Not
all carnivals are evil, but when they are, seeing really is believing—and a
whole lot worse.
***
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| Source |
The sun dropped below the horizon,
leaving the carnival bathed in the eerie glow of
neon lights. Josh tugged on
Stephanie’s hand, pulling her toward the World of Wonders exhibit. He grinned
at the pictures of the unbelievable wonders promised inside.
“I can’t wait to see how they pull
that one off,” Josh said, pointing to the Cyclops.
Stephanie tugged on his bicep. “None
of this is real. It’s just a waste of money.”
“Oh, it’s real all right,” said a
low voice from inside the ticket booth.
Stephanie jerked her head to the
right and met the stare of a greasy-looking man with dark hair and a beard that
came to a point about six inches below his chin.
Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Sure it
is.”
“A disbeliever,” the man said. He
tapped his finger on the booth as he looked Stephanie up and down. He leaned
forward, pressing his nose against the thin glass and speaking through the
circular opening. “Perhaps this isn’t the right exhibit for you…yet.”
“Try never,” Stephanie said, tugging
on Josh’s arm again. “Can we please go?”
Josh smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re
not curious.”
Stephanie nodded her head slightly
to her left. “He gives me the creeps.”
Josh laughed. “He works the ticket
booth for the freak show. He’s got to play the part and get people spooked
enough to enter the exhibit, right?”
Stephanie shrugged and glanced at
the man again. She jumped when she saw he was staring back at her. His lips
curved in the most sinister smile she could imagine. “Yeah, well he’s a little
too good at his job.” She turned away. Over Josh’s shoulder, she saw the sign
for the House of Mirrors. “Let’s go there instead.”
He followed her gaze. “You probably
just want to check your reflection in all the mirrors.”
Stephanie playfully lifted one
shoulder. “Maybe.” She took Josh’s hand
and pulled him across the parking lot. They walked through the archway at the
entrance to the House of Mirrors and heard a cheerful voice over the
loudspeaker.
“Step
inside and see yourself in a way you’ve never imagined.”
“Is this a maze or just a lot of
crazy mirrors?” Josh asked as he took his wallet from his back pocket.
“Both actually,” the man in the
ticket booth said.
Stephanie squeezed Josh’s arm at the
sound of the man’s voice. It sounded exactly like… No way could it be the same
creepy guy from the freak show.
Stephanie peered through the dirty
glass. The booth was dimly lit, but she could make out the shadow of a pointed
beard. Her nails dug into Josh’s arm as she squeezed him tighter. “It’s you,”
Stephanie said. “Did you follow us?”
He laughed again. “You must be
thinking of my twin brother. He runs the booth at the World of Wonders exhibit.”
Stephanie
turned away, trying to shirk the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Enjoy,” the man said, pressing a
button that unlatched the door.
Stephanie practically ran through
it, wanting to put as much distance between her and the ticket guy as possible.
The door slammed shut behind them, making Stephanie jump.
“Why are you so jumpy?” Josh asked.
“You didn’t find that guy the
littlest bit—?” She shuddered. “I can’t even describe it.”
Josh smiled. “Look around. You’re
surrounded by mirrors. This is like heaven for you.”
Stephanie turned in a full circle,
watching her reflections twirl with her. “You’re right. And I could use a
touch-up on my lip gloss.”
Josh walked over to a mirror that
made him look pregnant. “Hey, check this out. I think I’m going into labor.” He
turned sideways and rubbed his belly.
Stephanie walked over to see. “Yeah,
you definitely look like you’re going to pop.”
“You try it.” Josh pulled her in
front of the mirror.
“No thank you.” She waved him off,
without even looking at her reflection, and continued through the maze.
A voice came over the intercom and
Stephanie had no doubt whose voice it was. The ticket seller’s. “In every
mirror find a different way to play. But be careful not to lose yourself along
the way. Because we’ve saved the very best mirrors for the end. And your
opinion of the exhibit just might bend.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Creepy,” Stephanie finished.
“I was going to say cryptic, but I
think it means they save the really cool mirrors for the end of the maze. I
wonder what they’ll make us look like.”
Stephanie didn’t really care. Coming
here had been her idea, but now she just wanted to leave. “Maybe we should turn
around and get our money back. This doesn’t seem like a good idea after all.”
“No way. I want to see those mirrors
at the end of the maze. Maybe I’ll look like I grew boobs or something.”
Stephanie
rolled her eyes, but Josh took her hand and pulled her through the maze. After
a few turns, Stephanie stopped. The hair on her arms was standing on end. “I
really think we should go back.”
Josh turned all around, looking for
the open space indicating where the path was leading them. “That’s weird. I
guess this is a dead end.”
“Good,
then let’s head back.”
The lights went out, leaving them in
darkness. Stephanie screamed and hugged Josh.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Power outage, maybe.”
A
low humming sound, like a bunch of buzzing bees, filled the air. After a few
more seconds, dim yellow lights came on from above.
“Must be a backup generator,” Josh
said.
“Let’s find the exit,” Stephanie
said, the terror on her face reflected in the mirrors all around her.
Josh turned around, trying to
retrace their steps. “Isn’t this the way we came?”
“I think so.” Stephanie gawked at
the row of mirrors blocking their path. “How can that be?”
“I guess we got turned around
somehow when the lights went out.”
“But we didn’t move.” Stephanie
swallowed hard. Something was wrong with this maze. Something was wrong with
this whole place.
“Well, there’s no use standing
here.” Josh took her hand and headed back the way they’d just come.
“We know this path is a dead end. We
were just—” Stephanie couldn’t finish. The path wasn’t blocked anymore. One of
the mirrors was gone. “No.” She stabbed her finger at the empty spot. “There
was a mirror there.”
Josh let go of her and ran his hand
along the sides of the mirrors. “They must move. You know, change so that
people going through the maze more than once don’t know which way to go.”
Stephanie wasn’t convinced. “Why
would a fair attraction go through all that trouble? How many people actually
go through the House of Mirrors more than once?”
Josh shrugged. “Beats me, but at
least we aren’t stuck here anymore.”
Stephanie couldn’t argue with that,
but she couldn’t help getting goose bumps as she walked through the opening and
followed the path. After about twenty feet, the maze turned to the right, and
there weren’t any more mirrors. “Where are we?”
“Looks like a maintenance entrance
or something. The power outage must have made the sliding mirrors go all
screwy. This passageway probably opened by mistake.”
They
followed a long narrow hallway to another door. Stephanie sighed. “Oh thank
God! I’m never stepping foot in another House of Mirrors. In fact, I may not
look into another mirror for a long time.”
“Oh, come on. This is you we’re talking about. You’ll be
adjusting your lip gloss in the car on the way home.”
Stephanie playfully smacked his arm.
“Just open the door.”
Josh turned the knob and found
himself looking into another room. “Huh?”
A crackling sound came from a
speaker above the door. “Things look different in the dark, and monsters come
out to play. But if you find yourself once more, you might be back on your
way.”
Stephanie bit her bottom lip to keep
it from trembling.
“I thought that thing was off,” Josh
said. “Do you think the lights shutting off are part of the exhibit?”
“I think that guy is seriously
deranged. He knows we’re trapped in here. He’s probably watching our every move.”
Josh looked around for hidden
cameras. He waved his arms above his head and yelled, “Hey, we’re a little
lost. Some help would be nice.”
“He’s not going to help us. He’s
trying to scare us, and he’s doing a really good job.”
Josh stopped waving his arms and
grabbed Stephanie by the shoulders. “You need to calm down. I bet that’s a
prerecorded message that plays on a loop.”
Stephanie took a deep breath. Josh
was probably right. She was overreacting. She hated being lost, and her fear
was getting the best of her. “Okay, let’s keep moving.”
They stepped into the room, which
was empty except for a group of sheet-covered objects in the middle.
Josh
grabbed one end of a sheet and lifted it. “It’s just a normal mirror. Nothing
funny about it.” He raised the sheet on the one next to it. “This one’s normal,
too.” He turned around and pulled the
sheet off another mirror. This one was different. “Now we’re talking. A goofy
mirror.” He uncovered the last one. “This one, too. Nice.” He positioned
himself in front of the second mirror. “Hey, try that one.”
Stephanie moaned. “Then can we
please leave?”
“Sure.”
Stephanie stood in front of the
other mirror. Her reflection was ridiculously tall and skinny. Without even
realizing it, she laughed.
Josh glanced at her reflection. “We
need to fatten you up. Better get you some ice cream with all the toppings.”
Stephanie smiled and looked at
Josh’s reflection. He looked like a short round blob. “Whoa! No ice cream for
you!”
As they laughed, Stephanie couldn’t
help feeling silly for getting so scared. This was kind of fun after all.
“I’ve got to get one of these for my
living roo—” Josh’s face twisted in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Stephanie reached
for him, but she felt like her arms were being stretched and pulled right out
of their sockets. Her eyes flew to the mirror again as she felt her body being
pulled in two directions at once. She screamed as her muscles tore, shredding
into paper-thin strips. She struggled to stay on her feet, and if something
wasn't pulling her upward, she was sure she would’ve toppled over. Her skin
stretched, leaving long purplish-brown lines running up and down her limbs. She
tried to talk, but all she could manage were screams. The pain was unbearable.
She felt herself rising higher in the air and wondered why the mirror seemed to
be getting smaller.
Finally the pain died down. She
forced herself to look away from the mirror. Her legs were wobbly, and she had
to reach her arms straight out to keep her balance. When she finally managed to
turn around, she found herself facing the mirror behind her. The regular mirror. Only, her reflection was
exactly the same as it had been in the distorted mirror. Her body was stretched
and bone thin.
Her head whipped to the side,
searching for Josh. Her eyes dropped to the blob on the ground next to her.
Josh’s body was short and fat. His face was lopsided from the waves of rolled
skin and blubber. He was nothing more than a blob, exactly how he’d looked in
the mirror.
And then everything went black.
#
Stephanie was vaguely aware of the
cool cement floor on her back. She knew she’d fainted. She opened her eyes and
tried to focus on the room. The almost shapeless form next to her wasn’t
moving. Josh. That was Josh. She remembered everything. Somehow the mirrors had
changed them. She and Josh had changed so they resembled the images reflected
back at them.
A door slammed, and the glow of a
streetlight filtered into the room. Stephanie saw a figure in the doorway, but
the light was to its back and she couldn’t make out who it was. She waited
there, not knowing if she should call out for help. But the figure turned
slightly, and she was able to make out the shape of a pointed beard. The man
from the ticket booth! But which booth?
He stepped into the room, and suddenly
the doorway was filled with another figure—identical to the first. Stephanie
struggled to sit up. Her head pounded from the fall, and her muscles ached from
being stretched well past their limits. Still, she did her best to scoot away
from the two men. She nudged Josh’s shapeless body with her foot, but he didn’t
budge.
“Easy there,” the first twin said.
“You’re liable to get your foot stuck in all that blubber.” He laughed as he
and his twin dragged Josh out of the room.
“Where are you taking him?”
Stephanie yelled. “What have you done to us?”
The door slammed shut behind them.
Stephanie awkwardly pulled herself to her feet, using the mirror to help her.
Every part of her body was in pain, and she could feel warm blood tricking down
the back of her head. She tried to walk, but her long legs were completely
foreign to her. She stumbled and fell forward, crying out in pain.
The door opened again, and the twins
stepped inside. “It’s going to take some time getting used to those new legs,”
the first twin said.
His brother laughed. “Oh, she’ll
have plenty of time to get used to them. Plenty of time indeed.”
“You did this to me!” Stephanie
said, her voice laced with hatred.
The men walked over to her, grabbing
her under her arms. She didn’t want to go with them, but she didn’t have the
strength to fight back. They dragged her out the door and into the night. The
fair was deserted. Not a person in sight as they pulled her across the street.
In a moment of horror, she realized where they were taking her. The World of
Wonders.
“Stop! Please, stop!” She tried to fight them, but it was
no use. She didn’t have control over her body. Stephanie gasped when they
dragged her past cage after cage of creatures that could only have been created
the same way her new form had been. Each person—thing—was more hideous than the one before. “You used your mirrors
to make these people for your exhibit!”
They threw Stephanie into an empty
cage and slammed the door shut. The freak show attendant smiled and said, “Are
you a believer now?”
***
This story is most like Kelly Hashway’s Touch
of Death series.
Kelly Hashway fully admits to being one
of the most accident-prone people on the planet, but that didn’t stop her from
jumping out of an airplane at ten thousand feet one Halloween. Maybe it was
growing up reading R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books that instilled a love of all
things scary and a desire to live in a world filled with supernatural
creatures, but she spends her days writing speculative fiction for young
adults, middle graders, and young children. Kelly’s also a sucker for first
love, which is why she writes YA and NA romance under the pen name Ashelyn
Drake. When she’s not writing, Kelly works as an editor and also as Mom,
which she believes is a job title that deserves to be capitalized. She is
represented by Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary Agency. For more
information about her works, visit her website: www.kellyhashway.com.
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