It was just after three in the morning when my little brother disappeared.
The sound of pipe organ music drifted in through the bedroom window, pulling me from sleep. Groggy, I peered out to find Manny, his tiny seven-year-old frame, scamper across the dew-damp grass. He headed towards the fallow field lying next to our house. The night was moonless, but an eerie blue light illuminated his trek.
Frightened, I called his name, but his steps never faltered, and I lost sight of him behind a few stray trees growing at the edge of the yard. I dashed down the stairs and out the open front door after him. Manny's head start was too great for me. When I caught sight of him again, he ran across the shimmering threshold of a carnival gate. A blue, spectral light emanating from striped tents, lighting the area. The disquieting organ music floated on the lazy summer breeze. As Manny crossed through the gate, the carnival vanished.
"Manny?" I said again, stopping short. A nervous sweat broke out across my back, and I shivered in the breeze. Regaining some of my senses, I closed the gap between where I stood, and where the impossible carnival had been. "Manny!" I yelled. I spun in a tight circle searching for some sign of what I'd just seen. Nothing. I stood alone. Manny had vanished.
I sprinted back to our farmhouse, screaming for my mom and dad. They bumbled down the stairs, bleary eyes and sleep-tousled. I told them what I'd witnessed. My words spilling out in a disjointed rush.
"It was just a bad dream," my father said. His rough-worked hands rubbed my back.
My mother, seeing something in my wild eyes, knew my hysterics were more than a bad dream. "Where's Manny?" she asked.
"I imagine he's sleeping," my father replied.
"He's a light sleeper. He'd never sleep through all this." She turned and ran up the stairs to Manny's room. That's when the screaming started. It was the worst sound I've ever heard.
The next morning came in a blur of police questions and ringing phones. Our modest home overflowed with milling uniformed officers and plain-clothed detectives. They tapped our phone and parked a surveillance vehicle posing as a white work van down the road. A support team of family and friends formed a search team and walked neat lines across the field and into the woods beyond. Cadaver dogs sniffed the area.
The detectives questioned me over and over. Had I seen the kidnapper? Did I recognize anyone? Where was the last place I'd seen Manny?
At first, I told them about the carnival and the ominous blue light, but as morning wore into afternoon I retreated into myself. 'It must have been a dream' I told them. They brought in a child psychologist who diagnosed with me post-traumatic stress disorder. I'd witnessed something, but the trauma barred me from remembering the specifics. The blue light likely meant I'd seen a blue car or van. The carnival? An obvious throwback to the old-fashioned one my brother and I had visited with our parents the day before.
The police told us to stay home. To stay by the phone in case ransom demands came through. My father thought this idea ridiculous. We weren't rich. We had nothing worth ransoming. Instead, he used his computer and printer to run off a full ream of missing posters. He would have printed more, but we ran out of paper. Manny's little league picture smiled from the right side of the page. Vital information took up the left: height, eye color, ethnicity, weight, date of birth, last seen. I shuddered. My animated and smiling baby brother, reduced to simple descriptors.
My father and I loaded ourselves and the posters into the family station wagon and headed for town. My mother wouldn't leave the house. She sat by the phone, hand resting on the earpiece, praying it would ring with demands to get her baby back. I imagined her tallying our family's wealth in her head, wondering how fast one could sell a home. My father and I didn't talk on the short drive. After the interrogations, I welcomed the silence.
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."
Horror-stricken, my mind reeled. Why would a bunch of ghosts want kids? For what purpose?
"Do you still see it? The ghost carnival?"
"No, they only want little ones. I guess it's got no use for adults."
"Nora!" My father's voice was sharp.
"Here," I said, handing him a flier. "Thank you. You've been very helpful." I ran to catch up with my father.
I planned how I would find the ghost carnival and get Manny back. Since the ghost carnival moved around each night, I figured town would be its next stop. My bike would be the easiest way to accomplish that. Getting out of the house would be the hard part. The detective assigned to our case never left the house. And there was the additional matter of the surveillance van down the road.
I could shimmy across the wide ledge of my bedroom window to the balcony outside the upstairs office. From there, I'd step onto the roof of the camper we used for summer road trips. The camper had a ladder attached to the back, making my descent easy. Then I'd grab my bike from the yard and ride down the tractor path separating the fields. It would take me an extra twenty minutes to get to town, but I would skirt the van and any drivers on the road. The moonless sky would also assist me in my travels. The country darkness keeping me invisible.
At ten that evening, I said my goodnights and headed upstairs. I brushed my teeth and closed my bedroom door. As quiet as possible, I packed my backpack with items I thought might be useful: a baseball bat, an air horn, and a bottle of holy water my aunt Megan had brought back from the Vatican. As a final thought, I removed my favorite family photo from the corkboard on the wall and shoved it into the back pocket of my jeans.
After I packed my supplies, I extinguished the overhead light and crawled onto my bed with my school notebook and a pen. By the green glow of the digital alarm clock, I wrote my parents a note:
Gone to find Manny. If this works, we'll see you in the morning. If not, I'm sorry. I love you, Nora.
I waited until the bedside clock read 1:00 AM before beginning my descent. Even though every move I made sounded like cannon fire, none of the adults noticed a thing. I escaped without a hitch, and the ride to town was uneventful, the starlight guiding my way.
We lived in a small town containing only one elementary and high school. If what Hans had said was true, the ghost carnival would only target elementary-aged children. Yet, that was still around 200 kids, some of whom lived outside of the town limits as we did. If the ghost carnival materialized at any of their homes, I would miss my chance.
I rode around for over an hour, stopping now and then listening for the carnival's organ music. I lost heart when I caught a handful of melodic notes. They drifted from the west on the cool summer breeze.
I pedaled as hard as I could in the music's direction, my legs burning with the effort, only stopping to make sure I was on the right track. The eerie organ music continued to grow louder and more distinct as I went.
As I rounded the last turn, I saw the spectral blue light of the carnival. The sight invigorated my resolve, and my legs pumped faster. As I raced toward the carnival, I sprinted past a girl of about eight walking towards its beckoning gates. I think it may have been little Ashley Moore, but I didn't stop to look. I focused on my target, and rode my bike straight through the shimmering portal, skidding to a stop once inside. With a small pop, the portal snapped shut.
Still half mounted on my bike, I took in my new surroundings. The ghost carnival appeared to be a mirror image of the one we'd visited at the fairgrounds. At least it did at first. The longer I looked, the more the tents took on a worn and aged appearance. A film of road and wear clung to every fold and crease, reminding me of the old sepia photographs of my great-grandparents. Here and there, a patchwork of gray and off-white cloth concealed holes in the tents' striped fabric. The posters of the strong man, bearded lady, and dog-faced boy were peeling and faded, years of water damage bubbling up from beneath their paint.
I stood, not sure where to go. That's when I heard it. A deep, and somehow familiar, baritone coming from somewhere amongst the rows of tents running along both sides of a wide thoroughfare. I moved toward the voice. Outside each tent was a rectangular sign with a picture of what one would find inside: a man covered in tattoos, a woman with serpents for hair, Siamese twins connected at the hip, and so on. The smell of roasting meat and popcorn floated in the air, getting stronger as a walked down the row of tents.
I followed the sound of the man's voice. He spoke in rapid jolts, getting the crowd excited for his attraction. Each baritone rumble punctuated by the excited laughter and enthralled squeals of children. I quickened my pace, hurrying to the tent a few yards ahead.
A warm glow of lamplight spilled from a gap in the tent's closed flap. I moved closer to the gap and peeked through. Inside the tent, a handful of children oohed and awed as the barker swept around the hay bale seats, enticing them with wonders to come.
My eyes ran along the concentric rows, hoping to see Manny somewhere amongst the enrapt faces. I spotted his brown hair bobbing with glee in the far side of the third row from where I stood at the entrance.
I mustered my resolve and entered the tent, walking to where Manny sat. At the sight of me, the children hushed and stared. The barker turned to see what had caused the loss of his audience. I paid the room no mind and squatted at Manny's side. He looked at me, his expression blank as if I were a stranger. "Manny?" I said. "It's me, Nora."
A small flicker of recognition danced in his eyes, but he remained silent.
"I don't believe you have a ticket," said the barker.
I turned to him and realized why his voice had been familiar; he was the same barker from the real carnival, the one we'd gone to the day before. Unlike him, this one had covered his face in greasepaint, giving it a hyper-realistic look; his eyebrows too black, his face too pale, cheeks and lips too red. He wore a tattered and moth-eaten red ringmaster's coat. Its long tales frayed at the ends. Small clods of dirt clung to the gold corded lapels and epaulets as if he had just risen from the grave.
"You don't have a ticket," he said, pulling me from my thoughts. "You shouldn't be here."
"I came for my brother," I said, standing up straighter.
The barker smiled then, giving me a glimpse of brown crooked teeth. "Is that so?" he asked, taking a step towards me. "We were expecting Ashley Moore. She has a ticket. We need her to start the show."
"Show, show, show." The children chanted in unison. Their voices stripped of emotion.
"We can't start the show without Ashley, can we children?" The barker leaned into the crowd, his voice gaining emotion.
The children kept time with the barker. "Show! Show! Show!"
I bent and shook Manny, trying to break the spell, but he continued to chant with the others. Disheartened, I released my brother. As I stood again, my backpack's weight shifted on my shoulders, and I remembered I had come prepared, at least I hoped I had.
I removed an arm from a strap and swung the pack forward, so it hung against my chest. I plunged my hand into the gap created by the end of the baseball bat. My fingers closed around the air horn's aerosol cylinder. I yanked it free and depressed the nozzle.
The earsplitting blast of the horn caused the children to throw their hands over their ears and cower, each falling silent. The barker, however, stood unmoved by my display. "I will need to see your ticket," he repeated, this time through gritted teeth. "If you don't have a ticket, you can't watch the show."
At the word show, two of the children picked up the chant once more. I blasted the air-horn again, quieting them a second time. "Come on Manny," I said taking hold of my brother's arm, tugging him to his feet. He swayed before catching his balance. "We're going home."
"Home?" said a little girl in the front row, as if waking from a dream.
"I want my mommy," said a little boy to my left.
"Nora?" Manny whispered. "What's going on?"
I didn't answer him but pushed him behind me as I backed toward the tent's exit. "We're going home, Manny."
"I want to go home," said another child. One little girl stood, and ran for me, huddling close.
A little boy of about five got to his feet, large tears rolled down his plump cheeks.
"Come on, everyone!" I yelled. "We're all going home."
Around the tent, children stood, some crying, other's gazed around, confused. "We're all going home, right now." I held the air horn out in front of me like a talisman, its trumpet-shaped nozzle pointed at the barker.
Regaining control of himself, the barker's grimacing features resettled themselves into a wicked smile. "I'm afraid it's not that simple," he said. "These children all have tickets to the show. They answered the call. They're needed."
I ignored the barker, focusing instead on herding my new charges out of the tent. "Everyone outside," I said still backing towards the exit. "Go to the front gate."
"You can't take them," the barker repeated, "They're needed."
His brown cooked teeth elongated, the gums pulling back to reveal a mouth filled with long, needle-like fangs. I remembered then the smell of cooking meat, and my stomach lurched.
"Manny, I need you to run to the entrance. I need to you run fast," I said over my shoulder, not daring to take my eyes off the ghoulish barker.
"Which way?" he asked, his voice meek.
"Turn right when you leave the tent and run straight. Do you remember which way is right?" I asked.
"Which way is right?" The words were muffled against my back.
"Which hand do you write with?"
His right hand gripped my side. "This one," he said into my shirt.
"Go that way. And run. Don't stop for anything!"
Manny nodded again. "Now!" I pushed him away with my free hand. He released my shirt, his hallow footfalls on the hard-packed earth moved toward the door.
Eyes on the advancing barker, I dropped the air horn and pulled the wooden baseball bat from the pack, brandishing it with both hands.
"We need to eat," the barker's deep voice raised in pitch. "We need the children. Their hopes and dreams. It makes the meat so sweet and tender." He ran a rotted, black tongue over his multitude of needle-sharp teeth.
The barker lunged for me. I swung hard, hoping for a home. When the bat's polished sheen connected with his arm, the barker vanished. A cloud of red and black smoke hung in his place. A second later, he reappeared behind me. With hands more bone than flesh, the barker grabbed me, his grip like a vice, pinning my arms to my sides. "We need to eat," he breathed into my ear, cold and wet. Rivulets of spittle slid from his pointed teeth and onto the shoulder of my shirt. "We're hungry. So hungry."
I took the butt of the bat and jammed it into the barker's stomach. His claw-like hands released me in another puff of colored smoke. This time, I turned and fled for the exit, hoping to stay ahead of the ghoulish manifestation.
Outside the tent, one of the younger children stood peering down the path farther into the carnival. Terror filled his wide eyes. I followed his gaze. A horde of spectral performers closed in on us. The pristine and bejeweled costumes from the fairground carnival were now torn and faded, their skin bloodless and gray. I grabbed the boy's small hand, yanking him down the wide walkway towards the gate. My backpack rubbed and bumped against my ribs as it wedged itself under my right arm.
I spotted Manny near the gate, the watery portal shimmered once again. "Go through the gate," I called as we closed the distance.
"Where?" Manny answered. I could hear the tears of frustration in his voice. "I don't see it?"
Why didn't he see the gate? I wondered, frantic. It was right in front of him.
As Manny eyed me with bewilderment, the barker materialized behind him. His bony hands flashing out, grabbing my little brother. Manny screamed with fright.
I stopped short and whipped the little boy forward. He raced past where the barker held Manny and vanished through the portal.
The barker looked at the gate and snarled. "We need them. We're hungry."
"Nora!" Manny called, panicked. "Help me!"
My backpack slid forward then, and something hard hit my stomach. I reached inside the partially opened zipper. "Manny, duck!" I shouted and threw the bottle of holy water as hard as I could at the barker's head. It was a throw my Little League coach would have been proud of. Manny's head went down as the heavy white glass hurtled past. If the barker had remained in his solid-state, the bottle would have struck him square in the face. Instead, he vanished again, releasing Manny in the process. Jumping forward, I raced toward my little brother.
Before I had made it three steps, the barker reappeared behind me and grabbed hold of the dangling backpack. "He has a ticket. He's not going anywhere, and neither are you." His voice came from everywhere at once. Its high pitch tone vibrated at a frequency that made my ears ache.
I slipped out of the pack's strap and continued running to Manny. The barker screamed in fury as he held up the abandoned bag. Two of the children, too frightened by the barker and the other ghouls marching up our way, snapped out of their trance by the sound of the barker's wail. They ran for the portal, crying for home as disappeared through the watery gate.
I dropped to one knee in front of Manny. "We need to get out of here." I squeezed his heaving shoulders. "We have to go through the gate."
"I don't see it." He sobbed between words.
To my right, the portal swirled like rippling water. I tried to remain calm and pointed. "It's right there," I said, keeping my voice level, but the tears were coming, stinging my eyes and thickening my throat. "Please Manny, you've got to look again. We need to go home." Snarls of the other expired carnival performers drew closer.
"Home?" Manny's voice was small. "I don't remember."
I pulled the creased photograph from my back pocket and handed it to him. "Mom and dad need you, Manny. I need you."
He took the picture, and his face changed. "Mom?" he whispered, "Dad?"
"Mom and dad," I repeated. "They're at home waiting for us."
"I want to go home," he said and gasped. "I see it, Nora! I see the gate!"
The shrieking and angry protests from the performers intensified. Their meandering trek towards us picked up speed until they ran, hoping to hold onto one child for their horrible feast.
I took Manny by the hand, and we race for the gate. The barker's bony hand grabbed the back of my shirt as we jumped through. A moment later, the portal snapped shut for the second time that night, taking the eerie blue carnival with it.
I glanced behind me and something fell from midair. It hit the ground and bounced a few times before coming to rest near my sneakered foot. The severed, claw-like hand of the barker lie motionless on the dew-damped road. Revolted, I kicked it away where it rolled into the storm drain.
"Nora," came Manny's small voice. "What's going on? Why are we in town?"
Not sure how to respond, I said, "It's a long story bud. Let's find a phone, and we'll have a nice sit-down later."
He nodded. 'Sit-downs' were something our mom used when there was something important needing to be discussed. They involved hot cocoa and cookies. "Okay, but I want chocolate chip cookies."
"Bud, I'll make you a whole batch," I said, ruffling his hair.
"Ashely?" I asked.
Ashley Moore still stood in the middle of the street, examining something clutched in her hand. She looked up confused.
"It's me, Nora. I cut your law on Sundays."
"Hi, Nora." Her eyes focused on me, clearing. "What's going on?"
"It's a really long story," I replied. "Can you please take me to your house? I need to make some phone calls."
Ashley looked around, noticing the other children for the first time. She nodded but didn't move. Instead, she went back to examining what she held.
"Can I see that?" I stepped towards her.
She handed the object over. It was about the size and shape of a business card. Under the sodium street lights, its color was somewhere between gold and brown. Thin, intricate black lettering announced, 'Admit One' on one side, the other said, 'You can always go home, but only if you ask'.
"Where did you get this?"
Ashley scratched her head. "The man in a red jacket from the carnival. He said I was special. Sweet."
A chill ran up my back. "Nora, did you get one of these too?" I showed him the thick brown paper.
Nora nodded his head.
I pocketed the ticket. It was too important to throw away. It needed to be destroyed, completely.
Ashely led the way to her house up the block. Manny helped me herd the others up onto the little house's covered porch.
It took the authorities a while to sort out where all the kids had come from. Manny was the only local child taken. The rest were from other states. How they ended up in our sleepy village remained a mystery, but rumors abounded, as they do in small towns.
Later that week, I ran into Hans. He sat at his usual spot in the town's square near the gazebo, feeding the wildlife.
"You got your brother back," he said, nodding towards where Manny threw a football with our dad.
Nodding, I sat next to him on the bench. "You were right about the fliers. They wouldn't have worked."
He threw another wad of bread to the waiting pigeons. "I heard you also found a bunch of other kids too. That makes you a hero."
I didn't like the label. It didn't seem to fit me. "I got lucky."
We were silent for a while. "Did you find anyone else there?"
I knew he meant Greta, but I couldn't tell him what they'd done to her, what the ghosts had done with her. I shook my head. "No," I said. "No one else."