The Funhouse

she had a son, but he had special plans for her daughter.
        Gradually, after he poured a few more ounces, he felt the Scotch having its desired effect. But as always, the names of the towns on the season schedule settled his nerves more effectively than whiskey ever could.
        At last he put the list aside and looked up at the crucifix that was fastened to the wall above the foot of the bed. It was hanging upside down. And Christ's suffering face had been carefully painted black.
        A votive candle in a clear glass container stood on the nightstand. Conrad kept it lighted around the clock. The candle was black, the burning wax produced a strange, dark flame.
        Conrad Straker was a devout man. Without fail he said his prayers every night. But he didn't pray to Jesus.
        He had converted to a satanic religion twenty-two years ago, not long after Zena had divorced him. He contemplated death with great pleasure, eagerly anticipating the descent into Hell. He knew that was his destiny. Hell. His rightful home. He was not afraid of it. He would be at peace there. Satan's favored acolyte. He belonged in Hell. It was his rightful home. After all, since that tragic, fiery Christmas Eve when he was twelve years old, he had lived in one sort of hell or another, day and night, night and day, without relief.
        The outside door opened at the front end of the Travelmaster, and the trailer rocked as it took in its other lodger, and the door closed with a bang.
        “I'm back here!” Conrad called, not bothering to get up from the bed.
        There was no answer, but he knew who was there.
        “You left the bathroom a mess when you cleaned up,” Conrad shouted.
        Heavy footsteps headed toward him.
        
        * * *
        
        The following Sunday, a man named David Clippert and a dog named Moose were hiking in the spring-fresh Coal County hills, two miles from the fairgrounds.
        Shortly before four o'clock, as they were crossing a grassy hill, Moose, gamboling ahead of his master, came across something in a small patch of brush that he found unusually interesting. He raced around in a circle, staying in the grass, not entering the brush, but fascinated by whatever he had spotted in there. He barked several times, stopped to sniff something, then dashed in a circle again and loudly announced his discovery.
        From twenty yards behind the dog, David couldn't see what all the fuss was about. He had a pretty good idea, though. Most likely it was a flurry of butterflies flitting back and forth through the weeds. Or perhaps a tiny lizard that had frozen on a leaf but had failed to evade Moose's sharp eyes. At most it was a field mouse. Moose wouldn't stay close to anything larger than that. He was a big, silken-coated Irish setter, strong and friendly and good of heart, but he was a coward. If he had come upon a snake, a fox, or even a rabbit, he would have vamoosed with his tail between his legs.
        As David drew nearer the waist-high brush- mostly milkweed and brambles-Moose slunk off, whining softly.
        “What is it, boy?”
        The dog took up a position fifteen feet away from his find, looked beseechingly at his master, and whimpered.
        Strange behavior, David thought, frowning.
        It wasn't like Moose to be frightened off by a butterfly or a lizard. Once the big mutt zeroed in on prey like that, he was a formidable adversary, absolutely ferocious, indomitable.
        A few seconds later, when David reached the brush and saw what had drawn the dog's attention, he stopped as if he had walked into a brick wall.
        “Oh, Jesus.”
        A great river of arctic air must have changed course in the sky, for the warm May afternoon was suddenly cold, blood-freezing cold.
        Two dead bodies, a man and a woman, were sprawled in the brush, supported in a partially upright position by the interweaving blackberry vines. Both corpses were facing up, arms spread wide, almost as if they had been crucified on those thorny branches. The man had been disemboweled.
        David shuddered, but he didn't turn away from that gruesome sight. In the late 1960s he had served two tours of duty as a battlefield medic in Vietnam before he was wounded and sent home: he had seen gut wounds of all kinds, bellies ripped open by bullets, by bayonets, and by the shrapnel from antipersonnel mines. He was not queamish.
        But when he