2. Damien
Damien
There was a reason the Ringmaster never smiled.
Smiling made people comfortable. Comfort wasn’t what they paid for.
I adjusted the cuffs of my crimson tailcoat as distorted calliope music drifted through the black-and-white striped tent. The melody had been slowed nearly in half. Every cheerful note had become something unsettling.
Perfect.
Outside, the midway buzzed with anticipation. It was Blackout Night. Only emergency lights. Only glow sticks. No flashlights. No phones. No mercy.
It was also one of the very few nights the actors could touch the guests. A special liability waiver was signed by over two thousand people for tonight. It was still absolutely mind blowing to me we’d pulled this off.
Granted, it certainly was no overnight success. First, we were borrowing from the nostalgia and the groundwork laid by our grandparents. There would be no haunt without the original Graves Park.
The first year we bribed friends with pizza and beer to spend weekends crawling through tunnels and hiding behind props.
The second year we’d barely broken even.
The third, horror influencers found us. The fourth, we sold out every weekend and finally saw a profit.
This year, we had payroll. Actual employees.
We had eighty actors wandering the park on Friday and Saturday nights. Some of our friends stayed on, but now they were getting paid direct deposit - not in Papa Gino’s and Sam Adams Jack-Os.
Gran and Gramps would’ve laughed themselves sick. Their amusement park had become famous all over again. Just not for the reasons they’d ever imagined.
“Put your damn phone away, Dame. You keep looking at those numbers like they’re going to disappear.”
My cousin Cassie stepped beside me, adjusting the leather straps wrapped around one forearm.
As always, she looked every bit the Lion Tamer.
High black boots, crimson military jacket, gold braid, and a cracked leather whip that coiled at her hip.
“I can’t help it.” I chuckled. “It doesn’t feel real.”
“I know.” She bumped me with her shoulder and smiled. “But we did it, cuz. We really fucking did it.”
I looked across the VIP tent that we were standing in.
Fresh popcorn was being popped behind one counter. Another employee spun pink and black cotton candy into paper cones. Rows of caramel apples gleamed beneath warm lights. Glass bottles of old-fashioned soda rested in galvanized tubs packed with ice.
A miniature fortune teller’s wagon sat near the entrance, every stained-glass window glowing from within. It looked exactly like I’d imagined when I sketched it nine months ago.
“You did good, dude,” she said. “Make sure you take a sec to just look at all of this,” she motioned all around the tent, “and know we fucking did it.”
Cassie squeezed my arm before wandering toward the entrance.
“Careful, bro.” Luca appeared beside me, his face painted white, black diamonds framing each eye while a blood red grin stretched farther than any natural smile.
This was Luca’s second year as The Fool.
It fit him. The quick wit, the constant teasing, the way he could make people laugh one moment and then leave them deeply unsettled the next.
Much like the rest of us, he started to embody his character.
The Fool wasn’t someone Luca just played anymore.
It was simply another version of someone he’d always been, a part of him he’d kept concealed…
the haunt just made it easier to bring that side of you to life. “You look emotional.”
“I do not,” I shot back without hesitation.
He tilted his head.
“You can’t even see yourself right now,” he said with a slight shake of his head.
Daniele, our event photographer, snorted while adjusting the camera hanging around her neck.
“Just so you know,” she started. “This is the face you’re making.”
She mimicked my expression and Luca nearly doubled over laughing.
“I hate both of you,” I said with an eye roll.
“We know,” they answered in unison.
A loud human growl echoed from outside.
Jack.
I didn’t even have to look. Sure enough, my youngest brother lumbered through the tent wearing an enormous carved pumpkin head.
It had glowing amber eyes and a crooked grin that was slightly menacing. Twisted green vines wrapped around the shoulders of his tattered suit. On arrival, he spread both arms dramatically.
“The Jack-O’-Lantern has arrived.”
Luca groaned at our baby brother’s theatrics. I, on the other hand, loved it. His energy was contagious. And, endless. His acting would only stop once the very last guest had left for the night.
“For the love of God,” Luca grumbled.
Jack and I ignored him.
“Do you know why they call me the Jack-O’-Lantern?” Jack continued.
This bit had been longstanding. Pretty much since day one when he decided that he needed to be some variant of a jack-o’-lantern.
“This sounds like a conversation you should save for your therapist,” Luca offered.
Jack pointed triumphantly. “Because my name is Jack.”
Silence filled the tent.
“I’m quite literally the Jack…” He pointed at himself. “O’Lantern.”
He paused for a beat and looked around, making sure all eyes were on him.
Luca buried his face in Daniele’s shoulder. “I can’t do another season of this.”
“It’s been five years, little cuz,” Cassie called from across the tent. “The joke isn’t getting any better.”
Jack wandered away completely unbothered.
“Whatever.” He scoffed jokingly. “Haters.”
Before Jack could launch into another pumpkin-related pun, the music softened.
The front flap of the tent opened. Our first guests of the night, the VIP ticket holders, were about to enter the big top. The line trickled in slowly, each guest receiving a thick cardstock ticket embossed with the Graves crest.
One ticket equaled one fortune.
Madame Esmeralda, who was, in reality, a retired theater professor from Portland with a flair for dramatic pauses, beckoned the first guests to the table right outside of the wagon prop.
Some laughed as they walked away. Others looked genuinely unsettled. It was all bullshit. She had ten cards that all meant very different things. She was simply improvising once she saw that card.
Then, five women stepped through the entrance. One immediately reached for pink cotton candy. Another was already taking pictures. A third was flirting with Jack. Knowing my brother, he flirted back. The fourth was pointing things out. And then, I got a glimpse of her.
She had raven hair. A streak of bright orange caught the light.
Dark, maybe even black, lipstick filled her lips.
A leather jacket, ripped black shorts, and fishnets with bats all over them were all tied together by her accessories…
a pumpkin shaped crossbody slung across her chest. Hanging from her neck was a 35MM camera.
As I walked closer, I noticed her nails were the shape of coffins and black as night.
Black inked vines spilled out on her hand from under the jacket cuff. She was fucking stunning.
Janice, or rather Madame Esmeralda, took her ticket and smiled when she turned over the card.
“Love will find you tonight,” she said with such certainty that if I didn’t know it was all a silly carnival trick, I might’ve actually believed her.