A Turn of the Wheel

A Turn of the Wheel

  Speculative fiction from

  Gary Beck

  Jennifer Eifrig

  Paul Freeman

  Bruce Hesselbach

  Mark Roman

  Published by Cogwheel Press

  https://www.cogwheelpress.net

  © Cogwheel Press 2013

  ‘A Turn of the Wheel’ is the copyright of Cogwheel Press, 2013.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  All characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons. living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

   

  Cogwheel Press is pleased to present its first collection of short fiction, written by five authors who have published novels under the Cogwheel brand. Cogwheel specializes in speculative fiction from new voices. Be sure to visit cogwheelpress.net to find a full catalog.

  Susan Chase, Publisher

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Carnival

  by Paul Freeman

  RNA

  by Gary Beck

  There at the End

  by Mark Roman

  Ixchal’s Tear

  by Paul Freeman

  The Hall of Dreams

  by Gary Beck

  Swarming Disenchantments

  by Bruce Hesselbach

  The Stowaway

  byJennifer Eifrig, writing as Evelyn Grimwood

  The Last Glance

  by Gary Beck

  Clam Chowder

  by Bruce Hesselbach

  America

  by Paul Freeman

  Despair

  by Paul Freeman

  Devil’s Glen

  by Paul Freeman

  From Here to Where

  by Jennifer Eifrig

  Over the Black Hills

  by Paul Freeman

  A Disastrous Decision

  by Mark Roman

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Cogwheel Press Books

  Introduction

  If a novel is like a carefully planned and prepared three-course meal, a short story is an amuse-bouche, a little taste of something that the author-chef wishes to share. Not fully realized, not meant to satisfy but rather the opposite, the short story is the author’s way of saying, “Try me.” It’s a provocation, a tease.

  This collection is a sampler that will whet your appetite and then some. It’s a gift-wrapped box of chocolates: some sweet; some dark; some salty with blood and tears; some mysterious; some concealing secrets within. How you consume this treat is your choice. You may wish to devour it in one sitting – we suggest leaving the light on if you do. Or you may savor it, one at a time. Either way, you will enjoy biting in, and we guarantee you will finish wanting more.

  The authors of these stories are members of the Cogwheel Press. They live in the US, England, and Ireland, and their spelling adheres to the convention of their native land. Some stories are more appropriate for an adult audience.

  Jennifer Eifrig, Cogwheel Curator-At-Large

  Carnival

  Paul Freeman

  The morning quiet was broken by the sound of rock music booming into the air. A small sleepy village sprung to life as people poured from houses and shops to watch a convoy of brightly-painted trucks towing trailers and caravans along the narrow main street. At the head of the convoy, standing legs apart, on the back of an open-back trailer, was a gaudily dressed man. On his head he wore an emerald green top hat; his dark green long-tailed coat was made of velvet, and his trousers were bright orange.

  He mouthed the words to the song while his arm flailed like a windmill on his imaginary guitar. Somehow his hat remained where it was as his head bobbed up and down in time with the music.

  Lucy Finnegan ran out her front door just as the trailer was passing her house. The man on the lead truck caught her eye and winked while playing air-guitar, kicking his leg in the air. A leaflet was thrust into her hand by a beautiful girl wearing a sequined, flowing dress, her hair tied up in a pile of curls like an ancient Greek goddess. Other girls similarly attired passed through the crowd handing out leaflets. She stood mesmerised as truck after truck filed past, each one more impressive than the last. She glanced at the leaflet.

  For one night only.

  The greatest show on Earth!

  Lucy turned excitedly to her mother. “We have to go, we have to!” she said, jumping up and down. Lucy was eleven and had never been to a carnival before in her life. Not much passed through her sleepy little town.

  “Okay, okay,” her mother smiled. “Says here, it’s opening at eight o’clock tonight, we’ve plenty of time to get ready.”

  The loud guitar music trailed off as the convoy passed through the town and out towards the old McCabe field. Lucy could barely contain her excitement. Later, dressed in her finest frock she approached the bright lights and loud noises flanked by her parents. The music, the shrieks of delight, bells, whistles, bangs, wallops: she absorbed them all with eyes wide and mouth open. They approached the entrance. Standing there to greet them was the man from the truck, his arms outstretched, a beaming smile on his face. Behind him, Lucy could see a Ferris wheel, lights blazing as each carriage did a loop. She could hear the screams and whoops of the passengers as she craned her neck for a better view.

  The man stroked his red moustache and goatee beard as Lucy and her family approached. Lucy skipped ahead, eager to get inside as quickly as possible. The man flicked his wrist and with a flourish produced a large gold coin from behind her ear. She squealed with delight as he bent down to hand it to her. She flinched a little from the stink of his breath, but was too polite to make any show of discomfort.

  “What have you got there, Luce?” her father asked.

  Lucy held the coin out for her father. He took it and studied it.

  “Well, look at that…. One family ride,” he read aloud and turned it over. A Ferris wheel was imprinted on the back. Lucy gasped, the gaudily dressed man winked at her and moved on to greet the next family.

  “Can we go on it now? Can we?” she squealed.

  “Wouldn’t you like to get some ice-cream first?” her mother asked.

  “Or candy floss,” her father added.

  “No, sir. I want to ride the Ferris wheel.”

  Standing in line, Lucy watched the huge wheel rotate slowly. She clapped her hands in excitement as she watched brightly painted car after car go higher and higher. She noticed a lot of the occupants were even dressed in fancy dress; she wished she’d worn a costume. Many waved to her, and she waved back, envying them, wishing it were her turn.

  “Step right up!” The man was suddenly there as they reached the top of the line. “The ride of your life awaits,” he beamed. An empty car appeared behind him, and he opened the gate and held it for Lucy and her family. She was distracted by a car seeming to struggle around, a dark cloud of smoke appeared over it. She noticed a little girl, dressed in an old-fashioned bonnet and shawl, waving at her. Lucy’s arm was halfway up to wave back when she noticed the terror on the girl’s face, the tears streaming down her cheek. Lucy suddenly did not want to go on the Ferris wheel anymore.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” she said, but her mother and father were already seated in the car.

  “Come on, Luce, don’t be afraid,” her father encouraged.

  �
��Yeah, Luce, don’t be a scaredy-cat.” She heard the man mimic her father and then felt a shove on her back. She stumbled forward into the carriage and into a seat beside her mother. A safety bar came down, trapping her. She could hear the man behind her as the car started to move.

  “Roll up! Roll up! For the ride of a lifetime. The ride that goes on and on and on…. For a lifetime.” His laughter rung in her ears. And then the music started. She looked back over her shoulder and could see him dancing, playing the air guitar again.

  Detective Inspector Henry Carson, strolled down the quiet main street, which was deserted but for a handful of uniformed police officers and police vehicles with flashing blue lights on their roofs. By his side was his assistant, Detective Sergeant Caroline Spencer.

  Spencer, an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, was aware of, but ignored the admiring glances from the male officers. She was dressed in a smart business suit with a skirt that accentuated her hips and feminine curves, and she carried a red folder in her arms.

  “This is bizarre,” Carson said, as they walked down the centre of the road, taking in the picturesque village at a glance. “How can a sizeable chunk of a population disappear and the rest not seem to notice?”

  “We have some of them over in the church hall being interviewed now. They’re not giving us much to go on,”

  Carson took in a breath. “What are your thoughts on this, Spencer? A cult?”

  “Could be, Guv. Let’s hope it’s not a suicide pact and we turn up two hundred bodies of men, women and children,” Spencer answered.

  “Okay, let’s get on with this. Where’s this church hall?”

  Spencer led her superior to the small hall attached to the rear of the stone church. Inside, several rows of foldable chairs and tables had been set up. At each table sat a police officer interviewing a local resident, asking questions and jotting down the answers. The din of the communal questioning hummed in the air as they let the door close behind them.

  Spencer tapped one of the officers on the shoulder. He stood up, snapping to attention. “Ma’am – Guv,” he respectfully addressed his superiors.

  “So, who’ve we got here then?” Carson swung his attention towards an elderly woman sitting at the table.

  “This is Mrs Brown. Her daughter and two grandchildren are missing,” the officer answered.

  “I see. And how are you being treated, Mrs Brown? Are you being looked after okay?” Carson asked.

  “Oh, yes. He’s a lovely young man, your police officer,” the woman said, smiling. Carson was somewhat thrown by her happy demeanour.

  “So, your daughter and her children… they’ve gone missing?”

  “They have?” the woman’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I… I’m not sure. There was a carnival you see… and, oh I can’t remember.”

  “That’s okay, take your time, Mrs Brown. I’ll see that you have nice cup of tea while you compose yourself,” Carson said, giving the nod to Spencer to go and get some tea.

  “They’re all like that, one minute they’re looking for their loved ones, the next they’ve forgotten they’re missing,” the uniformed officer answered Carson’s questioning look.

  “And the carnival? Have any of the others mentioned it?”

  “All of them, but they’re all equally vague. We’ve tried to trace it, but, there hasn’t been one in this area for at least six months.”

  Lucy sat rigid in her seat, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the safety bar in front of her. It would not budge when she tried to force it. Beside her, her parents smiled, joyfully looking out as the wheel rose, carrying them higher and higher. She could hear screams coming from the car above. She looked up and saw an enormous dark cloud looming overhead. The cloud swirled and writhed as if it were alive, an enormous living thing, twisting and opening its black maw, ready to engulf them. She craned her neck to try and see the girl in the car ahead who had tried to warn her. She was sure it was her screams she could hear, a terror-filled, high pitched wail, a desperate and tragic cry for help.

  The car ahead entered the cloud. The girl’s screams were abruptly cut off. Lucy turned to her parents, who were still enjoying the ride, oblivious to the screaming and cries for help, seeming not to notice the approaching cloud.

  “Mum? Dad?” she cried.

  “Don’t worry, hon’, we won’t fall,” her father said.

  The car approached the cloud, and a gap appeared just above them. To Lucy, it appeared like a great black mouth opening to swallow them whole. A shadow crept up the car. Suddenly it was freezing. Lucy covered her eyes with her hands and screamed.

  “What the…?” When she heard her father’s voice, she peeked out. She had the impression the car was now moving through water, dark, murky water. She felt a pinch, then another and another.

  “Ow!” her mother screamed.

  “Get off me,” her father said. She could hear the desperation in his voice.

  “Oh, God! What are they?” her mother cried.

  Lucy opened her eyes fully, as a black shape, about three foot long, glided past her, as if floating on a breeze. It turned back towards her, and she saw its face then, a grotesque parody of a human face, ugly and distorted. Two rows of sharp fangs appeared, and it darted suddenly, like a fish in water, and attached itself to her arm. She felt its freezing bite.

  “What were they?” her mother had asked. Somehow Lucy knew exactly what they were: they were the souls of the dead and they were feeding off them, sucking the life from them.

  The three of them screamed.

  How long before the wheel turned and brought them back out of the cloud? How many times would they have to go around before the life would be leeched from them and they became one of the life-sucking souls?

  Spencer walked into Detective Inspector Carson’s office and closed the door behind her. Carson looked up, watching her curiously as she settled herself in the seat opposite.

  “So?” Carson’s eyebrows arched.

  “It’s happened before.”

  “Where? When?” Carson’s tone was urgent.

  “A place called Clearwater, in Kansas.”

  “United States?”

  “Yep,” Spencer replied.

  “When?”

  “May,” Spencer began and hesitated before finishing. “Nineteen-sixty-seven.”

  “You can’t be serious. How similar are the cases?”

  “I’m not sure, it’s not that clear cut,” Spenser replied. Carson could hear the doubt in her voice.

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been in contact with the Clearwater Sheriff’s Department. I spoke to a Mabel Kawalski. They have no records of it ever happening. And the investigating officer, Sheriff Brad Peterson, disappeared without trace.”

  “When?” Carson asked.

  “June…. Nineteen-sixty-seven.”

  Carson rubbed tired eyes with the palms of his hands. On the desk in front of him were the files of over two hundred missing people, disappeared without a trace, or even a clue. They had taken hundreds of statements from witnesses, none of whom had anything helpful to contribute except some vague references to a travelling carnival. Even more bizarrely, many of the witnesses were already forgetting anything had happened. All the toxicology tests came back negative, so they weren’t drugged. He even had officers investigating the possibility of mass hypnosis, he was so desperate.

  “Okay, so if there are no records or witnesses,” Carson paused. “I’m almost afraid to ask this. How do you know?”

  Detective Sergeant Spencer had been Carson’s assistant for over two years. He respected and admired her work; she was an excellent police officer and a superb detective. He trusted her and her judgement implicitly, even if his own life were at stake. She was a professional and confident policewoman, and it was rare for him to see doubt on her face. He saw it now.

  “Okay, I didn’t find this through any of the usual channels. My source is a bit unorthodox,” Spencer said, uncharacteristic
ally nervous.

  “How unorthodox?”

  “I found it on a website, it’s one of those supernatural, conspiracy-type things. You know the sort… aliens kidnapped my sister last week, sort.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Carson sighed. “Are we this desperate?”

  “Yes, yes, we are.”

  “Let me guess, some eighteen year old, spotty kid stuck in his parents’ attic all day.”

  “Sort of. He’s a forty-five-year old, spotty kid stuck in his parents’ attic. He’s in California.”

  “He would be,” Carson groaned.

  “I had a brief conversation with him by phone.” Spencer ignored the jibe. “According to him and his website, it’s happened quite a few times, he quotes from a few newspaper articles down through the years…”

  “Hang on, hang on,” Carson held a hand up, interrupting her again. “If there are newspaper articles, how can the Clearwater Sheriff’s Department deny it?”

  “I didn’t say they denied it, I said they have no record of it and nobody there can remember it happening. Do you want to start investigating their disappearances too?”

  “God, no.”

  “Then let me finish.”

  “Okay, go on,” Carson relented.

  “He reckons it happened in the fifties in Russia and was hushed up; in France during the Nazi occupation, but it was pretty hard to prove anything then. Again in India during the twenties, always with some kind of travelling show involved, each case either hushed up or just forgotten about.” She glanced at her notes, flipping over a page of her notebook. “During the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was a huge bad feeling towards travelling shows, across Europe. Legends of the Devil appearing in towns disguised as a performer and kidnapping souls. A lot of circus performers were chased away or even killed, for fear they might be harbouring the Devil.”

  “Oh, come on,” Carson spluttered. “The Devil? You don’t seriously believe those people were kidnapped by the Devil, do you?”

  “No, of course not,” Spencer answered irritably. “But a story like that could be used as a cover, or there maybe some other plausible explanation. The fact is, everyone in that village spoke about a carnival, but none of them could remember any details about it. And, so far, we have turned up nada.”

  “Oh, Christ! Somehow I don’t think the budget will run to us traipsing over to the States to interview your conspiracy theorist,” Carson groaned.

  “No, possibly not,” Spencer agreed. “You look tired, Guv, if you don’t mind me saying. You haven’t had a day off since we started this case. Maybe you should go home and get some sleep.”

  “You know what, Spencer? That’s a very good idea. In fact, I think I’ll take the weekend off, I’ve barely seen the kids in three weeks.” He stood up and walked towards the door. “If anything happens, anything at all….”

  “Don’t worry, Guv, I’ll get straight onto you.”

  “Thanks, and Caroline, you know I…”

  “Yes, Guv, I know. Now, don’t start embarrassing me, just get on home, I’ll tidy up here.”

  “Okay, thanks, Spencer,” Carson smiled.

  Henry Carson stepped from his car, clicking the central locking button. He paused and listened. What was that noise, he wondered. It sounded like… like rock music. That’s odd, he thought. It appeared to be getting louder and closer.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “Hey, petal.” He scooped his daughter into his arms after she burst from the house and ran to him, clearly excited. “What’s all this?”

  “Daddy, there’s a carnival coming to town. And it has a Ferris wheel,” she panted.

  Carson gasped, his eyes narrowed. No, don’t be an idiot, he thought to himself, it’s just a coincidence. “That’s great, honey. We’ll go tonight.”