Gruebersite 06, Round 2. "The Men in Black Hats." (875 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Bigmike (View user info) at 2006-10-09 23:55:52 EDT
Billy Widrick was twelve years old and "Hell in a jar," as his father used to say. Billy would wake up from nightmares most every night hearing his father's voice.
"Son, you ain't nothing but hell in a jar," He would scream, Billy smelling the phantom alcohol on his dream father's breath.
Billy never quite knew what his father meant by that, but it was something he felt secretly proud of. He always imagined that it meant he was tough and fearless; that he was willing to do anything for a thrill.
He wasn't altogether wrong.
Stiles Elementary school was situated exactly four blocks from the house that Billy grew up in. Billy would walk that four blocks every day right through the heart of town. Billy's father wasn't a rich man, and they lived in an apartment on Gentry Street right near the corner of Gentry and Main. This apartment building, though nicely maintained on the outside, housed many low rent living areas that were mostly subsidized by the government. Billy's friends used to call it "Welfare Slums," mostly to Billy's chagrin. he hated living there, but had no choice. He made it a habit to leave early for school, before the other kids came walking down the street from their nicer homes a few blocks away. He would walk up Gentry and hang a right on Main, continuing past the storefronts and strip joints until he reached the school. He did this from kindergarten on up, and every time he made it to the school and home safely he felt gratification, as if he had beaten some kind of odds.
It was Friday, October thirteenth when Billy made his one deviation to his normal walk home. He was walking with Fred Barber and they were fooling around in the alleys that were so prevalent on the Main street stretch between the school and his house. They were running along, weaving in and out of alleyways, pushing themselves through people walking on the street when Billy heard Fred say, "Hey Billy, c'mere and look at this!"
Billy stopped what he was doing and looked back at Fred, who was standing in front of the Main Street Grocery, looking in the window. Billy ran over to him.
"Watcha lookin at?" Billy said.
"Look at this Billy," Fred replied. "The carnival is coming to town."
Billy looked at the piece of paper taped up in the front window of the grocery. It had a colorful picture of a big-top tent with lights and elephants and clowns. He read the print.
"Come one, Come all to Barnabas Taylor's All-Star Carnival. Come see the animals, come see the clowns, come and peruse all sorts of interesting things, some known to man, some unknown."
Then he read the inscription at the bottom.
"Adults five dollars, children twelve and under, two-fifty."
"Hey, I've got at least two-fifty stashed under my mattress at home," Billy said to Fred. I might even have more.
"Do you think your old man will let you go?" Fred said.
"No problem. My old man will be drunk by the time we head out for the carnival. He won't even notice I'm gone." Billy replied back.
Fred felt kind of sorry for Billy at that moment, but he never said so.
"Ok, I'll meet you at the school at seven and we'll head over to the carnival," Fred instructed Billy. "Bring extra money if you can."
Billy ran the two blocks home and immediately went up into his bedroom. His father had already been into the cheap vodka and slurred a hello as Billy ran past him. Billy waved him off as he entered his bedroom and closed the door. He ran to his mattress, lifted it up, and saw four neatly folded one dollar bills and seven quarters residing next to a girlie magazine he stole from his dad's room. He smiled as he grabbed the money and shoved it into the right hand pocket of his jeans. Then he grabbed the girlie magazine, let his mattress back down, and jumped up on the bed. Lying on his side, he casually flipped the pages of the magazine, looking at mostly older naked women while passing the time until he was to meet Fred.
At six-thirty, Billy got up and put the magazine back in it's hiding spot. He grabbed a lightweight jacket from the bedpost at the bottom of his bed, slipped it on, and tiptoed over to his door. He grabbed the doorknob gently, twisted it slowly, and opened the door a crack. Looking out into the living room, Billy could see his father sleeping in his favorite armchair. Billy opened the door slowly, stepped through, and closed the door behind him. He was careful not to make any noise even though his father was snoring like crazy. He tiptoed past his father and out the front door of the apartment. Then he ran all the way to the school.
Billy met Fred right at seven and they headed across town to the old Garrison Grounds which was where the carnival was set up. The Garrison Grounds were called that because old man Garrison used to have his slaughterhouse there. For a hundred years that slaughterhouse supplied meat, not only to Billy's town, but to the surrounding towns as well. Billy always found the idea of a slaughterhouse to be intriguing or "cool" as he would put it to his friends. The Garrison Grounds burned down in a huge fire when Billy was six years old. They had razed it and turned the area into a public park where the city held concerts and, in this case, a carnival. Billy and Fred could see the lights and hear the music two blocks before they got to the park. They were excited as they ran those final two blocks to the main entrance. The lights mesmerized the two boys, and they could hear the carnival barker yelling for the crowd of people to hurry up and pay so they could get inside and not miss a thing. Billy and Fred approached the barker, money in hand.
"Ah here's two fine lads out on the town tonight," the man yelled. He was dressed up in a tuxedo and top hat, looking dapper and fine. "Ready for the best time you'll ever have?" He asked the boys.
"Sure mister," Billy said. "Is this carnival as good as the flyer says it is?" Billy asked.
"Why son, Barnabas Taylor's carnival is the best carnival IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!" The man yelled for all to hear.
Billy handed the man two dollar bills and two quarters and the man handed him a ticket.
"Hold on to your ticket son, in case you leave and want to come back tonight. No getting in without a ticket."
Billy grabbed his ticket and Fred did the same and they wandered into the carnival grounds. On their own, Billy and Fred were free to do any number of things and, for awhile, they just walked around checking out some of the shows that the carnival offered.
They did take in a show under the big-top tent that was full of elephants and tigers as well as all sorts of clowns. Billy got to see a lion tamer and also some very lovely carnival showgirls doing acrobatics.
As Billy and Fred left the big-top, Fred went in search of some cotton candy. Billy followed, but got sidetracked by a man yelling to him.
"Hey son! Yes you!" He said to Billy. Billy looked at him with a "Are you talking to me?" look, and the man waved him over.
"Yes, you son. How would you like the thrill of your life?" The man said to him.
Billy looked at the man carefully. He was aware that some of these carnival barkers were rip-off artists and child molesters. That didn't bother him though. The way he figured it, they couldn't be as bad as his dad was on any given night. The reason he was looking at the man carefully was because he couldn't really see his face. No matter how hard he tried, the man's face seemed almost smooth, like it wasn't a face at all, like it was, well, all swirls and darkness. It also didn't help that the man had a funny looking black hat on that cast a shadow over what features he had.
The more he looked at the man, the more intrigued he became however, and the more his suspicions waned.
"Thrill of my life? Whatchoo got in mind?" Billy said as he thought to himself, "Hell in a jar."
"Step right this way son," the man replied and put his hand on Billy's shoulder, ushering him into a small tent.
Once they were inside the tent, a feeling of calm came over Billy. He couldn't explain it, but he felt totally in control and just a little curious about what the man had to offer. He looked around the tent and found that it was actually attached to a larger building towards the back wall. There was a door there, and a sign to the right offered what was supposedly inside the building. In large, circus style print, the sign said:
"The Men with Black Hats."
Billy read the words slowly aloud as if he didn't quite understand.
"That's right son, that's exactly right," the man said to Billy. "The Men with Black Hats is the best show on this particular midway."
Billy looked up at the man and got a better look at his face. The swirls were moving more rapidly now and he couldn't help but stare. The man moved his face closer to Billy's until Billy's gaze was fixed stonily upon his own. Then with a wave of his hand in between both of their faces, he unlocked the intensity of the gaze.
"It costs nothing to enter and is the best attraction in this graveyard of all carnivals. This is the best show on Earth my son, and maybe the whole universe as well!" The man quickly opened the door and pulled Billy over in front of it. Billy looked inside and saw nothing but darkness, he looked back at the man's face and saw nothing but a mass of colors melting into each other, shaded by the brim of the strange black hat.
Then the man gave Billy a shove through the door and quickly shut it behind him. Billy thought he could hear the man laughing as he did it, but he wasn't quite sure.
Billy instantly felt lighter than air. It was as if he were floating in the room, his hands and feet reaching out for balance, but feeling nothing. It was pitch black in the room and all of a sudden he was feeling very sleepy. The sensation of floating on air, coupled with the hypnotic state the man's swirling face had put him in had put him in a trancelike state. Just as he was about to nod off, feeling totally content and at peace with himself, something hit him in the back hard, knocking him to his senses. He felt a wall behind him, pressing against every part of his body. Instantly a soft light started to illuminate where he was and he found out that he wasn't backed up against a wall at all, but he was lying on a floor. His perspective jumbled, he immediately sat up.
As the light became brighter and his pupils began to constrict, he saw that he was in a large square room. The floor was black and seemed to rise above where he sat, about seven inches all around him. The floor had an amazing texture to it. It was like a hundred little half circles sitting flat to the floor. The walls were white and about as white as anything he'd ever seen. He stood up tentatively and then the floor started to move. The movement reminded him of boiling water as the black half circles began to vibrate and jump.
Billy was getting scared and he started looking around the room for a way out. He frantically turned round and round looking for a door, a window, anything.
There was nothing but white wall.
Then, as if on cue, an opening started to appear on the wall opposite of him. It started out as a small slit running vertically on the wall about three feet from floor and ceiling. As the opening got wider, the undulations of the black floor became more intense. Billy concentrated on the opening, which was getting more and more rectangular as it opened. He could see things moving around through the opening. As it got bigger, the things outside came closer. It seemed they were peering in on him.
These were things that Billy had never seen before. Strange things. Ugly things. Horrifying things.
The opening had almost covered the entire wall when everything just stopped moving. The floor stopped undulating, the rectangle stopped opening, and everything became quiet. The beings on the other side of the rectangle stared silently and then Billy heard one of them speak.
"What's going on, Mommy?" One of them said as it turned to another bigger, uglier being.
With that, all the circles in the floor started to rise. As they came up, Billy first saw what they were. They were hats. As the hats rose above the floor, bodies started to come up beneath them. They were like nothing Billy had ever seen before. They were horribly ugly and disfigured. Some had open sores on their faces, some had three or four arms protruding at all angles from their bodies, and some were just gelatinous masses oozing with a putrid, slimelike substance. Billy remembered what the sign outside the door had said. These were the men in black hats.
None of the beings moved as they all continued to rise out of the floor, their black hats tilted on their heads or falling off revealing open skulls oozing of pus. Billy watched as they rose and rose and then finally stopped, not a single one of them moving. Billy could hear the fluids coming out of them. It reminded him of wet farts.
Then, across the room on the other side of the rectangular opening, the bigger thing looked down at the small, horrifyingly disfigured being and said, "Feeding time."
Billy didn't have time to move as hats went flying everywhere and he was torn to pieces.
Fred had just gotten his cotton candy and went searching for Billy. He was walking along the midway and he was just about to start yelling for his friend when he heard, "Hey son! How would you like the thrill of your life?"
Fred walked over to the carnival barker, his mouth newly filled with sweet cotton candy.
User Reviews
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-02-10 12:56:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I can't stand carnivals.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-12 22:23:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Your presence is requested here: http://www.ubersite.com/m/94353
You're back in the game.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-10-11 18:24:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-11 11:33:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm such a sucker for carnival/sideshow stories. Children should be raised to be terrified and amazed by them, so they grow up with a sense of wonder and a fear of God.
Good job blending both of kaos's titles. I'm sure he's engorged right now just thinking about it.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-10-10 20:38:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I've always loved the Carnival From Hell themes
By the prickling of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes
remember that movie?
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2006-10-10 13:18:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Never trust them carnie folk.
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-10-10 10:20:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome, man.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-10-10 09:37:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thanks for reinstilling my fear of clowns, Mike.
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:48:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I nearly only gave a 1, because I had just read Forensic's "Seed of Treats", which was truly awesome. This was good in it's own right, but not 'as good', if you see what I mean. This was better than +1, but not quite +2, but I dont believe in this 1.5 rating thing.....
+2 it is. After all it was good, and stories shouldn't be judged purely against something you just read before.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:13:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ahaha.
No, I'm just going to try and see if I can get my friends to start saying it.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:12:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Site and layout © 2006 Ubersite ® -- All material copyrighted by its respective copyright holder, dumbass
I'll sue.
Well, probably not. :)
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:08:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well, I'm stealing it.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:07:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I made it up.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:05:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Loved the phrase "hell in a jar" as well. Did you make that up, or is it an expression I wasn't aware of?
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-10-10 01:01:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This, I like.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-10-10 00:44:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you're a bastard.
**weep**
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-10-10 00:39:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're too good