CHAPTER 2 - DWAYNE AND BEVERLY

Summer, 1999

Dwayne Conroe was a child of the carnival. His earliest memories were of sitting in a chair inside a shooting gallery booth watching his dad collect money, hand out rifles, and give instructions to customers willing to demonstrate their shooting skills for a chance to win a prize.

He watched in amazement as the rows of colorful animals and objects lit up and raced across the other end of the booth. The pops of the rifles going off mixed with the sound of the music as the objects began moving always thrilled him.

When one was hit by the shot of a rifle, a loud bell went off, and a score was illuminated on a colorful digital display on the side of the booth. Few people won a prize, but when someone did, Dwayne’s dad would announce with excitement the winner. “Hey, hey, hey, we have a winner,” he would yell into a loudspeaker. That always seemed to bring a larger crowd to the booth.

When it got late, Dwayne would crawl underneath the arcade section of the booth where it was dark and would try to sleep. His father always placed a cot, pillow, and blanket there for him to rest when he got tired. A drape hung over the bottom portion of the arcade area would keep the light out and help soften some of the noise.

Dwayne felt safe and peaceful in that booth amongst the carnival’s lights, noises and excitement. But when the lights dimmed, and the crowds went home, that’s when fear blanketed his body.

His dad lifted him from his safe spot and carried him to his bed in the family trailer at the rear of the carnival grounds. He was never asleep in his father’s arms, although he pretended to be. His entire body would tremble with fear. It was nearly midnight when his father carried him home.

Past midnight was the time when the innocence of the carnival changed. It was the time when his nightmares became a reality. Every night was the same. His father carried him to the trailer, locked the door, put him to bed underneath the covers, turned out the lights and told him, “Don’t get out of bed until the sun comes up.” Then he would shut and secure all the windows, close the drapes and deadbolt the only door in the trailer. “Don’t make a sound,” he would tell Dwayne. “Don’t get out of bed. Don’t move no matter what. If you are frightened, hide underneath the covers.”

The time between midnight and sunrise was when the creatures roamed the carnival grounds.

Dwayne’s mother was no longer in his life. She disappeared when he was 5 years old. His dad rarely talked about her. There were a few pictures of her in the trailer that his dad had kept, hidden away in a closet. Dwayne looked at them every so often when he was afraid or lonely. She was good to him, kind and gentle. He wondered what his life would be like if she hadn’t left. He wondered if she thought about him. He wondered if she would ever come back and if he would ever see his mother again.

After she left, Dwayne had numerous substitute mothers. His dad lived with several women, none for very long. The relationships always seemed to sour. Dwayne attributed that to his father’s drinking. When he had too much to drink, his mood darkened, and he became mean and violent. He turned into an angry man. Alcohol brought out a dark side in his father that sent chills down Dwayne’s back at times.

His drinking and his violent mood swings had gotten worse over the years. Most women who came into his father’s life left as soon as they got a glimpse of that dark side. Many simply disappeared. None ever came back.

Dwayne learned not to upset his father. He learned to hide when a drunken stupor sent his father to an evil place.

There were places where he could go and be safe from his father during those times. The carnival had many good hiding places, but he chose one inside a large, circus-style tent near the center of the carnival grounds. Inside the tent was the most popular attraction at the carnival, the haunted house.

It was a place that many of the carnival workers, including his father, refused to enter. It was a place that was said to be evil. It was a place where mysterious things occurred. It was a place where children had disappeared. It was a place where screams and cries could be heard echoing amongst the decorations and oddities in the middle of the night.

Dwayne had heard those cries, but they didn’t frighten him like they did others. There was something about them that made him sense that they weren’t threatening. They seemed to radiate from that haunted house, softly bellowing from inside and erupting into thunderous noise outside the walls as if a microphone had captured a whisper and sent it out as a scream.

Several times, the haunted house had shut down in the past, usually after a disappearance or a strange occurrence. But it always re-opened. It was the number one attraction, the biggest money-maker at the carnival. The owners, twins Bryan and Justin Fischer, couldn’t afford to shut it down very long.

The carnival was a family business. The Fischers, in their early thirties, were the third generation of Fischers to own Midwest Carnival Entertainment LLC, which was founded by the twin’s grandfather, Henry Fischer. Henry left home at age fifteen to work at the carnival. He worked his way up the ladder, and when a series of mishaps nearly drove the carnival out of business, Henry bought it for next to nothing. He loved the fanfare, the excitement, the smells and sounds of carnival life, and so did his children. It became the family business. At the age of 54, Henry died of a heart attack. His oldest son, Barry, took it over. Soon after, Barry married Emily Brown, the daughter of another carnival family. To outsiders, it might not seem to be an unusual match, but it was. Emily’s family owned a rival carnival, which typically bread animosity in such a fiercely independent industry. Henry Fischer and Emily’s father, Dudley Brown, were not friends. In fact, they detested each other. Dudley had owned a portion of the same carnival where Henry worked. When a series of mishaps caused the business to go under, Dudley lost his investment, and Henry bought the carnival assets for a fraction of what they were worth, something Dudley never forgot.

A few years later, Dudley got back into the carnival business and began competing for clients with Henry. They never spoke again.

If Barry dated Emily Brown while his father was still alive, Henry Fischer was not aware of it. The two married only a few months after Henry’s death.

The couple was happily married for several years. Even after two stillborn babies, Emily was insistent on trying again. When she discovered she was pregnant with twins, Emily was elated. Barry was not. He had begun to check out of his marriage months earlier when he began a steamy affair with one of the carnival workers.

The affair ended, but others began, one after another. He was never satisfied and spent his life striving for something more. It helped keep the business alive despite fierce competition from Dudley in many markets, but it made Barry personally bitter and difficult. If Emily knew about the affairs, she never let on. She had new priorities in her life, the twins.

Their marriage lasted until a freak accident claimed both their lives just after Bryan and Justin turned 18. The twins took over ownership of the carnival soon after, but the costs of operating what was by then a large operation proved challenging. The business was nearly forced into foreclosure, saved only by a last-minute infusion of cash provided by an unexpected source: Dudley Brown. He purchased a 40 percent stake in the business after Barry’s death, which was enough to pay down debts and make a few upgrades, to boot. It was speculated that Dudley had a soft spot for the twins and didn’t want to see them fail. It also could be that he didn’t want them to have to sell short like he had. And, of course, it might be that this was his way of reclaiming a large portion of what he always felt was his. In any event, Dudley saved the business for the twins and was thereafter making money off his competitor.

Bryan Fischer used some of the additional capital provided by Dudley to build a new attraction, the haunted house. Bryan’s idea breathed new life into the family business. It became a huge success. Bryan had designed it to become the largest, most detailed attraction at the carnival. It was nearly a city block long, constructed underneath a huge circus tent. He had nearly 100 wax figures, ghouls and monsters of every type. He hired dozens of people to portray live characters inside. He invested in frightening sound effects and terrifying horror scenes emanating the most frightening movie scenes of the time. It wasn’t long before the haunted house became the number one attraction.

From the very beginning, however, the haunted house was plagued by a series of unfortunate accidents. There was the death of a carnival worker in a freak electrical malfunction weeks after the attraction opened, the disappearance of a child, and several staffers claimed that the haunted house was actually haunted. Mysterious voices, cries, and reports of ghostly figures wandering around after the carnival had closed for the night. Despite its troubles, despite what some carnival workers feared about it, the haunted house was a permanent fixture at the carnival.

Dwayne first took sanctuary in the haunted house the night his mother disappeared. His parents had been arguing. That was not unusual. They often argued at night after Dwayne went to bed. But that night was different. His father had been drinking much more than usual. He was angry, angrier than Dwayne had ever seen him. Underneath his covers, he could hear his mother’s cries. He felt the floor shake as something large hit the floor from outside his bedroom.

Dwayne, fearing that his father might come for him next, climbed out the bedroom window and ran. It was after midnight. No one was outside. He shouldn’t have been outside. His mother had warned him about being outside after dark, but fear of his father had sent him running all the same. Outside he saw the fog rapidly roll in. In just a few seconds, it had covered him. In the darkness, he was disoriented, too afraid to move. That’s when he heard the sounds, soft echoes coming from a place not far in front of him.

He followed the sounds to a tent not far from him. It was the haunted house. Normally, he would be too afraid to go inside, but not that night. Something about the sound coming from inside made him feel safe.

Inside, Dwayne found a dark, warm spot to make his temporary home, a place among the creatures of the night that resulted in nightmares for the children that entered. But Dwayne wasn’t scared. The haunted house was his safe spot. He felt protected there.

When the sun came up, Dwayne went back home.

My father will be asleep, he thought. He normally sleeps late when he drinks heavily the night before.

But when he got back to the trailer, his father was awake. He looked worried and upset.

“Where have you been?” he asked with an angry voice. “You know that you aren’t supposed to leave your bed at night. The carnival isn’t safe at night. I don’t know how many times I told you that. Your mother went out looking for you. I told her not to, I begged her not to go, but she did anyway. She never came home. It’s all your fault, Dwayne.”

His father blamed him for the disappearance of his wife. Their relationship was never good after that night.

Growing up as a child of the carnival was harsh. There was no school to go to. A few of the lucky kids were home-schooled. Dwayne was not lucky. He never learned to read or write properly. He started working at the carnival when he was five years old. Sweeping up and picking up trash at first, he began setting up and breaking down rides as he got older,. He sold tickets and worked concession stands when he was twelve.

After his mother disappeared, his father stopped caring for him. He became a bastard child of the carnival, with no home to return to when the carnival closed for the night. He worked to earn money to eat. When he wasn’t working, he wandered through the carnival until it was no longer safe to be out. Then he found sanctuary among the creatures and oddities that resided in the haunted house.

They became his friends. Like him, they were entities without a home, finding solace in a hidden place. What frightened others about that haunted house were the same things that gave him peace, protected him and gave him purpose.

The fact that the creatures inside protected him but terrorized the others at night made the other children of the carnival hate him. They avoided him. No one talked to him. In a sense, they were all afraid of him.

When he turned thirteen, he began working at the haunted house because it was something a lot of people didn’t want to do. For Dwayne, that was his dream job. It allowed him to be among his friends all the time. They weren’t the same while the carnival was open, though. They didn’t come alive. They didn’t talk. They were no more than lifeless decorations. But he knew better. They were doing their job just like he was doing his. His friends would only come to life late at night after the carnival had closed.

The haunted house is where he met Beverly. She was a child of the carnival, too. She was three years younger than Dwayne, but there was something that brought them together, a common bond that neither of them realized until they got to know each other better.

When she began working at the haunted house, others warned her about Dwayne and the odd noises and screams that could be heard after dark. They told her about terrible things that had happened inside. They cautioned her that she was in danger there. But there was very little that frightened Beverly. She had a hard life. She felt she had already been to hell and had learned to survive. Her strength and willpower had kept her alive.

Unlike the other children of the carnival, she was not afraid of Dwayne. She felt comfortable around him. At first, he was quiet, shy and cautious. It had been a long time since anyone cared for him. He wasn’t sure what to think of Beverly. He didn’t trust that she could actually like him. They were so different. He was quiet and shy. She was not. Years of social isolation had left him awkward and unsure of himself. Beverly carried on most of the conversation. Dwayne listened.

She took a liking to Dwayne because she felt she could trust him and that he was not a threat to her. He had been damaged, much like she had. He was lonely, just like she was.

Dwayne became friends with Beverly because she didn’t put him down. She treated him as an equal, as a friend. She had come from a different, more normal life than Dwayne. She had once gone to school. She had once been happy.

They were good for each other. Beverly taught Dwayne to write. She listened to him without judging. She made him feel worthwhile. He made her feel safe. She trusted him. He was her protector. Neither felt they belonged among other people. They were oddities of the carnival that found some sense of belonging when they were together.

Beverly had been adopted at a young age. Her mom had left her and her dad when she was a baby. Her dad, an alcoholic, committed suicide when she was five. Life had never been easy for her. She still had fond memories of her life in Connorville before the carnival. During the dead of night, when fear came over her, she went to a happy place in the back of her mind, to her home as a young girl, where she was safe, where she was loved, where fear was an emotion she never felt.

When Beverly first became a child of the carnival, her new parents – who were employees there who couldn’t have kids – were good to her. They seemed understanding. They showed empathy. They treated her well. But that didn’t last.

Beverly blamed herself. She resisted them. She told them that she hated them and wanted to go home. She tried to leave. That’s when her new parents changed. That’s when they became violent.

If I’d been good, if I’d been obedient, if I’d acted the way they wanted me to, perhaps things would be different, she thought.

The carnival, like so many others, was a way of life for many. It was a magnet for families, for misfits, for people who had lived wayward lives, or those who couldn’t be tied down to normal ones for one reason or another. Because the carnival traveled from town to town and never stayed in one place too long, the owners couldn’t be picky, and neither could the workers. It was a lifestyle. The people who lived it weren’t better or worse than anyone else, but they were different. Carnivals are like traveling towns of people who don’t know or don’t want another way to live. In a way, Beverly was lucky. Other children of the carnival had resisted and had tried to run away to find a safe place, something stable and normal. Most of them, though, had disappeared. And parents, well, they moved on.

Beverly’s new parents had chosen to keep her. There will be harsh punishment for my disobedience, but at least I didn’t disappear, she thought.

Still, she had lost her new parent’s love. She had lost their trust. She would need to earn that back. Until then, she would do as she was told. She would take care of her new parents. She would work hard. She would do whatever it took in hopes of someday earning her freedom.

Late at night, after the carnival had closed, were the times when Beverly was really scared. During the day, there were always people around. At night, there was Dwayne to keep her safe. But late at night, after the carnival closed, she said goodnight to him and went back to her trailer. That’s when the fear took over her body.

That’s when the carnival took on a different life, a darker life. Dwayne had learned when it was no longer safe. He had learned when it was necessary to hide in his special place. Beverly had no hiding place other than underneath the covers of her bed. Inside the walls of her trailer was not a safe place. She had heard the screams in the middle of the night.

“Those are the cries of the children,” her new mother would say. “Just put your head under the covers and try not to listen.”

She had no idea what her mother meant. But she had learned not to ask questions. The screams didn’t happen every night, but when they did, they woke Beverly from a sound sleep. The screams were like nothing she had heard before. They were haunting screams that paralyzed her with fear. Sometimes they sounded so close that she thought the screams were coming from her room.

She wanted to cry out for her parents, but she knew better. They were hiding too. The screams frightened them as much as they frightened her. Everyone hid when the screams started. No one came out of the trailers until the sun began to rise.

“It is not safe to go out at night,” her mother told her. But she never provided an explanation for the screams.

No one talked about the screams or the fear that gripped the carnival residents in the middle of the night. Perhaps that was because no one knew what was causing those screams. They just knew it wasn’t safe to be out after the carnival closed for the night. People who had gone outside in the middle of the night just had a habit of disappearing and never coming back. Nobody asked questions because nobody wanted answers. There was only one person everyone knew who had gone out and had not disappeared. That person was Dwayne.

“That is why others fear him,” her mother had told her one day. “Stay away from him. Even the spirits are afraid of him.”

Beverly had chosen not to listen to her mother. She had befriended Dwayne despite what her mother had told her.

“I don’t know what is causing the screams,” Dwayne told her when she asked him about them. But I don’t think there is any reason to be afraid of them. I don’t think the screams are meant for us.”

“What do you mean?” Beverly asked.

“There have been some bad things that have happened. There have been some people who have disappeared. I think those sounds are from them. I think the screams are meant for the people who hurt them.”

“My mother says they are the screams of the lost children,” Beverly said.

“Maybe,” Dwayne said. “I’ve heard that a lot of bad things have happened here. People have disappeared. Some of them were children. But others, like my mother, simply vanished in the middle of the night.”

“Who told you about the children that disappeared, about the bad things that happened?” Beverly asked.

“I can’t say because you won’t believe me,” Dwayne replied. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“No, I won’t. I promise. You can tell me anything, Dwayne. You know that.”

“Okay, but promise me you won’t tell anyone. Everyone already thinks I’m crazy.”

“I promise.”

“The man that lives underneath the floor told me.”

“What?” Beverly asked with a concerned expression.

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me. Ever since my mother disappeared, I’ve been staying in the haunted house at night. I heard sounds, cries, and talking coming from below. At first, the noises frightened me, but after a while, they gave me a weird kind of comfort. I felt that someone else was suffering just like I was. I began searching for the source of those cries. One day I found it. There was a man underneath the floor. I’ve never told anyone else about him. Beverly, you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone what I’ve said.”

“I promise,” she said.

Beverly didn’t know what to think about her friend. Most people probably would have thought Dwayne was crazy, that he might even be dangerous. They would have run away and never talked to him again. But Beverly didn’t feel that way. Instead, she chose to believe him.

“Why is the man under the floor?” she asked.

“He lives there. They keep him there. He is locked up. He says people think he is dangerous. They say he has hurt people, that he is being locked up for his own good, and that they are trying to keep him safe. I told you it would sound crazy, Beverly. I shouldn’t have told you.”

For a few seconds, Beverly stood still, just staring at him. Then she smiled. “I’m glad you told me. I believe you.”