Night Terrors

by Tim Waggoner

  Blueskin wasn’t alone, however. Next to him in the ring crouched a huge beast that looked like an amalgamation of various big cats – lion, tiger, leopard, panther, and cougar. The creature was obviously an Incubus of some sort, but even if that hadn’t been obvious from its appearance, I could’ve guessed its true nature from its demeanor. There was no hint of restlessness or nervousness from the beast. It looked relaxed, casual even, and intelligence shone in its gaze.

  Blueskin wasn’t wearing a microphone, but the ringmaster’s voice came over the sound system again. I couldn’t see him, so I assumed he was backstage somewhere.

  “Azul the Amazing, the Astounding, the Astonishing is here to answer the question: how much pain can a single Incubus endure? A warning for those of you in the audience who are squeamish, you may wish to avert your eyes for this next part!”

  The crowd roared with laughter. Incubi aren’t known for their squeamishness.

  I had a bad feeling that I knew what was coming – a variation of the animal tamer putting his head into a lion’s mouth. Only in this case, because Incubi could heal all but the most catastrophic of injuries, the gimmick here was to watch the lion bite Azul and see how much pain he could withstand.

  The cat-beast crouched lower to the ground and fixed its gaze on Azul. Azul faced the creature, seemingly unconcerned. The cat-beast’s leg muscles tightened in preparation for an attack, and a low growling sound came from deep within its throat. Azul showed no reaction. The cat-beast let out a deafening roar and leaped toward Azul.

  In that instant, I understood that this act was intended to be a far more savage variation on the classic circus bit. I was right about that, but I was wrong in how I thought it would turn out. Azul – who up to this point had stood motionless – blurred into action. He sped forward and met the cat-beast in the middle of its leap. Even though Azul appeared lean and not especially strong, he plucked the cat-beast out of the air as if it were no more than a stuffed animal and slammed it to the ground.

  Bones cracked, the cat-beast howled in pain, and Azul opened his mouth impossibly wide to reveal three-inch-long needle-sharp teeth. Curved talons extended from Azul’s limber fingers, and with a high-pitched shriek, Azul fell upon the cat-beast. Flesh tore, blood sprayed the air, and the audience roared approval. It only took a few moments for Azul to strip most of the cat-beast’s meat from its body and swallow it down.

  I had no idea where the meat went. Azul’s stomach didn’t expand so much as an inch Despite how sickening the display was, I couldn’t help feeling a bit envious. I wish I could eat like that and not gain any weight.

  Almost as fast as Azul could eat, the cat-beast regenerated its lost mass, and once it was whole again, Azul went back for seconds. Then thirds. It was an impressive spectacle in its own savage way, and extreme even by Noddian standards.

  The cat-beast called it quits after the fifth time it was devoured by Azul, and the act ended. Then a large bull-headed Incubus dressed in a tuxedo wheeled a stainless steel table upon which a half-dozen other Incubi who looked like demon babies were strapped down. He stepped into one of the other rings as circus hands carrying shovels moved wheelbarrows into the center ring to start cleaning away the blood-soaked sawdust. The minotaur removed a pair of claw hammers from his pants pockets, bowed, and then began to play his hideous instrument. Demon babies shrieked as hammers pounded their scaled flesh, their cries creating an atonal symphony of agony.

  I figured the crowd was sufficiently distracted, and I wasn’t confident that I could sit through another violent blood-soaked act without losing the grilled cheese I’d eaten earlier. I started to stand, but Madam P grabbed my arm and stopped me.

  “You can’t go now, sweetie! The clowns are next. They’re always so amusing!”

  I sat back down and did my best to tune out the demon infants’ screams.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been as grateful for anything as I was for that act’s conclusion, and I let out a shaky sigh as the audience applauded and the minotaur maestro wheeled his table away. None of the demon babies moved. None of them looked much like babies anymore, either.

  The ringmaster’s voice came over the sound system once more.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Damen und Herren, mesdames et messieurs, the Circus Psychosis is proud to present those Masters of Disaster, those Mavens of Mayhem, those Barons of Butchery… the Bedlam Brothers!”

  The crowd went crazy. Well, crazier. They shouted and cheered, hooted and hollered. Clearly, the Bedlam Brothers were a favorite act.

  Several spotlights came on, and their beams began circling and criss-crossing the tent, as if searching for the clowns. From somewhere in the bleachers behind me came the roar of an engine. I looked back just in time to see a small car drop through a flap in the tent’s roof. It was an exceptionally small vehicle, only large enough for a child to drive, but it was more than big enough to cause some serious damage as it plunged into the crowd. Incubi cried out in pain as the car landed on them, and when the driver floored the accelerator and the vehicle’s tires began spinning on flesh, those cries begot shrieks of agony. People scrambled to get out of the car’s way as it roared toward the circus floor. Those who didn’t move fast enough were mowed down or knocked aside. Despite its size, the little vehicle packed a hell of a wallop.

  The car was painted white, but patterns of multicolored dots, stripes, and various geometric shapes flowed across its surface like liquid as it went. Of course, it also picked up a good amount of blood-red on its journey toward the circus floor.

  As the vehicle came bouncing and juddering toward where I sat, I was able to catch a glimpse of the driver. It was a clown, and at first I thought it was Jinx. I’d seen him drive before, and vehicular homicide was the least of the damage he’d caused.

  But I quickly saw that the driver was a different clown. He wore a bowler hat on his round head and he had different markings. But his most distinctive features were his huge, almost elephant-like ears. Big-Ears: the leader of the Blacksuits. I recognized the insanity blazing in his eyes, as well as the far-too-wide lunatic smile spread across the bottom half of his face. It was the clown version of berserker rage, and once a clown was caught up in it, the only thing to do was get the hell out of the way.

  The crowd around me was panicking as they attempted to remove themselves from the vehicle’s path, which of course meant that people were falling over one another and not getting anywhere. Those Incubi who had other ways of getting around besides walking fared better. They took to the air or simply vanished. One turned intangible and the maniacal clown drove right through her.

  Madam P laughed in delight as she watched the car come toward us, as if she didn’t realize – or didn’t care – about the danger we were in. I grabbed hold of one of her vine hands and tried to pull her with me, but she didn’t budge. I pulled harder, but all I succeeded in doing was breaking her hand off at the wrist. I fell backward just as the clown car slammed into Madam P, cutting off her laughter. Pumpkin rind, pulp, and seeds exploded into the air, and her vine body came apart like dried straw. The car continued until its gore-smeared wheels at last reached the ground.

  The vehicle didn’t stop there, though. It picked up speed and began going around the circumference of the tent, as if it were in a race with opponents that only the driver could see. Halfway through the first lap, the passenger door sprang open and a clown came tumbling out. That one was followed by another, and another, and so on, until a dozen different clowns – mostly male, but several female – were running around and laughing like lunatics. All of them were dressed in colorful, outlandish outfits, but Jinx wasn’t among them.

  Now that its passengers had disembarked, the clown car veered toward the center ring, drove into it, and slid to halt in a shower of fresh sawdust. Big-Ears hopped out and the Bedlam Brothers (and Sisters) gathered around their vehicle. Along with his bowler, Big-Ears wore a yellow suit with black criss-crossing stripes, and brown hobo shoes open at the
toes. With exaggerated motions, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a square metal box with a short antenna protruding from one end.

  He then pointed the box at the car and thumbed a red button on the front. There was a loud bang, a burst of smoke, and the roof of the tiny car flew into the air and landed on one of the clowns. I recognized her as the redheaded woman from the parking lot at Perchance to Dream. The roof slammed her to the ground, and she lay there, unmoving. Stupid bitch gets knocked unconscious in both dimensions, I thought. The crowd laughed. I brushed bits of Madam P off my shirt and kept my gaze focused on the car.

  The vehicle began to shake and a metallic ratcheting sound came from within. A pair of impossibly long metal rods rose from within the car, extending fifty feet into the air. Between the rods, bound to them by lengths of wire coiled around his bleeding wrists, was Jinx. He was in his Night Aspect, but he was bruised and bloody, and his head hung forward, chin on chest, and I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. His gigantic shoes were gone, revealing equally gigantic ivory-colored feet. I’d never seen Jinx without his shoes, and I’d always wondered whether they were just an affectation. Now I knew.

  The crowd went crazy when they saw Jinx, howling with bloodthirsty excitement that wouldn’t have been out of place in an arena in ancient Rome.

  The sight of Jinx – my personal childhood boogeyman – brought low like this and displayed like some sort of trophy came as a profound shock. I’d never seen him beaten and weak before. He was Mr Jinx, the Dark Clown, the Phantom Prankster, the Thing That Laughed in the Dark. He was a fierce, terrifying lunatic, the very definition of the word nightmare. That’s what he was supposed to be, what I’d created him to be.

  Sorrow and rage battled for dominance inside me, and while it was a near thing, rage won.

  Big-Ears pulled a headset mic from somewhere within the car and slipped it on. His voice was more guttural, but it definitely belonged to the leader of the Blacksuits that had abducted Jinx.

  “All right, my brothers and sisters… pree-sent arms!”

  In unison, the clowns reached into their pockets and withdrew weapons, most of which – like Jinx’s beloved sledgehammers – were far too large to fit where they’d been stored. Pistols, shotguns, rifles, automatic weapons, crossbow, shuriken, and in one case a flamethrower were removed and aimed at Jinx.

  “We have here a brother clown,” Big-Ears said. “One who not only remained bound to his Ideator–”

  The crowd booed.

  “He also works for the Shadow Watch!”

  The boos became shouts of outrage. I’d known the Shadow Watch wasn’t exactly popular among the Incubi, but I hadn’t realized it was this bad.

  Big-Ears continued. “When my family and I received word that poor, misguided Jinx here” – Big-Ears dropped the remote control to the sawdust and drew a double-barreled shotgun from his pants pocket – “was in need of rescue, we raced to his location and liberated him from his Ideator!” He almost spat the word this time, and the crowd’s roar of outrage grew louder. “Then we brought him here, to the Circus Psychosis, and we tried to get him to see that he was an Incubus, not a servant! More, that he was a clown – a creature of anarchy and chaos! How could such a being belong to an organization dedicated to” – he shuddered – “order?”

  The rest of the clowns grimaced at the word, and one turned and vomited colorful paper streamers onto the sawdust.

  “We offered him a place in our family,” Big-Ears said. “A new, glamorous life as a member of the Bedlam Brothers! And do you know what his reply was?”

  The crowd grew quiet and listened closely. But before the clown could speak again, I stood.

  “He told you to go fuck yourselves with a chainsaw.”

  The clowns gaped at me, as did the surviving audience members. I ignored them all as I made my way to the front row, picking my way carefully through the carnage the clown car had left behind. I jumped onto the floor and started walking toward the center ring, my gaze fastened on Big-Ears. I had no weapons – no trancer, no M-blade – and I didn’t give a damn.

  I glanced up at Jinx. He still hung limply, his head lowered. Not a good sign.

  Big-Ears regained his composure. He lowered his weapon and grinned at me. “That’s precisely what he said.”

  I shrugged. “We know each other pretty well.”

  “And do you know what we did to him after he said that?” Big-Ears asked.

  “Looks like you beat the shit out of him.”

  Big-Ear’s grin widened to the point that the flesh at the corners of his mouth began to tear. “Oh, that’s the least of the fun we had with him. Since he wouldn’t join our act willingly, we decided to force the issue.” He gestured toward Jinx. “We were about to start target practice. We were going to let the audience choose which of us gets to take the first shot, but now that you’re here, I think we’ll extend that honor to you. So which one of us will it be? Personally, I hope you go for the flamethrower. We brought marshmallows.”

  “No one’s going to shoot him,” I said calmly.

  By this point I’d crossed two-thirds of the distance to the center ring.

  “Really?” Big-Ears said. His grin turned into a sneer. “Maybe that’s because we’re going to be too busy shooting you.”

  He raised his shotgun and drew a bead on me. Taking their leader’s cue, the other clowns also aimed their weapons at me. I knew I was helplessly outnumbered and outgunned, but I didn’t care. I was too damn angry to care.

  I kept walking.

  Big-Ears’ body tensed, and I knew he was going to fire. Without thinking, I started running toward him as fast as I could. I had no illusions that I could reach him before he fired, but at that moment, I didn’t really give a shit.

  I didn’t look at the shotgun as I ran. I kept my gaze focused on Big-Ears’ eyes. In them I saw a mixture of glee, lunacy, and bloodlust that was nearly sexual in its intensity. I hoped this meant Big-Ears would want to extend our “foreplay” as long as possible, giving me a chance to try to take the shotgun from him. And I did manage to reach him, but when I was close enough, he spun the shotgun around in his hands, grabbed hold of the barrel, and wielding it like a club, swung the stock toward my head.

  I saw the blow coming, and if it had been a human attacking me, I might’ve been able to avoid getting hit. But Big-Ears was an Incubus, and he moved so swiftly that there was little I could do. I was able to move sideways enough so the stock clipped me instead of hitting me straight on, which probably saved my life. Even so, it felt as if I’d been hit in the head with a block of concrete. Bright light exploded along my optic nerves, and I felt the world spin around me. The next thing I knew I was lying in sawdust with one hell of a headache.

  I heard the soft shuffling sound of someone walking toward me. Then Big-Ears knelt down beside me, grabbed a handful of my hair, and lifted my head off the sawdust. That made my head hurt even worse, and I almost started to cry.

  Big-Ears leaned his face close to mine.

  “Nice try, bitch. Now we’re going to have some playtime with you before we take care of your partner up there.”

  The crowd, which had been watching our little drama play out with silent, rapt attention, now burst into wild applause and cheers. But soon I detected another sound, soft at first, but quickly increasing in volume. The crowd heard it too, and they grew quiet once more.

  It was the sound of laughter. Dark, dangerous, batshit-crazy laughter.

  I managed to tilt my head enough to look up and see that Jinx was awake. It was his laughter I heard – that we all heard – and his eyes gleamed with a level of madness I’d never seen in him before, that I’d never imagined was possible. In that moment, I should’ve been terrified. But I wasn’t. I was relieved. Jinx was alive, and better yet, he sounded pissed.

  “It was fun hanging out with you clowns for a while,” he said, his voice low and filled with menace. “But no one – no one – hurts my mommy.”
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br />   I couldn’t hold onto consciousness any longer, and as my mind fell into darkness, I heard the sound of wire snapping, followed by screams of agony and terror. And then I heard no more.

  TEN

  “Audra? Can you hear me?”

  Jinx’s voice was muffled, as if I was hearing him through yards of cotton. I tried to open my eyes, failed, and tried again. This time I was successful. I saw Jinx’s clown face looking down at me, concerned. He was a bit blurry, but otherwise I could make him out just fine.

  “Yeah,” was all I could manage to say. The word came out as little more than a croak, and I wasn’t confident that Jinx could understand it. He must have, though, for he smiled and nodded.

  “Good.”

  As my head started to clear, I realized I was lying on Jinx’s lap, and he was cradling me in his arms. During the entire time that we’d been together – from the moment of his full Ideation, really – I’d rarely touched him, and I’d never touched him like this. There was nothing romantic or sexual about it, but there was a powerful intimacy to it all the same.

  I let Jinx hold me for a moment or two longer as I waited to see if I would remain conscious. When I was confident I was in no immediate danger of slipping back into nothingness, I asked him to help me stand. He did so, gently, and when I thought I was capable of standing on my own, I motioned for him to step back. He did, but he didn’t move far, in case I started to fall.

  I looked around. My head felt like a bass drum being pounded on by Godzilla, and I had to move my head slowly to keep it from hurting even more. We were standing near the bleachers. The tent was empty, except for scattered food wrappers, uneaten snacks, and dropped souvenirs that people had left behind in their panic to escape. The clown car remained in the middle of the center ring, but the long metal rods Jinx had been bound to were bent and twisted, as if they’d been subjected to hurricane-force winds. Scattered through the center ring were blood-soaked bits of clothing, chunks of meat, bone, and viscera that I took to be pieces of the Bedlam Brothers. Jinx was covered in gore, and since he’d been holding me, so was I.