The Lost Circus, Part 13
Serial | Horror
Pssst - new to the circus? Start here!
In our last chapter, our hero made a terrible discovery: the performers, like the rest of the circus, are more than what they seem. After realizing that they, too, had lives before joining this horrific organization - and after the mysterious visions fade - he finally starts his escape…
"Ringmaster!"
The Gypsy's voice sounds fuzzy, out of focus. I'm halfway down the line when I hear her, and I don't look back. This place is madness. It's insanity, and it's getting to me. I have to get out. I have to go, get on a train, check on my mom, feed my plants. I was roped in and seduced by the magic and the lights, and now I have to go.
"Ringmaster!"
No. No. I screw my eyes shut and will my feet to keep going. Just a little bit farther, and I'll reach the end of the line. A few more steps and I'll be out of here. I can run towards the town - or anywhere, really - and flag down a car, or call a taxi, or something. There's still a chance. I just need to keep going.
My coat snuggles into me, a warm embrace from a long-lost friend. In a haze, I try to brush it off. The lapels pin themselves against my chest as I fumble with the buttons. The little gold pins slip through my grasp, and I curse loudly and try again. My feet feel heavier, almost like Arthur trying to slow me down, but it's not him. It's not any of them.
Faintly, I hear the Gypsy call again. My head shakes, as if telling her and every other freak that they're not going to win. I'm getting out of here, even if it kills me.
The crowd's cheers sound like white noise. The Big Top's three rings turn fuzzy, slurring across my vision. I blink hard, and scrub my fingers into my eyes, but the blur stays. I feel dizzy and lightheaded, and even though I tell myself it's just a dream, it's getting hard to hear my own voice. Somehow, I wonder if I'm losing myself, becoming fainter. Disappearing inside the Big Top. Joining the madness. Becoming one with the show.
She calls my name a third time, and my steps slow. I feel a smile stretch across my face. She sounds so lovely, so perfect in her role at the circus. Telling fates, spinning yarns. Pulling the wool over some poor schmuck's eyes, convincing them to spend more to hear another tale. She was the perfect hire for her job. Exactly what we need.
No. I try to shake my head again, shake off the intrusive thoughts. No. This is not me. I am a photographer. I was taking pictures and got stupid. I don't want to be in charge. I want to go home.
This is home.
The voice in my mind speaks again, clearly this time. Suddenly, I know it. I can place it. I remember it, from a long time ago. Calling my name, talking to me, laughing at some dumb joke I said. Sitting outside on the back porch, teaching me how to drink beers at sixteen and telling stories about tall tales that never happened. At least, so I'd believed.
Just hearing it, and knowing who it belongs to, fills my heart with an ache that I haven't felt in years.
"Ringmaster!"
The pain, plus the dizziness and fatigue setting in, slow my steps. I want to go faster, get the hell out of here, but it's hard to fight through the sludge. I wish, desperately, that someone would explain to me what the hell is going on. Why I'm here. Why I found this place. Why I followed the handprints into an empty Big Top, and why it's full of people now. Why Arthur can't die, why the Gypsy told my mother's fate, why the Fat Lady isn't skinny by now and why the Tattooed Man slaughtered the entire menagerie.
"I can explain it all."
The Gypsy's voice somehow carries over the buzz of the crowd, slicing through my confusion like a hot knife through a birthday cake. She sounds concerned, empathetic. Not at all like the frosty, lifeless woman who read my mother's fate.
"You have questions. I can answer them. Listen to me, and everything you seek will be given to you."
I toss my head in reply, not daring to speak. Pushing forward, one foot at a time.
"I know what this means to you. We spend our lives hoping for truth, and surrounded by so many lies. I can help you. I know what really happened."
I manage to spit out a snort. If she thinks that'll turn my head, she's got another thing coming.
A few seconds of silence stretch into an eternity. I make it a couple more steps, and she speaks again.
"I hear it, too."
This works. I stop abruptly, pulled to a halt by her - lies? Truth? Is there a difference any more? The lines are getting blurry. I'm losing touch with reality, one minute at a time.
"You know it, don't you?"
Now I turn to face her, shock surely written on my face. Even with all of my running, I'm barely ten feet away from the head of the line, and can clearly see the sadness and steel written in her eyes. She has a story, that much is true. I know better than to listen to it. But she's here, and I'm desperate. I have to know why I’m here.
“I see it in your eyes. He speaks to you. Calls to you. You don’t want to listen, but you can’t deny he’s there.”
"No," I say. It's quiet, and not as defiant as I'd like, but it's there. Out in the open, where anyone can hear my disagreement.
“You think you’re the only one?” The Gypsy’s arm sweeps out, indicating the circus around us. "Look around you. See the chaos he brought to us? He said he loved us. He promised us the world. Money, fame - anything our hearts desired, he would give us. And he did. He brought me everything - trinkets, cards, food - and in return, I loved him with the passion of a thousand moons. He filled my ears with empty promises until the night I delivered our child. Then he was gone."
I keep my eyes pinned on her so I don't have to see the chaos the circus brings. No half-human, half-horses. No intestines for dinner. No bleeding clowns named Arthur. I don't want to see any of it. Never again, I promise myself. I won't see another second of this place again.
“He used us. He abused us. He said he needed our help, and when we needed him, he was nowhere to be found. He left us alone, and we learned to work together. While he made himself drunk on wine and money, we worked ourselves to the bone. While he spent every dime on whiskey and women, we put on our shows. And when he came back with empty pockets and promised he’d pay us soon, we believed him.”
I don’t want to trust her, but every word rings true. Flashes of memories strobe before my eyes - the cast of performers standing at my grandfather’s door, waiting for their wages. His theatrics of turning his pockets inside out to show how empty they were. The bitterness in their eyes, the sullen way they walked away after being lied to again.
If so, why didn’t they leave? Simply get up, pack their bags, and go?
“We couldn’t,” she says simply. “We weren’t allowed to leave.”
Again, I see it all playing out. Various performers sneaking away, trying to hide in the shadows after nightfall. I see Arthur hop off a train and take off through the fields, only to be thrown down to the ground by a guard suspiciously posted around the perimeter of the circus grounds. I see them drag him back to my grandfather’s rooms, and interrupt his midnight delight to ask what they should do with the runaway.
The branding. Arthur’s tongue. The screams.
I come back to the circus with a shudder. This is nothing like the man I knew as a child. The smiling grandfather who gave me birthday presents and played catch in the backyard. Who sat on the back porch and taught me to drink beer. Who handed over the keys to his old Chevy and told me to be careful with her.
Someone is lying here. I don’t know who. Maybe it’s the Gypsy, maybe it’s Arthur, maybe it’s the voice in my head. Something here isn’t real. I just don’t know what it is.
The Gypsy takes advantage of my hesitation and moves closer, her skirts rustling with every step. “He lied to us. To all of us. He kept us as prisoners in his monkey-cage, letting us out to perform for the show. He abused us. All of us. He was an evil tyrant, and in the end, he betrayed us all.”
The feeling that something isn’t right rubs like sandpaper in my skull. She has to be lying. It doesn’t make sense. The man who helped my single mom raise me can’t be an evil human. He was too good, too kind. Laughed too much. Always handing out quarters and buying me candy. He couldn’t have done this. It’s a trick. It’s her. She's a show-woman, preying upon my innocence. She has to be.
“I gave him a child.” Her voice rises, booming out across the three rings. “And when I gave birth, he abandoned me. While he got drunk, I raised her. While he bowed to the crowd, I nursed her. While he bedded other women, I taught her how to walk. And to thank me for all my troubles, when she was old enough, he stole her from me and sent her away.”
The crowd sighs in response, and my chest constricts. I remember my mother talking about her childhood. Growing up at boarding schools, surrounded by desks and teachers and uniforms. How her father came to visit on holidays, always bringing some kind of trinket from his travels. He’d always said her mother died in childbirth, that there were complications and they couldn’t save her. That he needed a safe place for her, to learn and make friends, so he sent her there. To me, it always made sense. Of course a single dad couldn’t take care of a daughter like that. Of course he would send her away. What else was he supposed to do?
Now, though, standing under the lights and surrounded by horrifying creatures of all kinds, I’m having second thoughts. Did my mom even know my grandmother’s name? Is it possible that she was alive, and missing her daughter every day? Could it be true that my grandfather - her dad - lied about everything, and when he was supposed to be with her, he traveled around conning people and stealing money from a circus?
No. It can’t be. There’s no way.
The Gypsy’s voice softens. “When I discovered his betrayal, I tried to find her. Tried to get her back. But she was already gone. My light, my darling girl, vanished. Without her, I descended into madness.” She gestures towards the line, and the Tattooed Man nods in response. “Michael found me there. He nursed me back to health. It took many days, but when I finally awoke, I knew what I had to do."
Another memory sparks behind my eyes. The Gypsy, a whole woman, dark hair swirling, long lashes flirting across the arena. My grandfather, his trademark mustache twirling, watches from the shadows as she prances around the ring, practicing her routine for the night's performance. She tosses him a smile, and he grins. The rings on her fingers sparkle as she beckons to him, drawing him into the heart of the show. She touches his shoulder and moves his hand to her hip. Together, they glide across the sawdust.
At the same time, in another tent, the Tattooed Man strikes a match.
I scream. The noise rips me out of the memory, dumping me into the three-ringed circus like a bag of potatoes. The ringing white noise of applause fills my ears as the crowd bursts into cheers, convinced that this is an incredible show. They can't see what I've seen, they can't know what's really going on. Now I understand why the circus seems so evil, why nobody in the towns would speak of it. I understand why everything is dead, or dying, or halfway gone. I understand why they all seem to hate me, even though I had no idea why.
I'm not here to take pictures. Not really. I didn't find this circus. The circus found me.
"Stop it!" My voice shrieks, the sound of a broken, wounded human. I try to run a second time, and instead fall to my knees, my fists slamming into sawdust and hay. My nose fills with the scent of dirt and sweat and blood, its coppery tang starting to feel familiar. "Stop it!" I scream again, over the noise of the crowd. "It's not my fault! Leave me alone!"
The Gypsy descends the platform, her golden skirt trailing in the dust as she approaches me. On either side, Arthur and the Tattooed Man - Michael - fall into line, taking their places at her shoulders like she owns them. And maybe she does. Maybe it’s all wrong, and my grandfather was never in charge here. Maybe it was her all along, just waiting for the chance to shine.
"He used me," she hisses, her tongue darting in and out of her mouth like a snake. "He used all of us. His greed is the reason this circus burned to the ground. It should've taken him with it, but fate had other plans." Then she steps back, and her bony smile turns malicious. My clown and the Tattooed Man reach for me. I try to crawl away, but I'm not fast enough. The Tattooed Man's hand clamps onto my coat's collar, lifting me into the air. The crowd bursts into wild applause as I hang there, my gold buttons flashing in the lights, on display for everyone to see.
"Now, you see?" asks the Gypsy. "He escaped his punishment, but we were not satisfied. Now he is dead, but we have you. And that, dear Christophe, is your fate.”
She snaps her fingers, and everything goes black.
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Dear readers,
Whoa! There it is, the build-up to the great crescendo of this circus. Now we know why he’s here, what he’s supposed to be doing, and even what his name actually is. Spoiler alert (in case I haven’t mentioned it yet) - he’s actually named for his grandfather.
You know, the crazy one.
So since this story is being written during its release, I’m discovering a lot of details that will have to be fixed in post. Like, more about the grandfather. More about the mom. When I started this story almost a year ago, it wasn’t supposed to get this detailed. It wasn’t even going to be this long. It was supposed to be a little one-off, maybe 20k words short story, and it’s become twice that so far. And we’re still not done yet.
For those of you who are still with us, thanks for dedicating your time to the circus. I really appreciate it. If you’re enjoying it, please like/favorite/share/shout from the rooftops and share the love!
Oh, and before I forget - what’s your favorite traditional circus act? Clowns, acrobats, sword swallowers? Whoever pops the popcorn? (They have an important job too, you know.)
Hold onto your hats - the show’s about to begin!
<3 Olivia