Dark Carnival

by James Axler

  "When?"

  "Traven wants you all out of here. Doesn't like any other outlanders stepping on his turf. His turf! So take what comes, Ryan, and then move on."

  "Got no reason to stay."

  J.B. had been fieldstripping his new scattergun, checking it for any signs of damp. He looked up at Kelly. "Want to tell us what's going down here?"

  The man glanced at the door, then went to lean against it, making the rusted lock finally click shut. He looked at the curtains hanging over the picture window. He moved to stand by it, staring out across the misty field of green.

  "Don't know why I should trust you people any more than Adam's posse."

  "We're not evil. They are." Krysty's voice hung flat in the room between them.

  The sec man nodded slowly. "Could be that's the up and down of it. Used to be a hell of a good ville once."

  He launched into the story of the Garden of Eden and the serpent that had come crawling, unbidden into it.

  Accompanied by two younger men and six younger girls, Adam Traven had appeared in Greenglades about three months ago. He'd come from the north, possibly, Kelly thought, by boat. He'd brought a supply of a scarce known drug. Known on the streets as dreem, it was a fine powder, tinted a faint pink, that could be either smoked or snorted. It gave a fast rush, like speed, coke or jolt, then eased the user into a mild and languorous lethargy.

  "Like being awake and asleep at the same time," Kelly told them.

  It also heightened all sensual experiences. Eating became almost orgasmic, music hardly bearable in its insinuating beauty. Sex was a stretched splinter of time that rang with an infinite resonance through the linked chambers of yesterday and tomorrow.

  Kelly described it with a cynical grin. "That's how Traven said it was. I tried some, and he was partly right. But you could see through it."

  "How do you mean?" Ryan asked.

  "Like you're wearing a mask. But you know that you're wearing it. Like watching things through a mist. Like seeing the gun fired, but it's not your finger on the trigger. Just not real. But Boss Larry doesn't see it like that."

  The fat baron had become hooked on the drug, and the only supplier was Adam Traven.

  "Wasn't just the drug." Kelly looked as though he were going to spit on the carpet, then he remembered where he was and changed his mind. "The girls. Not women! Girls. Oldest can't be more than fifteen. Tops. And they worship the ground Traven walks. Do anything for him. Boss Larry's hooked on them and what they do."

  "Traven pimps?" Mildred asked.

  "Kind of. More like a puppet master, pulling on the strings. He uses the girls himself. And the boys, I guess. But like he's sitting in a corner watching himself do what he does."

  "Control freak," Mildred said. "What we used to call people like that. Manipulators. Dominators. Get their kicks from forcing others to obey them. Sick bastards, most."

  Kelly nodded. He related how he and a few of the senior sec men had been thinking about taking care of Traven. But he wouldn't elaborate on that.

  "So we figure that the safest step is the one not taken."

  "You could chill him. Him and his gang. Posse, or whatever he calls it." Ryan looked past the sec man, out the misted window. "Why not?"

  Kelly sniffed. "Reasons. Maybe you'll see some yourself, if you're here long enough."

  "But we won't be here long enough." Krysty looked over at Kelly. "You keep plenty hidden, don't you?"

  "You a doomie? Some sort of mutie seer? Boss Larry doesn't care much for muties. Nor norms, come to that. So—"

  "Don't need to be a doomie to be able to tell when a man isn't spilling it all on the floor."

  "How many in the ville?" J.B. asked. "Baron controls more than just this old park."

  Kelly finally turned from the window. "Got to be moving, people." He hesitated at the door, his hand on the corroded metal of the handle. "Sure it's bigger. Sea to shining sea. Boss Larry's writ runs clear to the sea on the east. Into the swamps as far as a man with a blaster can control. But there's Cajuns that way. Not even Boss Larry's been able to remove them all from the game."

  "You mean kill them?" Mildred said. "I always hated the way that wars use images from sport. 'Remove him from the game.' Jesus in the lilies! You mean kill, then say it."

  Kelly's fingers dropped from the door handle to the butt of his blaster, and his eyes narrowed in anger. "I don't have to take that sort of softheart crap from you or anyone!" he snarled. "Faster you people get back to the outlands, the better for us all."

  The door slammed so hard behind him that it made the air quiver in the big bedroom.

  A HALF HOUR LATER the door swung open and Doc Tanner walked in, his arm across the shoulders of young Dean Cawdor. The boy looked vaguely puzzled, as if the old man had shown him a wonderful card trick, then told him how it was done. And then done the same trick in a totally different and inexplicable way.

  "Dad?"

  "What is it?"

  "Doc's lying to me, isn't he?"

  "Now, just wait a minute, young fellow," Doc spluttered.

  Ryan glowered at the boy. "One thing you want to learn and learn now, is that you take care about calling anyone a liar. Call it a stranger, and you might end up trying to push your guts back inside the hole in your belly. Call it a friend, and you can finish up losing that friend."

  "But he ain't…isn't two hundred years old, is he?" The boy looked around at the others for confirmation of his own doubts. "Mildred?"

  "Doc has his faults, Dean, and there are plenty of them. But telling lies never has been one of them. No."

  "Nobody's two hundred years old!"

  "I tried to make all of this simple for the lad," Doc protested. "Some ways I'm only in my thirties. Another way—it is true—you could estimate that I'm not just three score and ten. I'm something around ten score. But the trawling makes all sorts of things kind of muddled."

  "I'd love to time travel." Dean sighed.

  "Can't recommend it, son," Doc said, his sigh echoing the boy's.

  "I could go back and see the first time you ever met my mother, Rona, couldn't I, Dad?"

  The thought of having his son witness the first animal coupling with Sharona Carson brought Ryan closer to blushing than he'd been for more than thirty years.

  "Could. But they gave up on the tests. Too many horrors."

  "What sort of horrors?"

  Doc patted him on the arm. "Believe me, Dean, it is better you never know."

  IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the afternoon when they received another message. One of the sec men, with only two silver stripes on his arm, rapped on the door. "Baron Boss Larry wants to see you all."

  "When?" Ryan asked, standing up from the bed.

  "Now. Come on, outlander. Now!"

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THE GROUND SMELLED green and damp from the recent rain. They saw still pools of water coated with a layer of dark mud, and the leaves of the trees and shrubs dripped into the long grass. Their boots sucked at the sodden earth.

  Ryan and J.B. had discussed what to do about the blasters that had been returned to them, finally agreeing that they'd leave the Smith & Wesson 12-gauge and the Steyr rifle behind in their rooms.

  Now the companions walked along the paths, following Kelly. The noncom had a couple of his men with him, but they were only for show.

  They passed an eatery with a group of about thirty people standing outside. As they got closer, Ryan saw that the strangers were all in their late fifties and sixties. One or two of the women looked as if they might even be in their seventies.

  Kelly had also spotted them, and he slowed his pace to come alongside Ryan and Krysty,

  "Oldies," he said.

  "Where did they come from?" Ryan asked.

  "Outside the park. There's a kind of condo development between here and the start of the swamps. Called the Zapp's Rainbow's End Retirement Complex."

  "They pay him for protection?"

  "Yeah. Just a small part of t
he jack that flows in. And then flows out again."

  "How many wrinkles are there?" Dean asked. "Never seen a lot together."

  "Around a hundred. They're getting frightened. That's a deputation over there."

  "Frightened?" Krysty looked at the sec man. "What do they have to be frightened about if they got all that sec-men power?"

  Kelly stopped before they got too close to the eatery. The group of old-timers had turned to look in their direction, conversation freezing.

  "They're frightened because five of them have been chilled in the last three weeks. Chilled!" He laughed. "Butchered. Better word. Hacked apart and words daubed on the walls in blood. Jack and jewels taken. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Boss Larry blames the swampies."

  "You don't?" Mildred asked.

  "My ma didn't raise me to answer stupid questions, lady."

  "Mr. Kelly! Yoo-hoo! Can we speak to you for a moment?"

  The sec man sighed ruefully and glued a false smile into place. "Why, Mrs. Owen. Didn't see you there. Hope the rain didn't catch you all out."

  Mrs. Owen was a pocket version of Boss Larry, though she probably didn't weigh more than three hundred pounds. The pink flounced trouser suit was straining at the seams to keep it all under control and only just winning the battle. Her hair was tinted a startling shade of electric blue, which matched her eye makeup. As she sashayed toward them, face powder crumbled from the lines in her cheeks and chin like a miniature blizzard.

  "Where is the baron?" she shrilled. "He's late for our meeting."

  "Been working hard on some sec plans," Kelly replied, "hoping to solve the problems you got down at Rainbow's End."

  One of the other guards, standing just beyond Doc, whispered something to the old man and sniggered. Doc raised an eyebrow and said nothing. Kelly caught the exchange and glowered at the sec man. "Lucky I didn't hear that," he said quietly. "If I'd heard it, then Boss Larry would have heard it."

  Mrs. Owen seemed mollified by the noncom's hasty answer. She raised a tortoiseshell lorgnette to her beady eyes and twinkled at the group, paying particular attention to Doc. "Why, who are these strangers, Mr. Kelly? Such a rare sight here."

  "Guests of the boss. Going to take them on some of the rides."

  Mrs. Owen had been clutching a hand across her capacious bosom. Now she moved it, revealing a fine necklace of chunky amber beads, the largest one tipped with a silver cross. It was a very striking piece of jewelry.

  "I believe that I've met this handsome gentleman before, haven't I?" She addressed the question to Doc, who dropped a low, formal bow, one hand across his heart, the other striking an angle with the swordstick.

  "Madam, I think not. I'm certain that even a failing memory like mine could scarcely have edited you from my mind. The loss is mine."

  Mildred said something that might have been "Randy old lecher."

  "I came originally from the Tecumseh Valley. My late husband was a builder of bridges there."

  "Indeed, and now you've burned those bridges to retire here to the glades."

  "Why, yes. Yes."

  Kelly had been tapping his foot with shrinking patience. "Want us to go on and leave you here with Mrs. Owen and her friends, Doc?"

  "No." The word was delivered at surprising volume and without a moment's hesitation. "No, thank you, my dear fellow. I must keep with my companions." He bowed again. "Fare you well, charming lady. Perhaps our paths will cross again."

  "Oh, I hope so," she simpered. "And do tell the baron we're still hoping for a meeting. Mr. Kelly, won't you?"

  "Sure."

  They went on.

  BARON BOSS LARRY ZAPP finally made an appearance. A flatbed truck of impenetrable pedigree approached, the engine coughing and spluttering, gray smoke gushing from a broken exhaust.

  On the back was a pile of what looked like old mattresses from the motel, stacked together to provide a horizontal throne for the ruler of Greenglades ville.

  "He's stoned shitless," Dean hissed, grabbing at his father's sleeve. "How's he goin' to take us on the rides?"

  Kelly heard him. "Boss doesn't go himself. You go and I go, and he sort of hangs around and asks us what it was like. They don't make any rides the right size for the boss."

  Zapp opened an elephantine eye. It rolled in the socket, finally managing to focus on Ryan's face.

  "You nearly battered me to death, you one-eyed son of a bitch," he said, his voice as mild as warm milk. "You and John Dix."

  "You're right," Ryan agreed. "But you had it coming, Larry."

  The great head nodded, like a gargantuan Buddha. "True. Sad but true. Kelly here is going to take you on one or two of the rides. My dear companion in sensual excess, Adam Traven, will be riding with you as well as a few of his posse."

  He stopped speaking. Not because he'd actually finished, but because his brain had closed down some of the lines of communication. The only sound was the rumbling of the truck's beat-up engine, filling the air with its labored stench.

  "That's it?" J.B. said. "Audience with the baron over?"

  "Shit," Kelly said. "That dreem's fucking his head into the middle of next week. Come on, people, let's go and have us some fun."

  The noncom made "fun" sound like something you did facedown in a pigsty.

  RYAN STOOD IN LINE, looking up at the skeleton of rusting steel that was painted a dusty yellow. The sign said Pharaoh's Curse. He reached into the pocket of his coat, his fingers touching the frail, crumpled piece of paper from the redoubt. For a moment he considered throwing it away, then he looked around, seeing how clean everything looked. Suddenly his attention was distracted.

  Someone had switched on a machine, and a crackling voice came looping through the mild afternoon air from a number of speakers, which were disguised as plastic pyramids.

  "Welcome to the house of funky King Tut, last of the royal daddies. And his mummy, Nefertiti. Are you ready to face his ride of death. Mighty Osiris and Anubis wait to snatch your souls and ride the race into eternal darkness. If you are…"

  There was a flat hissing sound. Kelly looked up. "Sucking death! Tape's broken again. Keeps on happening on a lot of the rides."

  Dean had reached out and touched Ryan's hand, holding on for a moment. "It really dangerous?" he asked. "Said a ride of death and—"

  "No," Mildred said. "Just a load of showmen's hype, turning the pitch and bringing in the marks. It was ever thus, Dean."

  "Company." J.B.'s quiet voice made Ryan turn around.

  Adam Traven was walking toward them, accompanied by a raggle-taggle group that Ryan assumed must be his posse.

  There were eight of them, though at a first glance it was difficult to determine what the sexual mix was. There were four with short hair and four with long hair. But none of the cropheads looked particularly masculine.

  "Hi there, Kelly. The outlanders having their treats before they go back into the wilderness?"

  "Boss said to take them on some rides." The non-com's voice was curiously flat, as though he were trying to subordinate his dislike of Traven and not doing a very good job of it.

  "Good. Mebbe one of two of my little family might care to join you."

  He danced around, feet tapping, jacket whirling, the splinters of mirrored glass catching the watery sun. None of his posse showed any response. Now that they were closer, Ryan was able to pick out the two men among them.

  Both wore tight pants in thin cotton material that accentuated their maleness. But both were slim, with long fair hair that tumbled over their submissive faces. They wore jackets sewn together from bright scraps of old material, like antique patchwork.

  All but two of the girls also wore tight pants, some with long coats over them. Two had very short pants cut high, the stretched material vanishing into the taut cleft of their buttocks. They also had on high-heeled boots with platform soles.

  "Tenderloin hookers," Doc said, a comment that only Mildred understood, and she nodded her agreement.

  One
of the girls moved to hang on Traven's arm, swaying gently backward and forward. "Can I go ride with the outlanders?" she asked in a thin clear voice.

  "Sure, Sky. Anyone else? No? Wouldn't mind myself. Show your son the excitements of this place, Ryan Cawdor. But me and Lard Ass got some more talking to do, and we got to plan us a visit, as well."

  For some unaccountable reason, the word "visit" seemed to strike a chord with the bored group, and they all looked up at their leader, simultaneous adoring smiles lighting their tight, pinched faces, as though he'd pressed a button for them.

  The girl called Sky hopped up and down. "Can we all come, Adam? Can we?"

  "On the visit? Sure. But we'll all talk about it tonight."

  "We going on the ride?" Dean asked eagerly. "Come on."

  Ryan glanced from his son to Traven. And saw there an expression that chilled his heart, raising the hackles at his nape. The little man's eyes had been locked to Dean's face with something that came close to hunger.

  "So can I go, Adam?" Sky kissed Traven on the cheek, distracting him. He blinked, taking his eyes off the ten-year-old boy.

  The girl was close to Krysty's five feet eleven inches, and she had short reddish hair. She was the only member of the posse in a skirt. It was loose cotton and swirled around her knees in a bright batik pattern of mauve and citrus. Her eyes were a very pale green, unusually close together. Above the skirt Sky was wearing a long-sleeved blouse with pearl buttons, cream colored, tucked in. Her legs were bare, and she had low-heeled sandals on her feet, thonged up over her ankles.

  As far as Ryan could see, she wasn't carrying any kind of weapon.

  She looked at the line, waiting to climb the steps toward the start of Pharaoh's Curse. "Hey, you got an odd number. Who do I ride with?"

  Kelly turned to Ryan. "I'll sit with the boy," he said.

  Doc smiled broadly, showing his excellent set of gleaming teeth. "I believe that the opportunity to chaperone such a delicate flower of the Everglades is going to fall to yours truly. I'm Dr. Theophilus Tanner, but you may call me 'Doc.' Everyone else does, my dear."

  "Sure," she replied. "Whatever you say. I'm Sky. Got no other name now."