Something Wicked This Way Comes (8 page)

In the alley behind the house was a huge old-fashioned pine-plank boardwalk. It had been there ever since Will remembered, since civilization unthinkingly poured forth the dull hard unresisting cement sidewalks. His grandfather, a man of strong sentiment and wild impulse, who let nothing go without a roar, had flexed his muscles in favour of this vanishing landmark, and with a dozen handymen had toted a good forty feet of the walk into the alley where it had lain like the skeleton of some indefinable monster through the years, baked by sun, lushly rotted by rains.

    The town clock struck ten.

    Lying abed, Will realized he had been thinking about Grandfather's vast gift from another time. He was waiting to hear the boardwalk speak. In what language? Well. . .

    Boys have never been known to go straight up to houses to ring bells to summon forth friends. They prefer to chunk dirt at clapboards, hurl acorns down roof shingles, or leave mysterious notes flapping from kites stranded on attic window sills.

    So it was with Jim and Will.

    Late nights, if there were gravestones to be leapfrogged or dead cats to be hurled down sour people's chimneys, one or the other of the boys would prowl out under the moon and xylophone-dance on that old hollow-echoing musical boardwalk.

    Over the years, they had tuned the walk, prising up an A board and nailing it here, lifting up an F board and pounding it back down there until the walk was as near onto being melodious as weather and two entrepreneurs could fashion it.

    By the tune treaded out, you could tell the night's venture. If Will heard Jim tramping hard on seven or eight notes of 'Way Down Upon the Swanee River,' he scrambled out knowing it was moon-trail time on the creek leading to the river caves. If Jim heard Will out leaping about like a scalded airedale on the timbers and the tune remotely suggested 'Marching Through Georgia,' it meant plums, peaches, or apples were ripe enough to get sick on out beyond town.

    So this night Will held his breath waiting for some tune to call him forth.

    What kind of tune would Jim play to represent the carnival, Miss Foley, Mr Cooger, and/or the evil nephew?

    Ten-fifteen. Ten-thirty.

    No music.

    Will did not like Jim sitting in his room thinking what? Of the Mirror Maze? What had he seen there? And, seeing, what did he plan?

    Will stirred, restively.

    Especially he did not like to think of Jim with no father between him and the tent shows and all that lay dark in the meadows. And a mother who wanted him around so very much, he just had to get away, get out, breathe free night air, know free night waters running toward bigger freer seas.

    Jim! he thought. Let's have the music!

    And at ten-thirty-five, it came.

    He heard, or thought he heard, Jim out in the starlight leaping way up and coming flat down like a spring tomcat on the vast xylophone. And the tune! Was or wasn't it like the funeral dirge played backward by the old carousel calliope?!!

    Will started to raise his window to be sure. But suddenly, Jim's window slid quietly up.

    He hadn't been down on the boards! It was just Will's wild wish that made the tune! Will started to whisper, but stopped.

    For Jim, without a word, scuttled down the drainpipe.

    Jim! Will thought.

    Jim, on the lawn, stiffened as if hearing his name.

    You're not going without me, Jim?

    Jim glanced swiftly up.

    If he saw Will, he made no sign.

    Jim, Will thought, we're still pals, smell things nobody else smells, hear things no one else hears, got the same blood, run the same way. Now this first time ever, you're sneaking out! Ditching me!

    But the driveway was empty.

    A salamander flicking the hedge, there went Jim.

    Will was out the window, down the trellis, and over the hedge, before he thought: I'm alone. If I lose Jim, it's the first time I'll be out alone at night, too. And where am I going? Wherever Jim goes.

    Lord, let me keep up!

    Jim skimmed like a dark owl after a mouse. Will loped like a weaponless hunter after the owl. They sailed their shadows over October lawns.

    And when they stopped. . .

    There was Miss Foley's house.

Jim glanced back.

    Will became a bush behind a bush, a shadow among shadows, with two starlight rounds of glass, his eyes, holding the image of Jim calling up in a whisper toward the second-floor windows.

    'Hey there. . .hey. . .'

    Good grief, thought Will, he wants to be slit and stuffed with broken Mirror Maze glass.

    'Hey!' called Jim, softly. 'You. . .!'

    A shadow uprose on a dim-lit shade, above. A small shadow. The nephew had brought Miss Foley home, they were in their separate rooms or - Oh Lord, thought Will, I hope she's safe home. Maybe, like the lightning-rod salesman, she -

    'Hey. . .!'

    Jim gazed up with that funny warm look of breathless anticipation he often had nights in summer at the shadow-show window Theatre in that house a few streets over. Looking up with love, with devotion, like a cat Jim waited for some special dark mouse to run forth. Crouched, now slowly he seemed to grow taller, as if his bones were pulled by the in the window above, which now suddenly vanished.

    Will ground his teeth.

    He felt the shadow sift down through the house like a cold breath. He could wait no longer. He leaped forth.

    'Jim!'

    He seized Jim's arm.

    'Will, what you doing here?!'

    'Jim, don't talk to him! Get out of here. My gosh, he'll chew and spit out your bones!'

    Jim writhed himself free.

    'Will, go home! You'll spoil everything!'

    'He scares me, Jim, what you want from him!? This afternoon. . .in the maze, did you see something!!?'

    '. . .Yes. . .'

    'For gosh sakes, what!'

    Will grabbed Jim's shirt front, felt his heart bang under the chest bones. 'Jim - '

    'Let go.' Jim was terribly quiet. 'If he knows you're here, he won t come out. Willy, if you don't let go, I'll remember when - '

    'When what!'

    'When I'm older, darn it, older!'

    Jim spat.

    As if he was struck by lightning, Will jumped back.

    He looked at his empty hands and put one up to wipe the spittle off his cheek.

    'Oh, Jim,' he mourned.

    And he heard the merry-go-round motioning, gliding on black night waters around, around, and Jim on a black stallion riding off and about, circling in tree-shadow and he wanted to cry out, Look! the merry-go-round I you want it to go forward, don't you, Jim? forward instead of back! and you on it, around once and you're fifteen, circling and you're sixteen, three times more and nineteen! music! and you're twenty and off, standing tall! not Jim any more, still thirteen, almost fourteen on the empty midway, with me small, me young, me scared!

    Will hauled off and hit Jim, hard, on the nose.

    Then he jumped Jim, wrapped him tight, and toppled him rolling down, yelling, in the bushes. He slapped Jim's mouth, stuffed it, mashed it full of fingers to snap and bite at, suffocating the angry grunts and yells.

    The front door opened.

    Will crushed the air out of Jim, lay heavy on him, fisting his mouth tight.

    Something stood on the porch. A tiny shadow scanned the town, searching for but not finding Jim.

    But it was just the boy Robert, the friendly nephew, come almost casually forth, hands in pockets, whistling under his breath, to breathe the night air as boys do, curious for adventures that they themselves must make, that rarely happen by. Threshed tight, mortally locked and bound to Jim, staring up, Will was all the more shaken to see the normal boy, the airy glance, the unassuming poise, the small, the easy self in which no man at all was revealed by street light.

    At any moment, Robert, in full cry, might leap to play with them, tangle legs, lock arms, bark-snap like pups in May, the whole thing end with them strewn in laughing tears on the lawn, the terror spent, the fear melted off in dew, a dream of nothings quickly gone such as dreams go when the eye snaps wide. For there indeed stood the nephew, his face round fresh, and cream-smooth as a peach.

    And he was smiling down at the two boys he now saw locked limb in limb on the grass.

    Then, swiftly, he darted in. He must have run upstairs, scrabbled about, and hurtled down again, for suddenly as the two boys out-thrashed out-gripped, outraged each other, there was a rain of tinkling, rattling glitter on the lawn.

    The nephew leaped the porch rail and landed panther-soft, imbedded in his shadow, on the grass. His hands were delicious with stars. These he liberally sprinkled. They thudded, slithered, winked at Jim's side. Both boys lay stricken by the rain of gold and diamond fire that pelted them.

    'Help, police!' cried Robert.

    Will was so shocked he let go Jim.

    Jim was so shocked he let go Will.

    Both reached at the same time for the cold strewn ice.

    'Good grief, a bracelet!'

    'A ring! A necklace!'

    Robert kicked. Two trash cans at the curb fell thundering.

    A bedroom light, above, flicked on.

    'Police!' Robert threw one last spray of glitter at their feet, shut up his fresh-peach smile like locking an explosion away in a box, and shot away down the street.

    'Wait!' Jim jumped. 'We won't hurt you!'

    Will tripped him, Jim fell.

    The window upstairs opened. Miss Foley leaned out. Jim, on his knees, held a woman's wrist watch. Will blinked at a necklace in his hands.

    'Who's there!' she cried. 'Jim? Will? What's that you got?!

    But Jim was running. Will stopped only long enough to see the window empty itself with a wail as Miss Foley pulled in to see her room. When he heard her full scream, he knew she had discovered the burglary.

    Running, Will knew he was doing just what the nephew wanted. He should turn back, pick up the jewels, tell Miss Foley what happened. But he must save Jim!

    Far back, he heard Miss Foley's new cries turn on more lights! Will Halloway! Jim Nightshade! Night runners! Thieves! That's us, thought Will, oh my Lord! That's us! No one'll believe anything we say from now on! Not about carnivals, not about carousels, not about mirrors or evil nephews, not about nothing!

    And so they ran, three animals in starlight. A black otter. A tomcat. A rabbit.

    Me, thought Will, I'm the rabbit.

    And he was white, and much afraid.

They hit the carnival grounds at a good twenty miles an hour, give or take a mile, the nephew in the lead, Jim close behind, and Will further back, gasping, shotgun blasts of fatigue in his feet, his head, his heart.

    The nephew, running scared, looked back, not smiling.

    Fooled him, thought Will, he figured I wouldn't follow, figured I'd call the police, get stuck, not be believed, or run hide. Now he's scared I'll beat the tar out of him, and wants to jump on that ride and run around getting older and bigger than me. Oh, Jim, Jim, we got to stop him, keep him young, tear his skin off!

    But he knew from Jim's running there'd be no help from Jim. Jim wasn't running after nephews. He was running toward free rides.

    The nephew vanished around a tent far ahead. Jim followed. By the time Will reached the midway, the merry-go-round was popping to life. In the pulse, the din, the squeal-around of music the small fresh-faced nephew rode the great platform in a swirl of midnight dust.

    Jim, ten feet back, watched the horses leap, his eyes striking fire from the high-jumped stallion's eyes.

    The merry-go-round was going forward!

    Jim leaned at it.

    'Jim!' cried Will.

    The nephew swept from sight borne around by the machine. Drifted back again he stretched out pink fingers urging softly: '. . .Jim. . .?'

    Jim twitched one foot forward.

    'No!' Will plunged.

    He knocked, seized, held Jim; they toppled; they fell in a heap.

    The nephew, surprised, whisked on in darkness, one year older. One year older, thought Will, on the earth, one year taller, bigger, meaner!

    'Oh God, Jim, quick!' He jumped up, ran to the control box, the complex mysteries of brass switch and porcelain covering and sizzling wires. He struck the switch. But Jim, behind, babbling, tore at Will's hands.

    'Will, you'll spoil it! No!'

    Jim knocked the switch full back.

    Will spun and slapped his face. Each clenched the other's elbows, rocked, failed. They fell against the control box.

    Will saw the evil boy, a year older still, glide around into night. Five or six more times around and he'd be bigger than the two of them!

    'Jim, he'll kill us!'

    'Not me, no!'

    Will felt a sting of electricity. He yelled, pulled back, hit the switch handle. The control box spat. Lightning jumped to the sky. Jim and Will, flung by the blast, lay watching the merry-go-round run wild.

    The evil boy whistled by, clenched to a brass tree. He cursed. He spat. He wrestled with wind, with centrifuge. He was trying to clutch his way through the horses, the poles, to the outer rim of the carousel. His face came, went, came, went. He clawed. He brayed. The control box erupted blue showers. The carousel jumped and bucked. The nephew slipped. He fell. A black stallion's steel hoof kicked him. Blood printed his brow.

    Jim hissed, rolled., thrashed Will riding him hard, pressing him to grass, trading yell for yell, both fright-pale, heart ramming heart. Electric bolts from the switch flushed up in white stars a gush of fireworks. The carousel spun thirty, spun forty - 'Will, let me up!' - spun fifty times. The calliope howled, boiled steam, ran ancient dry, then played nothing, its keys gibbering as only chitterings boiled up through the vents. Lightning unravelled itself over the sweated outflung boys, delivered flame to the silent horse stampede to light their way around, around with the figure lying on the platform no longer a boy but a man, no longer a man but more than a man and even more and even more, much more than that, around, around.

    'He's he's, oh he's, oh look, Will, he's - ' gasped Jim, and began to sob, because it was the only thing to do, locked down, nailed tight. 'Oh God, Will, get up! We got to make it run backward!'

    Lights flashed on in the tents.

    But no one came out.

    Why not? Will thought crazily. The explosions? The electric storm? Do the freaks think the whole world's jumping through the midway? Where's Mr Dark? In town? Up to no good? What, where, why?

    He thought he heard the agonized figure sprawled on the carousel platform drum his heart superfast, then slow, fast, slow, very fast, very slow, incredibly fast, then as slow as the moon going down the sky on a white night in winter.

    Someone, something, on the carousel wailed faintly.

    Thank God it's dark, thought Will. Thank God, I can't see. There goes someone. Here comes something. There, whatever it is, goes again. There. . . there. . .

    A black shadow on the shuddering machine tried to stagger up, but it was late, late, later still, very late, latest of all, oh, very late. The shadow crumbled. The carousel, like the earth spinning, whipped away air, sunlight, sense and sensibility, leaving only dark, cold, and age.

    In a final vomit, the switch box blew itself completely apart.

    All the carnival lights blinked out.

    The carousel slowed itself through the cold night wind.

    Will let Jim go.

    How many times, thought Will, did it go around? Sixty, eighty. . .ninety. . .?

    How many times? said Jim's face, all nightmare, watching the dead carousel shiver and halt in the dead grass, a stopped world now which nothing, not their hearts, hands or heads, could send back anywhere.

    They walked slowly to the merry-go-round, their shoes whispering.

    The shadowy figure lay on the near side, on the plank floor, its face turned away.

    One hand hung off the platform.

    It did not belong to a boy.

    It seemed a huge wax hand shrivelled by fire.

    The man's hair was long, spidery, white. It blew like milkweed in the breathing dark.

    They bent to see the face.

    The eyes were mummified shut. The nose was collapsed upon gristle. The mouth was a ruined white flower, the petals twisted into a thin wax sheath over the clenched teeth through which faint bubblings sighed. The man was small inside his clothes small as a child, but tall, strung out, and old, so old, very old, not ninety, not one hundred, no, not one hundred and ten, but one hundred and twenty or one hundred and impossible years old.

    Will touched.

    The man was cold as an albino frog.

    He smelled of moon swamps and old Egyptian bandages. He was something found in museums, wrapped in nicotine linens, sealed in glass.

    But he was alive, puling like a babe, and shrivelling unto death, fast, very fast, before their eyes.

    Will was sick over the side of the carousel.

    Then, falling against each other, Jim and Will sledge-hammered the insane leaves, the unbelievable grass, the insubstantial earth with their numbed shoes, fleeing off down the midway. . .