Jenny Plague-Bringer

Chapter Eleven



Juliana stripped away her robe for the eight men who’d crowded into the back of the sideshow tent, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey from paper cups. They shouted and whistled as she bared herself—all of them except one. He stood watchfully in the back corner, his fedora pulled low, arms folded. He wore a suit instead of the frayed overalls and work shirts of the other men, and he wasn’t drinking.

Juliana did not try to make her show alluring—the carnival had a special “model show” tent for that, where men could leer through a thin, gauzy curtain at women wearing little or no clothing. Still, on occasion, there would be a man who came back to her show day after day until the carnival left town, eyes hungry to see Juliana’s pale, exposed body turn rotten with disease.

She did her best to avoid those men, who sometimes waited around outside the tent wanting to talk to her. She did not want to talk to them. This man was most likely one of those. He’d now come to see her three days in a row, ever since the carnival had arrived at the busy fairgrounds in Anderson County, South Carolina.

She gave the man no special notice at all as she slowly turned, letting the weeping, pus-dripping sores bloom slowly all over her. The drunken men shouted and jostled each other, impressed by the apparent circus trick.

The man in the corner didn’t join in the drunken laughter and applause. He had a shaggy beard and sharp eyes, and the squarish bearing of a police officer, which troubled her. Carnies always had to watch out for cops and usually had to pay “patch money” under the table to avoid being harassed. It wasn’t normal for local cops to hit up individual performers for bribes, but anything was possible.

Juliana finished her show, and Radu ushered the men out. She sighed and let her aching legs rest a moment, then changed into a light dress made of cheap, lumpy cotton, and she tied her hair back with a scarf. She slipped out through the back of the tent and circled around behind game booths, emerging far down the midway, in case her obsessed fan in the fedora was looking for her.

She emerged from behind the Wheel of Chance and hurried across the midway, which grew dark as each booth shut down for the night, like clusters of stars vanishing from the sky. The stragglers wandered toward the gates. Only the grab joints remained open, selling off the last of their hot dogs and fried dough to the departing visitors.

She nodded at One-Eyed Filip, the middle-aged man who ran the haunted house. He claimed to have lost his eye in the war, but Juliana had heard it was actually from a knife fight in Budapest. He played it up as the host of the haunted house, rubbing black makeup around the hollow eye to make it seem even larger and darker.

He smiled, showing several missing teeth, and waved her into the haunted house through the tall front door, painted to look like an arched medieval gate surrounded by lurid green skulls.

She walked quickly through the dark, twisting corridor, ignoring the sounds of chains and screams. Little windows on either side of the hallway offered views into different “scary” rooms: a mortuary where a bloody arm reached out of a casket, a dungeon where skeletons and one very decayed body hung on the walls, a red-lit “Hell room” with devil mannequins around a tinfoil fire. In that room, other clumps of tinfoil glittered in “fireplaces” around the wall, which was decorated to look like a volcanic cave. Horned red bats with pointy wings flapped up and down near the ceiling, and the wires that held them up were almost impossible to see.

She looked in through another window at a “mad scientist’s” laboratory, decorated with jars full of disgusting items like fetal pigs, giant spiders, and a small monkey, all preserved in formaldehyde. A body lay under a sheet on the lab table. It slowly sat up, moaning with the agony of the undead, and the sheet tumbled down to reveal Sebastian, his face painted green, bolts glued to his neck. He rose stiffly from the table, holding his giant green hands out in front of him.

“Argh! Beware Frankenstein’s monster!” he groaned at her, waving the big green hands in her direction.

“The monster doesn’t talk,” she reminded him.

“Argh...argh!” He staggered toward her and reached out his oversized, overstuffed green gloves to grab her through the window. “The monster is hungry!”

“The monster doesn’t eat girls, either.” She stepped back along the hall, out of his reach.

“Argh!” The big green hands retracted into the window. She waited for him to come out. And waited. He’d been working the haunted house for a couple of weeks, on top of general work as a roustabout. It had been his idea to add the movie monster Frankenstein to the exhibit of gross jars.

“Sebastian?” she asked. The haunted house had gone quiet, including the hidden phonographs. Filip was shutting down for the night, like everyone else, which meant the last paying customer was gone.

She heard footsteps, but they were from the wrong direction, back toward the front door.

“Filip?” she asked. “Is that you?”

Nobody answered. The footsteps came closer, approaching through the dim, twisting hallway.

She thought of the large man with the fedora and the wild beard. If he’d seen her, he might have followed her inside, slipping past Filip while he was busy closing up shop, or maybe knifing Filip to get him out of the way. He seemed like the kind of man who wouldn’t think twice about killing someone.

She returned to the window and looked into the laboratory, but Sebastian was gone. A pickled pig fetus stared back at her from its jar.

“Sebastian?” she whispered as loud as she dared, and then someone grabbed her from behind and hauled her back off her feet. She could feel the brushy beard against the back of her neck. He smelled like mothballs.

She screamed as she twisted herself back and forth, trying to wriggle and kick her way free, but his arms were strong and clutched her tight.

“Unhand me!” she shouted, letting the pox boil up to her skin. She clawed her nails across his leathery face and ripped out a fistful of his beard, but he only laughed.

“Unhand me?” He laughed harder, releasing her as he doubled over. “That’s what you said! ‘Unhand me!’ Yes, right away, Your Majesty! I shall unhand thou!”

Juliana scowled. She’d known it was Sebastian the instant she’d heard his voice. He’d changed into a hairy werewolf mask, which she’d mistaken for a beard. She grabbed the mask off his head.

“Yow! You pulled my hair.” He clapped an oversized hand to his head and looked pained. He still wore his green Frankenstein makeup, complete with fake stitches on his forehead.

“I think you will survive the injury,” she said.

“Oh, sure. I can already feel the hairs growing back.”

“Braggart.” She looked around and saw that he’d pulled her back through a hidden door into the room with the devils and bats. “You’ve dragged me into Hell. What do you intend to do here?”

“We’ll punish your sins.” He pulled off the big green Frankenstein gloves and walked towards the biggest fireplace in the cave.

“I avoid sinning,” she told him.

“Up the chimney you go. Victims first.” He gestured inside the fake fire.

She leaned her head inside and looked up. The inner structure of the haunted house was bare here, the wooden beams and columns roped together where the different chunks of the house had been assembled after they were unloaded from the train. Exposed wooden rungs formed a ladder to the roof.

“We’re climbing up?” she asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty, now that I’ve unhanded you, you may climb.”

“You first.” Juliana smiled. She watched him climb up through the dark space, then opened a trap door at the top, revealing a square of starry sky.

“Come on up,” he called down to her. “The roof ghosts are in a friendly mood tonight.”

“So long as the roof ghosts don’t mind.” Juliana climbed up after him.

They stood on a narrow wooden platform behind the plywood dormer windows, painted to look like cracked shingles and boards. The roof ghosts were just balls of rag cloth mounted on sticks, with sheets tied over them to flap and billow in the wind. From here, she could see the darkened midway spread out below.

“This carnival has everything backwards,” he told her. “They put the freaky girls in the model show, and the pretty girls in the freak show. It makes no sense.”

“You’re dangerously close to being charming.”

“I know. There’s always danger in the air when I’m around.”

“Are you going to kiss me or not?”

“That’s an easy choice.” He drew her close and gave her a long kiss, while her hands clasped behind his neck. The feeling of his body pressed against her made her shiver. Since joining the carnival, he’d slept in a cot in the crowded roustabout tent, but she was often tempted to invite him back to her personal tent instead. Tonight, she was in a very tempted sort of mood.

After a few minutes, she pulled back and smiled up at him. Her cheeks felt like they were caked in mud, and when she touched them, her fingers came away green.

“You got Frankenstein makeup all over me!” she said.

“Now you look like the Bride of Frankenstein.”

“Frankenstein doesn’t have a bride.”

“Poor Frankenstein. One of my favorite picture shows.”

“I would love to see a picture show with you.” She rose on her tiptoes to bring her face closer. He kissed her again, but this time one of his hands slipped down her back to caress her bottom through her dress. She let out a delighted, surprised squeal into his mouth and pressed herself against his broad chest. Her body was flushed and heated. She tried to work up the nerve to whisper a suggestion in his ear, that they should both go to her tent.

Bright yellow light flooded the space behind her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes, blinking at the flashlight pointed at them from the ground below. They’d been caught, and anyone left on the midway could see them now, embracing, green Frankenstein paint smeared on her face.

“What are you kids doing up there?” Filip shouted.

“Ah...” Sebastian replied.

“Get down here! There’s someone needs to talk to you. I’ll unlock the front door.” The flashlight swooped down to the entrance of the haunted house.

A minute later, the two of them emerged from the front door, looking sheepish. Filip shook his head at the sight of them.

“This man needs a word,” Filip told them. He pointed his copper flashlight at a large man standing beside him, who had a thick beard and wore a suit and fedora.

Juliana jumped in surprise, then grabbed Sebastian’s hand. It was her repeat customer, the man who stared at her a little too hard. He lit a cigar with a match.

“He’s got a special offer for you,” Filip said. “A side gig. Sounds like it pays well.” Filip tapped a folded dollar bill jutting from his shirt pocket. The bearded man had clearly seen Juliana enter the haunted house and paid an entire dollar just for Filip to stick around and help him.

“I don’t do private performances,” Juliana said.

“Are you the ones who caused all the ruckus at the tent revival about a month ago? In Missouri?” the stranger asked.

“We don’t know what you mean,” Sebastian said quickly.

“In that case, I must be the country’s worst detective,” he said. “After interviewing all those witnesses and tracking down this carnival. If you were the ones I was looking for, I know a man who’d like to meet you. He’ll pay you for your time. A sawbuck. Each.” He held up a pair of bank-crisp ten-dollar bills.

Juliana’s eyes bulged at so much money. Perhaps she did give private performances.

“Ten dollars for what?” Sebastian asked.

“We should take a walk.” The man led them out to the center of the midway and strolled down it, away from the performance tents and toward the front gate. Filip departed in the opposite direction.

“I’m a private investigator,” he told the two of them. “Currently on retainer for a man—an association of men, in fact—looking for people with...how do we say it? Unusual abilities. The ‘supernormal,’ they call it. Supernatural, even.” He smoked his cigar, looking them over as if measuring them. They were out of earshot of the last remaining carnies, who were closing down the grab stands.

“Why?” Juliana asked.

“Explaining beyond that isn’t my job. What I can tell you is that one of them lives here in South Carolina, and like I said, he’s offering you ten dollars each just to sit and talk with him. You might get a good meal out of it, too.”

“And what will we talk about?” Juliana asked.

The man shrugged.

“Is he here in town?” Sebastian asked.

“No, he’s in a much bigger town, Fallen Oak. About two hundred miles southeast.”

“Two hundred miles! We’ll be gone for days.” Juliana shook her head.

“That’s what you might think, but I have a Ford Model 18. It has eight cylinders, can you imagine that? If we set out tomorrow at sunrise, we can be in Fallen Oak by lunchtime, you can be back to the carnival by dusk. Twenty dollars richer.”

Sebastian and Juliana shared a look. It was a difficult offer to turn down.

“Personally, I don’t know whether you two are ‘supernormal’ or whether you’re just plain old hucksters,” the detective added. “The man’s made up his mind to see you. If I were you, I’d take the cash.”

“What’s his name?” Sebastian asked. “This man who wants to see us?”

“Jonathan Barrett. He’s a big-timing banker around here. This association I mentioned, it involves a lot of men like that, bankers, businessmen, politicians...You could do well for yourself with them, if you’re sharp.” The detective stopped walking. They’d reached the end of the midway, and he looked over the padlocked sugar shack with its peeling painted clowns. “I’d say there’s room for improvement in your future. These days, we all gotta watch for any chance we can get.”

“Ten dollars is a lot of money...” Sebastian said. He gave Juliana a questioning look. She hesitated, then nodded.

“We’ll go,” he told the detective.

“Sunrise tomorrow,” the detective said. “I’ll meet you right here.”

Filip was waiting by the locked front gate to let the detective out. Juliana watched him climb into a long black automobile with running boards beneath the doors. He cranked it up. The round headlights flared to life, like the glowing eyes of some demonic creature opening in the night, and the engine growled as the Model 18 pulled away from the fairgrounds and drove off down the dirt road.

“Fallen Oak,” Juliana said. “That sounds like a creepy place.”

“All of it sounds creepy,” Sebastian said. “Whatever this banker guy says, we just say ‘no’ and pocket the money. Agree?”

“I agree,” Juliana said, watching the lights of the car disappear through the trees.

“Wise choice,” Filip said.

“Have a good night, Filip,” Juliana said. She walked back into the fairgrounds, Sebastian at her side.

“Ah, Sebastian,” Filip called after him. “I can see you’ve forgotten, but you did not help close down the house for the night. We still have work to do.”

“Oh, sorry, Filip.” Sebastian turned to Juliana and kissed her cheek. “Good night,” he whispered in her ear.

“Good night,” she whispered back. She watched the two of them return to the haunted house.

She glowed as she walked back to her tent, still feeling his lips on her face.