Night Terrors (23 page)

A cacophony of noise filled the tent – circus music blared from speakers set at regular intervals throughout the tent, and everyone in the crowd was talking, shouting, and laughing, creating waves of sound that rose, crested, and dipped, only to rise again. Food and souvenir vendors made their way through the bleachers, calling out their wares and urging people to buy. Peanuts, popcorn, cotton candy, and hot dogs were popular snack items sold, but they had Noddian touches. The peanuts screamed when their shells were broken, and the cotton candy was pink fiberglass insulation wrapped in gleaming barbed wire. The hot dogs were the same as those on Earth, but they’re disgusting in any dimension. The souvenirs ranged from the charming dead-rat-on-a-stick to the unsettling death-scream-in-a-jar. So far, the Circus Psychosis was living up to its name.

The circus had the traditional three rings; the floors inside the rings were covered with fresh sawdust, and there was also rigging set up for trapeze and high-wire acts. While the crowd filed in, a number of performers were walking around, providing simple entertainments to keep the audience happy while they waited for the show to begin.

A clown – who was
not
Jinx – juggled a trio of decapitated heads that were reciting soliloquies from Shakespeare, each head speaking a word in turn. A human-sized poodle was making tiny naked humans jump through hoops, and a skeleton artist had slipped off his skin and was tying it into different shapes resembling balloon animals in response to suggestions called out by the crowd.

Madam P commented on each of the performers, punctuating her responses with copious oohs and ahhs, but I ignored her. I slowly swept my eyes around the tent, looking for Jinx. I didn’t see any sign of him, and I was beginning to wonder if the Candy Man had been mistaken – or, worse, had lied to me. I considered leaving my seat and going in search of my partner, when the ringmaster stepped in from behind a flap in the tent and strode to the middle of the center ring.

I could tell he was a ringmaster by his sequin-covered top hat and red swallowtail jacket. But even though he had a human face – thin mustache, Van Dyke beard – the octopus tentacles he had in place of human arms and legs caused him to move in a distinctly alien fashion. His gait was at once smooth and awkward, and I had no trouble imagining him once starring in someone’s nightmares. When he reached the center of the ring, he stopped and raised his arm tentacles into the air to get the audience’s attention. He wore a microphone headset, and when he spoke, his voice issued from the tent’s sound system.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the strangest show
off
Earth!”

Laughter and applause.

I decided to remain seated for the time being. Once the show was underway, everyone’s attention would be on the performers, allowing me to sneak around more easily. At least, that was my hope.

The ringmaster continued.

“We’ve got chills, we’ve got thrills, but most of all” – his voice lowered to a whisper – “we’ve got
madness!
”

The tent lights cut off at his cue, plunging the audience into darkness. The crowd cheered, roared, and stamped their feet so hard, I feared the bleachers would collapse. A spotlight came on and shone on the center ring, illuminating a tall, blue-skinned Incubus who wore only black Speedos. He had large black eyes, a bald head, and large ears that tapered to points.

Blueskin wasn’t alone, however. Next to him in the ring crouched a huge beast that looked like an amalgamation of various big cats – lion, tiger, leopard, panther, and cougar. The creature was obviously an Incubus of some sort, but even if that hadn’t been obvious from its appearance, I could’ve guessed its true nature from its demeanor. There was no hint of restlessness or nervousness from the beast. It looked relaxed, casual even, and intelligence shone in its gaze.

Blueskin wasn’t wearing a microphone, but the ringmaster’s voice came over the sound system again. I couldn’t see him, so I assumed he was backstage somewhere.

“Azul the Amazing, the Astounding, the Astonishing is here to answer the question: how much pain can a single Incubus endure? A warning for those of you in the audience who are squeamish, you may wish to avert your eyes for this next part!”

The crowd roared with laughter. Incubi aren’t known for their squeamishness.

I had a bad feeling that I knew what was coming – a variation of the animal tamer putting his head into a lion’s mouth. Only in this case, because Incubi could heal all but the most catastrophic of injuries, the gimmick here was to watch the lion bite Azul and see how much pain he could withstand.

The cat-beast crouched lower to the ground and fixed its gaze on Azul. Azul faced the creature, seemingly unconcerned. The cat-beast’s leg muscles tightened in preparation for an attack, and a low growling sound came from deep within its throat. Azul showed no reaction. The cat-beast let out a deafening roar and leaped toward Azul.

In that instant, I understood that this act was intended to be a far more savage variation on the classic circus bit. I was right about that, but I was wrong in how I thought it would turn out. Azul – who up to this point had stood motionless – blurred into action. He sped forward and met the cat-beast in the middle of its leap. Even though Azul appeared lean and not especially strong, he plucked the cat-beast out of the air as if it were no more than a stuffed animal and slammed it to the ground.

Bones cracked, the cat-beast howled in pain, and Azul opened his mouth impossibly wide to reveal three-inch-long needle-sharp teeth. Curved talons extended from Azul’s limber fingers, and with a high-pitched shriek, Azul fell upon the cat-beast. Flesh tore, blood sprayed the air, and the audience roared approval. It only took a few moments for Azul to strip most of the cat-beast’s meat from its body and swallow it down.

I had no idea where the meat went. Azul’s stomach didn’t expand so much as an inch Despite how sickening the display was, I couldn’t help feeling a bit envious. I wish I could eat like that and not gain any weight.

Almost as fast as Azul could eat, the cat-beast regenerated its lost mass, and once it was whole again, Azul went back for seconds. Then thirds. It was an impressive spectacle in its own savage way, and extreme even by Noddian standards.

The cat-beast called it quits after the fifth time it was devoured by Azul, and the act ended. Then a large bull-headed Incubus dressed in a tuxedo wheeled a stainless steel table upon which a half-dozen other Incubi who looked like demon babies were strapped down. He stepped into one of the other rings as circus hands carrying shovels moved wheelbarrows into the center ring to start cleaning away the blood-soaked sawdust. The minotaur removed a pair of claw hammers from his pants pockets, bowed, and then began to play his hideous instrument. Demon babies shrieked as hammers pounded their scaled flesh, their cries creating an atonal symphony of agony.

I figured the crowd was sufficiently distracted, and I wasn’t confident that I could sit through another violent blood-soaked act without losing the grilled cheese I’d eaten earlier. I started to stand, but Madam P grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“You can’t go now, sweetie! The clowns are next. They’re always
so
amusing!”

I sat back down and did my best to tune out the demon infants’ screams.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as grateful for anything as I was for that act’s conclusion, and I let out a shaky sigh as the audience applauded and the minotaur maestro wheeled his table away. None of the demon babies moved. None of them looked much like babies anymore, either.

The ringmaster’s voice came over the sound system once more.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,
Damen und Herren, mesdames et messieurs
, the Circus Psychosis is proud to present those Masters of Disaster, those Mavens of Mayhem, those Barons of Butchery… the Bedlam Brothers!”

The crowd went crazy. Well,
crazier.
They shouted and cheered, hooted and hollered. Clearly, the Bedlam Brothers were a favorite act.

Several spotlights came on, and their beams began circling and criss-crossing the tent, as if searching for the clowns. From somewhere in the bleachers behind me came the roar of an engine. I looked back just in time to see a small car drop through a flap in the tent’s roof. It was an exceptionally small vehicle, only large enough for a child to drive, but it was more than big enough to cause some serious damage as it plunged into the crowd. Incubi cried out in pain as the car landed on them, and when the driver floored the accelerator and the vehicle’s tires began spinning on flesh, those cries begot shrieks of agony. People scrambled to get out of the car’s way as it roared toward the circus floor. Those who didn’t move fast enough were mowed down or knocked aside. Despite its size, the little vehicle packed a hell of a wallop.

The car was painted white, but patterns of multicolored dots, stripes, and various geometric shapes flowed across its surface like liquid as it went. Of course, it also picked up a good amount of blood-red on its journey toward the circus floor.

As the vehicle came bouncing and juddering toward where I sat, I was able to catch a glimpse of the driver. It was a clown, and at first I thought it was Jinx. I’d seen him drive before, and vehicular homicide was the least of the damage he’d caused.

But I quickly saw that the driver was a different clown. He wore a bowler hat on his round head and he had different markings. But his most distinctive features were his huge, almost elephant-like ears. Big-Ears: the leader of the Blacksuits. I recognized the insanity blazing in his eyes, as well as the far-too-wide lunatic smile spread across the bottom half of his face. It was the clown version of berserker rage, and once a clown was caught up in it, the only thing to do was get the hell out of the way.

The crowd around me was panicking as they attempted to remove themselves from the vehicle’s path, which of course meant that people were falling over one another and not getting anywhere. Those Incubi who had other ways of getting around besides walking fared better. They took to the air or simply vanished. One turned intangible and the maniacal clown drove right through her.

Madam P laughed in delight as she watched the car come toward us, as if she didn’t realize – or didn’t care – about the danger we were in. I grabbed hold of one of her vine hands and tried to pull her with me, but she didn’t budge. I pulled harder, but all I succeeded in doing was breaking her hand off at the wrist. I fell backward just as the clown car slammed into Madam P, cutting off her laughter. Pumpkin rind, pulp, and seeds exploded into the air, and her vine body came apart like dried straw. The car continued until its gore-smeared wheels at last reached the ground.

The vehicle didn’t stop there, though. It picked up speed and began going around the circumference of the tent, as if it were in a race with opponents that only the driver could see. Halfway through the first lap, the passenger door sprang open and a clown came tumbling out. That one was followed by another, and another, and so on, until a dozen different clowns – mostly male, but several female – were running around and laughing like lunatics. All of them were dressed in colorful, outlandish outfits, but Jinx wasn’t among them.

Now that its passengers had disembarked, the clown car veered toward the center ring, drove into it, and slid to halt in a shower of fresh sawdust. Big-Ears hopped out and the Bedlam Brothers (and Sisters) gathered around their vehicle. Along with his bowler, Big-Ears wore a yellow suit with black criss-crossing stripes, and brown hobo shoes open at the toes. With exaggerated motions, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a square metal box with a short antenna protruding from one end.

He then pointed the box at the car and thumbed a red button on the front. There was a loud bang, a burst of smoke, and the roof of the tiny car flew into the air and landed on one of the clowns. I recognized her as the redheaded woman from the parking lot at Perchance to Dream. The roof slammed her to the ground, and she lay there, unmoving.
Stupid bitch gets knocked unconscious in both dimensions,
I thought. The crowd laughed. I brushed bits of Madam P off my shirt and kept my gaze focused on the car.

The vehicle began to shake and a metallic ratcheting sound came from within. A pair of impossibly long metal rods rose from within the car, extending fifty feet into the air. Between the rods, bound to them by lengths of wire coiled around his bleeding wrists, was Jinx. He was in his Night Aspect, but he was bruised and bloody, and his head hung forward, chin on chest, and I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. His gigantic shoes were gone, revealing equally gigantic ivory-colored feet. I’d never seen Jinx without his shoes, and I’d always wondered whether they were just an affectation. Now I knew.

The crowd went crazy when they saw Jinx, howling with bloodthirsty excitement that wouldn’t have been out of place in an arena in ancient Rome.

The sight of Jinx – my personal childhood boogeyman – brought low like this and displayed like some sort of trophy came as a profound shock. I’d never seen him beaten and weak before. He was Mr Jinx, the Dark Clown, the Phantom Prankster, the Thing That Laughed in the Dark. He was a fierce, terrifying lunatic, the very definition of the word
nightmare.
That’s what he was supposed to be, what I’d
created
him to be.

Sorrow and rage battled for dominance inside me, and while it was a near thing, rage won.

Big-Ears pulled a headset mic from somewhere within the car and slipped it on. His voice was more guttural, but it definitely belonged to the leader of the Blacksuits that had abducted Jinx.

“All right, my brothers and sisters… pree-sent arms!”

In unison, the clowns reached into their pockets and withdrew weapons, most of which – like Jinx’s beloved sledgehammers – were far too large to fit where they’d been stored. Pistols, shotguns, rifles, automatic weapons, crossbow, shuriken, and in one case a flamethrower were removed and aimed at Jinx.