A Festival of Murder (2 page)

“Does anyone here know who you are?”
Johnson asked. “Nah. I bet no one does. That’s why they all worship you. How do
you think they’ll react to the news that their Golden Boy is a liar, a thief,
and probably a murderer?”

The punch was instinctive, and,
surprisingly, well aimed. The skin covering Nicholas’s knuckles split against
Johnson’s teeth as the reporter’s head rocked to the side. Nicholas grunted and
cradled his injured hand against his chest, shocked that punching someone
actually hurt.

Bowled sideways in his chair,
Johnson shook his head once before tonguing his bleeding lip. The dining room
was utterly silent. No one was more shocked by what he’d done than Nicholas.
I
am about to be sued into oblivion.

Johnson stood slowly. His grin was
bloody. “Nice talking to you, Nicholas. I’ll send you a copy of the article
when it’s printed. It should be suitable for framing.”

The absence of sound in the dining
room after the reporter left reminded Nicholas of a vacuum, the vacuum of space
to be precise, which was the last thing someone like him wanted to think about.
He surged to his feet, nearly knocking his chair over, and hurried with as much
dignity as he could across the room.

Candy stood in the doorway of the
kitchen, wide-eyed. In a voice that shook, Nicholas said to her, “Wrap mine up,
please, Candy.”

Her head bobbed quickly. “Sure, Mr.
Trilby. Anything for you.”

He stood by the inn’s door, as far
away from the other diners as possible, while he waited for his food. He
studied his cut hand and how it trembled. He hardly felt manly for having done
what he’d done. More like a thug. Listening to the excited murmurs buzzing in
the dining room made him feel sick. He had never hit anyone before. Had Johnson’s
prodding unearthed previously buried violent tendencies? Or were Nicholas’s
actions the result of some inner change perpetrated by the aliens, strands of
his DNA recombined to create a more aggressive version of him? Killer Trilby
2.0?

“Here you go.” Candy came out with
two bags. “I packed up some vegetable scraps for Winchester.”

Distracted, he snatched the extra
bag and turned away.

“Say hi to him for me,” she said as
he shoved open the door. “And nice punch, by the way. I didn’t think an old guy
like you had it in you.”

~~~~~

Bags in hand, Nicholas slogged his
way down the street, chin tucked deep into his scarf in the hopes he wouldn’t
be recognized. He passed banners attached to stakes in the snow. They billowed
like the sails of a clipper ship, drawing attention to their colorful
depictions of UFOs and aliens who cheerily welcomed visitors to the Alien Fest
(“Your Best Chance to be Abducted!”). A dozen or more four-wheel drive vehicles
were buried beneath snowdrifts, and helpfully blocked some of the wind as he
made his way past two small wooden buildings to the last one. He groaned under
his breath when he arrived at his gift shop, Alien Artifacts, and found Charles
Mayweather shifting from foot to foot on the doorstep. Charles was the
marshmallow-girthed, pink-cheeked owner of the Gingerbear.

Nicholas braced himself.

“The roads have been closed,” Charles
blurted once Nicholas joined him at the shop’s door. The whites of Charles’s
eyes were bright against the gloomy day. “No one has been able to get through
since nine last night. This is a disaster, Nicholas! They’re going to call a state
of emergency soon— I just know it.”

Nicholas felt himself sliding into
Charles’s paranoia, though for a different reason. “Did you say no one can get
out?”

“We’re bottled in!”

Resisting the urge to slant his
eyes upward toward the thickening clouds and check for lights, Nicholas asked, “What
about Estes Park?”

“They’re not quite so bad off, no.
Most of Highway 7 is being plowed. But it’s us we need to worry about. The
snowplows won’t touch our turn-off. And you can just forget about Ascension
Road. Just forget it!”

Nicholas took a breath deep enough
for both of them. “But the plow never clears those roads, Charles.”

“But—but usually an SUV can still
make it through. Now it’s like trying to drive up the side of Mt. Everest. We’re
doomed! The only way in or out is by snowmobile.”

It was dire news, though Nicholas
found himself secretly relieved that an avenue of escape did still exist. He
squeezed past Charles, commenting as he did so, “Things could always be worse,
Charles. The government could declare this a no-fly zone, and then where would
we be? Without aliens, that’s where. Let’s pretend the storm will blow over
eventually, like all storms do, and we’ll all still be zapped and prodded and
internally reorganized by curious aliens.” He unlocked his shop and pushed the
door in, the bell ringing tinnily above the door. Darkness reached for him. He
reared back far enough to give Charles a semipleading smile. “Er, care to come
inside?”

“There has to be something we can
do about this.”

“Worrying won’t solve anything,”
Nicholas said, even though worrying was one of his favorite activities, and he
had plenty of fodder stored up in his head to keep the embers burning. “If it
turns out no one else is able to make it through we’ll just have to impress the
visitors who are already here, make sure they spread the word that Hightop is
the place to be when you want to be molested by xenomorphs.” His grin was only
half-grimace.

Charles gave him the uncertain,
hopeful look of a man who wanted to be lied to. “You think that will be enough,
Nicholas?”

“We’ve weathered worse than a
storm. Well, I have, anyway. I’ve got an alpaca in my backyard, for crying out
loud, and it’s not even mine.” His laugh was a bit unhinged, as it often became
when he spoke about the creature, Winchester, that had taken up residence
behind his cabin. “What if I’m feeding it the wrong food? What if it’s meant to
be kept indoors? What if it’s not an alpaca at all?!” Nicholas had to stop, his
breath puffing quickly in front of him. He willed down his racing pulse. “The
End is not yet here, even though at times it may feel that way.”

“I hope you’re right,” said
Charles. He wrung his hands. “Otherwise, this might be our worst festival ever.”

And possibly our last, Nicholas thought
to himself while his insides churned with dread.

“Everything is setting me off
lately,” Charles said, his eyes soft with apology. “Mr. Johnson worked me up, I’m
afraid.”

Nicholas’s left eye twitched. “Johnson.”

“You’d think, being from Roswell,
that he would be eager to promote another first contact. But after hearing
about the interviews he conducted yesterday, I almost think he’s out to
sabotage us.”

“He’s a reporter, but not a very
good one,” Nicholas muttered. He rubbed his forehead where a headache was
building. He hadn’t thought any misery on Earth could rival his abduction by
aliens, but speaking with the Roswell reporter had come close. “He’s made it
clear what angle he’s taking with his story. It won’t be pretty.”

Charles blanched. “That will crush
us. We can’t afford a negative article. Not when we’re all struggling to make
ends meet as it is.”

“If only he would be abducted,”
Nicholas said wistfully beneath his breath. Louder he said, “But I believe he’s
leaving today. Problem with his teeth.”

“Oh, thank the Maker. I’ll do my
best not to fall into a conniption in the meantime. Because you’re absolutely
right. There’s no use worrying about something we can’t control. What I
can
control are the festival treats!” The large man’s face lit up. “I’m baking
desserts for tonight. UFO cupcakes and a special cake for our guest of honor. I
hope you like it.”

Nicholas’s insulin levels spiked. “It’s
not green, is it?”

“Inside and out!”

Nicholas gulped. “See you later,
Charles.”

He closed the shop door between
them. By the time he realized his mistake it was too late; Charles had waddled
off.

Very little light streamed in
through the large front window thanks to the storm clouds. That meant it was
dark in Nicholas’s shop. Borderline evil. The darkness crept toward him, making
him shiver from more than just the cold. Heart thudding in his chest, hands
clammy inside his gloves, he slapped his hand against the light switch and
frantically flailed against it until he managed to flip up all of the switches.
The overhead fluorescent tubes flickered at first, sending his heart rate
soaring, but then settled into a constant metallic buzz and bathed the shop in
artificial cheer.

He breathed a sigh of relief and
then began taking inventory. It wasn’t a duty that made him particularly proud.
Most of the things he sold were silly and juvenile. Plastic UFOs that made
whirring noises when you pulled their cords. Ray guns with nose cones that lit
up red when you pulled the trigger. Inflatable aliens, bobble-headed aliens,
aliens featured on T-shirts, aprons, oven mitts, and baseball caps. His shop,
he reflected, was the equivalent of a nine-year-old’s secret stash. But it kept
him afloat, and these days not many things could.

Motion outside on the sidewalk
caught his eye. He whipped his head around, but it was only two tourists who’d
come up earlier in the week, starting a snowball fight even though the flurries
were blinding. Nicholas watched them and sighed with yearning. All he had to do
was get through tonight, then Rocky Johnson would be gone, and life in Hightop
would go back to normal, whatever that was. Surely, he could hang on for twelve
more hours?

~~~~~

Christmas was Nicholas’s favorite
holiday. It had nothing to do with singing carols with other people or sharing
a feast or exchanging presents. In fact, everything he enjoyed about the
holiday had nothing whatsoever to do with people. It was all about the lights
and the food and the snow, which made it difficult for anyone to visit him. He
breathed deeply, smiling a little as he filled his lungs with the smells of
pine, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Warm eggnog, another Christmas indulgence that
he was grateful to Charles Mayweather for serving, warmed his belly. The
day—night at this point—was finally turning around.

“You look like the only person who’s
happy that we’re snowed in. Shame on you, Nicholas Trilby.”

A tall woman with pale, freckled
cheeks, short brown ringlets, and the largest brown eyes he’d ever seen on a
human stood behind his shoulder. His visceral reaction to seeing her consisted
of a tingling in his toes that traveled up the length of his body and ended
with a rush of heat to his cheeks. She turned him into a human champagne
bottle.

He sipped from his mug so he wouldn’t
stare at her. “I was wondering when you’d get here. I was about to commit
alcohol poisoning by eggnog.”

“I was running behind,” Phoebe
James said. Her gaze danced away. “Just some last minute things.”

The vague answer left him uneasy.
Then again, most things people said to him these days had that effect on him. “I
haven’t seen you all day, and you’re nearly two hours late.”

The comment made her smile at him. “You
missed me so much you’ve been keeping track of the time?”

“Of course I missed you.” He
cleared his throat when she studied him speculatively. “You’re the only person
here who doesn’t want my autograph.”

“You’re the most popular man in the
room, Nicholas. Most people would love to be in your shoes.”

He made a face. “They’re welcome to
my shoes. As well as all the other baggage I was saddled with afterward.”

She patted his cheek, the touch too
brief for his liking. “Poor Nicholas. Life must be tough for a celebrity.”

While he knew she was mostly
teasing him, there was a kernel of truth in how she felt about his status in
town. Of all the residents, Phoebe was the one who was least likely to be
swayed by awe by his abduction. She didn’t believe it had happened in the first
place.

“No sign of Rocky Johnson, I see.”

Nicholas pinched his lips shut and
joined her in surveying the common room of the Gingerbear. It looked like the
collision of aisles at a party store, decorated festively with a combination of
Christmas lights, hanging crepe paper UFOs, and alien heads. Many of Hightop’s
full-time residents were in attendance, along with the handful of tourists who’d
made it into town before the roads closed. It meant a group of about forty were
grazing Charles’s buffet of alien-shaped finger food and talking among
themselves, occasionally shooting Nicholas curious glances.

“They’re talking about you, you
know.” Phoebe grinned at him. “I can’t believe you hit him. Actually, I take
that back—I can’t believe he’s the
first
person you’ve punched since you’ve
moved up here.”

Nicholas could still feel the sting
in his knuckles. He wished he could be proud of his act, or feel that it was
justified, but instead he just felt like a fool. “I gave him the reaction he
wanted and politely slapped a bow on top of it for good measure. I’m an idiot.”

“You can’t blame yourself. He
wanted to provoke you. That’s what investigative reporters do.”