Chapter 16 #2
Old circus signs are bolted crookedly along the walls.
WELCOME TO THE FUNHOUSE.
APPLAUSE.
STEP RIGHT UP.
The paint on the letters is chipped and faded. Camera tripods stand in different corners surrounded by cords, batteries, monitors, and lighting rings aimed toward the center stage area but none of them are on.
At the centerpiece of the room is a swing.
Heavy steel chains descend from the ceiling, bolted into bare beams overhead. The wooden seat has been painted some kind of metallic color, but with the exposed spikes protruding across the entire thing you can’t tell the exact color. Strips of carnival ribbon have been tied around the chains.
My mind is still trying to process the scene before me. Directly above it, my eyes follow the large spotlight that burns down onto the girl dressed as a jester, isolating her beneath the light while the rest of the room drowns in gloom and flashing carnival colors.
The jester outfit she wears looks like a cruel joke. She looks barely eighteen.
The dress clings to her, torn in places and made of satin once meant to look bright and playful divided into clashing sections of rich burgundy, black, and faded gold, but now the colors look dirty under the circus lights.
Diamond patterns run down the sleeves, corset, and ruffles, ending in deformed shapes with several blemishes from makeup, grime, and old blood.
Tiny silver bells are sewn into nearly every edge of the costume: the collar, the points of the jagged bottom, and the curled tips of the hat slumped crookedly on her head.
Bells are also on her cuffs, where her wrists are fastened with leather to the chains of the swing.
Every small movement makes them chime eerily.
The sound follows her jittering body constantly, turning her fear into part of the performance.
The collar around her neck is oversized and theatrical-tiers of stiff ruffled fabric fanning outward. Glitter has been dusted across parts of the costume under the lights but mixed with perspiration and tears it only makes her look more fragile and broken.
White greasepaint has been plastered messily across her face, but not around her mouth and beneath her swollen eyes rimmed red from crying.
Black diamonds are painted beneath both eyes while nearly black, red lipstick has been dragged outside the natural lines of her mouth, an exaggerated smile etched onto her face, her body quivering from the torment.
Discolored bruises litter the entirety of her legs while blood dribbles down them.
The bells chime again as the swing shifts, the sound delicate and awful in the middle of the room.
Then I see it. The light glints off the metal as she sways back and forth. In her vaginal opening is some sort of device made of metal, expanding her in a way that looks unbearable. The part that is sticking out of her is shaped like a heart.
What the fuck is that? I choke back the sickness pushing its way up.
She’s nibbling on her bottom lip trying not to make a noise.
“VIP says turn the pear of anguish and make her vaginal canal wider,” the guy sitting behind the computer calls out, “He just sent over ten grand and said to draw it out.”
I make a move in an attempt to stop this, but Tyler’s arm shoots out in front of me, blocking me.
Not yet.
He mouths the words to me.
My entire body purrs with murderous intent, but he’s right. We still don’t know how many people are inside this room. If we rush this and someone catches us off guard, this turns into a bloodbath before we can get the girl out without harm.
Standing behind the girl like some nightmare ringmaster waiting for the show to continue is the most hideous clown I’ve ever seen.
He slides his hand over her thigh next to him and between the girl’s legs, then turns the heart of the device, enlarging it inside of her.
The clown snickers with disturbing fascination.
Her head drops forward with a strangled cry, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from screaming louder. When she leans back, blood tints her teeth crimson.
The clown’s outfit looks like it was taken out of a flooded circus tent and stitched back together by someone utterly unstable.
The costume is oversized and filthy, layers of disheveled fabric hanging densely from his broad frame in mended sections of faded yellow, blooming red, and moldy blue.
The material was probably once bright and ridiculous, designed to make children laugh, but now everything about it feels contaminated.
Muck and oil are dispersed throughout the fabric and something darker has soaked into the seams permanently.
Gigantic pom-poms run down the front of the suit, but several are ripped open or dangling by a thread. The sleeves are deteriorated at the cuffs, sporting gloved hands.
His gloves, once white, are now a brownish-red. I didn’t realize that at some point he'd picked up a paddle, holding it slack in his grasp in one hand while lazily pushing the swing with the other.
The clown shoes are enormous and made to look old, the red paint flaking from the top and one of them has a hole in front.
The collar around his neck is excessively large, designed for dramatic effect.
Waves of stiff ruffled fabric circle his throat, but it’s collapsed in places, contributing to his appearance of something decaying in the costume.
The wig is somehow the worst part. Bright synthetic curls in shades of red, green, and yellow stick out in different directions under a tiny, tilted carnival hat attached with elastic under his chin. Parts of the wig are matted together like it hasn’t been washed in years.
Thick white greasepaint cakes his face so thickly it splinters every time he smiles.
Black paint circles his eyes lopsided while the red grin carved across his mouth spans far beyond his natural lips into something heinous.
Sweat runs through the makeup in thin trails, making parts of the painted smile droop below the hot circus lights.
When he shoves the swing forward something else becomes noticeable. It’s the wider end of a yellow juggling club sticking out of her backside.
The entire thing is staged like some grotesque performance and she’s the main attraction.
My eyes track to the right side of the room, the neon carnival signs cast pink and red light across the men operating the equipment, while headsets crackle with static and fuzzy audio feedback.
Numbers climb in the corner of the screen.
Tips, the VIP’s demands, and comments overflow the screen.
“VIP demands you push her higher and spank her ass with the clown paddle more aggressively,” the man at the computer states casually without even looking away from the screen. “He just sent five grand.”
The clown laughs and it comes out like a choking sound.
Then he yanks the swing seat backward hard enough that the girl gasps.
The bells on her costume jingle. Then he lets go and she’s almost all the way forward and then-SMACK- he strikes the juggling club that’s sticking out with the paddle, driving it deeper inside her. Her eyes blow wide in shock as painful sobs wrack through her.
Heat withdraws from me, leaving behind something merciless.
My vision jerks as I’m thrown back into my own experience in a warehouse.
He pulls my hips up, spits on his cock, and pushes it into my ass with one swift thrust. The feeling of degradation and humiliation floods my body.
I blink back to the present and all I see in her is the girl I used to be.
The cameraman adjusts focus, zooming in on her face.
“Perfect,” he mutters excitedly. “Keep her crying.”
Tyler’s breathing changes beside me.
Refined, but I know him well enough to hear death in it.
The man at the computer squints at the screen again.
“Oh shit,” he says ecstatically. “VIP wants the wig off this time.”
The clown raises his hand up for the edge of his wig.
And that’s when Tyler aims his Glock.
He is beside me one instant and the next a suppressed gunshot tears through the room.
The cameraman drops like a stone and the camera crashes against the concrete floor in a shower of burning flecks.
Everything erupts.
The clown spins around in shock while the girl shrieks on the swing.
I’m already in motion.
My boots pound against the concrete as I cross the room.
The man stationary at the computer stares at me in confusion with his mouth agape, all the color drains from his face.
His chair screeches loudly along the concrete as he tries to press himself backward away from the table, headset half hanging off his head now. The chat room for the livestream still flashes across the monitors.
This is all just a game to them and the girl terror-stricken behind me is nothing more than a prop in their psychotic little circus.
He throws his hands up immediately. “Wa-wa-wait!”
I snatch the front of his shirt, and I hurl him across the folding table hard enough that the entire thing buckles on impact.
Monitors crash sideways. One sparks as it smashes against the floor.
The camera feed glitches across another screen attempting to turn on another camera, but static stops the image before the livestream reconnects again.
The chat keeps moving while thousands of people are still logged in, asking what is going on, but the video feed is completely disconnected.
Retribution claws up my throat so hard it burns.
The man I’m holding down lets out a distressed sound, struggling as I push him roughly into the table.
“I didn’t do anything!” he gasps wildly.
The words make something dark twist inside my chest.
As if that absolves him.
As if reading torture requests while this girl cries somehow makes him innocent.
I shove his face toward the one monitor still on.
“Look at it,” I snarl.
He cowers, covering his face.
The screen illuminates both of us while comments flood the livestream chat room.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
MAKE HER CRY AGAIN
HIGHER ON THE SWING
VIP REQUEST PENDING
MONEY RECEIVED
Nausea crashes through me so hard I nearly gag.