A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals)

by P. S. Power

  "Sorry, no. I try to never stab people with tiny knives." His voice was cool, but high pitched. As if he weren't worried, but rather playing with the man. Having his own bit of fun. "Now, if you have a gun I can borrow?"

  That got a laugh at least. The man wasn't a fool, just insane.

  "Good plan! I always liked you, you know? Carl here, he hated you. Do you know why?"

  "Never did. Not at all."

  The voice behind the mask husked at him, but cheerfully. It made him sound completely deranged.

  "Because you told everyone about Lynn. That meant he had to pay for her, and they couldn't just trap some other sucker to do the job. It made the national news, you know. The Sheriff and his whore, who had pulled the ultimate love con. No one could touch them, but you exploded the whole scam. You made their little scheme unworkable. He told all us deputies that you'd beaten her you know. It's why Richmond was always such a prick to you. He knew it wasn't true, but it was enough of a reason to go after you. I think Pensley actually bought it. She isn't the sharpest tack in the pudding, if you get me."

  Jason did. That was also a good turn of phrase. The sharpest tack in the pudding. Insane and funny at the same time.

  "Can I use that one? In my act? That's not bad." He did the voice and Daniels finally stared at him, like he was the crazy one.

  The former deputy and current funhouse "B" movie monster, turned to him and nodded, but his words weren't half as polite. Still cheery however.

  "You really think I'm letting you go?"

  "Oh, sure. Me and the FBI men here. You've done what you came for, and killing us will just have you hunted that much harder. If you run now, well, you can vanish. Stop killing and go live in some tropical paradise. There's nothing left to stop you."

  It sounded like what he would have done, but the mask shook side to side, going big, so that everyone could see it.

  "Oh, I'm not done yet. There's the big finish yet to come! Then..." He stopped and stared, first at McNab and then the still bored seeming Daniels, turning to Jay at the end, his eyes nearly even with his own. "You know... You said something once. Why. If you can tell me why I did this, then I'll let you go."

  Jay shrugged.

  "You'll let us all go?" He didn't really know the answer anyway, and was stalling. That was the only plan he had, even if no help was coming. If he could hold things up long enough, maybe something would appear, and let him escape. Survive in a situation where, if things went the way they seemed like they should, he simply wouldn't.

  The man shook his head.

  "No, just you. You're innocent in this."

  It was... true, actually. He hadn't wronged Mills at all. Ever. Even when the man had stopped him, to harass him for the Sheriff, on orders, Jason had always been polite and even friendly toward the man.

  "Like McNab and Daniels aren't too? What did they do? Try to find a killer? We need people like that, Mills. No matter how much they annoyed you personally, you can see that they were really doing the right thing."

  "No. Some people deserve to die. They have no place in their philosophy for justice. Just the law. It's a crippled thing, that kind of thinking. They die too." He sounded adamant about it, as if his mind were made up. Neither man had been cut however, and they were both left alive. Witnesses, but that didn't matter, everyone would know who'd done it anyway. They'd been calling in information all day. The boat of anonymity had sailed away, leaving nothing but ripples in its wake for the killer.

  Jay forced a small smile onto his sad clown face, then forced it to grow. It took work, with the horror show that used to be his wife not fifteen feet from him. For a second he felt bad about not helping her more, but really, other than force the man to tie him down too, what was he planning to do? On his best day Jay wasn't a match for the killer. This was far from his best day too.

  That didn't mean he had to be a coward.

  "Nope. If you want to know what I do, then you have to agree to let them go too. Alive and unharmed. The same with me."

  That got Mills to go silent and pace for a while, squeaking with each step. The floor had old carpet, done in long strand pumpkin orange. If it was ever vacuumed, the machine was broken, because it looked like heck. The whole place did. It wasn't so much a love shack as a back alley that happened to be inside. Complete with urine scent, though that was fresh. Who'd done it, he didn't know, and at that moment didn't care.

  His shoes, big and red, with fake yellow patches on them, marched back and forth on the dirty floor. On the feet of a man that didn't own them. The walls had warped fake wood panels too. In all, it was the sort of place that seemed like Sheriff Morse. Cheap and shoddy. Uncared for, because it was impossible to have anyone else in to do the work for free. Lynn actually followed her son with her eyes, and then, in desperation looked over at him, imploring. As if Jason had any reason in the entire world to help her. Pity, however, won out. Or would have, if he hadn't been a prisoner too.

  Finally Mills moved to him, his mask not three feet from Jay.

  "Right then, a deal. You tell me why I did this and if you get it right, or close enough, I'll let you three go. The other two die. They probably will already, just from the damage done so far. We can make a game of it. Every time you say the wrong thing, I'll cut a bit off of one of them. You get to pick, just to add to the charm of the game. If you don't, then I will. I hope you're wrong a lot. Not because I want to kill you, but to help you. These people deserve it. Everything we do to them. Shall we start?" There was far too much happiness in the words.

  Craziness. It was tempting to ask how he could trust the man, but that answer was both simple and two fold. The real answer was that he couldn't trust anyone. Lynn had taught him that one, well enough. The streets had too, but he didn't have to learn it too many times before the idea sort of sank in. Give people a chance, but expect little of them. The other answer was that when Mills could have killed him, he hadn't. He might now, however.

  Maggie had been executed just to frame Carl... For framing him. That was convoluted, and complex. Meant to buy the killer clown time for... Well, this probably. What had ruined it was his decision to leave Jay alive, knowing who he was. Foolish, if pretty nice of the guy, as far as he was concerned. The point was, he wouldn't hesitate to kill good people, to get at what he thought he wanted in the moment.

  "Agreed then. Though with the caveat that I can't already know some things that might be important to you. I can only guess at what the information has told me. I don't know your secret thoughts, or dreams, for instance. It may play into what's happened, but how would I know that?" They would be that, too. Guesses. Things pulled from minimal information, and a basic understanding of human psychology. Hopefully that would be close enough for the man not to torture anyone in his name. That probably wasn't the case, however.

  Daniels looked at him, with hard eyes, and so did Lynn. Then, the deal he'd made could have her being cut up shortly, if he made too many mistakes. It didn't do anything to protect her at all, either. That was the most horrifying part of it. Sitting there, tied to a chair, not able to move, no tongue in her mouth to speak with, she glared at him with anger over that. Not fear for her life, but a sense of superiority that had, he saw now, always been a part of her.

  That didn't mean she deserved to die, however. Or be tortured. Locked up, maybe.

  The crazy bozo in front of him nodded, but didn't speak. Probably so he could get out of keeping his word later. As if words would be enough to keep things from happening.

  "So, mon professor, let's get with it. Why did little Carl kill all those nice people?"

  Jason shrugged.

  "That part isn't too hard. You were traumatized as a child. That woman... your step-mother, who raised you after your father died young. She... wasn't well. Some kind of mental condition? Schizophrenia? That one is a guess, but it was both delusional and impossible to live with. Showing up in her mid-twenties or so, just after your dad died?"

  The clown swung a
round to face him, a knife in his hand. A big and rather expensive looking kitchen blade. He didn't move toward Jason, but his voice was cold, suddenly. Amazed sounding.

  "That's... right. She didn't always take her medication, and it was in Florida, so, well, child services isn't so great there. They left me with her. She thought I was possessed, as often as not. She did... Horrible things to me, trying to get the demons to leave. Near drowning, burning... Isolation. There was a clown poster that she put on my wall, that just stared at me, when I was locked in my room. They didn't leave, clearly. The demons. If anything she put them in. So, no one loses anything this time. That was good. How did you know?"

  "Your fear of clowns. It's why you really dress up like this. Not just to hide yourself, though it works for that too. Someone had to have traumatized you with the idea when you were young, for it to have that kind of pull on you now. You mentioned the woman, with emphasis. No one sane would have done that kind of thing to a little kid. So some kind of mental disorder. A guess, but..."

  The man paced again, for a long time, before stopping, the knife still in his latex gloved hand. When he paused, he stabbed Carl in the leg. Only once, which woke the man up, screaming without articulation.

  "Oops, sorry, forgot the rules. You didn't get that wrong. I just wasn't aware I was that transparent."

  Without letting himself shrug, Jason just stood, not wanting to piss the deranged man off any more than was needed. There was a game afoot, after all. A thing that had consequences, no matter what happened. No matter who won, if winning was allowed in a thing like this. That it just might not be was the most likely end to all of it. He wanted time though. It was all he had. A hope that if he could stall long enough, something useful would change.

  "So, Joey the Clown, tell me more, that's only half the tale. Why did I come here? What drew me into place?"

  That one was harder. After all, it could have been anything.

  Tilting his head, he thought about that for a while, until Masko the Creepy Clown started waving for him to hurry it up, with a ten inch shining blade. It had been on him, so was a personal tool, not something gotten just for Carl and Lynn. Big, but not a gun. It probably meant something Freudian, but knowing that the man felt inadequate didn't really help at the moment. That part was clear, in both the way that he subdued larger, stronger men, and had cut off Carl's family jewels.

  "Well, you mentioned that, didn't you? After years of practice, you wondered if it was really fair to blame them, Lynn and Carl, for their deeds. They'd been young... and people, well, they do stupid things. You had to have known about who she was at least. That part wasn't hidden from you, was it? So... When you saw something, online or in the news, about her and the creepo Sheriff... That probably set you off. It would be one thing to let some kids that didn't know any better go. Larger than life figures, but ones you knew that you could handle. You had all that practice. But once you learned that part, you figured out the rest, and came here to... Finish things. To remove an evil from the world. Because you were evil and if they were too, it meant that they really deserved what you'd planned for them, all those years. They'd made you into what you are. Through their neglect, and lack of caring."

  Lynn was cut on the face, screaming the whole time, and looking at Jay as if he'd ordered it done. Mills made a tsking sound.

  "Nope. I mean, mainly right, but I'm not evil. Far from it. What is it you said before, the last time we met? That I must have fallen into a pit of clowns, so dressed like this because I thought that criminals must be afraid of them too? Like Batman. It wasn't like that, but closer, I think, than you know. I only took people that hurt their own children. Neglect, abuse. I didn't even know about Carl until after I had a DNA test done, and another one about six months ago, to make sure it was him. I almost didn't have to bother, since Lynn told me, when we first met. It was so hard to not just kill her then. She recognized the name. So did Carl. I actually approached her first. She brow beat him into giving me a job, if you can believe it. One I wasn't even qualified for. That made it all a lot handier. Evil though? Nope. That's one wrong. What do you want me to cut off of who? I'd volunteer Carl's balls, but, well you get that one. Something small to start with? First, choose which one?"

  Jason froze, but only externally. He couldn't do that. It was also pretty clear that any hint of a deal would be off, if he didn't. Both the FBI agents were looking right at him, knowing that, and he took a deep breath. It was hard to tell which one was in worse shape at the moment, but it was Lynn that kept glaring at him, her face hateful, where Carl just seemed in pain. Mewling and weak.

  "Lynn. Take off her little toe. The left one." It was small, and not needed to survive. This time she screamed, a thing of pure outrage.

  There was no way to blame her for that, even though she had time before it would happen. Her feet were fixed in place, but she had shoes on still. White pumps. Those got taken off slowly, the man chuckling as he did it.

  "See there? That wasn't so difficult. I really thought you'd chicken out, you know that Jay? If you had, I was going to take off both of their hands. You have a lot more balls than Carl here does." The man stopped and turned, knife in hand. "Sorry, that's a bit of an insensitive thing of me to say now, isn't it? Even before that minor adjustment. I'd offered to spare Lynn if he let me kill him, and do you know what he said?"

  Jay didn't. He could guess, but that was all.

  "That you should kill yourself instead? It's an idea, you know. Really show them how strongly you feel about the whole thing."

  There was laughter, and then screaming, as the little toe was cut off in one sudden movement. He hadn't even looked, but it was done with uncanny accuracy. When Lynn finally faded into just panting and breathing hard, ten minutes later, the foot bandaged to keep her alive, the man shook his head.

  "No, that would have been almost clever. He'd suggested that I was gay. As if that would have anything to do with this? I mean, I'm not, but really, what kind of a homophobic thing is that to say? He was offered a chance to save a woman that he's supposed to love, and what does he do? Heroically say yes? Beg and plead that I hurt him and not her? Even just beg, for both of them? Not at all. He just makes improper slurs. It was why he lost his balls and dick, you know. If he would have just said no, I probably would have left them in place. Maybe not."

  That made sense then. Not in any kind of sane fashion, but he wanted to harm them, so almost anything they'd done would have been wrong.

  "So you took off her breasts... That one was planned, right? For failing to nurture you? Giving you up, to that woman?"

  The man looked at him through the colorful mask, and then waved the knife a little, "not exactly right. I'll give you that one though, since it's part of it. I have to admit that. She's failed as a woman her whole life. She's never nurtured anyone, or anything. Lynn Davies never even had a pet. Did you ever notice that? What kind of person doesn't ever have a dog, or cat? Not even a fish? The only reason she had house plants was because her daughter watered them. Can you imagine that? Or, well, I guess you can. You lived it, for years." The voice held pity, which was a thing that Jay would take, if it got him out alive.

  "So, I guess you win then. That's close enough, and I'm a clown of my word. After I'm done here, I'll leave you and these two alive and whole. Drugged, but that could be worse. First, let's handle this. I'm only part way done with these two sick, sad and sorry people."

  What happened next was so bad that Jay knew he was never going to get the image out of his head. Slowly, using his large knife, Carl was... skinned. Alive. Just to the waist, because there was a sound from outside. That of a car driving up. It got the killer to stop, in order to check it out.

  When Mills went to the door, to see who was there, Jay took his chance, and walked carefully and smoothly over to the torture tray near Lynn. He managed to get the bloody little scalpel, and her eyes went wide. She made a noise, which he kind of understood. It was a shocked thing, but she'd called him
an idiot. Probably for waiting so long.

  Then, after the door closed, and the shooting started, he cut Daniels free. One of his taped down arms. It was far from perfect work, being done behind his own back, but there was no gasping from the agent. If he cut him, nothing was said about it at all. After a minute, as shooting continued outside, a second round of it with holes appearing in the little shack wall, the tool was taken from his fingers.

  The man had his left hand free and was far more efficient about getting the other one done than Jay had been.

  It gave them just enough time to get McNab free too, so that when Mills came back, there were three people rushing the door. Two and a half really, since Jay had his hands still cuffed behind him. There were no guns around for them, and the clown trying to walk in had one, but faced with the scene, for some reason, turned and ran, rather than fight to the death. He was, most likely, out of bullets.

  There was the sound of a large vehicle taking off then. So not one of the cars. Something else. Taking a risk, he popped his head out to see what had happened.

  It was a bloody scene. Deputy Pensley, the female on the force, was dead, having been shot in the face several times. So was Richmond. At least he would be soon. He'd been hit in the throat.

  When Jay got there the man tried to whisper something, but it was hard for him to make out. When he got it, he blinked, but then just stood up and went back in. He needed a key for the handcuffs and they needed to get help, for all of them. The Deputy spending his last words telling him to screw himself, if not that kindly, wasn't important enough to share.

  He let Daniels take care of most of that for him. Honestly, Jason just didn't know what else to do.

  Chapter thirteen

  The little double wide shack didn't have anything that useful. Not given what they needed at the moment. Some towels, which he used to try and stop the blood coming out of Carl. He was still alive, by some strange happenstance, but was so close to dead that it was probably a wasted effort. As soon as the FBI men got their mouths free, Daniels ran outside, yelling. He'd said that he'd call for help, and try to follow Mills.