By the time all that was happening, at least one tourist in fifteen was feeling the first effects of the massive doses of the psychedelic drugs in the candy. Confusion was a tool, and Vic was a master craftsman.

5

Magician Rod Leigh-Evans was having a bad night. The motor on his big electric table saw conked out during dress rehearsal and the whole trick had to be scrapped, which sucked because it was the centerpiece of his act. That meant that he had twelve minutes to fill with no major routines. He rushed home to get some of his older, less exciting tricks out of his garage. Stuff the crowd had probably seen a hundred times, but it was all he had left.

It didn’t matter that his assistant, the Incredible Wanda, had called him from an ER in Abington where she was having her foot stitched up following what she called “a bathroom misadventure.” Wanda declined to explain what that meant.

Stuck for an assistant, Leigh-Evans badgered one of the Festival staff to take Wanda’s place. The only staff member not assigned to something that couldn’t be switched was Chris Maddish, a young man hired to translate for a group of Japanese tourists whose plane was delayed in Chicago. When Leigh-Evans explained that Chris would have to go on as the Incredible Wanda there was one hell of an argument. Two hundred dollars later Maddish was squeezed into Wanda’s dress and wig. All things considered, Leigh-Evans thought, the kid looked better as a sexy woman than Wanda ever did; but the bribe money meant that the magician was now doing this gig for free.

When the show started, it was a rolling disaster. Some of the scarf tricks were so old the material was disintegrating during the performance, so he tried to sidestep into shtick as if being the world’s worst magician was all part of the show. The audience looked uncertain because he had started well and you can’t change a theme after you’ve set the expectations of the audience.

The rabbit he pulled out of the hat peed on his cummerbund—which at least got a laugh out of the audience, though he was pretty sure they weren’t laughing with him. Then he segued into a trick that at least promised a nice visual—one of the appearing dove tricks. Doves were pretty and they didn’t pee on you.

The trick here was to have the Incredible Wanda hold a wooden platform that was an inch thick and thirteen inches square, blow up a balloon, place it in the center of the platform, do some hand waving, and then pop the balloon to reveal the dove. All very clever, all pretty easy, but with popping the colorful balloon and the serenity of the cooing dove, it had very nice sounds and visuals.

The crowd, already restive, barely paid attention while Leigh-Evans ranted through his patter and did the hand gestures, but halfway during the trick Chris dropped the platform. The sound of it hitting the stage silenced the crowd, but also drew their complete attention. None of them had ever seen a magic act as overwhelmingly bad as this. The magician was horrified because of what was inside the platform.

He started again, his voice breaking on a couple of the lines in the patter and his hand gestures looking a bit less assured. When he popped the balloon and cried, “Voilà!” the crowd stared at the dove.

Instead of cooing and flapping its wings, the dove flopped dead onto the stage, rolled once, and then fell off the platform into the popcorn cup of a seven-year-old girl. Who screamed.

“Well,” the magician thought as the crowd started screaming, “at least it can’t any worse.”

All of this took place on a small stage in front of the town’s electrical power substation, which then blew up.

6

Deep beneath the mud and muck of the swamp, Ubel Griswold felt the explosions vibrate through the bones of the earth. He opened his mouth and howled with delight as the Red Wave began.

Chapter 39

1

Crow and LaMastra made it back to the base of the pitch in less than an hour. If it had been a straight run it would have been fifteen minutes, but the terrain was cluttered with roots and rocks. Even so, they hit the pitch at full tilt and the two ATVs swept up the steep hill and leapt over the edge like dune buggies, landing hard and slewing around to kick dust pillars in the parking lot. They didn’t even bother to switch off the bikes, and instead leapt off and ran for Crow’s car, piled in, and went screaming out of the Passion Pit in a spray of gravel, jouncing and bouncing along the rutted length of Dark Hollow Road.

At the crossroads Crow spun the wheel to put them on A-32. There were plenty of cars on the road—some heading toward town, most racing away from it at dangerous speeds. Then a huge rolling BOOM! buffeted them from behind and LaMastra twisted around in his seat to see a massive fireball plume up behind the farthest hills.

“What the Christ was that?” Crow demanded, steering in and out of traffic with no regard for blaring horns. Many of the cars on the outbound side of the road were slowing or pulling off onto the verge. There were several rear-end collisions as drivers gaped at the fireball.

“Something big just blew the hell up. What’s down that way?”

“Just the bridge.”

LaMastra turned back around. “Maybe not.”

Before Crow could reply his cell phone rang and he steered one-handed while he dug it out of his pocket.

“Crow! My God…tell me you’re okay!”

“Val, honey, I’m okay. Are you okay? What the hell’s happening? Everyone seems to be trying to get out of town?”

“I don’t know. We keep hearing explosions. I lost count of how many.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the hospital, in Saul’s room. We’re all here. I—”

“Val, listen to me,” he interrupted. “Listen really carefully. Frank’s dead.”

“Oh my God! How?”

“Vic Wingate killed him. Vic’s part of this, and—”

“I know about Vic. Mike told me.”

“Mike?”

“Crow…he’s here with us. He’s changed, Crow, he’s—”

There was another explosion, this time well ahead of them, and the cell signal just died.

“Val! VAL!” He yelled, but he was talking to dead air. He hit RECALL, but nothing. He looked at his phone. No bars. “My phone just died. Try yours,” he said to LaMastra, who already had his out.

“Nothing. I was trying to call my friend Jerry Head to see if he could give us some backup…and then nothing. As soon as that last explosion hit.”

Crow drove, swerving around a swelling rush of cars racing away from town. “The bridge…and now what? The cell phone tower? Val got cut off, but she said that there were a lot of explosions.”

“Oh man.”

“You’d better reload us, Vince. This is going to be bad.”

“It’s already bad.”

“Then it’s going to get worse.”

2

Billy Christmas heard the screams and grinned. “The tourists are really loving this stuff.” He sipped hot mint tea from his travel mug and parked a haunch on the empty flatbed that had just come back. The returning customers were being herded toward the concession stand, a second tractor was pulling a fresh group of victims out, but the third was deep in the attraction. Weird theremin music filled the air.

“Yeah, they’re eating it up,” agreed BK. “Guess no one needs it to actually be dark to get into the mood.”

Thunder rumbled in the sky. “Dark enough,” Billy said.

“Not supposed to rain, though. I checked the weather…it’s clear everywhere else. Probably just a passing system. Lucky us.”

There was more thunder, a shorter burst not preceded by a lightning flash. BK looked east over the miles of waving corn. He saw the glow on the horizon and almost dismissed it as lightning—but the glow was too orange and it didn’t flicker, merely tinted the undersides of the clouds.

“Christ!” BK pointed, but Billy was already climbing up onto the stakebed’s deck.

“Something just blew up real good. Damn! There’s another!”

They watched a small fireball sear its way upward in the distance.

“That’s near the town,” BK said. He pulled his cell phone out and hit the speed dial, calling Jim Winterbottom, his point man for the parade. The phone rang and rang and then went to voice mail. When he tried again, his own phone went dead. “That’s weird…suddenly I get no bars.”

There were four more explosions, none of them close to the hayride.

“Yeah, me too. Try the walkie-talkie.” Sarah Wolfe had arranged for the police department to loan the security force a set of walkie-talkies—older models that had been in storage but which would still work as a backup. The signals were bounced by relay towers and routed through the department’s switchboard.

“No signal,” BK said. “This is too weird for me, Billy. Let’s—”

Two things happened right then. The lights in the whole attraction suddenly went out—and with the murk under the late afternoon clouds, the whole place went very dark—and then the screams began. Not just the screams of the kids out in the field…but screams everywhere.

Billy turned. “What the f—?”

A figure rushed at them. White face, red eyes, fangs—and an orange and black PINE DEEP HAUNTED HAYRIDE STAFF T-shirt.

“Mr. Kingsman!” yelled the vampire. “Something’s wrong. All the power’s out.”

“It’s okay, Danny,” BK said. “Get one of the ATVs out of the barn and run the circuit. Everyone comes back here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Don’t know yet, but let’s round everyone up. Come on, Danny, chop chop.”

The kid nodded and dashed for the barn.

Billy said, “I’ll take the haunted house. The emergency lights should have kicked in, but I’ll bring everyone out.” There were more explosions. He ran up the path.

Another white-faced figure in an orange T-shirt was coming around the far end of the tractor. BK waved him over. “Chet, good…listen, something’s going down so we’re pulling everyone in. Do me a favor and—”