The Dead Showgirl of Hell's Circus

Prologue

Body parts lay scattered around the metallic-scented room, pools of dried blood splattered against the fabric of the tent walls. Death clouds the air, but something new has started to fizzle along with it.

Life.

Stolen life.

Donned in a doctor’s gown, but he’s not saving—he’s taking. Mashing together and pulling apart, stripping and snipping and sewing. The thread slips through the needle despite hands shaking with excitement. It’s potent in the room.

A rattle sparingly steals his attention, and he kicks the cage by his feet, silencing one of his first abhorrent crimes against nature.

A rat. With the tiny legs of a chicken, a forked tongue of a snake, and bulging eyes of an unknown animal that barely fit in its small body.

Brought together with string and created with power that no human should be capable of.

A creature that should not have been born, and the room is full of them, hissing and shrieking and barking and rattling, but he pays them no more mind as he focuses on his final creation.

His masterpiece.

His centre stage.

The metal table creaks as he bears his weight down. One more thread. He slips it in and out of the blue-tinged flesh and takes a step back, using the rear of his cloaked arm to wipe the sweat off his clammy forehead.

Suddenly, the room goes still. Silent. The creatures made from the darkest depths of his mind know what is coming, and the static air stills between them.

“Let’s see if you really work.”

He reaches out with a long, slender arm, grabbing what one can only describe as a metal hat with padding, holes, and wires protruding from the top.

Gently, so as to not irritate the stitches in the creature’s neck, he places it atop its head, using a makeshift belt connected to the side to strap it beneath its chin.

More leather belts wrap around the creature’s arms, legs, waist, wrists, and ankles.

The ringmaster is taking no chances with this one.

Beside the bed is a rectangular metal contraption decorated with buttons, switches, lights, and bulbs. With the flip of a particularly big switch, it comes alive, foreshadowing what’s to follow when it’s in use.

Disaster.

But life.

Bright white sparks of electricity protrude from the cracks of the metal, dancing around the rusty nails acting as sealants.

The generator inside produces a whirring noise followed by the repeated clanking of shifting internal components.

The ringmaster’s heart pounds hard against his chest as he fiddles with the dials, the sound of every click as it increases in power matching the beat of his heart.

“At last. Your time has come.”

As he clicks the final button—the largest and brightest of the circles, its red a calling card to sadistic minds—the whirring increases tenfold, the sparking of the machine intensifying along with it.

The air swirls with energy and expectation, the short hair on the ringmaster’s head standing to attention, static and sharp.

“Now rise, my child. Rise!”

Lightning travels from the machine, the wires acting as bridges, zapping every surface it can latch on to.

The constricted limbs, brought together with thick black string, vibrate under the shocks, body racking with every strike of power.

The creature’s face remains slack as its vessel convulses and electrifies, until finally, the machine overfires, and the blinding white light shoots across the small room, blowing everything back in its path.

The ringmaster falls to the floor, the morphed animals scurry or fly to the corner of their cramped cages, and the body on the table goes still.

The machine ceases power. The room falls silent. The world stops moving.

And then it starts again.

The ringmaster rises to his feet, eyes wide as he takes careful steps back to the table.

He watches, never veering his attention from the creature’s face.

Eyelids pull open, and bright, green, glowing eyes fixate on the ceiling.

“It’s alive… It’s alive!”

As the creature turns its head, pulling the wires attached to the metal hat, the ringmaster laughs. It’s a deranged noise. So loud it bounces off the walls and cage bars.

“Come, my child. Let me see what I have created.”

The ringmaster briskly removes the restraints and waits as the creature follows its command, lifting from the table to sit on the edge, limbs twitching uncontrollably from the power coursing beneath its dead flesh.

The creature tilts its head, but the ringmaster can’t be sure if it’s examining its creator or if the string keeping its head to its neck is coming loose.

Eyes, far bigger than the average human’s. Far greener and brighter, too. They glow so vividly that the dust particles caught in the rays dance beneath the illumination.

Its nose is sharp and small, thinning in the centre, with lips that stretch outwards and upwards, stitching sewn into the creases to keep them pulled back into an eerie smile that isn’t reflected on the rest of the face. This creation will never not smile.

The flesh is mangled and torn. It’s a light blue that reflects with a sheen under the singular hanging bulb above their heads. The ringmaster was capable of matching most of its skin, although the flesh of the attached right foot and small replaced gaps that needed filling look a smidge brighter.

The creature is undoubtedly female in nature. The breasts, small and round, and the space between its thighs unmistakably once belonged to a woman.

He’s aware of who exactly some of the body parts belonged to; some he’s unsure of.

The doctor wanted to fashion a daughter for his circus, a permanent fixture to draw eyes and ears. After failing before, he believes he has finally managed to complete the task.

At what cost will remain unknown.

When the ringmaster blinks curiously, the creature copies, just as intrigued.

Its thin fingers with nails as long and sharp as daggers flex against the edge of the table, and when the critter beneath the bed rattles against the cage, the creature’s right ear twitches.

The ear is human-like from afar, but if you were to look closer, you would see the thin, precise stitching that surrounds it.

The ringmaster smiles wide. The creature copies to reveal sharp, pointed, white teeth that gleam in the light.

“It’s perfect,” the doctor whispers, taking a step closer. When his creation remains still and waiting, he takes another cautious step, this one with more confidence than the last. “You will do well with me, my child.”

He reaches his hand out tentatively to rest it against its cheek. The flesh is cold and uninviting but smooth.

The doctor has plans for this one. All of his creations have come from meaning and planning.

From trials and attempts and failure. But this one…

This one is special. His circus is already on the map, but this one will pin its place.

It will be everything he needs it to be.

It will follow orders like a soldier and bring in customers like a snare.

Alas, the doctor does not know, deep down, what this creature will entail. Some of his others have died. Some have spontaneously combusted. Some, in so much pain, ate themselves to death. And one caused so much havoc that he couldn’t risk it happening again.

But some have survived; they haven’t thrived, just survived. But things will be different for this one. Covered in stitches, teeth like knives, and glowing green eyes that would pierce anyone’s soul. It will be talented. It will be what he needs.

As the creature stares at the doctor, and he stares back, there’s a mutual understanding that passes between them. He is the commander; it is the commanded. It will carry out his tasks and do as it is told.

But the doctor should know that no woman ever follows so easily.

And whilst what he has created is so incredibly unknown, it is powered by the brain that once belonged in a female vessel.

What will come of it? He does not know. But men are ignorant and foolish, and his own creature, his own now-considered daughter, could be his demise.

It could be his karma.

The karma for his chaos.