Red Circus: A Dark Collection

by John L. Campbell

  I haven’t been back to Bensenville since the funeral, and haven’t seen the Kennel Man since that day in 1972.

  But he said he would come for me.

  And I wonder.

  NOAH’S ARRANGEMENT

  The boy awoke groggy and squinting into the darkness, not certain why. Moonlight crept through an opening in the curtains, revealing a small desk with a few battered textbooks, a torn Green Day poster pinned to the wall above it. Red light from a bedside digital clock cast the room in a dull glow. It was 3:07.

  “Ahem.” The sound came again from the end of his bed.

  The boy sat up and peered at the thing perched on the footboard like a chubby white parrot, little toes gripping the wood. It looked like a plump little person, hairless and sexless, its skin a smooth alabaster, except in a few places where coin-sized gray moles grew. No more than eighteen inches tall, it squatted and fidgeted, small fingers laced together. Its head featured a pair of curling white ram horns tucked beside its small pointed ears.

  “Noah Benefield?” it asked, its voice high and nervous. A short, hairless tail curled around its body in a jerky motion, and the creature caught it and played with the tip distractedly.

  Noah pressed back against the headboard, about to cry out for his mom before he realized the evening’s Jack Daniels would have her in a coma until morning.

  “Devil,” he whispered.

  The creature’s dark eyes widened with pleasure. “Imp, actually, but thanks.”

  Noah glanced at his nightstand, looking for something to throw at it. Nothing useful. He could give it a good kick, but his feet were trapped under the covers. Suddenly he was afraid the thing could read his mind, and he tensed, waiting for it to attack.

  The imp just blinked at him, and played with his tail.

  “You are Noah Benefield?”

  Noah nodded.

  “Good, right house, check. I’m Dante.”

  The boy only stared.

  “Um…” the imp’s forehead creased as he thought. “…uh, give me a moment, it’s my first assignment.”

  “Sure,” said Noah, easing out of his bed, keeping his eyes on his nocturnal visitor. He stepped towards the corner, where a hockey stick wrapped in black tape was leaning.

  “I’m here in response to your request,” said the imp, still perched on the footboard.

  Noah stopped, his fingertips touching the hockey stick. “What request?”

  The imp closed its eyes and pressed a little palm to its forehead. Then, in a perfect imitation of Noah’s voice, said, “I wish I could make stuff happen.” It smiled with little pearly teeth, eyes still closed. “That was on June tenth, three-oh-one in the aftern…”

  Noah swung the hockey stick like an MLB All-Star, cracking the imp in the side of the head and blowing it off the footboard. He bolted for the bedroom door. “Mom!” He ran the short distance down the dark hallway, gripping the stick, and burst into his mother’s room. “Mom!” he screamed. He heard heavy snoring, and the lump under the covers didn’t move. “Mom!”

  “She can’t see or hear us,” said Dante, perched on the headboard above her.

  “Why?” demanded Noah. “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing,” said the imp. “I can’t be held responsible for the distilling process of Tennessee whiskey.” He rubbed the side of his face. “I think you knocked out a tooth.”

  “I’ll do it again! What do you want?”

  The imp held up his small hands in surrender. “Wait, this started badly. I’m here for you, because you wanted it.”

  “I don’t want anything, except for you to leave. Get the hell out of here.”

  The imp sighed and vanished, and a moment later Noah heard a rattling noise from the kitchen. He looked at his comatose mother, then left and pulled the door shut.

  Noah found the imp squatting on the kitchen counter and folding ice cubes into a dish towel, the freezer door standing open. He shut it and watched the pale creature press the ice pack to the side of his head with a soft moan. Noah still held the hockey stick.

  “Look,” said Dante, “this is pretty simple. I’m here to help you do things, the things you’ve always wanted, dreamed about, fulfill your desires.”

  “Grant wishes?”

  “Not exactly, I’m not a genie. It’s a quid pro quo situation.”

  “Huh?”

  The imp adjusted the dish towel, wincing. “You tell me the stuff you want to do, and I help you do it. For each thing I help you with, you give me something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Small things.”

  “What kind of small things?”

  “Depends on the situation.” The imp shrugged. “Might not even be a thing, might be a small service. The point is, I help you, and you make little payments.”

  “Like my soul, right?”

  Dante’s eyes widened. “The big enchilada,” he whispered, then shook his head vigorously. “Way out of my league. I told you, I’m a beginner. These are more like…venal corruptions, and probably nothing the average thirteen-year-old wouldn’t do all on his own.”

  Noah leaned against the doorway. “Give me an example.”

  Dante sat down at the edge of the counter, letting his little legs swing, heels bumping against a cupboard door. “Okay…how about Brooke Simmons?”

  Noah stared. Brooke Simmons was a ninth-grader who looked like a college girl and probably dated rock stars. She had starred in more than a few of Noah’s locked bathroom door fantasies. “What about her?”

  “Hypothetically…suppose you want to see her naked? I can make that happen, for a price. Maybe I decide that means you start a rumor that you saw Jimmy Dunworthy using his cell phone to take pictures of other guys in the locker room.”

  Noah made a face. “That’s nasty.” Then he thought about it. “That’s all?”

  Dante shrugged. “Just an example, but yeah, like that.”

  Noah stared at the creature with its tail and ram’s horns, pressing an icepack to its face. Dante sure didn’t look like the embodiment of evil. “You’re from Hell?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not the Devil.?”

  “No. Imp.”

  “And you’re not after my soul?”

  “Venal corruptions, remember?”

  “And I can say no? Can tell you to get lost and you’ll leave?”

  “Yep. Free will, and all that.”

  Noah thought. “My life is fine. I don’t need you.”

  The imp raised a hairless eyebrow, lowering the ice pack. “Really? You live in Section-Eight housing, and this place is a dump. You know it has rats, right? You don’t even know who your dad is, you have to wear Salvation Army clothes. Picked on at school, teachers don’t like you, girls won’t talk to you. Your mom can’t keep a job, drinks away what little money you have until there’s nothing left for you.”

  “Don’t talk about my mom.”

  “Hey, you don’t need me to tell you these things.”

  Noah stepped towards the creature, raising the hockey stick. “You’re from Hell, right? That means you tell lies.”

  “Was any of that a lie?” Dante eyed the stick. “Besides, why would I come here to lie to you? You’re not important enough to rate anything more than an imp.”

  Noah poked him in the chest with the stick. “Okay, you’re so great, I want to be in my thirties, rich and cool, and look just like Ryan Reynolds.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  “Ha! See? Why not?”

  “Because that’s Ryan Reynolds, and there already is one. I told you we have to start small.”

  The boy tapped the stick on the kitchen floor, thinking, then leaned it against the fridge and folded his arms. “So how would this work?”

  Dante stood on the counter and tossed the ice pack into the sink. Even in the darkness Noah could see the bruise forming on the side of the creature’s head. “First, you can’t tell anyone about me. If you do, I’ll leave, and everyone w
ill think you’re crazy. Second, you have to keep me with you all the time, you can’t just dump me somewhere and expect me to appear with a snap of the fingers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the rules.”

  “Someone will see you.”

  “Then you’ll have to be clever, won’t you?”

  Noah frowned. The imp would probably fit in his backpack.

  “Third,” said Dante, adding a pudgy finger to the two already raised, “there’s no credit. You make payment in advance, or no deal.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just the legal stuff.”

  “The what?”

  The imp looked bored. “Standard restrictions, proxy clause, obligatory thirty day trial period…”

  “Wait a minute, what thirty days? You said I could tell you to get lost whenever I wanted.”

  “Well of course there have to be some boundaries.” He continued. “The forfeit clause, wherein should the debtor fail to live up to the agreed-upon terms said debt passes to the jurisdiction of a lower authority who may impose such penalties as he or she sees fit.”

  “What does all that mean?”

  “Nothing. Just don’t break our arrangement.”

  “This sounds like a total scam,” said Noah. “No deal.”

  The imp’s eyes turned sad. “You’re not even going to give me a chance? At least try it out?”

  Noah considered the sad-eyed creature. Brooke liked older guys, didn’t she? “Okay, I want a mustache. A good one.”

  The imp nodded. “Throw your grandmother’s mass card in the garbage.”

  The immediate response startled the boy, and he shook his head out of reflex.

  Dante rolled his eyes. “Who cares? You didn’t even like her. You wanted to play video games at your friend’s house instead of go to the funeral, but you mom made you, remember? Do you even know where the card is?”

  Noah blinked. He didn’t know.

  “I thought so. It’s in the inside left jacket pocket of the gray suit that doesn’t fit you anymore. It’s been there since the funeral.”

  Noah went to his closet and found the card, right where Dante said it would be. The imp instructed him to shove it to the bottom of the kitchen trash, and he did it. As he pulled his arm out, his top lip started to itch. He rubbed, feeling a full bristle of hair.

  “See?” said the imp, smiling proudly.

  Noah grinned, then his smile faltered. He ran to the bathroom and flicked on the lights. Dante was already there, crouched by the sink. Noah looked at the dark, bushy growth under his nose, like part of a costume for a kid in a school play about the Frito Bandito. It looked ridiculous.

  “I’m thirteen,” he said. “I can’t have something like this.”

  Dante looked over his shoulder into the mirror. “I like it.”

  “How am I going to explain this thing?” Noah tugged hard at it, succeeding only in making his eyes water.

  “Can’t help you with that, can’t interfere with free will” said Dante, pawing through a drawer under the sink and coming up with a can of shaving cream and one of Noah’s mom’s razors. “How you handle what you ask for is up to you.” He handed over the razor. “But you’re right, it’s going to be hard to explain.”

  Noah spent twenty minutes shaving it off, nipping his virgin skin several times. When he returned to his bedroom holding a wet wash cloth to his face to blot the blood, Dante strolled in behind him. He climbed into bed as the imp scrambled up onto the yard sale wooden chair at the small desk, turned and looked at him with concern.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “A little. I never shaved before.”

  The imp made a pained face. “And she uses that blade on her legs. Yikes.”

  “Will it grow back?”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  Noah yawned. “I have school in the morning. Where are you going to be?”

  The imp hopped off the chair, crossing to the edge of the bed then wiggling underneath. “Sleeping.”

  Noah lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling while his thoughts careened through his head like bumper cars.

  Beneath him, Dante started snoring.

  Noah’s school district had decreed that students who lived within one mile of East Wellington Junior High were not eligible for bus transportation. Noah and his mom lived on a block of shabby, salt-box rentals just inside the one mile boundary, so he had to walk. His mom always slept too late to drive him, even if the ten-year-old Ford was running, which it wasn’t, but he was used to it and most days the walk wasn’t bad, unless it was raining. Today it was raining.

  The nylon hood of his Tiger’s jacket was pulled up, and he did his best to avoid the bigger puddles as he trudged down the sidewalk, especially since the rubber soles of both shoes were separating. The backpack was heavy on his shoulders.

  “This thing leaks,” said Dante.

  “Sorry, it’s what I have.”

  “We could get you something better, something waterproof and stylish, like professional mountain climbers use.”

  “Yeah, what would that cost me?”

  “Hock up a clam and spit it on your neighbor’s windshield.”

  “Mr. Rawlings? No way, he’s nice.”

  The backpack shifted. “Doesn’t use that car to drive you to school in the rain, does he?”

  “So what? I’m not doing that just so you can stay dry.”

  “Suit yourself.” The imp shifted again, making the straps cut into Noah’s shoulders.

  “Quit moving around.”

  “Can’t get comfortable.”

  At the three-quarter mile point, Noah spotted Zach Dennis waiting for him at the usual intersection. Zach was his best friend, rarely caught a ride himself, and was usually here to join him for the walk to school. Zach never seemed to mind that Noah and his mom were welfare cases, and didn’t make him feel small that Zach’s family wasn’t.

  “What’s up, Z?” called Noah.

  Zach had a black Slipknot ball cap pulled low over his face to shield him from the rain. “Shoulda brought your ark today.”

  Noah nodded, past laughing at the old joke. He had heard them all. They walked for a while, Zach chattering about how his older sister had come home past curfew last night with a hickey, and how his parents had gone berserk on her for two hours.

  “It’s that guy Joey Donnelly that works at the Quik Lube, the one with the tribal tats all down his arms. My mom says he’s gonna give Meagan an STD. She only dates him to piss off my dad.” A car swept past, and they both had to leap onto a lawn to avoid the wall of dirty spray. “Man, I wish we had a ride on days like this.”

  “Yeah,” Noah said noncommittally, feeling the pack move. How would he explain a car? Plus, he couldn’t drive.

  “There’s other options,” said Dante.

  “What?” asked Zach.

  “Nothing,” Noah said, yanking hard on his shoulder straps, causing a soft grunt from inside the backpack.

  Zach kept talking all the way to school, but since they had lockers in different hallways, Noah was soon by himself. He was about to shove the pack into the bottom of his locker, when the imp said, “Uh-uh, gotta keep me with you.”

  Noah looked around to see if anyone had heard. “No way, in class?”

  “I’ll be quiet.”

  “Sure. Zach heard you before. That was stupid.”

  “I won’t talk.”

  “You’ll fall asleep and start snoring.”

  “No, I’ll be really still and just listen. You might need me.”

  With a sigh, Noah shouldered the burden and went to English, and for the duration of the forty-five minute class Dante didn’t move or make a sound, though Noah was in such a panic that he would, that he barely heard the teacher. He started to relax in algebra, keeping the pack under his desk with one foot pressed against it, feeling for movement. There was none, and he soon found his thoughts drifting from the lesson towards just what he might be able
to do with Dante.

  What did he want? The imp’s suggestion about seeing Brooke naked sounded great, maybe even something more than that. He felt himself stir at the possibilities. He couldn’t have a car, but he could get a really cool bike. There was lots of stuff he’d like to have, but the trouble was in explaining how he got it. His mom would think he stole it, and what could he tell her? Noah never thought he would have trouble deciding how to make wishes, and that was really what the imp was offering, wasn’t it? He felt stupid for not knowing.

  During lunch, part of the answer presented itself.

  “What’s up, butthead?” Noah heard the familiar voice and winced a second before the hand slapped the back of his head, hard. He and Zach were in the cafeteria, and Noah was eating a cheese sandwich he had made for himself. Mom couldn’t afford school lunch. He liked his own sandwiches better, anyway.

  Tanner Peck moved right into Noah’s space, towering over him. He was a big, solid kid with a flat haircut and bad skin, skin Noah sensed would go full pizza by the time he reached high school. Normally a pack of his cronies ran with him, but they weren’t around at the moment. It didn’t matter. Tanner could do intimidation all by himself.

  “How’s that welfare lunch?” He flicked at Noah’s sandwich, leaving an imprint of his finger in the soft bread. There’d be no eating it now, Noah thought. Tanner picked his nose.

  Zach sat across the table, watching without comment. Noah didn’t blame him. No reason to draw Tanner’s fire if he didn’t have to.

  “Hey, Tanner,” Noah said, looking up at the broad ninth-grader.

  “Hey Tanner,” the bigger boy mocked in falsetto. “You sound like a homo, Benefield.” He looked at Zach. “He your little homo buddy?”

  Neither responded. Answering just encouraged him, and the best thing to do was just ride it out until he got bored and went away. Unfortunately, the lack of a reaction compelled him to dial it up as well.

  “What is it, pussy? You afraid to say anything? Scared I’ll shove that welfare cheese up your homo ass?” Then he leaned in close, his breath reeking of bad dental hygiene and cigarette. “I bet you like it in the ass, just like your welfare mom. My dad says she does it for money down at the Aces Tavern on Fridays.”