The Haunted Circus (Part 2)

Hello!  It is finally Friday and I cannot be more ready for the weekend.  It has been a very long week and I cannot wait for a break.  And even though I will be busy, it will still be relaxing.

But either way, welcome back to this story!  I hope you are ready to continue reading and see what happens next because it is about to get more exciting!  If you missed the last part, click here because you will want to read it.  I’ll wait here…don’t worry.

This story is labeled as Paranormal.  So get a blanket, get comfortable, and enjoy because this is another long one!

The Haunted Circus (Part 2)

The sun shone through the windows of Simon’s room.  Simon blinked as he tried to wake up. What time is it?  He grabbed his phone and opened it.  12 pm. He rubbed his eyes and sat up before starting to look through the photos that he had taken the night before.  2 trunks both with locks on it. A box full of shoes. A vanity with 2 locked drawers. Dresses. Mannequin heads. What could this all mean?

There was a knock on the door.  “Come in.”

The door creaked open.  “Finally decide to join this living instead of the dead?”  Simon looked around his phone to see Christopher standing in his doorway.  He was fully dressed but he had a cup of coffee in hand.

Simon stretched.  “I guess…I thought you don’t drink coffee past 10 am?”

“I don’t.”  Christopher set the coffee cup on Simon’s side table.  “It’s for you.” Christopher pulled out Simon’s desk chair and sat in it.  “Any luck last night?”
Simon picked up the coffee cup, took a sip, and winced.  “You didn’t add enough cream to this but it will do. Uh…last night, yeah I had some luck.  I think I actually talked to Alice, the dead dancer. She told me to go to the dressing room which I did.  But I don’t know what to do with any of the stuff in there. Here.” He handed Christopher his phone to look at the photos.

Christopher sat back and flipped through the photos.  “I didn’t know they had this kind of lock back in the 1920s.”

Simon almost choked on his coffee from laughing.  He swallowed his coffee and snickered. “I said the same exact thing last night when I found it.  I just don’t know where to even start with combinations or anything like that.”

Christopher frowned.  “This is a four digit combo right?”  Simon nodded. “What if this is the year?  What year did this happen?”

Simon looked closer at the phone.  “1926, how did you think of that?”

Christopher shrugged.  “I don’t know, it was just a suggestion.  Is that a bad thing?”

“No no it’s great.  I don’t know how I didn’t think of that last night.”  Simon quickly pulled the drawer of his side table open and grabbed a notepad and pen.  He jotted that down while Christopher looked at another photo.

Christopher turned the phone to show Simon a picture.  “What are these?”

Simon looked at the photos of the dresses.  “Oh, that’s just a bunch of dresses. I didn’t know what they have to do with anything but I didn’t really investigate them.”

“Do you see this?”  Christopher zoomed in onto one of the hangers, revealing a small letter H etched in on it.  “There’s an H on. Maybe the other hangers have letters on them too. Maybe that will give you something?”

Simon was shocked.  “I totally didn’t realize that last night.  Maybe you need to come with me to look at stuff.”

Christopher chuckled.  “Maybe. But I don’t really want to talk to ghosts.”

Simon threw the covers off of him and stood up quickly.  He grabbed some clothes and headed toward the bathroom. “You don’t really talk to them.  You can hear them through the EMF reader. Or you feel a chill. It’s hard to explain. Either way, I need to shower so you need to leave.”

Simon showered and quickly dressed before heading downstairs to the kitchen.  He turned into the kitchen to see his best friend Brett sitting at the table. Brett waved.  “Hey buddy! How was ghost hunting last night? I heard you come home at what, 3 am?”

Simon laughed as he opened the freezer, grabbing the chocolate chip waffles before closing the door.  “Yeah, it was about 3 am. It went well. Christopher was helping me decipher some of the things that I found, but I still don’t know everything.”  He threw the waffles in the toaster. “What did you do last night?”

“Oh…I studied for a while, then I watched some more Game of Thrones.  I have work in an hour so I better get going.” Brett stood up from the table and started out of the kitchen.  He stopped and turned around. “Hey…do you remember Kurtis from high school?”

Simon buttered his waffles before pouring syrup over them.  “Kurtis Vonberg? Yeah, why?”

“He, uh…he was killed yesterday.”

Simon dropped his knife.  “What? Kurtis died? What happened?”

Brett shrugged.  “I’m not sure. Veronica told me last night.  I thought maybe you could look into it if they don’t find the murderer.”

“Veronica was here last night?  When did she leave?”

Brett shrugged.  “Maybe 8? She didn’t stay too long this morning because she had work.”

Simon sighed.  “I feel like I never see her anymore.  I would be nice to see her again.”

“Well…she might be coming over again tonight.  You gonna be here?”

Simon shook his head.  “No. I’m going back out to the circus.”  He poured himself a glass of milk. “I wish I was a happy as you two.”

“Why do you say that?”

Simon turned around with his breakfast and started to walk to the table.  “I don’t know. You two are always together, either here or at her house. You are so happy together.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you two. But I just wish I was in the same position.”

“Dude.  You were badly hurt.  Just take some time for yourself.  Don’t rush into something that you aren’t ready for, you know what I mean?”

Simon nodded.  “I get it. It’s just super hard.”

Brett sighed.  “I know buddy. But I just want the best for you.  I want you to be happy. And sometimes that means just taking some time for yourself.”  He patted Simon’s shoulder. “I’ve got to get ready for work. If you need anything, you know you can always text me.  Be safe tonight, you hear?”

Simon snickered.  “I’m always safe. But thank you.  I appreciate it.” He watched Brett walk up the stairs before sitting at the table and finally delving into his waffles.  He sifted through the pictures that he took from the circus, trying to find anything that might lead him to finding answers.

 

* * *

 

“Alice.  I’m back.  I hope you don’t mind that I have returned to look around.”  Simon was back in the dressing room with his briefcase open on the vanity.  He sat down by the trunk with the combo that Christopher had suggested. “Okay so it could be 1-9-2-6.” Click.  “Oh my gosh!  I got it. Thank you dude!”  Simon took the lock off of the trunk and opened it revealing 2 boxes.  One had a dial lock and the other just had a lid. Simon slowly reached for the unlocked box and found a dozen light bulbs.

“Light bulbs?”  Simon stood up and looked at the vanity.  There were places for 9 light bulbs. Simon grabbed the EMF reader and turned it on.  “Hey Alice. I got the first box open. But now I have these light bulbs and I know they need to go on the vanity but do they need to go in a certain order?  Or can I just put them in willy nilly?” Order.  Simon nodded.  “Okay, order it is.  Thanks Alice!”

Simon walked over to the dresses and looked at the hangers.  H A A R E N D E C. Each hanger had a different letter on it.  “Haar endec? That doesn’t mean anything. Alice…if you have any clues, that would be great.”  Nothing. “Okay…I guess I’m on my own.” Simon took a step back and looked at the dresses. “3 red, 1 orange, 1 yellow, 1 green, 2 blue, 1 purple.  Maybe I need to put them in color order?” Simon started taking them off the rack and rearranging them in order like the rainbow. N D A C E R E A H.

He smacked his hand against his head.  “That still doesn’t make any sense. I put them in color order, but maybe that isn’t right?”  Simon started paging through the dresses like they were pages in a book. “N, D, A, C, E, R, E, A, H.  That doesn’t make sense. Wait…cer…with a d…maybe dancer?” Simon flipped the first dress to be the third.  “Dancer EAH. Wait, Alice…Alice Elizabeth Hewitt. Dancer AEH. Okay…now what does that mean…” Simon looked down to the trunk with the three number combo.  “A…E…H…1…5…8…” Simon grabbed the lock and turned the small dials to 1-5-8, opening the second trunk.

“Alice!  I did it!  I opened the second one and it has…”  Simon opened the trunk to see what was inside.  “Another box with a lock and a photo album?” Simon took a picture of the contents in the box to see if maybe Christopher could make something of it.  As he stood up something caught his eye. 9 pictures hanging on the wall above the box. Each photo was of a different dancer with their name on it. Nadine, Emma, Alice, Anne, Deborah, Hannah, Colleen, Elizabeth, Rachel.  Simon turned around and saw the mannequin heads on the shelf, each one with a name underneath it.

Simon looked between the photos and the shelf.  Every girl had a photo and a mannequin head. But each girl was facing a different direction.  “Do the mannequin heads move?” Simon grabbed one of the head and it turned. Simon gasped. “That worked!  I can’t believe that worked! Okay…now I guess I have to match the heads in the pictures with their mannequin heads.  Maybe that will open something…”

After what felt like forever Simon was finally onto the last mannequin head.  He turned it to the left and a small compartment opened from the bottom of the shelf.  Simon grabbed what was inside, 3 newspaper articles. He scanned through the articles quickly, trying to see what they said.  They talked about the circus and the owner Frank Wilson. “Alice, this Frank guy sounds like a douche.” As Simon was walking around trying to decipher the newspapers, his phone started to ring.  He pulled it out of his pocket and saw Christopher on the screen. “Hey Christopher, why are you calling me at…” Simon took his phone away from his ear to look at the time. “1 am?”

“You need to come home.”

“Why?  Do you miss me too much?”

Christopher snickered.  “No. But…uh…I someone might be coming out to the circus.”

“What do you mean someone might be coming out to the circus?  Like, police? Or someone else? Like how worried should I be?”

“Uh…”  Christopher paused.  “Like…really worried.  Like you should leave as soon as possible.”  Simon could heard Christopher swallow on the other end of the phone.  “Someone came looking for you, someone who you can’t stand.”

Simon’s heart sank all the way to his stomach and his mood changed from concerned to furious.  “Julianna is coming here? Why!?”

“I don’t know!  But she came here looking for you and I told her you were gone.  I didn’t tell her where, but she muttered something about trying to find where you were when she walked away.  So I would try to get home as soon as possible.”

Simon started to hastily put things away.  “Why is my Julianna coming to the house? I told her to never show her face to me again!”

“I don’t know!  But what I do know is you need to leave there NOW!”

Simon quickly started packing up.  He put the stuff he knew back in boxes and put their locks back on.  He knew the combos so it wouldn’t be hard to reopen them. He mixed up the dresses and moved the heads all back to the forward position.  “Alice…I’m leaving. I hope to be back tomorrow. Maybe I can figure it out tomorrow.”