NNtG: Deadtime Stories #12: Welcome to the Terror-Go-Round

It's time for yet another ride into the world of Deadtime Stories. Summertime means carnival time, and the Cascones have us covered in that department. Ride a painted pony and let the spinning wheel spin, because we're going for a ride on this edition of (Woo!) Party Summer! Welcome to the Terror-Go-Round.

This cover is great, albeit a shade goofy. I love the design of the freaky merry-go-round horses, with enough to make them look like they were brought to life. The hooded skeleton is cool, but I don't know what it is. The weird pug-nose or how the hand looks more like a disjointed bone spider than a hand, but it just looks silly. But to sell a cover on horror theme park, it works fine. It's no HorrorLand, but what is?

Alex Taylor starts the book running in a summer night to escape a monster. That monster being his younger brother Joey. Young by about 11 months, Joey always wants to hang out with his brother, but Alex thinks he's annoying. As they talk about how Pitts Landing is the Pi-oh wait, Middletown is SO boring, a strange dark cloud shrouds the sky above them and begins to drop tickets for something called Arboc's Carnival (Oh gee, I wonder what Arboc is backwards). Joey is excited and snatches as many tickets as he can, while Alex is just weirded out by the whole thing. After they get grounded for going out late at night without telling their parents, Joey wakes Alex up to see the carnival wagons outside. But Alex thinks something's weird about them. There's nobody driving the wagons. Must be one of those robot cars. *Instantly crashes* One of those AMERICAN robot cars.

The boys head out anyway, while hoping that old Mrs. Wilcox doesn't spot them since she's a snoop. They soon see that the carnival is all set up. However, there doesn't appear to be anyone actually at the carnival. No workers, no carnies, nothing. After taking some cotton candy, the boys find a merry-go-round called the "Terror-Go-Round" and head there, despite Alex just wanting to leave. They can't get it to move until they find a booth with a large mannequin inside, as well as a panel that says 1997. They give the dummy their tickets and the horses come to life. They begin to gallop faster and faster until Alex and Joey soon find themselves in the carnival, now crowded in the middle of the day. And what's worse, the carnival is filled with hippies! In fact, they're now in 1969. So what is this, my third or fourth carnival themed book that also has time travel? 

Suddenly, a strange man in a bowler hat begins to talk with Alex and Joey. This is our Mr. Arboc, the snake man. Because ARBOC is killer spelled backwards. It's been a while, but there's my one wrestling reference per blog! He takes the boys along the carnival, but it seems none of the people even see Alex or Joey. It's not because they're likely all high being hippies and all, but because technically Alex and Joey don't exist yet. Mr. Arboc leads them to the Freak Show, with all the classic freaks. Bertha the bearded lady, Sydney the pig boy, the rubber man, the illustrated man (Just ripping off Richard Matheson I see), then Minnie the fat lady and Jo-Jo the midget man. Finally there's Nancy the dancing girl, as in she has to dance constantly. She then warns the boys to run while they still can.

Alex and Joey make a run for it back to the Terror-Go-Round, but run into their parents. Or, more specifically, the kid versions of their parents. They apparently first met at a carnival, so by process of elimination. As the two begin to hit it off, mentioning they're going to ride the Terror-Go-Round, the boys try to get their parents attention, but are still invisible, so they only manage to pull at their dad's arm, causing him to splash his drink on his mom, ruining this moment. Way to go, kids, you just Back to the Future'd yourselves! But enough about potentially erasing their existence, they go back on the Terror-Go-Round, hoping it'll take them home. Mr. Arboc says they won't like what they see there, and all the freaks (except Nancy) laugh at them. Look, it's 1969, you had to do something before Twit-Oh, I'm sorry... Before "X"! 

Now in 2525, the boys notice how futuristic and like The Jetsons everything is. People all in space suits and using jet packs. They try to use the Terror-Go-Round, but none of the tickets Joey has will work on the ride. So they have no choice but to find Mr. Arboc again. But Joey stops to notice the photos that adorn the sideshow area, with one saying "Coming Soon: Alex and Joey, the Siamese Twins!" Not a heavy collar tug with that one given this is 1997, but yeah, conjoined is the proper term. And, sure enough, the boys begin to start to stick together. They try to find Arboc to fix the mess, but the freaks tell them that he won't just do that. They were all normal people who were drawn to the carnival thanks to the tickets that Arboc rained from above. He chooses who he wants for his freak show, and when they use the Terror-Go-Round, they wind up cursed to be carnival freaks forever.

But there is one way the boys can escape. Arboc has a magical golden key that can control the Terror-Go-Round and take whoever uses it back to the time they prefer. However, to earn it, they have to compete in Arboc's carnival games. This is an impossible task because Arboc never loses. Alex and Joey then head to Arboc's tent and try to find the gold key themselves, only to be attacked by a giant cobra, who then turns into Arboc. He accepts their challenge, but doesn't tell them what his games are just yet. Now everyone can see the boys given they're about to be Arboc's freaks. He tells them that they are to complete three challenges to win. Nancy is told to make the first pick and chooses the baseball toss, as it should be the easiest one to complete. Yeah, I call BS on that one. Even with the best pitching arm that's usually a gyp.

Alex throws the balls at the bottles, but fails twice. Joey takes the third throw and just goes over and knocks the bottles down. TECHNICALLY Arboc never said they had to use baseballs, just knock them down. Next is the test of strength with the goal to hit the bell atop the meter. Neither boy can lift the sledgehammer, but Joey grabs a BB gun and shoots the bell. Again, technicality. Arboc never said they had to hit the bell specifically with a mallet. So props to Joey, a true master of loopholes. Realizing he's got to be ultra specific, Arboc's final game is to shoot a candy apple. Oh, and this is going full William Tell because they have three chances to shoot an arrow off of Nancy's head. Oh, and given she can't stop dancing, she's also a moving target. Also, life as a freak has Nancy super nihilistic, not caring what happens to her so long as the boys get their freedom.

At first, Alex refuses, but they have no choice at this point. He and Joey fight for the bow, while Nancy dances. They miss the first shot, then realize then try to grab the key from Arboc, costing them a shoot. With one shot left, they fire... or, to be more precise, Joey fires the BB gun at Arboc's feet, allowing them to snatch the key. You know, for an ultra-savvy snake man/carnival owner, he's not too good at contingency plans. Alex then takes the final arrow and shoots it into Arboc! Holy crap this climax kind of rules. It doesn't KILL Arboc, just pins him down long enough for Alex, Joey and the freaks to climb on to the Terror-Go-Round and begin to travel through time. Each of the freaks finding a precise timeframe to exit. 

It's down to Alex and Joey, but the machine travels all the way to the year 0. As they try to control the machine, Arboc attacks them as he managed to make it onto the Terror-Go-Round, they wrestle with him until they manage to send him off the Terror-Go-Round to the ice age where he immediately freezes and shatters. Okay, now that's one satisfying villain death. They manage to eventually get the Terror-Go-Round moving and they finally make it back to 1997, and back to Middletown. Which would be cause for celebration, but I get the funny feeling we forgot about something...

The boys make their way home, but things are weird. The house is painted blue. And Mr. Kelly, the mailman, is inside with their mom. And they've been married for twenty years. Congrats kids, you time-cucked your dad! So much so that Mr. Kelly and their mom have two other kids, meaning that Alex and Joey are in a limbo like before. They decide they'll try the Terror-Go-Round again and fix this... probably.

I liked this one a lot actually. First off, it's a brisk 105 pages, making it an easy read. And even with it being so short, it feels packed with content, never really taking too much of a break to breathe. I especially like how they structured the twist. How the book sets it up early, we just move on from it, then we get the big obvious twist at the end that is still super fun. I also like the implications of the twist. That Alex and Joey don't technically exist, but are in a time-limbo where they are more or less ghosts. Of course, now they have to fix it, but knowing these types of time travel shenanigans, it'll create larger and larger paradoxes until things get worse. 

Characters are all great as well. Alex works as the straight man who, despite not thinking much of Joey, ultimately comes to respect his brother's cunning. Joey's also great, again being more cunning and willing to fight back more easily. Him being able to outsmart Arboc makes for some of the best moments in a book filled with great moments. And then there's Mr. Arboc and he just sounds like an awesome villain. This snake man in a tuxedo and bowler hat who under it all is just a giant cobra. Of course, he's bad at really setting up his rigged challenges given that they can easily be done in by the simplest of loopholes. The freaks mostly exist, with Nancy being the more important of them. I was thinking for a moment one of the twists would be that Nancy ended up as Mrs. Wilcox, the old lady mentioned earlier, but we don't get any confirmation there.

So yeah, this was the much needed refresher after the ethical crisis of Ghosts of Camp Massacre. With plenty of action, solid character banter, a fun premise and one of the stronger twists in any of these books, this was an easy recommend and one of my favorites for the blog. The perfect remedy for the (Woo! Party) summertime blues. Welcome to the Terror-Go-Round gets an A-.