Carniepunk

by Rachel Caine

  Over the noise, her voice rang out, calm and confident: “Maestro, a dirge if you please.”

  Brad spied a large hunchbacked man picking up a violin. Gripping the bow with a touch too delicate for his ham-hock hands, he closed his eyes and tucked the instrument under his chin, seemingly oblivious to the chaos. And then . . . then the first strains of a haunting melody lifted up from the strings. At first the people continued to push and claw their way toward the exits, but after a moment they paused and turned their heads up. Brad ignored them and took advantage of their distraction to pull Annie farther down the aisle.

  It took effort to force Annie to follow—what was wrong with her, anyway? But once he reached the end of the aisle, he found himself looking up, up, up, at a very large woman. She looked like she was descended from a race of giants. Her meaty hands were larger than Brad’s head. He tried to duck around her, but she grabbed him easily and lifted him from the ground. Tucked under her armpit, Brad watched in horror as she turned to Annie.

  —

  ANNIE DIDN’T KNOW why, but she couldn’t move. One second, she was as eager as her husband to flee, but then the first sweet violin notes caressed her ears like a lover’s whisper. She ignored Brad’s shouts for help and stared at the hunchback and the masked woman who swayed beside him. Her conscious mind screamed at her to run, but something more compelling froze her limbs. From the corners of her eyes she saw Brad struggle against the giantess. She also saw that everyone else, including the annoying Rasmussens, had stilled as she had.

  “Sit down, my doves,” Valentina commanded over the music. “Listen to Drude’s song.” She motioned to the hunchback, whose eyes remained closed as he played a melody that called to a dark place inside Annie.

  As one, the entire audience dropped to whichever seats were closest to them. Only Annie remained standing. Those two green eyes behind that mask were locked on her.

  “Come.”

  The single word ricocheted inside Annie like a bullet, destroying what remained of her resistance. She ignored Brad’s screams and began to make her way toward the center of the ring. The bouncer at the end of the aisle stepped back and allowed her to pass without comment.

  She knew Brad would not be joining her, just as she knew that Valentina had prearranged this entire spectacle for her benefit. The idea should have scared her, but with the hypnotizing music, she couldn’t feel anything other than total submission.

  “Annie, no!” Brad screamed from far behind her.

  “Annie, yes,” Valentina cooed, and held out her hands like a mother welcoming her child home.

  —

  SHE WAS THINNER than Valentina remembered. Leaner but sinewy, like a young wolf. Behind her mask, the evil one smiled. She knew she’d chosen her newest acquisition wisely. And if there was one thing Valentina enjoyed more than staging spectacles, it was being right about a person’s potential.

  Valentina always believed murder was more fun in front of an audience. So, she’d been worried all these months that Annie’s beast would grow weary of the weak man and eat him for a midnight snack. But whatever humanity was left inside the woman still held some sway. However, the time had finally come for Annie’s inner beast to take charge for good.

  Annie’s cold hands landed in hers. Valentina swiveled smoothly and turned her prize toward the audience.

  “Say hello to Annie, everyone.”

  The audience was still under Drude’s narcotic musical spell and did as instructed. “Hello, Annie,” they said in stereo monotone.

  “She is our guest of honor tonight.” Valentina patted Annie’s arm and whispered in her ear, “I’m going to make you a star.” She turned back to the crowd. “Behold: the Werewife!”

  Loud squeaking announced the arrival of the show’s special prop: the metal cage that had been specially made for the occasion. Valentina had to admit that Hephaestia—the metal worker from Detroit whose philandering husband had been encased in bronze—had outdone herself. The frame of the cage was covered in delicate silver filigree, not unlike a massive vintage birdcage, and the bars themselves were forged from the strongest steel inlaid with more silver. Inside, the ceiling was covered in a mosaic of moonstones Valentina had purchased from a gypsy in Romania. The old woman had done such wonderful work, it had almost been a shame to kill her. Almost.

  The entire contraption was as large as a lion tamer’s den and set easily over the ring next to them.

  As the door to the cage opened, Annie’s body went instantly stiff; even Drude’s music couldn’t override the beast’s instinct to remain free at any cost.

  Valentina opened a box set next to the door and removed a squawking chicken. Its wings flapped and its feet kicked, but the demoness held it out by the neck for all to see. “You like hunting, don’t you, Annie?” She slashed at the bird’s breast with a sharp fingernail. A red line of blood bloomed through the feathers.

  The beast reared up and forced Annie’s head back. Her mouth fell open and a long, mournful howl filled the tent.

  “Come and get it!” Valentina tossed the frantic bird into the ring, where it commenced to running in panicked circles.

  Annie hunched over and loped toward the door with her tongue hanging out and the fur already sprouting in dark tufts around her neck and the backs of her curled hands. Once inside, the chase truly began, and the tent filled with the chicken’s ear-piercing squawks and Annie’s monstrous growls, which were only interrupted by the metallic crash of the gate slamming home.

  Valentina twisted the lock with a flick of her wrist and dropped the key in between her breasts. “Enjoy your appetizer while I prepare the main course.”

  —

  BRAD FOUGHT AGAINST his captor like a wild animal. He kicked, he clawed, he cursed. But the Amazon held him as if he were nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum.

  Once the cage had been lowered, he knew exactly what Valentina had planned.

  His stomach felt like a nest of vipers had taken residence. Cold sweat coated his chest and back.

  When the evil woman said, “Bring him,” the giantess who held him lumbered forward. The movement made his stomach revolt and fear made sweat pour like tears from his skin. With a frantic sideways glance he saw Ernie Rasmussen beaming at him like some sort of creepy doll.

  But the creepiest doll of all waited for him at the bottom of the bleachers. The startling white porcelain glowed like a full moon under the spotlights.

  As he struggled against the large arms that held him, they only grew tighter until his vision swam with stars. The fear and the panic and the disorienting sensations made his mind retreat into the past, where he suddenly remembered that day. The first day they’d seen Valentina at the carnival. The day that had damned them all. And a voice in his head whispered, You did this.

  The giantess reached the ring and set him down unsteadily on his feet. He swayed but pushed away, stumbling toward their captor.

  “I didn’t want this!” he screamed over the haunting violin music, over the staccato thrum of blood in his ears, over the buzz of malice in the air. “Do you hear me? I changed my mind. I want my old Annie back!”

  Valentina cocked her head to the side like a dog hearing evil in the distance. She turned slowly toward him, leaving the tusked woman to handle Annie. “Changed your mind?” she said on a huff of laughter. “What on earth gave you the impression you had that option?”

  Her laughter reached inside him like a fist clenched around his intestines. It squeezed until frigid sweat coated his back and chest. It twisted until he doubled over with nausea. He retched and fell to his knees.

  “I didn’t want this to happen,” he cried. “I didn’t.”

  The laughter cut off abruptly. “Yes, you did.” Her tone was whisper soft, but the words themselves were knives on his skin. “You asked for it.”

  Behind her, Annie let out a triumphant howl as she finally captured her prize. With her back to the crowd, she bent over the struggling bird, her wet, violent sound
s adding a vile harmony to the violin’s melody. A spray of red decorated the cage’s bars.

  “No! ANNIE!”

  The wolf whined.

  “Shh, dear,” Valentina soothed his wife. “He’s learning a lesson about being careful what he asks for, aren’t you, Brad?”

  “No! You’re wrong. I didn’t ask for this!”

  Tears blinded his vision and guilt and fear roiled in his gut like acid. He hadn’t asked for it. Had he?

  “You did!” Valentina announced in a joyful exclamation, like a preacher shouting from the pulpit. “You remember, don’t you, Brad?”

  Lord help him, he did. He remembered the first moment he’d seen Valentina. He’d been at the cotton candy booth, waiting for his turn. Annie stood sulking nearby, and he remembered a hot spot of anger in his chest that once again nothing was good enough for her. And then, just past Annie’s mousy hair, he saw the striking masked woman by the entrance. His instant erection was quickly covered by some creative shifting, but he couldn’t hide from the images that flashed through his head. Erotic tableaus, desperate longing for excitement and raw sex. A yearning for freedom from Annie’s constant nagging and control-freak tendencies.

  And his heart had whispered, Why can’t Annie be more wild and mysterious?

  “Dear, stupid Brad, if I could stage all of this”—Valentina motioned to the spectacle inside the tent—“if I could arrange to have your wife bitten by my pet JoJo the dog-faced boy, then how can you doubt that I could also snatch that wish right out of your feeble mind?”

  Done with her meal now, the werewolf that was his wife stood at the metal bars, growling as she watched him with glowing, yellow eyes. The fur of her face was matted red with blood.

  “I’m so . . . so . . .” His voice cracked. “I’m so damned sorry, Annie.”

  Valentina laughed again. Brad cried out as more cramps wracked his lower abdomen. “Oh, she’s not innocent in this, either.”

  Brad sniffed and swiped at his eyes. His muscles felt rubbery and his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. “What?”

  He glared at the beast, whose yellow eyes looked down.

  “Annie, what does she mean?” he shouted.

  The violin was the only sound.

  When she finally looked up, the yellow irises were shadowed with guilt.

  Brad stumbled back a step.

  Valentina opened her mouth, but it was Annie’s voice that passed from between her demonic lips. “Could he be any more pathetic? Look at him, so weak and predictable.” She waved wild hands in his direction. “Always whining, whining, whining about how we don’t have sex enough and then pouting like a baby. Why would I want to have sex with a man-child, Brad?!? Why?” Valentina paced in front of him like a caged animal as she channeled Annie’s innermost thoughts.

  The crowd started clapping and chanting: “More, more, more!”

  “I was so restless, crawling out of my skin.” Annie’s voice continued to spill from the stranger’s lips. “I wanted to howl at the moon and run free without you hanging around my neck like a choke collar.”

  “If that’s what she wanted,” Brad shouted, “why didn’t she divorce me or just leave?”

  At this, Valentina smirked, and returned to possession of herself. “Because once she unleashed the she-wolf, she realized how vulnerable it made her. Lone wolves rarely survive.”

  Brad cringed, remembering that first full moon. The blood and the tears and the begging. The next morning’s carnage. “She stayed because she needed me.”

  The wolf in the cage raised its snout and howled at the moonstones overhead.

  Valentina shrieked in delight. “She was stuck with you!” She tossed her head back and laughed. As if on cue, the entire audience laughed with her, and the grating sound surrounded Brad, invaded him until it felt like thousands of ants chewed away on his brain stem. He was going to go crazy if he stayed in this fucked-up nightmare of a place. He lunged forward and punched the mask.

  The porcelain cracked. The demoness shrieked in rage.

  Drude’s violin fell silent, but the crowd in the stand erupted into panic. As they climbed over each other, yearning for the exits, Brad moved forward to deliver more vengeance.

  His fury was so complete that his blood felt like acid in his veins. His heart galloped in his chest and he panted like a dog. The shattered mask blinded the bitch long enough for him to deliver a series of jabs to her midsection, her neck, her jaw. With each furious punch, she staggered back another step. On some level, he was aware of all of Valentina’s pets circling them, but none came forward to aid their leader.

  Valentina swiped at him with her sharp nails, but his rage made him impervious. Even the swollen knuckles of his punching hand didn’t hurt. Instead, he felt elated. Powerful. Like a man awakened from a long slumber.

  Behind the bitch’s head, he spied the hunchback with the violin approaching. Brad kept striking her, but braced himself to take on the other man too.

  Only Drude didn’t come to his lady’s aid. He set down the violin and picked up something shiny from the ground, then turned toward the cage, which was only six or seven feet behind where Brad and the demoness struggled. The rest happened quickly.

  The gate opened, Brad delivered his final punishing blow, and Valentina stumbled backward over the metal threshold of the gate. Once she landed on her ass, Drude slammed the cage door and locked it with an audible click.

  A beat of silence while both Brad and his foe realized what had happened. Their gazes both landed on the silver key held high in Drude’s pale hand—Valentina’s key, her only hope for escape.

  Each of Valentina’s pets snapped to and began circling the cage.

  “Help me, you idiots!” she screamed.

  No one even blinked. Their faces didn’t look guilty or afraid. Just eager and shining, like a child’s on Christmas morning.

  Annie crouched low to the ground and growled. Her sharp teeth glistened with saliva under the heat of the lights, the reflections of the cursed moonstones. The moonstones Valentina had stolen from a gypsy she murdered in Romania. The gypsy who had cursed the stones with her dying breath. The curse that only lacked Valentina’s blood to come alive.

  Valentina turned slowly. Her melted wax face contorted into a grotesque mask of fear. “If you let me go, I’ll change you back. Don’t you want to be like your old self?”

  The responding snarl sounded nothing like “Yes.”

  Instead, the beast took two slow, predatory steps forward. Her head lowered and her tongue jutted out to taste the demoness’s fear, which tainted the air.

  “Brad!” Valentina shouted. “I—I made a mistake.”

  “Damn straight you did.” His voice was low but infused with a power that had never existed in him before. “And now you’re about to experience a little poetic justice, you crazy bitch.”

  Valentina opened her mouth to argue, but the sound dissolved into a shattered scream of pain. Two huge paws wrapped around her head and pulled her to the ground.

  Brad crossed his arms and smiled. “Bon appétit, my love,” he whispered.

  —

  THE WEREWIFE DIDN’T play with her food. She probably would have enjoyed the delicious sounds of Valentina’s pleas for mercy, but she just wanted the thing done. Canines slide easily into human flesh, especially the tender meat of the neck. Valentina’s blood tasted like brimstone and ashes, but Annie swallowed every bitter drop.

  No matter what movies want you to believe, no one’s death is ever easy or pretty. The demoness thrashed and wailed—a loud death rattle accompanied the spastic jerking of limbs and the evacuation of her bowels. Annie felt the moment the woman’s vile heart stopped beating.

  A shock of electricity zapped through Annie’s nervous system. She fell back and vomited on the packed dirt. She was vaguely aware of the sounds of cheering, and the sensation of being naked in the night air, but she was too busy trying to figure out what caused her to switch so rapidly from wolf to woman form
.

  An instant later Brad was beside her. He helped her up and cradled her in his arms. “You did it, honey. You broke the curse.” He raised her trembling chin. “Look.”

  Annie blinked through the tears filling her eyes. All around the cage, the members of the demon’s menagerie had each transformed back into their normal human forms. “Killing her must have lifted all the curses.”

  She should have felt elated and victorious. Instead, she felt hollow. Now that the beast was gone, what would become of her and Brad?

  —

  ONCE AGAIN—BUT HOPEFULLY for the last time—Brad was digging a grave. He should have felt exhausted after their ordeal. Instead, he felt invigorated, strong. More awake than he had in years.

  While the other former freaks had ushered the remaining confused stragglers from the audience outside, Drude had helped Brad carry the evil ringmistress’s body out back.

  Annie tagged along, wrapped in a glittered cape she’d found in a costume trunk. As Brad and Drude discussed the perfect place to dig, she shivered from her perch on a barrel, watching her husband with glinting eyes.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Drude said, “I’ll go check on the others.”

  The hump on his back hadn’t disappeared with the curse, but he carried himself with slow dignity. If Brad hadn’t been so busy digging, he would have indulged his curiosity about Drude and asked the man how he’d ended up in Valentina’s clutches. Instead, he simply nodded over his shoulder. “Thanks for your help.”

  With the man’s departure, silence wrapped its arms around the couple. The only sound in the clearing was the shush-thump as Brad methodically dug Valentina’s final resting spot.

  “You need to make it wider.” Annie’s voice rung out into the quiet like a gunshot. Brad jerked to a halt and spun to face his wife.

  “What?”

  “Wider,” she enunciated, as if he were both deaf and dumb. She nodded at the hole. “And deeper too.”

  His eyes narrowed. “How many graves have you dug, Annie?” His voice was quiet. Too quiet.

  She sniffed. “Any idiot could see that hole is too damned small, Brad.”