The Carnival of Lost Souls : A Handcuff Kid Novel (28 page)

“This sucks. I can’t do the trick. What are we going to do now?”

“You have to do the trick—the Chinese Water Torture Cell is the best trick we’ve got,” Jabber said, sitting on the edge of the stage.

“Yeah, and get myself killed.”

“Your failure is anticipated. Dying keeps you with Mussini, it’s what he expects. So you’re going to need a showstopper if you want to get out of here,” Jabber said. “Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea.”

After they fine-tuned their plan, Jack stumbled off the stage to find Violet and fill her in, and then he made his way to his tent. Every bone in his body ached with exhaustion. Sleep was all he had the energy for, so he threw open the tent flap and made a beeline for his hammock. Jack noticed T-Ray shifting nervously from foot to foot, waiting inside for him.

“What’s up?” Jack flopped down into his hammock, which groaned under his weight and swayed back and forth. “Did you get a chance to talk to Jabber? He said he would let you know what’s up.”

T-Ray fingered the edge of Jack’s hammock. “Yeah, it sounds like a good plan. I’ll miss Violet and Jabber. I
wish there was a way that they could come back. I’ll even miss Runt, though he did rat us out. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I just wanted to say that it’s OK.”

“What’s OK?” Jack sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. His fingertips were pruned from being in the water for so long.

T-Ray sat down on a trunk and stared at the ground. “It’s OK if you want to take off without us. I don’t want to hold you back and ruin your chance of getting out of here.”

“Why would I want to do that? I told you that we’ll get out of this place together.” Jack grabbed his pillow and threw it at T-Ray, who caught it with a relieved smile.

“Yeah, I know you did, but you’ve always been on your own.” T-Ray’s brow wrinkled. “It would be easier for you.”

“Easy isn’t my style. Plus, the plan will work. It has to,” Jack said, putting his hands behind his head.

“I guess so.” He paused. “You know, I’m glad were friends. ‘Cause we won’t make it by ourselves. We’re not like you, Jack. We need you really bad.” T-Ray threw the pillow back at Jack and climbed up into his hammock. T-Ray thought for a minute and said, “But you could really drown. And then what are we gonna do?”

“Great, you’re gonna give me nightmares now.” Jack closed his eyes and rolled over in his hammock. It was strange being needed. He had spent so much time in
his life not needing anyone; it never occurred to him that others might need him. It made him feel warm and suffocated at the same time.

“Hey, have you packed up your stuff? We have to be ready to go. Halloween is our only shot.”

“Funny how the night of the dead is my last chance to escape alive.”

“It’ll be fine.” Though Jack was not entirely convinced.

“I’m not worried for me. Seriously. I’m worried about
you
,” T-Ray said.

“You’re not the only one.”

Jack barely remembered going to bed. He fell into a deep sleep as if floating on the ocean surface, the waves rocking him to sleep until he sunk deeply to the sandy bottom of his dreams.

From backstage, Jack peered through the curtain. Flaming torches burned through the darkness, sending glowing phantom trails into the sky and illuminating the theater with an eerie glow. He shivered. The dead were packed in like sardines; it was a full house. It was the most important show yet, Jack thought—his life depended on it. Literally.

Everyone was in position: Violet’s cool arm brushed against his, T-Ray waited with the gear, and Boxer gripped his ax so hard, his knuckles turned white. Jack hoped that Jabber lived up to his end of the bargain. If not, there was no way he would make it out alive.

With his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, Jabber glided out onto the stage, his black hat askew
on his head. He stopped dead center, head bowed, and waited. A hush fell over the audience.

“I must warn all of you that what you will see tonight is highly dangerous. The show could be a nightmare realized, or it could be a magnificent triumph. Anything could happen. But then again it
is
Halloween, a dangerous night. Not for the faint of heart, now, is it?”

The audience snickered and bobbed their masked heads while Jabber continued with his speech.

“Tomorrow may be All Saints’ Day, but there are only
sinners
here tonight. And tonight is our night. This is the finale you’ve all been waiting for.” The crowd cheered madly. “The one time we can return to the land of the living, if we dare. It will
not
be easy. See there!”

Jabber leaped to the edge of the stage, pointed to the back of the theater, and everyone in the audience turned around, adjusting their masks to get a good view.

“A Death Wrangler has joined us! They will be out in full force tonight to make sure there is fair play if anyone wants to make a run for the wall.”

The crowd gasped and clapped. Jack’s stomach dropped. Jabber and Mussini failed to mention that a Death Wrangler would be at the show, a minor detail but a
major
blow. The hulking bull head rose above the crowd as the creature stood and snorted an acknowledgment. The mythical beast was twice the size of Boxer, with massive spiral horns curving out of his black furry head.
A thick gold ring dangled from his round snout, and his eyes were pitiless black orbs. The audience gave the creature a wide berth.

The crowd turned its attention back to Jabber, who glanced at the curtain as if he could feel Jack’s burning glare on his back.

“There are no warm-up acts tonight. We begin with the best. The Kid will perform his most dangerous trick. In mere moments you will see why we don’t bother with life insurance in the Forest of the Dead.” Jabber paused, the audience captivated. “Jack just might be one of us when it’s over.”

Jabber took his position. The curtain rose, revealing the torture cell standing alone on the stage. Silence filled the theater as if the dead had just sucked in their last breath. Jabber pulled a stopwatch from his pocket. Jack hesitated. It was all up to him.

He dropped his towel and walked out onto the stage barefoot and dressed in his swimming shorts. The crowd stared at him from behind their most elaborate feathered masks and bejeweled costumes. The dead were no longer people, but the dream of people who had shed their old selves and slipped into new glittery skins. And there was Jack in the flesh, just a boy, alone in this strangely beautiful, lifeless world.

He didn’t need to say a word as the trick began. Violet followed him onto the stage, her cold hands giving
him goose bumps as she attached the shackles around his ankles and closed the cuffs around his wrists. Jack lay down on the hard wooden stage as the floodlights danced around him. Boxer turned a crank, and the sound of the chain grinding against metal joined with the excited humming of the crowd. Jack’s feet and legs lifted into the air. His body hovered above the tank. He swayed back and forth like a pendulum hypnotizing the audience. Boxer lifted him higher and higher, momentarily hiding him in the curtain above the stage. Jack grabbed the velvet in his hands, hoping the plan would work.

The blood oozed down from his legs to his brain. As he dangled like a worm on a hook, Jack thought about the pathetic choices he had made in life, and how those choices had led him right to his current predicament. He wished that he had made some nicer friends, or done better in school, or not just drifted through life like it didn’t matter, like
he
didn’t matter. He had stopped caring about his life in the real world—Mildred called it being apathetic. But really, he had given up.

Life was a blur, it was happening so fast. Maybe he was in the middle, too—no longer a kid, definitely not an adult. He still had a chance, and he didn’t want to blow it anymore. His whole life, he’d been waiting for someone to believe in him. But fate didn’t care that his dad was a selfish jerk who didn’t stick around. Destiny had no pity that his mom wasn’t there to wipe his nose
and bake him cookies. Sometimes there was only one person who was going to believe in a kid, and that person was himself.

The rope was lowering now. He could do this. After all, he was the Handcuff Kid.

Jabber paced around the tank and asked the audience, “Would anyone like to hold their breath to see if they can match the Kid? Just raise your hand and hold your breath if you want to take a crack at it.”

A half-dozen hands shot into the air from volunteers in the audience. Boxer took his position on the stage next to the tank; he grasped the ax in his hands, holding it out in front of him, so everyone could see it. The stopwatch dangled from a long silver chain, clasped in Jabber’s hand. Tension rose, the audience fidgeting and shifting in their seats as the seconds ticked by. Finally, a person rose from his seat.

“How long has it been? How long has the boy been under?”

Jabber checked the stopwatch and yelled out, “Thirty seconds!”

“That’s a long time. A very long time for a young boy,” a woman, dressed as a fairy, called up to the stage as she fluttered her wings. A little girl, seated next to her, pulled on her mother’s costume. “Mommy, is the boy OK?”

“I don’t know, baby,” she said, picking up the little girl.

“Let us see him!” another man yelled.

A man from the back of the theater jeered, followed by hoots and cackles, “He’s one of us now!”

A long-beaked birdman stood on his seat. “He could be drowning and no one would know.” The crowd grew restless. They shivered and recoiled at the water that entombed him in the glass case; they felt the chains that bound him tighten on their own cold wrists.

“Pull the curtain off!”

“Yes! Let us see the boy!”

“One minute!” Jabber yelled. Boxer wrung his huge hands around the handle of the ax—it was all that could save Jack now.

A woman staggered in the aisle, clutching her chest. “Does anyone else feel it? I can
feel
him dying.”

Boxer’s head jerked toward Jabber. He motioned toward the tank. He gripped and regripped the ax, his palms slick with sweat. Jabber strolled around on the stage, swinging the silver watch, waiting and waiting, the second hand ticking and ticking. The audience was on its feet.

“He’s drowning!”

“He’s just a boy. For pity’s sake, help him.”

Jabber slipped the watch back into his pocket and finally snatched the curtain from the tank. The audience could see that Jack had twisted himself around so that he was upright in the tank. Something was wrong. The locks were still locked. The chains hung heavy around
his limbs. Jack pounded on the glass with a weak fist. A cascade of air bubbles flowed from his blue lips. His skin was as pale as a fish belly. Jack’s eyes rolled back in his head. His limbs sunk to his sides. The shackles pulled him down, and he sunk to the bottom of the tank. His head rested on the glass. His eyes opened in a lifeless stare. Screams erupted throughout the theater. Jabber had waited too long.

“Save him!” the crowd yelled.

“The ax! Use the ax!”

Boxer stood motionless, staring at Jack’s lifeless body and then at Jabber. Dread flashed across his face. He held the ax out in front of him, suddenly unaware of what to do. He took a tentative swing at the tank but hesitated. A flood of fear and panic poured out of him. “You said the trick would work,” he said to Jabber. “You said I wouldn’t have to use it. And now look. He’s dead.” Boxer swung the ax down by his side, rushed the tank, and slapped the glass with his open palm. “Wake up, Jack! Wake up!”