Dark Perceptions (Mystic's Carnival Collective)

by Kristi, Debra

  Matt said nothing. Drool would have dripped from his lip if he were any less civil. Completely captivated by the flashes of red she twirled teasingly in her hand, he stared at the glossy apple as if he hadn’t eaten in days. She held it just above her breast. I pulled on his arm, yet he didn’t budge. My frustration ratcheted up several notches.

  It was the apple. The damn red apple. Like Eve tempted Adam, so was this serpent woman attempting to lure Matt. I didn’t like it. Pushing between them, I snatched away the wretched apple and tossed it out into the crowd of the darkened midway.

  With a hiss and a rattle of its tail, the snake snapped at me. I tripped backwards into Matt’s arms, avoiding the strike.

  The woman before us, covered in glimmering snake scales in all the right places, snickered and praised her slithering beast with long, slow strokes. “Now Nahash, that wasn’t nice. That’s not how we treat our guests.” Her gaze turned on me, and an undistinguishable look glinted across her features. “Any guest at all.” Her hand lifted to her lips, a new apple caged between her fingers, and she took a bite, then offered it to Matt.

  Yanking with all my strength, I attempted to pull him back to me, away from her. “Come on, let’s go!”

  Matt’s eyes were vacant. His arm swung across my chest, knocking me away. I tumbled sideways and slammed into a body in the crowd. “So sorry,” I stammered, picking myself up, before stumbling again.

  The man I’d fallen into reached out to steady me, but I pulled away. His thick, dark cloak and hood frightened me. Even with all the shadows the hood cast upon his features, I could tell his face was covered in skeletal paint, partially worn or rubbed away, and that made it all the more disturbing. His mere presence sent an unequivocal chill up my spine.

  He grabbed my wrist and his touch was neither warm nor cold. It was almost nonexistent. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You bumped into me. Remember?” He lifted two fingers to his left temple and closed his eyes. “Besides, something tells me you’re in need of a fortune.”

  I yanked my hand away. That was the lamest sales pitch I had ever heard. I wouldn’t get my fortune read by a skeleton-painted come-on artist. “Later!!” I spit out, then spun around and hightailed it toward Matt to save him from the lady-snake-bitch.

  “Was it the cloak? It’s too much for you, isn’t it?” The painted fortuneteller appeared at my side, swinging the cloak off his shoulders and over his arm. Now he was a skeleton boy in mere jeans and a much-loved hoodie. Strange.

  I glanced at him, then to Matt and the serpent woman. I didn’t remember them being so far away. Seemed almost impossible. Had he kept moving without me? I spoke to the pursuer at my side. “It isn’t the cloak. It’s you. This place. It’s everything. I just want to get out and go back home.”

  “I understand.”

  Everything suddenly became immensely calm. The sounds of the rides softened, the screams subsided, and the sound of my beating heart filled my ears, soothing me, slowing my breath. The image of a fedora floated across my thoughts. The fortuneteller’s finger slid down the side of my face, or had it been there already? I couldn’t remember. I flinched. Realized my eyes were closed. When had I allowed that to happen? Was I losing time?

  “I’ll do my best,” he said in a soft whisper. “Understand?”

  Um, no. I really didn’t.

  Slow, deliberate steps backed me away. Locked legs kept me from moving quick, kept me from matching my desire. Though the fortuneteller made no attempt to stop me. Instead, he whipped around and darted for Matt. I had to warn him. Blood boiled, straining up through my body, exploding in a livid screech. Only Matt and reptile woman turned and stared in my direction. The crowd around bounced off me and kept moving, ignoring me like my action was an everyday occurrence. Maybe it was. People screaming and yelling at a carnival, probably happened all the time.

  My legs pumped faster, closing the distance between us. Even as I saw Matt’s eyes widen, his lips part, I knew. Knew I wasn’t going to make it.

  Skeleton man was already there.

  My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach, my arms went limp, like lead weights, and my entire body dragged the next two steps. I heard the fortuneteller’s words upon my approach; they echoed through my head like a sick, twisted joke.

  “You look like a man in need of a fortune.”

  Matt turned to the black and white painted man, a clouded look in his eyes. Tarot cards flashed from the man’s hands quick as lightning. Colors zipping by so fast no pictures were decipherable. Not until one flipped from the deck into Matt’s face, then slipped down the front of him.

  The guy leaned forward and swiped at the card. “Sorry. Seems to be stuck. I’ll get it back from you later.”

  Matt stared at the foreign object stuck to the front of his shirt. Every attempt to pull or pluck the thing free resulted in a horrible fail.

  Finally at his side, I grabbed at the would-be-fortune, but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if it had been Super Glued. “What are you doing?” I demanded of the stranger.

  “Just taking care of business.” He winked and spun toward the snake vixen, turning his back on us. In a show of fanfare, he flared his cloak out and wrapped it around the strategically scaled woman. “Do behave, Viola. You see what you’re doing to the poor boy?” He motioned to Matt with a tilt of his head.

  “Oh Sebastian, you can be such a kill-joy. I was only having a spot of fun.” She stroked her pet and playfully bit at the air between them. The snake poked its head out from beneath the cloak.

  “I’m all too familiar with the type of fun you and Nahash like to have.”

  Matt grabbed me, drowning the conversation between the strangers into the chatter of the crowd. “What just happened?” he asked, pulling me off to the side, away from the moving traffic along the midway. We nestled against the corner of an obnoxious game. I stood frozen, watching as children tossed small beanbags of various colors at a row of hideous, fake clowns. The idea―shove a “pie” in a clown’s mouth.

  More goddamn clowns.

  I shivered uncontrollably and tried to melt into Matt’s chest. My body thawed with his embrace. The idea that I might have lost him gripped me, froze me, and I realized it didn’t matter what disaster was befalling my parents―I loved Matt and I wasn’t going to throw that away over fear.

  “Are you alright?” Ever so slightly, his finger moved along the side of my face, brushing the hair from my cheek. “Did I do something stupid?” He paused, and I could feel the tension along his back tighten, then relax, then tighten again. I knew he was tossing thoughts, maybe even memories around, trying to make sense of it all. I sure was.

  “You ogled the half-naked snake whisperer, but I forgive you.” I mumbled the words, sinking into his shirt. “I don’t think you were in complete control. Maybe she’s a Matt whisperer, too.” I stepped back, wiped my eye, and met absolute horror. I’d gotten tears and slobber, and possibly snot, on his white shirt. His white-with-red-blotchy-stains shirt.

  “Jesus, Sara. Really?” He cranked his neck and straightened his shoulders. A posture that hinted to the strong, confident guy who’d nabbed my heart the first day we’d met. But the look he now wore, the one that had him glancing down and dragging a not-so-smooth hand through his hair, that told me more than he didn’t say. He was feeling it too―uneasy. He stood for some time, taking a step, pausing, making motion to go, then not. I twisted my fingers, wringing my hands together, fighting off the anxious beat drumming through my blood.

  Move. Motivate. Make haste.

  “I should get you home.” Matt’s gaze was now on mine, suddenly alert and with me, his hand stilling mine with his touch.

  I nodded. It was a good idea. Home was ideal.

  Matt tapped the first person to walk by, asked them which way to the exit, or the parking lot, but they kept moving straight past as if Matt were an annoyance or distraction. He looked at me, mouthed the word rude, and moved toward the next group coming our way. He didn’t have
the chance to ask the question again.

  A hand dropped on his shoulder. The painted fortuneteller, Sebastian, stood beside us. “There you are. Thought I’d lost you.” He glanced between us and a funny look took root on his face. I wasn’t sure what it meant. “We need to get you two moving toward Big Eli.” He gestured behind him to the array of blinking and thrumming rides.

  There it was again, the mention of Big Eli. Not a person, but a thing. I looked to where he was pointing. The Zipper? Hell no. Framed by the lights of the Ferris wheel, it looked extra demented. I didn’t want to go, especially with someone I’d never met before, who looked like a sociopath and made me uncomfortable. Faces and places around us meshed into a meld of noise and visual pollution. Instead of stepping into a funhouse, it had come to us and dosed us with magic mushrooms.

  Am I losing my mind? I don’t like this druggy aftereffect.

  I looked down at my hand and the hand clasped to mine. It wasn’t Matt’s.

  It was his.

  That Sebastian man. The strange one fancying himself a dead prophet. He held me firm, something solid between our flesh. Uncomfortable and ungiving, it bit into my skin like a long, unwanted paper cut. Yanking away hard, I found a tarot card staring up at me, and not just any tarot card. One that looked like him―a skeleton.

  I shook it free, watched it flutter to the sawdust ground of the midway.

  “How did you…?” He looked at me, a dark cloud dropping over his brow, then something else moving across it―understanding? “Never mind,” he said, looking perplexed, then shook the expression from his face. He pulled Matt forward by the elbow and reached for me. I wasn’t going to let him play tricks on me again. I backed away. “Come on, Sara. I want to get you guys to the safety of Big Eli.” Again he pointed, only this time it was clear he meant the immense circle of lights towering over the carnival tents. Not the Zipper.

  The Ferris wheel? My mind reeled and my body jerked. It’s so high! Especially this one. Although, I do relish the idea of a kiss at the top. Carnival magic below, starlight above, and bliss at my lips.

  “Whatcha doing, lover boy?” Viola, the snake whisper, suddenly stood amongst us. Like her reptile, she was clearly practiced in stealthy approach. She flaunted her sexual charms in front of Sebastian. Most men would fall at her feet. Even I wanted to, but Sebastian looked bored, and that appeared to irritate her tremendously. Her voice rose and her gestures grew increasingly sharp. “These kids don’t want your silly, light-and-fancy flight ride. They only want the parking lot.” She made eye contact with me, then slowly glanced over to Matt. “Which is that way.” Her hand extended, pointing down the tight pocket of space between the booths next to us. Barely visible at the end of the long, deep, expanding squeeze we could see it―a gloomy view of the parking lot. Row after row of parked cars on packed dirt.

  That’s all it took. Hunger and need filled Matt’s eyes and he tore himself free from Sebastian’s grip. It was a moment of chaos and confusion, but it was all we needed. Matt grabbed me and pulled us free. I didn’t question anything, I simply moved. With Matt pushing from behind, we ran between the tented booths, jumping over anchor lines and questionable bundles of litter.

  “What did you do that for?” Sebastian demanded. I heard him so clearly, even with the distance we were putting between him and us. I knew who he was talking to, and it wasn’t us.

  I could almost picture Viola slithering all over him, all over the surrounding tents, making her way after us. She had managed to make such an impression. “Come on, honey. It was fun,” she chortled. “Admit it.”

  My heart accelerated and my legs cranked faster. Were they toying with us?

  I almost didn’t see the man. Almost plowed into him, or tripped over his outstretched feet. I screamed, leaped up and to the side, but kept moving forward. My heart hammered an unsteady beat.

  “Okay?” I heard Matt asking from behind. Breathlessly, I assured him I was.

  There had been a man, tall in his stretched posture, and so formal dressed in a suit and tie. He’d been tucked between the adjoining corners of the tents, almost invisible, and when I’d screamed he’d tipped his hat. My entire gut turned ice cold. I wanted to be home.

  Only a few more feet.

  “We’re almost there,” Matt said at my back.

  The opening widened with each elongated step. I couldn’t pop free of this bottleneck fast enough.

  Eight more strides.

  Seven more.

  I began to count. Maybe it made the time move slower, I don’t know, but the counting was a subconscious choice, not something to be helped. Then it happened. I was free. Free of the cramped space and finally standing out in the open before a sea of parked cars. An endless choice of possibilities.

  No clue where to find the one we wanted.

  With hands linked and scanning side to side, we took to the task, overwhelming as it seemed. Something beeped, chirped two times off to our left. Far to our left.

  Matt’s hands clenched and pulled into a victory hurrah. Within his clamped fist he held the remote key alarm. The sliver keys dangled over the top of his hand. “Come on,” he said and took off between the rows of dusty cars, making for the one chirping like a homing beacon.

  We slipped around the front edge of an old Ford, layers upon layers of grime wiping across the side of my skirt. Something wasn’t right. The parking lot was too quiet, too desolate, too abandoned in feel for a working carnival. And worse yet, no one followed us. It was all too easy. My glance danced from vehicle to vehicle. They were all the same. Filth-covered metal cans lining our paths. Orphans waiting to be found. How long had they been sitting here? It looked like years, not hours.

  Chirp went Matt’s alarm one last time and he threw himself against the door, yanked on the handle, and pulled it open. I scrambled quick as I could, not wanting to spend another minute in the hell zone.

  I plopped in the passenger’s seat, buckled my seatbelt, and chucked my fear over my shoulder. We were out of here!

  Matt shoved the key in the ignition, firing the motor to life, and looked at me with a success-achieved grin on his lips.

  Should have known better. Had we paid attention to the storyline of any horror movie we’d ever watched, we would have realized this was the calm before the kill. We jinxed ourselves by letting our guard down, thinking we were cool with the getaway. How could we be so dumb?

  There he was, standing right in front of the car in his blue checkered pants and orange suspenders. Scary as any Bozo or Blinko after a zombie apocalypse. He had followed us from the big show, and now I was freaked―but why? It’s not like he held a weapon of any sort. No. It was the oversized red shoes, the too-fluffy hair sticking out in peaks, the ridiculous bouquet of balloons he held in his left hand. It was everything clown, draped in the morose manner he held himself. That and the fact he’d followed us all the way from the Big Top, the damn clownville I thought we’d escaped.

  The paint on his face cracked as his lips widened, spreading a wickedly suspicious smile from ear to ear, the gesture enlarged by the crazed theatrical makeup. He didn’t say a word, simply stood there staring and holding those ridiculous balloons. All of them a shiny Mylar black. They bounced off one another as the breeze continuously rearranged them. My mind was trapped by the motion. A hypnotic weapon. That’s what the balloons were. A weapon. Taunting me with reflected imagery. A glowing symbol, a melting clown face, a shadowy man tipping a fedora.

  Matt threw the car in reverse and―thud! We hit the vehicle parked behind us. That left only one option. Try to go around the clown standing at our front. A shift and slam into gear, a thrust of Matt’s foot, and the car lurched. My fingers tightened around the door handle and buckle. And I squinted my eyes, not wanting to see, but afraid to look away. The car catapulted forward, then swung right, narrowly missing the striped suspenders and oversized bowtie.

  Balloons bounced everywhere, off every window, blocking our view and leaving only the smallest sq
uares of sight. Images flickered across their surfaces―a wink, a glow, a come-hither flip of a finger. Horrid screeches of metal tore down the driver’s side and Matt twisted the wheel to the right. The balloons started to lift and float away, as they should have from the start. Where they had been, bumping against the window, remained faint smudge lines. Lines that appeared to spell a word: stay. My heart hopped into my throat.

  We’d hit the cars on the left line and Matt adjusted, not stopping or looking back. He kept driving down the dirt path, frantically looking in his rearview mirror, sweat dripping from his temple.

  Flipping in the seat, I peered out the back window and watched the clown recede from sight. It gave me no ease of mind to watch him disappear behind us, my gut in constant agitation.

  The engine revved, sounding like laughter. Not any laughter. Her laughter―Viola the snake lady’s.

  Matt drove faster. The faster the car moved, the more the aisle appeared to extend, go on for infinity. Dirt kicked up from the tires, hit the underside of the frame. It made a hell of a racket. Not louder than her laughter, though. The cackle grew more intense with each drawn-out moment. I pulled my knees into my chest and clutched my hands over my ears. I wanted to be strong for Matt, wanted to be strong for me, but needed this nightmare to stop!

  It wasn’t just her laughter anymore. I saw her face. She was at the side of the car, time and time again, her face right up in mine. She was staring at me through the front window, laughing uncontrollably. She was everywhere.

  My fingernails dug into my scalp, pulled at my hair. I turned to Matt. “Get us out of here!”

  Ashen face aglow, Matt’s eyes were glued to the road in front of us. “That’s what I’m trying to do!” The car torqued to the right and we swung around the corner. “Finally. That’s got to be the exit up ahead.” His voice wrenched into a high pitch at the end.

  Alarm bells went off through my entire body. Muscles locked up and my feet slammed against the floorboards, preparing for impact. What I saw instead was the black, slithery beastie with his eyes glistening like wet bloodstones. No longer was he a serpent to wrap around the vixen’s neck, smothering her, strangling her. Now he could crush her, swallow her whole. He was as large as a small house. And he was blocking our path.