by Tim McBain
“Phillip, priorities! We are in the middle of fleeing from a band of evil, flesh-eating clowns. It's not the time to be concerned with the architectural integrity of the building.” She glanced back outside. “Come on, I think we lost them for now, but I'm not leaving this house unarmed.”
They moved deeper into the house. She was pleasantly surprised to note that there were lights on. Someone must have had the electricity turned back on. As they crossed the dining room, Phillip stopped suddenly.
“Do you smell that?”
He sniffed at the air and then whispered, “I think something terrible happened here.”
“What?” Chloe said, shaking her head. “No, it always smells like that.”
Chloe rifled through the drawers in the kitchen, hoping for knives and finding only a few sets of crusty, used plasticware and some spoons. She slammed a cabinet shut. Useless junkies.
“Who did you say lived here again?”
“My friend.”
“Is your friend...?”
“It's called squatter's rights, Turdholder. This is all perfectly legal.” The counter tops were littered with old takeout containers, empty bottles and cans, and a single ceramic coffee mug that someone had been using as an ashtray. Chloe lifted an empty beer bottle in each fist and handed one to Phillip.
“What is this for?”
“Clowns,” she answered.
His eyes bounced from her to the bottle, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to touch anything that originated from this kitchen. She didn't blame him, to be honest.
“Look, it's the closest thing we have to a weapon at the moment,” Chloe said. “If you wanna go back out there empty-handed, be my guest. But I'm not.”
She held the bottle by the neck and gave it a test swing.
He raised an eyebrow but took the bottle offered to him.
“It's dual use, at least. If you get a chance, bash one of those freaks over the head with it first, then use the broken end to jab them in the eye.”
Her fingernails clinked against the glass of the bottle, and an idea came to her. He was called Rick Dagger after all. Maybe he had a knife or two or three stashed somewhere in his room. She hurried up the stairs with Phillip on her heels.
She lifted the thin mattress in Rick's room with the toe of her boot and kicked it away, hoping to find some kind of weapons stashed underneath. Instead she found a few porno mags and a smashed cigarette butt. Of course.
They went from room to room after that, searching for anything they could use to defend themselves.
“It's weird.”
“What?”
“There are usually a bunch of people just camped out in here.”
“In various states of inebriation, I assume.”
She laughed. Maybe Turdholder was smarter than she gave him credit for.
In one of the bedrooms, next to a heap of dirty clothes and blankets, Chloe found a hammer. Not exactly a chainsaw or an Uzi, but it would do.
There was a loud thud from somewhere below, and they both froze, exchanging wide-eyed stares.
“What the fudge was that?” Phillip breathed, and Chloe put a finger to her lips.
They crept to the stairway and tried to peek over the banister to discover the source of the noise, but they saw nothing but empty hallway from their position.
Since Chloe had the hammer, she took point.
Her toe came down on the step first, then lowering the rest of the foot. One stair at a time.
A tickle formed in the back of her throat, and she tried to swallow to dislodge it. Her mouth was dry, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth as if adhered there with some kind of glue.
Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs. She could see through the dining room and into the kitchen from here, and they remained empty and motionless. There was only one room in the house they hadn't been in.
Moving a little faster now that they were on flat ground, Chloe skulked toward the living room.
With each breath her ribcage trembled.
As they moved closer, they heard more noises. Little scrapes and scuttles and pitter-patters. And over that, more consistent, a series of wet, sticky sounds. It made her picture a dog with a mouth full of peanut butter.
At the archway leading to the living room, Chloe paused, adjusting her grip on the hammer.
Flattening herself against the wall, she peered around the door frame and into the living room.
The clown had a single stripe of hair down the center of its otherwise shaved scalp. A clownhawk. The sleeves of its vivid clown attire were ragged and stained with blood.
It was bent over the recliner, feasting on the innards of... shit, it had to be Malcolm. The corpse's head was turned away from them, but it had to be him.
The clown was still unaware of their presence, wholly fixated on the gory buffet of entrails before it. Chloe knew she should take the opportunity to strike, that this was her chance to attack with some semblance of an advantage. But something about the clown troubled her. Its physique was somehow familiar. It was hunched over, and the clown suit bagged around its torso, but she could tell even so that it was tall and thin. And some element of the arms, the indentation where the deltoid met the bicep – and then she saw it. The tattoo. A skull with a tophat smoking a joint.
“Rick?” she said, without thinking.
The clown turned and snarled at them, and then it was on its feet, charging toward her with teeth bared.
The empty beer bottle rocketed out of Phillip's hand, a perfectly thrown arc that caught it square in the face. The bottle connected with the clown's skull with an oddly musical clunk before bouncing off, unbroken. It finally shattered when it hit the floor, but it had done nothing to slow the clown's progress, which lurched toward them unfazed.
Chapter Sixteen
October 30th
8:05 PM
With an underhand swing like a softball pitch, Chloe brought the hammer up, catching Rick under the jaw with the sharp claw-end. The metal caught on the mandible, and Chloe ripped the hammer free again, taking a chunk of clown meat with it. Something oozed from the torn flesh, thicker and darker than blood.
His long, skinny arms flailed at her, fingers creeping over her body like something insectoid, catching in her hair and clothes. The frantic, fervent movements reminded her of the way he used to paw at her while they made out. One hand found her throat, spidery fingers encircling her fragile neck with ease. They started to squeeze, cutting off her air supply.
Phillip was shouting something and clinging to Rick's arm, trying to loosen the death grip on Chloe's neck. The scrawny frame belied Rick's strength, and despite both Chloe and Phillip struggling against him, he was pulling her closer. For a confused moment she thought he was trying to kiss her, but the drips of blood that ran down his chin and onto his chest were a reminder. He exposed his teeth in a sick grin, and though Chloe knew they were stained yellow from years of smoking, they stood out white against the red of the paint and blood smeared around his mouth.
Cranking her arm back behind her head, she propelled the hammer with all of her strength. The claw end grazed his cheek, cutting into the skin to reveal bone underneath. Rick's grasp tightened, and Chloe's vision blurred. Again she hurled the hammer, this time striking the temple. The crushing pressure on her larynx loosened, and Rick dropped to his knees.
When he let her go, she stumbled backward a few steps. But she wasn't finished. She got her balance back, and now she was the one advancing on him.
With both hands gripping the handle, she slammed the hammer into its forehead. There was a crunch as the ball end shattered the skull. As she pulled the hammer back to strike again, something warm spattered her face. This time there was a metallic click as it struck the cheekbone.
The battered clown toppled to the ground, and she crouched over him, bringing the hammer down on him over and over. The crunches turned to wet slaps as she turned his face to jelly.
She hefted the hammer, but a
hand caught her wrist. She grit her teeth and turned, still on the attack, thinking the rest of the clowns had finally caught up to them. But it was only Phillip.
“I think that's probably enough.”
Her chest heaved, lungs greedy for oxygen. She looked down at the dead clown. Blood and viscera pooled on the ratty carpet.
She supposed thrashing someone with a hammer was one way to end a relationship.
“So wait.” Phillip's voice shook with adrenaline. “Your friend was one of them?”
“I don't think that was him. I mean, it was, but-” Before she could elaborate, a voice rang out from the hallway. Chloe instinctively sprang to her feet and lifted the hammer.
“Holy shit! You killed Rick!”
The hammer in her hand drooped. Malcolm stood in the door frame, the grubby Hello Kitty blanket she remembered seeing in the clothes pile upstairs wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. Had he seriously slept through all of that?
“Malcolm, I know this is going to sound crazy, but that wasn't Rick. The city is being overrun by cannibal clowns.”
Chloe expected shock. Disbelief. Maybe even laughter if he thought it was some kind of joke. Instead, he just nodded seriously.
“Ah, I get it. That makes sense.”
Chloe and Phillip exchanged a look. Something nagged at Chloe.
“Hold on. If you're there,” Chloe pointed at Malcolm, “then who is that?”
She gestured with the hammer in the general direction of the disemboweled corpse on the recliner.
“Oh shit,” Malcolm said. “That's Tommy Dickface.”
Phillip blinked. “Sorry, Tommy...?”
Chloe waved the hammer in the air, flinging bits of gore and spatters of blood off the end of it as she did so.
“It's just a stage name.” She turned to Malcolm. “What band was he in?”
“He wasn't. He was just a total dickface.”
Phillip cleared his throat.
“I'm still confused, though. This clown,” he gestured at the mangled clown corpse on the floor, “was or was not your friend, Rick?”
Chloe blew a raspberry. “I don't know, man. That's definitely his horrible tattoo. No way were two people tasteless and/or drunk enough to get the same-”
A groan from the recliner interrupted her. All three heads whipped around.
“Aw, dude,” Malcolm said, “Tommy's still alive!”
Phillip's eyes locked onto Chloe. “We have to get him to a hospital.”
Stepping over the clown corpse on the floor, they shuffled around the recliner.
“You guys each take an arm,” Chloe said. “I'll get his feet.”
Phillip lifted one of Tommy's elbows. The hand flopped on the end of the wrist like a dead fish. He scooted closer, bending over the chair to get a better grip. The smell was horrible, a nauseating mixture of blood and poo. He was about to suggest they lay the guy on a blanket and drag him to the car when Tommy sat up. His mouth opened, and black vomit shot out from the back of his throat in a geyser. It hit Phillip in the face, coating him in thick goo that ran down from his cheeks to his chin and splattered onto his shirt below.
“Look at his face!” Chloe screamed, and despite the black tar partially obscuring his vision, Phillip could see the strange whiteness of his pallor. It was not the paleness of a cadaver, but the oily texture of greasepaint. Faintly visible around the lips was a big, over-the-top grin in red.
A choking sound gurgled from its mouth, and Phillip dodged away from the chair, concerned he’d be doused again. Instead, it laughed. A rasping, phlegmy cackle that started low and steadily rose in pitch and volume.
“He's one of them,” she said and swung the hammer. The face of the hammer connected with the skull with a sickening snap, a sound that reminded him of cracking eggs for an omelet. Almost immediately the laughing cut out and Tommy slumped back in the recliner, body gone still again. Phillip did not think he'd be having eggs of any kind for some time.
“OK, this makes no sense,” Chloe said, and Phillip detected a note of panic in her voice. “What the hell is going on here? Did he look like that when we first came in here? Was his hair sort of reddish like that?”
Phillip squinted at the body in the chair. She was right. The hair did have an oddly artificial red hue.
“It's Zombie Rules, man,” Malcolm said, as if this was some obvious thing they'd overlooked.
“Zombie Rules?” Phillip repeated and then spat black goo from his lips.
“You know, if you get bit, you turn into one of them. I bet Rick got attacked, and then the next thing you know, he's Bozo the Psycho. He takes a bite out of Tommy Dickface here and boom: now Tommy's one, too.”
Phillip was still trying to wipe the tar-like puke from his face. He closed his eyes and ran a hand down his face like a squeegee.
Chloe massaged at her bruised throat with her free hand. “That would explain why I saw one clown the other night, and by the next morning, Phillip saw five. And there were way more than five in the woods just now... holy crap. It's the fucking clown-pocalypse.”
“So what do we do now?” Phillip asked.
Chloe tore her gaze from the grisly scene in the La-Z-Boy and swung her eyes up to meet his. “We get guns.”
Phillip's lips parted, poised to tell her, but he said nothing. He’d been bitten in the scuffle in the woods, and he’d concealed it from her out of pride, he supposed, instinctively wanting to cover up his pain from her like a dog trying to disguise its limp. Finding out that the bite was a death sentence almost shocked him into telling her, but no. It was his weight to carry. Not hers. He’d see this out, eliminate the threat – himself included.
It was his civic duty.
Chapter Seventeen
October 30th
8:59 PM
At Chloe’s house, Phillip stood in front of the bathroom sink, the water roaring, spiraling out of the faucet and slapping against that little chrome circle above the drain. He cupped his hands under the stream, splashed a little cold water in his face, and looked at himself in the mirror for a long time.
Something about his reflection reminded him of a wet cat. He was in a state so unnatural to every fiber of his being that it seemed to make him physically smaller. More vulnerable. More pathetic than usual, which was a feat in a way, he thought. Something that hardly seemed possible before tonight.
The little wound just next to his neck throbbed. He didn’t think it actually hurt that much, that it must be some mental thing, knowing that the bite meant his end. It made him sensitive to it, made him conscious of it at all times.
The shirt concealed the marks, the wet place where the teeth had pierced his flesh. He peeled the collar back to look at it one last time. Not much to see, ultimately. Not even enough of a wound to make him bleed much. He brushed his fingers directly at the tiny slits in his skin, prodding at them until they stung for real and then sliding his collar back into place.
He was going to die tonight. It didn’t seem real, but it was.
His nostrils flared, and he smelled the potpourri that sat in a little ceramic bowl on the back of the toilet. The odor reminded him of peaches covering something foul.
He turned off the water, and the room felt very quiet, very lonesome. He hesitated for a moment in the bleak silence of the place, feeling the room progressively morph into something more and more eerie until it almost felt like this bathroom was a portal to somewhere else. Another world. Another dimension. He wished it was.
He thought of his mom, alone in her cell, and he was almost sadder for her than he was for himself. This bite was his death sentence, yes, but he wouldn’t suffer long. She was doing life without parole in her tiny bedroom in their crappy apartment. Losing him would hurt her badly.
But he pushed the thought aside before the tears could fill his eyes. He had to. There was nothing to be done about it. He had more immediate concerns.
The door swung open, and he stepped into the hall, moving clear of that heavines
s that mercifully seemed to hang back in the bathroom. He took a deep breath and joined the others.
“Why the glum look?” Chloe said as he walked into the kitchen. “You know you never really thanked me for saving your life back there, either. That little clown had you until I roundhouse kicked it in the throat.”
She wiggled her eyebrows, some inside-joke type gesture that Phillip didn’t understand.
“Yeah, thank you for that. Sorry,” he said.
Malcolm sat at the snack bar, two handguns and a pump-action shotgun on the counter before him along with a bowl of cereal. He shoveled a spoonful of Lucky Charms into his mouth, talking as he chewed.
“Lot of firepower here,” he said.
“My dad seems to buy a gun a year, which is about as often as he goes out to the range to fire them,” Chloe said.
“You guys think about calling the cops about all of this before you go in there guns blazing?” Malcolm said.
“I tried calling them,” Phillip said. “They wouldn’t listen.”
“Same here. No one will believe us,” Chloe said. “Watch this.”
She cupped a hand to her mouth and yelled into the next room where the TV blared.
“Mom, we’re going to be out late. Bunch of evil clowns creeping in the woods around here, and we’ve got to stalk through the forest and kill them all one by one. Don't wait up.”
There was a pause.
“Very funny, Chloe,” the voice in the next room said in a deadpan.
Chloe swept her hand in front of her, a gesture like a magician’s assistant unveiling something on stage.
“See?” she said. “No one cares.”
The voice in the next room spoke up again, its tone grave:
“Wait. Oh my God.”
“What is it?” Chloe said, the smug look wiped from her face.
“The stupid DVR didn’t record Dr. Phil today. Piece of crap thing.”
No one in the kitchen spoke. Chloe and Phillip just looked at each other. Malcolm refilled his cereal bowl with magically delicious marshmallows.
Phillip lifted the shotgun, feeling its heft in his hands. It was a Mossberg Persuader, a pump-action shotgun with a pistol grip. He liked it.