Timothy Baker
Ozlet had secluded himself in his box, weeping, since they had hit the road. Beside him on the couch, Manda sighed. No coaxing would bring him out when he was like this, not even to enjoy the semiarctic air whipping around their small room in the back of the bus. The air-conditioning was new and worth every dollar she had saved posing as Mistress Miranda, the Amazing Oracle.
She stretched out along the couch, naked and lithe, her ivory skin glowing in the near dark. Through the parted curtains and the deep-tinted window, she watched the rain-heavy clouds roll and pass; the sound of the tires hissing through the rain made her eyes heavy. The cool air erected her nipples and she half dreamed of a man between her legs, writhing and satisfying her. Feeding her. It had been far too long and both hungers were growling. Her fingers combed through her white and sparse pubic hair. She would have gratified herself then and there had the fantasy not popped like a pin-poked balloon at Ozlet’s loud, wet-sounding whimper.
Manda wasn’t glad for his sadness; quite the contrary. She would give anything to take away his pain, but that wasn’t possible. No one could. It was his to bear, even though it was pain stolen, belonging to some other soul now walking the world of day, grateful they no longer carried it, some memory of loss, shame, guilt of act or omission handicapping them from a better life. Ozlet had taken it from them, absorbing the soul-breaking emotion upon himself, at great cost to his body. He was stronger than anyone Manda had ever known.
Still, he wept.
For Manda—who had never cried—it was if he was crying for them both. The two of them had lost much: their friends, their home, their security, their family. A cataclysmic attack on their tomb-roofed home had sent them fleeing into the night, their companions scattering to the four winds. Refugees of the fallen Midian she and Ozlet were now, each all the other had left, torn from the cool embrace of family, hiding in plain sight among human freaks. Those who had once ruled the night lived in fear of discovery now even in the cloak of darkness.
Weep for me, dear one, she thought, and for the children of the moon.
The bus shook. Its worn shocks could barely hold them up let alone take a shallow pothole. Up front, beyond the curtains that kept them away from the burning light of the sun, someone cursed. It was Serge and he sounded drunk. When he was sober, his accent was light, but drunk he sounded as Russian as Khrushchev.
Come to think of it, he sounds like Khrushchev most of the time.
They hit a hard road bump and the back of the bus lifted and landed with a rattle, sending Manda’s open suitcase to the floor. Ozlet’s curtained box would have toppled to the floor had Manda not caught it with her foot. In a high-pitched voice, Ozlet cursed too. Manda sighed and sat up, bending over to pick up what few clothes she had, and tossed them into the suitcase.
She said, “Are you all right, my love?”
“Do I sound all right?” said the voice from the box.
Manda arranged her clothes, pressed them down, and closed the suitcase.
“No. Of course not.”
A deep sigh from the box. “I’m sorry, my dear. Not a good day.”
Manda stretched back out and laid her arm across her forehead. “I understand. I always do.”
“Yes. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You would die.” It wasn’t true, but she said it anyway, not wanting to add to his pain. “As would I without you.”
She could survive without him, of course, but the thought of parting never crossed her mind. Lovers since the Great War Between the States, they had never been separated. Ozlet had saved her from a burning stake, coming out of the dark and sending the mob to their knees, wailing and sobbing from unknown emotions. Her hair wilting and naked skin bubbling, she watched him walk through the flames, untouched, tall, lean, and as handsome as Stonewall Jackson. As he cut her bindings, he said, “You need to be more careful.” He carried her in his arms through the fire, through the weeping mob, and deep into the forest, where he laid her down and healed her of her wounds with his touch. And later, when he saw her suffering past, he took that too. From then, they loved with the gravity of the earth and the moon.
There was a price to pay for his power and he had been too generous. Now he was a quarter of the man he was then, hiding in his curtained box. Though he was unable to satisfy her needs, she did love him with all of her soulless heart and would never leave him. But she did have needs, powerful and compelling.
A flash of lightning outside the window lit the room, making Manda flinch. She stood and moved to the shadow beside the open curtains and sat next to Ozlet’s box. She slipped her hand between the slim parting of the box’s vermilion drapes. A diminutive, fingerless hand lay in her palm, petting, too small to hold her hand.
“You are so beautiful,” Ozlet said.
She closed her eyes and rested her head back.
“I know. Thank you, my love.” Cool lips graced her palm. She felt his breath as he spoke.
“We need to get out of here. It’s hell.”
Manda squeezed his hand, swallowing it up in her fingers.
“But where would we go?”
“Somewhere. Anywhere but this circus.”
A small smile passed across her lips. “It’s not a circus, my dear. Far from it. It’s a traveling freak show.”
“It’s fucking traveling hell.”
“That may be so, but it’s a hell where we can belong for a time.”
Ozlet made a spitting sound. “They’re Naturals, no matter how freakish they make themselves or pretend to be. We just blend in here.”
“Precisely.”
The roar and the wind from a passing semi made the bus shake and swerve. Even with the noise, Manda could hear socked feet, meant to go unheard, hiss and stop outside the curtains.
“These freaks,” Ozlet said, “will turn against us too, eventually. Once they realize we aren’t like them at all, real freaks. Monsters. You do realize that?”
Manda pulled her hand from the box and stood, taking her black silk robe from its hook, and slipped it up her arms. She didn’t have to look to know there was an eye peeping between the room’s curtains.
“That may well be,” she said as the roar of the truck faded ahead. She pulled her robe open, pretending to adjust it across her shoulders as the watching eye widened.
She leaned over, closed the window curtain, and said, “Can I help you, Brigid?”
A suck of air beyond the curtains and the eyehole closed.
Manda tied her robe. “Come in, Brigid, I’m decent.”
The curtains parted and let in a bit of cloud-filtered sunlight before Brigid filled the gap and passed through, snapping the curtains shut. Manda made a calm yet quick step back from the brief light that hit the floor. The sound of Ozlet’s box curtains closing whispered in the dark.
“Sorry. Sorry,” Brigid said.
For Manda, the dark was a cloudy day for Naturals, the world alit and bathed in blue-grayness. Brigid looked in her direction, unseeing, one hand holding the curtains shut and the other up as if feeling for something approaching. Dubbed the Girl That Plays with Fire, Brigid was young for a Natural, in her early twenties, but a toddler to Manda and Ozlet’s years. She was spotted with mad tattoos about her arms and legs, wearing a plaid miniskirt and too-tight bodice that lifted her smallish breasts to eye-catching domes, and head-shaved and sporting metal piercings around every sense-catching skull hole. A row of black spikes adorned in a line the center of her scalp. She never dressed down, even in their downtime, always in character. Manda knew Brigid felt like a freak, and expressed it on her exterior, but inside she was just a scared little girl Natural. And Manda thought she was beautiful.
“Well? What is it?” said Ozlet.
Manda felt Brigid’s nervousness at being caught. “Oh. Uh. Um. Not much. Really. It’s just—”
Ozlet huffed. “Damn, little girl. Spit it out.”
“Don’t mind him,” Manda said, “his hiss is worse than his bite. Go on, Brigid.”
A nervous giggle and Brigid said, “Oh. Yeah. Sorry Ozlet. It’s just that—” She paused, grasping for something to say. “Gosh, it’s dark in here. How do you stand it?”
“Excuse my rudeness,” Manda said. “I’m, we’re, so used to it. And I don’t know how you run flames across your skin and swallow it. I’m terrified of fire. I would burn to a crisp.”
Manda watched her blush in the dark. “Oh. Well. Thanks. It’s nothing. Doesn’t hurt or nothing. I like it. Kind of a turn-on.” Another giggle.
Manda reached into her robe pocket and put on her Jackie O sunglasses then pulled the high hanging chain. The fluorescent light above flickered on.
“Is that better?”
Brigid blinked and stared with girl-crush eyes. In the harsh light, Manda’s skin seemed to emit its own. Brigid’s eyes fell to the wide opening of Manda’s robe and her deep cleavage. Manda pulled the robe only a bit closer and tilted her head, enjoying the sudden lusty taste in the air.
Brigid blinked again, her eyes cutting away only to come back. “It’s just—”
“You said that already,” Ozlet said.
As if brought out of a dream, Brigid jerked, and looked to the box.
“Right. Um, we’ll be at the gig site in about an hour. It’s gonna be big. All night heavy metal and all day tomorrow. Separate Souls are headlining then. I love Separate Souls. They kick ass. You like them?” She looked to Manda, as if trying to see behind the midnight sunglasses. “A carnival too. Is what Will told me. Another couple of hours and the sun will be down.”
The Girl That Plays with Fire looked down at her feet. Her high-heeled boot pivoted on its ball. “So. Like. You can come out and set up. Or hang with me. Or not. You know. Whatever. The first band starts at midnight. We open, of course, at eleven. So like, no hurry or anything.” She looked up at Manda with hope in her eyes.
From the box, Ozlet mocked, “Like, whatever.”
Manda smiled an honest smile, and Brigid managed a nervous one, seeming to melt on the spot.
“Thank you, Brigid,” Manda said. “I didn’t know our next event.”
Brigid giggled. “Yeah. They’re all kind of the same. Right?”
Manda kept her smile and nodded. “Yes.” She stepped forward and cupped Brigid’s cheek, making her eyes widen and her smile fall away. Brigid’s eyes wandered across Manda’s pale thick lips and rose to the bottomless black of the sunglasses.
“Again,” said Manda, lowering her voice, “thank you.” Manda stepped back.
Brigid’s cheeks flushed and she only managed an “uh-huh” before she slipped between the curtains and back to the front of the bus and the world of light.
“You’re going to get us in trouble,” Ozlet said.
Manda killed the light with a tug of the chain and took off her sunglasses. “Don’t worry, my love. I won’t consume where I defecate,” she said, licking the sweet sting of pheromone and sweat from her fingers. Brigid would taste so good.
* * *
With the falling of the sun, Manda opened a curtain and dropped a window. Even parked behind the dark box of the curtained stage, the roar of the whining gears of spinning rides and their cacophonous music punctuated by some shrieking girl wound its way among the multitude of buses. She breathed deep, taking in the rain-cooled night air. In the east, the clouds had parted and the full moon hung above the horizon, shining like a welcoming friend. She smiled.
She stepped away and parted the two-piece couch, shoving the sections to the side. The heavy blanket that hid the door, she pulled aside.
“You ready?”
Ozlet shifted in his box, making a thump. “I’m always ready to get out of here.”
Manda dropped the sheer gypsy veil across her face, and with two hands, she pulled the lever across the stamped EMERGENCY EXIT, and flung the door open. A shadow of a wide-shouldered beast stood before her, its backlit bald head near level with hers. Manda gasped and startled back. Serge’s deep staccato laugh filled the compartment.
“Did I scare you?” Serge’s Russian accent turned “scare” into “scar.”
Her composure back, Manda lifted Ozlet’s box to the edge of the door. “What do you want, Serge?” Hidden behind her veil, she eyed him with suspicion and disdain. Serge was nice and protective to the entire troupe—especially Brigid—except her and Ozlet, keeping his distance and whispering to others behind their backs. Manda had felt a touch of hatred and mistrust leak from his walled-off mind. And sometimes, fear. Fear could turn even the best into monsters.
Serge took a step back into the light. Nearing seven feet tall, his already small Speedo looked swallowed by his bulging muscles. Bald and without a single hair on his face, his oiled body glimmered and rippled in the light. His arms were covered in a menagerie of tattoos and his chest was a billboard for a large-typefaced STRONGMAN. Below that, great brass rings pierced his nipples.
“Oh, no need to feel scare for Sergy. I may be Strongest Man in World but I am gentle as puppy dog. I am good guy. I am only here to assist you with your little man.” He slapped the top of Ozlet’s box a little too hard. “You okay in there, little Ozlet?”
“Hey,” cried Ozlet, “watch the ape hands there. You about deafened me.”
Manda set her hands flat on the box, holding it in place. “You never help us, Serge. What is it you want?”
Serge smiled without kindness. Brigid bounced out from behind his broad torso and waved.
“Sorry! It was me. I talked him into it. I just hate seeing you lug that b … I mean, carry Ozlet around all the time.”
Manda moved around the box, her skirt rising up as she made the long step to the ground. Both Brigid and Serge eyed the long perfect lines of her pale legs before her skirt fell to her feet.
“We have done well this far,” Manda said, turning her back to them and reaching for Ozlet’s box. “And we will continue to do so.”
Brigid slapped Serge’s arm and he stepped forward, brushing Manda aside. He lifted the box as if it were empty cardboard and set it down with a thud. Ozlet made a muffled curse. Serge patted the box as if it were a tender kitten.
“Sorry little man.”
“Yeah, right. Why don’t you keep your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape.”
Serge laughed too loud. “That is from movie Planet of Apes. Very clever.” Serge’s face fell to a grim menace. “For so small a man you have funny stinging mouth.”
A high-pitched chuckle came from inside the box and the curtains barely parted. “Please disregard the warning on the side of the box, Serge. Let’s touch and let me get to know you.”
An uncertain smile passed across Serge’s lips, and he glanced at Brigid then looked into the darkness of Manda’s veil. He grunted and waved a dismissive hand.
“Enough,” Manda said, and pulled a lever at the back of the box. It lifted on four worn rubber wheels. Her faceless veil turned to Serge and he stepped back, letting her roll the box forward and close the exit door.
“Thank you, Serge. I’m sure you’ve done quite enough for now.” She turned to Brigid, who stood frozen in her faceless sight. “What way to our tent?”
“Oh yeah, let me show you.” They left the scowling Serge behind as Brigid led them down the side of the bus, its side painted in broad carny colors declaring WILD WILL’S FANTASTICAL FREAKS, and into the maze of buses and trailers.
* * *
Even through the multilayers of hanging blankets in the tent, the thundering guitars and drums pounded into her sacred place. They had listened to the cheers from the outdoor venue as Wild Will, Master of Freaks, introduced the show’s acts one after another, then the oohs and aahs and shocked moans as they performed: Serge the Strongman; Billy Blockhead; the Illustrated Hootchie; Black Saber, Man of Knives; Snake Girl and the Hypnotic Haboob; Dom, Whip Master; Chainsaw Cherri; Rubber Woman; Deep Throat; and the Girl That Plays with Fire. While they performed, Amanda performed too, without enthusiasm, reading the mundane pasts and sorry futures of the giggling, stoned young and debauched. When the music started, the customers ended.
Manda sat at her round, velvet-covered table staring into the glass orb at the table’s center, idly shuffling her tarot cards. The single, handkerchief-covered lightbulb overhead spotted the crystal ball and splashed muted colors on the curtain walls. The smoke of incense layered flat above the bulb, turning in psychedelic swirls. She reached beneath her veil and scratched her nose. The emptiness she felt was not in her stomach, but in her loins and blood.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
From behind her, Ozlet’s box (its side stenciled WARNING: DO NOT INSERT HAND BEYOND CURTAIN) sat on a shadowed table. Ozlet said, “Me, too. I can smell those deep-fried Twinkies from a mile away. Driving me crazy.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Breathe, my love. It will pass. And remember the law of Midian.”
She moved to turn to him, to chastise him for holding on to the past, and that burned dream. But she stopped, and laid the cards on the table.
“Midian fell and the law with it. I am free to do as I please now.” She laughed without humor. “Free.”
Ozlet let out a long sigh. “I’ve noticed.”
From the distant stage, a power chord thundered and a demon-voiced singer screamed.
The entrance curtains moved, and in slipped the Girl That Plays with Fire.
“Busy?” She stepped in, hands held demurely behind her back. The hanging smoke parted and banked down in curls. She still wore her act costume: spiked high heels, torn and singed fishnet stockings barely held by frayed garters, silk panties that dipped far below her bared belly, and the nearly sheer red and black bra that lifted her breasts to a faux cleavage. The front of her panties held a grinning, flaming skull.
Manda smiled behind her veil and slipped her hands beneath the table to slide up and down her thighs as her legs parted ever so slightly.
“Not at all, my dear. How did your performance go? Amaze everyone with your fiery delights?”
Brigid giggled and Ozlet audibly sighed.
“Yeah, they loved me. I kind of pushed it tonight. Left the fire on a little too long in spots.” She lifted a corner of the handkerchief to light her. She slid a pointed finger across her breasts and belly, tracing the bright red paths that marked the dragging fire.
Another fire lit between Manda’s legs. Blood rushed and cried out in her veins. She leaned closer.
“Oh, my. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Hell no. Feels good, really. But I did kind of go too far here.” She lifted each leg in turn, showing the deep red glow where fire met the skin of her inner thighs. Brigid rubbed at the minor burn as if she were putting out a flame.
“Crazy, huh?”
Dare I? She is so strange and beautiful and so willing …
“Indeed.” Manda almost moaned. “But there’s nothing wrong with pushing boundaries. Am I right?”
Brigid dropped her leg and dragged the tip of her finger across the smooth table cover. She grinned.
“‘Pushing boundaries’ is my mantra.”
A sound of disgust came from Ozlet’s box. “That’s not a mantra. That’s more of a philosophy. Not a healthy one at that.” Ozlet’s warning did not pass Manda by.
Manda lifted a dismissive hand. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” She stood and moved to pull the opposite chair around the table.
“You know, I have never read you in all the time we’ve known each other. Would you like that, Brigid?”
Brigid smiled and clapped her hands and sat right down.
“Please, please.”
Manda sat and reached out, clasping Brigid’s hands in hers.
Brigid said, “Don’t you need your cards?”
“Oh, no. That’s just for the rubes. You get the real thing.”
The girl’s eyes went wide and she gripped Manda’s long fingers. “Oh, wow.”
Manda slipped forward in her chair, letting their knees touch. Brigid sighed.
“Quiet now,” Manda said, her voice lowering. “Breathe easy and relax.”
Manda closed her eyes and the images came rushing in. She spoke softly, careful not to react, telling Brigid of her torn past: the drunken father, the brutality of her mother’s beatings at his hand, the dark shadow that entered her bedroom night after night, his wandering hands across her body and the pain as he lay atop her and entered her again and again, moaning and sweating; her mother turning away in silence, silent until he abandoned them, and silent still. Her high-school Goth years and the gang rape at a drug-fueled party as she lay incoherent and helpless. The cutting. The drugs. The burning of the school. The attempted suicide. Her running away and life on the streets. All laid out in Manda’s dispassionate voice. Only when she heard Brigid’s sobs did she break away, letting the brutal imagery fall away.
Manda pulled closer and cupped the girl’s tear-strewn face. Tears streamed between her fingers and down the back of her hands.
“Oh, my dear girl. Such a sad life. So brutal and unjust. You are so strong … and tender.”
Brigid gripped Manda’s arms, and looked into the veil, searching for Manda’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Brigid sobbed, “so sorry. I didn’t mean to break down like this. Let you see me like this.”
Manda petted her cheek. “No, no, no. It’s okay. You must cry. To let it all go and flow away with your tears. It will all be okay. I not only tell the past, but the future, too.”
Her head tilting down, Manda took a hand away from Brigid’s cheek and started to lift her veil. Far away a great calamity of thudding music and howling vocals rose with the cheers of the crowd.
Ozlet’s voice went unheard. “Manda. Don’t.”
Brigid’s eyes cleared and she stared into Manda’s eyes. “What? Am I going to be okay? Am I going to die? What?”
Manda swept the veil over her head, revealing her quivering red-lipped smile. “No death for you, just bliss.”
Brigid moaned in and out in a rush of breath as she stared into the mirrored pupils of one of the Nightbreed. Manda leaned in and pressed her lips to the girl’s, sucking at her breath. As Brigid went near limp, her arms wrapped around Manda’s neck as if she was drowning and feared sinking. With a quick sweep of her arms, Manda pulled her to the floor, pressing her body, parting Brigid’s legs with her knee, her hand passing across breasts and belly and diving beneath the flaming skull. With mouth wide, Manda sucked in the eternal, life-animating force of the living. Her fingers massaged and dived between Brigid’s legs, making the life force expand uncontrollably into her mouth and lungs, feeling it flow and burn into her cells, making Manda squirm and sending her to near orgasm.
They rolled on the floor and moaned.
“What the hell are you doing?” Serge stood above them, yelling above the musical din. He kicked Manda hard in her ribs, sending her sprawling and gasping to her back. Brigid moved as if drugged, trying to lift her head, eyes rolling into her head. Her skin was sickly pale and her lips blue. She gasped.
“No, no. Don’t stop. Don’t—”
With one hand, Serge threw the table aside with a splintering crash. The glass globe flew and slammed into Ozlet’s box, toppling it to the floor.
Manda pressed a hand against her ribs and sat up, screaming. She turned her mirrored eyes to Serge and hissed. He took a shocked step back.
Grinning wide, Manda slung her hair back, pulled up her skirt, and spread her legs. She was too far gone and her hunger burned as a fire that needed quenching. Serge’s eyes fell to her parted cunt and her glistening wetness.
“Come, strong man,” Manda said, her voice turning velvet. “Take what you’ve wanted since you laid eyes on me. Come feed your lust. Come and fuck me.”
Serge blinked and he staggered on weakening legs. “Yes,” he whispered. Then his voice rose. “Serge will give you pride of Soviet Russia.” He ripped his Speedo away and let the rising pride of Soviet Russia swing free.
Brigid rolled to her hands and knees, gasping for breath, and crawled to the back exit. She pulled at the curtains, found her feet, and stumbled through the opening between them.
Serge leapt between Manda’s legs and she fell back, laughing and moaning, hands gripping at his back as he thrust into her like an invading soldier. Manda clutched his hairless head with both hands and pulled his lips to her wide-open mouth. She fed and her fingers lengthened across his skull, digging into skin and bringing blood.
Manda broke away from his lips and threw her head back. She arched her back, wrapping her legs around him, engulfed in orgasm. A lift of his head, and Serge shook and moaned in one final hammer thrust. Manda laughed, feeling his useless earthly essence spill into her.
Serge looked down at her, blinking and dreamy-eyed. His face had paled and tremors shook his body. Sweat dripped from his chin.
“You … you … are witch.” He lifted his arm high, and clutched his hand into a massive fist. It came down like a hammer and smashed into Manda’s cheek, making her head snap. Her legs fell from his waist and she went limp. He cocked his arm back for another blow.
“Serge will kill you.”
“I think not,” said a high-pitched voice.
Serge looked up. Crawling from the darkness, a contorted horror, hardly bigger than his pillow, grinned with twisted teeth, and bulging eyes. It was naked, skin loose and dragging as it flopped closer on a flipperlike arm. Drool dripped, escaping its darting tongue.
Serge tried to scream and move back, but an arm flung out from the thing, tipped with a crablike pincer, and caught his shoulder in a viselike grip. Serge the Strongman convulsed and rolled over to his back as the pincer pierced his shoulder. His skin turned gray and wrinkled as muscle deflated toward his deep bones.
“Hadn’t you heard? Soviet Russia died long ago,” Ozlet said.
* * *
The cool night-dewed grass felt good to his bare feet. It had been too long, too many deformed years had passed since he had run the night, bathed in the light of the lovely moon. Ozlet grinned into the moon’s full face as he wept and ran naked across the open field toward the cloak of wooded darkness ahead.
He did not weep from the tortured memories from Serge; they were soldier’s memories, violent and rage-filled. He had taken plenty of those onto himself, had even been one long ago. He packed those away like so many faded pictures in a trunk. No, he wept for joy at his transformation and the first burgeoning of hope since the fall of Midian. Full-bodied now, tall and lean as in his youth, he reveled in the power and length of his legs, the return of his arms and hands, and the strength to carry his love, his Manda, in his arms.
She stirred and her eyes opened to his moonlit face. Her confusion disappeared as realization dawned.
“Ozlet?”
He smiled. “Hello there.”
She touched his face. Gone were the deformities. She wiped away his tears, then ran her hand across his bald head and returned his smile. “Ozlet.”
“That’s me.”
Her confusion returned. “Serge?”
“A husk.”
Manda bit her lip. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”
Ozlet shrugged. “You are what you are. I can love you no less.”
“Where are we going?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know. We run. We hide. Thus is our life.”
“They will chase us.”
“I’m sure of that. Didn’t leave a pretty picture back there.”
Manda laid her hand on his chest, feeling his muscles and the rise and fall of his breath. She smiled in amazement.
“Let’s go far away,” she said.
“We will, my love. But one thing is for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll be carrying you from now on.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and laid her head on his chest.
“I hope your hair grows fast,” Manda said, smiling. “I hate bald men.”
Their laughter ran across the grass and rose to the moon as they passed into the shadows of the trees.