Applewood (Book 2): Fledge

by Myers, Brendan P.

  The applause and cheers began as he walked in. Behind the door, Harold had his long arms outstretched to throw confetti on top of him. Lois and Enrique were blowing on noisemakers. Looking down, he saw a sheet cake with white frosting on the small coffee table. “Welcome, Scott!” was written on top in blue. Drawn below that in icing was an eerily correct tableau of the scene he had just witnessed, a raised casket beneath a barred window.

  Breaking into a smile at the show of kindness, he walked over to each of them and gave them a hug before they gave him the honor of cutting up the cake. After giving everyone a slice, he took one for himself and ate it in two bites. They all said not to worry and just have a good time. When there was a break in the conversation, he asked a question that had been on his mind since he had seen the mural.

  “What happened to William?”

  It had seemed like an innocent question. He’d meant nothing by it. But the once festive room went silent. After a moment, Lois motioned to Harold it was time to put her in the tank. Wolf Boy crushed out his cigarette and wished him “buena suerte” before he too left the room. Gunther just stood in his usual place with his head against the wall, grinning and playing with his hands.

  The boy turned to Rudy. “What’d I say? I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Rudy stared at him with his one good eye for a moment before turning away.

  “Sum tings bes lef unsayed, ba,” he croaked. “Al ya no, al ya need no, is he lef ona dee an nef cum ba.” Turning his enormous head to the boy, he asked, “Akay?”

  The boy nodded and shrugged before standing and walking over to help Rudy to his feet. The weight of his tumors seemed daily to make it more difficult for him to stand. The boy would have sworn they’d grown some in the short time he’d been with the carnival.

  While taking the man’s fibrous hands in his own to help him off the couch, a surge passed through him. He found himself suddenly choking and gasping for breath. Although it passed in the next instant, it was enough to alert him that the tumors had begun to constrict the man’s throat. It was hard for Rudy to breathe.

  Dugan caught the man’s eye and knew Rudy too had sensed that his secret had passed between them. The boy turned his eyes away quickly. Once on his feet, Rudy reached out his massive hand and grabbed him by the throat, squeezing tight, in almost perfect mimicry of what Dugan now knew was the man’s present condition.

  Instinctively, he leaned away from the violence and tried to get himself free. He suppressed his natural instinct to bare his fangs. Struggling for breath, the boy watched the man lift his head as far as it would go, until their eyes met again.

  “Ya hear wot I say, ba?” he asked. “Sum tings bes lef unsayed.”

  The boy wheezed and nodded. Rudy let him go. He patted the boy gently on the back before the two of them walked from the smoky room.

  Showtime!

  Chapter Four

  1

  The newest addition to Steinhoffer’s Amazing and Chilling Freaks of Nature! extravaganza was an unmitigated disaster. The boy was not a born showman.

  His cage was at the end of the trailer, but he could tell the half-hourly show was about to begin when he heard a shuffle of footsteps followed by the hushed and excited murmur of a small crowd. The show itself got underway each evening with a splash from the far end of the trailer, followed sometimes by the delighted laughter of little children as they peered into Lois’s tank.

  Folks seemed to go quiet again as they passed Alice, though sometimes she found the strength to talk to the visitors. Rudy would place her in a rocking chair near the door of her cage, where she clutched a doll to her chest and gave away hard candy to the kids. Shrieks of fear meant they were passing Wolf Boy’s cage. Enrique liked to wait to hear a childish voice say, “I don’t see anything” before leaping out from behind the paper mache tree or fake rock and jumping high on his bars to shake them and howl. Gasps of shock meant folks were passing by Harold or Rudy or Gunther. Harold sometimes took questions from the kids about what it was like to be so tall. He took the time to answer every one in his deep and gentle voice. Nobody ever asked questions of Rudy or Gunther.

  In fact, by the time they got to Gunther, it was obvious at least some of the parents had gotten cold feet. The boy figured that like him, maybe they realized by then that the folks in the cages were not “Freaks of Nature!” but merely sick and deformed people.

  Another sound he often heard coming from the other cages but not his own was the tinkle and rattle of change that visitors dropped into metal tip boxes outside each cage. Alice took in more than all of them, but surprisingly, Rudy and Gunther did quite well too. Whoever happened to make it, all the money was divided up equally among the freaks. It often added up to a few hundred dollars a week per person, even after Big Ben had taken his cut.

  But the boy had yet to figure out an angle. On that first night, he started out just lying in his open coffin and rising from the dead when he heard the crowds approach. But they passed him quickly and headed for the door. Many kept their heads down or turned away completely. He told himself that was only because he was in the last cage and maybe they had already seen enough. But as the nights went on, and the carnival moved from one town to the next, he realized he needed to start earning his keep. The rest of them would not let him turn down the weekly envelope filled with money. They said he’d figure it out.

  One evening, in the middle of his troubles, he heard three pairs of boots step into the trailer for the last show of the night. He smelled them before he saw them, a heady mash of teenage farm sweat and corn liquor mixed with cheap cologne. He heard a splash as Lois jumped into her tank. Afterward, one of them cackled, “Show us your tits! Show us your tits!” to shared laughter. The boy felt ashamed and embarrassed for Lois, and Harold too, that the gentle giant had to listen to his girl suffer such humiliation. The three made lewd and disgusting comments as they passed each cage. Gunther and Rudy especially were singled out for derision. By the time they got to him, he’d heard enough. They weren’t getting any show from him, whether they had paid their money or not. When they stepped in front of his cage, he wasn’t surprised to see they were exactly the way he had pictured them.

  None more than seventeen, the burliest of the three wore a straw hat and a ripped and worn T-shirt with a lewd drawing on the front. The one at his elbow was small and thin, but what he lacked in stature he compensated for with a cruel smirk that reminded Dugan of someone. His cheeks were flushed with alcohol, but his eyes burned with something narcotic. These two were perfect for each other, Dugan thought. The third was younger, perhaps no older than Dugan himself. He was obviously the little brother of the big guy. But this one looked embarrassed about the whole thing. He stood back and away from the other two. From somewhere deep within his memory, Dugan remembered that peer pressure was a powerful thing to boys this age. At that moment, despite his apparent misgivings, Dugan knew he would have done whatever the others told him to.

  “What is it you do, dickweed?” the burly one asked, peering more closely into the cage. “Dude, is that powder you got on? Lipstick too? What are you, some kind of faggot?” Sneering, he looked Dugan in the eye before going on. “Well? Put on a show for us, faggot. Dance for us or something.”

  He turned to his smirking friend and slapped him on the back. Dugan saw the younger brother backing away like he wanted to get lost. Smirkman picked up where his buddy left off.

  “You gonna answer my friend, faggot? Huh? Hey, wait a minute. Lookee here. A vampire faggot.” Laughing, he turned to his friend and asked, “Is there such a thing as a vampire faggot?”

  His friend answered, “Sure is! I mean, must be, right? We’re lookin’ at one right now, ain’t we?” He turned to Dugan and asked again, “So what is it that you do?”

  Dugan looked at them both. His eyes flashed yellow. He’d never before felt such anger in his current incarnation. Before he knew what he was doing, or even that he could, he answered. “This.”

&nbs
p; The two stood outside his cage and waited. Slowly, the wooden boards beneath their feet began to creak as the two turned toward each other. Dugan watched as they tried to move their mouths, but he wasn’t going to allow that. They’d said enough already. Little brother backed against the wall like he wanted to become a part of it.

  A moment later, the burly one raised his arm and reached out to take his friend by the shoulder and began pulling him closer . . . closer. Dugan watched horror begin to bloom in both their eyes. He brought their heads together and moved them closer and then their lips began to touch. He heard high-pitched keening start coming from both their throats, but that was alright with him. It was music to his ears. The keening got worse after Dugan reached out with his mind and began slobbering their wet tongues against one another. Little brother looked on in shock, his mouth agape to watch his brother and friend swap spit. He might as well have been frozen in place. Dugan knew he wasn’t.

  He let the kissing go on a while until he got bored with that and had another idea. He almost laughed to see smirkman’s eyes almost bug out of his head when burly guy took him by the shoulders and pushed him to his knees. Down he went. When he got there, burly guy started pressing smirkman’s smooth cheeks against his own now thrusting crotch. Dugan let that go on a while too. Only when he saw burly guy begin to physically respond to his friend did he figure it had gone on long enough and let them both go. He smiled to know he’d had nothing at all to do with that.

  Smirkman fell on his ass with a loud “thump.” Burly guy was frozen in place for only a moment before he ran out of the trailer without looking back. Dugan looked down and watched smirkman wipe his mouth with the sleeve of his filthy shirt before he seemed to find some semblance of his dignity. He stood up slowly. Before following burly guy out the door, he still had to pretend to be the tough guy. He grabbed little brother by the face and slammed his head against the wall.

  “If you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll kill ya.”

  He shoved the younger boy’s head against the wall once more for good measure before walking slowly toward the door. Dugan caught a glimpse of the younger kid before he too left the trailer. He was the one smirking now.

  But Dugan knew that wasn’t going to work every night. He kept going over the problem in his mind. After a while — to his own horror — he began to consider working into it those things he was most self-conscious of, his newfound second sets of teeth and sharpened fangs.

  During the most painful moments of his change, two additional palates had sprouted bloodily within his mouth. New sets of gums had grown in front of both his upper and lower human teeth. When he opened his mouth to feed, he could stretch these new, retractable rows of sharpened teeth almost out of his mouth as if he were a vicious and snarling canine.

  One night, out of desperation, he relented and decided to do it. But even this display did not seem to increase the crowd’s interest. Around midnight the first night he bared them, two ten-year-old boys passed by his cage. He smiled his normal smile before raising his cape above his face. When he lowered it again moments later and revealed his fangs, the kids did step back for a moment. Then they both laughed.

  “Fake! Fake!” they said in unison as they turned and headed for the door.

  A few nights later, Gunther brought him a fattened rat before the first show of the evening. Despondent and not hungry, he put the creature in his coffin for later and lowered the lid. But it was a Friday night toward the end of summer and the crowds were thick. When he heard the eleven-thirty crowd begin shuffling toward his cage, he felt a pang of hunger and had an idea. He smiled. By the time the crowd of mostly teenagers and young adults approached his cage, he was ready.

  When he heard an “Eek!” come from one of the girls in the back of the crowd, Dugan knew somehow that she clutched her boyfriend’s hand tighter, because on this night, Vampire Boy! was playing with a rat. He held his arms away from his body, letting the rat run back and forth from hand to hand. When the rat stopped to roost on top of his shoulder, he heard a voice whisper, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” and knew he was losing them.

  He removed the rat from his shoulder and brought it in close to nuzzle against his cheek. An adolescent male voice muttered, “Gross!” but he had their interest again. While pressing the rat’s filthiness to his face, in full view of the audience, he opened his mouth and extended his fangs. He began to hear disgusted cries of “no . . . no . . . NO!” from voices in the crowd, that he knew really meant, “yes . . . yes . . . YES!” and a moment later he gave the people what they wanted. Reaching out with his fangs, he ripped out the rat’s throat.

  Screams and whoops of excitement came from every corner of the crowd as the delicious coppery fluid seeped its way gently down his throat. When he began to suck loudly on the open wound the crowd screamed again. He felt the rat’s heart trickle to a stop. When he had emptied the animal of its fluid, he threw it over his shoulder and began to laugh, his teeth red with blood. He allowed a drop — just one precious drop — to trickle slowly down his powdered chin. Suddenly, with all the subtlety of a silent movie star, he turned and looked up at his fake window, as if sensing the approaching dawn. Reaching back for his cape, he whipped it over his face and then was gone.

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd. He had disappeared before their eyes! Moments later, they turned their eyes as one to a creaking sound emanating from the coffin. They saw just the shadow of the boy’s hand lower the cover the final few inches and then let it drop with a crash. Inside his box, he heard another surprised gasp and then . . . applause. Loud and unruly applause began breaking out followed by cheers and whistles. He could have wept from the sound of it. But he had become enough of a showman in his short time with the carnival to leave them wanting more. He stayed in his coffin until he heard the voice of Derek, the ticket taker, begin shooing the crowd away from his cage.

  “Show’s over, folks. Show’s over. Next one’s at midnight. Come again!”

  They did. He ran out to the dumpster between shows and had no trouble scaring up the props he would need for the rest of the evening. The crowds grew larger for each show as word of mouth spread throughout the carnival. For his last show, his friends came out to watch his performance. Rudy held Alice in his arms. Harold held Lois in hers. Gunther looked proudest of all. As they sat in the lounge later to tally up their take over booze and cigarettes, the boy discovered he had collected two-hundred and twenty-six dollars in his tip bucket for just the six shows. By the time the carnival landed in Colorado in early August, word had spread about Vampire Boy. Business was brisk.

  2

  In late August, the carnival set up shop on the grounds of an abandoned dog track just outside Rocky Ford, Colorado. It had become obvious to Dugan that the height of the carnival season was coming to a close. He began to notice some of the rough hands and familiar faces who had been with them all summer long were beginning to move on. The best he could figure was that they had already made enough money to see them through the winter.

  He broke down one day and glanced at a schedule. The last booking for this year was only a few weeks away, in late September, just outside Sacramento. He began to overhear folks talk excitedly about their plans for the off-season. Some talked about long overdue visits with family. Others just wanted to get their kids back to school and on a normal schedule. A few of them said they planned to do nothing at all. Dugan found himself walking away from those conversations. His own fear and trepidation began to grow. He had no idea what he would do once carnival season was over.

  It was in Rocky Ford that Alice found she could no longer get out of bed. Rudy did what he could for her before getting word to Big Ben, who arranged a real doctor to come visit. He just shook his head sadly and left Rudy a few days supply of morphine to help ease her pain. The bedside vigil began. Dugan awoke one evening and saw Rudy taking his turn by her bedside. When he came over to sit, Rudy said she’d had a rough day. The boy suggested he take a break, mayb
e step outside to get some air. He would sit with her. The man was grateful. Dugan moved to the side of the bed and took her hand in his.

  Off in the distance, he heard the sounds of the carnival springing to life, calliope music and the pounding rock and roll that powered the faster rides. It seemed appropriate somehow that these would be the last sounds she would hear, because like Rudy, Gunther, and the rest — he included himself too — the carnival was the only place that would take them, the only place any of them felt at home. Closing his eyes, he felt the girl’s weakening pulse while his thoughts returned again to his own uncertain future. When he opened his eyes after a moment, he saw that she had opened hers.

  “How you doin’, Alice?” he asked. Salty tears came unbidden to his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but she had seen them. She smiled.

  “It’s okay to cry, you know,” she said. “Everybody cries. Just don’t go cryin’ over me, is all. I don’t want that . . .” Her phlegmy voice drifted off. Her eyes closed. She spasmed for a moment, but no longer had the energy to cough. Her eyes were still closed when she said, “Even vampires cry sometimes.”

  A minute later, her eyes opened, and Dugan thought he saw a hint of madness about them. He was certain that her pain was almost over. But she squeezed his hand tight with an energy she had no business having.

  “Stay away from Buck!” she warned. He smiled to know that even now, she was thinking about others.

  “I know, I know,” he answered softly. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be fine. Please don’t worry about me.”

  Hoping his lie had been convincing, he watched her spasm once more and felt her pulse weaken. He again thought it was the end until she began to speak.