Slowly, David pushed his way through the crowd, moving away from Sammy. Bobby and Andy were standing in line at the other end of the pool, waiting to jump off the board. David stepped up behind Andy, pretending to be waiting in line, even though he hated diving. Should he leave the pool? Run? That would only make it easier for the clown to spot him. But if he left, maybe Sammy would shut up.
“You’re crazy, David Shore!” Sammy was yelling. He seemed on the verge of tears—he had been very close to Mr. Thorne. “You know that? You’re fucking crazy. Bats in the belfry, Davie—”
The clown was standing on the edge of the pool, right above Sammy, staring down at him thoughtfully.
Then Sammy spotted David. His face went blank, as though with amazement, and he pointed his finger at him. “David! There’s a clown behind you!”
Instinctively, knowing that it was a mistake even as his muscles moved but unable to stop himself, David whipped his head around and looked behind him. Nothing was there.
When he turned back, the clown was staring at him.
Their eyes met, and David felt a chill go through him, as if he had been pierced with ice.
Sammy was breaking up, hugging himself in glee and laughing, shrill, cawing laughter with a trace of hysteria in it. “Jeez-us, Davie!” he yelled. “You’re just not playing with a full deck, are you, Davie? You’re—”
The clown knelt by the side of the pool. Moving with studied deliberation, never taking his eyes off David, the clown reached out and seized Sammy by the shoulders—Sammy jerked in surprise, his mouth opening wide—and slowly and relentlessly forced him under the water.
“Sammy!” David screamed.
The clown was leaning out over the pool, eyes still on David, one arm thrust almost shoulder-deep into the water, holding Sammy under. The water thrashed and boiled around the clown’s outthrust arm, but Sammy wasn’t coming back up—
“Jason!” David shrieked, waving his arms to attract the lifeguard’s attention and then pointing toward the churning patch of water. “Jason! Help! Help! Somebody’s drowning!” Jason looked in the direction David was pointing, sat up with a start, began to scramble to his feet—
David didn’t wait to see any more. He hit the water in a clumsy dive, almost a belly-whopper, and began thrashing across the pool toward Sammy, swimming as strongly as he could. Half-blinded by spray and by the wet hair in his eyes, half-dazed by the sudden shock of cold water on his sun-baked body, he almost rammed his head into the far side of the pool, banging it with a wildly flailing hand instead. He recoiled, gasping. The clown was right above him now, only a few feet away. The clown turned his head to look at him, still holding Sammy under, and once again David found himself shaking with that deathly arctic cold. He kicked at the side wall of the pool, thrusting himself backward. Then he took a deep breath and went under.
The water was murky, but he was close enough to see Sammy. The clown’s white-gloved hand was planted firmly on top of Sammy’s head, holding him under. Sammy’s eyes were open, strained wide, bulging almost out of his head. Dreadfully, they seemed to see David, recognize him, appeal mutely to him. Sammy’s hands were pawing futilely at the clown’s arm, more and more weakly, slowing, running down like an unwound clock. Even as David reached him, Sammy’s mouth opened and there was a silvery explosion of bubbles.
David grabbed the clown’s arm. A shock went through him at the contact, and his hands went cold, the bitter cold spreading rapidly up his arms, as if he were grasping something that avidly sucked the heat from anything that touched it. David yanked at the clown’s arm with his numbing, clumsy hands, trying to break his grip, but it was like yanking on a steel girder.
A big white shape barreled by him like a porpoise, knocking him aside. Jas.
David floundered, kicked, broke the surface of the water. He shot up into the air like a Polaris missile, fell back, took a great racking breath, another. Sunlight on water dazzled his eyes, and everything was noise and confusion in the open air, baffling after the muffled underwater silence. He kicked his feet weakly, just enough to keep him afloat, and looked around.
Jas was hauling Sammy out of the pool. Sammy’s eyes were still open, but now they looked like glass, like the blank, staring eyes of a stuffed animal; a stream of dirty water ran out of his slack mouth, down over his chin. Jas laid Sammy out by the pool edge, bent hurriedly over him, began to blow into his mouth and press on his chest. A crowd was gathering, calling out questions and advice, making little wordless noises of dismay.
The clown had retreated from the edge of the pool. He was standing some yards away now, watching Jas labor over Sammy.
Slowly, he turned his head and looked at David.
Their eyes met again, once again with that shock of terrible cold, and this time the full emotional impact of what that look implied struck home as well.
The clowns knew that he could see them.
The clowns knew who he was.
The clowns would be after him now.
Slowly, the clown began to walk toward David, his icy blue eyes fixed on him.
Terror squeezed David like a giant’s fist. For a second, everything went dark. He couldn’t remember swimming back across to the other side of the pool, but the next thing he knew, there he was, hauling himself up the ladder, panting and dripping. A couple of kids were looking at him funny; no doubt he’d shot across the pool like a torpedo.
The clown was coming around the far end of the pool, not running but walking fast, still staring at David.
There were still crowds of people on this side of the pool, too, some of them paying no attention to the grisly tableau on the far side, most of them pressed together near the pool’s edge, standing on tiptoe and craning their necks to get a better look.
David pushed his way through the crowd, worming and dodging and shoving, and the clown followed him, moving faster now. The clown seemed to flow like smoke around people without touching them, never stumbling or bumping into anyone even in the most densely packed part of the crowd, and he was catching up. David kept looking back, and each time he did, the widely smiling painted face was closer behind him, momentarily bobbing up over the sunburned shoulders of the crowd, weaving in and out. Coming relentlessly on, pressing closer, all the while never taking his eyes off him.
The crowd was thinning out. He’d never make it back around the end of the pool before the clown caught up with him. Could he possibly outrun the clown in the open? Panting, he tried to work his hand into the pocket of his sopping-wet jeans as he stumbled along. The wet cloth resisted, resisted, and then his hand was inside the pocket, his fingers touching metal, closing over the thing he’d bought at the store on his way over.
Much too afraid to feel silly or self-conscious, he whirled around and held up the crucifix, extended it at arm’s length toward the clown.
The clown stopped.
They stared at each other for a long, long moment, long enough for the muscles in David’s arm to start to tremble.
Then, silently, mouth open, the clown started to laugh.
It wasn’t going to work—
The clown sprang at David, spreading his arms wide as he came.
It was like a wave of fire-shot darkness hurtling toward him, getting bigger and bigger, blotting out the world—
David screamed and threw himself aside.
The clown’s hand swiped at him, hooked fingers grazing his chest like stone talons, tearing free. For a moment, David was enveloped in arctic cold and that strong musty smell of dead leaves, and then he was rolling free, scrambling to his feet, running—
He tripped across a bicycle lying on the grass, scooped it up and jumped aboard it all in one motion, began to pedal furiously. Those icy hands clutched at him again from just a step behind. He felt his shirt rip; the bicycle skidded and fishtailed in the dirt for a second; and then the wheels bit the ground and he was away and picking up speed.
When he dared to risk a look back, the clown was staring after h
im, a look thoughtful, slow, and icily intent.
###
David left the bicycle in a doorway a block from home and ran the rest of the way, trying to look in all directions at once. He trudged wearily up the front steps of his house and let himself in.
His parents were in the front room. They had been quarreling, but when David came into the house they broke off and stared at him. David’s mother rose rapidly to her feet, saying, “David! Where were you? We were so worried! Jason told us what happened at the pool.”
David stared back at them. “Sammy?” he heard himself saying, knowing it was stupid to ask even as he spoke the words, but unable to keep himself from feeling a faint stab of hope. “Is Sammy gonna be all right?”
His parents exchanged looks.
David’s mother opened her mouth and closed it again, hesitantly, but his father waved a hand at her, sat up straighter in his chair and said flatly, “Sammy’s dead, David. They think he had some sort of seizure and drowned before they could pull him out. I’m sorry. But that’s the way it is.”
“Marty!” David’s mother protested.
“It’s part of life, Anna,” his father said. “He’s got to learn to face it. You can’t keep him wrapped up in cotton wool, for Christ’s sake!”
“It’s all right,” David said quietly. “I knew he had to be. I just thought maybe . . . somehow . . .”
There was a silence, and they looked at each other through it. “At any rate,” his father finally said, “we’re proud of you, David. The lifeguard told us you tried to save Sammy. You did the best you could, did it like a man, and you should be proud of that.” His voice was heavy and solemn. “You’re going to be upset for a while, sure—that’s only normal—but someday that fact’s going to make you feel a lot better about all this, believe me.”
David could feel his lips trembling, but he was determined not to cry. Summoning all his will to keep his voice steady, he said, “Mom . . . Dad . . . if I . . . told you something—something that was really weird—would you believe me and not think I was going nuts again?”
His parents gave him that uneasy, wall-eyed look again. His mother wet her lips, hesitantly began to speak, but his father cut her off. “Tell your tall tales later,” he said harshly. “It’s time for supper.”
David sagged back against the door panels. They did think he was going nuts again, had probably been afraid of that ever since they heard he had run wildly away from the pool after Sammy drowned. He could smell the fear on them, a sudden bitter burnt reek, like scorched onions. His mother was still staring at him uneasily, her face pale, but his father was grating, “Come on, now, wash up for supper. Make it snappy!” He wasn’t going to let David be nuts, David realized; he was going to force everything to be “normal,” by the sheer power of his anger.
“I’m not hungry,” David said hollowly. “I’d rather just lie down.” He walked quickly by his parents, hearing his father start to yell, hearing his mother intervene, hearing them start to quarrel again behind him. He didn’t seem to care anymore. He kept going, pulling himself upstairs, leaning his weight on the wrought-iron banister. He was bone-tired and his head throbbed.
In his room, he listlessly peeled off his sweat-stiff clothes. His head was swimming with the need to sleep, but he paused before turning down the bedspread, grimaced and shot an uneasy glance at the window. Slowly, he crossed the room. Moving in jerks and starts, as though against his will, he lifted the edge of the curtain and looked out.
There was a clown in the street below, standing with that terrible motionless patience in front of the house, staring up at David’s window.
David was not even surprised. Of course the clowns would be there. They’d heard Sammy call his name. They’d found him. They knew where he lived now.
What was he going to do? He couldn’t stay inside all summer. Sooner or later, his parents would make him go out.
And then the clowns would get him.
###
David woke up with a start, his heart thudding.
He pushed himself up on one elbow, blinking in the darkness, still foggy and confused with sleep. What had happened? What had wakened him?
He glanced at the fold-up travel clock that used to be his dad’s; it sat on the desk, its numbers glowing. Almost midnight.
Had there been a noise? There had been a noise, hadn’t there? He could almost remember it.
He sat alone in the darkened room, still only half-awake, listening to the silence.
Everything was silent. Unnaturally silent. He listened for familiar sounds: the air conditioner swooshing on, the hot-water tank rumbling, the refrigerator humming, the cuckoo clock chiming in the living room. Sometimes he could hear those sounds when he awakened in the middle of the night. But he couldn’t hear them now. The crickets weren’t even chirruping outside, nor was there any sound of passing traffic. There was only the sound of David’s own breathing, harsh and loud in his ears, as though he were underwater and breathing through scuba gear. Without knowing why, he felt the hair begin to rise on the back of his neck.
The clowns were in the house.
That hit him suddenly, with a rush of adrenalin, waking him all the way up in an eyeblink.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. Somehow, he had thought that houses were safe, that the clowns could only be outside. But they were here. They were in the house. Perhaps they were here in the room, right now. Two of them, eight, a dozen. Forming a circle around the bed, staring at him in the darkness with their opaque and malevolent eyes.
He burst from the bed and ran for the light switch, careening blindly through blackness, waiting for clutching hands to grab him in the dark. His foot struck something—a toy, a shoe—and sent it clattering away, the noise making him gasp and flinch. A misty ghost shape seemed to move before him, making vague, windy gestures, more sensed than seen. He ducked away, dodging blindly. Then his hand was on the light switch.
The light came on like a bomb exploding, sudden and harsh and overwhelmingly bright. Black spots flashed before his eyes. As his vision readjusted, he jumped to see a face only inches from his own—stifling a scream when he realized that it was only his reflection in the dresser mirror. That had also been the moving, half-seen shape.
There was no one in the room.
Panting with fear, he slumped against the dresser. He’d instinctively thought that the light would help, but somehow it only made things worse. It picked out the eyes and the teeth of the demons in the magic posters on the walls, making them gleam sinisterly, and threw slowly moving monster shadows across the room from the dangling Tyrannosaurus mobile. The light was harsh and spiky, seeming to bounce and ricochet from every flat surface, hurting his eyes. The light wouldn’t save him from the clowns, wouldn’t keep them away, wouldn’t banish them to unreality, like bad-dream bogeymen—it would only help them find him.
He was making a dry little gasping noise, like a cornered animal. He found himself across the room, crouching with his back to the wall. Almost without thinking, he had snatched up the silver letter-opener knife from his desk. Knife in hand, lips skinned back over his teeth in an animal snarl, he crouched against the wall and listened to the terrible silence that seemed to press in against his eardrums.
They were coming for him.
He imagined them moving with slow deliberation through the darkened living room downstairs, their eyes and their dead-white faces gleaming in the shadows, pausing at the foot of the stairs to look up toward his room and then, slowly, slowly—each movement as intense and stylized as the movements of a dance—beginning to climb . . . the stairs creaking under their weight . . . coming closer . . .
David was crying now, almost without realizing that he was. His heart was thudding as if it would tear itself out of his chest, beating faster and faster as the pressure of fear built up inside him, shaking him, chuffing out, “Run, run, run! Don’t let them trap you in here! Run!”
Before he had realized what he was do
ing, he had pulled open the door to his room and was in the long corridor outside.
Away from the patch of light from his doorway, the corridor was deadly black and seemed to stretch endlessly away into distance. Slowly, step by step, he forced himself into the darkness, one hand on the corridor wall, one hand clutching the silver knife. Although he was certain that every shadow that loomed up before him would turn out to be a silently waiting clown, he didn’t even consider switching on the hallway light. Instinctively, he knew that the darkness would hide him. Make no noise, stay close to the wall. They might miss you in the dark. Knife in hand, he walked on down the hall, feeling his fingertips rasp along over wood and tile and wallpaper, his eyes strained wide. Into the darkness.
His body knew where he was going before he did. His parents’ room. He wasn’t sure if he wanted his parents to protect him or if he wanted to protect them from a menace they didn’t even know existed and couldn’t see, but through his haze of terror, all he could think of was getting to his parents’ room. If he could beat the clowns to the second floor, hide in his parents’ room, maybe they’d miss him; maybe they wouldn’t look for him there. Maybe he’d be safe there . . . safe . . . the way he used to feel when a thunderstorm would wake him and he’d run sobbing down the hall in the darkness to his parents’ room and his mother would take him in her arms.
The staircase, opening up in a well of space and darkness, was more felt than seen. Shoulder against the wall, he felt his way down the stairs, lowering one foot at a time, like a man backing down a ladder. The well of darkness rose up around him and slowly swallowed him. Between floors, away from the weak, pearly light let in by the upstairs-landing window, the darkness was deep and smothering, the air full of suspended dust and the musty smell of old carpeting. Every time the stairs creaked under his feet, he froze, heart thumping, certain that a clown was about to loom up out of the inky blackness, as pale and terrible as a shark rising up through black midnight water.
Slow Dancing Through Time Page 24
