Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
The mysterious black crate began to tremble and shake around violently, sending everyone in the troop away from it just as quickly as they had all gathered around it. When Garibaldi had announced it was a gift from someone named King Creole, the look on the other members of the troop was enough for me to gather that whoever that was, he probably wasn’t good.
“With all due respect, boss,” Nikolai spoke up, being the spokesperson for everyone else. “Any time that guy sends you something, it always ends up being something horrible.” Everyone in the troop nodded and I looked up at Abigail for confirmation. She looked down at me and offered a simple shrug and nod.
Garibaldi on the other hand never looked more offended in his life. He angrily turned his attention back over to us and crossed his arms at us. “Name one thing that Creole has sent us that’s so ‘horrible’,” he said with a pout, tapping his foot on the ground and squashing a few of the maggots that had crawled over to him from the remains of the train conductor.
“What about that piece of bread with multiple eyeballs?” Edgar spoke up, his brother quickly nodding along with the perpetual look of worry plastered on his face. “It showed up in a box one day, ate all our food, screamed at us, and then ran away.” Everyone nodded along like that was a completely normal thing to have happened to them. “A-and stole one of Nikolai’s knives.” Alan quickly added. The first time he’d ever spoken since I’d joined the freakshow.
“That’s harmless! Besides, without Creole, Starla would’ve been killed with all of Mathieu’s ‘accidents’. Just look at her, she’s never been better!” Tony pointed to the masked woman, who barely even acknowledged that she was being talked about. I stared at her while everyone continued trying to plead with Antonio to not open the crate. Whoever this Creole person was, was he the one who’d sewn the different-colored lower half of Starla’s body? She must have taken notice of my staring at her, as he slowly moved her head over to stare at me. The single eyehole in her mask glimmered like a star as she stared at me.
Our short staring contest was interrupted when the loud snapping of wood pulled everyone’s attention back over to the crate. The crate had seemingly grown tired of waiting for someone to open it and decided just to open itself as the wood snapped and broke all around it. The four walls of the crate fell to the sides like a flower opening up and a whole bunch of confetti and streamers came billowing out of the center of the box.
At the center of the box was a man. Dressed in a brown suit with a red tie, his skin was silky green with black spots on a few parts of his face. His right eye was bloodshot and almost completely red, while he possessed no left eye. And most disturbing of all was that a permanent smile had been stitched into his mouth. The stitches kept the corners of his mouth forced into a disgustingly morbid smile. This would’ve already been a horrible present if not for the hand puppet that was attached to his left hand.
“I told you. Something horrible,” Nikolai said as he held one of his many knives in front of him. And all of us were pretty much hiding behind him. Suddenly the corpse stiffened to attention and turned to face us, the haunting smile and vacant eye hole was enough to start sending me into another fear-induced panic attack.
“You ain’t so good-looking either, comrade.” A high-pitched voice insulted Nikolai back. The whole troop fell silent except for Santiago who was doing his best not to burst out into laughter, giggling into his oversized sleeves. The corpse raised its hand puppet to us, allowing for a better look at what it was. A multi-colored jester with a simple smiley face stared back at us and we were all baffled about where the voice had come from.
“Did that thing just talk?” Eva asked, trying to hide behind Jasper who in turn was trying to hide behind her. The arm connected to the jester jerked in their direction, causing a scared yelp out of both of them.
“I have a name, thank you very much!” the voice told them, and we soon realized that the voice was coming from the puppet itself. “The name’s Maxwell! This here is my handyman, Chester!” The puppet introduced themselves, the corpse dipped his head slightly but more so as a consequence of the hand puppet than from any input from him.
“Oh, how wonderful!” Garibaldi clapped his hands together and snickered uncontrollably, even throwing a few of those strange chirping noises he had been making since the crate had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He practically skipped over to Maxwell and Chester and examined them both up and down. “Creole had been telling me that he wanted to give me a new member!”
“What the hell is he supposed to do? Tell shitty jokes?” Mathieu asked. The anger was obvious even from behind his mask. Garibaldi snapped his head toward the Frenchmen and looked like he was about to tear him limb from limb. But before he could the hand puppet giggled uncontrollably.
“Oh, I can do more than that. Chester isn’t just for transportation, ya know!” Maxwell moved around on Chester’s arm sending the whole corpse wiggling and waggling around as the hand puppet jerked about. Holding the arm up high we all stared at Maxwell as he seemingly melted into Chester’s arm, his colorful costume spread down Chester’s arm as it seemed to be taking over the corpse’s body. The corpse suddenly sprung to life, but now instead of jerky and uncanny movements, he was much more animated. As the jester form slowly overtook the body it was obvious to us what Maxwell had meant about Chester.
“Combined, we make.” The jester’s voice was a strange echo of two voices. One being Maxwell’s high-pitched voice and the other being a low-pitched hollow voice. “Mac and Cheese!” The jester said with excitement as the transformation completed and a fully-fledged and dressed up jester stood before us all. His floppy hat jingled with two golden bells and two more rang from his curved shoes. The face that was once green and rotting was now replaced with bright white makeup with two red-painted cheeks. And the vacant eye socket was now occupied by some strange glowing iris.
“Oh, how wonderful!” Garibaldi exclaimed in absolute joy as he skipped over to the jester, along with Santiago who was practically about to explode with his excitement. “Creole truly does know how to spoil me!” Garibaldi snickered excitedly as he moved aside for Santiago to begin talking the jester’s ear off.
I looked at the other members of the troop and was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who was more than a little concerned by the new member. I held onto Abigail tightly as she quickly ushered me to help her unpack the remaining boxes of items from the train. We all left the jester with Santiago and the Aces who had all also come running up to greet the newest member. I took the wide way around the train to avoid the sight of the rotten and abandoned corpse and began helping Abigail and the twins to unpack everything. It was then that I realized something.
“Does Mr. Garibaldi not have any luggage?” I asked them. Abigail looked at me and then over at the twins. Edgar and Allan both shrugged their shoulders at her.
“He unloads his stuff before we can get to it,” Edgar told me, swearing something fierce when Allan accidentally struck his thumb with the hammer that he was using to nail up one of the posts that held down the tent.
“Must be pretty protective, huh?” I said with a weak chuckle. Turning to help them with their work, the question gnawing at the back of my head. I didn’t know anything about Garibaldi. From talking to the few people I was growing close to in the freakshow I was getting to know them, but Garibaldi was still a mystery to me. And Izara’s cryptic warnings weren’t being of much help. All of her warnings about mantises pointed at Garibaldi. After all, he had several mantis items on him, the most blatant being the golden pin stuck in his top hat.
“Benny! Benny! Benny! Benny!” Santiago’s excited voice yanked me away from my inquisitive thoughts. “Me and the Aces have an idea! Well, I had one but they seem to really like the idea! So common!” He yanked and tugged on me, practically dragging me away from Abigail and the twins. They seemed fine with the idea so I didn’t have much choice in the matter.
The idea had turned out that we all should perform together. Since we all were more or less dressed as clowns, Santiago had gotten the idea that we should all perform with each other. The Aces were more than a little excited, Diamonds and Spades were so excited in fact that they were jumping up and down the moment I arrived at their little grouping. Just as we started to plan out a giant act together, Mathieu came walking over with Starla in tow with him.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked with disdain. I quickly avoided his masked gaze before accidentally finding myself staring at Starla. She continued to stare at me and I could feel the shimmering eye burning deep into my soul.
“Oh, well we’re planning on, uh. Doing an act with the Aces?” Santiago said with a forced laugh. It was the first time that I’d seen Santiago be uncomfortable with a person. Sure he had stood up for me against Eva but he hadn’t been uncomfortable around her. I could tell just by his response to the Frenchman that he wanted to talk to him as little as physically possible.
“Don’t even think about it. We already have our act set up, and I won’t have you two stupid clowns running it. All of you, back with me.” Mathieu ordered, all the Aces looked at each other before they all began walking over to their master. Spades stopped first however and turned to me. He quickly gave me a quick wave goodbye before waddling after the other members of his group.
I could tell Santiago was upset at his idea being overruled so I quickly reassured him that I would still love to do something with him. That perked him right up and he quickly began waddling off himself to go and talk with Nikolai about incorporating me and the shapeshifter into their act. The shapeshifter had remained a raven this whole time, being quite still on my shoulder and not acting up much at all. However, when we both turned to go back on the train and get the sheet of paper where I had written down all of our ideas, we both let out sounds of surprise when we realized Starla was still standing in the exact place she’d been standing the whole time.
She quickly reached out and gripped my arm as tightly as she possibly could. Her nails dug into my flesh and got me to whimper in pain. She yanked me close to her, quickly looking around her and pushing her masked face up against me.
“Check his office. He isn’t who you think he is,” she told me in a voice that could barely be qualified as a whisper. She was so quiet I hadn’t been sure that she had spoken words to me at all. With that said, she simply let my arm go and walked away to seemingly rejoin Mathieu and the Aces. I was left more than a little rattled by the events that had all transpired in so short a time. From seeing Bandwagon up close, to seeing a rotten corpse drive a train, to seeing a corpse be possessed by a living hand puppet. It was all a little too much for a 12-year-old. And I still had a performance to do.
I got a quick peck on the ear from the shapeshifter to set me on my path. Quickly reboarding the train and making sure to avoid both Mathieu’s car and Bandwagons’. I ran to my room to pick up the list of things I had written out and was on the way to rejoin Santiago when I was met with Maxwell and Chester back in their original form.
“Ah! Benny my boy!” Maxwell said excitedly as he shoved his little face into mine. “Garibaldi has told me so much about you, and I must say I am impressed!” The little jester hand puppet said with a few giggles in between his words. I was more than a little uncomfortable, especially with a constantly smiling corpse just a few feet away from me as the puppet jerked the arm around and caused the stiff corpse to sway back and forth.
“Y-yeah. I need to go practice.” I told him before trying to slide past him. But before I could, I was quickly grabbed by the shoulder and found myself face-to-face with the full-sized jester once again. “L-let go of me!” I shouted, trying to bash my way out of his grip.
“But you were about to step on him,” the jester told me and pointed to the floor. His strange duo voice caught me off guard but soon I followed to where he was pointing and was surprised to see one of the Aces lying face down on the floor. I looked back at the jester and then back down at the fallen Ace.
“O-oh…are you okay?” I asked him. The little guy lifted his head and looked over at me. The big blue heart on his mask clued me into the fact that he was Hearts. Upon seeing the both of us, Hearts did what I could best describe as a silent scream before quickly standing up and running away down the hall. We both watched as the other three Aces all poked their heads out from the nearby door and quickly waved to us before chasing after the fleeing Hearts.
“Didn’t want you stepping on the poor guy,” Mac’n’Cheese told me before he released me with a giggle and a quick tussle of my hair. “Well we need to go and practice, and I bet you have to do the same. I’m looking forward to seeing your great performance. Mr. Rameriez,” the jester said with a wink at me as he walked away, his bells jingling with each step.
I was left frozen in place as I watched him walk away. How did he know my last name? I hadn’t even told Garibaldi my last name. I hadn’t told anyone in the freakshow my full name. Maxwell and Chester had only just arrived and they somehow knew my name. I quickly asked the shapeshifter to turn into a dog and had him follow me back to Santiago. I felt safer knowing I had my protector close to me.
As the day quickly passed and we finally got the big top all set up, we finally got a few hours to practice our acts while Garibaldi spent most of his time laughing and socializing with Maxwell and Chester. I won’t deny that I felt a little jealous over the attention that the jester and corpse were getting from Garibaldi. It was like being replaced with a new toy and it made me more upset than I thought it would. But for the time being, I occupied myself with helping Santiago and Nikolai come up with a new performance.
“What about, we have him turn into a bull!” Santiago said with giddy excitement as he looked at the list of ideas I had written down on the train ride to France. “We could strap me to the horns and have him run at the wall!” I couldn’t help but wince at the idea. I would’ve rather not seen him smushed into a clown pancake.
“You’re not a stuntman, Santi.” Nikolai sighed as he sat on a box. His metallic prosthetic was removed from his leg stump and lying in his lap while he did maintenance on it. “I mean you sort of are. But not that kind.” The Russian chuckled as he used a screwdriver to tighten the screws in his leg.
I took the list from Santiago and looked at everything I had written here and tried to find a way to combine our two acts. Turning to my shapeshifter I was about to ask him a question but then realized he was staring intently off into the distance. Waving my hand in front of his red eyes I got his attention and a few surprised croaks from the raven. I smiled at him and gave his head a little rubbing with my finger. I also took that opportunity to look over to see what he was staring at. He’d been staring at Starla. Who along with Mathieu and the Aces were on the far side of the tent away from everyone else also practicing their act.
I avoided Starla’s glimmering eyehole and went back to the list. Wracking my brain with how to combine them. When at last it hit me. Nikolai and Santiago were both ecstatic with the idea and we quickly went about practicing it. And by the time our performances were about to begin, we had perfectly honed our set. Santiago took me backstage to help with my makeup again, and we passed by Bandwagon as it sat in its red wagon ready to begin playing its music.
“I don’t like it,” I told Santiago as we quickly moved past the mountain of flesh, faces, and hands. Santiago simply shrugged as he pigeon-toed along next to me.
“They aren’t that bad. They just play music, that’s it. They may look horrifying, but they’re very docile.” I wasn’t so sure about that. But I had bigger things to worry about as Santiago applied my clown makeup and I could hear the sounds of French people starting to fill up the freakshow. I held the necklace that Izara had given me in my hand as Santiago finished up the last few brushstrokes of my makeup. I hoped that everything would turn out alright.
Garibaldi announced our performance in French, which would make sense since we were in France after all. And to my surprise, it was Mathieu and Starla up first. But as I thought it over, it did make more sense. Mathieu was French after all. He began his set speaking in French to the audience before turning to Starla and taking from her gloved hands, a deck of cards. And I watched with amazement as the masked Frenchman caused all of the cards in the deck to fly around him in large spinning circles. From my spot backstage I got a great view of them flying around the big top like a flock of birds.
After a few amazing card tricks, including Mathieu launching the entire deck of cards out of his hand and all of them landing perfectly into the shape of the Eiffel Tower, he next turned to Starla. As if on cue a long box was pushed onto stage. It was one of the kinds that you saw someone in half in and I suddenly got nervous. If Starla’s lower half was anything to go off of I thought for sure that Mathieu would do something to her. Starla entered the box without so much as a peep and closed it as she lay down in it. Mathieu removed the top hat he’d been wearing for this performance and instead of pulling out a rabbit, he pulled out an entire fire axe from inside it.
“I can’t watch.” I quickly whimpered as I hid my eyes behind my hands. But Santiago quickly shook me back and forth. I lowered my hands just in time for Mathieu to bring the axe down on the box and split it completely in half. The two sections of the box rolled away from each other and the lids came off both of them. Revealing the Aces inside of them! I beamed excitedly at seeing them and quickly grabbed Santiago and shook him back and forth this time.
The Aces all stacked up on top of each other and yoinked the hat from Mathieu as they did so, Clubs being at the very top but the hat on his head and I watched with amazement as they were all swallowed up by the hat. Each one disappeared under it until just the hat was sitting there on the stage. Mathieu went over to pick it up and from under the hat, Starla came out completely fine and posing for the audience.
“That’s why Tony keeps him around,” Santiago told me as we started getting ready. I could see why as the show had been wonderful and awe-inspiring. Mathieu spoke a few more words in French before he again tossed a large amount of cards into the air and he and Starla disappeared underneath the flurry of hundreds of cards, leaving only Mathieu’s hat behind. Which was quickly scooped up by Eva as she went past swinging on her trapeze swing. She placed the hat on her head as she let go of her swing and began to somersault in the air.
Jasper then came swinging over to catch her quickly. The two of them then both launched themselves into the air and soon landed on Abigail’s shoulders. I was worried for her as it looked like she was struggling to keep balance with both of them on her, but she quickly found her footing and continued walking the tightrope as Eva and Jasper began to argue as they sat on her shoulders. This ended with Eva shoving Jasper off and then leaning back and allowing herself to fall backward with him. She caught him by the foot and grabbed onto a nearby swing and swung them both around the circumference of the big top.
As she was doing this I was quickly helping to strap Santiago into his wheel before quickly hiding myself and my shapeshifter behind it. When the spotlights shone on us I sat and waited as Nikolai began chucking the first few knives at Santiago. It was the same routine until Nikolai suddenly produced two knives at once at tossed both of them at Santiago. The two blades struck each other and set off sparks that showered the wooden wheel and that was my cue.
I stood up and tossed the shapeshifter into the air and watched with amazement as he morphed into a mystical black Phoenix. The black flaming bird flapped into the air for a moment before starting to circle the tent and amazed everyone there. I stepped out from behind the wheel and called for him to return after a few passes. The shapeshifter came flapping down and turned into his usual raven form. I had meant for him to land on my arm like a falcon does, but instead, he landed on my head. But the resulting laughter from the crowd was worth it.
Maxwell and Chester had been set up with their booth outside much like the twins and Izara so after our performance was down we were allowed to take our rest. Everyone had loved the performance and I was more than happy to see all the Aces rushing over to me and hopping up and down in place with excitement. As I laughed at them, I looked over at Starla and remembered her cryptic warning. I’d asked Santiago where Garibaldi’s office was and I was quickly told that it was off-limits to everyone. That did nothing but peak my 12-year-old curiosity.
Sneaking away from everyone, I started to wander around to try and discover where Garibaldi’s office may have been located. I didn’t exactly have a lot to go off of, but the darkness of night and the sounds of French people enjoying themselves were enough to mask my efforts in locating the elusive location. I asked the shapeshifter to turn into a mouse before quickly placing him in my pocket so as not to have anyone notice a trail of feathers he might leave behind.
I started my search over by where we all shared rooms. We all had rooms there but Garibaldi was the one exception. He didn’t have a room which made me think that he had slept in his office, or at the very least had a bedroom inside of his office. Wandering outside the tent I tried to think of where the office might be when my eye wandered over towards the train. I figured I might as well check there since it was the only other place I could think of where his office might be.
Quickly sneaking over to the locomotive, I quickly climbed aboard and began going through all the train cars. Being sure not to stay in Mathieu’s train car for too long, soon I came upon a section near the caboose. A simple-looking wooden door with a plaque that read ‘Tony’s Office!’ stared back at me. With an ominous ‘Stay Out’ underneath it. Taking a quick look behind me to make sure no one had followed me or was watching me I reached out to grab the the doorknob and was amazed to watch it open when I turned and pushed on it.
Inside it was immediately obvious that this was no ordinary office. What exactly on the train was normal anyway? But the inside of the train car was exceptionally bigger than it had been on the outside. It almost looked like the lobby of a hotel. With even a loft overlooking the entire scene. Scattered around everywhere were mantis decorations. From simple statues to pictures, to even a bejeweled mantis fountain.
“He really likes mantises,” I said with a little apprehension as I entered and closed the door behind me. Walking around the office it was quickly obvious to me that Garibaldi needed to clean up. Broken furniture and various scraps and pieces of paper littered the floor as I made my way over to his desk. Taking a seat in his velvet chair I took a look at his desk and looked around at the few things he had on the desk.
A framed picture quickly caught my attention as it looked like it had Garibaldi and a woman on it. Thinking back I had seen before that he had always worn a wedding ring but I had never given it much thought over who that might be, or if she was even here at the freakshow. Reaching out to grab the picture I stopped in my tracks when I saw the poster hidden underneath one of the mantis statues on his desk. I moved the statue and took the poster out from underneath it.
“This…is me,” I said to myself as I stared down at my own face on the poster. A missing person poster had been made for me. This whole time I believed that my parents hadn’t cared for me in the slightest. While I’m sure that might’ve been true for my dad, I thought back to my mom. I gripped the poster as a wave of emotions overcame me. But before I could act on any of it, it was interrupted by a shriek that snapped me out of it.
Scared out of my mind I quickly dove underneath Garibaldi’s desk and covered my mouth to stop any screams escaping from it. I heard the door to the office swing open and quickly slam shut as someone’s panting breath came in and quickly tripped and tumbled over the mess of destroyed furniture. I started crawling away from the desk to try and get a better hiding spot when a second thing entered the office. And started hissing and chirping.
I couldn’t understand the person screaming for their life since they were speaking terrified French but I could tell that whoever they were they were scared for their life. I started crawling across the floor quickly as I made my way over to behind a nearby couch. As I did so I caught a glimpse of the man also crawling across the floor, but he didn’t notice me. He was much more focused on whatever was attacking him at the moment.
Whatever that was suddenly swooped down from somewhere and landed on the couch right above me. I froze in my tracks and quickly covered my mouth again and shut my eyes more than sure that I was about to die right there. But when I opened my eyes again I saw that I was still alive, and the creature was no longer on top of me. I quickly started crawling away and towards the open office door. As I did so suddenly the lights shut off, and the Frenchman let out a louder scream which was quickly mixed in with gurgling.
Taking the chance I got on my feet and began running, I made it to the door and was confused to find that I wasn’t back on the train. But at the big top tent exiting the door that was usually used to access backstage. The floodlights were still on in the big top and the sudden bright vibrant lights stopped me in my tracks for a moment. As I turned my head to shield my eyes from the light I looked back into the office. And I saw the silhouette of the monster. An enormous mantis-shaped creature, with bright vibrant eyes.
I let out a scream as I sprinted out of the office and fled as fast as my 12-year-old legs could carry me. I expected to be tackled and killed by the monster, but as I ran and glanced behind me, I realized I wasn’t being followed. I ran as fast as I could to my room, quickly shut the door behind me, and quickly dove into my bed, pulling the covers over my head and hoping for their protection.
I must have fallen asleep afterward because my next memory is waking up the next day completely exhausted and looking around for my shapeshifter friend. Looking into the pocket where I had placed him I found that there was nothing there. Getting out of bed and quickly getting the makeup off of my face I stepped out into the entire freakshow out in the middle of the tent hall.
“B-Benny! There you are!” Abigail said through tears as she quickly wrapped her arms around me and gave me a tight squeeze. Nikolai and Santiago were also glad to see me but they also seemed to be blocking me from seeing what everyone had gathered to see.
“What’s going on?” I asked them, trying to see past what the other members had all gathered over. Nikolai and Santiago looked at each other before looking over at Abigail who was busy trying to regain some kind of composure.
“Starla had an accident. The dumb bitch got split in half again. At least this time her legs are right there.” Eva said. I could tell she was trying to keep up her tough mean girl persona, but the look on her face told me how bad it was.
I pushed past Nikolai and Santiago to see what had happened to Starla and was met with her cut in half and staring at me with her mask still on. She didn’t have any internal organs or anything inside of her body. She looked like a doll that had been played with too roughly. I swallowed some bile that was starting to build up in my throat and started backing away. Everything was suddenly starting to make sense to me.
Izara’s warning started to filter back into my mind. ‘The mantis awaits in the giant flower that you live in.’. The giant flower I lived in, the bright multicolored big top tent, or even the brightly painted trains. And the Mantis…
“Benny. Can I speak to you for a moment?” Garibaldi asked me as I felt his hand rest on my shoulder and give it a hard squeeze.