"Look at this." Steve grinned, showing them a paper.
The paper was a flyer. A startling, violent layout. Beneath a snarling wolf's head: Cirque Du Freak - Human oddities and other living curiosities. Midnight. Zeiterion Theater. $20 - Admission is at the discretion of the proprietor.
"Human oddities and other living curiosities..." Steve looked at Kuri. "Other. Does that mean not human?"
Darren took the flyer.
"A freak show." He sighed in excitement. "Ever been to one?"
"Just this school." Steve grinned.
Darren turned the flyer over. There were tire tracks on the back. They hear the sound of distant tire squeals, but the Lincoln was long out of view. Just an empty street now...
Kuri looked off into the distance, eyes gleaming silver…
At that moment, the bell rang, and they scrambled into the Science Lab.
A Boa Occidentalis probed the confines of its glass prison. Boa Constictor by any other name. It was a prison within a prison because it was inside... the school Science Lab.
The teacher, Mr. Dalton, moved ponderously around the room. His voice was like a metronome.
"As you can see reptiles and amphibians are not one in the same." He lectured.
As Mr. Dalton continued, Kuri, Darren, and Steve crowded together at one desk, the only desk with three lab partners, due to the uneven student number.
They all stared at a Komodo Dragon. After Mr. Dalton passed by, Steve brought up a web search on Cirque du Freak to show them.
There were a dozen or so entries. He picked one: History of the Side Show.
Under 1920's there was an older, much more 'Victorian' pamphlet for the Cirque du Freak. A more ornate version of the same Wolf Head. The same notice from the proprietor.
Steve spread the flyer out to compare, whispering:
"1923..."
"Must be a different one." Darren said.
"I doubt that." Kuri said. "I think it's the same one.
Steve scrolled down through pictures:
Sword swallower and glass eater: OHIO GRAY.
Frog boy: AVERY CHILDS.
Human skeleton: J.D. COMBS. .and then...
Egyptian Soothsayer: LARTEN CREPSLEY. Crepsley's gaze was startling. Like he could see through the screen, even from 1923. Steve looked like he's just seen a ghost.
Suddenly, he hit print. As a PRINTER against the wall clicked to life, Steve looked back at the two of them.
Kuri was staring at the picture too. Wasn't that the man who had visited last week and marked her? The man who had told her that Reiko was dead…
But how was he there, in 1923?
He must be…
A vampire!
She was startled back to life when Steve spoke.
"I gotta show you guys something..."