Boo!

by David Haynes

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” He tried to shout but his voice sounded more frog and less human. Nevertheless, the dog stopped moaning.

  He padded across the floor and walked into the bathroom. All over his body, nerve endings were screaming abuse at him for forcing them into action. He grimaced and stood in front of the mirror, then grimaced again at his appearance. It was shocking how bad he looked, how dark the rings under his eyes were and how pale his skin was. His nose stood out as the only spot of brightness on his face. It was bright red and angry. He almost looked like a clown. A very ill clown.

  He had to lean against the wall to steady himself as he used the toilet, but when his mobile rang he jumped, covering his leg in urine. He ignored it while he dabbed the wet patch with toilet paper. Then it rang again and he knew who it was. True to form, Joanne would just keep ringing until he answered it.

  It wasn’t until her fourth call that he reached the phone. He accepted it and lay back on the bed. It felt cold and damp.

  “Number one, numero uno, my friend!”

  “Really? That’s... that’s... well it’s good.” He couldn’t even drum up enthusiasm for news like that. Even though it had been at least five years since his last number one.

  “You could at least try to sound happy.”

  “I am, I just feel like shit.”

  “Man-flu eh? Well you better get better soon, they want a sequel, they want Sparkles back.”

  “The publishers? You don’t think it’s distasteful, do you?” A little surge of excitement fizzed through his ruined body. The first chapter was good but with the well being dry for the last couple of days, he didn’t want to commit. He couldn’t.

  “Distasteful? Not at all. We just need to make sure the timing’s right. When can you start?”

  Joanne had been patient with him this year, the publishers too. He told her he was writing a sequel to Howl, but that was well over six months ago and she stopped asking about it two months ago. He wanted to give her something. He was by far her biggest client and if he went down then she would too.

  “Well, I’ve started something. I think it’s pretty good. I’ve got some ideas about where it’s going and it should work.” The first two sentences were true, as far as he could remember anyway, but the third was just a lie. He regretted it straight away.

  “You have?” She sounded cautious. “That’s brilliant. You just need to stay on track with this one. Not like...”

  “Like Howl, you mean?”

  “Yes, like Howl.” She replied immediately and it stung him even though it was well deserved.

  “I’m trying, Jo.” He had been, too. For the last two years.

  “I know. When you feel better I’ll bring you some bubbly to celebrate. Well done, you!”

  She hung up but Ben held the phone to his ear for a while afterwards. After that burst of energy, he felt too tired to move.

  Stan whined and whistled. The only time he ever barked was when Ben picked him up from the kennel, and even then he looked apologetic afterwards, as if the emotion had got the better of him. Whining and whistling was pretty high up on the list of urgent requests. Stan couldn’t be ignored any longer.

  He let the dog out of the back door and watched him slope off. Sometimes he looked more like a horse than a dog. He stared at him for few minutes in a daze, and then went to the office to switch on the computer. In the good old days, he couldn’t wait to start writing every morning. Some nights he would lie in bed running through plotlines and scenes in his head, filled with so much excitement that it would take hours for him to get to sleep. He would sit down with his paper and pen, and later a computer, and already have a thousand words ready to go in his head. They were exciting and productive times.

  Before this bout of flu he still couldn’t sleep, but it was for different reasons. For most of the last two years he spent countless nights searching for new stories, trying to force them through the foggy, mysterious magic of his brain. When they failed to come, he started worrying about how he was going to pay the bills. How would he avoid hitting the bottle like his dad? And, as stupid as it sounded, how he would be able to buy Stan his breakfast?

  Clownz might be doing well now and that would help matters, but it wasn’t a long-term solution to his problems. A film deal would make all of those worries go away completely, but he wasn’t willing to let them butcher the story and turn Howl into something it wasn’t; something fashionable and ultimately weak.

  The real solution was to start writing again. To get something, anything, finished. That was the answer. To be a writer again.

  He powered up the PC and opened the word processor. His stomach was in knots and the pain in his throat seemed to grow in intensity.

  “Chapter Three.” He always whispered as he wrote or typed. He spoke the words louder this time, as if being more vocal would give him the momentum to continue.

  His fingers hovered over the keyboard. He bit his lip.

  “Sparkles,” he announced as he typed the letters, and then stopped. What was next? What did this Newman guy do after he cut the clown’s face off? He was a damaged man, a badly damaged and disturbed man who seemed capable of almost anything, just like the original Sparkles. But what was his motivation?

  He almost pressed another letter but stopped, clasped his hands together over his stomach. At least this illness had thrown a few of the extra pounds he was carrying. He blew a raspberry at the screen and gave it the finger.

  Words, words, words. They were such simple things, but in the mind of a writer they were as precious as the rarest of jewels. Writing a story was like crafting a beautiful necklace made from diamonds, rubies and emeralds, then linking them together with the finest, most delicate golden thread.

  All he seemed capable of at the moment, at least when he was conscious, was making one link of a rusty bicycle chain.

  He got up, closed it down and shuffled into the kitchen. He could see Stan’s tail wagging through the frosted glass of the back door so he let him in. The dog charged straight past to his bowl and started eating. Oh, to be a dog, thought Ben and watched Stan attack his food.

  Ben’s eyes were drawn to the bottles of spirits on the worktop. He knew from memory what was there. Whisky, gin, vodka and a half-bottle of Navy rum. He never touched them, not after seeing his dad drink his way through the last ten years of his wretched life. Rachel had bought them for guests but there were no guests any longer. They kept away when she left. Not that he missed them, they were all dickheads, but he missed her and he missed writing.

  As he stared at the bottle of whisky, the pale sunlight trickled through the window and landed on the amber liquid. A little magic star winked off the bottle and twinkled in his eyes.

  The star seemed to whisper to him, ‘There’s magic this way, come and play. Come here and see.’

  He took a mug out of the cupboard and poured a decent measure of whisky into it. Wasn’t scotch supposed to be medicinal anyway? He took a sip and grimaced. It scorched a new ravine into his throat and attacked everything in its path as it slipped down his throat. The pain forced him to close his eyes but as the burning sensation turned into a pleasurable warmth in his belly, he sighed and opened his eyes again.

  He looked down at the dog who was looking up at him. “This is good stuff, Stanley, me old pal.”

  He tipped the bottle and filled the mug up to halfway. “What say we go upstairs, put a crappy film on and maybe we can have a nap?”

  The dog walked toward the stairs in agreement and Ben followed behind. He hoped the bottle wasn’t lying when it said there was magic to be had. He could do with some magic in his life right now.

  He lay on the bed and patted Rachel’s side for Stan to climb up. The dog wouldn’t get on the bed unless the invitation was made clear and even then he seemed to consider the request as if it might be a trap of some sort.

  “Come on, I thought we were watching a film?” He patted the duvet again and the dog stared at the bed, wai
ting for a surprise ambush. He looked up at Ben again and clambered up.

  He was a tall dog but skinny and as a result very bony. He turned around a few times, curled up and grumbled.

  Ben stroked his head slowly. “There you go, big fella, that’s got to be better than the floor.”

  Stan licked his dog-lips and closed his eyes.

  “Now, what’s on at half-past ten on a Wednesday morning?” Ben took the remote control and pointed it at the television. It was clearly not prime time and there were mostly programmes about houses; selling, building and renovating them. He sipped the whisky and surfed the channels.

  He had underestimated what drinking whisky on an empty stomach before noon did to a person. His eyes took a moment to focus each time he flicked to the next channel. Rachel hated it when he channel-surfed, but then again she hated almost everything about him by the end. Not that he blamed her, he pretty much hated himself too.

  He pushed through the stations, seeing only a blurry image of what was on until he flicked past a picture of a clown. He flicked back immediately.

  It was the news channel and they were showing a poor-quality YouTube video. It was little more than a slide show of Harvey Newman as Bingo The Clown in a variety of poses with children at parties. Some of them were obviously digitally reproduced Polaroids from years ago while some looked to be more recent. Most of the kids looked happy but some looked at Sparkles with horror. Or maybe Ben was just seeing things, now he knew what the clown was actually like.

  The reporter urged families to come forward to speak to police, particularly if they recognised any of the videos on Newman’s YouTube channel.

  Ben could feel his eyes growing heavier by the minute, but he took another sip and felt the lessening bite of the drink slide down his throat. It momentarily woke him up again but it was a losing battle, he knew it.

  He closed his eyes. In the background, he could hear a reporter talking about another murder. A police officer this time but details were just coming in...

  Stan chattered his teeth, thumped his tail on the bed and kicked his back legs as he ran around the track in his dreams. Maybe he won the race this time.

  Ben smiled and put his hand on the dog’s neck. It was woolly and comforting. A moment later, he fell asleep.

  *

  Sore throat? Check. Stiff neck? Check. Throbbing head? Check. Chattering teeth and a low-pitched whine? Check. It could only mean he was awake again. Awake with another hangover and Stan needed to go out. How long had he been asleep? There was no way of knowing unless he opened his eyes and he wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  Ben touched his brow with his fingertips and felt a horrible cold, sticky sweat. The whisky had been okay at the time but now it was only amplifying the pain in his body. Was he really awake or was this just a terrible nightmare?

  He felt his mind closing down again; cog by cog, it was shutting down. That was good, he needed to sleep.

  Stan whined again but it was louder this time. Ben moved his hand across the bed to find him.

  “Go back to sleep, boy,” he whispered.

  Stan whimpered at the sound of his voice, but the dog wasn’t on the bed and he wasn’t at the foot of the bed either. He was next to Ben’s head.

  He rolled onto his side and reached out. “Too early, Stan, too early, kiddo.” He touched the dog’s head and immediately opened his eyes. The dog wasn’t just trembling, as he did when he was cold, he was vibrating. Their eyes met for a moment and Ben saw a slice of moonlight reflected off his beautiful, clear pupils. Stan looked away and whined again. It was a high-pitched sound that hurt Ben’s ears.

  “Come on, back to sleep.” He felt sleepy and disorientated. Dealing with a neurotic dog was the last thing he needed.

  Stan turned his head back to Ben but as their eyes met again, the dog snapped his head around and looked away. He looked toward the opposite side of the room, toward the window. The dog curled his lip and growled.

  Ben went cold all over.

  He was aware of his own breathing. It was laboured and wheezy, and there was now a tightness in his chest that hadn’t been there yesterday. Today? Last night? When was it? Without any routine, time had become unimportant.

  But as well as his own breathing, there was the sound of another’s breath in the room. And not that of the dog trembling beside the bed.

  The effort of rolling over was nearly too much for his aching and weak body, but he managed it. He rolled slowly but as he did, the room became a dizzying blur, as if he were on a carousel spinning at a hundred miles an hour. It was a sickening sensation and his stomach turned a somersault, threatening to expel what little food was in there.

  The bathroom flew past and then the enormous built-in wardrobes skidded across his vision. He felt as if he was no longer in control of his eyes as they fought to bring focus to what he was seeing.

  A shape emerged on the far side of the room, in the corner where the wardrobes ended. Ben felt all of the moisture in his mouth vanish. It was sucked back into his body, retreating away from something.

  His mind searched for a rational explanation but it too was struggling to stay focused.

  It was the shape of a human, a man. He was standing in the corner of the room, looking into the corner, like a naughty child in the classroom. Stan growled again.

  The moon shone in through the window and illuminated only half of the intruder’s head. It was a dream or a hallucination conjured up by his fevered brain. Nothing more.

  “Go away,” Ben croaked.

  But he wasn’t staring into the corner, was he? No, he was staring into the built-in mirror on the wardrobe. The floor-to-ceiling design Rachel had requested. He was staring at his own reflection.

  Ben squinted, trying to bring it into focus. It was a face. An ugly, pale face with black painted diamonds running vertically over eye sockets. It was make-up, it was clown’s make-up and it was bleeding down its face.

  The clown bared his teeth in an attempt at a smile. It was the most frightening thing Ben had ever seen. Even in the gloom, he could see the clown’s teeth were discoloured and the skin around his mouth didn’t stretch, it cracked, releasing a thin watery fluid.

  The clown breathed hard onto the mirror and his blue hands wrote BOO! in the fog.

  Ben groaned as the clown turned around and walked slowly out of the room. Not once did he turn to look at Ben again, he just strolled out of the room like he was on a Sunday afternoon amble. He watched the clown go with eyes that felt like they were constantly rolling over and over and over in their sockets.

  He wanted to vomit. He wanted to throw his guts up but he knew if he tried to walk across the bedroom, he wouldn’t get more than two steps. His legs were gone, they were jelly. The clown’s footsteps retreated down the stairs and he heard the front door open and then close. Not with a sudden bang like someone running but slowly, casually.

  Stan whined and his teeth bounced together, not in a gentle or soothing way but with a loud smashing that was born from fear. Ben reached out to touch him but the dog was already clambering up onto the bed on top of him. The dog lay down with a grunt and put his head on Ben’s chest.

  He could feel Stan shaking. It was uncomfortable on his body but he stroked the dog’s head. It was as much to comfort himself.

  “A ghost,” he said as his mind offered something usable. He’d written about them often enough. Hell, he’d written three books trying to scare readers witless with them. It was just a ghost, that was all. These old farmhouse conversions must be full of them.

  “Just a ghost, Stan. They can’t hurt us. Not really.” His voice broke in several places and came out as a breath, like a sigh. He had been thinking about clowns too much. With writing a sequel, it had been on his mind.

  He looked at the mirror. Where the word BOO! had been written just seconds before was now just a dark mirror. The word had disappeared because it was never there. ‘Boo!’ was what Sparkles always said to his victims just before he kille
d them. Just before he ate their brains and stole their smiles for himself.

  And the ghost had looked a little bit like Sparkles, hadn’t he? A Sparkles who was very ill. Sicker even than he was.

  He left his hand on Stan’s head and closed his eyes. They still felt like they were barrelling around in his head but at least there were no ghosts to see now. No more clowns smiling back from the mirror at him.

  7

  The doctor had put Ben on citalopram for depression. That was about a month ago and it was the reason he’d been able to do the book signing. Nobody knew about it of course, but who was there to tell anyway?

  He wasn’t a ‘New Man’, nor had he ever really been in touch with his ‘feminine side’ or any of those other clichéd or outdated terms. He didn’t cry, men didn’t cry, at least not until last year, then men cried a lot. Ben Night, specifically, had cried every single day for nearly a whole year.

  The first time he cried, he felt strangely liberated by the experience. At the age of forty-seven there weren’t many new experiences, at least legal and physical ones, but crying was just that. Crying was something new, and it felt exciting and slightly dangerous.

  He was watching The Fellowship of the Ring in bed while eating a bag of cheesy Doritos and drinking beer. The scene where Boromir died clutching his sword brought about a great tide of grief and a flood of tears. It was completely unexpected and extremely shocking. He had watched the film scores of times before, but never once had it elicited such an emotional response.

  Stan had shuffled nervously on the bed as Ben laughed with tears streaming down his face. He was liberated and he thought for a while that he might be a ‘New Man’ or in touch with his ‘feminine side’. He even telephoned Rachel to tell her, but she had changed her number and the recorded message told him the line was no longer active.