“I will be really famous again, I’ll bet…for now. I was shot tonight. I shot a boy and clubbed to death the man who raped my wife.” Del’s tone had turned sober. “There’s a VT movie in that. A mini-series.”
“Maybe. But I’ll be glad when it goes back to just the people who really appreciate you and your music. Won’t you?”
“Yes,” Del admitted.
Mitch Garnet clambered up into the helicar. “Del,” he said.
“Sorry, sir, no room,” a paramedic ordered him.
“I’ll be okay. See you at the med trailer,” Del reassured him.
Mitch reluctantly backed off. “Alright–see you inside.” How much more pale and shaken could Mitch Garnet look tonight? He’d get better, as Del would. But he would always be haunted in some way by tonight. Those who had survived tonight, those who survived every night, were affected in little ways or big ways.
For Dolly Horowitz, tonight was the night her daughter had died. Tonight a Choom man had given his girlfriend an engagement ring while they were high in the triple Ferris Wheel. Mrs. Oggen, an elderly Choom woman who had submitted a jar of preserves to be judged, would proudly return tomorrow to retrieve it, and would remember this year primarily as the year she had won first prize.
The helicar lifted and bore Del Kahn and Sophi Kahn back into the carnival.
About the Author
JEFFREY THOMAS' first book set in his milieu of Punktown was the collection titled Punktown, from which a story was reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #14. It will soon be released by Prime with twice as many stories as the original edition. His 2003 Punktown novel Monstrocity was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award in the Best First Novel category. Punktown: Third Eye is a shared-universe anthology of stories written by other authors in addition to Thomas. He lives in Massachusetts, and every Labor Day weekend makes a pilgrimage to the Spencer Fair, which inspired him to write Everybody Scream!.
Raw Dog Screaming Press
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