The Inside Man

by Nicole Peeler

  “Moo, what is . . . ?” My voice trailed off when I saw Moo’s expression. She was normally calm, but this wasn’t “calm.” This was a total lack of expression, like Moo wasn’t home.

  Shar was no better when I turned to her. She, too, was staring at the clown, and she didn’t blink when I waved a hand in front of her face.

  “Guys?” I asked, trying to keep one eye on the clown and one on my friends. Meanwhile, I beefed up my skimpy shields and my attempts to read the clown. But I still felt absolutely nothing.

  I groaned inwardly, then groaned outwardly as the clown raised a gloved white hand. He beckoned, his thickly painted lips rising in a creepy smile. Shaking my head, I told him “Nuh-uh” even as I locked the doors of the Jeep and started her up. I was just about to drive away when Moo did finally move. I saw her fist coming at the back of my head a split second before it connected. I didn’t even have time to swear before I was out cold.

  —

  I CAME TO slumped over in the front seat, the car still running. My friends were long gone. The girls had put the Jeep in park before leaving me stranded, but I could tell from the fuel gauge that I’d lost at least an hour.

  “Shit,” I said, shutting down the car and getting out. It took a few minutes to regain my sea legs, and I took that time to check out the damage to my head.

  I’d live, though I’d have a knot. My hand didn’t come away bloody or anything. I wondered what Moo had hit me with, and then I saw our gun lying where she’d been sitting. You never knew when good old-fashioned brute force would be necessary in a case, so we kept the revolver handy. That said, we rarely used it with Moo’s mojo in our arsenal.

  “No chances,” I mumbled, picking up the gun and tucking it in my waistband at the small of my back. It felt cold but comforting.

  Since I had no idea where the damned clown had led my friends, the first thing I did was shift into something with a better sense of smell. Had I had my dad’s shape-shifting abilities, I could have changed into a bloodhound. But with my own more modest talents, I had to keep my too-tall human frame, although I did manage a good long snout and some slightly bigger ears to catch any sounds.

  I wore my hair natural, and huge, and I know my Afro looked good. But probably not as good when coupled with a hound’s snout and an ass’s ears. All topping a voluptuous woman’s body. I undoubtedly looked heinous to anyone outside of a furry convention, but that didn’t matter. I only cared about getting my friends back.

  Testing the wind, I lowered my nose to the ground. I could smell where Moo and Shar had alighted from the car. Then they’d walked east, parallel to the town.

  Every once in a while I’d see their sneaker imprints in a patch of soft dirt. Inevitably, they were framing another set of enormous shoe prints.

  Clown shoe prints.

  Following their scent, I ran as hard as my legs and the trail would allow. The surrounding streets were ominously quiet, with no signs of animal or human life. I passed a few houses, the doors hanging open as if the inhabitants had just walked out. Remembering Moo and Shar’s behavior, I knew they’d done just that, answering the call of that damned clown. I reckoned we’d gotten a personal visit due to Moo’s power. She wasn’t the only thing that could sense the deep mojo, after all.

  Why did it have to be a clown?

  I whined through my long muzzle, but—clown or no clown—didn’t slacken my pace. It wasn’t till I was approaching what had to be the local high school that I slowed.

  My ears picked up the music first. Faint strains that grew into the blaring horns and bashing cymbals of King’s circus anthem “Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite.”

  And then I saw it.

  Pitched right in the center of the high school’s football field stood a huge Victorian-looking tent, replete with pennants and banners. Except the tent was solid black, as were the pennants and banners, advertising nothing. The music played from old-fashioned loudspeakers set high on black poles.

  Crouching low, I scuttled forward. Expecting all sorts of circusy things like animals, performers, and more scary clowns, I was surprised to neither see nor hear any activity. I could smell people—lots of people—but I couldn’t hear anything besides the music playing over the loudspeakers.

  Finally I was at the mouth of the tent, where one panel was folded back, another large empty black banner unfurled over it where you’d expect to find the name of the circus. I peered in, squatting low in case there were guards at eye level. But there was no one watching the door, nor could I see or hear any activity from inside the tent. After a few more seconds of nothing, I raised myself into a low crouch, poking my head through the flap.

  There was still nothing, although I could see more of the interior of the tent. Risers were set up to the right and the left, but the light was so dim, it took me a second to see the legs. There were at least a hundred people in the room staring silently at something in front of them, only the backs of their legs visible between the riser slats.

  I slipped into the tent, tiptoeing forward till I could see around one of the risers. When I did, it took everything in me not to do a heebie-jeebie dance.

  The clown was standing just to the left of an enormous slab of mirror that stood on two silver legs. I watched as the clown’s upraised arms adjusted the mirror so it was tilted ever so slightly upward. He kept his arms up and his head thrown back as he glared up at the ceiling with those eerie black eyes. But he never moved a muscle, nor did anyone else in the audience. They all sat rigidly in their seats, staring toward the mirror. I couldn’t make out my friends in the gloom, but I knew they were there.

  Meanwhile, everyone watched the mirror. But “mirror” wasn’t quite the right word. Gray smoke swirled over its surface, and an occasional flash, like lightning bursting, seemed to illuminate it from the inside out.

  My brain scrambled trying to figure out what to do next, when the clown finally moved. He lowered his gloved hands, exhaling hard as he did so. Then, on the inhale, he raised his hands again in a wide movement, as if summoning great power. To my horror, sparkling orbs of light rose out of the foreheads of the entranced audience. The clown swept his hands around again, this time bringing them in close to his chest. He smiled, a grimacing leer that brought cold to my bones as the orbs followed his command, bobbing toward him like obedient little dogs.

  The orbs formed a line as they floated forward. I stifled a gasp as the first one hit the mirror, only to be swallowed up by that oily surface. Narrowing my eyes, I focused on the people in the audience. One by one they slumped over like puppets whose strings had been cut. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

  The clown was collecting their souls or spirits—whatever made them them—in his mirror.

  Moo’s words came back to me about how killing the trapper would destroy the souls, as would destroying its trap. I wasn’t sure if we were dealing with the same creature she’d heard about, but its MO seemed to fit.

  Which meant I had to get the souls out before I took on the clown.

  I focused back on him again. He was still exaggeratedly gesturing, his arm movements expansive. Eventually he flung his arms wide, and as he did so, his whole hand plunged into the surface of the smoky mirror.

  Only it didn’t hit anything. Like the orbs, his hand went straight through. That wasn’t a mirror; it was a portal.

  I had a few options at that moment. I could have called for backup. I could have searched for Moo and Shar in that room, hoping I could wake them up or reconnect them with their orbs. I could also have taken on the clown directly and risked killing him before I could free the souls.

  Instead, without really thinking about it, I did what I do best. I acted entirely rashly, rushing headfirst into danger.

  My legs carried me forward in a sprint that would have made an Olympian envious, and it took me a whole second to realize I was screaming like a banshee. The clown looked as surprised as I felt to find myself hurtling toward him, and I think h
e was even more surprised when I neatly dodged his outstretched arm, plunging at the mirror itself.

  I sort of expected to bounce off of it. But instead, I plummeted—

  falling,

  and falling,

  and falling.

  —

  A FOOTBALL PLAYER was charging toward me. My muscles clenched, the ball solid between my calloused hands. My focus was split between the wall of man hurtling toward me and the man behind me, waiting for me to pass. At the last second, as I saw the pimples marring my opponent’s chin, my arm swung with brutal force, sending the ball to my teammate just as the crowd went wild and I went down. . . .

  The shadowy presence of the hulking older man passed out of me, but before I could recover, the shadow of a woman about my age collided with me.

  My daughter twirled, her spangly tutu so impossibly tiny on her equally tiny five-year-old frame. My husband watched her with sad eyes, and I wondered what he was thinking. That she was growing up too fast? That we’d miss these years when she was a bratty teen? I reached over to grasp his hand. When his eyes met mine, I smiled and leaned closer. “We made that beautiful creature,” I told him, and he leaned in to kiss me. . . .

  I sidestepped out of the shadow woman, only to careen into a small shadow, that of a child.

  Candy and pop and candy and pop and candy . . . the bright lights twirl past and the boxes are endless and every one has a cartoon and a toy and I want them all and Mom always gives in and lets me have one and I’ll ask her again if I can have that, or that, or that, or that, or that. . . .

  I pulled myself away from the child’s shadow, only more carefully this time. I was standing on a spectral plain of what looked like gray grass. The sky was gray, the landscape was unrelentingly gray, and it stretched forever and forever.

  There was no horizon, I realized, a shiver running down my spine. Wherever I was, it wasn’t earth with its comforting roundness.

  I looked around, trying to get my bearings, but all I saw was a gray landscape and gray people. But then I recognized a few people from the crowd—the silver orbs must have become these ghostlike apparitions.

  I also couldn’t see a way out. It wasn’t till I looked up that I saw, shimmering tantalizingly, an exact replica of the mirror from the circus tent floating just above me in the sky. I thought I could even see the clown, although the image was faint, seen through the other side of the mirror’s surface.

  That had to be my way out. Unfortunately, there was no way I would reach it unless I could find something to stand on. Peering about, I turned, only to collide with another of those ghostly shadows. . . .

  She cried like she didn’t want it, but all those bitches are the same. My dick was so hard in her and she liked it, she was whimpering and that wasn’t pain, I’d bet my Camaro on that. She kept whispering “No” till I slapped her again and again till she shut up and my hand was bloody, like her lip. “Whore,” I whispered, the word making me want to come. . . .

  “Holy shit,” I said, plunging out of that shadow as quickly as I could. I whirled around to come face-to-face with a middle-aged man with what would have been a powerful build were he not made of something akin to gray smoke. His face was hard, and I recognized him.

  He’d been pumping gas into a massive black Dodge Ram dually when we stopped to refuel in Harmony. He had ogled all of us when we got out of the car, the whole time chewing on a toothpick.

  I took a deep breath, trying to figure out what these experiences meant. Were they fantasies? Memories? Dreams?

  Then I remembered what Moo had said in the car, about creatures eating memories as a way of chewing through souls. I turned back to the guy from the gas station, watching him intently. He shuffled forward a tiny bit, then back, and just for a moment his face crunched up a little—a bit like that of a man having an orgasm. I remembered his thoughts of the woman as his expression again grew slack—and his already ghostly form grew just a tad less visible. He’d faded, infinitesimally, as if something had siphoned off a bit of his energy.

  Everything I was seeing corroborated what Moo had said earlier. Which meant I hadn’t stumbled into that man’s sick fantasy but into what had been a reality.

  “I’ll remember you,” I told his specter, my voice weirdly muffled in the shadow realm. “And if I do manage to get you out of here, don’t think I’m rescuing you. ’Cuz we’re going to have a little chat.”

  I’d bring Moo. A victim of abuse at the hands of her Alfar father, she had a special place in her heart for rapists. It was a place full of pain, and expressing that pain was cathartic for her.

  I’m all about helping out my friends.

  I looked around, scanning the milling shadows clustered in two large groups. The placement seemed odd till I remembered the risers. The good people of Harmony must be standing where they’d once been sitting. They’d pace a bit, their faces blank as if sleepwalking. But none of them moved very far.

  I moved away from the rapist toward what looked like a nice elderly lady. Waving my hands in front of her, I shouted. Again my voice was muffled, as if it were underwater. But it was still loud enough that it should have attracted her attention, as should my jumping up and down. Her wide gray gaze never wavered, however, from whatever she was watching in her mind.

  After a second I decided to experiment. I walked forward till my solid mass met her insubstantial one. . . .

  Twirling in my peach gown, his hands on my waist just like I’d always wanted them. We waltzed all night that night, and then he took me home and told me I was his best girl. . . .

  Walking straight through her, I shook off the vestiges of her memory. The clown’s method was genius. I couldn’t think of a more elegant and efficient prison than our own memories. But how to break these people out, especially since I was trapped with them?

  I took a deep breath, putting aside my fear. Panic would get me nowhere. There was an obvious first step I needed to take, and that was to find my backup.

  Walking around the periphery of the crowd, I scanned the faces, looking for my friends. It wasn’t an easy task, as one insubstantial body would blend in with another as they paced back and forth, trapped in little boxes of their own making. After a few increasingly worried passes, I finally saw them at the edge of the crowd. Shar paced, but Moo stood stock-still.

  I ran to them, avoiding colliding with any of the other shadows. I did the whole scream-and-dance thing in front of them, but like the little old lady they didn’t respond.

  It was like they were asleep. Which meant I needed to wake them up.

  And there was only one way I could think of to do that. I had to get in there with their memories and make them see reality.

  But did I have that right? They were my best friends—more like sisters, really. And yet plunging into their memories meant I might see things they hadn’t ever shared, for reasons all their own. These, however, weren’t normal circumstances.

  I had to go in.

  That decided, I had to strategize. After all, my friends’ memories wouldn’t be of high school football games or children’s recitals. I eyed them, speculating. Shar paced restlessly in front of me, her hand sometimes reaching up to brush against her lips or her breasts. Sometimes lower.

  It was pretty obvious what sorts of memories Shar was experiencing.

  Moo, however, hadn’t moved a muscle since I walked up. She stood like a statue, her eyes haunted. God only knows where she was trapped. Knowing her tragic history, it couldn’t be pleasant.

  I made my decision. Shar was a famous over-sharer, so any secrets she had were probably things she knew we’d be squicked out by. I could handle a Tijuana donkey show or a romp with Hanson much more easily than I could Moo’s vast, undoubtedly horrifying secrets.

  I turned and walked right into Shar’s shadow.

  The smell of sex in the air as the girl’s fingers played deep inside me, bringing out the moan lingering on my lips. Her mouth found mine, and then we both turned to the man kneeli
ng in front of us. . . .

  The sensuality of Shar’s memories threatened to drag me under. Her memories of sensation were more powerful than some of my actual experiences, and for a split second I envied her ability to let go and just be . . .

  . . . Now he was moaning, our tongues meeting each other around his hard shaft. . . .

  I pulled myself back, the lure of Shar’s sexuality too powerful. If I let her suck me in (no pun intended), I’d never leave. But I’d once again pulled out (wink wink, nudge nudge) too far, finding myself again standing next to my shadow friend rather than in her memories, where I needed to be.

  I tried again, walking into her . . .

  . . . my lips wrapped around him, the girl kissing down my neck, to my breasts. . . .

  Yanking out, I stood next to Shar. I swore. I needed to be in the dream, but not as Shar. She was occupied, after all, and I needed to get her attention.

  The good thing about having a mom who was a staunch New Agey hippie type was that I knew way too much about things like lucid dreaming. I wondered if I could reverse the process of lucid dreaming to make myself real in Shar’s dream, like lucid dreamers tried to make themselves “real” in their own.

  Clearing my mind of all other thoughts, I imagined myself less a part of Shar and more a voyeur. I’m a watcher, I repeated to myself in a focusing mantra as I slid toward the dream shadow of my friend. The metaphor not only worked, but it was appropriate as my perception shifted so that I watched the three figures writhing on the bed rather than being a part of Shar.

  Concentrating, I willed myself into solidity. I’m not just watching, I told myself. I am here. I am here. I am . . .

  And just like that, I was. I looked down at my own arms and hands as I stood next to the bed.

  Hooting in triumph like a madwoman, I reached out and grabbed Shar’s hair, pulling her mouth off the man.

  “Shar!” I shouted. “Wake up!”

  Shar’s face scrunched at me, like that of a sleeper who didn’t want to wake. Then the walls around us dissolved and we were in a room. Shar was tied to a bed, facedown and spread-eagled, while a man had his proverbial way with her.