Welcome to the Underground Circus

The High Wire Nightmare

 

“Mommy!”

The miniature Peter Pan screamed and jumped into her mother’s lap as the stage came to life in a brilliant flash of lights and movement. Dancers popped out from hidden doorways, trapeze artists swung overhead having fallen out of the dark recesses of the ceiling, and clowns in dreary makeup and blood-smeared clothes ran amok. Tigers and lions leapt out, roaring and raising themselves on their hind legs. One tiger was practically in their cage and everyone, including Doug, screamed.

“Oh my gosh!” cried the mom as she swung her daughter away from the striped beast blocking their exit.

Steve screamed and jumped so high he almost ended up in Paul’s lap. “I don’t want to die!” he yelled.

“Sit down.” Paul tried to push him back into his spot but Steve was so rattled he was trying to climb the bars to get away.

Through the chaos on the stage and past the black stripes on the dangerous cat showing them its incisors, Paul watched as the Ringleader pounced his way over to them, completely unfazed by the flipping and the craziness happening around him.

“What is this?” he shouted over the din. “We don’t usually get any kiddies at our performances.”

He wasn’t looking at the boys but at the mother and child seated with them. Peter Pan was so scared she was shaking in her mother’s embrace. That’s when Paul looked around and realized that their box was full of the youngest participants.

The mother seemed flush, embarrassed that the Ringleader had come over to them. She coughed to clear her throat. “I – uh – didn’t realize that this was a dark circus. A friend gave me your flyer and I guess I didn’t read it closely enough.”

The Ringleader nodded, a grungy top hat moving with every slight bob of his head. “It has been a while since this has happened, but it has happened before. I don’t mean to be rude, madam, but this performance is going to be too scary for your little one.”

“I guess we don’t count as kids,” mumbled Wade to Paul and Steve.

Paul hissed, “Shut it.”

The mom nodded in eager agreement. “It is. Would it be possible for us to go? I don’t want to ruin someone else’s experience. And I don’t want to traumatize Elle.”

“Elle,” he repeated. A glint shone in his eye as he reached out with a trembling hand to touch Elle’s cheek. The mom looked hesitant, but let him touch her child.

“I’m afraid you can’t go back the way you came. The only way out of the circus is to go through the circus. You have to face all of the scares before the end.”

Neither the mom, nor the boys, knew what to say to that. Paul’s stomach dropped. They couldn’t leave whenever they wanted? What kind of circus was this? Paul had the sudden urge to follow Steve’s lead and grab onto the bars, clinging for dear life.

“In your case, we will make an exception. I wouldn’t be happy knowing that you two are unhappy here.”

She visibly sighed and pulled her daughter closer. “Thank you.”

The Ringleader waved his lanky arm and a clown answered his call. Not just any clown; a massive, tall, beast of a clown in a red-and-white striped suit. He wasn’t performing tricks or running wild like the other clowns. Instead, he was walking from box to box, waving at the guests. When he lumbered up to them, Paul saw that his nose was askew and his pointed makeup was crooked. He looked all of them up and down as he approached causing Steve to squirm. Paul could feel Steve shivering in his boots. He hated clowns and this was the biggest (and scariest) clown any of them had ever seen.

“Pepperwell?” the Ringleader asked the clown, “would you mind escorting this lovely woman and her sweet little babe out?”

The clown dumbly nodded, his beady eyes stuck on Elle.

“You know where to take them, correct?” the Ringleader asked slowly.

Again, Pepperwell nodded. He reached out his pristine white glove to Elle. When she didn’t take it, he said, “Don’t be afraid of me. I’m going to take you away from here.”

 She dared to look up, though her tiny hand did fly to the hilt of her wooden sword. Just in case. That bit of daring from such a little thing made Paul smile. When Pepperwell made a silly face and produced a piece of candy, Elle smiled, took the candy, and took his hand.

“Thank you so much, again,” said her mom.

The Ringleader shook his head and led her off with Pepperwell the clown. “It is no trouble. I’m glad that we caught this before the show started. Just follow Pepperwell out, he knows the way.”

The large clown led the itty bitty girl and her mother across the stage and into the Ringleader’s coffin. It was a strange sight. The other performers didn’t seem to notice or mind that Pepperwell was blazing a trail through the center of their performances with a tiny friend.

“I don’t need to do the same with you boys, do I? You’re eighteen, right?” he asked with an exaggerated wink.

“Nope,” said Paul. Steve, and possibly Wade, might have wanted to go home now but Paul wanted to see the show. The man before them had promised blood and gore and scares and he wanted every bit of it. Even if he was scared. “I mean, you don’t have to escort us out. We’re ready for the blood.”

“I knew I liked you when I saw your costume,” he said.

Paul felt special. Finally, someone acknowledged how awesome zombies were!

“Well then, gentlemen. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

With that, the Ringleader tipped his hat and spun and back to the stage. His coffin was gone, having taken the mom and girl out, and the remaining clowns had set up a kind of tightrope act. But it looked awful. The first thing to walk on would be a row of nails and who in their right mind would do that, he wondered.

Then she emerged from somewhere outside the stage’s bright lights. A pink rubber dress hugged her torso and flared out forming a circle around her skinny waist while rows of petticoats held up the pink skirt. And the whole dress was adorned in pretty white lace. She carried a parasol in her delicate hands and wore spiked pastel heels on her feet. This beautiful woman with her frosty pink smile and her dangerous heels was a walking conundrum. She looked fragile, yet Paul was sure that if she was provoked she could unleash hell in a moment’s notice.

She stood at the edge of the stage and waited for her music to begin.

There were steep, narrow steps that led to the tightrope and she climbed them carefully, making a show of not showing what lied underneath her petticoats. When she reached the top, she daintily opened her lavender lace parasol and settled it over her shoulder. Then, she slipped those impossible shoes off. Impossible as they may be to walk in though, Paul was hoping she would keep them on for her own sake. The first wire she would walk wasn’t a wire at all. It was a thin board spiked with sharp nails. It wouldn’t be anything like lying on a bed of nails where her weight would be evenly distributed, he knew. This was going to be painful for Paul to watch. Not painful enough to close his eyes or look away – perhaps painful enough to make him wince in sympathy.

Her first step was slow and deliberate and the clowns who had set up her props were standing underneath. Not moving or hooting and hollering like the crowd. Just standing. Expectant. Their creepy statue act had Paul almost watching them more than the lady on the wire.

She walked. Her first few steps, she let her face show how much pain she was really in as she struggled to gain her balance, but Paul knew it was part of the act. She suddenly smiled, flipped her parasol up in the air, and started to bounce on the balls of her feet. That did make Paul wince.

The act got harder to watch as she tiptoed her way from the spiked board to an actual wire. It couldn’t just be normal wire, thought Paul. No. It was barbed wire. The kind of thing Paul was used to seeing on ranch fences.

One step onto that and the soles of her feet began to shred, blood dripped down onto the frozen clowns. Paul had been excited for the show but this was a bit too macabre for him.

“This has to be some kind of trick,” Paul said out loud.

His friends were all grimacing. Wade was holding his stomach like he was seconds from blowing chunks and Steve was covering half of his face with his mask.

“I mean, I expected dark but…”

“Yeah,” said his brother, “this is too much. And I hope it is a trick because look at the clowns.”

Paul followed his brothers pointed finger and watched the nearest clown. As the tight rope walker bounced her way back and forth across the razor sharp wire, blood was streaming from the cuts on her feet, right onto the clowns who were no longer just standing there, but standing with big plastic buckets on their heads. They were catching her blood as it rained down.

“Oh, nope, that’s not – that’s not right at all,” choked out Wade as he held in the bile that was creeping up his throat.

Paul was right there with him. Seeing the red drops fall and hearing them splash into the buckets was gross. He was ready to puke all over the stage. Right then he wished that he hadn’t eaten all of that junk food.

“This is really more disgusting than scary,” Doug said, laughing under his breath.

The boys agreed. They were all grateful when her performance ended and the clowns removed her high wire. Paul knew he would never forget that as long as he lived. Which was fine as long as he never had to see it again.

Trapeze artists were next. They were so deft, so at home on their swings, it reminded Paul of the chimpanzee pen at the zoo with how they climbed and flipped and leapt from one swing to the next. Then came the jugglers with their knives and chainsaws and their desire to scare the crap out of everyone in the audience with each toss.

Now this was what Paul had been hoping for. There was the possibility of danger, just enough to get his adrenaline pumping, and it was unlikely that anything bad would happen. These artists practiced too hard and too often to slip.

The circus had gone from disgusting to riveting. Lights were flashing. Loud, boisterous music was blaring from the speakers. And the performers were so close that the boys could reach out and touch them. Paul and the guys sat there, engaged in every little thing happening. So much so that Paul nearly forgot the tight rope walker and her ruined feet.

Nearly.