The boys find themselves on the run, fleeing from the freaks and their strange assortment of powers. Their debate over this matter has disastrous consequences when they end up accidentally killing Mr Cooger after leaving him on the carousel for too long. Will is adamant that they should leave it well alone and get help, but Jim secretly longs to use the carousel himself to grow older and leave the awkwardness of his youth behind. After witnessing one of the carnival's owners, Mr Cooger, use the carousal to make himself sixteen years younger, the two boys realise that this is no ordinary carnival, and the freaks that run it are no ordinary freaks. Everything seems normal until Will and Jim come across a carousel that has the ability to make whoever rides it become either younger or older depending on the direction it is ridden in. This unshakable friendship is challenged when, a few days before Halloween, a surprise carnival comes to town: Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show. The pair are inseparable and each is utterly dependent upon the other.
Will is good natured and naïve Jim is surly and withdrawn. More horror than fantasy, it tells the story of Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, two friends born just minutes apart, the former on Halloween, the latter on All Saint's Day. Ray Bradbury is perhaps most famous for stories about burning books and killing butterflies in primordial jungles, but Something Wicked This Way Comes is very different. After all, what can be said now that forty years of precedent hasn't already covered? Ray Bradbury's dark tale of gothic intrigue set against a background of nostalgic American life was first published over four decades ago, and since then has re-emerged countless times, most notably as a 1983 Disney movie and now as this, the latest in the excellent Fantasy Masterworks series. It's always hard reviewing something that has the word "classic" firmly attached to it.
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