You ever had that thing that your family or neighborhood did that you thought everyone in the world did, but when you got into the real world, you realized it was just you? Well, lately, I’ve had a moment like that and not in a “tee-hee, isn’t that so funny” way. More like a, well,” I’m writing it here” kind of way.
Let me explain. I grew up in this nothing town in the middle of rural Minnesota called Ruspin. It was alright, I guess. Nice people, decent weather, and enough neighborly charm to make it feel like home. There were certainly worse places to grow up. That is until 1992, I think.
I was in fifth grade when I first heard about this carnival. Halloween was well on its way, so us kids were giddy for a good fright. A friend of mine was actually the one who started the rumors. Good guy. I think his name was Tim. Anyways, he started telling us about this creepy flier his parents found in the mail. It was for a place called “The Contortium of Fall” and promised the greatest frights we kids had ever seen. Naturally, we thought he was lying, but then we started getting flyers of our own.
I’ll admit, it was a really good flier. I still remember it all these years later. It was printed on this discolored paper that I think was supposed to look like human skin. There were even these little veins drawn on to add to that effect. The words were made to look like slash marks carved into the shape of letters and read:
Come one, come all, to the most terrifying attraction this side of the Mississippi!
The Contortium
For one night only, witnesses frights never before seen on this world!
Pretty standard stuff, but then there was the seal of approval that guaranteed every kid in town would flock to that place.
Must be 17 or older to enter or be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
One by one, kids found the flyers in the mail, and soon, the Contortium was on everyone’s mind. We excitedly speculated about what kind of frights were waiting for us every day in the wait for the event. Some thought there’d be a petting zoo with lions, alligators, snakes, and other deadly predators. Another told us John Wayne Gacy would show up with like balloon animals made of people’s guts or something. I myself was excited for the haunted house. Not that baby shit the church puts on every year. I meant a real haunted house, the kind you’d walk out of with scars and broken bones. All I needed was one decent cut on my face, and I’d be the coolest kid in school. The only problem was our parents, or so we thought.
It happened differently for each of us, but for me, it went down like this. I came home from school one day to find them sitting around the dinner table, waiting. “What’s this?” My Mother asked, sliding the flier over to me. I’d never been so mortified in my life. I almost crapped my guts out, waiting for the scolding of a lifetime, but then something weird happened. They smiled.
“This looks absolutely delightful,” I remember my Mother saying.
“It certainly does. When were you planning on telling us about this?” Added my Dad.
I thought they were tricking me at first. You know, like if they acted as though they were okay with the idea, they’d trick me into admitting I was gonna go. So I did what any fifth grader would have done.
“That’s not mine!” I blurted out. “It’s Sid’s. He made me keep it from you guys.” Sid, for the record, was my older brother and trusty scapegoat. My parents, however, didn’t seem to be buying it that time.
“Well, then we should invite him along too. When’s it on? Next Saturday? Perfect! We can all go together!” I kept waiting for them to reveal they were bluffing, but that moment never came. No matter how much I denied it, they kept acting like they genuinely wanted to go to the Contortium. And did so with an excitement I hadn’t ever seen from them. You might as well have told them they won the lottery; they were so happy. And it turns out, I wasn’t alone.
Turns out, every kid whose parents found out had the same story. Not only were adults acting excited about the Contortium, but they were downright orgasmic. Before long, not only was every kid going to the event but they were being taken by their parents. Several theories arose after that. The most popular one was that this was all some big, townwide trick and our parents had something real nasty planned for us at the Contortium. Or maybe the place was some boring old Halloween-themed fair and not the over-the-top, shit-your-pants kind of attraction we’d all been hoping for. Many kids even said they’d make up excuses not to go. I, however, wasn’t so lucky.
My parents were determined to take me, and nothing I said changed their minds. Sid managed to escape by doing the usual teenage thing of sneaking off to some party. I, on the other hand, had short legs and no driver’s license, and so was stuck with all my folks. There was something so disturbing about the way they talked about the Contortium. Their excitement was almost manic. They’d go on and on and on about the event, rambling for hours without ever pausing for breath. One time, my Mom had gotten so caught up in a tirade that she forgot to breathe and clean passed out. When I called my Dad to help, he asked me what happened and when I mentioned the Contortium, he picked up right where she left off. He sang its praises for hours on end, with a smile cut from ear to ear, all while standing over and ignoring his wife’s unconscious body. She was fine, but that image still haunts me.
Eventually, the day of the Contortium arrived, and I was already terrified. I’d talked with some other kids, and they all seemed just as frightened by their parents. It was the only comfort I had going into this, knowing that at least I would be alone. I’m not sure how my parents knew where it was. There was no address on the flier and no signs on the roads. We took this old dirt road deep into the woods.
I’ll be honest, I was kinda relieved when we finally arrived. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but a fair was ironically not it. It had all the typical fairground trademarks, colorful tents scattered around a big opening, a big top ten rising from the center, and a pitiful little fenceline surrounding it. There was even a decent-sized crowd. By the looks of it, everyone in town had come to attend, which made parking a nightmare. Little annoyances like that and hearing my parents bicker at the lack of said parking put me at ease. It wasn’t fun, but it was normal.
I stepped out of the car, feeling a little better about everything. I even saw a few kids nearby walking up to the place with their parents. We locked eyes across the parking lot and shared a small smile, glad to see some friendly faces. One by one, we all made our way to the ticket booth while I strained to get a look inside. The gate may not have been effective, but damn, did it make seeing inside hard. Trying to do so occupied me until my parents and I finally arrived at the ticket booth.
It was one of those old-fashioned booths that were essentially a wood box with some guy sitting inside, only this time, it wasn’t a bored teenager behind the glass. He wore what I think was a bellhop uniform, but one covered in dirt and mangled from disrepair. Nothing noteworthy there. The rest of him, however, was a much different story. His features were all distorted in cartoonish manners. You know, the kind that doesn’t look out of place in a drawing, but if you saw it in real life, it’d be unbelievably disturbing? His eyes were the size of fists and shallowed up his forehead, but his pupils remained the same, leaving them little more than specks in a sea of white. They all seemed to inflate almost to the point of bursting.
His smile was somehow weirder. It wasn’t just one line stretching from ear to ear. Instead, it wove up and down his face and curled up at his cheeks like the end of a mustache. The teeth were too big even for that monstrous mouth. They were also too perfect to be real. There were no imperfections, no stains, and no indication of wear and tear. It was uncanny how perfect they all were. That’s actually a good way to describe this guy; uncanny. Human, but distorted just to the edge of disturbing. Like a cartoon wearing a poorly made skin suit.
I froze to the spot when I saw him, mortified. My little mind swelled with horrifying ideas of how he’d gotten to look like that. Maybe some sort of surgery gone wrong or a really clever mask. Not that I ever found out.
“Kyle, stop staring!” My Mother snapped at me as she snatched up my wrist. “And don’t just stand there. You’re holding up the line. That’s very rude.”
I was only half aware of what she was saying, distracted by the fact she was pulling me right up the glass. The ticket taker didn’t move a muscle. His eyes simply rolled around in their sockets until finally setting on me. I would’ve dropped dead then and there if my Mother wouldn’t have grounded me for it.
“Two adults and one child.” My Father asked, his own smile on full display. The carnie rolled his eyes up to him and then reached out a hand. His movements were stiff and janky like a malfunctioning animatronic. He didn’t turn with the motions of his arms either, making it look like the rest of him was petrified in place.
I didn’t know what he was doing when he extended his hand; now, I wish I’d never learned.
“Oh right.” My Father said before reaching into his mouth and wrapping his fingers around a tooth. Then, he started shaking and wiggling around, slow at first and then with more ferocity as the tooth came loose. I could see him tearing away at his gums, blood guzzling down his chin. He even dug a nail into the spot where the tooth and gum meet, which he used as leverage to pry the tooth out further.
The whole time, however, he didn’t scream once, and neither did my Mother or anyone else. I looked to the adults, expecting them to know what to do, but they all stared ahead like nothing was happening. If anything, they looked more inconvenienced than anything else. My Mother was no different. She waved politely at the people behind us in line as if apologizing for my Father taking so long. She even threw him these annoyed looks at times, and all while nobody acknowledged the mutilation taking place before them.
The tooth came loose with a wet crack, and my Father not reacting pained in any way. Then, he repeated the gruesome process until he’d ripped out three teeth in total. Afterward, he dropped the teeth into the carnie’s hand, and my Mother casually handed him a handkerchief to cover his mouth. The ticket taker glanced down at the teeth, again only moving his eyes, and raised his other hand, which held a tiny dental scraper. He took the tool to the teeth only instead of cleaning them out, he began carving into their faces. This horrible noise came as he did so, making me cringe as I imagined that tool scraping away at my own teeth. He returned them to my Father, who took them without hesitation and led us inside.
“Kyle, hold onto this now.” He said through the bloodied handkerchief and handed me a tooth. On its face was carved “Admit One.” As you can expect, my little ten-year-old mind was horrified at everything I’d just seen, but worse yet was the way everyone was acting. No one screamed, no one cried; if anything, my parents looked at me as though I was the one acting weird.
“Now, don’t give us that look.” My Mother said. “Your Father paid good money for that ticket, and what do you say to him?”
I looked at my Dad, but he looked back with the same anger as my Mom.
“Th-thank you,” I said under my shaky breath.
“There we go. Now, I want you on your best behavior tonight, mister. These people have worked hard on this carnival, and you will respect that fact. So no throwing fits, no wandering off, and no heckling the performers. People want to have a fun time, and you will not ruin it for them. Do I make myself clear?”
I stared into my Mothers eyes, waiting for her to drop the act and tell me this was all a bit to make me learn some lesson. I waited and waited and waited and finally said, “Yes, Mom.”
“Wonderful! Now, where would you like to go first?” She took me by the arm again and started dragging me down the rows of booths,
I tried not to think about what happened because, well, that’s what my parents were doing. They knew better than me, so I must have been doing something wrong. Still, I couldn’t help but eye my Dad’s every now and then. The handkerchief was long past soaked and was now dripping blood itself alongside my Dad’s open maw. But for the most part, I followed along and tried to act normal.
The carnival itself made that easy. Much to my surprise, the rest of the place seemed pretty normal. Too normal, even. And I don’t mean in a creepy way; I mean it was boring. For a Halloween fair, there were no people dressed up, no spooky carnival games, and I’m not even sure there was a haunted house. Adults were laughing and bouncing between booths while the howl of roller coasters stewed in the background. It would have looked like a normal fairground if not for the attendants. Out of everyone in the park, they were the only ones dressed up. Or at least, I hope they were dressed up.
They were clowns, naturally; creepy clowns, but not for the reason you’d expect. None of them wore cheap masks or had fake bloodstains on their outfits or something like that. If anything, they were trying to dress as real clowns only to fail horribly. Their clothes were all skin colored with stripes and polka dots tattooed across them. What should have been baggy outfits jostled around and hung low like a fat man’s gut, as if someone had filled the costume with loose meat.
Their faces were the worst. Like the ticket taker, they were all contorted to cartoonish proportions that would have killed a normal person. Mouths and eyes eclipsed their faces, hair carved into clownish designs and painted every color of the rainbow, and heads grown into impossible shapes. One even had a skull shaped like an hourglass or something with a smile that ran along the bottom. At first, I thought they had to be bizarre masks, but they moved like any normal face, mouth bobbing, cheeks twitching. The worst part was they were everywhere. Manning the stands, walking down the rows, even preparing the food. There was nowhere to escape to. The only thing I could do was enjoy myself. So that’s exactly what I tried to do.
There was one booth that caught my eye. Balloon darts had always been a favorite of mine growing up. My Dad never let me mess around with guns or BBs, so darts were the next best thing. They weren’t bullets, but they could still like an eye out, which was good enough for me. Desperate for a distraction, I bolted for that booth the instant I saw it.
Even the clown behind the counter couldn’t douse my excitement. That was the balloon’s job. I snatched up a dart and raised it over my head, only to stop the second I looked at the targets. I’m not sure they were balloons. You know the kind that looks like peoples’ heads? Think more literally, and you have a good idea. There were heads, actual human heads, hanging from the walls and not just any old ones either. They were blown up like balloons, features distorted, skin stretched taut, even having the stump of their necks tied off as if to keep in the air. The worst part was they weren’t even dead.
They struggled on their perch with all their might, but it didn’t matter. Most the balloons could hope to do was roll from side to side. They looked around, trying to find some way of escape, and eventually found me. None of them screamed, though. Instead, they kept their mouths clamped shut and tried mumbling their pleas. Not that they had to. The utter horror and desperation in their eyes made their point perfectly clear.
Only one opened their mouth and didn’t live long enough to regret it. “HELP!” He cried out before a burst of air erupted from his mouth, and he began to deflate. Life drained from his features as his skin and bones crumbled into a shriveled heap, mouth hanging open and frozen in a nightmarish scream.
After that, the clown went to work, taking down the deflated head and reaching through the curtain behind the balloons. He pulled out an unconscious man wearing casual clothes and an air tank. The clown stuck the end of the tank into the man’s mouth and turned on the gas. Air flooded into the man’s head and, against all logic, began to inflate it just like a normal balloon. The man’s eyes flew open in the middle of this, and his hands flew up to feel his head swelling in real-time. He tried to struggle, but the clown held him firm against the tank, not letting him pull his mouth away. Bigger and bigger his head swelled, bones breaking and eyes bulging, and he was alive to feel every last second of it.
When his head was as big as the other, the clown grabbed the man by the neck and crushed it in one hand. His body fell to the ground, and the clown quickly tied up his neck, twisting and pulling flesh into a pretty little knot. The clown then stuck the head onto the dart board and raised one hand to its mouth, giving the new balloon it’s first and only warning.
I stumbled back and dropped my darts in horror, but my parents caught me.
“What’s the matter, Kyle? Throw the dart.”
“But M-mom,” I replied. “They…look at them!! They’re people!”
But my Mother didn’t look. Instead, he turned and waved at the passing crowd from whom several adults tossed us dirty looks.
“Mom, they’re-“
“That’s enough, Kyle!” She hissed at me. “If you’re not going to play the nice man’s game, then don’t make a scene about it.”
I couldn’t say a word after that. She spoke in her serious voice, the kind that cut any kid right to their core. But it wasn’t enough to make me return to that fucking game. I stood petrified on the spot, ready to struggle if my Mom tried dragging me back to that booth. It was my Dad that broke the tension in the end.
“Why don’t we try the petting zoo instead?” He recommended. “That’s always a lot of fun, right honey?”
“I don’t know. Not if Kyle here is going to throw a fit the whole way.”
“Come on, Sheryl. Don’t let him ruin the night.”
I’d never felt so alienated in my entire life. All I wanted was for them to see all the fucked up shit happening right in front of them, but they couldn’t even do that. It was the kind of steadfast confidence that made me question if there was something wrong with me instead. But I didn’t have time to think about it. My Mother sighed and said, “Alright. A petting zoo does sound fun. Do you think they’ll have a goat there?”
“I’ll bet on it.” He said before giving my Mother a peck on the cheek, leaving a small bloody imprint. With that, they snatched me up and resumed dragging me through the Contortium.
Honestly, even if I was older, I wouldn’t have tried to stop them. My mind just kinda shut down after that. Like, I was past the point of screaming and was now in that traumatized daze you get when your mind overloads on horror. It was the only thing I could do to ignore the rows upon rows upon rows of games running through the fair.
We walked back to the fence, where there lay a tiny wooden pen surrounded by adults. We pushed our way to the front, where I met the third nightmare I’d see that night. There were kids inside the pen, and none were having a good time. Tears streamed down their faces, and they hugged the edges of the pen. Some tried climbing out but were pushed back inside by parents shouting at them to smile for the camera. It wasn’t hard to see why the kids would want to flee.
There were animals, like goats, cats, mice, ducks, and all that. Problem was they were all mutilated and with a very clear, very disturbing intention. Someone had tried to make them like cartoons and must have done some minor surgery to that end. To give you an idea, all of them stood on their hindlegs. Stitches and scars circled their joints, and the bottoms of their legs had been broken at a 90-degree angle until they resembled human feet. The bones in said feet had also been snapped and reassembled to look like our toes. And those poor things were made to put their whole fucking weight on those mangled limbs. At any moment, I expect them to snap and the poor animals to fall over.
It wasn’t just their legs that’d been opened up and mangled. Their arms had been smashed and molded into something more humanoid, with their paws taking the greatest abuse. All the digits had been ripped out and extended into crude imitations of human fingers. Their back claws had been ripped down and stacked atop new bones until they resembled human hands. It might have been cute if their limbs were mired with fresh scars and wounds. Blood seeped between the stitching, and their limbs trembled as if they were about to tear off at the seams. And that wasn’t even the worst part.
Their faces were butchered beyond recognition. The dogs and cats all had their snouts chopped down, and their mouths were sewn back into perfect smiles. Their teeth weren’t normal either. Their mouths were stuffed with human teeth crudely crammed into bleeding, swollen gums. They were all jagged and scraping against one another but still were left on full display. You can imagine why the kids weren’t having a good time.
Those abominations stumbled around the pen, arms stretching to the nearest child. The ones who couldn’t get away were treated to the worst hug they’d ever known, bloody arms wrapped around them and crooked smiles nuzzling their faces. Despite that, I think they were genuinely trying to make those kids smile, but any hope of that had been cut out a long time ago.
I wasn’t even in the pen when one of those things spotted me. I think it was a cat once. It stretched its grotesque hands out to me and flashed its broken smile. All it had to take was one step before I ran screaming from that place like a bat outta hell. Only problem was my Mother still held me firm.
“Kyle, that is enough!!” I could barely hear her over my own screams. “You will knock this off at once, you man!! You’re going to go inside, take a few pictures, and you’re going to like it! Now stop this at once!!”
Anyone who knows anything about kids won’t be surprised that I didn’t do that. “No, no, no!! I don’t wanna go in there! No!”
“Kyle Nickerson, I will not ask again! No one else is acting like this, and you’re ruining all their fun!”
“Good. You people are evil!!”
The next thing I knew, my Mother raised her hand back and slapped me clean across the cheek. Just like that, my sobbing stopped, and I was left reeling back from shock. To be clear, my Mother never hit me before then. Never. So it wasn’t so much the pain but the fact that she did so at all, which shook me to my core. I literally didn’t believe it. It wasn’t until my cheek started to burn that the realization settled in. Nothing could have destroyed me more.
“That. Is. Enough.” She hissed between her teeth. “If you do not quit this behavior at once, you will be in big trouble. Do you understand?”
I was too dazed to do anything.
“I said, ‘do you understand?!”
I cringed. “Y-Y-Yes, Mom.”
She stared me down for a moment longer, eyes burning with a rage I’d never seen in her before, saying, “Good. Now get in that pen and give us a smile.”
I almost vomited in terror at the idea. Much to my luck, however, something else caught my Mothers attention before she forced me into the pen. A voice in the distance cried out, “Ladies and gentlemen, gather around and witness the mystifying majesty of Gristle the Grinner!! “
My parents turned to the voice.
“That’s right! For one night only, watch as he performs feats not even god in his glory could fathom! Come one, come all!” As the announcer continued, adults started flocking toward the source. Even my parents seem to have lost their fervor and follow the flocking crowd. Even my Mother didn’t seem nearly as upset anymore, with a toothy smile now slapped across her face.
They dragged me away from the pen, thank god, and back into the Contortium. We wove through the rows, me avoiding looking at any booths and my parents happily glancing over the gruesome displays. A crowd built around us until we were one group in a massive river of people flowing toward the announcer.
We all filed into a circular clearing in the middle of the tents. A massive crowd had gathered within, facing something at the center. My parents pushed us to the front, where we saw a clown. He was standing at the center of the swarm, all eyes glued to him. He was much thinner than the other clowns, with his suit clinging tight to his body. I could even see a few ribs poking through. Yellow stripes ran along said suit with puffy frills bursting from the wrists and neck. Three red puff balls ran down from his collar like buttons. His face was corpse white with a big heart painted over it. Each eye rested in the bumps at the top of the heart and was as red as the paint. His smile, however, was the most eyecatching thing about him, like everything else in that fucking place.
You know that saying “stretching from ear to ear?” This guy took that to a whole new level. His smile circumnavigated his face, starting below his noose, stretching up behind his face, and meeting at the crown. Nothing connected his upper and lower halves, yet they didn’t fall apart somehow. It didn’t even have lips, just two unbroken rows of incisors. A few minutes ago, I would have thought it was a mask. Now, well, I tried not to think about it.
“Greetings, meat sacks, and bone bags! I am the marvelous Gristle, now brought to you with three lungs and five working hearts.” Gristle froze for a moment with a look of shock on his face. He smashed a fist against his chest and said, “Make that four.”
I didn’t really get it, but the adults burst out laughing. Gristle ate up their laughter, and I’m still not sure how, but his smile somehow got bigger. Maybe he grew more face just to smile on. I don’t know. Point is that the crowd loved him, and for that, he loved them.
“Tonight, we have a heck of a show waiting for you all that we’ve poured various bodily fluids into. Some of which actually came from us! And it all culminates there, in the beating heart of our fine establishment; The Grand Top.” He swung his hands over to the tent, rising from the center of the fairgrounds, inciting yet another cheer. I’m not sure they knew what they were excited about, just that they were excited. All I knew was that only us kids weren’t laughing.
“But before we move onto that, I’ve got an oldy, but a goody I’d like to start you all up with. But first, I’m gonna need a volunteer from the audience.” He flicked his wrist, and a deck of cards appeared in his hand, which he unfurled like a fan.
“Y’all know this trick, folks. Would any of you like to come and pick a card?”
Hands shot up like gophers, and their owners started begging. Gristle strolled around the crowd’s edge, dangling the cards just out of reach. “Come on, now. No need to be scared yet. Another wanna play with old Gristle?”
He passed around the crowd a few times, and every one of them was an utter fucking nightmare. Every rotation I swore would be the one he’d notice me. My gut would twist tighter and tighter as he approached, only to relax when he passed by. Then he’d come around again, and I felt my panic grip me all over again. So you can imagine my terror when he stopped right in front of me.
His eyes were like gentle knives sliding into your heart. That grin which seemed terrible from afar, was made even worse when I could make out every tiny detail.
“How about you, little boy? Care to play along?”
His breath smelled like old meat and makeup. My little heart threatened to pop, but even if it did, I’d still have stayed rooted to the spot. I guess I thought if I didn’t move, he’d lose interest. My parents ensured otherwise.
“Go on, Kyle.” Then they shoved me into the opening, and everyone turned to look at me. I felt naked with all those people staring at me, like they saw every part of my body I hated and nothing else. Worst was Gristle, who didn’t look at me like I was a person. His eyes were vapid yet hungry somehow. It was like he was inspecting a slab of meat at the butcher shop and pondering the taste.
“Scared, aren’t you?” He whispered to me. “There’s no need. We’re all friends here.”
I didn’t say a word.
“To tell you the truth, I’m pretty scared, myself. It’s my first time being in front of so many people, and I’m scared I’ll do something embarrassing. I really wish I was you right now.”
It was stupid. Believe me, I am well aware of that. But at the moment, I liked the guy. He was the only one there who made me feel seen. The only one not smiling. It wasn’t much, but it was more than my parents gave. So I asked him, “Real-Really? Why?”
“Because all you have to do is pick a card for me. I have to stay up here and keep clowning. I have to remember my jokes, all my tricks, and make sure this makeup doesn’t come off.”
I perked up at that. “That’s just makeup?”
“Yes, of course, it is. You think I was born this way? Oh dear, you must be scared out of your wits. Do your parents know?”
I nodded, and Gristle looked over my shoulder. “And they still made you come up here? You poor thing. That’s not right.”
“An-and they made me see the balloons and the petting zoo and-“
“My goodness. The petting zoo and the balloon stand. All those puppets must have given you a heart attack. “
I jumped at his words. “So none of it’s real? It’s all fake, right?”
“Of course, it is, my boy. I don’t see how you could know that, though. Your parents must have been putting you through a nightmare this whole time. Tell you what, why don’t you quickly help me with this trick and I’ll have a little talk with your parents after. See if we can’t sort these things out. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Could you have blamed me for believing him? Here was the guy telling me everything I wanted to hear, telling me I was right to be afraid. I’d never thought I’d need someone to say that so much. So, of course, I reached out to pick a card.
“There we go. Now, take a good long look at it, show the people around you, and, without showing me, put it back in the deck.” The card was the Heart of Five; only the hearts were anatomically correct. Once I put it back in the deck, Gristle whispered, “Great job. Almost done.”
He then took a leap back from me and, with another flick of his wrist, made the deck vanish. “Now, for this next part, I’m going to need a few more volunteers.”
This time, he didn’t wait for a volunteer. He strode up to another member of the crowd and stabbed a hand right through their chest in one swift motion. The other kids and I gasped, and it won’t surprise you to learn the adults didn’t. Gristle ripped his hand out in a geyser of blood, holding a sputtering human heart. The person in question came sprawling to the ground in a heap, a pool of red growing around him. Before I could process that, Gristle strode over to another person and stabbed a hand into them as well. When that fell, he attacked another and kept doing so until he held five bloody hearts.
He stretched the five hearts to me and said, “Is this your card?”
A wave of uproarious laughter burst from the crowd. I couldn’t even hear myself think through it all. The sounds assaulted me from everywhere, howling voices barking at a fresh kill. Their smiles grew with every second, like wounds splitting their faces open. All other features vanished behind those feral grins until they weren’t even people anymore. Just wide mouths and glistening teeth. I was all alone.
The worst part wasn’t them, however. Five people were lying on the ground, guts spilled open, and all of them were laughing. They didn’t scream, cry for help, or even die; they simply giggled, amused at their own carnage.
“See, my boy?” Gristle said as he leaned it close to me and plumped the heart in my hands. “It’s all just a trick.” He then threw his head back and joined in the laughter exploding from his audience. His mouth split open like an oyster, peeling back the louder he laughed until it had flipped completely open. I got a good look at how monstrous he really was. If it helps, imagine him as a pocket watch only instead of a clock, there was a gaping throat. A long tongue covered in teeth and protruding bones rose from the mas and danced in beat with his laughter.
That broke me. Not because of how horrifying it was, though granted, that was a big factor. But because I had been put on stage and made a fool for it. I had a feeling that whatever joke they were all laughing at wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t been so terror stricken. As if that was not only wrong, but hilariously wrong. And at the heart of it all was that fucking clown.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I pulled back my hand and chucked the heart right at that bastard in makeup. The organ hurled through the air and struck him dead in the face with a wet slap. The laughter skidded to a halt. All the smiles faded until only my own was left. Even the clown had lost his grin. Instead, he scowled at me with a palpable spite that I savored. Unfortunately, my triumph was short-lived.
“KYLE JEREMY NICKERSON!” My Mother snatched me up by my collar. “WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!! THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!! WE ARE GOING HOME RIGHT NOW AND YOU ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO YOUR ROOM!! YOU ARE GROUN-”
“Now, now, now, madam.” A silvery voice wove through the air. “There’s no need to upset yourself so.”
My Mother’s expression softened in embarrassment. “Mr…Gristle? I’m so sorry about this. He can be such a handful at times.”
“Like I said, madam. It’s perfectly alright. It is natural for a child to misbehave, especially when you least want them to. It’s such a shame you have to deal with it after you’ve gone through all the trouble of coming out here tonight. How can you possible enjoy the festivities with such an annoyance shackled to you.”
“Fuck you!!” I blurted out only to receive another firm slap from my mother. Gristle grinned and continued “There’s no need to worry yourself sick over matters such as these. This is your night. Play a game, enjoy the show, do something fun. In fact, we here have a special facility set up just for trouble-making children such as this.”
“You do?”
“Yes. We don’t want their type ruining everyone’s fun, but we also don’t want to rob parents of the chance to enjoy our festivities. Think of it as a daycare. You can drop them off and when you’re done for the night, come right back around and pick them up. You and enjoy your time here without the hassle of having to deal with brats like this. Doesn’t that sound nice?
My Mother didn’t even think about it. “Yes! That sounds lovely. Where do we drop him off.”
“There’s no need for that, madam.” Gristle wrapped a hand around my arm. “I’ll take him there myself.”
“Oh, but aren’t you in the middle of-”
“I’m sure these people won’t mind waiting. Besides, the real show will be beginning very soon, in the Grand Top. Best to be heading there anyways.”
“What?!” I exclaimed. “Mom, don’t make me go with him! He’s a demon! He’s gonna kill me!! Mom!”
“Kyle, that is enough. You are going to go with this man and if you behave, we’ll see about your punishment.”
“But Mom,”
“Now, now, little man.” Gristle said as he pulled me from my Mothers hands. “Let’s not bother your parents any longer.”
“No, no, no, no! Let me go!” I struggled as best I could, even swinging some punches, but nothing I did worked. His grip was solid as if it’d been petrified around my wrist. “Mom, Dad! Please! I’m sorry for throwing that! I’m sorry for saying those things! Please don’t make me go! I promise I won’t do it again. I’ll be good. Please!”
“There’s use in that.” I could hear the grin in Gristle’s voice. He dragged into the crowd until my parents disappeared amongst a sea of faces. “It’s just you and me now, dear boy. And oh, the fun we will have.”