When the Circus Comes to Town: Part Three

 

     One would expect, considering the speed at which the boys were moving, that they would grow exhausted within minutes. Instead, pure terror provided the energy of virtual flight. Orvil knew that they all must be well out of harm's way, yet he did not need to urge the others to maintain maximum speed. Instinct is a blessed thing.

    While it was true that the clowns were probably far behind, Orvil noticed something unsettling in his peripheral vision. Silhouetted by the cloudy moon, he could see movement overhead among the trees' highest branches. He began to feel icy fingers crawling up his spine as it began to dawn on him what he was seeing. His brothers seemed to have a similar reckoning as well. They pushed to increase their speed but found exhaustion creeping in at this, the worst moment.

    The wraithlike trapeze girls vaulted from one treetop to another, gaining speed and cresting out above and in front of the boys. They would certainly reach home before the brothers. The lead girl launched out in front of them, cadaverous arms spread wide, yet she misjudged. The branch snapped, and down she crashed in front of the brothers. The other trapeze girls rained down on the same spot. Perhaps out of shame for their amateurish fall in front of this unconventional audience, the girls' eyes sparked with green flame. Fortunately, having had years of practice dodging the bull in the neighbor's pasture, Orvil, Ray, and Grant managed to swerve past the writhing pile. Always the daredevil, Fred vaulted over the tangle. Dumb idea. One of the girl-things managed to snag his foot mid-jump. Down he went.

    "Get her off!" he screamed to the others. But before the others could even slow down, Fred kicked back at his pursuer, and he was on the move again with greater motivation than before. All gained renewed energy for their desperate escape.

    Where to go? To the house? Pop was rather handy with his shotgun, and Ma was already known to be able to dispatch any intruder with a frying pan. Still, there was no real hope as more and more circus people would arrive, and it seemed pointless to have the parents die with their sons. The barn had some defensive possibilities. The boys could hold the high ground in one of the lofts. And then there were the ropes. Best of all, there were pitchforks.

    They crashed through the barn door. As this was a common experience, the various animals continued without a glance, munching on their hay. The pigs continued to grunt and stir the mud with their snouts. Fred grabbed one of the dangling ropes. He backed up to the full extent of his surroundings, then ran forward, expertly swinging up into the cow loft. "Throw the pitchforks up," he shouted. Having done so, the others Tarzaned their way up to join their brother.

    Backing into the solid corner of the loft, Grant pointed out: "It is a bad soldier that closes off all possible retreat." Before anyone could say anything snarky, he continued. "Considering the number of openings in this building, any retreat is one more point where they can attack us."

    "Let's go down swinging," growled Fred.

    "Poking," corrected Ray.

    "Huh?" questioned Fred.

    "We will go down poking."

    "Right," Fred agreed. "Poking it will be." He gave the air a few practice jabs.

    As they strained for the sounds of the coming battle despite the sound of their labored breathing. Each boy tried to hold his breath to hear any new sounds better, but then went back to even harder breathing. Careful listening proved to be unnecessary. The pigs began an unnatural squealing. The horses tore at the ground with their hooves, and the cows began to ram their horns against the doors.

    Rather than the expected attack by the formerly beautiful girls, the circus ringmaster tossed open the barn door with his accustomed flair as if he were stepping onto a lighted center ring and taking a bow, his false head temporarily restored. From behind him, the clowns pushed through the barn door. The ringmaster made a grand gesture with one arm up toward the boys in the loft, then nodded to the clowns, giving them the silent order to proceed as usual. The clowns had not reapplied their garish makeup. Their faces retained that sickly hue, yet now those faces looked lumpy. Each of the lumps appeared and disappeared, shifted, and migrated slowly about their faces. The boys could see the same boiling flesh-action on each of the clowns' swollen, three-fingered hands.

    The largest, and by far the fattest clown, lumbered forward to stand at the foot of the loft. It gazed up at the brothers; a wicked grin expanded until the corners of its mouth reached its ears. It lifted thick arms towards the brothers. Then both the body and arms thinned and elongated, bringing it to the level of the boys. Simultaneously, a smaller clown scaled the wall, its suckered fingers and toes clinging with unnerving precision.

    The boys retreated into the dim recesses of the loft. Perhaps it would have been more strategic to battle each individual monster as it reached the boys' level. Terror replaced all rational thought.

    Each of the clowns ascended to the loft in a unique manner. They coalesced at the edge into a churning mass, sealing off all escape routes. As they edged forward, a scant few paces away, rising desperation shattered the boys' petrifying fear.

    The brothers lunged and thrust into the first rank of protruding bellies and bulbous noses. The smaller clowns led the assault. The boys stabbed at them, producing the deafening yet familiar sound of punctured balloons. Scraps of torn cloth and flesh exploded out, leaving a pungent yellow mist.

    With the second wave, the larger clown did not explode. Instead, they took flight in random patterns about the barn, making the sound and smell of flatulence as they deflated. They landed in shriveled piles at random places, draped on the hay.

    Witnessing his minions vanquished, the ringmaster seethed at these farm boys. He raised trembling, gloved hands. Each finger gyrated and twisted at unnatural angles. Then, the worms burst free of the gloves, which tore free of the palms and landed at the ringmaster's feet. His human mask pulsed. The worms concealed beneath this facade maneuvered to find an exit through an eye, a nostril, or the mouth.

    Before the inevitable could happen, all four brothers launched their well-practiced Tarzan swings in near unison. They had a foot in a stirrup loop, one hand holding the rope, and the other hand extended with a pitchfork. With the collision, the ringmaster burst into mounds of independent, squirming tentacles. Dismounting as fast as possible from the ropes, the boys attacked the wriggling fragments of the former ringmaster, striking again and again to impale each retreating part. A disturbing number managed to evade the jabs and shimmy down a mouse hole or crack in the wall. The worm-like things impaled on the boys' weapons tugged for freedom for a moment; then, all went still and limp.

    There was no noise except the boys' heavy breathing. First Orvil, and then all four began to laugh. "Can you believe that?" Grant chuckled.

    "We be warriors!" Fred declared. He raised his pitchfork to the sky.

    "I don't know," said Ray, "You should have seen your face. Absolutely terrified. Looked like a girl."

    "No way. You maybe, but not me." Fred jabbed at the hay, reliving his glory.

    "Would you guys shut up?" whispered Orvil. "It's not over."

The first of the trapeze girls knocked on the glass as she gazed out from one of the upper windows. She might have been smiling, but too little of her face remained intact to know. The brothers heard footsteps at the highest place on the roof. They could see something moving up there. The girls were climbing through the broken slats on the cupola that crowned the barn's roof. Having gained entry, they crawled along the rafters and began their progress down the walls, proceeding headfirst. They dropped the last ten feet, performing graceful twists in the air and landing on their feet.

    With a renewed call to arms, the brothers advanced in a phalanx formation. They gathered speed, calling out in pre-adolescent shouts of determination and terror.

    The hideous things braced themselves in a line. The boys rammed the pitchforks through them, pinning them backward into the slats of the pig pen. Other than being trapped, the girls were unaffected. They clawed at the boys' faces.

    Determined to keep these cadaverous women pinned, the brothers leaned in while holding their heads back out of reach of the flailing talons.

    The pigs ran forward with interest, assuming they would finally be fed. They stepped over the slop trough and rammed their snouts through the gaps in the fence.

    The trapeze girls began their first shouts of terror.

    The pigs tugged at their legs, enjoying a new delicacy. They tore away large chunks and returned for more.

    The helpless girls spasmed and then went stiff and still. The flash of green light in their eyes faded away.

    The brothers hesitated to relax their grips, but then Orvil pulled back on his pitchfork. Parts of the girl remained among the tines. He pitched what was left over the top rail of the pig pen. The other boys did the same. The pigs renewed their feasting. It was over.

    Orvil dropped to his knees. He reached to the straw and eased himself down. He rolled from his shoulder onto his back and smiled. The others joined him. They wanted to laugh and maybe to cry, but they were too exhausted to do either.

    After some time, they heard the dinner bell ringing from the back porch. While dinner was long over, it was Ma or Pope summoning them to come into the house. They never had the nerve to tell their parents what had happened. This was unfortunate because they might have been surprised and delighted to hear what their parents would have said.

    Orvil was the last to leave the barn. He flipped off the lights and closed the door. Maybe it was fortunate that he did not look back. He might have found the green light coming from the pig's eyes disturbing.

  That night, Orvil decided to take charge of his life. He would get his chores done before he was told, and he would even do what was necessary to bring up his grades. He would be a winner.

The following day, after school let out, he followed the other kids out of the building. He desperately wanted to go home, but he had made the resolution to change his academic pathway. He knew he would need some extra help from his teacher, Miss Jensen. Unfortunately, he wasn't that fond of her. Maybe he could get the help from Mrs. Miskin. She was his old teacher, back when he actually liked school.

    He resolutely turned to reenter the school. His hand froze on the doorknob. He had made the mistake of glancing through the window to the left. He couldn't immediately say what it was that set him on edge. He relaxed his grip on the knob. Rising slowly from the corner of the school window, he peered in. The teachers were doing their hair. That was all. It seemed funny to be doing it near the end of the day. Well, women were funny things, weren't they? With each stroke of the comb, their hair went more and more grey. First Miss Jensen, then Mrs. Miskin wiped at their faces with a coarse cloth. Both color and tissue came away with each stroke of the rag. Most of their noses came away, along with their lips. The missing eyes were the worst.

    Though Orvil was able to improve his grades over the next few weeks, he did it without help. His motivation to do well increased each time Miss Jensen invited him to stay after school to get some extra tutoring. Years later, he considered becoming a teacher. The thought was brief and never returned again.