The Provenance of Monsters
Page 6
Chapter 5 – Provenance…
Bora was confident the boys followed him through the carnival crowd. He understood the powerful attraction of monsters, and that the boys ever believed monsters might exist. Bora understood how powerfully one monster pulled upon another, and so he never peeked over his shoulder to see if the carnival lights might’ve distracted those boys from following him as he walked closer to that wagon separated from the others at the edge of the fairgrounds.
Bora didn’t attempt to keep the shame from building inside of his heart. It was all he could do to control his anger, and shame wouldn’t feed the monster nearly as well as would his anger. He failed Mr. Finnegan. He should’ve kept a closer eye on Marcia’s green tent. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be distracted. He should’ve just closed the toddler train. He should’ve left a sign that said the engine needed repairs. The disappointment of a dozen sad toddlers wouldn’t have ruined the unicorn. A dozen sad toddlers wouldn’t have given the monster so much food. Bora shook his head. The monster seemed to grow no matter what he tried.
Bora felt like crying. Resistance did no good. Starving the monster was impossible, and the attempt to devise plans to limit the monster’s nutrition only drove one mad. Let the monster swell. Let the monster break from its confines, and let its maw feed upon all the resentments and fears it could before its tumorous mass strangled the globe.
The boys followed Bora beyond the reach of the carnival’s lights, to the fairground outskirts where that wagon sunk lower and lower into the mud, where the carousel’s organ was hardly a whisper.
“That’s your proof?” Kyle laughed as he looked at the cartoonish figures airbrushed on the house of horrors.
Greg smiled. “It looks more like a strip joint than a scare house, thanks to all the pink and purple painted all around those witches.”
Kyle punched Greg’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m starting to like this old man. Can you think of a better place to find a little magic?”
Bora winced as his knees climbed the crooked steps leading to the wagon’s entrance. The boys kept laughing at his back while Bora fumbled with his keys. He kept too many keys. He kept too many locks, though he realized none of them could contain the monster that kept growing.
“Follow,” Bora’s voice buzzed as the old man felt a shudder work through the ground as the waiting monster shifted within the wagon.
Greg paused. “Hey, no one’s going to jump out at me, right? I don’t want any carnie wearing an ape mask grabbing my arm. I’ll kick him square in the nuts if he does.”
Bora shook his head.
Kyle hesitated to step beyond the threshold. “Hey, why was that door locked? Why is this wagon so dark? Why is this wagon separated from the rest of the carnival?”
“Broken,” Bora responded. “Too expensive to fix.”
Bora’s dark eyes squinted at the boys. Did they feel the fear now that they neared the monster? Did they have second thoughts? Was their courage about to falter? Bora knew it didn’t matter. The monster would feed on the boys’ dread as well as it would feed on the boys’ cruelty. Perhaps those boys no longer wanted their proof. Perhaps they no longer cared for their refund. Perhaps those boys also felt that shudder, and perhaps they too sensed the chill running up their spines as they entered that wagon’s shadow.
Bora’s hand felt along the wall for the light switch. He expected to instead feel the monster’s tentacles covering the walls. He moved slowly and went deeper into the dark, holding his breath and praying he didn’t trip over some wet limb that sent him falling into that monster’s teeth. He didn’t make a sound, lest he disturb the beast he knew waited in the dark. Even the boys turned quiet, some instinct telling them they entered a lair where laughter turned dangerous.
Bora moved slowly. There was no reason to hurry the avalanche of flesh. Perhaps he would soon feel the monster fall upon him, and perhaps that sensation would remind him of the night when the bodies of his family and village sheltered him from the soldiers’ rifles. He wanted those boys to feel the monster’s breath and to hear the beat of that monster’s heart before he turned on the dim lights. He wanted to give that monster a moment to swell a little larger, so that those foolish boys wished they had never come to the carnival, so that those boys felt ashamed to have taunted a stunted girl and her delicate animal. He wanted those boys to beg the monster for forgiveness, though Bora knew the monster had none to give. He wanted the boys to understand how they had chosen a cruelty over a miracle.
A low groan filled the shadow.
“What was that?” whispered Greg.
Kyle hissed. “It was just some kind of speaker, some kind of recording. It’s all some kind of a show.”
“Do you smell something?”
“It’s only a show, Greg. It’s only a show.”
The darkness remained pure, and the boys could see nothing. They felt the floor vibrate beneath their feet. They sensed movement all around them as a musty and wet stench filled their nostrils, choking them if they drew too deep of a breath into their lungs as they tried to slow their heartbeats.
“Kyle, there’s something gripping my shoulder. There’s something brushing across my throat.”
“Hush, Greg. It’s all just a show. It’s nothing more than rubber snakes suspended from the ceiling. It’s all just a show.”
Bora felt the cold, wet tendrils circling his legs, caressing his forearms. The beast would feast well that night on fear after its skin felt the flesh of an old man turned cynical and two boys turned cruel by fortune and birth. Bora didn’t cringe when he felt that monster’s touch. He had felt that touch so many years ago.
Bora’s hand found the switch, and his fingers twitched to illuminate the chamber.
“Proof,” sneered Bora’s voice box. “Provenance.”
The boys screamed at the abomination revealed in the light. A giant, black eye filled with swirling ink flinched as the room turned bright, and the monster howled in displeasure and shook the wagon’s walls with its tentacles.
Bora smiled as he felt the creature’s tentacles wrap around his chest and squeeze upon his breath. How had the wagon held for so long? The walls would have to break at any moment. The beast grew too large. It wouldn’t be long until that monster’s giant, filmy eye looked upon humanity’s petty world. Its mass strained against its confines. Dozens of serpentine tentacles radiated from a maw crowded with circling rings of sharp teeth. It was some species of giant cephalopod that breathed the open air, with cold flesh, with skin so translucent that Bora could watch the inky blood pulse through the monster’s circulatory system.
Straining against the monster’s embrace, Bora turned to look upon the boys coiled in the creature’s grasp. Tentacles curled around their throats, from which thin tendrils of flesh pushed towards the boys’ screaming mouths. The boys no longer laughed. They no longer smiled. Their eyes widened as the tentacles choked and then silenced them. They would receive the proof they craved, and they would receive punishment for breaking a unicorn’s heart and feeding a monster.
Tentacles pushed Bora’s hands to his sides. In another breath, he would be coiled as tightly as those boys. But Bora had a last something to say, and so he grunted as he brought that voice box to his throat for a final time.
“No place for unicorns.”
Bora dropped his voice box and closed his eyes. He returned to that pile of bodies the soldiers harvested so many years ago and embraced the ghosts of his mother and father. The world would quickly discover what so much resentment created. Bora exhaled a deep, sighing breath as the tentacles constricted more tightly around his chest, and he dreamed of the unicorn as the flesh of a monster enveloped him.
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About the Writer
Brian S. Wheeler resides in rural, Southern Illinois with his wife Erin and his young daughter Kate in a home shared with three German shepherds and a small cat named Izzy. Brian has worn many hats to earn a living. He has worked as a high school English
teacher and community college composition instructor. For many years, Brian worked as a marketing manager and a graphic designer for a very successful auction company. Brian has also freelanced as a designer and consultant, and he has just completed vocational training in the welding trade. Writing is Brian’s favorite activity, and he works to one day realize his dream of earning a living by crafting stories of fantasy and science fiction.
The rural Midwest inspires much of Brian's work, and he hopes any connections readers might make between his fiction and the places and people he has had the pleasure to know are positive. When not writing, Brian does his best to keep organized, to get a little exercise, or to try to train good German Shepherd dogs. He remains an avid reader. More information regarding Brian S. Wheeler, his novels, and his short stories can be found by visiting his website at https://www.flatlandfiction.com.
Visit Brian S. Wheeler Online
Find Brian S. Wheeler’s newest short stories and novels online by visiting his website at www.flatlandfiction.com. Brian always welcomes feedback and thoughts sent to his email at letters@flatlandfiction.com.