Rachel opened her eyes to a very dark ceiling and a dim lit room. She sat up and looked around at an environment she didn't recognize. There were costumes, scarves and wigs hanging on small hooks that were on strongly taped straps on the four walls around her. The walls Rachel saw were all made of a type of fabric that were tied to big, long metal nails that had been hammered into the ground. She was in a small tent she realized, and was on a cot in the middle of the tent. She got up out of the cot still feeling half asleep as she walked over to the tent's opening, a flap of tent fabric that hung over the entrance. Small streams of light came through from the sides of the flap where the lights from the outside shown through. Rachel pushed the flap to the side and walked out of the tent she was in. It was dark outside. She began to walk towards a lit up area to her left, realizing where she was as she continued to look around. More tents were around, with strings of lights stretching across overhead. Everything was eerily silent, with not a single person in sight. As Rachel's head began to clear up she had already walked past the first of the two tents that were at her left. On her right were more tents, one slightly smaller than the one she had come out of, and one big one that looked like it housed a couple of vehicles, as Rachel could see tires past the half inch of space that the tent was off the ground of. She had bent down just long enough to get a quick look underneath, and now she was beginning to get an understanding of how she had got to where she was, after remembering Mr. Tophat riding in the front of a truck on the book cover in the warehouse, saying he was coming soon.
"No, no it can't be happening again.." Rachel said to herself, looking all around her.
She saw no one around still, until she looked forward again towards the lit up area she had been walking to until now. Than she felt two strong hands grip around her upper arms, on either side. Rachel looked back and forth to see two men in colorful suits holding her, that now forcefully pulled her to keep moving towards the lit up area in front of her. She wasn't strong enough to pull away from the two men whom she noticed did not seem fully conscious but in an inner hold, as they didn't respond at all to her pleas to them about releasing her, and moved almost like robots compliaing with whatever instructions they were given. They took her to the lit area that was around the last tent on the left, and stopped in front of a long rolled out red carpet, that led to a large stand that was painted red with small, yellow light bulbs that stuck out from the top. A small stage was out in front of the stand with black steps leading down to the carpet. But most noticeably was the darkened doorway in the middle of the stand. It was just dark empty space, but clearly meant for something, or SOMEONE to be seen in it, maybe soon. Nothing else was around except for four very large red squares that were aligned along the carpet, two on each side. Rachel looked back to the dark doorway in the middle of the stand and felt her heart rate go up, as the very familiar figure she had been seeing, began to emerge through the entrance. Rachel froze as she relived her most terrified nightmare as Mr. Tophat once again, walked through that dark entrance, looking every bit as much as she remembered him to be, with the red velvet suit jacket on top of a black dress shirt and tie, white striped sequined pants, black boots and gloves.. And of course, his large, black Tophat sitting on his head. And the cane. The one Rachel had completely destroyed, or so she thought. It was smaller now at the top, but it was still sitting there, that dark honey colored gem on top of a long, black cane stick, just like before. Mr. Tophat walked to the end of the stage and stopped right before the black steps. He stood legs together, arms in front of him, one hand placed over the other, both resting on top of the cane as it rested on the stand's stage, held firmly in place by Mr. Tophat. The two men holding Rachel jerked her forward by her arms and pulled her down the carpet, partially dragging her as she tried desperately to stop and pull away from them harder than she had tried to before. The whole time she kept her eyes on Mr. Tophat as he kept his eyes on her, with no expression on his face as he waited for Rachel to be brought to him. The men stopped close to the front of the steps of the stage and held Rachel to the spot as Mr. Tophat descended the steps slowly, still looking straight at Rachel, holding the cane right below the hilt with his left hand. He stopped a foot away from Rachel, tilting his head a bit to the side as he smiled big, and said the only other line that Rachel knew him by more than any other;
"Hello Rachel, welcome to the show."
Rachel shook her head back and forth still unable to believe that HE was here in front of her not hurt, or old at all, but healthy and strong looking. Mr.Tophat stepped closer to Rachel and cupped her chin with his right hand.
"Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.." He said playfully, mocking an adoring expression as he put his face close to hers. "For years I hid away in the woods thinking about what happened last between us, how you threw everything away I offered to you, how you could have been so helpful to my life, how I offered to you a way out to be safe forever with your friends. How I had to survive as such a small creature under dirt and rocks, eating insects, not knowing what was going to happen to me, if I was going to stay like that forever. But I did know that if I ever had a chance to see you again, I would."
"You should have known why I couldn't help you." Rachel said shakily. You were taking all those kids and people. You were taking them away from their families and just using them for yourself."
"I had no choice Rachel it was the only way I could survive, to bring in new kids, and to keep the carnival going with fresh help to set it up and take it down, to move on to the next town for the next show. I had a bargain to keep and nothing to go back to." Mr. Tophat took on a look of desperation in his eyes as he spoke, still not fully seeing Rachel's point, she felt.
"It wasn't just that you hurt people, it was that you didn't care." Rachel said, shaking here head and moving it back, to free her chin from Mr. Tophat's grasp.
He let his hand drop away from her face to his side and sighed.
"So much was done for them while I had them Rachel. I gave them food, shelter, and clothing. They had comfortable overalls, all of them. They helped me make so many people happy, that came to the shows. What better job could there be to have in the world."
"But it was against their will." Rachel argued back. "And they were away from their parents."
"I'm sure their parents would have appreciated their work. And both the parents and the children must have appreciated how young and youthful the kids stayed. No time taken away from them at all. And what an experience they were going to help bring to each town over and over again that they went to, for so many years. Sure the parents wouldn't have seen it all, along with their kids, but still." Mr. Tophat said throwing his arms up in the air, as if frustrated that he had to explain what he saw as so obvious.
Rachel looked at him ridiculously from hearing his defense, his excuses, as he griped both her shoulders now, right above where the men's hands were still holding her in place.
"I realized my mistake too late last time Rachel. Even now that I still want to take out my revenge against you for your actions for what happened to me, I can't destroy you when you still have so much potential to help me still."
"What?" Rachel said unbelievably.
"Well I still want my carnival to succeed Rachel. It's the only passion Iv'e ever had. And now I'll have a brand new act to be excited about.."
Mr. Tophat let go of Rachel and stood back as the men in the colorful suits holding her moved over to the side, and turned her around to where they were now facing the red carpet from the beginning of it, and the four red squares that were just outside of either side of it. From the stand and small stage where Mr. Tophat had come through, four more men appeared from the doorway in overalls and went to stand behind one red square each. They each put one hand up and than brought them down upon the red squares and grabbed the fabric that covered the squares, pulling at it. All except the man at the last square on the right side, who stood still by it, not moving at all. Rachel watched as the three men continued to pull away until what was underneath the fabric was fully exposed. Three cages now stood on either side of the carpet, and in those cages that had metal bars going across on all sides, sat Akiko, Graham, and Gavin. They had their hands and legs tied up, hands behind their back, legs bound tightly together in front with yellow ropes. Black scarves were tied around their mouths so well, that they were barely able to make a sound. As soon as the red fabric was removed from over their cages and they could see, they all looked around and immediately tried to call out to Rachel as soon as they saw her. Rachel struggled harder to break free from her captures, but still could not lossen their grip on her arms despite her extra will to get loose, as she saw her friends with their own struggles to get free. Mr. Tophat laughed as Rachel yelled out, "No!" As she felt more dread about the situation than before. She looked at him frightened, but angry.
"Why are you doing this?" You could have just continued on with the carnival without us knowing, and just stayed away from here."
Mr. Tophat turned to face Rachel as he was all too happy to continue to explain, putting his hands on her shoulders again. Gavin able to see his touch on Rachel this time, kicked at the cage he was in.. "You broke my heart Rachel." Mr. Tophat said. I let you know everything, I opened up everything about myself to you, even to your friends. And right in front of them and poor Bartholomew, you, you the one who had all the power in hand, chose to be cruel instead and to throw all your care and mercy away. You took my hope and wish to share so much with you, someone who I thought would understand more than anyone, personal things about me that I had never shared with anyone before, and you turned it all to dust in one single action, that I'm sure never made you look back."
Although Rachel felt at least a small amount of recognition of the little bit of pity she wanted to have for Mr. Tophat back then, she concentrated more on one particular word that he had just used.
"Cruel?" She asked seriously as she looked at him. "You also took people's memories away. All of those kids you took, they didn't remember anything, or anyone from their lives before the carnival at all. You didn't care about anyone else at all, except mostly yourself. You hurt Akiko's brother when he tried to help her and the rest of us. You were going to cut me in half!"
Mr. Tophat's expression went from looking hurt to being frustrated as he defended his actions from the past, once again. "I needed to protect myself Rachel. You and your friends were coming to try and destroy me, and you had been a threat to me for decades. All that time I had been waiting, expecting for that demise from you, and your destruction against my carnival. Doing all of that showmanship for so many people, hoping that I could at least make their night, if not a staying memory. It was all I had. And what would those kids do with their old memories and emotions? They would have just been sad all the time with remembering all of them. And I stopped from wanting to get rid of you for good, didn't I?"
"Because I was able to get away from you! Because I was able to get your cane. All those years you got so used to hurting people for your own reasons, that you still don't care enough about stopping from doing it!" Rachel protested, looking out to the cages to point out the example of her words, as her friends still struggled with their bonds.
"Well I can't get my new carnival started without some good acts to help me out to see what people will like now, before I fully get it all started up, can I? Especially without Bartholomew here. I need your help Rachel. And I have great things planned for you and your friends to help me with that."
"People will know we're missing. They'll come looking for us."
Mr. Tophat scrunched up his face, mocking a look of sympathy and replied, "Oh you mean your mom and your school? How do you think I was partly able to keep parents and friends away from visiting the carnival to look for the kids, along with erasing and changing the memories of of the authorities that visited, so that I wouldn't get caught and arrested with them? I made them all forget Rachel. They come and ask questions, and I would help people lose their worries. Your mom, that school you go to, or went to. I made sure to pay a quick visit to both of them, before I got to you earlier today. They won't be a problem. And whoever comes for them.." Mr. Tophat turned away from Rachel and looked at Akiko, Graham, and Gavin, giving a quick wave of his arm across from one side of where the cages were to the other side. "I'll take care of them as well."
"You better have not hurt my mom!" Rachel cried out, attempting to lunge out at Mr. Tophat, even as she could barely squirm in the men's grasps.
"Oh don't worry Rachel." Mr. Tophat said casually. My new cane if you've noticed, isn't as big on top as it used to be, but it's still strong enough to do what I need it to. And I did just enough to give her a shock, and make her think that you were away from home at another school far away, to where she couldn't reach you for right now. And she will continue to think that for the rest of her life, every time she thinks about you. I think she'll be just fine."
Horrified, Rachel could do nothing but let the men take her back down the carpet as Mr. Tophat with a slight sweep of his arm towards the fourth cage down the carpet, directed them towards it. The men pulled back the cage door and pushed Rachel inside when they got to the cage, closing and locking it shut with a padlock after. Mr. Tophat speaking loud enough for all to hear shouted out, "Everyone try and get some rest, we're going to have a big opening day tomorrow!"
And with a swish of his cane everything spun for a moment for the group stuck in the cages until everything stopped, and Akiko, Graham, Gavin, and Rachel found themselves in a large dark tent, four feet apart from each other. More men than came into the tent to push pillows and blankets through the cages, for them to use for the night.
"How thoughtful." Akiko said sarcastically after she had been given her pillow and blankets. The men left the tent and Gavin turned to Rachel. "Are you okay, did he hurt you?" He asked.
"I'm fine." Rachel answered, turning to look around at everyone after. "I'm so sorry you guys, I never meant for this to happen again." Rachel looked at Akiko in particular, as she had been the most upset about having all of them get involved with having to face Mr. Tophat the last time around, because of Rachel.
"Hey, we didn't have to come back to town, but we did. So let's just try to get out of here." She said.
Graham jostled the padlock and the bars on his cage. "Everything's strong and locked tight. And there's nothing around us to help with breaking out of here." He said looking around.
"I saw the trucks, but I don't even remember how else he got us here. I'm the one who should know more about everything that happened more than anyone. The cane isn't supposed to work on me, and all I remember is seeing all of you unconscious on the floor of Graham's house and passing out, hearing his voice."
"Maybe with the nightmares and all of your stress about school, your more worn down than usual. How much sleep have you gotten in the past few days?" Gavin asked.
"Not much. And my hours have been really off. Iv'e been sleeping either too little, or too much. And I haven't been able to tell if what Iv'e been seeing, or experiencing is real, or if I'm hallucinating."
"Well I can tell you right now, what your experiencing is what's really happening to all of us right now. And the only thing we may be able to do is to just wait for an opportunity to escape." Akiko said.
Everyone sat in their cages awhile longer before laying down with, or against their pillows and blankets, eventually drifting off to sleep. Rachel having slept for awhile before she had woken up in the other tent earlier, couldn't go back to sleep. She thought about her mom as well, hoping that she really was okay. But why would Mr. Tophat lie, if not to make the truth so much worse than what it was, to hurt her? So she continued to lay her head against the bars until her eyelids got heavy and she drifted off to sleep. What felt like only a few seconds since she had last closed her eyes was now full on daylight, as Rachel was awakened by Graham's voice loudly asking what was going on, as he was being pulled out of his cage.
"HEY! What are you doing? Let him go!" Akiko yelled out to the man pulling on Graham, who was now being taken out of the tent.
"What do you think their going to do with him? Gavin asked Akiko, nervously watching Graham being taken out of the tent and away from it, trying to get loose. He looked over at Rachel, who he saw was now awake. "Hey. How are you feeling?" Gavin asked her concerned. "I tried to wake you up earlier, by calling out to you, but you wouldn't move.
"I feel so tired still." Rachel got up from leaning against her cage's bars and looked around, noticing a plate of food and a cup of water near her on the ground, just outside of her cage.
"Those men that came in brought us some food to eat. We ate a couple of bites to see if it was poisoned. Once we found out it was okay to eat and that no one was going to get sick, we ate some more. It's not bad, fills you up pretty good."
Rachel looked at the plate in front of her, wondering if she should eat. She was more tired than anything, but maybe some food would help. On her plate was some mushy stuff that looked like eggs. Next to that was something that looked like a smashed up boiled potato. A small bowl of more mushy stuff that looked like grains were apart of what was in it, was also on the plate.
"It's a type of porridge." Gavin said to Rachel, noticing her confused gaze on the bowl. "There's no real flavor to it, but the eggs and potato have a little bit of salt on them at least."
Rachel picked up the small plastic fork that was on the plate and took some bites of the eggs and potatos. There was at least a littles salt on them to take away a bit of the bitterness fortunately. She picked up the bowl of porridge and forced down a few big gulps of it, and tried to remember exactly what Mr. Tophat had said the night, before to help think about their situation. Like when she had woken up when she had first got there the night before, things were coming back to her mind. She looked up after awhile to see Graham being brought back into the tent. He had different clothes on now that looked like nothing he would choose to wear personally. They looked like he had clothes on that a businessman would wear, a brown suit with a dark tie around the neck. But the suit looked like it was four sizes too big, and the tie was oversized as well, big enough to cover almost the whole front of his chest. He was brought over to his cage and pushed back inside of it and locked in.
"Where'd they take you?" Akiko asked Graham.
"To an outside bathroom." Graham said. "It looked almost like a regular bathroom when you walked in, but it looked really small like a boxed up dressing room on the outside. That guy that took me there wouldn't let me back out of it until I was showered, brushed, and dressed."
The man that had taken and brought Graham back, now moved over to Gavin's cage, opening it after he unlocked it to now pull Gavin out, dragging him towards the tents's exit as well. Gavin tried to fight back but like Graham, could not overpower the strength of the huge man holding on to him. "Let me go!" He said, trying to twist around to get out of the man's grip. Rachel watched helplessly as she she could do nothing, stuck in her cage.
"He's probably just going to take you to the same place as me, and than bring you back." Graham said loudly to Gavin. "There's no fighting him, or slipping away, just go. His grip will just hold you stronger the more you try and fight back."
Gavin settled down and just let the man take him away, as he had no choice. Akiko looked over back at Graham after and observed his new outfit some more. He even had oversized, big and clumpy black shoes on, that made his feet resemble a clown's.
"What's with the crazy suit?" Akiko asked him.
"I don't know, they were on a small table in the bathroom. They must have been placed there by the guy who took me, or someone else while I showered, or something. I wasn't allowed out of the bathroom until I put these clothes on too, after I had washed up and brushed my hair. But its not like there was anything else but a towel to wear anyway. They were the only clothes left inside. My other ones were gone."
"He's preparing us, getting us ready for tonight." Rachel told them.
"Mr. Tophat? Getting us ready for what?" Graham asked.
"For his new show.." Rachel answered, wondering what new outfit, or costume Mr. Tophat would have planned out for her now, along with the act..