A Night In The Carnival of Fear.

 Corey and Oats in

A Night In The Carnival of Fear.

---------------------------------

Nightmares are essentially like dreams we have only these are ones that keep you up at night, wondering if what just happened was real or if it was a dream and even microbes are prone to being subjected to the scary side. One night in the Nile Road house, Corey and Oats were trying to sleep but couldn't due to a nightmare both of them were having...in the nightmare their flying bed transformed into a monster bed and transported them to a city where it was always night-time even when it was supposed to be daytime and where carnivals and shops looked innocent in daytime hours but when it got dark they took on a twisted appearance.

Oats panicked and whinnied in his sleep as numerous living dolls stalked him throughout an alleyway and one of them tried to make him into a pony-doll, he woke up panicking and crying as he looked over at his microbial friend. ‘Corey, I can’t sleep.’ ‘You can't sleep? Neither can I, I keep having nightmares.’ ‘You have nightmares too?’ Corey nodded, adjusting his night-shirt…he was wearing his favorite bat themed night-shirt and pants while Oats was wearing his pink night-gown with flowers on it.

“There is this city where it’s always night even if it’s supposed to be daytime.”

“I see that city too.”

“What about the dolls, do you see them?”

‘Yes…they haunt me.’ ‘And shadows?’ ‘Yes…the shadowy figures. I was almost turned into a doll and I couldn’t move.’ Oats broke down in tears which woke up Mel, Mel hugged him and told him it was going to be okay. ‘What do we do?’ ‘We go into dream-land to go and solve the cause of our nightmares.’ ‘How can we do that?’ ‘The bed of course, it can be a dream machine.’ ‘Yaaaaay.’ The duo and Mel drifted off once more and as they did the bed took on the form of a flying hearse that took them from their home into what was known as another world.

This world was one that was in between the dream and waking world, a world where anything could happen, a world where both hopes and fears were explored and examined, a world that is part of a dimension of sight and sound, of things and ideas…a dimension known as…the Nocturnal Zone. Corey and Oats looked around as they say they were in what appeared to be an abandoned bedroom of some kind, and it was getting close to midnight. The two hopped into what appeared to be a small slightly broken bed. Oats felt worried as he looked around, as the wind began to blow and thunder struck.

“Where are we? This place looks like someone’s childhood home.”

“It does, only it’s a scary version.”

Oats whinnied in fright as he saw what appeared to be a shadowy presence emerging through the clouds in the sky, taking on the form of a demonic cow-woman with glowing red eyes…’That’s the cow from one of Nathan and Mel’s former nightmares. The one that was spawned from the Nickelodeon closedown bumpers from the 90’s.’

“Yes, those singing bovine fiends.”

The cow demon flew through and attempted to break in through the window, only for Corey to look over and get an idea. ‘If I remember correctly, in the nightmare this cow demon would chase Mel and Nathan and try to take them away. And Nathan would run to the door and into the bedroom across from here.’ ‘So…let’s do it.’ Oats attempted to leap out of bed but he couldn’t because he had been forced into place by dark magic, he whinnied before realizing…’This is a dream world, we can use our dream powers to navigate in this strange world.’

Corey looked over as he floated out of bed and towards the door, instructing Oats to hold the windows shut…which he did, Oats used his powers to telekinetically connect the windows frames together with special strong enchanted holy magic bonding which kept the cow demon from getting in. The cow demon attempted to take Corey away but Corey leaped in the air and channeled his ‘dark side’ becoming a gothed up version of himself with fangs and bat-like wings…’Your power to stir fear in your prey may be frightening to them, but i’m still scarier than you now, and always WILL be.’

The covid microbe unleashed a supernatural dark energy wave that blasted down the locked door…’Nice work Corey.’ ‘Thanks…let’s go.’ The duo headed over to the door and flew through it, running through the house and headed into the bedroom that was located across from the one they were in and that’s where they saw Mel. ‘Mommy!’ Oats cheered. ‘Oatsie! I was worried about you and Corey, what happened?’ ‘That cow demon tried to get us but we figured out how to use our dream powers to get out.’

“That’s good. And I remember HER, that bovine demoness that tried to take Nathan and me away…she tried to corrupt the both of us but I told her no.”

“You have a history with her?”

“Yes…I do. And Nathan actually did defeat her a couple of times.”

“How?”

‘You see…she prides herself on knowing that her victims are afraid of the dark and of monsters like her, once the victims so to speak start overcoming their fears, she’ll get weaker and weaker until her powers will have no effect on them.’ ‘Ah ha…’ Corey knew of what she meant, but he had to admit he had never been in this particular dream-world before, it was strange and terrifying yet it was also exciting.

Oats looked around and he saw the open window, and he saw there was a magic light much like the magic torch that he carried around in his power outage related adventure. He saw the light and Mel told him about dream powers and how to use them, which they knew all about, as she opened the window.

The duo stepped towards the window, Corey felt nervous as he leaned towards it and jumped out, screaming loudly as he did so…because he feared that he would fall to his doom but he realized that with dream powers he could navigate this, and he discovered he could fly…which came in useful as he flew out of the window and through what appeared to be a grand nocturnal city-scape. Oats followed suit, becoming a dream version of himself who was a glamorous anthro pegasus, he swooped through the sky helping his microbial friend along the way.

“Phew, that was close.”

“I don’t think i’ve seen this dream before.”

Corey landed on the ground and looked around as an information booth materialized and he picked up an information card and read it…’Welcome to Nocturnal City.’ The city where it’s always night, even if it is actually daytime.’ ‘Nocturnal City, eh? Well this looks like it will be a challenge to get through this.’ ‘Maybe this is like a video game.’ ‘Yeah, that sounds about right, one inside a dream, but a game nonetheless.’ Corey was a bit stumped at first but he knew what to do as he walked around and looked for any other characters to help him.

Luckily though he and Oats were able to learn how to navigate the city’s environment, picking up power-ups throughout and coming across various dream levels. Including one in the city that was in the library, the doors of the library opened as the duo ran into it, and quietly sneaked around when they got inside…when they got inside the library, they saw a mysterious floating g that was made out of green ooze and they also saw a grotesque halloween mask that looked like a deformed monster with dark green skin, pointed ears and really sharp teeth, a ventriloquist dummy that looked very familiar to both of them…’Slappy. The Haunted Mask…those are from the Goosebumps books.’ Oats responded. ‘That’s right, these are Goosebumps related.’

“Look…over by the horror novel section.”

Corey pointed as he saw the shape of a monstrous creature coming out to attack two men that were seen checking out horror novels that had been returned, he used a spell to send the monster flying which also scared a few other monsters off too, he then looked over at the two men and flew over. ‘Whew, I sure hope you two are okay. Hi, i’m Corey. Me and Oats just arrived here in the dream-world with our friend Mel and…’

“Did you say Mel?”

“Yes…we did.”

“Is Mel here?”

“She is, she’s with us…”

‘Oh thank goodness, I was worried about her.’Oats raised an eyebrow in curiosity as he reacted to the response. ‘Did you say you know Mel?’ ‘Oh yes…’ ‘How do you know Mel exactly?’ ‘I suppose I should just get into the introductory part of this then.’

The first of the two men walked over to Corey and introduced himself, revealing himself as Russell Brand. Oats looked over at Russell. ‘Russell! Mel told me all about you, she said you used to be her enemy and you used to be evil.’ ‘It’s true, I used to be a villain. I used to specifically rule the nightmare realm. Yeah, there was a time I stalked her and tried to get revenge on her for defeating me.’

“Bet you regret that now don’t you?”

‘Definitely. After the monster council sent some officials to hunt me down, I had to possess a woman and turn into me in order to speak to Mel and apologize to her. We’re best friends now and she even takes care of my half-demoness second daughter Rosemary.’ ‘You named your daughter Rosemary?’ ‘Yes..I know, i’m half-demon myself so it’s ironic that I named my second daughter after the lead from a horror movie about a woman being impregnated bySatan. To be fair I was pontificating on naming her Constance or even Delilah but Rosemary just came to mind and well…she’s glad to have it.’

Noel Fielding, who was Russell’s best friend was with him and he and Russell shook hands with the duo. ‘So how did you two end up in here anyway?’ ‘I really don’t know to be honest. I don’t think this is any of our dreams even though our dreams ARE weird.’ ‘That is something to pontificate about I might add, because we don’t know whose dream this realm is based on, are we in your dream, our own dream, or in someone else’s subconscious all together? We don’t know, we just know that it’s one strange dream land.’ Russell added, pontificating over Nocturnal City in general.

“Oh Russell, you love to pontificate about this sort of thing don’t ya?”

“I certainly do, and I have theories.”

‘Would you like to come with us? We could use some extra help.’ ‘Sure..’ That’s when Mel appeared in her dream form and she gave Russell a hug as she levitated over to him, she recognized her former enemy and friend. The group headed out to a couple of different nightmare realm levels within the city starting with the school.

At the school level, Corey and Oats rescued a bunch of school-kids who had been captured and stuck in the school and also partially brainwashed. Oats went up to the monster teacher and confronted her, telling her that she didn’t need to use her dark powers to make sure the children never forgot who she was. Mel took on a dream form to combat the staff members with Noel and Russell.

The next level after that was the pet store level which had an aquarium inside it,The group took on half fish-like forms as they entered the aquarium, with Corey becoming half pufferfish, Oats becoming half sea-fish, Mel becoming a merkoala, and Russell and Noel becoming a humanoid cat-fish and a humanoid angel-fish. The group explored the aquarium and that’s where Corey came across the dark corner of it with the deep sea fish in it.

“That’s odd…aquariums are supposed to have freshwater or tropical fish species, why does it have a deep sea section?”

“Well you can own hatchetfish and anglerfishes, just small aquarium friendly versions.”

‘Perhaps…this is some kind of commentary about invasive species as a whole, since it is definitely worth pontificating about that.’ Russell added. ‘When you think about it, we see fish like lionfish and stone fishes in aquariums sometimes and both of those are poisonous.’ ‘Exactly, it’s a commentary.’ Corey looked around as he examined the aquarium, that’s when he saw several of the tanks all began to break open as mutant fish-monsters jumped out and attempted to attack the group.

A plus sized anglerfish-woman that resemble Ursula from the Little Mermaid materialized in one of the tanks as an army of humanoid piranhas ran around and tried to bite at Corey and Oats, these were akin to savage pygmy warriors or the cannibal family from the classic horror movie The Hills Have Eyes, Oats whinnied as he used some magic to fend them off, as Mel performed some dance moves to fight off some fish-man guards. The aquarium began to flood as the group gathered together and hopped onto a platform, after hopping on the platform they left the aquarium level and they arrived in the main half of the pet store level.

That’s where they saw the snake area and that’s when they switched forms yet again, with Mel turning into a snake-woman and Noel turning into a humanoid tuatara while Russell became an anthro bearded dragon, Corey became half iguana and Oats developed a frill that was akin to that of a frill necked lizard. That’s where they saw a snake-monster emerging from one of the cages, reaching towards Mel..luckily Corey fought him off and was able to rescue her. They ran through the area and over into the insect zone, where Mel began to panic.

“What’s wrong Mel?”

“This level always scares me…”

Swarms of dangerous insects hovered around Mel and Corey as the group took on half insectoid forms, Mel shuddered as she saw the red ants and the blister beetles, and the botflies, and the mantis and the hornet, she saw the botfly and wasn’t afraid of that one though since she knew that only the human botfly species were parasitic to humans, the others in the botfly species were just parasitic to mammals in general.

Humanoid wasp-people floated around and attempted to sting the duo, one of the wasp-people actually did sting a human but the person didn’t die or get ill from the sting…but rather began to mutate into a humanoid insect-monster. That’s when she saw the arachnids with the scorpions and spiders, and squirmed. She always feared what would happen if she were to get stung or even bitten, and that’s when she shifted forms again, becoming a sexy half-spider-woman version of herself.

Luckily the group was able to make it out of the area alive and well, that’s when they came around to the media room level which showed a television. Corey went over to the television and flicked through the channels, most of the channels had static on them except for the scant channels that showed reruns of old Fox Kids shows. ‘Hey, I didn’t know Beetleborgs had a third season.’ ‘It didn’t. It got canceled and Saban ran out of footage to use. I don’t remember there being plans to revive the show,’

“Wait…Big Wolf On Campus had a fourth season?”

“No, that show had 3 three seasons, it ended with the episode Sum Of All Fears…actually it ended with the episode Thanks but the other episode I mentioned was basically just the cast thanking the viewers.”

“So why does it have a fourth season?”

“I don’t know…”

Another channel was showing Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and the duo wondered how it was picking up CITV since this was a New Zealand area and CITV is a British TV channel. ‘Why is Grizzly Tales airing at night? Usually it just aired in the afternoon after school.’ ‘That was back when CITV was an afternoon block on ITV before becoming its own channel.’ ‘Yeah. In context, it’s less scary.’ The gang took on monster forms as they looked throughout the media room, searching around.

A group of grotesque creatures popped out from behind the sofa, some of the creatures had tails with balls and food items attached to the end of them, there were monsters that spewed out chocolate discs at their enemies, they witnessed a scene of someone eating from a packed lunch lunchbox and turning into a monster that kept spewing out various things including music cds and food items. Corey then saw a monster that looked like some kind of mutant deformed humanoid toddler, the mutant toddler tried to pick him up and put some of his goop on him but Oats managed to save him.

Oats looked over and saw a crying girl wearing a homemade mask of a character that she liked, he went over to comfort the girl…the girl turned to Oats as he attempted to remove her mask only to reveal another mask underneath, and another mask underneath it. He whinnied when the girl turned into a demon and lunged out at him. ‘One thing I never got about Moocifer and the evil flying cow thing is that she and the other demon cows are inspired by the closedown cows from Nickelodeon.’

“You mean the ones that sang the closedown song from the 90’s to the 2000s?”

“Yes…the good night song number.”

‘What is it you don’t get about Moocifer’s connection to them?’ ‘Well why are those closedown cows still in the dream world levels here when clearly they were retired from Nickelodeon after the 2000s and it became a 24 hour channel? Clearly they should have left. Is Moocifer trying to bring them back by making a reboot?’ ‘If I may…’ Russell responded. ‘I have a theory that the connection and her trying to bring the closedown cows back is because it is a commentary on how shows and movies from our childhood keep getting rebooted and she wants to do her own reboot.’ ‘Nickelodeon definitely had a cow obsession for a while. I mean there’s those guys, there’s Barnyard, Curious Cow..’

The group chuckled as they made their way through the media room level and a portal appeared, teleporting them to the last level…the mall level, which was set in a mall in Woking, England. They bravely traversed the escalator as they went through the WHS-Smith area and the Spencer’s Gifts area before finally making it to the Toys R Us level which was basically akin to something out of Five Nights At Freddy’s, right down to the mascot Geoffrey Giraffe being viin animatronic form. After they did that, they exited that level and headed to the Camberley shopping mall level where they fought off shadowy dancers and living dolls in the Woolworths area and took on various forms throughout.

The level after that was a carnival level in which they were assigned with the mission of getting out before sunset and it was quite challenging, when the sun set, the performers and helpers all turned into monsters as masked dancers circled around Oats, Oats whinnied out of fright but he was able to fend them off with his ballet moves

After beating the final nightmare level, they were transported back to the entrance of Nocturnal City, where they were confronted with one last challenge. That challenge was to fend off the darkness that as taking over in the form of a song. ‘Are you thinking what i’m thinking?’ ‘I sure am. Let’s do it. Hit it.’ Corey instructed, as a radio materialized in front of them and it played the beginning of Torture by The Jacksons.

‘It was on the street so evil

So bad that even hell disowned it

Every single step was trouble

For the fool who stumbled on it

Eyes within the dark were watching

Something told me "keep on walkin'"

Told me I should not have come there

Baby, 'cause you cut me like a knife

Without your love in my life

Alone I walk in the night

'Cause I just can't stop this feelin'

It's torture

It's torture.

It's torture’

Oats sang as he picked up a floating microphone and turned into a glam rock version of himself that was very much David Bowie-esque, while Mel turned into a rock diva dressed in a similar outfit to Taryn from Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Mel twirled around and picked up a floating instrument as she joined in the song.

Mel spun around as she performed the song with Oats and Corey, Corey himself becoming a rockstar version of himself with an Alice Cooper influence as he joined in for the chorus. ‘Alone I walk in the night. Cause I just can't stop this feeling.’ Both Corey and Oats stood together as they sang…’it’s torture, it’s torture.’ Russell and Noel began to levitate as a floating stage materialized in front of them and it was their turn to perform.

‘She was up a stair to nowhere.

A room forever I'll remember.

She stared as though I should have known her.

Tell me what's your pain or pleasure’

Russell and Corey danced with a group of ghostly dancers that circled them, Noel rocked out on a spider themed guitar as they performed. ‘Every little thing you find here Is simply for the thrill you're after. Loneliness or hearts of fire. I am here to serve all masters.’ The demons and ghouls were hit by a blast from Oats’s guitar followed by Corey performing a powerful solo that knocked them all down.

‘She said reality is a knife

When there's no love in your life

And merciful is the night

When you just can't stop this feeling

It's torture

It's torture

It's torture’

Corey floated over to a podium in which he shot down several monsters including undead creatures that tried to peel off a human woman’s skin as if it was a costume, the undead creatures recoiled and he then played a note which hypnotized a group of dancers, he commanded them to attack the remaining creatures.

‘And I still can't find the meaning, no, no, no

Of the face I keep on seeing.’

‘Oh, was she real or am I dreaming?’

‘Did the sound of your name

Turn a wheel, strike a flame in me, ooh, baby’

The group spun around and performed together, commanding the dancers to attack the monsters and performing moves that were a tribute to the Thriller music video, as the monsters backed away from Corey and Oats. Russell then grabbed a guitar that Corey threw to him and performed a guitar solo that blasted the remaining undead creatures away, before rocking out and embracing the new moves he had learned.

Corey and Oats warmed up their finishing moves and performed the final chorus section of the song, blasting a powerful beam that weakened Moocifer’s minions and sent them back to where they came from. For the finale, the group performed a medley of Dream Warriors, Shot in The Dark, Eyes Without A Face, and Pet Sematary, a combo that was so powerful it sent the demon bovine away from the city and into where she originally spawned from. ‘Yaaaay! We did it.’ ‘ ‘Yeah, we defeated the nightmare challenges and we won.’

‘It won’t take me long to pontificate exactly on how we won though.’ Russell added. ‘Oh Russell, what are we going to do with you?’ ‘Nothing, i’m just me.’ ‘Exactly.’ ‘Now what do we do?’ ‘Look.’, they saw their faithful pegasus bed flying over to them, their bed had transformed into a rockstar tour bus with a fire/Nightmare theme on it.

“Come on…let’s go home.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

Oats trotted over to Noel and Russell…’Thank you for helping us on our journey throughout this terrifying realm, you were really helpful, plus it was nice meeting both of you.’ ‘Yeah, exactly what he said.’ Corey added. ‘Goodbye Russell, goodbye Noel. Hope to see you both again soon.’

They hugged Noel and Russell both headed to the bed/tour bus hybrid with Mel and the three of them exited Nocturnal City and exited the Nightmare realm, going through the sky in a way that mirrored the flying scene from Never-ending Story. A couple of hours later the group landed back home at their house in Nile Road, where they went into their room as the bed landed and rested itself for the night, Mel followed the duo. ‘Did you boys like our adventure into the realm of nightmares?’

“Oh yes…it rocked!”

And thus with that all three of our friends slept together peacefully, listening to the classical music station on the radio and had a nice rest. The following morning, Mel awoke with a smile as she greeted Corey and Oats, the duo greeted her and followed her to the kitchen for breakfast where they had toast.

The duo shared their nightmare realm adventure with everyone including fellow microbes and Corey even got to perform a few songs for them later on, and thus our story comes to a conclusion, sometimes dreams don’t make sense but they don’t have to, what happens to you in a nightmare cannot hurt you, but should you feel afraid because of what happened to you in a dream, call everyone’s favorite dream warrior duo of Corey and Oats.

Stay tuned for more fantastic adventures with the upcoming 2022 Halloween spectacular, ‘Corey and Oats: Vampire Besties’ ‘Oats and the Unicorn Princess’ and many more.