Advent Calendar Challenge: Day 8
Dec. 8th, 2015 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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eerieindianaToday's prompt was "suffer the little children", submitted by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eviinsanemonkey
When the evil carnival rolls into town, carrying with it the smells of fried onions and candy floss and engine oil and hot metal, Marshall is ready for them. The clowns with their remora-like teeth concealed behind too-red smiles, the contortionists that are actually pulsating clumps of writhing tentacles stuffed inside an ill-fitting skinsuit, and of course the ring-master with his booming voice and round belly stuffed full of all the unwary children killed and eaten along the route that eventually led him to Eerie; Mars knows what they are, and none of them will be getting their monstrous claws into the unwary citizens of his new home town, not if he has anything to say about it.
Simon stands firm on his anti-gun policy, opting instead for a home-made flamethrower that he assembles with a degree of familiarity that would worry Marshall if they weren't in the middle of yet another murderous circus-folk crisis. Every summer, Mars keeps hoping Eerie will be taken off the circuit. Every summer, he wakes to hear the tinkling discordant notes of the calliope, sighs, and fetches the machete from his father's garden shed.
So it's a little disconcerting when they pull up to the edge of the fairground in his father's wood-panelled station wagon, only to see the Ferris wheel aflame and Winifred Swanson bundling her sobbing daughter into the back of a powder-blue Cadillac. Mrs. Swanson opens the capacious truck and carefully slots a pair of long knives inside what looks like a custom-made Foreverware weapons rack inside. The weapons rack is a bright, cheerful, easy-clean shade of pink. She's fetching a thermos labelled "chicken broth, 1984" from a picnic basket emblazoned with the familiar eternity symbol when she looks up and sees the boys, and her perfect eyebrows crinkle a little as she tries to place them.
"Martin?" she asks. "Matthew?"
"Marshall," says Marshall. The smooth, ageless forehead clears.
"Oh yes!" she says. "Marilyn's son. My, how you've grown." She doesn't sound as if she approves. "How's your mother?"
"She's fine, Mrs. Swanson," Mars replies. And then, both because it's polite and because he really, really wants to know, he adds, "And how are you?"
Winny Swanson passes the decade-old soup to her daughter through the window before replying.
"Oh, well enough, thank you," she says, her tone distracted. She pushes her platinum blonde hair back from her face and her fingers leave smears of black blood on the shining white surface. "Did you come for the circus? I'm afraid it's had to close down."
The rollercoaster collapses with a dull roar.
"I see that," Marshall says. "If you don't mind my asking..." He gestures at the gleaming knives, lovingly sharpened and oiled beneath their sticky coating of coagulating monster blood.
Winifred Swanson pulls a wad of tissues from a rubber-sealed dispenser and scrubs at her stained fingers with them.
"This whole affair has been quite upsetting for me, Marvin," she says. "I'm thinking of bringing my concerns to the Mayor. Bob and I didn't work ourselves to the bone to give Tiffany a better life, just for some horrid cannibals in ill-fitting shoes to steal her away." She slams the boot of the car down, stamping her white go-go-booted foot on the churned earth in her agitation. "You try, and you try, and you seal your precious little girl up for eight hours a night to let her be a child for as long as possible, and these... these people," she spits the word, "come along and all they want to do is devour her soul so they can continue peddling mystery meat on sticks and giving away soft toys stuffed with fibre-glass and asbestos. It won't do, Michael, it simply won't."
"Oh," says Marshall. "Well... would you like any help?"
Mrs. Swanson takes a deep, shuddering breath, the effort of regaining her calm visible in every line of her body.
"No thank you, dear," she says. "But it is terribly good of you to ask. Do give my best to your mother."
"I will, Mrs. Swanson."
Winifred climbs into her enormous car, backs into the grinning clown-mouth that marked the entrance to the now-ruined circus, and drives away into the darkness. Mars and Simon watch her go.
"I guess she's still mad about you smashing her kid's piggybank," Marshall says.
"I guess so," says Simon. "You know what's weird, though?"
"You mean, besides a housewife with a sideline in monster-slaying?"
"By Eerie's standards, she's a pretty good parent." Simon hoisted the wearable fuel canister for his homemade flamethrower onto his back. "I'm going to make sure nothing survived the fire."
There's not much Mars can say to that, so he just nods, and sits on the hood of his father's car as the night fades, and dawn breaks, and afterwards he drives a silent and sooty Simon back to his parent's house, where Marilyn scolds them for staying out all night, and makes them bacon pancakes, and they very carefully don't talk about Tiffany Swanson ever again.
eviinsanemonkeyWhen the evil carnival rolls into town, carrying with it the smells of fried onions and candy floss and engine oil and hot metal, Marshall is ready for them. The clowns with their remora-like teeth concealed behind too-red smiles, the contortionists that are actually pulsating clumps of writhing tentacles stuffed inside an ill-fitting skinsuit, and of course the ring-master with his booming voice and round belly stuffed full of all the unwary children killed and eaten along the route that eventually led him to Eerie; Mars knows what they are, and none of them will be getting their monstrous claws into the unwary citizens of his new home town, not if he has anything to say about it.
Simon stands firm on his anti-gun policy, opting instead for a home-made flamethrower that he assembles with a degree of familiarity that would worry Marshall if they weren't in the middle of yet another murderous circus-folk crisis. Every summer, Mars keeps hoping Eerie will be taken off the circuit. Every summer, he wakes to hear the tinkling discordant notes of the calliope, sighs, and fetches the machete from his father's garden shed.
So it's a little disconcerting when they pull up to the edge of the fairground in his father's wood-panelled station wagon, only to see the Ferris wheel aflame and Winifred Swanson bundling her sobbing daughter into the back of a powder-blue Cadillac. Mrs. Swanson opens the capacious truck and carefully slots a pair of long knives inside what looks like a custom-made Foreverware weapons rack inside. The weapons rack is a bright, cheerful, easy-clean shade of pink. She's fetching a thermos labelled "chicken broth, 1984" from a picnic basket emblazoned with the familiar eternity symbol when she looks up and sees the boys, and her perfect eyebrows crinkle a little as she tries to place them.
"Martin?" she asks. "Matthew?"
"Marshall," says Marshall. The smooth, ageless forehead clears.
"Oh yes!" she says. "Marilyn's son. My, how you've grown." She doesn't sound as if she approves. "How's your mother?"
"She's fine, Mrs. Swanson," Mars replies. And then, both because it's polite and because he really, really wants to know, he adds, "And how are you?"
Winny Swanson passes the decade-old soup to her daughter through the window before replying.
"Oh, well enough, thank you," she says, her tone distracted. She pushes her platinum blonde hair back from her face and her fingers leave smears of black blood on the shining white surface. "Did you come for the circus? I'm afraid it's had to close down."
The rollercoaster collapses with a dull roar.
"I see that," Marshall says. "If you don't mind my asking..." He gestures at the gleaming knives, lovingly sharpened and oiled beneath their sticky coating of coagulating monster blood.
Winifred Swanson pulls a wad of tissues from a rubber-sealed dispenser and scrubs at her stained fingers with them.
"This whole affair has been quite upsetting for me, Marvin," she says. "I'm thinking of bringing my concerns to the Mayor. Bob and I didn't work ourselves to the bone to give Tiffany a better life, just for some horrid cannibals in ill-fitting shoes to steal her away." She slams the boot of the car down, stamping her white go-go-booted foot on the churned earth in her agitation. "You try, and you try, and you seal your precious little girl up for eight hours a night to let her be a child for as long as possible, and these... these people," she spits the word, "come along and all they want to do is devour her soul so they can continue peddling mystery meat on sticks and giving away soft toys stuffed with fibre-glass and asbestos. It won't do, Michael, it simply won't."
"Oh," says Marshall. "Well... would you like any help?"
Mrs. Swanson takes a deep, shuddering breath, the effort of regaining her calm visible in every line of her body.
"No thank you, dear," she says. "But it is terribly good of you to ask. Do give my best to your mother."
"I will, Mrs. Swanson."
Winifred climbs into her enormous car, backs into the grinning clown-mouth that marked the entrance to the now-ruined circus, and drives away into the darkness. Mars and Simon watch her go.
"I guess she's still mad about you smashing her kid's piggybank," Marshall says.
"I guess so," says Simon. "You know what's weird, though?"
"You mean, besides a housewife with a sideline in monster-slaying?"
"By Eerie's standards, she's a pretty good parent." Simon hoisted the wearable fuel canister for his homemade flamethrower onto his back. "I'm going to make sure nothing survived the fire."
There's not much Mars can say to that, so he just nods, and sits on the hood of his father's car as the night fades, and dawn breaks, and afterwards he drives a silent and sooty Simon back to his parent's house, where Marilyn scolds them for staying out all night, and makes them bacon pancakes, and they very carefully don't talk about Tiffany Swanson ever again.
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no subject
Date: 2015-12-08 12:52 am (UTC)I love how you delve into more of Eerie than the main trio :)
no subject
Date: 2015-12-08 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-08 02:06 am (UTC)-that Simon has a policy against guns, but flamethrowers are totally okay
-that an evil carnival is just one more thing they have to deal with every year
-Winifred's complete failure to get Marshall's name right
-a thermos labelled "chicken broth, 1984"
-that Winifred is not only both terrifying and kind of awesome here, she really is a pretty good parent by Eerie standards.
Basically, I adore the whole thing!
no subject
Date: 2015-12-08 08:02 pm (UTC)Bullets mostly only.work on humans. Fire works on humans, and eldritch abominations from beyond the realm of human understanding. Basically,simon is.the originator of the "kill it with fire" memes we see.everywhere.
I suppose from winifreds.pov, mars will only be a kid for a.few.years, so why bother learning his name?
no subject
Date: 2015-12-09 07:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-09 08:05 am (UTC)