"Gambling?" Danny said. "I'm just a kid."

"A well-to-do kid, if ya lay your money down. What'dya say, kid, ya got it in ya? Ya got some stones in them britches, a couple a coins to rub together?"

"Well," Danny said. He was reaching into his pocket, when from behind him came a voice. It belonged to a midget, a little guy dressed in a Jester's outfit. He wore a purple vest, a dark red shirt and velvet pants. On his feet were sequined green and gold-trimmed slippers that came to a point, curling upward at the toe. Even though he stood eye to eye with the thirteen-year-old child, he looked to be much older than Danny's father. When he spoke, Danny thought he sounded just like the mayor of Munchkin Land, and that he looked like him, too.

"Brunoooo?" he said. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing to turn this kid into a well-heeled man of means." He pulled a huge wad of bills from his pocket. Fanning himself with them, he said, "If ya know what I mean."

"Keep your money, kid," the midget said, then, "C'mon, I'll show you around."

They started away from the gaming table, leaving Bruno scratching the back of his neck, thirteen-year-old Danny Roebuck, side by side with a grown man who barely came up to his chest. They were walking past one of the stalls, when the midget smiled.

"What do you think of our little Carny?" he said, gesturing toward the tents, the gaming tables and the Ferris wheel, which was still spinning.

"How come there ain't no rides?" Danny asked him. "Where's the Dodge Cars and The Fun House, and all the kid games?"

"Kid's games? Who needs kid's games when you've got this?" he said, waving a hand toward the Sideshow tent, at the painted banners on either side of it.

See The Pickled Punk!, they said. Pounds Of Patty! Watch The Hands Of Wonder! Talk To The Alligator Boy! Marvel At The Rubber Woman! See The Fabulous Half Man! Meet Sword Swallowing Sammy!

"C'mon, kid," the midget told him. "Yer gonna love this."

The tent wasn't very large, nor was it all that wide. Danny didn't see how they could fit so many attractions in the place, unless they brought them out one at a time and put them on a stage or something. They could do it, then, he guessed.

But once inside, the dimensions seemed to have changed, and Danny judged the length and width of the tent to be much longer, and much wider than it possibly could have been. Sawdust covered the ground. Darkened stalls lined one side of the tent; some held cages while others were enclosed in gla.s.s. Danny wondered what might be inside them, and how all this could have fit in the tent he'd just been standing in front of.

They had crossed the floor to the middle of the tent, when the midget said, "Wait here a minute."

"What?" Danny said. "Where're you going?"

"Be right back!" the midget called over his shoulder, already slipping out of sight at the rear of the tent.

It was dark inside the tent, but not so dark that Danny couldn't see the vague shapes housed within those cages, and as he made his way across the floor of the tent, those shapes began to come into focus. There was a woman, slumped on her knees on the straw-covered floor, her raven hair hanging like a silk curtain to the middle of her back. Her head was down, her hands gripping the bars like some kind of a prisoner. Beside her, in a cage of his own, a young man sat in the corner on a pile of straw. He was leaning against the bars, eyes closed, head thrown back. Biding his time, Danny thought, like a condemned man waiting for the executioner to come slipping into his cell.

What's going on here? Danny wondered. What are they? Prisoners?

He stepped up to the cage, touched one of those iron bars and the woman looked up. She was pretty-beautiful, Danny thought. But there was a weariness in her emerald eyes, a look of utter defeat. Exhausted, that was how he would have described her. Tired beyond belief. She had on a yellow blouse, and a skirt that might once have been beige. But now the blouse was ripped, the skirt nothing but a dingy piece of fabric, marred by a series of rust-colored stains. A sign attached to the uppermost part of her cage read: The Amazing Rubber Woman!

She touched his hand.

"Help me," she said.

"What?"

"Help me. Get me out of here. Get us out of here. We can't last much longer."

"What do you mean?"

"The dark."

"What?"

"It tears us apart."

"What do you mean, the dark?"

"When it comes it tears us apart."

Danny looked over into the neighboring cage, at the guy who had come suddenly to life. He was in the front section of his confines now, both hands clutching the bars.

"He's got the key," he said. "Him and his hound."

Danny stared at him, a look of befuddlement etched upon his face. "Who?" he said.

"Cobb," the guy told him. "Cobb and his lapdog."

"Please," the woman said, her voice an urgent whisper now. "There isn't much time."

"How can I-"

"Get the key," she said. "The key, get the key!"

From somewhere to the left came a sound, a low moaning the likes of which Danny had never before heard. He knew he should be backing up, turning tail and running. But he couldn't. He had to see what was making that noise. See for himself what it was. He took a tentative step to the left, then another. Soon he was standing in front of yet another cage, staring up at a brightly-colored block of wood with a clown's laughing face emblazoned on its front, at the huge gla.s.s jar sitting atop it. Inside the jar, a child floated in a murky fluid, its stomach distended, the bald, raisin-like head much too big for its frail-looking body. Danny had never seen anything quite like it. He stood for a moment, mesmerized. Then he moved forward and put his face closer to the cage, reaching his hand up to the jar. The figure's eyes snapped open and Danny jumped back. Then its mouth began to move; bubbles formed and drifted up to the surface, and as they broke the surface, Danny heard a voice, a small child's voice giving rise to an indecipherable muttering he could not make out.

Something was very wrong here. A carnival with only one ride, an impossibly large Ferris wheel which, from the moment Danny had laid eyes on it, hadn't stopped turning. And where were the laughing people Danny had heard, off in the distance when he'd been sitting on his bike; where were those joyful sounds of merriment that had come to him on the breeze? He'd heard them, all right, out in tree line. But they'd stopped... When? When had they stopped, when he'd pedaled his way into the clearing? When he rolled under that sign? He couldn't remember when they had stopped, only that they had been there but no longer were.

The mouth moved, the bubbles rose up, broke the surface and the indecipherable babble continued. Then came a thump, a buzz and a crackle as a light flashed on, and then off again. Another series of thumps, along with the jarring electronic buzz of a malfunctioning electrical circuit.

Danny turned to see an armless and legless freak, framed by a nightmare vision of bright, strobing fluorescent lights. This horrifying creature, this monstrous abomination, sat two cages down, armless, legless, clothed in nothing but a blood-stained diaper, which hung loose around his waist. He was howling like a wounded animal, howling and slamming his face into those cold steel bars.

Then he heard it, a deep-throated moan that shook him to his core, rattling his very soul as it echoed throughout the tent, so loud it seemed as if it was roaring right through the center of his head: "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" it said.

Louder, mixing and mingling with the howling freak of nature, who kept screaming and smashing his bleeding face against the bars.

Louder still, the cage buzzing and popping, the lights flashing on and off, on and off. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" came a chorus of tortured voices, filling the air around him.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" they cried out, dwarfing the noise coming from that bizarre-looking figure, as his mouth opened wider and wider, revealing a maw full of busted and splintered shards of enamel, but no tongue with which to speak.

Danny looked on in horror, as the poor creature submerged within that murky fluid, its eyes bulging from their sockets, opened its mouth impossibly wide, emitting a violent stream of bubbles that rose swiftly to the top of the jar, breaking the surface and releasing a gut-wrenching scream-a child's terror-stricken voice trapped within those bubbles, when finally released, shrieked, "Ruuunnnnnnnnnnnn!"

And finally, Danny did. He took off running but he didn't get far. He tripped and fell face forward onto the ground. The buzzing and thumping finally subsiding, he looked up to see a man standing before him, deep within the tent. He was tall and lean, and thin as a rail. His grey hair hung over his shoulders like a tangled clump of bristled wires. His eyes were narrow, his pupils lumps of glistening coal. He had a black coat with tails on his back, the stovepipe hat on his head a perfect rendition of the object Danny had seen earlier in the evening, painted high across the sky.

He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't move. He looked down to see that they were trapped, held in place by hands wrapped tightly around his ankles. He tried to kick free but those hands wouldn't release him. Then they were dragging him slowly across the floor, toward the cages, two hands attached to two impossibly long arms, stretched as long and thin as an unwound garden hose, dragging him kicking and screaming to The Rubber Woman, who no longer looked unhappy, no longer seemed exhausted. She was a beautiful young woman, a defiant creature in a skimpy red, and very revealing, skintight costume, basking in an eerie purple haze cast off by an unnatural glow, impossibly emanating from somewhere within the barren confines of her cage. Her emerald eyes were sharp and clear, her red lips heavily glossed. Her long raven hair, now coifed flat against her skull, shone with incredible l.u.s.ter.

"Please," he said.

"Please!" he cried out.

And this striking creature, who had once seemed so sad, so helpless and forlorn, gleefully called out, "You should've helped them when you had the chance!"

Chapter Twelve.

To say that Justin's curiosity had been aroused would have been the understatement of the century. Whether magician's trickery or just plain magic, he had seen something out at that field, and no matter what reservations he had voiced to his friend, he knew he would have to see more. They would have to see more. Like a couple of a.s.sa.s.sins returning to the scene of their crimes, they would go back to the carnival. Something was going to happen there tonight-what, he did not know. But he did know they could no more stay away from the place than they could stop themselves from breathing. They had been touched this afternoon, by something that would draw them back regardless of how they might have felt about it.

But as piqued as Justin's curiosity may have been, the ride through town had unsettled him. The men lining the streets of Pottsboro, South Carolina, the way the cloud had changed, the tall man and those writhing and wriggling fingers of his; all of this had served to creep him out, and as they laid their bikes over in the yard and climbed the front porch steps, it felt pretty darn good to be retreating into the safety of his house. Here, nothing could bother him, nothing and n.o.body. Here, nothing could touch him unless he wanted to be touched.

He led Reardon into the house, past his X-Men comic, which was still where he'd tossed it earlier in the day when the first stage of their journey had begun. And what a journey it had been. He'd started down the old dirt road a well-grounded kid with a healthy dose of skepticism. And cynical he should have been, for who in their right mind could have believed such a tale-Ferris wheels rising up from the ground like elevators.

Yeah, right.

He'd started down the road with a firm belief in the laws of physics, that black was black and white was white; that what went up would come back down again. But now, even though he was reluctant to voice his acknowledgement, could barely, in fact, admit it to himself-things had changed. The laws of reality had changed. White was black. Things went up, and sometimes those things turned round and round and didn't stop turning.

Black was white and white was black, but his comic book lay like a welcome mat right where he'd left it, a satisfying ill.u.s.tration that he had made it safely back home.

"We're back, Mom!" Justin called out.

"'Bout time," his mother answered him, and that brought a smile to his face, because he knew he was home now, all was well and all was good. Things were back to normal. All the clouds and magicians and weird people lining the city streets had been left far behind him.

Except Justin knew they hadn't been left anywhere at all. They were right there in the room with him, weaving their way through his every thought.

He was halfway across the living room when his mother came in from the kitchen. She was a slim woman, Sara Henry, and not very tall. Nor was she was frumpy or dumpy like many of the mothers around Pottsboro. She had-as Justin's father had on occasion been known to tell her-all the right curves in all the right places. Today she had on a red silk blouse, white tennis shoes and a pair of denim jeans. Her sandy-brown hair flowed over her shoulders in ringlets and curls. A touch of makeup highlighted her face. Not much-she never wore much makeup-just enough to bring out her natural beauty, which, Justin had to admit, was quite proud to admit, she had plenty of.

She walked into the room with a gla.s.s of tea in her hand. "Where you been, guys?" she said.

"Nowhere, really," Justin said. "Just out messing around."

"Hi, Missus H," Reardon said.

"Hey, Mickey. How's your mama doing?"

"Good," Reardon said.

Good was what he said, but Justin didn't think he meant it. Not with the way she'd been staggering around in front of the Wagon Wheel this afternoon. There wasn't anything good about that. Not with the way she lit out d.a.m.n near every night, leaving Mickey alone in the house to fend for himself.

"So," Sara said. "Sleeping over, huh?"

"Yeah," Reardon said, and Justin thought, here it comes.

"Why don't you stay over here, get up and go to church with us in the morning."

"Aw, Mom," Justin said. "It's my turn to stay at his house."

He knew she had reservations about letting him go off to Reardon's house-it wasn't any secret what was going on over there these days. Nor had what Tricia Reardon gone through with her husband been much of a secret. He'd moved on to greener pastures, left his wife and young son behind. His wife, a bitter woman sinking further and further into depression, further into the bottle. His son a broken sh.e.l.l of the happy go lucky kid he once had been, a hapless victim of a troublesome circ.u.mstance, who very much needed a friend to help him through these trying times. And that was why Sara Henry would let her son go tonight. Not because she wanted to, but because she was a kind woman, someone capable of seeing the obvious pain Mickey Reardon was suffering.

A fact clearly ill.u.s.trated when she smiled, and said, "Well, all right. But you two be back here bright and early tomorrow morning. You're both going to church with me in the morning. You hear me, Mickey Reardon?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, smiling, (Justin figured), because Mickey and he-his mother too, more than likely-knew that no matter how many times Sara Henry had invited, often cajoling; sometimes, like today, flat-out ordering him to attend Sunday morning services with the Henrys, Mickey Reardon had never shown up, and he wasn't likely to turn up tomorrow morning, either.

"You didn't happen to see your dad while you were out there messing around, did you?"

"No," Justin said. "Why?"

"He went off to the hardware store a few hours ago, and I haven't seen him since. Should've been home by now-way before now, actually."

"Huh," Justin said, Mickey eying him as he added, "Nope, haven't seen him."

And he hadn't seen him this afternoon. At least he didn't think he had seen him. But he didn't exactly get a close-up and personal view of every guy they'd pa.s.sed looking up at that cloud a little while ago. Especially the ones in front of the Wagon Wheel. Sure, they'd gotten a pretty good look at Jack Everett. Tall and thin, with his trademark silvery hair, he was an easy guy to spot. But they'd never gotten close enough to pick out the other guys standing up and down the street. What if Lyle Henry was one of them, staring like a statue up at that dark and mysterious cloud? Did he run off hooting and hollering like old man Terwillegher, babbling about the carnival? Was he on his way out there right now?

No, not good old dependable Lyle Henry, not Justin's boring old dad, who hadn't shown up at a carnival for more years than Justin could remember. He wouldn't have been out there with the rest of them.

Would he?

"C'mon," Reardon said. "Let's grab your stuff and get going."

"What's your hurry?" Sara Henry said.

"Nothing," Justin told her. "Just... we got stuff to do."

"Stuff?" she said. "What kind of stuff?"

"Computer stuff," Reardon said. "Comics and cards, DVDs. You know ... stuff."

"Well, as long as all that stuff takes place inside-I don't want you boys running around after dark."

"Geez, Mom," Justin said. "What are we, three years old or something?"

"Just remember what I said."

"Yes, ma'am," Reardon said. "We sure will."

They were turning to go down the hallway, when Sara said, "Justin?"

"Yes ma'am?" he said. Not *yeah', or *huh', because he wanted to be on his best behavior, lest he give her a reason to put the kibosh on his and Reardon's plans.

"I've left your comic book in that chair all day long, waiting to see what you'd do when you came home. I guess it'll still be sitting there this time next year if I don't pick it up and cart it back to your bedroom for you."

"No ma'am."

"No?"

"I was gonna pick it up."