Dark Perceptions (Mystic's Carnival Collective) Read Online Free

full of questions, aren’t you? Don’t you remember?”  
    “No. No, I…” Matt shook his head. “It’s all a bit fuzzy. I only want to get us to the car and out of here.”
    Matt’s memory was a bad as mine. I should have questioned him immediately, instead of basking in his presence. I didn’t think we’d smoked that much. I pushed my thoughts away and pressed forward, into the conversation. “We want to go home.”
    The strange man calling himself Higgins chuckled and small cracks formed at the edges of his eyes. His cheeks rose and turned soft pink, brightening his grey peepers. “I expected that coming from you, my dear.”
    “You did?” I squeezed behind Matt, seeking his body as a shield. But why? I was strong. I could be tough and stand up for myself. “Then could you direct us toward the parking lot?”
    “Parking lot?” Higgins said the words like they were a question to be pondered more than a request. “I don’t know if you’ll find a parking lot. Unless, of course, she wants you to find one.”
    “What are you talkin’ about?” Matt straightened, stood tall. “She who?”
    “The carnival, of course.”
    “Dude. You’re crazy.” Matt spun around, grabbed my hand firm in his, and started moving us down the dark aisle, away from him and the Big Top. Matt’s unusual neck marking bounced like a firefly showing me the way. Games and sideshow tents pushed in at our sides. Like space was compressing, getting smaller by the minute. Trying to trap us in Freak Man’s Alley. Wolfman, human pincushion, woman with two faces, all images jumping off posters and swimming around me mockingly, scratching and nipping at me. Maybe it was my imagination; my overwhelming desire to rid us of this place churned every horror movie scenario around in my mind, like a vacillating jar of maggots.  
    “If you won’t let me help you, please listen to Sebastian. He’ll get you to Big Eli.” Higgins’s voice shrank behind us as we made our way past canvas tents shrouded in purple and white. Black pennants hung across the tent fronts, flapping in the night breeze. A breeze that brought the stink of midway sawdust and animal manure.  
    “Sebastian. Eli,” Matt grumbled. “More people we don’t need to deal with.”
    “We’re going to be okay.” The words stumbled out loud and clear, with me needing to hear them to believe them. I looked to Matt, wanting him to believe in them, too. I saw him, really saw him, all of him, for the first time since the crazy ordeal had begun, and my mind clouded. “What happened?” My voice pitched, rose an octave, before I lurched over and pulled at his shirt to get a closer look. Suspicious red stains littered what should have been crisp white cotton. I stretched the fabric for a better inspection.
    He didn’t react. Didn’t glance down. Instead, he kept his gaze steady on me. “Don’t worry about it, Sara. Probably just a spilled drink. That’s why I went to the restroom, to clean up.” With a gentleman’s touch he removed my grip and eased my hands into his own, turning us back on our mission, moving down the path, urgency fueling our pace. “I want to get out, before something else gives us trouble. Like that guy the little dude mentioned.”
    My feet raced to keep up and I stretched my neck, hoping he’d hear when I spoke. “Do you think that’s what the old guy meant when he told us to look for Big Eli, or…or, um…” I searched my memory for the other name. “Sebastian?”
    Matt pushed his way past a large group gawking at the two-headed, four-breasted woman in the tent to our left. “Hell if I know.” His words forced their way between clenched teeth.  
    “Eli isn’t a person, honey.”
    The voice wrapped around us, sweeter than sugar and smooth as lotion sliding over freshly shaved skin. Slick and slippery.  
    Matt stopped so fast I thought he might trip over his own feet. I practically stumbled into him. Looking at the woman standing next to