The Night Everything Changed Read online

  The wind was picking up. All week the weathermen warned of severe thunderstorms making their way into the heart of Wisconsin, but, until recently, the weather had been chipper. These early days of June had been almost perfect.

  Lightning flashed along with a boom of thunder. Rain would come soon, probably within minutes. The lingering odor of manure that usually fortified the farmlands had all but been dispersed by the wind.

  Dr. Vincent Carlson darted from his house. He’d forgotten to latch the front barn door and heard it pounding against the side of the stable. The last thing he needed was to trot all over the land during a storm and gather up escaped animals. If it were any other night, he’d get his daughter, Leanne, to help round them up, but she’d been at the carnival all evening and wasn’t here to help if the stock got out.

  Vincent implored her not to go, but she’d insisted. He didn’t like the idea of her running off to some strange carnival where the main attraction was a herd of tiny people, even if it was on his land. Not dwarves, mind you, these people were even smaller. He’d heard rumblings in town that some folks thought they might be elves.

  That was ridiculous. Elves.

  Leanne argued it was the eighties, times had changed, and people could believe what they wanted and go to any kind of carnival that they wanted without worry of being ridiculed for it.

  Vincent wasn’t the only one in Doverton who wasn’t thrilled that the Haunchies had rolled into town.

  He was sure Leanne would have plenty to say about what the other townspeople were thinking. She was a teenager and had just graduated from South Doverton High School. Of course she knew everything. Her brain was a mass of uncultivated knowledge.

  She was a very smart girl, preparing this summer to start college near Green Bay in the fall. And Vincent wasn’t scared to admit to anyone he’d miss her terribly.

  He grabbed the barn door just as the wind gusted it open, catching it before it smacked against the side wall. Keeping it gripped firmly with both hands, he inspected the door as the wind wobbled it like sheet metal. It was a strain to keep a firm hold on it. He saw the door was already showing evidence of damage. The wood was old, but he’d hoped it would last at least a couple more years. After this abuse, he’d probably have to repair it by the Fourth of July.

  Using both hands, he pushed the door against the blustery weather, and, after a bit of a struggle, managed to slam it shut. He dropped the latch in place, securing the door closed and pulled on the plank, checking its durability. It felt sturdy enough. He hoped it would hold.

  Another twisting bolt of lightning crackled down from the sky, striking a tree somewhere deep in the woods, across from Vincent’s cornfields. The explosion made him jump out of his skin.

  Storm’s getting closer.

  He hugged himself. What little heat they’d had during this early part of the summer was gone. In Wisconsin, the summers normally felt like the fall, and when fall did come, it was nearly as cold as the winter. The weather never matched the season.

  “Leanne better be getting on home,” he muttered.

  Why hadn’t she gotten home yet? He’d told her no later than midnight. It had been steadily approaching that time when he’d last checked the clock in the house. It was probably midnight by now, but if not, it was damn close.

  As Vincent hurried back to the house, he recalled the flyer Leanne had shown him. It was an advertisement for the carnival, one of the many he’d already seen stapled to the power poles in town and taped across the windows and walls of any buildings whose owners had granted them permission.

  Written in flashy letters was:

  The Final Tour of the Haunchyville Carnival!

  Come enjoy it while you still can!

  He shouldn’t have let her talk him into it.

  When she’d brought him the flyer, she wasn’t just showing him that they were coming. She’d been using it to help explain why Vincent should offer them his fields for their last run in the Midwest. They’d lost their original location at the fairgrounds in Bixby and traveled south, trying to find another place to stake their tents.

  Like a fool, Vincent had obliged.

  Haunchyville. Such an awful name. Why those little people had selected that name for their traveling group was beyond him. Maybe to the little ones it was okay. He couldn’t fairly vouch for their way of thinking. After all, he was only the town doctor, so what he figured probably didn’t count for much.

  But he hated the name all the same.

  Leanne sure knew a lot about the group. He was taken aback by how much knowledge she had. It was a little unnerving. She’d sat Vincent down at the kitchen table the same night she’d shown him the flyer and explained what she knew of the carnival’s history, explained that they weren’t really dwarves at all. She told him more about the Haunchies than any rational person needed to know.

  Even though he hadn’t wanted to hear any of it, he’d sat and listened. She was good at that, getting him to give in to anything she wanted. Probably because she had her mother’s eyes, brightly blue as the sky and round as tires.

  Leanne was the spitting image of her as well. Another reason why Vincent wished she’d stayed home instead of lollygagging around the carnival. He didn’t care if it was his land they had set up on, he still didn’t relish the idea of her being there. She would be the best-looking gal there. Most of the women and even teenage girls of Doverton were his patients, and, sure, some of them were cute, pretty even, but none could hold a candle to Leanne.

  She was as beautiful as the girls in magazines. Her beauty made him proud, yet at the same time, made his chest heavy with concern. Sometimes, he’d get so worked up fretting over her he feared he might have a heart attack.

  Vincent stepped under the eave of his front porch just as the rain began plummeting in heavy drops. He decided to wait here on the porch until he saw the headlights of his truck coming around the bend in the cornfield. A dirt road segmented the fields and Leanne had chosen to call it Mystic Lane. Vincent, always the encouraging father, even had a sign made with the name chiseled into it. They’d taken it into the fields and hammered it into the ground just like any other road sign you’d see. He’d never forgotten how happy it had made her.

  He was thankful that, out of his fear of the weather turning bad, he’d talked her into taking the truck. Once he spotted the headlights peering through the stalks, he’d go inside. Lord knew he wouldn’t dare let Leanne catch him waiting for her.

  She hated that.

  But with the way the rain was slashing down from the sky like sideways wet daggers, he doubted he’d be able to see much at all beyond the front yard. The fields were like black blobs in the storm. Vincent could only see the corn in the burst of a lightning flash.

  In the morning, he’d surely find batches of stalks had been blown over, and he’d lose money because of it. Why did he keep putting himself through the hassle and expense of maintaining them? Being the town doctor made him more than enough money, but for whatever reason, he’d chosen to take on the duties of the family farm as well.

  Ma and Pa Carlson had both passed away in the winter of ’81. A freak hay-baling accident had taken both of their lives. Vincent had just buried his lovely wife and the mother of his child a few months before. They were living in Appleton at the time, but once Margaret passed, Vincent had no desire to stay in that house or that town any longer.

  It had been written in his parents’ will that the Carlson farm, house, and the acres of land surrounding it were to be left to Vincent. He gladly turned in his notice at the hospital, packed up their belongings, and moved with Leanne to Doverton.

  And for the past six years he and Leanne had been handling the fa
rm on their own. It’d been tough at times, but they’d made it through all right. However, with her leaving for school in the fall, he would have to hire on some help if was going to keep the farm going. There was no way he could preserve the nineteen acres of crops himself. That didn’t include the surrounding two hundred acres of woodland, plus the other fifty acres of fields. The house was already greatly isolated from the rest of Doverton in the nearly three hundred acres his family owned. It was as if the rest of the world was nonexistent.

  He didn’t mind living on the farm. He’d grown up on the land, and it was nice raising his daughter in such a small town. He could keep an eye on her, making sure she stayed out of trouble. Or so he hoped. Leanne would have all this land to herself one day, and the three-story farmhouse with it. She’d be more than taken care of once he’d gone to his own greener pastures.

  “All right now. Enough is enough. Time to get home, girl.” Even speaking only to himself, his voice sounded worried.

  He paced the front porch for several more minutes, then headed inside to check the time. Standing in the living room, he glanced at the grandfather clock by the fireplace.

  12:31.

  A shot of dread hit Vincent in the chest. Something was wrong. He knew it. Leanne had never been late, ever. If she knew she was going to be, she would have called him. But there had been no phone call, so that meant she wasn’t expecting to be late, which could only mean…

  Something had happened.

  But what?

  Vincent didn’t know, but he planned to find out. First, he needed to come up with a plan. Actions couldn’t be taken without the proper preparation.

  He sat in his favorite chair, an old cushioned rocker, to think. As he glided back and forth, he combed his thoughts for a game plan.

  He was certain the carnival was over by now. He’d have to take the tractor since Leanne had the truck, and it would probably take him twenty to thirty minutes to get to the pasture gate on Mystic Lane.

  What if they’ve locked it?

  That was simple. He’d break the damn lock. After all, it was his gate, and his property they were squatting on.

  Why did he need a plan? He should just ride out there and, if he needed to, drag Leanne kicking and screaming back home. It’d serve her right for being so late.

  Absorbed by his thoughts, Vincent nearly missed the pitter-patter of little feet darting across his front porch. It sounded like the footsteps of children playing tag on the stoop.

  It made his skin crawl.

  He stood up. The rocking chair knocked against the backs of his legs. He crept to the double-bay windows that looked on to the porch. He’d have a nice view of the porch and even a partial look at the yard. He could see his own reflection in the glass. It looked as if there were two of him, both slinking to meet at the window. The brightness inside made it impossible to see into the darkness outside.

  Vincent pressed his face to the glass as if he and his reflection were trying to clumsily kiss. He placed his hand over his brow, like a visor. It helped very little.

  The footsteps had ceased. He twisted his neck, peering even harder out the window. He could feel the glass brushing the white of his eye.

  He still couldn’t see a thing.

  The nearest lamp sat on the end table a few feet away. Shutting it off would kill his reflection. Keeping his face against the glass, he reached for the lamp. His forehead squawked across the window, leaving a smudged print on its way. His fingers brushed the dust-caked weft of the lamp shade. The shade fell off the caddy, catching on the wire rim, and tilted away from the bulb. He felt around the base until he found the switch.

  And his gaze through the window was met by a dozen or more beady pairs of eyes.

  Bellowing a scream that hurt his throat, he shuffled backwards on stringy legs. His flailing arms bumped the end table, knocking the lamp over. It crashed on the floor.

  Through the darkness outside, he watched as rows of white stretched across crescent-shaped jaws. They were smiling. Narrow, toddler-like mouths gaped, drooling and savoring.

  From the rear of the house, glass shattered. Vincent whipped around, gawking down the hallway toward the crash.

  The bedroom. They’re coming through my own goddamn bedroom!

  He didn’t wait for the group outside the living room to break the window. He bolted for the den with all his might. The rug slid out from under him, folding over itself. He nearly lost his footing, but managed to stay up and running.

  As he charged into the den, the living room window exploded behind him. Thump after thump of little feet hitting the hardwood floor followed. And mixed with those sounds he could hear the faint, miniature chatters of the intruders talking amongst themselves.

  It’s the damn Haunchies from the carnival! They’re coming for me! What happened to Leanne?

  He saw what he’d originally come in here for standing in the corner. His gun cabinet. It was a two-door, upright locker made of wood and glass. He always kept it locked. Not wasting time searching for the key, he shattered the glass with his elbow. He could feel the burning cuts and scrapes from the shards.

  Reaching inside, he snatched his .30-30 lever-action rifle, a trusty weapon since his teenage years, and the only one he always kept loaded. He jacked a bullet into the chamber and thumbed off the safety.

  He turned toward the doorway as three of the small figures entered the room. They were dressed in carnival attire, bright and colorful. Two were even painted like clowns.

  In the light of the room, he was able to distinguish their features much more clearly. The heads cresting their pebble-shaped shoulders weren’t much larger than a tomato, and the lower portions of their faces were curved like a banana. Rotting, jagged teeth gleamed from between thin lips on their distorted faces. Their arms were like twigs under their flamboyant clothing, with wicker-thin torsos separating their hollow necks from legs no more muscular than weeds.

  Bushels of disheveled and crudely dyed hair jutted from the tops of their heads like the ends of paintbrushes.

  He’d never seen creatures so hideous. Almost human, but not quite.

  They do look like elves! Even through their mussed hair, he thought he might have detected minute, pointy knobs jutting through the fuzzy locks. Ears? “What did you do with my daughter?” he demanded.

  The reply came in the form of ear-piercing laughter. The one dressed in handsewn rags stepped forward.

  “She’s with us now.” His voice was of a high octave and probably made dogs howl. “Just as you will be, soon enough.” He lunged for Vincent.

  Vincent dodged the attack and thrust the stock of the rifle in an upward arc. The tiny thing’s skull caved under the wooden blow.

  A red-haired clown was the next to charge. Vincent twisted to his left and fired. The high-powered slug ripped through red spandex, lifting the creature off his feet. As he spiraled through the air, the bullet exploded from his back.

  The exiting bullet slammed into a green-haired clown’s throat, ripping open a gulley where his Adam’s apple had been. He dropped to his knees, grasping his throat, while blood gushed through the cracks of his fingers. Then he collapsed onto the floor, twitching a few times before becoming still.

  Three down.

  Vincent hurried out of the den and into the hallway. He cocked the rifle, but the hallway was deserted. He flogged his head this way and that, looking into each room on his way to the stairs. The downstairs appeared deserted. He wondered if they’d fled after hearing the gunfire.

  He climbed the steps quickly. His back was arched and stiff, his neck fixed, and his eyes focused forward. The barrel of the rifle was pointed ahead of him as if leading him to the second floor.

  At the top of the stairs, he didn’t bother checking the guest bedrooms and rushed straight to Leanne’s room at the end of the hall. He kept the gun clasped close to his chest.

  Ignoring the knob, he used the heel of his boot to kick the door open. The frame splintered as the door
shot open. He went inside, aiming the gun.

  He froze only a few steps in.

  Waiting for him were twenty or more Haunchies piled together, a huddle of crescent-shaped heads twisting to observe him. Standing no more than two feet tall, they were armed with a variety of weapons that looked like they had been constructed by their own hands: homemade pitchforks, machete-like knives, and hatchets made from jagged metal shards twined to wooden handles.

  He scanned the room, studying the figures occupying it. Like the three downstairs, these were dressed like carnies. He saw more clowns, other carnie laborers, some even dressed in indistinguishable fluorescent attire, and the sparse numbers of what he guessed were females wore costumes like little dolls.

  If Vincent didn’t know any better, he’d have believed they were dolls that had been crudely crafted.

  Raising his gun to fire, he knew he couldn’t get them all. But he was going to make sure he got as many as possible.

  “Daddy. Stop.”

  Leanne’s voice?

  He faced the throng gathered on the bed. They parted like weeds in the wind, unveiling his daughter, lying on her side atop the mattress. Her left leg tapered from under her denim cutoffs and crossed over the right. She was gliding a finger up her thigh. She wore a cutoff, sleeveless shirt that left her midriff bare and, with no bra underneath, he could see the curve of her breasts. He quickly looked away.

  She hadn’t been dressed this way when she’d left the house. Vincent had no idea his daughter had blossomed so much. To him, she was still his little girl, not the mature woman on the bed who was dressed like a whore.

  “Leanne,” he said, his voice tired and beaten. “Wha…What is this?” His grip on the rifle loosened.

  “They chose us, Daddy. They want to stay here. With us.”

  “What are you talking about?” Another group strolled in behind him from the hallway, trapping him inside. He was massively outnumbered.

  “They’ve been traveling all their lives. They’ve grown tired of living on the road.”

  “What does that have to do with us? What does that have to do with you? Why are you dressed like that?” Vincent had many questions, but only had enough breath to ask some of them.