Happy Little Horrors: Freak Show

by David Reuben

  When Alice pushed a hiss across the roof of her mouth, Wilfred recovered from his daydream. Pressing her forehead against the glass, she snapped slowly at the air.

  Playing a part in this heinous act, no matter how unconsciously, had sealed Wilfred’s fate. When his time came, he’d be judged for his actions. Taking several steps back, Wilfred moved to the end of the corridor and the second reinforced door. “So, we need to use this area for quarantining?”

  “I wouldn’t worry, Wilfred.” John knocked on the glass, and Alice bit at his movement. “This door can survive an atomic blast.”

  Swiping his card through the reader, Wilfred watched the red light turn green and the door pop away from its frame. John seemed oblivious.

  After stepping through and closing it behind himself, Wilfred listened to the four bolts extend from inside the door and slide into the frame. The finality of the sound tied a weight to his heart.

  The action had grabbed John’s attention. His eyes narrowed and he said, “I’m ready to come out now, Wilfred.”

  Clearing his throat, Wilfred sighed and looked at the floor. “I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen, John.”

  After throwing a glance at the security camera currently trained on him, John looked back at Wilfred. “Now come on, Wilf, don’t be silly.”

  “I’m sorry, John, I really am, but they need to study how this virus spreads.”

  The slight pink hue to John’s skin vanished, and his grey face sank. “What about my research? How will you find a cure?”

  “They have your research. They’ve been copying it for months now. They always like to have a backup in case something goes wrong.”

  Marching towards the door, John lashed his bony fist against the glass. The weak gesture was no atomic blast. “How can you do this to me? You’re supposed to be my friend!”

  Like he knew the meaning of the word. “We need another subject for this experiment, John.” Wilfred’s voice shook and his face glowed. “When you chose your wife, you showed that you weren’t someone to be trusted. If in the name of science, you’re prepared to do this to her, then what would you do to us if the need arose?”

  Pressing a long bony hand against the glass, John said, “Wilfred, wait! There are things in my head that no one knows.” Jabbing a bony finger at his temple, he added, “It’s in here. I have the cure.”

  With his mouth buckling, Wilfred said, “You understand that it’s not me making these decisions, don’t you, John? I didn’t even know about this experiment until you’d sat down with Alice. The only reason I agreed to come down here was because I thought I might be able to stop it. But now I’ve seen what you’ve done to her…” Wilfred sighed again and rubbed his temples with a shaky hand.

  “But who’ll find the cure? I know this virus inside out. No one else will discover it.” A vein throbbed at his temple and his eyes widened. “You need me!”

  “There’s no doubt that you have a great scientific mind. The best I’ve met.”

  John nodded. He already knew this.

  “But in your quest to understand the world, you’ve lost what it means to be human. Your lack of empathy makes you a liability.”

  Pressing his face to the glass, condensation growing and shrinking with his breath, John said, “Please let me out! Don’t kill me! I can win this war.”

  Wilfred shook his head. “At what cost, John? You’ve just killed your wife! She deserved so much better than you.”

  The panic left John’s face as he stared at his colleague. “So that’s what this is about?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Alice. You’re jealous that she chose me.”

  Shaking his head, Wilfred said, “Shut up. You deserve to die. You’re a murderer.”

  “That may be true.” Crow’s feet spread out from his eyes as they narrowed, and his tone dropped. “But you’re not, Wilf. You don’t kill people.”

  The statement drew a sharp knife across Wilfred’s stomach and emptied his guts on the floor. His head spun and he looked away. John was right.

  Knocking on the glass, John said, “Can you live with killing a human being, Wilfred?”

  Moving out of view, Wilfred leant against the wall next to the door.

  “Come on, Wilfred,” John said. “Please let me out. Please.”

  The security camera in Wilfred’s section looked down at him. The orders that he’d been given repeated through his mind. “John needs to be infected. We need to see how it spreads.”

  “No!” Wilfred shouted as if in response to his own thoughts. “No. I can’t do this. John’s right, I’m not a murderer. I can’t be a part of this!”

  The camera shifted slightly. They were watching. Of course they were watching.

  “Thank you,” John said, relieved.

  “I’m not doing this for you.” A bitter taste rose into Wilfred’s mouth and he spat on the floor. “I’m doing it for me. I don’t want this on my conscience.”

  A high shrug lifted John’s scrawny shoulders. “Whatever your reason, it’s the right choice.”

  If Wilfred never had to look at John’s face again, it would be too soon. Focusing on his top pocket, he removed his keycard and swiped it through the reader. “You’re judgment will come, John. However, it’s not up to me to make it.”

  The door didn’t open.

  John's eyes widened. “What’s happening, Wilfred?”

  With a shaking hand, Wilfred swiped the card again. The tiny red light on the box stayed red. Repeated swipes returned the same result. “It’s not working.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not working. My card. It’s not working.” Looking up at the camera watching him, Wilfred said, “We have a problem! My card isn’t working.”

  The camera stared back. The only sign of life in the cold eye was a shifting of darkness behind the lens as it zoomed in.

  Every muscle in Wilfred’s body sank, and he turned to John. “I’m sorry.”

  The door behind John clicked and popped open.

  John ran at it, but he was too slow. It flew open and knocked him backwards. Alice burst through and crashed into the opposite wall face first.

  John sat up and shuffled away. He got to his feet, but Alice was quicker. She careened into him. He screamed, and they both crashed to the floor again.

  A guttural growl.

  Snapping jaws.

  Breaking windpipe.

  Dripping blood.

  Silence.

  The raw meat didn’t bother her now.

  ***

  Wilfred clamped his hands so firmly over his ears that the vacuum swelled against his eardrums. It didn’t stop him from hearing the wet sloppy crunching from the neighbouring corridor.

  When he looked up to see Alice with her forehead pressed against the window, licking the glass as if her saliva would corrode it, the images of John’s bloody corpse vanished from his mind. He was the one that she intended to feed on now.

  “No!” he shouted, his shrill cry bouncing off the walls of the empty chamber. Rubbing the damp lines from his cheeks and the snot from his nose, he shuffled backwards until he hit the corner of the room. The wall was cold and hard against his back, and the smell of disinfectant rose from the floor.

  A deep heave lifted bitter acid up his throat as he watched her. Bloody eyes. Snapping jaws. Twitching head. Lumps of flesh stuck to her chin and smeared on the window.

  Then she turned away, leaving behind a thick print of blood.

  The space was filled instantly, and Wilfred covered his face. “No,” he said again, but it was too late. The image had left an imprint. John’s piercing blue eyes were buried beneath a film of blood that ran claret tears down his pale cheeks. A snarl hung off his limp features.

  A thick and nauseating pain swelled in Wilfred’s chest and stomach. Was he going to shit himself where he sat? There was nothing he could have done about Alice. John, however, was totally his doing.

  The white corri
dor was blurry when he pulled his hands down. Not blurry enough to prevent him from seeing the huge gash in John’s neck. Not blurry enough to hide the bloody crater where his ear used to be.

  Biting down so hard that his teeth hurt, Wilfred turned to the security camera. Pointing up at it, spittle shooting from his mouth, he said, “How dare you do this to me? How dare you drag me into this mess?”

  The camera turned to get a better look at him.

  “That’s right!” Wilfred shouted. “Stare at me from behind a lens, you fucking cowards!”

  His raised voice irritated Alice and John, who were now both at the window, banging against it with bloody fists. They had no interest in one another; all they wanted was Wilfred.

  “You’ll be judged when your time is up. You’ll pay for this with your souls!” Getting to his feet, Wilfred walked over to the camera until he was directly beneath it. It was too high for him to grab, but he stared up and shouted, “And before that, you’ll be judged in the courts. Permission was given for one death. One!” Throwing an angry finger at the door, he continued, “John wasn’t an accident. John was murder! Murder that I realised should have been prevented. But you wouldn’t let me. I realised it was wrong, and you overrode me. You’re the ones to blame, not me!”

  The camera moved away as if it had stopped listening, and Wilfred was left with the sound of his own ragged breathing and the banging on the window.

  As his fury died, he looked back up at the camera. It was watching John and Alice.

  He followed its line of sight.

  Warm urine soaked his trousers.

  He muttered, “Oh shit.”

  The red light on the door’s control panel turned green.

  Shunk! The bolts retracted into the door.

  ***

  “We had to do it, Frank.”

  Unable to remove his sore eyes from the monitor, Frank said, “We didn’t have to do anything, Artem.” He flinched as he watched John and Alice tear into the portly Wilfred. Alice, who seemed to have earned alpha status already, went for the neck while John attacked one of Wilfred’s ample thighs.

  Clearing his throat with a wet cough, Frank added, “Wilfred didn’t deserve that.”

  The room was dark save for the glow of the monitors. Artem’s fingers danced over his keyboard. The clicks continued as he said, “All of the other doors are fine. The locks are solid. They’re safely quarantined up there.”

  Looking at the high-five his colleague was holding up for him, Frank returned to watching the scene in the corridor. His tone was dry as he stated, “There’s nothing to celebrate.”

  The limp form of Wilfred had been abandoned by the other two. For a moment, he was immobile, but Frank knew what was coming.

  First, his left arm twitched. Then his left leg jumped from the floor. Thrashing his head from side to side, he snapped at the air, his paralysed body clearly waiting to catch up. His throaty growl was lessened by the tinny speakers in the control room, but it still sent a chill running through Frank.

  Shaking his head, Frank said, “I know they’re in the penthouse, and we’re about as far away as we can possibly be in this building, but it still feels too close.”

  Artem’s booming laugh pulled Frank’s shoulders to his neck. It was the kind of laugh that, when you heard it in a restaurant, you discreetly asked if you could move tables. Knocked forwards by his colleague clumsily patting his back, Frank ground his jaw when Artem said, “You’re paranoid, mate. We’re in control here. There’s no way this is–”

  Thwip!

  Frank looked across to see Artem crash onto his keyboard. Warm metal was then pushed into the soft patch just below his left ear. Tilting his head as far around as he could, he said, “What the—”

  “Don’t look at me,” the man behind said. He had a thick Chinese accent. “Keep your eyes on the fucking screen if you want to live.”

  A surge of adrenaline pulled Frank’s stomach tight. Holding up shaking hands, he said, “O… okay. Sorry.”

  The man behind pushed harder, the barrel of the gun feeling like it would break his skin.

  “Ow!”

  “Shut up, pussy.”

  When Frank blinked, a tear fell onto his desk. “What do you want?”

  The man pulled the gun away, and Frank relaxed. Then a sharp pain exploded in the back of his head. The loud crack made his ears ring, and the barrel was shoved into the base of his skull again.

  “You don’t ask the fucking questions! Got that?”

  Frank nodded.

  Crack!

  The butt of the gun hit the back of his head again, and his world spun. “Yes,” Frank said, rubbing the already huge lump from the impact. “I’ve got it.”

  “I just want you to know that your wife, Juliette, and your two boys are okay.”

  Frank’s stomach lurched. “What have you done to them?”

  Crack!

  “Are you fucking deaf or something? You don’t ask the fucking questions! They’re fine. That’s all you need to know. If you do everything I ask of you, then that’s how it will stay. Fuck me over, and we’ll kill them. And I don’t just mean a bullet through the head.”

  The man leant so close to Frank that he could smell cigarette smoke and his breath tickled his ear. “We’ll make rats eat through your boys’ stomachs. Your wife will be forced to watch while my men take turns on her.”

  Tears soaked Frank’s cheeks, and a shudder ran through him. “Anything,” he said, his lips trembling. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  Pointing at a screen, which showed a family of four in the lift, the man with the gun told him, “Take control of that lift. Stop it there.”

  It was hard to type with shaking hands, and Frank hit several wrong keys.

  The gun was pushed against him so hard that his head spun. “Don’t fuck about, Frank. Hurry the fuck up!”

  Shaking like he had hypothermia, Frank typed furiously. When he checked the monitor, he could see the family looking like they were about to alight the lift. Just before they arrived at the next floor, he hit enter. The lift stopped.

  Releasing a stuttered sigh, Frank swallowed against his dry throat and wiped the sweat from his brow. “There.”

  The pressure beneath his ear eased off slightly. “Good. Now redirect it to the penthouse.”

  “But they have children with them!”

  Crack!

  Everything sounded like he was listening to it from under water. The taste of his own blood filled his mouth, and he gulped a huge swill of metallic saliva. A wet heave threw half of it back up into his mouth. He swallowed it back down, the bitter taste making him shudder.

  “Well?” the man demanded.

  Speaking with a slur, Frank said, “You’ve got to stop hitting me. One more, and I’m done for.”

  The barrel was pulled away from behind his ear, and Frank flinched as he anticipated another blow.

  It never came.

  The man behind him calmed down. “So, I have you on side?”

  Frank nodded.

  “I swear, your family are fucked if you mess this up. Eight of my boys are sat in your front room right now with them.”

  It was hard to focus on the bright screen on the man’s phone, especially as it was shoved so close to his face, but when Frank’s eyes adjusted, he saw a picture of his family surrounded by Chinese men with more weapons than a small nation. Gulping another mouthful of blood, Frank said, “Okay. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  “Redirect them to the penthouse.”

  The little girl with the family was no older than three, and she had a doll in her hands. Her brother was playing a game on a phone. With more tears rolling down his face, Frank quickly typed on the keyboard and pressed ‘enter’ again.

  The lift came to life. The family inside visibly relaxed, and the dad hugged his daughter.

  When it passed what was clearly their floor, the dad pressed the button on the panel. At first, he pressed it hard. Then he jabbed
it. Before long, he was hammering it repeatedly.

  With his sweaty fingers flying over the keyboard, Frank managed to hit ‘enter’ before the guy pressed the emergency call button. By the time the dad had pushed it, it was ineffectual.

  As the family elevated, the man in the room with Frank said, “You know who we are?”

  “I’m guessing you’re with the Chinese government.”

  “Check you out, brainiac. The accent gave me away, huh?”

  Frank shrugged.

  “We found out about your little experiment going on today. About your plans to drop it on us.”

  I wouldn’t know anything about what they planned to do with it.”

  “Bullshit!” The barrel of the gun was now cold, but the bruising pain was still fierce against the back of Frank’s ear. “It doesn’t matter though. When we’re done, you’ll wish you were dead. You’ll probably wish your family were dead too.”

  Making tight fists, Frank said, “Leave my family alone. You said you wouldn’t do anything to them if I do as you say.”

  “And I won’t, Frankie-boy. I won’t.” His voice dropped to a low hiss. “You’d wish I had though.”

  At that moment, the lift reached the penthouse.

  “Now open the doors.” The voice of his captor had moved farther away.

  After typing again, Frank pressed ‘enter’ and the doors to the lift opened.

  The family stumbled out and looked around. The sterile environment was clearly not what they expected. Then they saw the scientists. The scream from the little girl made even the boy look up, and he dropped his phone. All of them backed into the lift, and the dad pressed the buttons again, clearly trying to close the door.

  “They look hungry,” the voice said. “Now let them out.”

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “Do I need to hit you again?”

  When Frank hesitated, the man said, “Think of your family, Frank. My men haven’t had sex in a long time.”

  Frank started typing. He did it by touch because he couldn’t see the keys. Everything was a blur.

  ‘Enter.’

  The three remaining doors between the infected and the lift popped open. Each one was flung wide as the scientists charged forwards.