A quiet fell over the showgrounds. Faintly came a sound like chains being dragged over hard dirt. Jamie felt the thing coming well before he saw it. It was like a winter wind that blew fear and malice instead of cold, and there was hate and envy for everything living in a body with warm blood, and other things it could mimic but never be. The shape imposing upon the dark alleyway between stalls and games was taller than any man, though effort had been made to cloak itself in garments: a black coat and cape, and to fashion for itself limbs which stiffly carried it in awkward lurching strides. It was darker than the night behind it, hobbling slowly, each step a battle like someone in sinking sand. Its thin arms shivered with anger; Jamie glimpsed bone-like talons in place of what had seemed moments before a hand in a black glove. Two red flames burned in its face. A hissing rasp whispered, "George, ahh . . . George, sss."
It did not look their way. He saw in its face twisted and chewed husks of bone, scale, skin, all wound together in shuddering lumps. Then it passed from view, moved toward the trailer. Ahead of it, screams pierced the hush, and then were quickly silenced. A stampede of footsteps beat across the ground; everyone near the trailer fled, the newer carnies gone pale, frightened, once more hit by rekindled doubts about their new world. JJ ran ahead of the others. Gonko they did not see in the fleeing rush.
They heard the split and crack of the wood barricading George in his home. They heard George's scream, and the sudden quiet falling like a blow when it stopped. Slowly, awkwardly, the creature came back the way it arrived, George dragged by a foot clutched behind it until, finally, it passed from view and the hush cautiously lifted. The distant murmur of carny folk resumed—awed whispers telling each other what they'd seen.
Gonko strolled past them, whistling happily. He paused to cast his gaze after the thing, sighed in contentment, then walked off toward the freak show.
•
"Now do you see?" said Shalice after a long while of neither of them speaking.
"How many are there like that, below?" Jamie asked.
"Fewer than you might expect. There are some lesser types than the one you saw, in greater number."
"It seemed sick, the way it moved. And it seemed like it . . . didn't like being up here." They were poor words for what he'd seen; especially on its return to the Funhouse, its outlines had wavered, and at times it almost looked like the air would soon dissolve it. Jamie had seen parts of it blur into something like pixels, swirling clouds of black dots held together by an irritated twitch of its hand.
"It does not belong here," said Shalice. "It comes from somewhere, or somewhen, never revealed to any of we slaves. What we might call magic is a kind of instability in reality that its presence causes. An instability much study and labor has learned to shape—to control. These showgrounds are a halfway point between its world and yours. This place borrows the laws of reality from both places, mixes them in ways they should not be mixed. You saw that it did not enjoy the solidity even of this halfway point . . . it cannot yet handle the physical realm. In the same way, you could not live on the ocean floor or in outer space. You are not built for those places, and they are not built for physicality. All my alterations of history, done on their instruction, may have been to change your world so that one day, they can survive your world and do there as they like." She caught his eye. "A little physical matter, in its presence, it could handle. Just as you could stand waist deep in water; not comfortable, perhaps, but easily enough. Too much physicality would harm it. Even kill it, if death is an apt term for the ruin of something not alive, as we understand the word."
Jamie shivered. "What are we going to do, Shalice? Can you help us?"
"I'll not promise anything more than this. Gonko and the other clowns are your greatest danger and impediment—not the only one, but the greatest. I can, when the day comes, keep them from interfering. You must survive until then. As for what you will do, it is not for me to tell you."
"Why not?"
"I do not see everything. The illusion that I do has served me well. Scraps of the future come to me in little flashes, that is all."
When the day comes. As the fortuneteller walked off without another word, Jamie found for some reason that those words sat heavy in his mind, more than all else she'd said. The day was indeed coming, he knew, and coming soon.
He went to back to the loose fence plank, mostly unseen on the short walk, and wrenched it back. "Dean?" he called to no response. Reluctantly he slipped out, sidled onto the narrow rock shelf, trying not to look down, then making himself look down and not care about the empty abyss. If he was to get rid of JJ, this was the obvious way: one quick wrench after luring him here on some pretext. The JJ who'd tried to drive him insane last time, ultimately tried to kill him . . . the JJ who tonight had maybe saved his life.
The thicker platform was an empty slab of sand-colored stone island—Dean was not there. If he'd slipped and fallen, naturally there would be no trace.
•
Most of the george is watching signs were already smashed and defaced. Gonko took a couple as souvenirs—he'd never been happier to see that face in all his life. "Let us go and put the final icing on the grandest suck up cake ever made," he told his crew, minus one of the J's. He could hardly tell the pair apart, but they seemed to be getting along this time around.
Goshy however was all riled up about something; he'd been doing that thing where he'd walk back and forth about three meters at constantly increasing speed, to a point he'd become a colored blur and maybe even set the ground on fire. Usually Doops could chill him out, but it was taking a while, this time. When Jamie returned, the clowns were on their way out, and his presence set Goshy off again: one stiff arm pointed an accusing finger, the mouth flapped mutely, a puff of steam from the ears—the whole shebang.
"Whatsa matter, Goshy?" said Doopy, pawing his brother's shirt. "He's tryna tell us something, Gonko, something real important." They all watched, waited. Jamie began to sweat. "C'mon Goshy, tell us!"
Flap flap, the lips smacked the gums with little plop sounds. Squinting, Doopy translated: "Jamie's gonna . . ."
Flap flap.
"Jamie's scheming to put an end to . . ."
"Come off it, this is silly," said Jamie, edging backwards.
Flap, flap, flap. "You was hiding out, and you heard Jamie say . . ."
Goshy's accusing finger shook, jabbed the air.
"Oh wow!" Doopy screamed. "Wow wow wow! Boss, boss, we gotta talk, you just gotta hear what Goshy says, it's reaaaaal important . . ."
"Spit it out!" Gonko said irritably.
"Jamie's gonna buy us all a present! A super duper present! Ain't it the bestest thing you ever saw? It's gonna be shiny, and pretty, and tasty, and it's gonna make us forget we ever hurt real bad."
"Jamie's going to buy himself a new pair of pants first," Jamie said.
Gonko snapped, "Knock it off, you jiggling tits. We're gonna set Kurt loose, then we're gonna bask in his gratitude from now til eternity. But he's a funny one. Just got a hunch it's best not to talk about the ol' secret upstairs show thing. Got it?"
They got it, and Goshy walked very close behind Jamie as the clowns headed for the freak show tent, a puff of steam now and then whistling out his ears.
"Why, good evening clowns," said Kurt from the glass case, his thick lips pulling their corners up through rosy cheeks. "My, hasn't it been an interesting day. I hear George has got himself in a spot of bother with . . . upper management."
"We're all just flabbergasted, boss," said Gonko. "Who woulda thought, eh? But someone's gotta run this joint. What say we let you out of there?"