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The Fringe Dwellers

Page 3

by Patrick K. Ball


  Back in his trailer—his comfort zone—Steve was at ease. First things first though. Steve offered the stranger a drink while fixing one for himself—quite the good host. The power must not have been out too long because the ice in the freezer hadn’t melted.

  “No thanks,” the stranger replied to the drink offer while he looked around the trailer walls. They were covered with photographs of The Crash Test Maven during his glory years in front of various American landmarks.

  Steve noticed the stranger’s perceived interest in the photos. Steve proudly entered into a recitation about every-single-photograph. “That one was taken back in eighty-nine when I was traveling with . . .” “There’s a funny story about this one . . .” “When this one was taken, I was so drunk that . . .” On, and on, and on. When he finished with the photos on the walls, Steve dug out several scrap books filled with more photos and countless newspaper articles from all over the country about The Crash Test Maven. Steve refreshed his drink when needed to the tune of about a half-bottle of Jack Daniels. By the time he finished with the last album, it was about a quarter after three in the morning.

  “That was fascinating,” the stranger lied. Steve was oblivious to the stranger’s dishonesty. “But it’s getting late and I made you a promise that I intend to keep. You’ve been afraid too long. As I told you before, to conquer your fear, you must have faith. You must believe. Do you believe?”

  “Yes, I believe,” Steve answered. He suddenly felt very relaxed and a little sleepy.

  “The best way to conquer a fear is to face it head-on. You agree?”

  “Yes, head-on,” Steve parroted.

  “Are you ready to conquer your fear?”

  “Ready,” Steve slurred, but it wasn’t due to the whiskey. He was suddenly very tired. His eyes felt very heavy.

  “Just let it flow out, just let it flow.”

  “Flooo-www . . . yes.”

  “Now, tell me. What scares you? WHAT SCARES YOU?!”

  Steve didn’t answer. He couldn’t. No sound would come out, mainly because he’d stopped breathing. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, but the sound seemed far away. Steve felt like he was falling into a tunnel in his mind, swirling down into some dark place. The familiar sights of his trailer had disappeared and were replaced by other images—terrifying images. Steve closed his eyes to ward off the demons in front of him, and then, Steve’s world faded to black.

  The stranger looked at his watch—it was three sixteen—and smiled.

  On the other side of the state, Ed Nanreit was just waking up, screaming, from his recurring nightmare.

  CHAPTER 4

  Since there was little traffic at this hour of the morning, Ed made it down to Alligator Alley in no time. Alligator Alley cut straight across Florida, linking the east and west coasts. Steve anticipated being on the west coast in about an hour. From there, he had another two hours or so north to Gibsonton. The only highlight of the trip was the occasional alligator sighting in the drainage canal running parallel to Alligator Alley. For the most part, it was a boring drive, but it gave him time to reflect on his life.

  Forty-one years old, don’t own my own house, no investments, little savings, my girlfriend . . .

  Ed didn’t know how to finish that last thought. He wasn’t real sure about the status of his girlfriend. Wasn’t real sure that he cared. Ed had been dating Stephie for about a year and a half. Stephie was an attorney; had her own firm, The Stephanie McMahon Law Firm, with four other attorneys working for her, along with a dozen secretaries and other support staff. It was a successful firm. She was used to giving orders and having those orders followed precisely. Probably why she began dating Ed in the first place. His submissive personality probably appealed to her dominant one. Ed was Stephie’s own personal doormat; she treated him like an abused dog and, just like with the rest of his life, he never complained about being walked on, at least, out loud.

  A few days ago, Stephie came by his apartment after work and immediately began berating Ed about his lack of ambition, his “joke of a job,” his inability to stand up to his boss, his . . . well, in general, his overall failure as a worthwhile human being. Ed said nothing during her half-hour tirade. He sat there and took it, like he always did. When Stephie was finished, she stormed out of his apartment, slamming the door behind her. Ed hadn’t heard from her since.

  Ed suspected she’d been seeing someone else behind his back for more than a month. That was about the last time they’d been intimate. He’d done absolutely nothing to provoke her outburst, so he was pretty sure that this was her way of ending the relationship. It was Ed’s fault that the relationship ended. She couldn’t put up with his shortcomings in life any longer. She tried and tried, but it was no use. Ed had heard her rationalizations on every subject in the world often during the duration of their relationship, and nothing was ever her fault. He knew he was better off without her, but at the same time, he missed her.

  Okay, so no girlfriend either. Career hasn’t been going too well as of late . . .

  Ed had never liked his job. When he graduated from college, Manifesto Veritas was the only decent job offer he got as a reporter. It wasn’t The New York Times, but it was a national newspaper. He told himself that the job was only temporary, a stepping stone towards his dream. He wanted to be the next Woodward or Bernstein. Late at night in the privacy of his bedroom, he would actually practice his Pulitzer acceptance speech.

  That was a long time ago. The job offers from the respected newspapers never materialized. As soon as an editor in the mainstream press saw Manifesto Veritas listed on his resume, his application went to the bottom of the pile, if not directly into the trash can. A tabloid reporter wasn’t taken seriously in the traditional news media. Without knowing it, Ed sealed his professional fate right out of college—the minute he accepted the tabloid job. He could move to another tabloid, but he’d never be accepted as a legitimate journalist by The New York Times. For that matter, he’d never be accepted as a legitimate journalist by the New Times, a community newspaper that was handed out for free in South Florida.

  Lately, he wasn’t even performing well as a tabloid journalist. He was meeting his article quotas—barely—but none of his pieces were any good. Ed had always prided himself on not having to resort to inventing stories like so many of his fellow tabloid reporters did. Even if his articles weren’t completely accurate, they had, at least, a small factual basis to them. Ed usually found material for his articles by scouring the internet, searching various newspaper articles for anything sounding remotely interesting—a U.F.O. sighting in Hicksville, U.S.A.; the birth of a two-headed animal; a celebrity’s arrest; a strange, unsolved murder—and filling in the blanks with his own imagination to make the story more interesting.

  Ed’s usual sources for material seemed to have dried up recently. Either that or his imagination wasn’t allowing him to fill in the blanks with the same usual flare. Call it a form of tabloid-writer’s block. This is how Ed found himself driving across the State of Florida to Showtown USA. His chief editor, Sean Morley, was giving Ed a break by supplying him with a potential source for a story.

  “Consider it a favor,” Morley said to Ed. “Everyone has a dry spell occasionally. It happens to the best of us. There’s this little town near Tampa called Gibsonton.”

  “Never heard of it,” Ed commented.

  “Not surprised. There’s not much to it. But I’m sure you’ll be able to find something over there. The town is full of circus freaks. It’s almost like the town was built so we’d always have something to write about. Find a bearded lady, a dwarf, whatever . . . Make something up if you want, I really don’t care. Just find something interesting to print. If being in that town doesn’t give you several ideas, then I don’t know what’ll help. You’re struggling, Ed. I like you, but I gotta sell papers. I need articles—interesting ones—to sell papers. If you need to, spend a few days there. Go get me an interesting article, okay?”

&nb
sp; It wasn’t an overt threat, but Ed knew he needed to come up with something good for next week’s paper or else he’d better become familiar with the current trend in shoe fashion.

  Nothing like a little pressure to get those creative juices flowing again, Ed told himself as he walked out of Morley’s office.

  The self pep talk didn’t work for long. Soon thereafter, Ed’s thoughts began focusing on how high the manure seemed to be piling up around him lately. Now that Ed was alone in the car with only his thoughts to keep him company, the feelings of being a failure only intensified. A song from the TV show, Hee-Haw, began playing over and over in his mind: If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Whoa, despair, and agony on me.

  Ed turned on the radio to drown out the song playing in his mind. It didn’t help. The band, Three Doors Down, was singing one of their hits: You’re getting closer, to pushing me off of life’s little ledge, ‘cause I’m a loser, and sooner or later you know I’ll be dead . . . Ed quickly changed stations. He was close enough to Tampa to pick up one of its talk radio stations. They were talking about a grizzly find made this morning in a little town just fifteen miles outside of Tampa—Gibsonton. Ed couldn’t believe his luck as he continued listening.

  “The police are releasing few details at this time, but here’s a run-down of what we’ve been able to piece together so far from our crack reporters. The victim was a-”

  “Now, let’s not mislead our audience,” said another voice through the radio. “At this point, we don’t know if he was a victim of anything. All we know is that we have a corpse.”

  “You’re right, Eddie,” said the first voice. “Let no one accuse the Guerrero Brothers of inaccurate reporting on the Morning Big Show. The corpse was found in his trailer at approximately six o’clock this morning by a neighbor who’d stopped by to complain about a loud TV. The neighbor apparently saw the corpse lying on his couch through the screen door. That’s when, ah . . .”

  “That’s when another neighbor called the cops to report “a blood-curdling scream” is how one officer reported, on the condition of anonymity. But we’ve been unable to confirm that description thus far.”

  “Do you have that sheet with the description of the body, Eddie?”

  “Ah, yeah, right here. Again, this is unconfirmed thus far, but apparently, the body was found with dried blood coming from his eye sockets. The man is thought to have been trying to gouge out his own eyes. His mouth was frozen in what is described here as a death scream. His previously dark hair had turned white.”

  “Almost sounds like something he saw scared him to death, huh, Eddie?”

  Scared him to death? Ed Nanreit thought as he continued driving down the highway. He was now in a hurry. His foot unconsciously stepped on the gas a little harder. He needed to get to Gibsonton immediately. He’d found his story and he wasn’t even there yet.

  Ed continued to listen to the Guerrero Brothers on the Morning Big Show. By the time he got to Gibsonton, he had learned even more about what would be his story. The corpse was a former carnie called, The Crash Test Maven. This is too good to be true! The Crash Test Maven kept to himself after retiring from the carnival circuit. His neighbors rarely saw him outside, but knew he drank “a lot, especially for a little person.”

  Little person? It took a minute for the term to register in Ed’s mind. Carnivals were notorious for exploiting dwarves, midgets, little people—whatever the politically correct term currently was. A carnival dwarf, dead from mysterious circumstances, a gruesome-looking corpse. Ed’s mind was racing. This is a series of articles! At the very least a cover story.

  It didn’t take Ed too long to find Steven Richards’s trailer park in Gibsonton. He just followed the news helicopters. There were at least three of them circling the trailer park. Ed spent the rest of the day interviewing anyone who’d talk to him. It was funny. In this town, being a reporter for Manifesto Veritas was a plus. His paper was apparently pretty popular on the carnival circuit, probably for the same reasons that Steven Richards enjoyed Jerry Springer. The reporters from The Tampa Tribune encountered resistance from the locals. They found this to be a closed-lipped community that had absolutely nothing to say to a reporter. On the other hand, people actually sought Ed out. Everyone wanted to see their name printed in Manifesto Veritas.

  Ed decided to stay the night. This town was a goldmine. If tomorrow was even half as productive as today had been, Ed might have enough material to spit out articles for the next year. Not just about today’s discovery, but about all sorts of things. Ed had talked to a woman literally covered in tattoos. Each tattoo had a story and she was more than happy to explain the inspiration for each tattoo. Ed had found The Illustrated Wo-man. He met Snake-Boy. He met a real live wolf-man and the Human Garbage Can, known for being able to consume anything. He interviewed someone else who witnessed Glen Rogers, a.k.a. the Cross Country Killer—one of the most notorious serial killers in America—walk out of the Showtown Bar with Tina Marie Cribbs, whose bloody body was found in a motel bathroom two days later. Ed had pages and pages of notes from all sorts of characters about all sorts of things, including information about today’s events.

  Ed unpacked his laptop, spread his notes out on his bed and went to work. He felt inspired to write for the first time in a long, long time. Maybe a trip away from home is what he’d needed all along. Ed began typing his story, happy about his work.

  TERROR STRIKES CARNIE-TOWN!!

  Gibsonton, Florida—a small town inhabited almost exclusively by carnies, including a traveling carnival’s main attraction, its sideshow freaks. This is a strange, secretive group of people. They tend to keep to themselves, but then again, the citizens of the towns they visit tend to treat them in much the same way as traveling gypsy caravans were treated in Europe during the Middle Ages. Carnies are looked upon with a degree of suspicion. They are treated as outcasts. They are never quite allowed to live among or associate with those who constitute “normal society.” They are outsiders relegated to the fringes of society. They are the fringe dwellers. Society does not care about its fringe dwellers.

  Steven Richards, a.k.a. The Crash Test Maven, was one of those fringe dwellers. Born a dwarf, Steven never had any choice to be anything but a fringe dweller. Instead, he embraced his position in society, achieving a certain amount of fame in the process. Unfortunately for Steven Richards, living in the spotlight was not permanent. Steven Richards spent the last few years of his life living alone, no friends to speak of. Steven’s life ended where it began—as a fringe dweller.

  Steven’s passing would have gone by without anyone even noticing, except Steven Richards did not die a normal death. Steven Richards was scared to death by some mysterious force. Whatever Steven Richards saw, it was too horrific to bear. The terror Steven lived through in his final moments turned his hair white, his mouth frozen in a perpetual scream. His final visions were too disturbing to bear. Steven ripped out his own eyes to shield against the visions. A police spokesperson confirmed that this was the most grisly crime scene Gibsonton has ever seen.

  Something too terrible to imagine is haunting this town, stalking its inhabitants. Its citizens now live in fear of walking the streets. Reports of mysterious creatures and strange lights in the sky have become so common that the local sheriff has been forced to set up a special task force to investigate these strange happenings.

  Ed was so involved in turning this town into the scariest place on the face of the Earth—writer’s embellishment was a big part of his job—that when his cell phone rang, he jumped almost a foot off the bed.

  “WHAT!” Ed screamed into the phone, partially because he was aggravated at the interruption, but also because the phone spooked him and he felt a little ridiculous at the realization.

  “Ed?” came a tentative voice from the other end of the line. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry, just had a case of the heebie-jeebies,” Ed said into the phone after recognizing the voice. It was his
boss and chief editor, Morley. “I’ve got a great story I’m working on here, Chief, probably front page stuff.”

  “Then I’m even more sorry to tell you this,” Morley said.

  Something in his voice didn’t sound right to Ed. Is he calling to fire me?! “Before you say anything, Chief, let me tell you what I got going-”

  “Ed, it’s your uncle. I just got a call. He’s in the hospital. You were listed as the next of kin. When they couldn’t reach you at home, they called your place of employment.”

  My uncle? Uncle Kane? Ed’s mind began racing. You never think about a relative or close friend being sick—that always happens to other people—until it actually happens. But time has a funny way of catching up to you; eventually, everyone gets sick and dies.

  “Ed? You there?”

  “Yeah, yeah. It’s just . . .” How many years has it been since I’ve seen him? “Um, is he okay? Did they, ah, give you any information?”

  “All they would tell me was that he was admitted earlier today into the hospital in Edge Key. Isn’t that your hometown?”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t been back there in years. Since I left for college.”

  “Look, Ed, I know I put a little pressure on you before you left, but family is family. You’re not too far from Edge Key where you’re at now. The story can wait. Just . . . just take as much time as you need. Go home. Visit your uncle. If it’s not something serious, you can get back to Gibsonton in a day or two to finish whatever you’re working on.”

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks. But I’ll finish this article I’m working on first and email it to you. I’m telling you, Chief, I’ve got something big here. I can feel it.”

  “That’s not necessary, but do what you gotta do,” Morley said and hung up the phone.

  Ed knew Morley was being sincere about giving him as much time as he needed, but Ed also knew that his career had been hanging by a thread for months now. Ed had found that enthusiasm for writing that had been missing lately. He didn’t want to lose it again. He needed to finish this article.

 

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