The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus

by Al Sarrantonio

  Scotty looked up; the Pumpkin Boy was now looming over him, his gloved hands opening and closing.

  “I’m ssssorry, Sccccotty,” Jody whispered.

  “For what?” Scotty said.

  With the sounds of metal sliding on metal, and a faint metallic groan, the Pumpkin Boy reached down and gripped Scotty around his waist. Scotty felt himself hoisted slightly up and then pressed tight to the Pumpkin Boy’s cylindrical chest.

  He heard a faint beating there.

  The smell of oil was stronger.

  The Pumpkin Boy walked, with Scotty pressed tight against him with one enfolding arm.

  Scotty, his own heart hammering, counted five long steps.

  He let out a long weak cry.

  Jody’s voice said, very softly, “I’m ssssorry, Sccccotty, but he says I’m not a ggggood Ted.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Grant felt as yellow and dried out as he knew he looked. It was getting bad again —like it always did before Pumpkin Days began. He couldn’t get through the mornings without that first drink at breakfast, and, by lunch, if he didn’t already have a pint in him, his hands began to shake and he couldn’t concentrate.

  But, with the booze in him, he was as good as his job as he ever was.

  He still knew he was a great cop — even if he was a walking car wreck.

  And today, with the first pint already smoothly settled in his gut and veins, he could even face the coming Pumpkin Days Festival itself.

  God, how he hated this town — and loved it. As Len Schneider had told him, people were the same all over, a healthy cocktail of good and rotten, and they were no better or worse here in Orangefield. There was greed, corruption, untamed anger, cheating, thievery, and, occasionally, even murder, just like anywhere else on the good ol’ Earth. All the deadly sins, all in a pretty row. But Orangefield was one of lucky communities of the rotten creatures called men who had learned to put a good face on it. They had dolled it up, made it pretty, which, somehow, made it bearable. The entire history of Orangefield was one long cavalcade of greed, one long pursuit of money, and the town fathers had finally, when they discovered — and then exploited — the serendipitous fact that pumpkins grew here like nowhere else on the planet, found a way to have their cake and eat it too. They could make money hand over fist, and, like Las Vegas, still pretend to be one of those “nice” places to live. Good schools, good facilities, good services, a mayor who always smiled and a police force who kept things in order.

  As corrupt and rotten as anywhere else, only with a much better make-up job.

  Grant took a deep breath, coughed, and chided himself; he knew damn well how cynical he had become, and knew that many of his problems came from something outside the normal proclivities of Orangefield itself.

  From, for instance, the fact that he now believed not only that Samhain existed, but that he didn’t want Grant anywhere near whatever weird shit he was up to.

  “Stay out of it…”

  Which was something, of course, that Grant could not do.

  He shivered, a physical reaction, and ducked off the empty midway of the main Festival tent into an empty space behind one of the booths. He could hear the sound of hammers as workmen erected tables and stages behind him. He fumbled the new pint out of his raincoat pocket and twisted the top off with shaking fingers, putting the bottle quickly to his lips.

  Two long gulps, another racking cough, and some of the demons went away.

  This would be a bad day, and he would end up in his bed alone tonight, his wife once again in Killborne, the institution, and he would awake with the night sweats, and insomnia, and a hangover with all its own requisite horrors…

  Still, he felt like he had a job to do.

  One which Len Schneider wasn’t doing.

  He firmly screwed the cap back onto the bottle, and thrust it deep into his pocket.

  No more until you’re finished for the day, Billy boy. He took a deep breath. You’re still a cop. The best.

  He looked at his trembling hand, which eventually steadied under his willful gaze.

  Go to work.

  Grant was in the midway again, standing out in the lights under the huge tent, with the ebb and flow of the workmen around him. It was like being at a carnival, only one dominated by a single color: everything, everything, was in shades of orange. The tent was orange- and white-striped, the booths hung with orange crepe paper, the display tables, covered with orange table cloths. Light was provided by hanging lanterns shaped like pumpkins.

  And everything soon to be displayed would be pumpkin related. There would be pumpkin toys, forty different foods made from pumpkins, books on pumpkins, school projects made from pumpkins, the biggest pumpkin, the smallest pumpkin, one and a half inches wide —

  Music drifted in from outside the main tent — there was a bandstand in the auxiliary tent, and tonight was practice night for forties dance music. He did not want to be here when it was rap night…

  The lights overhead flickered, there was a gust of chilled October air, so unlike the summer-like warmth of only a few weeks ago…

  He was entering what would be the entertainment section of the midway: nickel and dime games of chance (proceeds to charity), a local magician, a balloon-toy maker who was practicing his craft. The hiss of helium brought an oddly nostalgic tinge to Grant’s mind: he remembered when television was in black and white and on Saturday morning there was a guy who twisted impossibly long balloons, which he first inflated with that same insistent hiss, into impossibly intricate animals — a giraffe, a rabbit, a dachshund that looked like a dachshund. He paused for a moment at the booth — this guy was not as good. His latest creation was something that looked like a duck but which the balloon-twister proclaimed an eagle.

  Grant stifled a laugh, and moved on to other booths and displays:

  Someone practicing his spiel selling rug shampoo, who had managed to procure a bright orange rug to demonstrate on, a pumpkin cookie stand, a pumpkin-colored-pretzel stand, a dark, long, well-enclosed booth with flaps over the cutout windows. Inside there were rows of benches in the dark, and an ancient 16mm movie projector would black and white cartoons against the back wall. Grant peeked in. Dark and empty.

  Grant turned away — another reflection from his own childhood, only he wondered how many kids, in the era of video games and computers and digital television, would sit still for a grainy old Betty Boop film…

  A wide, high booth near the end of the midway caught Grant’s eye. Immediately, and for no reason he could put his finger on, that sixth sense that he knew made him a good cop tickled and came alive.

  There was something about it, about the guy who was in it pacing around alone…

  The booth was brightly lit, deep and wide. Behind a rope barrier covered with crinkly black and orange crepe paper, on a white wooden platform far away so that he couldn’t be touched, a clown solemnly practiced. He was dressed in orange and black motley, head topped with a white hat with orange pom, his face painted flat white with a huge orange smile and black lashes completely circling his eyes. He was juggling three balls, two orange, one white.

  Behind him, plastered on the back of the wall, was a huge, grotesque poster of a more vivacious clown dressed in brighter clothing, which proclaimed, UNCLE LOLLIPOP LOVES YOU!

  On the bottom of the poster, in small letters, was written: Brought to You from Madison, Wisconsin.

  The little tickle of awareness in Grant’s head turned to a buzz of recognition.

  Wisconsin…

  My God, maybe this has nothing to do with Samhain at all.

  Could this be Jerry Carlton?

  Grant studied the clown for a moment: he was of medium height, medium-weight. His lips were thin inside the painted smile. His eyes were empty, staring at nothing.

  Grant’s first instinct was to reach for his service revolver, but then the immediate thought struck him that if this was Carlton, then those two boys would be close by.

&nb
sp; Grant quickly moved past the remaining booths — an orange juice stand, a table selling gardening tools: “Make Your Pumpkins the Biggest in Orangefield!” a homemade sign proclaimed — and pushed through the tent flap to the outside.

  Crisp night air assaulted him. The band music, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” not played very well, was louder. Rainier Park was filled with strollers and curiosity seekers impatient for the Pumpkin Festival to begin, a lot of teenagers milling in groups, the occasional policeman put on extra duty since the second child abduction.

  He hurriedly lit a cigarette.

  Butt firmly between his lips, Grant buttoned his raincoat as he walked around the tent to the back facing the booths he had just observed.

  A cloud darker than the night sky came toward him, and he held his breath as it resolved into what looked like a swarm of hornets.

  He waited for a voice, but none came.

  The cloud fell to the ground and swirled past him: a tornado of tiny leaves moved by the wind.

  No weird shit this time.

  There were vehicles parked in a ragged line — Winnebagos, SUVs, a couple of old station wagons, at the far end a semi with BIFFORD FOODS painted on the truck in bold letters. Grant counted down from his end to approximate the back location of the clown’s booth, and found a large white panel truck without markings bearing Wisconsin rental plates.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  He studied the back of the truck: there were two outwardly hinged doors, closed at the middle, and locked through a hasp and staple with a large, heavy, new-looking padlock.

  The front of the truck was empty; the door locked, no key in the ignition.

  He walked to the back and put his hand on one of the doors.

  In a fierce whisper, he called out: “Jody? Scott?”

  There was no answer.

  He slapped on the door with the flat of his hand, and put his ear to it, but was met with only silence.

  What he wanted to do, and what he was supposed to do, were two different things. He wanted to borrow the nearest crowbar and pry open the back of the panel truck. But if he did that, no matter what he found, none of it would be admissible in a court of law.

  Even ‘just cause’ wouldn’t cover it.

  Then again, if he did nothing, he would not be able to live with himself for much longer. If that truck held what he feared it held, and he did nothing, and his hesitation was the difference between those two boys being alive and dead, he knew that the demon memories that chased him, the things he wouldn’t think about, never mind talk about, would catch up, and that would be the end of him.

  He thought of Len Schneider briefly — this was, in essence, Schneider’s dilemma: I waited too long…

  Grant tramped farther down the line of vehicles, avoiding thick electrical lines which led from the tent to ground outlets farther off, till he came upon two men sitting on the dropped back end of a pickup truck and smoking. He showed them his badge, angling it in the faint light so they could see it.

  “You guys have a crowbar?”

  One of the smokers flicked his cigarette away and nodded. “Sure thing.”

  In a moment Grant had what he needed. Gripping the strong metal bar, he went back to the panel truck.

  Throwing his own cigarette aside, he angled the crowbar into the curl of the lock’s closure and gave a single hard yank.

  With a weak groan, the lock snapped open and fell away with a clank.

  One of the doors, uneven on its hinges, swung slowly towards Grant, opening.

  Light filtered into the back of the truck, illuminating the interior.

  “Shit almighty,” Grant whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Len Schneider dreamed. Except for the one about the kid with no face, he rarely dreamt. But when he did they were significant.

  In this one, he was flying like a bird. He had wings of long blue feathers, white-tipped, and he soared high into the clouds and then dived, his mouth open in exultation.

  And then: in the manner of dreams, things changed, and he was in a balloon. His wings were gone. He was floating, at the mercy of the wind. The basket, which was constructed in a loose weave which let him see through the breaks in the bottom, shifted precariously when he moved, threatening to break apart. But he was unafraid, and held tightly to the ropes which secured the gondola to the balloon. He peered calmly out.

  He was passing over a huge green forest which spread out below him in all directions. At one horizon was a line of mountains, impossibly tall and thin, their peaks like snow-capped needles. The sun was either setting or rising. A glint of something that might have been a vast body of water shimmered in the direction opposite the sun.

  But he studied the trees.

  Suddenly (as in the manner of dreams) he held a spyglass in one hand. He peered through it, and the tops of the trees looked close enough to touch. While still looking through the glass he reached down and did touch the tops of trees, feeling the light brush of healthy leaves vaguely redolent of moisture against his fingers.

  And then something rose large as a whale into his vision, and he felt the flat, hard touch of an artificial structure slide under his hand.

  When he stood up gasping, and threw the spyglass away, the thing had already disappeared behind him. When he looked back anxiously he saw nothing but the receding tops of trees waving their leaves at him, going away—

  “Jesus!”

  Schneider opened his eyes. For a moment he was still in the dream, which he needed no interpretation for: he could smell the rushing high air from the gondola, and the faint hot breath of the balloon overhead; he moved his arms and for the briefest second thought they were ridged in feathers.

  “Jesus,” he gasped, fully awake now, and jumped out of bed and began to dress quickly, strapping on his shoulder holster.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “That’s right: Carlton. C-A-R-L-T-O-N,” Grant said. The voice on the other end of the line said some words, and then Grant answered: “No, the panel truck was empty, but I still think he’s the guy who took the kids. Call it a gut feeling.” More words from the other end, and then Grant once more: “That’s right, he was gone when I went back into the tent.”

  The phone receiver pressed tight to his ear, Grant tried to shake another cigarette out of the pack but found it was empty. Grunting in displeasure, he crumpled the pack with his free hand and fumbled in his raincoat for another. He coughed. His hand found the pint bottle but moved impatiently past it. Amongst loose change he located the new pack, and grunted again, this time in pleasure, as he drew it out and expertly opened it, tapping a butt out and lighting it.

  While he waited on the phone he turned to regard deputy sheriff Charlie Fredricks, who he had grabbed from his post at the entrance to the music tent in Ranier Park and brought to the station with him. The kid was bright and willing, and hadn’t opened his mouth about this not being sheriff’s business. Charlie was young, but he had seen his own share of weird shit in Orangefield.

  Grant said to him, “Anything on who rented that panel truck?”

  A second receiver pressed to his own ear, Charlie made a face. “On hold.”

  “Dammit. You tell them this is an emergency?”

  Charlie looked hurt, then gave a sour grin. “Guess that’s why they didn’t just hang up.”

  Grant scowled, then pressed his receiver tighter to his ear. “Yes? You sure?” There was a pause. “Well, thanks, Warden.”

  He hung up the phone and traded puzzled looks with Charlie Fredericks, who was still on hold.

  “Jerry Carlton is safe in his cell at Madison State Prison, reading an old copy of National Geographic as we speak,” Grant said.

  “Maybe an accomplice?” Charlie asked, trying to be helpful. “Someone he worked with who didn’t get caught?”

  “Carlton killed five boys, all on his own. He was a loner.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I’ve got to talk to Len Schneider, find out if t
here was someone else…”

  Charlie nodded absently, giving sudden interest to his own phone. Grant suspended his own punch-dialing expectantly.

  Charlie said, “Shit,” and looked at Grant. “They just changed the music, is all.”

  Grant shook his head and jabbed in Schneider’s number.

  It rang until the answering machine took it.

  “Isn’t Schneider off tonight?” Grant said to no one in particular.

  Charlie Fredericks shrugged, then said, “Yes?” into his receiver and began to nod. His pencil went to work on his notepad.

  Behind Bill Grant the voice of Chip Prohman, the night sergeant, fat and laconic and nearly useless, chimed in. “You looking for Schneider? He called in a little while ago. I just sent two black and whites out after him. He sounded out of his head — claimed those two kidnapped kids were out in the woods after all.”

  Grant was about to answer when Charlie Fredericks hung up and waved his notepad at him. Grant squinted forward to read what it said.

  “Holy God.” Grant turned viciously on Prohman and spat: “Where the hell is Schneider?”

  The sergeant answered, “Out in the woods—”

  “Where?”

  Prohman was almost yawning. “Same spot he dug all those holes. You ask me, he’s just plain off his —”

  Grant was already half out the door, with Charlie Fredericks, perplexed, studying the name on his notepad as if it was an ancient rune telling him nothing, behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grant could see the roof flashers of the cruisers ahead of him. He felt as if he was in a dream. Charlie Fredericks had talked all the tire-screaming way out, but Grant felt as if he was alone in the car.

  It all came down to this.

  To this: the most horrible thing of all — at least in this world.

  For a tiny moment he almost wished it was the other business, weird shit that he was dealing with.