by Alex Jameson
He screamed. The strength seemed to evaporate from his body. He sucked in a long breath. He didn’t know there could be so much pain.
Details flashed in front of him like a stop-motion movie. A face. A hat. Eyes. A wide torso. There was no mistaking it. Harlan Kidd yanked the knife from Sam’s shoulder, eliciting a rasping gasp.
“You c-can’t fool m-me, clown.”
“I don’t have a shot, Sam…”
Harlan raised the knife up again. “Stop s-squirming, or it’s going to be worse—”
Something black and yellow collided hard with Harlan, nearly toppling him. The knife fell from his hand. Lynn recovered and picked up a fist-sized rock. She swung it at his head. He knocked her arm aside easily with his own and shoved her back, hard. She stumbled, fell backward, and smacked her head off the metal step to the slide. She didn’t move.
“Lynn!” Sam groaned as Harlan crawled back over to him.
Sam tried to squirm away, but he couldn’t find the strength. Harlan wrapped both hands around Sam’s throat.
“We’re n-not k-kids any… anymore,” he hissed as he squeezed.
“I don’t have a shot…”
Sam saw sparks in his vision. “Take it, Jake!”
“I might miss…”
“Just take it!” His voice came out hoarse, choked. Above him, Harlan’s face was deep red, a vein at his temple popping. He squeezed harder. Sam’s vision started to go dark.
A gunshot rang out, clear as a peal of thunder. Harlan went rigid, his mouth open in surprise. His hand slid off of Sam’s throat, and he fell into the dirt. Sam sucked air into his lungs. It hurt to breathe. He dragged himself over to Lynn and checked her pulse. She was alive; unconscious, but alive.
“Did I hit him?”
“Yeah Jake. You hit him.” Sam sighed deeply.
“I’m getting off this roof and coming to you. Don’t move.”
Sam’s wound bled profusely. He unzipped the clown costume, pulled his good arm from the sleeve and rolled the onesie down to his waist. Harlan groaned.
Slowly he sat up, dazed. He touched his abdomen and his palm came away painted in blood. He whimpered as he pulled himself to his feet.
“No,” Sam muttered. He reached down into the leg of his costume for the Glock. It was tangled in the excess nylon fabric. “No!”
Harlan stumbled, caught himself, and trotted the opposite way, through the park, holding his side and moaning.
“No!” Sam roared. They had him. They had him.
Go after him. Finish him off.
He too climbed to his feet. He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might break, channeling the pain into rage as he pursued Harlan Kidd.
Not fifty feet away, Reidigger broke out of the woods, searching for a sign of Sam Asher, practically foaming at the mouth. He scanned the area—there was someone on the playground, lying on the ground. He ran over to find Asher’s girlfriend, the bumblebee, unconscious. He checked her pulse to make sure she was alive, and then climbed up the ladder to the slide to get a better vantage point. There he was, holding his shoulder and limping away at a trot towards the elementary school.
Oh, no. Not this time. You’re not getting away from us that easily.
Reidigger lifted his pistol and aimed. He fired. The dirt exploded near Asher’s feet. He didn’t even turn to acknowledge the shooter; he just kept going. Reidigger aimed again, but before he could get a shot off, Asher veered and his line of sight was impeded by a tree.
“Dammit!” He climbed down and ran after him.
Sam staggered across the park, his feet feeling too heavy, like they were dragging behind him. He could see Harlan ahead of him, trying to get to the residential neighborhood across the street. He changed direction twice in an attempt to elude Sam, glancing over his shoulder every once in a while to see if the stranger was still following him.
To hell, you son of a bitch.
All he could hear was his own breathing; every other sound faded. From somewhere not far, another gunshot rang out. He was only vaguely aware of it. Finally they broke out onto a solid surface. Pavement… a road. Harlan teetered across and into a backyard. He had slowed significantly. Sam was nearly upon him.
The Clown Killer had had enough. He reeled, swayed, and crashed stupendously into some patio furniture. He didn’t even try to recover; he just sat there on his butt with his legs splayed out in front of him and watched as his pursuer approached.
Sam slowed. The clown costume had worked its way down past his waist. Slowly, painstakingly, and with only one hand, he removed his boots, and then pulled the costume off his feet. The Glock was free. Sam picked it up with a heavy groan. Then he lowered himself to the concrete patio, sitting across from Harlan, mere feet from him, and looked him in the eye.
He didn’t see fear. He didn’t see joy, either. He didn’t see wry satisfaction or maniacal triumph. Harlan Kidd just looked… tired.
“Y-you’re not a clown,” Harlan said quietly. “Are you?”
Sam sighed. “No, Harlan. I’m not a clown.”
“You know m-me?”
“Yes.”
He had prepared so many things to say for this moment, rehearsed them in his mind over and over—had even said some of them to another person in another city that he thought had been the killer. But now, none of that seemed important.
Instead, he just asked, “What the hell happened to you?”
Harlan stared at him, his chin nearly touching his chest. His breathing was labored; his shoulders heaved with each inhalation.
“I was just a kid then,” he muttered.
“But you’re not a kid anymore.”
“No.” There were tears in Harlan’s eyes. “So I showed people. Showed them that… that we don’t have to be afraid,” he sniffled.
Sam shook his head. He stared at the ground between them. This wasn’t Harlan Kidd—at least not the version that Sam had concocted in his head. He had imagined Harlan to be a snide, cold-blooded killer that took pleasure in every victim.
No. This was just a man with a mental illness that had been victimized. Something awful had happened to him, and combined with whatever problems were already brewing in his brain had created a monster. It didn’t excuse any of his actions—not a single one—but this man wasn’t a wild cur that needed to be put down. He was just a sad, lonely man plagued by demons.
“Are you going to kill me now?” Harlan asked slowly.
“No,” Sam told him. “I’m not going to kill you now. I want to. I really want to. But you’re already dead.” He gestured toward his wound. “You’re gut-shot. And I’m guessing the bullet went in at an angle and shredded your insides. The way you’re breathing, the tremors in your hands… I’d say you’ve only got a few minutes left, if that.”
Harlan swallowed hard. “Will you sit with me?” A tear fell down his cheek.
“I’ll sit with you.” Yes. He would watch Harlan die.
Harlan groaned as he laid back in the grass, facing the sky. “Stars are pretty tonight. And look…” His words slurred. “It’s a new moon.”
***
Sam sat there for a while after Harlan stopped breathing. He sat there ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He sat there until a flashlight beam bounced over him and a stern voice said, “Don’t you fucking move, Asher.”
“Not sure I could if I wanted to, Carl.”
“Sam Asher, you’re under arrest…”
CHAPTER 42
* * *
Mischief Night, in most places, was a hoax. A bust. A dud. In Orlando and New York and Houston, in Coleman and Cedar Bluff and Arborton, nothing really happened. A few people dressed as clowns here and there, and were swiftly arrested by the police or taken down by neighborhood patrols. In most places, it was an idle threat that never came to fruition. Outside of one little town in North Carolina, no one was killed or even seriously injured by clowns on the night of October thirtieth.
The media was already calling it the Ki
ngston Clown Massacre. Seven dead and several injured, some critically. Dozens arrested, and dozens more identified and pursued in the days to come.
After Kingston, the government created a temporary emergency ruling: Anyone dressed as a clown in public for the next thirty days would be arrested—no exceptions. Some folks still tried, but the police were vigilant and swift. Departments around the country invoked the town’s name frequently: “Now we don’t want another Kingston on our hands, do we?”
***
Because of the sudden overpopulation in Kingston’s holding cells, almost all of the offenders arrested on Mischief Night were promptly transferred to the county jail to await their arraignment. An example was made of the lot of them; bail was denied in all cases.
Sam Asher sat in jail for two and a half days. His arm had been patched up again. He was given some medication for the pain that helped him sleep through the night and most of the day, too. On the third day an officer came to his cell and gestured for him to come forward. He stood near the door with his one arm over his head and the other in the sling as the guard slid the door open and escorted him out wordlessly. Sam didn’t bother asking where they were going. It didn’t matter.
The day before, he had been allowed a phone call. He’d wavered for a while between Jake and Lynn and ultimately decided on Lynn. He needed to hear straight from her that she was okay. Luckily she answered.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Just a mild concussion. Lucky really, when you think about it. Jake found me and brought me to the hospital. No, I don’t know where he is now. I just know that nobody knows anything about his involvement.”
She asked him what would happen from here. He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what charges would be brought against him and what they could prove or not. He had no idea what was about to happen to him. He asked her if, he managed to see this through alright, if there was a chance they could go back to the way things were. She didn’t mince words.
“Sam, I love you, and I think I always will. But I have to be honest; you scare the hell out of me right now. Maybe someday things can go back to the way they were, but… it’s not today. I’m sorry.”
She made him promise that no matter what, he’d keep in touch.
He made her promise she’d follow his trial.
The officer took him to a small room that looked like a combination between an office cubicle and an interrogation room. It was white with a gray drop ceiling and a long mirror along one wall. There was a small table in the center with two metal folding chairs. One was empty.
In the other was a man in a gray suit and red tie. His hair was the same color as his suit, as was his bushy mustache. He had an angular face and sharp cheekbones and arching eyebrows that reminded Sam of a Bond villain.
The man in the suit waved the guard away. Once the door was closed, he said, “Sit, Sam. Sit.”
He did.
“You want anything? A coffee or a cigarette or something?”
Sam shook his head, no.
“I understand you were a scout sniper in the Marines. Thank you for your service.”
“Who are you?” Sam asked flatly.
“Alright. Sam, my name is Robert Gerhardt. I’m a director with the Department of Homeland Security.”
The director folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“To find out what happened to Cole.” Sam’s voice sounded gravelly and rough; he hadn’t spoken a word since he’d talked to Lynn.
“Actually… no. We know all about that. In addition to contributing to Agent Reidigger’s report, Agent Cole maintained a personal report on the Clown Killer case. We recovered it from her hotel room after…the incident in the park. In it, she spoke very highly of you and your brother. Your determination. Your creativity.” He stared at a spot on the wall and lowered his voice. “Agent Cole—”
“Alison,” Sam remembered.
The director blinked in surprise. “Uh, yes. Alison. She was a good person. She was smart, and savvy. I respected her opinion. She…” He cleared his throat again. “Not many at the agency know this, but she was also my niece.”
Now it was Sam’s turn to look up in surprise. He met the director’s eyes for the first time.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yes. Well. These things happen in our line of work, unfortunately.” He sniffed once. “Sam, have you ever heard the phrase, ‘The right two people in a room can get more done than a hundred’?”
“No.”
“Well, it means that just a couple of people putting their heads together is better than a group. You know, bureaucracy gets in the way, differing opinions and whatnot—”
“I get the idea, thanks.”
The director raised an eyebrow.
“I can see you want me to get to my point. Alright then. Someone out there seems to have taken up Harlan Kidd’s banner. In the last four days, two more clowns have been murdered in other parts of the country. And just yesterday, another body was found—this time just a seemingly ordinary person. We don’t know the exact connection, but we’re fairly certain it’s the same perpetrator.”
“Okay.”
“Sam, we want two people, not a hundred. We have our hands full elsewhere. Do you understand what I’m asking you?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“All charges dropped.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“Yes, well, it will likely please you to know that Agent Reidigger was… reassigned.”
“It would please me to know he’s in a deep, dark hole somewhere.”
The director chuckled. “I understand your sentiment.”
“Just one question. Why?”
“Do you want the honest answer? Because you can do things we can’t. Investigation, legislation, litigation, other ‘ations’… they take time, but these days they’re necessary. At least for us. You saw firsthand what that was like. It’s not effective anymore. You wouldn’t be beholden to those same rules. You’d be on your own—but reporting to an agent.”
Sam looked up at him without moving his head. “What about Jake?”
The director grinned. “I was waiting for you to ask me that. We picked him up yesterday. Quite a firecracker, that one. He knocked two of my guys unconscious before we could even say ‘hello.’”
“But…?”
“But he’s already agreed to participate. So long as we—and I’m quoting here—‘spring you from the big house.’”
Sam smiled, shaking his head. “That sounds like Jake, he’d say something that cheesy. If he’s in, I guess I’m in.”
“Good.” Gerhardt stood and buttoned the top button of his jacket. “Before I go, I just need to ask you something… not as a part of the government, or an authority figure, but as a person. As one individual to another. I asked Alison this very same question before she became an agent, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told her: it’s not something you should take lightly. It’s something you should really consider.” He paused for a long moment and looked Sam up and down. “Are you sure this is the type of person you’re meant to be?”
Sam didn’t blink.
“Yes.”
The director nodded. He reached into the pocket of his slacks and took out a cell phone. “Here you are, then. Good luck.” Gerhardt left.
Sam sat alone in the small room for a few minutes, wondering what sort of game this was. Then the cell phone in front of him rang.
He answered. “Um… hello?”
“Asher.”
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is.”
“…Cole?”
“I’m sorry for the subterfuge, but we wanted your answer first.”
“I don’t know what to say. I guess I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Thanks. However, I am holed up in a hospital for the time being. Which means you’ll be re
porting to me until I can join you in the field—”
“Join me?”
“Asher, we’ve seen what you do. You didn’t really think we were going to just let you go off on your own, did you? Now listen up. The latest murder was in Oklahoma. I want you there tonight. Your brother’s waiting outside with the briefing materials—”
“Jake is outside? Right now?”
“Yes, Asher. Please, keep up. Now…”
The door to the interrogation room opened and the officer who had led him to the room, dropped a small black duffel at his feet.
“Get dressed. Keep the phone. Call me when you’re en route. Got it?”
Sam grinned. He was already on his feet.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Copyright 2017 S. Prescott Thrillers
