Dark marshland swallowed the moonlight, not leaving a trace of light in its depths, silouetted by a border of black twisted cypress and scrub. It smelled of hay and dry grasses, still warm from the late summer heat with just a whisper of dank things and moss.
Two women running along the faded wooden boardwalk, making their way, stealthily to the back of the carnival grounds...trying to find a back way in they'd been warned about, and worried they would, or wouldn't, find it.
tension...worry...exhilaration.....determination....fear.....
Passing empty, tattered parade cages and old, lurid marquis banners
advertizing side-show acts from ages past; shapes and muted colors only barely ledgible in the palid dark, making them a bit grotesque.... a bit ominous.
Finally finding the way in by a broken down vardo...a narrow makeshift alley full of crooked turns and angles leading them on ....no thoughts of turning back.......and dead ends at a circus cage of aging iron bars, pocked and corroded.....cold even in the humid air.
It's in there...it must be...what they came for.... who they came to rescue...... after all this adrenalin and rushing in....fear makes them huddle for a moment..... then...........
::::::::::::phone buzz:::::::::
August 2011