by S E Anderson
“We found him like this in the woods,” Zander said dryly. “A tree limb fell on him. We got worried.”
The nurse nodded, and with the help of other institute employees, they managed to drag the man back into the main building. With our guard out of commission, we were brought inside too.
“Do we still get the extra jello?” asked Zander, but he didn’t get an answer. Instead, we found ourselves back in the rec room, locked inside for the rest of the day.
“Well, at least we lost our Agency plant for a little while,” said Blayde. “But why would Future Zander come back and break your translator? It just doesn’t add up.”
“It doesn’t sound like me.” Zander shrugged.
“And what about the blood?” I asked. “Something happened to my brain. I mean, the memories were gone. They’re barely here now.”
“What’s odd is that everyone else at the institute seems to have horrifying nightmares they can’t remember. Except if what you’re telling me is true, all of them are real.”
“We need to see what really happens. But how do we know who’s next?”
“Daisy-May?” I suggested.
“Seriously?”
“Jeffrey, remember?” I pointed out. “She seems extra jumpy. He sees her once a month. What if he’s legitimately going to come visit her?”
“He’s a figment of her imagination.” Blayde rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to come here!”
“They think we’re crazy and don’t believe you’re aliens. What if it’s the same problem with her?”
“So, you’re saying she’s an off-worlder?” Zander asked.
“With our luck?” I laughed. “Well, for all we know … sorry. Honestly, I highly doubt it. Anyway, if we’re telling the truth, she can be too.”
“So, you’re saying Jeffrey, her imaginary friend that makes her rob banks, is going to come and visit her in an institute for the criminally insane, and he’s done this before without anyone noticing?”
“It’s a work in progress,” I said.
Blayde clapped a hand down on my shoulder. Was I wrong or was this pride? “It’s worth checking out.”
“Okay then, it’s settled.” Zander grinned. “Sally and I will—”
“No.” Blayde shook her head. “Sally and I will go check it out. You, on the other hand, are going to sleep tonight.”
“Oh, come on.”
“What? It’s my turn to do something fun. Just be happy I’m talking to you again.”
He sighed heavily as worry knotted in my gut.
“Don’t worry, though.” Blayde grinned from ear to ear. “Because I have a plan.”
CHAPTER NINE
A series of unfortunate attacks
“Seriously?” I hissed. “This is your plan?”
“If the brilliance of it evades you, I can understand.”
“She is literally a foot above our heads.”
“So you’d better keep that yapper of yours closed then, hmm?”
Arguing with Blayde seemed like a Sisyphean task, one I was doomed to repeat throughout eternity without ever making any progress. She paid no attention to me, her eyes staring into the darkness of the room, like I should probably have been doing. On the bed above us, Daisy-May shifted slightly, the slats making an irritating squeak.
So far, no dice. Since lights out, we had been waiting for something, anything, but Jeffrey had not come to her room yet, thus we had to stay and keep an eye on things.
Not very pleasant, all in all.
And on the subject of unpleasantness, Blayde had completely stopped speaking to me. Which was fine because I didn’t want to say anything to her either. The only reason she had wanted this mission was to get at her brother oh so slightly, and this must have been the least creative way she could have accomplished that. It was definitely the most boring one.
We had been getting so close before the arrest. I had been starting to think of her as one of my closest friends, like the sister I never had. But something was changing, and I didn’t know what it was or what to do about it.
Every instant between the second hand’s reliable tick seemed like hours, my time gliding away like swans on a lake. Evil swans gliding gracefully over their pond, ready to bite you if you got too close.
Stupid swans. No better than peacocks, with their beady, little eyes of evil.
Oh great. Mind stuck on evil birds. How original.
“I don’t think it’s going to show,” I muttered. “I think Daisy-May’s sleeping. She doesn’t seem to be waiting for him.”
“Oh, she’s definitely sleeping,” Blayde snapped. “I’ve been setting my breathing to the rhythm of her snores. Something you should better learn to do in case you’re in a stakeout situation like this again.”
“This isn’t a stakeout. More like … monster watch.”
“Still haven’t eliminated the evil Future Zander theory yet.”
“Girls,” came a whisper in the dark, low enough to send a shiver up my spine. Hella creepy vibes.
I glanced in her direction. “What do we do?”
Daisy-May’s increasingly loud snoring was the perfect cover. Blayde slid out from under the bed, ushering for me to follow. I pulled myself up, getting to my feet with much less grace than she had. Despite my still improving vision, I couldn’t see the man in the dark.
“Jeffrey? Is that you?” Blayde hissed.
Zander’s face appeared in the darkness, cold and strangely drenched in sweat. Relief and fear folded over me as one.
“Ah, speak of the devil,” said Blayde. “What did I tell you? Future Zander is the one going around terrorizing patients.”
“Present Zander, if you please,” he said. “Come with me.”
He disappeared, probably jumping to the hall since there was nowhere else he could go. I traded pointed stares with Blayde.
“Do you think it’s him?” I asked. After what I remembered from last night, I wasn’t sure if I could trust my senses.
“Whether it is or isn’t, it’ll tell us something.” She pointed at the sleeping girl. “Aren’t they so peaceful when they sleep?”
I glanced at Daisy-May’s face, her hair wild and disheveled, her nose turned up in her sleep. She snorted slightly.
“Cutest thing ever?” I replied sarcastically. “Wait, what do you mean “they?”
“Earthlings,” Blayde smiled, her words both an encouragement and a reproach.
“Are you trying to get a rise out of me?”
“Just testing out the waters of this new you. Snark suits you.”
I sighed heavily, making my way to the door and jumping out into the light of the hallway where Zander waited, his body flush with the wall, a look of confusion on his pale face.
“What?” his sister asked, aggravated. “What could possibly bring you to take us off mission? Jeffrey could be in there right now. If we don’t—”
“I seriously doubt Jeffrey’s anywhere right now.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because there’s a clown in my room.”
“A what now?” I stammered.
“A clown. In my room.”
Blayde couldn’t answer. She was too busy keeping herself from laughing out loud. She bit down on her own finger hard enough to break the skin, snickering from her nose.
Zander glared at her. “I’m not joking. It’s an actual clown.”
“Is there any other kind?” she sputtered through her bloody lips.
“I mean, red nose”—he mimed, poking his own—“big shoes, animal balloon. Over-the-top makeup. Crazy, synthetic hair. Just … standing in my room.”
“Is he still there?” I asked.
“How should I know? I’m here, not over there!”
“Idiot!” Blayde swore under her breath. “We could be missing what’s happening in her room right now, all because you think there’s a clown in your room?”
“It was making me uncomfortable. I had a right to leave.”
She
sighed heavily. “Fine. Sally, go check it out. I’ll stay here and do some actual investigative work. You see? I don’t mind you sharing the air on your own time.”
The place where Blayde had been standing now held nothing but air, the image of her fading from my retinas. Her stunned brother shrugged, staring at the spot where she had disappeared.
“My dear little sister,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “Always so caring.”
“But seriously?” I asked. “A clown?”
“Come and see for yourself,” he offered, extending a hand.
My fingers wrapped around his, the warm skin a comfort as the cold of trans-dimensional travel surrounded me, locations flashing before my eyes so quickly I could barely make them out. I held on to the reassuring hand, the calm exerted keeping me from spiraling off into space.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Zander was anxious; I could feel it, though how, I could not tell. But his nerves were high, as if a simple stakeout was more than just a simple stakeout, as if it were much, much more. He said not a word, not like you could say anything in the in-between place when you were neither here nor there. His silence was heavy, like a weight pulling us both down.
Odd. I thought clowns were meant to make you feel happy.
We stopped jumping in the hallway in front of his room, and I unwillingly let go of his hand. He put a finger to his lips, pointing to the slit in his door. I snapped my mouth closed.
Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle; there was most definitely a clown in his room.
Zander had been right. It was as much of a clown as a clown could be. The face was painted a pale white, a massive red smile plastered childishly over his mouth and eyes, the color slightly too bloody for my taste. His hair was a deep shade of purple, poking from a bright yellow hat and falling shaggily down to his shoulders. A huge pink flower protruded from the outlandish hat, a cheesy, blank smiley face painted on a white heart.
His clothes were classic. His legs were covered in a colorful argyle, oversized pants. He wore a ruffled shirt, each fold alternating in color; hues of blues and reds ran like a torrent from the comedian’s neck, like liquid running across his breast. Another flower adorned the disaster, this one bright green and wearing sunglasses. The shoes, the same shade of green as the flowers, were twice as long as any clown’s should be in any possible rational thinking, though I was certain that the shoe on the left was slightly shorter than its partner.
It could have been hilarious, but it was just … staring.
“What should we do?” I asked. We were just standing in a corner watching it, not that that was very helpful.
“You?” He thought for a split second. “Go back to Blayde and tell her I wasn’t lying. I’ll deal with the clown.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with that thing.”
“It’s just a person!” he hissed. “With a balloon!”
“Then why aren’t we more worried about it?”
“A clown who just appeared in my room? I don’t have a thing against clowns in general, but a man dressed in a clown suit holding a balloon in the middle of the night, not needing any doors—”
“Creepy?”
“Peculiar.”
“Fine, be that way, Mr. I’m-scared-of-nothing. Just say hi to the clown. Admit it, it’s kind of freaking you out.”
“Merely intriguing me.”
“As if.”
He rolled his eyes. “Stay back, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Remember what we talked about before all this? About me being fine with risks?” I said, giving his hand a tight squeeze. “I can’t get hurt.”
“I think last night proved quite the opposite.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I had to admit, he was right about that.
“I’ll be back in a sec.” He popped a quick kiss on my forehead and disappeared. I checked the hallway—it was still clear—and stared so I could have a direct view of Zander through the slot.
“Hi, there!” he said with conviction and enthusiasm. “Nice to meet you. I’m Zander, and your name is …?”
“Clyde.”
“Hi, Clyde the clown. So nice to have you in my room in the middle of the night. Can I tell you something?”
“Anything!” the clown said cheerfully, grinning wide. The smile literally reached ear to ear, like a slash in the face. “Would you like a little balloon animal? Do you like poodles?”
“The thing is, Clyde, I don’t remember inviting you in. Odd, isn’t it? And I’m certain you’re a kind man, so I hope you don’t mind me asking what exactly you are doing here.”
“Finishing some business.” Clyde snickered, pulling the balloon down to his level and popping it to reveal a long knife impossibly concealed within.
“Okay, wow. That was a quick turn in the conversation!” Zander took a step back. “Way to get to the point, Clyde.”
“Let’s put a smile on your face!” The clown waved the knife in front of his face, liking his lips.
“Seriously? You’re going to kill me with Joker quotes?”
The walking fashion disaster froze. “What, you think you’re funny, funny boy?”
“I thought you were supposed to be the funny one. Seriously, what’s with the clown getup?”
The clown took a lunge at Zander, who lightly stepped to the side, like a matador, grabbing the outstretched knife arm and twisting it back, forcing the clown to his knees. The weapon dropped from his grasp and fell to the floor before them, where it melted into sand and slid across the floor as if the creepy clown was also a creepy clown magnet.
“Well, that’s new,” Zander muttered. “So, I take it you’re not an Agency assassin here to kill me, are you?”
The clown hissed, a row of huge, sharp teeth protruding from the front of his mouth. I was certain they hadn’t been there before. More horrific, monstrous smiles formed on the fronts of the pink and green flowers.
“Oh, you’re not human, either? Or even a clown. I mean, not very funny, are you? Not a good career choice for you, if you ask me. You’re insulting a centuries-old profession.”
The clown creature hissed once, staring into Zander’s unflinching eyes. It snarled and snapped its teeth like some kind of wild animal.
“So, what are you doing here?” Zander asked, still calm. The monster remained silent. “You’re not here to kill me; you would have been much, much more creative. Maybe you would have had a knife in my side at this point. No, you’re not trying to kill me, so why the clown act? The teeth? The knife?”
The creature snarled loudly, the row of needle-like teeth glistening in the pale moonlight that fell into the room. Slowly, it started to melt—or crumble, more accurately. It fell apart, like it were made of pixels or millions of grains of sand dissolving into a large puddle of dust. The blob rapidly scurried away.
Zander leaped at the mass, attempting a perfectly executed rugby tackle. It led nowhere as Zander fell through the mass of sand grains, the blob simply climbing over him on its way up the wall and through the corner vent. I jumped into his room. Too late. There was nothing I could do to help, and any evidence of the clown’s presence was gone, dust in the wind. In a very literal sense, just sand up a vent.
“Please tell me you saw that,” Zander pleaded, pointing at the metal grate in the ceiling. So, a freakish clown threatened my boyfriend with a knife. And teeth.
“Every second,” I replied.
“What in the star system is happening here?”
I shrugged. “Well, one thing’s for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“Future You isn’t trying to kill us.”
And I thought a psychiatric hospital would be calm. Instead, it seemed much more confusing than anything else, and I hadn’t even been here a week yet.
We jumped back to Daisy-May’s room, the night still young. Blayde was as we left her under the bed, and we scooted in after her, the three of us barely fitting in the tiny space.
&n
bsp; “So? No clown?”
“There was, in fact, a clown.” I gave her a summary. She nodded the whole time, grunting only at the end to change it up a bit.
“So, Future Zander is trying to send melting clowns here? What’s the point?”
“I don’t think it’s Future Zander, but the point still stands that we don’t know any of the actual mastermind’s motives.”
“Well, obviously killing isn’t the point.” Amazingly, Blayde continued to scowl at her brother as she spoke to me. Impressive in the small confines under the bed. The scowl was the only part of her I could see, her white teeth glistening in the pale moonlight.
“Already gathered as much.”
“And it wasn’t just to break your translator.”
“Got that as well. Blayde, I can keep up, you know. You don’t have to walk me through everything.”
“She’s just thinking aloud,” said Zander. “Just go with it. She’s cranky. And are we even sure it is Future Me? I mean … why would I try and attack Daisy-May? It seems like “Jeffrey” has been visiting her for months. And why the hell would I send myself a clown?”
His sister’s expression of anger melted into that of confusion. “You may be onto something, here.”
“Hang on,” I interjected. “How can we be sure Jeffrey himself isn’t just a figment of her imagination? Blayde has been here the whole night so far, and nothing showed up.”
“Wrong night?” Blayde shrugged.
Something moved in the dark depths of the room, making me jump to attention. It was impossible to see what it was, the darkness of the room as black as ink and twice as thick.
“Blayde,” I hissed.
“I know! What are the odds?”
“Did you even expect him to show up?”
She snorted. “No way.”
“Honey, I’m home!” the voice rang out, crystal clear in the silence of the room. Zander reached a protective arm in front of me, pressing us all further under the bed.
Instantly, the light on the bedside table switched on, bathing the room in a cold, white glow. In the middle of it, a smartly dressed businessman in a suit and tie stood tall, a briefcase in hand. His jacket lay folded over his right arm, his blue shirt in sharp contrast with his black silk tie, the letters “JG” emblazoned on his shirt pocket. He grinned from ear to ear.