In a final surreal touch, an eyeball had been stuck to the end of his nose and decorated with small red stars.
Mr. Dowling’s eyes swiveled madly from one side of his sockets to the other as he made his way towards the petrified Cat. His skin rippled and his lips twitched. A button with his name on it was pinned to the lapel of his coat.
Cat tried to pull away as Mr. Dowling reached out to stroke her cheek, but Kinslow held her in place. The clown’s fingers were cold and Cat could see that much of the flesh had been sliced away from them, exposing bones, veins and arteries.
Mr. Dowling made a curious choking noise, then opened his mouth. A Death’s-head moth was relaxing on his tongue. As Cat gaped, the moth spread its wings and took flight. It fluttered around in front of her eyes and she thought for a moment that it would land on her nose. But then it started to rise into the air above her.
Before the moth could get clear, the clown clapped his hands and smashed it to a pulp. He smeared the remains of the moth over his lips, then leaned forward and kissed Cat quickly.
Cat squealed and pushed Mr. Dowling away, then spat out bits of moth and wiped her tongue with the palm of her hand, trying to get rid of the horrible taste.
“How beautiful,” Kinslow sighed. “He’s a poet and a lover.”
“What sort of a freak is he?” Cat moaned.
“He’s the emperor here,” Kinslow said stiffly, “and you’d do well to pay him the respect he’s due, or he’ll toss you to the zombies and give them the all-clear to cut loose on you.”
Cat shivered but said nothing. Mr. Dowling looked her up and down. At least she thought that’s what he was doing. It was hard to tell, because of the way his eyes danced so much.
Mr. Dowling hopped up on to the throne and made a shrill noise. Kinslow said, “He wants you to sit on his lap.”
“You’re joking,” Cat said weakly.
“I’m not a clown,” Kinslow sniffed. “I don’t bother with jokes.”
“But… how can you be sure?” she asked.
“He speaks to me,” Kinslow said, tapping the side of his head. “Up here.”
“He’s telepathic?” Cat was skeptical. “I don’t believe in telepathy.”
“Mr. Dowling doesn’t care about your beliefs,” Kinslow said harshly. “Hop up on his lap before he loses patience.”
Cat cringed but forced herself to slide forward into the clown’s lap. He made another odd noise and wrapped his bony arms around her.
“He says you’re a perfect fit,” Kinslow laughed.
“What now?” Cat asked nervously.
“Now…” Kinslow said dramatically and clicked his fingers. The lights around the tent snapped off, plunging everything into darkness. “It’s showtime!”
SIXTEEN
Three spotlights were switched on and trained on the ring. A flashily dressed mutant was standing there—he must have darted forward during the blackout. Mr. Dowling waved a hand at the mutant and made a high-pitched squeaking noise.
“Up first,” Kinslow translated, “we have Jaundice Jack, the world’s number one undead juggler.”
“But he’s not undead,” Cat frowned. “He’s a mutant like you.”
“It will all become clear in a minute,” Kinslow promised.
As Cat watched, five zombies were led into the ring by a young mutant, a girl not much older than the students Cat used to teach. She was using a whistle to direct the zombies, who marched along listlessly. The mutants started chanting, “Claudia! Claudia!” The girl smiled and waved to them, then scowled and blew her whistle again, keeping firm control over her charges.
When the zombies were standing still, Mr. Dowling shoved Cat off his lap and stood up abruptly. Cat landed with a startled yelp and glared at the clown as he bounded past her into the ring.
Mr. Dowling was halfway to the zombies when he stopped, pretended to slap his head, then ran back to Cat. He shook a hand at her and made a gibberish noise.
“He wants your sword,” Kinslow said.
“What for?” Cat asked.
“Does it matter?” Kinslow yawned. “Just give him what he wants before he takes it by force.”
Cat felt uneasy, but drew her sword and handed it to the clown. She felt the bulge of her gun as she was removing the sword, and thought about taking it out and opening fire on Mr. Dowling, but Kinslow was watching her intently and she didn’t think she’d get very far.
Mr. Dowling took the sword with a sweeping bow, then bounded over to the zombies. Without slowing down, he swung the sword and chopped off the head of the first zombie, then the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth. It happened so swiftly that the zombies didn’t have time to react.
As Mr. Dowling chopped off the last zombie’s head, he pirouetted wildly, jumped into the air and landed on both knees, throwing away his sword and spreading his arms wide.
“Ta-dah!” Kinslow shouted, and all of the other mutants cheered.
Mr. Dowling hopped to his feet and returned to his throne. Settling down, he patted his lap and Cat reluctantly climbed back up again.
Inside the ring, the bodies of the zombies were staggering around. They didn’t need their heads to survive, but they were directionless without them. The mutants laughed and shouted rude jokes at the undead victims. Cat didn’t feel any pity for the zombies. She was as scornful of them as the mutants were, and laughed as one woman tripped over her own head and fell.
The mutant who had been introduced as Jaundice Jack moved between the zombies as they flailed around. He picked up one head, then another, then a third. Facing the audience, he nodded, and from somewhere beneath the seats a band struck up a low, slow tune.
Jaundice Jack listened to the music for a time, then threw one of the heads up into the air. As it soared high, he tossed up the second head, then the third, and in the twinkling of an eye he was juggling the three severed heads.
“I get it now,” Cat smiled. “He’s not undead, but he juggles the undead.”
Kinslow didn’t bother to comment on that.
Jaundice Jack kicked the heads of the fourth and fifth zombies up from the ground into the air, and added them seamlessly to the mix, so that he was now juggling all five at the same time. It was a difficult procedure, more so than it would have been with inanimate objects, because the jaws of the zombies still worked and they bit at the mutant’s fingers as he juggled.
Jaundice Jack juggled the heads for a couple of minutes, then called for some assistance from the crowd. At his summons, a couple of the babies came forward carrying a large empty ice cream cone. They positioned themselves close to Jaundice Jack and waited. He checked that they were in place, then nodded at the crowd.
“Three! Two! One!” the mutants hooted.
As the countdown concluded, Jaundice Jack launched one of the heads high into the air. The babies ran around comically, tilting the cone this way and that, then caught the head as it fell. The crowd cheered as the babies ran with the grisly cranial scoop towards the side of the ring. Once there, they lobbed the head into the middle of a pack of mutants, who lashed at it with clubs, hammers and axes that they’d been keeping down by their sides. The brain was destroyed and the zombie’s body dropped inside the ring, lifeless forever now.
Jaundice Jack and the babies disposed of the other four heads in a similar way, before leaving the ring to huge applause. Cat was one of those who was clapping with delight. She had chanted along in the countdowns too. She fully approved of killing zombies, and for a while had forgotten the trouble she was in.
“Enjoying it?” Kinslow smirked.
“Yes,” Cat said, her eyes wide and bright.
“Well, hold tight, sweetcake,” he winked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
SEVENTEEN
“Next up we have trapeze artists,” Kinslow said after a short break while the bodies were being cleared from the ring.
A dozen zombies in spandex costumes were led forward and lured up rope ladders on opposite s
ides of the big top by a pair of whistle-blowing mutants—the girl called Claudia, and a man.
“These were all skilled performers in life,” Kinslow explained to Cat. “It took us ages to track them down. We want to see how they fare in death, if they can do what they did when they were alive.”
“I doubt they can,” Cat said.
“Probably not,” Kinslow agreed. “But it’ll be fun to find out.”
When the undead trapezists were in place, the mutant to Cat’s left directed the first of them towards the trapeze and placed it in the zombie’s hand. The zombie did nothing, just stared at the trapeze cluelessly. At a grunt from Mr. Dowling, the mutant pushed the zombie forward.
The trapezist didn’t get very far before losing his grip and crashing to the ground, where he mewled with pain as bones snapped all over his body.
To Cat’s right, Claudia set the first of her performers in motion, and this one fared no better than the first.
The third actually held on for a while and swung gracefully back and forth. Then, as a dim memory kicked in, he let go and tried to do a somersault. He fell more heavily than the first two and landed on his head, which shattered like a melon, destroying his brain and ending his life. But he received a standing ovation from the mutants, who appreciated the effort.
After another abject failure, the mutants on the platforms set two of the trapezists off at the same time. They clashed midair and fell in a tangled heap. The next pair followed suit, but the last two performed more admirably. As they soared towards one another, the one to Cat’s right let go of its bar and reached out to the zombie on Cat’s left.
Since the second zombie was still clinging to his bar, he wasn’t able to catch the first zombie, who landed in a broken mess on the hard floor of the tent. But the remaining zombie kept swinging, and as he sailed from one side to the other, he pulled himself up, locked his legs around the bar, then hung down and stretched out his arms to catch a fellow performer who was no longer there.
The mutants fell silent as they watched the lone, lonely zombie swinging in the air, reaching out towards a forever absent partner.
“It’s sad,” Kinslow muttered.
“No it’s not,” Cat snorted. “It’s ridiculous.”
“You don’t feel any sympathy for him?” Kinslow scowled.
“He’s a brain-eating monstrosity,” Cat snarled. “Pity is wasted on the likes of him.”
“Maybe,” Kinslow shrugged as the mutant on the platform hauled in the zombie and helped him from the trapeze, before leading him back down the rope ladder to be set free. “But those who can’t find pity within themselves for the lost can hardly expect to be granted any when their own time of judgment comes.”
“What do you mean?” Cat snapped, frightened by the mutant’s cold tone.
“Hush,” Kinslow said in response. “Here comes the next act. And this one’s a doozy.”
EIGHTEEN
An overweight zombie was led forward by Claudia–the crowd chanted her name again but she ignored them this time–and announced by Kinslow as a fire eater. When the zombie was center stage, a mutant in a chef’s hat and apron came out pushing a large pot on wheels. The chef stopped a few meters away from the zombie and waited while Claudia tied her charge’s hands behind his back. When all was ready, the chef opened up the pot to reveal a tray filled with small chunks.
Cat immediately clocked the chunks as bits of brain. She had seen enough brains over the past months to recognize them from a long way off.
The zombie began to moan hungrily. He staggered towards the pot but stopped when Claudia tooted sharply on her whistle. Cat could see that he was torn, but obedience to the girl took precedence over his desire to tuck into the brains.
As the zombie wavered, the mutant by the pot produced a can and soaked the slivers of brain in an acrid liquid. Cat couldn’t place the scent but it made her nose twitch and her eyes water. Mr. Dowling on the other hand loved it, and he began swaying beneath her, almost throwing her off as he licked his lips and moved jerkily from one side of the throne to the other.
The chef waited a couple of minutes while the band played a fast-paced song. Then he dug a book of matches out of a pocket, lit one, let the flame strengthen, and tossed it on to the brains, instantly igniting the gray, juicy scraps.
“That’s an eternal flame,” Kinslow snickered. “It will burn until the brain has been entirely consumed, even if you douse it in water.”
Using a long-handled fork, the mutant picked up a piece of the flaming brains and walked around the bound zombie. The zombie’s gaze fastened on the fiery morsel of brain, and he drooled as the chef teased him with it, waving it under his nose and luring him forward, almost to the edge of the ring, where Mr. Dowling was eagerly waiting.
Finally, at a nod from the clown, the mutant threw the piece of brain up into the air. Claudia blew her whistle and the zombie made a happy moaning noise. Opening his mouth, he moved beneath the now falling bit of brain, caught it between his teeth and swallowed it whole.
The mutant with the fork returned to the pot and started lobbing more burning scraps of brain into the air. The zombie caught them all, whirling around like a dervish, gulping each piece down. He was wincing from the pain of the fire, but he kept on eating, hunger getting the better of his agony.
After a while the zombie’s stomach wall started to glow beneath his shirt. As Cat watched with fascination, flames erupted from the zombie’s flesh, burning the shirt away and spreading across his chest. Soon he was a giant ball of fire, but still he went on snapping at the fresh bits of brain that were thrown his way.
“Hot stuff,” Kinslow grinned tightly, watching Cat for her reaction.
“Have you got any marshmallows for me to toast?” she sniffed.
“You don’t feel sorry for him?” Kinslow asked.
“Should I?” she shrugged.
“I suppose not,” Kinslow sighed as the flames reached the zombie’s brain and ate into it, finally extinguishing his spark of reanimation. “But maybe the next act will stir you.” He leaned in close and whispered in her ear with relish, “The human cannonball!”
NINETEEN
A giant cannon was wheeled into the ring by a group of sweating mutants. Excited murmurs ran through the crowd and Cat got the sense that this was going to be the highlight of the show. She sat up straight, eyes bright, looking forward to whatever ghoulish treat the imaginative mutants had lined up next.
Once the cannon was in place, other mutants, who had been standing by the far side of the tent, tugged on ropes and a panel of canvas in the roof was pulled clear, creating a hole. Cat could see through the hole into the stadium outside, where the zombies were still sitting patiently in the stands.
Cat was expecting random undead victims to be shot from the cannon, but instead three living humans were herded into the ring—a man, a woman and an eight-year-old boy. Cat knew that he was eight, because she’d bought him a birthday card with that number on it earlier in the year.
“Behold the Bearmans,” Kinslow told her as the terrified trio were stopped by the cannon’s base. “Mr. Dowling has been holding them back for a special occasion.”
Cat moaned softly and shook her head, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks, her impish joy giving way to genuine horror.
“What’s wrong?” Kinslow gasped, feigning surprise. “You don’t know these people, do you?”
“Please,” Cat sobbed, clutching Mr. Dowling and appealing to the clown for mercy. “Please don’t hurt them. They haven’t done anything wrong. Please.”
Mr. Dowling stared at her seriously for a long moment. Then he burped.
Kinslow laughed with vicious delight. “Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot. It’s your sister, her husband and child. I bet you didn’t expect to be reunited with them like this.”
Cat had never truly expected to see Jules, Paul and George Bearman again.
And now she wished she hadn’t.
“How?” Cat cri
ed as the mutants forced her brother-in-law Paul up into the mouth of the cannon. “How did you find them?”
“We have ways and means,” Kinslow purred.
“Let them go,” Cat begged. “Please.”
“No can do,” Kinslow smiled, then pressed a finger to her lips to shush her.
Claudia was operating the cannon. As Kinslow silenced the horrified Cat, the girl called to the crowd to begin the countdown.
“Three! Two! One!” the mutants shouted.
The cannon was fired and Paul went flying through the air… out through the hole in the roof… to land among the hungry, eager zombies in the stands.
Cat saw a ripple run through the area where Paul landed, as zombies bunched around him and tore in. Seconds later they settled back and Cat could almost hear the munching sounds as the lucky few tucked into fresh, hot chunks of Paul Bearman’s brain.
Cat shut her eyes and cursed.
“Nuh-uh,” Kinslow said, pinching her chin. “We won’t continue until you look. We can wait all day and night if we have to.”
“I won’t look,” Cat said. “Not unless you let Jules and George go.”
“If you don’t look,” Kinslow responded, “then we’ll torture them before we fire them from the cannon.”
Cat’s eyes automatically snapped open and she stared at the mutant, appalled. “Why are you doing this to me?” she croaked.
“I’ll tell you soon,” Kinslow promised. “First, Mr. Dowling wants to get involved.”
The clown leaped to his feet, throwing Cat to the ground again. He hurried forward, humming an out-of-tune song. The mutants in the ring were now forcing Jules to climb up into the cannon. George, her little boy, was screaming and reaching out to pull her back, but the mutants were holding him down. Jules was sobbing, yelling out George’s name, telling him to be brave, it was all going to be okay, there was a net outside and they would all be fine.
Cat wanted to call to her sister but she felt too ashamed. She knew they were here because of her. She had no idea why the clown and his mutants were interested in her, but they had obviously targeted her for some sick reason, and her sister’s family was paying the price for their link to her. It was enough to remind Cat of her humanity for the first time in months, and for her to experience the guilt that you are forced to suffer when you willingly embrace the inhuman.