Chapter 19: Family
Matt staggered down the wide hallway, his dizziness constantly reaching new astonishing heights. The floor was moving, jerking violently from side to side and occasionally a little upwards, intent on making the visitor lose his balance sooner or later.
As if that wasn't enough, the lights were constantly flashing – one splitsecond everything was brightly lit, the next shrouded in darkness. It was like the disco from Hell.
Finally, Matt reached the end of the hallway and stumbled through an opening to his right. The next corridor was almost too narrow for him, with metallic disks in the floor spinning around at a hellish pace. If he stepped on one of them, the results would definitely not be very pleasant. There was a doorway in the left wall at the other end of the corridor.
"Matt … She's hurting me … Mom's hurting me … Please come save me … Hurry …"
It was Tommy's voice, coming from somewhere beyond that doorway. Matt almost fell for it, but he knew that wasn't the real Tommy. Instead of letting the town trick him into rushing onwards and stepping on one of the spinning disks, he walked slowly and carefully through the corridor, ignoring Tommy's whimper.
The lights continued to flash, on, off, on, off, even faster than his heartbeat. "This is just a real fucking haven for epileptics."
Matt burst into the next room and was surprised to find out that, while it seemed to be sloping down at a strange angle, it felt like he was walking upwards. "Must be some stupid architectural trick." Whatever one could call it, it was confusing as hell.
After the sloping room, he entered a labyrinth of narrow corridors. The walls were completely covered with huge, filthy mirrors.
As he ran around in the maze, he discovered that none of them reflected his current movements like ordinary mirrors would do. Instead, these mirrors showed him beating up Amanda and Tommy, yelling at them, kicking them around, throwing half-empty glass bottles at them …
He sprinted around, desperately searching for a way out, but only found more mirrors and dead ends. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit …"
Then he abruptly stopped when he noticed the mirror in the middle of the wall to his right. It was half as wide as the others and not covered by as much filth and dust.
And it only showed his own true reflection: a tired, panting man, not busy beating his kids, just trying to find a way out of Hell.
Matt raised the shotgun, swung it in a horizontal curve and hit the mirror repeatedly until it shattered. Broken glass fell back and slid through a black tube hidden behind the labyrinth wall.
Not hesitating at all, Matt jumped through the opening and slid down the tube. He landed on the grating of another outdoor area of the park and stood. Snowflakes once more fell on his shaking body.
A large tent with yellow and red stripes loomed before him. The familiar rabbit's face laughed next to the words "Robbie's Circus" on the sign above the entrance, to the left of which Amamet was standing with the fiery sword driven through his head again.
As Matt stepped into the silent circus, he thought he heard the angel's voices to his left chant something like: "Dne ti."
It was surprisingly cool inside the tent. Five rows of red seats lined up in a sloping circle surrounded the ring in the middle. A few rabbit costumes were sitting in the lower rows. They stared down at the ring, patiently waiting for the show to begin. A vague fragrance of popcorn and candyfloss wafted around.
Sophie stood in the middle of the ring, the night wind gently playing with her hair. A spotlight illuminated her body as blood trickled down from her bullet wound and coloured the sawdust red.
"Why did you do it, Matt? Why did you kill me?" she asked. "You thought it was the right thing to do, you thought you were protecting Amanda and Tommy?" This was the first time he had heard her voice since entering the town.
Matt walked down past the rows of dusty chairs, clutching the gun. Only two shots were left in it.
"Truth may seem, but cannot be. Beauty brag, but 't is not she. Truth and beauty buried be," Sophie whispered. "To take the life of another human being is always wrong, Matt. No one deserves this." She lifted her right hand and pointed to the wound. "It's just wrong."
Matt reached the lowest row of seats, climbed over the short barrier and entered the ring.
"We could have been such a happy family," Sophie said. "Isn't that right, kids?"
Two more spotlights were suddenly turned on to reveal Amanda and Tommy standing at the edge of the ring on either side of Sophie. They simultaneously ran to the middle and hugged her.
"Yes, mom. We could have been such a happy family," they both confirmed. Sophie smiled, ruffled their hair and then let her hands rest on their heads.
"You … you're not Sophie," Matt said. "And he's not Tommy, and she's not Amanda. The real Sophie's dead, Tommy and Amanda are in L.A. You're all just …"
The gross skin soon emerged from the children's scalps and began to wrap up the three bodies, unifying them into one big bizarre shape. It slid easily up Sophie's arms, down Amanda's smiling face, across Tommy's chest …
"You're just like the rest of them! The Stewardesses, the Cerberus, Weepers, Doctors, Nurses … You're monsters, too! You just looked different …"
Sirens wailed and a rusty fence suddenly appeared along the edge of the ring, trapping Matt with the unholy trinity. If he still had his radio, it'd be crackling like hell.
The three bodies rose from the sawdust as the skin slid down to Amanda's feet, across Sophie's head and around Tommy's toes. They were now completely wrapped up – the only parts that weren't covered by the filthy skin were their smiling mouths and Sophie's bullet wound. Long, razor-sharp claws emerged from the children's toes.
The Family floating before Matt let out a wrathful roar, lifted its left arm, which consisted of Sophie's left arm and Tommy's body, and swung it at Matt. He drew back just before the claws reached his stomach and fired his shotgun twice. The bullets plunged into their grotesque target and the Family quickly flew backwards, uttering a distorted joyful laughter.
Matt tried firing again, but he had run out of ammunition. He threw the weapon at the Family, which merely lifted its right arm (consisting of Sophie's right arm and Amanda), held the claws out horizontally and severed the gun while it was sailing through the air. The two pieces of the shotgun fell down to rest in the sawdust as the Family floated towards Matt and swung both of its arms back, timing the next attack.
Matt jumped sideways a splitsecond before the arms swung forwards. The Family's laughter echoed throughout the circus as it turned to once more face Matt, who had scrambled to his feet and produced the revolver.
The Family floated slowly towards Matt while he drew back, dodging the attacks, and pulled the trigger again and again. The shots didn't seem to do any damage to the creature, which continued swinging its arms at him, unabated, relentless, laughing like kids watching the circus clown.
After firing the revolver eight times, the only result of his frantic trigger-squeezing was a quiet click. He reached into his pocket to find the five spare bullets, but was interrupted by the Family's left arm thumping into him, hurling his body through the stale air until he landed painfully in the sawdust.
Matt immediately rolled around and, lying on his back, pulled out the bullets and reloaded the revolver. The Family floated up to him and lifted both of its arms to deliver the fatal blow. Matt took aim as swiftly as possible and fired furiously at the deranged being. It retreated about six feet and its arms swung down into nothingness.
Now he was out of revolver bullets, too. "Shit," he mumbled, dropped the gun and scrambled to his feet again. He got the table leg out from his backpack and started thrashing the monster, but it soon cut the weapon into three useless pieces with the Cerberus-like claws protruding from Tommy's foot.
The only weapon he had left now was the steel meat tenderiser from the prison kitchen. He pulled it out and continued beating the Family, but this time he decided to go for Sophie's head.
He was too close - the arms were giving him bruises, the claws creating gashes in his legs and arms. But he ignored the pain; after all, he wasn't really here, right? An intense desire for destroying the creature and ending all this filled his mind and body as he hammered at her stupid smile, crushed the teeth, broke her nose and smashed those green eyes hidden behind the brownish skin.
The Family's joyful laughter turned into quiet, pitiful sobbing. Its feet finally returned to the floor. It landed in the sawdust in a confusing heap of skin, torsos, limbs and blood. It was lying completely still, but Matt still landed a few more blows before he dropped the crimson meat tenderiser and silence filled the circus once more.
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