The Black Ferris by Ray Bradbury (Weird Tales, May 1948) sees Hank taking his boyhood friend Peter to a carnival to show him a supernatural event involving the owner:
Mr. Cooger, a man of some thirty-five years, dressed in sharp bright clothes, a lapel carnation, hair greased with oil, drifted under the tree, a brown derby hat on his head. He had arrived in town three weeks before, shaking his brown derby hat at people on the street from inside his shiny red Ford, tooting the horn.
Now Mr. Cooger nodded at the little blind hunchback, spoke a word. The hunchback blindly, fumbling, locked Mr. Cooger into a black seat and sent him whirling up into the ominous twilight sky. Machinery hummed.
“See!” whispered Hank. “The Ferris wheel’s going the wrong way. Backwards instead of forwards!”
“So what?” said Peter.
“Watch!”
The black Ferris wheel whirled twenty-five times around. Then the blind hunchback put out his pale hands and halted the machinery. The Ferris wheel stopped, gently swaying, at a certain black seat.
A ten-year-old boy stepped out. He walked off across the whispering carnival ground, in the shadows. p. 2 (The Dark Mind, edited by Damon Knight, 1965)
The kids follow the boy to Mrs Foley’s house (Foley is a widower who lost her son some time ago). Hank explains to Peter that Cooger is obviously the same person as an orphan called Pikes, who started living with the old woman the same time as the carnival came to town, and that Cooger/Pikes are up to no good. Hank and Peter then knock at Mrs Foley’s door and tell them what they have seen, but she doesn’t believe them, and throws them out. As they leave they see Cooger/Pikes in the window making a threatening gesture.
The story later sees Hank phone Pete to organise a second expedition to intercept Cooger—during which they fail to catch him, ending up on a chase through the town to the carnival. Cooger gets on the Ferris wheel to revert to his normal age but, in the middle of the process (spoiler), the boys attack the hunchback and prevent him stopping the wheel at the appropriate time. The wheel keeps on turning and, when it does eventually stop, all that is left of Cooger is pile of bones beside the loot he stole from Mrs Foley.
This has a pretty good gimmick at its core (and one, I believe, that Bradbury reused in his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, 1962) but the piece is obviously an early work (the opening paragraph tries too hard, and he seems to be in a huge rush to get through the story).
Not bad though.
*** (Good). 2,800 words.
jameswharris says:
I never can tell with you Paul. Some stories you hammer for minor flaws, and others like this one, which is obviously a weak effort, you praise. When I follow your tag for 3* stories I’m not sure I see a pattern other than maybe those stories have tighter plots.
Paul Fraser says:
That’s a generous three stars, and partially in reference to what the rest of the issue would be like. As to 3* and above stories, your comment is probably spot on—they either have plots, arcs, or some thematic or emotional point. A story that is a random bucket of parts won’t make the cut.