The day of the carnival was a dark one. Rain clouds were rolling in, the people were starting to leave in small bunches. It started to drizzle then. Food vendors started to sell their hot dogs and soda for less, in an effort to get rid of it. The ferris wheel was turning for the last time. Umbrellas came out. The crowds dispersed.

Inside the theater, a few dozen optimists took shelter, hoping that the sun might shine again. “The weathermen said that there might be a thunderstorm in the late afternoon,” they admitted, “but the kids would be so disappointed if we left, we drove an hour to get here…we’ll just wait it out.”

Thunder rumbled. Small boys’ and girls’ faces changed from disappointed and pouty to wide eyed and fearing. A few parents reassured their children that “The angels are bowling.” One sarcastic older brother said, “God is burping.”

Children relaxed, basking in the music of the organ…organ? That wasn’t there a moment ago. Suddenly, the thirty-something people taking shelter in the theater paused and hushed. The organist was playing.

And by God, if it wasn’t the ugliest organ that they’d ever seen! It was cracked, blackened, scorched. The man who played it had long, greasy, unkempt hair, and he wore a full suit and a fedora. He played a strangely bouncy tune. Every minute or so, it was punctuated by thunder, and then it would become bright for a split second as lightning struck.

“Oh my God,” said an adult near a window, “the ferris wheel is burning.”

So it was.

The man at the organ stopped playing for a moment and shouted, his voice echoing without a microphone, bouncing off the walls and ceiling. “Behold!” He turned around, revealing his hideous face. He had one eye, and his visage seemed to have been melted and then dyed the color of swamp mud. It dripped like it too. He winked at them and smiled a big smile, revealing his rotted teeth. The people forgot the storm and the burning ferris wheel and rushed outside, screaming, yelling, terrified. “Behold!” he cried once more. “The Ugly Organ!”

The last of the people ran out, slipping in the mud, tripping, falling, skidding to their cars, jamming the key into the ignition, flooring the pedal, and driving away as fast as their cars would carry them.

The maniacal laughter of the organist, the organ music, and the thunder fused together, while the burning wood of the ferris wheel and the flaming tents were somehow not extinguished by the torrential rains.

And like a moment from an eight year old’s story, a haunted Jenny woke up in the dark, gasping for breath.