This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Voodoo_Clerk on 2024-02-14 20:21:06.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

The three of us stared at Garibaldi in horror as he continued transforming in front of us. I got a horrible feeling that this was where I was going to end up dying. But instead of immediately attacking us in a frenzy, Garibaldi grabbed me and Santiago by the arms and pulled us close to him as the small mantis legs burst from his abdomen.

“We’re going to talk in my office, you two.” His voice was distorted and a bit hard to understand. Nikolai tried to say something but before he could, Garibaldi snapped his head to look at him and let out a few chirps, which sufficiently shut him up as he dragged me and Santiago away towards his office.

Despite the fact we both struggled against his pulling of us, he easily dragged us aboard the train and towards his office car. When we arrived, he shoved us into the office and entered behind us, closing the door and putting himself between us and it.

“You two think you can just up and leave?!” he screamed at us as his horrifying transformation continued. His hands began to stretch out along with his neck as it looked like he was being stretched out like a piece of bubblegum. The mantis legs in his abdomen also grew larger along with him as he started moving closer to us.

“You can’t just leave this family! I gave you everything you could ever want! And now you’re just going to up and leave?!” He screeched and chirped as the scar on his face opened up completely and replaced his original mouth with a maw of sharp teeth. His hands completely morphed into mantis claws and any semblance of humanity began to disappear from him. With his transformation nearly complete, he began approaching me, and any ability he had to speak English completely removed and replaced with clicking and chirping.

“B-Benny,” Santiago spoke to me softly. I looked over at him and expected him to start saying goodbye to me. But instead, I watched as he grabbed one of the heavy mantis statues from Garibaldi’s desk. “Run!” he shouted at me as he threw the statue as hard as he could at the giant mantis. It landed with a loud thud against his head and got a loud screech from him. The last few traces of humanity slipped away from Garibaldi as he was completely transformed into a giant mantis.

Santiago quickly pushed me out of the way as Garibaldi jumped at the two of us, his giant wings flapping as he landed on his desk and slashed down at the two of us with his claws. I landed on the floor with a thud and quickly looked up to see if Santiago had made it. With his pigeon toes, I was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to move away from Garibaldi’s attacks. But to my surprise, I watched as the clown effortlessly backflipped away from the mantis.

“Benny, get out of here! Quickly!” he shouted at me as he picked up a chair from the floor and threw it at Garibaldi. That was the last straw for him as he quickly turned his attention towards Santiago and jumped at him, slashing downward at the clown as he effortlessly began backflipping away from the bug’s attacks. Acting quickly I ran to the door and tried to turn the knob, only to find it locked from the other side somehow. I was trapped in there.

“It’s locked!” I shouted at him, turning just in time to dodge a flying couch that crashed into the wall next to me. Santiago stared over at me with worry before again dodging a swing from Garibaldi who was getting frustrated at the clown for his effortless dodging. Santiago quickly grabbed a broken chair leg from the floor and held it in his hand, pulling down his long sleeves to be able to get a better grip on it.

When Garibaldi lunged at him, the clown swung the chair leg as hard as he could at the mantis. A sickening ‘thwack’ echoed across the room as Garibaldi’s mantis head split open and blood began pouring from his wound. He staggered around before falling to the floor with a loud thud. Santiago quickly followed this up with several more bashes to the head.

After he had given Garibaldi a few more hard whacks he dropped the chair leg and panted softly. Quickly he started to waddle over to me and began to check on me like I had just been in some horrible accident. With all he had just done he probably should’ve been the one being checked up on.

“Are you okay?” He finally asked me after manually inspecting me. I nodded at him and quickly pointed at the door.

“Santi! Benny! Are you two okay?!” Nikolai asked from the other side of the door as he banged on it. The two of us quickly looked over at the door and quickly sat up to go and meet the Russian. Santiago grabbed the doorknob twisted it and confirmed what I had told him about the door being locked.

“Niki! The door’s locked on our side! Can you get it-” Before Santiago could finish Garibaldi’s claw pierced through his stomach. I turned slowly to look at him. He looked down at the claw in horror and Garibaldi lifted him off the floor and up toward his mouth. I let out a loud pained scream at seeing the best friend I’d made at the Freakshow hurt and most likely fatally so.

The door broke off its hinges as Nikolai burst in after using his metal leg to bust it down. And he too stared in horror as his friend was impaled by the mantis. Before Garibaldi could do anything else to Santiago though he suddenly staggered on his four legs, the damage that Santiago had given him had not been for nothing. He let Santiago fall from his claw and staggered back from us as he grabbed his bleeding head with his claws.

Santiago landed on the floor with a loud crack and a pained wheeze. Like his ribs at been broken along with the gaping hole in his gut. Nikolai quickly ran to him and dropped to his knees, clutching him in his arms, and tried to stop the bleeding with his hands. Santiago turned to me and I watched him reach an arm out towards me.

“R-run…” he croaked out as his arm dropped to the floor and he let out a pained croak-filled breath. Nikolai stared down at him and began clutching his limp body in his arms. He gave Santiago one last hug before he set his limp body down on the floor. He pulled out a long bowie knife from his back pocket and stood up.

“Get out of here kid.” He told me, as he started to approach Garibaldi before running full sprint towards the disorientated mantis. Just as he was about to plunge his knife into the mantis though, Garibaldi smacked him away with his claws and sent the Russian crashing into the wall and into a pile of destroyed furniture.

Before I could stand up to run, the mantis jumped over to me and landed on top of me, pinning me to the floor and screeching at me as he leaned down his mandibles opening and closing as drool and blood dripped down from his head onto me. I lifted my arms to my face to shield myself from the horrible death I was about to receive before I suddenly found myself able to move.

Nikolai had recovered and had managed to climb onto Garibaldi like a horse. He plunged his giant knife into the mantis’ neck. Garibaldi let out a gurgled and pained screech as more blood began to pour out of his wound. Nikolai pulled out the knife and was about to plunge it back in, when Garibaldi dropped to the floor and rolled around. Nikolai was knocked from him and I stared in horror as Garibaldi grabbed him with both claws and brought him up to his head.

Nikolai shouted and screamed in Russian just before Garibaldi brought his head into his mouth and began to tear it from him. Nikolai screamed as his head was being removed from him. His voice distorted as his tendons and bones snapped and his head was completely removed from his shoulders. Garibaldi didn’t even bother eating Nikolai, instead just letting his lifeless body and his head fall to the floor.

Finally, I stood up and began running out of the office. I was crying uncontrollably and just wanted to get out of there any way I could. So I ran out into the train corridor and started running towards the door when I ran into someone at full speed and knocked the both of us to the floor.

“What the hell-” Mathieu was about to ask. I looked up at him and noticed that his destroyed mask was barely held together by a few pieces of duct tape. He looked down at me and then over toward Garibaldi’s office. The mantis was crawling on all his appendages out of his office and towards us. And I thought for sure that Mathieu was about to feed me to Garibaldi when I felt him clutch me close to me. “Hang on kid.” He said as he quickly searched his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. Just as Garibaldi began lunging towards us, Mathieu bent his deck of cards and allowed them all to fly out of his hand and cover us.

And suddenly we were in a different train car. I looked around in terror, panting uncontrollably and about to have a complete meltdown when four familiar masked faces all looked down at me and Mathieu. I was with the Aces in their train car. Seeing my obvious distress they all quickly crowded around me and Mathieu.

“That was cl...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1aqvalw/when_i_was_a_kid_i_joined_a_freakshow_part_6/