Mother of Darkness: Carnival of Terror Series, #2

Prologue

Screams upon screams filled the night. The lights were flashing like a thousand fireflies and the air felt electric. This was fun. This was intense. This was thrills and scares and exhilaration.

People rarely felt more alive than in moments of great fear. That was why many loved rollercoasters and racing cars and skydiving and all of those things. It was like laughing in the face of death. That you could come close to something dangerous and maybe even feel, deep down, that you were helpless. It was freeing.

Of course, there was not supposed to be genuine fear. Not from a roller coaster. Not from the height of a Ferris wheel. Not from the freaks in a freakshow. They were scary in a controlled and easily digestible way. For that reason, the fear became transformative. Cathartic, even. It was fun. Fear and terror could be a person’s goal. And they craved it.

But genuine fear— the kind no one signed up for, the kind that surprised a person and that had no safeguards—well, that was different. That fear didn’t end in laughs. Those screams were all too real.

Wendell didn’t understand those thrill-seekers. The carnival wasn’t like a theme park with crazy rides, but the freakshow and the Ferris wheel gave it elements of danger and horror. The Ferris wheel was the most rickety, dangerous thing he’d seen in his life. If it could legally pass a safety inspection, he’d marry a goat.

As for the freakshow, it could have been worse. He’d learned that people had quit recently. That was why so many new hires like him were coming on. A change in management led to a lot of older workers quitting. The freakshow was down to a strongman, conjoined twins, a sword swallower, and some jars that held deformed animals and fetuses.

For Wendell, fear was an unwanted emotion. He enjoyed having fun as much as anyone, but not if it was going to lead to white-knuckle panic and nightmares. The local fools could have that any day of the week and twice on Sunday, as far as he was concerned.

Wendell had joined the carnival because he needed work and he liked deep-fried foods; it was as simple as that. He had nothing tying him down, so travel wasn’t an issue. They didn’t require any special skills, and they offered more than minimum wage. It was a good deal.

The work wasn’t easy, so every cent he got was well-earned. He had no idea the labor that went into setting up, maintaining, and then taking down a carnival. It was constantly slogging. Lifting and carrying and adjusting and moving. And they were so short-staffed since everyone quit that all the work was on the shoulders of the few laborers—which the owner insisted on calling roustabouts—on hand.

When the carnival was in full swing, that was ironically Wendell’s most laid-back time. It meant everything was set up and running and his job was done. He could take time to enjoy the fruits of his labor, which he did.

Wendell was a sucker for games, especially the shooting gallery. He never took prizes, of course, but the guy who ran the game, Sherman, loved him. Wendell was a crack shot and hit the target ninety-nine times out of a hundred. He was good for business and could draw a crowd by making trick shots. People watched him shoot and then paid for their chance.

He got a kick out of the kids who were impressed by his marksmanship, and also the odd couple where Wendell could show up the guy in front of his old lady. He only did that if the guy seemed like a jerk, or if his girl was especially pretty. Other times, he’d throw a challenge and let the guy win if he seemed like he needed it. Or if he slipped Wendell a twenty ahead of time. Wendell was pretty easy to work with.

Hey, buddy.

Wendell turned as he walked past one of the food booths on the small midway. The man in the nearest booth gave him a quick wave.

Yeah? Wendell asked.

You’re one of the new guys, right? Grab me another sugar box?

Sugar box? Wendell asked. The man nodded and held up an empty box.

For the cotton candy machine. This town loves the stuff, and I only got one left in here. They should be in the supply truck, the man said.

Wendell nodded, dropping his plans to go play a quick ring-toss game, and veered right. He could cut through the freakshow tents and slip out the back of the carnival to where the trucks were parked. He wasn’t sure which one was the supply truck since there were a half-dozen lined up, but he’d figure it out.

The carnival trucks were beyond the tents. The lights were all fixed toward the carnival, and the line of silent vehicles was almost like a maze to navigate in the dark. He made his way through the backs of three trucks, finding nothing food-related and beginning to question whether he needed to go back and ask the cotton candy guy for more specific directions.

When he was hired barely a month ago, Wendell’s interview process with Mr. Hartwell mostly amounted to asking if he could lift more than fifty pounds and if he had any family or friends waiting for him.

The second question seemed odd until Hartwell explained that constantly being on the road meant not seeing friends and family, and he’d lost a lot of employees to homesickness. He needed to be sure no one was waiting for Wendell. No one was.

Wendell had been on his own since he was about fifteen. He had to have a father somewhere, but he didn’t know the man’s name or anything else about him. He had doubts about whether his mom even knew who he was.

His mother had been in and out of jail for most of Wendell’s childhood. His aunt raised him for a spell, and then, his grandmother. All three women were gone now. His mother had overdosed three days after her last release date. Grandma had passed when she was eighty-nine, and his aunt had died in a car crash. There was no one left.

He bounced between friends’ houses and the streets for a while and eventually got a job in construction that let him get his own place. When the business hit a slump, he did odd jobs here and there and kept his head above water. It was lonely though.

Staying away from drugs—both using and selling—was hard. He had lots of opportunities, but he wanted to live his life straight. He wanted to prove he could succeed where his mother had failed. And while he couldn’t say he’d succeeded at anything in life, he hadn’t failed, either. He was doing the best he could. It was hard, but it worked.

The carnival was a good opportunity for him. With nothing tying him down in life, he didn’t have a lot of expenses. And he could stay in the carnival trucks with other workers, so he didn’t have rent and other bills. They even made communal meals, and all he had to do was chip in a few bucks a week and help with cooking and cleaning to be part of it. It was cool.

He didn’t think he was making lifelong friends at Bartolomy and Sons’ Carnival and Sideshow. He still barely knew anyone’s name. But it didn’t matter. If he worked hard, they didn’t give him a hard time. He had fun hustling games, and he was getting to travel across the country. He could think of worse jobs.

Wendell reached the next truck in the line and took hold of the rear door latch. He gave it a half turn and then pulled, lifting the loading door straight up. The air that rolled out at him was hot and damp and positively vile.

He stumbled back, trying to stifle the vomit that rose in his throat. The stench was like nothing he’d ever experienced, something rotten and horrible. He had to turn his back on the truck to find a patch of fresh air.

After a handful of breaths to steady himself and quell the urge to vomit, he looked back. It was dark and impossible to see what the problem was, but there was definitely something wrong. The truck must have accidentally been packed with raw meat, or maybe a raccoon climbed in and died or something.

Wendell pulled his cell phone from his pocket, activated the flashlight app, and lifted it. His hand shook as the beam filled the rear of the truck.

Bodies were stacked on top of each other. There were dozens, piled up like anything else being loaded for transport. They sat in a pool of stagnant runoff, a dark liquid that must have been old, congealed blood, and the slurry of other things that leak from a corpse over time.

Some bodies looked relatively fresh, maybe days old. Others were weeks old, bloated and purple and covered in disfiguring marks. He couldn’t see all the faces, but many looked to have been burned, with black scars that obscured their identity, made worse by the conditions in which they were being stored.

They weren’t all facing the same direction, but Wendell recognized some of them. He saw the old fortune teller, Shiva, who had quit just after he was hired. He only knew this by her clothes and hair, as her face had already rotted off.

He recognized a few others, roustabouts and game runners and even a pair of freaks from the freakshow. He was told they’d all quit or run off because they didn’t like the management shift and were loyal to the old crew.

He recognized some of the newer ones as well. Not workers, but customers, people he had seen in passing. He didn’t know them, but they were familiar.

Jesus, Wendell gasped from behind the veil of his shirt. It did little to hide the stench, but he still felt better holding it up. Like it somehow protected him from whatever happened to all the dead bodies in that truck.

What the hell are you doing?

The voice made Wendell jump, the shirt pulling away from his face. He turned to see Mr. Hartwell, the carnival’s new owner. He still wore his silly-looking top hat, but in the dark, in the stink of death, it didn’t look funny at all.

Jesus, Mr. Hartwell, there’s—

You shouldn’t be here! Hartwell snapped, cutting him off.

He didn’t care about the truck full of corpses. Wendell quickly understood what was happening. Hartwell knew about the truck. He didn’t care that it was full of dead bodies, he just cared that someone had found it. Wendell’s stomach dropped.

I won’t tell anyone, Wendell whispered. It was a lie, but he would say or do anything he could to survive. He would not be the next body in that truck.

You can’t be here! the older man said, looking around them.

The statement caught him off-guard. He took a step back and Hartwell locked eyes on him again. Even in the shadows, he could sense that Hartwell wasn’t expressing rage. He was terrified.

Mr. Hartwell?

Run, goddamn you. Run as fast as you can.

Wendell raised his hands and took a step back. The air grew chilly around him, and Hartwell moaned, turning his head away.

No. You can’t keep doing this, he said, his tone pleading and sad.

Wendell took another step back and stopped as something cold like ice fell on his shoulder. He spun his head but saw nothing there.

What the hell—

No other words were forthcoming. Shadows crossed his face and something hard, vise-like, and freezing cold clamped over his mouth. His body rose from the ground.

Wendell screamed, but the icy darkness muffled him, forbidding even the slightest noise from escaping. The vise grew strong, crushing his face and biting into the flesh.

He struggled with all his might, clawing at whatever held him but only finding the bitter cold. It seeped into his skin like it was made of acid, cutting him like knives. He felt the pain even in the bones of his skull.

His scream was nothing, trapped in his mouth and his lungs as the cold forbade it from leaving. When death finally came, though after just mere seconds of agony, it was a relief.

Hartwell watched as the young man’s body slumped and half fell to the ground. Lisette’s dark shadow still held him by the face as she dragged him to the truck, pulling him inside with the other bodies.

He had nothing to say to her. She wouldn’t listen even if he did. Instead, he watched the body slide back over the others and simply closed and latched the truck doors.

The carnival sounds followed him as he walked from the storage truck across the grounds. He stopped a couple of the rousties and other workers to let them know it was the carnival’s last night in town. They’d head out at first light to somewhere new.

Reaching the far side of the midway, Hartwell entered the truck Artemis Bartolomy once called home, with its cramped little apartment in the back. He’d cleared out most of Bartolomy’s trash. It was liveable now, homey even, if still too small for his liking.

Bart Hartwell sat at the tiny dining table and removed his hat before reaching for a bottle of bottom-shelf bourbon and a glass. He poured a double and stared at it for a long moment, the muffled sounds of the carnival music droning in his ears.

The room grew cold, and the shadows of Lisette manifested in the seat across from him. He didn’t look up.

You can’t keep killing people, he said flatly. He had long lost any ability to drum up emotion when he spoke to her.

The ghost said nothing, as he knew she wouldn’t.

We need the workers. We can’t run the carnival without workers. We’ll have no one soon, and then what happens?

The darkness shifted, and the shadows oozed closer like a silverfish creeping across the floor toward him. He stared at the bourbon and refused to look up. The cold crept over him and then her voice came, the quietest of whispers, in his ear. He listened because he had to, but his mind was focused on the bourbon. The curve of the glass, the color of the liquid, the distortion of the light through it. He focused as hard as he could as she whispered her poison into his soul.

Chapter 1: So Goes Death

Shane Ryan sat across from the ghost of the Thousand Pound Man and sipped his coffee. Herbert had been a big fellow, to be sure, easily four hundred pounds, but he was not as big as all that. The carnival liked to exaggerate, especially where the so-called freaks were concerned. Anything to make them seem less human, or even monstrous.

Herbert assured Shane he had never felt bad about working under the name. He had made a lot of money, he had met a lot of friends, and there were plenty of benefits.

You wouldn’t believe how many women are interested in a giant man, Herbert said.

I bet, Shane replied, hoping to avoid any details.

Shane and the big ghost had been on the road together since the death of Artemis Bartolomy. The carnival was gone, stolen by Bart Hartwell and the ghost called Lisette, and neither Shane nor Herbert had any idea what their plans were.

Lisette had taken her revenge on the people who were responsible for her boy’s death some four decades in the past. But with that gone as a motive, there was no way to predict where they were taking the carnival or why.

I’d kill for a turkey sandwich, Herbert said.

They were sharing a booth in a forgettable diner in upstate New York. Herbert’s massive frame only fit in the seat because he was a ghost. It was strange to look at it, knowing he shouldn’t have physically been able to wedge himself in the small space.

A server walked by holding a plate of fries and a sandwich. Shane asked for a coffee refill on her way back but didn’t feel in the mood for a sandwich.

The police were after him for questioning. They would have certainly found his car and the corpses of Artemis Bartolomy and the judge Lisette took her vengeance upon in front of a burning, small-town courthouse.

Without Bart Hartwell on their radar, the only suspect the police had to link all the murders in the wake of the carnival’s bloody trip through the northeast was Shane. And there would have been plenty of witnesses to the fire and dead bodies around his car.

Their luck in tracking Hartwell and Lisette had been non-existent. Once they discovered that the carnival was missing, there were no guesses or clues about where it was heading next. They were hoping for some new leads, though.

This is our man, Herbert said suddenly. He was peering out the window to something beyond Shane. Shane said nothing and sipped his coffee.

Herbert made a habit of talking in public whenever the urge arose. Shane listened but rarely acknowledged, not wanting to draw attention to himself as the crazy man talking to an empty diner booth. Most people couldn’t see Herbert, which was just as well. The ghost of a giant man would draw plenty of unwanted attention if seen.

A man in a hoodie walked past the diner outside and Herbert watched him intently. He entered and looked around until Shane made a quick gesture, indicating for him to come over.

The stranger was nervous, and his use of a hoodie and sunglasses made him look much shadier than he’d probably intended. He sat opposite Shane, nearly on top of Herbert, and leaned in. He shuddered at the sudden cold but quickly ignored it.

Are you the guy? he asked.

Shane Ryan, Shane replied, taking another sip of his coffee.

Cool, yeah. I’m Lowell.

What have you got for me? Shane asked. Lowell removed his sunglasses. He was younger than Shane expected, barely into his twenties.

When Bart came back, a lot of the guys knew something was wrong, he explained, leaning over too far, and speaking too low. Things got bad fast.

How bad?

Lowell looked around. It was clear he couldn’t see Herbert.

"Lots of people walked. When he arrived, Bart acted like he was the boss. He told us he was running the show now, and that we should pack up, be ready to get on