Synopsis: In this chapter, Jack makes his all-but-heroic escape from Blackjack's carnival, unintentionally dragging along Rayne and finding out some creepy things about the ringmaster and his screwed-up circus.

Author's Note: Would really love some usable feedback, like, 'This piece flows well, Everything is making sense, I enjoy the direction in which this story is going, or, There isn't enough sensory information, This piece doesn't flow well, It's dragging along too slowly. Well, I'm not sure what else to say here, so, hope you enjoy it and hope you're all well.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 11: Too Late To Turn Back Now

The rain stopped sometime in the early morning and with its cessation came my awaking. Over the years I had become accustomed to waking up at the crack of dawn in order to go to school or to go to work, depending on what the day was. Now, just weeks after graduating, I’m still used to getting up at five-thirty in the morning and sitting awake, wondering what day it is.
As I woke up the morning after my fit in the middle of the night, I made sure not to wake up Rayne. I had made a plan just before going to sleep, vowing to get out of here before the tent city would be awake and buzzing with activity. And my escaping meant that Rayne couldn’t come, which, something inside me told me she would want to.
She’s not my problem, it isn’t like I’m da—no, don’t even say that stupid word! She’s not my problem, not my problem! I have to make sure to leave her behind. She came into this world on her own and she’s strong enough to leave on her own. I just want to get out of here before Blackjack makes my stay here at the Hotel California permanent, which I’m sure he’d just love to do.
I pack up all the things that I claim to own and put everything Rayne lent me, save for the overcoat, back in the places where she made them appear. Then I don the overcoat, feeling the heavy fire axe through the thick material, and begin out of her tent. Rayne is left lying in her cot, asleep and not making a single sound since her nightmare and night terror in the dark last night.
As I step out into the crisp, cool morning, I let the chilly air settle over my overly hot frame and take in a deep, cleansing breath. Turning around, I pull shut the flaps to her tent and then back away. Making sure that she heard nothing, I turn on heel and begin down the dirt path and towards that glimmering aluminum bank vault holding my possessions.
The entire carnival is quiet, a creepy quiet that can actually be felt in the air. It’s heavy, thick and makes me feel as if a thousand pairs of eyes are peering down upon me. Despite that strange feeling residing in the back of my skull all of the tents that line the calm carnival lane are still as graves, and equally as creepy.
Looking up to each of them as I pass, I find that all of them are truly as still as they seem. Rusting pieces of metal stick in between them and streams of heavy, gray rainwater gushes into runoff ditches and pools around a few of the tents. Huge brown trunks and wooden crates stack alongside a few of the doors or fill voids between them, but, I see nobody out.
No eyes peer through the thick canvas material, there are no bodies are huddled in the alleys between the stout hovels. There is absolutely nobody awake and I travel through a temporary ghost town, but that doesn’t make me feel anymore alone. Swallowing hard, I sink my chilled hands into the overcoat and huddle into myself.
Focusing forward, I turn my eyes from the trailer ahead to the ground between my quickly moving paws, and nearly run forward to get away from the tents. Around me I hear nothing at all save for the whistling of the wind. I smell the faint scent of humidity and the hot scent of a heater running somewhere nearby. I see nothing moving at all and yet I feel as if Big Brother were watching me from somewhere, some telescreen spying on me from where I cannot see it.
“Forget about it.” I whisper to myself. “There’s nobody here, nobody at all.”
But I cannot shake the feeling from my back. I just huddle into my fluffing fur and rush forward as quickly as I can. I’m not sure why I feel so nervous. I’m not sure if it’s from fear of Blackjack finding out I’m trying to escape or having Rayne discover that I’m leaving. I don’t know, I mean, why should I care? She’s not my problem!
Lifting my eyes up, I watch the trailer come nearer and nearer. Checking over my shoulder, I look back down the dirt path and see that it is completely desolate. The only thing that moves is the flap of a tent’s door caught in the wind. Swallowing hard, I turn away and press onwards.
My hands slip out of the overcoat and then begin to unbutton the front. The heavy black buttons fight my clawed fingers but slip through the heavy, mildewed material after some pressure. Then my hands go in and I feel the wooden handle of the axe, hanging in its cloth loop where I had left it yesterday evening.
I hope that nobody’s watching me or I’m dead, or worse, Blackjack’s plaything for eternity. With one hand I take the steel head of the axe and then press it into my body. I let the other hand swing free; hoping to make it seem as if I’m just walking down the lane, to whomever is out there. I just know that a pair of eyes must be pinned upon me.
As I near the gleaming aluminum airstream, I look up the street and make sure there is nobody there. Taking another secure glance over my shoulder, I see that the street is clear in that direction as well. My eyes even turn to every shadow between the heavy tents, beneath every canopy, down every nook and cranny to make sure a creature isn’t there waiting.
Yanking the axe up and out of the loop, I grab the wooden handle near the head with my free hand and then pull it out of the jacket. Letting the jacket swing free, I hold the axe into my body and charge forward. My target is small, a little bronze Master Lock padlock hanging on an iron loop on the front of the door.
This is too easy; the thought goes through my head. But I’m not going to question it; I’m just going to accept it. Pulling the axe up on top of my shoulder, I charge for the door and then, just feet away from the side of the trailer, I plant my paws, toes spread apart and claws down like extra stabilizing legs on a wrecking ball.
Grunting and clenching my jaw tight, I pull the heavy fire axe over my shoulder and then swing my entire body into the movement. The axe flies over my shoulder and then smashes down onto the body of the lack, sheering it in half. Several free pieces fly into the ground while the body thumps down into the muddy ground, crumpled like a piece of paper.
Lowering the axe to my waist, I huff and puff as I look to the little bronze piece that still sits in the hole holding the door shut. Swallowing hard, I lean forward and pry it out and drop it to the ground. I take up the door handle on the front of the trailer and then pull it outwards, watching as it swings free.
A loud grinding noise fills the air as the rusty hinges of the trailer’s door cry out from underuse. The hinges are just one part of the rusting, barely-used, yet somehow still shining trailer. The noise hits my ears like the explosion of an atom bomb and I swing my head around, wondering if anybody heard the noise that breaks the still of the silent morning.
When I see no movements at all, I slide the shaft of the axe through my grip until the steel head touches my hand and sigh as my body relaxes a bit. Turning back toward the open door, I step forward and up into the blackened doorway. Once inside, I turn towards the back of the dark trailer and see that it is piled with junk.
The trailer is only about eight feet high from the floor to the ceiling and about eight feet wide from side to side, but it is deep enough to park a Cadillac Deville in with comfort. But there is so much stuff in here, piles upon piles of boxes, bags, crates, trunks and loose items that it’s hard to even stand in comfortably.
There is an aisle down the very center of the trailer, but some things are pouring out into it, mostly because of the bottoms of several cardboard boxes have rotted out over the years. To the sides of this aisle, it is nearly six feet high packed with strange oddities spanning the decades. Some of them even hang from the ceiling from hooks.
Beginning forward, my eyes are immediately filled with too many things to focus on. To my right is a huge pile of old dresses and fancy clothing that have become black and gray from the collection of dust. On top of the pile of woolen clothes are several hats that appear to come from before the Civil War and are rotted and mildewed like the rest of the clothes.
Immediately to my right is a pile of umbrellas, canes, walking sticks and pointers, all of them snapped in half, while on top of them is a box filled with watches, one of which still ticks despite requiring winding. Beside it is a huge bronze globe upon which a box filled with glasses is stacked. Hung over that is a wooden kite hanging from which is a little model plane.
My paw bangs into the foot of a creaky, iron rolling chair upon which a pile of cameras is placed. Several photographs are perched upon them, a lot of them featuring people that seem very creepy and unnerving with unnatural poses and black eyes. That’s the way it seems to go as I search the entire trailer, my eyes filled with too much to go through everything.
As I search through the trailer, I begin to think that either my stuff is hidden too deep in this antique collector’s dream or that it isn’t here to begin with. But as I near the very back of the trailer, to where the ceiling rolls down to meet the floor, I see my jacket placed down onto a crate on top of which my boots have been set.
I smile and rush towards it, quickly throwing off the heavy overcoat and dropping the axe to the metal floor. I grab my boots and hug them to my chest before I kneel down and attempt to put them on. My paws slip into them, but, I find them so unnatural, so unfitted to my new paws that I take them off without being upset. I knew that was coming in the first place.
Next I take up my jacket and quickly, almost jerkily, throw the jacket over my shoulders and force my arms into the sleeves. As the black leather and cotton shell hug my frame, I wrap my arms around my waste and sigh. I hate it when I can’t find my things or lose something that’s important to me. I feel through my jacket and make sure everything is there. My wallet, keys and the gun are still there, untouched.
“Thank God.” I mumble to myself.
Turning around, I begin back towards the door leading outside, ready to get myself away from this creepy rust hole. With my eyes and hands focused on my jacket, I step over the jacket and axe and walk towards the door. But suddenly I stop when something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye.
A shadow dances across the light that streams in through the open door of the trailer for only a second before disappearing. Even more, the rancid, acidic smell of an unclean litter box on top of rotting meat and unkempt clothes touches my nose, overpowering the smell of moth balls, rust and mildew which had rushed me as the door opened.
I came to a quick conclusion: someone else is here. Lowering my hands from my jacket, I look to the door and wait. The slight sound of breathing tickles the inside of my ears, but, nothing else gives me a clue as to who it is. But I know one thing: it isn’t Blackjack. If it was Blackjack, I would be either dead or something near it by now.
No, this must be someone else. Quietly I reach into my jacket and feel the ivory handle of that pistol brush against the pads on my right hand. But I quickly take my hand away and decide against using the firearm. No, I would have to save the few bullets I have in it, incase Blackjack decides to make an abrupt appearance.
Instead, I take a slow step back over the jacket and axe, making sure not to bump into anything or make any obvious noise. Then, once I am still once more, I kneel down and grab silently the axe that I used to break into the trailer. I lift it from the ground, the steel head brushing against the metal floor as I lift it upwards.
Standing straight once more, my tail flicking back and forth behind my back and my ears moving around like radar dishes, I feel over the axe’s handle with my hands and lick my lips. I take a couple of cool, slow breaths and begin forward. This isn’t the first fight that I’ve went into, no, not even the tenth.
Back in Baltimore I used to beat the hell out of anyone who dared tread upon the honor of me or anyone in my family. But those were just schoolyard fights, nothing compared to the people I would fight at the garage, whenever the boss was drunk and they would try to take advantage of me. But even that could be nothing compared to this.
I hold the axe to my chest and march forward, my pawsteps falling lightly upon the metal floor, save for the click-clack of the claws that protrude through the thick, white socks of fur on my legs. As I round the last box in the trailer, I turn towards the door and go into the doorway.
Looking outwards, I immediately see who it is that has come-a-calling. Standing just ten feet from the open door of the trailer is the ape-man. He is nearly eight feet high, his shoulders nearly four feet across. His arms are as long as a small car and his head is the size and shape of a football.
The ape-man is dressed like a strange butler today, with a ripped pair of pants and a tuxedo’s jacket and shirt with tattered coattails. His shoes are huge and black, but are dulled and muddy from overuse. Big black socks reach up from the shoes and hide beneath the frayed ends of the black pants. I can even see suspenders holding the pants up through the one-size-too-small jacket.
His eyes stare down at me, huge and brown, but seemingly red. His face, dirty and unshaved, is pulled downwards in an ugly frown. Even his eyebrows seem unkempt as they fall towards the ground in an angry scowl. The smell that radiates from him can almost be seen in the air surrounding him, it’s that powerful.
I step down from out of the trailer and look up at him, making sure that he knows that I’m not afraid of him. But that doesn’t seem to work. He cracks his knuckles without ever lifting his hands from his sides and he turns his head to the side, his lips pursing up. I’m not sure if he’s here because Blackjack sent him, or if he’s here because he heard me.
“What do you think you’re doing, chump?” He demands of me in his deep, smoker’s voice.
“Who are you calling chump, chimp?” I ask him.
His lips part and he shows his teeth to me as he growls angrily. His teeth are yellow and some of them are broken, but all of them are pulled and have grown at snaggletooth random, pointing out in every direction more like fangs than teeth. Then he grunts and some spittle flies out, tinted yellow like the hole it came from.
“Aw, you not allowed in there,” He cries out, “you dead!”
Before I can even make any kind of response, he lifts his arms up into the air and throws them over his right shoulder. As if they were dead weight, the ape-man growls loudly and whips them down in front of me as he takes a strong step forward. His arms fly out in front of him and whip dangerously close to my body.
Taking a step backwards, I back just mere inches out of his reach as I throw the axe up in front of me. A loud rip fills my ears as the ape-man’s arms swing past, his cloths having caught upon the blade of the axe. As the monster takes a step back and holds his arms back in front of him, he looks down to them.
Blood runs down from a cut on his hand where the axe’s head caught it. He holds his hands to his nose and sniffs it before grunting and turning his dirt-colored eyes back towards me. He shows his teeth again and then growls loudly, pulling his jowls apart like a lion in mid-pounce.
Stepping forward, he lifts his arms up over his head and holds them behind his back. Then, quicker than his hulking body should be able to move, he swings his arms back in front of him and slams them down towards me. My body tenses up and I dive to the side just as his arms slam down into the front of the trailer, smashing the metal as if it were a cardboard box.
The dirt and mud smears up onto my jacket and jeans, but I’m alright. The ape-man screams out in frustration as he lifts his arms from the wreckage. I roll onto my back, one hand still wrapped around the axe, and look up to the hulking monster standing above me. Pieces of metal fall from around his wrists as he steps away from the trailer, his eyes as wide as landmines and his face as red as a fire truck.
“You stay still now so I can crush you!” He demands dumbly.
Turning in my direction, he holds out his right hand, splays apart the fingers and then whips the limb at me. Knowing that I cannot avoid the strike, I swing up the axe just in time for him to slam his hand down onto the steel head, but missing the blade. Redrawing his hand, he growls, now noticing the axe itself.
He chuckles and then pulls his arms back over his head for another strike like the first one, which would crush me like an orange. While he grunts and groans as he prepares himself for another strike, I roll over onto my stomach and then jump up onto my paws.
Turning away from him, I begin to dash away, but the ape-man seems to plan to not let me escape. Abandoning his heavy attack, he whips his arm down and hits my legs with such force that it throws me over onto the ground. For a few seconds I spin into the air, the world moving like the inside of a dryer must move to a sock inside, before I slam to the ground.
“You no run!” He cries.
Rolling over onto my back, I look up at him and see him stumble forward, ready to strike me again. Lifting one of his hands up, he throws it down at me like a bag of sand. I put the axe between me and him, but this time he doesn’t hit the head. His hand smashes into the wooden handle and splinters it in two, cracking it down the center diagonally.
Pulling his hand back, probably full of splinters, he swings at me with the other hand. Dropping the end with the axe because of the shift of weight, I throw up the other end, pointing a new pointed end away from my body. Without thinking, the ape-man puts the palm of his hand right down the spike until most of the spike is right through the very center.
It is just then that the ape-man realizes his mistake and yanks his arm away from me, screaming in pain. Holding his hand towards his face, he immediately begins to pull the stake from within. Afterwards, he flexes his fingers, realizing how hurt his hand in, and begins to growl like a gorilla, more angry than upset.
As soon as his attention is split from me, I take up the other end of the axe and, swinging the heavy end backwards to get enough momentum, I throw the heavy steel head towards his big watermelon-sized skull. The blunt end impacts into the side of his head, just behind his temple, and falls to the ground.
The monster, recoiling from the hit, throws his hands up but quickly drops them down. He blinks his eyes repeatedly and then begins to waver like a tree in a hurricane. Seconds later his arms go limp and his eyes close for the longest time. Seeing how dazed he is, I begin to push away from him.
“I’ll say, that hurt, very much.” He suddenly says as his eyes open up, his voice no longer gravely and stupid, but instead intelligent and British, even.
Throwing his arms up to his head, he rubs the injury with his good hand while he looks over the other one. But as he rubs the wound, his eyes close again and he begins to grunt and growl, his teeth clenching shut and his lips parting angrily, like the monster. Suddenly his eyes shoot back open and he screams out in pure, unadulterated rage.
“I kill you now!” He screams in his old, stupid voice.
Turning his body towards me, he thunders in my direction, his hands clenched together in one wrecking ball. I gasp in fright and begin to truly kick away from him, wondering what to do now. My hand instinctively goes to the gun in my jacket, knowing I have nothing else standing between me and the monster that lumbers towards me like a mother gorilla protecting her children.
But as he lifts his crushing arms into the air, he suddenly stops and begins to scream out in pain or rage. He parts his hands and begins to reach behind him, as if something has lodged itself in his lower back. When he swings around, stumbling on stupid, uncoordinated feet, I see what the problem is.
Rayne has thrust several juggling knives into his back, beside his spinal column, and prepares to insert several more. The monster twirls around and as soon as he sees her, he readies himself to crush her. Without thinking, I climb up onto my knees and then launch myself towards the man.
Growling like a pure beast, I charge forward and then jump towards his legs. Jaw open, I lodge my teeth into his upper leg and compress the fangs into the flesh with the foot to pound ratio of a small car. The monster screams again and then topples forward and hits the ground with such force as to make it shake.
Letting go of his bloodied leg, I look up just in time to see Rayne holding the steel head of the axe I used. She lifts it over her head and then clubs the ape-man in the head before he can get back up. His body goes limp as he loses consciousness, his huge frame lying there like a ship on the shore.
Pushing up from the monster’s limp form, I wipe my face off and spit blood down onto the ground, thankfully none of mine. Then I begin to wipe the mud off of my jacket and jeans. But despite focusing my body elsewhere, my eyes keep on the girl that saved me. She huffs and puffs, looking first down to the ape-man and then to me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her.
“I could demand the same thing of you!” She replies loudly before huffing again, her tongue lolling out to cool off. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting my stuff back,” I explain abruptly, “and now I’m leaving.”
I wipe the last bit of mud from my jacket and then begin to walk around the man, limping a little bit from being thrown on the ground. Trying to act as if she didn’t save me and that I had everything under control, I step by her and begin past the trailer. Out of my peripheral vision, I see her standing next to the monster, watching me go.
“The trucks are in the other direction.” She suddenly says.
Immediately I stop walking and stand looking away from her for awhile. Then I slowly turn my head until I look directly into her blue eyes. She smiles just a little bit, the corners of her eyes lifting upwards, but I don’t think she knows that I notice. She just continues to look at me with a surprised look on her face.
“Besides, Blackjack will come from that direction. His trailer is down there.”
I turn my body towards her and she takes a few steps towards me. Her hands go limp and she drops all of the things she had brought with her. I just look over her and wonder what she thinks is going on. She doesn’t think she’s going with me, does she? Her body language sure tells me that’s what she wants.
“You can’t go with me.” I tell her bluntly.
“I just helped you escape.”
“Doesn’t matter, you can’t come with me.”
“Oh, so, now it’s ‘you can’t come with me’ instead of ‘you can’t go’, huh? Blackjack will flay me if he—”
Suddenly something falls over behind me and I swing my head around and look up the muddy lane. But before I can see anything move, I feel hands grab my one arm and then feel something tugging at me.
“Come on, let’s go!” Rayne cries out at me.
Turning around, I look to see Rayne let go of my arm and begin to run around the fallen frame of the ape-man. Without thinking I obey her command and begin to dash after her, picking up my boots from the doorway of the trailer as I pass it by. I jump over the ape-man’s arms and legs and then follow Rayne as she leads the way.
“All of the vehicles are parked down here!” She cries out as she runs. “If we have any chance of getting out of here, we need a vehicle and a good moment! Thankfully you’ve already picked one of them!”
“Ah, screw you!” I yell, hearing her sarcasm.
“You know it’s true, you dumbass!” She yells back. “Besides, you just probably killed the biggest man that I’ve ever known! And I helped you, so, I’m stuck with you!”
She doesn’t talk for the rest of the way to the trucks. Instead, she just dashes away, her limber, athletic frame staying well in front of my strong, but not athletic, body. She wears a pair of jeans and a Foreigner t-shirt. As we pass her tent, she grabs a backpack filled with who-knows-what, but I don’t stop to ask.
Her tail flies out behind her as she runs and I can’t help but focus on it just a little bit. She seems to know her way through the entire camp and leads me through the maze with little difficulty. I see no other person awake or out and am thankful for that, but also wonder why that is. I smell nothing and hear nothing other than normal morning sounds.
When we reach the parking lot filled with vehicles, I stop and look around. Rayne rushes forwards and out into the maze of parked vehicles. But I’m not going to waste a lot of time picking out a vehicle because Blackjack could be on our tails as we screw around here.
“Rayne,” I cry out and step forward, “we can’t waste time here!”
“I know, come here!” She yells back.
I hear her voice coming from the other side of an old van sitting right in front of me. Rushing forward, I run around the back end of the heavy metal box and see Rayne standing in between two vehicles just a few rows in, along the edge of the parking lot, near a huge truck with a camper set in the bed, which reaches up over the bed’s walls and even on top of the truck’s cab.
It’s a huge Dodge W250 from sometime in the eighties and its colored blue, a deep navy blue. Rayne looks to me and then grabs the chrome handle and yanks the door open. Stepping inside, she disappears for a few seconds before her hand reappears, dangling a jangling set of keys which she holds with her finger and thumb.
“The thing’s unlocked and has a pair of keys that are in a very convenient spot.” She says.
I step slowly forward and walk towards the cab. My jaw is hanging open and my heart is slowing its pace, my disbelief that Rayne could possibly find a vehicle that is both unlocked and with the keys available. When I reach the open cab door, I look in and see her sitting across the bench seat.
“You knew it was unlocked and the keys were in it, didn’t you?” I ask her.
She smiles and then tosses the keys to me. I catch them with a quick hand and then climb up into the cab. Pulling the door shut behind me, I insert the key and then turn on the battery. As all of the lights come on, I see the truck is full of gas and is in immaculate condition. It’s almost too perfect. Then I put my arms over the steering wheel and look to Rayne.
I know that I can’t bring her with me. She’d just be another person that I have to worry about, just like he said. It’s one of the few things that he’s right about. I look to her and see her slipping on her seatbelt and holding the backpack in her lap, relaxing and crossing her legs. Her tail wraps around her body.
“You can’t come with me.” I say without confidence.
Rayne suddenly becomes stiff and she turns me, her jaw hanging open. Then she shakes her head, frowns hard, and sits forward. I figure she isn’t happy and I knew that she wouldn’t be happy. But, then again, I’m not aiming to please her; I’m aiming to help myself escape.
“What do you mean I can’t come?” She demands angrily. “I saved your ass!”
“And I thank you for helping me!” I rebut with equal amounts of anger. “But I’m going back east and I don’t want to play escort for you! I can’t play body-guard for you while I struggle to get back home!”
“What do you mean, body-guard, I’m the one that saved you!” She yells.
She intends to yell even more but we suddenly become quiet. A loud sound hits our ears, but, it’s hard to explain. It sounds like a small explosion mixed with a shockwave travelling outwards at sonic speed. Suddenly Rayne looks to me and lets her jaw drop open.
“We have to move.” She states calmly.
“I know, I know!” I reply.
Reaching forward, I twist the key and the heavy V8 in the truck rumbles to life. Shifting the automatic transmission into gear, I hit the gas and back the truck out. Then, as the truck skids as I turn the steering wheel, I push the truck into forward and then press down on the gas as hard as I can. The engine is piped full of gasoline and the heavy pickup rumbles forward and along a dirt path leading to a solitary, cracked half-century old road splitting the countryside.
“Blackjack is going to freak out.” Rayne says calmly. “But I can’t stay here anymore. He’s a monster and he turns everyone around him into monsters.”
I drive forward and begin to think as the truck fords through the muddy ground. I flip my fingers on the steering wheel and then grunt in thought.
“Just like that ape-man back in by the tents,” I say, “a big, hairy, stinking monster.”
There is silence for just a matter of seconds before Rayne leans forward and uncrosses her legs.
“He wasn’t always like that.” She says. “There are people that have been with Blackjack for so long they cease to be human. Some people in the circus claim he’s from Britain and that he was the person that inspired Stevenson to write Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“I heard it in his voice. When I knocked him in the head, he sounded, for a few seconds . . . civilized.” I respond while in thought. “So if that’s what being with Blackjack for that long is like, then compared to Jekyll, we’re the lucky ones.”
I turn and look to Rayne and see her sit back into the seat after she stops fussing with the radio. She crosses her arms and then nods.
Then she responds, “Yeah, we’re the lucky ones.”