Read Online Hang Wire by Adam Christopher - Free Book Online Page B

his attention to the sky above.
    He never staked his claim in Oklahoma. He abandoned the territory. Traveled to Philadelphia, although he didn’t know why. Found Mr R S Barnett, although he didn’t know why. Started building the machines, started painting them with stars and planets and moons and comets. Didn’t know why, but he knew he had to. Carved the gems out of the cave rock. Carved the monkey.
    The moon was rising, brightening the sky, blotting out the stars. That annoyed Joel. He wouldn’t be able to see any more falling stars.
    The machines were carnival rides. Barnett had paid for them, given Joel a workforce, funded a workshop. It was simple enough to Joel. He knew just what to do and how to do it. Barnett had been happy. More than happy. No one in the whole wide world would have pleasure machines like his new circus show. Barnett had thanked Joel, given him money, offered him a partnership.
    But Joel didn’t need money. He had no interest in the business of the place. All he had interest in was his machines and their running. His machines, and the power that lived within them. Like a hermit crab in a new shell.
    The circus had opened and the crowds had been wowed, been delighted, been entertained and enthralled and sent home with happy memories and music playing in their ears. Barnett had been happy. Very happy.
    Joel too. The machines ran. People were amazed. So many lights, so many colors, all planets and stars and comets.
    Then there had been the first accident. A girl, aged eight, had been crushed by one of the carnival rides. She’d fallen from a spinning car, and had got stuck in the gears of the machine. The mechanism had continued to operate, obstruction or not, and there hadn’t been much left of the girl when they’d managed to stop the ride. Joel remembered the great gears lubricated with blood, so much blood. Barnett was a rich man and had paid the family a fortune. The circus continued, and the news stayed quiet. Nobody would know about the first accident.
    But they would learn about the second. Another woman, older this time. She’d fallen from the top of the Ferris wheel and had hit the frame at the bottom. The impact had split her nearly in two. Barnett hadn’t been able to pay his way out of that one, but he had greased the wheels of the press. It was no accident – it had been suicide. The woman had been disturbed. She had planned it all. So the papers said.
    Maybe she had. Or maybe the machines of the carnival wanted more.
    There were more accidents. None fatal, and most – a half dozen, at least – happening to workers and carnies. This suited Barnett, because he owned his employees like he owned his circus, and it was easy to keep trouble away with a steady flow of money brought in by the customers who enjoyed the show, oblivious to the blood spilled within its perimeter.
    And then the carnies wouldn’t work in the carnival, sticking instead to the Big Top, to the animals, preferring even the man-eating lions and tigers to being around Joel’s machines and rides. There was evil there, some said. Carnies were superstitious. Joel was not. But he knew they were right. Barnett said he didn’t believe them, but Joel knew he did. He had felt it too.
    The carnival was alive. More than that.
    The carnival was hungry .
    As fewer and fewer workers would go into the carnival, leaving Joel to manage the machines and rides on his own, so the accidents ceased.
    The carnival was hungry. Joel knew it, like he knew how to find Barnett, like he knew that he needed to build the machines to host the empty cold nothing that had fallen from the stars. It didn’t need blood. The machines didn’t feed on human flesh. No, the machines fed on terror and horror – the feelings, primal instincts and emotions. That was why it had shown Joel how to build the machines, because the machines generated fear, a little at a time, controlled but genuine enough. The thing from the stars fed on fear.
    Fed on