Clown Moon

by Alex Jameson

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “Stop moving…”

  Eric bent to grab the baseball bat on the floor by the bed. “Relax, guys. He’s not going to shoot us. He doesn’t have the b—”

  Jake took one large step, flipped the Glock around in his hand, and pistol-whipped Eric on the back of the head. He crumpled atop the bat, unconscious. Janet let out a small shriek.

  Jake whirled around on Biggie and leveled the gun at him. “Don’t move, big man. I don’t want to have to shoot anybody. It would make too much noise.”

  Biggie slowly put his hands up.

  “Now, where’s the fourth? The kid?”

  “We… we left him at a hospital in Ohio.”

  “Christ, man, you left him behind?”

  “We were going back for him. What we were supposed to do?”

  Jake shook his head. “That’s ice cold. You could have taken him home. Taken care of him. You’re a sorry excuse for a brother. Now, give me the keys. We don’t want your shitty van; we just want our stuff back.”

  “We don’t have it. We ditched the bags.”

  “But you kept the rifle, didn’t you?”

  “Well… yeah…”

  “That’s all we want.”

  Biggie handed over the keys.

  Jake waved the gun between them. “If either of you try to follow us, I will shoot. Got it?”

  They both nodded. Jake retreated out of the room, pulling the door closed as best he could with the lock broken. He pulled the mask off his face and hurried to the rear of the van. Sam pulled the car back into the lot just as Jake pulled the M-21’s black case out of the rear. He noticed Sam’s toolbox was in there too, the one from his truck. He grabbed both and dropped them in the trunk of Lynn’s car, and then jumped into the passenger seat.

  Biggie was in the doorway as they pulled away, watching them. He scowled. Jake rolled down the window and hurled the keys into some bushes on the opposite side of the lot. In the side mirror he watched as Biggie lumbered after them, waving the middle finger in the air as he did.

  “Whew!” Jake exclaimed. “That was fun. Alright, on to the next problem: How are you going to use your gun with a hurt shoulder?”

  “I’m not,” Sam said. “You are.”

  “What? No way. I’m no sharpshooter—”

  “No, but you’re still a good shot, and you’ve used a scope before. I can’t do it, but I can give you a crash course on how to sight it in and adjust. We’ll be dealing with distances of less than a hundred meters. You’ll be fine.”

  “Okay. And while I’m playing sniper, what are you going to be doing?”

  “I’ll be your eyes on the ground.”

  “Down in the dirt with the clowns? You can barely defend yourself.”

  “Hopefully I won’t have to.”

  Sam turned into a strip mall and parked. Jake looked out the window; they were in front of a seasonal Halloween store.

  “Are you out of your mind, Sam?”

  “Maybe a little. Come on.”

  They went inside. There were only a handful of people in the store that early, shopping for last-minute Halloween costumes. They approached a display of clown-related merchandise, where a young clerk with black hair and a nose ring was taking items off the shelves and packing them into boxes.

  “Whoa, hey guys, I can’t sell you any of this stuff,” the young guy said. He flipped his hair off his forehead. “We’re under strict orders from the cops; no more clown stuff.”

  “We really need it,” Sam said.

  “Oh yeah?” the kid asked. He narrowed his eyes. “For what?”

  “For… trick-or-treating,” Jake offered.

  The guy scoffed. “It’s been canceled.”

  “For a Halloween party,” Sam said.

  “Sorry. No can do.”

  The guy went back to packing his box.

  Sam thought for a moment. He decided to play a hunch. “We need it to… do a little mischief,” he said quietly.

  The guy glanced over his shoulder with a wry smile. “Is that so?” He looked them both up and down. “Are you guys cops? Because if you are, you have to tell me.”

  “Why does everyone think that?” Jake asked aloud.

  “Look, I can’t sell you any of this…” The guy looked left and right and lowered his voice. “But nothing says I can’t give you some. We’re on security camera here. Meet me at the back door in ten minutes.” Louder, he said, “Sorry guys, no can do,” and made a big show of shaking his head no.

  Sam and Jake tried to look forlorn as they walked away. “Figures that guy would be a clown,” Jake muttered.

  “Hang on a sec.” Sam passed a display of children’s costumes. “I have another idea.”

  About thirty minutes later they were back at Sarah’s house. Lynn and Sarah were both sitting on the couch; when they entered, Sarah rose quickly, her brow furrowed. “Where were you guys? I was worried!”

  “Relax, we just went to do some shopping.” Sam showed off the goods they’d picked up. The clerk at the Halloween store had given them a clown mask, a makeup kit, and a rainbow pinstripe onesie, all tucked into a small box that he’d left by the back door of the shop. They had also purchased a costume—an unflattering bumblebee costume with a wide bottom and a pair of fuzzy antennae.

  “What’s this for?” Lynn asked, looking it over.

  “Well…” Sam started. “It’s for you, sort of… I had this idea that maybe… if you wanted to…”

  Jake cleared his throat. “It occurred to Sam and I earlier that neither of us actually know any young kids—nor would we want to expose them to whatever’s going to happen tonight. So, he was hoping that you might be willing to put this on and masquerade as a child—or, as it would be, his victim.”

  Lynn’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “You don’t have to,” Sam said quickly. “It’s probably going to be dangerous, so I totally understand if you don’t want to—”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said. “I’ll do it. Assuming I fit into this thing, of course.”

  “You should. You’re pretty short.” Lynn was only five-four. “No offense,” Sam added quickly.

  Sarah just shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe it’s come to this,” she said. “My brother the clown, and his girlfriend the bumblebee child, are going to catch a serial killer?”

  “And don’t forget your other brother, the ruggedly handsome-yet-adorably approachable sniper,” Jake added.

  “Sure. Why not.”

  From outside came a rumbling sound that had them all glancing at each other with dread. Sam went to the window and parted the curtains to see four beige-and-green trucks with canvas stretched over the beds passing by in a convoy.

  “The National Guard,” Sam said. “Surprised you didn’t get a call, Jake.”

  “I might have,” he said sourly. “I destroyed my phone, remember? Oh, I’m probably going to catch hell for this one.”

  “So we’ll have that to contend with too,” Sam murmured. “This just keeps getting better and better.” He found his phone and noted that he had several missed calls from an unknown number. Reidigger, no doubt; good to know that he kept Sam’s temporary number. He called the hotel and asked for John White’s room. It rang once before he answered.

  “Asher, where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling all morning. I was about to just go over there and—”

  “The National Guard is in town,” Sam said. “We just saw four trucks; probably about fifty guys.”

  That got Reidigger’s attention. “Hm. That’s not enough for them to really consider this as big a threat as we thought, unless they still think it could turn out to be a hoax. Or…”

  “Or what?”

  “Or they’ll post men at the major roadways in and out of town. Possibly do checkpoints; cut down on the clowns coming in. The others would assist the police with regular patrols at brief intervals, ten or fifteen minutes each. That�
��s what I would do.”

  Huh. Sam hadn’t thought about that. “Smart thinking, Carl.” He felt a little better, believing there wouldn’t be a thousand clowns in Kingston tonight.

  “So what’s your play, Asher?”

  Sam winced. He knew how ridiculous it would sound, especially considering how pragmatic Reidigger seemed to be. “I’m going to dress as a clown and bait Harlan using Lynn dressed as a child.”

  There was a lengthy silence on the phone. Finally Reidigger said, “I’m not really sure how to acknowledge that, other than to say that it’s the most stupendously ridiculous plan I’ve ever heard.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where’s your plan, Carl?” Sam shot back, maybe a bit too defensively.

  “I didn’t say it wouldn’t work. Where is this supposed to go down?”

  “The clowns should be convening in the center of town. There’s a fountain, with a statue of an angel—”

  “I know it. When?”

  “Ten p.m.”

  “And what do you want me and Cole to do?”

  “You carry guns?”

  “Yes, Asher. We carry guns.”

  “Good. Then you two can be on crowd control; try to usher as many clowns out of the center of town as you can. That way, I’ll be more conspicuous when he shows up.”

  “You want us to wave guns in a downtown area with police and National Guardsmen around?” He could almost hear Reidigger rubbing the bald spot on his head, and wondered if that’s how he became bald in the first place.

  “No, I want you to fire your guns in a downtown area with police and National Guardsmen around.”

  “Asher…”

  “Just a couple shots, in the air. Get people moving out. Cause a ruckus.”

  “I can’t believe I’m even listening to this…”

  “Ten p.m. See you then.”

  “Wait! How will I know which clown you are?”

  “I’ll be the one with the bumblebee girl.”

  “Wait, what? Asher—”

  Sam hung up and immediately turned the phone off. Jake came in from the kitchen holding two cans of beer. He held one out to Sam.

  “It’s eleven in the morning, Jake.”

  Jake shrugged and grinned. “Might be our last.”

  Sam took it and popped the top.

  “You didn’t tell him the truth, did you?”

  “No,” Sam said. “I didn’t tell him about you. And I told him to be at the fountain. I figure he and Cole can stay busy trying to keep clowns from hurting anyone while we do our thing.”

  “Good idea.”

  “We have a lot to do. We’ll need working radios, and I’ll have to show you around the rifle. We should scope out our vantage points, too. All that before…”

  “Before you get into costume?”

  “Right. Exactly.”

  ***

  Reidigger stared at the phone for a while even after Asher hung up. The conversation hadn’t made sense, something was awry.

  “What did he say?” Cole asked. She had just showered and dressed in plainclothes, jeans with a blue sweater and a white camisole under it.

  Reidigger told her about the conversation, and added, “He didn’t mention his brother at all. There’s no way the other Asher is going to be standing around idle somewhere. He’s planning to have an ace in the hole, so we should be ready for anything.” He shook his head. “I’d bet he gave us the wrong location, too.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “It makes too much sense. I’ve driven by that fountain a few times now; it’s out in the open, surrounded by shops that will all be closed by ten. If I was a cop, that’s where I’d assume the clowns would congregate—which means that’s where I’d put the most men. That, or…” He trailed off. “Christ. The park, where the kid was killed. There’s woods, and a playground, lots of places to hide. I bet he’s going there.”

  “Maybe we should trust him and take his word for it.”

  Reidigger rolled his eyes. “He’s not on our side, Cole. He doesn’t want us to catch Kidd. He wants us far away from wherever he’s going to be. At ten, we’ll be in that park.”

  CHAPTER 39

  * * *

  Harlan ditched the truck in the parking lot behind an old textile mill just after dark when he arrived in Kingston. There was a ratty, smelly blanket in the pickup’s bed, bits of hay stuck all over it, but it would do. He took it and his bag of supplies, and then pried off the license plate, folded it in half and tossed it in the next dumpster he came across.

  Under the cover of darkness, he returned to the woods. Beyond the trees was the park, the place where all this had started. He walked deep into the forest before he dug himself a small trench in the dead leaves, wrapped himself in the blanket, and covered it and himself again. Then he slept.

  When he woke, the sun was already long up. It was the best, longest, most peaceful stretch of sleep he’d gotten since he started his endeavor. The woods looked different in the daytime; despite the leafless, gnarled branches and leaves scattered everywhere, the trees somehow looked friendly to him. He munched on some of the food he had stolen from the farmhouse and saved the last for later. He would need his energy.

  Soon after his meager meal, he heard a distant rumbling. Leaving the shelter of his leaf-trench, he meandered toward the edge of the woods just in time to see a convoy of four large trucks roll by, painted in the telltale woodland pattern of the military. Kingston had called on the National Guard.

  Doesn’t matter. It’s just more people that will see.

  He returned to his little trench and sat for a while, admiring the patterns of leaves on the ground and wondering what would happen tonight. Maybe he would die. Maybe there would be so many clowns that they would swarm him. Stick knives in his back and belly and neck and he’d die. Or maybe they would tear him limb from limb. Maybe the police or National Guard would find him and shoot him. Maybe some citizen would be the one to do it. Or one of these clown hunters running around everywhere.

  Doesn’t matter.

  He was going to die sometime. He deserved to die. He’d done terrible things, had terrible thoughts, dreamed terrible dreams—all from his own head. There was no denying it anymore. There was no going back to Harlan Kidd’s life. No mundane job at the plant. No sitting in front of the television night after night, listening to people squawk but not really hearing the words.

  He had nowhere else to be. Nothing else to do.

  Harlan felt strangely peaceful, more so than he had in a long, long time. Even sitting in the woods, with the familiar smells of moist dirt and dead leaves around him—smells that, once upon a time, would have evoked nightmares so powerful they would leave him in the fetal position, sobbing and drooling—he was calm. That part of his life was over; he wasn’t a kid anymore. He wasn’t a victim. He was a predator.

  As long as he got the chance to send his message, to let the clowns know that no matter where they went, no matter what they did, they would pay for it dearly—that’s all that mattered now. And Harlan knew that it wouldn’t stop with him. There would be others. Even if he died tonight, someone else, somewhere, would take up the cause. Would fight the same fight. Maybe crazy Sue in Indiana. Or maybe someone somewhere that was once a victim, just like him, would wake up one morning and realize they weren’t a kid anymore.

  At long last he stood and stretched his arms and legs and cracked his neck. He hefted the bag of supplies and slung it over his shoulder and unzipped it, only partially, to test how quickly he could reach in and draw out what he needed. He weighed the hedge shears in his hands and practiced stabbing the air with them. The kitchen knives he tucked in his belt, keeping the small pair of scissors in his pocket.

  He tried swinging the hand scythe and really liked it. The curved, semi-rusted blade looked wicked in the sunlight filtering through the trees. He turned it over in his hands, admiring it for a long time.

  As the afternoon wore on, he catnapped, ate the rest of the food, and
then paced the edge of the woods closest to the park, scoping out particularly good vantage points from which he could see most of the area beyond while still staying in the shadows. He marked these spots by notching the trunks of trees in an X with one of the knives. He wouldn’t be able to see them in the dark, but he could feel them by running his fingers down the trunk.

  It was taking a long time for the sun to set. But that was okay. He was in no rush. He returned to his trench and sat, waiting, for the clowns to arrive.

  ***

  Sarah made dinner for all of them that night, but no one seemed particularly hungry. Her husband Pat had come home; he had been out most of the day running errands, and upon returning invited Jake and Sam to watch the last quarter of a football game with him. It was odd, acting like nothing was wrong and this could be any ordinary Sunday for the sake of only one person in the house. Pat knew nothing about where Sam and Jake had been, or what was about to happen. He was only aware of the clown situation because of what had happened to his son; since then, he had sworn off news and talk shows and radio, and was utterly unaware of what was supposed to occur in Kingston that very night.

  Around eight o’clock they excused themselves, left Pat alone in the living room and headed upstairs to prepare. They’d gone over their plan and visited the sites; Sam had shown Jake how to sight in the rifle and adjust if the wind kicked up. They’d chosen the best vantage point, with two possible alternatives if one of them was compromised.

  Sam dressed in BDU pants—the standard-issue military-grade “battle dress uniform” that most people knew as fatigues—which allowed for flexibility and had a lot of pockets. He pulled on a black sweatshirt, taking great care of his hurt shoulder but still grimacing in pain as he worked the arm into the sleeve. Sarah had taken another look at it earlier in the day; the wound was clean, but she had changed the dressing anyway, just to be safe.

  He stuck the infrared monocular in one pocket, his lockback knife in another, and his flip-phone in one of the square cargo pockets on his thigh. The Glock he tucked in the back waistband of his pants. He clipped the radio to a hip and Jake helped him snake the thin wire under his sweatshirt and out the collar so the earpiece cord wouldn’t get tangled in anything.