The Lost Circus: Part 3

An unnerving visitor.

New to the circus? Find Part One here!

Want to catch up? The previous chapter lives here!

In the last section, our brave photographer discovered that the abandoned tents are not as empty as they seemed. When a disturbed clown appeared, the choice between running and staying put seemed easy, until escape wasn’t an option. Now, standing on the abandoned field, shoes glued to the ground, our hero faces down the half-melted performer…

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The clown's smile stretches like taffy, his white makeup cracking. A few pieces fall, like plaster cracking off old walls. Usually I could see wood, or steel, or the bones of whatever kind of building it was underneath. Logic would say it's the same with creepy clowns, but I don't see any kind of skin.

Instead, he starts bleeding.

My stomach churns as it drips down his face, splashing onto his grey shirt with giant red and green and blue polka dots. A simple scratch shouldn't bleed that much, but it gushes with gusto and paints a river of red down his striped pants, pooling around his giant purple shoes.

He doesn't seem to notice the flood coming out of his face. Instead, he hopscotches a few more steps, the ruffles on his shirt flapping as he holds his hand out to me.

I swallow hard.

I've never been this terrified in my entire life. Not once in all of my years of photography have I ever been scared. Abandoned places aren't scary. They're just another desolately beautiful place on earth. Even the haunted house that got me into this wasn't scary. Sure, it had chainsaw maniacs and doctors with a crazy look in their eyes, but that didn't distract me from the setting. It was in an Victorian house, the kind with a tower on the second floor and a huge front porch with creaky old rocking chairs. Unused for most of the year, a production company took it over every Halloween and turned it into "the scariest experience of all time!"

It wasn't really that great. But whoever did the set design was awesome. Great enough to get me hooked on haunted and abandoned places for life.

Now, staring at the clown with a melting smile and blood pouring down his face, I feel cold. This is what fear is. Not just him, or the situation, but the clench in my stomach and the icy sweat dripping down my back. The startling reality of this affair has dawned on me already - miles away from town, creepy clown in an empty abandoned circus, disappearing handprints, etc - but another fact is settling in, and I don't like it one bit.

There's no way out of this. I can try to run, but that didn’t seem to work last time, and besides, we're in the middle of a field. If I can't move now, why would I be able to move later? I could run to one of the tents and hide, but they were clearly empty before, and one of them birthed a clown since then. What else could they be hiding from me?

Oh, get a grip, I tell myself. The tents are not HIDING things. They just weren’t actually empty.

Right?

The clown stands there, his hand floating in the air. He seems to be waiting politely for me to make up my mind.

Every instinct screams at me to run. On impulse, I shift my weight to my other foot and take a step. Several precious seconds roll by before I realize that I can move again.

Fight turns into flight as I throw myself into motion. I’m ready to feel the air stream past my ears, and know I'm leaving Mr. Bozo in the dust. Go home to my plants, call my mom and tell her that everything is okay. Email my editor and tell her it's over, I'm never doing this again unless she gets me a bodyguard. Pay my bills, go to the grocery store, and do everything that normal, sane people do.

Four steps into my fleeing run, I slow down. My feet settle onto the grass. Not by my power - if it was up to me, I’d be halfway to town right now. Nope, it’s Mr. Bozo keeping me here. I’m at this clown’s mercy, and he’s not about to let me go.

My heart thuds in my ears as I glance over my shoulder. Does he have a knife? A machete? A balloon sword that'll actually cut off my head?

To my surprise, he hasn't moved. His hand is still sticking straight out in the breeze, but instead of beckoning me forward, he waves a finger back and forth as if scolding me. His frizzy hair bounces back and forth as he shakes his head. No, no, no, he seems to say. Naughty child. Don't run away.

I realize I'm shaking again. The tremors stopped when I realized I might be able to run, but it didn’t last long and now they’re a thousand times worse. At this rate, I'm going to rattle my camera so much it'll never work again.

The clown's eyes widen, and he points to the machine in my hand as if noticing it for the first time. I clutch it like a trembling security blanket. He can’t take this from me. Take my life, my photos, my everything, but please, not the camera. I mean, he’s dead, what is he going to do with it?

He straightens his fingers into L-shapes, then balances them over one eye in a rectangle. At first I’m confused, but as he moves it away from his face, then back, I realize he’s pretending to sight down a lens. Almost like he’s setting up a shot.

Somehow, this is scarier than the fact that I can’t move.

The deranged clown points at the camera again, and I nod. He silently claps his hands. Then he sweeps into a bow, his arm waving in the direction of the small acts tent. As I stare at him in complete confusion, he snaps another imaginary photo and points to the tent again.

Oh god.

I shake my head. No, nope, no way. There's absolutely zero chance I'm setting foot in that place again. I was already in there once, I know what it looks like. No need to check it again.

The clown inclines his head this time, raising his eyebrows. If he wasn't still soaking the ground with his own blood, he'd look like a parent having a discussion with their insolent child. Then he jabs a finger at my camera, and gestures to the tent once again.

And I shake my head. No. Nope. No way.

He throws his arms in the air in an exaggerated shrug, rolling his eyes so hard his whole head moves. Then he plants one hand on his hip, and with the other one, crooks his finger and pulls me towards him again.

This time, one foot steps in front of the other. Suddenly I'm dragging myself across the field, under no power of my own. Out from the shadow of the Big Top, following the trail of handprints that don't exist anymore towards the smaller acts tent, where the creepy clown and his bloody, half-melted smile wait.

Panic rises, tasting like bile in the back of my throat. I always thought I'd end my days in bed. Or in a nursing home after my kids stop visiting. I never thought it would be under someone else’s control, let alone a clown that looks like a murder victim. I never thought my pictures would betray me like this. I never wanted a horror story come to life.

No amount of straining and fighting will slow me down. My muscles scream in pain, and I can feel my legs start getting wobbly, though from shock or exhaustion or fear, I don't know. Somehow, I keep walking towards my doom without any input from my brain, and no amount of struggling seems to help.

His eyes spin back and forth as he watches me advance. Closer now, I start noticing things that I should’ve seen before: missing teeth, gaping shadows in their wake. Makeup so dried and cracked that it might fall apart at any moment, resulting in a bloody waterfall. One hand only has four fingers, and the other seems to have an extra digit that flops around like a boneless fish.

I’m so fixated on his tiny terrifying details that I don’t realize how close I’m actually getting. I was eight feet away. Now I’m at six. Then five. Four.

Three feet away, his smile stretches again. More blood leaks out of a new crack on the other side of his face. If not for his jaunty pose and weepy smile, he would look sad, crying ruby tears.

And there I was without a handkerchief.

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Previous chapter | Next chapter

Oh no! Will the clown murder our brave hero? Will he get his pictures inside the tent? Does somebody have a hanky for this poor dead circus performer?! Tune in next time to find out!

In the meantime, I’m curious: what do you look for in a serial-style story? Shorter chapters or longer ones? Specific genres? Not really your thing? I’m still new to them, so I’d be curious to hear what you do (or don’t) enjoy.

To the comments!

<3 Olivia