Read Online The Complete Short Fiction of Charles L. Grant, Volume IV: The Black Carousel by Charles L. Grant - Free Book Online

would have a fit;
it would be great to see the look on his face.
    The carousel was empty.
    “Hey, Corri —”
    She was gone.
    Behind him, the animals rose and fell, rose and
fell, forever charging and never closing mouths frozen open, eyes
wide and blind, rising, and falling, leaning close, and away;
before him, they fled, hooves and paws and tails and manes, rising,
and falling, never quite reaching the turn in the bend.
    The band played a little faster.
    The carousel turned a little faster.
    “Corri!”
    God damn, he’d been tricked. She was a shill
after all, some kind of gag played on the local yokel and everyone
out there having a good laugh at his expense. He glared out toward
the oval, ready to tell them he didn’t think it was funny, but the
glare disappeared when he saw nothing but the night beyond the fall
of green light.
    No lights, no rides, no people — only what
looked like a vast field, and a vast field of stars out there on
the horizon.
    The band played. The carousel turned.
    Off, he ordered then; get the hell off, find out
who’s in charge and get the bitch fired.
    He couldn’t
    As much as he tried, his feet wouldn’t leave the
stirrups, and as much as he lunged side to side, back and forth, he
couldn’t lift off the saddle. Frantically, then, he shoved and
pushed and kicked and punched, until something stabbed a muscle at
the base of his spine, until his arms wilted at his sides and his
legs wouldn’t obey.
    Ride it out, then; wait for the joke to end.
    Rising.
    Falling.
    Wait. All you have to do is wait. They won’t
leave you here to starve or die of thirst. Sooner or later they’ll
shut down, have their laugh, and you can go home. Tend the gardens.
Repaint the house. Fix the gutter. Give Tina a call and take her to
dinner. Maybe — he smiled weakly — you could apologize to Norma for
wanting to kill her.
    Rising.
    It won’t be long.
    Falling.
    It can’t be long.
    Close your eyes, he suggested, and pretend it’s
all a dream, just like in the movies.
    The carousel turned.
    His eyes wouldn’t close. He had to look — ahead
and behind, in case they were hiding someplace; out in the field,
in case someone turned on the lights. He had to listen-to the
music, to know when it began to slow down, when the bears stopped
playing that same goddamn tune.
    Oh god, Casey thought; dear God, he prayed.
    “Oh god!” Casey screamed as the animals charged
and fled, as the mirrors winked and darkened, as the stars never
changed, as the night didn’t lighten, as he heard above the thunder
of the carousel as it turned the soft quiet sound of a young woman,
laughing.
    He rode through the night without the strawberry
blonde.
    And the band played on.

II: Will You Be Mine?
     
    The world changed when the cartons were all
emptied, crushed, dragged out to the curb for the garbage truck to
take away. Before, when dishes were still being unwrapped, when the
toys were still jumbled in their boxes, when all the good clothes
were still crammed into their hanging bags with the stuck zippers
and probably forever wrinkled, there had still been a chance her
parents would change their minds. They would see that this house
wasn’t as nice as their real home, that the town was too small for
anything to happen worth getting up for, that the people just
weren’t the same as the ones she had left behind. They would see
that, they would understand, they would say oops, sorry, Fran,
we blew it, get into the car and drive away without looking
back.
    Still a chance.
    Even when the moving van had backed out of the
driveway and pulled away, coughing smoke and grinding gears,
swaying as it rounded the corner and disappeared.
    Even when Daddy had carried Mom kicking and
giggling over the threshold.
    Still a chance.
    Until the cartons were empty.
    The worst day of her life.
    A warm day, with flowers and bees and bluejays
and cars with their windows rolled down, trailing music behind
them; a T-shirt and jeans and sneakers and dark