Fifteen years ago, I was driving down a dark road with my two best friends in the world. Evan, who I’d known since the fourth grade and been dating since the tenth, and Peter, who we’d met our first day of high school. We were sophomores in college at the time, all back in town together for the weekend—our first time together in two months to hang out and celebrate Halloween.
My stomach was in knots at being around them both again. I’d known for some time that things with Evan were fading out, and I’d had my excuses for why that was so—it was young love, we were at different colleges and were growing apart, etc. It was only as Peter and I began talking more and more about the what ifs of some possible future together in the past few weeks that I’d come to understand what I had to do. I’d give us all this last good weekend together, and then as gently as possible, I’d end things with Evan.
We’d been on our way to a Halloween party that night—it was being thrown by an old high school friend, but I could tell that Evan and Peter weren’t any more excited about going than I was. We were all faking a level of enthusiasm that we didn’t feel to try to keep the other two happy and entertained, and while the sentiment was kind, it still lead to us staring down the barrel of hours of forced reunions and awkward conversations with people we didn’t really talk to anymore.
Evan saw the lights up ahead first, and when he called out to us, I felt a twinge of relief and excitement at the orange marquee with its flashing light bulb arrows and blinking neon skulls. The lettering on the sign stood in shabby contrast to the care that had been shown to the sign itself, with mismatched black readerboard letters trailing across a single line:
The Traveling Spooktakular Roadshow
“Hey, Becca. Slow down. Let’s check this place out.”
I could hear the excitement in Evan’s voice and felt a new twinge of guilt. He really was a good guy, and I wasn’t sure what I had to do wasn’t going to break up our trio for good. Pushing the thought aside, I tried to smile at him. “You sure? Aren’t you super-pumped to get to Erik’s party?”
He rolled his eyes as Peter leaned in between us. “Cut the shit. None of us want to go to that really. Being a few minutes late to check this weird shit out can’t hurt.” He met my eyes for a moment before I looked away. Peter had been harsher with me this weekend and quick to side with whatever Evan wanted to do, and I got it. He didn’t know when I was going to talk to Evan, but he knew it was coming, and the combination of guilt and wanting to maintain appearances made it easy for us both to focus on making Evan happy and avoid acting too chummy with each other. Grimacing, I slowed the car and turned onto the small dirt track that wound past the sign into the dark.
We only had fifty feet to go before I could see the glow of pumpkin lights strung across the frame of what looked like an old tour bus. A single spotlight lit the open side door at the front of the bus, and next to it was an elaborately-carved wooden sign that said “Enter if you dare”. Raising my eyebrows, I glanced back at Evan and Peter.
“Well this looks sketchy as fuck.”
Evan grinned. “Yeah, right? It’s awesome. I didn’t even know this was here.”
Peter looked at him and then back at me. “Yeah…me either. I don’t think it was. I mean…when I came back into town last night, I came this way. There wasn’t any sign out then—it was late and I was tired, but I wasn’t that tired.”
Evan shrugged. “Maybe they just didn’t have the sign on anymore. You said you got in after midnight.”
Peter looked out at the bus as he sat back. “Maybe, but is this thing even open? Where are the people? It’s the night before Halloween and no one is out here? They could still be setting up for tomorrow.”
I nodded. “That, or this is some cover for a holiday meth sale. Either way, it looks creepy.”
Evan frowned at me. “So are you both against me?”
I heard Peter suck in a breath as I swallowed. “No, no. Not saying that…I just…well, if you want to check it out, see if it’s open, then we will.” I turned my head slightly without looking at Peter. “Right?”
From the shadows of the backseat, Peter’s voice sounded far away. “Sure man. It’ll be fun.”
We looked around the outside of the bus for someone to ask about a ticket or if they were even open, but there was no sign of anyone. Pointing at the open door, Evan said maybe we paid inside or it was just a free attraction someone had set up for fun. When he grabbed my hand and started forward, I went without complaint as Peter brought up the rear.
Climbing the five narrow, metal steps inside the doorway led us to a large driver’s cabin with a cracked, red vinyl seat and a large steering wheel wrapped in some kind of skin. There was no sign of a driver or guide, however. Just the way we’d come and the way forward, which lay through a thick black curtain that divided the driver’s cab from the rest of the bus. Giving me a nervous smile, Evan pushed past the barrier, and we followed.
I felt a sense of relief at what lay on the other side. It really was just a small haunt—the interior of the bus had been heavily customized, and it looked as though it had been hollowed out to make space for several discrete rooms in the long, wide body of the bus. The first held a decent-looking plastic corpse tied to a bedframe. Periodically, the sound of electric zaps would play from a hidden speaker as the body jolted and twisted in time with some internal mechanism. Peter let out a small laugh behind me.
“That’s pretty cool.”
The next room was littered with rubber body parts, and in the corner, a large drum bubbled as heads and hands bobbed on the surface of a misty brew. As we drew closer, a snake lunged out from beneath the water, causing Evan to jump as I let out a yelp. Cursing, I shook my head.
“Yeah, that got me.” I found myself actually growing tense, wondering if there would be a third room, and if so, what it might hold.
There was a third room. And a fourth. A fifth and a sixth. All similar in quality, but different in theme. It was actually a surprisingly good haunt, even though it was strange that we hadn’t seen or heard any actors or other staff yet. Still, my unease was growing steadily with each new scene. Not because of the jump scares or the animatronic monsters, but because…
“How the fuck is this thing this big?” Peter’s words were barely a whisper, scarcely audible above the whining strains of a creepy violin filling the funeral parlor we were in. A small white coffin lay to one side, and I felt sure something was going to spring from it as we got closer. Still, his words concerned me a lot more, as they echoed my own thoughts. As Evan looked back, I saw he’d heard it too, and the expression on his face mirrored my own.
“I…yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it?” Evan looked around. “This is what…our sixth room?”
“Seventh, I think.” I didn’t turn around, but I could hear the worry in Peter’s voice.
“Okay, seventh. And we looked around pretty good outside, right? There wasn’t another bus or a building or something attached to this thing. Or am I crazy?”
I shook my head slowly. “No. You’re not crazy.” Looking down at the floor, I frowned. “Maybe…I don’t know, maybe it’s a trick? Like the floor has been sloping down and they actually built the rest of this place underground? I know that sounds dumb, but it really feels like we’ve gone farther than the bus is long, so maybe we’re not really on the bus anymore.”
Evan nodded slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe we’re just misjudging things. This might be the last or…well, at least one of the last rooms. We have to be close to the end if it’s just the bus, right?”
I nodded back, and behind me, I heard Peter puff out a breath before adding, “Yeah, man. I bet we’re close.”
So we went on.
The rooms continued on. At first, we were silent except for the occasional gasp when something startled one of us. Then, we began making nervous jokes about how this would never end and how it really was impressive and how we’d have to tell people about this place when we got out. By the second hour, we were going through the rooms at a near walking run, ignoring most of the scenes as we held each other’s hands and focused on pushing forward.
We were at room sixty or seventy by this point, and while there had been some repeated broad themes, we hadn’t run across the same room twice. There were no branching paths or even noticeable curves, which meant that we’d somehow traveled in a straight line for what I guessed was close to three miles.
I based that guess in part on the changing size of the rooms themselves. As we went, they had slowly gotten wider and longer, so that by the time I glanced at my phone and saw it was after ten o’clock, we could barely make out the next black curtain at the far end of a fog-shrouded cemetery, and even the side walls were so far away we couldn’t touch them standing side by side.
Peter was the first person to suggest turning around and going back the way we came. Evan was against it from the start, insisting that it had to end at some point, and that so far, nothing bad had happened. It was all fake dolls and robots. Nothing real. And we’d have such a good story to tell when we got done, right?
I agreed with Evan to keep going, but not because I believed what he said. It was because I could tell he didn’t believe it either. There was a desperate sheen to his eyes in the yellow light of the artificial graveyard moon. A look that said what was being echoed in my own heart of hearts. So long as we kept going, we could pretend like things were okay. But what if we tried to go back and…
What if we tried to go back and it wouldn’t let us?
I lost count of the rooms we traveled through. I was thirsty and tired, but above all, terrified. I could feel myself edging closer to panic with every new place we visited, and the only thing worse than my fear of going on was my fear of what might happen if we didn’t.
Then suddenly, we stepped off of a bloody hill littered with plastic sacrifices to some strange wooden effigy and found ourselves in a large stone room. This room was different than the others—it was round, and there was no sign of another curtain at the far end of the circle. In the middle, surrounded by three large, silk pillows, was a short stone table that seemed carved from the rock of the room itself. On that table, was a single, laminated card of bright yellow. It said:
Be seated. Tell the others your most frightening story. Above all, tell the truth.
We were all in shock by then, I think. Grateful for anything different than the neverending haunt, ready to take any guidance that might provide a way forward and out, we didn’t even question the instructions. We all sat down on the pillows, staring across the table at each other. I already knew what story I had to tell. The memory had come back to me as soon as I’d seen the card. So I raised my hand, and without preamble, I began.
When I was eight, there was a man that lived at the end of our street. This was the year before you moved to town Evan, and I never told you about it because I was afraid it’d freak you out and you’d stop coming over to play. Anyway, this man…he had lived in the neighborhood for a long time. Everyone liked him and his family—they were the kind of people that would loan you stuff if you needed it—I remember Daddy had used his lawn mower for a month when ours died—and they always decorated their house and massive yard for the holidays.
That was the first thing that I noticed that year. They hadn’t decorated for Halloween. Not only that, but his kids hadn’t been to school for over two weeks and no one had seen the man or his wife either.
We weren’t a nosy neighborhood, but one night my Mom called over there to make sure they were all doing okay. The man answered, telling her they’d all been down with the flu, but they were doing better. Said he appreciated the call and he’d have to come visit us soon. She told me and Daddy about the call, but she seemed strange, like she was still worried about something.
Maybe that’s why I paid so much attention to the man’s house as we drove near the next day. I was excited when I saw him out in the yard, raking up huge, neat piles of autumn leaves. It was still early and he was nearly done, so I guess he’d been at it since before the sun came up.
I called out to Mom…I think hoping that pointing out that he was working in the yard would somehow make her feel better. And at first it did. She slowed the car a little and gave him a wave as we drove by. It was as he was returning the wave that I heard my mother gasp.
“Oh God.”
I looked at her, and then followed her gaze back to a distant part of the yard, to one of the piles of red and gold leaves that had started to scatter in the cool morning breeze. To the thing that poked out from beneath it.
It was part of a leg.
She drove on, making it three blocks into town before she saw a police car and flagged it down. The cop didn’t take her serious at first—he thought she was playing a joke or had mistaken Halloween decorations for the real thing. But she knew better, and when she threatened to call his superior if he didn’t check into it, he grudgingly relented. An hour later, our street was filled with lights and sirens.
They’d already arrested the man. They’d found him still raking the yard, carefully restacking the leaves the wind kept trying to carry away. As though he was tucking in the dismembered corpses of his family for a long sleep.
My mouth closed with an audible snap as I finished the story. I’d never told anyone that before, and my parents hadn’t mentioned it since the man had been found hanging from his bedsheets at an institution upstate a few months after the murders. This was all so strange and…
Then it was Peter’s turn.
My dad used to be in the military. You guys know that. Well, before I was born, maybe before my parents were even married, he was stationed in Germany for a couple of years. He was really young back then, and he’s told me some wild stories from his time there—getting in fights, doing dumb shit with his buddies, you know.
But one story he only told me once. It was one night not long before he died. He was drinking a lot by then—I don’t think the booze helped the pain that much, but it seemed to make him worry less about the cancer and leaving us behind. Those nights, he’d stay up late talking to us, almost…well, almost like he was trying to get in as much time with us as he could before it was too late.
This night, Mama had fallen asleep, but the two of us were still playing cards and talking. We’d watched a scary movie earlier in the night, and that made me think to ask him what was the scariest place he’d ever been. I expected him to talk about one of the few times he saw combat or something from his childhood, or maybe not have an answer at all, but instead he immediately sat his cards down and looked at me.
“It was a place called The Red Circle. It’s in Croatia. Me and a buddy had a week’s leave and decided to travel Europe some. We’d heard Croatia was cheap and full of beautiful scenery and women. That was all true, but as we traveled around, we kept hearing different people talk about this place called ‘The Red Circle’. That if we were looking for adventure, we needed to visit The Red Circle. If we wanted a story to tell, go to ‘The Red Circle’.”
My father shrugged slightly. “These were strangers we were shooting the shit with at bars, so at first we didn’t pay much attention. Whenever we asked what The Red Circle was or why it was so great, they would always get real dodgy. Talk about it being haunted or some bullshit.” He sighed. “Still, the fact that it kept coming up in different groups, in different towns even…we got curious. And while they were always scarce on details of what went on there, everyone who mentioned it to us was real good at telling us how to get there.”
“So our last night, we went. The directions took us out on a country road into the middle of the woods, and we were about to turn around, having decided that it was all a practical joke that locals played on stupid Americans, when we saw the start of the village.”
“The place was dead. Long dead. There were no people or cars…hell, I don’t know if there’d ever even been cars in that place. It was creepy as hell, and we loved it. It felt like we were on an archeological dig, finding a place that time had forgot. We just walked around at first, but we kept pushing each other, showing off how brave we were, and before long we were going into the empty houses and stores, the rotting chapel and the decaying city hall. And with each place that we visited, we somehow grew both more terrified and more driven to keep looking. Not because the buildings were abandoned.”
“It was because of the holes.”
“Every shop, every home, nearly every single place we visited had a large hole in the floor. It might be in the middle of the room or some dark corner of a basement, but it was nearly always there. And these weren’t holes that were being dug, either. Between the dirt pushed away and the broken floorboards pointed at the ceiling, it seemed clear to us that something had come up from underneath. Underground.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t leave sooner. We were both close to pissing our pants before we were halfway done, and it wasn’t until we heard the noise that we finally broke for the car and got out of there. We heard it first at what looked like a tiny post office. And then next door at what had once been a bar or restaurant I think.”
“It was a thumping noise, kind of like a weird heartbeat. Coming from those holes and getting closer.”
My father wiped his mouth before looking down dubiously at his empty glass. “I…We ran. Didn’t tell anybody about what we saw and heard. There was no point. They’d never believe us, and over the years, I stopped believing it much myself.” His eyes flickered up to mine for a minute. “Then a few years back, I heard from my old Army buddy. He wasn’t doing too good. Said he kept dreaming that he woke up down in the dark. Down beneath the earth in some mine or cave. He couldn’t see much of anything, but he could hear that sound. Thumping, thumping, as something came for him.”
He let out a short laugh. “I blew him off. Told him he just needed to let that shit go. Get some help if he couldn’t.” He lowered his eyes. “I heard later he killed himself.”
I didn’t know what to say. My father wasn’t an emotional man at the best of times, and now he seemed on the verge of tears. “Dad, I…”
He cut me off. “Thing is, I still didn’t believe him. Didn’t want to. Until last week.” His smile was terrible as he looked up at the ceiling. “Cuz last week, I started to have the dream too.”
Peter stopped talking suddenly, turning to Evan even as my own gaze shifted in the same direction. Face pale, Evan began to speak.
One night last year…this was late September, I think…I was up late. It might sound dumb, but even after a month in the dorm, I still had trouble getting to sleep a lot of nights. It wasn’t my bed, my room, my town, you know? Some nights I’d go for a walk or read a book for awhile, and on this night in particular, I’d opened the window to judge the weather for a walk before heading out.
That’s when I saw the person in the bear costume.
They were just standing out on the lawn of the dorm—A figure in a purple bear costume with cartoon eyes, a wide mouth, and a too-large head topping a body of shaggy lavender fur and a fluffy white chest and stomach. I let out a small laugh before catching myself, looking back to make sure I hadn’t woken up my roommate.
It was so odd, but then so much of college was like that. People got drunk, people did hazing rituals, people did weird shit to be funny, stand out, or get laid. I looked down at the bear for a few seconds with mild amusement, but that was about it. He was just standing there, hanging out on the grass in front of the building at like two in the morning and…well, it was dumb and funny, but that was about it. I was about to close the window and try my luck outside when the bear turned and looked up at me.
I froze for a moment, feeling weirdly caught for doing nothing more than looking out my window. I mean, it wasn’t like I was spying on him or anything. He was just out there to be seen. Still, I gave him an awkward wave, and felt relief when he gave a giant-pawed wave in return. Then he stopped waving, raising both arms as he began beckoning, as though he wanted me to come down.
I hesitated. I wasn’t scared, but I was tired and not in the mood to get tangled up in someone else’s bullshit. But then the thought occurred to me that maybe the person in the suit was getting hazed and they needed help. Maybe they had to stand there all night or some dumb shit to get into whatever fraternity or sorority was torturing them. Maybe they needed something to drink or something. Did I really want to leave them hanging if I could take a minute and help them out?
So I reluctantly nodded and gave them a thumbs up before putting on my shoes and heading downstairs. The dorm is laid out with the night exit being at the far end, so I had to walk out and around to get to the front lawn. When I did, I was pissed at first. There was no sign of the bear anymore, or that’s what I thought.
Then I noticed the crumpled pile of purple lying in the grass.
I walked up to the discarded suit and moved it with my foot as I looked around the yard. There was no sign of anyone. I figured they must have tossed it off as soon as I left the window. The thing was, I wasn’t even sure how they’d gotten it off at all. As I looked closer at the bear costume, I didn’t see any Velcro or zippers, no individual pieces or seams. It was all just fake fur and fabric aside from whatever kept the head in shape and the mouth open.
And looking into that mouth…it didn’t look right. Even when I tilted the head toward the security light overhead, I couldn’t see the inside of the costume. It wasn’t just that it was dark. It felt wrong. Like instead of looking into the mouth of a costume bear, I was staring down into something much darker and bigger. When I spoke near its yawning jaws, I even thought I could hear a faint echo from somewhere in the distant black.
I threw the suit down then and ran back to my room. I didn’t sleep at all that night, but by the next morning, when I looked out, it was gone.
As Evan finished, a new card fluttered out of the air and landed on the table between us. It was laminated like the first, but this one was red. It said:
Pick which story stays.
Our reactions should have been fear or confusion. Anger or rebellion. We shouldn’t have understood what it was asking for or been willing to decide so quickly. I’d like to say Peter and I didn’t know the consequences when we stood up and walked closer to one another, but there’s little point to lying now.
Taking Peter’s hand, we both spoke Evan’s name in unison. For his part, he never argued or even bothered to stand. He just looked at us with his sad eyes as the room began to grow dark. We found ourselves back out by the car, with no trace of the sign, the bus, or Evan to be found.
Peter and I got married the next year. Had a little girl that turned six this year. We’ve loved each other fairly well, I think, though that love has always been tainted by the guilt and shame of what we did. At the time I tried to tell myself he was accepting of our choice—that he loved us and was willing to sacrifice himself to set us free.
I don’t think that anymore.
Because last night, I couldn’t find our daughter. I searched the house from top to bottom, my calls becoming frantic and angry as panic gripped my chest. It wasn’t until I reached the point of looking outside that I saw the trail of candy leading off our front porch and into the grass.
The line of sweets was mainly hard candy, which Lexi didn’t like, but I saw mixed in a couple of empty wrappers where she’d opened small chocolates as she made her way out to the yard. Heart pounding, I followed the trail across the yard and to the edge of the trees beyond, and there I saw where the candy led.
To the open mouth of dirty, purple bear costume.
The suit was empty and seamless, lying in a wrinkled heap except for the head—large and cartoonishly bulbous with wide eyes and an open maw that seemed impossibly large. Not just out of proportion, but so big it seemed less like a mouth and more like the small opening of a cave or tunnel. Frantic, I picked up the suit and shook it, as though I thought our baby might come tumbling out. When nothing came, I checked the mouth again. Evan had been right. Something was wrong with it. It didn’t look like it should.
But that didn’t matter. I had to find Lexi. I called out to her again, and I jumped when I heard a responding sound—not an answer, but the faint echo of my words coming from the cavernous mouth of the bear. I dropped the suit and stepped back, staring in horror as it landed with the mouth pointed toward me and widened enough to admit at first a small child, and then a terrified mother.
I heard a new sound from inside. It was Lexi, crying out to me. Telling me she was lost. That she was scared. That she needed me.
I knew what this was without understanding it. It was a trap. A dare.
I wept as I crossed the yard back to the house. I called Peter and 911 when I got inside, but I already knew they’d never find her. By the time they arrived, even the bear suit was gone.
Maybe I should tell Peter about it, but I doubt I will. He’s already troubled and distant these days. He stays late at work, and when he’s home, he stays outside tending to the yard as though to avoid me. Even at night, I hear him moaning and crying out from some recurring nightmare. I’ve tried asking him about it, but he only gives me a haunted, almost angry look before changing the subject or getting up to go outside.
I think about the Roadshow all the time now. I wonder if we found it or it found us. If we could have done something different. If we ever really left at all.
But of course we did. That’s ridiculous. Whatever that place is, wherever it goes, we escaped it.
I have to stop here. The noise is back again. Something is underneath the house.
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