Carnies Page 14

  David nodded, hoping the sweat on his face wasn’t showing in the dim light of the room. ‘F-five thousand now, another five on... completion.’

  ‘Good to hear,’ the man said. ‘Hand it over.’

  David frowned. ‘I... uh, I assume Mr Voight told you what the job was?’

  Tacker nodded. ‘You need some backup for... how did he put it, Goon?’

  ‘An extraction,’ the big man said, as if it was a foreign word.

  ‘That’s it. An extraction.’ Tacker grinned. ‘Like a tooth?’

  David shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that. It’s my brother. They’re holding him at the carnival. I want to get him out.’

  ‘Don’t give a shit about the details, mate,’ the tall man stated bluntly. ‘That side of it’s up to you. We’re just the muscle.’ He held out his hand. ‘The money. Now.’

  David hesitated then, feeling as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to step off. ‘How do I know...’ he started, but trailed off.

  ‘How d’ya know we won’t just take the money and fuck off? Or maybe take it and scrag ya anyway?’ Tacker laughed. ‘Don’t worry, mate. We’ll do what you want us to do.’

  ‘Fuckin’ right,’ Goon grunted.

  David looked from one man to the other for a moment, realisation dawning. ‘You’ve got something against the carnival.’

  ‘Got something against the carnival, yeah,’ Tacker echoed. ‘Got something pretty fuckin’ big against that fuckin’ carnival.’

  ‘What is it? What did they do?’

  Goon began to respond, his face red. ‘They...’

  ‘Never you fuckin’ mind what we got against ’em,’ Tacker interrupted. ‘It’s none of yer concern, and definitely none of yer goddamn business. All that matters is, we’ll take yer money, and we’ll fuck over the carnival, and if one happens to be related to the other, well, that’s a happy fuckin’ coincidence.’

  ‘Fine,’ David said, not wanting to get into any sort of argument with these men. He walked over to the kitchenette and opened a drawer, pulling out an envelope. He took it to the men and handed it over. ‘Five thousand, cash.’

  ‘And another five tonight?’ Tacker asked, opening the envelope and counting the money.

  David nodded. ‘When the job’s done.’

  Tacker finished his count and tucked the envelope away inside his jacket. ‘You got yerself a deal, pal.’ He held out his hand.

  David wavered for a moment, then took it. The grip was bone crushing, but he tried not to let his pain show as they shook hands. The biker grinned like a skull. Eventually he let David go, and he backed away, his hand throbbing.

  ‘Where and when?’ Tacker asked.

  ‘The carnival car park,’ David responded, his eyes watering a little from the pain in his fingers. ‘Midnight, when they close.’

  ‘We’ll be there.’

  The two men headed for the door and opened it, while David stood in the middle of the room watching them leave. He felt shell-shocked. As they walked out into the sunlight, Tacker turned to him for a moment and winked. Then the door was closed and they were gone.

  Shaking slightly, David walked to the door and looked through the peephole to make sure the men were gone. Then he walked into the bathroom, kneeled beside the toilet and vomited what little he’d had to eat and drink. It was mostly stomach acid. The bitter taste still in his mouth, he flushed the toilet and washed his face and hands at the sink, then rinsed his mouth out over and over again, gargling, swallowing and spitting.

  After a while he felt well enough to leave the bathroom and walked back into the living area. As he passed the television he picked up the fallen antenna and placed it back on top of the set, the picture reforming as he did so. It was an advertisement for a rug company. The slogan on the screen was: How low can we go?

  Not as low as me, I’d wager, David brooded. Not by a long shot.

  -23-

  As a kid, Paul read plenty of books about children who ran away to join the circus. They all depicted the experience as a bit of a lark, plenty of fun and hijinks involving laughing with the clowns, learning to walk the tightrope and playing with the animals. It had been shown as easy, clean and enjoyable. A jolly wizard time.

  But Paul knew now that those books were full of shit. He was awoken at five in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to weave its way through the trees into the sky. He was dragged off his uncomfortable mattress by a familiar face, though not a welcome or friendly one. It was the big man who’d escorted him by force around the carnival a few nights earlier, Carl, who didn’t seem very happy to have been given the task of introducing Paul to carnival life. Carl gave him five minutes to get his act together, then led him from the caravan and into the wan daylight.

  Behind him there was a rumbling snore from Ben. It appeared he didn’t have to get up early.

  But it seemed just about everyone else did. The carnival had already been up and about for hours, by the looks of it. Workers were fixing up structures, and people ran around looking intent on being somewhere else, fast. It was like an ants’ nest that someone had kicked over. Paul looked around, dazed by the frenetic activity.

  ‘Hey, Toby!’ Carl called to a young man leading a group of workers carrying large wooden beams between the rows of tents. The man looked over and waved one-handed, keeping the dark red square log on his other shoulder with little or no visible effort. ‘Need another pair of hands?’

  The young man nodded.

  Carl turned to Paul. ‘Get over there,’ he ordered. ‘Do whatever he says.’

  Paul opened his mouth to ask a question, but the look in the big man’s eye dissuaded him. Instead he shrugged and walked over to the group.

  ‘G’day,’ Toby said, his tone not entirely unfriendly. It was the closest thing to civility Paul had been offered so far, and he was willing to take what he could get. He looked younger than Paul, probably in his early twenties, with a light brown beard.

  ‘Hi,’ Paul responded with a sleepy smile. ‘I’m Paul.’

  ‘I know.’ Toby pointed over at a pile of beams, identical to the one he had on his shoulder. ‘Grab one of those and follow us.’

  ‘No problem,’ Paul said, though he was dubious about his ability to do so. They looked pretty heavy. He walked over to the pile and tried to lift one of the logs.

  He was mistaken. They weren’t pretty heavy. They were bloody heavy.

  ‘Um...’ he said over his shoulder, but the group had already moved away, each man carrying one of the beams. He realised he had no real choice in the matter. Gritting his teeth, he hauled one of the beams off the ground, struggling to get it onto his shoulder the way the others did. His knees nearly gave out beneath the weight, but he managed to balance it on his left shoulder after a few seconds, then staggered off after the group.

  And that’s what he did for the next six hours: lugged lumber from one part of the carnival to another, a backbreaking initiation to carnival life. After the first four or five hauls, he developed a technique that lessened the pain and effort. A little. But it was still tough work. He didn’t let it show, though, or at least he hoped he didn’t. He wanted to pull his own weight. Or, in this case, several times that. The ant analogy that struck him earlier became more and more apt.

  Along the way he was introduced to what he hoped was most of the carnival folk. It seemed a fairly even mix of women and men, with quite a few children too. And it was the children who turned out to be most interesting. At one point he saw a group of toddlers playing in a sandpit. They were pushing wooden toys through the dirt, laughing, singing... just like any other ordinary bunch of kids.

  Except that they weren’t all human.

  Some of the children had elongated snouts, with sharp teeth jutting from the bottoms of their jaws. Some had hair along their arms and legs and backs, ears high on their heads and a flattened back. Others looked more like dogs than children. Only a slight unevenness of their proportions and an intelligence in the
ir eyes betrayed their true nature.

  He recognised one of them immediately. It was the creature that had run out in front of his car on that first day in Tillbrook, nearly causing him to crash. It smiled in a canine fashion, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, and waved a paw. Without thinking, Paul waved back.

  ‘The pups,’ Toby explained as he lowered his beam to the ground. ‘They haven’t quite mastered the change yet. They’ll pick a form eventually.’

  ‘Pick a form?’ Paul asked.

  Toby smiled. ‘Wolf or man,’ he said. ‘It takes a lot of time and effort to effect the change completely, so we generally choose which form to remain in. Once most of us were wolves, but it’s becoming harder and harder to coexist with humans in that form, so these days we mostly wear the human form.’ He’d pointed over to his right. ‘Of course, not everyone agrees with that. We still have a few lupes.’

  Paul followed his gesture and saw a group of what he’d taken for dogs walking among the tents, like a separate pack. They walked in a proud manner, lords and ladies amongst the rabble.

  One thing he didn’t understand yet was where he fitted into this grand scheme. If anywhere.

  He looked back to the pups, paying particular attention to the ones still halfway between forms. They reminded him of...

  ‘What about Ben?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Toby reacted, surprised.

  ‘I can see that the pups are between forms, but I haven’t seen any adults like that. You said you choose a form and stay there. But Ben... he’s between forms too, isn’t he? Like the pups?’

  Toby looked very uncomfortable. ‘Perhaps it’s best you ask Ben about this,’ he responded. ‘It’s not really my place.’

  Paul accepted, despite still being curious. Something else was bothering Paul, something at the back of his mind. Then he remembered what it was.

  ‘Toby?’ he asked the young man leading the work detail, as he tried to keep the log he was lugging balanced on his shoulder. ‘Your name is Toby?’

  Toby nodded.

  ‘Is Sarah your sister?’

  He flinched at that. ‘How did you know that?’

  Paul smiled. ‘I met her at the petrol station. She asked me to say hello.’

  Tody didn’t respond, but looked away. He was silent for a long time. Paul was about to say something more when the young man spoke up in a quiet, emotional voice.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ Paul hesitated before speaking again. ‘She misses you, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ Toby replied, still facing away. ‘I miss her too.’ And then they returned to work. There was always more work to do.

  By the time the sun was directly above their heads, the majority of the wood had been shifted and used to construct the larger tents and pavilions for the carnival, including the haunted house, and the team broke for lunch. Paul attempted to make conversation with some of the carnies he’d met earlier, but they seemed to snub him, though it was probably more social awkwardness than antipathy now. Paul figured it was a progress, of sorts. He grabbed some food from the communal kitchen tent, which consisted of meat in a bun, with a very strong taste of game to it. He assumed it was rabbit, sat a little away from the main group and ate alone.

  ‘How’s it going, Paul?’

  He turned to the familiar voice. Rachel was standing behind him, wearing work jeans and a heavy shirt. She still looked beautiful, though.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he responded. ‘It’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ she said, kneeling beside him. ‘Jasmine should never have bitten you.’

  He looked around. ‘I haven’t seen her since I got here,’ he said, a little concerned. ‘Is she all right?’

  Rachel frowned. ‘She’s keeping to herself at the moment. Amos came down on her pretty hard.’

  That seemed an opportune moment to ask a question he already knew the answer to. ‘Uh... you and Amos...’

  ‘He’s my husband, Paul,’ she said. ‘He is the alpha male here, and I’m the alpha female. We both inherited the roles, in the traditional ways.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘My father was the alpha male before Amos. I was the oldest female offspring.’ Her eyes clouded for a moment.

  ‘That is how the dominant female is determined.’

  ‘I see,’ Paul said. ‘And Amos?’

  Rachel hesitated then, the question clearly making her a little uncomfortable. ‘He... my father had grown old. He could no longer protect us.’

  ‘He stepped aside for Amos?’

  Rachel laughed then, and it sounded a little bitter. ‘No alpha male steps aside, Paul. That isn’t how it’s done.’

  ‘Then how...?’ Paul began, but stopped. Understanding dawned. His eyes widened with horror.

  ‘Yes,’ she said to his unspoken realisation.

  ‘He...’

  ‘It’s our way, Paul,’ she explained. ‘The way of our kind, for thousands of years. It’s what my father wanted. Have you seen the ring that Amos wears?’

  Paul nodded, numb.

  ‘It was my father’s. He took it from the alpha male before him, who took it from the alpha male before him. And so on, all the way back to the beginning of the carnival.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Paul breathed, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. He realised just how serious this all was.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ she replied, her voice light. But Paul had seen the momentary look in her eyes, though she’d tried to hide it. She stood then, using his shoulder to get to her feet, and left it there for a moment. ‘As I told you last night, you will learn many things you never knew. Many of them about yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  She looked down at him. ‘Do you remember what I said to you the first time we met? In my tent during the carnival?’

  He thought back. ‘Something about, uh, something being inside me?’ The words returned to him. ‘In my blood?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘Not all humans can become one of us, Paul. A bite cannot change you, it can only release what is already there.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Paul said.

  ‘It carries down the bloodlines, Paul,’ she responded with a faint smile. ‘But not the male bloodlines.’

  He opened his mouth to ask her what she meant, but at that moment Rob walked up and told him it was time to get back to work. Rachel walked off with a wave and was gone. He clambered to his feet, confused, and followed Rob back to the chain gang.

  A few more hours of hard labour soon distracted him from Rachel’s riddles, though. By late afternoon he felt as if he would collapse, so when he was finally told that he was finished, it came as more than just relief. It was a release.

  Then Carl found him and gave him his next job, and straight away he wished he was hauling logs again.

  ‘The freak show barker?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Is that some kind of joke? Woof woof?’

  The look on Carl’s face indicated that he’d rarely joked in his life, if ever.

  Paul spent the rest of the afternoon stressing over his new role. He’d always had a morbid fear of public speaking. During his brief stint at university he’d failed every oral assignment, mainly because he never showed for them. The idea of being in front of a crowd - even a small one like he’d probably be facing here - twisted his guts.

  Before he knew where the hours had gone, the sun was setting, and soon the gates would be opening, and he still didn’t have a clue what he would say. He imagined a horrifying image of himself standing there, mouth open, completely silent, apart from a few gasping noises, looking like a complete idiot.

  He wandered into the tent and had a look around. He paid particular notice to the heads in the jars.

  You lucky bastards, he thought ruefully. At least you don’t have a speaking part.

  ‘Butterflies?’ a deep voice rumbled from the darkness at the back of the tent. Paul
recognised it immediately.

  ‘The size of Mothra, Ben,’ Paul admitted.

  ‘What’s Mothra?’

  ‘Never mind. Is it possible to die of stage fright?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘Damn.’

  Ben stuck his snout through the gap at the rear of the tent. ‘Don’t worry about it, Paul. You’ll be fine.’ Then he was gone again.

  Paul stood there for a while longer, then began to don the striped clothes he’d been given to wear. They were much too big for him, and looked more like pyjamas than a smart suit. Outside, he could hear the murmur of people. The carnival was open.

  Come on, you big baby, he thought, angry with himself. Just get out there and do it. No one here knows who you are. If you’re going to be an idiot, then go and be one.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in deep, then strode out of the tent and into the fairway, speaking even as the canvas moved aside.

  ‘Yowza yowza yowza! Come one, come all, come on, be appalled! You may think you’ve seen it all, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Five buckaroos, that’s all it’ll cost you to see the wonders of the unnatural world!’

  He had no idea where this line of bull was coming from. He realised as he was saying it that it was at least partially paraphrased from the spiel he’d heard the original barker giving a few nights earlier. The people began to gather, and he realised that Ben was right. He would be fine. Not brilliant, not by a long shot, but he’d cope. And anyway, it was closing night. After this, he’d have days to work on his shtick. He wished he could remember the doggerel that the first barker had used.

  Doggerel, he thought with a smile, as he continued to gather his first crowd. Doggerel for a barker. How very appropriate.

  -24-

  David watched the last patrons wander out of the carnival from the seat of his car, where he was hidden in the darkness. He’d parked just beyond the actual car park, around the side near a shallow hill where he could still see the gates. He knew he’d have to head over there soon, but he wanted to delay that moment for as long as he possibly could. The two bikers hadn’t shown up yet, and he didn’t want to face the carnies alone, not again.