Nightmare Carnival

A long time and a lot of silence passed before he let me go.

* * *

Oatmeal and kiwis for breakfast in the commissary. Beasley introduced me around to the early risers. Hey, everybody, this is Jessica Mace. She’s wandering the earth. Make her feel at home. Damned if I didn’t despite their clannishness. Free food is free food.

Strongman (actually a strongwoman, after a double take), bearded lady, wolf girl, Poindexter the Geek, the knife thrower, Ephandra the Contortionist, and Perkins and Luther — head carpenter and electrician respectively. The Gallows brothers, Benson and Robert, weren’t on hand. The proprietors had departed on a hush-hush mission, or so Beasley intimated when I asked to meet the gents.

Beasley’s request notwithstanding, I received the hairy eyeball from the company. Nobody said two words to me except for Earl, the Illustrated Man. Earl repeatedly inquired where oh where on my delectable body I might be inked. Answer: nowhere, jerk. I kind of hoped Beasley would bust his jaw too, but it didn’t happen. Several children lurked on the periphery. The oldest, an adolescent girl; the youngest, a grubby boy maybe a year or two out of diapers. They gawped at me from a safe distance, until their minder, a matronly lass named Rocky, swept them away with brisk efficiency.

After breakfast, Beasley escorted me on a tour of the environs. I tasted snow. A lot of the stuff covered the mountain peaks.

“This doesn’t jibe,” I said. “Are you hiding from the law, or what?”

We’d moseyed a distance from the encampment. He wore a battered Australian drover’s hat, light jacket, work pants, and lace-up boots. He also carried a big-ass hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. Double barrels, very serious.

“Whatever happens, don’t get scared.”

“Scared of what? And, too late.”

“Of nothing. I’m not on the lam, by the way. Vacation.” He knelt and traced flattened grass with his entire hand. We were surrounded by an ocean of it, tall and white, dying.

“How everybody spoke to you, you’ve been here a while.”

“Ten months next week.”

“Ten months! Sounds more and more like you’re on work release.”

He laughed. Nice white teeth. Considering the battered condition of his face, it was a small miracle he’d kept most of them.

“I live back east. My regular employers are having a disagreement.”

“Dare I ask what they do?”

“Big brains. Quantum physics, exobiology, anthropology. They’re famous, infamous, one of those things. A pair of mad scientist types. They’d love to build a time machine or a doomsday device for the kicks.”

“Sounds like wacky fun. I could use a spin in a time machine, for sure.”

“Backward or forward?”

I shrugged, bored.

“Sorry your bosses are trying to kill each other. Family feuds are the worst.”

“It’s all the shooting that made me nervous.” He turned away and scanned the ground again.

“What’s the argument about?”

“The ethics of temporal collocation of sapient organisms.”

“No shit?”

“I shit you not. Mainly, they’re at each other’s throats about a dog.”

“Oh, I get that. I’d kill over a good dog.”

“Hmm. This one sure as hell is. Or it will be, after they build it.”

“Build it? Are we talking about a robot?”

“A cyborg. It — he — is a war machine. Weapons contractor is financing the project. My bosses are making history. Rex has a positronic brain. First of its kind, and Toshi and Howard are fighting over the ethics. Look, stick around a few days, we’ll fly to the compound, I’ll show you. Easier that way.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Man, I wish Rex was online. We’d make short work of. ” He cleared his throat and stood. “Be seven or eight years before the prototype is even in alpha phase. Gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Do what the old-fashioned way? Aren’t you on vacation?”

“So to speak. Personal business. I traveled with this carnival as a kid. Ran away from a bad scene at home. The Gallowses took me in, gave me a job, made sure I got an education. They’re my uncles and they’re in trouble.”

“A debt of honor. How sweet.” Sweet like rat poison. Daddy the Marine had taught us kids a whole lot about honor. Honor had put him and my eldest brother into early graves. Can’t say I have much use for the sentiment.

“I didn’t pick you out of that bar just because you’re a looker,” Beasley said. “You’re something special.”

“Huh, that’s some heavy duty charm you’re laying down.”

“Yeah, it’s exhausting. I’ll stop.”

“Since you’ve already had your way, I’m steeling myself for the worst.”

“The Gallows Carnival is cursed. I’ve come to put things in order.”

“Wait, what? A curse?”

“Right.”

“Like voodoo, desecrated-Indian-burial-grounds kind of curse?”

He pointed to a splotch of maroon on the grass.

“Stay tuned.”