Carnival of Shadows Read Free Page A

a dozen of them, some of them just the weirdest-looking folk you ever did see—”
    “How so?” Travis asked. “Weird-looking in what way?”
    “Too tall, too thin, too many fingers—”
    “Sorry?”
    “There’s a guy down there with too many fingers, Mr. Travis. I’ve seen some odd things in my time, but that wins a prize somewhere, I’ll tell you.”
    “So we are talking actual physical anomalies here… people who are—”
    “You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” Rourke said. “So, Friday afternoon, here they come, walking through town, handing out flyers, asking if they can post bills in store windows and whatever. The carnival is opening on Friday night and everyone is welcome, don’t you know? And you know what they call themselves?”
    Travis looked up.
    “The Carnival Diablo, of all things. That’s like Spanish for the devil or some such, and here you got a God-fearing, churchgoing little community, all about getting on with one another and minding each other’s business, and this motley crew of oddballs and misfits descends upon them. Of course, the kids are all electrified, running up and down, laughing and hollering and making a racket, and they all want to go down there and see this freak show. I got phone calls coming in every fifteen minutes. What am I going to do about this? Why haven’t I moved these people on already? I’m trying to explain that the law is the law, that you can’t just throw people out, that even crazies and weirdoes have rights too, but no one wants to hear that. They just want me to get these people out of here, and that’s that.”
    “No one wants to talk to you until there’s trouble, and then trouble arrives and you’re the best friend they ever had,” Travis said.
    “Oh, you can say that again, Mr. Travis.”
    “You didn’t understand it the first time?” Travis said, his expression deadpan.
    “No, Mr. Travis… that’s just an expression…” Rourke started, and then he saw Travis’s smile. “You’re jokin’ with me.”
    “Go on with what you were saying, Sheriff Rourke. So the carnival opened.”
    “Seven o’clock sharp, Friday evening. I went on down there. I’d seen them putting up the tents, erecting that carousel, and it all looked pretty rundown and shabby, to be honest. The tents were old, the stands and sideshows were pretty bashed up and the whole thing needed a scrubbing brush and a lick of paint, but I have to say that when nightfall came, when they had all those lights out around the field, they had that calliope music playing an’ all, well it was a very impressive sight.”
    “And the carnival ran smoothly that first night?”
    “No trouble at all. Even the adults seemed to take to it. They had all the usual things. Toss-the-hoop, a little shooting range, some guy doing that card-switch trick, a chicken in a cage that could tic-tac-toe like you never did see. There was the usual popcorn, cotton candy, hot dogs, root beer floats, all that kinda thing. There were a couple fellers doing fire-breathing tricks and an acrobatic troupe made up of five guys that looked exactly the same as one another. It was one busy place, even if I say so myself. I mean, I know about all that sort of thing from the County Fair, where they have the ten-in-one show and you get some guy with elastic skin and some woman with feet the size of suitcases, but this was kind of different. They had the old Bonnie and Clyde death car, you know? Now, if Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow had owned as many Fords as I have seen in my time, they’d be wealthier than old man Henry Ford himself, but this one they have here… I don’t know what it is, but it looks spooky as hell. You look in back there, through the broken window, and you expect to see Clyde himself taking his last dying breath. They had that over to one side, and then they had people coming on, like this human skeleton guy, and I have never seen anyone as much a skeleton as that. That was just