"A night in the Macabre Carnival" by Emma Lydia Bates

The Macabre Carnival was a sight that could burn its way into mortal eyes and through to mortal nightmares for eternities after it had first been glimpsed. Dr. Lavroskov had been mortal when he had first seen it. Now, he wasn’t entirely sure. Mortals did not stay long when they first encountered the Carnival. They fled, or met fates so far beyond description that, outside the Carnival, they would not be believed.

         Within the Carnival, anything was possible. And with this knowledge, Dr. Lavroskov approached the Ringmaster.

         Dr. Lavroskov had been a scientist, too, when he first encountered the Carnival. He had been a rational man, prepared to believe nothing unless it could be exactly repeated and proven in the monitored environment of a laboratory. Magic, he had no time for, and like anyone, like any human outside of a madhouse, he would never have believed in the Carnival. Maybe the Carnival was a madhouse, he thought. Maybe these were the imaginings of a fevered brain. It would almost be preferable to them being reality.

         The Carnival was not magical exactly, but it sat marinating in the hum of the supernatural, the occult and the heathen. Slowly – slowly enough that Dr. Lavroskov didn’t even notice it at first – those forces that were far removed from what he would call science leeched their way into his work until the astounding experiments he could conduct within the surroundings of the Carnival refused to be repeated elsewhere. 

         And so, the doctor stayed with the Carnival, for the purpose of his research, until his life’s work was hopelessly entangled with the Carnival and he had spent many years pursuing it there – many, many more years than he was aware of – and the passage of time had affected him not at all. And all the while things burned without oxygen, and he passed sound through vacuums, and acids neutralised acids, and wires crackled with sparks that were far more magic than electricity.

         Dr. Lavroskov had become resigned to it all. Happiness was not a word used for the Carnival, nor contentment, but it was a cavern of hedonistic delights, and Dr. Lavroskov did not live what could be called a good life, but it was wicked in the most enjoyable ways.

         He put on his own show in the Carnival, with his experiments, and blended the magic and the electricity until the wires crackled with pure power. The mortals gasped in amazement and he bowed, made endless unfulfilled promises to join the Royal Scientific Society of this and that, and sent the delighted mortals on to another, more deadly part of the wonderful thing that was the Carnival.

         And now? Now he was to take it further – much further. He had done the impossible endless times within the Carnival – this was just a little more impossible. He did not need help, just permission. In the Carnival, it was often best to ask for permission. Death was not an option for most of its residents. Their methods of chastising someone who displeased them were, therefore, inventive. Dr. Lavroskov gulped at the thought. Still, this would bring him safety. He stroked a full goatee beard that, at seventy years of age, was thick and black without a single strand of silver. He wasn’t so prepared to test his immortality yet. Not until he was certain of it – and perhaps not then. He was a cautious man, for all his experiments didn’t show it.

         The doctor didn’t announce himself as he stepped into the Ringmaster’s tent. It wasn’t necessary. The Ringmaster would know. He would possibly already know what Dr. Lavroskov had to say.

         ‘The Ringmaster’ was more a circus name than that one for a carnival, but it was all he was ever known as. He looked like a normal man, appearing far taller than he really was, and of a normal build, dressed in a suit of indistinguishably dark colours, but he didn’t seem like a normal man. The same sense of malevolent otherworldliness that was constantly in the air around the Carnival hung tenfold around the Ringmaster. He seemed wrong – he looked separate from his surroundings, like he didn’t fit and shouldn’t have been there. It was repellent and enthralling. He turned to face Dr. Lavroskov.

         “The good doctor,” he remarked. “Why have you come to see me?” He tipped his head to one side – his top hat stayed on only through a remarkable feat of gravity. Wisps of black smoke followed his head as is moved, and drifted around his fingers along with sparks of magic as he made extravagant gestures, as though his movements were burning holes through reality. Dr. Lavroskov shivered. He could add centuries to his decades with the Carnival, and would still not be comfortable around the Ringmaster.

         The doctor tried to keep his low, quiet voice clear and strong as he replied. “I wanted to request that I be permitted to do an experiment – one more… one that hasn’t been scientifically proven even to the point that others have.”

         The Ringmaster raised one eyebrow. “Dr. Lavroskov, I know what your intent is. I admire it. Blessings,” he stared down his long nose at the doctor, “are worthless in the Carnival. Therefore, I give you my damnation. I curse your experiment – may it thrive!” And he raised his head, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

         The small tent that belonged to Dr. Lavroskov’s sideshow was full if not bursting. He had not announced the anyone who had not the skill to already know what the experiment was, so the eager spectators had no notion of what the spectacle was that they were about to see. They came nonetheless. In the Macabre Carnival, all shows were worth seeing.

         Dr. Lavroskov ushered them closer and said nothing. He used the time it took to double-check his equipment to prepare himself. This was going further… this was going too far… this was all of the Carnival’s glorious evil and he longed to embrace it. This was what science and magic could do together. What he could do. What he would do.

         “Ladies and gentlemen of the Carnival,” Dr. Lavroskov began. His hands were shaking. He tried, with difficulty, to pull himself together. “Welcome. Here, I promise you, you will see a sight never seen before, a sight to defy belief in mortality, in humanity, in God.” Dr. Lavroskov mentally asked himself who he was, to say such things. But the power that resided in the Carnival was filling him, and his gestures became more extravagant, more like those of the Ringmaster, and far, far less human.

         There were lights in the tent but as he stood, gathering his words, they flickered and his shadow rose and grew, making the mortals in the audience gasp. The doctor was oblivious. All he knew was that he had a greater belief in his ability than ever before, and he believed every word he spoke. “Science can defeat anything, even death.” His voice hushed to a whisper. “And for you, on this cursed night, I will show how.”

         There were servants in the Carnival. Whether they were spirits, magical creations or just all that remained of some of the Carnival’s unluckier human guests, Dr. Lavroskov didn’t know. They were willing to do the bidding of any resident of the Carnival and appeared, sometimes out of nowhere, when there was something to be done. For the doctor’s experiments, they were invaluable, and needed little, if any instruction.

         Now he gestured to the flap door at the side of the tent, and four of them – strange, human-looking things that seemed to drift to wispy black smoke if looked at too closely – wheeled in a trolley, with something on top that was covered with a pristine, starched white sheet.

         Dr. Lavroskov gave a nod, and two of the servant whipped the sheet away.

         The audience gasped, and now it was not only the mortals. The sheet crackled with electric sparks. The servants stowed it behind Dr. Lavroskov’s bench, although when he looked, he couldn’t see it anywhere.

         But the audience were not looking at the sheet. They stared at the trolley, where there lay the fresh corpse of a tall, muscular man. Dr. Lavroskov gave it a cursory glance. It would serve well for his experience. It would serve well. He had instructed the servants in what they should bring for him. Perhaps they had killed the man especially for this purpose. Dr. Lavroskov contemplated that, savoured it for a moment – dying for the sole purpose of living, that had a delicious irony – and realised that the thoughts of death and murder did not bother him at all.

         He gestured to the servants, and they lifted the corpse on to his workbench. He examined it, and frowned. The servants understood. Dr. Lavroskov raised his arms, and they scurried around, straightened hairs, tidying the man’s jacket and checking the condition of his hands. The man was not a beauty, but Dr. Lavroskov didn’t mind that – only that his specimen was in perfect health, uncorrupted by the various workings of the Carnival. And he was satisfied.

         He lowered his arms again and sent the servants hurrying out of the tent. The audience still watched in horror and wonder. Dr. Lavroskov smiled to see it. Those feelings would most definitely increase.

         “Watch,” he commanded the audience, although he words were pointless. They refused to draw their eyes from the scene. “Now that the corpse is ready,” he drew his eyes lightly across it, “I can begin.”
         “You will notice there is but one thing missing, and that is essential – the brain.” He had it placed in a jar by the obliging servants. It had been decaying, but as it sat in the jar, forces of the Carnival had imbued is and it was as fresh as the corpse. Dr. Lavroskov removed it from the jar with reverence, and placed it gently on his work surface.

         “If this had been correctly prepared – which it had – I ought to be able to do this.” Expertly, the doctor flipped open a section of the skill to reveal the empty cavity. For one short moment, he thought it might have gone wrong, or the servants had not responded to his instructions and punishment and the preparation had been faulty, but then he saw all was well – in fact, all was perfect – and that strange and evil confidence filled him again.

         He placed the brain neatly into the cavity and put the small section of the skull back in place. There was no need to worry about realigning miniature nerves or anything similar – the power of the Carnival would do that. The power, the unearthly power, that for this evening, was the doctor’s to wield. Science and magic. Both would triumph death.

         “The corpse is complete,” Dr. Lavroskov murmured, looking down at it. “Complete. Yet scientifically, he is dead. Not a murmur or a twitch.” He raised his head and his wide eyes stared out at the audience. “But this is not how he will remain. For reanimation, I will harness the power of lighting and the power of the Carnival.” At the final word, and thunderstorm grew and broke, forked lightening outside the tent illuminating it brightly for a second and sending crackling sparks through the air as it hit. The audience gasped again. Dr. Lavroskov picked up twin electrodes and inserted them decisively into either side of the corpse’s neck. He raised his eyes to heaven, with a prayer that was far more a declaration of war, to any of the multitude of deities to whom he defied and in whom he did not believe. He raised his arms as well, again. That was for the benefit of the audience. The true acts of power would be done with no work from Dr. Lavroskov – he merely made them possible.

         Thunder rolled darkly overhead, and a moment later came the lightning – rules of the normal world were broken by the Carnival. The sparks crackled from a metal rod in the roof of the tent and flowed, spitting, down two bare wires and with venom, straight into the electrodes in either side of the man’s neck. He twitched and jerked and lay still, but the lightning continued to crash and shower sparks in the tent, and flow into the corpse, until the twitching and jerking was intense and prolonged. The audience worried the electrodes might jerk free of the monster’s neck with the force of it, but DR. Lavroskov just watched, frozen with the coursing power reflecting in the tinge of steel in his eye. Just watching. He could feel the strength in the air. He knew what could be done. He knew when I miracle was being created.

         A final lightning bolt struck, and the light held in the air even as the sparks dispersed, so the audience could see with terrifying clarity as the corpse was lifted a couple of centimetres into the air with the force of it, and lay still, and fell back to the table, and lay still there as well. Dr. Lavroskov, wreathed in dancing sparks that faded as the creature fell, leaned over the bench to look at its face.

         Its – no, his – his eyelids flicked, and then his eyes opened, showing confusion, but intelligence. Dr. Lavroskov smiled. This was it. Magic would defeat science, and they were both too powerful for death.

         “Welcome,” said Dr. Lavroskov, “to the Macabre Carnival.”