her hands. Them hands loved you boys. Changed your diapers, bathed you, held you and loved you.”

“Why don't you shut your old trap, you stupid old man?” Pete yelled to his father.

Martin cringed at the hateful verbal venom in the son's tone.

The father slowly shook his head. “Filth. I sired filth. I don't know why I was punished. Probably never will. But I sired monsters.”

He stepped toward his sons.

“Behind his back,” Ned whispered. “Stuck in his belt.”

“What is it?” Dick returned the low tone.

“A stake. The pistol and that drunk act was just for show. He intends to kill one with the stake.”

The white object seemed to float a few yards closer to the lighted midway. Still too far away for anyone to clearly see.

But Old Doc Reynolds knew what it was. Tressalt's wife.

Doc swallowed hard. He couldn't be sure what side the old woman was on. He remained very still in the shadows.

Martin silently prayed that the old man would kill Gary. Martin didn't want to have to be the one who did it.

Then he felt guilty about the thought. The feeling of guilt passed very quickly as Gary shouted, “So the old pious bitch is dead? Well, good! I thought she'd never kick off.”

“Pitiful,” the father said, his voice strong but sad. “And to think that you were always her favorite.”

Eddie never made a sound as the long-bladed dagger slipped between his ribs and tore into his heart. Mother and daughter stretched the man out on the ground. Missy knelt down and kissed her father on the lips.

His eyes opened. Blinked rapidly a couple of times.

“Sleep,” Missy whispered. “Sleep until we call.”

Joyce and Missy slipped back into the shadows.

The elder Tressalt moved closer to his sons. Only a short distance separated them now.

“What do you want, old man?” Frank sneered at his father.

“I wanted to say goodbye to you boys. That's all.”

“Goodbye?” Pete questioned. “You ain't goin' nowhere. Except to the grave.”

“Oh, I know that. I've made my peace with God.” He had been watching the bright white object move closer. Watched it with dread circling and squeezing his heart.

“Something has frightened the demons away,” Frenchy whispered, her eyes sweeping the concessions. “They're all gone. Look.”

The game booths were empty. Still brightly lighted, but vacant.

Tressalt took another step toward his sons. The shimmering wavy object behind the three men moved silently closer.

Frank stepped out to meet his father. His face had changed, turning beast-like. Spittle leaked from his mouth. His jaw had swelled with the transformation. Fang-like teeth protruded over his lips.

Tressalt put both hands behind his back and smiled at Frank. “I got to say it, boy: you sure are ugly.”

Roaring, Frank jumped at his father, springing at him with the agility of a great animal. The old man pulled the stake from behind his belt and stood his ground. His son impaled himself on the point. He screamed, blood and pus spraying from his fanged mouth just as the wraith-like object wrapped its near-translucence around Pete.

Gary ran away, howling and ducking between concessions, just as Frank grabbed his father's throat in one clawed hand and squeezed and jerked, almost decapitating the old man.

Father and son fell to the ground, both dying, as good and evil struggled even unto death. One cursing, the other mouthing silent prayers in his pain.

Pete was screaming in an agonizing rage as the whiteness squeezed tighter. The white soon became stained with crimson as blood dripped from the cloth folds and mother and son sank to the sawdust covered ground of the near-deserted midway.

The righteous wraith increased the pressure and Pete's howling filled the brightly colored night. The top of his head exploded.

Tressalt and son lay still on the midway, the father's right hand still gripping the heavy stake protruding from the son's chest, the point penetrating and ruining the devil's heart. All signs of the demon within the man had disappeared.

Mother and son lay in a bloody pile on the sawdust. The woman had assumed human form; the son, with intestines forced out of his mouth by the pressure, lay with his arms around his mother.

Old Doc Reynolds, on one side of the midway, and Martin and his group on the other side, watched as the concessionaires, in human form, returned to their booths and began calling out their patter, urging those who had drifted back onto the midway to come and try their luck.

The ferris wheel and merry-go-round began slowly turning and revolving. The music began playing. The night was soon filled with the sounds of false gaiety.

“Come one, come all!” the loudspeakers blared. “It's fun time! It's a good time for all. The carnival is in town!”