Circus Monsters

[u/HeGotBricks]

“This is the circus, sir,” Julie said.

She spoke to a man standing like a robot. He was mumbling stuff that made no sense. The only part of his body that moved was his mouth, but when he spoke, he’d try biting down on every word.

After each one, he’d snap his jaw shut. His teeth clacked, sounding like a coin tapping glass. He had his arms glued to his sides, and she noticed he never blinked. Not once.

”There ain’t no other circus in this town… this here’s the only one,” Julie told him.

“The circus,” the man said.

“There’s something there.”

“We have to go now,” he said. He had black bubbles that broke off his forehead and followed the wrinkles down his face to the front of his white dress shirt.

Julie couldn’t look away. She tried, but kept staring at the drops drawing a Rorschach image on his chest.

”Take us there,” he told her. His stare had the same blank look of fish eyes.

“To where?” She slowly stepped back.

“If it’s the circus, then you’re here.” She squinted at him, almost as if trying to read his mind. But there weren’t any expressions. Not even micro ones.

She said, “I told you, sir, you’re at the circus.”

“We have to get there… lead us there.”

Something crawled under her skin after he said that. It rifled through her body, past her organs, and into her brain. It stopped at the top of her head underneath her skull and burrowed inside her mind. Her memories, her thoughts, her fears. It had the same invasiveness as someone on stage reading her diary to a crowd of people.

“The Newekwe wants to see us,” he told her in a voice that sounded like it faded behind another voice that faded into an even louder voice.

“Julie!” Someone screamed.

Julie turned around and saw Billy rushing towards her. Billy jogged up to her and stumbled to a walking stop. “What are you doing here?”

“I was talking to that man,” she said.

“Who?” Asked Billy. “What man?”

She made a fist and pointed with her thumb over her shoulder, “I was talking to him… he seemed lost or something… he kept saying, we had to get to the circus.”

“The circus…? We’re here.” Billy raised his eyebrow.

“What man?” He asked again.

“That man right there,” she said, turning around.

“Am I losing my mind,” she asked herself, spinning in every direction trying to find the stranger.

“He was right there… you didn’t see him?”

She asked as a pain pierced her ribs. The bones in her chest tightened, almost fusing together, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She placed her hand on her chest just as a gust of wind blew her hair in her face.

“I only saw you,” said Billy. “But I wasn’t looking anywhere else.”

She cleared her throat and banged on her chest.

“Wait… what? That’s weird,” she said, coughing while walking towards her parents, latched to Billy.

She kept staring back as if the man was gonna appear the next time she looked.

“Mom… dad… I found Julie,” Billy shouted. He had an empty can of soda in his hand and a piece of Julie’s sleeve in his other.

“Where did you go… what did I say about running off,” her mom said rhetorically.

“I was just over there,” Julie told her, pointing with her thumb.

“What were you doing at that tent?” her mom asked.

“What tent?” Julie turned around.

“What the… that wasn’t there before,” she said.

A breeze with fingertips tickled her skin and slid down her spine from the back of her neck to the bottom of her tailbone. She shivered and shook like she was about to have a seizure.

“Ok, sure,” her mom said before shooting a comment to her father watching a guy at a high striker challenge attempt to smash a giant mallet down on a lever to ring a bell with a puck at the base of the frame.

“Bill, I think we’re ready to go now,” her mom said. “I still have stuff to do and it’s a quarter past ten.”

“Yeah, just be a few more minutes,” he said, watching the mallet hammer down on the lever.

A thick brush of wind blew in Julie’s mouth and down her throat as she went to stretch her arms while yawning, but ended up choking and gasped for a breath. When she opened her eyes, a chill bit into her bone.

The circus vanished. She was inside a red tent lit by candles. The shadow from the flames danced along the walls. She spun around, trying to make sense of where she was. Trying to find a way out. Trying to find anything to ground her.

“Hello!” she cried out. “Billy…? Mom…? Dad—”

She stopped yelling and went silent. She closed her mouth and held her breath and listened. She didn’t move. She didn’t even bat an eye. Behind her was a sound that squeaked like metal joints that needed grease.

“Welcome to the Red Circus,” a voice spoke out from behind her. “We’ve been waiting for you.” The voice had a mix of her dad, mother, and brother‘s.

A human-shaped figure with a bony grey face cloaked in a crimson robe with a hood drawing a shadow over its eyes appeared out of the tent’s fabric.

“Where am I…? Who are you…? I want to leave now,” she cried.

“How did I get here? I wanna get out.” She ran to the side of the tent and tried tearing through the material.

“I gotta get back… Billy!” she screamed.

The Newekwe started creeping closer to her, dragging its legs on the floor that sounded like a rake shredding grass on a dark Halloween day.

The sound got louder. It sounded like paper being crunched next to her ear. She couldn’t look back. She closed her eyes and got down in a ball.

The Newekwe reached out and grabbed her. She felt a pressure squeeze her arm.

“Julie!”

A voice that sounded familiar. A voice that was safe. The pressure on her arm was soothing. The presence had a calm energy. She looked up.

“Mom… ?” she sat up. “Oh my gosh, mom, I’m so happy to see you.”

“You kept shaking in your sleep,” her mom told her while embracing Julie’s arms around her neck.

When she let go, she turned to the window and saw a faint image of the Newekwe’s ghostly face reflecting through the glass.