Circus Supernatural

Chapter 1

"Help, help! My heart, no! Don't!"

I sighed. Not a fucking-gain. I banged the side of my tent in frustration. All it did was shake free from the rain. It pooled in a puddle, enabling it to leak onto my double socked feet from the piss poorly patched hole in the roof of the tent.

"Sally, shut the fuck up. I'm trying to sleep!"

Every night was the same. There and then I decided I had to move. I'd toyed with the idea for months, but kept putting it off because I felt a semblance of safety here. Even with her madness, I had a soft spot for Sally. I felt protective of the elderly lady. She had no one else. Neither did I to be fair, but I wasn't in my late seventies and suffering from dementia.

"They are killing me. I can't breathe. Make it stop!" screamed Sally.

Someone further up the lines of tents shouted expletives and threatened her if she didn't stop.

As usual, I would have to be the one who would calm her down, talk some sense into her and hope I coaxed her into a lucid few hours so we could all get some sleep.

I shimmied out of my battered sleeping bag, shivering as the cold hit me like a sledgehammer. My teeth chittered, and I felt around for my torch, finding it under my pillow made out of stodgy old newspapers. It had just tipped into November and already winter was making itself known. I knew then, some of us in the tent city wouldn't survive past January if this was a sign of the cold to come. Part of me hoped it would be me. I was getting tired of this life.

Rubbing my hands together, I unzipped the tent, hesitantly looking left and right. As I switched on my torch, Sally let out another scream that was sure to awaken the local canines.

"Get off me, get OFF me! I can't breathe. Stop it. STOP IT!"

I staggered to my feet, kicking the boxes that acted as a barrier to the door of my tent to the side. You had to protect what was yours out here. There were no home security systems or electric gates. Boxes were the best thing I could use. At least it would give me a couple of seconds' warning to arm myself when a thief attempted to take what little I had.

An ear-splitting scream sounded from the tent a few feet away. I stomped my feet, slipping on my boots, and grumbled, flicking on the torch, as someone in the tent across from mine called out.

"Turn the fucking light off. I'm trying to sleep." They growled.

"Aren't we all mate?" I snapped back and made my way to Sally's spot. I shone the beam at her blue tent, filthy and wet. We had been 'neighbours' for nearly 3 years now. It would hurt to leave. I'd worry about her, but out here it was essential that you looked out for number one. And lack of sleep was as much a killer as the cold or the threats from thieves.

A blood-curdling scream rang out and ended abruptly, encouraging me to step up the pace. But as I reached out a hand to unzip the tent, a dark shape barrelled into me and knocked me on my ass.

"Sally, what the fuck!" I exclaimed. "It's me, Willow. I was only coming to..." but the hooded figure paused in front of me, and I finally noticed this person was taller, wider, and most definitely not Sally.

They aimed a heavy booted kick in my direction, making a sickening connection with my jaw. I heard something crack, and I screamed in pain. As they turned away from me, I searched the slick wet floor for my torch, my hand finding it to my right. As the hulking figure made to run, I launched the torch, and it connected with the back of their head. If I had not been in so much pain, I would have been proud of my aim.

The impact of my flimsy torch made the figure stumble slightly, before they took off at speed. Before I had even blinked and thought about getting up to follow, they were gone.