The Monsters From My Dreams
By: Paul Q.
I never much liked the circus, never much liked the clowns, pissed me off, with their caricature smiles, those harlequin faces, it's aggravating, you know? Always feared them, nightmares of being tied down, tickled by jokers and jesters,laughing manically, smiles etched into monstrous masks. Even as a boy, Pops would take me to the circus if I've been bad, sit me right in front, the pies flying by me, the obtuse laughter, concocted together in the grotesque stench of a wino's hiccup, smelt like stale elephant dung. I'd wet myself whenever I was even near a clown.
One day, about my seventeenth birthday, old Pops, drunk as a government mule,came round with the old pick-up, telling me he had a birthday surprise. Said we had to go into town to get it. I reluctantly jumped in the cabin, and puttered off with sparks out the tail-end. I wasn't a dumb boy, but my naivety had me thinking this puss-filled drunkard would actually do right by me. We came up on the carnival that looked as gothic as a Hitchcock picture.
Damn startling to see twelve foot stifled madmen juggling flaming batons, and barking wolf freaks startling the neighborhood children. Then they came: those goddamned clowns with their goddamned inhuman faces.
"Today, you gon' stop acting like some sissy, and get over them there clowns, boy! Or else I'm gonna slap the puss outta ya!"
I sat up straight, looked out to those gaff smiles, those devilish mugs, and I silently cried.
"Damn, boy! You don' gone and pissed yerself, didn't ya? Well, I ain't pardoning no cupcake of a son today! I don't care if it's yer birthday or not! Get out there and face ya fears! And don't come back home till ya over it! Now git, yella-belly, before I whip ya something awful!"
Pops booted me outta the pickup, not really very kindly I might add. I loomed around the side of the truck, until it sent me off running with a hardy horn blow, and an alcoholic ass-haul back down the line. Everything was striped, old, and smelt of exotic shit from six continents.
I felt a catch in my throat, croaking like a horny toad up on a June-bug. A woman of ill-repute coaxed me forward through the Big Tent, the show was already under way. The fiends were on unicycles from hell, rolling around, ghastly laughs sending chills down my spine.
The lady massages my shoulder in comfort,and leads me to the front row. I shiver and shake from passing clowns.
"Do not fret, child! This is for your entertainment. We only want to serve you, enjoy the show! Let the wonder of the carnival take you over, you will become a man today, boy." She spoke in some nifty foreign accent, I couldn't quite pin it, being not much worldly off the farm.
The show was fascinating! The most professional gig I've ever done seen! There were acrobats, lion tamers crackin' whips at the speed of sound, keeping back beasts that'd ribbon them to bits! As the allure of that there show overcame me, I started to get tunnel vision, as belly dancers from the Far East came out, jiggling in ways a good young Christian boy only thought of seeing,then prayed for forgiveness of such deviancies.
Then the lights went out completely, and I was startled from out the mists of sex, fear, and surreality. The light turned red, as red as the devil's behind. There he stood: the ringmaster.
"Good evening fine citizens! Welcome to Scandala! Thank you for consorting with us fiends this evening! I would like to turn your attention now to the center ring, and look upon the most mischievous, beautiful, exotic creature to grace God's green Earth! Is she an angel from up above? A devil from below? Whatever her ordination, wherever she hails, let it be known that today, you have come mere feet from gracing perfection! Ladies and gentlemen! I give you: Eve! The First Woman!"
From out of some makeshift box came what looked like a moving sculpted figure, something that was crafted, molded, and never duplicated. She danced the mystics' dance. She pummeled me, coaxed me with every bump, every curve, I couldn't move.
After trying to shake it, I realized I was literally stuck, I couldn't move! Damnedest thing, I tried to get up, I tried to run, but so much as my brain,,everything was stiff in that there chair. Then the sound of screams, it bursts throughout the tent, and I saw red, and I ain't talkin' 'bout no fancy spotlight.
Blood splattered as the creepy laughter of clowns turned real ogreish. I tried to scream, as Eve moved into the spotlight, and glared with red eyes, singeing me. Her teeth were fangs and spikes,rows like a white shark, hell of a lot of teeth. I squeaked, and squirmed as the clowns jumped upon me, teeth like bats, as they sucked at my neck, legs, and thighs.
The shooting pain was like a billion porcupine quills, but it broke my stare at the demon bitch, and I punched, and kicked, breaking free. I ran and ran, and ran like I wasn't drained of half my body's fluids. My head was swimming, my mind was brazen with thoughts of what the hell I just went through. I ran the ten miles like it were ten feet, and I couldn't believe I made it back to the farm. I was starving when I got inside Pop's farmhouse. He was barely passed out in front of our radio. He stammered and shook in frustration when I slammed the door, nearly knocking it off it's hinges.
"Boy! Ya almost gave me a heart attack there! What the hell do ya think you're doing?"
"I'm hungry Pop, so very hungry. Them there clowns, they were demons Pa! They drained me of my life source, like they made a pact with the devil or something. I need a good feeding." I was ravenous.
"I didn't expect ya back until sometime after midnight, but there's some chicken bits left in the icebox." He turned back to a disembodied voice of a lady screaming, dire music in the background.
"Pa, I don't think that's gonna cut it, I'm feeling a bit funny. I can smell the drink in yer blood, it's smells awful nice."
"What the hell ya taking about, boy? What's gotten into ya?"
He came towards me, his drunken swaying back and forth, and just before he reached out to hit me, he fell and cut his arm. I couldn't take it, the sight and scent was like a hit of moonshine to my senses, and like a rabid dog, I pounced on Pops, teeth deep in the flowing cut. He didn't feel it at first, but once he saw he was being drained, he screamed and swung, but the blood was putting back strength lost, and I sucked and slurped until he grip on my neck loosened to a whimpering crash and rattle on the sawdust-covered floor.
I stopped before he was completely gone out of some extraterrestrial instinct, and broke his neck like a twig. I slurped my lips, and cut my tongue on my protruding incisors. I smiled that demonic smile I saw on those makeshift harlequins. I knew one thing: whatever I was now, I sure as hell wasn't scared of nothing. Not even those clowns. In-fact, I'm fixin' to make a nice timely visit tomorrow night, them laughing boys had some explaining to do, and I bite the answer out if need be. Time to do the scaring for once, 'cause I was now the monster from my dreams.
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