Bryan and Justin Fischer were born six minutes apart on New Year’s eve, 1966. Emily Fischer went into labor an hour before the carnival closed in a small, rural town in western Kansas. There were no hospitals nearby, and the only doctor nearby was out of town. One of the carnival workers, Mary Dotson, delivered the babies. She had helped other carnival workers give birth and fancied herself as a bit of a midwife.
Childbirth didn’t come easy for Emily. Her labor lasted for nearly twenty hours. She was in excruciating pain. Mary Dotson stayed by her side the entire time, offering comfort and reassurance that everything was going fine. It wasn’t. Emily gave birth inside the trailer she shared with her husband, Barry, at the back end of the carnival.
Bryan was born first. His birth was normal. Justin’s was not. He was delivered with no motion or crying. His color was a shade of blue. Emily had two stillborn births in years past. She was certain Justin would be her third. Mary Dotson did everything she could to get Justin to breathe. He went without oxygen for several minutes. When all else had failed, Emily Fischer prayed. The good Lord must have been listening because, all of a sudden, Justin let out a loud cry.
The two brothers were inseparable. They did everything together. Bryan was the smart one. Justin was slow and had health problems and learning disabilities, a product of his brain going without oxygen for a prolonged period.
Growing up in the carnival was difficult. The carnival was a small, family business. It traveled year-round, never staying more than a few days in one spot. They set up in small towns mostly. The children of the carnival workers didn’t go to school. Their only education came from their parents or other carnival workers.
At a young age, they, too, would go to work at the carnival. That was expected of them.
The Fischer twins began working at the age of five. They picked up trash, did odd jobs and helped out wherever they could, always together. As they grew, their responsibilities increased, and more was expected of them.
Justin had difficulty fitting in. He was simple-minded. He stuttered when he talked. He was socially awkward. Others teased him. Bryan did not. He protected Justin. He stood up for him. He saw only the good side of his brother.
As the two got older, bad things and accidents would happen at the carnival. Some blamed Justin. Some thought he had a dark side. But not Bryan. He knew better. He knew Justin was not capable of hurting others. He knew that his brother was misunderstood.
Emily and Barry Fischer believed their son was not capable of hurting others either for a long time. But they began to feel differently as their twin boys entered their teenage years. There were just too many things that pointed toward Justin as the person responsible for many of the accidents that had occurred at the carnival. There were just too many coincidences.
Things would happen to people that hurt Justin, people that he didn’t like. Small things at first, then increasing in severity.
His parents thought they could control him. They thought the right combination of love and discipline would work on him. They were wrong. In time, they began to fear Justin. There was something about him, something in his eyes, in his look, that was unsettling. He was the bad seed. They had planned on moving the twins out of the family trailer but never got the chance. An explosion of a large propane tank used to supply power to their trailer claimed both their lives a week past the twin’s eighteenth birthday. Bryan and Justin were not home when the accident occurred. They were lucky, it seemed.
The police investigated their deaths, but the investigation was short-lived, and the Fischer’s deaths were determined to be accidental. There was only one sheriff in the small Kansas town where the deaths occurred, and he had neither the time nor the energy to conduct any real investigation. Besides, a $100 donation provided to him was enough of an incentive to look the other way and clear the carnival to continue on to its next destination.
So, soon after their eighteenth birthday, the Fischer twins took ownership of the Fischer family carnival. They had inherited a business that was on the downside of survival. Their parents had come on difficult times. There just wasn’t a lot of money in operating a small carnival that counted on small, rural communities to make its income.
It seemed that the Brown family, in their family merger of sorts, had divided the pie in their favor, booking most of the larger, more profitable communities for their own carnival and leaving the smaller communities to the Fischers.
Dudley Brown, it turned out, never forgave Henry Fischer or the Fischer family for what had happened so many years earlier. He was an unforgiving person and had been determined to run the Fischer family business into the ground even after his arch-enemy was dead and buried.
He was devastated by the loss of his only daughter, Emily. There was speculation that he had encouraged Barry and his daughter’s marriage in an attempt to gain control of the Fischer family business. But that speculation was put to bed soon after Bryan and Justin took over the carnival when he sold back his ownership to the Fischer twins and walked away from the carnival.
Shortly after they took over the carnival, it became apparent that the Fischer twins were not good at running the family business. The little bit of cash their parents had saved for operating the carnival was gone within weeks.
Proceeds from two life insurance policies on their parents breathed some life into the business, but months of sustained losses had drained most of that money. The twins were barely keeping their heads above water.
The fact of the matter was that Bryan might have made something out of the family business. He was smart, had good ideas and was respected by the carnival workers. But Justin was a different story. For every step forward his brother made, Justin seemed to take the carnival back a step or two.
“He’s not stable. He needs to be put away,” one of the carnival employees said on the day he quit.
Bryan never saw the dark side of his brother. Perhaps because he was too close to him, perhaps because they were twins that had experienced everything together, perhaps because Justin worshiped his brother. He never let Bryan see the evil inside him. Others saw it, though, and those that witnessed the extent of his madness chose to leave the carnival.
Workers that had stayed with the carnival for many years suddenly quit or simply disappeared. Turnover became a major problem. So much so that the carnival spent days in each of their destinations recruiting temporary workers to man the carnival.
It was Bryan’s idea to open a haunted house that breathed new life into the family business. Crowds began coming to the carnival again. For a while, it looked like Bryan might make the family business successful again. Then, there was a series of mishaps. A trailer fire cost the lives of one of the carnival families. A roller coaster ride that had been the main ride attraction went off the rails, injuring three people. Rumors of ghosts and strange occurrences in the haunted houses caused several workers to quit and others to refuse to work there. Then, there was the disappearance of a young girl inside the haunted house.
The carnival was days away from needing to close down.
It was in desperation, in a final attempt to save the carnival, that Bryan met with Dudley Brown. For $1.00 and the promise to turn the fortunes of the family carnival around, Dudley Brown became equal partners with the Fischer twins.
On paper, they were equals. In reality, Dudley Brown managed the carnival. He took control of the business operations. The twins became the figureheads, the puppets everyone saw as the owners of the carnival. But Dudley Brown was the puppet master. He controlled everything.
Dudley Brown took over the books. He fired many of the workers and brought family members and friends in to take their jobs. He booked new venues and took control of the carnival. He did all of this behind the scenes. To outsiders, he was no more than a silent partner. Bryan Fischer was the face of the carnival. Bryan and Justin Fischer were the ones that owned the carnival on paper. They were the ones that signed all the contracts. Dudley Brown wanted it that way. That was part of his plan. If trouble were to occur down the road, the Brown twins would take the fall.
Bryan was a charismatic person. He was well-liked and respected. He was the perfect one to be the face of the carnival. Justin even found his niche in the family business too. He worked in the haunted house behind the scenes, out of the public eye. His role in the family business was a bit gray but very important to the carnival’s success.
It was Dudley Brown who suggested Justin’s talents might best be served in the haunted house. He was the one that convinced Bryan that he could manage Justin and make him a valuable part of the business.
Bryan was skeptical at first. Justin had always been dependent on him. He wasn’t sure his brother would take direction from anyone but him. But Dudley Brown insisted that he be allowed to manage Justin. In fact, he made that a condition of coming back into the business.
“Justin is a unique person,” he told Bryan. “He has talents that can help us grow the carnival. But he also has issues that, if left unchecked, could destroy the carnival. I believe that I can take advantage of his strengths and silence his weaknesses. I will come back into the business, but only if I can manage your brother.”
Bryan agreed. He really had no choice. Bringing Dudley Brown back into the business was his only chance of saving the carnival. Besides, Dudley promised he would never interfere with his relationship with his brother. The twins would continue to be the face of the carnival.
The haunted house became the number one attraction at the carnival. It was what brought in the crowds.
Dudley Brown did exactly what he had promised. He made the carnival successful. The carnival began traveling to larger towns, drawing bigger crowds, more excitement and lots more money. It expanded in size, adding more rides, bigger and better arcades and sideshows. All the while, he remained a silent partner, staying completely behind the scenes, completely comfortable with letting the Fischer twins enjoy the limelight of success. He was the puppet master.
The Fischer family carnival’s success came at the expense of the Brown family’s own carnival. The venues that were once booked by the Brown family carnival were now being booked by the Fischer family carnival. The success of one carnival was the downfall of the other. Eventually, there was a merger of the two carnivals, and many of the employees that had worked for the Brown family came to work for the twins. Many of those people were relatives of Dudley Brown.
The influx of family members gave stability to the carnival’s workforce. They were there to stay. They weren’t run off by the peculiarities of Justin Fischer or the strange occurrences in the haunted house.
The haunted house, although the biggest attendance draw and the biggest money-maker at the carnival, had more than its share of mishaps. Many were inconsequential, easily explained or covered up. Some were much more serious. When an incident got the attention of the local police, the carnival usually moved on before any real investigation could get started.
If they were prevented from moving on, the twins would close the haunted house for a period of time while Dudley worked behind the scenes to control any investigation.
When the police were present, Justin remained hidden, out of sight, where his peculiarities would not get the attention of the local police. Sometimes, if necessary, he would put on a controlled appearance. He was, after all, one of the owners of the carnival. Medication could soften him. It often quieted him. But its effects were temporary, lasting only long enough to give him the appearance of normality.
The outside world did not see the disturbed side of Justin. They were not witness to his darkness. Carnival workers that knew him or were warned of him avoided Justin. That included all of Dudley’s relatives. Consequently, it was difficult to find people to work in the haunted house. Bryan resorted to hiring temporary workers, vagrants, street people, and loners, people that wouldn’t be missed, that wouldn’t be listened to if they had a story to tell.
With time, even Bryan couldn’t ignore the oddities of his brother. Their bond was tight. He loved his brother. But, for Justin’s protection, he had to control his movements, his indiscretions. There came a time when he could no longer allow his brother the freedom to roam the carnival grounds unchecked. That’s when he relinquished complete responsibility of his brother to Dudley Brown.
Dudley knew how to control Justin. He knew what was needed to feed Justin’s darkness. He knew how to keep him hidden from others. Justin’s new home became the haunted house. He wandered its corridors late at night when the carnival was closed when no one could witness his madness. He became a creature of the night, a bogeyman that became the object of so many nightmares.
During the daylight, he was locked away in a small room underneath the floorboards of the haunted house. Medication kept him quiet until it was time for him to come out. Bryan rarely saw his brother after he relinquished responsibility for him to Dudley. When it was necessary for Justin to put in an appearance, he was a shell of the brother Bryan knew. Medication that Dudley supplied kept him in check long enough to fit the needs of the situation. He could fool outsiders for a short time. But he never fooled Bryan.
Bryan could sense the madness boiling just underneath the façade of a normal person. He saw the darkness in Justin’s eyes, in the coldness of his stare. But he ignored it. His brother had become Dudley’s problem now.
Willard Conroe came to work at the carnival soon after Dudley bought into the business. He was a cousin of Dudley. That, in itself, wasn’t unusual. Most of the full-time carnival workers were relatives of Dudley. His was a large extended family, all of which had some responsibility in the family business. All except Willard Conroe.
Willard had a troubled past. He had been in and out of jail since he was fourteen. Most of his crimes were petty, theft, fights, nothing of serious consequences until he was in his mid-twenties. That was when his life entered a downward spiral.
He had always used alcohol as a crutch to deal with his difficult life. In time, whiskey became his best friend. He used it to escape from the realities of life, his jobs, the memories of his times in jail and a loveless marriage. Eventually, the alcohol took control of him. He lost the ability to care. He lost the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. His temper, his dark side surfaced. For a long time, he had held it in check but not this time.
All of his bitterness manifested itself in a hatred for his wife. In his mind, she was responsible for everything bad that had happened to him. All he had to do was get rid of her, and his life would be good. A quart of Old Crow gave him the liquid courage to do what the voices in his head were telling him to do.
Her body was never found. The police arrested him. They charged him with her murder. They were certain he was responsible for whatever happened to her. But the evidence was thin, and without a body, the prosecutor offered Willard a plea deal. He would serve six to ten years in prison for pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
When he was released from prison, Willard went to work for his cousin, Dudley Brown. Dudley overlooked his dark past and lack of experience working at a carnival. He had needs for his cousin’s talent. Willard possessed a unique set of skills that were beneficial to Dudley.
Outsiders, particularly the children who spent their time and money at the carnival, felt an excitement and an innocence in the carnival atmosphere that provided them fond memories and made them want to come back time and time again.
But they didn’t see the underbelly of the carnival. They weren’t witness to the darkness that came out after the last customer left at night. Most of the carnival workers were men with troubled pasts and certain needs. Dudley Brown found ways to address those needs. From time to time, he hired professionals to take care of those needs. Most were streetwalkers, hookers, and women of the night.
He would arrange for transportation to bring a group of ladies into the carnival grounds late at night. They would serve their purpose and be gone before the sun came up. It was one of those women that Willard Conroe took a fancy to. Her name was Ginger. At least, that was what she called herself. She was short and thin, with tanned skin and dirty blond hair that went down nearly to her waist.
Ginger was only eighteen, the product of a difficult home. She had run away three years earlier. She lived on the streets, taking handouts when offered and sleeping in shelters when she could. Most of the time, the shelters were full or unavailable, and she was forced to sleep on the street. Drugs and prostitution were common amongst the homeless. Ginger resisted both for a long time but eventually gave in. The money she made bought her food and warmer clothes. The drugs helped her forget about the troubles in her life. Eventually, the food and warm clothes became less important to her. Feeding her cocaine habit became her priority.
Willard overlooked the needle marks in her arms. He overlooked the yellowish tint of her skin and the extreme thinness in her face that showed the bones just underneath her flesh. To him, she was perfect. He was in love. He was certain she loved him too. He was wrong.
Ginger despised Willard. He creeped her out. To her, he was no more than a john that she had to satisfy in order to get the money to afford her next fix.
When the carnival left town, Ginger went back to the streets. Willard was heartbroken.
It was Dudley that brought her back to Willard. She became his Christmas present that year. She had not come willingly. Dudley kept her supplied with drugs in exchange for keeping Willard happy.
But even a consistent supply of cocaine couldn’t soften her disgust for Willard. He was a vile person with a disfigured face, the product of a knife fight during his stint in prison. He sickened her. She tried not to show it. She didn’t want to anger him. Willard was a violent man. She had suffered many beatings at his hands when she resisted him.
When he suggested that a child might help their marriage, she agreed, not because she wanted a child. She didn’t. But she thought a child might safeguard her from Willard’s violent temper. Ginger had often thought he might kill her someday, but with a child to care for, she reasoned that he would let her live.
Dwayne joined the Conroe family when he was three years old. His new father was ecstatic. Willard had always wanted a son, a wife, and a family. Now he finally had what he thought he wanted. During those years in prison, he had often dreamed of this day. He thought a family would give him a normal life. He thought that his demons could be vanquished if he could finally have a family that loved him.
And, for a while, his new family did change him for the better. But that didn’t last. He had taken his family. They didn’t come to him out of love. They had no choice. They were prisoners of his, unable to make their own choices.
Whatever love he thought they expressed toward him was forced, was artificial. He came to realize that with time. That’s when he tried to break them. He had success with Dwayne. He was such a young child. He had no memory of his real parents. He was easily controlled. Ginger was not.
She had formed a bond with Dwayne. Willard was jealous of that bond. He was jealous of the happiness the two of them had when they were together. He thought Ginger was trying to take his son away from him. But more than anything, he felt like he was losing control of his family. He couldn’t let that happen.
So, the drinking and violence began again.
“If you can’t love me, then you’re damn sure not going to love anyone else,” he told Ginger the night she disappeared.
At the age of five, Dwayne no longer had a mother. He was alone, being raised by his father. That’s when he first learned the meaning of fear.