Carnival

by William W. Johnstone

  Something was strange about that dark place.

  Neither man, at the time, knew how to put that feeling into words.

  But it would come to them.

  Soon.

  They rounded the corner of the tent and stopped. “Now what in the hell are they doing out here?” Gary asked, a touch of annoyance in his voice.

  Martin smiled at his friend. “What are we doing out here?”

  “Good point.” He waved at Janet and Joyce and Alicia.

  The ladies walked over to join them. “Fancy meeting you two here,” Janet said with a grin. Martin and Gary braced themselves for what they knew was coming. “Must be something terribly important for you semi-pro’s to miss your golf game.”

  Gary and Martin never played with anyone else for a very simple reason: no one else wanted them as partners. They were, collectively or singularly, the worst golfers in the county. Possibly the state. Maybe the nation. They needed a computer to keep up with their scores.

  “Very funny,” Martin said. “Ha ha.” But he was grinning. He jerked a thumb toward Gary. “He has to do an autopsy.”

  “I’m sorry, Gary,” Alicia said. She had yet to meet her husband’s eyes. “Who is it?”

  “The Harold boy just died.”

  “Died! ” the women echoed, Janet adding, “But you said last night that he didn’t appear to have anything seriously wrong with him.”

  “Yes. That’s what I said, all right.” Gary’s voice held just a touch of weariness. Doctors-aren’t-supposed-to-make-mistakes syndrome.

  Janet touched his arm. “Sorry, honey.”

  He smiled at her. “I’ll know the cause of death later on today. Hopefully.” He looked at Martin. “You want me to drop you off somewhere? You left your car at home, remember?”

  “Yeah. No, I’ll stay out here and prowl around with the girls. Catch up with you later on. You’ll be at Miller’s?”

  Gary glanced at his watch. “Time we get the body in and washed down . . . I’d say . . . I’ll be there until late afternoon. Ever seen an autopsy?”

  “No.”

  “Come on over. They’re very enlightening.”

  “Thank you for the invitation. I shall do my best to avoid it.”

  Gary nodded his head and walked away, his mind on the upcoming work. Those watching him leave knew that he did not like to do autopsies. Especially on young people.

  “So what’s on the agenda, ladies?” Martin asked.

  “What were you and Gary doing out here?” Alicia asked, for the first time meeting her husband’s eyes.

  Martin hesitated. He did not wish to tell the ladies about his memory-jogging dreams of the previous night. Not just yet. But the strange happenings around town? ... “Truth time, gals?”

  They nodded. Martin noticed a flush creeping up his wife’s neck at his words. He wondered about that. Then he told them about the conversation he’d shared with Gary about the occurrences that had been taking place around town.

  Janet nodded her head. “Gary was sure hot about Rich coming in so late last night, and that’s a fact. Came down hard on him. But I wonder why he didn’t tell me about the rest of the kids doing the same?”

  “Gary?”

  “Yes.”

  “He didn’t know anything about it until this morning, out at the club. Come on, let’s walk around some.” He pointed to Nabo’s Ten-in-One. “But stay out of that tent.”

  “Why?” his wife asked. “Is there a girlie show in there?”

  Martin bit back a sharp reply and patiently told the women about the Ten-in-One.

  Joyce giggled at that. Janet grimaced at her friend’s reaction and said, “There must be something wrong with me. Poor misshapen people have never held any fascination for me.”

  Alicia looked to her right and put her hands on her hips. “Now what in the hell! ...”

  Linda, Jeanne, and Susan were walking toward them.

  No one said anything about the absence of Joyce’s daughter, Missy, from the group. Missy and the other three girls she’d palled around with since learning to walk had themselves a major falling-out some months back. Missy was running with another group, Karl Steele’s bunch of thugs. Missy, so the rumors went, had turned into a sixteen year old tramp. For a time, all concerned thought Joyce was going to have some sort of breakdown. She worked her way out of it with a lot of help from friends. Missy, however, continued to allow the entire male student body of Holland High to use her body.

  Joyce and Eddie’s other child, seventeen-year-old Ed, was a fine young man, very studious and brainy. He had plans to attend the U of N next fall, and when the boy tried to explain to Martin what his major would be, he had lost Martin sometime during the first ten words.

  Martin thought it had something to do with space. Or semi-conductors. Or something strange and beyond a normal being’s comprehension. Martin finally had to admit to his own son—after buying the family a new station wagon—that he couldn’t figure out how to set the buttons on the super-dooper computerized radio.

  Took Mark about fifteen seconds to set them. All on rock stations—done with a grin.

  Alicia looked at her daughter. “I thought you girls would still be sleeping?”

  “We all woke up real early,” Susan volunteered the astonishing news, since the girls were famous for staying in bed as long as their mothers would let them, on any given day.

  “Real early meaning? . . .” Martin prompted.

  “Around seven.”

  “Jesus,” Janet breathed. “What is this world coming to?”

  “We were by here last night,” Linda said. “We saw the giant man. Have you seen him?”

  “Yes!” Martin said quickly, a flash of annoyance surging through him. Why? he asked himself. He felt he knew. “That man is dangerous, kids. I don’t think he likes people very much. Maybe he has reason not to. But you girls stay away from that tent over there.” He pointed and explained why.

  The girls picked up on his irritation. “Sure, dad,” Linda assured him. “We were just going to walk around some. Is that all right?”

  “Walking around is fine. Just stay together and don’t go off by yourselves.”

  “OK if we tag along with you-all?” Susan asked, showing a lot of insight.

  And it wasn’t lost on Martin. He smiled at the con job. “That’s fine. So come on, gang. Let’s walk.”

  They had not walked fifty feet when Janet looked up and pointed in horror. The eyes of the group followed her finger.

  A roustabout had slipped, high up on the skeletal frame of a ferris wheel. They watched in morbid fascination as he lost his one-handed hold and fell spinning to the ground. Suddenly, they were running to the site.

  They stopped at the same time, staring in disbelief.

  The man had picked himself up and was brushing the dust off his clothing.

  “Are you all right?” Martin ran to him.

  The man smiled. “Oh, yes. I landed just right, I suppose. Thanks for your concern.” He turned and began climbing back up the frame of the ride.

  “He must have fallen fifty or sixty feet!” Joyce said. “I saw him hit. He bounced and then landed on his feet like nothing happened.”

  “That’s impossible.” Susan summed it up. “Nobody falls that distance and just gets up and walks off. He fell at least three stories.”

  Nabo had watched it all through the flap of his Ten and One. He frowned. He’d have to tell his people to be more careful.

  * * *

  Lyle Steele stepped out of his house and looked over his holdings—that part of the ranch that he could see from his front porch. His spread extended all the way over into Wyoming. The Bar-S, one of the oldest ranches in the state. Only the Watson ranch, the Double-W, was older, and only by about a year or so. The Double-W bordered the Bar-S to the east, then cut north, meandering up into South Dakota.

  The screen door banged shut behind the man. He didn’t have to turn around. He knew who it was. His son, Karl. Had to
be. Lyle’s wife had left him years back; said she couldn’t take anymore of her husband’s womanizing and brutality. Took the girl and split. Lyle didn’t know where they went. Didn’t care either.

  Without turning around, the father said, “You sure come in late last night, boy. Morning would be more like it.”

  “Big doings in town.” Karl sucked noisily at a mug of coffee. Sounded like a hog at the trough.

  “Yeah?” Lyle asked without interest. He seldom went into Holland. Maybe once a year, tops. He did all his shopping over in Wyoming. Bought all his cars and trucks and farm and ranch equipment and supplies outside of Holland. Lyle hated the town of Holland. Hated to hear the name of Holland. Despised Martin Holland. Only thing he liked about Martin Holland was his wife. Fine-lookin’, classy woman. Uppity, though. Thought she was better than other folks.

  “What’s all the big doin’s in Holland, boy?”

  “The carnival’s done come to town.”

  The man spun around so fast he startled the boy. The father’s eyes were buggy. “Carnival!” he shouted the word.

  “Yeah. Carnival. Like in rides and stuff. What’s the matter with you? You look like you swallowed a bug.”

  “Don’t get too lippy with me, boy. I can still take you down and don’t you forget it.”

  The young man smiled at his father and set the coffee mug down on a wooden bench. “Maybe. Maybe not. But it’d be a tussle you’d not soon forget.”

  The father leaned up against the porch railing, his eyes taking in the size of his son. Both men were built like bulls, stocky and very strong. Both were quick, tough, and cruel men. Both were bullies.

  “Yeah,” the father spoke softly, and with some degree of pride in his voice. “I reckon it would at that.”

  Neither father nor son possessed one ounce of anything that could remotely be described as a socially redeeming quality. Certainly nothing of moral value. The father took what he wanted, by any method he felt he could get away with. And so did his son. The father had been forced, on more than one occasion, to buy or threaten or coerce his son out of trouble—just as his father had done for him. All to protect the good name of the family, of course. Both father and son held women in contempt, something to be used and then discarded. There was not one ounce of compassion in either of them.

  “What’s the name of this carnival, boy?”

  Karl had to think about that some. He had a slight hangover from all the long necks he’d consumed the night before. But it’d been fun on the drive back to the ranch from Holland, trying to run over as many dogs and cats as he could; almost wrecked his truck a couple of times trying to squash them. Wouldn’t have made no difference if he had: he had inherited money of his own to buy another one.

  “I don’t know,” the young man finally said. “Didn’t see no name. It’s just a carnival.”

  The father shook away some very fleshy and enjoyable mental memories from years past. In a pavilion, he and Jim Watson and those two young gals. Then they’d had a good time with Pete and Frank Tressalt and a whole bunch of other folks—damn near the whole town—horsewhippin’ and shootin’ and finally burnin’ all them carnival people alive. Other memories filled his head: screaming and running and burning human torches. That’d been pretty damn good fun, and it had covered his and Jim’s tracks, too. Them gals had been too scared to open their mouths. As far as them dead people went—carnival trash was all they was—all dead and burned up. Them, and damn near everything and everyone connected with the carnival.

  To Lyle’s way of thinking, it was just too bad that Martin Holland hadn’t burned up with the rest of them. And as far as them carnival people having the insight—as his own daddy had insisted—that wasn’t nothing but a bunch of crap. Nobody had no insight; couldn’t nobody see in the past or in the future. They was all burned up and dead and their ashes scattered. And don’t no dead person ever come back to this earth.

  Lyle had to grin when he thought of that fat lady in that sideshow—what was it called? Yeah, a Ten-in-One. Way she bubbled and crackled and popped and sizzled when the flames got all over her and she couldn’t carry her fat ass and the fire ate her up. His grin widened when he thought about that stupid-lookin’ Dog Man and the way he actually barked as the flames covered him.

  Karl looked at his father, the man he admired most in the whole world. “What you grinnin’ about?”

  “Old times and better days, boy.” The father took a closer look at his son. You sure are all duded up. You got you some little gal in town waitin’ for you?”

  Karl grinned. “Don’t I always?”

  “She got a name?”

  “Missy Hudson.”

  “Ain’t she the one who puts out for half the boys in high school?”

  “She was. She ain’t no more. She’s just puttin’ out for me, now.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “That’s young, boy. And you close to legal age. I bailed you out too many times for you to forget that a stiff dick’ll get you in trouble quicker than a gun.”

  “Her folks’d have to charge half a hundred ’fore they ever got to me.”

  “That’s a fact.” He punched his son on the arm.

  He understood, remembering how he was at his son’s age. “I might take me a ride into Holland. Look around some. Is it just a carnival, boy?”

  Lyle never read the Holland weekly. And since he took no interest in anything connected with the town, he seldom paid any attention to anything he heard concerning the town of Holland.

  “No, dad! It’s a big fair. Gonna kick off official next Thursday.”

  That rang a mental bell. It kicked off on a Thursday years back, too. Made Lyle sorta feel funny. He shook that off. “A fair,” the man repeated softly, remembering, despite himself, what his daddy had warned him of, over and over, just before he died. But Lyle hadn’t paid any attention to it then, and he wasn’t going to pay any attention to it now. Lyle didn’t believe in that insight business. When you died, you was dead. That was that. “Well, now, don’t that beat all? A fair’s done come back to Holland.”

  * * *

  Gary Tressalt began his lonely work on the body of Jimmy Harold. With the cassette/corder running, recording every move of his hands, announcing each cut just before he made it, the tape trapped each word. Gary made one long incision from throat to crotch, then side to side twice, the first cut just under the shoulders, across the chest, and then another cut just above the hips, across the lower abdomen. He peeled the flesh back and then used rib-spreaders to open the boy up wide and lock the cavity open.

  The strong smell of flesh filled his nostrils.

  The doctor stood and stared in total utter disbelief. He had done autopsies on burn victims before. But they had all been burned through and through. He knew what to expect from that. But this boy’s outer skin showed no signs of burns. Inside, every organ: heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, everything had been cooked, and from first glance, cooked from the inside out.

  Microwaved, the thought came to him.

  Don’t be stupid, Gary! he mentally berated himself, careful not to say anything aloud so the tape would catch him. There is a logical explanation for this. Just keep looking, you’ll find it.

  But the more he cut—and he knew he had to record his findings—the more evidence bore out his initial feelings: Jimmy Harold had been baked to death. Cooked. But only on the inside. Not on the outside.

  Impossible.

  Working swiftly and carefully, with a strange feeling of dread hanging around him, the tape machine running, Gary peeled off the skin from the head and took a small electric saw, opening the skull. Steam hissed odorously from the open skull. The brain had been cooked just like the other organs he had examined.

  Gary vocally summed up his findings and tossed a sheet over the body, tucking it in tight and sliding the body back into the cooler. He locked the cooler and placed an official county coroner’s seal on the front. He tossed his go
wn and mask into the hamper and his gloves went into the trash bin. After washing up, he told the young mortician that under no circumstances was the seal on the cooler to be broken.

  He drove back to the fairgrounds and went looking for Martin.

  In the several hours he’d been gone, the place had filled up with people, workers, mostly, carnival and local. The sounds of sawing and hammering and the clink of wrenches on bolts filled the air as the rides went up and and the booths were assembled.

  Martin glanced at him, surprise in his eyes. “You finished quickly, but I’m glad you’re back.”

  “I think we have problems, Martin. I know I do.”

  “We both do.” He told him about the roustabout falling from the top of the ferris wheel.

  “And he just got up and walked off!”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s impossible, man!”

  “We all saw it, Gary.”

  “What’d Nabo do?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t seen him. The guy just climbed back up on the ferris wheel and went back to work.”

  Gary looked up at the huge wheel. “Christ, Martin! ” He pointed. “He fell from there?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s . . . about five stories.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mystery on top of mystery. Where are the gals?”

  “Over there.” He pointed. “With the kids.”

  His wife waved to him and Gary returned the wave. The women were talking with several women who were setting up a Home Ec booth, part of the County Extension program.

  “You finished with the boy, Gary?”

  “Like I said: problems. I know this is distasteful for you, Martin; but I can’t go to that fool Kelson with this, and I don’t want to call Deputy Meadows just yet. I want your opinion first.” He shrugged. You’re a fully commissioned deputy sheriff, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Is it that bad, Gary?”

  “Worse than you can imagine. You feel right about leaving the women and kids out here?”

  “Oh, sure. Must be several hundred townspeople here.”

  “Come on.”

  * * *

  Martin almost gagged when Gary pulled back the sheet, exposing Jimmy Harold. The organs had been piled into the open cavity. Martin recovered and stared for a moment. “I saw a lot of broken-open bodies in ’Nam, Gary. But their insides didn’t look like that!”