Nightside 08 - The Unnatural Inquirer

delight in that much suffering and slaughter, and not leave a stain on Time itself.
    It all started out so well. The Fun Faire did have its share of unusual, high-risk, high-excitement attractions. Just the thing to tempt the jaded palates of Nightside aesthetes. Or perhaps even the worst of us need to play at being children again, just for a while. So, the Dodgems of Doom could hit Mach 2 and came equipped with mounted machine-guns. The planes on the Tilt-A-Wheel had heat-seeking missiles and ejector seats. The Ghost Train was operated by real ghosts, the Tunnel of Love by a real succubus. The roller coaster guaranteed to rotate you through at last five different spatial dimensions or your money back. And the candy floss came treated with a hundred and one different psychotropic drugs.
    But eventually someone noticed that though an awful lot of people were going into Fun Faire, a significant percentage weren’t coming out again.
    And then it all went to Hell.
    No-one’s too sure what started it. Best guess is someone put a curse on the place, for whatever reason. The first clue that something was severely wrong came when the wooden horses on the Merry-Go-Round became possessed by demons and started eating their riders. The Tilt-A-Wheel speeded itself up and sent its mock planes shooting off into space. They didn’t fly far. The roller coaster disappeared into another dimension, taking its passengers with it, and never returned. Distorted reflections burst out of the distorting mirrors and ran amok, killing everyone they could get their hands on.
    Screams came out of the Ghost Train, and even worse screams out of the Tunnel of Love. The I-Speak-Your-Weight machines shouted out people’s most terrible inner secrets. The Clown that never stopped laughing escaped from his booth and strode through Fun Faire, ripping off people’s heads and hanging them from his belt. Still laughing. The customers ran for the exit. Some made it out.
    The Authorities sealed off Fun Faire, so nothing inside could get out, and soon the whole place was dark and still and silent. No-one volunteered to go in and check for survivors, or bring out the dead. The Nightside isn’t big on compassion.
    The owners, and then their creditors, turned to priests and exorcists, air strikes and high explosives, and none of it did any good. Fun Faire had become a Bad Place, and most people had enough sense to stay well clear of it. But, this being the Nightside, there were always those brave enough or stupid enough to use it as a hiding place, secure in the knowledge that only the most desperate pursuers would even think of coming in after them.
    I looked at Suzie. “Fancy a stroll around? Check out all the fun of the fair?”
    “Why not?” said Suzie.
    We strode through the archway, shoulder to shoulder, into the face of the gusting breeze. It was bitterly cold inside the Faire, and the silence had a flat, oppressive presence. Our footsteps didn’t echo at all. The rides and attractions loomed up around us, dark skeletal structures, and the rounded, almost organic shapes of the tattered tents and concession stands. We stuck to the middle of the moonlit paths. The shimmering light couldn’t seem to penetrate the shadows. Here and there, things moved, always on the edge of my vision. Perhaps moved by the gusting wind, which seemed to be growing in strength. Suzie glared about her, shotgun at the ready. It might have been the oppressive nature of the place getting to her, or it might not. Suzie always believed in getting her retaliation in first.
    We passed an old-fashioned I-Speak-Your-Weight machine, and I stopped and regarded it thoughtfully.
    “I know a guy who collects these,” I said, deliberately casual. “He’s trying to teach them to sing the ‘Halleluiah Chorus.’”
    “Why?” said Suzie.
    “I’m not sure he’s thought that far ahead,” I admitted.
    And then we broke off, as the machine stirred slowly into life before us. Parts moved inside it, grinding against each other, even though neither of us had stepped on it; and the voice-box made a low, groaning sound, as though it was in pain. The flat painted face lit up, sparking fitfully. And in a voice utterly devoid of humanity, or any human feeling, the machine spoke to us.
    “John Taylor. No father, no mother. No family, no friends, no future. Hated and feared, never loved, or even appreciated. Why don’t you just die and get it over with?”
    “Not even close,” I said