Clown Moon

by Alex Jameson

  “No. I don’t want the whole world knowing who this guy is just yet. Besides, we don’t actually have any definitive evidence that it’s him.”

  Cole couldn’t help but roll her eyes. They could at least release his name as a suspect; they had enough to go on for that. But she knew Reidigger well enough to know that he didn’t want some cop or sheriff somewhere—or God forbid, an ordinary citizen—being the one to bring in Harlan Kidd. He wanted to do it himself.

  “Call me with anything new, Cole.” He hung up.

  She sat there for a long moment, angry at herself. She should have asked him how many more people had to die before they asked for help. She should have told him that his ego was getting in the way. It wouldn’t have mattered; he just would have gotten angry, shouted, flew off the handle as he tended to do. She could go over his head, probably, but then she’d get transferred somewhere else, and worse, be known as a rat.

  Sighing, she started the car, turned on the GPS and headed over to the meat-processing plant.

  CHAPTER 26

  * * *

  I-74, Indiana

  “I hate to say I told you so,” Jake muttered. “But I totally told you so.”

  “Not now, Jake. Just—try it again.”

  Jake turned the key in the ignition. The Buick chugged weakly and died. He sighed and leaned his head back against the headrest. “So now what?”

  They had made it about twenty miles up the interstate before the car gave out on them. Jake had managed to pull off onto the shoulder, but there was just no life left in it. Between the two of them, they could probably fix it, but that could take hours.

  “We walk,” Sam said.

  “Oh really? Along the interstate at night?”

  “We can’t stay here. Eventually the cops will show up. They’ll ask us for ID, and then Reidigger will know where we are and we’ll be arrested.”

  “Aaaaand we’re carrying a couple of illegal guns,” Jake added.

  “That too. So let’s grab our stuff, wipe this car down, and get out of here.”

  Sam took the duffel and the black case carrying the M-21. Jake slung the tact bag over one shoulder and carried his own backpack by the strap, as well as a toolbox from Sam’s truck that contained a first-aid kit, much of which he’d used to patch Sam up. They walked, feeling the breeze from cars and trucks whizzing by them, bits of conversation drowned out by the occasional passing rig.

  “…looking like that,” Jake said.

  “What? I didn’t catch that.”

  “I said, no one is going to pick us up with you looking like that.”

  “We’ll just walk to the next exit and see what’s there. We’ll find another vehicle.”

  “And steal it?”

  “If we have to. Yeah.”

  “I don’t like it. It’s too risky. Hell, it’s illegal to walk on an interstate. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah, I did. Thanks for the news flash though.”

  “And I’m not taking out any cops, just so you know. If we get caught or pulled over or whatever, I’m complying. Just saying—”

  Sam whirled on him. “Look, Jake, I don’t have all the answers, okay? This isn’t an op we can plan out in detail. I knew that going in. You knew that going in. So let’s just play the quiet game for a little while and think, okay?”

  “Sheesh. Alright.”

  They walked in silence for another six minutes before they saw a sign that the next exit was about a mile and a half further. They crossed the guardrail and shuffled down a small ravine, a bit off the highway, until they reached the exit. There was only a gas station and a long, straight road with a small town in the distance, but it would do.

  They dropped their bags in the shadows alongside a mini-mart and Sam stood guard while Jake went in for a couple bottles of water. Sam paced and ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated. What the hell were they going to do now?

  He heard an engine and looked up as an old VW Microbus pulled up to a pump. He hadn’t seen one of those in ages. It was a bit rusted around the wheel wells, and the green and white paint job was faded, but otherwise it looked like it was in pretty good shape. The doors opened and four people got out, three guys and a woman. They all looked to be in their mid-twenties or so and were whooping, laughing and talking over each other, jubilant about something.

  Sam edged closer to the corner of the mini-mart and watched them. The driver pumped gas while a tall guy with a ponytail lit a cigarette.

  “Dude!” said the stocky driver. “Back up, man. I don’t really feel like exploding tonight.”

  Ponytail guy backed up several paces. “I’m just so jacked, man! Did you see that hit? Fucker tried to come up on me. Boom!” He mimed swinging a bat. “Clown went down!”

  They all laughed. The driver slapped the hood of the van.

  “And how ‘bout that one that tried to freak out Biggie?” the girl said. “Do it, do the thing.”

  The driver scrunched up his face into a scowl. “You don’t scare me! I scare you!”

  They laughed again. “You knocked his ass out cold,” Ponytail guy said.

  “Hey,” Jake returned, holding out a bottle of water and a Slim Jim. “Got you this. A peace offering for earlier.”

  “Yeah, no worries. Sorry I snapped.” Sam was obviously distracted. Jake followed his gaze to the four near the van.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “A ride, maybe.”

  Jake furrowed his brow, watching and listening to the four. “Come on, get the stuff,” he said, grabbing the two bags. “Let me do the talking.”

  Sam picked up the duffel and the black case and followed Jake over to the gas pump. The four quieted suddenly when they saw the two men approaching.

  “Hey,” Jake said stoically.

  “Hey yourself,” said Ponytail guy.

  “We’re looking for a ride.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?”

  “We got carjacked back in Dayton by five dudes in clown masks,” Jake told them.

  The four looked at each other. “No shit,” said Ponytail guy.

  “No shit. We hitched a ride here, but they were heading south toward Virginia. They also didn’t share our… perspective on things. Seems like you four do.”

  “Is that so?” Ponytail guy asked. “Where you headed?”

  “Columbus.”

  “Are you guys cops?” the driver asked. He was stocky, heavily built, with close-cropped hair and a pencil-thin beard from his sideburns to his chin. “Because if you are, and we ask, you have to tell us. Otherwise, it’s entrapment or something.”

  “Is that for real?” the woman asked. She had red hair, an obvious dye job, and a tiny silver nose stud.

  “Yeah. I saw it on Investigation Discovery.”

  “No,” Jake said. “We’re not cops.”

  “Who messed up your face?” Ponytail guy asked, motioning with his cigarette toward Sam.

  “I got jumped by a bunch of clowns in Tennessee.” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to be honest, but it seemed like it might gain them some traction with this group.

  “Man,” Ponytail said, peering closer at Sam. “They really did a number on you. And what’s in the case?”

  Jake stared him in the eye, straight-faced. “An M-21 sniper rifle.”

  Ponytail guy glanced uneasily to each of his friends, and then let out a nervous chuckle. His friends laughed too.

  “Let’s take a vote,” he suggested. “Biggie? It’s your van.”

  He looked them both up and down. “Yeah. Sure.”

  The young woman shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Brian?” The fourth guy was younger than the others, or at least looked it, and wore round owlish glasses.

  “I say yeah.”

  “Okay then.” Ponytail guy flicked away his cigarette. “Hop on in. Things will be tight, but I think we’ll manage. You can throw your shit in the back.”

  The woman and the nerdy guy named Brian climbed back into the
van while the driver, apparently named Biggie, went inside for snacks. Ponytail guy opened the back of the van for them, and they stowed their stuff behind the third row of seats, everything except the tact bag, which Sam hung onto.

  Once everyone was back in the van, Biggie pulled out of the station and onto the interstate. The quiet guy, Brian, sat in the second row with Ponytail guy, and Sam sat in the rearmost bench seat next to Jake, the tact bag on his lap.

  “That’s Biggie, Janet, Brian, and I’m Eric,” Ponytail guy said.

  “I’m Jake, and this is Sam.”

  “Alright, Jake and Sam, what’s your story?” Eric asked.

  Sam assumed he was something of the leader of the bunch.

  “You first,” Jake said.

  Eric grinned again, pointing at Jake. “I like you. I think we can be friends. Alright. We’re from Texas. This here is Biggie’s van…”

  “It used to be my grandpa’s,” Biggie cut in, “but last year he says, if y’all can fix it up, you can have it. So we poured about ten grand into this thing and planned a road trip, just the four of us.”

  “Right,” Eric continued. “First we headed west, to go to Roswell. Day one—day freakin’ one, man—we got attacked by these fucking clowns. There were six of them. One of them knocked Brian over, threatened him with a knife…”

  Brian, the thin guy in the middle seat with Eric, rolled up his sleeves to show the road-rash scars on his elbows. “I tried to crawl away. He put his foot on my back,” he said quietly.

  “But we don’t call Biggie that for nothing,” Eric said. “He pounded this guy—bam!—and the rest went running. We kept going. But they were everywhere—every place we stopped or wanted to see, there were clowns. So we did what any good Samaritans would do. We swung by a sporting goods store and armed ourselves. Now… well, we’re still taking our road trip. Our priorities have just changed a little bit.”

  “We’ve been bashing clowns from New Mexico to Ohio,” Biggie said proudly. “It’s a hell of a lot more fun that sightseeing, that’s for sure.”

  “And we’re not a bunch of pussies hiding behind masks, neither,” Eric added.

  “That’s really something,” Jake said. He tried not to show any emotion, as if this was a perfectly normal thing, but suddenly he realized he may have made a mistake accepting this ride.

  Eric shrugged. “This ain’t nothing new. There’s probably fifty groups just like us out there. Hell, we met a couple of them on the road—clown hunters, they call themselves. I don’t know. That sounds a little, uh, pompous to me.” He took a long swig from a bottle of soda—at least Sam assumed it was soda. “Did you guys hear what happened in West Virginia? Bunch of bubbas down there strung a clown up by his feet and tried to set him on fire.”

  Jesus, Sam thought. They hadn’t heard about that one. Things were getting out of hand.

  “Alright, your turn,” Eric said. “So y’all got beat up in Tennessee and carjacked in Ohio, huh? Why are you still out here? What’s in Columbus for you?”

  “A whole mess of clowns,” Jake said.

  “What makes you say that?” Eric asked.

  “You know about that trucker, the Clown Killer’s most recent victim? They said on the news that he was hauling a load of clown supplies to Columbus. We figure, if they need more it’s because they have an infestation.”

  “Makes sense,” Janet agreed from the front seat. “So you guys are looking to even a score, huh?”

  “Something like that.” Jake grinned.

  “You.” Eric twisted in his seat and pointed at Sam. “You’re real quiet.”

  “So?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, then Eric chuckled and let it go. “So we doing this or what? Head to Columbus and bust up some clowns with our new friends here?” he whooped loudly.

  Biggie howled like a wolf.

  From the passenger seat, Janet giggled.

  In the rear seat, Sam gripped the tact bag closer to his chest. The G17 was in the bottom of it, loaded with a round in the chamber and the safety on. He could get to it pretty quickly if he needed to—not that he thought he’d need to, but he felt better having it. These people seemed just as crazy as the clowns.

  He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. The drugs were wearing off and the pain was setting in again. Jake seemed to notice; he leaned in and said quietly, “You alright?”

  “Yeah, fine.” The van bumped along the road; apparently they hadn’t done much to fix the suspension. Every small jounce and jolt sent shivers of pain through Sam’s legs and ribs.

  “Here.” Jake took the small orange prescription bottle out of his pocket and shook one out. “Take a half. It’ll help.”

  “No way. It’ll put me out; I’m not taking the chance on falling asleep.”

  He glanced up to make sure the others hadn’t heard him, but they were too busy chatting excitedly with each other.

  “Relax, man. Nothing’s going to happen. I got your back.” He broke one of the pills in half and held it out in his palm. “If something goes down in Columbus, I need you well-rested. You’re sort of the brains of this operation,” he grinned.

  Sam hesitated, but Jake was right. He took the pill and swallowed it dry.

  CHAPTER 27

  * * *

  After the incident with the truck-driving clown, Harlan was back to walking. He was just outside of some place called New Point in Indiana. At first he walked a ways back from the interstate, as he had before, but as dusk settled in he took to walking right on the shoulder. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t stop. He had to get to Columbus. That’s where they were. That’s where the clown truck was headed.

  He was convinced no one would stop for him. He didn’t even bother sticking out a thumb. Finally, though, someone did. A white Honda put on its four-ways and pulled off the road a bit ahead of him. It waited there until he reached it, and then the driver’s side window came down with a whirring sound.

  The woman behind the wheel was in her late forties, maybe early fifties. She had short hair that was prematurely gray and blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled. She had a nice smile. It reminded Harlan of his mother.

  “Hey! You need a lift? Where you headed?”

  “C-columbus.”

  “No kidding, me too! Come on, hop in.”

  He got in the car. It was very clean and smelled like lavender.

  “You really shouldn’t hitchhike,” she told him. Her tone was matronly and warm. “These days, it can be very dangerous.”

  “I d-didn’t have a ch-choice,” he said. “Car b-broke down.”

  “No AAA, huh?” she laughed a little. “No worries. I’m always happy to help someone in need. I’m Sue, by the way.”

  “I’m… John.”

  For about an hour the woman spoke almost nonstop. Harlan barely said a word, and couldn’t really remember much of what she talked about—something about having a couple of grown kids, a husband that wasn’t around anymore, being mostly by herself. Then she said a word that brought him right back to reality.

  “Sorry, r-repeat that?”

  “Oh, I said that it can be scary living alone, with the state of things. Especially now, with these people dressing up as clowns and running around.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Then it had been quiet for a few minutes.

  And then she asked, “What do you think of this clown thing?”

  “I d-don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on. You must have an opinion.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head. “You’re him, aren’t you?”

  Harlan’s heart sped up, doing double-time. “I’m who?”

  “The Clown Killer.” She said it candidly, almost pleasantly, as if she were talking about meeting a celebrity on the street.

  His breathing quickened.

  She’s one of them.

  “N-no I’m n-not…”

  “No? Don’t worry; I’m not going
to tell anyone. Consider me a friend.” She glanced over at him and flashed her smile.

  She’s one of them. Get rid of her.

  “I c-can’t…” They were going about seventy on the highway. He couldn’t do anything, not now.

  “You can’t what, John?”

  “Why… why d-do you think I’m the k-killer?”

  Sue chuckled a little. “Well, first off, you’re wearing sunglasses at night. You’re trying to hide your face.”

  Harlan’s hands instinctively flew up to his eyes. He was indeed still wearing the sunglasses. How had he not noticed that? Stupid. Stupid. He quickly took them off.

  “Second, you shaved recently, and poorly at that. I can see the nicks on your chin.”

  Don’t believe her. She knows. She’s one of them.

  “Lastly—and probably most importantly—you’ve got some blood on your shoes, hon.” She smiled again at him. “Did you not notice that?”

  He immediately looked down at his brown boots. He could see, intermittently by the streetlights that illuminated the highway, that there were a couple of splotches on his boots where the trucker clown’s blood had dried almost black.

  One hand reached into his pocket, where the mustache scissors were. His fist closed around them. His breathing came faster. He was nearly panting.

  “Hey, relax now,” Sue said soothingly. “No reason to get all worked up. Like I said, I’m not going to tell anyone.”

  “Are y-you… one of them?”

  “One of who? A clown?” she scoffed. “No, no. Bunch of nut jobs, if you ask me. I’m just a… an admirer, you could say.”

  She’s lying. She’s one of them.

  “What d-does that mean?”

  “It means I admire the work you do. It’s like… it’s like watching an artist paint a canvas,” she said dreamily. “I could never do it, but I can appreciate the talent and work that goes into it.”

  “Can we s-stop soon?”

  She frowned. “Alright, John. I understand. Next rest stop we come to, I’ll pull off.” She squirmed in her seat. “You know, I watch a lot of those TV shows, about the FBI and catching murderers and stuff. And I read a lot online, all the stupid things people do to get caught. I bet you’re smarter than that. I bet you don’t carry a phone or use the computer. That car probably didn’t even belong to you, huh?”