Twisted Imaginings: Vol 2, page 1
Twisted Imaginings: Vol 2
Garry Charles
Published: 2010
Tag(s): Circus Clowns "Big Top" Tunnel Faceless Glass Creatures Hungry Blood
Twisted Imaginings: Vol 2
Garry Charles
Cover image courtesy of www.dailypictures.info
Feedbooks Edition
Published by Garry Charles at Feedbooks
License Notes
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The Greatest Show on Earth originally seen in Estronomicon
The Tunnel is now available as a sreenplay entitled “The Faceless”
***
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
Nathaniel first wanted to join the circus when he was only four years old.
It was his parents fault really and if they'd known back then how things would turn out I very much doubt that a trip to the big top would have been his birthday present that year.
His father had seen the poster glued, at an odd angle, to the window of the bus station as he waited for the number forty three to arrive and transport him to work.
It was a gaudy notice that attempted to shout out the arrival of the circus, but not any old circus mind you. Oh, no.
CAPTAIN MONOTONE’S
ALL SINGIN’
ALL DANCIN’
HALLOWEEN CIRCUS
The letters were every colour of the rainbow and highlighted with what could have been powdered diamonds or, as John rightly thought, glitter.
Under the emblazoned title there was an equally colourful picture that showed a bright yellow and red big top, the canvas doors pulled back to allow the procession of Clowns, animals and all matter of entertainers to flow out into the foreground.
John slowly let his gaze travel over the figures that filled the poster, positive that he could hear the faint fanfare of a circus band in the distance.
He smiled to himself at the memory of his first circus, remembering the sights and sounds that had amazed him as a youngster. He knew immediately that Nathaniel would love it. In fact it couldn’t have come at a better time. Due to work they hadn’t even managed a summer holiday and now it was pushing on towards Christmas. John needed to treat the family to at least an evening out and this could be perfect.
He scanned the lower quarter of the poster and his smile widened as he read.
CAPTAIN MONOTONE INVITES YOU TO HIS CIRCUS
BETWEEN 29-31 OCT
Nathaniel’s birthday was on the 31. It would be the perfect gift for his little boy and a way to get the family out of the house for a few hours.
That’s if it wasn’t too expensive.
He let his eyes drop even further and leant forward so that he could read the small print at the base.
Ringside: Adult £10 Child £5
Other seats: adult £7 Child £4
John quickly did the math on ringside seats. There would be Nathaniel and Susan, his sister. It went without saying that John would be going and Cath would go under pressure. After all it was their son’s birthday present.
“Thirty quid,” he spoke out loud to himself, the smile still etched on his face.
Before the bus pulled up and the doors hissed open he had jotted down the number for pre-ordering tickets and decided to ring from work and before Cath could talk him out of it.
***
John returned home that night to a mixed reception. He was used to coming in on an evening and having Nathaniel run along the hallway and into his arms.
What he didn’t expect was Cath, stood at the base of the stairs with a face like thunder.
“Hi.” He tried to sound light hearted, but faced with the Medusa that was his wife he felt his soul shrivel a little more than it had the day before.
“What do you call these?” In her hand she held four, fanned out colourful pieces of card.
“Tickets.” He could see the name 'Captain Monotone' across the front one. “I didn’t think they’d have arrived yet.” He'd only rung the booking office an hour before leaving work.
“Oh, they arrived alright.” She glared at him. “Hand delivered by a freaky looking clown and a bloody monkey.” It appeared that Cath wasn’t seeing the fun side of things.
“Daddy, it was a real clown.” Nathaniel’s head peeped around the wall at the top of the stairs, a happy grin nearly splitting his face in half. “You should have seen the car…”
“Bed young man,” Cath snapped.
“The clown said we’re going to the circus.” Nathaniel was far too excited to take any heed of his mother.
“That’s right Nate.” John couldn’t hold his smile inside any longer.
Cath threw the tickets at him and stormed away to the kitchen, mumbling under her breath and cursing her husband’s actions. Nathaniel crept down the stairs and stopped halfway as he watched his father remove his coat and shoes.
“I love you daddy,” he whispered.
“You too, Nate.” In fact he loved both the kids, the best thing to have come out of the marriage. “Now back to bed.” The boy waved and ran back up the stairs.
John stood in the hallway for a few minutes thinking about where to start when he followed Cath into the kitchen.
He hoped that once she heard about the bonus and the promotion, she wouldn’t be so hard to convince that the circus was a good idea.
***
Nathaniel lay in bed without a worry or a care in the world. He was going to the circus, a Halloween circus and he was sure it would be better than anything else ever, cartoons even.
His heart had jumped in his chest earlier in the day when he'd looked out the window and seen the spooky car pull up outside his house. He’d laughed out loud as it shuddered to a halt and the door had fallen off with a clang. The car had sat sputtering for a while before there was a resounding bang and a black cloud filled with orange sparks had erupted from the rear.
He'd still been laughing when the monkey had jumped out the back of the car, jumping from one leg to other impatiently as it waved the pink envelope in its hand and waited for the driver to join it.
“Wow!” The laughing stopped as from the far side of the funny looking car appeared the clown.
Nathaniel had been filled with awe at such a sight and felt his breath leave his body when he realised that the clown was waving at him. He waved back.
He giggled to himself as he drifted off to sleep still thinking about the surprise visitor, his eyelids falling heavily as thinking became dreaming. And in the dream version events were different.
Very different.
He began to toss around under the covers as memory was distorted by nightmare.
The clown waves at him and he waves back as the monkey makes what he doesn’t realise is a vulgar hand gesture. He laughs at this, but he feels that all is not right. The sky is somehow wrong and the heat in the room has grown oddly chilly.
The thick, red painted lips of the clown part in an obscene smile that reveals teeth of dirty yellow with hints of green and in the gaps writhe white coloured creatures, bloated and blind.
The monkey scurries down the path, jumps over the boarder of freshly planted flowers that no longer seem quite as fresh and leaps up onto the window ledge.
The clown follows, doing cart wheels and back flips towards the front door. Its oversized shoes make a sickening slapping noise each time they hit the paving slabs, like raw meat being thrown on a marble slab. It comes to an abrupt halt level with the window and for the first time Nathaniel sees how unclean the funny man truly is.
Its make up is no longer the white of drifting snow. Now it’s dried grey and filled with cracks. Around the eyes the cracks are filled with a creamy substance that hints at disease and rot. The orange hair is patchy and matted. The scalp is scabby and flaking as the clown wobbles it head.
The monkey starts banging its head on the window and Nathaniel turns to find it gyrating its hips against the glass, a wet pink thing sticking up between its legs and leaving smears on the pane.
The clown moves on tiptoes to the front door and knocks three times, leaning back and raising a finger to its lips in a signal to remain quiet. The red paint around its mouth is now running from its chin and dripping down onto its ill fitting top. The drops hit the off white fabric and spread into large, rust coloured spots.
Nathaniel hears his mothers footsteps in the hallway and he wants to scream at her to stop, but it’s too late.
Nathaniel woke with a start the next morning and, for the tiniest fraction of a second, he was scared. Then it was gone, along with the bad dream. If he’d remembered it then maybe he could have changed things but, as it happens, he didn’t.
***
For John the night before had been better than good. He didn’t see Cath smile much anymore so her reaction to his good news had knocked him sideways.
“You should’ve said before.” She didn’t bother to add ‘I went off on one’.
“I was going to.” John also chose to leave the sentence hanging, she was smiling and that was all that mattered.
“I do love you John.” That was the bit that had knocked him sideways.
He couldn’t remember the last time she'd shown him any true affection. Yes, they still had sex on a regular basis, but it w as always mechanical and done for necessity, not loving or mutual.
“It’s just that I hardly see you anymore.” She had tears in her eyes. “You work late through the week and you’re gone most weekends.” She really did love him, but married life hadn’t turned out how she’d dreamed it would.
“I know love.” He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. “No more weekends, I promise.” She shook in his embrace. “This is a new start.” And he meant it.
***
At breakfast Nathaniel noticed the difference in his parents, but he was still too young to comprehend what it meant. His mum had done a full fried breakfast and she was sat eating it with a smile that, in his small thoughts, made her the most beautiful mummy in the world.
Even Susan seemed to be happier than usual, as if the magic that had been worked on his parents had somehow rubbed off on her over night. Before he’d finished eating the same thing had begun to infect Nathaniel and he couldn’t stop smiling.
Things were good.
***
The week up to Nathaniel’s birthday and the all important circus trip was probably the best week of his young life.
His mum and dad’s good mood of that first morning proved to be anything but a fluke. His dad was home early every evening and the family had started doing the unheard of and sitting down together for dinner. His mum was like a different person altogether and had begun wearing dresses that showed off her still trim figure and her face had taken on the glow of a teenager in love for the first time.
Susan stopped being her usual teenager type self and even went as far as helping out around the house and astounded everyone by using the dishwasher and even the vacuum cleaner.
Everything was great except for the dreams that plagued Nathaniel’s night time hours. He would awake every morning and suffer intense panic, but could never remember why.
His shout comes too late and his mum opens the door on the clown that is not quite right. The monkey scurries between her legs, pausing for a brief look up the knee length skirt and then runs into the living room. It stops at Nathaniel’s feet and looks up at the boy with a smile of viciously sharp incisors.
“Hello my dear.” The clown speaks with a voice too high pitched to be real. “Nice day for the circus.” He pushes passed her and kicks the door shut with an over sized boot.
“Mum.” Nathaniel is scared, his bottom lip trembling as the monkey tugs at his trouser leg and holds out the creased, finger marked envelope.
“Hi Nate,” the clown screeches as it looms around the door frame and Nathaniel freezes under the gaze of the black voids that should be its eyes. “What’s wrong boy? Cat got ya tongue?” The clown licks the blood red paint from around its mouth, smearing the colour to a greyish pink.
“Mum.” Nathaniel tries to move, but the monkey grasps his ankle and squeezes painfully.
“Jesus, woman, you’re raising the boy to be a fucking girl,” laughs the clown.
Nathaniel knows the bad word, he’s heard daddy use it before.
“Nate.” His mum tries to reach him, but the clown pulls her close to him and sniffs her neck.
“Don’t worry about the boy.” He drags her towards the stairs. “He’ll be fine.” It looks at Nathaniel one last time, cocks it head and winks.
Nathaniel watches as his mum and the clown disappear up the stairs and he wants to cry. The monkey sits and stares at him with unblinking eyes, not once loosening its grip on the his leg.
Nathaniel hears a yelp of pain. He knows it’s his mum and he attempts to pull free, but the monkey sinks its claws into tender flesh. Anger flares in the boy’s head and without thinking he acts.
Before he has realised what he has done the poker is in his hand and swings through the air, connecting hard with the monkey’s forehead. The skull, in real life would crack, but this is the world of nightmares and it pops like an over inflated balloon, showering Nathaniel in a thick fluid that smells like a battery placed on his tongue.
The grip on his ankle spasms twice and then relaxes. With the poker in hand Nathaniel makes his way to the base of the stairs. From above he can hear his mum sobbing and a constant ‘HONK, HONK’ noise that reminds him of the horn on his bicycle out in the garden.
‘HONK, HONK’
Poker raised, he steels himself and takes the first step.
‘HONK, HONK’
He rushes the next three steps and then pauses as a tremor of terror nearly brings forth vomit.
'HONK, HONK’
His mum’s sobbing increases in volume and tempo.
‘HONK, HONK’
He charges the last half of the stairway and hits the bed room door running.
‘HONK, HONK’
The door swings open and the clown smiles.
‘HONK, HONK’
***
The night before his birthday was, however, a peaceful one. Nathaniel didn’t manage to sleep deep enough to dream, the thought of his trip always keeping him with one foot in the world of the waking. More than twice his mum visited his room and pulled the covers back up around his neck, telling him softly to settle down.
“If you stay awake all night you’ll fall asleep at the circus,” she said and tickled him under the chin. He responded with the innocent laugh that only a child can give.
“I won’t sleep at the circus.” He paused, lifting an arm above the covers and making a cross with his finger above his chest. “I promise.”
“OK, just try and sleep.” His mum leaned over and kissed his forehead, pushing his fringe away with her finger as she did so.
“Goodnight Nate.”
“Goodnight mum.” Even then he still only managed a half dozing nod.
***
From the moment he woke up on his forth birthday Nathaniel was ready and eager to head off for the circus, ready for the thrills and chills the haunted treat would have to offer his young mind.
“Mum, dad, wake up.” He jumped up and down on the bed, already dressed and with his hair brushed.
“Nate.” His mum sat up slowly, not ready to open her eyes and greet the early morning.
“Happy birthday, son.” His dad grinned at him and held out his arms for a hug and Nathaniel fell into them, giggling wildly as John feigned having the wind knocked out of his lungs. “You’re getting too big for this.” He rubbed his side. “I think you broke a rib.”
“I’m ready for the circus.” Nathaniel jumped back up and for the first time his parents noticed that he already had on his coat and shoes.
“That’s not until tonight.” His mum pulled him close and he wriggled impatiently. “But there’s other stuff downstairs that needs opening.”
“Yay.” He leapt from the bed. “It’s my birthday.” His parents looked at each other and smiled at the thumping of his shoes descending the stairs and the shouted Happy Birthday that came from Susan’s room.
“I can’t believe she didn’t moan about having to come with us tonight,” Cath stated. “I’m sure she’d prefer to go out with her friends.”
“Things are looking good.” John smiled, leaned over and kissed his wife firmly on the lips.
***
For Nathaniel the day was a blur of happiness and before he realised it the morning and afternoon had flown by and it was time to go to the circus. He was the first at the door and hopped from one foot to the other as he urged his family to hurry.
“Come on dad.” The grin on his face was huge, splitting his young face with a joy that John could not remember having ever seen before.
“I’m going as fast as I can.” He fumbled with his coat and his son began laughing at his dad’s silliness.
“You’re like a clown.” Nathaniel had never been happier.
He walked the whole way, taking his Sister’s hand until they reached the end of the street, at which point he ran forward, grabbing hold of mum and dad’s hands and began swinging between them, throwing his legs as high as he could on the forward swing.
Everyone seemed to have fallen into the holiday spirit and they passed houses with pumpkin lights in the windows and plastic tombstones in the gardens. It all added to the anticipation of the main event.
The excitement building in Nathaniel’s stomach was unbearable for a four year old and his head was swimming with images of what the circus was really going to be like.
He had, from his bedroom window, seen the big top every morning. As soon as the sun had began to filter through his curtains he had been up and out of bed, climbing onto his toy box just to get a look at the billowing canvas of red, yellow and green. His eyes had widened at the sight of the oversized skulls, cauldrons and witches that covered the day glow fabric. But tonight was special because he was finally going to see it from the inside and the secrets of the circus would be revealed to him.
