Wandering Ends A Flash Fiction Collection

The Macabre Clowns

You could feel something sinister blowing in with the treacherous nor'easter. The ominous gray skies accompanied by the first few flurries and the odd addition of lightning, gave Judy the willies. Something was stirring in the atmosphere, but it was not just the impending storm. Everyone at the local store was talking about the way their hair was standing on end, almost as if the air was electrified.

Judy was just leaving the only grocery store in town as she passed a huge crow making a meal of a dead squirrel. The crow stopped eating, looked up at Judy, and let out a nerve rattling caw. Judy continued to her car, holding her bags tight in one hand and fumbling for her keys with the other. The wind whipped the hat off of her head as she put the groceries in the car. The hat stopped briefly by the crow, "You can keep it!" she hollered at the bird, then the hat continued its journey. Judy finally got situated in the car, then tuned in to the local AM station on the radio. The announcer was discussing this historic storm, "...we've ever seen. We could see snow totals reach fifty plus inches by Halloween morning. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the kiddo's might not be trick-or-treating this year." Judy sighed, then to herself said, "I hope that's the only thing this sto..." she was cut off by a loud crash behind her. She craned her neck to see what the commotion was. Two locals had collided head-on right in the middle of Main Street.

Judy jumped out of her car. She had to battle the wind as she ran towards the accident. Several others dropped their armloads of groceries to go make sure the two were okay. Judy got to the first truck ahead of everyone else. "Something is wrong with Gus! He's not breathing!" she yelled frantically. "Mark's not breathing either!" someone hollered back. The town had only one volunteer fire and EMT team and they were out on the highway at the scene of another accident. "Call the Lakeshire fire department!" Judy responded. Lakeshire was twenty miles away but had several on-call volunteers; in this weather it would take them forty-five minutes to arrive. She turned her attention back to the accident. She was not an expert but she was pretty sure Gus had been dead a while before this accident. He was stiff as a board and ice cold, with a grayish-blue color to his skin. As she scanned body for injuries, she noticed a spot at the base of his skull. It was a bullet hole, crusted with dried and blackened blood. "He's been shot and it was before this little accident." she informed the onlookers. "Gus has been shot, too!" someone else yelled.

The snow was coming down heavier and the wind had to have been blowing sixty or more miles per hour. With no police station in town the only option was to call the county sheriff'. They were stationed thirty miles west of town, where it was not snowing yet. They would be driving right into the storm. Judy knew it could take them hours to arrive but she also knew they were their only option.

Everyone went back inside the grocery store. Two men carried both bodies inside. Judy covered them with blankets while they waited for the ambulance and police to show up. Several people decided they did not want to stay so they made their way to the front doors. Judy and some of the others tried to convince them to stay, but they wanted to ride out the storm at home. Wilma was the first to exit the store. As she was crossing the street a car smashed into her. It appeared the car did not even attempt to slow down. Judy thought her mind was playing tricks on her, several people asked if anyone saw who was driving; she explained that she could have sworn she saw a clown driving the car with two other clown passengers. A few teased her, blaming her hallucination on the weather.

They gathered around Wilma's body. Standing in the blood stained snow, Judy felt for a pulse. She announced, "I can't feel anything, no breath, no heartbeat, I think she's dead, too." One of the guys standing watch yelled that a blood smeared, 1970's Old's Cutlass, was speeding back down Main Street towards the crowd. The car that killed Wilma was coming back for more. They all scattered, wind pushing at their backs, towards the store. The driver of the car slid sideways to a stop, just short of Wilma's corpse as everyone stared in horror out of the grocery store windows.

To their chagrin, a clown vaulted, comically, from the car. Although, there was nothing funny about this clown. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, oozing down his chin. He smiled a smile filled with rotting teeth. His eyes appeared to be glowing the devil's color. Two other clowns jumped out of the car with blood crusted hatchets at the ready, smiling that same macabre smile as the other clown. They did not speak, they just let out a murderous, bloodthirsty laugh that sent shivers down everyone's spine. Violence emanated from their very souls.

Inside the grocery store, people began to panic. The clowns entertained themselves for a couple of minutes playing with Wilma's corpse. They had her dancing, they were spinning her around, and licking the cold sludgy blood off of her. When they were done with her, they skipped their way to the store windows. They slowly dragged their hatchets across the glass producing an eerie screech that echoed through the store. At once, they stopped. They cocked their heads to the sides and stared blankly into the store. "What do you want?" Judy hollered at them. They smiled at her, black teeth on full display, and made a slicing motion, in unison, across their throats. A startled chorus of screams erupted from everyone inside the store.

Sirens could be heard screaming from the top of Main Street. A collective sigh of relief made the rounds inside the store. As they brought their attention back to the clowns, they were gone. The ambulance slid to a stop near the trucks that had collided. The driver and two from the back hopped out. They headed for the scene of the accident when the clowns ran up behind them, slicing them from diaphragm to crotch. Intestines unraveled out of their abdomen onto the snow as they fell to the ground. The clowns stomped around and played in the guts of the now deceased EMT's. Judy sobbed along with the others.

The clowns snapped their attention back to the onlookers. One of the clowns started off in a full sprint towards the back of the building. A couple of the guys went to secure the back door. They reached the door but it was already open. They turned to warn everyone as a knife slid across their necks and the warning turned into a gurgled whisper. The lights flashed off then on again before going dark. Glass shattered around them all. Judy crawled into a vent in the wall. She could hear screams of pain and terror. Blood hit the vent grate and trickled down it as the screams subsided. She could hear the clowns prancing around the store, slipping and sliding through the blood, then complete silence. An engine roared to life outside. Judy peaked her head through the grate but could not see a thing. Sirens could finally be heard coming down Main Street, Judy was stuck, frozen in shock.