All the Rage

All the Rage

A Repairman Jack Novel

F. Paul Wilson

for Jennifer and John and their new life together

Author’s Note

The Ozymandias Prather Oddity Emporium may seem familiar to some readers. Freak Show, the anthology I edited for the Horror Writers of America, chronicled its final tour. Thanks to Steven Spruill and Thomas Monteleone for allowing their characters from the anthology to appear here.

Readers familiar with the Garden State Parkway may wonder why they’ve never seen the New Gretna rest stop: you simply haven’t looked hard enough.

Thanks to the usual crew for their enlightened and discerning input: David Hartwell, Coates Bateman, Elizabeth Monteleone, Steven Spruill, and Albert Zuckerman.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20

“This is crazy,” Macintosh said. “What are we doing here?”

Dr. Luc Monnet watched the unkempt younger man breathe into his grimy hands and rub them together as he paced back and forth on the wet grass. It had rained most of the day, but now the skies had cleared.

“You should have brought a jacket, Tom.”

“You didn’t tell me we’d be standing around in a field at goddamn three in the morning!”

A moonless sky vaulted above them. Nearby, the glowing ribbon of Route 290 lay still and largely empty; beyond it the lights of downtown Chicago lit the horizon with false dawn. Hulking masses of hotels or office buildings rose here and there across the flat land like desert buttes.

“You’re the one who wanted to know the source of the molecule,” Luc said.

Demanded was more like it, but that was such a loaded term. Luc wanted to keep everything on an even keel for the moment.

“I still do. But what are we doing hanging around a circus?”

“It’s not a circus.” Luc gestured to the looming shadow of the large oblong tent behind them. “As the sign says, it’s an ‘Oddity Emporium.’“

Macintosh snorted. “Euphemism for freak show. That still doesn’t explain what we’re doing here.”

“This is the source of the molecule.”

“Ok, fine. But why are we standing outside cooling our heels? And I do mean cooling.”

Luc grinned in the darkness. If Macintosh saw him, he’d probably think it a response to his feeble attempt at humor. But Luc found nothing funny about Macintosh. Nothing likable about him either. Especially his looks. They were such a mismatched pair. Luc’s close-cropped, styled brown hair, trim five-nine frame, and tailor-made slacks and sweater next to Macintosh’s tall, ungainly torso, his wrinkled shirt, worn jeans, shaggy hair, and wispy goatee.

Truth was, he was glad Macintosh was uncomfortable in the cold. He wished he’d freeze to death right here and now. The swine didn’t have much longer to live anyway, and that would spare Luc the ordeal of having him killed.

Killed, he thought, shuddering at the concept. I’m going to cause another human being’s death tonight. What would have been unthinkable two weeks ago had become something he had to do. He felt nothing for Macintosh, only a crawling anxiety to have done with it.