The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel (17 page)

And the minute he thought it, his spine became
rigid, his mouth opened just a little as he struggled to
understand.

That scared him.

When he didn’t even make sense to himself, there
was something far more wrong here than watching his aunt
disintegrate in a nightmare. And he wouldn’t figure it out this
way, panting slightly, pushing his tongue into his cheek, letting
his hands knead his thighs.

He had to be calm.

He had to find distance.

He had to be objective is what it was, practice
what he’d learned in class, in his occasional work for the
Station Herald,
in the lectures he had heard from visiting
reporters from cities that had blocks with more people than the
Station. He had to be composed. He had to ignore the slow growing
light that illuminated what seemed to be a circus ring filled with
desert sand, a cactus here and there, and far at the back a vulture
sitting on the only branch left on a long-dead tree. He had to
close his mind to what was obviously some sort of hallucination,
maybe brought on by the dizzying carousel ride, and retrace his way
through the fear and find only the facts. He couldn’t watch the two
cowboys strolling toward each other from either side of the ring.
He couldn’t permit himself to recognize the paunchy,
slope-shouldered, gait of his uncle, or the insolent stride of
cousin Chuck, flab noticeable even with the loose clothing he wore,
though he had to admit that the characteristic stubble of beard on
the kid’s acne-scarred face fit this scene better than it did when
he wore his usual white sweater and white slacks.

Facts.

He had to understand the facts, shred the fancy,
dispel the childhood notion that these two men, in near perfect
silence, were about to have an old-fashioned, Hollywood shoot-out.
Right here. Right in front of him. The vulture’s wings flapping in
anticipation. Dust rising from their dusty boots. His uncle
spitting to one side. His cousin spitting toward his father. The
hollow stamp of their boots on the sandy soil, the leather creak of
their gunbelts. Stopping. Glowering at each other. Chuck adjusting
his hat as if shading his eyes from a sun Drake couldn’t see.
Wendall leaning over without taking his gaze from the kid to adjust
the rawhide strap holding his holster against his thigh.

Drake jumped to his feet and said, “Hey —”

They drew and fired.

No echo, no sensation of sound in a large
cave.

The pistols fired.

Nothing more.

Wendall’s head snapped back as his left eye was
shot out.

Chuck doubled over, his free hand grabbing at
the hole in his belly.

Drake screamed as they fell, as the light
shifted to amber, and he tripped over an iron brace, sprawled and
yelled when his elbow caught the edge of the seat. He cupped it
with his other hand, pushed up to his knees and didn’t look at the
circus ring.

The vulture cried softly. Its wings flapped like
canvas.

Drake crawled on knees and one hand to the exit
and fell outside where the wind slapped him with dust, and a voice
whispered, “Here.”

The oval was quiet, all the rides empty and in
their places, waiting for new riders; a fruit-punch machine at a
food stand bubbling untended, the smell of frying hamburgers,
popcorn bouncing softly against the plastic sides of its
cooker.

Okay, he thought, shivering against the wind,
his face gleaming with perspiration; all right, no problem, she’s
already gone, I’ll just go home too.

He listened for sounds of voices, footsteps,
hoping for a moment that there was a special show in the arena, so
special that even the carnival’s workers were there. He listened as
he backed out of the oval, and knew he was kidding himself He was
alone. Whatever had happened wasn’t any stupid goddamn special
show, and it wasn’t a nuclear holocaust, and it wasn’t a dream,
because his throat was raw from the screaming he had done and the
screaming he held back, his elbow still ached, his stomach was
filled with acid that made him spit several times, and if it wasn’t
a dream, then what the hell was it?

A monochrome picture of a nude woman suddenly
danced in front of him. Unwillingly he took it, held it at arm’s
length, brought it close to his eyes, turned to Jill and said,
“You’re putting on weight.”

She slapped his shoulder.

He laughed and stuffed the picture into his hip
pocket.

“Going to put it under your pillow?”

“I’m going to show it to my uncle and tell him
you’re my girlfriend and you do this for a living.”

She didn’t say anything.

Damn, he thought the moment he saw her eyes;
your foot, you jackass, is now firmly between your teeth.

And an instant later: holy shit, she’s not
kidding. Oh Jesus, Saxton, what have you gotten yourself into
now?

They turned into a narrow lane, not as crowded
though no less noisy.

“I’ve been thinking about your company,” she
said, neatly sliding away from a child racing a balloon.

“So have I,” he answered morosely. “I’m going to
have to go soon, or I’m dead meat.”

“No offense, Drake, but maybe that’s what they
need.”

“What?” He stopped and was nearly run over by a
baby carriage. A muttered apology to the mother, a quick trot to
catch up to Jill. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re too nice to them.”

“Like hell.”

Her head tilted toward him. “So who bought the
steaks, the veggies, the salad stuff huh? God, if they come that
late, a sandwich will do, for god’s sake. They’ll be exhausted
anyway, they won’t feel like eating.”

“My mother —”

“Didn’t tell you to buy a ten-course meal.”

“Well . . .”

She sidestepped in front of him, put her hands
on his shoulders and wouldn’t let him pass. “Drake, come back to
the world for a minute, okay? You’re a great guy, no shit, but
sometimes you can be so goddamn dense.” A knuckle rapped his
forehead. “I’ll bet your teen-year rebellion was refusing to pick
up your socks.”

Annoyed at her intrusion, oddly pleased that she
seemed to care enough to make it, he snatched her wrist. Hesitated.
Then tugged gently, and her face came down and he kissed her lips,
far longer than he had intended.

When he pulled away, she blinked as if swimming
out of a minor daze.

“Jesus, Drake,” she whispered.

The carnival sighed around them.

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

In the background, the carousel.

“All right, come on,” she said at last, grabbing
his hand and elbow, “I want you to see this incredible game place I
found last week. It’s sort of like bobbing for apples, except
they’re greased tennis balls or something. You can win ten bucks if
you get three in five minutes without drowning.”

He shook his head; it was getting late.

She yanked; he followed, and couldn’t help
watching the way her buttocks stretched her shorts in such a
tantalizing way that he began to wonder if he’d secretly been
raised as a monk. Was this the first time he’d really seen what she
looked like?

When a crowd of teenagers swarmed around them,
the grip was broken and Jill was carried away, one arm up,
commanding him to follow.

And for just that second, the hand, the arm, the
manner, reminded him of his mother.

Come along, Drake, dear, we don’t have much
time.

The hell with you, he thought; damnit, the hell
with you. His own about-face startled him so much that he was
afraid to look over his shoulder. Instead, he returned to the
midway, seething over the playful scolding, confused over the kiss,
wishing he’d never come in the first place, it would have been a
lot easier just to stay at the house and stay bored until someone,
anyone, came home.

But she was right in one respect — being nice
sometimes made him look like a jerk, transformed him into a
doormat. Until now that had been a small price to pay. Until now he
hadn’t seriously considered taking control.

Idiot; you’re an idiot and they’re all
laughing.

He skipped once as if ready to run, skipped
again and did run through the crowd until the crowd slipped away
and left him alone with the wind and the sound of his ragged
breathing.

Down the center of the midway, then, dodging a
paper cup blown across his path, hurdling a toppled stroller, its
tiny wheels spinning. He looked neither left nor right. He ignored
the gunshot snaps of Hags and loose canvas. He refused to look at
the sky, at the colored lights. A scrap of paper crawled after him,
clung to his ankle and slipped away. He didn’t look at it. He kept
his head up, his attention on the gate at the midway’s far end, at
the suggestion of trees beyond it, because the trees meant that
behind them were the houses, the streets, the people who had
somehow disappeared from the field.

A voice called his name.

He didn’t look.

A woman called his name.

He didn’t look.

Nor did he allow himself to think about anything
but running without falling. Not headlong, just steady. Shaking his
head once to flip the sweat from his eyes. Not sprinting, just
escaping. Holding his right arm tight against his side for several
yards to stifle a painful stitch that threatened to slow him
down.

A woman called his name.

Go away, he yelled at her, and not making a
sound; get away, I don’t know you!

But he saw her.

Twenty yards ahead, on his left, on a long
narrow stage in front of a flat-topped tent badly painted to
resemble an oasis, its pool of water peeling, camels more like
horses, childlike suggestions of robed Arabs reclining under palm
trees much too stiff and dark. In front of her was a straw basket
fat and low, its top tilted to one side, something dark moving just
below the lip.

For some reason it didn’t surprise him that the
woman was Deena, the attractive one, the cousin he had the most fun
with because she never seemed to take her parents seriously, the
one who had never blamed him for his father’s leaving. She wore
pale-blue harem pants and a matching skimpy top, a white veil over
her nose and mouth and somehow pinned in her hair. Arms lined with
gold bracelets. Feet bare. Swaying, hands writhing, fingers
beckoning, eyes lined to increase their size and staring at him as
he approached.

“Hey, Drake, c’mon over.”

He faltered, thought of Wendall’s bloody face,
Chuck’s moans, Sheri’s blackened skeleton, and ran on.

“Hey, Drake, you queer or what?”

If you stop, dope, something will happen to her.
She’ll die. That snake — of course there’s a snake in there, what
the hell else can it be — will bite her and the poison will bloat
her up and she’ll turn black and purple and blow up all over you
and it’ll be all your fault because you stopped to listen.

She leaned over as he drew even with the stage.
Her breasts beneath the gauze larger than he’d imagined, even
though, when he had finally realized she was growing up, the eldest
of the Firth children, he had also realized she had become a woman
as well. The revelation had startled him, unnerved him, and the
last time they had come to town, he’d done his best to avoid being
alone with her. Their usual mutual teasing had suddenly developed
overtones that made him uncomfortable, because he wasn’t supposed
to think about such things, not with or about a cousin, the
daughter of his mother’s sister. It was sinful. It was perverse.
Deena knew it somehow, told him she did with a look and a touch,
and immediately began taunting him so blatantly, so outrageously
flagrantly, even her father had caught on and had yelled so
furiously his face had turned red.

Red.

Blood red.

But the taunting hadn’t stopped; it had merely
withdrawn to become part of an occasional ambush when the grown-ups
weren’t looking.

“Oh . . . Drake?”

He stopped.

Even if she hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have
stopped. His lungs were working too hard, his legs had lost their
momentum, and he could feel pressurized heat rising through his
chest and face from the demands he had made. But he didn’t look. He
clamped his hands on his waist, closed his eyes, and concentrated
on regulating his breathing, willing the aches to fade, willing his
muscles not to yield and let him fall.

Deena giggled.

He swallowed, spat dryly, and would have
cheerfully sold his soul for a gallon or nine of water.

“You want to see something gross?”

“No,” he managed, licked his lips, licked them
again.

A cat howled behind him.

Spinning around made him totter, and he grabbed
the edge of the stage, lowered his head between his arms.

“Swear to god, Drake, it’s really disgusting,
you’ll love it. Maybe you can write a story about it for the
paper.”

“Forget it.”

She stood directly in front of him. Without
raising his head he could see her tanned feet, the crimson polish
on her toenails, the tiny silver bells coiled around her ankles;
when she stepped closer, he could hear the carousel’s song.

“C’mon, Drake, don’t be a pussy.”

Any minute now he’d have the strength to
leave.

Any minute.

She crouched, bounced a few times before finding
her balance, then lay a hand on his head. “You don’t think this is
the neatest thing in the world, Drake, I’ll never bother you
again.”

Blowing his breath out now, slowly, carefully,
he let himself look up, between her legs, the folds of her stomach,
her breasts, her face.

She grinned.

Her teeth were black behind the veil.

“Damn, but you’re going to shit when you see
this.”

Before he could say anything, she reached into
the basket and pulled out Barbi’s head, dangling it before his eyes
by the short ponytail his cousin always wore because, she’d once
explained, by exposing her ears it made her face seem more
thin.