The curator smiled as the groups of young adults queued up. His show had been stagnating lately, much like what had happened when it was ran by the previous owner. He had saved the show then by finding new additions but the novelty had worn off. Now he had a new scheme, one that could make more money with less people and keep the show interesting to audience members.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the opening night of the Menagerie of Horror’s new interactive, behind the scenes tour. Now before we continue, please make sure you have your tickets ready,” the curator instructed as he opened a gate to a staff only area. He held out his hand for the tickets and all but a single woman produced them. “Excuse me ma’am but I need to see your ticket.”

The woman still didn’t produce one though. “I don’t have a ticket,” she confessed before walking up to him and whispering something in his ear.

“Okay everyone follow me,” the curator walked back in front of the group. He opened the a door to the large building his exhibit was in. “Now before we go in, I’ll like to establish a few ground rules…. There are none, you can take as many photos as you want, you can enter the enclosures, ask me or the subjects any question you want. Nothing here is off limits tonight. Though I’d prefer you didn’t steal the immobile attractions, otherwise I might have to replace them,” he gave a devilish smile as he took the crowd into the dark hallways.

“The enclosures here are  are sound proof on both ends, sometimes the guests and the occupants don’t say pleasant things to one another. On this side however there’s a two way intercom. They are also in a different order than if you were to take the main tour. Our first stop are the Jack O’Lanterns.”

Two women sat at a small table carving pumpkins. They were delicate in their craft though seemed sorrowful that they were doing it.

“What are they doing?” one of the guests asked the curator, as they watched from the other side of the glass.

“They are crafting new heads, if they don’t their light will fade and they’ll go back to being two ordinary pumpkins and their bodies will collapsed lifelessly. Or at least so they claim. I’ve had them for a year now, it’s a real pain trying getting them new heads in the off season.”

“Wait so, they were regular pumpkins? How did they come alive, where did they get the bodies?”

“A DNA test reveals the bodies names are Stephanie and Gabby. From what I’ve managed to gather, those two girls did some kind of ritual to summon a Jack O’Lantern monster, it entered our realm for a few moments and when it did, it brought the two pumpkins the girls were carving earlier to life and replaced their heads with them. After that these two ran rampant for two days before their magic faded and the damage they caused was undone. However these two remained somehow. Though at midnight, every night since, their light dims and their head begins to rapidly rot, but they are able to transfer their essence to a new host pumpkin and repeat the cycle.” The curator explained as he walked over to the door. “Now who’s brave enough to meet these two monsters?”

At first no one seemed to want to and the curator was about to move on, when he saw a woman at the back of the crowd whisper in a young couple’s ears. Both of them walked up to the front. “We would like to meet them.”

The curator shook his head for a moment, to stop himself from concentrating on the woman at the back, he could’ve sworn she didn’t have a ticket, but he double checked everyone before he started the tour. It was of no concern now though, she had managed to convince these two volunteers to enter the enclosure, making his tour more exciting.

“Very well, you have 5 minutes with them, don’t worry though, without their magic they are just two women with pumpkins for heads,” the curator informed them. He then clicked the intercom. “Jackie, Lanette you have guests.”

The two Jack O’Lanterns stopped carving and stood up from the table, turning towards the door. They seemed happy and their light shone brighter than ever. They watched as the couple nervously entered their enclosure.

“Welcome, humans, please sit down, come see what we’ve been working on. We promise we won’t bite, we don’t have movable jaws after all.” The couple obeyed and sat down in front of the carvings. “What do you think? Splendid work yes? We’ve been so terribly bored with each others company for so long, but now that you’re both here. It’s time to more members two our group!” Jackie pulled out a scythe, hidden in the shadows and with one swoop cutting off the couple’s heads.

Lanette placed one of their carvings on the man’s body, bringing it to life and then went to do the same with the woman’s body.

“Wait!” Jackie commanded. “If you do that, that just creates four of us. We need a bargaining chip to be let out, a replacement.” Jackie picked up the man’s head. “I don’t think he has something with a man on the body of a woman…” Jackie made the connection.

The curator watched stunned watching what just unfolded. ‘They shouldn’t have been able to do that’, he thought. Until he realised what time of the year it was. ‘They have their powers back…’ He turned to the rest of the crowd who looked just as stunned as he did, all except one.

“Bravo, bravo!” the woman at the back clapped. “Excellent show, it was so thrilling, I can’t wait to see what’s next”

The curator looked over to her again. “Ah, yes… this is all part of the tour folks, now moving on.”

“For the next stop,” the curator said as he moved on trying to ignore what happened to the other couple. “We’ll be visiting my first addition to this menagerie, the Dullahan.”

“I’m not actually a Dullahan folks, I’m just a headless girl.” a woman said, stepping out of her exhibit, holding her head under her arm. “He just likes to call me that, he says it’s more dramatic. I’m Cassie by the way and while I am the curator’s first addition, I also work here, outside being put on display.”

“Thank you for the introduction Cassie, now before you start your evening rounds, would you be so kind as to answer any questions these people might have.” The curator instructed before taking her head off her. “I would like you to stay clear of the Jack O’Lantern exhibit tonight, I’ll handle that later,” he whispered before giving Cassie back her head.

Cassie nodded, at least the best she could, before returning her attention to the crowd. “Okay so instead of me asking who has a question, I’m going to answer any questions from the person who catches me, if you don’t have a question, just throw me back into the crowd or pass me along. Ready?” Cassie positioned herself before throwing her head into the air.

She felt a static shock as cold hands grabbed her and saw that she was being held by a woman. “How did you end up working for the curator?” the woman asked.

Cassie blinked a few times in  her hands, this wasn’t the type of question she was expecting. “Um… it was about a year ago, shortly after I gained this state, my roommate and former best friend kicked me out. I had nowhere to go so ended up on the streets for a little while. Until the curator found me, he took me in, I agreed to work for him and become a part of his menagerie.”

The woman lifted Cassie up closer to her mouth and whispered something before throwing her back into the crowd.

The curator stepped away from the crowd while Cassie had their attention, wondering what he was going to do about the current situation. The crowd didn’t seem to care about what happened to the other couple, mostly because they thought it was a part of the act. But come tomorrow he was going to be in a lot of trouble. He could add the couple to the show, though they’d most likely not be willing so he would be able to let them leave, meaning they’d get a missing person’s report and then everyone here would lead the police to his doorstep. Or if he let them go, they’d most likely sue. But before any of that couple be decided he’d need to rescue them from the enclosure first.

“My head! What have you done to me you freak!” A woman’s voice screamed.

“The curse… it’s over… but how? It wasn’t time yet, was it? I thought I had a few more days before I could try. So why.. Why now? Why did I even kiss that lady,” Cassie questioned herself as she adjusted to having her head back on her body.

The crowd was scared now, they knew this wasn’t a part of the act and if this wasn’t, that what happened with the Jack O’Lanterns weren’t as well. They started to ask for refunds and how to get out. All except one person.

“Oh who cares! This is a menagerie of horrors, yes?” the woman in the back yelled. “Doesn’t this just add to the excitement? Not knowing if we’re going to end up in pieces or not. I mean I like this idea. Survive the Menagerie or end up in it. Now Cassie, show your replacement her new work environment, while the curator continues the tour.”

The tour moved on with more excitement than it had when it had first started, even though it had already lost three members. The curator no longer cared about the woman in the back and was eager to continue the tour.

“Okay this next room isn’t for the faint of heart. When I first bought this menagerie a few months ago there were already 5 subjects here. The man who owned this place was vile and cruel, conducting illegal experiments on people and making them into freaks to be put on display. Ladies and Gentlemen, the original five.” He opened up the door to the area and invited people to go in. “This is their living quarters where the stay while not out for display. We’ll spend 10 minutes as you ask meet and greet them before we move on. Don’t worry I don’t think we’ll have any casualties in this section.”

The first one they met was a large german shepherd with a human’s head attached, it was in an aggressive position and growling at the group. “Bitch-Boy down!” a woman commanded and the dog sat, lowering it’s guard but still keeping an eye on the group.

The group looked over to see a woman with two heads sitting on a couch with their legs spread out.

“I hate when you call the dog, that. It’s so demeaning,” another woman said, entering from the kitchen. She looked normal from the front, but behind her was another woman’s body bent over, giving her a centaur like appearance.

Finally there was another woman, with a masculine build and a dog’s head sitting at a table, eating food.

“It’s not like we can help it humantaur, the previous owner of this place conditioned us to call each other by our stage names remember!”

The woman in the back approached the humantaur genuinely fascinated in her. “The work you received looks amazing, I don’t see any scaring. Are you sure this was done by science? Because if so, whoever did this wasn’t a normal scientist, this is a work of art. You must tell me everything they did to you.”

“Excuse me? This is fascinating to you?” The twin headed woman stood up, making the other head sigh as she was forced to drop the book she was reading. “The man who did this destroyed our lives, turned us into freaks and you call it art? Where do you get the nerve...”

“I don’t deny you suffered but it’s a miracle you’re alive at all, yet alone have little to no scarring. My guess is the person who did this was actually an alchemist and I just wanted to know what he did so I might understand this better. Believe it or not but I’ve seen worse than you.”

The twin headed woman sat down again crossing her arms. There was a tense silence in the room before the Humantaur spoke.

“The 4 of us accepted a job to help this professor on our old campus to set up a halloween freak show last year. What he didn’t tell us is that we were to become the freaks, or that it’d be permanent. I’m humantaur, I was originally a guy, the head the dog has is my original head. Over there is Lady-Dog, she has my body with a few extra parts from her body and my rear end. I’m occupying her original head. Twin Headed She-Male here is Lady-dog’s original body with my genitals. Those two also had their minds swapped. My front body belongs to Miss Cranky pants, while my rear is the other lady, she hasn’t spoken much since the incident. Though neither has Lady-dog, not having a human voice box and all. I assume that answers any and all questions?” Humantaur didn’t even wait for a reply. “Good, you can leave now.”

The curator nodded. “Okay then, moving on.”

The curator lead the group to another area of the building, one with tighter security. He lead the group through to a large room, with what looked like a large cattery. The sounds of laughter and feet running around.

“Welcome to the room that makes this place a menagerie and not a freak show,” the curator said. “In this room are about half a dozen interdimensional gremlins. They are watching us from the shadows and they are extremely dangerous. They were responsible for 5 people vanishing last year and 4 people the year before that.”

“Prove it,” the woman said. “All we see at the moment are shadows a cage and all we hear is laughter and footsteps, that could be fake audio.”

The curator looked at her annoyed. “Really, after the things you’ve seen tonight, you’re going to question it now.”

“Well, yeah, those others were magical and scientifically based horrors that were created. Here you claim these are interdimensional beasts, by showing us the others you expect us to believe you now, so then you can claim you’ve discovered proof of another dimension.”

“You want proof, fine, go in there then and hope you don’t end up like the first couple or worse.”

The woman smiled. “Alright I will but these two are coming in with me,” she pointed out a guy and a girl. “At least to the first security gate, you don’t have to come into the enclosure if you don’t want to.”

The couple nodded and followed the woman through the gate in the corner of the room. The second gate was out of sight from the rest of the group, meaning only the couple who followed the woman could see her now. They heard the running and laughing even louder now before they finally saw one of the gremlins. It was curled up in the woman’s arms and it was purring.

“Okay, so they were real, but they aren’t scary,” the woman turned to face the couple she invited in with her. “Want to pat it?” She asked.

The couple nodded and entered the enclosure, as the woman set the gremlin down and left. “You have fun now, don’t tear them apart too much.”

The couple turned around and saw the woman had shut the gate, leaving them trapped with the gremlins. They weren’t able to react before they found themselves in pieces.

The woman ran back to where the rest of the group was, looking like she had just ran for her life. “Let me out!” She screamed at the locked first gate. “It tricked me, it pretended to be friendly just to lure the others in, they’re gone… I can’t believe they are gone…” she sounded hysterical.

The curator ran to the gate but didn’t open it just yet. First he made sure none of the gremlins had entered this area, then he let the terrified woman out.

“Oh thank you so much, I thought I was a goner for sure.”

There were only eight people left in the group as the curator moved on to to the next room. The exhibit looked like a campsite.

“If we don’t want to lose anymore people I suggest that no one volunteers to enter this exhibit. I can guarantee you won’t make it out of here in one piece, as this is the home to Britney, the serial non killer. I’ll let you speak to her though.” the curator said before pressing the intercom. “How’s it going Britney, we’ve got a few guests that would like to say hello.”

“Bored out of my mind,” Britney’s voice said as she approached the back of the exhibit with her head cut open and holding her brain. “Oh so many potential victims and you’ve got me locked up on this side of the glass, you can’t be playing with my heart like that.” She then pulled out her beating heart from her bag.

“She looks like she was attacked by a serial killer, not looks like one” someone in the group commented.

“This young woman is responsible for at least 2 dozen missing people, she puts on this act and attacks unsuspecting campers. Trust me she is the most dangerous being we have here.”

“I thought the gremlins were the most dangerous.”

“Anyway moving on, this next one is going to please those of you who love classic movie monsters…” the curator said leaving the room. Not noticing that someone hadn’t followed.

The woman pressed the intercom. “Hello Britney, my name is Lori, would you like to have some fun tonight.”

Britney put her brain back in her head and smiled.

Lori followed the group into the other room and saw that they were finishing up with it. In the enclosure was a monster that she sensed was over two hundred years ago. It was created by a powerful alchemist and everybody part belonged to someone else. She wondered how it had managed to survive this long but couldn’t ask her question as they were moving to the hall of heads.

The curator was about to say something about the two heads on display when a woman in the group said something. “Tracy, this is where you ended up? When we moved houses and packed you up and you went missing I was so upset. I lost my 2017 trophy, my living room doesn’t look the same without you. I would love to get you back to fill the hole between 2016 and Naomi. Yeah that’s right I won again.”

The curator looked at the woman. “This trophy head is yours?”

“Yep, I won her when she cheated at last year’s halloween costume contest. Though I’m fine if she stays here, this is a much better suited place than my house.”

“Where you’ve got other trophy heads?”

“Yep, another four of them.”

Lori watched the curator with interest, he want those other heads, she could tell. He was a proprietor in the strange after all.

“Oh my gosh, that’s Sebastian, you know that costume freak that cut up the people at his party last year, because he couldn’t handle how we dressed up,” another girl commented.

“Wait is that the party where you got, those.” her boyfriend said as he pointed to her chest.

“Yep, you know she’s still pissed off I have them by the way. Oh this is so unreal, meeting Sebastian here, wait until we tell everyone that he’s here.”

The young woman pulled out her phone and begun texting as the machete cut through her body like butter. Screams erupted around the room and the woman turned around to see what was going on. Only half her body followed and being on one leg she fell down.

“What’s happening?” the two halves of her body asked the other half fell on top of her.

Tracy smiled as she watched Jill get stabbed and sliced to pieces before her very eyes, her only wish was that she was the one to do it.

Lori ran past Britney and grabbed the curator’s hand. Pulling him to the next room. Leaving everyone else to fend off Britney.

Lori looked at them all for a moment, especially at the mirror. “Where’s the body for the lady in the mirror. You know the one that is set up to look like a stuffed boar.”

“Excuse me?” the curator was offended.

“Fiona’s body, where is it. If you have the mirror with her’s and Aiden’s spirit, the painting of Jason and the statue of Michelle, you clearly have the empty body as well.” She looked over to the mirror for a second and mouthed ‘right breast breast’ and pointed at it. Fiona looked down at her breast horrified. She had no idea her boyfriend was there this whole time.

“I’d wager you have Sally here too and by extension Brandon. Of course she looks normal so you couldn’t have her on display. She’s probably down in the basement with the professor who opened up the original freak show, the gremlins and Britney’s victims as well as those who didn’t make it out of Sebastian’s party in one piece along with the other things that are too plain or too freaky to be put on display.” Lori walked over to the curator once more. “But I’m not interested in those, except maybe the professor, I really admire the work he did back there. No what I’m after are my creations.”

“I’m Lori and you have made me really mad. Allow me to welcome you to Lori’s house of horrors, my cronenberg monster.”

Lori could still hear the horrified screams of the curator as she descended into the basement. There she saw her prized possession and ran over to the cell, opening it up. “Oh Maria, how I have missed you,” she said as she turned her back into her human form. “Don’t ever leave me again!”