Smile No More

by James A. Moore

  Eloise tried to scream as he slammed the bloodied face into the chart and rolled the ruined head against the paper until he had left a bloody imprint. Potato stamp, indeed. She couldn’t gather up the breath to scream, nor could she force her lungs to work at breathing in or out.

  When the print was done, the clown dropped Andy’s head and chuckled to himself. “Oh yes, I think I like it!”

  He reached for Eloise and turned her head harshly to the left. Her mouth opened as the pain exploded in her neck. She was looking right at him when the knife came down and drove into her left eye socket, quickly, brutally cutting the organ free from her flesh. Oh, how she wanted to scream. Oh, how she wanted to die.

  He finished cutting away the meat and viscera that were in his way in her left eye and commenced with the rest of the cutting. The man laughed and laughed again before he took the ax and ended her agonies.

  And after that, Rufo the Clown worked on each of the heads available to him and used them exactly once. Then he settled back to wait.

  Because he was hungry, he took a Danish from the tray that hadn’t fallen over and began to eat. And as he paused to chew, he contemplated what note to leave for his new special friend, Adam.

  He crowed when the right message came to mind and then he wrote it in block letters across the wall, above the facial imprints.

  Then he settled back to wait.

  He couldn’t wait to see the expression on his buddy’s face.

  ***

  Adam paid the cabbie and made sure to get a receipt. Taxes were a necessary evil and tax breaks were a force for good in his universe.

  The car not starting had been a pain in the ass, but not the end of the world. He’d have been in much poorer spirits if he hadn’t spent the night getting to know Mary a lot better. She played a demonic seductress very well on stage and she fucked like an animal in real life. He’d already decided she would have a larger part next season, and that he would get an encore or two out of her before he told her she could have a larger part.

  The performers had all left first thing in the morning and he’d stayed in her room long enough for one more quickie and then a shower. He wasn’t staying at the same hotel, but he’d planned on just driving back when he was finished. The rental car refused to start and he’d already called to bitch about the situation. They’d fix the matter in the next few hours and in the meantime he had a meeting to attend to.

  He took his time riding up the elevator and swinging by his room before the meeting, because it wouldn’t do to come in to the meeting in the suit from the night before, especially since it now smelled very heavily of the rather exotic perfume that Mary overindulged in.

  And then it was down to the meeting room, pleasantly relaxed and as ready for business as he ever would be.

  Somebody had a very twisted sense of humor.

  The words came into view one letter at a time but he processed the line quickly enough: GRAY SKIES ARE GONNA CLEAR UP….

  And under those wet, red words, were a dozen wet, red smiley faces, each one with a happy grin and round, ragged eyes. Someone had been busy and had even painted teeth in some of the mouths. The details were lost in fuzz half the time, but they were there. He looked at the graffiti for several seconds, frowning and puzzled, before he noticed the first body.

  He couldn’t see a head, just a body. There was blood all over the place, and the raw stump where the head should have been was a jagged, ragged mess.

  “Oh God.” His stomach lurched hard to the left and Adam staggered forward, his traitorous eyes taking in the sights that would last with him for as long as he lived.

  He found most of the heads in a pile. They’d been stacked together on a silver platter that was already holding a spread of pastries. Each face had been mutilated; the eyes cut away, the lips sliced off to make the smiling mouths on the faces he’d seen stamped on the walls. In every case the nose on the heads had been brutally mashed flat. The teeth he’d seen vaguely painted in place were real. That information alone made his ears ring with a high-pitched note. A severed lip hung on the edge of the table, bloodied and limp, a white slug with a trail of red.

  “You get it?” The voice was the same one from the phone the night before. “‘Put on a happy face,’ get it? Isn’t that a hoot?” The man laughed as he walked forward, his hands holding the last head, the features too mutilated to let Adam even guess who it might have been. His face was hidden under clown makeup, only Adam could clearly see the mutilations along the too thin face. He looked almost as dead as the head he was casually tossing from hand to hand with a series of wet, meaty noises.

  He tossed the head into the air, his hands soaked bloody red and the sleeves of his shirt washed in shades of crimson.

  “I asked you a question last night, rube, and then I told you not to hang up on me.” All the cheer vanished from his voice as he spoke.

  Adam started to run and saw the man throw his prize with a savage swing from the corner of his eye. He felt the head slam into his leg and knew before it happened that he was going down. Adam let out a shriek and crashed into the ground, his hands failing to catch him before he was sliding through coffee, pastries, eggs and blood.

  His mind wanted to go completely blank, and his gag reflex kicked him in the guts and sent a dry heave through his entire body.

  “Oh, oh dear Jesus.” He coughed and felt a cold saliva drool from his mouth as he looked down into the bloody froth he was laying in.

  “What did I tell you? What did I say to you just last night, Adam? I told you to let me know where you hid my niece’s body! If you’d just opened your mouth and told me what I wanted, you could have avoided all of this!” The venom in the words was enough to make him shiver, even if the rest of the madness around him hadn’t been there.

  Salinger opened his mouth and instead of words, gagged on the miasma that was still inches from his face.

  “Get up!” The hand that lifted him from the ground was far too strong to be human. “Play time is done, Adam! I want to know where you buried Meaghan Phelps, and either you tell me now, or I swear what I do to you will make you scream for days and days and days!”

  He looked at the clown, horrified to see that the thing looked even less alive than it had a moment before. The eyes were still blue, but buried deep in fleshless sockets and the gums had receded from the open mouth, the lips had withered and peeled back. There was a faint smell of old death on the thing that mingled with the coffee and blood and fresh murder to make a sickening scent.

  Adam tried to answer, but when he opened his mouth to speak he vomited a thin stream of bile past his lips.

  The clown monster hurled him across the room, smashing him into the stack of heads and then into at least two of the bodies tossed around like so much garbage.

  “What the hell kind of man are you, Adam?” The voice was a dark rasp, a dry, lifeless thing. It mirrored the clown-corpse that stalked toward him, grinning twice over.

  The hand that caught him was dry and leathery and oh, so hot. The face that loomed above him stared hard and then like magic a large blade blossomed from the other skeletal hand the thing held up.

  “I’ll start with the toes, Adam. I’ll take them one at a time, peel the meat from the bones, do you understand me? One at a time until I have to work my way up your legs and then I’ll cut off your balls and keep going!”

  “Nooooo! Please! Please!” Oh, how he cried. His tears came fast and hard and hot, furious, desperate pleas to save his life and his body from the bad thing leering down over him. He wet himself and wouldn’t have been shocked to shit himself, too.

  The knife came down fast and slammed deep into the edge of the broken table that he’d landed on.

  “Where…is…her…body?”

  Adam spoke quickly, giving very detailed instructions on exactly where the body was buried, and how far the nightmare clown would have to dig. He cried throughout the entire process, having no doubt in his mind that he would die a horri
ble death as soon as he was done confessing.

  Instead the clown stood up and calmly straightened out its clothes.

  “I’m going to find her, Adam. If she’s not where you say she is, I’ll be back before the sun sets to kill you.” The face looked fleshier now, more alive. The twisted rage that had marked the features was faded as well, leaving a smile within a smile and cold glittering eyes that shone with amusement. “And Adam? Even if I DO find her body, that’s no guarantee that we’re done. You understand me? Do you get my meaning here?”

  The man nodded silently and did his best not to cry anymore.

  The clown moved, walking slowly away from him, not once bothering to look back.

  Adam sat where he was for a long, long time, too weak and frightened to move. His heart hammered away inside his chest and adrenaline left him shaking.

  When he finally stood up, the screams came out of him of their own volition. He couldn’t have stopped them if his life depended on it.

  He was still screaming when management showed up, and when the police showed up not much later. He only stopped screaming when the sedatives were injected into his arm.

  Chapter Twelve

  The clouds had built up again and took away all hopes that the day would be pleasant. The air was heavy and motionless and Carver headed for the crime scene with a deep, deep dread filling his stomach.

  There were already enough cops around to potentially compromise the crime scene but the good news was none of them seemed overly interested in going past the yellow crime scene tape and checking out the scene. Several reporters hovered around the edges. But none of them were allowed past, and judging by the looks on a few faces, it was obvious that they had tried their luck already and failed. The ones that were hanging around were the dregs, the paparazzi and similar ilk who sought the sensational for a quick profit. He scowled as he saw them.

  King and Cantrell walked with him, both of them in suits that made them look like real agents and not like kids dressed for the part.

  King coughed into his hand and Carver looked toward him as they reached the tape barrier.

  “What’s up?” Carver’s voice was no nonsense, which was exactly how he was feeling.

  “You want to do me a favor? Get your guys to lose the photographers?”

  Michael smiled at that. He hadn’t thought about the fact that the two were here at a crime scene and still ready to go undercover in the very near future.

  One quick gesture brought Caras and Jansen running. “Want to get the camera jockeys out of here? And if they look like they want to take a picture of anyone or anything, you take the cameras from them.

  Caras cleared his throat. “What about their rights?”

  Carver grinned. “They don’t have any. This is a crime scene and the feds will back us on that decision.”

  That put a smile on the slender cop’s face. “Cool.”

  The two headed toward the photographers and gestured for a few more to join them. While the shutterbugs were busy, the trio slipped past the yellow tape.

  And stared at the carnage.

  Heads, bodies, blood and viscera.

  Carver felt proud of himself, he wasn’t the first one to run past the tape to vomit.

  That had been three hours earlier and they were still on the scene but now the coroner had come through and most of the bodies and their shredded parts had been bagged and removed.

  King and Cantrell were in charge and that suited Carver just fine. He sat back and let them handle all of the details while he recovered himself.

  Cantrell walked over to where he was leaning against the wall and joined him, her face as pale as he suspected his was.

  “This guy…he’s not normal.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting that.”

  “The survivor, Adam Salinger…he swears it was a guy dressed as a clown.”

  Michael managed not to jump completely out of his skin.

  Cantrell studied him for several silent seconds, her face carefully neutral.

  “I heard a story about a few cops cutting loose all over a clown faced guy involved in the kidnapping. I also hear the body of the killer went missing.”

  Carver looked at her for several seconds, his face just as carefully neutral and finally she nodded her head.

  “So where do we go from here?” His voice was calm. His heart felt like it would never slow down again.

  She shrugged her shoulders and forced a very small smile. “Philadelphia.”

  “You still want me along?”

  “Of course.” There was no subtext that he could decipher.

  Finally he nodded his head. “So do we know why Booker or whoever is after these people?”

  “No clue. All we know is these were most of the higher ups inside the Carnivale’s corporate offices.”

  “So he’s got a hard on for the show?”

  “Yeah. Big time.”

  Carver stared at the floor. The blood was drying quickly, turning everything a dark, rusty color.

  “The guy give you anything else? Does he have a clue?”

  “No,” she frowned. “Well, yes, I think he does, but he isn’t talking much. He’s too freaked out.”

  Carver nodded. There was nothing to say to that. Everyone who’d come into the room had been horrified and none of them could have called the dead people acquaintances or business partners.

  The two of them stayed next to each other in comfortable silence for several minutes until King came over, shaking his head and frowning.

  “This,” said King “is getting messy.”

  “Not much messier than whoever did this.”

  “You think it was Booker?”

  Carver shook his head. “I saw the dead body. His face was still intact but that was about all that was still intact. Seriously, he got all kinds of hell blown out of him.” There was a surprising lack of guilt as he spoke. He’d expected to feel something, some sort of dread at having taken a life, but all he could see whenever he thought about the situation was the casual way in which the clown had thrown that poor baby boy into the air and let him fall.

  “Well then, maybe he has an accomplice.” King scowled and crossed his arms.

  “That’s not a fun thought.”

  “Beats all hell out of Booker coming back from the dead.” Cantrell was trying for a joke, but Michael couldn’t make himself laugh. The idea was just too damned creepy, especially when he considered what had happened to the people preparing to autopsy the body.

  “I just want this done.” His tone was dark. “Whoever this is, whatever he wants or they want, I want this shit done with.”

  Cantrell’s hand patted his. It could have been a patronizing gesture, but her fingers felt good and gave him comfort. Maybe it was just any human contact after so much bloodshed. He hadn’t let himself bother with people in a long time. The job made it too easy to shut yourself off from the world and even knowing that, he seldom did anything to stop it.

  “So let’s finish this if we can. The show has gone to Philadelphia and we’re going after them.” King’s tone was calm, secure. “Next show is in two days and I won’t be surprised to find our man out there somewhere.”

  Carver nodded, but his stomach twisted into a nervous knot at the notion. He wasn’t completely sure that they were dealing with a human being anymore and that thought scared the hell out of him.

  ***

  The shovel cut through the hard soil, and with each scoop of dirt he got closer to finding his last relative.

  Above him the concrete floor of the warehouse had been shattered and pushed aside. The skin growing over his ruined hands hadn’t finished mending him yet, but he would take care of that as soon as he was done digging. The one security guard had only provided enough flesh to heal him once and breaking the concrete had been traumatic to his hands and arms.

  The warehouse was silent, save for the sounds of his digging, and that suited the clown just dandy. He wanted time to think and he had all the ti
me he needed as he dug the hole. The structure had been built in Virginia for two reasons. First, the price was right and second, it was convenient to where the body of Meaghan Phelps had been stored for several weeks.

  You know the right people, you can hide anything. Good ol’ Adam knew lots of people and the ones he didn’t know were handled by Todd Westingham. Todd wouldn’t be helping anymore. Being dead slowed him down more than it did Rufo. Well, so far at least. He hadn’t been the only one to ever climb out of the grave and he knew that.

  The blade bit into hard dirt again, and struck something with a harsh, ringing note. He set the shovel to the side and crouched lower, brushing at the object. It only took him a moment to identify the limb he’d hit. It was a leg, mostly meatless now, but a leg.

  Five minutes of frantic digging and he had the cadaver freed from the dirt. What was left of Meaghan Phelps was wrapped in a canvas sack. He stared at the package for several minutes after climbing free of the hole he’d dug.

  The bundle was so tiny, so fragile, and it unsettled him. This had been a life, a living being. He unveiled her corpse with more reverence than he’d expected to feel, and looked up the ruination of his family line.

  Dead and rotted, lost to the world and lost to him. Here lay the girl he’d wanted to meet, wanted to see dancing and smiling and happy. He’d have left her in peace if he’d known she died happily, but that wasn’t the case, was it? Someone had done her wrong. He knew the name now, but still had not seen the face.

  Long fingers brushed dirt away from the face of a dead woman. He could see the trauma that had been done to her skull and even see the lines that the rope had made around her neck as it was pulled tight. Similar ligature marks covered her wrists and her ankles.

  “How long did it take you to die, Meaghan? How long before he let you go?” Rufo barely even recognized his own voice as he spoke. Odd, to ask a question that he had never once asked of his victims over the years, especially since he had killed so many….