More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse (12 page)

Brenda only now started to feel the pain of
the cut on her shoulder, but she lifted the plastic lid and brought
it down on top of the killer’s head. Once. Twice.
Three times a
lady
, she thought, the third swing connecting with his nose,
sending blood spraying. The killer fell onto his side and weakly
held up a hand in surrender.

Brenda swung at his hand and felt the give
of his breaking fingers.

She held the seat above her for another
swing, breathing hard.

A woman called out from beyond her range of
vision. “Hey!”

Brenda looked up.
Oh dear sweet Jesus,
thank you, thank you, thank you
. It was the redheaded
woman.

“
A phone,” Brenda gasped. “Do you have
a phone?”

“
Yes. Yes, back at my campsite. What’s
going on?”

“
This – this
man
– attacked me.
Tried to kill me. Please, call the police. An
ambulance.”

“
Yes. God. Okay. Come with
me.”

“
But – ” Brenda indicated the man
lying on the ground at her feet. He was still breathing.

“
He doesn’t look like he’s in any
shape to do much harm now,” the woman said. “Come on. It’ll be
okay. Besides – ” She bent down and picked up the killer’s knife.
“We have this. You want it?”

She wanted nothing to do with it. How many
others had it killed? “God, no,” Brenda said.

The redhead smiled slightly. “You look like
you can handle a toilet seat with the best of them.”

“
Yes,” Brenda breathed. “I’m a goddamn
warrior princess.” She noticed that the lighter fluid had burned
itself out.

The redhead put an arm around Brenda’s
shoulders. “Come on. The campsite’s not far.”

Brenda shuddered with relief. She slumped
against the redhead’s side.

The sound of something scraping on gravel
behind them made her spin around. The killer slowly rose to his
knees. “Celia,” he groaned.

Celia?

She was about to run and grab the toilet
seat again – her weapon of choice – but she felt a sharp pain in
her back.

What
–

She looked down and saw the tip of the
killer’s hunting knife poking out between her breasts. She dropped
to her knees and turned her head too look at the redhead looming
above her.

The redhead’s eyes were on the kneeling
maniac. She spoke to him over Brenda’s head. “You were damn lucky
honey. This one almost got away.”

Brenda fell onto her stomach. The outhouse
had stopped burning. Only the bottom of it had been warped from the
fire.
Shoulda stayed inside
, she thought, as the killer
slowly got to his feet.
Shoulda stayed inside
. The two
killers embraced over her as she lost consciousness.

* * * * *

* * * * *

"Cliff. Look at me. Cliff?"

He looked at her. Fear crept into the
corners of his eyes.

Clara shook her head. "Never mind." She
grabbed her camera and left him sitting there, a frail thing of
skin and bones, as she walked briskly to the carnival's entrance.
She didn't look back when the engine revved and sputtered, the
crunch of gravel like joints popping as he pulled away.

Aperture
.

Shutter speed
.

Hold very still, and soft as a plume of
smoke, press - the -

Click.

The film automatically advanced. She let the
camera settle against her chest and looked for another good shot.
Close to two hours had gone by, and by her watch she had another
twenty minutes left.

There
. At the end of the midway. The
Ferris wheel. Turning slowly clockwise, the dying sun glinting off
each car as it reached its zenith. How high was that? Bet you can
see the whole carnival from up there laid out like a colorful game
board.

She shouldered her camera. Clifford gave it
to her for her retirement three years earlier. A Nikon 35mm
automatic - a bit more complicated than the old Six-20 Brownie she
used to own. She had wanted a digital; everything was digital now.
And finding film – actual
film
– was such a headache. No
more just going down to the local drugstore. Now you had to go to a
dedicated photography store to find the stuff.

She’d wanted a digital camera, had hinted to
Clifford a number of times about how digital was so much easier
nowadays – so much cheaper. But he’d bought her
this
. It was
a nice camera, sure, but…

He’d been afraid to buy her a digital.
Afraid of switching over. He didn’t want anything to do with her
laptop, didn’t even want a damn cordless phone, let alone a
cell-phone. “How can you trust a phone without a cord?” he’d
reasoned to her. “A cord is trustworthy. Signals – just plain old
signals floating through the air? Now that’s not something you can
rely on in a pinch.”

But…well, hell. At least her camera, as much
of a dinosaur as it was, was at least a good excuse to get out in
the fresh air.

Clifford, what am I going to do with
you?

It was so hard to get him out of the house
these days, away from his baseball games and his
Wheel of
Fortune
. Wasn't retirement supposed to be a chance to spend
more time together? But as she took community ed classes, bowled
with the Silver Eagle Seniors, and took short road trips with her
camera and audio books, Clifford spent his days comatose in front
of the TV or buried in true crime books.

Clara wandered slowly toward the Ferris
wheel. So many young people. Shrieks of laughter. The smell of
fried dough, of fresh hay, of kabobs grilling over open flames, and
the carney's constant patter like hail on a tin roof.

"Comin' through. Comin' through."

A wire thin man with wrap around sunglasses
and a week's worth of sharp gray beard rushed past her, pushing a
silver cart full of black garbage bags. Clara took a quick step
back. He wasn't stopping for anybody.

The cart hurtled over a nest of winding
electrical cables. The bags jiggled, as if full of something thick
and heavy. A group of young boys jumped out of the way.

"Comin' through. Comin' through." He
disappeared between the Dart Dare and the Booth of Bullets.

A shiver raced through Clara. She pointed
her camera at the group of boys, let the camera automatically focus
on one boy's frowning acne-scarred face.

Steady, and -

A hand grabbed her shoulder. She jerked
forward.

"Didn't mean to startle you, but I was
wondering if I could take a moment of your time." A tall man in an
orange blazer stood before her. He wore a blue nametag and a toupee
that looked like the fur ripped off of a dog's ass. "Frank Green,"
he said around a shit-eating grin. "I promise, I only ask for a
moment."

Clara caught her breath. She sighed. "All
right. What are you selling?"

He shifted a lemon drop in his mouth.
"Getting right to the point. I like that." He turned a clipboard
toward her. Attached was a colorful brochure. His fingers sat
poised on it like the appendages of a Daddy Long Legs. "What I'm
selling is modern science, pure and simple. What I'm selling is a
guarantee. My superiors have created a method, as explained here in
detail, which will add years to your life,
guaranteed
. How
do we guarantee something – "

Clara pushed the clipboard away. "Enough! I
came here to enjoy the fair, not listen to someone selling sugar
pills." Before he could get another word out, she turned and
brusquely walked away.

Aperture -

Shutter speed -

Click
.

The Ferris wheel.

Clara counted fourteen gondolas, each a
bright candy-like color connected to a framework riddled with light
bulbs, all revolving around a giant axis. It was hypnotic. Hard not
to get lost in the intricacies of color and the snowflake-like
frame.

She turned to her right, wanting to share
her joy, but of course, Cliff wasn't there. Was this the way it was
going to be? She didn't want to live life alone. She wanted to
go
places, see things other than what was on TV.

But not alone
. Not alone.

Damn it.

The Ferris wheel beckoned. Three dollars for
tickets.

Clara remembered when she could spend an
entire day at the fair stuffing herself to the gills with candy and
food, and ride all she wanted to for less than three dollars.

"Comin' through. Comin' through."

She turned in time to see the same
wire-thin, gray-bearded man plow through the crowd with another
cart full of black garbage bags. A thick stream of liquid spilled
from the cart, leaving a dark, wet trail in the dust.

The bags jiggled as the cart sideswiped a
sno-cone booth.

"Ma'am?" There was a tap on her shoulder.
She turned.

"Tickets?" A tan face under a cowboy hat
grinned at her.

"Oh." She gave him the tickets. A gondola
awaited her. Cowboy helped her into it and motioned to the next
person in line. She tapped him on the back. "Mind if I ride
alone?"

Cowboy doffed his hat. "No problem." He
slammed the door shut. "Have a nice ride."

The gondola swung up into the air. Clara
grabbed the sides as it rocked, the bolts and joints of the ride
creaking like Clifford’s knees. It came to a brief halt as a group
of four teenagers full of tattoos and pierced everything got in the
next car. Another upsweep, more groans and squeaks, and the ride
was in motion. Rock music blared from loudspeakers. The music
wavered from soft to loud to soft as the wheel turned. The odor of
something burning far away tickled her nostrils. Something acrid,
like burning tires. She wrinkled her nose.

As the gondola reached its zenith, the
entire carnival spread out before her; so many people milling
about, the colorful rides, zigging, zagging, twirling like the
workings of an intricate clock. Screams and laughter drifted up
over the music in a communal waver.

She saw the parking lot where Clifford
dropped her off. She saw the tops of the booths, the concession
stands, the games, all of them a muddy gray behind the colorful
facades.

A down-sweep. The people, the stands came up
to greet her. She swept past the cowboy who gave her a nod, a wink,
a grin.

Then up again. Down and around and up, the
carnival an undulating entity beneath her. There was a point at the
very top when the upsweep met the down sweep. The resistance of
gravity met gravity's welcome embrace. It was a fleeting sensation,
one felt in the brief weightlessness of blood and bones and
skin.

As the gondola peaked again, there was a
screech of gears and a shower of sparks from below. The ride jolted
to an abrupt stop. If it wasn't for the strap around Clara's neck,
her camera would've dropped sixty feet and smashed into the Ferris
wheel's metal pilings below.

She swallowed. Looked over the edge of the
gondola at Cowboy. His hands worked fast inside a control box, his
hat hung off the back of his neck, his sunglasses pushed up on his
forehead.

Stuck. She supposed if she had to be stuck,
there were worse places than this. She'd once been stuck in an
elevator full of businessmen for thirty-five minutes; now that had
been something. She’d never forget that nauseating mixture of body
odor and aftershave.

She surveyed the grounds. Amidst the
carnival goers shuffling from games to rides to food booths, she
saw the man with the cart again. She trained her camera on him,
zooming in as he moved quickly from one side of the midway to the
other, with little regard for those in his way. Clara noticed a
tattoo on the back of his head that disappeared below his neckline.
It undulated and pulsed with the man's movement, as his neck
muscles tensed with each step.

What was it that leaked from his cart? It
left a thin black trail in the dust, quickly obscured by shadows
and hundreds of trampling feet. Clara followed the trail as best
she could back to the booths from which the man had come. Behind
the booths, the trail darkened.

She settled back on the uncomfortable
fiberglass seat of the gondola, her camera still roaming over the
trail the cart pusher had left behind. Something bright orange
flashed into view. She zoomed out, allowing for a broader view.

Frank Green
. The man with his
clipboard of guarantees. His arm snaked around the shoulders of an
old man in plaid shorts. The old man took short, careful steps.

No. No, no, no…

The thought of that snake oil salesman
talking that poor man out of his money…

Clara focused her camera and snapped a
picture. Snapped another as they entered a sky blue trailer with
white clouds painted on the front. Took a close-up of Mr. Green
looking out toward the booths as the trailer swallowed the old
man.

Disgusting. Clara sat back and looked up at
the sky. At least the breeze felt good up here. Yet she couldn't
get that man, that
Frank Green
off her mind. They shouldn’t
allow hucksters like that in a place where families came to have
fun.

There was yelling in the gondola just below
hers; the one full of teenage pincushions. The two girls stood and
rocked their gondola back and forth as the boys pleaded with them
to stop.
Now there's a switch
, Clara thought.

She aimed her camera at Cowboy and zoomed
in. He swore at the control box, hitting it with a screwdriver.

Great. It was going to be awhile. She was
glad she used one of the Port-O-Potties not long ago.

Hope Clifford isn't sitting there waiting
for me, getting all worried.
He should be here with me now.
We'd have a good laugh about all of this. Together.