Carnival of Feasts: a short story

Carnival of Feasts

We drove to our town's small fairground first. The carnival we'd attended the day before still raged. Laughter and pipe organ music married with the smells of popcorn and roasting peanuts. Last night's chase came rushing back in vivid detail. I shivered despite the heat of the afternoon.

My father spoke with the ticket seller while I eyed the crowd of fairgoers looking for anything that might help me understand what had happened to Manny. That's when I noticed the old man again. Yesterday, he'd spotted Manny while we held our place in line, a look of fright clouding his aged, watery eyes. He'd approached us, arms waving as he shouted about someone named Greta. A security guard had escorted him to a metal folding chair in the shade of the fairground's entrance. He sat in this same folding chair now.

I checked on my dad. He still chatted with the ticket woman. She held a poster with Manny's smiling face on it, nodding with sympathy. I approached the old man.

"Sir?" I asked.

"Sir? Not likely, son. Folks 'round these parts call me Hans." I could tell he didn't recognize me.

Not knowing where to begin, I sputtered, "I'm Nora Stone. I was here with my brother yesterday. You got pretty upset."

The old man stared at me for a moment, his runny eyes growing wide. He looked at the fliers in my hand and sighed. "He's gone missing." His voice was flat and sad. "I tried to warn you, but people think I'm just a crazy old guy. Now your little brother's gone missing. It's Greta all over. She had the same look in her eye that your brother did."

"Who's Greta," I asked.

The old man sighed. "Greta was my sister. She went missing when we were kids. After we'd gone to this here carnival."

"This carnival?" I asked confused. "You mean a carnival-like this one. An old-fashioned one."

He shook his balding head. "No, I mean this one. It never changes. It comes through town every few decades, and everything's the same. I'm the only one who seems to notice. But most people haven't seen what I've seen it."

"I don't understand. How can it be the same?" People were right. The old man clearly was crazy, but my feet were glued to the concrete.

The old man leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial tone, "The ghost carnival takes them. It lures them in like moths to a porch light. Its blue light grabs em so they don't see anything else."

A zing of fear raced up my torso and crashed into my skull, raising the hair on the back of my neck. "You know about the blue carnival?"

He nodded. "Sixty years ago, it up and swallowed Greta, and just I stood there." He shook his head. "I just watched."

"I saw it," I said, my throat dry. "Last night. I took Manny. I watched it take my brother."

Sorrow shadowed the old man's wrinkled face. "I'm sorry son, but them fliers ain't gonna help ya. Not now, not ever. He ain't here. He's someplace else."

"I don't believe that," I said getting angry.

Hans shook his head again. "You'd have ta find the ghost carnival first, and then you'd have to get inside. And who knows if you'd get out again." His eyes wobbled back and forth as he remembered something from long ago. He wiped a gnarled arthritic hand over his face. "When it up and took Greta, it came for three nights, one after the other. I heard the music each time, but farther away. Like it was looking for other kids. I was too afraid ta go outside. Afraid it would take me too."

"Did other kids disappear?" I asked.

"Not that year. Only Greta. The next time the carnival showed up, it took two. Set of twin boys. I remember their parents." The old man motioned over his shoulder at the white tents beyond the fairground's entrance. "After the second time, I started ta look around. Research is easier now with computers. I had to travel. Every time the carnival comes to a town, kids go missing."