Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Terror

The woman laid her knitting aside, picked up a glass mug and held it under the tap; sediment hung in the rich brown liquid.

Bragg tasted it, then drank deeply. “I didn’t know anyone still brewed beer like this.” He glanced around the room.

“Perhaps you gentlemen will join me?”

“At, likely we will, sir. And many thanks.”

Bragg’s gaze moved on to a poster thumb-tacked to the wall. It had obviously been hand-printed, and read:

CIRCUS

Before your very eyes, werewolf into man!

See the vampire rise from his coffin!

Bring the children – invest in a sense of wonder

As Arnold Bragg stared and wondered if beer had finally rotted his brain, sluggish memory stirred. In his job, he always listened to rumours; some he hunted down and obtained a story. There had been this crazy one, crazy but persistent, of a freak circus that never visited towns but stopped only for one night at isolated villages. He’d come across it first in the fens, then on the Yorkshire moors, and again in a Welsh valley.

The knowledge that this circus was here, now, sobered him. He set down his glass on the counter, unfinished. When he scented a lead, he could stop drinking. And this one was likely to prove the apex of a career dedicated to discrediting fakes and phoneys of all kinds.

He studied the poster carefully. No name was given to the circus. There was no indication of time or place of performance. Still, it shouldn’t be hard to find.

He strolled outside, passed the garage where the mechanic worked on his car, and sauntered towards the cottages. A few families, young husbands and wives with their offspring, were walking down a lane, and he followed them. Presently he glimpsed, in the distance, the canvas top of a large tent showing above some trees.

He kept to himself, observing the people on the way to the circus; there was no gaiety in them. With solemn faces and measured step they went, people who took their pleasure seriously.

Beyond a screen of trees was a green field with the big top and a huddle of caravans and Land Rovers. People formed a small queue at an open flap of the tent, where a little old man sold tickets. He sported a fringe of white hair, nut-brown skin and the wizened appearance of a chimpanzee.

Bragg dipped a hand into his pocket and brought out some loose change.

“I don’t believe you’ll like our show, sir.” The accent was foreign. “It’s purely for the locals, you understand. Nothing sophisticated for a London gentleman.”

“You’re wrong,” Bragg said, urging money on him. “This is just right for me.” He snatched a ticket and walked into the tent.

Seats rose in tiers, wooden planks set on angle-irons. In the centre was a sawdust ring behind low planking; an aisle at the rear allowed performers to come and go. There was no provision for a high-wire act.

Bragg found an empty seat away from the local people, high enough so that he commanded a clear view, but not so far from the ringside that he would miss any detail.

Not many seats were occupied. He lit a cigarette and watched the crowd. Grave faces, little talk; the children showed none of that excitement normally associated with a visit to the circus. Occasionally eyes turned his way and were hastily averted. A few more families arrived, all with young children.

The old man who sold tickets doubled as ringmaster. He shuffled across the sawdust and made his announcement in hardly more than a whisper. Bragg had to strain to catch the words.

“I, Doctor Nis, welcome you to my circus. Tonight you will see true wonders. The natural world is full of prodigies for those who open their eyes and minds. We begin with the vampire.”

Somewhere, pipe music played; notes rippled up and down a non-Western scale, effecting an eerie chant. Two labourers came down the aisle, carrying a coffin. The coffin was far from new and they placed it on the ground as if afraid it might fall to pieces.

The pipes shrilled.

Bragg found he was holding his breath and forced himself to relax. Tension came again as the lid of the coffin moved. It moved upwards, jerkily, an inch at a time. A thin hand with long fingernails appeared from inside. The lid was pushed higher, creaking in the silence of the tent, and the vampire rose and stepped out.

Its face had the pallor of death, the canine teeth showed long and pointed, and a ragged cloak swirled about its human form.

One of the labourers returned with a young lamb and tossed it to the vampire. Hungrily, teeth sank into the lamb’s throat, bit deep, and the lips sucked and sucked . . .

Bragg stared, fascinated and disgusted. When, finally, the drained carcass was tossed aside, the vampire appeared swollen as a well-filled leech.

The labourers carried the coffin out and the vampire walked behind. Jesus, Bragg thought – this is for kids?

Dr Nis made a small bow.

“You who are present tonight are especially fortunate. Not at every performance is it possible to show a shape-changer. Lycanthropy is not a condition that can be perfectly timed – and now, here is the werewolf.”

He placed a small whistle to his lips and blew into it. No sound came, but a large grey wolf trotted into the sawdust ring, moving as silently as the whistle that called it. Slanting eyes glinted yellowish-green. The animal threw back its head and gave a prolonged and chilling howl.

Hairs prickled on the back of Bragg’s neck and he almost came out of his seat. He blinked his eyes as the wolf-shape wavered. The creature appeared to elongate as it rose high on hind limbs. The fur changed. Bragg moistened suddenly-dry lips as the wolf became more manlike . . . and more . . . till it was a naked man who stood before them.

An attendant draped a blanket about his shoulders and together they walked off. Blood pounded through Bragg’s head; it had to be a fake, obviously, but it was a convincing fake.

“The ancient Egyptians believed in physical immortality,” Dr Nis whispered. “They had a ceremony known as the Opening of the Mouth. This ceremony restored to the body, after death, its ability to see, hear, eat and speak. Here now, a mummy from the land of the Pharaohs.”

A withered mummy, wrapped in discoloured linen bandages, its naked face dark-skinned, was carried into the ring. Four jars were placed about it.

“These are Canopicjars, containing the heart and lungs and the viscera of the deceased.”

A voice spoke, a voice that seemed to come from the mummy. It spoke in a language unfamiliar to Bragg.

Dr Nis said smoothly: “I will translate freely. The mummy speaks: True believers only are safe here – those who doubt are advised to open their hearts.”

Bragg wanted to laugh, but sweat dried cold on his flesh and laughter wouldn’t come.

The mummy was carried off.

“We have next,” Dr Nis said with pride, “an experiment of my own. Can a corpse be re-animated? Can the component parts of a man be brought together and endued with life? I shall allow you to judge how successful I have been.”

A travesty of a man shuffled down the aisle and into the ring. It was hideous. The limbs were not identical; they had not come from the same body. The head, waxen and discoloured, lolled at an angle, as if insecurely hinged at the neck. It lumbered unsteadily around the sawdust ring, and it smelt. The man-thing did not speak; it stumbled over uneven feet, rocking from side to side as it tried to recover balance, and lost its head.

A small gasp was jerked from Bragg’s lips as the detached head hit the sawdust and rolled to a stop. The headless cadaver blundered on aimlessly, like a decapitated chicken, until attendants hurried to guide it from the ring.

Bragg felt sick, and his fingers drummed nervously on his knees. Impossible to believe the thing was just a freak; yet he had to believe, or admit the impossible.