Have you ever been to the circus? Nowadays I thought those were all but gone. But one fall season I saw posters around town for something called, "The Circus of Terror." With it being October I had assumed it was a pop up seasonal show or something for Halloween. I brought it up to my girlfriend as a potential date opportunity. The two of us had only been seeing each other for a short while, we met on one of those dating apps and bonded over our love of horror movies, so things were going smoothly.
I suggested it to her and we agreed to meet up that weekend, and the rest of the week just flew by until then. We had agreed to drive there separately, we wren's quite at the stage where we were picking each other up from our respective homes yet. But we met in the parking lot, getting our tickets and stepping onto the grounds.
It was about what you'd expect from an event advertised as a horror themed circus. There was a carnival with games and prizes and even a few rides. A few places to get food as well as a couple of haunted houses to explore. The grounds were full of people, both guests like us and people in costumes stalking around and scaring unsuspecting guests. I even caught scenes of a few planted actors getting pulled out of crowds and into who knows where, really freaked people out.
"Whoever put this together did a really good job," my girlfriend, Frida, said as we walked the grounds. We had been there a while already, having played a few games and gone on a few rides. We had stopped for food at one of the carts as we watched other people go by.
"Yeah, you'd think whoever did this would put their name on it or something?" I suggested.
"Unless it's like one of those anonymous artist types," Frida suggested.
"Maybe," I mused, but our conversation was cut short as an announcement came in over the loudspeakers.
"Attention guests, the main show is about to start under the main tent. You don't want to miss this horror show. Show begins in ten minutes!"
"Sounds like we should better find our seats," I said, "Don't want to miss the main event."
We found our way to the main tent, and found a place to sit. Once the seats were filled, the lights went out. A single spotlight coming down on the center of the tent. Illuminating the ringmaster. He was a slim figure, wearing an orange and black costume. The kind of thing you'd expect from a circus ringmaster. But his face was covered by an orange mask. It almost looked like a jack-o-lantern.
"Welcome, children of the night," his voice came in over the speakers as he welcomed the audience. "Tonight we have a special, one of a kind show for you. As you might expect, we ask you refrain from pictures or videos. Trust us, we'll know. We don't want evidence of what goes on here tonight getting out," he chuckled. "Now let me introduce our performers tonight!"
Music began to play as performers entered, colored lights coming on, the music getting louder until it hit a crescendo and the opening sequence came to an end. The show went on as you might expect. Acrobats doing high flying stunts, a juggler, a magician, animal acts. All of them had macabre twists for the season, the magician pulled someone from the audience and made them 'disappear' but never brought them back while the lion tamer pretended to feed a victim to the animals. In a decent sense of continuity I recognized the actor they brought out as someone who I saw get grabbed earlier from the crowd outside.
Overall it was an entertaining show, but there was one act that stuck with me a bit more than the others. About midway through the show, the clown act rolled out from their little clown car. Nothing unusual about that, and as they did their comedy routine I couldn't help but notice one of them. A woman, and I'll just say I'm not one of those clown fetish guys, but I could tell that beneath the face paint and the costume she was rather pretty. Though even with all of that she looked more like a Hot Topic model than a proper clown. She had minimal makeup, the white base with diamond shapes around her eyes, pink circles around her cheeks with a single black line of makeup on her upper lip as well as the traditional red nose. Her hair was a mix of black and green, as if she had dyed her hair a while ago and hadn't touched it up since then. She wore a black bowler hat and a torn up white shirt with horizontal black stripes as well as a pair of large orange pants held up by suspenders and the usual big red shoes.
Her whole thing was that she had been practicing a knife throwing routine and had coerced one of her compatriots to be the target. The whole joke being that her knife throwing had a tendency to actually hit the target rather than barely missing. But the part that made me think something was off was that as the act ended and the performers were taking their bows. I couldn't help but feel like she was looking at me. Just staring directly at me. Nobody else seemed to notice, not even my girlfriend as I looked back at her. And she smiled. It was a wide, unsettling smile. As if she knew the punchline to a very cruel joke.
The whole exchange only lasted a moment but it felt so much longer, but before I knew it the clowns had climbed back into their little car and drove off and the next act began.
I tried to let it go, it was probably part of the act. This was supposed to be a horror show after all. She had probably been instructed to pick someone random in the audience and stare at them like that to unsettle them. It was all part of the show and I was just the unlucky recipient.
But as the show came to an end and people started to leave, everyone saying one thing or another about the show.
"That was pretty great," Frida said as we walked back to our cars.
"Oh yeah," I said, "I think the magician was my favorite part." By now I had forgotten completely about that clown girl as Frida and I talked a bit longer, taking our time to get back to her car. Once there we said our goodbyes for the night and she surprised me with a kiss.
I stood by, probably looking like a fool as she drove away before I came to my senses and walked back to my car. By now the parking lot was mostly empty, save for a few stray cars here and there.
I was in the process of unlocking the door to my car when I heard a voice that made me jump.
"Hey!" It was a woman's voice. I was startled and turned around rapidly to find that same clown girl standing behind me, way too close behind me. Where did she even come from? I also noticed her hands were behind her back and I was suddenly very concerned with what she might be holding back there.
"Uh.. hey..." I said, thinking someone was taking their job a little too seriously. "Uh...good show tonight."
"Thanks," she giggled in a way that I recognized as an attempt at flirting. "My name's Lotti, I saw you in the audience and I hope you don't think this too forward of me but... you're pretty cute. If you want I can give you a private encore." She got even closer to me. I backed myself up against the door of my car. She was close enough I could see she had yellow eyes.
I was not really used to women hitting on me, but even if I was single I was still getting really bad vibes from this chick. Something about her seemed off and I wasn't about to find out what it was.
"Uh.. while that's super tempting I have a girlfriend," I said, trying to not sound nervous. Suddenly I was remembering her thing with knives, it's not like they were real right? She wouldn't have any on her right now would she?
"Hmm, I figured you might. It was that girl sitting next to you wasn't it?" She asked, I didn't really want to answer that. "Well, that's okay," she continued, "What she doesn't know won't hurt her, right? It's not like you two have been together that long anyway right?"
How did she know that? Had she been following us? Listening to our conversations? I suddenly felt like I had to get out of there right now.
"True... but I have to be up really early tomorrow, work and all that you now," I said as I reached behind me to grab the handle to my car door. "Well, I gotta get going. Maybe next time, you know?"
