I went looking for Meaghan. I searched everywhere I could think of, starting with the hotel where she had been staying. It wasn’t hard to find, because the entire staff of the Carnivale was still in the same place, occupying most of the rooms in the entire 200-room building.
It wasn’t even a challenge locating the room where she had been staying. What was hard to find was any proof that she had ever been in the room. Maybe things have changed since I was a kid, but I’d have thought the room where someone disappeared would have been cordoned off and police warnings would have been all over the place if they suspected foul play. As a matter of fact, I know they would have had that ugly yellow tape up, because I’ve checked back on a few of the people who offended me and when they found the bodies, there was always yellow tape.
So I had to assume they weren’t thinking there was foul play involved. I checked out the room either way. I looked around at her suitcases and her personal belongings where they were tucked neatly away.
There wasn’t much to see. A few pairs of jeans, a dozen shirts and a couple of dresses. There was makeup, but nowhere near as much as I’d used through most of my career as a clown.
That was good. No woman should wear that much face paint, not unless she wants to look like a whore.
There was nothing I could use, no hint as to why she might have disappeared, though, let’s be honest, I probably wouldn’t have recognized a clue if it had jumped out and tried to scare the life out of me. I was never a police detective and Sherlock Holmes would never have to fear me getting in his way. Hell, I’m only starting to get the idea of how far police investigation techniques have come and I’m surprised that anyone ever gets away with anything.
The only reasons I haven’t been captured are I never stay around one place too long, and I tend to wear a disguise when I’m in the open. Again, clown faces stands out a bit.
I left her hotel room as I’d found it, except for a necklace I took from her small jewelry box. I recognized the locket; it had belonged to my mother a lifetime ago.
The problem I had was that no one knew where my niece was, not even me. The only people who knew her were the mooks she was working with, and that was a problem because they were always on the move, sliding from one hotel room to another and then doing their performances.
I needed to get answers. I needed to know who was responsible for making Meaghan disappear.
And I needed to know if my last family member was alive or dead before I decided how I was going to react and who, exactly, I was going to be dealing with.
It wasn’t an inconvenience. That’s what I need to make clear here. I wasn’t exactly angry, because, really, I didn’t know if I should be angry. All I knew for certain was that the girl I’d come to find was missing. She was blood, but she was not family. What I wanted to see was if we could be family.
I know that now. I understand it better than I could have just then as I walked out of an anonymous hotel room and back onto the street not far from where I’d killed a man the night before.
Did I deserve to have a happy ending? Was I supposed to have a family and friends and something that resembled an ordinary life?
I didn’t know, but I had been trying very hard to have one. I think my niece was my last chance for that. I think that was why I was so desperate to know where she was.
I took the stairs down from her room, circling down the long flights of steps without any conscious thoughts in my head. I wasn’t capable of thinking, of feeling anything beyond the echoing desire to know something about where Meaghan might have gone.
I took the stairs because I didn’t want to kill everyone around me. I think I needed that time to calm down, you see. Since my unusual resurrection, I have been much, much quicker to lose my cool.
And I have to tell you, it’s never a good time for the people around me when that happens.
There was nothing about the day that was going the right way. The Carnivale de Fantastique was packing up their show and heading to Philadelphia. Carver should have been halfway to there already. He’d packed all of his traveling clothes (three suits and half a dozen shirts, plus some jeans) and was ready for the road.
Then some asshole stole a kid from in front of a coffee shop and now every available cop was on the road, searching for anyone who might have seen anything.
Oh, and the fingerprints on the note that had shown up? There were two sets. One belonged to the mother. The other belonged to Marco DeMillio, also known in certain circles as John Booker, primary suspect in several murders.
That made it his business. Carver was all for it, provided the fingerprint led to something. What he wanted deep in his heart was a suspect in chains. What he’d be happy with in the meantime was a kid safely returned to its parents.
Jeannie and Todd Westingham were justifiably terrified by what had happened. They were currently stuck in a media circus that wanted very much to talk to Carver, but he’d managed to slip away from the cameras, which suited him just fine. He had enough on his plate without having to answer stupid questions. Besides, his captain was better equipped for that sort of nonsense.
He was driving toward the station when the call came over the radio. The rain was just heavy enough to leave the wipers squeaking as they fought to clear the windshield and the sound was exactly the right type to make Michael clench his teeth. Someone had made an anonymous tip about where the baby could be found. That same someone had also told the parents and said if the cops showed up, things would go poorly.
Carver was not amused.
He set the flashers going to get him where he needed to be faster, but kept the actual siren quiet.
The streets were their normal insane mess of congestion with a side of just wet enough to cause fender benders, but almost everyone had the common sense to get the hell out of his way. Michael was glad of it. His stomach was twisting itself into knots at the idea of a kid being involved in any of the madness. Booker had been good enough not to kill him when he had the chance, but he didn’t trust that to mean the man wouldn’t kill someone else.
The building at 74 Bleakman Avenue was three stories tall and closed down nice and tight. Even if the police hadn’t been alerted to the situation the building would have been sealed as whatever business had been in there was now gone. The entire structure was sealed and waiting for a new occupant or two. That at least made the situation easier to contain.
Michael wasn’t in charge of the situation. He was just there because Booker was likely one of the people involved. As a result, there were already several squad cars in place and a dozen police officers with weapons drawn and armor in place. The weather wasn’t getting any better, so most of the officers had their visors lifted, allowing them to see past the rain spots falling on the face plates.
He shook his head as he parked. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. He’d wanted a chance to see what was happening, wanted to see if he could spot Booker and maybe get the man to surrender the child and then himself.
Instead there were cars everywhere, there were even news vans pulling up down the road, and in the center of the madness, there were the Westinghams, who were looking as nervous as pigs in the slaughter line. The couple had parked directly in front of the building and was trying to look everywhere at once. Todd Westingham was looking from one cop to the next, possibly trying to determine who was in charge of the situation that was supposed to be a quiet affair. His thinning hair was plastered to the top of his head and the wild look in his eyes was enough to let Carver know the man wasn’t at all happy with the media circus forming at the perimeter.
Just a short distance away, a uniformed cop was pointing at a cameraman who had decided it was time to get a close up of the couple. The two were arguing, but not in a way that promised violence.
Tom Keegan looked his way and shook his head. Carver returned the gesture, silently agreeing with the man. This was a clusterfuck waiting to happen.
“What the hell happened to ‘just the parents?’” He spoke softly, not daring the wrath of whichever district was actually in charge of the situation. He’d been reamed enough for the present time.
“Jenkins decided this was the best move. He’s got Fire and Rescue on their way, just in case someone should actually show up and be offended by him breaking all the established rules.” Keegan’s voice was harsh, which was not surprising under the circumstances. Jenkins was looking to win any possible confrontation through sheer intimidation and Keegan didn’t think that was going to work. Neither did Carver, who had dealt with Booker and didn’t think the man could be intimidated.
The cars and lights had already started drawing a crowd, and Carver looked around until he spotted Jenkins. He headed toward the man, already knowing he was going to regret opening his mouth.
Jenkins was a tough old warhorse. That was the problem. The man wasn’t really willing to change. He either refused to acknowledge that criminals had changed or he simply wasn’t capable of getting it. Either way, the man in charge of the 7th Precinct had just screwed up as far as he was concerned.
“Captain, are you sure this is the best way to handle the situation?” He spoke the words and part of him was already preparing for the screaming match.
The man’s eyes flicked across his face as roughly as a vicious slap. “Excuse me, Carver. I didn’t realize you’d been promoted to captain of my precinct.” There was open hostility in the man’s tone.
“Have you dealt with Booker? The man mangled a cop for getting in his way.” He spoke the words and knew immediately that he had miscalculated. The captain bristled.
Before the man could explode properly—and Michael could see the pressure building inside the man—he was interrupted by Jeannie Westingham’s bloodcurdling scream.
The woman was looking up at the top of the abandoned building and pointing with one hand while the other raked across her pasty face.
Carver looked up and frowned at what he saw.
Maybe it was Booker up there and maybe it wasn’t, but either way things were slipping fast into the surreal.
He didn’t know Jenkins all that well—they worked from different police precincts—but he’d have hazarded a guess the man either had officers on the roof or working their way in that direction. If so, he hoped they were working their way up and hadn’t yet reached their destination, because the man standing on the edge of the building was going to be a very serious problem.
Booker, or someone who looked a lot like him, stood just back from the edge of the sealed building, his left hand held out and waving a small bundle. That bundle moved, swayed in his arm and fussed with tiny arms and legs. Precipitation had soaked through the swaddled blanket around the toddler and dripped down toward the ground three stories below.
“Hunter!” The infant’s mother screamed loudly, her voice breaking.
Carver looked up, his eyes tracking the man on the roof. It was Booker, he was almost certain of it, but he’d changed. The wanted man wore dark gray slacks and a dress shirt, over which he’d slipped an overcoat. His wardrobe was of less interest than the fact that his face had been painted.
Stark white skin, so white that it had to be painted, was covered with dark blue triangles over and under the eyes and a broad, bright red smile painted over his mouth and even painted dimples. The man was dressed as a clown. He’d even dyed his hair the same shade of blue as the mask around his eyes. He couldn’t have advertised his presence better if he’d tried.
After Westingham screamed, everyone grew silent.
So it was quiet when Booker spoke.
“What? I wasn’t clear enough when I said ‘no cops?’”
Jenkins lifted a bullhorn and called out with a deep, powerful, electronically enhanced voice. “You need to step back from the edge of the building. You need to set the boy down on the roof and then you need to place your hands on the top of your head. You are under arrest.”
Booker waved the child in his hand over the edge of the roof, eliciting several gasps and a loud shriek from the infant’s mother.
“You want me to set him down? Are you sure about that?”
“Noo! Nooooo!” The Westinghams both screamed.
Booker looked at the parents for a moment and then back to the police chief. “Your choice! You back away or I let Junior here bounce!” Carver stared hard, studying the man. The eyes were as cold and blue as he remembered. More importantly, he believed the man would do it.
“You have to back away, Jenkins.”
The police captain nodded his head and then turned away from the bullhorn. “I have men up on that roof.”
“Men on the roof won’t stop him from dropping that baby.”
“They’ll move in as soon as he sets the boy down. We just have to get him to set the boy down safely.”
Booker shook his head. There was no way he could have heard them from three stories up, but that was the impression that sank in just the same.
“I really don’t think the dead men on this roof are going to help, Captain Jenkins.”
The words chilled Michael to the bone. Either the clown had, in fact, heard him talking with the captain, or he had gotten the man’s name from one of the cops on the roof. Either way, it wasn’t a good situation.
“Back away from the roof and gently set your hostage down on the roof!” Jenkins bellowed into the bullhorn, the sound distorted and broken.
Booker spoke again, his voice confident and his tone falsely cheerful. “Do you know what my favorite part of choosing the roof is?”
Carver shook his head. This was going to go badly, he felt it in his heart and in the way his testicles tried to hide inside his guts.
Jenkins played the same card again as if it might suddenly work better. “Back away from the roof!”
Booker opened his coat, revealing the assault rifles he’d taken from the police officers on the roof. Carver recognized the make.
“I got new toys out of the deal! Wanna see who’s a better shot, captain?”
“Jesus Christ, Jenkins, use your fucking head! He has a hostage.”
“I know that, goddamnit!”
“Please! Please, don’t hurt him!” The man called out, dropping to his knees and actively begging the stranger on the roof not to hurt his only son. Carver looked at Westingham and shivered.
“Mister Westingham! Just the man I wanted to see. You come on up here, and I’ll release your son to you. How’s that sound for a bargain?”
Westingham was standing in a flash and heading for the front of the building.
“Stay where you are, sir!” Jenkins barked the order through his bullhorn and for half a moment, it looked like the father would listen to him. Then the man started forward again.
“Not the front door, my good man. Try the side entrance. I left it open.” Booker spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Jenkins opened his mouth again and raised the bullhorn. Before he could make a comment, the clown-faced man stepped forward and waved the child like a rag doll. The baby started crying.
“This isn’t a puppet, Captain Jenkins! This is Hunter Westingham! He dies if you interfere again, do you understand me?”
Carver leaned forward fast. “Screw catching the man. Worry about the baby. We can catch him another time.”
Jenkins didn’t look in his direction, but he spoke to him. “I’m not a moron. I’ll let the man have whatever he wants.”
“Then you should tell your people that.” He didn’t dare point. Two cops were sliding toward the side entrance.
Jenkins raised the bullhorn without hesitation. “No one moves on the perpetrator. Everyone stand prepared, but stand down!”
The two policemen stopped where they were and Carver breathed a small sigh of relief.
“Good man! We might get a safe baby out of this yet!” Booker smiled and then threw Hunter Westingham into the air. The child waved his arms and legs and every single soul there froze for a moment, terrified.
Before the infant could fall, Booker caught him with his other hand. More water spilled from the wet bundle of clothing and everyone watching held their breaths, fearing what would happen if the bundle were too slick to clutch properly. Below him, Jeannie Westingham broke into tears.
Booker pointed with his free hand, his face angry under the makeup. “Oh, stop being a baby! If you hadn’t left him in a running car he wouldn’t be here right now! I’d have just met up with your husband later and asked him what I need to ask him.” Booker leaned over the side a bit more, dangerously close to overbalancing himself. His face broke into a wild smile. “But this way’s a lot more fun!”
Carver looked at Jenkins. The man’s hands were shaking. He wasn’t surprised to feel his own shaking as well.
Just to make sure everyone was paying attention to him, Booker threw the boy even higher into the air on the second toss and then caught the squirming, screaming infant behind his back.
He held the child there as Todd Westingham walked toward him, red faced, panicky and shaking. Westingham came forward timidly, his eyes wide and worried.
Carver would have sold his soul to overhear the conversation between the two men.
They talked for several moments, and while he could hear none of it, he could see Westingham’s surprised expression and then the growing dread on the man’s face.
There was more pleading, and then there were tears. He could not hear Booker, but he could just make out the angry tones of the man’s voice.
He could see the father drop to his knees a second time and crawl, his hands held out in supplication.
Booker pointed and the man rose and headed off the roof of the building. Booker kept the baby.
Booker was calm as he waited. He stayed that way until he saw Westingham walk out of the building and stand next to his wife.
“Good man, Mr. Westingham. Very well done. But you know what?”
Westingham looked up at the angry voice and shook his head slowly.
“You should have turned them into the police!” Carver shook his head. Something big was being discussed and he needed to know what the hell it was.
Before anyone could respond, Booker drew one of the rifles from his coat and started firing down on the couple who looked up, eager only to have their child returned to them. The bullets struck the ground around them for a moment and then the stream of death moved in the right direction and tore through the husband and wife.
Michael Carver had seen death several times in his career and had caught at least one mutilation courtesy of the man on the roof. Watching the couple die was right up at the top of his list for horrific moments. The two people staggered and shivered and nearly exploded as the bullets slammed through them and into the ground. A few of the bullets ricocheted from the ground in a flurry of muddy explosions and had half of the officers diving for cover.
The cops who stood their ground, including Carver and Jenkins, drew their weapons and focused on the man on the roof.
Booker looked back down at them and smiled, the child in his hand crying and purple faced. He dropped the assault rifle and watched it fall to the ground, not but a few feet from the people he’d just murdered.
“Well now, kiddies, how do you suppose I’m going to get out of this one?” It had to be his imagination, but Michael would have almost sworn the man was looking directly at him as he spoke.
Hunter kept crying as Booker paced along the edge of the building and all of the police officers watched him, tracked him in the sights of their weapons. The roof had to be a slippery nightmare for footing, but Booker never slipped and never seemed the least bit worried about where he stepped. Carver stared, slowly following every step the man made and hating that there didn’t seem to be a way to stop him without killing or seriously risking the boy.
Jenkins’s breaths came in ragged gasps. Carver looked his way for a moment and had to wonder if the man was having a heart attack. His face was sweating and had taken on a green hue that was very uncomplimentary.
Booker was almost out of sight, but the captain said nothing, did nothing, except stare.
The rain increased, the water falling harder, until visibility became almost non-existent.
And then Booker was coming back at high speed. The clown didn’t run at the edge of the building, he raced, his feet striking the roof in long, furious strides that sent plumes of dirty water splashing up from the rooftop. The baby in his hand shrieked indignantly as they approached and everyone on the ground watched, horrified.
Hunter Westingham sailed high into the air, screaming, howling his fright out into the heavens for all to hear. As the infant rose higher, Booker reached the end of the roof and leaped into the open air. The coat around him spread like wings, and Michael could clearly see that the rifles he’d had under his coat before were no longer there. One of them at least was in his hand.
Hunter shrieked as he stopped rising and started to descend.
Booker was screaming laughter as he fell toward the ground below and for one moment that hyena call and the infant’s cries were the only sounds. Then the ratcheting coughs of the rifle started and bullets cut the air into shreds.
Michael felt the projectile slide past his ear with a hot humming noise. The sound was so low he felt it more than heard it. He might have marveled over that, and later he would most certainly experience a few nightmares remembering the moment, but mostly he was too busy trying to dodge the blood that splashed his way. Jenkins was not as lucky, you see. He was hit three times by bullets and each of them was a shot that would have killed him.
Michael hit the ground with a splash and scrambled, crawled, sought a new angle, a better chance to help stop the madman.
There was a deep metallic crunching noise that was followed immediately by the sound of people screaming.
By the time Carver could spot the clown again, Booker was rolling to his feet and climbing out of the ruin of the Westingham’s vehicle. He looked cheerful. The sick bastard was smiling past even the painted grin on his face, his teeth wide and perfect and white, his gums the color of blood.
It looked like the man had bounced off the hood and landed roughly. The engine had been driven into the street beneath the vehicle and the deep imprint caused by his weight pounding into hood was apparent.
Even as he was starting to stand, Hunter Westingham landed behind him, his cries immediately silenced.
In the distance the cameramen focused on one image and then another. Several of the people watching stood horrified and looked at the dead child, pale and shaken. Perhaps it was true that gathering crowds liked to see blood, but whatever the case, it seemed their desire for violence had been sated.
Michael Carver looked at the dead boy on the pavement. His shape was wrong, ruined, twisted. He’d landed very close to his parents, who had been killed by the same man in the clown’s face. Even as he stared, horrified, he could see the infant’s blood mingling with the growing red pool around his mother and father.
Carver looked at the man he’d come to arrest. He had no doubt that John Booker was the person under the makeup.
Carver reached into the small of his back and pulled a different weapon than his service piece.
He took aim and fired, shooting to kill.
The first bullet pounded into Booker’s chest and staggered him back. As the clown was facing him he could see the surprise, the pain on the man’s face. Booker looked directly at him as he aimed a second time and fired. There was no consideration of his career, of the legalities of his actions or even of his future as a free man. Carver simply fired again, intending to kill the man in front of him.
The second bullet caught him in the throat and blew a chunk from the back of his neck. Carver fired a third time and a fourth, striking his target each time. Holes blossomed from vines of blood and flesh, and John Booker twitched and shivered with each blow.
Carver unloaded his weapon into the man.
He wasn’t alone. Tom Keegan stared at him for several heartbeats and then looked at the body of Captain Jenkins where he lay dead on the ground. The officer then slipped his registered firearm into his holster and reached for a revolver strapped to his ankle. Not every officer carried extra firearms. Not even half of them. Most of them also knew that fingerprints could trace any weapon fired back to them or by the television cameras aimed their way.
So not every police officer on the scene lost his temper. Not every single cop there committed murder that day, but most of them helped and the ones that didn’t lied about it later.
The cast and crew heard about the madness, of course. It was on the news and it was spread all over the televisions, with graphic displays of the deaths that happened. It didn’t matter that no one needed to see the deaths; they were played any way, every fifteen minutes when the local news wasn’t running and every five minutes when the news shows took over. The images didn’t need to be blurred by digital enhancement. The heavy rains had already distorted the pictures that were filmed. Raindrops obscured details, but not enough to let anyone pretend they weren’t seeing a massacre.
Tia watched it all with a growing sense of horror. She recognized the clown. She’d seen him on the stage here, watching her as she stretched. Him or someone who looked a lot like him, which meant someone who looked a lot like that creepy Booker guy they’d been after.
In any event, it looked like maybe the worst of that was over at least, but still, the poor family….
She’d be glad when they left Virginia and made it up to Philadelphia. Maybe then there would be less grief and everything could just get back to normal.
Her mother had called earlier, of course, as soon as she heard that there had been a killing. She didn’t call every time someone was shot down, but when she’d heard there was a clown involved, she’d immediately assumed the Carnivale was involved somewhere along the way.
Talking the woman out of hysterics had been an interesting challenge. Her mother wanted Tia to come home, to be safe and secure in the arms of her parents. Tia wasn’t having anything to do with that. She had bruises on her bruises and sore muscles that wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace. She’d earned every single bump and sore spot and had no intention of quitting now that she was positioned for her dreams. However, she was in no position to argue with her mother, so she instead lied and said the clown had no connection to the Carnivale.
That was a lie, too. She knew better. The family that had been murdered, the man Westingham, had been the head of acquisitions for the company. That was one of the things brought up at the meeting first thing when everyone got together. He was a member of the family as far as the Carnivale was concerned and they always made sure everyone knew when there was something to hear.
Funeral services weren’t really being held for the people who’d been murdered by that Booker man, but the troupe had a brief service, just a time for people to talk about the three members of the cast and crew who had been done wrong.
There was a lot to say, too. Not so much about Elizabeth Montenegro—though there were some nice phrases, mostly people talked about her abilities and not about her as a person—but everyone had liked Gary Peck and Brad Lowman. Both had been hardworking men and both had always had time to shoot the shit or even buy an occasional round of drinks. Peck in particular had been a character, and there were endless anecdotes about him. She’d barely known him and had virtually no contact with the others; still, she felt the loss of the other people around her and that spread through her at the strangest times. Or maybe she was just more homesick than she realized.
Leslie came out of her dressing room with a frown on her face that aged her easily ten years.
“What’s wrong?” Tia felt her skin tighten. Leslie was always in a good mood. Her frown was as unsettling as lightning strikes on a sunny day.
“The big wigs are supposed to be coming down to meet everyone.”
“Is that bad?”
Leslie’s pretty face seemed incapable of completely escaping a frown, but Tia thought maybe that just meant she was thinking very hard or was as puzzled by everything as Tia felt.
“Not really bad,” she said. “Just different. I don’t think they normally come down for the shows unless they have some business to take care of.”
“Well, we’ve had some weird stuff going on.”
“Don’t remind me.” Leslie’s frown dissipated a bit. “I hear we’re finally going to be able to move on at the end of the week. So, yeah, looks like they’ve got all the scheduling problems fixed at least.”
“Well, good, because I’m pretty sure I have all this stuff down.”
“Better hope you do.”
“Yeah? What do you know that I don’t?” It was the way that Leslie said it that had Tia nervous.
“The big bosses are going to want to see the show, so they’re putting us on again tonight. An extra showing so we can entertain the big wigs and their special guests.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s gonna be all you, Tia. I’ll be there to back you up, but they want to see you in action.”
Tia felt her stomach fall through the floor at the thought. Her first show, and it was a command performance.
Life on the Road: Part Nine
I can’t even say for sure exactly how long I’d wandered Serenity Falls before I found my benefactor, I just know that he looked at me and scowled as our paths crossed.
That was rather interesting, you see, because until that moment no one had been able to see me, or feel me, or hear me. No one. I tried; believe me, I tried. I did my best to get noticed and it was not meant to be.
The air was cold and winter had the town in its grip. I walked through the snow and felt no bite of the winter’s chill, nor the caress of the wind against me. I just walked, looking for answers to questions I couldn’t even ask.
The people of the town did not see me. Occasionally an animal would notice me, but most of them simply stared and then ran as fast as they could. When a person did get a sense that I was nearby, I could see them looking, searching for whatever caused them to sense something wrong and never seeing me, even if I was right next to them and waving my hands frantically. I did not exist for them in a conscious way, I was merely that odd breeze, that vaporous memory to come along and haunt them, I suspect.
I was a ghost, you see, truly and properly dead without a body or the limitations and advantages of the same. I wandered, yes, but I also explored. There were things to see, people to investigate.
I wandered through the farm where the Halston Carnival had been when I was murdered. There was no sign that we had ever been there. I could feel the deaths of my friends, could sense the carnage that had fallen on the grounds not far from the main farmhouse.
I could see the farmer, the man who had shoved a shotgun against my face and asked to see his children. I saw him and I followed him for several days, infuriated by his mere existence, as if he was somehow the cause of all my suffering. Oh, I knew even then that it wasn’t true, but he was a part of it, him and his miserable neighbors.
I suppose some part of being a ghost is being able to remember your life and death. Mostly your death. I stood where I had burned and felt the entire thing again and again, each moment of my pain easily accessed and relived. I could step to my left and feel the loss of Carter. Experience the agonies he’d endured. A few paces in the opposite direction and I could feel the flames as they ran into Lou Crompton’s lungs and cooked his heart. Back half a yard and I felt the burns that consumed Bert.
I lived the deaths of each and every one of my friends and myself again. I burned and they burned and then as I stepped past the confines of the trailer and walked further, I caught other deaths.
They murdered the Alexander Halston Carnival of the Fantastic. Make no mistake about that. It was murder, cold and calculated and very, very violent. Some people got burned, others got shot and still more of my friends and my second family were stabbed or beaten to death by the good people of Serenity Falls, New York. Remember that, because later you’ll need to understand what I was thinking when I came back from the dead. Near as I can tell only two people got out of the show alive. The snake man and Doreen Miles. I don’t begrudge either of them surviving. Oh, I know the details. They told the farmer exactly who was responsible for killing his kin. Exactly who. No mistakes. But that wasn’t enough for Serenity Falls. The town demanded blood for blood, only they demanded it tenfold.
I counted the dead as I wandered around where the circus had been set up, and I lived each death no less than five times. I memorized them. I needed to, you see, because I needed to understand the reasons for their murders.
That’s what they were. Murders. Someone came along and killed each and every member of the Alexander Halston Carnival of the Fantastic that they could get their hands on. The only ones spared as far as I could tell, were the animals. The people that got away? I think that was an accident, really, not a deliberate kindness.
I haunted that ground for a long time, day and night, for long enough to let the moon grow full and fade away to the merest sliver in the night sky again. The cold did not faze me, the ice did nothing to chill me and the sun was merely a brightness that was different than the moon.
I let the hatred grow and fester with each death I experienced again, and I fought against the pull of the ground. I felt the cold hands that pulled at me, tried to keep me away from the living and dead alike, but I refused to succumb. The forces that pulled at me were strong, but not fast enough to hold me.
Eventually I left the farm. I couldn’t stay there, couldn’t continue to lose myself in the memories of death without risking the loss of everything that made me who I am. So I left and wandered Serenity Falls again, moving from house to house and experiencing the murders that had occurred in each location where death was prevalent.
Murder was a common thing in Serenity Falls. Old or new hardly seemed to matter. Murder was something the town seemed good at. I wasn’t surprised, merely disappointed.
The man who spotted me walked along the edge of the cemetery, his face set in deep concentration. He frowned as he stared at the cracked sidewalk surrounding the memorials to the dead and his eyes rose up and followed me.
I stopped walking, shocked to feel eyes on me for the first time since I had escaped my prison. I stared back just as intensely, half expecting the man was merely thinking and looking in my general direction, but no, he actually stared at me, our gazes locked.
Finally he pointed a finger at me. “You should not be here.” His words were casual enough, but held a tone of accusation.
“You can see me?” I stared harder, unbelieving.
“I can see that you aren’t where you belong….” He spoke then, to himself it seemed, muttered words that meant nothing to me and I felt the hands that had sought me before come back, eager to pull me into the depths.
I fought them, I tried to escape their grasp, but this time they were more determined than before. The cold fingers caught me, pulled at my essence and drew me down into the nothingness again.
And I escaped again, this time at a much faster rate. If I had to guess, only a few days passed before I met the stranger again.
He was an older man, pleasant enough in appearance, with short gray hair and a stocky body that was sliding comfortably into old age. He was as unassuming as anyone I had ever seen, right up until the time he saw me. For one moment only anger swept over him, a cold and dark thing that made him terrifying. Let me clarify this: I had relived my death and the deaths of literally hundreds of people while I wandered Serenity Falls, and despite all of that suffering, that anger and that pain, the man in front of me managed to scare me senseless.
Then the anger disappeared and was replaced by curiosity.
He waved his hand and cast me down again.
I got out of his trap faster than before, comfortable with my ability to escape the confines of the endless prison.
And this time when I escaped, he was waiting for me, his face set and calm as I slipped away from Hell and settled back in the land I was no longer a part of.
“You shouldn’t be able to do that.” His tone was conversational.
“Send me back again you sonofawhore and I’ll do it again.” I was angry and I was scared and I was ever-so-full of bluster. I had no desire to continue playing this game. It was inconvenient to say the least.
The man laughed. Not at me, exactly, but with great humor. When he looked at me again, he was still smiling.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Rufo the Clown.” I wasn’t willing to give him my real name. I had no desire to speak with him, or to deal with him any longer. I’d have not answered him at all, but anyone who could lock me in the nothingness was someone I wasn’t overly fond of deliberately offending.
“Well, ‘Rufo,’ I think we might well become good friends.”
“You sent me to Hell.”
“Oh, not hardly, my boy. Not hardly. I just sent you to a holding station of sorts.”
“I don’t much care. You sent me there. Twice!”
“And you got back and Rufo, my lad, no one has ever gotten back from there on his own. Ever.”
I could have bragged or preened or pointed out that I was an escape artist, but it didn’t mean anything to me just then. I was scared. I did not want to go back to that place again.
“Calm down, lad. I won’t be sending you there again. I just had to make sure I knew what I was dealing with.”
I stared hard. I had no reason to trust him. He’d hardly proven himself worthy of anything but my hatred.
“Listen carefully, Rufo. You have certain needs, and I know you have a lot of questions. I have certain needs and a lot of answers. We should consider a little bargaining.”
There at last was a concept that I could understand. Curiosity meant nothing when compared with a chance for real answers.
“Fine. What do you propose?”
The man looked at me for a few seconds, a smile playing at his lips, but not quite manifesting, and then he nodded his head. “Here’s my deal. I answer your questions, you do me a few small favors.”
The laughter that got past my lips was entirely accidental. “What can I do for you? I can’t touch anything. I can’t do anything.”
“Well, now, that’s not quite as true as you think it is. You just haven’t learned how to do the things I want you to do.”
You wouldn’t think a middle aged man sliding toward retirement would know much about ghosts, would you? It turns out my benefactor wasn’t just a man speeding toward his golden years. His name was Albert Miles, and he was, well, he was something of a sorcerer.
We got along famously.
I could fill volumes about the things Miles taught me. I could fill more volumes about what he made me do in exchange for the knowledge. Instead, I’ll hit the high notes.
He helped me manifest. Not the easiest thing for ghosts to do, but they can manage it. He helped me learn about being dead, and what it really means. In exchange, I did small favors. Sometimes I looked in on other places and checked on people he wanted to know more about. I became a spy, I suppose. I was very good at it as almost no one ever suspected I was around. Oh, sure, an occasional shiver down the spine but very few people actually saw me, and those that did, well, there are ways to take care of that sort of thing.
As time went on, I learned to do more. And I became more important to my benefactor.
It’s rather difficult to fully explain and I really have no desire to go that far into details, but I became a harvester of sorts. Miles did things in different places all across the world, I suppose, but I worked exclusively in the United States. He set things in motion, you see, certain actions that, when they worked out the right way for him, garnered him power in one form or another, most often in the shape of human souls. I don’t pretend to fully understand everything, and I never needed to. All I needed to do was collect for him. The dead are everywhere. Most of them move on to some other place. Some might even just dissolve. But the ones that were left, they belonged to no one or they belonged to Albert Miles. He made bargains and collected his debts; or rather he had me collect them. From time to time someone would renege on a deal and I was asked to handle the matter personally.
In exchange, I was granted favors. I started small. I learned about what I needed to know and I asked for his consideration for certain favors.
Though it hardly matters in the grand scheme of things, Albert Miles had certain designs on Serenity Falls. He had plans for the place that involved the destruction of almost every living being in the area. To that end, he had set certain actions in motion and those actions were in part responsible for what happened to my friends and me. Miles called it being caught in the crossfire and I suppose that was a good enough way to put it. What had happened would have probably happened anyway, and the trouble would have died, but there was a chance that his actions had caused the situation to become more volatile, and had led to the deaths of the entire group instead of only a select few.
Because he was just possibly complicit in the deaths of my second family, Albert Miles and I came to an arrangement. I helped him and he in turn agreed to bring the dead back to life, because that was within his abilities.
Sort of.
It’s complicated.
I was a ghost. I never expected to have a chance to bring my friends back to life, but that chance existed and I had every intention of making it happen if I could.
I would have done anything for that second chance, and I did, too. You see, Albert Miles was a very powerful individual, and he was also a madman.
I started as a collector. I soon became a hit man.
I came back from the dead on my own, and in the process I became a killer.
Life and death are just full of surprises….