Moon-Face
It was an ostentatiously-bright, lovely day. The sun was gleaming high in the robin's egg blue-shaded sky, and a few miniscule cumulus clouds slowly hovered on by.
On this exceptionally-beautiful day, hundreds of people got in line to receive tickets for an entrance to the circus. Yes, today, the circus was in town. Clowns, elephants, jugglers, acrobats, cotton candy, tigers, magicians, and the like.
Among the cheering kids and bustling adults was a little boy/bird named Mordecai. Mordecai loved the circus. He loved seeing the jugglers perform their mind-boggling tricks and the elephants stampede on through the stage. He especially loved clowns. He couldn't come to understand why some people were terrified of them.
He always thought they looked so silly with their colorful, polka-dot pants and bright, bulbous noses. They were always making him laugh and he was impressed with their surprising array of skills in creating balloon animals and their remarkable athletic prowess.
Mordecai was only five years old. His mommy had dressed him in his cutest outfit; a light-blue sailor suit. His chaperone was his older sister, Suzy.
Suzy wasn't as fond of the circus as was Mordecai. In fact, she detested it. She thought it was, in her own words, "for a bunch of retards to watch bigger retards do retarded things". She was only with Mordecai because their mother had promised her fifty dollars if she accompanied him, being a youngster and all.
Being the teenager that she was, she agreed to it (albeit not without coaxing and convincing from their mother).
Little Mordecai stood in line clutching his sister's hand, licking an over-sized red, spirally lollipop. He was eager to attend the circus today, but his sister, as expected, was miserable.
Suzy wore two pigtails with barrettes in the shapes of skulls, with a black belly-shirt that stated, "Hard Rock", in crimson letters that appeared to have been written in blood. She wore a skirt with a few tears on them, and black boots. She wore a spiked wristband on her left arm, and she had a nose ring on her beak. Suzy also wore a ton of dark mascara on her eye lashes.
Mordecai looked up at his older sister, and he tugged on her skirt. "Hey sis," he said, smiling sweetly. Being the earlier years, she was listening to her CD-player, rocking out to her favorite heavy metal bands.
The moment she felt his tugging, she frowned and gazed down at her little brother. She silently groaned and lifted one headphone from her ear and said, "Whatta ya want now?"
"Do you think any clowns will throw pies at each other?" Mordecai asked, giggled a little. "I like it when they do that, it's so funny!"
The female blue-jay rolled her eyes and replied, "Who cares? I'm just gonna listen to my tunes until this freak-show is over."
Mordecai, ignorant to her spite and anger, simply shrugged and continued licking his lollipop. Finally, they were just about ready to obtain their tickers.
By now, the little blue-jay adorned in a sailor suit was more excited than ever, and due to him finishing his lollipop, was now fueled with sugar. Once again, he pulled on Suzy's clothing. This time, she flung the headphones off of her head and cried, "What do you now?"
"Look big sis," he said, smiling and pointing at the ticket vender. "We're next! We're next!"
Suzy rolled her eyes once again, and her eyes landed on the ticker seller. He was a robin, and for Suzy, an attractive one at that. She smiled a little bit her lower lip. Right at that moment, Mordecai's voice rang her ears.
"Hurry sis, buy us the tickets!"
"Ah, shut up you little runt!" she scolded, and continued to dreamily gaze at the ticker vendor. The blue-jay frowned, and then he looked away for a second.
And that's when he a saw a part of the tent slightly lifted up. It was his own little entrance inside! His eyes shifted up to his sister's, who was now starting a light conversation with the vendor. His eagerness getting the best of him, Mordecai slipped out of Suzy's care and quietly crawled inside of the large tent.
And to his surprise, he didn't end up in the middle of the arena with the ring master and his colorful subordinates. No, he was in a very dark area, perhaps a location strictly for authorized personnel.
Nevertheless, his child-like curiosity and his love for the circus made Mordecai venture further.
He wandered deep into the this bizarre place, getting darker and darker as he got further away from the entrance and little space he crawled through.
The boy then began getting slightly creeped out. Eventually, he stumbled upon an old storage room filled with old props and objects used in past performances.
He saw old, eerie clown puppets clinging from the ceiling, old posters showing pictures (drawn by hand) of various freaks who were being advertised in the freak show from back in the 1920's.
But then something in particular caught Mordecai's eye.
It was an old mirror. It wasn't cracked or anything, but it had accumulated its fair share of dust. Mordecai stared at his reflection for a moment, and then, he saw something.
Right behind him, the blue-jay thought he saw someone (or something) peering at him from the entrance. He only saw them quickly hide behind the wall they were peeking through.
The little blue-jay whirled around to see what it was, but they were gone. Mordecai arched his eyebrow, and decided it was best to get back to Suzy before she got any angrier.
As Mordecai exited the unsettling little room…he stopped right in his tracks. He heard something.
It was...music. A very faint music.
It wasn't jovial music that was often associated with the circus or anything like that. It sounded quiet and mischievous.
And then, after a few seconds, he recognized the little tune.
It was the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. He didn't know where it was coming from. There weren't any stereos, radios, or jukeboxes nearby anywhere. If anything, it sounded more like it was playing in his mind.
Mordecai's eyes shifted left to right nervously. This place was getting more disturbing by the minute. As carefully observed his surroundings, he saw a lot more than what he initially did. He noticed old mannequins of clowns and ballerinas with large, lifeless grins on their faces, statues of horses that were taken out of merry-go-rounds that didn't function properly anymore, and old black-and-white photographs of performers who surely weren't alive anymore.
And just like that, the tune stopped playing. Mordecai blinked and he swung his eyes around the room. No radios or anything, so where had it come from?
The little blue-jay decided that this place was too creepy and finally decided to get out of there, when all of a sudden, he saw that shadowy, elusive figure again. This time, they were down the hall. Again, when Mordecai noticed them, they scurried away.
This time, Mordecai gave chase. He followed the shadowy figure down the hall, and right when he reached the end of it, he peaked through the other side.
At that moment, the tune began playing again. This time, it was louder than before. And then he saw someone sitting on an old bench resting in the middle of the darkened room.
The future-groundskeeper squinted his eyes to get a better look without scaring off this mysterious prowler.
He saw a tall, thin man sitting with his legs crossed, one leg's ankle on top of the other leg's knee. He one hand resting on top of his shin, and the other resting on his other knee. He had on a black-and-white tuxedo with a bow-tie around his neck and they wore shiny, black dress shoes.
However, despite this man's formal appearance, the little bird thought he saw something very wrong with this picture.
It was the man's head. Mordecai couldn't tell if it was just because of the darkness, or if he was not looking hard enough. But he saw this man's head in the shape of a moon, a crescent moon.
The little blue-jay rubbed his eyes to see if he wasn't imagining it. But no, he saw it. It was a well-dressed man who had a crescent moon for a head.
He had a razor-sharp pointed nose, an enormous toothy smile pasted on his face, and his eyes were wide and gleeful.
Mordecai's jaw dropped open, and he couldn't believe it. Was he imagining this guy? He wasn't looking at Mordecai. His eyes were just focused on the wall in front of him, at nothingness, with that frozen smile still there.
Suddenly, the moon-headed man's eyes slowly inched in Mordecai's direction without any other of his limbs moving. Then his entire head slowly turned to him, no emotion, no nothing.
The boy gulped nervously when their eyes met. Should he run away? Should he stay? For a grueling minute, Mordecai and the moon-head man just gazed at each other.
Finally, gathering up some courage, Mordecai asked him, "Who…who are you?"
The moon-headed just stared at him for a moment, that spine-chilling grin still on his face. And then, with a whisper that was reminiscent of a snake's hiss, he uttered, "…Moooooooon-faaaaaaaace…"
This creature's name was Moon-Face.
Was that odd was that when Moon-Face whispered his name, his eyes glowed white for a moment. Mordecai's knees began knocking together, and he felt a hole in his stomach.
Without warning, Moon-Face suddenly shot up from the bench. He was extremely-thin, skeletally-thin, and he was very tall as well.
Mordecai began slowly backing away. Moon-Face, beyond Mordecai's small understanding, began hovering in the air. But it was a very creepy way.
As he slowly floated his way towards Mordecai, he looked more like a snake slithering through the air. He did one more loop before landing a few feet in front of the little blue-jay.
Mordecai just stared at Moon-Face, still shaking from fear of this supernatural stranger.
"Coooooome…" hissed the moon-faced entity. "Don't be afraaaaaid…we'll be friends…." With those words, Moon-Face began slowly walking towards Mordecai. It was there that Mordecai noticed that he had long, black claws extending from his finger-tips.
"Come alooooooong, Mordecai. Don't be afraid. Join us…join us….join us..." As he whispered those words, his eyes began glowing again.
By now, Mordecai was getting terrified. He began walking backwards slowly, but then he felt someone's hands, that felt plastic and lifeless, on his shoulders.
He nervously glanced up to see the mannequins, previously lifeless dummies, with the same glowing eyes as Moon-Face, uttering, "Join us…join us…join us…"
The scared little blue-jay looked around him to see mannequins of clowns, ballerinas, and acrobats slowly beginning to surround him, preventing any chance of escape.
The music suddenly became static and distorted, and the chanting of "Join us" grew louder, angrier and more menacing.
Mordecai then turned back to Moon-Face. He looked more demonic than before.
He now had even wider grin. Except this time, he had large, sharp teeth. And his eyes were glowing a blood red, and his back was hunched. He had saliva dripping out of his mouth.
Moon-Face then roared a monstrous roar, and lunged at Mordecai.
Mordecai sat up in bed, sweating and screaming…
"Whoa! What? What's going on?" demanded Rigby, looking around from left to right while sitting up in his own bed.
The raccoon turned to look at Mordecai. He saw him trembling violently, drenched in sweat and panting heavily.
"Aw, dude." Groaned Rigby, rolling his eyes. "Did you have that night terror again?" Mordecai just sat there for a moment trying to catch his breath. "Y-y-yeah man…that one with M-Moon-Face in it…"
Rigby hopped off of his bed and shook his head. "Man, we gotta do something about this. It's always the same thing around this time of year. You wake up screaming and wake everyone in the house!"
"Hey," replied Mordecai, feeling offended. "You think I like doing this? It just happens, ok? Besides, it's the anniversary of when I saw that thing at the circus when I was a kid."
"You know, we'd better go ask Skips about this," suggested Rigby. "He knows all about this kind of stuff. Maybe he can help."
The next morning, Mordecai and Rigby both went to Skips, who was raking up leaves in the park.
"Uh, hey Skips. What's up?" asked Mordecai, raising one hand in a greeting. Skips didn't turn around. He just kept raking up those leaves and answered with, "Work. Which is what you should be doing too."
"Look Skips, Mordecai came to ask you something." Rigby elbowed Mordecai in the ribs, signaling him to ask the question.
"What is it?"
"Skips, you ever heard a guy named 'Moon-Face'?"
Right when Mordecai said that, Skips stopped what he was doing. He stood up completely straight, and he turned around with a serious look on his face.
"Where'd you hear about him?"
Mordecai arched his eyebrow, wondering why Skips suddenly became somber at the mentioning of the entity that plagued his nightmares. He looked down at Rigby, and he just shrugged.
"Well, I sort of have been having this nightmare as a kid, and the monster in it was always—"
"Moon-Face?"
Well…yeah. Wait, how'd you know that?"
Skips sighed and said, "Alright, come with me."
The trio went into Skips' room back at the house, and he handed Mordecai a potion. "Wow", declared Mordecai, as he gazed at the bottle of green liquid. "What's this?"
"It's a potion that wards off evil spirits."
"How's this gonna help me?"
You drink it, you'll never have another bad dream again. "
"Whoa! Seriously?" Mordecai ripped the cork off the bottle and chugged it down. Halfway through guzzling it, Mordecai stopped. His eyes watered and his cheeks were filled with the liquid. He forcefully gulped it down and said, "Ugh! That tasted like crap!"
"I didn't say it would be tasty."
Rigby then asked, "So what can you tell us about that Moon guy in Mordecai's dream?"
"That guy in Mordecai's dreams isn't just a figment of his imagination. Nope, that thing really existed once about ninety years ago. His name was Monroe 'Moon-Face' Facetious. He used to be a famous magician and hypnotist a long time ago."
"Wow. Are you serious?" asked Mordecai.
Skips nodded once, and continued. "He used to perform at the circus, claiming he could hypnotize everyone in the audience. One thing a lot of people didn't know about Moon-Face,though, was that he had schizophrenia. His family members said that, after he died, demons were telling him to 'join them'."
That made a chill run down Mordecai's spine. He recalled the mannequins in his dreams screaming, "Join us!"
"And then what happened?" Inquired Rigby.
"Then he committed suicide. They say he went insane, and right before dying, he had written 'Join us' all over the walls before he was found dead in his room with a really weird grin on his face. They also found a really old record player playing 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' for some unknown reason."
Mordecai and Rigby were left very puzzled by that story.
The blue-jay asked, "Ok, well, why did he come after me in my dreams?"
"Well, tell me. Why did you see before you started having those nightmares?"
"All I remember was seeing a weird figure in the shadows at the circus a long time ago when I had sneaked away from my sister. I didn't see anything like in the nightmare."
"Hmmm", said Skips, putting a hand to his chin. "Sounds like ol' Moon-Face managed to hypnotize into one of his spells for all of this years."
"Just by seeing a shadow?"
"Yup. Like I said, he was a famous magician and hypnotist. He could do crazy things like that."
"Wow…well, uh, thanks Skips. I'll see you later." said Mordecai, leaving Skips' room.
"Yeah, sure. Just don't say I never did you any favors." Replied Skips, and as the two left his room.
"Man, I'm sure glad that's over." said Mordecai, as they headed outside, "Yeah," agreed Rigby. "Now I don't have to slap you awake anymore, heh-heh."