Welcome to the Underground Circus

The Sideshow

   

They had caught back up with the show as it was switching to another room. A narrow room of stalls, it was tight and crowded and a strong smell of B.O. hovered in the air. A great chandelier hung down, illuminating hand-painted sideshow canvases that were amazingly detailed. If Paul hadn’t been petrified, he would have been intrigued.

Paul had hoped that they would blend in with the rest of the crowd and hide themselves from the Ringleader, but there were so few people left that that was impossible. The Ringleader’s gaze shot right to them like a tractor beam as they entered the sideshow.

“Welcome to our final performance of the night,” shouted the Ringleader. His gaze roamed over Peter Pan and her mom and Paul didn’t like it one bit. “Things are set up a bit differently here at our sideshow. They will all perform simultaneously in their stalls while you, our delectable guests, walk from performer to performer. When these final doors open,” he gestured to the double doors at the end of the long, narrow room, “you will be free to leave. Enjoy your last show.”

Not one person laughed at the Ringleader’s joke. And no one wanted to branch out to see the performers either. They were all asking where their friends and family members were, wondering where along the way they had lost them. Their questions were drowned out by the blasting carnival music as the performers in their stalls began their acts.

When the lights faded to utter darkness leaving only spotlights on the freaks, Paul knew this was his chance to search for one of their trap doors. The fortune-tellers words once again ringing in his ears: You have a knack for finding a way out. He prayed that she was right.

“Find a door,” he whispered to his friends. “It’ll be small and hidden. And find it fast. I have a feeling if we don’t get out of here soon, we’ll never leave.”

They all nodded in agreement. Staying huddled together, they slowly made their way down the corridor examining every stall.

The first act on their left was a tall, thin man called The Rubberband, who could squeeze himself through an unstrung tennis racket and fit into a tiny, clear box. The Rubberband’s stage was tall enough to hide a door but Paul couldn’t be sure. Next to him was a great fat lady, The Bathing Bertha, in a bikini lying upon a fake rock. There were so many folds in her skin that it was hard to distinguish one body part from the next. She blew kisses at the boys as they passed her. Across from those two were a strong man (If Paul had to guess what sort of animal he was, Paul would guess Sasquatch) and a woman covered with cheetah spots. Paul had wanted to get away from both of those stalls as quickly as he could. When things went crazy, and he knew they would, he wanted to be as far from the strongest and fastest of the monsters as possible.

“See anything yet?” asked Steve.

Paul shook his head. “Maybe, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.”

The farther they walked the more disgusting the acts became. The final two stalls held the most gruesome of the acts. On one side was a man who had been caged in with live chickens and broken bottles. As they watched, he lifted a broken bottle to his mouth and took a huge bite. The sound of glass grinding between his teeth made Paul cringe and when blood seeped through the performer’s lips, Paul’s stomach rolled. The other side had a tattooed woman hammering nails into her nose. Not nails, Paul noticed, but spikes. She smiled as blood gushed out of her nose and down her chin as she hammered away.

“Oh, no, I’m going to puke,” said Wade. Paul thought he was just saying that until he took off toward the double doors at the end of the room and tried to open them. When he couldn’t get them to budge, Wade puked up his dinner all over the floor.

The geek got excited and was trying to free himself from his cage to get to Wade and his pile of puke. All of the sane people hurried away from the putrid spreading puddle.

“That’s embarrassing,” said Wade, wiping his face with his frilly sleeve. “I couldn’t get the doors to open.”

Doug pressed against the doors and they didn’t move at all. And no sound. Not even the rattling you get when you shove against a locked door.

Peter Pan’s mom gave them a hit and then shook the pain out of her hand. She breathed out a heavy, defeated sigh. “I don’t think these are doors.”

“You mean we’re trapped in here? Like, trapped for good?” asked Steve.

“No,” Paul said with a determined edge. “They got in here somehow and that’s how we’re going to get out.”

“Nobody ever gets out,” hissed a voice behind them.

They turned to find the Ringleader towering over them.

“Not alive, anyway. I am surprised that you and your half-witted friends have made it this far,” he spoke as if he were joking but there was no hint of a smile, “but this is the end of the line. The only way you’re leaving this room is as leftovers for the hungry pigs up above.”

Paul needed to think. There had to be a hidden door somewhere.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is that time of the night to bid you all farewell,” sang the Ringleader.

“But what about our friends who volunteered? Where are they?” cried a voice from the crowd.

More and more voices shouted out. “We can’t leave without them.” “Will they be waiting up above?”

The Ringleader chuckled at his audience. “Do not worry,” he said. “You will see them again… in the afterlife.”

The crowd screamed as the Ringleader’s hair grew out into a tawny mane and his teeth lengthened into a lion’s fangs. He tore into the nearest patron and his freaks did the same. Everybody scattered.

“There has to be a door somewhere,” Paul huffed as he ran.

The man with the chicken heads had been let loose. The cheetah woman was tearing into some poor guy’s throat and the strong man was practicing origami with another man. Even Bertha had gotten a victim. She had morphed from a simple fat lady into a walrus with giant tusks and she was using those tusks to secure her prey.

Paul dodged fists and elbows and claws as everyone around him started to fight for their life and when he stumbled into the Rubberman’s stall, he found what he had been hoping for. A small door – this one tinier than any of the others, but it was a way out.

“Here!” he cried to his friends.

Amidst the chaos, they found their way to him. The mom went first, getting stuck for only a moment before she slipped into the unknown. Then Peter Pan, followed by Steve.

“I’m not going to fit through that,” cried Wade.

“You will or I’ll force you through it,” said Doug.

“Where did you go, boy?”

The Ringleader was calling out for Paul. It was only a matter of seconds before they were caught by him. “Go,” Paul yelled at Wade.

Wade shook his head. “No, you go. I’ll never make it.”

“Yes you will. Just try,” cried Paul as he and his brother kept lookout.

“I won’t let you die because of me.”

Paul turned to his friend. “And I won’t leave you behind.”

Wade hesitated but eventually gave in. He slid into the door and just as he was afraid of, Wade was stuck. His round middle didn’t want to squeeze through the small opening. Doug had been guarding the stall but now he stomped over to Wade, saying, “I told you I would force your big butt through.” Then he put his boot on Wade’s shoulder and pushed as hard as he could. Wade cried out in pain but Doug wasn’t going to stop until Wade was through.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

A tennis racket fell over Paul’s face and the Rubberman yanked him back. “Didn’t you hear the Ringleader? Nobody ever leaves our circus.”

“Oh, no.” Paul gaped in fear as the man’s mouth stretched tall and wide, big enough to swallow Paul whole. His jaws cracked and his face morphed until it was unrecognizable. Paul kicked and lashed out at the blood-caked monster as the chaos closed in around them. As long as the monster was holding Paul and the racket, Paul couldn’t free himself.

This is it, Paul thought. This is the end.

“Let go of my brother!” Doug yelled as he tackled the thin man. They fell to the floor where fists flew and bodies rolled. Doug had always been a good fighter and on a normal day Paul wouldn’t worry about his big brother losing. But these weren’t classmates in the schoolyard. After a few hits from Doug, the monster got the upper hand, hitting and scratching Doug into submission while lowering its jaws over his head. There was a great roar from across the room and Paul could see the Ringleader barreling his way toward them.

Paul panicked. He did the only thing he could think of. He took the tennis racket and shoved it deep into the mouth of the Rubberman, then he grabbed Doug’s arm and pulled him to the trap door.

“You should go first,” slurred Doug. His eye and lip were already swelling and more blood was dripping from the scratches on his face.

Paul didn’t waste any time arguing and pushed his brother through the hole.

“You think you can come in here and change what we’ve been doing for centuries?” said the Ringleader, just a few steps behind Paul. “Come over here and face your fate like a man.”

For the first time in hours Paul felt the urge to laugh. He slid his feet into the door and flipped onto his belly so he could make eye contact with the Ringleader, who now looked like a lion in a ridiculously tight jacket. Paul smiled and said, “I’m not a man. I’m just a kid.”

Then he slid into the darkness, leaving the lion to fight for another supper.