Carnival (31 page)

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!”

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 difficult 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.

Samson's eyes were ripped out. Ralph Stanley McVee stepped on them.

The animals brought the devil's strong man down and tore his heavy flesh.

Ralph Stanley McVee watched this and grinned a doggy smile. “JoJo!” he yapped, his canine eyes catching sight of the half human. “Find the mayor and his people. Tell them the evil black hearts no longer need be pierced to destroy. Their master has left them. They are alone!”

JoJo, his long arms almost dragging the sawdusted midway, loped off to find Martin.

“Come, friends,” Ralph barked. “I will go with you; I belong more to your world than to the world of those who paid money to laugh at me.”

The animals poured through the open gates and onto the midway.

“Something has changed,” Capt. Mayfield said. “Some... pressure has been lifted. You feel it.”

“Yeah. But what?”

“I think conditions have returned to normal.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Mayfield drily put a disclaimer on his remark.

Davidson lifted a shaking hand and pointed a shaky finger at the ferris wheel. Mayfield's eyes followed the finger.

Missy had caught herself in the framework of the ferris wheel, the bolt that protruded from both sides of her head caught between gondola and metal. She hung there, flapping her arms and screaming in pain.

“Normal?” Davidson cut his eyes.

“I cannot tell you how much I regret saying that, Gene.”

The animals had forgotten their pain. Led by Ralph Stanley McVee, they dragged themselves along the midway, searching for the humans who had ended their lives.

Sharp eyes spotted Hal Evans and John Stacker just as the teenage thugs spotted the animals. The young hoodlums tried to run. They were brought down, screaming and begging, by a furry pack with slashing fangs.

With blood dripping from snarling snouts, the animals looked around for the leader of the punk pack. But Karl Steele had witnessed the carnage of his friends and had raced behind the concession-lined midway. In his fear, he ran directly into Martin and his group.

Mark handed his crossbow to Audie as the group circled the two young men.

“I have wanted to do this for a long time,” Mark said, then stepped in close and busted Karl in the mouth with a hard right fist.

Karl went down, but he didn't stay down. He was back on his boots in a heartbeat, wading in, swinging both fists. Mark stepped back, blocking the punches with his arms. He found an opening and drove a hard fist to Karl's belly, doubling him over. Mark brought a fist down on Karl's lower back, bringing a scream of pain from the kidney punch.

Karl backed off, trying to regain his wind. His eyes were wild with hate and confusion. “It wasn't nothing that any of us could help doin'!” he yelled. “Them people come in an' made us do it.”

“He's a shape-changer,” Martin quietly reminded his son.

Karl screamed at the surrounding circle as his face began its transformation into a mask of thousands of years of evil.

“Let us through,” the quiet slurry voice came from the darkness behind the circle.

Ralph Stanley McVee and his friends.

The small circle opened. Karl's face was once more in human form.

“The power is waning,” Ralph told the gathering. “But there is still much danger.”

Karl's eyes found the mangled shepherd. “You're dead!” he screamed. “I kilt you last year. I'member you by that off-colored leg. I run over you and won ten dollars from my dad. He said I couldn't hit you on the highway.”

The shepherd jumped, the fangs working at Karl's face. Karl screamed in pain and managed to break loose, running from the group, into the surrounding darkness. Martin noticed the young man had begun running on all fours.

“Let him go!” the Dog Man yapped. “I am feeling that his punishment is yet to come.” He grinned his canine smile. “And I am feeling that it will not be to his liking.”

Before Martin or any of the others could ask what that punishment might be, Ralph and his friends were gone, vanishing into the night that surrounded the lighted midway. Within seconds, screams were heard as the animals took their revenge against those who had deliberately hurt them in former lives.

“You'll still lose!” Nabo's fury-filled voice raged from the loudspeakers. “I shall destroy this miserable place and leave you with nothing! Nothing!” The sound of the amplifier being turned off was a loud click in the night.

“My watch is still running,” Frenchy said.

The others checked their watches. Time had indeed returned to them.

“Now what, Dad?” Mark asked.

“We don't run anymore. We take the fight to them. And I have a feeling that I'm going to have to face Nabo alone.”

The physically exhausted little group moved toward the lighted midway.