His eyes were sparkling now, and for the first time Tricia noticed their color. Black, like the eyes of the tall man, Hannibal Cobb, who stood below the sign bearing his name, smiling-leering, really, as his half-pint sidekick took Tricia Reardon by the hand, an act she thought she would have found cold and revolting, yet oddly turned out to be the soft and inviting touch of a true friend, a warm sensation that started in the palm of her hand and traveled swiftly throughout her. They walked beneath the sign, into not a world of dilapidated booths and weather-beaten tents, but the bright and shiny carnival world of her youth. There were the Kewpie dolls and there were the Beanie Babies, crisp new tents and polished wooden booths. They strolled down the midway, which suddenly was much wider, and much longer than Tricia had ever thought possible, past the Sideshow tent with its colorful array of performers etched upon its front. There was Chester Roebuck's roller coaster, which a few scant moments ago had not been there at all, and the spinning cups-they were there, too.

Tricia continued up the midway, a smile on her face, a warm glow running through her as they walked up to a tent whose signed frontage read Girls! Girls! Girls!

Pictures adorned the front of that tent, too, just like the ones decorating the Sideshow tent: a young girl with a garishly made up face, dark eye shadow and thick red lips. She had long blonde hair, a thin, muscular frame and enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Beside her on the front of the tent stood a woman who looked remarkably like Tricia Reardon herself.

They walked around to the rear of the tent, where the midget drew back a wide canvas flap, and ushered Tricia inside. Up a short flight of steps they went, until they stood on a wooden platform, in what looked to Tricia to be some kind of dressing room. A long, wide counter ran parallel to the rear of the room. There were mirrors on the counter, high-backed wooden chairs in front of them; various lipsticks and powders and perfumes dotted the thing, along with an a.s.sortment of brushes and pads to apply them with. The woman emblazoned on the side of the tent was there, too, with her honey-blonde hair and thick red lips. She moved hurriedly about the place, rifling through several items of lingerie that lay scattered across chairs and tables, some hanging on a length of rope that ran from one end of the dimly-lit room to the other. There were long flowing robes decorated with intricate patterns; frilly little things made of silk and lace that looked more like costumes than women's lingerie. Garter belts of nearly every color Tricia could imagine. She stood there, watching the woman a.s.sess the different outfits, holding them up before her and quickly discarding one for another, the midget's hand still locked in Tricia's. From somewhere not so far away, came the sound of music, the old time thump and b.u.mp from countless movies she'd seen over the years, where strippers stripped and drunks cheered loudly. And right on cue from the front of the tent, came a rousing round of clapping hands and drunken shouts of *More! More!'

This woman, a girl, really, much younger than Tricia, turned and walked over to her. The wide scar running lengthwise down her cheek looked oddly attractive to Tricia, the buckteeth decorating her mouth, somehow warm and inviting. She held up a flimsy black garment so sheer that Tricia could see right through it.

"What do you think?" she said. "Won't this look good on you? Oh, I'm so happy you came. We've been waiting so long!"

She draped the top across a chair, leaving only a black G-string in her hand, then that was laid across the chair as well. She reached out, stroking a hand across Tricia's face. Her fingers felt cool on Tricia's skin as they swept over it.

"Let's get you fixed up," she said. "C'mon, let's get out of those drab old clothes."

She reached down, grabbing the bottom sides of Tricia's top. The woman tugged up and the midget released his grip, and everything suddenly changed. The warm glow that had run rampant throughout Tricia Reardon quickly dissipated, leaving behind a stark cold feeling of fear and dread that soon began to overwhelm her. The woman's scar, now a hideous disfigurement, seemed more p.r.o.nounced, an ugly reminder of all the violence in the world. Her smile became a wicked and leering thing of intense evil.

Tricia wanted to turn and run, to flee down those wooden steps and into the night, back down the old dirt road as fast as her legs could carry her. But she couldn't run-for some reason, she couldn't even move. She dipped down her head and her shirt was peeled from her body. Straightened up and fingers as cool and smooth as polished bone traced their way around to her back and unfastened her bra, which dropped straight to the hardwood floor. Her jeans were unfastened and pulled down to her ankles, and before Tricia Reardon knew it, she was standing there in a flimsy black top and a black G-string which barely covered anything at all.

She turned and looked at the midget, who stood not in front of a set of wooden steps leading down to the tent's exit point, but in front of a wide black wall made up of an inky substance much resembling the roiling black cloud Tricia had seen frozen in the sky this afternoon, a dark windswept void that beckoned all who stood before it to enter.

He smiled one last time, and then nodded his head and disappeared into a swirling black ma.s.s that seemed to swallow him whole, as he left whatever world Tricia Reardon occupied behind him.

Tricia started to go after him, to follow him into the darkness, into that cold black void where nothing could harm her, far away from this place where nothing could touch her, where her husband's voice crying out from its grave could not reach her.

But she couldn't go because that cold, smooth hand reached out, grasping hers before she could take even a single step. A cold, smooth hand attached to a maddeningly beautiful young girl, whose dark and foreboding voice echoed throughout the room, "Not yet, my sweet. We've work to do."

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Jim Kreigle, the good and kind owner and proprietor of the town's only general store, saw not jalopies and pieces of junk parked throughout the edge of the clearing, but the same cars and pickup trucks that stood in front of his place of worship every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. They belonged to his friends, those good and kindhearted members of the First Baptist Church of Pottsboro, South Carolina, who this evening had wandered from their homes for a pleasant night out with the family.

The long and slender poles surrounding the clearing cast not a strange and eerie glow across G.o.dby's field, but a warm and inviting light, a friendly luminescence calling the families to come forward.

He marveled at the gigantic spinning Ferris wheel when they pulled to a stop beside Byrum Terwillegher's pickup truck. The man who offered them a friendly greeting when they'd crossed the clearing had a warm smile, and eyes as cool and calming as the eyes of Christ himself. He introduced himself as Hannibal Cobb, the owner and proprietor of the fine establishment Jim Kreigle found himself standing before, and he addressed them with the respect and courtesy befitting the fine upstanding civic leaders they were: Jack Everett, a captain of many industries of this fine town; Jim Kreigle, a spiritual leader in his own right; Chester Roebuck, who held the grand and lofty position of a production manager out at the plant. And last, but certainly not least, Tricia Reardon, a fine mother and wife, a good friend to all who knew her, to all fortunate enough to have crossed her path.

There was a clown standing beside Hannibal Cobb, a nice man whose face was pleasantly made up with the warm and friendly pastel colors that graced the walls of the church. He wore a robe with shiny gold b.u.t.tons down its front, a long flowing garment that somehow didn't seem to attract any dirt at all when its white fabric touched the good and rich soil of G.o.dby's field, a place with quite a sordid past, an unpleasant history that seemed to have followed the town like a dark cloud up through the ages. Thank G.o.d that was over with. Thank G.o.d for men like Jack Everett and himself, whose many acts of kindness and attrition had served to leave the sad biography of this town well in the past where it so richly belonged.

Yes, Jim Kreigle's family had owned slaves, had, in fact, tracked many of them across the flatlands and hauled them kicking and screaming in irons and chains back to this very field. They had killed their black brethren in ignorance; slew them out of a misguided sense of ent.i.tlement pa.s.sed down through generations by those who knew no better. But all of that was in the past. All of that was behind them now. Certainly behind Jim Kreigle, who spent his days behind his nice new cash register, redeeming food stamps for the poor and unfortunate souls of Pottsboro, South Carolina, irregardless of race, creed, or color; oft times extending credit to the same breed of unwashed and uneducated people his confused and foolish forefathers had condemned themselves to h.e.l.l for hauling out of the jungles of Africa to slave away on farms and plantations throughout the south. He helped these people, levying a modest seven percent service charge for his troubles when he easily could have charged them more. For whom else could they turn to when the money was low and no food was on the table? Where else could they go when money was scarce and the cupboards were bare? Who else could they turn to in their time of need, other than their good and kind Christian neighbor, Jim Kreigle, who would happily go out of his way to serve them?

Hannibal Cobb, in his pleasant little top hat and long flowing tails, put his slender hands together as if in prayer, drew them apart and two snow white doves lifted up and away and flew off to the heavens. Kreigle watched their flight as a midget, a dwarf in an outlandishly multicolored costume, stepped up beside Hannibal Cobb, smiling as the clown said, "Step up, my friends. Step right up to Hannibal Cobb's Kansas City Carnival!"

"Look at this place," Kreigle said, as his eyes took in all the wonderful things that lay before them.

"It is quite spectacular," Hannibal Cobb said. "Isn't it."

"I'll say," said Kreigle, as Chester Roebuck gleefully cried out, "I'm going on that rolly coaster!"

Chester said *rolly coaster', but Jim Kreigle saw nothing resembling a roller coaster anywhere on the midway. He did see the Spinning Teacup ride off in the distance, though, and the sight of it took him right back to all the carnivals he'd run rampant over in his youth. He'd always loved those spinning cups, and he loudly proclaimed that was precisely where he would be going as soon as he could. He stood there, gazing out at the bright lights of Hannibal Cobb's Kansas City Carnival as Jack Everett stepped forward to introduce himself-he and Cobb shook hands, and then Cobb called out, "Come on in. Come one and all. Step up to my Kansas City Carnival and have yourselves a ball!"

They entered the carnival grounds, leaving Tricia Reardon behind them. That was okay, though, because Tricia Reardon was a grown woman who could look after herself, a fine woman, a friend of the church and to all who surrounded her. Besides, there was no reason to worry over Tricia's wellbeing in a wonderful place such as this. Really, what harm could come to her here? What harm could find anyone in such a wonderful place?

He walked down the midway, barely aware that Jack Everett and Chester Roebuck had wandered off on their own. But that was okay, too, because Jim Kreigle wanted to take in all the sights and sounds of this wondrous place, free of any type of distraction. Before him were gleaming white food wagons with the golden arches of Heaven decorating their tops. A nice-looking woman stood in one of the wagons, dressed in a fashionable white dress with lovely black polka dots. A little overweight, Jim Kreigle thought, but that just added to the overall character of her. She was leaning over the griddle tending to her wares, smiling as the exquisite scent rising off that cast iron grill put a pang of hunger in Jim's gut.

But Jim couldn't eat now. There was too much to do, too much to see, like little Kelly Lytle from his Sunday School cla.s.s, who stood next to her mother, tossing plastic rings at the long necks of a row of empty green wine bottles. Kelly was so cute, an angel with soft yellow hair. Jim could hardly wait to see what she looked like when she grew up, probably just like her mother, or like Tricia Reardon, if she was lucky.

And there was little Jimmy Chambers, who had just claimed a prize for mastering the squirt gun that sent a white plastic angel racing up a plywood board painted all the colors of the rainbow. The pearly gates of Saint Peter himself popped open when that plastic angel reached them, and Jimmy stepped forward to claim a nice golden cross.

Everyone was here, all the members of his church. And Reverend Riley-he was here, too, standing in front of the Sideshow tent, smiling and waving people in. All of Jim Kreigle's friends were with him, all of them hurrying up and down the midway with smiles on their faces and songs in their hearts. It really was a glorious sight to see, his Christian brothers and sisters all gathered together in one place. He could hardly wait to tell Helen about it when he got home tonight. Maybe the two of them could return tomorrow evening and have a pleasant evening of their own.

Across the way, Chester Roebuck stood before one of the stalls, holding a couple of steel-tipped wooden darts in his hand. He let one fly and the crowd gathered around him started to laugh, tossed another and the laughter grew in its intensity. He stomped away from the booth and headed up the midway, a stern look etched across his face. A little too stern, Jim thought. Surely those good people were just having a little fun with him. Jim could certainly see that, and he would have thought that Chester could see it, too. After all, they were his friends and neighbors, weren't they, people he'd known for most of their lives.

Further up the midway was a square platform, seemingly made of gold. Moonlight reflected off the rails that ran all the way around its back and sides, enclosing a painted bulls-eye that stood in its middle. A narrow channel of ornate silver stood at the rear of the platform, looking down at the statue of Jesus that resided at its bottom. It sat there, Jim knew, waiting for someone to pound a mallet into the bulls-eye, sending his Lord and Savoir racing up to his heavenly Father above.

Jim thought about giving it a try himself, but he couldn't.

Because he could see them now, spinning off in the distance. The Spinning Teacup ride he had loved all those years ago, those bone-white china cups spinning on their white china plate. He could hardly wait to ride it as he hurried up the thoroughfare.

Four white enclosures sat on that overgrown plate, all of them full except one. Apparently they were saving that one for Jim himself, because as soon as he got there a man took him by the hand and led him right up to the ride. He was a short man, and very fat. He had a black goatee on his chin, but no hair on his head. He was a pleasant enough fellow, who smiled when Jim was seated, smiled and said, "We've been waiting."

Sure they had saved him a spot. Why shouldn't they have? He was a fine, upstanding member of the First Baptist Church of Pottsboro, South Carolina, wasn't he? A man of great moral fiber, who went out of his way to keep his friends and neighbors happy. Irregardless of race, creed, or color, he was always there to lend a helping hand, all at a very reasonable seven per cent service charge. Of course they'd saved him a spot.

He deserved it.

He looked around, smiling, and then grabbed the wheel and turned it... faster... faster still, until all around him was a soft blur of white and pink and sky blue colors, as the happy sounds of laughter and joy began to run together as well.

He was getting a little dizzy now, but that was okay. He'd liked it as a child and he liked it now. He looked up at the sky, his small delicate hands still hard at work.

The wheel turned, the cup spun, and G.o.d smiled down upon him.

He closed his eyes and the motion carried him away, opened them and Hannibal Cobb was sitting cross-legged before him, suspended in midair a couple of feet above the wheel.

"This is the part I really don't care for," he said.

"What part?" Jim Kreigle said, although he felt kind of funny talking to someone who clearly couldn't have been there.

"When a good man has to suffer the sins of the father," Cobb said, then, "But you're not a good man, not really."

"I try," Jim said. "Really I do."

"You try? Really?" Cobb said, chuckling. "You try?"

He snapped his fingers and the cup spun faster, snapped them again and all the whites and pinks and sky blue colors began to melt and meld, merging into a solid wall of black as the happy sounds turned to anguished cries and shouted wails of agonizing pain, and before him a steady stream of images rushed into that solid wall of black: Jim Kreigle altering some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d's bill, adding a gallon of milk that was never actually purchased here, a loaf of bread there; changing a twenty-two to a twenty-five on another; Jim walking dull-eyed into his wife's back office, blowing her brains all over her nice Sony monitor; gunning down the sheriff like a grey-haired Billy The Kid; gleefully ramming himself inside Tricia Reardon's slick wet p.u.s.s.y while Chester Roebuck and Jack Everett held her down, and her fingers clutched and clawed at her tormentors. The images came, faster and faster, swirling through his mind all of his evil and misguided deeds, until, finally, unable to take any more, he cried out, "What are you doing to me! What's going on here!"

And Hannibal Cobb, impossibly suspended a foot and a half above the spinning wheel in his top hat and long flowing tails, said, "You really don't get it, do you? But don't worry, you will. You'll get it all right!"

Then the stars swirled and the breeze blew.

And Jim Kreigle's life spun from him.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

It was a great place, and though Hannibal Cobb didn't seem like much in his old stovepipe hat and a coat that looked to have been pa.s.sed down from a previous century, Chester Roebuck could tell he was a great man, could see in his eyes a man of extraordinary power. He stood beside a grinning clown, whose smile was a painted smear of yellows and greens and solid blacks. He had a slick white head the color of a supermarket-egg, and dark blue eyebrows that were drawn across his powdered skin. A bright red checkered jacket hung loose across the clown's shoulders as he waved people in through the entrance. Baggy red and white striped silk pants and a pair of shiny black shoes, so huge they looked like snow shoes, rounded out his outfit.

Cobb snapped his fingers and the clown disappeared. Snapped them again and he was back.

"How'd you do that?" Chester said.

"You like that, do you?" said Hannibal Cobb.

"I'll say."

"That's quite a necklace you have there, son," Cobb said.

"One of a kind," said Chester.

"Yes," Cobb said, chuckling. "I can certainly see that."

Cobb swept a long arm back toward the tents and booths populating his midway.

"Come on in," he said. "Come one and all. Step up to my Kansas City Carnival and have yourselves a ball!"

Chester saw not banged-up sheet metal trailers, dilapidated booths and weather-beaten tents strewn about G.o.dby's field as he followed Jack Everett and old man Kreigle through the entrance, but a bright and shiny carnival chock full of wonderful things. To his left were gleaming metal food wagons, whose sizzling griddles offered up all the delightful carnival foods he had craved back when he was a kid: hot dogs and corndogs, hamburgers and sausage and fried green onions; cotton candy and candied apples. The smell of it wafting through the air set his mouth to watering.

Fine white canvas tents populated the midway, along with an a.s.sortment of the old time carnival games so common to enterprises of this nature. He had played those games as a young boy growing up in and around Pottsboro, South Carolina, and the young sons and daughters of this town played them still.

To the right of him was a stall which held a display of multicolored balloons at its rear, placed strategically in front of a cutout of a woman who looked-remarkably, Chester thought-like an honest to G.o.d, real flesh and blood woman. Swirling strands of wavy brown hair rose elegantly from her head, a full-bodied fluff of a nest befitting a dark-skinned Greek G.o.ddess. Her regal, high cheekbones, those of a cover girl model, were framed by perfectly formed ears that would never need to be hidden behind a swatch of her hair. A wash of smoky grey color shadowed her deep-set emerald eyes, which seemed to be inviting Chester Roebuck to step forward and try his luck, to hurl a dart and see where it might take him.

Her face was perfection personified, her makeup impeccably applied.

Her full red lips parted when Chester threw down a five-dollar bill and picked up a set of darts, revealing a movie star's wide bright smile. There were three darts in a set, three steel-tipped darts with slim wooden shafts, and fine, feathered wings to help speed the projectile to its target, which in this case turned out to be not a bulls-eye on a circular corkboard, but a series of multicolored balloons covering what? The nude form of a beautiful woman? Surely she was nude, wasn't she? The balloons covered her from her bare shoulders down to just above her knees, revealing the creamy white skin of her shapely legs-no nylons, no stockings, no socks or shoes. Nothing but luscious white skin and gleaming red toenails to go along with those heavily glossed lips of hers.

Chester selected a dart and stepped closer to the counter.

All those balloons, he thought. And three little darts.

He reared back his arm and snapped his hand forward, sending the dart whistling the entire length of the stall, piercing the balloon with a resounding pop, and then hanging dead center in the chest of this beautiful woman, whose eyes grew wide when the dart was launched, and seemed to sparkle when it stabbed into its target.

Another dart was launched and another balloon popped, this time leaving a steel-tipped dart hanging high off the side of what may have been the most magnificently formed breast Chester Roebuck had ever seen.

Chester, excited now because he knew she d.a.m.n well was naked under all those balloons, reared back his arm and hurled his last remaining projectile, drawing first a disgusted smirk from the woman, then a leering smile when the dart hit not a balloon, but swiftly impaled her bare nipple, leaving a thin red line trickling down her breast.

She smiled.

Her lip curled up into a sneering snarl.

Then her lips pursed, and she said, "More."

Chester stood at the counter, dumbfounded. He'd never seen anything quite like this, but there it was, all right, a naked woman asking Chester Roebuck to use her for his own personal flesh and blood dart board. She wanted it, all right. Chester could see it in her eyes, the curling snarl of her upper lip when she said, "More... C'mon, baby. Gimme more!"

"Yeah, mister," somebody said. "C'mon."

Chester looked down to see that it was a child who had said this, a fair-haired boy who couldn't have been any older than his own thirteen-year-old son.

"You shouldn't be here," Chester told the kid, who c.o.c.ked his head sideways up at Chester, and said, "Neither should you."

Those words startled Chester. Spoken by an innocent little child, they made him wonder what exactly he was doing here. He looked at the carnival Barker, who oddly enough had not uttered a single word since Chester had first stepped up to the counter, just stood there with an all-too-knowing smile and a handful of darts, waiting for Chester to s.n.a.t.c.h them up.

Chester looked at the kid, and then back at the Barker.

He wanted those darts, wanted to pop those balloons, every last one of them so he could see what would happen when all the balloons were gone, and the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on stood there with a mult.i.tude of steel-tipped darts hanging off every conceivable inch of her body.

She wanted it. He could tell she wanted it-he could feel it, just as he could feel the kid's eyes staring up at him. He wanted to bust those balloons and run to her, lick the blood from those magnificent b.r.e.a.s.t.s and shuck off his clothes, and then commence to rutting around in the dirt like a crazed boar.

He wanted it. He wanted all of it, but he couldn't do anything with that kid staring up at him with eyes as wide and innocent as his own son's.

"You should go," he told him.

"So should you," the kid replied.

"No, seriously," he said to the kid, who smiled at him and said, "That's what I'm trying to tell you... leave now, before it's too late."

"More, baby!" the woman cried out. "C'mon!"

Chester slammed a five-dollar bill down on the counter.

"Fine," he said as he picked up the darts. "Stay then."

He hurled a dart.

The dart missed and the woman laughed. "What's the matter," she said. "Don't you want me?"

He threw another and missed again.

"Don't even have a d.i.c.k, do you?" she said.

He fired his last remaining dart, which sailed wide-right, and now everybody was laughing: the woman and the Barker, a great crowd of people who'd gathered around while he was arguing back and forth with the kid.