Carnival Read online

  “No way. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t even know who did.”

  “One way to find out.” Eddie stood up. “Let’s go look at the letter.”

  * * *

  The secretary, the lawyer, and the mayor all stood around the desk and stared at the letter.

  The initial correspondence was dated February, 1954, and was signed by Martin Holland.

  “That’s my father’s writing,” Martin said. “See how he loops the N in Martin back to cross the T?”

  “But you do the same, Martin,” Eddie pointed out.

  “Eddie, I was seven years old in 1954!”

  Eddie shrugged.

  Martin looked at the envelope which the secretary had wisely paper-clipped to the letter. The postmark was blurred and the stamp was missing. No return address.

  “Stamp probably fell off in the mail,” Eddie ventured. “You can see where it was cancelled.”

  Probably fell off from old age, Martin thought. But he kept that thought to himself. He could make out that the letter had originally been mailed from West Virginia. He could not make out the name of the town.

  But it was a starting place. Keeping his voice unemotional, Martin said, “Well, the carnival is here and the people are looking forward to the fair. Big event. But I sure would like to know who signed my name to that letter.”

  “Martin, that date is nothing more than a typo,” the lawyer insisted. “An error. You probably signed the letter and just forgot about it. After all, it was nine months ago. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.”

  Martin laughed along with Eddie and Marie, but he decided at least for the moment, not to level with his friend about his inner feelings. It had nothing to do with distrust; Martin just didn’t want to appear to be a superstitious fool.

  He made a copy of the letter and the front of the envelope, gave the copies to the secretary, and kept the originals. He thanked them both and went in search of Gary. He found the doctor at his offices, tending to an emergency.

  “Girl went stiff as a board and started screaming about seeing monsters and burned-up people and about the fires coming to get her,” Gary explained.

  Martin had passed by a weeping mother in the waiting room, being consoled by a grim-faced man.

  Martin looked first at the girl, then at Gary. “How is she now?”

  “Appears to be fine. Very relaxed. Everything is normal. Shut that door behind you, please. Thanks.” The door closed, Gary took Martin to one side. “I know now what Don was talking about. The girl was speaking in some language I never heard before. But it was not, or did not appear to be, mumbo jumbo. It was a real language, or so it appeared to me.”

  “This is getting out of hand, Gary.”

  “I agree. But what do we do?”

  “I have an idea. Soon as the child is out of here we’ll talk.”

  Gary returned to the examining table and motioned for his nurse to come in. He smiled at the child. Mean look in her eyes, he thought, then put that thought out of his mind, chalking it up to mild paranoia. “How do you feel, Alma?”

  “Oh, I feel fine, Doctor. I’m looking forward to going to the carnival. It’s in town, you know?”

  “Yes, I know.” He questioned the girl for a moment, but she remembered nothing about her strange attack.

  He had the girl sit up, move her extremities, and then walk around the room. He rechecked pulse and BP, and concluded she was fine and it was all right for her to go home.

  “Oh, thank you, Doctor!” Alma said, her eyes very bright and very mean-looking. And this time Gary knew that it was not his imagination. “I’m looking forward to going to the carnival. It’s in town, you know?”

  Martin and Gary exchanged quick glances.

  Gary told his nurse she could go on home and the child walked out to where her parents were waiting. After they’d hugged her, she said, “You know what I’d like to do?”

  “What, honey?” the father asked.

  “I’d like to go over to the fairgrounds and see the carnival. It’s in town, you know?”

  “Yes,” the mother agreed. “The carnival is in town. Certainly. We’ll go over there.”

  “What a great idea!” the father said. “Sure. The carnival is in town, you know?”

  The three of them walked out the front door, all of them chatting gaily about the carnival being in town.

  “I’ll drive,” the ten-year-old announced.

  “Of course! ” the father agreed, and handed her the keys. They went bouncing and lurching and weaving from side to side down the street, the girl barely able to see over the steering wheel.

  Martin stared out the waiting room window, not believing what he had just heard and was now witnessing as the car wobbled out of sight.

  Gary rubbed his face with his hands. “I think we have a problem, friend. That girl’s eyes scared the hell out of me.”

  “More problems than you know, Gary.” Martin told him about the contract and then showed him the letter.

  Gary fingered the letter. “This paper is old, Martin.”

  “I know. And that is not my signature. That’s dad’s writing.”

  Gary nodded his head, looked at his friend, and waited. Martin pointed to the phone on the secretary’s desk. “Can I use your phone to run up about five hundred dollars in long distance calls?”

  Gary smiled wearily. “Go ahead. But the next time you come in for a hangnail, you’re going to have one hell of a bill.”

  * * *

  It took him almost two hours, but Martin finally struck paydirt. He had begun by calling all the major cities in West Virginia. He had thought about contacting the Mayors’ offices or the Chambers of Commerce, then realized it was Saturday, and most would be closed. He called the local P.D.s or sheriff’s departments, identifying himself as a county deputy sheriff—which he was—and his reason for calling was to try to locate a missing person, who was believed to be working in a carnival. He used the name of a buddy of his he’d served with in Vietnam, who Martin knew was currently living in Fresno, California.

  Do you have a carnival based in your city?

  By the time he’d gone through the cities over five thousand population, he’d consumed a pot of coffee and worn a blister on the tip of one finger. Then he started calling the towns under five thousand.

  “Well, we did have one,” a deputy finally spoke the welcome words. “But that was years ago. That carnival got all burned up in a fire out west somewhere. I had just started workin’ as a deputy when that happened. Long time back, ’cause I’ll be retirin’ this year.”

  “Do you remember the name of the show?”

  “Ahhh . . . no, I don’t. Sorry. Oh, wait a minute. I do remember the name of the man who owned the show. I sure do.”

  Martin waited.

  “He was a foreigner. Name of Nabob.”

  “Nabo, perhaps?”

  “Yeah! You’re right. That’s what it was, all right. Nabo. Big fellow. Dressed all in black all the time. Nabo, it was.”

  “Was?”

  “Oh, he’s dead. Newspapers here played it up big. He used to give a lot of money to charities. Folks said he was a real nice fellow. But he burned up in that fire with the rest of his people, freaks and all.”

  “He didn’t have any family?”

  “One son. But he was just a baby when that Nabo died. Somebody adopted the kid and I don’t have no idea what happened to him. I remember all that ‘cause some fellow from the Nebraska Highway Patrol called about the fire . . . oh, twelve, fifteen years back. I don’t really remember exact. Probably workin’ on the same thing you don’t want to tell me about. I understand. But about Nabo, I can’t help you, except to tell you that he’s dead.”

  * * *

  Martin had taken down the name of the man he’d spoken with and the name of the town. He thanked the deputy and slowly hung up the phone.

  He told Gary the news.

  “Jesus God, I was right!”


  “Now, just calm down, Gary.”

  But the news had jarred the doctor. He was visibly shaken. He tried three times to light his pipe, and finally, in frustration, he flung the unlit pipe across the room. He stared at Martin. “All right, all right, I’m calm. Now what?”

  “You’re about as calm as a Tasmanian Devil, Gary.” Martin shook his head. “I don’t know what. For sure, we’ve got to tell Audie. But I don’t know what he can do.” Martin smiled at his friend; he was not sharing Gary’s ideas about this matter. But he was about to. In a matter of moments. “Is it against the law to return from the dead?”

  Gary jumped to his feet. “Goddamnit, Martin!” he yelled. “That isn’t funny!”

  “Sorry, Gary. Man, calm down. Look, what can we do about it? Let’s just settle down and try to think this thing out rationally. Now then, the man who calls himself Nabo might well have taken the name just to keep the show going. Now, Gary, think about that before you let your imagination run wild on this thing.”

  “OK. But do you really think it’s just someone who took the name?”

  “It doesn’t make any difference what I think. Let’s stick with the facts we have and take it from there.”

  But the doctor wouldn’t be put off that easily. “Do you believe it’s just a person who kept the show going? Do you?”

  A long expulsion of breath, followed by a minute shake of the head. “No, Gary. Despite all my talk of logic, I don’t believe it.”

  “Then who do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know who it is!”

  “Now who’s getting excited?”

  Martin refused to reply to that.

  Gary stared at him.

  “What do you want me to say, Gary? Do you want me to say that it is Nabo? All right. Maybe it is.”

  “But Nabo is dead!”

  “Yes. Yes, I believe that, too.”

  “Then? ...”

  “Gary, do you have just the tiniest idea what the sheriff would say if we went to him with what we have? He’d call a judge and have us both committed for mental observation?”

  “Not without several doctors agreeing to it,” Gary automatically replied. He shook his head. “We have to do something, Martin.”

  “What, Gary? What? No one has broken any laws. I have a contract with a dead man’s signature on it. I—” Martin paused, a very odd expression on his face. It came to him, and it did not come gently. Just the germ of an idea. Horrible. Impossible. Ridiculous. But there it was. He paled. A thin trickle of sweat slid down one side of his face. The hand holding the contract began to tremble.

  He laid the contract on the desk and steadied his shaking hands.

  “What’s wrong, Martin?”

  Martin shook his head.

  “You’re not thinking that your father had anything to do with this . . . situation, are you? Or that he’s . . . still alive? ”

  “No. No, to both your questions. Dad wasn’t in the best of health when I left here for ’Nam. And he was almost fifty when I was born. My father is dead.”

  “Then why that strange look on your face?”

  Martin picked up the contract. “It was never fulfilled, Gary. The carnival never got to play out its date. It’s crazy, Gary; maybe I’m a little touched for saying it, thinking it. But maybe they’ve . . . come back to play out the contractual agreement. And you said it: Revenge.”

  Gary stared at him. He opened his mouth a couple of times but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I said, Martin, that people have died and have been revived. I said, Martin, people have hung onto life for revenge. I never said, Martin,” his voice was almost at the screaming level, “that people can come back from the grave!”

  Martin sat still and watched and listened as his friend cussed and stomped around the office, waving his arms and shouting. He let him wind down to a breathless, red-faced silence.

  “Are you quite through now, Gary?”

  Gary nodded, glaring at him, his chest heaving from the sudden exertions.

  “Any lucid suggestions, Gary?”

  “Call the state police!”

  “You want the state cops in here on this? And tell them what? That we’re dealing with some walking dead people?”

  “Martin, get a grip on yourself.”

  “We don’t have any proof, Gary!”

  “Just get them in here and we’ll lay out what we have for them.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I sure am! And if you won’t call them, I will.”

  “All right.” Martin picked up the phone and dialed his home. Alicia told him about Linda fainting and about the horrible visions she’d experienced while out. Martin ground his teeth together and told his wife to stay home and to keep Linda there; under no circumstances were either of them to leave the house. He pressed the disconnect button and handed the phone to Gary, punching out the doctor’s home number. Gary told his wife much the same and to keep the kids at home. He shook his head, wondering why he was feeling so strange.

  “Jeanne stayed at the fairgrounds,” Janet told him.

  “Damn!” he cursed, then hung up the phone, leaving his wife holding a buzzing receiver and wondering what in the world was going on.

  * * *

  She pointed a finger at Karl Steele. “You better get out of my way, Karl!”

  “I ain’t doin’ nothin,’ Jeanne,” the young man said, an arrogant smirk on his lips. “I’m just standin’ here.”

  “Refusing to let me pass is what you’re doing. Get out of my way.”

  She had gone to look for a restroom after the others had left, assuring them that she would be all right. Now, Robie Grant stood on Karl’s left, Hal Evans to his right. Jeanne had the side of a livestock pavilion to her back, and the boys thought they had her trapped. But like a lot of country girls, Jeanne had been a tomboy all her life, and could scrap with the best of them. She had also been well-taught, by her father, which part of a boy’s anatomy to kick when in trouble.

  “You gonna let me by?” she asked, turning slightly, to face Hal. Hal Evans, she knew, was a beer-bellied coward.

  He grinned at her; a nasty, knowing grin. “Let’s have some fun first, Jeanne.”

  “What kind of fun?” Jeanne knew what kind of fun they had in mind. Lilly Johnson had found that out, and so had Betty Tullar, and no telling how many other girls too scared afterward to tell what had happened. But it was always the same: the boys’ fathers bought them out, or the whole gang of them would threaten to testify that the girl was a willing partner. There was a lot of money in this part of the county, and little city law. Kelson could be easily bought.

  “What kind of fun?” Jeanne demanded.

  They were country boys, but too street wise to say the words out loud. Karl began working the zipper of his jeans up and down and grinning at her.

  “All right,” Jeanne said sweetly, one hand going to the top button of her blouse. The boys’ eyes followed, lingering at her breasts. “I like to have fun. Who’s going to be first?”

  The trio laughed. Hal Evans stopped laughing abruptly when the toe of Jeanne’s tennis shoe caught him smack in the groin. He dropped like a fat rock to the ground, screaming.

  Jeanne darted past him and was clear, running full tilt, yelling as loudly as she could.

  She ran around the pavilion and headed for the rapidly-growing city of tents and rides.

  She ran right into a man all dressed in black. Looked up at him, fear on her face. She could not see his eyes behind the very dark sunglasses. But she could feel the enormous strength through his big hands. Looking down at her, his tanned face darkened and his jaw muscles bunched.

  Jeanne had a quick feeling—and one she did not understand—that she was standing very close to hate.

  Abruptly, the man released her and stepped back. “What’s the matter, girl?”

  And another odd feeling overcame her: he knew what was the matter. Jeanne caught her breath and pointed across the lot to
the three young men, one of whom was lying on the ground. “Those three guys trapped me behind the pavilion—I was looking for a restroom. They threatened to do ... to ... you know?”

  “I suppose so,” he said, a strange bitterness in his voice. Jeanne couldn’t understand that. “Nothing ever changes in this dreadful place.” She didn’t understand that, either. He looked down at her. “Do you wish me to call the authorities?”

  She shook her head. “I guess not. It would be their word against mine. And I’ve seen what happens in that situation. Besides, that boy in the stupid-looking cowboy hat with the feather in it is Karl Steele. His dad is rich. Lyle Steele. He’d just buy his kid out of it.” Jeanne realized that she was probably talking too much with this carnival person . . . how did she know he was with the carnival?... she just did. But he sure was real easy to talk to.

  “Their word against yours? Yes. I know that feeling as well.” More bitterness in his voice. And something else, too.

  Jeanne stood looking up at him. She suddenly realized that she was afraid of this man. She smiled at him. The smile was not returned. And there was an odor about him. Like something charred. But that thought vanished from her head as quickly as it had entered.

  Several women came running over. The man gently pushed Jeanne toward them. “Ladies, those young hooligans over there by the pavilion were bothering this young lady. They frightened her very badly. I would not like for them to confront her again this day. Do any of you know her parents?”

  They all did.

  “Fine. Then I might suggest that one of you call her parents and ask that they come get her. Or if that is not possible, would one of you take her home?”

  Jeanne smiled up at the man. He stared at her. She could not see his eyes behind the dark glasses. “Thank you, mister?”

  “Nabo, girl. Just Nabo.”

  SIX

  “I’m gonna whip Lyle Steele’s ass!” Matt Potter said.

  Jeanne’s mother had not been at home, so the ladies, all local women, knowing Linda was the girl’s best friend, took her to the Holland’s. Matt had stormed in about an hour later, when he’d finally been tracked down and informed of the incident, his wife with him. Another couple in Martin and Alicia’s circle of friends.