Carnies Read online

‘Half man, half beast,’ the barker boomed. ‘And I warn you, folks, he hasn’t had his supper yet!’

  As if on cue, the creature raised its snout and gave an almighty roar. There were a few more screams and yells, including one from David, who was backing away. He looked around for his brother.

  Paul was close to the front, standing at the side of the tent. He didn’t look frightened or worried or stressed. Instead he had a look of wonder, like he was seeing something fascinating, something beautiful. Absently, he pulled out the camera and took a photo.

  The flash went off, and the creature took a step back, blinking. It was almost comical, the expression on its face. But the barker’s face was anything but amused. It had hardened into something that set David’s internal alarm bells ringing, and he remembered the sign at the entrance of the carnival with a falling sensation in his stomach.

  The barker hurried the creature off the stage and out the back of the tent, to the disappointment of the crowd. A few gave Paul disapproving glares, like he’d spoiled their fun. David suspected that the barker wasn’t just locking that monstrosity up. He’d be reporting the camera. And then...

  No, he didn’t have his story yet. Nearly, but not quite. He wanted to see the whole carnival, to get an overall feel for what it offered, and why it had remained so hidden for so long. He darted forward and grabbed Paul’s elbow.

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  Paul looked at him, annoyed. ‘But...’

  ‘You want to get something to eat?’

  Food was about the last thing that David wanted. After the spectacle of the heads, the terror of the monster, and now the threat of expulsion from the carnival, his gut was twisting like an angry snake. But it seemed Paul didn’t feel that way. He smiled.

  ‘Excellent! Lead on, boss!

  -7-

  It was a relief to get out of the tent and back into the cool evening air. Paul took a couple of deep breaths, trying to clear his lungs of the humidity that they’d encountered in the freak show as David hurried him along. He was still a little amazed by what he’d seen in there, the kinds of things he’d only read about before, usually in comic books he wasn’t supposed to have as a kid. It was no surprise that when the bearded lady had offered him the chance to see if the beard was for real, he’d taken it, reaching out and giving it a gentle tug. It felt real. There was no chin toupee. For a second he’d wondered if perhaps she wasn’t a man, but he really didn’t think so. She seemed too nice, too genuine. Of course, he could be mistaken. But the highlight had been the monster on a chain. That was something he’d only seen in movies before, courtesy of special effects makeup. He wondered how they’d done it, if it was a deformed man, or if they’d used latex rubber or something. Maybe a combination of the two. Either way, it was incredible, even up close. He hoped the photo he’d taken would turn out okay.

  In hindsight, Paul knew he shouldn’t have taken such a brazen shot. He could see in David’s demeanour that he felt the same way too. His brother had taken him by the elbow and led him out of the tent before anyone could challenge them over the camera. Paul figured they’d be okay. There were enough people to get lost amongst, even in such a small carnival. Plus there were plenty of tents to hide inside if it came to that.

  Like the one on their left they were hurrying past, for example. It caught Paul’s attention, and he stopped and looked at it, intrigued. There was a sign out the front of it with no words on it, just a beautiful painting of a gigantic eye surrounded by stars. The centre of the eye was a full moon. Paul looked at it closely, as his brother tugged on his arm.

  ‘Paul, come on,’ David hissed through his teeth. ‘Let’s get away from here!’

  Paul looked at his brother, then at the sign again. His appetite had been distracted, it seemed, which was very unusual for him.

  ‘I’ll go in here,’ he said to David. ‘I can hide for a while.’

  David looked exasperated for a second, then thoughtful. Paul knew what was going through his mind. He could go off and examine the carnival in peace, without having Paul in tow. They hadn’t seen David take a photo, only Paul. If he needed any more shots, he could always come back and get him from the tent. Or, better yet...

  ‘Give me the camera,’ David said at last, holding out his hand.

  Paul fumbled in his pocket for a moment, produced the camera and passed it across. David slipped it into his pocket, then turned to walk away.

  ‘Don’t talk to any strangers,’ Paul called after him, and watched him flinch with embarrassment, then hurry off even faster. Soon the carnival had swallowed him up.

  Free at last, Paul thought to himself. He checked his pocket again, making sure he still had what he’d wanted to keep in there, and then turned back to the tent. A little nervous, he pulled the flap at the front of it aside and poked his head in.

  It took his eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dim light inside. The only illumination came from a series of candles inside glass boxes hanging on thick cords from the canvas roof. There was a round table towards the rear of the tent, covered in a dark red tablecloth that stretched all the way to the floor. An object lay on the table, obscured by a black cloth. There was a rough wooden chair in front of the table and another behind it. Other than that the tent was empty.

  ‘Hello?’ Paul stepped inside, looking around. There was silence. The flimsy walls of the tent seemed somehow to muffle the noises from outside, cutting him off from the world. Right there and then, for just a moment or two, the inside of this small tent was the whole universe. Nothing else existed, nothing else was real.

  He walked to the table, attracted by the covered object there. It looked square at the top, so his initial theory of a crystal ball seemed to be wrong. He reached out his hand to remove the cloth.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Paul jumped a little and spun around. A woman had entered the tent behind him. She was tall, maybe an inch taller than him, and had long hair that looked jet black in the flickering candlelight. Her eyes reflected the burning wicks in the tent, making them sparkle. Her dress was the deepest purple and old-fashioned - velvet and lace with a deep neckline. She was very beautiful. But there was something more, something... else. Something that called to him, deep in his bones. He felt dizzy.

  ‘I... I’m sorry, I came in and...’

  ‘I was just getting a drink of water,’ the woman said. Her voice was deep yet feminine, and held the trace of a European accent, similar to that of the man at the front of the carnival. ‘I’m sorry to make you wait.’

  ‘No need to apologise,’ Paul assured her, his nerves still jangling a little. ‘I haven’t been here long.’ He took a deep breath, tried to compose himself. What was wrong with him?

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ the woman said, a slight smile on her lips. ‘Please, take a seat.’

  ‘Are you a fortune teller?’ Paul asked as he sat down in the chair in front of the table, putting his cane across his lap.

  The woman walked around and lowered herself into the other seat. ‘Some may say. I believe that I merely see what is there for all to see, if only they would open their eyes.’ She reached forward and pulled away the black cloth.

  On the table was a rectangular block of shiny black stone, a foot high, standing on its end like an obelisk. It caught the candlelight in its surface, making it glitter like a star-filled sky. Paul looked at it curiously.

  ‘Obsidian,’ the woman said, in answer to his unasked question. ‘I find it easier to focus on the darkness. It allows me to see more clearly.’

  Paul nodded, turning his attention back to the woman’s face. She pursed her lips as she concentrated, gazing at the stone, into it, past it. Her concentration seemed absolute. Paul wished he could say the same thing. He was wondering if perhaps he didn’t have some psychic powers of his own, if perhaps this was why he felt compelled to enter this tent. After all, as he’d already reminded himself, a beautiful woman was always more enticing than food. Well, almost always. This was di
fferent, though.

  ‘What is it that you wish to know?’ the woman asked without looking up.

  ‘How about your name?’ he asked, trying to sound casual. Probably failing, he thought.

  She didn’t even flinch. ‘My name is Rachel,’ she answered, eyes still on the obsidian stone.

  Paul gasped with mock wonder. ‘Wow, that’s right! You are psychic!’

  Now she looked up, a faint smile on her lips. ‘And your name is Paul.’

  He blinked once, twice. ‘How...?’

  ‘You are searching for something here. Something you feel you have lost.’

  Paul shook his head, confused. ‘No, I don’t think...’

  ‘It isn’t lost, Paul,’ Rachel interrupted. ‘It has been within you all along. In your blood.’

  ‘Um, no offence, but I think you’re way off the mark here,’ Paul said with a forced laugh. His head was spinning.

  ‘Don’t you feel it?’ she asked, one eyebrow raised. She leaned forward, offering a view that grabbed his complete attention. ‘Deep inside you?’

  He couldn’t think of anything to say to that. This whole thing seemed so surreal. He nodded.

  ‘I thought so. It is right there, just below the surface. It wants to be free.’

  ‘Free, yeah,’ he mumbled, lips numb. Was she coming on to him? Or was it just wishful thinking? Only one way to find out. ‘Can you help me, er, free it?’

  She stood up then, and walked around the table to his side. He followed her with his eyes the whole way, watched each of her elegant steps, her bare feet peeking out from beneath the hem of the dress. She knelt beside his chair, her face close to his, and cupped his cheek with her hand. Her eyes closed, and Paul felt like he would faint. Then she removed her hand and her eyes snapped open.

  ‘No,’ she said, and stood up, turning away.

  ‘No?’ Paul put his hand to his cheek, where her palm had been just moments earlier. The skin there was hot, like sunburn.

  She walked away, not looking at him. ‘You are not ready. It is not ready.’

  Paul laughed without humour at this. ‘Believe me, we’re both as ready as we’re ever going to be!’

  She turned her head, and her expression was suddenly sad. ‘Yes, I believe you may be right.’ She turned away again. ‘Please leave.’

  ‘Fine,’ Paul snapped, cheeks flushed. He stood and walked to the entrance of the tent. He stopped there for a moment, looking over his shoulder, hoping she would change her mind, but she was quiet, still facing the other side of the tent. The strange feeling inside him wasn’t going away, the voiceless yearning he couldn’t explain, despite the rejection he felt. With a small, frustrated sigh he left the tent.

  Only to be faced by two men in tattered overalls. One was quite small, but looked as tough as a wrought-iron gate. The other could have been a professional wrestler, given a spandex suit and a catchy nickname.

  ‘Well, well,’ the smaller man said. ‘If it isn’t our intrepid photographer. Carl?’

  Paul was about to correct him when the other man’s huge hands shot out, grabbing Paul painfully by his upper arms. He realised that the smaller man hadn’t been talking to him.

  ‘Now,’ the man said to his larger companion, ‘let’s find the other one.’

  Paul found himself being escorted away by the men, into the heart of the carnival. He tried to look back at the fortune teller’s tent, to see if she was watching, but the large man was directly behind him, blocking his view. The pain in his arms was the perfect cure for the bizarre sensations he’d left in the tent, like cold water shocking him awake. With a sigh he decided to treat this as if it was just part of the carnival’s festivities, like a rather uncomfortable ride.

  He wondered where it would end.

  -8-

  ‘Dervish Carnival. A time capsule, wrapped in canvas and shrouded in secrecy. It is a throwback to an earlier era, when the carnival was more than just an excuse to eat fairy floss and throw up on a rollercoaster. It was a celebration, and a denouncement, an accusatory comment on the voyeuristic tendencies of the people who flocked to it. It was an excuse to drink and eat and enjoy the baser things in life. It was...’ David trailed off for a moment, thinking, before continuing to speak into his recorder. ‘It was a pile of horse manure, just like this story.’ He turned the recorder off, angry. He just couldn’t find a decent angle for the story. Everything about it seemed too... too twee. He was sure it would be an okay story for the magazine, mind you, and he had plenty of copy for it to edit down, but his journalist’s heart was deeply dissatisfied. He’d hoped for something good, something that might convince his editors to allow him to write real news again. He’d hoped for a story.

  David looked back over his shoulder. He was sitting outside the haunted house on a rough wooden bench. The ‘house’ was an old-fashioned affair, of course, a framework of wood with canvas draped on it, painted to look like bricks. There were no carriages like in modern ghost trains. It was a walk-through haunted house, which David found appealing. He liked being in control, and hated rides that took that away from you, roller coasters and ghost trains and Ferris wheels... he was glad that this carnival was free of such things, at least. It showed that much taste.

  He slipped the recorder back into his pocket and stood up, turning to face the haunted house. He might as well check it out while he was here. It might be yet another cute addition to what was already a too-cute story. There was a rough man standing outside it, looking at him with a quizzical expression. David smiled, feeling a little foolish, and walked up to him.

  ‘One, please?’

  ‘Two dollars, mate.’ The man held out his hand, dirt worn into the lines in his palms like roads on a map to nowhere in particular. David fished a coin from his pocket and handed it across. The man smiled and stepped aside, gesturing towards the entrance.

  David walked past, entering the sudden dark of the canvas house. He stood there for a few moments, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light inside, which seemed in the most part to come through the walls and ceiling. After a while he discerned some features of the room.

  It was small, and draped with what David hoped were fake spider webs. On the wall opposite was a gigantic face, a crude painting on the canvas. Its mouth was an arched opening. He assumed that was the way he was meant to go.

  As he approached it he noticed something near the top of the arch. Small, white pointed objects, like an upside-down picket fence.

  Or teeth.

  He was almost at the opening when these teeth came down suddenly like a portcullis, and an amplified roar filled the room. He yelled and jumped back. The eyes in the painted face glowed red for a second, then winked out again. Then the sharp white objects rose up again jerkily with a clanking noise, back to the top, and it was silent again.

  Nervous, David walked up close to the open mouth again. He took a deep breath and jumped through the arch, arriving safely on the other side. He looked back behind him, but could only see darkness in the opening. Then he turned and examined the room he was now in.

  There was a jumble of mirrors here, lined up in a random fashion around the room. He walked up to one and saw himself shortened and fattened, like someone had dropped a heavy weight on his head in a cartoon. He laughed and went to the next mirror. This one stretched him like caramel, sending his head to the roof, and added a series of bends that made him look like a side view of a sheet of corrugated iron. Still laughing, he went to a third mirror.

  This one seemed to be a normal reflection. He looked like he always did. Puzzled, he raised one hand, then the other. His image copied him. He didn’t understand the point of this one.

  Then he saw a man standing behind him in the reflection, emerging from the shadows, a huge butcher’s knife held high in one hand, his face maniacal. David gave a cry of alarm and spun around, hands raised.

  There was nobody there.

  David looked over his shoulder. The man was still there in the reflection, knife in ha
nd. He seemed just a few feet away.

  He looked back again. Nothing.

  He turned back to the mirror, just in time to see the man lunge at him, knife flashing. He flinched, but the man in the mirror passed through his reflection then vanished, leaving him alone again.

  David breathed a sigh of relief. He knew it must have been a person in the next room. The mirror was only partially reflective, allowing the man to appear to be in the reflection with him, but nonetheless the illusion was effective. Smiling, he walked to the end of the room and through another opening.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in this room too, but seconds passed, then a minute, and it was still pitch black. He couldn’t tell how large the room was, or where its walls were. For a moment he felt like he was in open space, with nothing around for as far as he could see. He felt dizzy, and stumbled a little, then found his balance again.

  All right, he thought, if that’s the way it is...

  David stretched his arms out in front of him, hands open, and took small steps forward, still trying to see. He thought he could just make out the opposite wall of the room, quite far away. He edged towards it.

  His hands touched something cold and wet. He jerked them back and stopped dead, realising that his eyes had been deceiving him. He’d read about that, how in absolute darkness the brain creates images to make up for the complete lack of visual stimuli. He hadn’t paid it much heed, though. Until now. Taking more care, he reached out again, this time with a single hand, and touched whatever it was in front of him. It felt disgusting, and squished slightly between his fingers as he pushed forward. He shuddered and pulled his hand back again. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like the exit.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  He spun around, trying to see, but the dark was too complete. He held his breath for a few seconds and tried to hear if someone was in the room with him, but all he could make out was his own pounding heartbeat, loud in his ears.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out, embarrassed by the tremolo in his voice. ‘Is anybody there?’