He What a day. Sprawled out on your disheveled bed, you stare at your nondescript ceiling with heavy and listless eyes and with the exclusion of the rhythmic
tic-tic-tic of the old clock in the hall the whole house is silent. You take in a deep breath, letting it out through your nostrils with a soft hum. Your feet hurt. Your back is sore. Your clothes stick to you by the sweat of a long, exhausting, and hellish day. So much work, so much time spent serving complete strangers who never appreciate the efforts you make. Part of you wishes you could damn them all, but mostly you just want to shut your eyes and fall into a long and comfortable sleep.
Tic-tic-tic.
Eyelids start to droop and the corners of your vision become hazy.
Tic-tic-tic.
Breaths deepen and slow as your mind starts to quiet.
Tic-tic-tic.
Your eyes finally close, catching one last glimpse of a shadow that you could swear wasn't there a moment ago...
The sudden crash of shattered glass jerks you from your slumber. Your eyes fly open only to be met with a blinding and painful light. Squinting against it, you raise your hand to shield your eyes whilst they adjust to the brightness of the lamps. Eventually you sit up and take a quick look around.
"What the hell? Where am I?" The room you once knew is now foreign to you. Stucco walls and carpeted floors have been replaced with creamy floral wallpaper and hardwood. Stranger than this is the bed you awoke in. No longer the simple and functional twin bed you're so familiar with, this one is easily king sized if not larger. Tall bedposts of reddish stained wood reach almost as high as the ceiling. Shear white drapes are suspended between them and would match the heavy blanket that is draped over you were it not for the blanket's rose motif.
Unsure what you should make of this situation, you get out of bed. Expecting to be met with the coldness of hardwood you instead find the soft and pleasant warmth of a rug beneath your feet, and set upright on the floor just beyond the rug's edge is an admittedly cute pair of black, toe-less slips with a note attached. Curious, you pluck the note free from the footwear.
"Dress quickly, you have a show to attend."
A frown furrows your brow as you look over the note again. No signature. You flip it over, thinking there might be more info you missed, but the back is completely blank.
"A show?" you mutter, crouching down to take a look at the slips. "What kind of show? Like, theater or something?"
As you ponder what the note could mean you notice a chair in the corner. Strange, you don't recall seeing that there when you first looked around. Perhaps you missed it in your tiredness. In either case, draped across the chair is a little blue dress. Holding it out, you quickly see how lovely and adorable it is. The white underskirt reaches just below the hem of the dress, giving it a simple frilled look, and attached at the bottom of the blue bodice is what looks to be a frilled white apron. And then it hits you, you've seen this exact kind of dress before.
"It's like Alice in Wonderland," you say, the faintest of smiles tugging at the corners of your lips. "Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to wear it."
After taking a few minutes to change into the provided outfit, you step out to look at yourself in the mirror. You don't look half bad! You take a moment to do a quick twirl, hoping to see as many of the dress' little details as you can, when you hear something fall to the floor. Looking down, you see another note that seems to have fallen from your dress and slid under the mirror. Once again, you read it:
"Follow the hall to the foyer, last door on the left. Be quick. Mustn't be late for the show."
Again you find yourself frowning. What is this show you're supposed to see? Tucking the note inside your bodice, you look to the door at the far end of the room and wonder if you should actually go. Whoever set this up has clearly gone to great lengths to impress you, and so you decide that even if your attendance is strictly out of curiosity that it would be rude of you not to at least take a look at what's going on.
After exiting the room, you cross a long hall with dozens of doors on both sides of you. The temptation to see what lies behind these doors wells up inside, but you ignore it. With so much weird stuff already going on, the last thing you need to do is walk in on something like the March Hare trying to seduce the White Rabbit. The thought immediately causes you to shudder and quashes any lingering curiosity you might have for the doors that surround you. Finally you near the end of the hall. You pluck out the note to remind yourself which door you were supposed to enter to reach the foyer. It's the last door on the left.
Old hinges creak as you push the door open and step out from the hall into the grand foyer. Pillars run parallel to the walls behind you and to your left. To your right is the sidewall of a staircase that leads to the balcony above you. Stepping out from the shadow of the balcony finally gives you an idea as to how massive this foyer is. It's almost like a ballroom in and of itself, and were it not for the stairwell and balcony leading to the second level of this incredible mansion, it easily could have been. But now that you're here, what's next?
You take a look around and spy a small table with a reading lamp. A chair with overstuffed cushions of green velvet sits next to it. Both are reflected in the floor's marble tiles, and both appear devoid of anything informative. You turn to face the ornate double-doors that mark the mansion's entrance, thinking you may find another note set between them, but there's nothing.
"Okay," you huff. "Now what?"
There's a soft tap from behind you. You gasp, startled, and spin around to see what might have broken the room's eerie silence. There, folded on the table, lies the third note. Cautious, you reach out for it, hand trembling. You're not sure if you really want to read it or not, but you take it anyway.
"Outside. Follow the trail to the Western gardens. Quickly, now! Don't want to miss the performance!"
You don't know why you feel the compulsion to run. Bursting through the doors you fly down the steps that lead up to the mansion's entrance and hurtle yourself down the well kept tree-lined trail. After a few moments you reach a branch in the road. An ornate iron sign that points toward the trail branch reads "Western Gardens." Glancing between the trees, you swallow your qualms and follow the note's instructions.
You quickly find yourself in a garden the likes of which might have existed beyond the looking glass. Gorgeous flowers of just about every color imaginable almost seem to watch you as you pass by. Butterflies flutter on past, paying you no heed as you weave your way around the circular flower beds, deeper into the garden. After a short while you find yourself approaching a gazebo covered in draping vines of ivy. Reluctantly you enter, half expecting to be attacked by the Queen of Hearts and have your head chopped off. But there's nothing inside save for an equally vine-draped exit opposite you, and it's beyond those vines that you finally start to see and hear this show you're expected to see.
Passing through the gazebo, you come out to a wide field that runs alongside the mansion. What it was meant for you couldn't say, but from the checkered red and yellow big top that stands at the far end you feel it's safe to assume they're holding some kind of carnival. Excited cheers thunder out from within and now that you have a clear idea of what to expect you find your worries have begun to fade. You approach the tent, passing a sign marked "Ringmaster Verne's Vaudevillian Circus and Shadow Show."
You've entered just in time to catch the last of the strongman act. Standing tall on the show floor, the massive bald-headed curly-moustached muscleman is stretching as the ringmaster, a creepy looking man in a red coat and pale makeup that makes him look far too similar to a corpse, announces his performer's final feat.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you bore witness as he dead-lifted seven hundred pounds of pure, hard iron! You marveled when he masterfully benched a two ton automobile! But now you will lay witness to the most incredible feat of strength the world has ever known. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are ready, let Samuel the Strongman know it with your cheers!"
As you weave your way to a seat in the stands the crowd erupts all at once, cheering Samuel onward. Of course, you remain skeptical of these claims, especially the one of him benching a two-ton car, but the strongman certainly seems confident as he stares intently at the opposite end of the tent, limbering up as he waits for his next test to arrive.
When it does, you can't believe what you see. Trumpeting every now and then as it lumbers across the show floor, you see that Samuel is actually going to try and lift a bull elephant. Not only that, the elephant is bright pink!
Jaw dropped, you find yourself unable to take your eyes off the creature as Samuel takes his place beside it. Then, with a single clap from the trainer, the elephant flops over onto its side! Unable to help yourselves, you and the crowd loose shocked cries as the animal crashes to the floor, pinning the strongman beneath its massive bulk. The ringleader tries to calm the crowd, insisting that it's all part of the show, but the grim certainty of his death is pooling in your gut. No one could survive...
"No way..."
Your jaw drops. The elephant is actually rising, and Samuel is the one lifting him! Groaning and grunting, the strongman's muscles bulge as he actually manages to lift the creature above his head! The crowd explodes with excitement, and you can't help but join in their reverie. The strongman then sets the elephant down and helps it stand up again as the ringmaster removes his hat, his neatly combed black hair shining in the yellowish lights above them, and splays his arms to the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, Samuel the Strongman!"
The crowd cheers on for a few moments more while the strongman makes his exit. Once they are quieted, the ringmaster sets his brown top hat back in place. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have been waiting for has come. Tell me, are you ready to see the Shadow Show?"
Riotous applause thunders from the crowd and the ringmaster bids them to quiet. "Now before the show can begin, we must have..." His eyes narrow and he starts to look between the stands. "...a volunteer."
A chill runs up your spine when he says this, and the elation you felt a moment ago is suddenly replaced with a horrid sense of dread. Instinct fires up within you, telling you that you must leave. You rise from your seat as the ringmaster looks through the still standing crowd, asking people if they'd be willing.
"Excuse me," you say to the woman on your right, but she does not move.
"Excuse me," you repeat, but she remains still.
"Excuse me, please!"
Finally she faces you and you feel every ounce of heat flee from your body. This woman isn't a woman at all, but a blackened and shadowy think that looks like a mummified corpse! You stumble back, trying to get away from her, but then you realize that everyone around you is just like she is!
"Get away!" you scream as they grasp for you, latching onto your limbs and your dress as the ringmaster finally turns to the final stand and locks his eyes on you.
"You there," he says, pointing his cane at you. His icy blue eyes looked glazed and lifeless, but their chilling gaze still manages to pierce you. "What's your name?"
You don't want to answer, but you do anyway.
"I see!" he says, his voice light and jovial as he approaches. "And is this your first time to the Shadow Show?"
"Y-yes." You swallow hard, hoping that he'll just let you go but knowing that he won't.
"Well then, this is certainly going to be a special treat for you!" He chuckles and twirls his cane as he approaches, and you soon realize that what you thought was macabre makeup isn't makeup at all. His skin is truly that pale, and the Glasgow grin that marks his cheeks truly are blackened and rot-infested scars. "So let's get ready, ladies and gentlemen, because it's time for the show to start!"
The crowd roars just in time, but they do not roar as they should. It is not the rumble of applause they greet him with, but the screams of anger and hatred, and as they scream they turn their eyeless and hollow gazes onto you.
"NO!" you scream, trying in vain to fight them off as they stampede for you, their clothes falling away as they charge. But it's just not their clothes, their bodies are collapsing as well, leaving wispy tendrils of blackness in their wake that coalesce into a wave that rises up all around you.
You stare up at the shadows that fill the tent. Cold sweat drips down your brow. Your heart thunders in your chest. And somewhere off in the distance a clock tower bell tolls. And the shadows crash. You scream and try to fight against them, but it is useless. The bell tolls. You tumble in suffocating blackness. The bell tolls. You break through for just a moment, reaching for the ringmaster as he stands in the center ring and watches you with a wicked grin, and the blackness finally swallows you as, again, that infernal bell tolls. That bell. That bell! That god damned-
"BELL!"
You jolt up in your bed, heart pounding in your skull and face damp with cold sweat. Out in the hall you hear the chimes of that old clock and finally let go of the breath you didn't know you were holding. "A nightmare," you say, wiping the sweat from your brow. "Just a nightmare." Or was it? As your hand falls to your side, you feel something in the bed beside you. It's a box, wrapped in colorful paper and tied with a sweet little bow. Picking it up, you realize it has a note attached. You pluck it free.
As Autumn leaves turn brown,
And tumble to the ground,
You'll surely know
The Shadow Show's in town!
~Ringmaster Verne
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