“Don’t you know it,” was his proud reply.
His joviality was not to be watered down. As he continued to recount the poster, his enthusiasm grew.
“Anyway,” he went on. “She’s sitting on the floor, more than halfway falling out of this dress. But get this, she’s sitting in a pool of blood and she’s got blood dripping all down her and she’s got these half-eaten people all around her and she’s got this arm in her hand that she’s been munching on and I’m thinkin’, I’ve gotta see that! I mean, I was only about ten years old, but I’m still thinkin’, I’ve gotta see that.”
“And your point would be?” I said, annoyed. The grotesqueness of his story was making me nervous. The glee with which he was relaying it was both getting on my nerves and frightening me. The more I got to know Geoffrey, the more I hated him.
“We-ell,” he said, drawing the word out to make his pitch better, “The point, you see, is that I paid my money, my good allowance money, on going in to see this hot vampire babe munching on people parts and you know what I got?”
“I can hardly wait,” I replied, sarcastically.
“What I got,” he continued, the sarcasm completely wasted on him, “was this really old lady sittin’ on a dirt floor with a stick in her hand pushin’ around a few snakes. Snakes! And not even cool snakes, either. No cobras, no rattlers, no diamond-backs, no sidewinders, no nothin’ but a bunch of puny little garden snakes, not even poisonous.
“Oh,” he said, turning to me, “and you’re gonna love this part – not only did she not have any fangs, she didn’t even have any fuckin’ teeth! Not one lousy tooth in her head! Can you imagine that! Here they got me all worked up and for what? An old toothless woman playin’ with snakes! And I had to pay money for it, too! And that was my tilt-a-whirl money! Man, was I pissed!”
“And again I ask,” I said in my best bored voice to hide my fear. Geoff was acting a more than a little psycho and was starting to freak me out, “your point would be …”
“That this ain’t a regular freak show, man. Those posters, they always promise more than they can deliver. But these, these posters, they’re nothin’ compared to what’s inside that tent! This shit is real, man. This shit is real.”
“And you would know this because…” I asked him, suspicious of his motives. By this point, we had walked all the way up to the entrance.
Geoffrey pulled a key out of his shirt pocket and unlocked the gate to the freak show. “Because, don’t you get it? That’s why I’m dressed up in this outfit. I’m the barker here, the Head Carnie, the Master of Ceremonies. I am your host!”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
After we passed the gate, Geoffrey pulled back the frayed curtain leading into the carnival exhibit, motioned and said, “After you, my dear.”
When I stepped into the dirty tent, the stifling heat and the stench of the place overwhelmed me. The odors of disease combined with the stale air, mold and mildew to make me gag. Geoffrey, completely unaffected by the sheer unhealthiness of the tent, was extremely excited to begin his show and tell.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began, even though I was alone, for his mind was already into the role of carnival barker. “Look and marvel at the astounding creatures in this tent. We have sights that will boggle your mind, astonish your sight and push all of your senses past the very brink of possibility.
“Behold, behold. In the first tent, we have the amazing petrified twins.” He drew back a curtain to reveal Antonio and Kenny, propped up in the exhibit and frozen in place. Eyes and mouths still barely functioning, they looked at me and mouthed, “help me”. My heart breaking, I felt completely impotent, for I had no power whatsoever to help them.
“What could have happened to these two, you may ask yourself,” Geoffrey continued. “Was it the basilisk, perhaps? Or the petrifying gaze of the terrible Medusa that made them the way they are now? Who knows. Indeed, who knows.”
“Medusa, my ass,” I countered angrily. “You know what happened to them as well as I do. It was those creatures that came after the group, the same creatures that attacked me. It was their touch that did this to them.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Geoffrey said in a hushed manner that suggested I was exposing some big secret. “Suspension of disbelief, my dear. Suspension of disbelief.”
Moving down the narrow dirt hallway that ran between the “exhibits” and the outer curtain that was serving as the outer wall, Geoff continued.
“Sadly, we may never know what happened to these two or to any of the poor, tragic creatures which share this tent and their fortunes.
“Now, leaving behind our petrified gentlemen, we arrive at our next exhibit. These creatures, found in wilds of Borneo, will make you gasp with amazement. Yes, indeed, my friends, born this way, they are freaks of creation, two of nature’s strangest oddities and a prime example of the cruelty of her ways. Gaze if you will, if you dare, upon the incredible Slug Boys.”
Geoffrey pulled back the curtain with the hook of his barker’s cane, then pointed to the “attraction” with its straight end. On the sawdust of their corral, Timothy and Robert slowly attempted to crawl up to me, as they gurgled out, “help me”.
Feeling as helpless as before, I walked up to the fence and said, “I can’t. I wish I could, but I don’t know how. I am so sorry.”
As Geoffrey moved down the aisle, I stood still, unable to tear my eyes from Robert and Timothy’s pleading. Geoffrey’s cane rapped harshly upon the wood of the exhibit.
“Move it along, people, move it along,” he commanded. “There’s a lot to see here, folks, and very little time in which to see it.”
“I really am sorry,” I told them again before continuing down the line. “I wish I could help. I want to. I really do.”
“And now we get to a couple of attractions that go hand-in-hand,” he went on. “This first poor fellow is the direct result of the next attraction, for he is suffering from the infectious bite of the rarest of insects from the Amazon basin.”
When he threw back the next curtain, I saw Ricky for the first time since the shack. Waxen and white as a result of the attack by The Sisters, he had long, green stripes that ran from unhealthy looking sores left by the bites they had inflicted. Unable to stand, he sat slumped in a chair, gasping “help me”.
“As we move along,” Geoffrey said. “We now arrive at the creature which inflicted this unfortunate fellow’s horrific wounds, the Amazing Human Spider. I must warn you, now, ma’am stay away from the railing. Obviously, this creature is dangerous and has been known to bite, as evidenced by this poor fellow previous,” with his cane, he pointed to Ricky. “And, of course, we cannot be responsible for your safety.”
When he pulled back the curtain, there was the creature that used to be The Sisters, shrunken to a portion of its previous size.
“Help me,” they said in unison, in a tiny little voice. Not the pitiful cry of the others, it was instead a predatory cry meant to lure any unsuspecting prey into their clutches.
“What’s that you say, ladies?” Geoffrey asked them. “Help you? Why, certainly. Glad to oblige.”
“Why are they so small now?” I asked.
“They were just too dangerous to handle before, madam. Too dangerous to handle.”
“What’s the real reason, Geoffrey,” I asked again.
“First, that is the real reason,” he said, breaking character. “Besides, they’re so cute this size, don’t you think? Arrosha miniaturized them for storage. I mean, can you imagine trying to find a jar big enough to preserve them life-sized? How hard that would be? I mean, really, can you imagine putting something like this in the Great Room? No, no, all the way around, it was really much easier for Arrosha just to miniaturize the girls.”
“Why are you babbling on about jars?” I asked. “What does that have to do with anything?
“Here,” Geoffrey said, as if he were being extraordinarily helpful. “Let me show you.”
He took a very long and sturdy hatpin fro
m his hat and with a pair of tongs that were lying on a nearby stool, reached into the sandpit and held onto the creature that was once the Three Sisters. They snapped their teeth at the tongs as did.
“Ah,” he said, “Voracious to the end, aren’t you, ladies?”
It was then that Geoffrey drove the hatpin through them. The creature let out a tiny little cry as it writhed in pain, now impaled upon the pin. Releasing it onto the sawdust for a second, he then picked up a pair of rubber gloves that had been lying next to the tongs.
As he put on the gloves, I asked, “What are those for?”
“Easy cleanup,” he answered. “Even though this is a favor for Arrosha, I still hate getting my hands dirty.”
On the same table next where the gloves and tongs had sat was a glass gallon jar. With gloves on, Geoffrey opened it, causing the strong odor of formaldehyde to be released. I was reminded of the smell in Arrosha’s office and my stomach turned. Geoffrey, on the other hand, breathed in deeply.
“My, oh my,” he said, a huge smile on his face as he took a big sniff from the jar, “How I do love the smell of formaldehyde in the morning.”
Picking up the creature that was once The Sisters with the tongs, he stuffed them into the jar. They twitched once in agony and then they twitched no more. He screwed the lid back, put down the tongs and took off the gloves.
“Ah, rubber gloves,” he said in the same tone of voice as if we were having tea and he was asking me if I’d like another cucumber sandwich. “Don’t you just love them? I know I do. Best invention since sliced bread. You know, I really wonder who came up with that phrase, ‘sliced bread’? I mean, really, is it that hard to slice off a piece of bread? You’d think that with all marvelous the labor-saving devices that have come down throughout the years, they had to pick that one to hold up as the epitome of all labor-saving devices. I mean, really, what brainiac came up with that?”
“Geoffrey!”
“What?”
“How could you just – I mean, I thought they were your friends. How can you just do that?”
“You’re right. And when you’re right, you’re right.” Geoff took off his straw barker’s hat, holding it over his heart in mock respect. “Gals,” he said, “I’ll surely miss ya. You had the attention span of a fly, but you were one great lay.”
Picking up the jar and peering inside it at the Sisters as they floated in the formaldehyde, Geoffrey said, “You know, Illea was right. They really were joined at the hip.
“To tell the truth,” he continued, speaking only to himself, “they really are displayed quite beautifully here. Look how nicely they float in that liquid. How fitting it was that they were together in the end. Get it? ‘Together in the end’. Joined at the tuche and joined till the last.
“I think they would have wanted it this way, though.” He sighed deeply. “You know, out of everybody here, I think I’m going to miss them the most. As a trio, they were really the best pieces of ass that I’ve ever had, male or female. They were insane, it’s true, but you know what they say, there’s no sex like crazy sex and those three were definitely crazy. You can say what you want to about them, but they were certainly intriguing.
“They were even more intriguing as this creature, really. What a shame about the fangs and their whole ‘devouring human flesh’ thing. I mean, if it wasn’t for that, doing them sure would have been a helluva lot of fun.”
“Why did you kill them?” I asked, horrified.
“Because Arrosha wanted me to,” he answered. “Besides, what’s it to you anyway? Arrosha knew you didn’t like them very much. She wanted me to kill them because they won’t come in handy to her later like the others will.”
“But they were your friends!” I repeated, unable to fathom his attitude.
“It doesn’t matter to Arrosha. Listen if it makes you feel any better, Ben was wrong when he bought the official story of who they were way back when.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, my sweet little Ashley, is that dear old Ben thought he had it all figured out, but he didn’t.
“You see, I know more than he does, at least now, and he was wrong about an awful lot. See our Sisters here?” he pointed to the jar. “Ben thought he knew them, but I just found out who they really were. Arrosha told me after I left the shack. Wanna hear their true story? Okay, this is it. They were never victims, they were the predators. And all that time, everybody thought they’d been just poor, innocent girls, but they weren’t. They were white slavers, into human trafficking. Even before I found out, I knew there had to be a reason I liked them so much. Pretty trippy, huh?”
“Geoffrey, I don’t buy it. Those three were challenged, to put it nicely. I can’t even imagine them as criminal masterminds. I think Arrosha must have been lying to you.”
“Arrosha never lies! She said that they were so incredibly wicked that when she cleansed their minds of all evil, there wasn’t much of anything left behind. You see? Even you can’t object to the killing of something that nasty. This creature,” he pointed to the Sisters floating in the jar, “is much closer to the real them in its twisted little way than the girls you met at the mansion ever were. That cock-and-bull background story was just to fool the saps like Ben into accepting them.”
While it seemed far-fetched that to think the Sisters could ever have been cunning, I had no problem imagining the women as predators. Even after hearing Ben’s “victim” story about the girls, I could never shake the feeling that there was something unhealthy and sick about those three.
“But we’re wasting time. We have more ground to cover.” He smiled broadly, ready to resume his carnival barker persona. “Ready to get on with the presentation?” he asked.
I shrugged, which Geoffrey took as a solid ‘yes’.
“And last,” he continued, getting back into character, “but certainly not least, we come to our final attraction. Found in a tomb in Karnak, may I present to you the Princess Illea.”
The curtain now parted to reveal an open sarcophagus that had been stood upon its end so I could easily see what lay inside, a woman wrapped in the bandages of a mummy.
“I’d make a crack about my dear old Mummy, but I’m sure you’ve heard them all before,” Geoffrey said as an aside.
“What happened to her?” I asked. I’d been hoping that Illea had been exempt from the fate of the others, but unfortunately, she had not. Geoffrey said that she was the last in this grizzly exhibit, and since I did not see Ben, perhaps he had been spared.
Rather than a straight answer, Geoffrey slipped back into his carnival barker character. I became firmly convinced now that he was quite, quite mad.
“It’s said that she blasphemed against the gods and was entombed alive. Come, let us see for ourselves.”
Walking up to the open sarcophagus, Geoffrey began to take some of the wrapping off of Illea’s face and head, entertaining himself by humming the song “The Stripper”. That he did a hip bump to every “ba-da” in the song exposed exactly how unhinged he was.
After pulling off a few layers of wrappings, Illea was revealed. Her face was, quite literally, almost all eyes. I counted five in her face where only two should be, one where her nose should have gone, and another, larger eye that stood in place of her mouth, making seven in her face alone.
“Help me,” came a muffled cry from her.
“Hmm,” mused Geoffrey mockingly. “I don’t see a mouth! I wonder where that could be coming from. Her ears, perhaps?”
He pulled back her hair on the left side. There was yet another eye. “No, it’s not here,” he said, feigning disappointment. “Let’s try the other side.” He pulled back her hair on the right side, only to reveal another eye. “Nope, it’s not coming from there, either.”
“Help me,” said Illea.
“Let’s see, now, it’s got to be here somewhere. Hmm, if I were a mouth, where would I be hiding?”
Geoffrey next unwrapped her hands, revealing an eye on eac
h finger and thumb and a larger eye in the middle of her palm.
“Nope, not here either,” he said, pretending disappointment.
“Help me,” Illea pleaded.
Geoffrey next unwrapped her forehead and pushed back her hair, revealing the existence of a mouth high upon her forehead that gasped for air audibly, as if she’d been suffocating under the wrappings for too long.
“Help me,” said the mouth.
“Well, you could at least thank me for getting you more air,” Geoffrey told her, sounding wounded.
“Help me,” she said again.
“You know,” he said to me, “If she’s got more than two eyes, I’ll bet you anything that she’s got more than one mouth around here somewhere. You wanna see?”
He began to unwrap the strips of cloth that covered her lower torso.
“Stop it, Geoffrey,” I snapped. I’d had more than enough of his disrespect for his fallen comrades. “Leave her alone.”
“But,” he said, surprised at my reaction. “Don’t you want to see what’s down there?”
“I’d rather not see one more thing that Arrosha did to any of them. This is gruesome. This whole damn thing is gruesome.”
“You wanna see what’s really gruesome?”
“What?”
“Them,” he said, pointing behind me to the entrance.
When I turned to see what he was talking about, I saw the creatures that had attacked me entering the tent in their rambling, mindless manner.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I yelled.
“Wrong lady. You’ve to get out of here. I’ve just got to get out of their way. Arrosha won’t let them lay a hand on me”
“Which way is out?” I was too panicked take his baiting and I knew Arrosha well enough now to know that there would be only one way out.
Pulling aside a curtain at the end of the sideshow tent, past the “exhibit” that housed Illea, he pointed with his cane.
“I’d figure this would be about it,” he said. “Good luck, toots. You’ll sure need it.”
With no direction in which to go but one and with the ghoulish creatures at my heels, I ran toward the curtains that Geoffrey held aside. It was dark in that room, but soon became illuminated enough for me to realize I was in a hall of fun-house mirrors. I became completely disoriented, running in the distortion of mirrors reflected upon mirrors. At first I saw only myself, fat and pushed in alternating with thin and pulled out, but as I continued to run, images of the ghouls dominated the mirrors instead. Running as fast as I could, I had no idea of knowing what was real and what was reflected image and my disorientation increased. The monsters seemed to be coming at me from all directions at once. I bumped into mirror after mirror in my confusion, thinking each time that I’d wound up in the arms of one of Rochere’s vile creations, only to see its image “bounce” as the mirror was shaken.
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