Cirque du’ Phobeus, the Circus Fear Tour (Part 2)

So I started this story about 5 days ago and posted the first part shortly after. I have since then continued with this part. I believe this will end at Part 3, but I make no guarantees. This part is far more intense than the first part, if you ask me.

Original Nightmare Source

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Source

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(continued from Cirque du’ Phobeus, the Circus Fear Tour (Part 1))

I had horrifying nightmares of being stuck in cages and being poked by sharp fingers. My chest pounded and I could barely catch my breath. I wondered where my inhaler was as my lungs tried to pull air. I was a fish out-of-water, not able to catch a breath. My eyes popped open to air as thick as jelly and darkness the color of muddy rust.

I stretched my arms as far as they could go… I seemed to be folded into an area the size of a large laundry basket. I brushed against the surface.

I coughed and barely stopped from gagging on the rag that was keeping my mouth open. “Am I in a box?”

There were no answers. I shifted my neck and felt the relieved pop. The sound echoed lightly. I shook my head savagely and struck the sides a few times, clearing the fog from my head. I listened and heard distant music and shrieks. It took a bit for my brain to remind me where I had been… Cirque du’ Phobeus, the Circus Fear Tour.

“I didn’t even get to the Circus section,” I thought to myself, “unless there were no Circus sections.”

I could smell the moist wood of the box I seemed to be locked inside. It was the stench of mildewed wood, maybe cedar, where it gets that really woodsy odor. Then again, I’m probably just imagining it and completely wrong. I sometimes feel woozy as I write this, so I can’t think straight.

Source

Anyway, I was there inside that box that felt like it was rotting away. It was so damp against my face. I shoved against it, hoping it was rotting away. It swelled and bent outward, but instead of breaking it just flexed and snapped back when I lost strength. I tried to reach forward to pry at the wood planks, but my hands were still bound.

“How did I not realize this?”

I tested my feet and they were also still bound together. I swore under my breath and went limp. I couldn’t find the strength. I felt the warm tears leaking from my eyes. I curled up and cried myself to sleep.

I awoke what felt hours later to a knocking sound.

A grunting voice asked, “Are you awake yet?”

I flexed and twisted. Still there was too much resistance from the box. The knocking sound echoed again, but it was harder and began to shake me from side-to-side. I was beginning to hurt, back pinched on the slats of wood. My shoulder muscles were spasming, as were my calf muscles. I tried again and again to slide my hands up to pull out the gag, but could not twist my arm enough. More than once I felt and heard the audible pop inside my shoulder blade.

“You ‘wake?” asked a surly voice, probably the same person that was shaking my container. “Wake up! I need to make sure you’s alive. Boss would kill me dead if you’s dead. Wake up!”

I growled and the shaking stopped. He then started poking his fat, sausage fingers through holes between the slats in the box. He jabbed me multiple times in different locations and I could feel greasiness along the skin of my left arm.

The fingers stopped jabbing and there was a sort of scuffling sound. Feet thudded hard across the ground in an irregular pattern. Then a different set of fingers shoved through the holes and caressed my flesh. I felt instant goosebumps and just felt gross… and that was before I heard the familiar voice.

“You should have just let me have my way,” the pushy, perverted man said. He had been the one in the line with his hand on my leg.

I screamed into the clog of the rag. “Over my dead body!”

“What was that? I can’t hear you.” I could smell the booze on his breath as he laughed into one of the holes in the box… unfortunately it was right where my face was.

I suddenly yearned for the Chloroform instead, or a pillow shoved over my face. I felt gross. I felt wet down my leg and wanted to cry. I suddenly realized that I already was crying. I squeezed my lids tight to stop the tears, but my body still shook with fear.

“If you had just let me do what I wanted, you never would have ended up here.”

I didn’t believe him, not in the least. Why was I always in strange predicaments? I don’t physically come out and say “hey, do this” or “hey, do that” and I never liked the outcomes. So, there you have it, I didn’t believe that in the least.

Maybe if I had, though, I might have been able to escape. How was I supposed to know the lunatic was part of the Haunted Tour? I wondered, abstractly, if I could get a refund since I didn’t get to finish the tour. Then I thought, why didn’t my sister come looking for me? Had she tried to call?

I rolled over to see if I could feel for my cell phone in my bra (I know, I’ve heard numerous different attitudes, but it is what it is) but it wasn’t there. I rolled the other way and was keen to feel in my pocket, but again it wasn’t there. I’m sure I had brought it with me, but I never did find it… which is another reason I’m writing this down like so.

In the distance, I could still hear the goings-on of the Haunted Tour and the circus-like atmosphere. I heard laughter and screams and bells and whistles and thudding footsteps and callings-out for friends or relatives. I heard music, lots of music, almost all of which was either eerie or circus-festive.

After a few moments and a scuffling of booted feet, the box opened to the very edge of dawn. I was manhandled and moved around by a couple of burly guys. They were directed by the boozy pervert to put my face the other way so that I could see out, then they turned the coffin – it was a coffin that I was in! – so that the opening before my eyes looked out towards the festivities and carnival games. I hadn’t even realized that there was a carnival to go along with the tour.

I was cleaned up of sweat and urine by a young lady with a limp. Looking at her eyes, I realized that she was the one from the line that I spoke to, the one that had been crying without knowing it. She gently moved my clothing and reached inside with a soft sponge. She had a delicate hand and a ready smile, warm and knowing, whenever she met my eyes.

The smile read as “Do as they say and you can have the happiness that I have found”.

I was surprised that I could smile back at her at all. I was terrified, but it felt nice to have someone clean me up since I couldn’t do it myself. I wondered again where my sister was and why she had not come looking for me. She probably went home with her friend and left me here.

I was trapped. I began to hyperventilate. I did not have my inhaler! I felt like I was drowning and suffocating all at the same time.

“Here,” said the young woman. She had pulled down the cloth and placed my inhaler against my lips, ready to pump as I breathed in. I took 3 puffs before I could calm down.

I wished, in the moment, that I had had enough breath to scream out; but I don’t think, looking back now, that it would have made a difference. I think people would have just taken it for part of the show or reaction to the tour. I probably would have been ignored. The gag was replaced with a clean one and pressed back between my fighting, biting teeth. The young woman had a vicious back-hand slap, if I am remembering this correctly… my jaw had felt like it was dislodged and put on an anvil and struck with a sledge hammer.

The young woman finished sponging me off and rubbed my shoulder. “There there, it gets better. Soon you won’t remember your old life at all and you’ll be a happy part of our community.”

I highly doubted that. I wasn’t going to be drinking their Kool-Aid, if you know what I mean. I couldn’t fathom how they expected to have happy victims, but then again there were kidnapped children and sometimes adults who ended up identifying in some way with their abductors. Stockholm Syndrome was a very real thing. I couldn’t imagine a day where I might be like that, but it now had me chilled-to-the-bone and not knowing what kinds of tortures and things they would do to make this happen.

I tried to ask her to help, but I couldn’t form the words and she just shook her head to my sobs. My guts were twisted inside of me and my muscles were locked in perpetual spasm.

Source

As a side note, it doesn’t seem likely I would have been in the coffin long enough to spasm like that, but I have muscle spasms pretty easily. If I don’t drink enough water I have them. If I eat the wrong foods I have them. Sometimes if I move the wrong way I have them. It’s actually quite painful, and I could go the rest of my life without them and be much happier for it. Sorry, I’m rambling as I try to recall events correctly. I’m clouding again.

I remember now… now that my mind has cleared back up. So I was given that sponge bath by that young woman and just collapsed afterwards. I was so very tired. I wasn’t comfortable in any way and yet they wouldn’t let me out. I suppose if I were trying to do what they were doing, I wouldn’t trust the victim enough to not run away.

They ended up sealing me back in as soon as the rag was replaced. At least there was that. I couldn’t imagine having the same rag inside my mouth day-after-day. Just thinking about it made bile rise in my throat.

Tears leaked from my eyes. Every turn of my arms brought pain, every twist of my neck was its own form of torture, and seeing that single shaft of light from outside was the worst of all.

Boom boom boom! Bang! Ting!!

I felt the tip of a nail dig into my hip and cried out. The pounding subsided quickly and the movement of the coffin calmed. I squeezed my eyes shut and sobbed silently, my body shaking with fear, pain, and especially futile rage. My palms burned and I had to concentrate in order to release pressure from my tight-clenched fists.

‘I know I will die here,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’m sorry, my love… I’m so sorry.’

I bawled.

Squeeeeee. Streeee. Eeeeerreeeek. Ting!!

Suddenly the tip of the nail was no longer digging into my hip. I felt a small sense of relief and thanked God for that one small forgiveness. I had to have done something wrong to deserve this punishment. I cried myself to sleep to the thumping of hammer-on-nail-into-coffin. I started to think of it as my lullaby.

My dreams were filled with twisted Humans snatching at me, pulling me down into the dirt, of things sitting on my chest. I was always bound, unable to move. Cockroaches the size of June Bugs crawled in and out of my mouth and all over my skin. I felt a darkness and oiliness all throughout… when I came out of it, sweating and shivering, I was reminded of the Tunnel Scene in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder.

I had to calm myself, which is tricky for me on normal days. My Asthma made it feel as if I were drowning and I had to force my breathing to slow, to relax the muscles in my throat and to try to slowly pull air into my lungs. A couple of puffs from my inhaler would have done me well at that point, but of course I was alone. It took long minutes to do so, but then I was coughing to clear my lungs and feeling a bit better.

I lay there and drifted half-in-half-out of sleep.

I thought I was dreaming when I heard the words that I had only hoped to hear.

“Where the fuck is my wife you bastard??!!”

My heart fluttered and I tried to scream for him. No sound came forth and when I tried to spit it out, it just clung there and pulled itself back inside. I couldn’t move it and realized there was tape over it.

“Who are you looking for, sir?” some guy asked, and I instantly knew it was old Boozy McDrinxalot. “There are many people here, including some that are married. Could it be her?”

I closed my left eye and pressed my right against a hole in the coffin. JJ was there, @dbzfan4awhile for my Steemit friends. I needed him and he was here. I felt like it was going to be alright again. My JJ had arrived and would tear the place apart to find me.

Rage twisted his features and there was pain in his eyes. I tried again and again to scream, but my voice was lost in the rag and the other noises. He was silhouetted against the morning sun just at the edge of the horizon line. It had to have been somewhere around 6 in the morning.

He was probably driving like 80 the whole way here. The crazy fool. My crazy fool! I love you my crazy fool husband, with all my heart. He was still in the fuzzy pink PJs that he was in yesterday before I left.

He was growling and his words grated from between clenched teeth as he demanded information once more. “Where is she??” He held out a picture… probably a picture of me.

“I haven’t seen her. She probably just went to a friend’s house and didn’t come home. It happens all the time.” This guy thought he was slick, but he didn’t understand us.

JJ flipped around and turned his head back and forth. This was going to turn bad very quickly I thought. His hands were clenched and white-knuckled, and that place between his eyes was pulled together more than I think I had ever seen it. I didn’t think I had ever seen it creased that much. I’ve seen him angry enough to punch holes in walls, and this was worse.

‘Sorry, Bastards,’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m not out there to calm his rage.’ I wasn’t really sorry.

JJ wasn’t the only one out there, either. I saw my sister as well and… my niece? And if my niece is here my other sister is here as well.

‘I think someone’s going to die today.’ I had thought.

I listened to the one-sided screaming match for over an hour before my body gave way. My mind began to cloud over again. Tears leaked out and I pried open my eyes to see him one more time, knowing he would save me. Suddenly the screaming stopped and all of them were backing up.

CRACK! BOOOM!

Tendrils of smoke were rising from their group, but nobody fell over to the gunshot. I leaned and saw one of the performers toting a long rifle, angled skyward. Everyone suddenly froze in place.

“Kyle!” one of the Haunt performers hissed. “Put that thing away!”

I was feeling queasy in my gut and suddenly I smelled that all-too-familiar scent… almonds! That was what the funny smell was. Sounds gurgled and the scene began to tilt.

I realized in the last moments before my eyes flipped shut, that I was the one that had tilted. JJ clung in my mind’s eye. I could see the so-familiar blue eyes and wisps of beard and moustache that he liked to keep. I thought it looked quite handsome on him. I remembered the scent of his clothes and held on as my entire world went black.

Nightmares swam up, as they always did. This time the black things were less dark and more like coal embers. The flesh of the creatures dripped with black oil and their limbs stretched forth like tar. They were all goopy and transfigured.

The slime of their words dripped from their mouths in globules, splattering on the insane patterns of color beneath them. “Kob rob dididn garab-a daka daka ka ka ka urrrrrt. Burbi gung in gurb in in tur in toodoo dee gara arah ve ar ownnnindin din din der. Keeep erhin er daya eeee arrrrr nanday ah va annnn…”

I creased my brows and tried to concentrate.

‘Were they speaking? Was I seeing sounds? What were they?’ I thought, but even the ideas of the thoughts spun loose in strange, twisting webs. My thoughts were bright and orange as they shot out from my head. I hoped that the colored thoughts would destroy those things.

I didn’t feel much afterwards, but I recall panic and disgust being laced throughout. I feel as though I may have been floating on the very edge of consciousness. I often find myself there right now.

The air fractured and the scene fell away into blackness in mirror shards. I yearned for JJ to stay, but even that shard fell away and I couldn’t grab onto it. I thought I had touched it and felt him next to me.

Suddenly the air began to glow and feel warm and gentle. I sank into it and felt his caress around my shoulder… I felt his head slide into place against the nape of my neck as he always did when trying to comfort me. I drank in the feeling and let myself be absorbed into it. We had never spent a night apart. Now these creatures had done just that and I would never forgive them for it. Never. Ever.

I felt my form rising through the coffin’s mildewed wood slats and I could see the entirety of the Haunted Tour. It wasn’t set up at the moment, and it didn’t even look to be in the same place. The sun was down and so were the performers, some laying outside on chairs and snoring away, some inside their little boxes like Animal Crackers.

I hadn’t done this in many, many years so I was surprised that I was still able to leave my body like this. I soared and drifted through the camp, seeing only a sparse handful of people still awake at the edge of dawn. The people themselves looked normal, for the most part, except for a few that fit the “Circus Freak Show” mold. I dipped low to see the woods that surrounded the camp’s location and saw a small stream that curled lazily around the outer performers’ Animal Cracker Boxes. I pushed outward but couldn’t go any further.

I felt my body calling to me, pulling and yanking me back. I fought against it, hoping I would see my family somewhere nearby, but in the end the tugging force was far stronger. I snapped back into my body and a semblance of normal sleep dragged me down. I had nightmares and dreams and clawed against it all, but was just not strong enough.

‘I’m sorry, my love,’ I thought to myself while I began to rise to waking. ‘I tried to find where I was, but I just don’t know.’

I know it wasn’t real, but I seemed to feel his comforting smile and arms around me. I can still feel him with me, always. I long to be complete again. I drifted away again, JJ’s bearded smile in my heart.

(To be continued)