Nightmare Carnival

And Mr Fleymann! Flayman indeed! Power in names.

Mum on the Sofa. Couch Ma! Cauchemar! Nightmare.

And Mally Quinn, for heaven’s sake! How could he have missed it? Mallequin! Mannequin!

He looked down at the glare and the dazzle, the tiny world, at everything the world was here. The only world.

Corpse Rose!

Could it be? Of course.

That name! That name of power!

That was it! He knew it.

He said it out loud, blurted it, said it a second time.

“Dammit!” someone said, possibly Mally.

“Bugger!” muttered someone else.

Mr F.’s grin held, but the light went out of it like sand sliding around stones. Just the grimace remained, leached and horrid. Finally it relaxed, broke apart.

“Well played, Jem. But no matter. You’ve set us on our way. Tomorrow, the International Space Station will have a small but annoying toilet blockage, and one of its lesser windows will get the first signs of pitting. Nothing major yet, and a bit theatrical, I know, but it made the folks in Washington and Moscow very nervous when those faces appeared in their station windows. More nations involved with the ISS. Harder to hush up. It’s time to bring the house down, but we’ll make sure it’s haunted first.”

“What happens to me?”

“Get Out of Jail Free, lucky boy. You were everything we hoped you’d be.”

Jem woke leaning against a tree in the dusty main street of Cook, legs thrust out in front. Someone was talking to him, a tall weathered brunette who kept glancing at her watch, clearly had things to do.

“Train’s in tomorrow,” she said, then indicated the old man standing next to her. “Pete says you can sleep on his verandah tonight. You’ll be fine.”

Jem fought to get his bearings, remember everything, anything, watched the woman walk over to a Jeep Cherokee, climb in, and start the engine.

“Heat stroke’ll get ya, young fella,” the old man said. “Like the lady says, you’ll be fine in a day or two.”

Jem managed to stand. “Say, Pete, did you see a sign on that Jeep’s door? Name of a property or something?”

“Never did. Mally’s pretty much a loner. You see somethin’?”

“Not sure. For a moment I thought I saw that old name from the Bible. Lazarus.”

“Wasn’t he the fella that rose from the dead?”

Jem watched the Jeep driving off amid the dust. “At the very least.”

LAST OF THE FAIR by Joel Lane

Coming home on the number 11 bus, Mark noticed there was a fair in Fox Hollies Park. It wasn’t the usual scrawny local thing with two electric roundabouts and half a ghost train. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any rides: just a scattering of tents in a hazy orange light that somehow didn’t reach the centre. There was no sign on the gates. A thin October rain scratched at the canvas walls. Odd time of year for a fair. Blurred images pulled at the corner of his eye: a tangle of snakes, a flying eagle, a woman with an angelic face. He thought of Carmel. Their date that afternoon, in a rough Kings Heath pub, was the first time they’d kissed. Next time, he supposed, they might go to bed. It worried him. Some music was playing in the park, but he couldn’t make it out. The bus passed a shop whose upper windows were broken.

The angel stayed in his mind that night. Her neck was bent back; her expression was ecstatic but not peaceful. Mark thought it was an imitation of a painting he’d seen in the Birmingham art gallery, a Rossetti portrait of a woman experiencing some kind of sacred vision. Again he thought of Carmel — her straight dark hair falling over her pale face, her eyes closed as their tongues met in a silent argument. His hand strayed to the smooth ridge of bone above his left nipple, rising to a crest and then falling back into his side. He’d been wearing a loose shirt, she probably hadn’t seen. And she hadn’t gone to his school, so she wouldn’t know about the names. She’d gone to a better school, was at college now. But she didn’t talk to him like he was an idiot. There was a blend of loneliness and fear in her eyes that made him desperate to touch her.

Mark bit his lip as his hand slipped down to his warm belly, his crotch. The rain tore at the windows, like a dog with a bone that no longer had any flesh to lose. The word “bone” stuck in his head and he couldn’t hold onto himself. Frustrated, he rolled over and thought of a house full of broken glass.