“Noise…,” grumbled the mutant clown. “Stop noise.”
He carried a meat hook in his small hand. The large hand looked too big and deformed to do anything but clobber someone to death. As he approached the prisoners, he held out the hook.
“Absolute silence…,” hissed the freak, wiping blood from the hook against his butcher’s apron.
“Sensitive to noise?” Vinnie asked him.
It was only a normal speaking voice, but The Butcher flinched at the sound. Even the low volume was enough to bother the freak’s oversized eardrums.
“Quiet!” The Butcher cried, grabbing Vinnie by the throat with his massive left hand.
It felt like a lumpy slab of meat wrapped around his neck, squeezing the air out of him. Vinnie stared the mutant in his beady black eyes. There was little intelligence behind those eyes, as if he were looking into the eyes of a rat or a spider. The Sideshow Freaks lived by instincts. They no longer had the morals of civilized beings. Looking at the mutant now, Vinnie thought it made sense that they’d turned cannibal.
The Butcher shoved the end of the meat hook into Vinnie’s blue nose and pulled, stretching the nostril. Even Vinnie couldn’t help but whimper at the pain of having the hook in his nose. For a minute, Vinnie thought The Butcher was going to rip his nose right off, but then he let go. He released Vinnie’s throat from his grip and stepped away.
“Silence, always…,” said the freak.
The prisoners did not make a sound.
Then The Butcher stabbed the meat hook into the wounded juggler on the floor and dragged his body upstairs.
“François!” the skinny juggler cried. “Leave him alone!”
The Butcher didn’t stop. He just cringed at the sound of the juggler’s yells as he took his brother away. The noseless clown moaned, sluggishly moving his arms to try to grab on to the stairs as he was pulled. But he was too weak. He banged his head against every step on the way up.
“François!”
The juggler kicked off his shoes and revealed a small switchblade that was hidden inside one of the soles. Using only his tiny white toes, he flipped open the blade and hurled it at the freak. The knife hit the Butcher in the side, piercing the rib cage just below his abnormally thick arm. But the mutant didn’t even notice he’d been stabbed.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” the skinny clown yelled at The Butcher. “Did you hear me, you bastard? If you touch him I’ll gut you like a pig!”
“You’re not in a position to threaten him,” Vinnie said.
“Fuck you!” the juggler spit at him. “We need to figure out a way to save him.”
Vinnie turned away from the troubled clown and tried to come up with a plan. If only the juggler had told him before that he had a concealed switchblade, they could have used that to their advantage. But in his desperation, the juggler went and threw away the only weapon they had. Working with the Frenchman wasn’t going to be easy. He was just as impulsive as Jimmy.
When they could no longer hear The Butcher dragging the body across the ceiling, Vinnie turned to Bobo. “What’s he going to do with him?”
Bobo stared up at the ceiling, hesitating to speak.
“He might just cut a piece off and bring him back,” Bobo whispered even quieter than before. “But if he thinks he’s dead or almost dead, he’ll carve him up like a side of beef and we’ll never see him again.”
“Then I guess we don’t have much time,” Vinnie said.
Vinnie knew there was little to no chance of saving François, but if he was going to get his brother’s help he’d at least have to try.
Chapter 43
Jimmy Bozo regained consciousness and Vinnie told him the situation. The clown prince laughed in the juggler’s face when he heard his brother was being butchered upstairs.
“Jimmy, cool it,” Blue Nose said to him.
But Jimmy couldn’t resist. “Come on, the prick deserves it.”
The juggler looked like he was imagining all the ways he would kill the young Bozo once he was freed.
“We need to work together if we’re going to get through this,” Vinnie said. “We can’t be at each other’s throats. Now when I say, I want you to yell as loud as you can.”
“What?” Bobo cried. “You can’t do that.”
“Trust me,” Vinnie said. “Just yell. Loud.”
Vinnie had a plan, but he didn’t want to tell them what it was just in case the freak could hear them. He wanted to use The Butcher’s sensitive hearing to his advantage.
It was the juggler who got it started. “Hey, you big-eared freak! Come down here and face me, you ugly mutant! I’m going to kill you!”
Then Vinnie and Jimmy joined in, yelling at The Butcher, calling him a freak and a mutant.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Bobo said. “Please, stop shouting.”
But the clowns only shouted louder.
By the time The Butcher came downstairs, the deranged clown was clearly pissed. He had both a meat hook and cleaver, though he could barely hold on to the cleaver in his deformed hand. Fresh blood trickled down the blades.
“What did you do to my brother?” the juggler yelled. “If you touched him I’ll rip your throat out.”
The Butcher went to the French clown and kicked him in the chest so hard it knocked the breath out of him. The juggler gasped, trying to breathe. He was unable to go on yelling.
“Think you’re tough, you freak?” Vinnie shouted, trying to get him closer. “Think you can make me shut up?”
The mutant stomped toward Vinnie with his cleaver raised.
“Stop speaking…,” hissed the freak.
“You want me to stop? Try to make me.”
The Butcher came at Vinnie. “I’ll cut out your vocal cords.”
Once the freak was close enough, Vinnie let out a long shriek right into the mutant’s giant ear. The Butcher wavered as if he’d been hit with a frying pan, his knees wobbling, trying to cover his ears. The juggler and Jimmy Bozo joined in, screaming as loud as they could. The juggler’s voice was able to hit such a high frequency when he shrieked that the mutant seemed almost paralyzed by the sound.
Vinnie didn’t waste any time. He wrapped his legs around the freak’s ankles and rolled over, tripping the mutant to the ground. As The Butcher landed, he dropped his weapons on the concrete floor. The juggler grabbed the meat hook between his toes, raised it into the air, and stabbed it into the mutant’s neck. A sneer of satisfaction stretched across the French clown’s face as he squeezed his toes together and ripped out the freak’s throat in one scooping motion.
“Holy shit…,” Bobo said as a geyser of blood splashed out of the mutant’s neck.
Before the juggler could beat him to the punch, Vinnie used his legs to pull the mutant closer to him. Once in reach of his hands, he searched The Butcher’s pockets until he found the keys to their chains.
“Unlock me,” the skinny juggler said.
Vinnie unlocked his own chains. Then Jimmy’s.
The juggler cried, “Come on, he could be bleeding to death up there.”
“If he’s even still alive,” Jimmy said.
“He’s alive. He has to be.”
Vinnie held out the keys. “Do you promise to keep the truce until we get out of here?”
“Give them here.”
The juggler reached for the keys, but Vinnie pulled them away.
“Promise?” Vinnie asked.
“Yes, yes. Just hurry.”
Vinnie dropped the keys next to him and the French clown quickly unlocked the chains, grabbed his shoes, and ran upstairs.
“What about me?” Bobo asked. “Free me, too.”
Vinnie helped Jimmy to his feet before acknowledging the junkie clown. Jimmy wouldn’t be able to fight with his damaged hand and shoulder, but at least he’d be able to walk.
“I’m sorry.” Vinnie didn’t look him in the eyes as he unlocked the chains.
“Sorry about what? We’re free.
”
“I’m sorry that we won’t be able to take you with us.”
Bobo’s face went from excited and hopeful to panicked. “What do you mean you won’t take me with you? You have to take me with you.”
“Your legs are gone,” Vinnie said. “You’ll never make it. We have to leave you behind.”
“Are you sure? You can’t strap me to your back or something?”
“Just put him out of his misery,” Jimmy said.
“Quiet,” Vinnie told him.
“He’s got only one arm. What’s he going to do for the rest of his life? He might as well be dead.”
“I said be quiet.” Vinnie gave the Bozo a look until he walked away. Then he turned back to the dismembered junkie. “I’m sorry. It’ll never work. We have little chance of getting out of here ourselves.” Vinnie watched the life fall out of Bobo’s eyes. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy. “Look, if we get out we’ll get you help.”
“Yeah.” Bobo nodded. “I understand. You guys go on without me. Call the cops and tell them where I am.” There was no optimism in the words he spoke. “I’ll find a good hiding space somewhere. They’ll think I left with you. Even if they catch me again, I’m sure I’ll survive the next twenty-four hours. The cops will surely come get me by then.”
“That’s the spirit,” Vinnie said, patting him on top of his green dreadlocks. “Never give up hope.”
“Come on,” Jimmy said, holding the blood in his shoulder. “We don’t got much time before the other freaks notice one of theirs is missing.”
Vinnie grabbed the cleaver and the meat hook. They were going to need a lot of weapons if they were going to fight their way out of The Sideshow. The freaks outnumbered them a hundred to one.
Chapter 44
Upstairs was a makeshift butcher shop. Bloody knives and hooks lined the wall. A pile of clown bones lay in the corner, covered in rotten bits of flesh and buzzing with flies. Vinnie pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose.
“François,” said the skinny juggler, leaning over the cutting block his brother was spread across. “Don’t get up. I need to stop the bleeding.”
The noseless clown was still alive, but he was missing a leg. The skinny juggler used a part of his shirt as a tourniquet, cutting off the circulation around his severed limb.
“We need to get him out of here,” said the juggler.
“Let’s not rush things,” Vinnie said through his handkerchief. “It’s a long way out of The Sideshow.”
Blue Nose examined Jimmy’s wounds. He was still losing blood. The clown was shivering, his teeth were chattering, and it wasn’t because he was cold without a shirt. His body temperature was dropping from lack of blood.
“We’ve got to cauterize these wounds,” Vinnie told the clown prince.
There was a battery-powered soldering iron next to the cutting block, most likely used for burning shut the blood vessels of victims the creeps wanted to keep alive. Vinnie held the iron up to Jimmy, pointing it at his shoulder.
“This is going to hurt,” Vinnie said. “Don’t scream.”
“I can take it,” Jimmy said.
But when the heated metal pierced into the hole in his shoulder, Jimmy cried through his teeth. He closed his eyes and whimpered at the pain. It was the most vulnerable Vinnie had ever seen the miserable bastard. When he was finished, he passed the soldering iron off to the juggler.
“Use this on his leg,” Vinnie said, pointing at his brother. “Then take whatever weapons you can find from this room. We won’t be getting out of here without a fight.”
When they were ready, the juggler put three butcher knives in his belt loops and Jimmy armed himself with a hatchet that he could barely hold in the one hand that didn’t have a hole through it.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” Vinnie said. “We might be able to take on a few of them at a time, but we’re dead if we get mobbed.”
The juggler nodded as he pulled his brother onto his back.
“By the way,” Vinnie said, holding out his hand to the French clown. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Jean,” said the French clown. “Jean Dupont.”
The juggler shifted his weight to hold his brother with one arm as he shook the Bozo’s hand.
“Until we get out of here, we need to pretend we’re best friends, Jean,” Vinnie said. “We can kill each other once your brother’s back on his feet, maybe a few months from now.”
Jean snickered. “Oh, it won’t take that long for François to get back on his feet. He might need a new leg, but I promise you he’ll be capable of killing the both of you in two weeks’ time.”
Vinnie smiled at the Frenchman’s response. “Okay. Two weeks then. But for now, we watch each other’s backs.”
“Consider it watched.” Then the French clown carried his brother out of the room.
On the way out of the building, they sneaked past a doorway in the hallway leading to the exit. As Vinnie crept by, he got a good look inside. There were dozens of mutant clowns in there, dancing with one another. It was like a grand ball, only there wasn’t any music. The deformed clowns wrapped their bulbous bodies around one another, rocking back and forth. They all giggled as they danced—soft, tender giggles. It was as if their giggling was the music they danced to. Wide, sharp-toothed grins stretched across their faces as they moved. Their bodies were so misshapen that Vinnie couldn’t tell the women from the men.
“Quiet…,” Vinnie whispered as they passed the doorway.
But the mutant clowns didn’t notice them. They were too deep inside their own worlds to distinguish dream from reality. After the dance they were most likely expecting a feast, but the only dinner they’d be served that night would be on a big platter of disappointment. Their meat had already gotten away.
Chapter 45
With the biggest mob of freaks dancing like loons in their imaginary ballroom, much of The Sideshow was left empty and quiet. The Bozos and the jugglers didn’t have too hard a time sneaking through the crumbled streets. Most of the freaks they came across didn’t seem to notice them, and those that did were quickly dealt with by Vinnie and Jean. But morning was starting to break and they still had a long way to go.
“We must find our unicycles,” Jean said. “I’d be able to get out of here faster if I had my unicycle.”
“I don’t know how to ride no stupid unicycle,” Jimmy said.
“Who said I’d let you ride a unicycle? They’re only for me and my brother.”
“Then what about us?” Jimmy asked.
“You and the Blue Man can flip your car over. It might still work.”
Vinnie interrupted, waving at them to keep their voices down.
“We’re not going back that way,” Vinnie said in a quiet tone. “That area’s probably still crawling with freaks. Besides, we have no idea where we are and would never be able to find it.”
“But my brother won’t last long on foot,” Jean said.
“We don’t have a choice. It’s probably only a thirty-minute walk out of the sideshow. Then we can get a car and get to a doctor.”
“Do we even know where we’re going?”
“The sun is rising in the east. If we keep heading toward it we’ll get out of here eventually.”
“What do you mean eventually?”
Vinnie ducked to the ground as he saw figures up ahead. A group of freaks piled out of an old garage, stretching their lumpy muscles and smiling up at the rising sun.
“Get down,” Vinnie said.
Their giggles echoed down the street toward them. The freaks hadn’t noticed them yet, too busy rubbing the morning crust from their big bulging eyes.
“How many of them are there?” Jimmy asked.
“Six,” Vinnie said. “Too many for us to handle.”
“We can handle them,” Jean said.
Vinnie shook his head. “We shouldn’t risk it.”
“We don’t have time to go ar
ound them or wait for them to leave. We should kill them and go through.”
Vinnie’s gut was telling him it was a bad idea. A really bad idea. “We might be able to kill all six, if we get really lucky. But there’s no chance we’d get through it unscathed. And if there’s any more of them over there that we can’t see yet, we’re dead.”
“We have to risk it,” Jean said. “My brother is dying. If you won’t do it I’ll kill them by myself.”
“Go ahead and get yourself killed.” Jimmy chuckled at the Frenchman. “I’m not going to stop you.”
Vinnie watched the mutants, waiting to see if any more joined them. He was most worried about the mutants the fight would attract. One more and they’d be dead. With just six, there was a chance. Not a great chance, but a chance. If he let Jean fight all six by himself, he wouldn’t survive. And with Jean dead, Vinnie wouldn’t be able to fight more than one or two mutants at a time on his own. His best option was a bad one. He had to fight them.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Vinnie said. “But we have to take them by surprise.”
The juggler agreed. They had to act while the freaks still had their backs to them.
Chapter 46
With the rising sun in their eyes, they couldn’t tell which direction the mutants were facing. They just saw the sunlight reflecting off their shiny bald heads. Jean threw a butcher knife at one of the freaks and that was the end of that. When the deformed clown turned to face them, their friends saw the knife sticking out of his back and then the attacking clowns lost their element of surprise.
“Breakfast is coming…,” said a giggling freak with a distorted clown face three times too big for his body. His teeth alone were like ivory bricks.
Jean threw his remaining butcher knives at the freak clowns. One of them at a big-headed mutant, which barely pierced the skin of his massive red scalp, and the other at a long skinny clown seemingly made of pink taffy who caught the blade in his piranha-like teeth. The gang of freaks glared at the French clown with cold bug eyes. Then they giggled and squealed with delight.
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