Carniepunk

by Rachel Caine

  Out front, a woman stood on top of a large round drum while she called out to passersby. Annie took in the tight harlequin pants, the leather corset, the cropped jacket, and the black top hat with the thick tulle veil with only passing interest. Because it wasn’t the audacious outfit that demanded attention when you looked at her—it was the mask.

  White porcelain provided a smooth canvas for the perfect doll-like features painted on the surface—long lashes, Cupid’s-bow mouth, rosebud cheeks. Over the forehead and chin, scrollwork and lace patterns were painted in blood red.

  That mask, Annie thought. It reminded her of death. Her memory offered up a documentary she once saw about how Victorians would create plaster casts of their deceased loved ones’ faces. Yeah, Annie thought, it’s like a death mask. She stared into the deep dark holes where the woman’s eyes glowed in the dusk like twin embers.

  Two bright green cat’s eyes landed on Annie with the impact of a punch. She stumbled back a step but was held captive by the compelling gaze.

  Those eyes woke something inside of her. Some long-forgotten—or never-recognized-at-all—urge for adventure. It was a reckless feeling, one that reminded her of summer afternoons driving with the top down. Of sneaking out of her parents’ home at midnight to meet a bad boy. Of feeling deliciously immortal. Free.

  What Annie didn’t know was that the woman actually could see inside her. She recognized that red spark zinging through her veins—the restlessness Annie had ignored in favor of security—and smiled evilly behind that mask.

  Brad handed over the cotton candy like a warrior bestowing a prize upon his maiden fair. Without breaking her stare, Annie lifted the pink cloud to her mouth. It tasted like graveyard dust on her tongue.

  If Brad noticed the woman or the mask, he didn’t comment. And Annie didn’t say anything, either, because at that moment the woman in the mask curled her long, black-lacquered nails in a gesture of invitation.

  “Come on,” Annie urged. The cotton candy fell, forgotten, to the brown earth.

  Now it was her turn to pull Brad’s hand.

  The air inside the tent smelled dusty and yellow, like dry hay, and of something darker—something spicy and rich and unsettling. A ticket booth sat just inside the entrance. A stooped old man sat inside and grunted at people as they entered. Brad marched over and handed over the four tickets required for the attraction.

  The old-timer pushed two of the tickets back across the surface. “She’s free,” he wheezed.

  Brad frowned at the man. “Why?”

  Annie scooted closer to hear better.

  “Boss says she’s free.”

  Annie glanced toward the closed flaps that led back outside. She had a good idea who this mysterious boss was, but she couldn’t figure out why she’d earned a free ride or, more disturbingly, how the masked one had communicated this decree.

  “Sounds good to me,” Brad said. He’d always loved a deal.

  Annie looked at her husband of almost ten years and bit her tongue. She wanted to demand an explanation, or demand that Brad demand one, but the voice of their therapist wriggled in her head like an annoying earworm.

  Your constant questioning of Brad’s decisions undermines his confidence. If you want him to be more assertive, you have to stop second-guessing his every move.

  Since her husband was already at the curtain that led to the exhibits, she mumbled thanks to the old man and turned to follow. Maybe she was overreacting. It was nice that she was getting in free. No reason to be so fucking critical all the time, as Brad so eloquently put it all the time. Besides, that new spark inside of her danced at the prospect of exploring the forbidden world inside the tent.

  But as she turned, the man in the booth caught her eye. Maybe it was a reflection off the glass separating them, or maybe the whole freak show vibe was getting to her, but she could have sworn his wrinkled face smoothed over for a split second to reveal a younger face. A handsome face with a square jaw and sparkling eyes and . . . fangs. His shirt was gone and sharp hooks pierced his skin. Thin rivulets of blood trickled down, and a tattoo just under his collarbones read “Adeline.”

  She blinked.

  The old man’s face had returned to normal. But his cackles danced down her spine as she walked through the curtain.

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  THE FREAKS TENT hadn’t changed. Brad looked up at the colorful panels and the flags and the vintage posters and felt suddenly like he was back on that fateful night a year earlier. The scent of cotton candy saturating the air only intensified the feeling. Only this time Annie didn’t make any flippant remarks. Instead, she slipped her sweaty palm against his and squeezed like she was afraid he’d run off and leave her.

  It was the first time she’d touched him in weeks. Scratch that, he thought. She touched him plenty when the beast was behind the wheel. Threw herself at him when the predator needed sexual release. Back when she’d first been bitten, the sweaty, animalistic joinings were a dream come true. He’d worn the scratches down his back like badges of honor. Now those marks had hardened into scars and the beast never asked anymore—she just took.

  He squeezed Annie’s hand back and shot her a wan smile. The logical part of his brain told him he should have left a long time ago. But the other part, the dutiful one, demanded that he give it one last honest effort before he made his exit.

  He led her to the ticket booth. A woman with a shock of purple hair on her head and more piercings than a colander blinked at them from behind the window.

  “We’d like two tickets to the freak museum, please.”

  “Closed.” She smacked her gum and looked back down at the magazine she’d been pretending to read.

  Brad’s heart thudded into his diaphragm. “What? It can’t be!”

  She dragged her eyes back up. “Mistress Valentina closed the museum tonight because there’s a special performance.”

  “What kind of performance?” Annie asked.

  “It’s kind of a circus thing.”

  Brad glanced at Annie, who looked like she hoped he’d give up. He gritted his teeth and made his decision. “We’ll have two tickets for that then, please.” When Annie made a noise of protest back in her throat, he squeezed her hand. “We’ll just talk to her after.”

  Annie’s head bowed and he found himself enjoying the rare show of submission.

  “Here,” the girl behind the glass snapped. “Show starts in five minutes. Better shake a leg.”

  —

  A FEW PEOPLE believed Valentina was born evil. A couple of others theorized she had to be some sort of demoness. Everyone else died too quickly to form an opinion.

  If you asked her, however, she’d tell you she was a collector. A connoisseur. An admirer of the utterly mundane.

  And one year ago, the minute Valentina laid her cold, hard eyes on Annie, she knew she’d found the newest treasure for her collection.

  Of course, she’d also realized it wouldn’t be easy. She had to get rid of the man, for one thing. He was doughy and dense. Mundane, certainly, but utterly forgettable. He’d have to go. But not before she made him spend some time suffering for his lack of spine. A year would do it. Yes, she’d thought back then with a smile, a year serving the beast would break him totally.

  Also, Valentina realized with a frown, Annie’s shrewd gaze was still troubling. Valentina didn’t like her pets to be too smart for their own good. They were harder to break in. Not that she didn’t enjoy that part—some of her favorite pets had been the hardest to break—but it was time-consuming to destroy someone’s free will. Still, there was great joy in watching a person’s will totally shatter, their back bow, and their face fall with utter submission.

  Delayed gratification had never been her strong suit, but in this case, she thought, it might well have been worth it. She had a very special evening planned for the citizens of Brooksville, and the guests of honor had just arrived.

  Valentina licked her lips at the thought as she watched Annie move
toward the tent.

  Yes, breaking Annie would be fun, but watching her kill that husband of hers would be delicious.

  —

  THE ONLY THING worse than entering that tent behind Brad was seeing him wave at that jerk Ernie Rasmussen and his insipid wife, Lisa. On cue, the couple waved them over and pointed to two open seats beside them.

  “Brad, no,” she hissed.

  “Relax,” he said. “It’ll be fine.”

  No it wouldn’t. Annie was beginning to believe nothing would ever be all right again. She could feel that woman—that evil, evil masked woman from last year—watching her from somewhere inside the tent.

  But more than that, she could feel the beast pacing restlessly inside her. The instant they’d walked through the tent flaps, her blood heated and her skin crawled with nervous energy.

  Annie hated carnivals, sure, but she loathed small talk. So when the Rasmussens started chattering on about the local school board referendum, Annie tuned them out and focused on locating the dark energy pulsing through the space.

  She turned to take in the other audience members. Smiling families filled the stands, several of whom she knew from her previous life, before this illness. She considered warning them about the darkness pressing in on her chest, or maybe it was like smoke filling her lungs? She couldn’t put a name to the bad feeling, but she knew with every cell of her being it was a sinister omen.

  But she didn’t warn them. Because the beast that lurked under her skin felt that omen too—and it excited her. She licked her chops and put a claw over Annie’s loudmouthed conscience and waited impatiently for the fun to begin.

  Annie glanced at Brad. He showed no signs of worry. In fact, he looked totally comfortable as he chatted with the neighbors she knew he couldn’t stand. How does he do it? she wondered. Even before the start of her condition, he’d been the one who always kept his cool. Nothing seemed to faze him. Not car trouble or the never-ending bills or Annie’s screams of frustration. Their arguments had been the worst—with her red-faced and screaming while he sat looking as serene as a still mountain pool. She’d hated him the most in those moments. Because after several years she’d realized it wasn’t that Brad managed his emotions better than she did. It wasn’t that he was more mature or calmer by nature. No, she finally understood that his calmness betrayed a complete lack of conviction, an utter disconnectedness from any emotion stronger than contentment or mild annoyance.

  Annie shook herself. She hadn’t thought about her issues with Brad in a long time. For the last year, she’d been so caught up in trying—and failing—to manage the beast that she just . . . forgot, she guessed.

  To keep from analyzing her relationship with her husband, she went back to watching the audience, like they were her own private freak show. The clean-cut husbands in their polo shirts and pressed pants. The mothers with their tight, forced smiles as they patiently listened to the excited exclamations of their rosy-cheeked children. Annie tilted her head and really looked. For a moment she thought she could see secrets crawling under their skin. Were the private things they hid under their twinsets any less shocking than her own?

  Annie knew better. She’d been friends with women like these her whole life. She’d listened to countless confessions whispered over warming glasses of chardonnay. Fevered admissions of longing to run away, of hating children for ruining their bodies and their dreams, of wanting to smother snoring husbands in their sleep. Of wanting to take their delicate, pink razors and carve thin red lines up their arms.

  No, Annie decided, she wasn’t the only woman in Brooksville with a beast lurking in her blood. She was just the only one who let hers off the leash.

  —

  ANNIE WAS TOO quiet, Brad thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her scanning the crowd. What was she thinking? Her hands were clasped in her lap, the knuckles white. Had he made a mistake bringing her back here?

  “. . . ask my opinion, we should form a posse and go shoot that damned coyote ourselves . . .” Rasmussen was saying.

  Brad swiveled back to his neighbor. While he struggled not to look horrified by the prospect of someone hunting down his wife, the statement made him realize he’d been right to come. Whether Annie liked it or not, they needed to settle this business once and for all. Sure, she was upset, but eventually, once everything—once she—returned to normal, she’d thank him.

  Rasmussen was waiting for his response. Brad cleared his throat and said in his most diplomatic tone, “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

  He was spared further debate when the lights fell, casting the entire tent in complete darkness.

  Brad blindly reached for Annie’s hand. He had to pry her fingers apart, and even once they surrendered to his grip, they felt clammy and stiff. He leaned over and whispered, “This will all be over soon.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, welcome to the Carnivale Diabolique,” a husky female voice announced over the speaker. “Take a seat if you dare. Your Auntie Valentina is about to spin hair-raising tales and share with you her private collection of weirdoes, freaks, and abominations. Lights up!”

  A single light burst to life over the center ring, illuminating a long figure. Brad caught his breath. It was her—the lady in the mask.

  The crowd tittered anxiously at her odd appearance. Annie’s hand spasmed in his suddenly sweaty palm. Time had dulled the memory of the shock he’d experienced upon first seeing Valentina. The corset hugging her torso like a lover. The long legs encased in fishnet stockings and knee-high fuck-me boots. The firm breasts glowing in the spotlight. The sex and danger that swirled around her like a mysterious and enticing scent.

  But then she removed her porcelain doll mask, and Brad’s spontaneous erection deflated. The scarred planes of her face clung to the bones like melted wax. Her red lips slashed across her face like two fresh wounds. And those green eyes glowed with malevolent fervor.

  “Ah. That’s better. Yes?” She stilled and focused her attention on someone in the front row. “Oh, my dears, why are you crying? What’s that?” She tilted her ruined face down, as if speaking to a child. “Auntie Valentina looks scary, doesn’t she? Yes, yes. This is what happens when you don’t listen to your mommies and daddies.”

  Nervous laughter tittered through the crowd. Was this all a part of the show?

  “There, now, I’ll put on my mask and cover those nasty scars so we can get on with the grand spectacle.”

  Three more lights exploded the darkness behind Valentina. Under each glowing pool, a different freak from Valentina’s collection.

  “Behold! My greatest treasures!” She spread her arms wide and gazed adoringly at her pets.

  “First, we have Bambi.” She motioned to the right, where a woman with antlers tipped in metal and hooves for hands posed proudly on a jutting rock. She wore brown and white body paint fashioned to look like fur. “I found her in the mountains of Colorado. She longed for strength to fight off her abusive husband.”

  The antlered woman pawed at the rock and huffed an angry breath from her nose.

  “Bambi stabbed the bastard with her antlers,” Valentina whispered dramatically, like she was sharing a juicy bit of gossip. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  The audience gaped back in frozen horror.

  “Next!” Valentina moved to the far left. A mermaid swam in a large tank of water. Her green tail flashed in the light like sequins, and she wore twin pink shells over her breasts. She crested up over the side of tank with a mighty splash of her tail.

  “Nicole’s husband liked to rape her in her sleep—now he’s sleeping with the fishes, right, Nicky?” Valentina’s grotesque laughter echoed through the tent and skittered up Brad’s spine and lodged in his brain, bringing with it the horrible knowledge that Annie had been right—coming here had been a terrible idea.

  “But in the center is my favorite pet.” Their ringmistress motioned to a shirtless man hanging from
the steel beams supporting the tent. “Dylan’s wife cheated on him. He wished to be able to empty her like she’d done to his love.”

  His body formed a cross supported by steel hooks piercing his skin. Blood trickled from the wounds, but he wore a serene smile on his face that revealed two blindingly white fangs.

  “He sucked down every last drop of his Adeline’s blood,” Valentina said, her voice high with excitement. “Now he punishes himself every night with those shiny hooks. But they always heal by morning, don’t they, sweet Dylan?”

  The man yearned forward to make the hooks dig deeper. A rivulet of blood ran down his chest and his expression bordered on bliss.

  Outraged shouts and cries rose from the audience. Brad had seen enough. He jumped out of his seat like someone had lit a fire under him. Beside him, Annie jerked and pulled at his hand.

  “Brad?” she spat.

  “Come on,” he urged. Annie rose but seemed uneasy about it, like she was worried the move would earn them attention they didn’t want.

  And just like that, a light swiveled violently to shine on them. Brad raised his free hand to shield his eyes as Valentina’s voice exploded over the speakers.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Back to your seats, now. You might as well settle in, because the doors are locked.” A beat of silence. “Besides, you won’t want to deprive these lovely people of the main attraction, would you, Brad, Annie?”

  Hearing their names come from that monster made Brad’s bowels go watery. He looked to the right and to the left, judging the distance to the tent flaps. But just then two enormous women—at least, he guessed they were women, but it was hard to tell because they also wore masks—came to stand at either end of their aisle. All around, panicked audience members rose and shouted and pushed, desperate for escape. And in the center of the tent, the single spot of calm among the chaos, Valentina’s smiling mask glowed under the lone light.