Enter The Clowns

Copyright John Carter 2011

Cover image by John Carter

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Enter the Clowns

J. D. Carter

The attic was dark and damp, just as it had been when Myra had been younger and her parents had gone at each other viciously. Cobwebs were plastered all across the ceiling, connecting beams together like some creepy puzzle.

She clumsily sifted through a seemingly endless sea of boxes filled with memories, some good but most bad. Photo albums depicted a life of happiness that seemed foreign to Myra. Her childhood had been frightful, filled with an alcoholic father who regularly beat her drug-addled mother.

She’d loved her mother despite her growing dependency she’d had on her husband. No matter how many times he’d come home drunk, no matter how many times he’d hit her, she’d stayed. Myra was sure that if he’d ever laid a finger on her, her mother would have packed up and moved them both to her grandmother’s house. Her father hadn’t, though. He treated his daughter like she was a princess, so she’d stayed.

Box after box was opened and tossed to the side. Myra had no intention of keeping anything of her father’s, or her own for that matter. She wanted two boxes; the ones with the clowns.

She remembered how much her mother had loved those clowns. Many nights she’d sat up talking to them, her face battered and bruised. She’d promised them, just as she had Myra, that everything would be okay. He would change, she’d said. One day he would come home, take her in his arms, and apologize for every time he’d struck her. After that, everything would be different. After that, they would finally be a happy family.

That had never happened. Myra’s father had been a bastard all the way up until he’d wrapped his car around the telephone on the corner of eighth and broad and splattered himself all over the pavement. That had been three years ago and there were still crosses at the crash site, reminding people of the façade he had put on; reminding people that he was a great husband, sober and loving.

Myra knew that that had been the beginning of the end for her mother. After the death of her husband, she had gone into a downward spiral. She’d started taking more pills and talked more to the clowns than she ever had before. Even the money from the life insurance settlement (he hadn’t been drunk, only tired) and the promise of a better life hadn’t helped her mood. She was alone, without the abuse, but alone nonetheless.

After about an hour, Myra found what she was looking for: two white boxes, simply marked “friends”. She lifted them and noticed that they seemed heavier than they rightfully should have been. They were dolls, after all, not bricks. She scooped them up into her arms, descended the ladder, and walked, for the last time she hoped, out of her parent’s house.

***

When Myra returned home, she set the boxes down in her living room, stacked one on top of the other, and decided a bath was in order. The flight from Maine to Georgia had been a long one and she was ready for some much needed relaxation. She walked into the kitchen, placed her phone and purse on the counter, and started up the stairs to the second floor.

Steam rose up from the tub and began to fill the room as she turned the knob marked “H” on to full blast then turned the one marked “C” a quarter turn. She slipped out of her clothes and dipped a foot into the water that was quickly filling the bath tub. It was hot but bearable, just the way she liked it.

She could feel her muscles relaxing and the stress of the past week melting into the water as she laid back and let her head rest on the back of the tub. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift away.

***

They were everywhere. There wasn’t a single room in her parent’s house that wasn’t inhabited by clowns. In the living room, they stood on the mantle with their comical, oversized hammers perched atop their shoulders. Most were smiling but a few of them had tears painted down to grotesque frowns. Two of them held the candy dish that sat on the coffee table as another lay in front of it trying to sneak his hand in to steal a piece of candy.

In the kitchen, a two more of them sat on top of the spice rack as if helping decided which and how much spices to use. On the counter, others held cooking utensils such as spoons and knives. Myra had always wondered why the sad ones held the knives. It seemed grotesquely morbid to her.

***

The sudden sound of breaking glass ripped Myra from her memories and violently brought her crashing back into reality. She sat up in the bath tub and absently covered her nakedness with the shower curtain. She listened closely and thought she could hear the sound of someone moving downstairs.

“Hello?” She called out.

That was stupid. That’s how women get killed in horror movies, you know. Now the serial killer (or rapist, more likely) knows exactly where you are. Prepare to be violently killed, dumbass. You are in deep now. Unless…

“Is anybody there? I-I have a gun.”

No answer. Of course, did she expect one? Did she really expect whoever it was to say something like: “Oh! I’m sorry. I was going to kill you but I think that, since you have a gun, I’ll be leaving now.”

After a few moments of silence, Myra summoned the courage to stand up, dry off, and slip her clothes on. She then walked over to the door, cracked it open, and peeked outside. The hallway was empty. Myra took a deep breath and dashed across to her room and closed the door behind her, locking it.

She walked over to the bedside table, picked up the telephone receiver and placed it to her ear. Three long beeps reminded her that, in her rush to be with her mother at her bedside, she had forgotten to pay the phone bill.

Fuck.

Suddenly, a light bulb went off in her head. She walked over to the dresser, said a little prayer, and pulled the top drawer open.

Bingo.

The can of mace her boyfriend had given her when she first moved into the apartment sat on top of a pair of folded jeans. She grabbed it and walked to the bedroom door. If there was any chance that she could get to her phone, this item would at least double that.

She stepped cautiously out of her bedroom and into the hallway, pressing her body as closely as she could to the wall. She crept towards the stairs, listening for any sounds or signs of movement. She stopped at the top of the stairs for a moment and when she was sure it was safe began her slow, easy descent. When she reached the bottom she made a quick dash into the kitchen. No cell phone. She looked on top of the counters, on the floor, and even in the space between the fridge and the cabinets. The phone was nowhere to be found.

Sudden, high pitched laughter came spilling out of the living room and Myra had to cover her mouth to stifle the scream that tried to escape. The laughter stopped as quickly as it had started and, for a moment, Myra thought she had been caught.

When she knew she hadn’t been, Myra’s curiosity overwhelmed the fear that now pumped through her veins like ice water and she slowly poked her head around the corner and peered into the living room.

Relief started to spread throughout her mind as she saw that one of the boxes had fallen over and now lay open on the floor with a single clown laying face down in front of it. She realized that the sound she’d heard wasn’t that of someone breaking in but that of the box falling over. She let out a sigh that was half relief and half disconcertion and walked into the living room. She walked over to the box, picked up the clown that had fallen out, and rose to survey the damages.

Something out of corner of her eye caused the ice water to return to her veins. She slowly turned her head towards the couch and saw two clowns sitting in the middle of it, staring at her with terrible, mischievous grins. One of them was holding the cell phone to its ear and, as soon as it saw Myra looking at it, began carrying on a conversation in its high pitched, squeaky voice. It was speaking in a language that Myra couldn’t understand.

Myra felt the color drain from her face and, suddenly, the clowns burst into ear piercing laughter. Myra felt movement in her hand and looked down dazedly, not fully being able to wrap her mind around the current situation. The clown in her hand, whom she had forgotten about, was struggling to free himself from her grasp. She wanted desperately, in the back of her mind, to drop him but the signal to release wasn’t getting from her brain to her hand. The clown continued to struggle for a few moments then grabbed her finger in his chubby little hands and sunk tiny, razor-sharp teeth into her flesh.

The pain brought Myra back into focus and she jerked violently, dropping the clown. It fell at her feet and she kicked it. It connected with the wall across the room with a loud thud and then slid down it and crumpled on the floor. This brought complete silence followed by roaring laughter out of the two clowns that sat on the couch. The laughter, combined with the throbbing pain in her hand, helped Myra to get her bearings. She turned around and made a mad dash for the stairs.

As she passed the recliner that sat at the entry way to the living room, a tiny hand shot out from underneath the couch and grabbed her ankle. Myra fell onto the floor in a heap. She turned over onto her back just in time to see the small, fat clown emerge from underneath the recliner and start walking towards her.

As he got closer, Myra remembered the can of mace that was still clutched tightly in her hand. She sprayed a thick stream into his face and it sent him flailing backwards until he lost balance and fell over onto his butt. The two clowns on the couch were now doubled over with laughter at this. It seemed that they were having a glorious time.

Myra scrambled to her feet, ran towards the front door, and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the three clowns that were blocking her path to freedom. One was smoking a cigarette, one clutched one of those comical, oversized mallets that Myra remembered from when she was younger, and the third had a pair of scissors that were far too large for his hands but which it held with ease anyway. She immediately altered her course and ran frantically up the stairs. When she reached the door to the bathroom, a queer, yet strangely horrifying sight caught her attention and made her halt her escape.

On the sink there stood a small, female clown staring into the mirror. Its face was covered in a rainbow of different colors. Red lipstick covered its lips and the area around them. Blue eye shadow was thick on its eyes and rose so far up that it covered half of its forehead. Its cheeks were covered in excessive amounts of pink blush. It noticed Myra and turned to look at her, revealing a smile that was full of sharp, yellow teeth that had traces of red that could have been lipstick or blood (Myra prayed that it was lipstick but figured it could have been either). Myra’s makeup bag, along with its contents, had been torn to pieces and not lay on the floor all around the base of the sink.

Myra screamed in horror and ran down the hall to her bedroom. She flung open the door and rushed inside. She slammed the door shut and locked it, praying that would be enough to hold them off until she could come up with a plan. She turned to the window and saw another clown sitting on the sill, grinning at her maliciously.

On the dresser to her right, there was a hammer that she had been using to hang pictures. She grabbed it, drew back and flung it at the evil little thing. It was a direct hit, her first stroke of good luck all night and the first real chance she had of escape. The clown took the hammer directly in the chest and crashed backwards through the window, shattering it.

Behind her, Myra could hear the sound of footsteps getting closer and she knew that if she wanted to get out of the apartment with her life she had to make her move now. She walked over to the window and started picking the broken glass out of the frame. Behind her, she could hear the doorknob rattling as the clowns tried to open it. Slow, thick thuds began at the base of the door. The clowns were trying to break the door down.

She got most of the glass out of her way and reached through the window carefully to try and gain a hold of something that would allow her to lift her body up and out of it. Just as she found the awning that hung above the window, two little hands that rested at the end of long, accordion-like arms reached up and grabbed hers. With a quick, strong move they pulled her arms down onto the few shards that still stuck up from the bottom of the window.

Grinding pain flooded Myra’s arms as the glass slid through her flesh and against her bones. She screamed, drew her arms back, and stumbled back a few steps. The clown climbed back through the window and grinned at her triumphantly. Blood poured from Myra’s arms and began to puddle on the floor beneath her.

Behind her, the door crashed open and Myra turned around just in time to see the clowns enter the room. Four of them had one in their arms that they had been using as a battering ram and he fell to the ground with a thud. He lay unconscious at their feet.

Hopelessness mixed with the throbbing pain in her arms made Myra fall to her knees. Fear overwhelmed her and she began to scream. The clowns laughed their high-pitched, squeaky laughs and began to advance on her. The last thing Myra heard was that terrible laugh and her own screams resounding in her head as the clowns overtook her.

***

Amber walked up and down the aisle of the little thrift store with bruises on her face that the makeup that she had caked on did little to hide. Jerry was angry again and she wore the proof like a badge of shame. She never thought her life would turn out this way. It had been great in the beginning. Then Jerry lost his job and started drinking and things, from there, had gone downhill. She had already started to become emotionally detached from him. Her parents had been dead for five years now. She had been an only child so it wasn’t as if she had siblings she could turn to. She had no friends, he would not allow that. She was alone.

A group of figurines caught her eye on the second aisle. There were nine clowns, all in a row, staring at her from the top shelf. At only fifteen dollars, Amber considered it a steal. She placed them neatly and carefully in her basket and walked to the counter. She would take them home, clean them up, and treat them like the friends she never could have. If he didn’t like it, well, she would figure that out if and when the time came.

As the clerk rung up her purchase, Amber looked at all of the different clowns. Most of them, the males anyway, seemed dirty and had smiles painted on their little faces. There was one that wasn’t smiling, though. It seemed to actually be crying. It was the cleanest of the group, a female that looked practically brand new.