by Jeff Strand
"Come on out!"
"I'm trying to see what's down there. I'm lowering a flashlight."
"No. The job is over."
"I'll be there in a few."
"I know you signed a waiver, but there are still liability issues involved here. There could be methane gas or something. Get the hell out of there."
"I can see the bottom now."
"What's down there?"
"Nothing. Looks like the cave keeps going, though."
"That's fascinating. Am I gonna have to drag you out of there by your collar?"
"I'm not wearing a collar."
"Shirt collar. Stop delaying."
"Something's moving down there."
"A dinosaur?"
"I can't tell what it is. Now there's something else. A bunch of them now."
"Animals?"
"Bugs, I think. They're starting to climb up the side of the cave, so, yeah, it's definitely bugs."
"Get out of there, Maxwell."
"I think I'm stuck."
"You think you're stuck? Either you're stuck or you're not."
"I'm definitely stuck. Oh my God, I'm stuck! I'm stuck! They're getting closer!"
Timothy hurried up the pile of rubble.
"It's spiders!" Maxwell screamed. "Huge spiders! Get me out of here! Get me out of here!"
Timothy paused. He liked to think of himself as a brave guy. He'd served his country, and once while extremely drunk he'd waded into a pond so that he could wrestle an alligator. That said, he had more than a touch of arachnophobia, and somebody shrieking that huge spiders were crawling up a cave wall toward them was kind of a deterrent toward remaining in this particular area.
No. He couldn't let Maxwell get swarmed by spiders. It was too extreme of a punishment for being a dumbass. He hurried the rest of the way up to the cave entrance.
"They're almost here!" Maxwell wailed.
Timothy stepped into the cave, where Maxwell was frantically trying to pull himself out of the gap in the rock. Timothy grabbed Maxwell's feet, then decided that giving him a great big tug might snap his neck, so instead he grabbed the bottom of Maxwell's shirt and tugged.
Maxwell did not pop free.
"Help me! Help me! Help me! They're—"
Maxwell's words became muffled. His body began to thrash around, and Timothy lost his grip on his shirt. He grabbed the waistline of Maxwell's pants and pulled as hard as he could.
That worked. The rest of Maxwell slid into view, with spiders crawling on his arms and shoulders. And on the back of his neck. And in his hair.
Maxwell rolled over onto his back, crushing some of them. Spiders crawled all over his chest. The reason his scream was muffled was the four thick squirming spider legs that protruded from his mouth.
These spiders were huge. Timothy didn't know his varieties of spiders very well—these had brown bodies and they weren't tarantulas or black widows, the two he could identify. Right now it wasn't important what kind they were. They were gigantic spiders and nothing else mattered.
Timothy knew he should flee, but no matter how frightened he was, he couldn't let the poor guy die like this. He had to get the spiders off of him, immediately. Timothy slammed his foot down on a couple of them that were crawling next to him. They crunched underneath his shoe.
The spider's legs completely disappeared inside of Maxwell's mouth, cutting off his scream completely. That spider must've been smaller than the others, though Timothy now noticed that the sides of Maxwell's mouth were split open, so crawling inside hadn't been an effortless process.
His face was already grotesquely swollen. White fluid leaked from several spots.
Timothy, in a complete panic, continued to stomp on the spiders, as hard as he could. They needed to die. All of them.
The part of his mind that was still thinking rationally—a very small part at the moment—suggested that he was doing more harm than good as he squashed the spiders that were on Maxwell. The rest of his mind didn't give a shit. These things were unnatural. Unholy. Spiders simply did not get this big.
Their bodies crunched, and the tiny rational part of Timothy's mind tried to convince him that the other sounds might be Maxwell's bones cracking. Timothy continued to stomp as spiders scurried up his legs. He should have fled. He should flee now. He couldn't stop himself from stomping on the spiders, even as more and more of them continued to crawl out of the gap, more than he could crush by himself.
He was definitely breaking Maxwell's ribs. He needed to stop.
After stomping on his throat, he stopped.
Timothy suddenly realized the horror of what he'd done. He only had a second to process that he'd just murdered somebody, and then he cried out in pain as one of the spiders that had crawled inside of his pants leg sunk its fangs into his flesh.
Maxwell was dead. It was time to run.
Timothy made it three steps.
He tumbled down the pile of rubble, bashing his head so hard against the ground that he faded in and out of consciousness during the last few minutes of his life, which was the greatest gift he could have ever received.
CHAPTER FOUR
Opening night.
The clowns were allowed to do their own makeup, as long as Depravo deemed it to be freaky enough. Jaunty was still a hobo clown, but he now had fangs (which were annoying), red contact lenses (which were uncomfortable), and blood trickling down the sides of his mouth (which had no impact on his comfort, since he was used to wearing makeup).
Wagon was no longer a sad clown. In fact, he had a huge, terrifying grin that showed how much it amused him to murder people. Even when Wagon's actual mouth frowned, which was most of the time, he was grinning. With practice, he had eventually come up with a maniacal laugh that Depravo deemed to be of sufficient pants-shitting quality. He wore a red fright wig and had claws instead of hands, which he would use to pop balloons as people walked through the room.
Bluehead went with a scary baby-doll clown look. She was remarkably skilled at keeping her expression frozen in place, and she moved around like a marionette. Her giggle had a mechanical quality to it, and she made it skip like her voice box was broken. She was way too good at this. Jaunty didn't like to be around her anymore.
Reginald had suggested that he could wear some chains and be a scary slave clown. Depravo had responded that this was probably not the best approach to take. Reginald continued to throw out ideas, including a scenario where the other clowns whipped him, that made all of the Caucasians extremely uncomfortable. Depravo had finally said that perhaps Reginald should keep his existing look, and maybe just stare at people or something. Reginald would later admit that his plan had worked perfectly.
Guffaw went for a zombie clown look, with white cheeks over grey rotted makeup. His clown suit was filthy and in tatters, as if he'd been buried in it and dug his way out of the grave. Patches of hair were missing from his green wig. He'd perfected his shambling undead walk and seemed to be having fun with it.
Depravo was a demonic clown, dressed in red and orange with clown makeup over skull makeup. He did a lot of lewd waggling of his tongue. It was supposed to be an artificially long prosthetic tongue, but it kept falling out, so he used his real tongue, which Jaunty felt was sufficiently long on its own. He flashed heavy metal signs and had a booming, satanic laugh.
The décor motif for the Scary Clown Room was "carnival in Hell." The backstory, presumably, was that if you were a bad person during your time on earth, you would go to Hell, where the carnival workers weren't all that interested in providing quality entertainment. There was a cotton candy stand, but the cotton candy was served on top of severed heads, like hair. (An animatronic clown held one of these treats.) A shooting gallery had humans, also animatronic, as targets. Creepy carnival music played in the background.
The live clowns each had their own area of the room, with at least one thing to hide behind so they could spring out at unsuspecting patrons. They each had their own set of props to juggle. Jau
nty juggled plastic butcher knives, Bluehead juggled baby doll heads, Reginald juggled regular apples because his other suggestions were too racially insensitive, and so on, except for Depravo, who didn't know how to juggle. They had an area where they could do cartwheels without kicking a customer in the face, or whatever clown tricks occurred to them, as long as they stayed within the boundaries.
"Don't touch anybody," said Depravo. "Ever."
"We would never consider doing that," Guffaw told him.
"I don't just mean reaching out and groping some chick's boobs. That goes without saying, even in the dark. I mean that if somebody freaks out and punches you in the face, you don't get to punch them back."
"Somebody's going to punch us in the face?" Bluehead asked.
"I don't mean that they're going to pin you down to the floor and start whaling on you. People get scared and sometimes they lash out without thinking about it. You probably won't actually get punched but you might get slapped. There'll be medics around. Just don't seek retribution is all I'm saying."
"Maybe if we treat them with kindness they won't try to harm us," said Reginald.
"Getting slapped is no big deal," said Depravo. "Your makeup cushions it a little, and your clown noses will help protect you. If you want, we can do an exercise where we all slap each other until we lose our fear of it."
"No, thank you," said Wagon.
Depravo shrugged. "The offer stands. All I'm saying is that if you have rage issues, keep them under control while the attraction is open."
"If somebody slaps us, can we snarl at them?" asked Bluehead.
"Yes," said Depravo. "You certainly can. You can snarl at them even if they don't slap you. You can snarl at anybody at any time for any reason."
"Thanks," said Bluehead. "I probably won't but it's good to have the option."
"Scaring small children is totally fair game, but if they start to cry, stand down. I know you're all like 'We're merry clowns who bring delight to youngsters' but scaring people can be as addictive as snorting a line of coke. You want more and more of it. You start seeking greater and greater highs. Then suddenly you're waving a fake serpent at a little girl who's crying and hugging her mother's leg and you don't know when you lost your way. It's okay to make them cry, but once they've started, you're done."
"Can we reassure them that everything will be all right?" Reginald asked.
"No. Any further questions?"
All of the clowns shook their heads.
"Good. People have been waiting in line for a couple of hours already, and we don't open for another half hour, so make sure you put on a good show and give them their money's worth."
* * *
Jaunty needed to work off some nervous energy, so he walked through the Mountain of Terror, exchanging brief pleasantries with all of the new friends he'd made along the way. He'd been surprised by how nice the other actors in the haunted house were. Not a devil worshipper among them, as far as he could tell. Just a large group of heavily tattooed and pierced kids working hard and having fun. (He hated that he thought of them as "kids," but compared to the middle-aged clowns, most of them were indeed kids.)
Walking at a brisk pace it took about fifteen minutes to get through the entire attraction. When the actual customers went through, their fright would last about thirty or forty minutes. It was significantly better than the haunted house at the state fair when he was a kid, where you'd get in the car, ride in the dark past a couple of skeletons that didn't move, and then emerge four ride tickets poorer. The detail in the Mountain of Terror sets was amazing—it was kind of a shame that the lighting would be so low.
There was a Cannibal Redneck Room, where an overweight inbred family would munch on what looked like smoked turkey legs, but which the audience knew came from no turkey. There was a Mirror Maze where you'd get lost, though not lost enough to stop the line from moving because they had a lot of people to move through the attraction. There was a Mad Scientist Room where a presumably unlicensed lab technician played God, with unfortunate results.
There was a graveyard where the tombstones all had amusing epitaphs ("Here Lies Part Of Jody Kramer; Not A Real Good Lion Tamer") though many of them were rejected by management for poor taste. Jaunty had overheard the conversation where the tombstone crew was informed that leukemia jokes were not funny, no matter how clever the rhyming scheme.
The Hallway of Statues had a dozen real statues and three actors pretending to be statues. A couple of the statues were mounted on springs so that they would wobble slightly, giving the impression that they were actors with nefarious intentions. The actors weren't in place yet, but Jaunty still found walking down the hallway to be a nerve-wracking experience.
There was a Ventriloquist Dummy Room where all of the eyes followed you. Jaunty did not believe in the supernatural but one of the dummies in particular seemed to be possessed. He knew it wasn't. That would be silly. Possessed ventriloquist dummies did not exist. That said, if it ever leapt out and tried to stab him to death, Jaunty's reaction would be less "Oh my God, how can such a thing exist?" and more "Yep, called it."
One room was filled with sewer rats, most of them fake. (The real ones were caged and treated well.) There was a Slasher Room where "not close enough to constitute copyright infringement" versions of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and the killer from Scream, which was itself a "not close enough to constitute copyright infringement" costume, lurked. There was an insincere pumpkin patch.
There was a room filled with melting mutants chasing people in decontamination suits around barrels of hazardous waste. There was an empty room where absolutely nothing happened, but since the customers didn't know nothing would happen, it would make them very nervous. There was a Vampire Room with hissing galore. There was a Butcher Shop that was extraordinarily gross. There was the Giant Hand And Head Room, where a giant animatronic hand would reach for customers, as if planning to deposit them into the mouth of the Giant Head.
Plus several more rooms, and a gift shop at the end.
Jaunty returned to the Scary Clown Room, then went through the hidden door that led to an employees-only hallway. A small table with their makeup supplies was pressed against the wall, where Bluehead and Wagon were sharing a mirror as they applied their last-minute touches. It wasn't a fancy setup, but it was convenient, so the clowns could sneak out for a moment if they were perspiring too much.
Bluehead glanced back at Jaunty. "How do I look?"
"Nightmarish. Haunting. Chilling."
"If I were a real doll, would you set me on your bedstand and let me stare at you all night while you slept?"
"Nope."
"Perfect, thanks!"
Jaunty glanced in the mirror. His makeup looked fine. "I've decided that I'm just going to have fun with this," he said. "It's not the clowning I want to be doing, but it's better than not clowning at all. If we had a Head Clown, I think he or she would understand."
"You're rationalizing," said Wagon.
"Oh, yeah. I'm rationalizing my rear end off. What else are we supposed to do? Sit around in a cloud of self-loathing? At least we're still entertainers—we're not dragging people behind Dumpsters and robbing them."
"Yes, that's what the Head Clown would say: At least you're not robbing people behind Dumpsters."
"You know what I mean."
Wagon nodded. "I do. It'll be fine."
The door opened and Depravo peeked his head into the hallway. "They've started letting people in! It's almost time to get spoooooooky!"
The Scary Clown Room was near the end of the Mountain of Terror journey, so they had a while to wait before their first victims passed through. But Jaunty's stomach still clenched up. And yet he couldn't deny the sense of anticipation. They'd put quite a bit of work into this, and now their efforts were going to pay off.
Twenty-eight minutes later, Depravo gave the clowns their five-minute warning. "Places, everyone!" he said. "Harness your inner psychopaths! Let's do this!
"
Jaunty, Guffaw, Bluehead, Reginald, Wagon, and Depravo got into their respective spots. Guffaw, Bluehead, Reginald, and Depravo would be visible as people walked through the room, while Jaunty's job was to stay hidden until a whole group walked past, and then leap out at the straggler. Wagon's job was to leap out at the person at the head of the group. Sometimes they were to mix it up and leap out at somebody in the middle. Nobody was safe.
A few minutes later, a line of teenagers walked into the room. They all had big smiles on their faces. They moved tentatively forward, going "Eeww" at the severed head with cotton candy on top and watching Reginald juggle. The girl in front screamed as Wagon popped out from behind a stack of wooden crates. Everybody laughed.
They were having a good time!
The clowns were making people happy!
Jaunty leapt out at the guy in the back. He didn't scream, but he did pick up his pace.
More and more people walked through. Couples holding hands. Parents with their kids. Large groups of friends. Not everybody was having a good time; some teenagers were trying to convey an air of being bored by the sheer lameness of the whole spectacle, but the people who were really scared still seemed to be enjoying themselves, even the woman whose face was pressed tightly against the back of the man in front of her so that she wouldn't have to see any of the horrors that surrounded her.
Jaunty kept glancing over at Guffaw, Bluehead, Reginald, and Wagon. It was hard to gauge their current emotional state while they were looking like nightmare creatures, but none of them seemed miserable. It was entirely possible that they'd look back upon this experience with some degree of fondness, instead of trying to purge it from their memories.
A young woman, about eighteen years old, walked past Jaunty and he leapt out with a non-clownish roar. She cried out in surprise. As her boyfriend laughed, she playfully slapped him on the shoulder. "Gaaah! I hate clowns!"
Jaunty lowered his eyes and ducked back down into his hiding spot.
She hated clowns.
He wasn't here to change her mind, to make her see the delight that clowns could bring. He was here to exploit that fear, to make her hate clowns even more than she did when she stepped into the Mountain of Terror.