Happy Little Horrors: Freak Show

by David Reuben

  Mr. Battleman was still yelling at him for screwing up. He tried to get a word in edgewise, but didn’t manage to say a thing. Finally, his boss took the smallest of breaths, and Hilbert took advantage of the pause for the first time ever. His body surged with tingling energy and when he looked up, he slammed his fists upon his desk. A shockwave of energy assaulted his boss, and Hilbert said, "I don't need this anymore. Don't you have a happy place to go to?"

  Battleman was perplexed by his actions, and then, he was standing in the local zoo. People laughed and screamed at him. They pointed their fingers, gesturing for him to turn around. He stood motionless, ignoring them, because he couldn't figure out how he'd gotten there. Where’s that rat, Hilbert, he thought, until he heard several deep roars and the heavy footsteps of something much bigger than he was. When he turned around, several large lions were hurtling through the air and were a foot from his face. The only thing he could do was cross his arms defensively. Suddenly, he was back in high school, mocking some poor teen that was hunched in a corner with a jacket pulled over his head. Bully Battleman stepped out of a crowd and asked, “What’s the matter, butt wipe?” The unfortunate teen slowly turned around to reveal his head was twice as large as it should have been. He had turned into a praying mantis/human hybrid. Long green arms unfolded and, lightning fast, it clutched Battleman’s head between its spiked forelegs. He wet his pants as he was slowly pulled towards its piercing-sucking mouth, and then, he was back in his office standing in front of Hilbert, frazzled. He felt for a wet crotch.

  Hilbert was shocked at what he’d been able to do at that moment and asked, "Did you enjoy your time in the happy place?”

  THE STRANGE DEATH OF WALLY THE DISCO KING

  By C.L. Hernandez

  They were confined to their room, bored out of their minds, and Wally, “The Disco King,” was drunk again. They heard him blundering around in the living room, spilling his martinis and tripping over the furniture as he attempted to disco dance. They didn’t dare go out there; Wally was dangerous when he got like this. They discovered the Ouija Board on the top shelf in the closet, way in the back. The box wore a downy grey blanket of dust; it must have been up there for years, most likely left by the house’s previous tenants. They read the instructions on the inside of the box lid, and their eyes lit up with delight at what they had found.

  “You can talk to spirits with this thing!” Thirteen-year-old Lou remembered to keep her voice down; Wally hated it when he could hear them talking.

  “I know! I can read, dumb-ass!” Eleven-year-old Sue pinched Lou’s arm and was rewarded with a punch to the shoulder for her efforts.

  After a brief slap and scratch session, the girls returned their attention to the wondrous discovery from the closet shelf. They removed the board from the box and studied what was on the front of it: The alphabet, written in a Gothic style; the words YES, NO, and GOODBYE; and a creepily grinning sun and moon tucked into the upper corners. After reading through the instructions again, the two look-alike sisters sat cross-legged on the floor across from each other with the board balanced on their knees. They placed the heart-shaped plastic planchette, the gadget which would point out the words of the supposed spirit message, in the middle of the board and lightly rested their fingertips on its edges.

  “It’s not moving; nothing’s happening. Maybe it’s broken.” Lou skewed her mouth into an unlovely sneer and glared at the motionless planchette.

  “You have to call the spirits, you stupid thing!” Sue hissed. She curled her fingers into claws, ready to rake another red furrow down Lou’s arm.

  “Okay then! Shut up!” Dramatically, Lou rolled her eyes back into her head like she’d seen the fortune-tellers do on TV, then took a long, deep breath. “Oh, mysterious spirit world,” she intoned, (Sue snickered derisively) “we wish to communicate with you tonight. Are there any spirits with us now?”

  The planchette skated across the board on its felt-padded feet and stopped at YES.

  “You moved it.” Sue’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “I didn’t, I swear! It went by itself!”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, now shut up! You’re gonna scare the spirit away!” Lou positioned her hands over the planchette again, her fingertips barely touching the plastic surface. The sisters sat hunched over the Ouija board, hardly daring to breathe, and their hearts fluttered wildly with excitement. “What’s your name?” Lou’s voice trembled, barely above a whisper.

  The planchette scooted across the board and swept over the block letters, hovering over the ones it selected: A-R-N-O-L-D. It slid to a halt then, awaiting its next command.

  “Arnold?” Sue quirked a brow at the board and planchette. “That’s a stupid name. You’re moving it, Lou, I know you are. This is—”

  Wally stumbled against the wall just outside their bedroom door, and they heard the splash and rattle of gin and ice cubes as he spilled yet another drink. His blunt, calloused fist hammered against their door, and his voice rose above the rhythmic thump of disco music. “You two knot-heads get ready for bed! And don’t forget you have one more day to get that room ready for a white-glove inspection!” The Disco King shambled back down the hall again, ricocheting off the walls and muttering to himself.

  Lou made an ugly face and flipped the bird at the closed door. “Bastard. I hate him so bad.”

  “Me too. Why did Mom have to marry the fat slob? I wish she didn’t have to work late shifts. At least things are a little better when she’s here.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Lou surveyed the still horrendously messy room with a sigh. “Come on, we’d better do as he says. We still have one more day left to clean this up, and—”

  “Spider! Spider! SPIDER!!” Pointing, squealing, and cringing, Sue leaped from the floor to her bed. It was nothing out of the ordinary as far as spiders go: Brown, furry-legged, and about the size of a quarter, but spiders of any description were a reason to panic as far as the girls were concerned. It scuttled towards the closet and disappeared under a pile of laundry.

  “Holy crap, it’s a tarantula!” Lou gasped as she climbed up on the bed next to Sue.

  “I know, I know! Where did it go? Find it and smash it!”

  “I don’t know where it went, and why should I be the one to find it? You’re the one freaking out, maybe you should find it!”

  “No!” Sue’s eyes misted over; her lip wobbled. “What are we gonna do?”

  “I don’t know! Shut up and let me think, dammit!” Lou slapped Sue’s arm just for the hell of it. Then, despite their dire situation, a smile crept over her face. “Let’s ask Arnold the Ghost where it is!” She leaned over the edge of the mattress, inspected the Ouija board and planchette for signs of life, and then placed them on the bed between herself and her sister.

  “Are you serious? There’s no ghost. You were the one moving the pointer-thingie.” Sue’s eyes drifted warily towards the pile of laundry by the closet, searching for any sign of the highly venomous bedroom tarantula. “But I guess … alright, let’s try it.”

  They positioned their fingers on the planchette as before, and Lou asked the first question: “Arnold, where is the tarantula?”

  The planchette began to move immediately; it slid over the board to spell out the message: NOT TARANTULA.

  “Holy—I’m not moving it, I swear!” Lou shook her head rapidly from side to side, adding emphasis to her denial.

  “I’m not either, promise!” Sue looked bug-eyed with fear and excitement. “Ask it where the spider is! Go on!”

  “Okay, okay …” Lou cleared her throat and spoke to the unseen manipulator of the Ouija board. “Where is the spider, Arnold?”

  The planchette zipped across the board, spelling out words as fast as the girls could read them: CLOSET RED BOOK UNDER.

  “‘Closet red book under.’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lou stared down at the board, her eyes wide, and her breathing light and rapid.

  “In the closet
under a red book?” Sue suggested. “Go look!” She softened her voice and tried again. “Go look, please?”

  “Why should I be the one to look?”

  “Because you’re the oldest. Come on, please?”

  Lou sighed. Being the oldest had its advantages, but sometimes it could be a real pain in the ass. “Alright. Here goes.” She slid off the bed and stepped into the yellow circle of light thrown by the bedside lamp. She made her way to the closet, scanning the dirty carpet in front of her for any signs of an avenging arachnid. Spiders were serious business for Lou and Sue, not something to be taken lightly. A possible ghost spelling out messages on a Ouija board was exciting, and maybe a little scary, but a spider? Sheer, blood-chilling horror. Lou reached the closet and slid the door open on its tracks.

  An overdue library book lay face down on the closet floor; its cover was the color of strawberry jam.

  Lou grabbed a weapon from the scatter of miscellany on the floor: a shoe. She raised it high above her head and flipped the book over with her other hand. Underneath, to her astonishment, was the eight-legged invader of their bedroom. The harmless grass spider tensed, ready to flee, then was splattered into oblivion with a high-top sneaker. Although the spider was now undoubtedly dead, Lou continued to wield the shoe until all that remained of the spider was a wet smear of goo and a few still twitching legs. She pumped her fist in triumph and backed out of the closet. “There! It’s dead!”

  Sue’s face no longer held that skeptical frown, and she ran her fingers wonderingly over the Ouija Board. “Thanks, Arnold,” she said. She looked up at the wildly grinning Lou, who still clutched her murder weapon in her hand. “He really is real, Lou! This is so cool! We actually talked to a spirit, and I’m not even scared!”

  “Oh, so now you believe me.” Lou tossed the shoe aside and sat on the bed next to her sister. “I told you I wasn’t moving the—”

  The bedroom door flew open and ricocheted off the wall, then a cloud of gin-stink and disco music flooded into the girls’ tiny, cluttered bedroom. Wally stood in the doorway, glowering at them and propping himself up on the door frame. His beady blue eyes cut back and forth between the two girls, and they knew he had tried once again to catch them in a state of undress. Sooner or later he would be successful. There was no lock on the door. He had a chunk of cheddar cheese in one hand, and he chewed on it thoughtfully while he observed the state of the bedroom and its two frightened occupants. “I thought I told you two clowns to go to bed,” he finally said, his voice low and dangerous.

  “We were,” Lou said, “but we had to—”

  “Restriction!” The Disco King bellowed. “Two goddamn weeks! NO television! NO playing outside! When you come home from school, you’ll do your homework and chores, then hit the sack until dinner. After dinner, you’ll do the dishes and go back to bed. White-glove inspection of this room tomorrow; be ready for it! Goddamn knot-heads!” His nearly lipless mouth was a tight, thin line as he glared at them in all his bald-headed fury, then he slammed the door hard enough to rattle the window in its frame.

  Sue opened her mouth to yell something, but Lou clapped a hand over it before any words tumbled out. “Ssh! You’ll just make it worse!” Lou took her hand away from her sister’s mouth, ready to silence her again if need be.

  “How are we ever going to have time to clean this stupid room now?” Sue hissed. “School, homework, chores, then bed? That leaves us no time to clean the damn room!”

  “I know. He’s setting us up to fail. I’ll try to talk to Mom about it tomorrow.”

  Sue made a derisive snorting sound. “Yeah, right,” she said. “Like she’s gonna give a damn.”

  A stealthy, rattling sound came from Sue’s bed then; the sound of plastic against a hard surface. The girls spun around in unison and were rendered speechless by what they saw. The planchette moved, unaided, and it spelled out words as they watched: NOT WORRY ARNOLD HELP.

  ***

  The girls walked as slowly as they dared on the way home from the bus stop the next day; they knew that nothing good awaited them, and they had yet to see their mother. Funny how she always seemed to make herself scarce when Wally was at his worst. They turned down their street, feet dragging and shoulders hunched. “Maybe he won’t be there,” Sue said, but the slight hope in her voice sounded flat and dull. Of course he would be there; luck never favored them that much. When their house came into view, they saw Wally’s dilapidated red pick-up sitting in front of it, as expected. It squatted in the driveway, looking like a huge metallic zit. It smelled almost as bad as Wally himself. Their mother’s car was nowhere in sight, also as expected.

  He sat at the kitchen table, smoking a cigar and reading a nasty magazine, and he glanced up briefly at the girls when they entered the house. “I guess you two clowns better get to cleaning,” he said, his voice just as casual as you please. He scratched the top of his hairless head and glanced at his watch. “Inspection starts in thirty minutes.”

  “Thirty minutes? But we still have to do homework, and chores, and—”

  The beady blue eyes narrowed, and the almost-lipless mouth tightened into a bloodless slash.

  Lou swallowed the rest of her words and headed down the hallway, pulling her sister along by the arm. Once they were in their room she slammed the door, daring The Disco King’s wrath. She threw her books onto her unmade bed and scowled ferociously at the Ouija Board which still lay on the floor amid a rubble of broken toys and dirty clothes. “You said you would help us, Arnold!” Her face reddened with unleashed fury, and tears burned in her eyes. “You said you would help us, you lying shit!”

  Wally chuckled to himself as he stubbed out his cigar and set his magazine aside. Terrorizing Jean’s daughters was one of his favorite pastimes. No matter how hard they tried, they would never have that pig-sty bedroom clean, the bathroom scrubbed, the dishes washed, and the porch swept in thirty minutes. He had set them up to fail. Failure was not allowed in this household; he would beat them for it later. For now, it was time to get ready to see his disco-goddess mistress, Betty Jane. Another good thing about Jean’s erratic work schedule: not only did he have plenty of time to torment her children, he also had the chance to meet up with Betty Jane a couple of times a week. Life was good for Wally the Disco King. On his way to the bathroom, he could hear the two knot-heads sniveling and bitching about their plight. Damn little shits.

  He turned on the water in the tub, letting it run until it was nice and hot before he put the stopper in place. The bathtub was spotlessly clean, but it wouldn’t be for long. Wally was rather proud of the bathtub rings he created; he knew how much those two clowns hated cleaning up after him. He let the tub fill while he went to his bedroom to fetch his girdle and disco wig. He returned to find the bathroom warm and full of steam, just the way he liked it. The mirror over the sink was completely fogged over, and someone had used a finger to scrawl a block-lettered sentence in the condensation: ARNOLD IS HERE

  “What the hell …” Wally stared at the three-word message. Those goddamn kids. He hadn’t heard their bedroom door open, but it had to have been one of them; there was no one else in the house. He glanced at his watch again before he took it off and set it on the counter. No time to beat them for it now; Betty Jane was waiting for him. “Goddamn little shits.” Wally wiped the condensation off the mirror, then moved up close to it to inspect his nose hairs. From behind him came a loud, hollow knocking sound, and Wally spun around, startled.

  The folding doors of the towel closet rattled and banged and strained against their hinges, as though something had been trapped inside and was trying desperately to break out. The door to the medicine cabinet flew open of its own volition, and bottles of cheap aftershave and mouthwash and rubbing alcohol tumbled out and smashed into the sink. Earthquake! Wally wanted to shout the word aloud, but he couldn’t open his mouth. His body had locked up tightly; he was unable to move. The shag carpet under his feet buckled and heaved, then bulged up like a bizarre, milde
w-scented tumor. Fibers popped and snapped as a rip opened up in the carpet; something was clawing its way through. The foul stench of damp earth and rot filled the steamy bathroom as the carpet was torn away, and something monstrous shot up through the opening. Wally would have gladly screamed if he’d been able.