by Jeff Strand
"Ooooh, I'm sooooo scared!" said a very large man holding the hand of a very tiny woman. He meant this in a sarcastic manner, and it would certainly embarrass him if he flinched, since he was working very hard to convey the attitude that the carnival from Hell was remarkably unfrightening for him to experience. Normally Guffaw would not want to embarrass a man in front of the woman he was trying to impress, but normally he was not angry, so he suddenly lurched forward.
The man jumped. The woman laughed.
"Fuckin' clowns," said the man as they continued on their non-merry way.
There was a female scream off in the distance. Of course, screams were constant background noise in this haunted house, but this one seemed more intense and was easy to hear even over the circus music. One of the actors must have been doing an outstanding job.
* * *
Reginald the Pleasant Clown looked over in the direction of the scream. It came from the right, so the screaming woman had yet to enter their room. Reginald hoped she was able to work out her issues before she encountered the nightmare clowns; from the sound of it, this haunted house was not enjoyable for her.
She screamed again.
It sounded like somebody being murdered. Of course, none of the actors would actually murder a customer, so he was hearing it wrong, unless somehow a serial killer had decided that the haunted house would provide him with the necessary cover to claim a victim without being caught. There were security cameras all over the place, so the serial killer was in for a rude awakening if that was legitimately the source of the scream. It probably wasn't a serial killer, though. It was just a poor woman who didn't think it was fun to be scared.
"Boo," Reginald said to a man as he passed. Leaping out at people was undignified, as was shouting, so Reginald had settled for nodding politely and saying "Boo" in an even tone. He felt that he was still doing his part, because it distracted customers enough that they were much more startled when Bluehead popped up and did her terrifying clown doll giggle.
"Boo, ma'am," he said to an elderly woman.
He hoped things were okay with Jaunty. He understood that Jaunty had walked out on the job, but Reginald wasn't sure if it was permanent or if he could be persuaded to return. Jaunty's absence meant that the other clowns had to be twenty percent scarier to make up for the shortfall, so hopefully Jaunty would see the error of his ways.
Now the woman in the other room was constantly screaming, as if a serial killer was repeatedly slamming his bloody knife into her chest, staring into her eyes to watch the precise moment that her life force seeped out of her body. This didn't seem normal. No matter how badly she'd been startled by a ghost or a werewolf, she shouldn't be screaming like that.
He didn't want to break character by asking Bluehead if she felt the same way, so he continued to politely say "Boo" to passersby for about a minute, as the screaming continued. Finally there was a gap in the line.
"Does that sound like abnormal screaming?" he asked.
Bluehead nodded. "Yeah. At first I thought somebody was taking this too seriously but now I'm wondering if she's actually in trouble."
"Should we see if she needs help?"
"It's at least two or three rooms away. There are a dozen actors between us and the screaming. Surely somebody is helping her."
"Maybe they're all assuming the same thing."
"We shouldn't leave our post."
"We can be frightening while we walk," said Reginald.
"Okay."
* * *
Bluehead would never admit this to the others, and she didn't like admitting it to herself, but she loved being a scary clown.
This wasn't the discovery of some sadistic impulse inside her. There was nothing remotely mean-spirited about it. She'd simply realized that scaring people who'd paid good money to be frightened was a lot of fun. She'd never lurk outside of somebody's home after dark and peer into their window, but consensual scaring was a hoot.
In fact, she wondered if she might like it more than non-scary clowning.
It could've just been the novelty of it. After a few weeks in the Mountain of Terror she might be bored of the experience and ready to go back to delighting small children with comedic antics. Right now, though, she was in paradise.
At least she had been, until she heard a woman screaming like she was being devoured.
She didn't want to leave the Scary Clown Room and get in trouble like Jaunty had. That said, she agreed with Reginald that they didn't want to let something bad happen to the woman because everybody else assumed that she was being cared for. If the screams were part of the show, well, they'd sheepishly return to their room. Better to be sheepish than wracked with guilt.
As another group of people entered the room, Bluehead and Reginald walked toward them. Bluehead didn't want to break character, but she figured that Depravo wouldn't shout at her, considering the circumstances.
"Hey, is everything okay back there?" she asked, using her normal voice and not the "spooky clown doll" voice she'd perfected.
The first two people in line giggled and quickly moved past her.
She repeated the question, but nobody wanted to answer. They didn't seem upset, so maybe there was nothing wrong. Or they thought the screams were included in their admission fee.
She yelped as somebody grabbed her arm. Depravo.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"The screaming woman might need help."
"We have medics to take care of that kind of thing."
"Then why is she still screaming?"
"I can't have you walking through somebody else's scene. Clowns stay in the clown room. You wouldn't want the Crocodile Lady walking through our room, would you?"
Bluehead really didn't want to be insubordinate. She wanted to keep this job. But clearly there was a problem, and it didn't sound like anybody else was taking care of it. She had no medical training or any particular skills that would be useful if the woman was hurt, but she did have a loud voice that she could use to alert others to the issue, if necessary.
The woman screamed again. It was genuinely horrific.
"All right, go," said Depravo. "But move quickly and get back here right away. Respect the other rooms."
"We will," said Bluehead, as she and Reginald darted for the exit.
* * *
Where the heck are they going? Wagon wondered. Being in this room made him even sadder than usual, and if Bluehead and Reginald were leaving, he was leaving, too. He started to follow them.
Depravo stepped in his way. "No."
"But—"
"No."
"But they—"
"The Scary Clown Room needs scary clowns! We're one of the top draws of this place and people are walking through and barely seeing any clowns! And we're here arguing instead of scaring customers! Now either you can go back to your spot and do your job, or we'll pretend that a clown getting his ass beat is part of the show!"
"It makes me sad that you're threatening physical violence," said Wagon.
"Get back to your spot! Next year we're going back to using high school kids. You guys are a constant ride on the drama llama. Jesus!"
Wagon returned to his spot, head hung. A line of customers was still coming through, so he resumed juggling severed hands.
* * *
Reginald excused himself as he walked through the torture chamber. He and Bluehead were moving against the flow of traffic, but people made room for them to pass, probably because they didn't want to get too close to the clowns. An executioner turned to look at them, though they couldn't tell if he was annoyed since his head was covered with a black hood.
Both the performers and customers seemed oddly unconcerned about the screaming woman. Perhaps he and Bluehead were simply used to the circus environment, where the sound of a woman shrieking in that manner meant that her leg was crushed by an elephant. (Reginald had never witnessed a woman having her leg crushed by an elephant—this was merely an example of what might have
caused somebody to scream like this at the circus.) (In fact, the only elephant-related injury he'd ever been made aware of was when the elephant's keeper got severely intoxicated and slipped on some elephant dung, but he was uninjured.) (Technically, he was injured, but the injury was mild enough that everybody could laugh and laugh at his misfortune without any feelings of guilt.)
It didn't take long for Reginald and Bluehead to cross through three terrifying rooms until they reached the cemetery where the woman was screaming. She was also laughing, though not nearly as loud as she was screaming.
* * *
The woman was accompanied by two Mountain of Terror employees who were trying to guide her to the exit. She was being uncooperative, probably because she was clearly drunk off her heinie. She wobbled as she screamed. Though from another room her scream sounded credibly like it came from somebody who was in grave danger, now that Bluehead could see her, it was just some lady who was taking the joke too far. The official haunted house policy was that you weren't allowed to enter if you were inebriated, but it wasn't as if they conducted Breathalyzer tests at the front entrance.
Bluehead felt kind of stupid. Though she never wished feelings of stupidity upon her fellow clowns, she hoped Reginald also felt dumb.
One of the graveyard ghouls tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, clown! Nothing to see here! They're handling it. Get back to the circus."
Bluehead nodded. This was why alcohol was a bad substance. It turned this woman, who was probably very polite and soft-spoken in her everyday life, into an obnoxious fool who was disrupting the experience for everybody else. She wanted to say something to this effect, but it would be unnecessary—Reginald felt the same way toward alcohol as she did. That woman should stick to soda pop.
Bluehead turned to go, but before she turned all the way, she noticed something peculiar.
A very large spider was descending from the ceiling on a string of web toward the top of the woman's head.
Of course, very large spiders were not out of place in a haunted house like this. No, Bluehead didn't remember any of them being part of the cemetery room, but she wasn't familiar with every single detail of every single room. What struck her as odd was the idea that somebody would lower the fake spider toward the woman when employees were clearly trying to diffuse the situation and guide her to the exit. Though the people around here loved pranks, they were also committed to providing a fun and safe experience for all of their customers, and scaring the bejesus out of a drunken lady who should never have been let inside in the first place seemed really irresponsible.
Amazing production values on that spider, though. Kudos to the creative team.
One of the employees batted the spider away.
It latched onto his hand.
He pulled away and tried to shake it off. It scurried up his arm.
He brushed it off with his other hand and the spider simply crawled onto that hand instead.
"Not funny!" he said.
Then he winced in pain.
The woman laughed.
"That really frickin' hurt," the man told the other employee. "Who designed this thing?"
Another spider came into view, very close to where the first spider had descended. The woman didn't notice this one.
Bluehead didn't think she should return to the Scary Clown Room quite yet.
The man grabbed for the spider, missed, grabbed again, missed again, and finally got a hold of it. He picked up the spider by whatever the main part of its body was called. Its eight legs writhed. It looked shockingly realistic.
He crushed it, and slime oozed down his wrist.
The woman screamed. Ironically, this scream was less intense, even though there was now a giant spider on top of her head.
The line of people had stopped moving to watch what was happening. No way would anybody have authorized holding up the line to do a little self-contained show like this. It was important to keep the line moving. This was probably still a prank, but it was going to get somebody fired.
The second employee who'd been trying to calm down the woman dug into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He frantically tapped the screen and turned on the flashlight function.
When he aimed the light at the ceiling, Bluehead gasped. There were seven or eight giant spiders up there.
One dropped from the ceiling and landed on her shoulder.
This really didn't seem like a prank.
* * *
Reginald plucked the fake spider from Bluehead's shoulder and tossed it aside. It didn't feel particularly fake, and he was impressed by the way it squirmed so realistically in his hand before he flung it away.
Another spider landed on her blue hair.
People were starting to freak out as if these were, in fact, legitimate oversized spiders. Which seemed ridiculous until Reginald grabbed the spider off of Bluehead, examined it very briefly, and determined it to be real.
"These are real spiders!" he said, not shouting the words but speaking with less dignity than usual.
Many others in the area seemed to have arrived at that same conclusion.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said a voice over the intercom. "We are discontinuing tonight's entertainment. Please proceed toward the exits."
The lights did not come on. This was surprising. If you were trying to evacuate people from a haunted house that had been overrun by giant spiders, you'd want to turn on the lights so they could see where they were fleeing.
Now there was a great deal of screaming. There were definitely more than seven or eight spiders in here.
This particular room didn't have an exit to the well-lit hallway, so everybody would have to proceed to the Scary Clown Room. "Everybody move forward," Reginald announced to the panicked customers. "Keep the flow of traffic in the same direction that it was moving before the spiders arrived!" He gestured with both hands to remind them of the direction in which they'd been traveling.
A man lurched past with a spider on his chest. He shoved Reginald out of the way. Reginald didn't blame him for his rude behavior—he had a giant spider crawling on his chest, after all. Reginald stumbled backward, stepped on a spider, lost his footing, and fell to the floor, his head smashing against a tombstone.
Fortunately, it was a Styrofoam tombstone. It split in half upon impact, but did no damage to Reginald's skull.
A line of haunted house patrons moved quickly and efficiently through the graveyard. Those were the people who did not currently have spiders on them. The ones who did were moving quickly yet not efficiently.
A spider scurried onto Reginald's leg.
Another spider scurried onto his arm.
He no longer felt the compulsion to maintain his air of quiet dignity.
CHAPTER NINE
Jaunty slapped his hand over his mouth. The woman lying on the floor was covered with spiders. He almost couldn't tell it was a woman. She had to be dead; otherwise, she'd be reacting more poorly to being covered with spiders.
Unless she was unconscious.
Or paralyzed by spider venom. Lying there, completely aware of what was happening to her, feeling the hundreds of spider legs crawling over her body, yet unable to move.
She was probably dead.
Probably.
And "probably" meant that "lying there completely aware of what was happening" was also a possibility. Which meant that Jaunty had to get those spiders off of her.
He was wearing white clown gloves. He'd be okay.
He kicked a bunch of spiders out of the way so he could get close enough to her to brush off the others. Jaunty realized that he was whimpering, but that was fine, he was allowed to whimper in this situation. He frantically started brushing the spiders off her chest, making sure not to let them crawl on him. He was starting to hyperventilate. He hated this. This wasn't fun at all. He wanted to be done. He didn't want to touch any more spiders.
A spider was on top of her face, mounted like that scary lobster-thing in Alien. (Jaunty had never
watched the movie, of course, but he'd seen pictures of that moment.) He brushed it off.
Then he turned his head and vomited. The woman's face was horrifically swollen, a mix of purple and dark red and yellow. Milky fluid leaked from her nose and the sides of her mouth. Her wide-open eyes were glazed over.
There was no good reason to keep brushing spiders off her.
A puke-covered spider darted away.
Jaunty stood up. It was very much time to leave...except he saw that there were now far more spiders crawling around the way he'd come. He couldn't turn back if he didn't want his own face to become grotesquely swollen. He'd have to go deeper into the haunted house and hope that things got less scary.
* * *
Guffaw, Wagon, and Depravo had dropped their scary clown act and were directing fleeing customers toward the open exit door. Guffaw wished the voice over the intercom had provided them with more information. Was it a fire? A bomb threat? A shooter? A terrorist attack? A chemical spill? Guffaw wasn't going to abandon his spot until the guests were safely through the exit, but it would've been nice to know how much he was risking his own life in doing so.
Several actors came through as well. Guffaw asked if they knew what was going on, but they all just shook their heads and kept moving.
It didn't take long to clear the place out. There were several exits and presumably most of the guests had departed through the earlier ones. Guffaw, Wagon, and Depravo stepped into the end of the line and followed everybody into the hallway, then out behind the building.
"Any idea what's happening?" Guffaw asked a portly man who stood in front of him.
The man stepped away from the scary clown.
The Grim Reaper was standing a few feet away. Guffaw walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. "Do you know what's going on?"
