Katherine Dunn - Nightmare Carnival

“Oh, man, are you kidding?” I stepped back and gripped the Ka-Bar under my coat. Come to it, I’d stab a hillbilly psycho, badge or not. My shiny new policy.

“You snuffed the Eagle Talon Ripper,” he said.

“No surprise you’re the lead detective in Timbuktu,” I said. A mistake because his smirk suggested he mistook contempt for flirtation.

“See my girl Friday with the dog?”

“Hard to miss.”

“Know why she wears them mirror shades? My mama was a gorgon. Deputy Cooper thinks some of the evil runs in my blood. She’s afraid to look me in the eye.” He grinned when I didn’t answer. Ogled my scars. “Wow. It’s true, you Alaska broads are tough as leather. Bastard really did slice your throat from ear to ear. Then you rose from the dead and sent him to hell. Amazing. Marcy at Dispatch ran your name. It’s flagged, big time. I suppose we’re gonna have to keep tabs on you while you’re visiting our fair state. Mm-mm-mm.

“How you survive something like that, eh? Don’t seem possible. Don’t seem possible, ’t all. That freak cut you anywhere else?” He actually reached for my collar and I tensed, ready to shorten his fingers by a knuckle or two.

“Von,” Beasley said, saving the day. “We’ve got a situation. Best to focus.”

“Plainly.” Sheriff Holcomb grudgingly lowered his hand. “The Gallowses think Injun ground gonna do the trick when nothing else ever has?”

“This ground represents a full circle. Fifty years, Von.”

“Ain’t sacred. Ain’t holy. It’s elk shit and dirt.”

“Red moon last night.”

“I ain’t blind.”

“We proceed with the plan. Gallowses’ orders.”

“Ha! Oh, as if I jump when they yell froggy.”

“Today you do.”

Sheriff Holcomb watched the shepherd twist himself into a pretzel and snap at his deputy K-9 partner. The cop in mirror shades swore and danced to avoid losing a hunk of her flesh.

“Things fallin’ to pieces around here,” the sheriff said.

“And you gotta keep a lid on this mess,” Beasley said. “Unless you want the feds on it like flies.”

“Be serious, amigo. The feds won’t figure into this.”

“Fifty years is a high-water mark. I assume nothing. Hell could be waiting in the wings.”

“And her?” The sheriff jerked his thumb at me. “Where she fit into your plan?”

“She’s our secret weapon.”

“You mean bait.”

“Same thing.”

“Bait?” I said.

“Secret weapon,” Beasley said.

“The sight of blood doesn’t faze you,” Beasley said after he got me back to the camp. We sat at a bench while two bearded guys in coveralls loaded boxes onto a trailer.

“Are you kidding? It fazes the shit outta me. Just that I see more than my fair share. I’m building a tolerance, one snakebite at a time.” I took a slug from Beasley’s flask. Too early in the day, even by my bohemian standards, but I’d earned it. “Let us recap. There’s a pile of human bodies in yonder animal den. You knew they’d be there. Or, like me, you’re super-duper unflappable.”

“Ain’t a den. It’s a trophy room. We’re not dealing with an animal. Not in the strictest sense of the term. I’m not very cool, either. Scared spitless, honestly.”

“Uh-huh. These murders are revenge oriented, sex fantasies, rituals, what? You said something to your sheriff pal about fifty years. ”

“Revenge ritual. The Gallows curse. Goes back to the fall of 1965. There was an. incident, I suppose you’d say. I’ll have Conway fill you in. He’s our knife thrower. Been with the carnival since the sixties.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“A curse?”

“What they call it,” he said.

“Going to stop you right there, big fella. I don’t live in a hut in the Dark Ages.”

“Well, my uncles swallow the whole bit. Power of suggestion cannot be denied.”

“Fine. Go on.”

“They say it clouds the minds of outsiders. The carnival settles into an area, some gruesome murders occur, the carnival pulls stakes and moves on. The cycle repeats. Reports get filed, news stories are written. Locals squawk. Nothing comes of it, though. The outside world forgets, as if the incident is erased from memory. It becomes an urban legend, a woolly tall tale to scare the kids, and everybody accepts it as myth.

“Only family remembers the details. Blood kin and those who are so tangled up with the carnival they may as well be kin. Company members who flee? They disappear or wind up in pieces. Doesn’t matter where they run. Our last sword swallower made it to Malaysia. Authorities found his arm in a hedge.

“The Gallows travels far and wide, nonetheless, the cycle continues. Sometimes it goes weeks, sometimes months, maybe even a year or two. The company members aren’t the ones who suffer the worst. Those victims in the woods? Locals. The curse cuts down innocent bystanders like a lawnmower through grass. I was around for the last occurrence. Ohio. Seventeen citizens in three weeks. Horrible, horrible shit. Not a peep in the national news.”

I gave this a few seconds to percolate in my imagination.

“Some freak has a hard-on for your uncles, okay. Obviously it’s an inside job.”

“Could be. Might be something stranger.”

“Either way, you gotta have a theory.”

“Sure, I’ve got suspicions. About all I got, though.”

“How many people work this joint?”

“A couple dozen.”

“Kinda narrows down the suspect list.”

“Jess, you don’t understand. This isn’t simple.”

“Doesn’t seem complicated either. Can’t the cops catch this murderer? Must be a trail of corpses strewn across the country. Clueless as law enforcement tends to be, brute force will out eventually. For the love of god, all those bodies, dude. Where’s Nancy Grace and Geraldo? This is national news. A CNN spectacular.”

“You’d think so,” he said.

“My instincts are razor blades, else I’d figure you were running a con, Bease. Is this reality TV? Got a camera crew stashed nearby?”

“Trust your instincts.”

“Dude, I’m open minded, as you are intimately aware. What I saw in the field, how the cops reacted. None of it adds up. Sheriff Blondie seems to be in it to win it, though. What’s his story?”

“His great-grandfather was sheriff in ’65 when the, ah, inciting incident occurred. Vinette, a woman who worked at the carnival, got butchered by a jealous suitor. That suitor went on to terrorize the countryside until Grandpa Holcomb helped bring him down with a load of double-aught buckshot. He didn’t get reelected. Von’s the first Holcomb to be appointed sheriff since the curse took hold.”

“You keep using that word as if it’s not superstitious bullshit.”

Beasley dragged a cardboard box from under a table. He emptied its contents onto the bed — a meticulously dissected series of clipped newspaper articles and photographs. The oldest were blurry, preserved from the decade of Flower Power and Vietnam; the newest had been shot recently. Articles about wild animal attacks, mysterious slayings, missing persons, all connected by some elusive thread. The connection seemed patently obvious — every article covering these incidents was juxtaposed with another featuring the Gallows Brothers Carnival.

He watched me thumb through the clippings.

“Curses might be country bumpkin nonsense, sure. I just try to see it from the rustic perspective. Forget curses. Imagine. Imagine there’s a conspiracy. Nasty, violent, spans generations, and we’re going to put an end to it. You and me.”

“ Conspiracies I can sink my teeth into.”

“Now we’re speaking the same language.”

“The authorities can’t make a dent in this case, what makes you think I can help?”