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On an ordinary October night…
Blood rushedto the surface of the cut beneath my blade, a shock of bright red against pink flesh. About the time I registered what I was seeing, pain shot up my hand, radiating from the sliced skin and throbbing with each beat of my heart.
“Fuck,” I spat, throwing down the knife and pivoting away from the butcher’s block. I rushed to the sink to stick my bleeding finger beneath cool water, though it didn’t do much to dull the pain. My hands had been numb for the past two hours but the careless accident had reawakened the nerves from the cold and they werepissed.
That’s what I got for zoning out. If Clyde were there, he’d shake his head and lecture me on knife safety, as if I hadn’t been handling sharp objects professionally for the past seven years.
The realization hit me like a sucker punch.
Is that what I was now? A butcher? Aprofessionalbutcher? Is that where my measly twenty-three-year-old life had taken me? To be a butcher for the rest of my life in the middle of Bum Fuck, Illinois? God, I hoped not.
Much to my mother’s never-ending disappointment, I didn’t knowwhatI wanted to do with my life, but I sure as shit didn’t want to be the “meat manager” of a boutique grocery store.Yet, there I was, seven years into a “career” I never wanted. I told myself it was the lack of options that had done me in, sealed my fate. Deep down, there was an even more insidious reason—indecision. Perpetually stuck in my own head, unsure of anything, uninspired by the possibilities, my life ground to a halt until I felt as useless as the slabs of meat under my knife.
In the front of the shop, bells jingled. Someone had come in through the door, which meant the idiot cashier had left the place unlocked on her way out, too excited for the weekend to care about anything else like responsibilities.
“We’re closed!” I called out from the back, turning off the tap and grabbing a paper towel to press over my screaming gash.
No one answered.
I swore under my breath and headed toward the front.
Howden’s Market was a relatively small space compared to major grocery chains, but there were still a few rows of shelves, stocked with specialty items, which meant I didn’t have a clear line of sight of the whole place.
I wove through the aisles, looking for the wayward customer. “Hello?”
No answer.
“Kylie, is that you?” I asked, turning the corner where the register was, fully expecting to either ream out the sixteen-year-old or confront some other juvenile moron who came in looking for quick cash.
To my relief—and confusion—no one was there. IknewI’d heard those damn bells. Hadn’t I?
I marched over to the front door and engaged the locks, flipping off the neon “Open” sign humming in the window.
Spinning on the ball of my foot, I turned and slammed into something warm and solid. A person. I yelped and scurried backward, nearly toppling the display of pumpkin- and apple-flavored baked goods.
Malcolm and Taylor busted out laughing, clinging to each other and trying not to fall over themselves.
“Assholes!” I huffed, clamping a hand over my racing heart.
They kept laughing even as Taylor produced a wrinkled piece of paper and shoved it in my face. “Quit your bitching and let’s go already! This place closed a half hour ago! What have you been doing?”
“Getting a jumpstart on shit for tomorrow,” I grumbled, snatching the yellowed flyer out of his hand and holding it at a distance I could actually read.
In creepy black letters that looked hand-drawn, it saidOne Night Onlyacross the top, featuring a silhouette of a circus tent in black and white.
Once every seven years,
When the moon is full
And the fog is thick,
The Carnival of the Lost
makes its appearance.
Join us if you dare.
A crudely drawn map at the bottom provided the location. I tilted my head, trying to place it on the edge of town. “State and Hillcrest? There’s nothing out there.”
