Red Circus: A Dark Collection Read online

  RED CIRCUS

  A Dark Collection

  By

  John L. Campbell

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  RED CIRCUS Copyright © 2011 by John L. Campbell

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or periodical.

  The following were previously published in another form; “The Woodshed” in Third Wednesday, “White Out” at MicroHorror, “The Glades” in The Scream Factory, “Territorial” in Storyteller Magazine, “Alligator Magnets and Nuclear War” at MicroHorror, “Jackboot and Mary” at MicroHorror, “A Shade Above Normal” at MicroHorror.

  Cover design and illustration by Keith Haney/[email protected]

  Printed in the United States

  For Dave, dear friend and keeper of forgotten things.

  For Keith, long-standing accomplice.

  And for Linda. Always.

  Contents

  The Woodshed

  Choking Hazard

  Guinea Pig Gothic

  Family Night

  White Out

  The Glades

  Territorial

  Alligator Magnets and Nuclear War

  Cain Rose Up

  Jordan

  Jackboot and Mary

  Seminole

  Unbearable

  A Picture From Harriett

  A Shade Above Normal

  A Mastodon on Michigan Avenue

  Dance of the Yard Apes

  Kennel Man

  Noah’s Arrangement

  Elephant Rides

  A Night With Angeline

  THE WOODSHED

  “Whatever bit you wasn’t nice.”

  Graham hissed as his wife prodded the welt on the back of his left hand. They were seated at the kitchen table, and his arm was extended towards her.

  “Looks like it hurts.”

  “No kidding,” he said, pulling his hand back and looking at the bite. A pair of small red dots sat at the center of the quarter-sized, raised red bump. Ice had reduced its size and a little of the pain.

  Susan disappeared, and called from the other room. “What were you doing?”

  He flexed his fist, grimacing. “Just moving the hand truck. Must have been a hornet or something. I didn’t see it.”

  She returned to the kitchen with an alcohol wipe, Neosporin and a square bandaid. “Be careful,” she said, for the fifth or sixth time this weekend, tending to the bite, “there’s a century worth of junk out there waiting to give you tetanus.”

  Graham grumbled for the fifth or sixth time this weekend that he would indeed be careful, kissed his wife thanks and headed back to his project. This time on his way out, he picked up the heavy work gloves Susan bought for him.

  The screen door squealed and banged as he left – adding WD40 to his mental Home Depot list – and he crossed a space which was more meadow than back yard. Knee-high weeds and tough yellow wildflowers spread for half an acre behind the big Victorian house, and clouds of grasshoppers took flight as he disturbed them with his passage. The July sun was hot on his neck and arms, and half way across his jeans were covered in burrs.

  The realtor said the house was built in 1901 by a railroad man, an impressive thing with turrets, gables, high dormers and a broad porch wrapping all the way around. It sat on a private road with no neighbors for at least half a mile, and the property boasted a six car garage which had once been a stable, a gazebo on a private pond, and a small barn which was listed on the realty sheet as a woodshed. They had been here a little over a week.

  Susan fell in love with it at once, envisioning summer evenings sitting on the porch drinking lemonade, and picturing a twelve foot Christmas tree in the entry hall with the sweeping staircase as a backdrop. Graham had his own dreams, and imagined that six car garage filled with highly polished, vintage muscle cars.

  He swatted at a grasshopper on his neck. The realtor hadn’t known much about the previous owner, only that he had apparently just walked away from the place. The finance woman at the bank was plenty chatty, though. In the conspiratorial hush of small town gossip, she eagerly told him the owner was well-off, no family – and what a single man needed with all that house was anybody’s guess, she said – who one day just up and disappeared without a word to the bank or anybody, leaving behind his financial obligations, his possessions, even his Range Rover. The bank was forced to confiscate everything and auction it off. Probably running from something, she speculated, drug dealers or the Mafia. She pronounced it maah-fia, sounding a bit like a sheep. Graham had nodded, keeping his expression neutral. More likely some bad investments and mortgage panic, he thought.

  Whatever the case, it was a piece of good fortune for Graham and Susan. The bank had been eager to unload it, and there was just nothing like foreclosure prices. Graham’s third novel had gone bestseller and stayed there for going on eleven weeks, so they would still have plenty left over for the renovations.

  And those would take over a year.

  Their checkbook was going to get a healthy workout with local contractors before the place was transformed into their dream home. Carpenters, roofers, plumbers, landscapers…everyone in the county was sure to get a piece. He’d have to run power to the garage and the woodshed, too. Some things they could do themselves, of course. Susan’s assignment this weekend was painting upstairs bedrooms, and Graham’s project was hauling trash from the woodshed to the thirty foot open-top he’d had delivered yesterday.

  He reached the open doors and passed into shadow, exchanging sunshine and the scent of wild grasses for the musty odor of age unique to old barns. The inside of the woodshed was a big open space with a high, peaked roof supported by heavy rafters. Thick vertical beams split the room from left to right, holding up a half loft which was reached by an open wooden stairway. The far left wall was stacked nearly to the ceiling with cut firewood so brittle and ancient it had turned gray. He had expected owls, but there wasn’t a single bird dropping to be found.

  He folded his arms and surveyed the task before him. A century worth of junk, Susan had said, and she was right. Most of the space was filled with trash; old furniture, disintegrating boxes, farming equipment from horse-drawn days, rusting bicycles, rustier oil drums, stacks of tires, highway signs with bullet holes in them, storm screens…the list went on. He had already spent two hours this morning trucking junk across the yard – he was quickly beating a path through the high weeds – to pitch into the dumpster. His muscles ached from the exertion, but it was a pleasant burn. Not so pleasant was what could possibly be a broken toe from where he’d dropped a 50’s era Chevy rim on his right boot earlier. He hadn’t mentioned it to Susan.

  Seeing it now, it didn’t look like that two hours had made any impact whatsoever. Maybe Susan was right, he should pay some local men to clear the place out. He hadn’t even looked in the loft yet, and couldn’t imagine how much more junk was up there. Still, there was no reason he couldn’t at least get a start on it. There was something very satisfying about laboring for something you cared about, and the woodshed, once transformed, would become his writing studio.

  His toe advised him to avoid the rest of the rims and stacks of tires for a while, so he turned to the left side near the wood pile. Someone had leaned a long row of windows against one of the loft’s support posts
. Graham started in, pulling on the splintered wooden frame and sliding the heavy windows out one at a time, dragging them across the dirt floor to his hand truck. He figured he could haul four at a time to the open top.

  As he gripped the third window, a spider the size of his hand scrambled up over the back of it and leaped on his work glove. Graham screamed and shook his hand, flinging the glove and creature to the floor, stomping it violently with his boot.

  “Good Christ!” he breathed, shuddering and brushing his chest and pants legs as if more might be there. He looked down at the crushed remains, flinching when one of the long, hairy legs twitched reflexively. It was a big bastard!

  From the spider his eyes traveled into the nearby shadows, where a dusty wallet sat in the dirt. He picked it up and examined the contents; a few twenties, a couple of credit cards, a driver’s license.

  “Dennis Tillman,” he said, looking at a photo of a man in his forties. Hadn’t the finance lady said Tillman? The man who abandoned his mortgage? What was his…?

  Graham caught movement near the woodpile, another big black one running from the woodpile, across the floor, and up over a…shoe? A man’s shoe sticking out of a dusty khaki trouser leg, lying in the darkness.

  More movement, a trio of spiders emerging from dark gaps in the woodpile, more following, like black streams. Graham’s heart sped, and still holding Tillman’s wallet, he stepped back and turned for the light of the open doors.

  And heard the boards in the loft creak.

  He froze and looked up, seeing her poised up on the edge of the loft – it had to be a her, had to be mama. Massive and covered in coarse black hair, her many eyes glistened as mandibles flicked above a big pair of wet fangs.

  Graham bolted for the door, but she was fast, dropping on him, seventy-five pounds of arachnid pinning him to the dirt an instant before she bit, pumping venom into his back. She retreated just as quickly into the darkness, her whimpering prey held close.

  Three hours later, Susan stood at the kitchen window and called across the meadow for her husband. Lunch was ready and it was time for a break. When there was no answer, she sighed, pushed out the squeaky screen door and headed through the high weeds towards the woodshed.

  CHOKING HAZARD

  A brief summer shower swept across Florida’s Atlantic coast, here and gone in twenty minutes, enough to give the palms and lush greenery a drink before the following sun burned it off. The boulevards of Boca Raton were steady with midday traffic, tires kicking up a light spray.

  Nick switched his wipers to intermittent as he drove his six-year-old Silverado at a gentle pace, aware of the smaller vehicles darting in and out of lanes around him. He drove carefully, since so many folks didn’t. People were careless. They could be downright reckless.

  Putting an exclamation point to that thought, a champagne-colored Bentley coupe roared up on Nick’s left, braking hard to keep from rear-ending the car in front of it, laying on its horn. The driver surged forward again, then feinted towards the Silverado. Nick jerked away and hit his own brakes as the Bentley crowded over, nearly hitting a Toyota. It wasn’t stopping, its horn still blaring, and if Nick didn’t move they were going to hit.

  He eased back even more, making space, and looked over at the other driver, a man in his fifties, deeply tanned, his silver hair shaped by an expensive cut, talking on a cell phone. The Bentley driver looked back at Nick and started yelling, his face contorted as he roared obscenities Nick couldn’t hear. He made a sharp, dismissive wave of his hand and snapped over in front of the Silverado.

  Nick stomped the brakes and tensed for the impact, but the Bentley roared away. He let out a breath. Reckless. What was so important to risk a car accident, especially with such an expensive car? And why act like that? He watched the champagne Bentley crowd its way through the traffic ahead.

  He’d never understood why people did what they did in traffic, such dangerous things, cutting people off, blowing red lights, refusing to let people in. They screamed, cursed, threatened, made crude hand gestures. And sometimes with kids in the car. And then acted like everything was your fault.

  Kids in the car. Nick’s son had seen plenty of it while riding with his dad.

  “Why are people such jerks?” he’d once asked.

  A smile. “They’re not bad people, just bad drivers. Folks having a bad day. Let’s not let it ruin ours.”

  “But doesn’t it make you mad? They could make us get in a wreck.”

  “You can’t get mad about things like that. Better to just be extra careful and hope that if they do get in an accident, you’re not close enough to be part of it.”

  It bothered him that Nicky saw people behaving so badly, acting less mature than his ten-year-old. He supposed he couldn’t shield his boy from everything, though he tried to screen what his son was exposed to, movies and video games and certain music and such. Beyond that, the best he could do was set a good example.

  Traffic was thickening and slowing, and Nick found himself idling beside the Bentley again. All that, and it didn’t get you very far, did it? Mr. Bentley, with his cream-colored polo and pricey haircut was still chattering on his cell phone, popping a mint and draping a Rolex adorned wrist over the wheel, still edging forward. Nick wondered what his son would have to say about this character.

  All this aggression didn’t just cause accidents. Nick was amazed at how people could be so comfortable with provoking strangers. Honestly, you didn’t know who was in the cars around you. There were dangerous people in the world, crazy people, just stewing and percolating in their madness, and you might bump one of them, scream at them and set them off, getting more than you bargained for.

  The odds were slim, of course, but still, weren’t those people out there too?

  Nick had never been like that. It didn’t make sense to get so worked up over nothing, and rage had never been a part of his personality. The guys on his job teased him, called him the Gentle Giant, impossible for even the laziest worker or crappiest sub-contractor to rile up.

  Traffic was still creeping, and Mr. Bentley was yelling over his steering wheel.

  Was it the man’s obvious wealth, maybe an over-inflated sense of entitlement? Nick pegged the guy as semi-retired, the stock market or an airline owner or something like that, a house on Jupiter Island, a big place with a brick driveway in a gated community, close to golf and polo. He’d have Spanish gardeners he never spoke to, and he’d be the first to complain loudly when the fees went up on the slip where he kept his boat.

  Nick chuckled. Maybe. He wasn’t being judgmental, wasn’t jealous – he was happy with his simple life as a roofing contractor – but he had lived in this part of Florida for a long time and was a pretty good judge of people. No, it wasn’t the money. He’d encountered plenty of reckless people with humble backgrounds.

  “You’re a saint.” This from his wife Marie, who even after fifteen years together continued to be amazed by her steady, patient man.

  “Yeah, St. Nick, patron saint of roofers.”

  “I’m proud of my husband.”

  He always shrugged off the compliment, but had a harder time concealing how warm and loved that made him feel. All the more reason not to let these jokers get to you.

  The cars were creeping forward now, and Nick hung back a bit, wanting to give Mr. Bentley room in case he decided to crowd in again. He did not want to hit a Bentley, and certainly didn’t want the confrontation which would surely follow.

  This wasn’t the case with many other people. They seemed to crave confrontation, ready to jump out of their cars and get in a fight over a parking space or some equally ridiculous issue. Nick remembered an old man who had hit the hood of his truck with his cane, shouting that Nick had parked too close to him. Another, a high school girl, had thrown a full soda at him in traffic for reasons he never learned. And a middle-aged housewife had once locked up her brakes in traffic and marched back to his truck, purple faced and swearing, tugging on his door handle.


  What had they been thinking?

  The traffic started moving again, and several minutes later he saw the mall approaching on the right. Nicky’s birthday was just around the corner, and he wanted a video game. Nick knew what his first choice was, thought it was a bit too violent for an eleven-year-old, but he was okay with the second choice, a football game. Better full contact football than guns and grenades.

  He noticed the champagne Bentley turning in ahead of him. All that impatience and rage, just to get to the mall a full car length ahead.

  The Bentley pulled into the cool shade of the parking garage ahead of the Silverado, and Nick imagined he’d soon be in Nieman’s or Bloomies picking out Ferragamos, giving the clerks a hard time, or buying a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label and complaining about the price. Nick parked behind him.

  Timothy Thorpe, who in fact did live on Jupiter Island but who’s business was yachting supplies instead of airlines, shoved his cell into the pocket of his khakis and climbed out, chirping the alarm. He looked up to see a man in jeans and work boots walking towards him between the parked cars, a big guy, well over six feet, all chest and upper body with huge arms and hands. He had a pleasant smile on his face.

  Timothy saw the Silverado. “Hey, you’re the asshole who wouldn’t let me over. You need to-“

  Nick locked his big hands on Mr. Bentley’s throat and squeezed, forcing him to his knees on the polished cement. Thorpe’s eyes bulged as he clawed at the powerful grip, his vision quickly darkening, fear and outrage and surprise competing with his struggle for air.

  Nick’s serene expression didn’t change as he strangled Timothy Thorpe in a public place, in daylight.