The Nightmare Within

by Glen Krisch

  At first, the mirror images amused the crowd outside the Freak's enclosure. Once they understood that Mr. Freakshow was playing a trick on them, they actually seemed to enjoy themselves. Some acted as if they were looking at a funhouse mirror. A middle-aged man made a googlie-eyed face, laughing spasmodically, and then flattened his face against the enclosure glass. Good.

  Mr. Freakshow had his first volunteer. And what a volunteer this maggot would be!

  From his observance, Mr. Freakshow learned his volunteer's name, Graham. He was married, and had gained five pounds a year every year of his twelve-year marriage. Unsatisfied in his marriage, he found solace during late night runs for bags of fast food burgers. The added pounds stressed his inherently weak heart, and made his wife even less interested in him physically. The Freak slowly changed Graham's reflection, incrementally, until the image the human was looking at represented his wildest indiscretion, a fantasy that he could never act out in real life:

  The replica-Graham approached a woman wearing only a leather thong and two straps holding back her overly large dream-breasts. A formal nun's habit held back her hair, and her eyes were like ice glaring out from under the black fabric. She didn't say a word but lunged at him, ruthlessly grabbing him by the tongue, yanking it hard enough to send Graham to his hands and knees. She brandished a well-used school paddle, reminiscent of the discipline paddle used by his fourth grade teacher, some dried up cunt of a nun (Graham's description, not Mr. Freakshow's). The replica-Graham hid his face from the woman, hid his perked smile when he saw the paddle. This hard-as-nails, cold-hearted bitch, so unlike the feeble old cunt that used to paddle him at least once a week when he was a child, went to town on the replica-Graham. She pulled back, and without holding back an ounce of force, slammed the paddle against his ass. The snap of wood on flesh was so loud that people in the foyer could hear the impact, unaware of what was happening upstairs.

  She didn't let up. This dream woman, Graham's darkest inner-most thought, pummeled him viciously. The replica-Graham couldn't hide his pleasure. He fell to his stomach, groaning, wincing at every slap of the paddle, but welcoming more, wanting more, acting as freely as if he had his eyes closed and no one else could see his thoughts.

  But the real Graham, the clown who had pressed his face against the glass of the Freak's enclosure, shied away, his face red with embarrassment. The other onlookers had no clue that the image in the mirror had come from Graham's mind.

  Mr. Freakshow was only starting.

  His onlookers were once again entertained by Mr. Freakshow, and they would draw blood soon enough to get a closer glimpse of his mirror. He could see it in their eyes and smell the thickness of their desperation even through the glass. These sick fucks would get what they deserved.

  In the front row, two men sandwiched a woman protectively, one her boyfriend of three years, the other, named Paul, a friend she had grown up with. They were crammed together against the glass, unable to move away even if they wanted to. Would the Freak make them want to move away?

  He took hold of their reflections and molded them, taking the darkest thoughts of each of them, and letting their reflections roll with it. The boyfriend-replica smiled over his shoulder at his girlfriend, a snake's smile. He took hold of the girlfriend-replica and pinched the skin of her arm until she winced, until she cried out in pain. But the Paul-replica, the friend who would always be just a friend, had pressed his hand against the girl's exposed thigh, just below the fabric of her skirt. He slid his fingers into the dark recesses, sneaking ever so higher on the tease-replica's tanned thigh, even as she tried to resist her boyfriend's torment. Her boyfriend now used his other hand to slap her face, first with his palm, and then backhanding her. Unable to move away from her boyfriend, the girl-replica leaned against Paul's insistent pressure, inviting him closer, making him pleasure her to take away her pain.

  The three real life people could barely look each other in the eye, unwilling to see the truth they found there. They struggled against the crowd, all three of them separately, trying to get away from the awful reflection.

  The Freak was starting on the next sick fuck gaper, some stew-brain numb fuck pedophile, and oh boy would this one set the crowd afire!

  But he hadn't planned on the real life girlfriend pulling out a can of pepper spray. Or for her to use it on someone behind her, someone she couldn't actually see for all the clamoring onlookers. This unseen bastard was trying to replicate the reflection and had his hand creeping up her thigh, had the tips of his fingers pressed against the curve of her buttocks. She greeted this violation with several sprays from the can. The pepper spray cut a fine path through the air, and would have been dead on target, hitting this unseen pervert square in the face, but a circulation vent was just overhead. A small vent grate so innocuous that no one noticed the gentle breeze brushing their skin. Not until the thin stream of pepper spray hit the tiny fan's invisible jet stream and showered out over the crowd like particulate matter in a dust storm.

  All hell broke loose.

  Some woman--who the Freak learned through his mental probing, had won a small lottery and hadn't told her husband--had her pert little nose smashed up against the glass by the build up of pressure from the mob. Her blood smeared against the glass, the cartilage of her nose ground to pulp. The crowd drowned out her cries.

  Even as the crowd dispersed, with the excruciating pain attacking their nasal and sinus passages, the reflections carried on their performances. The darkest lurking thoughts from the gray matter of these sick fucks. While not able to use all of the choice information from his observances, Mr. Freakshow was happy with the results.

  While the reflections continued to grunt, paddle, lick, and abuse, the humans screamed and stumbled away from his enclosure. Within a couple minutes, the foyer below was also flowing with screams and the sounds of fists striking muscle and bone. The fire alarm blared, an angry noise that the Freak found intolerably annoying.

  Mr. Freakshow rose from his throne of human skulls and gave the mayhem he had orchestrated a standing ovation.

  Chapter 13

  Kevin hesitated to open his eyes. When he did, he took in his bedroom through squinting eyes, expecting to see his mom next to his bed, as if she had woken him.

  His room was empty.

  He felt violated and somehow cut off from his family. The full moon was high in the sky, a bright blue disc painting everything it touched with its cool glow. An ink spot of murky shadow first constricted, then dilated, near his dresser in the corner of the room. He strained against his body, against some unknown force that held him motionless. He could control his eyes, but was too afraid to close them, and yet he didn't want to see what was lurking in the corner, either. His heart pounded and the harder he struggled to move an arm, or a mere finger or toe, the more adrenaline churned through his system. He was paralyzed, undeniably, maddeningly paralyzed. His breath shuttered through his lungs as he struggled against blacking out.

  The shadow shifted in front of his dresser and seemed to absorb the profuse moonlight. That was when Kevin smelled a nauseating and all-too-familiar smell. Dog shit in a baker's oven. The septic ooze of a backed up sewer. The kind of smell that lingers even under held breath. Mr. Freakshow.

  The Freak hadn't disturbed his sleep since Maury transmuted the dream from his mind almost a week ago. This time he didn't bother with a disguise for his visit. During Kevin's countless nightmares the monster's appearance would always change, but what he now saw was without a doubt his full-blown freak self. Knuckles as big as a man's kneecaps, shoulders hunched so his hands nearly touched the floor. Ratty long black hair dripping grease and carrying debris that looked like chicken bones. A network of crisscrossing gray scars covering his forearms.

  "Hello, Kevin," Mr. Freakshow whispered. "It's been so long. We need to catch up like old friends. What you and your mom did wasn't very nice, so rudely removing me from your mind like that. But things are better now. I didn't understand at first,
but things are so much better than just roosting up in your little kid head. The world is so much larger, and a lot less limiting, and Dr. Bennett, my so-called keeper, is a blithering idiot."

  Mr. Freakshow filled the window. The moonlight now shied away from him, leaving his body surrounded by gravid blackness. Kevin still couldn't move. Tears dribbled down his cheeks and left cool trails in their wake.

  "It's not too awful. You see, I absorb the knowledge of those around me. They leak information like your daddy's blood pouring from his gut. And these," Mr. Freakshow said, showing him a full view of his whip-scarred forearms, "I no longer have to worry about. Ever since I was released from you, boy, you've no longer been able to torment me. No longer can you fight me, shackle me, lash out at me with your hatred for me. Every time you would close your eyes and willfully oppose me, you would whip me like some wayward animal. Times have changed. And I will have my revenge."

  Kevin closed his eyes, squeezed away his tears and tried to wake up from this nightmare.

  "Oh, Kevin, you can't wake up. You're already awake. Well, almost. More like, halfway awake. That's why you can't move. When you fall asleep your body is paralyzed to prevent you from harming your poor fragile body."

  No… Kevin fought as hard as he could to move a single muscle. Sweat dotted his brow from his effort.

  "You can see me, yes, but I remain in my confining cage, but that won't last--it won't last another twenty-four hours. I'm just visiting to let you in on a little secret. Do you want to know my little secret, and hold it dear and close to your heart? You have to promise not to tell anyone. Things can get messy if you do. Your mom is a beautiful woman. It wouldn't take much for me to want to taste her flesh, to wipe away the pooling blood from her exposed bones, to collect her naked skull to mount on my throne. Her skull would ideally accent the end of my armrest, her empty eye sockets unblinking and glorious. Your grammy, she's a whole different story, I'm afraid. I would have to prod and probe. Gnaw some of her gamy flesh, pull off her scalp like a swim cap, you know, to find that inner beauty of which you humans always speak. That might take more time, and she might suffer, that poor old blind bitch, and you know I would give you a front row seat for the whole spectacle.

  "That's why no one can know I'm here. You don't want me to hurt your family, do you, Kevin? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  The beast crawled onto the bed, his muscled weight pressing the bedsprings flat with a squeak. He placed his hands on either side of Kevin's head, bringing his face within inches of his. Mr. Freakshow's thick claws ripped into the fitted sheet of the bed. Kevin was willing his legs to fly up and strike the Freak from his bed, but he couldn't even twitch his nose.

  "Do me a favor, blink twice if you understand the importance of silence when dealing with this situation," Mr. Freakshow said, giving Kevin an unpleasant view inside the monster's mouth. His gums were swollen black and his teeth jutted from them at crooked angles, looking like shattered bone. Slick worms slithered through the festering gaps between his teeth. Kevin's throat involuntarily clenched to ward off his gorge.

  Kevin blinked once. He clenched his eyes shut a second time and paused a heartbeat or two. When he opened them again, the beast was still pressing down on his paralyzed body, his stench cloying in his nostrils.

  "Okay. Good, we have an agreement. My secret, Kevin, is so simple, yet so very important." He placed his broad palm against Kevin's chest, spreading his fingers wide enough to rest in either of the boy's armpits.

  The pressure increased on Kevin's chest, and he could sense the enormous force Mr. Freakshow held in his powerful upper body. He was having difficulty inhaling; his lungs could only expand so much now.

  "I need you. More accurately, Kevin, I need your heart. I need to drain your pumping heart-blood down my gullet. Then and only then will I be free." He pressed his fingers against Kevin's chest, propping his curved claws directly over his heart.

  Kevin barely heard the beast with all the blood pulsing through his ears. His mind raged against the weight on top of him, and in the distance, so far away it couldn't be a part of him, Kevin felt his hand twitch. One solitary twitch. Not much of a defensive blow, but at least he did something. He focused on his finger bones, then the network of fragile hand bones and their connection to his wrist, and could feel the memory of their last movement. A muscle memory. Kevin stared at Mr. Freakshow, while tensing his fingers.

  Then there was a pain Kevin had never felt before. A pain so swift and sharp he nearly passed out. It was Mr. Freakshow stabbing his fingers into Kevin's chest, through the soft muscle and cartilage of his upper ribs. The pain brought sweat streaming down his face. Suddenly, electricity bolted through his arm as if a hatpin had stabbed him. With the electricity came movement.

  I am moving my arm!

  More control; electricity danced over his skin, allowing Kevin to move his extremities.

  Mr. Freakshow plunged his claws wrist-deep in Kevin's chest, even as the boy's entire body quivered with pain. In one triumphant second, Kevin regained complete control over his body. He riled against his attacker while his blood was seeping into the sheet and the mattress below. He clenched his fingers into a fist and threw a punch at Mr. Freakshow.

  But Mr. Freakshow was gone. At the moment his knuckles should have connected with the Freak's face, he disappeared.

  Kevin was awake. Fully awake this time.

  He jumped from bed and looked in every corner of the room and then under his bed and in the closet. He checked the lock on the window, and when everything seemed clear, he sat down on his bed.

  What just happened?

  His first instinct was to run to get his mom.

  But what if it were true? Everything Mr. Freakshow said about hurting his family. No, he couldn't seek the comfort and reassurance of his mom. What he had just experienced couldn't have been a dream. He remembered every detail of the grisly encounter, and none of it was fading like it always did. Even so, his shirt was intact, and his chest was not bloody and broken.

  If it had been a dream, then what Dr. Bennett said had been a lie. He said once he took his nightmare away, it was gone for good. Kevin didn't know what to think or do. He rolled onto his side on the bed and curled up with a pillow.

  As he pondered his dream, his fingers absently toyed with a rip in the sheet. He quickly sat upright, ready to call out for help, but he held back his panic when Mr. Freakshow's words returned to him. He felt the monster's claw marks in the fabric and knew he couldn't say a word to his family. Kevin didn't know what he was going to do, but whatever it was, he would have to act alone.

  Mr. Freakshow cursed himself for his foolishness and stalked about his cage feeling the weakness brought on by his efforts. His wings hung limply at his sides and his shoulders slumped from the grave internal purging of his energy stores.

  Going to the boy had been a test. Even Mr. Freakshow didn't know the limits of his power, but it was a worthy venture considering the knowledge learned during the excursion. He established the fact that he still had a connection with the boy, a connection that would hopefully prove invaluable when he escaped this hellhole. If he still had a foothold within the boy, he was still a part of him. He would be able to discern his location and intentions.

  And in a way, he was topping off the boy's fear. Of all the collected dreams, he alone knew his dreamer's fear led to his own strength. One more fright before he escaped, one more fright to add to his own strength.

  Once he found the boy, he would dig his claws into his chest. He would spread his delicate breastbone, and pull out his engorged heart and consume it, gleefully relishing every drop of blood. Then the Freak would be free. Immortal. The thought of stealing his freedom from the boy sent a chill of excitement through the exposed ridges of his spine. He would be free and it would be soon.

  He shouldn't have wasted his energies on the humans, but he couldn't help his enthusiasm. The whole display of the their reflections… that was merely for the simple ple
asure of observing the humans' herd instinct--their trampling and reviling of the weak of their kind, to witness their boundless frailty. They were little more than sentient pests, these clamoring maggots; they had neither fangs to tear with, nor wings to glide upon. As the crowds had grown denser, he knew he had to do something to show his audience what they looked like from his perspective. The whole series of events made him laugh. While they gawped and hooted at the Freak, he simply pointed a mirror at them and revealed the truth. Their reaction was predictable and brought a brief levity to his confinement.

  Once he escaped and killed the boy, it would be like looking into a mirror and finding his own salvation. But for now, he needed rest. He would need all of his reserves to make his escape. Once free of this degrading internment, he couldn't afford any vulnerability.

  With a small strand of energy, Mr. Freakshow reached out to the boy. He subtly came upon the boy and wormed into his mind, finding the root of himself still imbedded within him. The Freak closed his eyes and slowly pried open the tightly folded seed he occupied in the boy's mind. He could see through his innocent eyes, see him flitting about his bed, fearful of returning to sleep. To gain consolation and to feel closer to his quarry, the Freak eased into a comfortable stasis just shy of the boy's awareness. He was an unseen voyeur lurking behind the boy's eyelids. The Freak rested and waited for just the right time to make his move.