by Jo Raven
And then she noticed how fat her upper arms looked. She lifted one and pinched the flab that fell down. Ugh.
Stop it, she scolded. Get out of here before you lose your nerve.
And so, she did. She hurried out of the house before she had the chance to talk herself out of her excursion. She got in her car and drove to the carnival.
The carnival was held outside of town on some farmland cleared for the purpose. She speculated that a farmer had decided to rent the land out to the carnival to help make ends meet. The rides sprawled over the area, surrounded by rows of corn on either side.
As Calla got out of her car, she mused that it almost looked as if the carnival had grown out of the corn field—a very strange set of crops.
She paid the price to get inside and began wandering around.
She rode the Ferris wheel alone, then got on the Whip. She found it jerky and uncomfortable, not thrilling in the least. She wondered if perhaps she was too old for carnival rides. She remembered that they used to feel slightly risky and exciting. It was especially exciting to ride them if there were other people around who were afraid to do so. That made doing it seem more brave. It had made young Calla feel good about herself.
But there was no one here with her.
And all around, she noticed that the only other people her age were parents there with their children.
Calla sighed. If she’d had her way, she would have a child by now. But some things simply weren’t meant to be. She knew that now. Even if she wanted something so badly that she thought that she’d die without it, it didn’t mean she would get it. No matter how she tried. No matter what she did. Some things simply weren’t meant to be. Calla was not meant to have children. That was that. The end.
She felt like she might cry, even though this was something she’d come to terms with long before her marriage to Chad had broken up. So, she left the rides, hoping for a better distraction playing games. Maybe she could win the ring toss and get herself a stuffed animal.
But she was surprised to see a tent set up in between the games and the rides. It had a sign on it, proclaiming, Come see the Beast Man! There was a drawing of a beast, hairy from the waist up, sporting a grizzled muzzle. But on the bottom of his body, he was wearing pants and had human legs. Half man! Half beast! Witness the freak of nature!
Calla didn’t think that carnivals had attractions like this anymore. She thought all these freak tents had died out generations ago.
But there was one here, a throwback to carnivals from the early twentieth century, and she couldn’t help but be intrigued. She was convinced the attraction would be something silly. She knew there couldn’t actually be a beast man. The idea of that being true was laughable.
Sure, there were werewolves, but this wasn’t the same thing. And besides, the werewolves didn’t have wolf feet and a man’s torso. Calla knew.
She flashed on a thought of the bright red balloon, bobbing away up into the sky, getting smaller with every second. Her balloon, when she’d been a small girl, only four years old. It had escaped, even though she had tried so hard not to let go of it—
But that was the past, a very long time ago. Calla didn’t like to think about that. And she was adamant never to let that get in the way of her life. It didn’t bother her, because it was all over, and it was such a very long time ago, anyway. She hardly remembered it. She’d been so young. This Beast Man was just a carnival attraction. It wasn’t anything to get excited over. Calla could handle it. She wouldn’t even let herself think about the balloon. She never thought about it, anyway. Not for years. There wasn’t any point in dredging it up.
So, she went to the opening of the tent.
A man stood there, grimy t-shirt stained. He had a scraggly beard and thick eyebrows, which he wiggled at her. “Two tickets to see the Beast Man, ma’am.”
She’d purchased her tickets already, and she certainly hadn’t used them up on her two rides, so she handed over the admission.
The man tucked the tickets into a wooden box and gestured. “Go on in.”
The tent had a partition hung up, making an aisle leading from the opening of the tent and further inside.
It looked dark in there.
Calla licked her lips, looking over her shoulder.
The ticket taker man laughed. It was a jeering noise. “You ain’t scared, are you, ma’am?”
She might have been. There might have been part of her that was a little frightened. Part of her was thinking about that red balloon, getting smaller and smaller as it disappeared into the night, until it was only a tiny red dot in the sky.
We don’t think about that, she thought furiously.
She squared her shoulders and ignored the ticket taker. She began to walk down the makeshift hallway. It was dark, but she could see the grass under her feet. The walls of the tent and the hung blanket both moved a little bit with the breeze as she made her way deeper inside. She could hear the sounds of the carnival outside, children shrieking with laughter, the recorded music that played whenever someone won the Diamond Barrel Toss. She could smell fried food on the summer air.
She swallowed. She was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea. Should she be in this tent, going to gape at a beast man? Wouldn’t it only upset her? Wouldn’t it only bring things to the surface that were better left buried?
But she didn’t live her life that way. She wasn’t the kind of woman who hid from the things that frightened her. No, she faced them head on. She always had.
And for heaven’s sake, there was no reason to be afraid of a stupid man in a costume.
She picked up her pace deliberately, to prove to herself that she wasn’t the least bit frightened.
Even though her heart was racing and her palms were sweating. Even though she was feeling cold in the eighty-degree weather.
At the end of the makeshift walkway, there was a sign that read, Brace yourself for something so horrifying, you won’t believe your eyes.
Calla gulped. It’s not too late to turn around, whispered a voice inside her head. What are you trying to prove, anyway? Who’s even here to see?
She ignored the voice. She wasn’t afraid of this stupid, dinky carnival attraction.
She stepped forward, out of the hallway.
Inside the tent, there were strings of rope lights that ran over the ceiling. The resulting light was dim and ghostly.
She blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust. There was a raised dais in the center of the tent—a stage of sorts. Calla raise her gaze to see a huddled form in the middle of the stage.
At first, all she could see was fur. In the scant light, she couldn’t quite make out the color. It could have been brown or gray, but she could see that it was thick and that it covered the huddled form. She also realized that she was the only other person in the tent. No one else had paid to see this attraction, apparently. She was going to get her own personal performance.
But it didn’t seem like it was going to be much of a performance if the Beast Man was sleeping.
Calla felt a slight jolt of uneasiness.
Sleeping?
That didn’t make any sense. If this was a man in a costume, there was no reason that he’d be sleeping or huddled up on the stage. No, he’d be a performer. He’d leap out at her, roar, pretend to hurt her. If the furry thing up there were actually sleeping, then maybe it was an animal after all. But how would the carnival make an animal seem like a man?
The thought of attaching fake human legs to an animal struck her as much more perverse than dressing up a man in animal skins.
She stepped closer, trying to get a better look at the huddled thing on the stage.
All she could see was the fur and the steady up-and-down motion that indicated it was breathing.
It’s alive, she thought to herself. And then she let out a hysterical giggle. She wasn’t sure what the hell she was doing in here. Trying to prove that she wasn’t afraid, she supposed. But that wasn’t working, becau
se she recognized now that she was scared. And nothing inside this tent was making her feel better.
She should leave. She looked back the way she had come, at the sign about bracing herself. It looked slightly crooked from this angle.
“Welcome,” boomed a voice suddenly.
Calla jumped, looking around. She realized that voice had come from a set of speakers above the stage.
She also realized that the thing on the stage was stirring.
The booming voice continued. “You won’t believe your eyes as you watch the Beast Man—half man, half beast. Abandoned by his horrified mother at birth, the Beast Man could only belong here at the carnival.”
The furry thing shook itself like a dog. It raised its head, and Calla saw a snout and a set of ears. And a pair of dead, dead eyes.
She took a step backwards.
The thing reared up on all fours. It made a growling noise, but its mouth never moved. Now, Calla could see that its legs were tied, shackled to long, strong chains that were attached to the stage. Its legs were human. Its feet were too, and both of them were bare.
The Beast Man had muscular legs, covered in dark hair.
But it was just as the sign outside had said. He wasn’t a man on the top. On the top, he was some kind of animal, and since that part held his brain, maybe that explained his behavior. Maybe he was truly savage.
The Beast Man growled again, lunging forward. He seemed to want to leap off the stage.
But the chains on his feet held him fast.
He whined in anger and frustration, turning his face to the place where his shackles bit into his legs.
That was when she realized it, and she felt ridiculous for not having seen it earlier.
The animal face wasn’t real. It was a costume, just as she’d predicted. She could now see that the reason the eyes looked so dead was because they were fake.
This Beast Man was a performer, just as she’d suspected. But he was good at what he did. She’d been almost convinced, here in the half-light. He was good at his job.
But she was reassured now, and she moved closer to the stage, smiling and wanting a better look at the thing that had so deceived her. Now that she was looking at it, she couldn’t understand why she’d been duped by the costume. It seemed so obviously fake now. She let out a little laugh.
The Beast Man turned to her, and the fake animal face flopped back and forth by the force of his movement. He made a snarling sound, and he lunged at her.
She knew it was all part of the show, but it unsettled her nonetheless. She was closer now, and the Beast Man was only inches from her face.
“Stop,” she said, glaring at it. She’d reverted to her no-nonsense-Mrs.-Reynolds-is-not-pleased voice, simply out of habit. Teenagers in her classes often unsettled her, and she’d cultivated a certain voice and look to try to control them. Sometimes it didn’t work, but more often than not, it did.
And strangely, it worked on the Beast Man too, who immediately halted. He settled back on his haunches, whining a little.
Of course it worked on him, she thought. He’s human, after all, and no human likes to feel scolded.
But then why did he react in such an animalistic way?
He was still sitting like a dog, his back human legs folded at the knee, his hands—which were encased in the fur costume—down on the floor in front of him. He lowered his head, still whining.
She cocked her head to look at him. What was this? She didn’t understand…
The Beast Man inched forward, thrusting his costumed head against her skin, like a dog who wanted to be pet.
Calla recoiled. She backed away, her whole body shaking. She should never have gotten so close.
The Beast Man whined again.
She ran from the tent, her heart rattling inside her rib cage.
When the ticket taker laughed at her, she didn’t stop or even feel embarrassed.
She simply kept running.
There was something very, very wrong with that Beast Man.
CHAPTER THREE
So, he’s the Beast Man from the carnival, Calla thought to herself. I’m locked up in a dark room somewhere with the Beast Man from the carnival, and I can’t find my way out.
She guessed it was marginally better than being locked up with an actual wild animal. She didn’t think the Beast Man was going to kill and eat her, for instance. That had to put a brighter spot on her situation.
Calla grimaced. She’d never been particularly good at being an optimist. She understood that optimists had happier lives and all of that, but she couldn’t make herself do it, basically because she felt like it was an exercise in lying to oneself.
Right now, she couldn’t hear the Beast Man anymore.
An optimist would tell herself all kinds of pretty lies. She’d convince herself that the Beast Man had gone away, or that she’d be able to fight him off, or that he wouldn’t actually be a danger to her after all. An optimist would think the most positive outcome was most likely. An optimist wouldn’t even consider the negative outcomes.
Actually, Calla had done some reading on this subject. Apparently, optimists not only believed that good things would happen to them, but they believed that when good things happened, it was because of their own efforts. When bad things happened to optimists, they brushed them off as flukes, never to be repeated. And they never blamed themselves for bad things.
To Calla’s mind, this was the height of idiocy. You couldn’t have it both ways. Either you were responsible, or you weren’t. If an optimist was giving a presentation, and it went well, she’d tell herself that she was great and that she’d planned everything out well, and that she’d done a great job. If the presentation didn’t go well, however, she’d blame anything except herself for the failure. She’d say that she’d been too busy to plan it out well, or that the audio visual equipment hadn’t been up to par, or that the audience had been too sleepy to grasp what she was saying.
Calla didn’t much hold with that. She believed in taking responsibility for her own actions. If she screwed up, she wasn’t about to act as if it was someone else’s fault. She would accept blame.
If that meant she could never be an optimist…
Well, she was fairly sure that optimists were happier people, but that they were willfully stupid.
Calla was not about to try to convince herself that things were going to go well. She was locked in a room with the Beast Man, and he clearly wasn’t right in the head. Calla wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, but he seemed to literally be an animal. He might be a man physically, but he didn’t act like one.
It reminded Calla of a fairy tale she’d once read in which the prince had been changed into a frog and the frog into a prince. Even though the frog looked like a man, he couldn’t stop acting like a frog. He sat on his haunches, ribbited, and caught flies with his tongue. In the story, the princess had to find the frog and kiss him to reverse the spell and put the prince back into his own body.
Presumably, the frog had gone back into his body too, but the fairy tale hadn’t really spent much time dealing with that.
Of course, that was a fairy story with magic spells and evil witches. And this was real life. Calla didn’t have any idea what was happening to the Beast Man. She’d never heard of a mental illness that made a man think he was an animal.
Perhaps he was a wild child. She’d read about that—a child raised by wolves, who thought that he was a wolf.
At the thought of wolves, she shivered. She didn’t much like to think about that.
Besides, what it did matter what was wrong with him? He was obviously mentally damaged. He was dangerous. And she needed to get away from him. She needed to get free.
Taking a long, slow breath, she began her careful movement again. Hands against the wall, she inched down, feeling for a door with each step.
Maybe this wasn’t the best way to try to get out of this room, but she had to do something. She wasn’t the kind of person to sit around
and wait for someone to rescue her. She wasn’t an optimist, so she didn’t believe that anyone actually would. No, she was going to have to rescue herself.
It didn’t take long before she reached the next corner. Now she’d begun to figure out the dimensions of the room. It seemed to be shaped like a long rectangle. She wracked her brain, trying to think of what kind of room she might be in, but she couldn’t think of any room that was typically shaped this way.
It didn’t matter. She needed a door.
She moved onto the adjacent wall and began to feel her way down this wall. She was now moving towards the Beast Man, but there wasn’t anything for it. Hadn’t she thought earlier that she’d have to go through the Beast Man to get to the door? Irony. Right. Or maybe just an unfortunate event. Whatever the case, it didn’t really matter. Nothing mattered at the moment.
Grimly, Calla considered how miserable she’d been the past couple of months, barely able to drag herself out of bed, to eat anything except bacon cheese fries, to do anything except watch Netflix. If she’d only known that she was going to be locked up in a dark room with a crazy man, maybe she’d have been a bit more grateful for everything she had during that time.
For instance, cheese fries? That sounded pretty damned good right now.
Her stomach growled as if to illustrate her point.
From the darkness, there was an answering growl from the Beast Man.
Calla gulped.
He wouldn’t eat her. She’d already decided that was a good thing about him being a man. But she wasn’t entirely sure now. She was frightened that perhaps he thought himself so much a beast that he might try.
If it came down to a physical struggle between the Beast Man and herself, there would be no contest. Calla wasn’t exactly a tiny woman, but she wasn’t especially huge either. And the Beast Man was so muscled and tall that he was actually bigger than her. Maybe his hips were slimmer, but he had thick, strong arms and thighs. She thought of the way it had felt to have his body pressed up against hers and felt involuntarily hot all over. Certainly, it was the closest she’d ever been to a man as attractive as the Beast Man.