The Last Carousel

In the autumn of 1987, the town of Crayburn Hollow had just finished constructing Millbrook Fair, a sprawling amusement park built on the site of a drained cranberry bog. The grand opening was set for the first of November, a week before Halloween, and the night crew was buzzing with final preparations. I was a security guard, patrolling the damp, pine-scented grounds after midnight, my flashlight cutting through the fog that clung to the empty pathways. The park was a neon ghost, all blinking lights and silent rides, waiting for the crowds.

It was just past two in the morning when I spotted him—a man in a suit that looked like it belonged on a mannequin from a 1950s department store window: seersucker, with wide lapels and a pocket square the color of dried blood. He wore a stiff straw boater hat, tilted just so, and he walked with a purpose, his heels clicking on the asphalt. He moved from the entrance, past the funnel cake stand, and headed straight for the carousel, which was still wrapped in tarpaulins and scaffolding.

I radioed in, but static was the only reply. My training told me to approach, but something held me back. His stride was too steady, too knowing, as if he had walked this path a hundred times before, though the park had only existed for six months. I decided to follow, keeping a row of ticket booths between us.

He stopped at the carousel, and I saw him reach out and touch the wooden horse nearest to him, a black stallion with peeling paint. He murmured something, his voice too low for me to hear, and then he turned, looking directly at my hiding spot. His face was pale, almost gray, and his eyes reflected the dim safety lights like wet tar. He smiled, a slow, deliberate curve of his lips, and beckoned me forward with one finger.

My legs moved without my permission, my boots sinking into the soft, boggy ground that had never really dried out. Up close, his suit smelled of mothballs and stale tobacco. ‘You see it too, don’t you?’ he asked, his voice a dry rasp, like autumn leaves skittering on concrete. ‘The way this place hums just under the skin. They all say it’s the swamp gas, but it’s not. It’s the memory of the water that was here before.’

He gestured to the carousel, and I noticed that beneath the tarps, the platform was not round but oval, and the horses were not typical—they were misshapen, some with jagged teeth, some with too many legs, others with eyes that seemed to follow me. I had never noticed them before. ‘They found these in a warehouse in Baton Rouge,’ he said. ‘Bought them for a steal, didn’t you? But you didn’t check the history. They were built for a carnival that toured the South in 1918. The carnival disappeared, and so did the horses. Now they’re back, and they’re hungry.’

He stepped onto the platform, and the carousel began to turn, slowly, without any motor that I could see. The music that started was not a calliope but a mournful, off-key waltz that seemed to come from the ground itself. The man tipped his hat to me, and his face shifted, the flesh melting like wax to reveal a skull beneath, grinning in the fog. ‘Opening day will be a fine day,’ he said, his voice now a chorus of whispers. ‘The fair has come back to Crayburn Hollow, and this time, it intends to stay.’

The carousel spun faster, and the horses began to leap, their wooden hooves pawing the air, their necks craning toward the sky. The man vanished, but the music grew louder, and the lights on the carousel flickered, casting dancing shadows that seemed to have a life of their own. I stumbled backward, my heart pounding, and when I finally reached the security office, the clock read 6 AM. But the carousel was still turning, and I could hear faint laughter, children’s laughter, coming from beneath the tarps.

They opened the park on time, and the carousel was the centerpiece, drawing crowds all day. But by closing time, the horses were covered in a fine layer of gray dust, and the man’s hat sat on the ground beside the ticket booth, as if he had just stepped away for a moment. I quit that night, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had left something behind—a piece of myself, maybe, or a promise I hadn’t meant to make. Years later, I drove past Millbrook Fair, now abandoned, the carousel still visible through the rusted fence, and I swore I saw the black stallion winking at me, its eye a hollow socket, but full of the bog water that had never left.

That was the last time I ever went near a fairground. And every November, when the fog rolls in, I can hear that waltz, faint and desperate, and I know that the man in the seersucker suit is still there, waiting for the next person to follow him into the carousel, ready to take his final ride.