Four

The thing in the cage was pacing now, crawling from side to side on all fours. Its fingers clicked and scraped audibly against the wood, even with the ringmaster's voice booming out over the crowd.

"Amazing, isn't it, folks? Oh yes, it's very real. No makeup here, no stage magic. 'But what is it?', I hear you cry. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is something only a very select few have ever seen, and most of them didn't survive it. Our little friend here doesn't mess around when it comes to hunting-"

His head was full of the sharp tang of fear, though he had no words to describe why. He knew its name. He knew it was dangerous. And, somehow, he knew that it was impossible. 

It couldn't be trapped like that. It wasn't an animal.

How did he know?

"-but Miss Wise here, well, she's no ordinary prey! Do you know what she did? Our very own Penny Whiteface went out and hunted down the boogeyman."

His gaze shifted back towards the woman in whiteface. He heard the murmuring of the crowd as they turned to watch her, too, but somehow, he thought that he was the only one that noticed the momentary flicker of confusion on her face, or the brief shift of her eyes up towards the ringmaster.

"Because that's what we've got here, folks, oh yes! The boogeyman himself. The thing under the bed. A monster right out of the scary stories you tell the kiddies. Well, you're gonna have to come up with something new now, because all of them can see for themselves that he's no threat any more!"

Only it wasn't trapped. The thought blared in his mind. It wasn't trapped. It couldn't be trapped.

In the cage, the thing stopped its pacing and sat back on its haunches, staring straight ahead.

No, not straight ahead. At him.

Slowly, he began to push the doors open.

"But don't worry, folks, he's harmless. In fact, we've got a demonstration planned for you right now! Come on out, boys-"

Three of the clowns trooped back onto the stage from some recess beside the stage. One of them held a brass key ring, too large to be practical and too noisy to be real. A stage prop, meant to draw attention. One of the other two held a coiled whip, which he pressed into Penny Whiteface's hand.

Again, there was that brief flicker of hesitation on her stony expression. He pushed the door open further, far enough that he could press through.

The clowns took up station on either side of the cage. The one with the key ring inserted the biggest and shiniest of them into the rusted lock.

In the cage, the thing tensed, very slightly.

"And right here, right now, our very own Penny Whiteface is going to tame the beast once more!" The announcer threw up one white-gloved hand, and the orchestra swelled in concert. The audience cheered now, so loud as to be deafening.

No one else noticed the way that the woman in whiteface was shaking.

The clown turned the key.

There was a shriek of dying metal and the sound of wood splintering. The one with the key didn't even have time to scream before his stomach simply disappeared and the contents spilled onto the stage with a splash.

The one next to him did scream, just before he was borne to the stage by the snarling thing. It was a flurry of teeth and claws and streaks of red. The red kept fountaining up, even after the screaming stopped.

The audience picked up the screaming. Some part of him registered that there was a running stampede for the exits starting up, but he wasn't watching. What few members of the crowd that were moving for his door were just a blur as he ran forward.

His legs were uneven and swung at awkward angles, turning his run into something more like an indefinite collapse. But there was power there. He was strong.

If only he could be faster...

"It's okay, folks, all part of the show!" The ringmaster was still on his little dais, both hands held up in a gesture of placation. The voice was still there, still smooth and powerful, but his eyes were rolling madly in his head, and the grin was too bright and too fixed. He seemed rooted to the spot, unable to move as more of the actors rushed back onto the stage holding hooks and nets.

There was more red, and more screams, and more of the actors collapsed in lifeless heaps.

He shoved one of the screaming audience members aside and lurched down the steps leading towards the stage. Ahead, there was the crack of a whip, and he lifted his gaze to see the woman in whiteface swinging it madly to try and fend off the advancing shape of the monster.

Already, at least a dozen corpses rested on the stage. Gore flooded the performance area; those who were left alive slipped and stumbled on it in their attempts to flee. All of those who had meant to re-imprison the thing had given up and were running for their lives.

All but the woman in whiteface. The ringmaster still stood rooted to his spot on the raised platform, but she was moving - not away from the thing, but circling it with the whip at the ready.

She was still shaking. Her stony expression had disappeared, replaced with one of utter terror. But she stood and faced it nonetheless.

"See, folks? She's got it all under control," the ringmaster boomed. His eyes were turned upward now, towards the darkness in the heights of the theater, as if he were praying. But he kept talking. "She's quite a girl, our Penny. This is all just part of the show, folks!" And, in the background, the orchestra kept playing its strained tune.

The gaunt shape was on all fours again, creeping by inches around the edge of the stage. Almost all of it was painted in the deep, rich red it had ripped from its victims' bodies. But its eyes were still the same black pits.

And something about the way it held its head made it look as though it were grinning.

Penny Whiteface swung the whip again. The crack of it echoed around the theater, but the thing didn't even flinch.

It leapt, but she danced backward, just out of its reach. He heard her panicked breathing.

And his hand caught the edge of the stage. It was slick with blood, but the wooden tips of his fingers bit into the surface, and he flung himself upward and over. His boots thudded on the wood, and he kicked one of the bodies aside as he staggered forward, towards the blood-red shape of The Rake.

The woman looked up for a moment and saw him. Her eyes widened, and she took another step back, ready to run.

He ignored her. Instead, he lunged forward, one clawlike hand outstretched, and grabbed at the thing.

It spun and lashed out, its claws going for his gut. He felt the impact, and the sensation of splintering wood, but any pain that accompanied it was dulled by the rushing in his head.

"Ho now, what's this?" The Ringmaster was staring at him as if he were an alien, looking absolutely terrified. But his voice was the same, and he still didn't move from the dais. "We can't have audience members joining in on the show, folks, especially ones like this one-"

He ignored the words. The struggle occupied all of his mind. There was Penny Whiteface, backing away, but The Rake was here, less than a foot away, and it was made for this, to get up close and hack and stab and bite and rend. He felt the claws bite into his torso again and again.

Finesse was beyond him. There was no technique in his attack. He simply swung his arms like a madman, trying desperately to connect with anything. But even uncoordinated, he was strong. He felt more than one wild punch strike home, saw the thing reel from the impact, but he couldn't tell if he was doing any lasting damage.

But he kept swinging. There was only one thought in his mind, now: get the thing away from Penny Whiteface.

It snarled and swung upward, stabbing for his face. At the last moment, he caught its wrist in his right hand and attempted to force it back. He was strong.

It was stronger.

He felt its other hand come up to grip his shoulder, and the pressure forced him to lean back, inch by inch. Then he was on his knees, and the thing was eye-to-eye with him, black pits locked on the triangular holes where his eyes should be. He heard the ringmaster speaking behind him, but he couldn't make out the words now. The Rake's eyes seemed to fill the world with a dark rushing, as if they were holes into the void.

He felt the thing twist its hand out of his grasp, and saw the claws outlined against the light as it lifted them to strike.

And then there was the crack of a whip, and the thing's head snapped around. Penny Whiteface stood there, bringing her arm around for another swing. This close, the whiteface couldn't hide her expression. She was terrified, but she wasn't running.

The thing's eyes were on her. For a moment, its grip relaxed.

He could hear the ringmaster behind him.

He twisted, sank backward still further, and rolled, carrying the thing with him. Halfway through the backwards somersault, he kicked out, and he felt its hand slip off of him as it flew back towards the dais.

He didn't stop to listen to the ringmaster's smooth voice turn to screams that filled the theater, or to listen to the sudden empty void of sound when the orchestra stopped playing. He simply scrabbled upright and sprinted for the edge of the stage, seizing Penny Whiteface's arm as he went and dragging her with him, along the aisles and towards the massive double doors leading outside.

Behind the two of them, the screams stopped at the same moment that the overhead lights snapped off with booming electrical thud.