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Welcome to the Underground Circus

The Fiendish Franzelli
 

“There he is!” shouted Steve, waving his arms over his head. The guys had found a table right up front near the stage in this new room.

If possible, Paul thought this room was creepier than the last. But at least it smelled better. His soaked shoes squeaked as he walked to his friends.

This room didn’t have a tent or curtains hanging on its high walls. Instead, they were wallpapered in white canvas. Old black-and-white films were being projected. Clips of men riding old-timey bicycles and couples dancing. There were even old clips of circus performers. Three walls had the huge wooden doors with movies playing on either side, but the main attraction was a tarnished silver proscenium lit with floor lamps. A red velvet curtain hung behind. A poster set on a stand, off to one side of the stage, showed a tall man with devilish features wielding a wand and levitating a woman. Green ghosts were painted around the edges and the name The Fiendish Franzelli was painted in blood red letters across the top.

“A magic act? I’m not interested in any kind of magic these people can do,” Paul sniffed.

The rest of the room was crowded with round tables and high columns that, at the moment, held dancers and contortionists. Paul stopped and stared up at the couple dancing the closest to him. He thought they were magnificent. The rushing and twirling of their bodies was so quick it sent a cooling wind his way. Their feet spun so gracefully atop the narrow pedestal that it seemed impossible that they hadn’t fallen off. But Paul knew better. He knew that there was a good chance that they weren’t human. Especially with the way they were laughing in the face of gravity with their tricks and turns.

The swoosh of the woman’s harlequin tutu and the tinkle of her ivory laugh were sweet and enchanting. She wanted to grab Paul’s attention. He stifled a shudder as he looked up to see the glint of her dark eyes beneath her fragile mask with its long hooked nose and the luxurious red of her full lips. A red that didn’t look like lipstick to Paul. She reached down and was just able to brush her delicate fingers across Paul’s forehead. Her fingers came away with blood on them. Paul swiped at his face. He was bleeding and he hadn’t noticed.

He watched as she brought her fingers to her lips, Paul wanted to puke when she tasted the blood. And then he saw something worse. Her face beneath the mask changed. The skin that he could see started shifting between olive scales and milky flesh, like tasting his blood made her animal side come out.

Paul gasped as the dancers went back to their twirling and he ran to the table where his friends were waiting.

“Where have you been, Paul? We looked all over for you in the last room.” Steve patted the chair next to him.

Not one of them had noticed that Paul was sopping wet. “You didn’t look very hard, did you?”

“We didn’t look too hard because the show started,” said Doug. Once again, his eyes were plastered to his stupid phone.

Paul had the sudden urge to smack it out of his grasp.

“Yeah,” laughed Wade, “we knew when we saw that ventriloquist with his creepy dummy that you’d be long gone.”

All the guys laughed at that, like Paul’s fear was somehow silly. And maybe he would have been nervous about the dummy because fear was an unreasonable force, but he would have been there sitting with his friends.

“You missed Steve almost getting us kicked out.”

“I did not,” laughed Steve. He wore a proud grin as Wade told the story.

“Did too. He wouldn’t stop heckling the ventriloquist and the Ringleader came over to warn him to be quiet. That tarot chick was right,” Wade said. “You are trouble.”

The thought that his brother and his friends were almost taken away was too much. They needed to know what was really going on. They needed to know that they were in danger.

Paul was so upset that he couldn’t fight the urge any longer. He needed their undivided attention. He reached out and smacked his brother’s phone to the table. Doug leapt up, fist raised.

“What the hell are you thinking, slapping my phone?” And then Doug stopped when he saw his younger brother’s sad, soggy frame. “What happened to you?”

Paul’s lip quivered as he looked at his big brother and heard the concern of his closest friends. In that moment he wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t. He would be strong.

“We need to leave.” It came out quieter than Paul expected. He cleared his throat and said it again. “We have to get out of here.”

“No, first you’re going to sit down and tell us where you’ve been.” Steve forced Paul down in his seat and Wade slid a tall glass of water in front of him.

Paul downed the water and Wade gave him his glass. After he drank that, Doug grabbed his chin and pulled Paul’s face to his. “Tell me who did this. Who do I have to hurt?”

Typical big brother, thought Paul. Always wanting to fix things with his fists. Well, this was one bully that Doug wasn’t going to be able to beat.

Paul shook his head and winced when Steve put a napkin to his cut. “You can’t fight them. We need to find a way out.”

“A way out? What are you talking about?” asked Steve as he cleaned Paul’s brow. “Dude, you look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“I wasn’t in a fight, really.”

“Then someone beat you up,” said Wade with a sympathetic shrug. “It’s happened to all of us. But tell us this: why do you smell like alligator butt?”

“Tell me who did it,” growled Doug.

“Dinner is served,” cut in a voice. Paul recognized it before he looked up. It was Pepperwell. He was holding a tray of plates and sides but he wasn’t passing them out – he was staring at Paul. The look he gave Paul, like he had risen from the dead, was satisfying. But when it turned to a look of pure hatred, Paul’s skin began to crawl. It wasn’t ready for any more beatings and he didn’t blame it.

As he kept his sights on Paul, Pepperwell passed out the empty plates and lots of dishes carrying sauces, potatoes, bread; there were so many plates that they hardly fit on the table. He said, “Eat.” Then he left.

Paul couldn’t stop shaking. He hadn’t thought he’d be found out quite so early. They needed to go and now.

He needed to tell the guys what had happened to him but there wasn’t a chance to. The other clowns began walking around the audience’s tables, carrying big meats on sticks. They walked from table to table cutting small bits of meat off for the guests, never saying a word the whole time. While it was quiet enough for Paul to talk, he couldn’t let anyone else overhear. Especially not another clown.

As his plate filled with chicken and steak, Paul sat there staring down at the sizzling meat. He was hungry. His mouth salivated from the wonderful scents wafting up from his plate and his stomach rumbled. But he couldn’t eat. He shivered in his wet clothes and watched for Pepperwell.

“Welcome dear guests,” shouted the Ringleader from the stage, “to our next performance! While you feast and gorge yourselves you will have the pleasure of viewing our master of prestidigitation; the diabolical artiste and first name in necromancy; a virtuoso in the art of escapism; the man who taught Houdini everything he knew. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the brilliant, the exotic, the fiendish, Franzelli!”

The small crowd cheered as the curtains opened with a bang and a big cloud of smoke. Violin and piano music began but the stage was bare.

Paul leaned over to Doug. “We should go while it’s dark.”

“I’m eating,” he replied as he stuffed another bite of potato in his face. “And I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who messed you up.”

Paul huffed and leaned over to Steve and Wade. “I’m ready to go.”

“Why would you leave now? We’re finally getting a decent meal.”

“Wade, this place is dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Wade agreed, “dangerous for my weight.”

“No, you don’t understand, this circus is evil. Haven’t you noticed that the audience is smaller?” Paul had noticed the moment he had rejoined his crew. “People are going missing.”

Steve stopped mid-bite to give Paul an exasperated look. “It’s Halloween. And it’s supposed to be evil. And the people who left early are missing out on this great meal.”

“But – ”

Doug cut him off. “Eat. And then we’ll leave after this act. Okay?”

“I’m good with that,” said Steve.

“I know you are, Steven, because if you’re not I’ll leave you here.”

Steve mumbled, “Don’t call me Steven,” and stabbed a piece of chicken wrapped in bacon.

Paul sucked in a deep breath and nodded. All he had to do was make it through one more act and then they’d leave.
 
 
 
 
Despite all he’d been through, Paul had to admit that this magician was really good. And that the food had been excellent. But none of that made him feel any better about the fact that Pepperwell the clown was watching him and had brought the Ringleader into it. They were both on the far side of the auditorium from Paul’s table and both were keeping a very close eye on him. He was afraid that leaving unnoticed wasn’t going to be possible now.

“We should have left earlier,” he said under his breath.

 All of the guys ignored him. They were too busy watching the Fiendish Franzelli, a lanky man in a cape, flit about the stage while an assistant brought out his next trick. So far he had done card tricks, levitated a woman just like on his poster, and even disappeared a few of the guests. When Franzelli opened the boxes to reveal the guests who had volunteered, the tigers had taken their places, which put Paul extremely on edge. None of those people had returned to their seats yet and Paul knew that they probably never would.

“I need one last volunteer,” said Franzelli. His assistant was rolling an iron maiden onto the stage and Paul swallowed hard.

“That thing is full of spikes,” said Paul. “Who would be crazy enough to volunteer to go into that thing?”

“He would,” said Steve as he pointed his thumb at Wade. “Dude, put your hand down.”

Franzelli was only feet from Wade, who was waving his arm so hard that his wig was crooked again. “No. I’ve always wanted to do a trick like this. It’d be fun.”

Paul raised his voice, “Put your hand down.”

It caught Franzelli’s attention. He walked over to them and leaned over the old stage lamps to see them better. “It looks like we have a volunteer,” he said, waving Wade up to the stage.

“Wade, don’t do it,” pleaded Paul.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right back. It’s just a trick.”

Wade bounded up and onto the stage before Paul could yank him back. The audience applauded him as Franzelli introduced him.

“Now this,” said Franzelli, “is an iron maiden.”

The contraption was tall and sturdy and looked like a metallic sarcophagus filled with spikes. It was capped off with a head that was frozen in a scream. It was a terrifying contraption and if it didn’t fill Wade with fright then he wasn’t human either.

“Do you know what this device is, boy?” asked the magician. Wade nodded. “Good. Then you know how it works. Why don’t we show these good people in the audience what we know?”

Wade looked unsure and Paul was praying that he chickened out.

The assistant pushed the iron maiden close to the stage’s edge and opened its door wide. There were massive spikes riddled throughout the body. Paul knew it would be impossible to escape those.

“This hefty lady was used as a torture device. See the beautiful blood stains on her spikes?” He gave the audience a wink. “Created in Germany sometime around the fourteenth century, it was a unique way to execute a criminal while still putting on a good show for the onlookers. And tonight, I, with the help of this courageous young man, are going to show you exactly what this kind of a device can do.”

The assistant gave the iron maiden one last spin around the stage before setting it perfectly at center stage. Then she left, the stage lights dimmed, and Franzelli pulled Wade closer to the device.

“It is usually my lovely assistant who helps with this part of the act but she has complained that the spikes are ruining her pretty costumes.” He waited for the audience to laugh before continuing. “I would do it myself but this suit is simply too expensive. So you, my young apprentice, will be going into the maiden. I bet you never thought you’d ever get to be inside of a maiden, did you?” He waited for the audience to laugh again.

Paul was on pins and needles. He couldn’t let Wade do this. He had seen enough blood tonight. He stood and shouted, “No! It’s a trap!”

The audience laughed at Paul and the magician smiled at him. He could see out of the corner of his eye that the Ringleader and Pepperwell were advancing. Paul scolded himself. He was giving them a reason to take him away. An outburst was just the excuse they needed to remove him from the performance and from his friends. So Paul sealed his lips and sat down.

“Do not worry, young man,” the Ringleader chuckled. “My magic is perfectly harmless.”

Paul didn’t believe him but he knew if he argued that Pepperwell would grab him up and out of his seat. So he stayed quiet.

“Now that we have everyone’s attention, let’s put our assistant into the iron maiden.” Franzelli nudged Wade into the spiked torture device where he promptly bumped his elbow and began to bleed. “Be careful,” said the magician with a grim smile, “those are sharp. The sharper they are, the less they hurt.”

Wade looked over at Paul but there was nothing Paul could do.

Franzelli said, “Let’s count to three, shall we? One!” And then he slammed the door on Wade.




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