by Jeff Strand
“Perfect!” said Mongrel. “It truly brings out the sharpness of your teeth.”
“Can’t I just wear normal clothes?” asked Nathan.
“Not in my Theatre of the Macabre. Perhaps if you sign on with some discount hobo-laden charity theatre you can wear your street clothes, but not here. Now, it is time to practice.” He clapped his hands. “Assistant Kleft! The spider box!”
Kleft picked a small wooden box up off the stage and set it down in front of Nathan.
“Inside this box are a dozen different varieties of spiders,” said Mongrel. “You will be able to tell which ones are venomous by observing whether or not you die after you are bitten.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That was a joke. You’re in the entertainment business now, so levity is important! Nobody wants to pay to see a sour-faced spider-eater. That said, there are venomous ones in there, and it will serve you well to avoid them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Remember, it’s all about showmanship. You can’t just tilt your head back and shake the contents of the box out into your open mouth. The audience needs to feel as if they were eating a tarantula themselves. As the webby contents of its thorax spew out onto your tongue, each person sitting in those seats needs to feel as if it is their own tongue being coated.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“You can get entertainment that isn’t disgusting at the ballet! These people want to see, smell, hear, taste, and touch the macabre! Now open the lid.”
Nathan opened the lid. The box was indeed filled with crawling spiders.
“Pick one up. If you choose a black widow, do it quickly.”
Nathan plucked the largest spider he could find from the box then shut the lid so the others wouldn’t escape. He tossed the spider into the air and caught it between his teeth.
“Amazing!” Mongrel shouted. “Why didn’t you tell us you could do that?”
Nathan wanted to explain that it was something he’d never tried before, and in fact he’d only thought of the trick two seconds earlier, but he had a spider between his teeth.
“So, go on, bite it!”
Nathan offered a silent apology to the arachnid, then bit it in half.
“That was unspeakably entertaining,” said Mongrel. “We have an act!”
* * *
Nathan sat backstage, listening to the sounds of the audience being unimpressed with the Tattooed Man’s story about how he’d originally asked for a crescent moon on his arm, but how the tattoo artist had convinced him to go with a star instead, and about how sometimes when the moon was in the sky he regretted his decision.
“Are you ready?” Mongrel asked. “You’re on next.”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose? What kind of lackadaisical attitude is that? We need enthusiasm. A lot of people have traveled long distances tonight to see Fangboy. Do you know who’s here? Do you?”
“Who?”
“None other than Charles Monchino, star of stage and screen. His filmography includes motion pictures such as Doom’s Day, Lady’s Bug, and Spoke’s Person. Terrible films, all, but financially lucrative.”
Nathan sat up straight. “I’ve never met a movie star.”
“Perhaps tonight you will. He’s one of the most respected citizens in existence, and if he enjoys the show, imagine the publicity!”
“I can’t perform with him in the audience!”
“Oh, now, don’t worry about stage fright. If he intimidates you, just imagine that a president or a king was in the audience in his place. The lights will be low anyway, so you won’t even see him. It’s almost time. Get focused.”
The tattooed man finished up his story and left to a smattering of polite applause. Mongrel walked out onto the stage.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you tonight’s main attraction. When you and I gaze into the mirror, we see teeth with flattened tops. Do I speak the truth?”
Several members of the audience murmured that he did indeed speak the truth.
“But the same cannot be said for our next attraction. For when Fangboy looks in the mirror and opens his mouth enough to expose his teeth, he sees sharp, glistening, murderous fangs!”
“Oh, dear!” said somebody in the audience.
“Fear not, for Fangboy will not be murdering any humans tonight, though if he wanted to I suspect that he could end the lives of a good eight or nine of you before we were able to subdue him. Instead, he will focus his homicidal impulses on members of the arachnid family! Ladies and gentlemen, practice your gasps and cross your legs, for I present to you…Fangboy!”
EIGHTEEN
Nathan walked out onto the stage, feeling more than a little bit sick to his stomach. A spotlight shone in his eyes. The audience, who he could barely see in the darkened theatre, applauded politely.
Mongrel gestured to Nathan. “He looks like a normal boy, one you might hire to mow your lawn or fetch things for your grandmother as she writhes in the final stages of dementia. But no, behind those lips lurks a sight that will chill each and every one of you down to the soft red marrow of your bones. If your psyche is fragile, then look away, look away, for what you are about to witness will imbed deep, jagged scars upon the surface of your brain!”
Nathan thought he might be building the whole thing up a bit too much, leaving the audience feeling disappointed when the actual performance began. If he’d had any say in the way the program was arranged—which Mongrel made it very clear he did not—Mongrel would have merely announced Nathan as a straightforward juggling act, and a poor one at that, and as the audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats over the awkward sight of Nathan picking up dropped balls, having failed to complete even a single “toss and catch,” he would flash them a sheepish smile, at which point the more clever members of the audience would realize that this was not a juggling act at all, and they would scream and point, and the rest of the audience would quickly catch on, and pretty soon there’d be an entire audience of people screaming and pointing at Nathan, and it would be quite a show.
(It is important to note that Nathan did not want to encourage the audience to scream and point at him; he was merely noting that the theatrical presentation could have been made much more dramatic with relatively minor changes.)
“I must remind you,” Mongrel told the audience, “that we cannot bear any responsibility if one or more of you are to drop dead from fear. Obviously, this disclaimer only applies to death from fright over what you’re about to see. If part of the ceiling collapsed and struck somebody on the head, naturally we’d assume our proper legal obligations. But if you feel that your heart may not be able to withstand the shock and the horror and the amazement and the eerie sensation that something just isn’t quite right with that boy’s teeth, then I strongly encourage you to leave immediately.”
A woman tried to get up, but her husband tugged her back down into her seat.
“Remember that you cannot un-see what you have seen in your mind’s eye. We all have certain images we desperately wish had never been within our line of sight. Who among us has not at least once entered a room in which an unappealing display of carnal activity was taking place, perhaps involving one’s parents? So though it may seem that I’m being overly cautious, I cannot stress enough that horror awaits, and although there are no refunds I do not want anybody to see anything they are not fully prepared to see.”
Mongrel had at least another seven minutes of his speech remaining, so Nathan looked out into the audience. He couldn’t really see anybody in the darkness, just a small red glow in the front row, somebody smoking a cigar.
Could that be Charles Monchino?
No! Suddenly Nathan realized exactly who it was.
Bernard Steamspell!
Even lit only by his cigar, the orphanage owner was unmistakable. Few people were able to radiate such a strong sense of evil without actively engaging in evil acts.
Was Steamspell looking at him r
ight at this very moment, staring at him with those cold, cruel eyes?
Well, yes, of course he was. Nathan was standing on stage. That was a dumb internal question.
But what did he want? Was it a coincidence? Was he simply here to enjoy the show? Was he coming to reclaim Nathan? Was he going to jump up on stage and start beating him? Should Nathan run?
He took several long, deep breaths to calm himself. There was no reason to panic. If he fled, he would no doubt be quickly recaptured, and then he’d be in an even worse situation than before. He could imagine Steamspell grabbing his legs, Mongrel grabbing his arms, and Kleft grabbing his nose, the three of them tugging until he popped apart.
Mongrel, seemingly unaware of Nathan’s current state of dismay, continued to warn the audience about how scary he was going to be. “Your eyes may try to leap out of your head, but worry not, for the stalks will keep them from getting far…”
Nathan tried to convince himself that it would be fine. Mongrel would never give up his star performer. As long as Nathan stayed close to his current wicked captor, his old wicked captor wouldn’t be able to get his hands on him.
“If the need to regurgitate arises, please be considerate to those around you…”
He’d be fine. For now, he’d just perform the show as planned. Maybe Steamspell had forgotten all about him.
“Behold…the open mouth of Fangboy!”
On cue, Nathan opened his mouth wide, showing off his terrible fangs. A woman in the front row screamed. The man next to her began to frantically fan himself. Several people started talking at once, and though he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, their conversations all seemed to revolve around the idea that he was a most ghastly creature indeed.
Mongrel held up his hand. “Calm yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. He frightens me too, but rest assured that we have two different snipers ready to take him out should he make a threatening move.”
Nathan had not been made aware of that. He hoped it was untrue.
“But what does he do?” a man called out from the back of the theatre.
“I beg your pardon?” Mongrel asked.
“What does he actually do? He doesn’t just stand there having sharp teeth, does he?”
Mongrel chuckled. “Of course not. At Professor Mongrel’s Theatre of the Macabre, I wouldn’t waste your time by showing you a freak who didn’t do tricks! Kleft! The box!”
Kleft walked out on stage, placed the box on the floor in front of Nathan, then exited.
“Arachnids. Spiders. Perhaps the most frightening creatures on earth. Some may claim that snakes are scarier, but can you grab a spider by the tail and swing it around like a lasso, robbing it of its intimidating nature? You can not. I will concede that the great white shark is more fearsome, but of course we would not be able to feasibly provide one tonight, and if we did, it would certainly eat the boy, ending the show. But excluding the shark idea, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, what could be more frightening than watching this boy use his unnatural jaws to eat spiders?”
Mongrel gestured to him, and Nathan raised the lid of the box. The mass of spiders writhed inside.
“Such a stupid boy,” said a booming voice. It was Steamspell. “I’d be astonished if he even knows which end to bite from.”
Several people in the audience laughed. Nathan’s face burned with rage and embarrassment. Being part of the show was bad enough without the likes of Steamspell ridiculing him.
He extended his thumb and pressed it against one of the spiders, crushing it.
Mongrel frowned. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
Nathan didn’t respond. He crushed two more of the spiders.
“What did I tell you?” asked Steamspell, letting out a hearty laugh. “He’s trying to eat them with his thumb! I have never been so amused by a display of idiocy!”
Nathan knew that he had the ability to come up with a suitably devastating retort, but instead he ignored the orphanage owner. He continued crushing spiders as quickly as he could.
“Fangboy,” said Mongrel, his voice strained, “it is time to eat one of the spiders now.”
“In a moment.”
“Not in a moment! Now!”
Nathan looked through the selection of spiders and crushed another one. “I’m almost ready.”
Mongrel chuckled nervously and turned his attention back to the audience. “When a boy eats spiders for a living, you can’t always expect him to behave in a rational manner.”
“He won’t do it!” Steamspell declared. “He’ll spill them all over the front of his shirt instead! Oh, how jolly I feel when I see such foolishness!”
Nathan stared into the box of spiders for a few seconds, making sure he hadn’t missed any that he wanted to squash, and then picked up the entire box. Mongrel glared at him with very, very angry eyes. The box was supposed to remain on the floor.
“Go on, eat the spiders!” said Steamspell.
“No,” said Nathan. “You eat them!” And with that, he flung the contents of the box toward the audience and Bernard Steamspell in particular.
To say that there was chaos would be an understatement.
Women screamed. Men screamed. People shoved. The entire audience became a flailing mass of panic. Nathan grinned, able to comfortably enjoy the frenzy knowing that he’d behaved in a responsible manner and crushed all of the poisonous spiders before throwing them at people.
Steamspell clawed at his face, which was covered in spiders, and let out a high-pitched scream that was far from demonstrative of the amount of dignity expected from a man of his stature. The cigar dropped from his mouth.
Unfortunately, when the theatre was being built, “fire safety” was not among Professor Mongrel’s top ten concerns. (In fact, had he taken the time to rank these concerns, fire safety would have ranked somewhere around forty-seven, right before “identifying the odd green stain on the ceiling” and right after “bolstering the rear wall in case large animals go on a rampage and repeatedly smash against it.”)
Most wooden floors, though not fireproof, do not burst into flames as soon as a lit cigar falls upon them. It remains unknown why the floor reacted in this matter. The most widely held theory is that the wood was saturated with gasoline, thus explaining its low cost, although those who argue against the theory counter with the fact that gasoline has a distinct smell and somebody should have noticed.
Regardless of the reason, the floor immediately caught fire. The level of panic increased accordingly.
Steamspell spun in a circle, batting away spiders and flames. “Help me!” he screamed. “Somebody take pity on a poor gentleman who is burning to death!”
The flames quickly spread. Nobody else seemed to be actively on fire, but the flames passed from seat to seat as if blown by a strong wind. Patrons were pouring out of the theatre’s four exits, which were providing an excellent means of escape even though they were designed to save wood instead of lives.
Steamspell was perhaps the lowest quality human being Nathan had ever known, yet he certainly couldn’t just stand here and let the man burn to death!
He rushed forward, but only made it two steps before Mongrel grabbed the back of his suit. “Where do you think you’re going, you miserable little bastard?”
“I have to save him!”
“Let his skin crack and blister! I care not!”
Nathan tried to tug away from him. His costume had been constructed with the same standards of durability as the floor, and the back tore off, freeing Nathan and leaving an enraged Mongrel with a handful of cloth that was of no use to him. Nathan leapt off the stage, thinking that cheap clothing had worked out very well for him in his various escape attempts, and that he would always wear low quality attire in the future.
“It burns! It burns!” Steamspell shouted.
“Drop to the floor and roll!”
“There is no spot that isn’t alight!”
“There’s a small one, right over there!”
“I’ll never reach it in time!”
“It’s right next to you!”
“There’s a spider in my mouth!”
“Just drop to the floor!”
“I swallowed it!”
Nathan sighed with frustration and then shoved Steamspell, aiming for a non-burning part of the orphanage owner. Steamspell was a large man and the shoving did no good, so Nathan kicked him in the ankle as hard as he could. Steamspell fell to the floor.
“Roll! Roll!”
Though there wasn’t much room for Steamspell to roll around between the rows of seats, he was able to roll without actually moving anywhere. Nathan kicked at him to help the process along, and soon the flames died out. Steamspell lay there, face-up, his skin severely burnt and smoke billowing from what little remained of his clothes.
Nathan wondered: would he be grateful to Nathan for saving his life, or would he immediately try to kill him?
The answer seemed obvious, and so Nathan ran.
“Oh no you don’t!” shouted Mongrel, grabbing Nathan’s arm as he rushed out into the aisle. “You’ll not be escaping that easily!”
The sleeve tore off, allowing Nathan to easily escape and deepening his resolve to always wear the cheapest clothes imaginable. He ran up the aisle, blinking back tears from all of the smoke. There were no charred corpses to step over, which was good. He ran out into the lobby, which hadn’t yet caught fire, wove through the screaming panicked theatergoers, and hurried into the long narrow hallway. The hallway seemed much shorter when taken at a full run, and soon he reached the exit and rushed outside.
Safe!
Now what? Though people were fleeing to their various means of transportation, Nathan didn’t think that any of them would offer a ride to the fang-toothed monster who’d caused the inferno. He could probably escape unnoticed in the pandemonium, but he wanted to quickly get as far from this place as possible.