The Nightmare Game (61 page)

I was transfixed, unable to stop looking at these
posters, momentarily forgetting even about the ghouls. My own simultaneous fear
and fascination were fanned by everything around me in a way it had not been
since I was a child. I became lost as I stood there, lost in the look of the
decaying tent and posters, overtaken by the heat and the humidity, the dirtiness
of the air and of the unhealthy smells around me.

It was awhile before I realized that the recording
had quit hawking its curiosities, leaving the low, steady melody of the
calliope alone to turn into background music, a lullaby of sorts, lulling me
into a trance. Time seemed to have stopped.

For the first time in a long time, I remembered a
particular nightmare, the recurring nightmare theme of my childhood days. I
remembered standing in this very spot as a child, in front of these particular
posters that had cemented themselves into my subconscious, transfixed, nothing
happening yet. These elements and feel were always the same, but the nightmare,
while it always began the same, always ended differently, with various
monsters, various dangers that would whip me into a frenzy of horror so extreme
that my mind would rouse me and I could escape into wakefulness, soaked with
sweat, unable to go back to sleep again.

I wondered now how many times in my dreams I had
stood here, in front of these very posters that had been on display that one
particular trip to the fair the year, that year I was in Kindergarten and so
impressionable. They had burned themselves so deeply into my subconscious as I
had stood here, on this very spot, until the nightmare they inspired took on a
life of its own. The recurring nightmare had been so intense that I could not
believe that I’d even forgotten it until now.

I’d been slowly backing away from the freak show
until I realized I’d made my way to the popcorn and corndog stand. Suddenly, I
became aware of something touching or crawling on my hair, so light that I
could hardly feel it. I tensed up, whisking around immediately. Something or
someone was behind me. I jumped.

It was Geoffrey.

“Stop doing that!” I ordered.

“Hi!,” he said. “Miss me?”

“What’re you doing here?” I asked, making it clear
that his presence was not welcome.

“What, you’re not glad to see me?” he replied.

“No, Geoff, I’m not glad to see you. I asked you a
question. What’re you doing here? How did you get here?”

“I got here the same way you did. Through that
passageway at the shack.”

“Then where’s everybody else? Ben and Illea, they
were right behind us in the passageway. They should be here, too.”

“Ben’s a no-show, Ash, but Illea made it just
fine. Well, maybe not just fine, but she made it. I can’t tell you, but I can
show you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’ll have to be patient and see for yourself.”

“While I’m waiting, let me ask you. What are you
doing in that ridiculous outfit?” He was dressed like a Broadway revue’s idea
of an old-timey flim-flam man. A straw hat, white shirt, baggy pants held up
with both a belt and suspenders, a red bow-tie, Geoffrey was a walking cliché.

“Oh, this? It was Arrosha’s idea. She loves
theatrics, haven’t you noticed by now?”

I turned back toward the sideshow and we slowly
walked toward it.

“Man, you were really into those posters. Seen
them before somewhere?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer but was
goading me.

“Yeah, you could say that,” I told him.

“You know, the funny thing about these posters is
that they always over promise. The stuff in the tent is never as good, never as
interesting as the posters make it out to be. I used to be disappointed all the
time. Like, I remember this one poster I saw at a county fair when I was a kid
and it was cool, it was really, really cool,” he said, getting a little too
giddy and having too much fun relishing the memory. “It was this vampire woman,
y’know, but her vampire teeth weren’t like in the movies. They were long,
really long. And she had red eyes but she was really, really sexy. Big tits,
long legs, great figure. And she was mostly naked in this super-tight, trashy,
torn dress, you know, the kind of dress that makes a woman look even more naked
than when she’s not wearing anything at all. Man, was she hot.”

“Illea was right, Geoffrey. You’ll screw
anything.”

“Don’t you know it,” was his proud reply.

His joviality was not to be watered down. As he
continued to recount the poster, his enthusiasm grew.

“Anyway,” he went on. “She’s sitting on the floor,
more than halfway falling out of this dress. But get this, she’s sitting in a
pool of blood and she’s got blood dripping all down her and she’s got these
half-eaten people all around her and she’s got this arm in her hand that she’s
been munching on and I’m thinkin’, I’ve gotta see that! I mean, I was only
about ten years old, but I’m still thinkin’, I’ve gotta see that.”

“And your point would be?” I said, annoyed. The
grotesqueness of his story was making me nervous. The glee with which he was
relaying it was both getting on my nerves and frightening me. The more I got to
know Geoffrey, the more I hated him.

“We-ell,” he said, drawing the word out to make
his pitch better, “The point, you see, is that I paid my money, my good allowance
money, on going in to see this hot vampire babe munching on people parts and
you know what I got?”

“I can hardly wait,” I replied, sarcastically.

“What I got,” he continued, the sarcasm completely
wasted on him, “was this really old lady sittin’ on a dirt floor with a stick
in her hand pushin’ around a few snakes. Snakes! And not even cool snakes,
either. No cobras, no rattlers, no diamond-backs, no sidewinders, no nothin’
but a bunch of puny little garden snakes, not even poisonous.

“Oh,” he said, turning to me, “and you’re gonna
love this part – not only did she not have any fangs, she didn’t even have any
fuckin’ teeth! Not one lousy tooth in her head! Can you imagine that! Here they
got me all worked up and for what? An old toothless woman playin’ with snakes!
And I had to pay money for it, too! And that was my tilt-a-whirl money! Man,
was I pissed!”

“And again I ask,” I said in my best bored voice
to hide my fear. Geoff was acting a more than a little psycho and was starting
to freak me out, “your point would be ...”

“That this ain’t a regular freak show, man. Those
posters, they always promise more than they can deliver. But these, these
posters, they’re nothin’ compared to what’s inside that tent! This shit is
real, man. This shit is real.”

“And you would know this because…” I asked him,
suspicious of his motives. By this point, we had walked all the way up to the
entrance.

Geoffrey pulled a key out of his shirt pocket and
unlocked the gate to the freak show. “Because, don’t you get it? That’s why I’m
dressed up in this outfit. I’m the barker here, the Head Carnie, the Master of
Ceremonies. I am your host!”

After we passed the gate, Geoffrey pulled back the
frayed curtain leading into the carnival exhibit, motioned and said, “After
you, my dear.”

When I stepped into the dirty tent, the stifling
heat and the stench of the place overwhelmed me. The odors of disease combined
with the stale air, mold and mildew to make me gag. Geoffrey, completely
unaffected by the sheer unhealthiness of the tent, was extremely excited to
begin his show and tell.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began, even though I
was alone, for his mind was already into the role of carnival barker. “Look and
marvel at the astounding creatures in this tent. We have sights that will
boggle your mind, astonish your sight and push all of your senses past the very
brink of possibility.

“Behold, behold. In the first tent, we have the
amazing petrified twins.” He drew back a curtain to reveal Antonio and Kenny,
propped up in the exhibit and frozen in place. Eyes and mouths still barely
functioning, they looked at me and mouthed, “help me”. My heart breaking, I
felt completely impotent, for I had no power whatsoever to help them.

“What could have happened to these two, you may
ask yourself,” Geoffrey continued. “Was it the basilisk, perhaps? Or the
petrifying gaze of the terrible Medusa that made them the way they are now? Who
knows. Indeed, who knows.”

“Medusa, my ass,” I countered angrily. “You know
what happened to them as well as I do. It was those creatures that came after
the group, the same creatures that attacked me. It was their touch that did
this to them.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Geoffrey said in a hushed
manner that suggested I was exposing some big secret. “Suspension of disbelief,
my dear. Suspension of disbelief.”

Moving down the narrow dirt hallway that ran
between the “exhibits” and the outer curtain that was serving as the outer
wall, Geoff continued.

“Sadly, we may never know what happened to these
two or to any of the poor, tragic creatures which share this tent and their
fortunes.

“Now, leaving behind our petrified gentlemen, we
arrive at our next exhibit. These creatures, found in wilds of Borneo, will
make you gasp with amazement. Yes, indeed, my friends, born this way, they are
freaks of creation, two of nature’s strangest oddities and a prime example of
the cruelty of her ways. Gaze if you will, if you dare, upon the incredible
Slug Boys.”

Geoffrey pulled back the curtain with the hook of
his barker’s cane, then pointed to the “attraction” with its straight end. On
the sawdust of their corral, Timothy and Robert slowly attempted to crawl up to
me, as they gurgled out, “help me”.

Feeling as helpless as before, I walked up to the
fence and said, “I can’t. I wish I could, but I don’t know how. I am so sorry.”

As Geoffrey moved down the aisle, I stood still,
unable to tear my eyes from Robert and Timothy’s pleading. Geoffrey’s cane
rapped harshly upon the wood of the exhibit.

“Move it along, people, move it along,” he
commanded. “There’s a lot to see here, folks, and very little time in which to
see it.”

“I really am sorry,” I told them again before
continuing down the line. “I wish I could help. I want to. I really do.”

“And now we get to a couple of attractions that go
hand-in-hand,” he went on. “This first poor fellow is the direct result of the
next attraction, for he is suffering from the infectious bite of the rarest of
insects from the Amazon basin.”

When he threw back the next curtain, I saw Ricky
for the first time since the shack. Waxen and white as a result of the attack
by The Sisters, he had long, green stripes that ran from unhealthy looking
sores left by the bites they had inflicted. Unable to stand, he sat slumped in
a chair, gasping “help me”.

“As we move along,” Geoffrey said. “We now arrive
at the creature which inflicted this unfortunate fellow’s horrific wounds, the
Amazing Human Spider. I must warn you, now, ma’am stay away from the railing.
Obviously, this creature is dangerous and has been known to bite, as evidenced
by this poor fellow previous,” with his cane, he pointed to Ricky. “And, of
course, we cannot be responsible for your safety.”

When he pulled back the curtain, there was the
creature that used to be The Sisters, shrunken to a portion of its previous
size.

“Help me,” they said in unison, in a tiny little
voice. Not the pitiful cry of the others, it was instead a predatory cry meant
to lure any unsuspecting prey into their clutches.

“What’s that you say, ladies?” Geoffrey asked
them. “Help you? Why, certainly. Glad to oblige.”

“Why are they so small now?” I asked.

“They were just too dangerous to handle before,
madam. Too dangerous to handle.”

“What’s the real reason, Geoffrey,” I asked again.

“First, that
is
the real reason,” he said, breaking character. “Besides, they’re so cute this
size, don’t you think? Arrosha miniaturized them for storage. I mean, can you
imagine trying to find a jar big enough to preserve them life-sized? How hard
that would be? I mean, really, can you imagine putting something like this in
the Great Room? No, no, all the way around, it was really much easier for
Arrosha just to miniaturize the girls.”

“Why are you babbling on about jars?” I asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?

“Here,” Geoffrey said, as if he were being
extraordinarily helpful. “Let me show you.”

He took a very long and sturdy hatpin from his hat
and with a pair of tongs that were lying on a nearby stool, reached into the
sandpit and held onto the creature that was once the Three Sisters. They
snapped their teeth at the tongs as did.

“Ah,” he said, “Voracious to the end, aren’t you,
ladies?”

It was then that Geoffrey drove the hatpin through
them. The creature let out a tiny little cry as it writhed in pain, now impaled
upon the pin. Releasing it onto the sawdust for a second, he then picked up a
pair of rubber gloves that had been lying next to the tongs.

As he put on the gloves, I asked, “What are those
for?”

 “Easy cleanup,” he answered. “Even though this is
a favor for Arrosha, I still hate getting my hands dirty.”

On the same table next where the gloves and tongs
had sat was a glass gallon jar. With gloves on, Geoffrey opened it, causing the
strong odor of formaldehyde to be released. I was reminded of the smell in
Arrosha’s office and my stomach turned. Geoffrey, on the other hand, breathed
in deeply.

“My, oh my,” he said, a huge smile on his face as
he took a big sniff from the jar, “How I do love the smell of formaldehyde in
the morning.”

Picking up the creature that was once The Sisters
with the tongs, he stuffed them into the jar. They twitched once in agony and
then they twitched no more. He screwed the lid back, put down the tongs and
took off the gloves.

“Ah, rubber gloves,” he said in the same tone of
voice as if we were having tea and he was asking me if I’d like another
cucumber sandwich. “Don’t you just love them? I know I do. Best invention since
sliced bread. You know, I really wonder who came up with that phrase, ‘sliced
bread’? I mean, really, is it that hard to slice off a piece of bread? You’d
think that with all marvelous the labor-saving devices that have come down
throughout the years, they had to pick that one to hold up as the epitome of
all labor-saving devices. I mean, really, what brainiac came up with that?”

“Geoffrey!”

“What?”

“How could you just – I mean, I thought they were
your friends. How can you just do that?”

“You’re right. And when you’re right, you’re
right.” Geoff took off his straw barker’s hat, holding it over his heart in
mock respect. “Gals,” he said, “I’ll surely miss ya. You had the attention span
of a fly, but you were one great lay.”

Picking up the jar and peering inside it at the
Sisters as they floated in the formaldehyde, Geoffrey said, “You know, Illea
was right. They really were joined at the hip.

“To tell the truth,” he continued, speaking only
to himself, “they really are displayed quite beautifully here. Look how nicely
they float in that liquid. How fitting it was that they were together in the
end. Get it? ‘Together in the end’. Joined at the tuche and joined till the
last.

“I think they would have wanted it this way,
though.” He sighed deeply. “You know, out of everybody here, I think I’m going
to miss them the most. As a trio, they were really the best pieces of ass that
I’ve ever had, male or female. They were insane, it’s true, but you know what
they say, there’s no sex like crazy sex and those three were definitely crazy.
You can say what you want to about them, but they were certainly intriguing.

“They were even more intriguing as this creature,
really. What a shame about the fangs and their whole ‘devouring human flesh’
thing. I mean, if it wasn’t for that, doing them sure would have been a helluva
lot of fun.”

“Why did you kill them?” I asked, horrified.

“Because Arrosha wanted me to,” he answered.
“Besides, what’s it to you anyway? Arrosha knew you didn’t like them very much.
She wanted me to kill them because they won’t come in handy to her later like
the others will.”

“But they were your friends!” I repeated, unable
to fathom his attitude.

“It doesn’t matter to Arrosha. Listen if it makes
you feel any better, Ben was wrong when he bought the official story of who
they were way back when.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, my sweet little Ashley, is that dear
old Ben thought he had it all figured out, but he didn’t.

“You see, I know more than he does, at least now,
and he was wrong about an awful lot. See our Sisters here?” he pointed to the
jar. “Ben thought he knew them, but I just found out who they really were.
Arrosha told me after I left the shack. Wanna hear their true story? Okay, this
is it. They were never victims, they were the predators. And all that time,
everybody thought they’d been just poor, innocent girls, but they weren’t. They
were white slavers, into human trafficking. Even before I found out, I knew
there had to be a reason I liked them so much. Pretty trippy, huh?”

“Geoffrey, I don’t buy it. Those three were
challenged, to put it nicely. I can’t even imagine them as criminal
masterminds. I think Arrosha must have been lying to you.”

“Arrosha never lies! She said that they were so
incredibly wicked that when she cleansed their minds of all evil, there wasn’t
much of anything left behind. You see? Even you can’t object to the killing of
something that nasty. This creature,” he pointed to the Sisters floating in the
jar, “is much closer to the real them in its twisted little way than the girls
you met at the mansion ever were. That cock-and-bull background story was just
to fool the saps like Ben into accepting them.”

While it seemed far-fetched that to think the
Sisters could ever have been cunning, I had no problem imagining the women as
predators. Even after hearing Ben’s “victim” story about the girls, I could
never shake the feeling that there was something unhealthy and sick about those
three.

“But we’re wasting time. We have more ground to
cover.” He smiled broadly, ready to resume his carnival barker persona. “Ready
to get on with the presentation?” he asked.

I shrugged, which Geoffrey took as a solid ‘yes’.

“And last,” he continued, getting back into
character, “but certainly not least, we come to our final attraction. Found in
a tomb in Karnak, may I present to you the Princess Illea.”

The curtain now parted to reveal an open
sarcophagus that had been stood upon its end so I could easily see what lay
inside, a woman wrapped in the bandages of a mummy.

“I’d make a crack about my dear old Mummy, but I’m
sure you’ve heard them all before,” Geoffrey said as an aside.

“What happened to her?” I asked. I’d been hoping
that Illea had been exempt from the fate of the others, but unfortunately, she
had not. Geoffrey said that she was the last in this grizzly exhibit, and since
I did not see Ben, perhaps he had been spared.

Rather than a straight answer, Geoffrey slipped
back into his carnival barker character. I became firmly convinced now that he
was quite, quite mad.

“It’s said that she blasphemed against the gods
and was entombed alive. Come, let us see for ourselves.”

Walking up to the open sarcophagus, Geoffrey began
to take some of the wrapping off of Illea’s face and head, entertaining himself
by humming the song “The Stripper”. That he did a hip bump to every “ba-da” in
the song exposed exactly how unhinged he was.

After pulling off a few layers of wrappings, Illea
was revealed. Her face was, quite literally, almost all eyes. I counted five in
her face where only two should be, one where her nose should have gone, and
another, larger eye that stood in place of her mouth, making seven in her face
alone.

“Help me,” came a muffled cry from her.

“Hmm,” mused Geoffrey mockingly. “I don’t see a
mouth! I wonder where that could be coming from. Her ears, perhaps?”

He pulled back her hair on the left side. There
was yet another eye. “No, it’s not here,” he said, feigning disappointment.
“Let’s try the other side.” He pulled back her hair on the right side, only to
reveal another eye. “Nope, it’s not coming from there, either.”

“Help me,” said Illea.

“Let’s see, now, it’s got to be here somewhere.
Hmm, if I were a mouth, where would I be hiding?”

Geoffrey next unwrapped her hands, revealing an
eye on each finger and thumb and a larger eye in the middle of her palm.

“Nope, not here either,” he said, pretending
disappointment.

“Help me,” Illea pleaded.

Geoffrey next unwrapped her forehead and pushed
back her hair, revealing the existence of a mouth high upon her forehead that
gasped for air audibly, as if she’d been suffocating under the wrappings for
too long.