A carbon copy of the men beside him, the men beside them, and every other guy lining the streets of Pottsboro, South Carolina.

Chapter Seven.

Justin Henry and Mickey Reardon, still hidden in the tree line, stood quietly by as another tent went up and another line of people sauntered from it. Two men emerged pushing an old battered cart. They had on white t-shirts and faded jeans, smiles on their faces and a mischievous gleam in their eyes. A sign hanging on the cart said: Corn Dogs and Cotton Candy! Behind them came another man with a large wooden box that put Justin in mind of a gigantic coffin. It had wheels on it, and he pushed it into the middle of the clearing. The sides came down and the back folded out and up, revealing what looked to be some sort of gaming table.

"So," Justin said. "You still wanta walk right up and see what's going on over there?"

"Huh uh."

"Me neither." Justin paused for a moment, and then said, "Know what I think we should do?"

"Get the heck outa here before that crazy-looking sucker starts waving his hands at us?"

"You know something, Mickey; you're smarter than you look."

"Yeah, and you're-How'd that get there?"

"What?"

"That," Reardon said, pointing up at a line of multicolored pennants strung across a series of wooden poles that had somehow magically circled the clearing while they'd been staring up at the cloud.

"Mickey, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Only if you're thinking about getting the heck outa here."

"Bingo!" Justin said, and then led Reardon back through the underbrush, to the bikes they'd laid over in it. They stood the bikes up and pushed them out of the woods. Soon they were side by side on the old country road, pedaling away from the place. Justin didn't say anything as they made their way down the old dirt byway-neither boy said anything. Every once in a while they would look over their shoulders, each breathing a great sigh of relief to see that nothing was coming after them.

Finally, when they had reached the two-lane blacktop and started back toward town, Justin said, "I was scared to say anything. Almost too scared to breathe."

"Me too," Reardon said. "I was afraid somebody might hear me and haul a.s.s after us."

"That midget!"

"Pretty crazy, huh?"

Justin jabbed a finger at the sky. "That's crazy," he said.

"No kidding!"

A good ways down the road, G.o.dby's field now far behind them, they slowed their pace and began rolling leisurely along the asphalt. A cool breeze blew across them as the sun faded slowly to the west. Dusk was coming, darkness soon would follow.

What then? Justin wondered as he glanced up at that black cloud, awed-and a little frightened-by the mere presence of it.

"What do you think that guy is?" Reardon said. "A magician or something?"

"I don't know."

"We're still going tonight, though... right?"

"Back there? After what we've just seen?"

"Especially after that. Don't you wanta see that place at night, all the cool stuff they're gonna have? Man, I can't wait!"

Justin wasn't sure he wanted to go back tonight. Sure, there could be cool stuff. After all, look at what they'd just witnessed. A guy dropping a tarp with a wave of his hand, erecting a tent with a wave of another? The pennants-how did they get there? And the poles they were strung up on, they just magically appeared? Sure they did, just like that impossibly wide ring of smoke that changed shape as it climbed into the sky, turning a perfectly harmless cloud into a dead-ringer of the hat the tall man was wearing.

Yes, all that was neat-cool, even. But something about it wasn't quite right: the fearful look frozen on Freddy Hagen's face as he stared into that unmoving smoke ring; the black cloud, that even now hung like a sign in the late afternoon sky. A dark ent.i.ty looking down at Justin and Mickey Reardon, watching them peddle their bikes beneath it. Could it hear what they were saying? What they were thinking? Or had Justin been reading too many comic books, watching too many horror movies. Maybe the guy was a magician. Maybe he was all misdirection and sleight of hand. After all, David Copperfield made an entire airplane disappear. This guy just blew a giant smoke ring... that rose higher and higher, and changed shape as it rose? Until it touched a cloud and turned it into a...

"I don't know, Mickey."

"You don't know what?"

"About going out there tonight?"

"What're you, kidding? It'll be a blast. Better'n last year, I'll bet you."

"Have you seen that black thing up there?"

"Yeah, I saw it. Neatest d.a.m.n thing I ever saw in my life that wasn't in a movie. Going back there tonight? You bet your sweet a.s.s we are."

"Gee, I don't know," Justin said. "It just doesn't feel right."

"You're still spending the night, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"What're you gonna do, read that X-Men comic for the ten-thousandth time while I go to the carnival? *Cause I'm going. You can bet your-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time."

Reardon smiled. "You'll go," he said. "Night'll roll around and you'll get fired up just like me. Next thing you know it'll be cotton candy and corn dogs, and all kinds of neat s.h.i.t. Unless you p.u.s.s.y out. I guess that could always happen-with you, I mean."

"Screw you, Reardon," Justin said, and knew he'd been had. He'd go tonight or never hear the end of it. Especially when Mickey spread it all over town how he was too scared to go to the carnival. Too scared to go out and have a good time, for chrissakes. He'd go, all right, or every kid in school would be riding his a.s.s about it every time they saw him coming down the hallway.

They were on a two lane street leading back into town when they noticed a man standing by his mailbox, staring up at the sky. His eyes, though wide, were quite dull, his expression blank. His hands motionless by his pants pockets. Neither boy bothered looking up to see what had captured his attention-they already knew what he was looking at.

They ventured further down the street, turned the corner and stopped dead in their tracks. People were lined up all along the street in front of the Wagon Wheel Bar and Grill, a bunch of men. Just like the man at the mailbox, they stood silently by, staring up at the sky like those people in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, as if awaiting the arrival of some alien s.p.a.cecraft.

Justin and Mickey sat there, feet on the ground, hands grasping their handle grips.

Justin looked up at the sky, at Reardon, then back up the street. "What're they doing?" he said.

"What do you think they're doing? Checking out that cloud. Wouldn't you?"

"But look at *em. They're like... frozen... like statues or something."

"Yeah, right... Statues." It was meant to be a cut, a dig, some kind of rebuke. But something in Reardon's voice, the timbre, the tone of it, said *Something isn't quite right here, is it?' Then he seemed to gather himself, to shrug off the vibe that had clamped a firm grip on his psyche, long enough to say, "They're just surprised, is all. Wouldn't you be?"

"I'm surprised, all right," Justin said. "Surprised we're not running straight to the sheriff to tell him what happened out there."

"What, that we saw a magician out at the carnival grounds?"

"Those aren't the carnival grounds. Not supposed to be, anyway."

"Besides," Reardon said. "Freddie Hagen's probably already told Rusty Piersol all about the place."

"Probably already knew about it anyway," Justin said. "Can't bring a carnival to town without getting permits for it. Everybody knows that."

At least that was the way Justin figured it. In the back of his mind, that was what he hoped. Because if they had a permit, that would mean they had gone through the proper channels to get it. Sure, that was it-had to be. The sheriff already knew about it, the mayor too, probably. Freddy Hagen was just out there checking the place out. The Ferris wheel didn't sprout up out of the ground, neither did those poles. The tents didn't rise up all on their own and those people didn't magically appear. Nor did an unbearably wide smoke ring turn a perfectly innocent cloud into a dark, oppressive ent.i.ty that held an entire street full of people in its ironclad grasp.

Except Justin knew that it did.

Chapter Eight.

"Oh, man," Reardon said, and then hung his head forward.

"What," said Justin, turning just in time to see Mickey's mother come stumbling out of the Wagon Wheel. He looked back at his friend, who was staring down at the ground, shaking his head. He wanted to offer an encouraging word or two, something to ease Mickey's pain. But he had neither the words nor the wherewithal with which to use them. Here was his best friend's mother, staggering out of a bar in the middle of the afternoon-couldn't even wait until nightfall to get started on the booze. And look at the old coot she was going after, someone old enough to be her father. Though Reardon would never in a million years have said it out loud, it was killing him to see her like this.

"C'mon," Justin said. "Let's get outa here."

They got their bikes moving, their legs churning again. Taking back alleys and side streets. Anything to keep from going past the men they'd seen lining the street. Mostly so Reardon could avoid the embarra.s.sment of having to come face to face with his lush of a mother. They had just turned down another side street, when Reardon looked over at Justin, and said, "Why does she have to do that?"

Justin, who really didn't know what to say, said nothing.

"I mean, it's not enough she spends d.a.m.n near every night down there, she's gotta drink away her Sat.u.r.days too? Sundays too, for all I know-she d.a.m.n sure ain't spending them at home."

"Maybe she's lonely. You know, since your dad left y'all."

"Lonely?" Mickey said. "For what, that old b.a.s.t.a.r.d? And my dad didn't leave, she ran his a.s.s off with her constant b.i.t.c.hing and moaning and whining and crying. What else was he going to do, with her nagging at him every time she was around him?"

Whenever she was around him-that was the key. Justin knew Rick Reardon wasn't around much; most everybody in town knew it. It wasn't any secret that many of his nights were spent carousing down at the Wagon Wheel, sometimes in the juke joints over in Columbia. He liked the ladies and he liked his freedom, and he breezed in and out with the flimsiest of excuses. Sometimes not bothering to explain his whereabouts at all. But Mickey didn't see it that way. To him, Rick Reardon was a great guy, a wonderful father, a man sorely misunderstood by everyone except his loving son.

"And he didn't leave me."

"What?"

"You said he left me. He didn't. He left her."

"I'm sorry, man."

"You said it."

"I didn't mean anything by it."

"If you don't mean anything," Reardon said. "Then don't f.u.c.king say anything."

They rounded a corner and headed up Maple Street, down the lane and through another intersection, neither saying much, until: "Justin, look. Over there."

There, right by the curb in a grey housecoat, stood Fred Hagen's ninety-three year old grandfather, the fuzzy fabric of the pink slippers he wore not much different than the few wisps of hair he had left on his head. He was standing at the curb staring up at the sky, just like his neighbor two doors down, and a guy two doors down from him.

"Man," Justin said. "What's going on here?"

"I don't know. Why don't you circle back and ask them?"

"Not me."

"Heh," Mickey said. "Me neither."

Justin looked over his shoulder, at the sun that soon would fade from the sky. Mostly to see if that cloud was still there. It was, of course, as he had known it would be.

They turned onto the old dirt road that would lead them back to Justin's front porch, their journey almost complete now. A little ways up, Reardon nodded to his left, at old man Terwillegher, who was leaning on his chain link fence, staring straight up at that top hat-shaped cloud. Justin followed as his friend coasted over, and then stopped in front of the man, braking his own bike to a stop as well. They sat for a moment or two, neither of them saying anything. Any other time, the cranky old coot would have tossed a few choice words their way-none of them nice. The very least they would have gotten was a scowling sneer. Like this morning, on their way out.

But this afternoon he said nothing, just stood by his fence, ignoring them as if they weren't even there.

Justin looked over at Reardon, stifling a giggle.

Reardon's eyes were wide, his thumbs in his ears, the other eight fingers wiggling. He was staring up at the man, mugging for him like the cla.s.s clown that he was, Justin's smile growing ever wider as old man Terwillegher suddenly cried out, "Hot d.a.m.n, there's a carnival tonight!", and then turned and ran across the lawn, up the front porch steps and back to his house, carrying his enormous beer gut with him as he went.

"You believe me now, don't you?" Reardon said.

"About what?"

"You know."

"I don't want to believe you."

"But you do."

"Yeah."

And why wouldn't Justin have believed him? On a day when tarps drop to the ground with no one's help, and tents rise all on their own, when a circle of smoke defies gravity and a fluffy white cloud turns into a pitch black magician's hat, who was Justin to say that a Ferris wheel couldn't rise up from the ground like a runaway beanstalk?

Chapter Nine.