Together, they reached a wall of windows. Leo moved along the wall, patting for glass that didn’t have a sheet of plywood keeping the weather out. Karen matched her steps to his.
* * *
Dax made his way across the gallery to check out what might have been a coat room. Rotting threads cobwebbed across the walls that still had hooks. An ancient settee, stuffing bursting through the mold-softened fabric, sat against one of the split walls. Smiling, Dax fixed his throne of triumph in his mind. This was where he would drag Karen once he had her alone. He crept back through the gallery to crouch in the darkness of the ruined staircase.
Straining for sounds of Bill or Charlie doing their spook routine, he thought he heard a woman’s voice. A faint odor of smoke and, maybe, sawdust passed through the room. He hadn’t put anything for fire in the sport bag. The guys must be improvising.
He scowled. If they set this heap on fire, he was bailing and leaving them to deal with it. He needed to see what they were doing. Testing his flashlight, Dax stepped out into the gallery, cautiously navigating the treacherous obstacle course of deadly shards and foot traps.
Dax’s flashlight went out. He shook it, rapped it against his palm a few times. It came back on, and he allowed himself a sigh of relief, then resumed his pace.
* * *
Leo paused, opened a bottle of water, and offered Karen a sip. Too scared to let go even one moment from his shirttail, she shook her head. Their wall-patting search for a broken window took them through a hallway and into what looked like a library. A flashlight beam showed them shelves with orderly piles of dust that might have been books.
A slow circuit of this room revealed no windows. Karen sobbed softly. Leo tucked his flashlight into his shirt pocket, put his arms around her, and pressed her to his heartbeat. When they parted slightly, he shone his light around the room, located a settee, and led her there. He used the light to show her where to sit back and rest. Her crinoline rustled softly.
“Look, honey, if you want to close your eyes for a minute, I will stand right here. We are going to get out of here.”
Karen sniffed and drew a deep sigh. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Leo gently brushed it away with his thumb. She let her chin drop to her chest and closed her eyes.
Leo heard his name. He heard his name coming from the direction of the gallery they’d just quit. Making sure Karen was sleeping, he turned her flashlight on, put it in her lap, and walked back the way they’d come.
Back in the gallery, he spread his light beam across the walls and littered floor. A whisper from the wall across the floor called him.
… Leo… Leo…
Slowly, he stepped through glass and decades, toward that sound. He came up short against a pillar he hadn’t seen in his light beam. It wobbled against him, and a grating sound came from above. Looking up, Leo shone his flashlight on the marble gargoyle that tumbled down, carrying his death in its claws.
* * *
Karen tried to turn over in her sleep. She snapped awake, recalling where she was and why. Leo wasn’t anywhere she could see. She clutched her flashlight and softly called his name. Icy hot fear flooded her bowels, and she cried out loudly for him. The music she heard in response startled her to silence.
She stood, clutched her flashlight, and made her way out to the main gallery. Still, she heard music: fine, orchestral music, dancing music. It came from above her, from the top of the ruined crushed marble staircase.
“Leo?” She didn’t hear her own whisper over the swelling ballroom music above her.
Karen shone her flashlight on the stairs to show her where to climb the broken marble. With each step, the music sounded sweeter, harder to resist. Entranced, she climbed to the top, stepped out into the ballroom.
A blur of feather softness passed by her, through her. She turned to where it paused, pirouetted, then held out arms to her. Little more than a suggestion of arms, a layer of skirt, and sadness where a face should be, the specter beckoned to Karen, reaching gaunt arms out to her, inviting, begging.
Karen dropped the hand holding her flashlight, let the light fall to the floor. She stepped forward, holding out her own arms. The floating image took her in a ghostly embrace, pressed her close, then spun her over the shifting marble in graceful time to the music. Round and round they spun, feather layers of spectral skirt ribboning away to float into the void left by the fallen floor.
Karen danced, eyes closed, as the spectral form led her out over the ruined opening, where she fell to the first floor below. Shreds of a ball gown long rotted floated down on top of her.
* * *
Back pressed to the supporting wall, Dax slid along beneath the staircase. He expected Leo to go looking for a way out. That meant Karen might be alone downstairs. It was worth a look. He took a tentative step away from the staircase wall, and his flashlight went out again.
Swearing, he slapped it on his palm. It came on, and he moved forward. The light failed again. Dax shook it hard enough to make the batteries rattle. When the flashlight came on, it shone directly into a face with dark eyes blazing beneath gull wing brows. A cruel grin spread triumphantly above a dark, pointed beard.
Dropping the flashlight, Dax backed up a single step before his mouth filled with ice cold smoke, choking him unconscious.
* * *
What windowpanes in the Pavilion endured wore stripes of red and blue light. Charlie and Bill leaned on the squad car, for once doing as they were told by an officer. Two first responders came from the Pavilion doors they’d crow-barred open, set their equipment bags inside the open ambulance.
“One casualty, as far as we could see. Male, around 24. Looks like he ran into a tall decorative post of some kind and the marble statue on top of it crushed his skull when it fell. Damn shame.” He filled his mouth from his water bottle, swished, spat. He could still taste dust and death. “Every Halloween, it’s something else.”
He helped his partner pull a stretcher.
“There are two students inside, male and female. The woman says she fell through the hole in the ballroom floor above her. The pile of debris under that hole came from the ballroom dining floor, and she landed on this pile of old carpets that are all shreds of thread now, but still enough to land on. She’ll have a leg cast for a while, otherwise, she’s fine.”
The officers chaperoning Charlie and Bill ordered them back in the squad so the survivors of this ill-fated prank could be brought outside. Officer Barnes called after the responders.
“You said there was also a guy inside?”
“Yeah, and there’s not a scratch on him. He’s inside, sitting with the girl. Looks like they are a couple.”
* * *
Dax crouched beside Karen on the ruins of carpet that blessed her fall. His flashlight struck one brilliant flash of emerald green from her eyes, and then it was gone. He absently reached to stroke a beard he didn’t have, a slow smile growing that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Well, my jewel, it’s showtime.”
The woman beside him smiled back and lisped coyly.
“Whatever you say, ducks.”
2
Uncle Funbo’s Natalia Circus by Aristo Couvaras
Uncle Funbo’s Natalia Circus. 19th December 1999. 19:00. Admit One.
“There’ll be ads in the papers,” his mother said. “I’m sure it’s a Christmas circus. We’ll see if we can get tickets.”
Brings all your favorite characters to life!
They drove past the shopping center where, on special occasions, they sometimes got takeaway; shopping center, not mall, it was nothing like the malls on TV and in movies. At least there was a KFC. They had those in the movies. No McDonald’s yet, but at school there’d been talk of one being built next year.
Next, they drove past the old train station, which had been converted into a restaurant called Cole’s, where on the first Sunday of each month there were novelty train rides. Rides where families pretended they used the trains
. Again, nothing like Central Station in the movies or like subways people were always using on shows.
Nothing in Crestfalls, Natal was like the things overseas. Like the things in America. Like the things in Hollywood. Christmas and summer holidays were the same thing here. Like in all of South Africa.
Next up was the row of trees lining the road. The only way his life was like a TV show was that so much of the background was the same: repeated, day after day, one episode to the next. Drive to school and back. Of course, now it was holidays, but it was the same road in and out no matter where they were going.
Past the center, past Cole’s old train station. To the right were the train tracks. They stuck with you on the drive for a long while. Coming up to the left was an open lot, a vacant field, usually. Usually.
“Mama, look!” Harry said, pressing his face against the window.
Where Harry was used to seeing an empty field, now was a candy cane striped marquee. Bigger than any marquee or tent he’d ever seen. It looked just like what you’d expect of a circus or carnival in the movies. Red and white, a tall finial rising from the center post like the tiptop ornament of some grand Christmas tree. Near the entrance, Harry could see a carousel and, rising high, a Ferris wheel.
“I see,” his mother said. He could hear it in her voice; even she was surprised, impressed. She’d slowed the car down and read aloud a sign at the entrance.
“Uncle Funbo’s Natalia Circus. Brings all your favorite characters to life!” The sign showed a host of animated characters familiar to children Harry’s age. In the center was the ringmaster, but his face was obscured by the text.
“We’ve got to get tickets, Mama,” Harry said. “Please! Look how cool it looks!”
“It does look impressive,” his mother said, but they were still driving past.
Harry didn’t see anyone moving around by the great marquee, no signs of movement or preparation for the attractions that must be waiting within the red and white canvas temple for fun and entertainment. They drove past and there was a tall and long banner with scenes of fun and laughter. Harry bet the performers all stayed behind it, so that nobody could spy on them.
Through the window of the car door, Harry could imagine the place in the early evening. Calliope music playing, lights from carnival games and arcade machines lighting up, buzzing and whirring, candy floss and melted butter over popcorn would fill the air like the stars filled the night sky. There’d be laughter and cheering, giggling and chuckling, and the errant roar of a lion from somewhere deep and hidden away from the public. All of that just outside the great tent; all of that fun and laughter and things happening that Harry had never experienced in Crestfalls.
That nobody really had, he thought.
He was staring right out the back window at the tiptop of the tent’s pole.
“There’ll be ads in the papers,” his mother said. “I’m sure it’s a Christmas circus. We’ll see if we can get tickets.”
“Cool,” Harry said slowly, the words dripping out with excitement and slow anticipation. He hid the bitterness he felt at those words, ‘we’ll see’. They usually meant ‘we’ll see how much it costs’; that something was too expensive, too much, something you won’t see.
Still, he hoped they would. If having Christmas and summer holidays melded into one hadn’t been as exciting as he imagined having them separated was—like in the movies—he had the exact opposite thoughts regarding a Christmas Circus.
Uncle Funbo’s Natalia Circus. 19th December 1999. 19:00. Admit One.
In this country!
Red and white, like blood and ghosts.
They were at the video rental store the next day. The video rental store in the same shopping center they’d driven past yesterday. That Harry drove past most every day of his life. Today he was trawling up and down the aisles, past the cardboard cutout of an animated ant and straight for the giant-sized cutout of Godzilla.
“Woah, so cool!” Dejan said.
“Don’t get excited, I bet it’s like age-restricted thirteen!” Harry said, looking at Miguel. They were spending the day at Miguel’s house and the final say-so of what they were allowed to rent or not would fall to Miguel’s mother. She was a stickler for age-restrictions.
“I can try to ask her,” Miguel said, knowing the answer.
Harry was already on the move, around one corner to a section of the store they loved to peek at even though they’d never rented any of the movies on display here.
Dejan stepped close to him. “I had nightmares, you know, about the one with spikes in his head.” He pointed at the box case on display.
Miguel gingerly reached for a case, holding it out from him as if a viper might strike from the cover. “This is the scariest,” he said. Dejan took a step back. “His fingers… uurgh, okay, the clown’s scary too, put it back.”
“Harry?” Miguel said.
“Haralambos!” Dejan said, using his full name and trying to imitate Harry’s parents when they were mad at him.
Harry wasn’t listening. There was a window in the corner, that on his tiptoes he could just see out of. See the strange metallic top of a pole and the billowing sheets of a tent top, red and white. Like candy cane stripes. Red and white, like Santa and snow. Red and white, like the clown on the video box case.
Red and white, like blood and ghosts.
Harry shivered and stepped back as soon as Dejan and Miguel popped up beside him. They both laughed at his reaction.
“Wittle Hawwy scawed of the scawy movies!” Dejan said.
“Wants to go ciwcus,” Miguel giggled.
“Maybe wittle Hawwy is scawed of the ciwcus,” Dejan continued.
“I’m not!” Harry said.
He reached for a video case, a pale white one—white and red— with a pair of haunted eyes above the title and a woman’s mouth, wide and screaming, her gums full of nails. Harry held the gruesome pictures out to them and chased them from the window, from the view of the tent and the circus, from the horror corner of the video store they knew they weren’t meant to be in. Right into a frightened-looking Miguel’s mom.
“Boys!” she said, wide-eyed, and dropped to her knees to hug Miguel. Harry and Dejan didn’t dare laugh or snigger right then. “You know you can’t just go disappearing and running off like that! Not in this country, not even for a few minutes!”
It was a refrain they were so used to hearing: In this country! In this country, we all have high walls. In this country, you need to always be careful. Oh, you could walk to the park, but shouldn’t, not in this country. In this country, kids that go missing don’t get found by the police. In this country, there are sick people; sick men looking for little children that wander off. In this country, there are people who chop parts out of kids… especially the boys, for medicine. In this country, it can happen in the blink of an eye.
What Harry was thinking was, in this country, summer holidays and Christmas break happen at the same time. In this country, they had a Christmas circus. He didn’t know how often people in other countries had circuses, let alone Christmas circuses, but in this country, this was the first he’d seen.
Of course, his parents didn’t like to talk about their country, about why they had come to this country. And he knew Dejan had once asked unsuccessfully why he’d been brought to this country—Dejan hadn’t been born in South Africa, unlike Harry and Miguel.
Maybe in other countries they had them all the time. Maybe they never had them. But they had one here in Crestfalls. And if his mother was going to get tickets, Harry would bet Miguel and Dejan might want to come too.
On the ride back to Miguel’s house, with a rental copy of Small Soldiers in hand, Miguel pressed his face against the window to look at the tent. Dejan was also looking now. They didn’t seem to think it was for babies anymore. How could you? Tent that size, that was for big kids, not babies. Had to be.
“Think we can go see, Mom?” Miguel asked.
Harry piped up, “My mom
said there’d be ads for it in the papers; that she could phone and find out where to buy tickets. Maybe we could all go together?”
Miguel’s mother said the moms could all discuss it. That they’d see.
“Natalia means Christmas in Portuguese?” Miguel asked his mother.
“That’s right, Migs. It’s actually where the Natal in KwaZulu-Natal comes from. Because this is the land of the Zulu kingdom. But on the coast here, long ago, during Christmas is where Portuguese sailors once landed.”
The three friends didn’t need the history lesson. All they needed then was the prospect of going to a Christmas Circus. They needed that like those old sailors probably needed dry land. And ‘we’ll see’ was as empty and useless to them as glasses of saltwater were to the thirsty.
Uncle Funbo’s Natalia Circus. 19th December 1999. 19:00. Admit One.
“Five,” Miguel said this time. “It’s getting closer.”
Parents didn’t get holidays. Harry knew that. He knew that like he knew money didn’t grow on trees. Parents got leave and his father, at least, never even got that. He knew that leave didn’t last as long as holidays and that his friends’ parents also didn’t get very much of it. Which was why today, Dejan and Miguel were at Harry’s house.
They had been dropped off that morning and now the three of them were standing under a tree at the very back of Harry’s garden. A garden which gave way to forest and bush, where many of their games of make-believe or hide-and-seek had been played. The high fence, complete with electric wire, ran just below the tree they congregated beneath.
“No, you’re crazy,” Miguel said.
“I’m not. I’m telling you, I’ve done it,” Harry answered.
Dejan was quiet, looking up the tree, at the branches, at the wires clicking at intervals as charges of electricity surged and ran their course.
“Look, we rented a movie the other day,” Harry said. “You know my mom’s going to say it’s too expensive to do it again today or to go the arcade or do anything. She’s just going to say we should play outside. It’s going to be just like that old movie we once watched. Remember? Where the friends all follow the train tracks.” Only Harry hoped they wouldn’t be chased by dogs, attacked by knife-wielding bullies, or find a dead body… He hoped Miguel wouldn’t remember those parts.
Dark Carnival (A Horror Anthology) Page 3
