by Mav Skye
Girl Clown Hatchet
Girl Clown Hatchet Horror Suspense Series, Book 1
Mav Skye
Contents
Part 1
Her Fear Diary
His Journal
1. Circus Music
2. Sleeping in Trees
3. The Dream
4. Imaginary Friends
5. Scars are Forever
6. Clowning around
7. Angels
Part 2
Her Fear Diary
8. Barbeque
9. Juggling
His Journal
10. Dark Thoughts
11. Children’s Toys
12. Deal with the Devil
13. Behind Every Balloon
14. The Thing in the Clown’s Suit
Part 3
Her Fear Diary
His Journal
15. The Horned One
16. Circus Tonight!
17. Mystery Solved
Part 4
Her Fear Diary
His Journal
18. Transforming
19. The Crypt Keeper
20. The Clown Inside
21. We All Fall Down
22. Abyss
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Mav Skye
Girl Clown Hatchet, Book One of Girl Clown Hatchet Series is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Mav Skye
Book Cover © 2016 by Shardel's Book Cover Designs
Edited by Adam Leavens
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author at the following email address: [email protected]
Dedicated to the fearless:
Erin, Sharon, Thomas and Diana
“Darkness approaches from the outside. I feel no life inside me strong enough to resist it.”
Christopher Pike
“There’s a monster hiding
in the mirror.
When I lean in close he
comes nearer.
He looks deep into my
eyes and sees the fear.
“Hush baby hush,” he
whispers. “You’re the only
one who knows I’m here."
Unknown
Part I
1990
Her Fear Diary
January 15th, 1990
I saw the clown in the woods today, just outside of Mama Nola’s garden. He crouched behind a stump, his face barely popping up over it like he was hiding from me, the torn pink bunny ears slightly blowing in the breeze. That awful lightning bolt splits his face into two halves: half white, half black. If Mr. Jingles is just in my head like everyone says, why would he hide? Why doesn’t he walk right up to me with that shiny hatchet of his and cut me in half, or even…say hello? Anything would be better than his face in the woods when I look outside or walk home from school. I mean, sure, there will be weeks or even months when I won’t see him—years, even—but then he’ll just pop up behind the living room window one day. Or I’ll see him across the schoolyard when I’m switching classes. Sometimes, he holds a red balloon instead of the hatchet. He holds it out like he wants to give it to me.
Joey and Mama Nola think I’m crazy. I’m starting to think I am, too. Because I’m seeing more than just the clown now. I hear things, too. I heard something rattle behind the toolshed this morning. It wasn’t a garden snake, and we don’t have rattlesnakes on this side of the Cascades. It was something big, huge—and if it’s what I think it is, then I am most definitely crazy.
I don’t think I’ll write it down here now.
Not yet.
His Journal
March 4th, 1990
Your breath misting up the glass as you stare out at me. That look when your eyes lock onto mine? It thrills me. I know it’s just an act, but sometimes I wonder if this is what I’m supposed to be.
1
Circus Music
SCHOOL WAS OUT AND SUNSHINE WAS in. Chloe couldn’t wait to get home and change out of her uniform and into her shorts and tank top. She burst out of Spindler High’s doors with the rest of the teens, filled with inexplicable anticipation for summer break. She paused on the sidewalk to lift her dark hair into a ponytail and pop the Walkman out of her backpack and slip on headphones. She pressed fast forward, hoping to bypass Wilson Philips’s Hold On. She regretted recording it off the radio. It was cool the first few times she heard it, but that’s all the rock stations played now, and it made Chloe want to stick her finger down her throat. Cradle of Love was somewhere in the middle of the tape, and Chloe kept stopping and fast forwarding, determined to find it.
A cat whistle startled Chloe, making her drop the Walkman. She glanced up just in time to see Donny Hanks wink at her. The wind blew through his wavy hair as if he were a model in a shampoo commercial. His best friend, Weasel—named after the faux weasel fur cap he always wore—honked the horn of his brand new Mustang convertible as they blasted down the street. Chloe’s face flushed red when everyone turned and looked at her. She ignored them, but caught the red hot glare coming from Kara Leigh, Donny’s ex-girlfriend, right before she stepped on the bus.
Chloe diverted her gaze. The last thing she wanted this summer was to be the object of Kara Leigh’s wrath, but it was inevitable. She thought Chloe had stolen her boyfriend, and Chloe knew somewhere in the depths of Kara Leigh’s wicked mind there was a gravestone with her name on it. Thoughts of Kara Leigh were forgotten as the bus sped her away, and Chloe managed to find Billy Idol on her mixtape. She turned up the volume, and soon she was halfway home.
Outside of Spindler, in the county, there was less traffic. Houses gave way to forests, and she could finally breathe. She’d always preferred the country over city. Mama Nola told her it was in her Cherokee blood.
The sidewalk ended at the exact halfway point to the trailer court. She and Joey had timed it once. Chloe sighed with relief as she stepped off the sidewalk and onto the grass. She paused, and pulled a can of Diet Coke out of her backpack. Every Friday she’d buy a soda out of the coke machine at school and pop it open at the halfway point between school and home, it would only be bad luck if she didn’t do that today.
Bon Jovi was singing Blaze of Glory and she tapped her foot in time as she leaned her head back to take the first cold swig.
The refreshing fizzle soaked her tongue and flooded the back of her throat. Chloe tasted what her summer would be like: sunbathing and swimming, barbeques and late night horror movies with her friends. She might pick up a job babysitting the Pratt twins, and make enough to buy new flip flops and a pair of sunglasses. Maybe she’d sell her collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards and treat her best girlfriend, Kelly, to the movies if they could hitch a ride to Mount Vernon, that was. It all sounded so sunshine-y good. “Mmmm…” She brought the coke can down from her mouth and decided she wanted to listen to the radio and see if there were any new songs. She squatted down and swung her backpack off, setting her pop can beside it. She took her Walkman out of her pocket and flipped the radio on, then m
essed with the dial, trying to find a rock station without all the static. Tom Petty came on, and she thought it was a song she hadn’t heard before. She tucked her Walkman back in, slung her backpack over her shoulders and had just picked up her pop can when Chloe saw something move out of the corner of her eye.
She whirled toward the woods and yanked off the headphones. Panic filled her belly as she held her hand up over her eyes, shading the sun. She held her breath… listening. Deep in the woods, a crow cawed, drawing her attention to a tall cedar in the shadows. Moss and ivy climbed its thick trunk.
Something or someone was standing behind it.
Hiding.
She could tell by the shade of white sinking just inside the tree’s shadows.
A breeze whistled around her and blew through the trees, and that is when she heard the rattle.
Goose-pimples crept up her arms. Chloe knew that sound. Knew it. She’d first heard it a few months back, behind the garden shed.
Uktena, the word danced about her mind as she strained her eyes, trying to grasp the lighter shade out of the dark and make sense of it.
Chloe thought about her Fear Diary. She didn’t want to write another dumb entry about running away, so she did something different than before. She took a step toward the woods. “Hello?”
The shake of a rattlesnake tail greeted her again, right before the clown popped out from behind the tree and crouched behind a bush. Its face was black and white with a horrible lightning bolt painted down the middle. Torn, pink bunny ears hung about its face, touching the bright red suspenders with tiny smiling skulls.
Mr. Jingles hissed.
Chloe dropped her Diet Coke, unable to move. She heard the can hit the ground, then the fizz of carbonated soda as it frothed at her sneakers. Panic froze her in place. Again the rattlesnake shook its tail.
The clown raised a hatchet above its head, red lips pursed into a smile, crouching like an animal ready to pounce.
The snake rattled its tail. It grew louder, louder, louder startling Chloe out of her stupor.
The exact moment the clown with the hatchet sprung from the bushes, Chloe turned and fled. She ran down the road like she was six years old again, running and running, away from Mr. Jingles the clown.
The headphones about her neck played Prince’s When Doves Cry, one of her favorites, but she didn’t sing with the song, her legs pumped to it as she fled the awful clown who always came back to haunt her, no matter how much time passed in between sightings.
She flew the half-mile to the trailer court, then slowed to a stop to catch her breath at The Misty Goose ~ Have a Gander trailer court sign. She grabbed the edge of the rusted metal and bent over, panic still flooding her lungs. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose and out her mouth several times before opening her eyes again. She focused on the two bullet holes in the sign, both of them had gone straight through the double o’s in Goose. It had been that way as long as she could remember. It calmed her to see the familiar.
Wishing she had her Diet Coke back, Chloe walked down the unusually quiet street. Several of the trailers had been deserted or moved. Old rusted cars and engines filled the empty lots. A mattress here, a torn up couch there. This had served as her playground when she was younger, but now that she was older, she wasn’t sure she much liked it. Still, it was home. And though most of the neighbors weren’t friendly, they were familiar. They recognized her, and she them.
She walked by Gosling Circle, a street that broke off from Misty Avenue into a cul-de-sac. It held a unique crowd of pot heads and meth dealers. Ironically, it was where the manager’s trailer and office was. She continued on until Misty Avenue forked off into two gravel roads. The right fork went to Gander Avenue. That was where Joey’s Grandpa lived. Across from them was where the Pratt twins lived. She thought about going to Joey’s house, but decided to go home and check on Mama Nola first. She trudged down the left fork, which was Goose Avenue. She and her mother were the only ones who lived down on the road. Their trailer was scurried away inside the woods except for one large opening, where Mama Nola kept her garden. As she grew closer and closer to home, Chloe convinced herself that the clown in the woods was some goon goofing around or perhaps a lost clown from that Carnival Circus kiddie park, taking a scenic route to a birthday party.
Or, perhaps your imaginary friend has come back to play. Chloe told the voice in her head to shut up as she approached the front porch.
She walked up the wood steps, skipping the rotten third one, and opened the door. She dropped her backpack beside the door and called out, “Mama, I’m home.”
As Chloe kicked off her sneakers, a faint moan from the back of the trailer. It sounded like a ghost.
“Mama?”
There was no reply. Chloe was about to call out for her again when someone banged hard on the door.
Chloe screamed and grabbed her chest. She swirled around and looked out the peephole. Her best friend crossed his teal eyes and stuck out his tongue. He was a year older than her, but he sure didn’t act like it. “Dang it, Joey Parker!”
Even with the door closed, his deep belly laugh filled the living room, making her feel ridiculous for thinking there was a ghost in the place just a moment before.
Chloe rolled her eyes and opened the door. “You look dumb when you do that.”
He said, “Well, you look dumb all the time.”
“Shut up and grow up.”
Joey said, “When I look at you I—”
“Throw up!” they both said together.
Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. She stood back to let him in.
He pointed at her as he slipped by. “There’s a smile. What would you do without me?”
Chloe sighed. “Gee, I don’t know. Shoot myself?”
“If I was as ugly as you are that’s what I’d do.”
Chloe said, “Shut up.”
“Okay.”
They both walked into the living room together.
Joey flopped on the couch. “You know, this couch is stiff as a board. Have you considered switching it out with the one in the Penores’ driveway?”
“It’s perfectly fine.”
“Only if you enjoy sitting on a block of hard rock.”
She said, “I said shut up.”
“You.”
Chloe walked into the kitchen and filled a glass of cool water from the kitchen faucet. She took a large gulp before saying, “No, you.” She and Joey Parker had practically grown up like brother and sister. They had been inseparable until this last year. Something had changed, and Chloe couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She felt herself being colder to him, mean even, not because she wanted to hurt his feelings, but because she didn’t know what to do about her feelings, not just about him but about a lot of things. She’d had a crush on Donny Hanks since Junior High. He hadn’t even noticed that Chloe existed until The Incident, as Kelly had called it. She had been passing by Kara Leigh and Donny in the hall between second and third period. The head cheerleader was flamboyantly flinging her hands in the air, all dramatic about something or another.
As Chloe passed, Kara Leigh had given her a nasty look. “What climbed up your ass and died?”
Chloe replied, “You, apparently.”
Donny had burst out laughing and Kara Leigh had grown red as a radish. She had stomped after Chloe and tapped her on the shoulder. When Chloe had paused to see who had done it, Kara Leigh knocked her text books out of her arms, then kicked Chloe’s biology book across the hall, catching another girl on her ankle. “Ow!”
Kara Leigh smirked. “Whoops.” She tossed her blonde curls over her shoulder and strutted past Chloe in her four-inch heels.
Without missing a beat, Chloe stuck out her sneaker, tripping a very surprised Kara Leigh. The cheerleader would have landed flat on her face, too, if Donny hadn’t been there to rescue her in his big, strong arms as she fell. He was always rescuing Kara Leigh from herself.
Some people were born needi
ng to be saved, some were born with the need to save others, and then there are those who saved themselves. The ones who desired to save themselves fell into such a small slice of the population that they are often looked upon as weirdos and freaks, but those very weirdos and freaks are the ones who make history. They create timeless art. They lead nations. They are our heroes and heroines. They empower, embolden, and make free. They are feared, but mostly admired. And admiration was what Donny wore on his face as he gazed at Chloe after catching Kara Leigh. He might have saved the princess from her fall, but after that, he only had eyes for the heroine.
Chloe had noticed him watching her in the lunchroom and during sixth-period biology. He’d even opened the door for her once when she hadn’t even known he was there. All this had taken place the last two weeks of school, and Chloe didn’t want to go the whole summer before seeing him again. She’d heard through her friend, Kelly, that he’d be hanging out at the pool this summer and she blushed every time she thought about him in shorts with a dark tan.
“You’re thinking about him.”
Chloe choked on the water and was startled to find Joey in the kitchen, leaning against the fridge, watching her.
“You scared me.” She coughed again, spraying water everywhere, and set the glass in the sink. He handed her a dish towel and she took it, wiping the water off her shirt. “Dang it, Joey Parker.”
He smiled. “Sorry.”
She shrugged and walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. Her mother’s door was open just a crack. Chloe knocked softly and looked inside. Sunlight filtered through the turquoise curtains. Her mother lied on the bed with her hands folded at the waist. Her dark peppered hair fanned out over the pillow. Her lips were painted a bright red.
