Disclaimer - "Mystery Case Files" and all related characters, events, and concepts belong to Big Fish Games, Elephant Games, and Eipix Entertainment. I get no monetary benefit from this. My benefit is the enjoyment of dealing with beloved characters. Original characters, however, are mine - please contact for permission before using. This includes Darnell as a defined, fleshed-out character in his own right.
Jokers Wyrd
by DragonDancer5150
Chapter 5 - Humanity
There were several wagons of all shapes and sizes clustered in the yard, most of them animal cages. The various animals within had been watching Darnell with interest, but as soon as he was free of the clown car, a great commotion rose up all around him. The teen yelped and spun away from the cage he'd pressed his back to when a paw reached over his shoulder, the claws catching ineffectually at his shirt as he twisted free. He turned to face a lion pressed up against bars made of hardened black and red licorice twists. Like the bear on the unicycle, the lion's claws were all broken and ragged, its once-proud mane little more than patches of scraggly tufts around its head. Darnell could see the poor beast's ribs and hip bones. It gazed at him with desperate pleading in its eyes.
In its very human eyes.
Darnell felt his stomach drop with a sickening lurch as he recalled the boss clown's words. His voice shook as he gasped out, "Y-you're . . . you're human . . . aren't you?" The lion mewled, then purred at him as if trying to coax him.
Let me out!
Darnell looked around at the other cages. Leopards, rhinos, seals, and more clawed at their cage frames, threw themselves against the bars, or just stared at him, reaching for him, and roaring, trumpeting, howling at him.
Help us! Free us!
Horror and grief warred for attention within Darnell, his eyes blurring with tears as his heart pounded once more in his chest. With all the ruckus the animals were raising, he knew he only had moments, maybe seconds, before the clowns came to see what was going on. He knew he should take flight, but he couldn't just leave all these poor souls. Casting his gaze about, he spotted a bucket of juggling pins next to one of the wagons. He snatched up a pin in each hand, then turned and swung one at the lock of the nearest cage's door. He didn't actually think it would work, but to his shock, the padlock shattered as if made of sugar glass. The gaunt tiger within rammed the door open with its head and leaped free without a second's hesitation. Darnell hesitated no longer either, darting among the wagons and wielding the juggling pins like baseball bats to smash padlocks left and right. All three clowns came bolting out of the big top just then, frighteningly quick and agile despite their baggy clothes and oversized shoes. The animals scattered as they sprang from their cages, some darting away among the wagons and beyond, others charging the clowns or turning on the monkeys as they appeared from all around, the abused beasts raging against their tormentors. Darnell used the confusion to spare time to free the rest of the animals before throwing down the juggling pins and fleeing.
Beyond the cage wagons were game booths and vending carts. Spray paint had changed the sign over one stall from 'Kissing Booth' to 'Killing Booth.' The popcorn stand was crawling with roaches. The shooting gallery looked like the site of a blood bath. Darnell passed carts selling 'eye scream' and 'rotten candy', and a ring toss booth that consisted of candy necklaces to be flung at severed hands mounted on the back wall. Darnell did a double-take at a stall that he thought at first sold candied apples until he realized the 'apples' had faces. They looked like someone had dipped baby doll heads. At least, he hoped they were from dolls. And here and there around him were clusters of festive helium balloons gently bobbing and swaying in the air above their moorings, all of them covered in crimson paint splatters. Or what Darnell told himself were just paint splatters.
He was passing a fortune teller booth with a life-sized - or death-sized, as the case may be - Grim Reaper prop standing within when he heard the clowns approaching, snarling curses and promising all manner of horrific 'fun' when they caught the troublemaker. Darnell cast about for a place to hide, but movement out of the corner of his eye made him pause to turn and look up at the Grim Reaper. Pinpoints of light within the otherwise empty hood shifted and looked down at him. Darnell yelped in fright and turned to run, but a quick scythe hooked around in front of him, catching him across the chest. The teen panicked for an instant, knowing that the sharp edge of a scythe blade was along the inside of the curve, but this one was blunt to the point of rounded and seemed to be made of cheap plastic, like a costume prop from Party City. All the same, it had the strength of steel as Death pulled him backwards. Darnell stumbled, too off-balance to free himself, until he felt the counter of the booth across the back of his waist. Death threw an arm out and across above his head, flinging its floor-length sleeve over Darnell like a burial mantle.