Sideshow of Horrors Five and a Half: Scarabs

This short story is my fan-fic homage to Tigerdriverdave's Sideshow of Horrors series, posted with his permission. It features my character, stage magicienne Mistress Finella, who has unwisely tried to sneak into Lisa's show to steal ideas to use in her own performances. Bad idea!

The story should be read as if coming between episodes 5 and 6 of Tigerdriverdave's series.

Warning: in line with the series it's a homage to, this story is pretty gruesome.




Lisa ushered the little group into the next room and shut the door behind them. In front of them stood a woman dressed in a long, translucent white robe, wearing a black braided wig decorated with gold and blue beads. Her eyes were heavily kohled.

Several of the audience did a double take. Although the bouncers had tried to be discreet, at least some of the group had seen them hustle away a rather severe-looking brunette in black leather trousers before they all even entered the first room. Despite the complete makeover, this was definitely the same woman!

“This is Finella,” Lisa said. “Just like the rest of you, she came here to see some willing women – or fairly willing, at least – submit themselves to the most gruesome fates imaginable. But unlike you, it wasn’t just because she’s a sick fucker. No. Finella here is a rival stage magician and she was hoping to steal some of our secrets.”

Lisa paused. “Luckily we spotted her in time. And even more luckily, for us all really, it turns out she has her own dark fetish. So instead of being handed over to the police, she gets away with acting out her nasty little fantasy for us instead.”

Lisa looked out across the audience. “And what is that? Well, Finella is fascinated with the gory fates people suffer in mummy films. And one fate in particular, as she will now demonstrate.”

Lisa gestured towards Finella, who stepped forward and let her robe fall to the floor. Underneath she was topless, wearing only a slender gold-studded belt, low on her hips, with a curtain of bead strings barely covering her crotch. She took another step, coming to a halt beside a table with a small box on it. The box was decorated with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and pictures of scarab beetles.

Finella opened the box and lifted out a single black beetle, about two inches long and quite motionless. She carefully placed it on her tongue, then swallowed.

The audience could clearly see the beetle-shaped lump pass down her throat and disappear. They waited to see what would happen next.

For a moment, nothing. Then Finella shuddered. A lump appeared on the right side of her belly, the exact size of the scarab beetle she’d just swallowed. Then another, and another. They twitched and started to move. In seconds, her entire belly was distorted with a mass of writhing lumps, which quickly spread through the rest of her torso and along her limbs. Several of the creatures even seemed to be skittering back up her throat. Finella opened her mouth in a noiseless scream, revealing a mass of black bodies and twitching legs.

By now, her belly and breasts were bloated by the mass of beetles inside. Her skin started to split, wriggling legs and shiny black bodies prising her apart in their desperation to get out as yet more spawned inside her. Finella grabbed the table top to steady herself as several beetles burst from under the beaded curtain over her pussy and yet more of the writhing creatures tried to claw their way out of her ears and the corner of one eye.

Then several things happened, almost at once. Finella’s body, eaten away from within, collapsed inwards, simulataneously splitting open to become nothing more than an upright mass of chittering beetles that collapsed, in seconds, to the floor, its component creatures rushing towards the audience. Several people screamed. At least one person was retching. Mass panic was about to break out.

Lisa held up her hand. “Enough!”

The lead ranks of beetles stopped dead and rolled over. Then the ones behind them. In moments, they were all dead, the pyramid of black bodies that covered the unfortunate Finella collapsing to reveal a pile of bones, picked completely bare of flesh. Lisa stepped through the debris, kicking the dead insects aside. She reached down and snagged the single still-living one, examine it carefully, then placed it in the small box, snapping the lid closed.

She turned her back on Finella’s remains and strode to the door. “Follow me, please, Ladies and Gentlemen. More horrors await.”


THE END