Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (34 page)

“So . . . this is a room with a monster in it, but we can’t see it.” Erin had regained enough composure to sound scathing.

Seth seemed delighted by her remark. “Not at all. You can see him, but only in your peripheral vision. Few people use their peripheral vision actively, but it’s really very easy. If you allow your eyes to become unfocused and relaxed, fixed on nothing in particular, and, paradoxically, pay close attention to everything
not
in your line of sight . . . ”

Josh tried it. The little room blurred and he felt his consciousness retreat inwards, as if pulled by invisible claws.

Then something immense and misshapen lurched out from behind the couch. It was shimmering and indistinct, swaying and changing with unseen eddies of light and air. Where its head should’ve been, two muscular arms sprouted. Where its arms should’ve been, a legion of small heads bobbled, malevolent eyes glittering. It moved forward on writhing tentacles, its gyrating torso a mass of decaying teeth. It was at least seven feet tall.

Josh jumped and blinked, his eyes swimming back into focus. The creature was gone, but a roar sounded from behind the tattered couch. Erin gasped and turned, burying her face in his chest.

“It’s not real,” she said. “It can’t be real. It’s an optical illusion. A trick of the light.”

“Yes.” He said. “It must be.”

Try as he might, he couldn’t make his eyes unfocused again. Seth sat on the couch, smiling. Finally Josh hissed in annoyance, and Seth stood as if a signal had been given.

“The shock of seeing the Hidebehind often makes your body refuse to let you see it again. Deliberately, at least. But don’t worry. You’ll no doubt get a final look as we leave this room.”

Seth scurried to the curtain at the far end of the room, and waited for Josh and Erin to follow. Erin raised her head from Josh’s chest and looked up at him with wide grey eyes.

“Are you going further in?” She didn’t load the question, didn’t throw in any sarcasm.

Josh traced a finger down the nape of her neck, wondering at the effect she had on him. Good Josh and Bad Josh loved her with equal passion.

“Yes,” he replied, wishing he could have given her the answer she wanted.

She stiffened.

“Let’s do it, then.”

As they followed Seth through the curtain, the Hidebehind leapt into Josh’s peripheral vision. It was fast, and it charged towards them, its countless faces contorted. It hated them, meant to destroy them. Josh looked directly at the thing, and, with a scream of frustration, it disappeared.

“Easy,” he breathed. “Done.”

The curtain closed behind them, and they stood in a dim hall, with yet another curtain awaiting them at the far end. Seth hitched up his onesie, which had begun to wilt down toward his fluffy feet, and regarded them sternly.

“Now, there is the matter of payment. We operate on an installment basis. The first installment—Erin staying with us—was paid as your entrance fee. Now that you’ve seen the first exhibit, another installment is due. Shall we say . . . ”

Before Josh or Erin could react, Seth stretched out one of his flabby hands and stroked Erin’s hair. Erin gasped. Seth stepped back, dipping his head in a satisfied nod.

“That is most acceptable,” he said, spinning neatly on his heels and heading for the next curtain.

“What did he do to me? I feel . . . funny.” Sweat stippled Erin’s brow. She swayed like a tree about to topple. Her skin had developed a green tinge. Josh reached out to steady her, but recoiled with a startled exhalation.

Erin’s bulging eyes implored him. “What? What’s wrong with me?”

“N-nothing. I just . . . let’s keep going.” He wasn’t lying, not really. The change she’d gone through wasn’t big in the scheme of things, wasn’t overtly horrific. Aside from looking ill, the only thing wrong with Erin was that her hair wasn’t curly anymore. It fell in straight sheets, heavy and dull, a shroud draped over Erin’s head. She struggled to hold her head up as they staggered forward, as if the weight of her tresses—somehow so horribly
reduced
—pulled her down.

“I’ll look after you,” Josh told her, knowing it was an empty promise.

“I know you’ll try. I feel like me being here with you might be the only thing that can help you now. I’m sorry I wasn’t always there in the past. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay when you were—”

“That’s all over now. I told you, I’m better.” He didn’t want to hear her talk about the time the Big Feelings ran his life, the era of steel and blood and tears. Something was wrong with him, yes. Something was very wrong with this place, sure. But it wasn’t
that
wrongness. It wasn’t the

(LET me IN)

ills of old, and that had to count for something.

He hurried after Seth, ignoring his sickened heart.

“And now to the Ferris Wheel.” Seth threw the curtain aside. The sound of screeching metal drifted toward them on the rancid breeze that flowed through the Big Top. Erin grimaced and held her nose.

Josh frowned. “A Ferris Wheel is not a monster.”

Seth giggled. “It is in Salioso’s House of Monsters. Everything here is
moste
grotesk and phantastique, my dear friends.” He ushered them in.

The room beyond the curtain was enormous. The roof was so high it couldn’t be seen. The walls were hundreds of meters apart. Josh cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted wordlessly. His voice bounced again and again off the un-boundaries of the room. The vast expanse of yellow—always that cheerful yellow!—finally swallowed his yell after what felt like an eternity.

“This place has got to be ten times the size of the whole tent,” Erin said.

“Yes,” Seth responded. “Easily. Now, shall we ride our good friend Ferris?”

Josh looked sidelong at Seth. “You say it like the Wheel is a pers—”

Oh God.

Josh stopped marveling at the gigantic room and looked at the Wheel in the center of it.

Its red metal struts jutted up into the heavens, dotted at their ends with carriages like grossly oversized cherries. Fairy lights twinkled all over the structure, and somewhere, calliope music played as the Wheel groaned through endless rotations.

Josh moaned.

A man was crucified on the Wheel.

His torso, positioned at the center of the contraption, was pushed forward by the convex hub behind it so that he seemed to be jutting his pelvis suggestively at them. His head was slumped forward onto his chest, dark clumps of hair obscuring his face. His arms and legs were impossibly stretched, tethered to the Wheel, tapering from the center to the outer limits. The red of the struts was not paint but the man’s blood, flowing in ceaseless rivulets. The metal carried the blood like mechanized veins, feeding it to the membranous carriages. The Wheel bore the blood-filled sacs around and around, and the tortured man spun with them, stretched and helpless.

“Meet Ferris,” Seth said, his feet marking a jig of excitement on the canvas floor. “He’s a relatively new addition to our show, but I think you’ll agree he’s a good ’un.”

“That’s the sickest thing I have ever seen. I know it’s not real . . . but it’s sick. You should be ashamed. Do children come through here?” Erin prodded Seth in his fuzzy chest.

Seth’s mouth opened wide in a cackle, and he stroked her finger when it jabbed his sternum. Erin shuddered, swaying on her feet again. Josh moved to catch her. She felt like a bony bird in his hands, brittle and barely there at all. He turned her around gently. Her eyes rolled toward him, and he suppressed a scream.

They were pure black, gleaming flatly in her head, and the image of the boy on his doorstep earlier that night (was it the
same
night? It seemed so distant now) flashed through his mind.

“What have you done to her?” Josh reeled her in like a tiny fish, securing her in his arms, glaring over her head at Seth. The little man smiled serenely back at him.

And then Ferris began to shriek.

Josh looked back at the lengthened man on the Wheel, and saw Ferris’ head rise. The man’s eyes whirled in their sockets, his mouth twisting in an impossibly wide grimace. Blood spilled from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. He struggled against his impossible bonds, causing the Wheel to shudder on its rotation, but not halt.

“Make him stop, make him stop, please, make him stop . . . ” Erin whimpered into Josh’s ribs. Josh’s mind tilted a little more. The Big Feelings rushed forward, seizing him in his moment of weakness.

He clenched and unclenched his fists against Erin’s back. The craving for a blade to be in each of them was a physical pain. He wondered how much force it would take to crush her into lifelessness; not much, given her current fragility.

If he only had a blade . . . if he had a blade, he could turn the Big Feelings on himself, release enough of his own blood to appease them and ensure he spilt none of hers . . . if she hadn’t taken his Seth, his scalpel, his release . . . if . . .

“You won’t hurt her, Josh. Our business is not yet done here. There are more installments to be made on the agreed payment. You’ll control yourself.” Seth’s voice was polite, but beneath it a layer of iron lurked.

The Big Feelings receded a little, and Josh looked at the smaller man, fuming.

“You’re mad. This is disgusting. We want to leave.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s quite impossible. There’s only one way out of here, and that’s straight ahead. We can’t exit until we’ve been through all the exhibits. Now, we can leave this room and move on to the next if you wish, but it seems a shame to leave Ferris without enjoying the full extent of his talents . . . ”

Seth darted forward and placed his hand on one of the sac carriages, his fingers splayed on the membrane. The carriage wobbled and belched under his touch, then bowed inward, giving way. Seth’s arm disappeared into the thing up to the elbow.

“It’s very warm inside the carriages. They have their own special heating, you might say. Quite womblike, and the filling tastes simply delicious. Ferris works so hard to keep the carriages supplied; won’t you at least have one ride to show your appreciation?”

The man on the Wheel gave a final ululating cry before his head fell forward again. Then all was silent except for the perpetual dripping of his blood and the gamboling of the calliope tune in the background.

“I’m not going near that thing,” Josh whispered.

Seth sighed and withdrew his hand—clean and smooth—from the blood sac with a juicy
squelch
. “As you desire. What a waste. Well, onward!” With a loud suck of his dummy, Seth was off, scampering toward the far curtain.

Erin went limp in Josh’s arms. He swept her up and, carrying her like a baby, followed Seth. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor and didn’t look at the profane Wheel again. Erin’s eyelids fluttered. Josh glimpsed the blackness of her eyes and shivered. Yet . . . he was still excited. He wanted to see what lay on the other side of the curtain. He wanted to keep going. He was glad Erin was unconscious so that his niggling conscience could be quieted for a moment.

The Big Feelings snarled like prowling panthers and he smiled, stroking them in his mind.

I’ll let you off your chain soon. I know I’ll have to. But . . . not yet.

The curtain rose and fell, and they materialized in a dark corridor, in between

(worlds)

exhibits.

“I suppose you want another payment now,” Josh said, his voice a dull glimmer in the gloom.

Seth raised an eyebrow at him, surprised.

“Why, no. I’m not greedy. As you saw, I took the liberty of securing the next installment while we were visiting young Ferris back there.”

Contemplating Erin’s half-closed gimlet eyes, Josh nodded.

“Yeah. So you did. Then why have we stopped here?”

Seth leaned forward conspiratorially.

“As I said, I’m not greedy. I don’t take payment where it’s not due, and what’s more, I like to give back where I can. So I’m going to give you a gift. A piece of her to keep for your very own. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Josh?”

The Big Feelings drew back, and Josh clutched Erin to him, hissing.

Seth chuckled.

“Oh, not like that. I would never harm her, Josh. You’re doing that all by yourself. This was your idea, remember?”

“Why, you—you—”

“Now, now. Back to my boon to you. Did you know she’s thought about you every day since she left you that final time? She’s driven to your house on numerous occasions, parked at the end of your street, and watched your comings and goings. Just to make sure you were alright. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?”

Josh felt Erin’s pulse thrumming weakly beneath his fingertips and pictured her lurking, watching him. Caring for him. Her unmoving form was an accusation in his arms.

“She watched to see if you had started cutting yourself again. She had Seth—
your
Seth, the blade, the relief, not
me
, of course—but there are other cutting edges in the world, and she wondered if you were using them. When she was certain you were not, she stopped following you. But she still dreamt of you every night, cried into her pillow over you every morning, dug her nails into her boyfriend’s back and pretended it was you every time they—”

“Stop.” Wetness trickled down Josh’s cheek. Tears. That was new. He’d sooner let blood than cry. It was a rare occurrence, but better to do it while Erin couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t look at him with worry in her eyes—although, now that they were unadulterated black, he wondered if her eyes could contain any emotion at all. The thought brought forth a choked sob, and Seth patted him on the shoulder.

“There now. Let it out. We like the release of bodily fluids here. Anyway, she still loves you. She would have taken you back in a heartbeat. Oh, she would have pretended to put up a fight, and you would have played along like the little pup you are, but she always intended to be with you in the end, Josh. You might have been completely healthy. You surely would have had a long and fruitful life together. But . . . . ”

Josh’s tears became a flood, pattering down on Erin’s unresponsive skin.