~Creepy Carnieval~

 

"Ladies and gentlemen!, boys and ghouls! Step right up!
Behind this curtain lies a ghastly concoction of..
Delight! Horror! Fantasy and terror! Your every wish is our command!
Your every whimsical desire brought to life! But I'm warning you..
There's always a price...
Welcome to the greatest show unearthed!" —  Creature Feature: The Greatest Show Unearthed

 

“Okay, guys, here they come. Now remember, I want you all to be scary, but not too scary. There are some little ones in the group. Any questions?”
 

My wife stood there — clad in yellow and black bumble bee striped stockings — with her hands on her hips. She acted like some deranged senior drill instructor on the first day of boot camp, barking out the orders of the day. My hand went up...

“Yes, Dean. What is it now?”

“What's the point in putting all of this scary stuff on if we can't scare anybody? Maybe we should'a rented Barney the Purple Dinosaur costumes. Or Telletubbies, whad'da you guys think?”

“Teletubbies are freaky as hell, dude,” our son's friend, Tommy, chimed in. "Besides, you already had this stuff from the charity haunted houses. It didn't cost you a dime, and we sure ain't getting' paid to do this.”

My son decided to drop his two cents into the conversation just about then. “You don't get paid to do nuthin', you dweeb. You gotta have a job to be gettin' paid.”

My wife's immense smile lit up the gloomy, fog-filled tent.

“You're absolutely right, Thomas, We...”

“It's Tommy, PeeWee, not Thomas. I don't like that name.”

"Well, Thomas, it's Keresna to you, or Mrs. Cook, not PeeWee. Only my closest friends and family are permitted to call me by my nickname, and you're neither, so...."

“Uh-oh”, I snickered. “Here we go!” My hand raised once more.

“What?! What is it, they're waiting outside the tent, and they're not going to be held back another minute." My wife's usually calm demeanor was clearly being compromised.

“Can we grab 'em? The little kids, I mean?”

“No, Dean, you can't grab them.”

“You old perv,” my daughter, Chelsea, broke in. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?” Her red-slash-of-a-mouth was grinning from one white ear to the other.

“You got red paint on your teeth there, Munchkin," I informed her. "It looks cool, though...like you been gnawing on someone.”

Tony, my wife's uncle, could take it no longer. He's no  small guy, either!

“There's about to be some gnawing going on for real, all right, if the both of you don't shut your traps," he said, snarling. “And Midge," — his pet name for our daughter and short for midget — “that red is gonna' be actual blood here in about two seconds. So...pipe down!”

“Suck on this pipe," my son added for good measure.

I could feel the family love beginning to pop, much like a festering boil on someone's ass.

My hand went up yet again.

“For the love of...what is it now?” My wife's temper was long past the boiling point by this time.

“One last question, then we can let the rug rats in.”

"Well? Go ahead, dummy. We haven't got all day.”

“What happens if they pee their pants? You know how kids are; it could happen. Do we have a contingency plan in place for that?”

Laughter broke out beneath the big top, from all, except my darling wife.

“Dean. Do you really think these ten, eleven and twelve-year-old kids are going to be scared enough to piss themselves? Honestly!”

“Well, I can hope, can't I?”

“Let 'em in,” my wife screamed, and the flaps were flung open wide.

The first couple of kids brave enough to enter were the oldest girls of the group. I'd guess between the ages of thirteen to sixteen. We had our guide out in front of the tent regulating the flow of entry to just two kids going through at one time, for safety reasons. Hey, safety's always first, right?

I jumped down when they were both about halfway through, and the older one — a deeply bronzed, dark-haired girl wearing white shorts which I observed trying to remain blasé and aloof up to that point, let out a blood-curdling scream that sent all the other smaller, younger kids outside running for cover. A yellow liquid trickled down one tanned leg as she bolted hell-bent-for leather for the nearest exit, which was blocked by two creepier clowns.

“Puh...ple-e-e-a-a-a-se. Let me out!” the terrified teen pleaded.  The two actors, taken back a bit by this apparently usually hard-nosed, rough and tough, country gal's blubbering, quickly moved aside and did as she asked.

My son, one of the two blocking the exit at the time, turned to me and smiled. “Dad. Connie pissed her pants!”

As I retook my position from my concealed perch in the tent to get ready for our next two unsuspecting victims, I looked down on my son's face beaming brightly below me.

“I know she did, son,” I beamed back. "Ain't life grand?”