Darkly Skewed: Dark Carnival

By Natalie-Nicole Bates

One night forever changed the life of Shaun Collins.

Once a successful and respected coroner, Shaun encountered a demon who rendered him nothing more than a living corpse, doomed to live on forever and ever.

And then Shaun found Dark Carnival.

A mysterious traveling curiosity show where all the performers have secrets. Assuming the persona of a clown, Shaun travels city to city, hating himself a bit more with each passing day.

Everything changes when he meets the most beautiful woman named Kyrie, who doesn't see what others see.

But to love Kyrie is not only selfish but dangerous as well.

Can Shaun find a way in his impossible world to keep the woman he loves, and return to a normal life once again, or will his desires destroy them both?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paperlate Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223359258

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Natalie-Nicole Bates is a book reviewer and author. Her passions in life include books and hockey along with Victorian and Edwardian era photography and antique poison bottles. Natalie contributes her uncharacteristic love of hockey to being born in Russia. She currently resides in the UK where she is working on her next book and adding to her collection of 19th century post-mortem photos.    

Book preview

Natalie-Nicole Bates

Darkly Skewed

Dark Carnival : Book 1

First published by Perfectly Poisoned Press 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Natalie-Nicole Bates

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Natalie-Nicole Bates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Natalie-Nicole Bates has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Natalie-Nicole Bates

Chapter 1

Chapter Separator

Late October 1907

The things people took for granted; life outside the dark, the love and devotion of another person or just being touched.

For Shaun Collins, every day was a battle.

A battle for him to remain sane in the ever-present war to stave off the melancholy that threatened to swallow him into its dark abyss. It already had one hand on him, and soon he feared it would completely suffocate him within its endless void.

And maybe that would be for the better. If he let go and allowed his sanity to escape, the police would drag him off kicking and screaming to the asylum. Not before he took the life of one or two of them. Afterward, they would sentence him to a lunatic asylum, and leave him under lock and key.

Forever.

He took a drag of the Turkish cigarette and allowed the smoke to fill his lungs. He relished the small pleasure for a few extra seconds before expelling the smoke through his mouth.

Maybe if he let his sanity go with the wind, he would ultimately die within the walls of the asylum.

As it stood now, he was trapped inside a body that would not die. A grotesquely disfigured body and face of gray and blue, with a tinge of green here and there that resembled the corpses that used to come onto his tables at the morgue.

Back when he was someone, a doctor.

Hell, he was more than a doctor.

He was a surgeon, an elected coroner, A man of respect.

Now he was a living corpse.

All because of one night, his life as he knew it, changed forever.

To make matters of his appearance even worse, he was freakishly tall. When he was normal, being so tall was an asset. He looked down at people with the same disdain they showed for him now.

He took one more drag of the cigarette and tossed it to the ground, snuffing out the flame beneath his boot. He leaned his back against the cool wall of the tobacconist, dark and closed for business until morning, only a few short hours away. By then, his ritual would be complete, and he would once again be forced to don the mask he wore to entertain the masses who passed through Dark Carnival.

Normal people who thought they were in the presence of some silly, ordinary clown, whose job was to entertain them, make them laugh, and then whisper their disparagement when they thought he was out of earshot.

An unconscious half-smile crossed his lips.

Little did they know, when they entered Dark Carnival, they were in the midst of, on a good day, a potential killer.

On a bad day, an actual killer.

And he wasn’t the only one.

But what the other performers did on their own time was their business. After all, they were all a bunch of messed-up misfits. It’s what brought them together, and what held them together. They were brothers and sisters for life.

No, not just for life, forever.

Forever sentenced by one form of malevolence or another to never die, but to go on, and on, and on.

Laughter filled the crisp, late October air, and he turned his blue eyes to the sound. The figure of a woman came into view beneath the street lamps. She tried to keep up with a man who walked briskly towards the hotel.

He was trying to get away from her.

Shaun stood still and watched.

The man got to the door of the hotel and pushed the woman away with such force, that she stumbled, and fell onto the hard ground. The bastard then disappeared into the hotel. A wave of anger he was far too accustomed to filled his chest, and spread upward, where it settled into his face.

He knew what he was about to do was wrong.

Still, he couldn’t help himself. He really wouldn’t be hurting her. In the end, she would be a bit woozy, and a little richer. Maybe then for a night or two, she wouldn’t need to sell her body to strangers.

The sound of his footsteps echoed off in the night as he walked up to the crumpled figure on the ground. He bent down and offered his gloved hand to her. She reached for him, and he pulled her to her feet. Immediately he could see she’d once been a pretty woman, but time and poverty aged her. In the harsh light, he could see eyes that had seen too much sorrow, much like his own. Her lips were painted some vulgar shade of red.

Are you okay, Miss? he asked.

I’m fine, she shrugged. Some men are just…

Bastards, he finished her sentence.

Oh my, what happened to your face? Her eyes grew wide.

He knew her question was one of wonder, not repulsion, which made what he was about to do even more despicable.

Boiler explosion, he lied.

Such a handsome man to be scarred, especially when there are so many truly evil people in this world, she said and used her hands to sweep the street dirt from the cheap material of her skirt.

She didn’t know she was