“But how?” I ask. We round another corner, and this time the chaos doesn’t follow us.
It’s almost like the clown is waiting for our next move.
“You saw the balloons,” Andres says. “And you were right—we need all five of us to defeat this. The clown has Deshaun and Kyle. We have to rescue them.”
“It was in Deshaun’s house,” I reply.
“Yes, but Deshaun wasn’t,” Andres says. He looks back at me. “Otherwise, the clown would have put him on display to scare us. Which means he’s somewhere else.”
“Underground?” Caroline asks.
Immediately, I think of the graveyard, and the crypt below the tombstone. I swear the temperature drops twenty degrees.
“No,” Andres says. “I don’t think so. That was before. The clown’s changed. It’s grown up. Think: What are the places that scare us most? Not like in our past, but present us?”
“I thought Deshaun’s would have been the graveyard,” I say. “But we didn’t find him there. As for Kyle …”
“Kyle was terrified of his home,” Andres answers for us. “He’s spent his whole life trying to get away from there. I bet that’s where the clown took him.”
We all go silent at the thought. The one place Kyle had been running from his entire life. It makes me hate the clown even more, to think it’s taken Deshaun and Kyle to the places they’re scared of most.
“But what about Deshaun?” I press. “Can either of you think where he might be kept?”
No one answers for a while. Caroline looks at me.
“Kyle’s place is right around the corner—maybe Deshaun is there too. We can start there, and if Deshaun’s not with him, we can head back to the graveyard to search.”
“It’s a start,” I say. I want to help Deshaun, but Kyle’s house is closer. And Andres was right when he was trying to reassure me earlier—Deshaun was the most prepared of all of us. I have to believe he’s still fighting. “Let’s go.”
We’re going too slow. Too freaking slow.
Whatever is happening to the town … it’s following us. Always too far to touch us, but close enough to see. Preventing us from turning around. Preventing us from pretending things might be okay if we gave up.
Horrors I can’t even name fill the streets at our backs. Horrors I don’t want to name. There are rats and ghosts, demons and clowns, skeletons and zombies. All of them chasing after innocent people. Turning the whole town into a terrible nightmare.
And, no doubt, making the clown stronger in the process.
My hands tremble so badly I have to shove them in my pockets to keep my fear from showing. Behind us is a raucousness of screaming and shouts, and I want nothing more than to cover my eyes and ears and drown it all out. But I don’t. I can only try to face forward, pretend that everything behind us is a distraction. I can only try not to be afraid, not to run away, because my fear will just feed the clown.
There’s nothing we can do to help them. All we can do is try to defeat the clown, and hope that’s enough.
Finally, finally, we make it to Kyle’s house.
I don’t know if it’s the clown’s doing, but the house seems even more nightmarish than I remember. It stretches up into the darkening sky, shadows seeping from the edges and out the black windows, as if every inch of the place is bruised. Stranger still, this part of the block is completely empty; no one runs screaming outside, even after we pass. No, the scariest thing is the house in front of us. But that is enough. Even without all the terrible memories attached to this place and the horrible things Kyle told me about his time here, the house itself looks like a nightmare incarnate.
“This feels so wrong,” April whispers.
I nod.
It doesn’t look like there’s anyone inside Kyle’s house. But I know he’s in there. He has to be.
“Come on,” I finally say.
The moment I step into his yard, I hear it.
Hissing.
I want to pretend it’s the wind in the trees, but I know it isn’t. It comes from the house. A low, menacing hiss that snakes its way through my senses, slithers around my spine. Calling me and repulsing me at the same time. I stare at the house, anger and fear building equally in my chest at what this place has done to Kyle. At what it’s doing to him.
Caroline and April step up beside me.
“Let’s do this,” I say.
The girls nod, and together we walk up the creaking front stairs, the sound of snakes growing louder with every step. I’m going to save you, I’m going to save you, I think on repeat, visualizing Kyle’s face. His smile. His hand in mine. I have to do this. I want to do this. Kyle may have been moody, he may have been distant, but I would fight for him no matter what.
And this time, I have Caroline and April at my side to help.
The door opens the moment we near. The hissing grows even louder.
Only shadows wait within.
The girls and I look at one another. I can tell neither of them wants to go in. I can’t blame them. I don’t want to either.
But Kyle is in there. I know it. I can feel it.
I take a step forward
into the house
and step on something most definitely
alive.
The snake I stepped on hisses and coils back.
I yelp out as the shadows shift and I realize the floor is covered by hundreds of snakes. Thousands of them. All shapes and sizes and species. Instantly, snakes curl around my ankles, wrap up my calves. Others drop from the rafters, draping around my shoulders and forcing me to the ground.
As the door slams shut on my friends, locking me inside the house, the snakes engulf me, smother me.
Light flickers.
Fades.
And in the heavy, suffocating darkness, the last thing I see is two burning blue eyes, and a wicked smile.
“Andres!” April screams, banging on the door. She grabs the handle, but it doesn’t budge.
I rush over to the window and pound on the glass. Inside, I can’t see anything but shifting shadows and serpentine shapes. No sign of Andres.
April starts kicking the door, and if the rest of the world wasn’t in chaos I’d fully expect some well-intentioned neighbor to call the cops. But the cops aren’t coming. No one is paying attention to anything but the horrors in their own yards.
I run down the porch steps and grab a brick from the flower beds. Then, before I can think twice, I throw it as hard as I can at the window—
—and have to duck out of the way as it bounces off. As if the window were made of rubber.
Worry burning in my chest, I grab the brick again and throw it harder this time. Only to have it bounce off once more.
April continues to yell and grapple the door at my side. But it isn’t working.
“Maybe around back,” I suggest. “Maybe there’s a door around back.”
She doesn’t hear me. Or if she does, she ignores it. She doesn’t move from the door, doesn’t stop screaming Andres’s name.
Never split up. Everyone knows that. But I also know that there’s no way we’re getting in through here, and with April screaming her head off, maybe the clown will be distracted. Maybe it will be focusing on keeping us out from here.
“I’ll be right back,” I say. She doesn’t respond. I run down the front porch and around the house. The world gets colder with every footstep.
As I near the backyard, I realize this was a terrible, terrible mistake.
Because with every step, the sound I mistook for wind chimes grows louder.
Becomes more musical.
I round the corner, and it’s not a backyard greeting me.
It’s the entrance to the carnival. Flashing red and yellow and white lights, striped pavilions and game tents, rotating rides. Tilting organ music sends shivers down my spine, the sound somehow entrancing and terrifying, all at once.
And arching over the dirt path is the sign, with the clown’s plastic head atop i
t, its eyes burning blue.
That’s the last thing I want to do.
I take a step backward.
This isn’t right.
This isn’t real.
I have to get April. We have to help Andres.
But when I turn to run back to April, I’m faced with a brick wall. I look around frantically. The wall surrounds me.
The only way out is forward. Through the archway. Into the carnival.
Into the clutches of the clown.
It feels like I pound on the door to Kyle’s house for hours. I yank on the handle and kick at the door and beat on the window until my already-scraped fists are bruised and aching, until my throat is burning from screaming.
Until it finally sinks in that no matter how much I fight, I’m not getting in.
The worst part is, I don’t know what happened to Andres. I didn’t see a thing. Just him standing there one moment, and then the next, he was gone, and the door slammed shut behind him. Exhausted and terrified, I turn around and slide down against the door, tears making the world waver.
I cry.
I can’t help it.
And it’s only after sobbing into my hands for a few minutes that I realize that—other than my own breathing—the world is silent. Deathly silent.
I sniff and wipe away the tears and look up.
I’m alone on the porch.
Vaguely, I remember Caroline saying she was going to check the back door. Why hasn’t she returned yet?
Even though I don’t think I have any more room inside me to feel more fear, a spike of panic hits me. I shove myself to standing and, on trembling legs, make my way around the side of the house.
I swear it gets colder with every step.
I swear even the leaves crunching beneath my feet are muted. I can’t hear a thing. Just the pounding of my heart in my ears.
I turn the corner of Kyle’s house and stare into the empty backyard.
Caroline is nowhere to be seen.
Just a few bleached lawn chairs and a locked shed that looks ready to fall over.
“Caroline!” I call out. I’m no longer self-conscious about the neighbors hearing. I know deep down that no one is coming. No one is going to rescue us. “Caroline, where are you?”
She doesn’t answer.
No one does.
I traipse up to the back door and try it. It doesn’t budge. And once more, when I slam my fist against the glass window, it feels like hitting concrete.
I’m so numb I don’t even feel the pain.
They’re gone.
All of them.
Deshaun and Kyle and Andres and Caroline.
Gone.
And I know deep down it’s all my fault.
Wind rustles through the alleyway. It sounds like laughter.
“Why are you doing this?” I yell out. “Why did you take them? Why didn’t you take me?”
The clown doesn’t respond. No one does.
“Are you scared?” I yell out. “Are you scared of me? Is that why you’re afraid to show your face?”
Silence.
My attempt at insulting the clown hasn’t worked.
It knows that it has me. Right where it wants me.
Without friends.
Without a clue.
Without any hope at all.
I walk back to my house and it feels like I’m walking through a dream.
I don’t know how long I stayed outside Kyle’s, leaning against the back door, hoping the clown would come out and try to scare me—because then I could slip into the house. Then I could try to rescue Kyle and Andres.
Then I’d know what I was dealing with.
But the clown never showed. Neither did anyone else. No matter how many times I screamed their names or walked around the house. I didn’t see a soul.
As I walk down the deserted streets to my home, I realize that Kyle’s house isn’t the only place that’s deserted. No one is outside anymore. The hundreds of kids and adults running and screaming are nowhere to be seen. The army of clown classmates has vanished.
In their place are streets of empty candy wrappers and haphazardly parked cars and silence.
I’m alone.
A numb sort of dread fills me as I walk to my front door. The handle turns easily under my shaking fingers, and the familiar scent of home wafts out.
Only, the air inside is cold. Cold as a refrigerator.
I step inside.
“Hello?” I call out. “Mom? Freddy?”
No answer.
No Freddy running around in his Halloween donut costume. No Mom chasing after him trying to pry stolen candy from his grasp. The lights are all off, and even though it’s still midday, the whole house feels unusually dark.
I flip on a switch.
The lights don’t turn on.
“Mom?” I call out, stepping deeper into the house. “Are you there?”
The front door slams shut behind me. I yelp and turn around, but there’s no one there.
I know it wasn’t just a draft.
I just wish I could see the monster following me.
“Freddy?” I call out. My voice wavers. No response.
I make my way into the living room. Everything is normal, from the throw pillows on the sofa to the stack of wooden blocks Freddy builds with in the corner. The dining room is also completely normal, as is the kitchen. I peer down into the basement, and when it’s clear they aren’t down there either, I quickly slam the door.
Once more, I’m hit with the image of them running around outside and screaming, fleeing from nightmares I can’t even imagine. Fears I can’t even see. Did they run out and not come back? If so, why is everything in here completely in order?
I know they aren’t up there, but I make my way upstairs.
Mom’s bedroom is empty, her bed made neatly.
Freddy’s room is a mess, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
It feels so absolutely silent. Like everyone in the world is gone.
And that, more than anything, is what makes me go to my room and flop down on my bed.
“I’m alone,” I whisper, staring up at the ceiling.
The moment I say it, I feel the weight of it, the truth. I am completely alone.
I’ve watched my friends get taken, one by one, and I’ve not been able to help them. I haven’t even been able to see the monsters they were running from. My mom and Freddy are both gone, taken before I ever had a chance to save them. Not that I could have saved them. If I couldn’t see the clown or the nightmares it produced, what good could I do? I was helpless.
I am useless.
I am alone.
I’m too worn-out to cry. All I can do is lie there and stare at the ceiling and relive the nightmare of the last few days. Blink, and I see Deshaun vanishing before my eyes in the graveyard. Blink, and I see Andres thrashing on the sofa and freaking out about spiders and quicksand. Blink, and I see Caroline, shaking as she admits facing her mother’s ghost.
Kyle, his expression stormy as he denies ever seeing a thing.
The clown came for each of us. It showed us what we feared the most.
So why has it left me alone? Why haven’t I seen anything?
Then it hits me.
My fear is of being helpless, of watching my friends being taken and not being able to do anything about it.
My fear is of being alone. Of losing my friends.
We’ve been slowly separating ever since last year, and I’ve watched it all with a terrible fear in my stomach. Knowing that one day, we wouldn’t talk to one another anymore. There wouldn’t be a fight. There wouldn’t be any real signal it was over. We’d just wake up one day and realize we hadn’t spoken in weeks or months. We’d go to different colleges. We’d grow apart.
And the only real memory we’d have of our time together would be fighting the clown, and eventually even that would feel unreal.
Defeat claws at my insides.
The clown has sped up the process. It’s
taken them all away. It’s split us apart so we couldn’t fight it.
The clown has won.
Only …
I am alone now.
My family is gone and my friends were taken before my eyes. This is the end.
Or it should be the end.
But I’m still here. Still in my room. Still alive.
Still afraid, but still willing to fight.
A flicker of warmth flares in my chest. A resolve. A hope.
I’m going to keep fighting. I’m going to get my friends and family back.
Even if it’s the last thing I do.
I force myself to sit up.
“I’m not giving up!” I yell out. “Do you hear me? I’m not letting you win. You’ve taken everyone I cared about, but I’m facing my fear. I’m not afraid of being alone. The only one who should be afraid is you!”
I don’t know what I expect. The clown to leap from the shadows and wail in defeat? The house to tremble as the nightmare fades and my friends and family return?
Silence greets me for the longest time.
Maybe the clown didn’t hear me. Maybe it isn’t watching. Maybe it too has abandoned me.
But then, from the closet, I hear a noise.
The jingle of bells.
The clown’s demonic giggle.
“Oh, April, it wasn’t going to be that easy,” the clown says. The closet door slowly creaks open as it speaks. Shadows leak out from within. “You’re alone. You’re abandoned. Your friends hate you. In fact, they never liked you in the first place. You should give up now. But since you think you’re ready to play, let’s play.”
The closet door shakes.
Shifts.
Transforms.
Becomes a striped archway in red and white and yellow.
Light flickers behind it as shapes blur in and out of focus.
Pipe organ music tumbles out.
I stand, trembling, and make my way to the closet. To the archway leading to somewhere else entirely.
I see the clown farther on. Its silhouette wavers as if underwater, but it is there. Its eyes burn blue, and it waves at me, the motion menacing.
I step through, toward the flashing and flickering lights of the carnival—toward what is most likely my doom.
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