“Tragedy has struck the Oddbody Alley, and that tragedy has mutated into an unspeakable horror.”
“What do you mean?”
“Show him,” Oswald said.
“Look into my mind’s eye.”
Mr. Flonkers’s pinprick white pupils gazed into Clem’s eyes as Clem opened a wider psychic connection with the spirit. Mr. Flonkers watched everything unfold in Clem’s clairvoyant mind as if he were sitting in a cinema.
“This is what I saw two months ago.”
All twelve professional and apprentice members of the Otis Oddbody Clown Alley—Poco, Mooch, Cindy Candy, Big Galoot, Joey Jelly, Smarty Artie, Ms. Pinkyfoot, Choo-Choo, Poundfool, Midge the Dwarf, Benny Buzzy, and Sir Donald Dollarshort, Esq.—saw Otis’s neon yellow and purple-polka-dot 1968 Volkswagen Beetle pull up to the tent.
“Road trip!” Otis yelled from the driver’s seat.
The twelve clowns loaded themselves in the same rehearsed formation they’d often performed under the Big Top. Their opening bit was to have Otis drive to the Center Ring, and then all thirteen, including Otis, exited the car one at a time—flopping, tripping, somersaulting and cartwheeling; Poco even came out on stilts, wearing a gray top hat, coattails, and oversized bow tie—to much audience laughter and amazement.
Otis explained their destination on the way.
“We’re going to the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin,” he said. “That’s where the five original Ringling brothers started everything. From there, we’re going to Milwaukee and we’re marching in the Great Circus Parade.”
The pronouncement was met with cheers and applause.
“But we’re taking a side trip before the parade,” Otis said. “This is a personal pilgrimage. We’re going to visit Uncle Uther, who lives in Bark Creek. It’s a small town in rural Jefferson County west of Milwaukee. Uncle Uther performed for eighty years, and now he’s in assisted living at an old clowns’ home. I first saw him when my father took me to a Shriner’s Circus forty years ago and his performance inspired me to become a clown. He had this hysterical bit with a handshake buzzer. I saw him perform many times, and that bit always cracked me up. I want to pay my respects in person, clown to clown.”
The museum was fun for everyone and surprisingly educational to the younger apprentices. After spending the day in Baraboo, Otis drove them toward Bark Creek.
The July twilight gave way to the silvery darkness of a full Buck Moon. The lunar light cut through the thick leaves of low-hanging maples, burr oaks, willows, and hickories that canopied the back roads of Jefferson County.
At midnight, Benny Buzzy passed around the kazoos. Midge the Dwarf and Ms. Pinkyfoot got high-pitched piccolo kazoos. Big Galoot and Poundfool got deeper-sounding bass kazoos. Poundfool played a mean bass.
“I’m like the Geezer Butler of kazoo players, y’know,” Poundfool often said.
They played a remarkably accurate—albeit buzzing—version of “Entrance of the Gladiators” as the VW motored along Riverbank Road next to the Bark River.
Otis was driving too fast and did not have time to swerve from the deadly obstacle left in the narrow lane. He put his hands up and screamed.
The front tire hit the banana peel head-on. The Bug spun wildly, flipped once, twice, bounced off an oak, slid down the embankment, and splashed into the river. The car sank under the surface of moon-glimmering ripples as the kazoo music turned into gurgles.
“How tragic,” Mr. Flonkers said, swirling in the smoke.
“Yes, but that’s not the worst part,” Toodles said.
“What’s worse than thirteen dead clowns?”
Beep-Beep.
“Well, yes, fourteen would be worse.”
“Do you feel their presence, Mr. Flonkers?” Oswald asked.
Mr. Flonkers paused. The ghost swayed in sync with the flames. The mobile home was eerily quiet as the clowns waited.
“No, they’re not here in the afterlife,” he said after a moment. “How can that be?”
“That’s the worst part,” Clem said. “Look into my mind’s eye again to watch what transpired one month later.”
• • •
There are no streetlamps on the rural roads of Jefferson County, but the full Sturgeon Moon draped its brightness over the homesteads, farms, orchards, and groves like luminescent silk.
Nobody was near Riverbank Road to witness the Volkswagen Beetle drive out of the river and over the bank. Nobody was close enough to hear the still night disrupted by a macabre kazoo orchestra playing the well-known circus theme. Nobody saw the car patrol the country lanes like a spider on asphalt webs.
At first.
The Lowenbacher family was driving home after an evening game—“cap night”—at Miller Park. Alex wore his Brewers hat backward as he drove the Ford Focus. Beside him, his wife Kristine had taken hers off for the ride home. In the backseat, Timmy and little sister Courtney proudly wore their caps. Timmy still wore his mitt.
“What’s that noise?” Kristine asked.
“I know,” Courtney chirped. “It’s circus bees!”
“There’s no such thing as circus bees,” Timmy said. His tone carried the annoyed condescension inherent to all big brothers.
“It’s coming from the car behind us,” Alex said. “Some bozo’s tailgating us.”
As soon as Alex spoke the tailgating car sped up and passed the Ford on the left. It was a Beetle; it cut back in front and sped ahead. A hand stuck out of the driver’s window and waved something.
“Is that a banana peel?” Kristine asked.
The hand dropped the peel onto the road and it tumbled into the Ford’s path. Alex tried to swerve but the front tire hit the banana peel and he lost control of the car. The Focus spun out, flipped onto its passenger side, skidded into the gravel berm, and careened into a tree with a shattering crunch. Miraculously, the impact made the car roll back onto its wheels.
“Is everyone okay? Can you get out?” Alex yelled over the cries of his family. He lumbered out of the car and reached for his wife. She climbed over the gearshift and out through the driver’s door. Timmy assisted Courtney out through his door. She was crying, and so was he, but he tried to be brave for his little sister.
The family huddled in the road, sobbing and hugging, checking for major injuries, praising seat belts and air bags, when the Beetle’s headlights landed on them.
The Lowenbachers watched the car stop thirty yards away from their group hug. The buzzing music stopped. The doors opened. The first one out was the driver.
Otis Oddbody wore a black derby over crimpled yellow hair, a horizontally-striped black-and-white shirt, and red suspenders attached to red pantaloons that were tucked into oversized black shoes. On his left suspender was a sunflower blossom. His mimelike face was white except for black lipstick and small black triangles on his cheeks and brows. His eye sockets were hollow except for an eerie red-orange light. He approached the Lowenbachers as the other clowns poured out. The same hellish light pulsed from all their eyes.
The horrified family watched as the horde of ghastly clowns exited the car executing their flopping, tripping, somersaulting, and cartwheeling without missing a step—unless missing a step was required for the bit.
“Stilts,” Timmy whispered between sobs. “That one in the gray tuxedo actually got out of the car wearing stilts.”
Dread slithered down each of their spines as the menacing congregation of clowns closed in around the family.
“You should be laughing,” Otis said, his voice sounding as if it originated from a mine shaft. “Why aren’t you laughing? Didn’t you like our gag?”
The family cried louder.
“I said laugh! We are professionals and we know when something is funny or not. The Oddbody Alley is absolutely hysterical, I tell you! Hysterical !”
The clowns hooted and guffawed as their eyes blazed even brighter occult fire. They all laughed, except Otis.
“Go away!” Courtney screamed.
&
nbsp; “Are you going to laugh or not?” Otis pointed to the ruined Ford. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you get it?”
“No!” Alex and Kristine yelled together, squeezing their shuddering children.
Otis snapped his fingers and the clowns were upon them.
Clem stopped the vision. “I can’t watch that awful moment again.”
“What did they do?” Mr. Flonkers asked.
“Cindy Candy, Smarty Artie, Choo-Choo, and Poundfool are experts at twisting balloons into animal shapes,” Oswald said.
“So?”
“Imagine what they’d do to arms and legs,” Toodles said.
“Oh.” Mr. Flonkers lowered his head, trying not to visualize the gruesomeness. He failed. “Odd body, indeed.”
“But what are they?” Toodles asked. “Are they ghosts, zombies, or what?”
Mr. Flonkers hovered in thought for a moment.
“They’re manifested revenants, spirits made material, echoes of human woe and uncompleted goals,” he said. “They’re the curse left behind as a by-product of jovial souls taken from the mortal world by stark tragedy. These clowns neither walk among the living nor the dead. They’ve become un—”
“Unclowns,” Clem said.
“As long as they’re not vampires,” Oswald said. “Stupid vampires are everywhere nowadays. You can’t even buy a Slurpee at 7-Eleven without bumping into a brood of vampires.”
Beep-Beep.
“Unclowns are malignant creatures,” Mr. Flonkers said. “They don’t bring fun and cheer into the world. Rather, they breed fear, horror, and death. The polarity of their funny bones has been reversed. They’ll ruin the reputations of clowns everywhere.”
“We’ve barely recovered our public respectability from that Stephen King novel, and that was published over twenty years ago,” Toodles said.
“We summoned you for help,” Clem said. “I suspect the cursed clown car will prowl during the next full moon, which is tomorrow. We must stop the unclowns before they kill more innocent people.”
“What do we need to do so they can rest in peace, sir?” Toodles asked.
Mr. Flonkers scratched his ghostly chin.
“Okay, I got it,” he said. “First, buy some kazoos. Then you need to visit a certain nursing home in Bark Creek. Next . . .”
The receptionist behind the desk at the Bark Creek Clown Convalescence Center and Liquor Store saw the Mr. Flonkers Alley enter the facility.
Beep-Beep.
“So you’re just here to see Uncle Uther, then?”
“Yes,” Clem said.
“Follow me.” She led them down a hallway. “There’s only one rule in this facility. We have a strict no smoking policy. Uncle Uther begs for cigars every chance he gets. Do not give him any; is that understood?”
“No problem.”
The receptionist glanced at her watch. “He may not be too conversant for a while.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll see. Here’s his room. Also, we have a special this week—twenty percent off all tequila. Have a nice day.”
They entered the motel-like room. Ninety-seven-year-old Uncle Uther sat in a recliner watching television. He wore bedroom slippers and a gold one-piece suit with a ruffled collar and pom-pom buttons down the front. He sported a hat similar to Clem’s conical poof-ball cap, but it was three sizes too small for his bald head and was angled to the left. He had Coke-bottle trifocals on his white face.
The television played the theme from Days of Our Lives.
“Uncle Uther, may we have a word with you?” Toodles asked.
“Do you have any cigars, sweetheart?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t have a word with me until my stories are finished.”
“Sir,” Clem said. “We have very important—”
“Not now.”
They waited quietly for thirty-five minutes until the show was over. Oswald left the room for a moment and returned with a bottle of Jose Cuervo, which made the wait more tolerable.
“I miss John and Marlena,” Uncle Uther said to no one in particular after the show ended.
“Sir, can we talk now?” Clem asked.
“Fine.” He shifted in his chair.
Clem explained the situation.
“I’ll assist you on one condition,” Uncle Uther said.
“What’s that?”
“I want a box of Romeo y Julieta Short Churchills.”
“Come again?”
“Cigars, son. I want a box of Cuban cigars.”
“No problem.”
Ten hours later Uncle Uther was standing with four other jokers on Riverbank Road under the shine of a full Corn Moon.
Uncle Uther was not exactly sure why he was here, or what he was exactly supposed to do despite what Clem explained, but he was smoking a cigar and had almost a full box on reserve, so he felt something was going exactly right.
Clem had scored the cigars from Andrei, his neighbor in the mobile home park. Andrei was a retired midget clown and ex-KGB agent. During the Cold War, Andrei worked as an undercover spy while traveling in Royal Russian Circus tours. He had connections.
The five clowns had driven to Riverbank Road in Beeps’s Smart car. When he wasn’t taking care of clown business, Beeps was all about saving the environment. Now they waited.
“I’ve been thinking, and I believe Lon Chaney was right,” Oswald said.
“What about?” Clem asked.
“Here we are,” Oswald said. “Two classic Auguste clowns, a hobo, an emerald harlequin, and the lovechild of Harpo Marx and R2-D2 standing on a country road ten minutes before midnight, trying to prevent ghastly fools in a cursed clown car from murdering innocent people.”
“Okay?”
“Chaney said ‘There is nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight.’ If some yokels drive by us tonight, would they laugh, or would they scream?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I think they’d scream. Loudly.”
Beep-Beep.
“Yes, shouldn’t we get started?” Toodles asked.
Clem distributed the kazoos. “The 7-Eleven was out of piccolo kazoos, so we’ll just have to make do. Oswald, you’re on bass.”
“I’m like the Steve Harris of kazoo players, y’know.”
“What do we have to play again?” Uncle Uther asked, blowing a smoke ring.
“‘Entrance of the Gladiators,’” Oswald said.
“I don’t know that one,” Uncle Uther said. “Can we play ‘Thunder and Blazes’ instead?”
“What’s the difference?”
“The one goes toot-toot-tootle-tootle-toot-TOOT-toot but the other one is more complex because it goes toot-toot-tootle-tootle-TOOT-toot-toot.”
“Mr. Flonkers told us to play kazoos to get the unclowns’ attention, then we can help them,” Clem said. “I don’t think the specific song matters.”
They played “Thunder and Blazes”—zooz-zooz-zoozle-zoozle-ZOOZ-zooz-zooz—as they stood next to the Smart car on the moonlit road next to the river. They played for five minutes.
The unclowns heard them.
The Beetle drove out of the Bark River five minutes before midnight. The Bug was fifty yards away from them, and it also buzzed with the circus theme. It turned to face those standing in the road, the headlights capturing all five clowns blowing their kazoos. The Bug approached slowly, like a spider unsure what was caught in its web. It finally halted fifteen feet in front of them.
Clem, Toodles, Oswald Osgood, Beeps, and Uncle Uther stopped playing. The music from the Bug stopped as well, but the headlights remained on. After a pause, the driver’s door opened.
Otis came out first, then the others followed—Poco, Mooch, Cindy Candy, Big Galoot, Joey Jelly, Smarty Artie, Ms. Pinkyfoot, Choo-Choo, Poundfool, Midge the Dwarf, Benny Buzzy, and Sir Donald Dollarshort, Esq.—except this time they did not do their normal bit. They approached the still-mortal clowns in silence as their eyes blazed with unhallowed red-oran
ge luminescence.
There was another pause as each clown alley studied the other, neither clown nor unclown sure what the next step should be.
Clem finally came forward. “Otis Oddbody, there’s someone here you want to meet.” Uncle Uther stepped up and stood next to Clem. “Let me introduce you to Uncle Uther.”
Otis cocked his head like a dog who’d just heard a can opener. “Uncle Uther? The Uncle Uther?”
Uncle Uther switched his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “That’s me, son. I understand you want to pay your respects. So come on, pay up.” Uncle Uther held out his left palm like he expected cash to exchange hands.
“Yes, I want to pay my respects, clown to clown.”
As soon as Otis finished speaking, the sunflower blossom on his suspenders released a stream of water that hit Uncle Uther in the face. It splattered his glasses and almost doused his cigar.
The Oddbody Alley erupted in hoots and guffaws as Uncle Uther let the stream hit him until it dwindled away. Otis remained silent.
Uncle Uther removed his glasses and dried them on the top pom-pom. The Oddbody Alley stopped laughing as they focused on Uncle Uther’s reaction. Uncle Uther replaced the glasses and reignited his cigar with three rapid puffs.
“You know what,” Uncle Uther said, blowing smoke as he smiled. “I like your style, son. Put ’er there.”
Otis instinctively grabbed Uncle Uther’s extended right hand—ZZZAAAPPP!—and pulled back, jumped up, and yelped in surprise at the hand buzzer’s shock.
Otis’s eyes flashed furiously for two seconds . . . then he started laughing.
He laughed hard. It was a genuine, from the gut, true peal of merriment. He looked at his hand and released another burst of hilarity. He slapped his leg a few times as he bent forward in continuous chuckles. Otis turned around and showed his palm to his alley. They too exploded in clamorous jocularity as they pointed at the hand and laughed and laughed and laughed.
Clem noticed the change first, but the others saw it soon enough.
It was in their eyes. The Oddbody Alley no longer had raging light burning in their hollow sockets. The angry glow faded away, and the light which remained became white pinpricks.
Blood Lite II: Overbite Page 5