Halloweenland (20 page)

“Which brings us to the future.”

They had exited the back end of the midway and passed through the back of a lot where unused equipment lay under almost total darkness. Only the sideways moon smiling down upon them.

They stopped before the rear entrance to the main event tent. Reynolds held out his fishy, moist hand and laid it gently on Grant’s forearm. Grant saw now that it was deformed, had been burned or mangled, and was grown over with calluses and what looked to be new grafted skin.

“What happened to you, Thomas? You don’t look like a twenty-year-old. You look a hundred years old.”

Reynolds smiled, but his eyes were filled with anything
but merriment. “Older than you, yes, Detective? We have both been through a lot in the last seven years.”

“But what—”

“A tale for another time. I’ve been many places, let’s say, and seen many things. Not all of them were pleasant. All of my travels, and all of my . . . actions, were in preparation for this day. Or night, rather.” His smile deepened momentarily. “Soon we shall see. Remember, I once asked you to call me Thomas, Junior? That’s how formal I was.”

Grant nodded.

“And now,” Reynolds said sweeping a flap open in the tent wall which Grant had not even seen, exposing the gray darkness within, “shall we begin?”

As the flap fell closed behind them, Grant saw that the light in the tent was not so much gray as a kind of sickly pale green. They were in a walled-off section of boxes and more unused equipment. Reynolds led the way through a maze of paraphernalia, cautioning Grant to stay near.

“I thought it best we enter from the back,” he explained. “She is stationed toward the far end.”

They came to a wall made of tent canvas, which stretched clear across the width of the main tent. From behind it came muffled sounds. Without hesitation Reynolds found and pulled aside another flap. Grant was immediately blinded with a richer light, a deep suffused gold that would seem mysterious if one were to enter from the business end of the tent.

There was another midway, this one stretching into the near distance and roped off in the center to force entering patrons to view one side and then make a U-turn past where Grant and Reynolds stood, before viewing the other side, then exiting where they had come in. A few
customers passed Reynolds, wide-eyed, and he smiled and made a slight bow.

“Enjoying yourselves, I trust, folks?”

The oldest of the bunch, a man of grandfatherly age, goggled and said, “Where in heck did you get all this?”

The impresario shrugged nonchalantly. “Here and there.”

The man shook his head and hobbled on to catch up with the rest of his family, who were already making noises of amazement at what they were seeing next.

Reynolds consulted a huge white-faced pocket watch. “Would you like to see some of my amazements, Detective? We have a little time.”

“Whatever you say.”

As they made their way against the crowd down the left side, Reynolds regained some of his swagger. About halfway down he stopped and drew Grant through the filing customers until the two of them stood directly in front of a cage about four feet tall and three wide. Inside was what looked to be a man, less than half-normal height, with the sleek red and white head of a fox. As the crowd lingered Reynolds pointed to the sign above the cage which read marlo, the fox man of kashmir and said, “Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, I found him in the Kashmir region, which, as you know, has been a disputed land between India and Pakistan for generations. I lost two men in his capture, and another who, we might say, died of curiosity on the ship which brought him back. Notice!”

Reynolds stepped away from the cage and uttered a few words which were nothing but gibberish to Grant: “Peshti, Mahtu, Ree!”

The tiny animal-man immediately sprang forth, gripping the cage bars with his tiny hands and feet, and
opened his mouth in a mournful screech like a wolf baying at the moon. His teeth were impossibly long, as were, Grant now noticed, his delicate fingers and toes, which ended in curling sharp pointed claws.

The crowed stepped back, gasping, and then Reynolds said, “Enough! Mahtu, Ree, Fashta!”

The fox-man immediately let go of the bars and shut his mouth, falling to all fours before curling into a ball and closing his eyes.

“You are lucky, ladies and gentlemen. He will sleep for hours now, poor fellow. I just reminded him of his lost homeland. We can only hope that he will dream of it.”

“Is that true?” Grant asked, as they moved on to the next attraction, leaving the crowd behind them still bunched around the cage.

Reynolds shook his head. “No. His reality is much more terrible. I saved him from something much too horrible to think about.” He moved his arm in a sweeping, inclusive gesture. “Everyone in this tent—every
thing
—is beholden to me. All would have been destroyed—or much worse—by the Dark One, if I hadn’t intervened.

“And believe me, Detective,” he added ominously, “they are all beholden to me.”

They now stopped before an ornately carved huntsman’s table protected by a plate of Plexiglas to keep the curious at bay. The carvings were tiny openmouthed heads. They looked to be screaming. On the table, Grant observed as he and Reynolds stepped behind the Plexiglas, were a row of jars, each larger than the next, the largest some two feet tall. They were made of dark-colored glass, blue, red, brown, green. Above them was mounted a sign which read
THE HEADS OF HOOLOO
.

Reynolds ignored the crowd this time and spoke only to Grant. “An area in western China, which is still untouched
by Communism. We had a devil”—he grinned in the gold-dark at his own pun—“of a time getting these out.” He peered up at Grant. “All in Volume Three, of course.”

Without a beat passing, Reynolds tapped on the blue jar.

Instantly the color melted away, leaving an empty crystal clear space with a head suspended in it. It was the color of dark tanned leather. It floated, insensate, for a moment, and then seemed to awaken suddenly.

Then it opened its eyes—ice blue and piercing—and opened a mouth filled with two rows of perfect white teeth and began to yell, a sound that echoed from the jar as a hissing screech.

In quick succession Reynolds tapped the other jars—one, two, three—and they in turn produced screaming heads, each larger than the one before. The bottle green jar yielded a head nearly half again as large as Grant’s own. Between the four of them they filled the area with a bone-rattling moan, like an organ’s deep chord of regret and horror.

Grant turned to peer through the Plexiglas—the crowd had once again stepped back, their eyes wide with wonder and fright.

Again in quick succession, Reynolds tapped each jar—one, two, three, four—and they instantly went dark and silent.

As they moved on Reynolds said, “It is good for them to remember, but only for a few moments. Otherwise they would die of fright. And before you ask,” he added, turning to Grant, “yes, they did have corporeal bodies at one time.”

“Is that what they are crying for—the loss of their bodies?”

Reynolds turned away and said, simply, “No.”

They had almost reached the entrance to the tent. Reynolds consulted his bulbous watch and quickened his pace. They passed two attractions, The Man from Siam, consisting of a full human skeleton walled off in a brightly lit room with a glass front; the skeleton was posed sitting in a simple chair, apparently asleep, its head dropping upon its ribbed breast, with a small table by its side upon which lay an open book.

As Grant passed by, the skeleton suddenly roused and stretched, then took the book in its bony-fingered hands and began to read: “Break, break, break . . .”

Beside that was a similar space, this one square and again brightly lit from the inside, which was empty. Reynolds hurried on but Grant stopped as the space abruptly filled with colored blank masks trailing multicolored streamers. There must have been thirty of them. Not one interfered with another, and yet they flew at a faster and faster pace, seeming to fill the entire space with a blur of multicolored motion.

And then as suddenly as they had appeared they were gone, as if a flame had been snuffed.

“Please, we must hurry along,” Reynolds said, returning to retrieve Grant. He stopped for a moment to stare into the lit box which was now again empty.

“Emma,” his whispered, his face filled with loss and sadness.

“Who—”

“Another time,” Reynolds said, shaking himself from his reverie.

They strode past the attractions near the entrance, fish tanks that gave off a faint formaldehyde odor, filled with two-headed calf fetuses and three-tailed kittens. There were shelves arranged with huge dinosaur bones and tiny
skeletal things that appeared half fish, half animal. Patrons were two deep, ogling in wonder.

Reynolds waved a hand in dismissal. “Mostly fakes. They expect it, so I provide it.” He added as an afterthought, “Their gullibility makes me ill.”

They stopped at the very first attraction, what Grant assumed to be a moldy-looking re-creation of a long-dead pharaoh’s burial chamber. There was broken pottery and a few trinkets and, in the center of the chamber, up on a shelf, what looked to be a mummy. It was in a decrepit state, brown bandages falling from the half-rotting corpse, hands clasped across the body, eyes staring heavenward in a frozen rictus of pain.

“Fake?” Grant asked, as Reynolds lingered momentarily.

“Oh, no,” Reynolds answered. “And he was not dead when we found him.”

Reynolds gave a short bow to the corpse, and then drew Grant away and to the opening to the attraction tent. He looked again at his watch and briefly consulted the attendant there, who nodded and whispered into Reynolds’ ear.

Reynolds hurried back to Grant. “We haven’t much time,” he said. “She’s arrived, just now. Her black Lincoln has just entered the gate and parked.”

Grant stiffened, and reflexively reached for his .38.

Reynolds’ hand stayed him; he shook his head and said, “Come.”

They walked to the other side of the tent, and stopped before what was actually the last attraction. It was a furnished room, a larger box than the others and without glass to protect it. The lighting was mellower here. The room itself was furnished like a real sitting room, in the style of the Victorian period, with billowy curtains framing
a faux window against the back wall. The window was backlit with a soft glow to look as though the sun was either rising or setting. To one side of the window was a bookcase filled with leather volumes; to the other side was an ancient Victrola, its curved black horn pointed into the center of the room. A tune played something soft and barely distinguishable as “Goodnight, Irene.”

There was a Sheridan couch (Grant hated Sheridan couches)—which, Grant realized with a start, was the same one that had been in Thomas Reynolds, Jr.’s house when Grant had visited him there. It was upholstered in a very dark fabric, black or the deepest navy blue. The ebony coffee table from the house was there also, stationed in front of the couch. And one of the two red damask chairs that Grant remembered, in the center of the room, in which sat a woman dressed in a long Victorian dress, with buttoned black shoes.

“Regina Bright,” Reynolds announced firmly.

Her hair was as white as flour, pulled back in a severe bun. She looked thirty years older than her age, not a teen but a middle-aged woman, her face lined with the beginnings of old age. Her skin was nearly as pale as her hair.

Grant would have thought her an albino except for the eyes, which were open and piercing. But they did not seem to register the world around her. Though they stared unblinking, Grant had the feeling that they were completely turned inward.

Reynolds said to the gathered crowd behind them, “Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but this attraction is closed.”

There were groans, but he ignored them.

He pulled at ropes to either side of the boxy room, and a canvas flap fell down over the front of the room, hiding it.

Reynolds motioned for Grant to follow him, and they went to the left side of the room where there was a door. Reynolds produced a key from his pocket and opened it. They entered.

“Gina, I’ve brought an old friend,” Reynolds said softly.

Regina Bright made no movement; it was as if she were a statue.

“It’s Detective Grant, who helped you once before. Do you remember?”

Still no sign of life; her hands rested in her lap, her eyes stared straight ahead.

“Gina—”

“The Dark One is close by,” Regina’s mouth said. Grant swore the lips hadn’t moved, and the voice was unearthly, faraway, little louder than a powdery whisper.

“Yes,” Reynolds said. “It’s true.”

“And it is Halloween and nearing midnight.”

“Yes,” Reynolds repeated.

There was silence in the room, and Grant became very uneasy. The very atmosphere was strange, as if all of the oxygen had been sucked out. He was finding it hard to concentrate, or breathe.

“What’s going on?” he asked Reynolds.

“I don’t know.” The impresario had sat down on the Sheridan sofa, and looked pale and ill. He was blinking his eyes furiously.