Midnight Moonlight (3 page)

And he hadn’t seemed bothered. Nothing had ever seemed to bother Chad. It was one of the things she’d most admired about him. Calla herself was prone to worry. She got worked up over all kinds of possibilities, even ones that weren’t likely to come to pass. But Chad… he took everything in stride. And he was good at reassuring her. He’d sling an arm over her shoulders and say, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

And she’d babble something to him, breathlessly enumerating all the worst-case scenarios she could possibly think of.

He’d rub her shoulder. “Even if all that happens, Calla, we’ll still have each other, won’t we? So, it won’t be that bad.”

But he’d lied, the asshole. Because he wasn’t here for her anymore, and they didn’t still have each other. He had Irene, and she had no one. Nothing.

All she had was Netflix and cheese fries and a brand new outfit she didn’t dare wear out of the house.

It was the thought of Chad that made her decide to go somewhere. She was starting to cry, thinking of how pathetic and lonely she was, missing him so much and wishing there was some way to get him back, when she shook herself and forced herself to stop it.

You don’t need Chad
, she told herself.
You survived for twenty-five years before you met that man, and you can make it without him.

It sounded nice in her head, but there wasn’t a lot of evidence to back up her assertion. After all, here she was falling apart in front of the Chromecast, stuffing her face with bacon cheese fries and crying. She didn’t seem like much of a survivor.

“Well,” she said out loud, “I’ll just do something, then.” She got up off the couch, as if to punctuate her pronouncement.

But what could she do?

It was three in the afternoon, and she wasn’t going to go to a bar. No way. Far too early. She was trying to convince herself that she
wasn’t
pathetic. Getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon wasn’t going to do that.

She picked up the newspaper, which had been delivered that morning. She kept meaning to cancel her subscription, because she never read the thing. It was a waste of money. But it wasn’t that much money, and she felt guilty, because she had watched that guy who wrote
The Wire
talk about how newspapers were struggling, and she wanted to support newspapers, so she never actually did cancel her subscription.

Anyway, she flipped to the local section, because she knew there was a list of things to do in the area there, and she was determined to go somewhere.

The first thing that jumped out at her was an article about the carnival. It was in town. There were rides and games and even some attractions. Calla hadn’t been to a carnival since she was a teenager. She thought she’d probably gone to the county fair her senior year of high school, rode some rides, eaten popcorn. She remembered having fun. She wasn’t sure why she’d never been to a carnival since.

She’d always thought that she and Chad would do that sort of thing once they had children together.

But of course, that was never going to happen.

That settled it. She wasn’t going to let a lack of children get in the way of her enjoying life. If she wanted to go to a carnival, then she would go. No one could stop her.

However, she was still wearing her pajamas, and she couldn’t wear those.

She went back to her bedroom—the room she used to share with Chad. He’d been gone for months, and she’d gotten rid of anything here that reminded her of him, but she couldn’t get rid of the room itself. And she couldn’t afford to live elsewhere. According to her agreement with Chad, she’d gotten the house in the divorce, but she’d also taken over the mortgage. So, she had the whole of that to pay on her own.

Maybe she could sell the place, but with the market the way it was, it might take years. Meanwhile, she’d still be on the hook for the freaking mortgage.

No, she was stuck. She had to live here, but that didn’t mean she had to stay here right now. She was going to escape this place and go to a carnival and have fun.

She felt a surge of triumph at the thought, and she suddenly felt happier than she’d felt in months. Her face broke out into a big smile.

Now, she just needed to get dressed. She peered over at her closet, at the rows of baggy shirts and linen pants.

And then she looked at her new outfit, lying over a chair by the dresser, the tags still on the clothes. She was pretty sure she was going to return it.

But, on impulse, she tugged the new clothes on. The leggings—which were half leggings, baring her calves—and the summery dress that went down about mid-thigh.

She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror.

She didn’t actually look that bad, she realized. The dress covered the worst of the cellulite. And her legs actually didn’t look enormous in the tight leggings. She could see their actual shape, which was kind of nice. The summer dress was flowing enough that it skimmed over her belly and hips.

She smiled again. Maybe she’d been too hard on herself. Sure, she wasn’t anyone’s idea of a perfect beauty, but maybe she looked okay… even a little bit pretty.

She cocked her head to one side.

And then she noticed how fat her upper arms looked. She lifted one and pinched the flab that fell down. Ugh.

Stop it
, she scolded.
Get out of here before you lose your nerve.

And so, she did. She hurried out of the house before she had the chance to talk herself out of her excursion. She got in her car and drove to the carnival.

The carnival was held outside of town on some farmland cleared for the purpose. She speculated that a farmer had decided to rent the land out to the carnival to help make ends meet. The rides sprawled over the area, surrounded by rows of corn on either side.

As Calla got out of her car, she mused that it almost looked as if the carnival had grown out of the corn field—a very strange set of crops.

She paid the price to get inside and began wandering around.

She rode the Ferris wheel alone, then got on the Whip. She found it jerky and uncomfortable, not thrilling in the least. She wondered if perhaps she was too old for carnival rides. She remembered that they used to feel slightly risky and exciting. It was especially exciting to ride them if there were other people around who were afraid to do so. That made doing it seem more brave. It had made young Calla feel good about herself.

But there was no one here with her.

And all around, she noticed that the only other people her age were parents there with their children.

Calla sighed. If she’d had her way, she would have a child by now. But some things simply weren’t meant to be. She knew that now. Even if she wanted something so badly that she thought that she’d die without it, it didn’t mean she would get it. No matter how she tried. No matter what she did. Some things simply weren’t meant to be. Calla was not meant to have children. That was that. The end.

She felt like she might cry, even though this was something she’d come to terms with long before her marriage to Chad had broken up. So, she left the rides, hoping for a better distraction playing games. Maybe she could win the ring toss and get herself a stuffed animal.

But she was surprised to see a tent set up in between the games and the rides. It had a sign on it, proclaiming,
Come see the Beast Man!
There was a drawing of a beast, hairy from the waist up, sporting a grizzled muzzle. But on the bottom of his body, he was wearing pants and had human legs.
Half man! Half beast! Witness the freak of nature!

Calla didn’t think that carnivals had attractions like this anymore. She thought all these freak tents had died out generations ago.

But there was one here, a throwback to carnivals from the early twentieth century, and she couldn’t help but be intrigued. She was convinced the attraction would be something silly. She knew there couldn’t
actually
be a beast man. The idea of that being true was laughable.

Sure, there were werewolves, but this wasn’t the same thing. And besides, the werewolves didn’t have wolf feet and a man’s torso. Calla knew.

She flashed on a thought of the bright red balloon, bobbing away up into the sky, getting smaller with every second.
Her
balloon, when she’d been a small girl, only four years old. It had escaped, even though she had tried so hard not to let go of it—

But that was the past, a very long time ago. Calla didn’t like to think about that. And she was adamant never to let that get in the way of her life. It didn’t bother her, because it was all over, and it was such a very long time ago, anyway. She hardly remembered it. She’d been so young. This Beast Man was just a carnival attraction. It wasn’t anything to get excited over. Calla could handle it. She wouldn’t even let herself think about the balloon. She never thought about it, anyway. Not for years. There wasn’t any point in dredging it up.

So, she went to the opening of the tent.

A man stood there, grimy t-shirt stained. He had a scraggly beard and thick eyebrows, which he wiggled at her. “Two tickets to see the Beast Man, ma’am.”

She’d purchased her tickets already, and she certainly hadn’t used them up on her two rides, so she handed over the admission.

The man tucked the tickets into a wooden box and gestured. “Go on in.”

The tent had a partition hung up, making an aisle leading from the opening of the tent and further inside.

It looked dark in there.

Calla licked her lips, looking over her shoulder.

The ticket taker man laughed. It was a jeering noise. “You ain’t scared, are you, ma’am?”

She might have been. There might have been part of her that was a little frightened. Part of her was thinking about that red balloon, getting smaller and smaller as it disappeared into the night, until it was only a tiny red dot in the sky.

We don’t think about that
, she thought furiously.

She squared her shoulders and ignored the ticket taker. She began to walk down the makeshift hallway. It was dark, but she could see the grass under her feet. The walls of the tent and the hung blanket both moved a little bit with the breeze as she made her way deeper inside. She could hear the sounds of the carnival outside, children shrieking with laughter, the recorded music that played whenever someone won the Diamond Barrel Toss. She could smell fried food on the summer air.

She swallowed. She was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea. Should she be in this tent, going to gape at a beast man? Wouldn’t it only upset her? Wouldn’t it only bring things to the surface that were better left buried?

But she didn’t live her life that way. She wasn’t the kind of woman who hid from the things that frightened her. No, she faced them head on. She always had.

And for heaven’s sake, there was no reason to be afraid of a stupid man in a costume.

She picked up her pace deliberately, to prove to herself that she wasn’t the least bit frightened.

Even though her heart was racing and her palms were sweating. Even though she was feeling cold in the eighty-degree weather.

At the end of the makeshift walkway, there was a sign that read,
Brace yourself for something so horrifying, you won’t believe your eyes.

Calla gulped.
It’s not too late to turn around
, whispered a voice inside her head.
What are you trying to prove, anyway? Who’s even here to see?

She ignored the voice. She wasn’t afraid of this stupid, dinky carnival attraction.

She stepped forward, out of the hallway.

Inside the tent, there were strings of rope lights that ran over the ceiling. The resulting light was dim and ghostly.

She blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust. There was a raised dais in the center of the tent—a stage of sorts. Calla raise her gaze to see a huddled form in the middle of the stage.

At first, all she could see was fur. In the scant light, she couldn’t quite make out the color. It could have been brown or gray, but she could see that it was thick and that it covered the huddled form. She also realized that she was the only other person in the tent. No one else had paid to see this attraction, apparently. She was going to get her own personal performance.

But it didn’t seem like it was going to be much of a performance if the Beast Man was sleeping.

Calla felt a slight jolt of uneasiness.

Sleeping?

That didn’t make any sense. If this was a man in a costume, there was no reason that he’d be sleeping or huddled up on the stage. No, he’d be a performer. He’d leap out at her, roar, pretend to hurt her. If the furry thing up there were actually sleeping, then maybe it
was
an animal after all. But how would the carnival make an animal seem like a man?

The thought of attaching fake human legs to an animal struck her as much more perverse than dressing up a man in animal skins.

She stepped closer, trying to get a better look at the huddled thing on the stage.

All she could see was the fur and the steady up-and-down motion that indicated it was breathing.