“Vampires?” asked Joe.
Derry shook his head. “Emma is the only one like him. The others are…something else.” His voice trailed off, and Joe didn’t press him for more. He couldn’t imagine a horror worse than the one Derry had already described, and if such a thing existed, he didn’t want to know.
Behind them Emma made a noise, a small cry as if she were in pain. Derry looked at her.
“She needs more,” he said. “She needs to finish him. If she doesn’t, the wildness will overtake her, and then I can promise nothing as to your safety.”
Joe glanced at Emma. She was looking at the corpse at her feet with a hunger in her eyes. She looked at Derry, who nodded.
Immediately Emma was on her knees beside the boy, her mouth at his neck. Joe listened as she tore at him, her mouth sucking as she fed on the last of his blood.
“Don’t watch,” Derry told him, but Joe refused to avert his eyes.
As Emma’s mouth did its work, the boy’s skin began to wrinkle. Very quickly he aged a span of years, until his flesh shriveled and dried. It fell from him like dust, leaving his bones bare. Even his innards were reduced to nothing, and after a moment Emma was left kneeling over a skeleton. She touched it lovingly before standing and throwing herself once again on the chaise. Her hair hung about her, and her eyes fluttered and closed. Within moments she slept.
“I need to bury him,” Derry said.
“What about her?” asked Joe.
“She will sleep for a time,” Derry answered. “Later he will come to her.”
“Star?” Joe said.
Derry nodded. “Even after all this time he still tries to make her his,” he said bitterly. He hesitated, then asked, “Will you help me?”
Joe looked at the sleeping Emma, and at the pile of bones on the floor of the tent. He closed his eyes and remembered Derry’s mouth against his. He breathed deeply.
“Yes,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Time came and went, and Joe soon lost count of what day it was, or even what month. His nights were spent with his machines, and his days with Derry. He cared about nothing else. Every third night or so, he and Derry would wait in the shadows outside Emma’s tent until they were needed to remove the evidence of her latest feeding. Joe had come to see the grisly bundles they dragged away and buried as nothing more than waste, bits and pieces of refuse to be cleared away.
His growing love for Derry allowed him to do this, made it possible for him not to look at the faces of the young men who were led by Lizzie as lambs to the slaughter. Any remorse he felt was washed away later, as he and Derry lay entangled in each other’s arms in Joe’s trailer. Derry’s kisses cleansed his conscience. He was doing what he did for the boy.
They were careful not to let Star see them together, avoiding each other in public and touching only when doors were locked and window shades drawn. Even Lizzie knew nothing of their partnership. Only Emma ever saw them together, and the secret remained locked inside what was left of her mind.
In his daydreams Joe imagined murdering Star. He invented a thousand ways to do it, all of which he knew, from what Derry told him, were impossible. Slowly he’d come to accept the idea that Star and Emma existed in a kind of living death, although the notion repulsed him so greatly that he rarely allowed the thought to linger long in his head. It was too enormous for him to comprehend, too vague and insubstantial. Unlike with his machines, he couldn’t point to a failing part and blame it for the actions of the whole. He simply had to believe what he was told, and he was not a man who believed easily.
Derry, though, made it easier. In his kisses Joe found the ability to accept what he couldn’t understand, and in their lovemaking, impossibilities no longer mattered. The touch of his fingers was real. Joe could feel, smell, and taste him, and when he emptied himself into Derry, holding him tight and pressing his face to the boy’s neck as their bodies shook, he believed everything.
He lost count of how many young men he saw enter Emma’s tent. They moved through a dozen towns, saw thousands of faces and immediately forgot them, created a dream world for most, and brought death to a few. The summer rose to fullness and then began to fade out as the days shortened and the night came earlier and stayed longer. Harley’s cash box overflowed, and it looked to be the best season of their lives. They talked of wintering in Florida and recovering their spirits under the gaze of a never-ending sun.
Then, on a night in August, everything changed. They were camped outside Jolesville, Ohio. It was their second day of a three-day stay. Emma had fed the previous evening on a traveling preacher who had been enticed by the promise of meeting Satan’s whore face-to-face. As he’d died, he’d repeated his favorite Psalm, and Emma had drunk his soul with particular vigor. Joe and Derry had thrown his bones into a nearby river, then made love in the grass beneath the stars.
The next night, after the close of the carnival, Joe was returning to his trailer when he found his way blocked by Star. The man stepped in front of him and stood, both hands on the head of his cane. He looked at Joe for a moment, then smiled thinly.
“I think, Mr. Flanagan, that it is time for us to have another talk.”
Before Joe could answer, he found his arm gripped tightly in Star’s hand. He gave a jerk, trying to free himself, and Star tightened his grip painfully.
“I think you know that won’t work,” he said pleasantly. “It is best if you don’t try it again.”
Star escorted him to the Tent of Wonders. Once inside, he led Joe through the first two tents and into the smaller third tent. There Joe discovered a small group of Star’s freaks waiting, including the shark boy, the frog girl Lizzie, the tattooed Reverend Upshall, and Sheba, the hermaphrodite. They were gathered around a chair to which was tied a young man whose mouth was stuffed with a rag and whose eyes darted wildly from place to place, like an animal seeking escape. Star walked over to the chair and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“It has come to my attention that you have involved yourself in my affairs,” Star said, addressing Joe.
Joe said nothing. He hoped Star knew nothing and was just testing him. Even if he did know the truth, Joe wasn’t going to give him any confirmation of the fact.
“You needn’t answer,” said Star. “I assure you that I do know everything. Emma has become quite adept at concealing her thoughts from me, but even she has her weaknesses.”
Joe immediately thought of Derry. Had Star done something to him? His heart began to pound as he thought that perhaps he’d lost his lover.
“Mr. Stroud is quite well, I assure you,” Star continued. “He does not know about our little visit. Nor will you tell him. In fact, you will do nothing further with him at all.”
“Why not?” Joe asked, finally getting his voice.
“Why not?” Star repeated in a mocking tone. “Because I have asked you not to.”
“And if I refuse?” demanded Joe.
Star smiled broadly. “That is why we’re here,” he said. He indicated the young man in the chair. “I would like you to meet Mr. Samuel Brown.”
At the mention of his name, the young man began to squirm. Star patted his head. “I’m afraid Mr. Brown is a trifle stagestruck,” he said.
The assembled freaks laughed at the joke, and Star laughed with them. Joe looked from one distorted face to another, wondering how they could tolerate such a monster. The sight of such ugliness rejoicing in the fear of the boy tied to the chair sickened him.
“Mr. Brown came to our Tent of Wonders earlier this evening,” Star said when the laughter died away. “He showed quite an interest in our little family. Apparently he has no family of his own. Isn’t that right, Mr. Brown?”
Star leaned down and peered into the face of the terrified captive. Samuel shook his head violently.
“I thought not,” said Star, nodding. “His parents were killed in an auto accident,” he told Joe. “It’s really quite tragic.”
He walked around
behind the boy and placed his hands on Samuel’s shoulders, looking over his head at Joe.
“He would make a lovely meal for Emma, wouldn’t he?” he asked.
Joe remained silent. Star’s game was wearing on him, and if it weren’t for the presence of the freaks, he might have considered risking an attack on the vile man. But outnumbered as he was, he chose to let events play out as they would. He knew that whatever else happened, things would go badly for Samuel Brown; he could do nothing for the boy.
“Mr. Stroud has told you something about who I am,” Star continued when Joe refused to answer him. “But he has not told you everything. I am not, as he suggests, simply a crude angel of death. No, I am much more than that.” He held up his hands and indicated the freaks around him. “I am a transformer of souls.”
Joe didn’t understand. What was Star trying to say? He risked an insult. “You collect freaks,” he said. “Nothing more.”
Star wagged a finger at him. “Now, now,” he said. “You do all of us an injustice. I do not collect. I make.”
Joe’s confusion showed on his face, and Star laughed at him. “You still don’t understand. Very well, I will show you.”
Moving more quickly than Joe thought possible, Star bent his head to Samuel’s neck. The boy tensed, and his eyes widened. He strained against his bindings and failed. Star’s fingers gripped the boy’s leg tightly.
When after a minute Star lifted his head, his lips were stained crimson. Two small punctures appeared on Samuel’s neck, with only tiny smears of blood to indicate what had been drawn out of him. Star wiped his lips daintily with his finger.
“You see, he is not dead,” said Star.
Joe looked at the boy’s face. His terror had settled into a kind of shock, his eyes glazed over but still seeing. His chest rose and fell raggedly.
“Draining a body of life is a crude operation,” Star said. “Even the youngest of us can do it easily. But there are those of us who possess a far greater talent.”
Samuel Brown began to convulse. His eyes rolled up into his head, his body twitched violently, and his neck snapped to the side. Star clapped his hands.
“And so it begins,” he said.
“What are you doing to him?” Joe asked.
Star indicated the creatures standing around him. “Some of us become what we are naturally,” he said. “Others of us must be made.”
Sheba laughed, startling Joe. Beside her, Ranku, the shark boy, regarded Joe with his black eyes, his razor teeth glinting wetly. Star nodded at Samuel. “Untie him,” he ordered.
The Reverend Upshall stepped forward and, with a knife he produced from his pocket, severed the ropes holding the boy to the chair. Samuel fell to the ground, where he writhed in the dirt.
“We all have inside us another self,” Star said, ignoring the young man at his feet. “Most of us keep that self hidden forever, taking it with us to our graves. But a lucky few are reborn into this world in a new guise. For those I choose, I provide this entry.”
Star glanced down at Samuel Brown. Joe followed his gaze. The boy was changing. His skin had turned an ashen color and was becoming leathery, and his fingers were shriveling, drawing in on themselves and becoming gnarled claws. His ears, too, were changing, elongating. He was curled in a ball, crying softly.
“He’s coming back,” said the Reverend Upshall, who looked down at the boy along with the other freaks.
Samuel threw back his head. His face had been transformed, the human features pinched and remolded into something that filled Joe with revulsion. His eyes were round and impossibly large, his mouth reduced to a small hole filled with needles. His nose had disappeared into his skull, leaving only a mangled remnant of the original.
“Very interesting,” Star said calmly as the boy clawed at his new face with his tiny, crippled paws.
Samuel continued to change. His shirt ripped, falling away from him and revealing arms grown thin as rails. From them hung flaps of skin like impotent wings. His torso, too, was now misformed, sunken and sheathed in more thickened skin. Samuel opened his mouth and let out a series of squeals.
“What have you done?” Joe said. He wanted to run, to leave Star and what had become of Samuel Brown behind. But something compelled him to stay, to look at the boy who had now become something else, something not of the earth.
“I’ve made him what he is,” Star said. “I’ve helped him to cast off his human costume and reveal his true self.” He knelt beside Samuel, who was looking around confusedly, as if he’d just woken from sleep. “Welcome home, my little one,” Star said.
“He’s some kind of bat,” said Lizzie, croaking gleefully as she peered over Star’s shoulder at Samuel.
“Indeed he is,” said Star. “Thank you, Lizzie. The bat. Recovered, I think, from the caves of some remote place and brought into the light for the first time by my good graces. I think that will do nicely.”
Star looked up at Joe. “You see now what magic I am capable of.”
“That’s not magic,” Joe told him. “What you do is evil.”
“Call it what you will,” Star replied. “Would you care to find out what lives inside you, Mr. Flanagan?”
Joe looked at Samuel, now a bat creature, and shuddered. Did the boy know what had happened? Did he remember who he was? Joe looked at the other freaks, some of whom stared back at him, and some of whom looked at the latest addition to their family. How many of them had been created from the poison that coursed through Star? Who had they been, and what price had they paid for being transformed?
“I wonder,” said Star, standing up and walking toward Joe. “I imagine something fascinating lies within you. Shall we find out what it is?”
As Star drew closer, Joe backed away, his heart beating wildly as panic bloomed in his mind. Did Star intend to do to him what he’d just done to Samuel Brown? He couldn’t bear it.
Star closed his eyes and sniffed the air. “There is so much hidden inside you, Joe,” he said softly. “So much I could bring out. Would you like that?”
Joe shook his head. “I’d rather die,” he said.
Star opened his eyes. “I’m afraid that would be too simple,” he said. “But perhaps we can strike a bargain.”
“What do you want?” said Joe.
“Your promise to stay away from Derry,” Star answered.
“I don’t understand why,” said Joe.
“Because it suits my purposes,” Star snapped.
“And if I don’t agree?” Joe asked, mustering the last traces of defiance within him. “Are you going to turn me into one of these…things?”
“No,” said Star. “I will turn Mr. Stroud instead.”
Joe’s blood ran cold. “Emma would leave you,” he said, remembering what Derry had told him.
“Emma will never leave me,” Star snarled. “And if she somehow managed to, I would find another to replace her. But you would live the rest of your life knowing that you were responsible for the death of what the boy was. Could you live with that, Mr. Flanagan? Could you see the one you love turned into something like what you see behind me?”
Joe looked beyond Star, where Samuel Brown was crawling to his knees. He was staring at what were once his hands, and Joe saw on his face a dawning realization that he was looking at himself. In a moment, Joe knew, he would understand that he was not in the midst of some nightmare that would end with the rising of the sun, but changed forever into something hideous.
He couldn’t let that happen to Derry. He knew that without question. He had to accept Star’s bargain, even if it meant tearing his heart in two.
“I’ll stay away from him,” he said flatly. “He’s yours.”
Star laughed. “He always was,” he said.
Chapter Nine
He packed hurriedly. He had little, so it took him only a few minutes. He would be gone before anyone awoke. He would leave Harley a note. Not an explanation or an excuse, just a good-bye. It would come as a surprise, he knew. Harle
y would be angry, at least until he washed away his resentment with a bottle and a girl. Then he would find someone else to care for the machines, one of the men who apprenticed under Joe. None of them were ready; none of them had Joe’s all-encompassing love for the mechanical, but they would allow the carnival to continue.
He took his one bag and left the trailer, closing the door for the last time. The world was bathed in moonlight, iced with the pale silver of the hours between midnight and dawn. Joe made his way toward the truck that would take him away from the carnival forever. He still had no idea where he would go, but that didn’t matter. He would find a new place to call home, a new life to replace the one he was giving up to Star. All that mattered now was that Derry was safe.
He couldn’t say good-bye. Even if he didn’t fear what Star would do should he find out, he couldn’t bring himself to face Derry. It was cowardly, he knew, but he didn’t trust his heart. The boy was the first man he’d allowed himself to love, and Joe knew that should Derry ask him, he might find it impossible to leave. Then he would bring destruction on them both. At least this way Derry would live.
Passing through the sleeping attractions, he came to the carousel. The moon’s light glinted off the golden paint of the horses’ bridles, turned the mermaids’ skin to alabaster. Joe paused, struck as always by the ride’s beauty. It was, besides Derry, the one thing he would miss.
He walked to the carousel and stepped up onto the circular platform. His hands touched the wooden head of a dog, its tongue extended in glee. How many times had he assembled the carousel and taken it down again? He couldn’t count. He knew each of the pieces by heart, could probably put them together in his sleep if need be.
He climbed astride a black horse and sat, his hands clasped around the pole that extended from the horse’s back. He closed his eyes and played in his head the familiar music that accompanied the turning of the wheels beneath him. The tune came easily, and he lost himself in it as he imagined the horse carrying him up into the sky.