A Living Nightmare Read Online Free PDF Page B

man in the world was standing there, glaring down on us as if we were a couple of rats. He was so tall, his head almost touched the ceiling. He had huge bony hands and eyes that were so dark, they looked like two black coals stuck in the middle of his face.
    "Isn't it rather late for two little boys like yourselves to be out and about?" he asked. His voice was as deep and croaky as a frog's, but his lips hardly seemed to move. He would have made a great ventriloquist.
    "We …" Steve began, but had to stop and lick his lips before he could continue. "We're here to see the Cirque Du Freak," he said.
    "
Are
you?" The man nodded slowly. "Do you have tickets?"
    "Yes," Steve said, and showed his.
    "Very good," the man muttered. Then he turned to me and said: "How about you, Darren? Do you have a ticket?"
    "Yes," I said, reaching into my pocket. Then I stopped dead in my tracks.
He knew my name
! I glanced at Steve and he was shaking in his sneakers.
    The tall man smiled. He had black teeth and some were missing, and his tongue was a dirty shade of yellow. "My name is Mr. Tall," he said. "I own the Cirque Du Freak."
    "How did you know my friend's name?" Steve asked bravely.
    Mr. Tall laughed and bent down, so he was eyeball-to-eyeball with Steve. "I know lots of things," he said softly. I know your names. I know where you live. I know you don't like your mommy or your daddy." He turned to face me and I took a step back. His breath stank to the high heavens. "I know you didn't tell your parents you were coming here. And I know how you won your ticket."
    "
How
?" I asked. My teeth were shaking so much, I wasn't sure if he heard me or not. If he did, he decided not to answer, because next he stood up and turned away from us.
    "We must hurry," he said, beginning to walk. I thought he would take giant steps, but he didn't, he took short ones. "The show is about to begin. Everyone else is present and seated. You are late, boys. You're lucky we didn't start without you."
    He turned a corner at the end of the corridor. He was only two or three steps in front of us, but when we turned the corner, he was sitting behind a long table covered with a black cloth that reached down to the floor. He was wearing a tall red hat now, and a pair of gloves.
    "Tickets, please," he said. He reached out, took them, opened his mouth, put the tickets in, then chewed them to pieces and swallowed!
    "Very well," he said. "You may go in now. We normally don't welcome children, but I can see you are two fine, courageous young men. We will make an exception."
    There were two blue curtains in front of us, drawn across the end of the hall. Steve and me looked at each other and gulped.
    "Do we walk straight on?" Steve asked.
    "Of course," Mr. Tall said.
    "Isn't there a lady with a flashlight?" I asked.
    He laughed. "If you want someone to hold your hand," he said, "you should have brought a babysitter!"
    That made me mad and I forgot for a moment how afraid I was. "All right," I snapped, stepping forward, surprising Steve. "If that's the way it is …" I walked forward quickly and pushed past the curtains.
    I don't know what those curtains were made of, but they felt like spiderwebs. I stopped once I passed them. I was in a short corridor and another pair of curtains were draped across the walls a few yards in front. There was a sound behind and then Steve was by my side. We could hear noises on the other side of the curtains.
    "Do you think it's safe?" I asked.
    "I think it's safer to go forward than backward," he answered. "I don't think Mr. Tall would like it if we turned back."
    "How do you think he knew all that stuff about us? "I asked.
    "He must be able to read minds," Steve replied.
    "Oh," I said, and thought about that for a few seconds. "He nearly scared the life out of me," I admitted.
    "Me, too," Steve said.
    Then we stepped forward.
    It was a huge room. The chairs had been ripped out of the theater long ago, but deck chairs had been set up in their place.