I don't own Cirque du Freak or any of its original characters.
The screaming really wasn't necessary. The freak was terrifying, but it was chained up in a cage.
It was the Wolf-Man. He was horribly ugly, covered in hair, and sporting only a loincloth. His eyes were yellow. And his teeth stained red.
He roared and shook the cage. People started screaming again. Darren wanted to scream but he didn't want to look like a baby.
When the Wolf-Man calmed down Mr. Tall walked onto the stage. "Ladies and Gentlemen." He spoke, " Welcome to the Cirque Du Freak, home to the world's most remarkable human beings. We are an ancient circus; we have toured for five hundred years bringing the grotesque to generation after generation. "
"Those who are easily frightened should leave now," He warned. "Our freaks are very real, each one is unique, and all are dangerous."
With that he walked off stage and two women walked on. One of them opened the Wolf-Man's cage slowly moving her fingers in a circle in front of him. She was hypnotizing him Darren realized. The other woman stood in front of the crowd, "You must be very quiet," She said, "Or else the Wolf-Man will wake and that will be potentially deadly."
They brought the Wolf-Man around the seats, even allowed people to touch him! Steve stroked his fur once.
"What did it feel like?" Darren asked him.
"Spiky," Steve replied softly, "like a hedgehog. It smelled like burning rubber too."
All of a sudden there was a loud BANG! And the Wolf-Man was brought out of his trance. He roared and pounced. People screamed, fighting one another to get to the exit. One woman didn't get up fast enough. The Wolf-Man pounced, and the woman sat there with a bleeding stump at the end of her arm. Her hand was clutched in the jaws of the freak.
Mr. Tall appeared suddenly, whispering something in the Wolf-Man's ear. Immediately he calmed and dropped the hand at his feet. Two short hooded people escorted him to his cage. While they closed the door and chained it up, Mr. Tall approached the woman.
He sprinkled a purple sparkling powder on her wrist and placed her hand onto the stump. One of the hooded people silently gave him a needle and thread. Quickly he neatly stitched the hand onto her wrist. "Move you hand," He said softly. She tried to wiggle her fingers. They moved.
"I gave warning," Mr. Tall said. "This is not a safe circus, accidents do happen. If you have any fear, leave now before it is too late."
A few people got up and left, most stayed to watch the show.
"Do you want to leave?" Elena asked the boys.
"No. Why do you?" Steve asked.
"Nope!" She said popping the 'p'. The three friends stayed in their seats too afraid of looking like babies than to leave from fear.
Alexander Ribs came on next. He was the skinniest man anyone had ever seen. He was basically a skeleton. He had a wide friendly smile as he stood before the crowd. He said he was a contortionist, so his bones were basically made of rubber. First he threw his head back so far it looked like he had been he turned and continued bending so that his head touched the floor. He then but his hands behind his head, pulling his head through. He had officially turned himself into a human pretzel. He began to unwind like a top, watching him made Darren feel sick.
When he had unwound, one of the cloaked people handed him a pair of drumsticks. He started to play music on his ribcage, just like a xylophone. When he hit the last note, Alexander took a big bow and the audience applauded.
After Alexander Ribs came Rhamus Twobellies. He was as fat as Alexander was thin. A lady rolled a table full of food out behind him. Darren thought that there had to have been enough food on that table to feed a whole army for at least a week. Rhamus offered a gold bar to anyone who could guess how long it took him to eat all the food. Most guesses were around an hour or so. A lady set the timer and he started to eat. He just shovelled the food into his mouth handful by handful. When he was done everyone gaped. It had only taken him four minutes and fifty-six seconds to eat all of it. "That was good," He said. "But I could have done with more dessert." Everyone laughed at his comment, and applauded his act.
A second table was brought out full of nuts, bolts, and glass statues. Before starting, he warned the crowd that this was only possible because he had two stomachs, and that if any of them tried it they would surely die. Then he began to eat the food the same way he had eaten the food. Shaking his belly, Darren could hear the metal bits inside. Rhamus then began to spit the nuts back out. Every single one! He bowed low to the ground as people clapped for his performance.
Next was Hans Hands. He walked on his hands rather than his feet. He challenged people in the audience to races. Them on their feet, him on his hands. He beat all of them.
When Hans Hands had walked off the stage, a woman called Truska came out. She made a strange sound, like a seal barking and then astonishingly, a beard began to grow. Mr. Tall came out and offered a gold bar to anyone who could cut her beard. No one could, though Darren had thought it was as soft as silk. She made the barking noise again, and the beard grew right back in, leaving her just as beautiful as before.
She left the stage and Mr. Tall took it. "Our next act is a rather unique one. It is also rather dangerous, I would advise you all to keep quiet and please hold your applause until you are told it is safe."After what happened with the Wolf-Man, nobody took his advice lightly.
"I give you Larten Crepsley!" The lights dimmed and a creepy looking man walked on stage. He was tall and thin, very pale with bright green eyes that stood out against the paleness, and a crop of orange hair on the top of his head. He had a long scar running down the side of his face that made his mouth look as if it stretched across his whole face.
He was dressed in red, and carried a small wooden cage with him.
He looked an awful lot like Elena. Darren remembered the flyer, and his suspicion that Mr. Crepsley was Elena's father. The notion came back to him in a rush. Seeing the similarities between his friend and the man who just walked on stage.
Darren and Elena both missed the first part of Mr. Crepsley's speech when he started to explain his act because they both were staring at Steve.
Everybody had been totally quiet while Crepsley walked on the stage except one person who gasped loudly.
Steve.
He was almost as white as Mr. Crepsley was. He looked as though he'd seen a ghost.
"It is not true that all tarantulas are poisonous," Mr. Crepsley said. He had a deep voice. Both Elena and Darren tore their eyes from Steve and tried to focus on the act. "Most are as harmless as any spider you find. The one that are poisonous only have enough poison to kill very small animals. "
"But some are deadly," He continued, "Some can kill a man in one bite. I have one such spider." With that final statement the cage door was opened.
Nothing happened at first, and then the largest spider Darren had ever seen crawled out. It was green, and purple, and red. The legs were long and hairy, and its body was big and fat. Even Darren, who loved spiders, thought it was terrifying.
"Madam Octa has been with me for several years," Mr. Crepsley said. "She lives far longer than ordinary spiders, some of her kind live twenty to thirty years. She is both poisonous and intelligent."
One of the hooded people brought a goat onto the stage. The person tied it to the table and then left. Leaving the goat frightened and upset.
The spider crept to the edge of the table eyeing the goat. Mr. Crepsley brought a tin whistle to his lips and blew. At the sound of the whistle, Madam Octa leaped and landed on the goat's neck. She bared her fangs and sunk them deep into the goat's neck. The goat dropped to the ground, still breathing faintly.
"The flute is how I control Madam Octa." Mr. Crepsley said. "Though we have been together for a long time, she would surely kill me if I ever lost it."
"The goat is paralyzed," He said. "Madam Octa is trained to kill on the second bite, though if we left the goat here it would surely die in a few days time. She will finish it quickly though." He blew the whistle again and Madam Octa sunk her fangs into the goat a second time. This time it stopped breathing completely.
Mr. Crepsley then blew a little tune on the flute. The spider crawled towards him and he outstretched his arm. The spider crawled up his arm, over his shoulder, up his neck, over his ear, and then settled at the top of his head.
Mr. Crepsley began to play his flute again. Madam Octa began to swing from his chin as she swung up, the thread snapped and she tumbled down landing on Mr. Crepsley's mouth!
Mr. Tall appeared with another flute. He couldn't play it as well as Mr. Crepsley but he was good enough. At the sound of Mr. Tall's playing, Madam Octa began to spin a web right over Mr. Crepsley's lips.
When she was finished, Mr. Crepsley ate the web right off his mouth! When he had finished he said, "Delicious. Nothing tastier than fresh spider webs. They are a treat where I come from."
When the act was finished Mr. Crepsley put his spider back into her cage and bowed low while everybody clapped.
Darren turned to Steve to tell him how great he thought the spider was but he was still watching Mr. Crepsley.
"Steve, what's wrong?" Elena asked.
She didn't get an answer.
"Steve?" Darren questioned.
"Shhhhh!" He snapped back. When Mr. Crepsley had left the stage he finally spoke to him. Then he turned and gasped: "This is amazing!"
"The spider?" Elena asked. "She was great, how do you think-"
"No not the spider! Mr. Crepsley." He had paused before saying the man's name as if he wanted to call him something else.
"Let's just hope he doesn't know I know, because if he does we might never make it out alive."
Elena and Darren both looked confused at Steve's exclamation but decided to just brush it off.
The rest of the acts weren't as exciting, though they were still enjoyable. There was Gertha Teeth, who had the strongest teeth in the world. A hooded person even hit her teeth with a sledgehammer and nothing happened!
Next were the twisting twins. They were contortionists like Alexander Ribs. They twisted their bodies around each other so that they looked like one person with two fronts.
When Sive and Sersa had finished, Mr. Tall came on and thanked everyone for coming. It was a really dull ending in Darren's opinion but it wasn't really the ending. As people left, a large snake descended from the balcony, slithering down to meet the people at the bottom.
Then a boy came out of the shadows. He was about fourteen or fifteen, with long yellowy-green hair. His eyes were narrowed like a snake's and he was covered in light green scales!
The snake came down and draped around the boy's shoulder like a scarf. He stroked under her chin and the snakes' jaws opened wide. The boy stuck his head into the snake's mouth. Slowly he pulled his head out and the snake wrapped around him, covering everything but his face. The boy grinned and took a bow.
"And that folks, really is the end," Mr. Tall said.
He stood at the back holding the exit curtains and he smiled when we approached. "Well, children," He said. "How did you enjoy the show?"
"It was awesome!" Elena said.
"You weren't scared?" He asked.
"No more than anyone else." Darren answered.
When they exited Steve stopped in the corridor. "You two go back by yourselves."
"Why?" Elena asked suspiciously.
"Because I'm not coming." Steve said. "I'll follow you after."
"But-" Darren protested.
"Alright." Elena said pulling Darren's arm, "We'll see you after."
She pulled Darren out of Steve's line of sight. "What are you doing?" Darren hissed.
"Seeing what he's up to." Elena snapped back. She dragged Darren up the stairway that led to the haunted balcony.
They stayed there for ages waiting for the last of the audience to file out. They saw a shadow creep up and stand center stage. The shadow turned to face the lights. It was Steve.
He turned to the left of the stage, then the right, looking for the way to go.
A voice came from above his head. "Are you looking for me?"
A figure jumped onto the stage, red cloak billowing behind them like wings. It was Mr. Crepsley.
Steve tried to say something but he looked too terrified to even move.
"I saw you watching me." Mr. Crepsley noted, "You gasped when you saw me. Why?"
"B-b-b-because I kn-know who you a-are," Steve stuttered.
"I am Larten Crepsley." The man said raising an eyebrow.
"No." Steve replied. "I know who you really are.
"Oh?" Mr. Crepsley smiled. "Tell me little boy," He sneered, "Who am I really?"
"Vur Horston." Steve said, and Mr. Crepsley's jaw dropped.
"You're a vampire." Steve finished. The silence that followed was as long as it was terrifying.