Carver shook his head. This was going to go badly, he felt it in his heart and in the way his testicles tried to hide inside his guts.
Jenkins played the same card again as if it might suddenly work better. “Back away from the roof!”
Booker opened his coat, revealing the assault rifles he’d taken from the police officers on the roof. Carver recognized the make.
“I got new toys out of the deal! Wanna see who’s a better shot, captain?”
“Jesus Christ, Jenkins, use your fucking head! He has a hostage.”
“I know that, goddamnit!”
“Please! Please, don’t hurt him!” The man called out, dropping to his knees and actively begging the stranger on the roof not to hurt his only son. Carver looked at Westingham and shivered.
“Mister Westingham! Just the man I wanted to see. You come on up here, and I’ll release your son to you. How’s that sound for a bargain?”
Westingham was standing in a flash and heading for the front of the building.
“Stay where you are, sir!” Jenkins barked the order through his bullhorn and for half a moment, it looked like the father would listen to him. Then the man started forward again.
“Not the front door, my good man. Try the side entrance. I left it open.” Booker spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Jenkins opened his mouth again and raised the bullhorn. Before he could make a comment, the clown-faced man stepped forward and waved the child like a rag doll. The baby started crying.
“This isn’t a puppet, Captain Jenkins! This is Hunter Westingham! He dies if you interfere again, do you understand me?”
Carver leaned forward fast. “Screw catching the man. Worry about the baby. We can catch him another time.”
Jenkins didn’t look in his direction, but he spoke to him. “I’m not a moron. I’ll let the man have whatever he wants.”
“Then you should tell your people that.” He didn’t dare point. Two cops were sliding toward the side entrance.
Jenkins raised the bullhorn without hesitation. “No one moves on the perpetrator. Everyone stand prepared, but stand down!”
The two policemen stopped where they were and Carver breathed a small sigh of relief.
“Good man! We might get a safe baby out of this yet!” Booker smiled and then threw Hunter Westingham into the air. The child waved his arms and legs and every single soul there froze for a moment, terrified.
Before the infant could fall, Booker caught him with his other hand. More water spilled from the wet bundle of clothing and everyone watching held their breaths, fearing what would happen if the bundle were too slick to clutch properly. Below him, Jeannie Westingham broke into tears.
Booker pointed with his free hand, his face angry under the makeup. “Oh, stop being a baby! If you hadn’t left him in a running car he wouldn’t be here right now! I’d have just met up with your husband later and asked him what I need to ask him.” Booker leaned over the side a bit more, dangerously close to overbalancing himself. His face broke into a wild smile. “But this way’s a lot more fun!”
Carver looked at Jenkins. The man’s hands were shaking. He wasn’t surprised to feel his own shaking as well.
Just to make sure everyone was paying attention to him, Booker threw the boy even higher into the air on the second toss and then caught the squirming, screaming infant behind his back.
He held the child there as Todd Westingham walked toward him, red faced, panicky and shaking. Westingham came forward timidly, his eyes wide and worried.
Carver would have sold his soul to overhear the conversation between the two men.
They talked for several moments, and while he could hear none of it, he could see Westingham’s surprised expression and then the growing dread on the man’s face.
There was more pleading, and then there were tears. He could not hear Booker, but he could just make out the angry tones of the man’s voice.
He could see the father drop to his knees a second time and crawl, his hands held out in supplication.
Booker pointed and the man rose and headed off the roof of the building. Booker kept the baby.
Booker was calm as he waited. He stayed that way until he saw Westingham walk out of the building and stand next to his wife.
“Good man, Mr. Westingham. Very well done. But you know what?”
Westingham looked up at the angry voice and shook his head slowly.
“You should have turned them into the police!” Carver shook his head. Something big was being discussed and he needed to know what the hell it was.
Before anyone could respond, Booker drew one of the rifles from his coat and started firing down on the couple who looked up, eager only to have their child returned to them. The bullets struck the ground around them for a moment and then the stream of death moved in the right direction and tore through the husband and wife.
Michael Carver had seen death several times in his career and had caught at least one mutilation courtesy of the man on the roof. Watching the couple die was right up at the top of his list for horrific moments. The two people staggered and shivered and nearly exploded as the bullets slammed through them and into the ground. A few of the bullets ricocheted from the ground in a flurry of muddy explosions and had half of the officers diving for cover.
The cops who stood their ground, including Carver and Jenkins, drew their weapons and focused on the man on the roof.
Booker looked back down at them and smiled, the child in his hand crying and purple faced. He dropped the assault rifle and watched it fall to the ground, not but a few feet from the people he’d just murdered.
“Well now, kiddies, how do you suppose I’m going to get out of this one?” It had to be his imagination, but Michael would have almost sworn the man was looking directly at him as he spoke.
Hunter kept crying as Booker paced along the edge of the building and all of the police officers watched him, tracked him in the sights of their weapons. The roof had to be a slippery nightmare for footing, but Booker never slipped and never seemed the least bit worried about where he stepped. Carver stared, slowly following every step the man made and hating that there didn’t seem to be a way to stop him without killing or seriously risking the boy.
Jenkins’s breaths came in ragged gasps. Carver looked his way for a moment and had to wonder if the man was having a heart attack. His face was sweating and had taken on a green hue that was very uncomplimentary.
Booker was almost out of sight, but the captain said nothing, did nothing, except stare.
The rain increased, the water falling harder, until visibility became almost non-existent.
And then Booker was coming back at high speed. The clown didn’t run at the edge of the building, he raced, his feet striking the roof in long, furious strides that sent plumes of dirty water splashing up from the rooftop. The baby in his hand shrieked indignantly as they approached and everyone on the ground watched, horrified.
Hunter Westingham sailed high into the air, screaming, howling his fright out into the heavens for all to hear. As the infant rose higher, Booker reached the end of the roof and leaped into the open air. The coat around him spread like wings, and Michael could clearly see that the rifles he’d had under his coat before were no longer there. One of them at least was in his hand.
Hunter shrieked as he stopped rising and started to descend.
Booker was screaming laughter as he fell toward the ground below and for one moment that hyena call and the infant’s cries were the only sounds. Then the ratcheting coughs of the rifle started and bullets cut the air into shreds.
Michael felt the projectile slide past his ear with a hot humming noise. The sound was so low he felt it more than heard it. He might have marveled over that, and later he would most certainly experience a few nightmares remembering the moment, but mostly he was too busy trying to dodge the blood that splashed his way. Jenkins was not as lucky, you see. He was hit three times by bullets and each of them was a
shot that would have killed him.
Michael hit the ground with a splash and scrambled, crawled, sought a new angle, a better chance to help stop the madman.
There was a deep metallic crunching noise that was followed immediately by the sound of people screaming.
By the time Carver could spot the clown again, Booker was rolling to his feet and climbing out of the ruin of the Westingham’s vehicle. He looked cheerful. The sick bastard was smiling past even the painted grin on his face, his teeth wide and perfect and white, his gums the color of blood.
It looked like the man had bounced off the hood and landed roughly. The engine had been driven into the street beneath the vehicle and the deep imprint caused by his weight pounding into hood was apparent.
Even as he was starting to stand, Hunter Westingham landed behind him, his cries immediately silenced.
In the distance the cameramen focused on one image and then another. Several of the people watching stood horrified and looked at the dead child, pale and shaken. Perhaps it was true that gathering crowds liked to see blood, but whatever the case, it seemed their desire for violence had been sated.
Michael Carver looked at the dead boy on the pavement. His shape was wrong, ruined, twisted. He’d landed very close to his parents, who had been killed by the same man in the clown’s face. Even as he stared, horrified, he could see the infant’s blood mingling with the growing red pool around his mother and father.
Carver looked at the man he’d come to arrest. He had no doubt that John Booker was the person under the makeup.
Carver reached into the small of his back and pulled a different weapon than his service piece.
He took aim and fired, shooting to kill.
The first bullet pounded into Booker’s chest and staggered him back. As the clown was facing him he could see the surprise, the pain on the man’s face. Booker looked directly at him as he aimed a second time and fired. There was no consideration of his career, of the legalities of his actions or even of his future as a free man. Carver simply fired again, intending to kill the man in front of him.
The second bullet caught him in the throat and blew a chunk from the back of his neck. Carver fired a third time and a fourth, striking his target each time. Holes blossomed from vines of blood and flesh, and John Booker twitched and shivered with each blow.
Carver unloaded his weapon into the man.
He wasn’t alone. Tom Keegan stared at him for several heartbeats and then looked at the body of Captain Jenkins where he lay dead on the ground. The officer then slipped his registered firearm into his holster and reached for a revolver strapped to his ankle. Not every officer carried extra firearms. Not even half of them. Most of them also knew that fingerprints could trace any weapon fired back to them or by the television cameras aimed their way.
So not every police officer on the scene lost his temper. Not every single cop there committed murder that day, but most of them helped and the ones that didn’t lied about it later.
***
The cast and crew heard about the madness, of course. It was on the news and it was spread all over the televisions, with graphic displays of the deaths that happened. It didn’t matter that no one needed to see the deaths; they were played any way, every fifteen minutes when the local news wasn’t running and every five minutes when the news shows took over. The images didn’t need to be blurred by digital enhancement. The heavy rains had already distorted the pictures that were filmed. Raindrops obscured details, but not enough to let anyone pretend they weren’t seeing a massacre.
Tia watched it all with a growing sense of horror. She recognized the clown. She’d seen him on the stage here, watching her as she stretched. Him or someone who looked a lot like him, which meant someone who looked a lot like that creepy Booker guy they’d been after.
In any event, it looked like maybe the worst of that was over at least, but still, the poor family….
She’d be glad when they left Virginia and made it up to Philadelphia. Maybe then there would be less grief and everything could just get back to normal.
Her mother had called earlier, of course, as soon as she heard that there had been a killing. She didn’t call every time someone was shot down, but when she’d heard there was a clown involved, she’d immediately assumed the Carnivale was involved somewhere along the way.
Talking the woman out of hysterics had been an interesting challenge. Her mother wanted Tia to come home, to be safe and secure in the arms of her parents. Tia wasn’t having anything to do with that. She had bruises on her bruises and sore muscles that wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace. She’d earned every single bump and sore spot and had no intention of quitting now that she was positioned for her dreams. However, she was in no position to argue with her mother, so she instead lied and said the clown had no connection to the Carnivale.
That was a lie, too. She knew better. The family that had been murdered, the man Westingham, had been the head of acquisitions for the company. That was one of the things brought up at the meeting first thing when everyone got together. He was a member of the family as far as the Carnivale was concerned and they always made sure everyone knew when there was something to hear.
Funeral services weren’t really being held for the people who’d been murdered by that Booker man, but the troupe had a brief service, just a time for people to talk about the three members of the cast and crew who had been done wrong.
There was a lot to say, too. Not so much about Elizabeth Montenegro—though there were some nice phrases, mostly people talked about her abilities and not about her as a person—but everyone had liked Gary Peck and Brad Lowman. Both had been hardworking men and both had always had time to shoot the shit or even buy an occasional round of drinks. Peck in particular had been a character, and there were endless anecdotes about him. She’d barely known him and had virtually no contact with the others; still, she felt the loss of the other people around her and that spread through her at the strangest times. Or maybe she was just more homesick than she realized.
Leslie came out of her dressing room with a frown on her face that aged her easily ten years.
“What’s wrong?” Tia felt her skin tighten. Leslie was always in a good mood. Her frown was as unsettling as lightning strikes on a sunny day.
“The big wigs are supposed to be coming down to meet everyone.”
“Is that bad?”
Leslie’s pretty face seemed incapable of completely escaping a frown, but Tia thought maybe that just meant she was thinking very hard or was as puzzled by everything as Tia felt.
“Not really bad,” she said. “Just different. I don’t think they normally come down for the shows unless they have some business to take care of.”
“Well, we’ve had some weird stuff going on.”
“Don’t remind me.” Leslie’s frown dissipated a bit. “I hear we’re finally going to be able to move on at the end of the week. So, yeah, looks like they’ve got all the scheduling problems fixed at least.”
“Well, good, because I’m pretty sure I have all this stuff down.”
“Better hope you do.”
“Yeah? What do you know that I don’t?” It was the way that Leslie said it that had Tia nervous.
“The big bosses are going to want to see the show, so they’re putting us on again tonight. An extra showing so we can entertain the big wigs and their special guests.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s gonna be all you, Tia. I’ll be there to back you up, but they want to see you in action.”
Tia felt her stomach fall through the floor at the thought. Her first show, and it was a command performance.
Life on the Road: Part Nine
I can’t even say for sure exactly how long I’d wandered Serenity Falls before I found my benefactor, I just know that he looked at me and scowled as our paths crossed.
That was rather interesting, you see, because until that moment no one had been able to see m
e, or feel me, or hear me. No one. I tried; believe me, I tried. I did my best to get noticed and it was not meant to be.
The air was cold and winter had the town in its grip. I walked through the snow and felt no bite of the winter’s chill, nor the caress of the wind against me. I just walked, looking for answers to questions I couldn’t even ask.
The people of the town did not see me. Occasionally an animal would notice me, but most of them simply stared and then ran as fast as they could. When a person did get a sense that I was nearby, I could see them looking, searching for whatever caused them to sense something wrong and never seeing me, even if I was right next to them and waving my hands frantically. I did not exist for them in a conscious way, I was merely that odd breeze, that vaporous memory to come along and haunt them, I suspect.
I was a ghost, you see, truly and properly dead without a body or the limitations and advantages of the same. I wandered, yes, but I also explored. There were things to see, people to investigate.
I wandered through the farm where the Halston Carnival had been when I was murdered. There was no sign that we had ever been there. I could feel the deaths of my friends, could sense the carnage that had fallen on the grounds not far from the main farmhouse.
I could see the farmer, the man who had shoved a shotgun against my face and asked to see his children. I saw him and I followed him for several days, infuriated by his mere existence, as if he was somehow the cause of all my suffering. Oh, I knew even then that it wasn’t true, but he was a part of it, him and his miserable neighbors.
I suppose some part of being a ghost is being able to remember your life and death. Mostly your death. I stood where I had burned and felt the entire thing again and again, each moment of my pain easily accessed and relived. I could step to my left and feel the loss of Carter. Experience the agonies he’d endured. A few paces in the opposite direction and I could feel the flames as they ran into Lou Crompton’s lungs and cooked his heart. Back half a yard and I felt the burns that consumed Bert.
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