Don't go to the Carnival at Night

The peaceful sounds of the cloudless night were drowned out by Britney’s obnoxious recounting of some controversial Instagram feud she was in. Her horrible nasally voice was far too high pitched to be natural and I could hear nearby animals scuttling in the underbrush. I squeezed Leo’s hand threateningly as my temper flared and he squeezed mine gently and leaned in whispering, “I’m sorry…”

“Isn’t it bad enough that you’re dragging me on some stupid ghost-hunting hike?” I hissed.

“Babe, it’ll be fun you’re into creepy stuff anyway. Just try to lighten up, Cody didn’t tell me he was bringing her.”

“Of course he brought her, there’s a chance he’ll get lucky in the woods. And yeah I like scary movies or stories not stumbling through the woods in the dead of night in search of an abandoned carnival! It’s like asking to be killed!” I hissed.

Leo sighed and pulled me along, “You know we’re both here we won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll protect you from any boogie men.”

I rolled my eyes, gaze darting around searching the impenetrable darkness that seemed to repel the light of our flashlights. It was a new moon, only the light of the stars and our flashlights cut through the oppressive blackness.

The skin at the back of my neck prickled and a dull throb pounded at the base of my skull as I felt unseen eyes on me. My inherited gift for the dead was screaming at me to run back to the car as fast as I could. Something was in these woods, and I had the feeling we would find out if we kept on our path.

The trees began to thin out and great looming shapes took form in the clearing ahead. There was a sudden metallic twang followed by the tinkling sound of shattered glass that made me jump a foot in the air. Another twang and a guffaw of laughter from Cody as he raised another rock to throw at one of the looming trailers. The breeze shifted pushing us back the way we had come and wafting the scent of oxidizing metal towards us as goosebumps sprang up across my flesh.

A shiver ran up my spine and I stage whispered, “Would you quit it?! You are so juvenile!”

“What afraid the ghosts are going to come for you, goth girl?” Britney asked looking at me maliciously, twirling her badly dyed hair.

I wanted to punch those perfect teeth down her throat, “I’m not goth you-“

I didn’t get to finish as Leo laughed loudly and spun me around saying something inane to diffuse the tension that I could hear over the blood pounding in my ears.

“Seriously Leo what the hell are we doing out here?” I asked pulling my hand from his and rubbing the goosebumps on my arms as a chill wrapped itself around me like an unwelcome blanket in the muggy summer night. A light sweat was forming on the back of my neck and my head throbbed. There was something here and everything inside me told me to run in the other direction.

“Sid relax, it’s just an old carnival that was shut down-“

“Yeah, and do you know why it was shut down? Because so many people died here including a deranged serial killer who masqueraded as a clown!” I said my panic rising, choking me as I looked to see if I could see anything lurking in the darkness.

“Babe, it’s ok we’re just here to take some pictures and then we can leave.” He said brandishing his camera. A sharp giggle erupted, and I could see from Cody’s flashlight that he had Britney up against the rusting skeleton of a Ferris wheel. I looked at Leo, my exasperation clear on my face.

“I’m sorry ok. I thought this could be something we could do just the three of us, like old times.” He said looking down, the note of sadness in his voice eased some of my agitation and I touched his hand. I had known Leo and Cody since first grade, physically they were as identical as twins could be and they had adopted me into the fold quickly. They were the only living souls outside my family who knew about my ability to see the spirits of the dead and we had done dumb stuff like this all the time as kids, but college had changed things for all of us. Leo was working on his art, I was consumed by my writing and Cody had been too preoccupied with baseball and partying to hang out with us anymore, especially since Leo and I started dating third term.

“I’m sorry, I know these pictures mean a lot to you, she’s just sooo… awful… and irritating. I don’t know what he sees in her…” I said rubbing my temple as a headache rolled in like a storm in my skull.

I forced a smile and stood back to watch him work, ignoring the laughter to my left. Leo studied the dark shapes in the light of the stars. And began snapping photos with and without flash catching whatever vision he had in his head. I thought about how I could turn this into a story later and then steered my mind in a different direction. I didn’t need to accidentally spook myself by conjuring a dark and twisted tale.

An odd rustling to my right drew my eyes and I saw a flash of something and pushed it from my mind looking only at Leo and his camera. I just kept chanting there’s nothing here, over and over in my head.

Leo snapped away and I forgot about where we were for a few sweet moments when he kissed me and told me to pose on some of the sturdier looking rides. I couldn’t help but laugh when the carousel horse I was on collapsed with me on it. Leo was picking me up from the horse when a blood-curdling scream loud enough to wake the dead rang out piercing my ears.

We whipped around to see Britney screeching and pointing at a spider that had crawled down from the dark metal above. And just like that, my headache was back and I wanted to knock her Barbie head off her shoulders.

I turned away and looked around trying to calm my stampeding heart. Leo busied himself snapping photos, the flash occasionally illuminating the immediate area. As I looked around trying not to delve too deep into the shadows, the flash of Leo’s camera illuminated a tattered-looking tent to my right. I swung my flashlight over to it in time to see a small figure darting behind the weathered-looking structure. You could barely call it a structure as the fabric was so tattered and threadbare wisps of starlight glittered through it and the metal supports jutted out at odd angles making it look like the withered skeleton of a long-dead beast.

I couldn’t stop myself from looking closer, the interior seemed to glow bright enough that my flashlight was hardly necessary. As I slithered closer, I could see rotting cushions and moldering chairs arranged in a semi-circle around a circular table. Atop the table was a strange box. It was wrapped in brown paper and was strange in that it looked like it had been placed there moments ago.

It felt like there was an invisible hand guiding me toward the box, coaxing me to unwrap it and divulge the mysteries it held within. I picked it up, turning it over and over, looking for a label of some kind. There was none and with a slight shake, the contents seemed to rattle ominously from within.

“Sidona?” I heard Leo call from somewhere behind me, but I barely heard him as I stared entranced by the perfect brown paper. I felt him look over my shoulder as he said, “What is that?”

A horrible, guttural scream loosed itself from somewhere deep within me as my stomach lurched. We were no longer alone under the canopy, there were half a dozen disfigured spirits staring at me from impossibly black eyeless sockets, hands outstretched to point at the box in my hands. Their skin was impossibly pale, and my eyes snagged on a little girl with a dirty bloodstained face stood closest to me her face held a sad expression as her little hand pointed at the brown paper box in my hands. I scuttled backward tripping over a root in the earth and landing on my behind. When I looked back there was nothing and no one there but the tent.

I sat on the damp ground my chest heaving and heart hammering. The box sat innocently on the ground between my feet. The sight of it made my stomach heave painfully. Just then there were two sets of hands on me lifting me from the ground

“Are you OK?” Cody and Leo asked almost in unison worry colored both of their faces.

I nodded mutely, not trusting my voice. I looked once more to the haggard tent and saw nothing more than the withered fabric and jutting supports. My heart still hammered painfully against my ribs, but my breathing was more even. My hair was stuck to my face with sweat and I felt woozy.

Leo released my arm and bent to pick up the box from where I had dropped it. “Is this what scared you?”

I shook my head looking around once more searching for the eyeless specters.

“It’s just an ugly box. What are you afraid of?” Britney squawked with her hands on her hips.

“Shut up Brit.” Cody snapped his concerned eyes flying back to me and Leo.

“What did you see?” Leo whispered tentatively looking down at the box and shaking it gently, its contents rattling softly.

“A bunch of people all staring at me and pointing at that,” I whispered nodding to the box in Leo’s hands. I trembled furiously as Cody rubbed my back trying to calm me like when we were kids, and something had spooked me. “They didn’t have eyes…but they were looking at me…”

Leo started to pull at the twine holding the paper closed. I buried my face in Cody’s chest as Leo tore away the paper. I squeezed my eyes shut trying to banish the horrifying images from my mind. Cody hugged me tightly, but I could feel him craning to see what was in the box. The sounds of the forest were noticeably absent as unnatural silence pressed down on us.

“Shit!” Leo breathed.

Cody recoiled pulling me farther from the box. I turned to look but the box was no longer in Leo’s hands but on the ground, the contents spilled out on the grass painted in the silver light of the stars. Britney let out a laugh and my stomach lurched and finally my dinner made an appearance spraying into the bushes. Vials of preserved human eyes littered the ground staring at me from the interior of the box.

“Shit!” Cody said his hands tugging the strands of his tawny hair.

“What is your problem?” Britney sneered before looking down at the spilled contents of the box and laughing, “You guys are real freaks you know that? Which one of you brought these? Is this some prop for your creepy photoshoot?”

I looked at her dumbfounded, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“These are old specimens from a lab or something. Did you buy them, you little goth freak?” she shot back rolling her eyes and picking one up to examine it. The small jar was stoppered and sealed in sanguine wax a symbol I couldn’t decipher stamped at the top. Her sudden calm focus was jarring until I remembered that somehow this blonde airhead was studying nursing.

“Brit would you put that down!” Cody said looking green as he watched her examine the eye.

A single ominous jingle echoed throughout the silent trees. Even Britney went quiet as we all turned scanning the blackness that seemed to inch closer to us.

“What was that?” Leo whispered, eyes wide as he angled himself in front of Cody and me as a twig snapped.

“It has to be some kind of animal; would you guys chill out?” Britney said sauntering over to the tree line shouting and flapping her arms like an agitated chicken.

Every hair on my body stood on end as an icy chill caressed itself up my spine as I felt eyes on me. The throb in my skull had graduated to a jackhammer clanging away in my head and the world tipped as the edges of my vision went black.

Suddenly I was surrounded by dreamy golden sunlight and the sounds of children playing among the gleaming carnival games. Dread plucked at my nerves as a familiar jingle sang merrily through the air.

There, making a balloon animal for a familiar little girl was a horrific clown, the mouth too big even with makeup and eyes as black as pitch leered down at the little girl. Though the face was vaguely feminine the thing itself was barely humanoid with its overtly long limbs and distended belly that the ruffles of its rainbow jumpsuit couldn’t quite hide.

The little girl, wearing the same dress I had seen her in as an apparition, giggled merrily as her mother eyed the barely human-looking clown. The clown waved as the girl and her mother walked toward the Ferris wheel a cluster of bells jangling merrily at its wrist.

Though its black eyes never left the girl, I felt as though the thing could see me, feel my eyes upon its hideous form. The world tilted again, and it was suddenly twilight, the woman I had seen earlier was crying and screaming, “Flora! Flora, where are you?!”

My heart broke for her as I watched her plead with the carnival workers as they merely shrugged at her and continued to shut down the rides. People stared at her as though she had a plague and hurried their children along.

A security officer with obsidian eyes and a too wide mouth smiled down at the woman placing a hand on her shoulder and her crying ceased. Her eyes went blank as she looked up into the monstrous face, the nose bulbous and red, too-big white teeth crowding the excessively wide smile, and those cold black eyes glittering down hungrily at the woman’s face.

The thing in the security uniform waved an outrageously long-fingered hand and the woman mutely followed after it, not a single person seemed to notice except for me as horror bloomed in my chest and the world tipped once more as I was thrown into pitch darkness.

Fear ripped through me as I heard screams echo through the trees. I could barely see in the dim flickering lights of candles in the trailers and tents that skirted the edge of the trees, their windows covered as though the occupants were hiding from something. The wail of a child sent my heart skittering around my chest as I ran to follow the sound, stumbling as the wet earth tried to tear the shoes from my feet as I ran.

A clearing just ahead was illuminated by a roaring fire, and I slowed taking in the scene before me, I made no sound as I pushed through the brush, and I was thankful for that as the sight before finally registered. There tied to a grungy chair was the little girl I had seen earlier, her dress was soiled and covered in mud, her face tear-stained and bleeding from a cut on her cheek.

The girl wept as she stared at the emaciated, tall figures stalking around the fire. There were three, their long limbs grey and blue and speckled with dark hairs not unlike that of a boar, dragged along the mucky earth as their gaunt faces leered at the girl. Their long, slimy black tongue hung out of their unhinged jaws, and the teeth that had appeared cartoonishly large in their humanoid forms had hidden several rows of hooked and sharp teeth, built to pull their prey in. Gran Gran had taught me enough about the dark things that lurked in the dark but I had never seen anything like these things.

As the biggest of the creatures moved towards the whimpering little girl I choked back a scream as I saw what was left of her mother. Her chest had been pried open, her organs had been removed or eaten I didn’t want to think of which, and her eyes had been cut from her skull they sat in a vial like the ones in the box I had found, upon a stone table.

I pressed a hand to my mouth as the smallest of the beasts began swallowing the woman’s arm, wrenching it from the socket with a sickening wet crack, it disappeared into its cavernous gullet stomach looking bloated as it licked its lips. And set its eyes upon its leader as I spoke in a deep garbled voice to the petrified child. Those long fingers reached out to caress her face and I searched the ground for a branch or stone I could use to protect her but as I reached for the stone nearest me my fingers passed through it.

“NO! No, no, no, no!” I tried my best to pick up anything, but I knew my spectral form was nothing more than a ghost in this hellish memory. I looked back at the girl with tears pouring from my eyes, all I could do for her now was to bear witness to her final moments.

I wept silently as I listened to her pained screams as the monsters oh so carefully pried her eyes out, chanting in a language I did not know. The things gave her no mercy as they tore open her abdomen and fought to devour her from the inside as her screams became wet and labored before finally ceasing.

“Sidona!” an unwelcome voice commanded as someone shook my roughly. My eyes fluttered open, and I was greeted by Britney’s concerned face. “Sidona? Are you ok? Can you hear me?”

I groaned and sat up my head aching like someone had whisked my brain.

“Hey, hey lay back I need to check your vitals, you just exhibited signs of a grand maul seizure.” Her usual nasally tone was gone replaced by a cool professional tone.

“I’m fine. We have to go, now.” I say shoving to my feet, Leo and Cody steadying me.

“Sid you just-“ An inhuman wail rents the air making me clap my hands over my ears.

“RUN!” I screamed, grabbing the boys’ sleeves, and pelting back down the path.

My lungs burned as I ran full tilt, Cody was the fastest with his baseball training and long legs dragging us along. Something massive barreled along through the trees following us.

Britney’s foot caught a root, sprawling her out with a scream. I stooped to pull her to her feet as one of the creatures lunged from the trees, that awful jaw unhinging to reveal its awful teeth as another infernal screech burst my eardrums and something collided with the back of my skull, stars erupted across my vision as I dropped to my knees.

Flashes of trees and the night sky flashed by as my consciousness winked in and out. Finally, head pounding, I began to hear things as I slowly came to. Leo and Cody were arguing in hushed whispers to my left and a fire was crackling somewhere in front of me, the heat and smoke smothering as I fought to breathe.

Gradually I opened my eyes, keeping my head bent forward at a painful angle to study my surroundings. From what I could see, Britney was also bound to a chair her head lulled from side to side and her eyes black and swollen as she fought to wake up.

I couldn’t see the boys, but their voices told me they were at least alive. That other sense I had relied on for so many years was dulled and painfully silent. Lifting my head, a fraction I could see the boys standing close to the fire heads bent as they argued with one another. My thoughts felt muddy and sluggish as I tried to understand what was happening.

Britney groaned next to me drawing the piercing blue gazes of the boys I had known almost my entire life. Identical cruel grins spread across their gazes as their eyes met mine.

“Well good morning, sleepy heads!” Leo shouted, sauntering towards us like a showman.

“Leo? What the hell is going on?” I rasped, my throat felt ragged and dry.

“You’re in for the night of your life, little lady!” Cody grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head back.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” I choke out, struggling to breathe.

“Oh, nothing is wrong darling. Tonight is the big night!” Leo crooned his eyes wild as he trailed his fingertips along my sternum. I wrenched against the rope binding me but all it did was cut into my skin.

“Tsk tsk, little miss! Don’t be doin' that now! They don’t like it.” Cody whispered, warm breath tickling my ear. “Tonight you get to be a part of something great! Something far greater than your pitiful existence.”

My eyes followed Leo as he roughly moved Britney’s head drawing a whimper from her lips. “Tonight, my darling you get to bear witness to the Blood Rite. Tonight, Cody and I will finally make a name for ourselves among our kind and join Mama and Papa among the ranks!”

“What? Your parents are dead!”

“Stupid girl,” Cody said releasing my hair and rolling his eyes, “You believed that trash about them getting lost hiking to the top of Mount Everest? Please, they slaughtered that group of do-good morons and made their way back home.” He threw his arms wide spinning to indicate the woods surrounding us.

“What?” was all I could think to ask, my brain was foggy and I couldn’t tell if I was having some sort of episode. Twigs snapped and a low growl from my right made my heart stop.

“We know Papa, soon,” Cody said in a soothing voice.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask tears starting to stream down my cheeks as I look at the faces of my dearest friends.

“Because darling, we knew what you were the first moment we smelled that necromancer funk on you. We need your magic to make this night a success and you, my darling, are the most powerful necro we have ever smelled. Tonight, with the rise of the new moon, we will feast on the living heart of one who communes with the dead so that we may take our place among the Rakshasa!” Leo bellowed his eyes wild and pupils blown to swallow the ice-blue irises.

“Why take Britney?” I asked.

“As useless as she may seem she too has necro blood in her, she will make a wonderful appetizer for us.” Cody laughed caressing her neck and pulling out an ornate knife.

“Why bottle the eyes?” I asked, stalling hoping some kind of plan would formulate in my pounding head.

“Haven’t you heard? The eyes are the window to the soul, we keep them around so that the souls of our conquests stay with us forever, their magic like an endless stream keeping us immortal!” Leo said excitedly holding up jars I knew were meant for us.

A godawful scream rent the night as Cody dug his bare fingers into Britney’s chest, inhuman strength coursing through the thick muscles of his arms as he tore her chest apart. I gagged and looked away unable to watch as Leo went to cut out her eyes, Cody diving into her chest like it was a Christmas gift.

Horrid wet sounds of tears flesh and dripping blood bombarded me until I wanted to die too. As soon as the thought entered my mind I felt a clawed hand grip my hair and wrench it back as the bloodied ornate blade came for my eyes and the world melted away in a torrent of agony and fear.

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I’ve lost track of time in this endless hell. I see everything as the monsters that stole away my life move about the world stealing souls to satisfy their endless hunger. I had never heard of the Rakshasa before that fateful night, and I prayed with all of my will that one day they would be exterminated like the lecherous beasts that they are. To any brave souls willing to end my purgatory I can tell you that they are weakened by the light of the sun and moon, and they can take on any form. Until then I will bear witness to the deaths of the innocent, someone set me free… please.