Lovely, Lovely Freaks

Chapter 1

The sun shined through the window and onto the face of a teenage boy, who had not waken up yet, even though it was noon. His name was Mathew Smith, and he didn't know that his world was going to be turned upside down in only a few hours.
Mathew, Matt for short, woke up when Don't Stop Believing began to blare from his phone. He moaned and leaned up, groggily wiping his eyes while reaching blindly for his phone. Matt answered and said sleepily, "Hello?"
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty! You up yet?" His friend yelled through the phone. "Gah, shut up, Fred! Why are you yelling?"
"Because it's the first day of summer!"
"Yes, Fred, that would be why I was sleeping in." Matt rolled his eyes as he heard his friend sigh through the phone.
"Sleep is for the weak, Matt-My-Man! Anyway, Max just found this flier for this crappy freak show that's going on for the next couple days. You want to go tonight?"
"Why?"
"What better way to start off our summer than going to make fun of some carnies? Come on, it'll be fun!"
"Alright, fine," Matt finally agreed. "What time?"
"Max is coming to pick us up in a couple hours, so yeah, be ready!"
"Okay, okay. I'll see you in a couple hours."
"Yes! See ya!" The phone beeped, signaling that the conversation was over. Matt laughed as he put his phone down and got out of bed. "I have such weird friends," he thought to himself, and then he started to get ready.
Matt was a very attractive guy. He was tall, muscular, and had a slight tan that he knew would get better as the summer went on. His face was smooth, and he had strong jaw. Matt's golden hair stuck up in random places, and he just dealt with it by running his fingers through it and letting it do its own thing.
Matt knew he was attractive, and he used it to his advantage. When he wanted something, all he ever had to do was smile and ask nicely. His smile was his secret weapon, perfectly straight, white teeth and perfect dimples. Girls swooned when he smiled and that's how he went through life most of the time, by being the picture perfect kid.

Hours passed and soon he heard the loud engine from his friend's truck coming down his driveway.
"Max and Fred are here, Mom!" Matt called down the hallway.
"Alright, be safe. I love you!" His mom called back.
"Love you, too, Mom!" He yelled as he ran out the door. Max's rust bucket was waiting for him. Matt hopped in the back seat and said, "Really Max, this thing is a death trap."
"Hey, not everyone is living in the lap of luxury. This was the best that I could afford." Max was referring to Matt's wealth, of course. He really was the picture perfect kid. His family owned their own business, so they were well off.
Matt's friends were very different. Max was Asian, so they called him their little genius, and he was actually very smart. Fred, on the other hand, was not very bright, but had a huge heart. Fred looked intimidating, he had piercings and tattoos, but he was really a big teddy bear. Matt's parents didn't really like Fred, but they loved Max, so Matt was allowed to hang out with them.
"Can we just go, now?" Matt said.
"Sure, buckle up!" Fred turned around and said. "Like you said, this thing is a death trap!"
"Will you guys shut up about my car?" Max said jokingly.
"Fine, where is this thing anyway?" Matt asked.
"Like an hour away. So let's go!" Fred answered excitedly, and off they went.
When they arrived, it looked exactly like they expected. A raggedy tent that had an opening made by two flaps bent back. The tent seemed faded and dirty, and there were only a few cars parked around.
They were just outside of a small town, and none of them really seemed to know where they were. "Well, this is it." Max said, putting the car into park. They all clambered out of the car and walked to the opening where a small man was standing with his arms folded across his chest. "Five bucks a ticket." The man said gruffly.
"Five bucks? I only brought a couple!" Fred exclaimed, hurriedly reaching in his pockets. He pulled out two crumbled up dollars and a couple quarters. "Put that up, Fred, I've got you." Matt said as he reached in his wallet and pulled out a fresh twenty. "I'll pay for all three."
"What, no way Matt," Max exclaimed. "I just got my paycheck, I can pay for my own!"
"Yeah, well I just got my allowance that was probably more than your paycheck." Matt said point-of-factly. His two friends sighed in defeat as Matt gave the little man his twenty dollar bill and gave him back the change. "Enjoy the show," the little man called after them as he pulled out a cigarette and began to smoke. The three boys walked past him and went inside the tent.
The show didn't even have bleachers to sit on, they had some chairs lined up in rows in front of a platform that they called a stage. There was a curtain hung up so you couldn't see what was on or behind the platform, and the entire thing looked like it was about to fall to pieces. "This'll be fun!" Fred said as they sat down in the back row.
Just then, the curtain began to rise with a loud creaking sound, and their was a man standing on the center of the stage. He was a big man, with a white curly mustache and a bright red lion tamer suit. He wore a tall black hat, and he held a whip in his left hand. "Welcome, everyone! Welcome to Jethrow Dernham's Society of Freaks, where everything and anything can happen with our mysterious talents." The man said. He spoke in an elegant accent, swiftly and fluently. He continued, "I am Jethrow, and I will do more than tame beasts, I will train them. This beast will be less harmless than a kitten by the time I am done with it."
"Nice suit!" Max yelled when the man began to turn. The man looked in their direction and then looked back quickly, not giving them a second thought. He lifted his hand, and out rolled a rust cage that had a large lion in it. The lion was clean, healthy, and looked furious and wild. At one point it leaped at the bars and everyone in the crowd jumped slightly. This was definitely a real lion. "Holy smokes," Matt whispered under his breath.
The cage stopped and the lion tamer calmly walked over to it. The lion growled at him and backed as far as it could in the cage. It's fur was standing up, and it let out a threatening roar. The three boys were beginning to get a little excited as they all leaned closer. The man looked at his whip and threw it to the side. "What is he doing?!" Fred yelled, "You're going to get eaten!" The man ignored him and unlatched the door. The lion let out another growl, and when the lion tamer opened the door, the lion lunged. However, the man was quick and turned out of the way. The lion ran past him and when it turned back around, Jethrow had raised his hands and began to... Whistle. He let out a really high one, and then a low one, and the lion seemed entranced. It stared at him for a moment, then began to growl again, only not as threatening.
The three boys sat and watched as the lion began to inch towards the man. "Hey, Bozo! I don't think whistling is going to help you much!" Max yelled out. The crowd chuckled a little, and then Jethrow looked out to where they were sitting. He squinted his eyes, and held out a finger, indicating for them to just wait. The boys leaned back in their chairs and Matt crossed his arms. "What is he going to do?" He whispered to Fred. Fred just shrugged his shoulders and continued to watch.
Suddenly, the lion lunged again, only this time, Jethrow had another trick up his sleeve. He took a deep breath a swelled his chest out, then, just as the lion was inches from him, he bellowed out a loud roar, the roar of a lion. The crowd gasped as the tent shook, and the lion backed down in fear. Jethrow whistled a few more notes, and the lion seemed to be in a trance as it got back up and turned towards the audience. It looked at the crowd, then bowed down. "Ladies and gentlemen," Jethrow called out as he began to smile, "Welcome to the freak show." Then the curtain fell and hid the stage once more.
"Well that was weird." Matt said while they waited for the next act. "Dude, it's a freak show, what do you expect?" Fred answered. The crowd was beginning to get antsy when the curtain began to open. "Here we go again," Max said as he leaned back in his seat again.
On stage was a tall tower. It was painted to look like stone and ivy, and there was only one window at the very top. A small monkey in overalls walked onto the stage and began to make little monkey noises. Some people in the crowd awed as the monkey danced around a little. The monkey then turned towards the tower and began to call out towards it. A woman's voice answered, "What is it, Simon?" And the monkey pointed towards the edge of the stage. Just then, a tall man came out on stage. He wore nothing but overalls, and he had a dark, curly mustache, slicked back hair, and bushy eyebrows. His arms and legs were boney and thin, and the man just looked like a walking bag of bones. "I am Jumbo!" The man called out, his voice seemed meek and quiet, and he had a strong southern accent. "I'm what you might know as a strong man, and I can save the princess from the tower."
"Hey, Scrawny, I came to see some freaks, not a play! Prove your strength!" Max called from the audience. "The little guy wants to see what I can do, huh?" Jumbo said. "Well sure." Some people rolled out a crate with some tremendous effort, and left it in front of the man. He casually opened the crate and reached in with his scrawny arm. The man then pulled out a barbell with six weights on each end and lifted it above his head. His arms were rock solid as he began to twirl the barbell as if it were a baton. "What the-" Fred started to say when Matt shushed him. "I'm trying to watch," he said, leaning forward in his seat.
The man tossed the weights off to the side of the stage and they landed with a crash as they broke the boards. Jumbo cringed a little and looked off to the side of the stage with an apologetic look. He then focused back on the tower when the monkey started screeching at him. "Oh, right! I shall save the lovely princess." He walked over to the tower and called up to the window, "Dear princess, let down your long hair!" The woman's voice called back down, "I don't think my hair is long enough, sir!"
"Well, princess, how am I going to get you down?"
"Well, you could try this," she said as she threw something out the window. It was long, dark red, and braided, and it looked like a weird rope. "Well, okay I guess." Jumbo the strong man called back. He took the rope and climbed up the tower. When he reached the top, the woman said sweetly, "Thank you!" But she was still hiding in the tower, so you couldn't see her. "Come on, princess, let's get you down." Jumbo walked in the tower, scooped the girl up bridal style, and leapt off of the balcony and landed on the stage with a loud thud. He let the girl down, and moved out of the way where everyone could see her. She was a young woman with a pixie hair cut, a flowing princess gown, and a long beard that curled around her arms and waist and still dragged the floor. The woman stepped forward and spun around, then smiled at the audience. "You ugly freak!" Someone who was not sitting with the boys yelled. The girl just gave a pageant wave, and the monkey climbed up her beard and sat on her shoulder.
Jumbo swelled out his chest and yelled, "Ladies and gentleman, the incredible bearded lady, Rapunzel!" Rapunzel and Jumbo grabbed hands and took a bow, and the curtain closed once again.
A few acts had passed, nothing that stood out too much. Fred had fallen asleep and Max had gone to the car when his girlfriend called him. So, Matt was the only one still watching. Just as Matt was about to get really bored while watching a sword swallower twirl his large knife in the air for what seemed like the one hundredth time, he threw the dagger in the air, caught it by the handle, and stabbed himself in the chest.
The crowd gasped, and the sudden noise caused Fred to wake up, only to cover his face when he saw what the commotion was about. The sword swallower, who looked around the boys' age, just smirked and pulled the dagger out, leaving a hole that started to heal itself. Within a minute there was no evidence that anything had happened. The curtain closed again and Fred was still covering his face with his hands. "Is it gone?" He asked. "Yes, you wimp," Matt chuckled as he replied to his friend. Fred could not handle blood. He would faint at the sight of it. That, and needles.
The curtain opened and a tall man came out and walked to the center of the stage. He spoke in a high pitched voice that reminded Matt of what a human mouse would be like. "The next act you are about to watch has been deemed graphic and unfit for small audience members. Viewer discretion is advised." The man finished and began to walk off the stage when Fred called out, "Is there going to be blood?" The man casually looked at the audience and smiled. "Oh, yes. There will be plenty of that."
"Nope! I'm out! Have fun Matt!" Fred called back as he practically ran out of the tent to wait in the car with Max.
Matt could have gone out and left then, but now he was too invested. He wanted to see what else these guys had up their sleeves.
Two girls entered from opposite sides and began to walk to the center of the stage. They looked almost the exact same, only the one coming from the left had longer hair and a red dress, and the one on the right had a white dress. They walked perfectly in time with the other until they reached the center, and they turned to face the audience. Matt was taken aback by how pretty they were. They both had milky white skin, but they didn't look like vampires or sickly, they looked like two moon goddesses or something of that nature. They had to be his age, and they were both shorter than him. The one with longer hair had blue eyes that sparkled, but her face lacked expression. Her brown curls cascaded down her shoulders and almost reached the small of her back. The other one, what looked like her twin, had hair that just barely reached her elbows, and it was pulled back at the sides. Her eyes weren't blue, like her sister's, they were brown and she beamed at the audience. She seemed happy.
Matt was still staring at the girls who were probably his age when he noticed that the happy one had pulled something out of a pocket in her dress. It looked like a matchbox, and that was confirmed when the girl opened it and pulled out a small match. She scraped it across the side and held out the lit match for everyone to see. Then, she casually stepped away from her sister and tossed the match at her sister. The girl almost looked bored as the match landed on her red dress. Everyone gasped as the girl was engulfed by a huge flame, as if she had been downed in gasoline right before coming on stage. She should have been screaming in agony, but she just stood there, her sister still smiling.
Matt stared at her face and noticed that the girl smiled, only a little, and then began to make the flames twirl around her, and then she made them into a firey cape that hung around her, showing that her face was still pale and lovely. The girl then shrank the flames to just the palms of her hands, and looked at her sister. They nodded at each other, and then the flaming girl lunged at her sister and grabbed her arm.
The people in the crowd freaked out as the smell of burnt flesh began to fill the tent. A couple of people got up and ran for the exit, but Matt couldn't take his eyes off of the girls as they stood there calmly. The girl's arm was now charred, and a bit of white was beginning to show.
"Oh my gosh, that's her bone!" Matt whispered, trying to hold down some vomit that was now trying to come up his throat. The smell was horrible, and lots of people were screaming, one person had puked. The white bone had now turned black, and then the fire girl suddenly just stopped, and stepped away from her sister. There was a black handprint that had burned through the girl's skin, muscle, and bone and her arm was barely hanging on to anything. Her arm was completely dead. The girl looked down at it, and casually reached down and grabbed her arm, just under the bone. "What is she doing?" Matt quietly said, still traumatized by the entire event. It was like watching a train wreck.
The brown eyed girl smiled at the audience, and looked back down to her arm. Then, with a little grunt of effort, the girl tore her own arm off, and threw it to the side of the stage where it landed limply and that's where it stayed.