Chapter 41 #2
The Cattle pulls himself lower in the water, his cuffed hands scrabbling for those keys.
I’m disappointed when he finds them almost immediately and begins trying the lock.
If he makes it out of there, Jim will honor his promise and let him live as one of our staff members for the rest of his days, but he doesn’t deserve it.
Josie strolls down from the stairs and stands in front of the tank. The Cattle spares her a glance, then goes back to trying the keys.
She steps off to the side so that we can see, and the panic on his face is glorious. He’s so determined, but he realizes his chances are slim. He’s only a quarter through the keyring, and bubbles are already pouring out of his mouth.
With an exaggerated movement of her arm, Josie knocks on the tube. The Cattle glances at her, then goes back to the keys, but something causes him to look at her again. She’s holding something up to the glass now, and he and the audience realize what it is at the same time.
The Cattle drops the keyring and starts pulling on the chain. Aven punches me in the arm and lets out a laugh.
“She’s a heartless one, that girl. She kept the fecking key!”
Josie turns to us with a giggle and holds the key up for us to see. She drops it to the stage and kicks it into the wings with her strappy stiletto, never to be seen again.
We watch for the next few minutes as the man struggles to hold his breath.
He eventually loses the battle, as they always do.
The breath-hold reflex fails in the most spectacular way, and the asshole sucks in water.
Unconsciousness follows shortly after, and the tank is covered and wheeled away as the next trick is rolled onto the stage.
“Let’s hear it for my lovely assistant,” Jim says, and everyone applauds as Josie takes a bow.
I rise from my seat and hurry to help her down from the stage. “You were brilliant,” I say as her hand slides into mine. “Almost as charming as I would have been.”
“I didn’t see you volunteering.”
“You didn’t give anyone else the chance.” We slide into our seats as Jim sets up for the next big thing. “Besides, I hate offering myself as the audience-participation sacrifice. It’s always so awkward to have everyone watching and waiting for you to bungle something.”
She rolls her eyes and straightens the hem of her dress over her thighs. “You’re no fun sometimes, you know that?”
“I’m always fun.”
Jim steps to the front as a large rectangular box rolls in behind him. “For our next act, I’ll need two participants. Any takers?”
Bennett jumps to his feet and starts waving his hands.
Without warning, Josie’s fingers dart toward my leg and give my thigh a nasty pinch. I leap skyward and loose a string of curses into the theater.
“King and Bennett, come on down!” Jim barks with a laugh, probably shocked that I’ve volunteered.
I feel the fucking same.
“You’ll pay for this later, my beauty,” I growl down at her.
She smirks up at me. “Oh, I’m counting on it. Now go charm us.”
With the promise of good things to come, I relent and join Bennett and Jim on stage. We just need to saw a man in half. How difficult could it be?
As it turns out, sawing a man in half is quite difficult when your saw is dull and your partner can’t stop laughing. Did I mention that we also have to wear noise-cancelling headphones and read each other’s lips? Jim didn’t mention that until he had his victims secured beneath the spotlight.
We eventually get the saw through the last part of the man’s blasted spine, and Jim steps forward to spin the severed boxes and show our hard work to the screaming fans. The man’s pale arms wiggle with the movements, and the wheeled boxes cut a gory path through blood and entrails.
Jim says something to me.
“You want me to do what?”
He doubles over with laughter, and Bennett does the same. When Jim stops laughing, he motions to the box and says something else.
“Pull his pants down?” I yell. “What the bloody hell does that have to do with a magic trick?”
Bennett pulls off his headphones, laughter still brightening his eyes. He steps closer to me and pulls one muff off my ear. “He said you could take those off now, not pull his pants down.”
“How did you hear him?”
He laughs again. “Because mine weren’t noise-cancelling. Only yours were. When Jim told us the joke halfway through, that’s why I started laughing so hard. What did you think I was laughing at?”
“The blood? The depravity? Hell, when he started convulsing, I nearly laughed myself!”
Jim relays our conversation to the group. I catch Grim smiling, and he schools his face.
Once everyone is finished laughing at my expense, the show carries on.
Quinn reprises her bang-bang act with Kenny. They set up for the bullet-catch trick, and the Cattle catches the bullet. Right between his eyes.
Then Jim pulls up Ezra and Gary for a straitjacket routine where they cinch the jacket tighter and tighter using a crank. The explosion is exquisite. They’ll never get the blood out of their suits.
Josie laughs and cheers the entire time, and it soothes some hidden, pained part of me to know that she’ll still have this twisted little family to fall back on when I’m gone. She doesn’t have to be a nomad anymore if she doesn’t want. They’ll welcome her with open arms.
I’ll be sure of it. I’ll have a word with Jim as soon as we’re back at camp. It’s become increasingly clear that I won’t win over Bennett and Aven.
I’ve accepted my fate. Now I just have to get Josie to accept it as well.
A scowl slides onto my face for the final event.
Blayne throws his proverbial cowboy hat into the ring, and Jim accepts his offer to play the part of assistant. Only Ice Pick claps. Everyone else looks ready to forego the murder and head back to camp.
It’s odd that he’s become so disliked. This is usually such an inclusive group of serial killers.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Josie whispers. “Maybe he’ll fuck up and kill Blayne instead of the Cattle.”
“One can hope,” I mutter.
But we’ve no such luck. The final act is a giant rendition of the spike-through-the-hand trick.
A massive round table is pushed to center stage, with sections designated by black lines, like a pie.
A single pointed spike protrudes from each section of the pie.
Paper bags the size of men are brought to the table and placed in each wedge of the pie so that Blayne won’t know where the spike is once Jim gives it a spin.
Once the table is properly turned, a Cattle lowers from the rafters above the stage. The man screams, flailing his unsecured arms and legs as a harness dangles him above the table’s outer edge, right above one of the bags.
Jim instructs Blayne to spin the table until he’s ready to stop, and then the man will be dropped onto the bag, and, eventually, the spike. Blayne makes his choice, and the Cattle falls.
Right onto the spike.
How anticlimactic.
He seems a little embarrassed that he fucked it up so royally without even trying. Jim looks annoyed. The audience gives him a tiny smattering of applause, save Ice Pick, who stands and beats his meaty hands together as if his friend has done something incredible.
How is it that the closest man to him can’t see how awful he is? How is Ice Pick so blind to who he shares his house on wheels with?
We exit the theater and make our way toward the limos parked out back. We’re headed to a nicer campground tonight, one with proper trees and grass. Josie walks in front of me, chatting with Quinn. I can’t say that I mind the view. Her legs go on for miles in that dress.
Now I just want them wrapped around me. But first, I need to speak with Jim.