Nightmare Carnival

The Maestro gave orders for the clowns to bring the leopard cage, the leopard having given up the ghost through the harsh winter. The three buffoons brought the metal barred enclosure and set it down so that its opening was congruent with the sliding panel of the crate. When all was ready, Mr. Arvet went to the box and pulled up the hatch. Immediately some large tawny colored beast shot forth. It moved too quickly to see it well at first. The clowns dropped the sliding door of the metal cage and trapped it. Ichbon and I stepped closer to see.

“What in God’s dry earth?” said the Maestro.

“Me and my woman call it the Dust Demon,” said Arvet.

The Miserable Clowns backed out of the tent and fled.

The thing was as long as the leopard had been, but bulkier, more muscular, the very color of the grit that blew across the plains in those dirty days. Its body was covered with a fine, spiraled wool, and it moved on powerful legs, at the ends of which were paws with long, black, curving nails. There was no tail to speak of, just a stub, and the head was like nothing ever seen outside a nightmare. Its eyes were the tiniest black beads, and it had no ears, only holes that appeared as if they’d been drilled into either side of its skull. The mouth was wide, and there was no jaw, just a thin membrane in the shape of a giant open tulip, the whiskered edges rippling with life. The Demon grunted and then howled to discover it had not escaped. When its maw was wide, further in there could be spotted rows of sharp black teeth.

“An abomination,” I whispered from my other face, unable to help myself.

Arvet looked around as if unsure who’d spoken — he’d not seen my other me — and finally said, “Well, it is a demon.”

Ichbon shook his head. “You say this came out of a dust storm?”

“Doc Thedus, up in Black Mesa, guessed it had been hibernating under the ground for centuries, and when the topsoil blowed away, it was awoken.”

“Maybe,” said the Maestro, “maybe.” I could tell from his expression that he was seeing dollar signs. “How much do you want for it?”

“A hundred,” said the farmer.

“A hundred dollars,” said Ichbon, and put the hat he’d been holding back on his head as if to make him think clearer. “No doubt you’ve uncovered a bona fide wonder here, Mr. Arvet. I’d like to make a deal with you, but I’ve not got a hundred to spare at this moment. We’ve yet to start this year’s caravan. I’ll tell you what I can do. I’ll give you seventy dollars now, and in the fall, we can meet up in Shattuck, where we put on our last show, and I’ll give you another fifty. That’s more than you’re asking. By then, we’ll be flush after our journey to the east.”

Arvet rubbed the back of his head and stared at the ground for a long time. “I suppose I could do that.”

“Good enough,” said the Maestro and shook hands with the farmer.

“What do we need to know about the Dust Demon? What does it eat? How do you care for it?”

“First off, you gotta be careful around it. The thing took down my neighbor’s wife and ate her like a ham sandwich. Luckily he realized there was money to be made from it and instead of shooting it on the spot, helped me trap it. I gotta split the profits with him seventy/thirty of a hundred dollars. I guess I’ll keep the extra twenty for myself.”

“Besides farmers’ wives, what does it eat?” I asked.

“Not sure,” he said. “We had an outbreak of jackrabbits up there and they were easy food to catch for it, so I fed it jackrabbits. It ate ’em but without any real enthusiasm. One thing’s for sure, whatever you do don’t put any water near it. Water makes it weak. My wife put a bowl of water in its cage early on like you would do for a dog, and it almost perished on the spot till we come to understand it couldn’t abide anything wet. Keep it covered in the rain.”

That night, the Maestro gathered us beneath the tent and told us his plans for the Dust Demon and how the creature would save us all. Martina, the Dog Girl, described Ichbon’s delivery as “grandiloquent,” which all but Ichbon knew meant “meandering and tedious.” The tent by then had trapped the Demon’s stench, and we breathed it while the old man carried on. Finally, Jack Sprat, the Thinnest Man Alive, said in a slightly raised voice, “It smells worse than shit in here.” From its cage behind the speaker’s podium the creature let loose a weak cry.