Something Wicked This Way Comes (1963) by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's fever-dream slice of American Gothic is perhaps the only book on this list I'm a little embarrassed about - so overheated in style it might be the work of Stephen King at his most purple. But this is a book I go back to again and again, ever since I first read it as a child - not much older than its two protagonists, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, two boys living in an idyllic Midwestern town disrupted by the arrival of an evil, mysterious carnival. This excerpt is actually (spoiler alert!) the book's climax, but in fact it's all written with the same white-hot fervour : the combination of didacticism, primal Manicheism and vivid use of language remains, for me, unforgettable. Hell, I even like the Disneyfied (but still under-rated) 1983 film version, starring Jason Robards as Mr. Halloway!

(pp. 211-218)

Perhaps the calliope gave a last ringmaster's bark. Perhaps thunder turned, sleeping, in the clouds. Suddenly all wheeled about. The freaks stampeded. North, south, east, west, free of tent, master, dark law, free above all of each other, they ran like albino pigs, tuskless boars, and stricken sloths before storms.

It must have been, it seemed, each yanked a rope, loosed a tent-peg, running.

For now the sky was shaken with a fatal respiration, the breathing down, the insunk rattle and pule of collapsing darkness as the tents gave way.

With hiss of viper, swirl of cobra, the ropes insanely ravelled, slithered, snapped, cut grass with frictioned whips.

The networks of the vast Main Freak Tent convulsed, parted bones, small from medium, and medium from brontosaur magnificent. All swayed with impending fall.

The menagerie tent shut up like a dark Spanish fan.

Other small tents, caped figures in the meadow, fell down at the wind's command.

Then at last, the Freak Tent, the great melancholy mothering reptile bird, after a moment of indecision, sucked in a Niagara of blizzard air, broke loose three hundred hempen snakes, crack-rattled its black sidepoles so they fell like teeth from a cyclopean jaw, slammed the air with acres of mouldered wing as if trying to kite away but, earth-tethered, must succumb to plain and most simple gravity, must be crushed by its own locked bulk.

Now this greatest tent staled out hot raw breaths of earth, confetti that was ancient when the canals of Venice were not yet staked, and wafts of pink cotton candy like tired feather boas. In rushing downfalls, the tent shed skin ; grieved, soughed as flesh fell away until at last the tall museum timbers at the spine of the discarded monster dropped with three cannon roars.

The calliope simmered, moronic with wind.

The train stood, an abandoned toy, in a field.

The freak oil paintings clapped hands high on the last standing pennant poles, then plummeted to earth.

The Skeleton, the only strange one left, bent to pick up the body of the porcelain boy-who-was- Mr-Dark. He moved away into the fields.

Will, in a swift moment, saw the thin man and his burden go over a hill among all the footprints of the vanished carnival race.

Will's face shadowed this way, then that, pulled by the swift concussions, the tumults, the deaths, the fleeing away of souls. Cooger, Dark, Skeleton, Dwarf-who-was-Lightning-Rod-Salesman, don't run, come back! Miss Foley, where are you? Mr. Crosetti! It's over! Be still! Quiet! It's all right. Come back, come back!

But the wind was blowing their footprints out of the grass and they might run forever now trying to outflee themselves.

So Will turned back astride Jim and pushed the chest and let go, pushed and let go, then, trembling, touched his dear friend's cheek.

"Jim...?"

But Jim was cold as spaded earth.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Beneath the cold was a fugitive warmness, in the white skin lay some colour, but when Will felt Jim's wrist there was nothing and when he put his ear to the chest there was nothing.

"He's dead!"

Charles Halloway came to his son and his son's friend and knelt down to touch the quiet throat, the unstirred rib cage.

"No." Puzzled. "Not quite..."

"Dead!"

The tears burst from Will's eyes. But then, as swiftly, he felt himself knocked, struck, shaken.

"Stop that!" cried his father. "You want to save him?!"

"It's too late, oh, Dad!"

"Shut up! Listen!"

But Will wept.

And again his father hauled off and hit him. Once on the left cheek. Once on the right cheek, hard.

All the tears in him were knocked flying ; there were no more.

"Will!" His father savagely jabbed a finger at him and at Jim. "Damn it, Willy, all this, all these. Mr. Dark and his sort, they like crying, my God, they love tears! Jesus God, the more you bawl, the more they drink the salt off your chin. Wail and they suck your breath like cats. Get up! Get off your knees, damn it! Jump around! Whoop and holler! You hear! Shout, Will, sing, but most of all laugh, you got that, laugh!"

"I can't!"

"You must! It's all we got. I know! In the library! The Witch ran, my God, how she ran! I shot her dead with it. A single smile, Willy, the night people can't stand it. The sun's there. They hate the sun. We can't take them seriously, Will!"

"But - "

"But hell! You saw the mirrors! And the mirrors shoved me half in, half out the grave. Showed me all wrinkles and rot! Blackmailed me! Blackmailed Miss Foley so she joined the grand march Nowhere, joined the fools who wanted everything! Idiot thing to want : everything! Poor damned fools. So wound up with nothing like the dumb dog who dropped his bone to go after the reflection of the bone in the pond. Will, you saw : every mirror fell. Like ice in a thaw. With no rock or rifle, no knife, just my teeth, tongue and lungs, I gunshot those mirrors with pure contempt! Knocked down ten million scared fools and let the real man get to his feet! Now, on your feet, Will!"

"But Jim -" Will faltered.

"Half in, half out. Jim's been that, always. Sore-tempted. Now he went too far and maybe he's lost. But he fought to save himself, right? Put his hand out to you, to fall free of the machine? So we finish that fight for him. Move!"

Will sailed up, giddily yanked.

"Run!"

Will sniffed again. Dad slapped his face. Tears flew like meteors.

"Hop! Jump! Yell!"

He banged Will ahead, shuffled with him, shoved his hand in his pockets, tearing them inside out until he pulled forth a bright object.

The harmonica.

Dad blew a chord.

Will stopped, staring down at Jim.

Dad clouted him on the ear.

"Run! Don't look!"

Will ran a step.

Dad blew another chord, yanked Will's elbow, flung each of his arms.

"Sing!"

"What,"

"God, boy, anything!"

The harmonica tried a bad 'Swanee River'.

"Dad." Will shuffled, shaking his head, immensely tired. "Silly ...!"

"Sure! We want that! Silly damn fool man! Silly harmonica! Bad off-key tune!"

Dad whooped. He circled like a dancing crane. He was not in the silliness yet. He wanted to crack through. He had to break the moment!

"Will : louder, funnier, as the man said! Oh, hell, don't let them drink your tears and want more! Will! Don't let them take your crying, turn it upside down and use it for their own smile! I'll be damned if death wears my sadness for glad rags. Don't feed them one damn thing, Willy, loosen your bones! Breathe! Blow!"

He seized Will's hair, shook him.

"Nothing ... funny ..."

"Sure there is! Me! You! Jim! All of us! The whole shooting works! Look!"

And Charles Halloway pulled faces, popped his eyes, mashed his nose, winked, cavorted like chimpanzee-ape, waltzed with the wind, tap-danced the dust, threw back his head to bay at the moon, dragging Will with him.

"Death's funny, God damn it! Bend, two, three, Will. Soft-shoe. Way down upon the Swanee River - what's next, Will? ... Far, far away! Will, your God-awful voice! Damn girl soprano. Sparrow in a tin can. Jump, boy!"

Will went up, came down, cheeks hotter, a wincing like lemons in his throat. He felt balloons grow in his chest.

Dad sucked the silver harmonica.

"That's where the old folks -" Will spoke.

"Stay!" bellowed his father.

Shuffle, tap, bounce, jog.

Where was Jim? Jim was forgotten.

Dad jabbed his ribs, tickling.

"De Camptown ladies sing this song!"

"Doo-dah!" yelled Will. "Doo-dah!" he sang it now, with a tune. The balloon grew. His throat tickled.

"Camptown race track, five miles long!"

"Oh, doo-dah day!"

Man and boy did a minuet.

And in midstep it happened.

Will felt the balloon grow huge within him.

He smiled.

"What?" Dad was surprised by those teeth.

Will snorted. Will giggled.

"What say?" asked Dad.

The force of the exploding warm balloon alone shoved Will's teeth apart, kicked his head back.

"Dad! Dad!"

He bounded. He grabbed his Dad's hand. He raced crazily, hollering, quacking like a duck, clucking like a chicken. His palms hit his throbbing knees. Dust flew off his soles.

"Oh, Susanna!"

"Oh, don't you cry - "

"- for me!"

"For I come from - "

"Alabama with my - "

"Banjo on my - "

Together. "Knee!"

The harmonica knocked teeth, wheezing, Dad hocked forth great chords of squeeze-eyed hilarity, turning in a circle, jumping up to kick his heels.

"Ha!" They collided, half collapsed, knocked elbows, cracked heads, which blew the air out faster. "Ha! Oh God, ha! Oh God, Will, ha! Weak! Ha!"

In the middle of wild laughter -

A sneeze!

They spun. They stared.

Who lay there on the moonlit earth?

Jim? Jim Nightshade?

Had he stirred? Was his mouth wider, his eyelids quivering? Were his cheeks pinker?

Don't look! Dad swung Will handily round in a further reel. They do-si-do'ed, hands extended, the harmonica seeping and guzzling raw tunes from a father who storked his legs and turkeyed his arms. They hopped Jim one way, hopped back, as if he were but a lump-stone on the grass.

"Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah! Someone's in the kitchen - "

"- I know-oh-oh-oh!"

Jim's tongue slid out on his lips.

No one saw this. Or if they saw, ignored it, fearing it might pass.

Jim did the final things himself. His eyes opened. He watched the dancing fools. He could not believe. He had been off on a journey of years. Now, returned, no one said "Hi!". All jigged Sambo-style. Tears might have jumped to his eyes. But before they could start, Jim's mouth curved. He gave up a ghost of laughter. For, after all, there indeed was silly Will and his silly old janitor dad racing like gorillas knuckle-dusting the meadows, their faces a puzzlement. They toppled above him, clapped hands, wiggled ears, bent to wash him all over with their now bright full-river flowing laughter that could not be stopped if the sky fell or the earth rent open, to blend their good mirth with his, to fuse-light and set him off in a detonation which could not stop exploding from lady-fingers to four-inchers to doomsday cannon crackers of delight!

And looking down, jolt-dancing his bones loose and delicious, Will thought : Jim don't remember he was dead, so we won't tell, not now - some day, sure, but not ... Doo-dah! Doo-dah!

They didn't even say "Hello, Jim" or "Join the dance", they just put out hands as if he had fallen from their swung pandemonium commotion and needed a boost back into the swarm. They yanked Jim. Jim flew. Jim came down dancing.

And Will knew, hand in hand, hot palm to palm, they had truly yelled, sung, gladly shouted the live blood back. They had slung Jim like the newborn, knocked his lungs, slapped his back, shocked joyous breath to where it made room.

Then Dad bent and Will leaped over him, and Will bent and Dad jumped him and they both waited, crouched in a line, wheezing songs, deliciously tired, while Jim swallowed spit, and ran full tilt. He got half over Dad when they all fell, rolled in the grass, all hoot-owl and donkey, all brass and cymbal as it must have been the first year of Creation, and Joy not yet thrown from the Garden.

Until at last they drew up their feet, socked each other's shoulders, embraced knees tight, rocking and looking with swift bright happiness at each other, growing wine-drunkenly quiet.

And when they were done smiling at each other's faces as at burning torches, they looked away across the field.

And the black tent poles lay in elephant boneyards with the dead tents blowing away like the petals of a great black rose.

The only three people in a sleeping world, a rare trio of tomcats, they basked in the moon.