Clouds Over Carousels

By Hyland Haynes

Blown on the strange winds of a supernatural storm some thirty years into the future, Owen Turner and his five-year-old daughter Emily are literally lost in time.

To make matters worse, Owen soon gets an ominous glimpse of his wife’s horrifying fate. Shocked and confused, he and Emily must race against time to figure out how to get back home before the otherwise inevitable nightmare truly unfolds. Armed only with a peculiar children’s storybook given to Emily by a mysterious blind stranger at the Harper’s Bluff County Fair, they just may have the roadmap they need to locate each odd piece in their time-bending puzzle. If so, can they somehow tweak fate enough to prevent the unthinkable?

With the help of a sanguine waitress and an aloof ex-marine, the pair are led down a frightening path of hidden clues and recurring nightmares, all of which seem to be linked together in a cosmic chain that could plot a course back through another tear in the very fabric of space and time. With a suspicious small town sheriff and other unseemly burlesque characters providing unnerving obstacles at every turn, Owen and Emily must somehow find a way to evade their would-be captors and successfully transport themselves back to present day.

In doing so, they not only hope to alter their grim family destiny, but perhaps also finally discover the true identity of the lurking, ever-present blind man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780692702758

Book preview

author

Prologue

Newcastle Town Moor Fair

Newcastle upon Tyne, England 1882

Rain, 36°

So where’s she headed? Grant asked, as he loaded the last box of parts from the antediluvian funhouse onto the horse-drawn carriage.

Come again…? his elderly supervisor responded, cocking his head and raising a hand to his ear.

I say, where they sending it, mate?

Ah, the supervisor grunted, turning to reposition a large stack of cargo trunks. Last I heard they were shipping it overseas. To the Americans.

Fine with me, Grant continued, as he slipped a rope through the rusty eyehooks on the flatbed of the carriage. As far as I’m concerned, the further, the better.

The two carnival roustabouts were working in a driving rain storm at the famous fairgrounds just north of the city. A week of storms had drenched the vast fields and both laborers were soaked to the bone. As was the carriage’s surly driver, who was outfitted in a black wool overcoat and silk top hat, neither of which was doing a satisfactory job of keeping him dry. In fact, quite to the contrary, the tall hat seemed to serve only to collect a small puddle of water on its brim, which spilled over each time the impatient driver huffed and cursed as he pressed the men to quickly finish.

Though the annual two week festival of carnival attractions, circus animals and minstrels hadn’t yet concluded, the diabolical funhouse had certainly outlived its welcome. And Grant was all too happy to load it up and ship it somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Though the men had volunteered for the job, figuring they’d pick up some extra money by working in the middle of the scheduled fortnight instead of waiting to break down all the attractions in another week or so, it was not an easy decision. Both still had serious reservations about the rumored curse that supposedly infected the frightening house of horrors and led to the gruesome and unexplained death of a young girl.

Up until last Friday evening, the plywood and canvas labyrinth had been a spine-tingling mainstay on the famous Newcastle Fair’s Midway, where it had safely frightened the locals for years. All without incident or controversy. The rambling attraction was always a crowd favorite, routinely generating long lines of fairgoers anxiously waiting to test their fear inside its dark and narrow corridors. One of only three such funhouses created by Snively Amusements in Edinburgh, it was the five-star centerpiece of many of the traveling fairs circulating throughout the United Kingdom just before the turn of the century.

Unfortunately, sometime before dawn last Saturday, a runaway orphan girl from St. John’s parish wandered into the funhouse. And never made it out. Most assumed she had sought refuge from the elements and used her malnourished frame to slide through a tiny opening near the corner of the building. But no one was sure. And what happened inside the funhouse was even more confusing. There was no crime scene at all. No evidence of blood or bodily injury.

Just a dead little girl.

The maintenance crew found her lifeless body curled up in the otherwise dazzling Hall of Mirrors, which had unfortunately been reduced to a macabre optical illusion; multiplying the gruesome tragedy a thousand times over.

By Sunday evening, the local police had finished their investigation and Newcastle’s resident undertaker had conducted an autopsy. Producing a single page report.

Cause of death: Unknown.

Though the report was cursory and certainly less than conclusive, the cryptic summary provided more than enough reason to permanently shut down the attraction.

And offered a less than desirable new assignment for the carnival workers.

Grant trudged through the mud and slop surrounding the carriage and collected the shipping documents from the shivering driver. The weather had turned much colder in the past few days and Grant was more than a little surprised that some of the precipitation wasn’t falling as snow or sleet. He pulled a pencil from his damp coveralls and roughly unrolled the shipping documents, scribbling his initials to authorize the transport. Then, he gazed up into the teeming rain and returned the forms to the courier.

Suppose that’s it, he sighed, his warm breath creating a rising mist in the frigid midnight air.

And only forty-minutes too late…, the driver huffed, tucking the forms into his breast pocket and roughly yanking the leather reins. Reluctantly, his two horses groaned to attention. He squinted down at Grant, and sarcastically tipped his shiny hat.

Grant returned his icy stare, then stepped back and tapped the back end of the flatbed. The large wooden wheels began to slide and splash in the mud before catching and finally spinning the lumbering wagon forward.

Godspeed, Grant murmured as he watched the cargo lurch to a start and bump down the wet hillside at the far end of the fair.

Then, even after the carriage departed and his exhausted boss hustled to find shelter in one of the sagging tents along the Midway, Grant stood alone in the flooded pasture, shuddering in the rain for another few minutes.

Though he wouldn’t admit it, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to turn away until the creepy shipment had completely disappeared into the damp, murky evening.

Safely on its way to the River Tyne and an anonymous beginning in the New World.

Book I: Come Ride the Twister…

Chapter 1

Harper’s Bluff, New Hampshire

September 1, 1979

Clear, 37°

The blue and white Volkswagen Bus sailed through the last covered bridge on Old Highway 212 and the countryside opened up in front of them.

We’re here, Sarah Turner, 34, sighed as she gazed out the car window.

Her green eyes looked vacant and hollow behind the thin sliver of blond hair that had long ago escaped from an otherwise carefully fastened ponytail. And her mind was miles away from her husband, Owen, who was driving, and her five year old daughter, Emily, who was now stirring in the backseat.

Just up the road, she could see the decaying white billboard that stood careful guard along the invisible line separating Harper’s Bluff from the rest of the county rise into view. And for a moment, Sarah found it hard to catch her breath.

Welcome Home to Harper’s Bluff.

She had seen the famous landmark hundreds of times as a child, yet now, almost sixteen years to the day she fled from the isolated little town where she grew up, she really looked at the homespun proclamation, absorbed by the hand-painted letters which were so carefully inscribed over ninety years earlier.

Home… she lightly whispered.

Indeed, Sarah was bringing Owen and Emily back to the town she grew up in. A tiny village hidden in the rolling hills of western New Hampshire. So carefully tucked away, in fact, that many folks had trouble finding it on a map. Indeed, distance and disinterest had conspired to grant the little hamlet an obscurity that the two hundred or so self-sufficient residents cherished; and fiercely protected. Its remote location seemed even to have frustrated time itself, as the town had changed little since its original incorporation by a sect of separatist Pilgrims in 1666.

Folks in Harper’s liked things the way they were; the way they’d always been.

Harper’s is yesterday, Sarah’s great-grandmother used to remind her. No need for clocks or calendars here.

As a child, Sarah wasn’t sure what her quirky relative meant, but now that silly sentiment seemed to make sense to her. Towns like Harper’s Bluff intentionally elected not to try to keep pace with the rest of the world. And, if this place was indeed stuck in time, the hands on its grand clock were happily stalled. More than comfortable to settle in for a long while.

Sarah leaned back and looked at the wheat fields that seemed to roll all the way to Lancaster Pass. As the car glided through another sweeping curve, she thought about the circumstances surrounding her return. While many folks loved Harper’s Bluff and would never consider leaving, Sarah was coming home out of necessity. Whatever personal equivocation she may have felt, outside circumstances had mandated her return. Her mother had fallen quite ill and Sarah needed to come home to care for her.

Driving back into town, the sights and sounds were again all so familiar. Rollin’s Timber Plant on U.S. 13. The roar of Kyle Sander’s tractor as he plowed his huge dairy farm out near the hollow. And, of course, all the historic covered bridges.

This place never changes, she mused.

Wasn’t such a bad ride, was it Em…? Owen chimed in.

Nope, not at all, she responded, rubbing sleepy eyes. And you know what else?

Owen didn’t answer. Briefly distracted, he was changing the station on the car radio.

Daddy…? Emily pleaded. Daddy…?

She’s talking to you Owe, Sarah said, nudging his ribs and giving him a glare.

Oh…sorry Em, he called back, now playing along. What…?

I love it here already! she giggled.

Owen and Sarah exchanged a winsome smile and Owen gently patted her hand. She sat back and closed her eyes.

I hope she will love it here, she thought.

There were certainly positives to growing up in a place like Harper’s Bluff. A place with pristine ponds for swimming in the summer and mountains blanketed with snow for sledding during the long, drawn out winters. A place where you knew it was time to come home only when your mother went onto the porch and yelled your name loud enough for everyone to hear.

Well, there’s lots of things for little girls to do here, sweetie, that’s for sure, Sarah promised with a smile.

She fondly remembered riding her bike to Mr. Albertson’s Candy Palace on Market Street and playing frisbee in the fields behind Winston’s Dairy. Her brother Davey running down everything she threw, and forever complimenting his older sister. Often politely giving her the satisfaction of winning their sibling competitions even though athletically she was no match for her strong and speedy little brother.

But her smile only faintly covered an underlying sense of trepidation.

For Sarah knew better than most that Harper’s Bluff also had a darker, more menacing side. That hiding in the woods and underneath the covered bridges was an evil history. Buried just beneath the welcoming, if somewhat aloof, smiles offered up by the locals. Secrets most in town fruitlessly tried to ignore or forget. As if they could simply pull the covers over their heads and keep the gnawing mysteries safely at bay. Somehow keeping the past from crawling out of its temporal grave and haunting their present. And it was this underlying sense of perpetual unrest, at ugly historical wrongs struggling to reach the surface and bask in the sunlight that had Sarah so concerned about her family’s trip back home.

In the end, though, she knew she couldn’t run forever. That at some point, she would have to face her past, not continue to try to outrun it. The multiple moves she and Owen had made over the years had done little to quell her persistent sorrow and she knew miles couldn’t erase the guilt and sadness she struggled with every day.

No, she knew that eventually she would return to her childhood home. March right back into the tiny village to face down her pain and regret. To prove forever that she could carry on. She would finally make things right again. Right with her mother. Right with herself.

Everything in life comes full circle, she reasoned.

Like kids skating on a pond or the carousel at the county fair. Even the earth itself. Constantly spinning away from the sun, passing through the velvet cosmos on the dark side of the universe and always returning to the same place it started. The daybreak of a new morning. So, in many ways, returning home felt inevitable to Sarah.

Predestined almost.

Pull in here, she quietly directed Owen, pointing to the familiar entrance to Apple’s Garage and Gas Station.

And, while she knew she could never cure her mother of the insidious disease ravaging her body, she hoped she might be able to ease the pain that had been so forcibly ripped into her mother’s soul all those years ago. That in some way, she might also be able to finally mend their strained relationship. Maybe in the last few weeks they would spend together, they could again find the love they had once shared so deeply. Before that horrible incident changed everything for them both.

She could only hope.

She turned and smiled at her husband. A high school jock, at 42, he still had the rugged good looks Sarah fell so hard for years ago. The close-cropped dark hair, the sly smile and, of course those liquid blue eyes. How she prayed that Owen could find happiness and fulfillment here as well. He had always been so supportive of her and Sarah knew he understood that coming home for her was about much more than just providing comfort to her dying mother. He understood, without ever saying, that this was a chance, perhaps her last, for redemption and forgiveness.

And so he willingly resigned his plumb position as Assistant Dean of Engineering back in Boston to take the job Sarah was able to arrange at the mine site. Structural Supervisor. Not a bad role. Especially for such a rural area.

Owen turned the VW Bus right, past a split rail fence and into a gravel parking lot. Apple’s place was originally erected in the early 1830’s on a plot of land that Apple’s great-great-grandfather obtained in connection with a barter with the local Ossipee Indians. A two-acre spot along what would become County Road 516 in exchange for an unbroken plow horse and two polished hunting rifles. Indians got the better half of the deal! Apple’s friend Herm would forever maintain, pointing out that the plot never drained properly after the fierce nor’easters which regularly hammered the township. In response, Apple would shoot Herm a disapproving glare, all the while pumping gas while standing in water deep enough to soak the bottom three inches of his coveralls.

I’ll be right out, Sarah said.

As she hopped from the car, it began to rain and she felt a few icy drops sting her forehead - an unnecessary reminder of how cold it got in this part of the country by early September. Ironically, the changing weather forced her to hustle over to the one-story general store with the same determination that propelled her to bolt from Harper’s Bluff years ago.

As she opened the door to the tiny shop, Apple’s 72 year-old wife, Myrtle, called out.

Sarah! Is that you? My lord. We heard you were coming back. Apple said ‘eventually they all come back.’

Yes, Mrs. Stanhope. I’m home, Sarah responded as she closed the door behind her. Just wanted to run into the ladies’ room, if that’s alright?

Certainly, allowed Myrtle. Key’s where it’s always been.

Sarah nodded and carefully slid out the side door. The ladies’ room was located in an outbuilding where Apple worked on faulty transmissions, brakes and other mechanical problems which regularly plagued many of the town’s older vehicles. As she approached, Sarah heard the low rumble of another troubled engine and looked through the open garage door into the cluttered work area in the bay. As she glanced past an idling Mercury sedan, her gaze was returned by an intense stare.

Gasping, she quickly diverted her eyes from those of the boyish-looking, disheveled mechanic in the outsized navy work clothes. Before looking away, however, she had seen just enough to notice the familiar jagged scar under his right eye. The disfiguring mark caused the lid to droop a little, partially obscuring empty black eyes.

Sarah broke the odd, unspoken exchange as distant thunder ached in alto unison with the sputtering Mercury engine.

Ughhh… she shivered, pulling her jacket up against the growing wind.

The man, however, never looked away. Instead, his eyes carefully followed her slightly accelerated gait around the bend to the bathroom. Sarah could feel his unrelenting and intrusive observance of her and she shivered with a knowing combination of distaste and distrust. While Harper’s was full of polite, if not overtly friendly townspeople, it also had its share of folks who seemed slightly off, missing just enough of whatever was necessary to allow them to otherwise seamlessly assimilate into the more normal population. And while Sarah was certainly not prone to any overt form of discrimination, she had always had a private loathing of things that didn’t quite fit in. And Martin Stenson, the 33 year-old mechanic who grew up across the street from Sarah, was one of those fellows.

Sarah knew him all too well.

His mother, Gloria, babysat Sarah and Davey as kids while their parents worked the day shift at the local mill. Each afternoon, Martin would sit with his guests and stare for hours without saying a word. Sarah and Davey had long ago given up trying to get Martin to participate in their games, instead accepting the fact that he was locked in some lonely parallel universe. Inhabited by who knew what types of villains, creatures and demons.

Whatever it was couldn’t have been good, though, as seven year-old Martin regularly seemed apprehensive. And after long intervals punctuated only by voiceless head and neck ticks, Sarah often thought she noticed a weak tear run down his expressionless face. She was never sure if her brother even noticed, but she paid careful attention as Mrs. Stenson would pick Martin up and, without any acknowledgement, wipe the pool of puddled liquid from the corner of her son’s droopy eye.

Needless to say, Sarah grew to abhor those long afternoons spent on the third-floor of Mrs. Stenson’s rambling farmhouse. And while she tried to distract herself with songs or games, she waited anxiously for each unsettling day to end with the only words Martin ever uttered:

Tick-tock, it’s five o’clock.

The pumping station’s lavatory was confining but clean. A single overhead light bulb illuminated the tiny space. As Sarah finished up and tugged hard on the rusted iron faucet handles, she was startled by a clinky rattle. Unsure as to the source of the hollow sound, she looked down and saw the inside tin door handle jiggling.

Once. Then again.

Frozen for a moment, Sarah twisted the dual faucet handles off, unknowingly letting the cold handle come up just short of fully closed - causing a thin trickle of water to slowly tap the bottom of the old porcelain bowl.

I’m in here, she thought she said, but realized her voice had caught in her throat. She coughed and tried a second time. Someone’s in here, she carefully announced, changing her pronouns in an effort to somehow try to protect her identity.

But why? And from whom?

The handle jiggled again.

I said –

Suddenly the small light on the ceiling sparked out. The flash caused Sarah to jump back, hitting her head on the wall behind her.

I’m…in here! she shrieked, frightened by the panic she heard in her own voice.

She reached down to the turn the door handle open. It stuck.

It’s locked, she thought. Of course, it’s locked. I locked it…didn’t I?

She squinted at the handle. But there wasn’t any lock on the door. It’s stuck, she guessed.

She leaned her slight frame into the peeling wooden door and pushed. Hard. The aging door gave way and flew open. Fast enough to hit the backside of the building with a painful bang. Rain instantly began to stream into the bathroom, soaking the ceramic tile and seeping into Sarah’s canvas sneakers. She shielded her eyes and stepped into the blowing storm.

And bumped right into Apple.

Sarah, are you alright? he asked with genuine concern.

Staring into her face through the rain, he could see her green eyes dancing back and forth, relieved to be free of the dank, confining outhouse, but not yet adjusted to the rainy late afternoon sky; nor settled back into a conversational gaze.

After a moment, she felt her eyes began to stabilize and focus, and she spotted Martin, who was now standing some thirty feet behind his unaware supervisor.

Yes, I…I’m fine, Apple. Thank you, she said, turning away and motioning toward the creaky wood door. I guess the door just got stuck a bit.

Apple shook his head. Jeez, I told Marty to fix that dang thing Monday of last week.

The old man turned to find the mechanic. Covering his face, he yelled across the lot. Marty? Martin?

Sarah also turned and, like Apple, squinted into the layered sheets of pelting rain.

Martin was gone.

Chapter 2

Helen McCarthy called out to her brother as she sat on the cold metal bumper of the R.V. they shared.

C’mon, Woody! It’s almost time.

The silver rig was parked at the Grafton County Fairgrounds, which swallowed up close to fourteen acres just north of Interstate 82. Lying in the western valley of the majestic White Mountains, the fairground’s broad fields, crooked streams and sixteen or so tons of buried shale provided an excellent canvas for the annual Harper’s Bluff Fair.

Yep, Woody grunted from inside the camper.

Helen and Woody carefully painted the enticing midway attractions and motorized amusement rides onto the blank landscape early each September. Two lifelong Harper’s residents, they inherited the ever-increasing undertaking from their parents who initially staged a much smaller event some sixty years ago.

Neither Woody nor Helen ever married. Fraternal twins, living together for all of their 79 years, they often finished each other’s thoughts, sometimes intentionally pausing to allow their sibling to take over and finish a funny story or anecdote. While it impressed onlookers, to them it was an everyday occurrence. And a helpful one at that. New Englanders’ reputation for being short on words was well earned and the twins felt lucky that they didn’t have to singularly carry the entire burden of a conversation. Besides, usually a simple glance or head shake said all that needed saying.

This year, the 66th fair, would be the most spectacular, easily outdoing even the 1976 event, with its Bicentennial theme and extravagant fireworks display. Last May, Helen had finally spun her school-girl friendship with Nan Hawkins into 4-H gold. She had convinced Nan’s nephew, Roman Witherspoon, to truck his Memphis based freak show north, where it would anchor the far end of the midway.

Roman was a fast-talking carnival promoter with a reputation in the business for presenting some of the most unusual 10 in 1 side show acts and rare thrill rides, many of which harkened back to the glory days of the midway - that one hundred year span from 1840 to 1940.

Roman traveled the world seeking out historic circus and carnival memorabilia, from painted banners advertising freaks and oddities to trailer mounted show booths, capable of staging eccentric theatrical productions. Many of the items were sold at sales or auctions, often near world famous fair sites from Nottingham to Rotterdam. Roman envisioned himself a latter day reincarnation of P.T. Barnum himself and hoped to carry on the famous showman’s heritage by honoring the grand past of the circus and carnival. He was a true historian, who wanted to recreate a midway experience that could transport his guests back to that amazing era, before television, where breath-taking thrills and death-defying feats unfolded before your eyes, not on the screen.

In years past, Roman had politely declined Helen’s pleas to join her in Harper’s Bluff, fearing an October booking in New England was too intemperate for his animal menagerie, perhaps the most popular attraction in his offbeat offering. But last spring, Helen’s persistence paid dividends as Roman reversed course and agreed to participate in the Harper’s show. And Helen was thrilled to add the freak show to what had historically been seen as a fairly pedestrian affair.

Now, with only two weeks to go before the fair kicked off, Helen could hardly wait for everything to arrive. What a show this’ll be, she thought, rubbing her frail hands along her arms to keep warm.

It was just past 10 p.m. and the new moon boldly illuminated their silver camper, creating a lonely beacon in the deep black meadow. Helen slid over as she heard the door open and saw Woody stick his head out.

Getting cold, huh? Woody gruffed.

Sure is… Helen responded, looking down to ensure she hadn’t scooted clear off the uncomfortable metal rail.

Need my coat, Woody matter-of-factly stated and ducked back inside.

As the door closed, Helen’s eyes captured the faint trace of two small lights somewhere out in the thick, murky evening. The lights bounced and jiggled in perfect unity, carefully mapping each pothole and every broken ridge in the two lane blacktop covering Jericho Road. Like a welcome ship returning from a lengthy voyage. And carrying cargo of untold worth.

Alone on her aluminum widow’s walk, Helen wondered if her beacon was bright enough to guide the treasure safely to port.

Hurry, Woody! she chortled again into the dark. Truck’s here.

She stood, pulled a ragged shawl around her shoulders and anxiously watched the truck turn left and head onto the grass where the trailer was parked.

As it approached, she slowly clapped her arthritic hands together, creating a hollow echo that cut across the empty fairground.

Chapter 3

Whoooa! Oliver Showalter exhaled as the cork on the champagne bottle exploded from its launch pad. He was hunched over with the bottle wedged between his thick thighs. There we go!

The second-term mayor of Harper’s Bluff was gathered with his political cronies in the small restaurant in the back of Carlson’s General Store. Once the fall weather hit, the restaurant was only open for business on the weekends. The rest of the time, local folks could meet in the six table establishment for potluck dinners or impromptu card games.

Heck, I’m not sure what was harder to open, Showalter continued, the old mine or this damn bottle!

Congratulations boss, his deputy mayor, Cooper, graciously added. It sure was a long haul.

Sure was. Great work, Mr. Mayor, Tracey Hutchens added. Rail thin and close to six-feet tall, Hutchens, 45, was the Mayor’s administrative assistant, sometimes girlfriend and lifelong small town status-seeker. And, nice job with that bottle, too! she winked.

The group grabbed plastic cups, primed to soak up the impromptu celebration. After a two-year struggle with the town’s Planning Association, Showalter had exerted just enough influence to garner the 4-3 majority he so desperately needed to gain final approval to bring the granite and iron-ore mining operation out near Lancaster Pass back to life. Such a slim win, however, evidenced the mixed emotion some of the locals had about the project.

Many of the old-timers in town believed it was best to let sleeping dogs lie and allow the abandoned mine to slowly fade into the town’s often troubled past. Especially after the ’46 collapse of the eastern truck pass. An accident that created a tragic vivisepulture which trapped a dozen miners for 74 long hours, ultimately taking the life of all but Joey Liddell, an all-state swimmer in high school. No one was quite sure how he lasted so long in the suffocating darkness and, after he was rescued, Joey wasn’t doing a lot of explaining. He routinely kept to himself anyway, and after the incident, he moved clear out to Hollingsboro - eventually passing away twelve years later after a short bout with throat cancer.

Many were convinced the old mine was still haunted by the spirits of the eleven lost souls, their struggling cries carried on the howling wind that regularly blew low across the quarry. Others added that even Joey himself sometimes returned to the mine as well, still holding his breath, like some zombie crawling under the tranquil streets of downtown Harper’s Bluff. Scratching his way back to the collapsed tunnel in a vain attempt to silence the haunting calls of his long dead cohorts.

A vocal group of supporters, though, led by Showalter (or the Showman as he nicknamed himself), pressed to jump start the sagging western New Hampshire economy by re-fabricating the nine outbuildings on the mine site, dredging the damaged tunnels and offering respectable work to nearly six dozen needy residents.

Now, finally, Ollie had his mandate.

And, he could care less if the victory was razor thin. It was time for the Showman to raise the curtain on his ambitious New Mine, New Might promise to revitalize his hometown and forever erase the memory of the accident that had so sadly tarred his father’s last term in office.

More importantly, it was the first step on his equally ambitious march to greater political success. A march that he hoped would take him all the way to Concord, and the State Assembly. For, as much as he crooned that his plan was all about Harper’s Bluff, he and Tracey knew it was really all about him and his career. Unlike his father, who lived and died with the fortunes and failures of the town he loved, old Ollie was a huckster; a shameless salesman.

I’m bigger than this place, he’d often remind Tracey, the irony of his 318-pound frame seemingly lost on his paramour. Someday, the entire East Coast will know my name.

Showalter stood and generously poured the cheap champagne. Then, he held up his own cup.

Raise your glasses folks! I’d like to propose a toast…

Chapter 4

Tuckerton, New Hampshire

September 5, 1979

Clear, 29°

The New England headquarters of the National Weather Service was housed in a small brick building in Sullivan County. Built with a grant authorized by an omnibus public works and emergency planning package, it was the east coast companion to additional outposts located in Boulder, Eugene, and six other weather tracking centers across the South and Midwest.

Though it was early Saturday morning, Daniel Albertson, the senior meteorologist at the facility, was sitting behind a bank of two dozen computer screens in the main research laboratory. Other than the glow of the incandescent monitors, the room was dark. Albertson didn’t normally pull the overnight shift, but the staff scientist was out with the flu and the weather outpost needed to have someone on duty around the clock.

As Albertson jotted down a few notes, Billy Marbury, a 19 year-old intern from Harris County College, handed him a picture. It was Billy’s girlfriend, Zoie, taken at a beach in the Caribbean over the summer. As Albertson glanced at the scantily clad co-ed in the photo, the telephone rang.

Dr. Walter Hawking, from the National Weather Service, was on the other line.

Hey, Dan, Hawking said, you looking at what I’m looking at?

No. I don’t think I am, Albertson smiled, returning the picture to Billy. So, what’s up Hawk? Whatcha doing calling me at 4:00 a.m., anyway? You boys bored over there?

Hardly, Hawking responded and from the tone of his voice, Albertson could tell he wasn’t his usual convivial self. I’ve got some pictures I want you to see.

Okay, Albertson replied, pushing his notebook aside and sitting up.

Tune it to 1760, Hawking directed. On the Alpha 2 Echo band.

Albertson typed the command into the colossal IBM System 370 computer sitting in front of him. The eight tape mounts on the system began to hum and whir. After a brief delay, the screen in the lab flickered and the radar images popped on.

Got ‘em, Albertson announced. Hey, I have our intern Billy here in the lab with me. I’m gonna put you on speaker if you don’t mind.

Nah, that’s fine. Hey Billy. This is actually a good one for you too.

Hello, Dr. Hawking.

So, look at the first image, taken twelve hours ago.

Albertson leaned across the desk and pointed at the appropriate radar photograph. Wow. Big storm. This is the one currently blowing through the Midwest, right?

Yep, the same, Hawking confirmed. Sixty miles wide. 130 mile sustained winds. Poured nine inches of rain on St. Louis in just over two hours.

Billy leaned toward the incandescent screen. "Heading our way, I am