Stories to Keep You Awake at Night

Clown costume

There was a teacher who hated his students. He hated the way they dressed, their odd hairstyles and their bad language. The way they slouched in their seats and the way they stared vacantly at him while he explained some maths problem really got on his nerves. They disgusted him so much that he couldn’t bear to be around them.

At school, he had a reputation for being strict, mean and unfair. If any of his students did even the slightest thing wrong, he would hand out harsh punishments, sending them to detention or giving them extra work to do. The teenage girls and boys in his class grew to despise him and he delighted in making their lives a misery.

One night, as he was relaxing at home, listening to classical music on his record player, the teacher happened to look out the window and something caught his eye. In the window of the building across the road, a figure was dancing around. It was a clown and it seemed to be staring right at him. Unnerved, he quickly closed his curtains and tried to forget about it.

The next day, at school, his students were irritating him more than ever. When his back was turned, they would make funny noises to embarrass him. One time, when he sat down at his desk, somebody made a noise. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t figure out which of the teenagers was doing it.

That night, he was at home, reading a book when he glanced out the window. He saw the clown again. It was dancing around in the same window, waving its hands like a crazy person. When it caught his attention, it reached down and picked something up. It was an axe.

As the teacher watched in astonishment, the clown began waving the axe around like a mental patient. It was leering at him with a grotesque grin on its face.

The teacher jumped out of his chair and quickly drew the curtains. He thought about calling the police, but what would he tell them? The clown hadn’t done anything illegal. Not yet anyway. The police probably wouldn’t even believe him. They would just think he was crazy. He decided to put it out of his mind.

The next day, in school, the students were all staring at him silently. He wondered what they were up to. When he sat down at his desk, he found out. They has placed a pin on his chair. He jumped up, screaming in pain and clutching his buttocks. The teenagers burst into laughter.

“That’s it!” the teacher shouted. “Detention for everyone! You won’t be laughing this evening when you’re going home two hours late!”

That night, the teacher was at home, watching a documentary on TV. He happened to look out his window and saw some teenagers gathered across the road. He recognized them as students in his class and they were spray-painting graffiti on the wall opposite him. He had no doubt that the graffiti was about him. It made him seethe with rage.

He reached for the phone to call the police. Just then, he spotted a figure hiding around the corner. It was the clown. He was holding an axe in his hands and chuckling to himself. He was just a few feet away from the unsuspecting teens.

All of a sudden, the teacher was overcome with horror. He had no idea what the clown intended to do, but he suspected it was something terrible. He had to warn the students. He rushed out of his apartment, bounded down the stairs and ran out into the street.

“Watch out! Watch out!” he cried desperately, but he was too late.

He could only watch helplessly as the clown attacked his students. He heard their terrified screams as the clown hacked at them with his axe. The teenagers tried to run, but there was no escape. They were cornered and the clown swung his axe, hacking and chopping and slicing, showing no mercy.

It was absolute carnage. There was blood everywhere and the sidewalk was littered with severed limbs and chunks of flesh. The teacher covered his eyes.

All of a sudden, he heard the sound of sirens and several police cars screeched to a halt in front of him. In the darkness, their headlights illuminated him. He looked down at himself and realized he was wearing a clown costume. On his feet, there was a big pair of clown shoes.

“Put it down! Put it down!” he heard the policemen shouting.

Then, he noticed the bloody axe he was holding in his hands.