The Last Night

Clown Down

Chapter Fifteen

"The last night I felt this guilty was the night I first saw Karate Kid."

^~^

I trudged up the trail. It's Thursday and the second to last day of the class trip. At the moment, we're at some national park that I honestly don't care enough about to even remember the name. We're supposed to be going up the trail and meeting with the rest of the class at the top for a picnic.

Mr. Brown put us in groups of eight. So my group is pretty much the same as yesterday's with the addition of two clowns. They're pretty obvious about trying to separate me from Erik, but he isn't having any of that.

After what happened yesterday, Erik and Alice are pretty adamant about not leaving my side. Currently, they were walking alongside me. Erik to my right, and Alice to my left. Sarah (no longer wearing makeup) and Evan were chatting behind us, creating a barrier between us and the two cake-faced add-ons to the group. I think they've somehow formed a protection squad against the Clowns.

I glanced back at Caden, who was lazily ambling behind the rest of the group with black headphones on. I wonder if he heard me and Erik talking about the serial killers yesterday at the shopping center. I really hope he didn't. I don't want to get anyone else involved in this. If he did, I hope he disregards it and thinks we were just talking about a video game or book or something.

Erik seems to dislike something about him. Well, when we got our group assignments yesterday, Erik's mask was pretty much seen through by him. Caden's more observant than I'd originally thought. I'd pinned him as someone really apathetic and uninterested in things that don't concern him, but I was apparently proved wrong. He's nicer than I thought he was.

Anyway, earlier, Sarah decided to not be a cake-face anymore. She looks better without the artificial stuff. She got rid of her Clown face because she didn't want to be known as one of those malicious wretches. She explained during breakfast that she only went along with them because she didn't want to be an outcast in class. She said she was done with them. So she is no longer a clown.

Thank God she isn't because the two behind them are getting really, really irritating. They've been making repeated, but failed, attempts at pushing past Sarah and Evan to get to Erik. They'd also started squealing about some singer or actor or whatever the guy was.

Alice sighed, exasperatedly.

"Do they come with an off button?" Erik muttered under his breath, quietly enough that they wouldn't hear.

"Sorry, Erik. If they did, I would've pushed it already," Sarah said, annoyed.

"I'm sorry you've lived with this longer than we have," Evan said, apologetically.

"This is like dealing with Luke when he's hungry. Except they're more obnoxious and evil," I said.

"Luke gets that annoying?" Erik asked.

"Yes, but, like I said, they're worse."

"Is it just me or did they get louder?" Alice asked.

Those two are gonna cause a freaking avalanche.

"Yo, shut the f*** up!" Caden yelled. We turned around to see him glaring at them. The annoying ones shut their mouths. They evidently got too loud for him even with his headphones on. He pointed to the ledge. "The next to speak out of you two is getting pushed off. Now shut up," he said with a menacing glare. His heterochromatic eyes made his glare all the more effective.

They seemed terrified.

"Dang, someone's got a temper," Erik remarked.

"No kidding," Evan agreed.