A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) (25 page)

The clown swung around to face
him, a knife in his hand. A big and rather expensive looking kitchen blade. He
didn't move toward Jason, but his voice was cold, suddenly. Amazed sounding.

"That's... right. She didn't
always take her medication, and it was in Florida, so, well, child services
isn't so great there. They left me with her. She thought I was possessed, as
often as not. She did... Horrible things to me, trying to get the demons to
leave. Near drowning, burning... Isolation. There was a clown poster that she
put on my wall, that just stared at me, when I was locked in my room. They didn't
leave, clearly. The demons. If anything
she
put them in. So, no one
loses anything this time. That was good. How did you know?"

"Your fear of clowns. It's
why you really dress up like this. Not just to hide yourself, though it works
for that too. Someone had to have traumatized you with the idea when you were
young, for it to have that kind of pull on you now. You mentioned the
woman
,
with emphasis. No one sane would have done that kind of thing to a little kid.
So some kind of mental disorder. A guess, but..."

The man paced again, for a long
time, before stopping, the knife still in his latex gloved hand. When he paused,
he stabbed Carl in the leg. Only once, which woke the man up, screaming without
articulation.

"Oops, sorry, forgot the
rules. You didn't get that wrong. I just wasn't aware I was that
transparent."

Without letting himself shrug,
Jason just stood, not wanting to piss the deranged man off any more than was
needed. There was a game afoot, after all. A thing that had consequences, no
matter what happened. No matter who won, if winning was allowed in a thing like
this. That it just might not be was the most likely end to all of it. He wanted
time though. It was all he had. A hope that if he could stall long enough,
something useful would change.

"So, Joey the Clown, tell me
more, that's only half the tale. Why did I come
here
? What drew me into
place?"

That one was harder. After all,
it could have been anything.

Tilting his head, he thought
about that for a while, until Masko the Creepy Clown started waving for him to
hurry it up, with a ten inch shining blade. It had been on him, so was a
personal tool, not something gotten just for Carl and Lynn. Big, but not a gun.
It probably meant something Freudian, but knowing that the man felt inadequate
didn't really help at the moment. That part was clear, in both the way that he
subdued larger, stronger men, and had cut off Carl's family jewels.

"Well, you mentioned that,
didn't you? After years of practice, you wondered if it was really fair to blame
them, Lynn and Carl, for their deeds. They'd been young... and people, well,
they do stupid things. You had to have known about who she was at least. That
part wasn't hidden from you, was it? So... When you saw something, online or in
the news, about her and the creepo Sheriff... That probably set you off. It
would be one thing to let some kids that didn't know any better go. Larger than
life figures, but ones you knew that you could handle. You had all that
practice. But once you learned that part, you figured out the rest, and came
here to... Finish things. To remove an evil from the world. Because
you
were evil and if they were too, it meant that they really deserved what you'd
planned for them, all those years. They'd made you into what you are. Through
their neglect, and lack of caring."

Lynn was cut on the face,
screaming the whole time, and looking at Jay as if he'd ordered it done. Mills
made a tsking sound.

"Nope. I mean, mainly right,
but I'm not
evil
. Far from it. What is it you said before, the last time
we met? That I must have fallen into a pit of clowns, so dressed like this
because I thought that criminals must be afraid of them too? Like Batman. It
wasn't like that, but closer, I think, than you know. I only took people that
hurt their own children. Neglect, abuse. I didn't even know about Carl until
after I had a DNA test done, and another one about six months ago, to make sure
it was him. I almost didn't have to bother, since Lynn told me, when we first
met. It was so hard to not just kill her then. She recognized the name. So did
Carl. I actually approached her first. She brow beat him into giving me a job,
if you can believe it. One I wasn't even qualified for. That made it all a lot
handier. Evil though? Nope. That's one wrong. What do you want me to cut off of
who? I'd volunteer Carl's balls, but, well you get that one. Something small to
start with? First, choose which one?"

Jason froze, but only externally.
He couldn't do that. It was also pretty clear that any hint of a deal would be off,
if he didn't. Both the FBI agents were looking right at him, knowing that, and
he took a deep breath. It was hard to tell which one was in worse shape at the
moment, but it was Lynn that kept glaring at him, her face hateful, where Carl
just seemed in pain. Mewling and weak.

"Lynn. Take off her little
toe. The left one." It was small, and not needed to survive. This time she
screamed, a thing of pure outrage.

There was no way to blame her for
that, even though she had time before it would happen. Her feet were fixed in
place, but she had shoes on still. White pumps. Those got taken off slowly, the
man chuckling as he did it.

"See there? That wasn't so
difficult. I really thought you'd chicken out, you know that Jay? If you had, I
was going to take off both of their hands. You have a lot more balls than Carl
here does." The man stopped and turned, knife in hand. "Sorry, that's
a bit of an insensitive thing of me to say now, isn't it? Even before that
minor adjustment. I'd offered to spare Lynn if he let me kill him, and do you
know what he said?"

Jay didn't. He could guess, but
that was all.

"That you should kill
yourself instead? It's an idea, you know. Really show them how strongly you
feel about the whole thing."

There was laughter, and then
screaming, as the little toe was cut off in one sudden movement. He hadn't even
looked, but it was done with uncanny accuracy. When Lynn finally faded into
just panting and breathing hard, ten minutes later, the foot bandaged to keep
her alive, the man shook his head.

"No,
that
would have
been almost clever. He'd suggested that I was gay. As if that would have
anything
to do with this? I mean, I'm not, but really, what kind of a homophobic thing
is that to say? He was offered a chance to save a woman that he's supposed to
love, and what does he do? Heroically say yes? Beg and plead that I hurt him
and not her? Even just
beg
, for both of them? Not at all. He just makes
improper slurs. It was why he lost his balls and dick, you know. If he would
have just said no, I probably would have left them in place. Maybe not."

That made sense then. Not in any
kind of sane fashion, but he wanted to harm them, so almost anything they'd
done would have been wrong.

"So you took off her
breasts... That one was planned, right? For failing to nurture you? Giving you
up, to that woman?"

The man looked at him through the
colorful mask, and then waved the knife a little, "not exactly right. I'll
give you that one though, since it's part of it. I have to admit that. She's
failed as a woman her whole life. She's never nurtured anyone, or anything.
Lynn Davies never even had a pet. Did you ever notice that? What kind of person
doesn't ever have a dog, or cat? Not even a fish? The only reason she had house
plants was because her
daughter
watered them. Can you imagine that? Or,
well, I guess you can. You lived it, for years." The voice held pity,
which was a thing that Jay would take, if it got him out alive.

"So, I guess you win then.
That's close enough, and I'm a clown of my word. After I'm done here, I'll
leave you and these two alive and whole. Drugged, but that could be worse.
First, let's handle this. I'm only part way done with these two sick, sad and
sorry people."

What happened next was so bad that
Jay knew he was never going to get the image out of his head. Slowly, using his
large knife, Carl was... skinned. Alive. Just to the waist, because there was a
sound from outside. That of a car driving up. It got the killer to stop, in
order to check it out.

When Mills went to the door, to
see who was there, Jay took his chance, and walked carefully and smoothly over
to the torture tray near Lynn. He managed to get the bloody little scalpel, and
her eyes went wide. She made a noise, which he kind of understood. It was a
shocked thing, but she'd called him an idiot. Probably for waiting so long.

Then, after the door closed, and
the shooting started, he cut Daniels free. One of his taped down arms. It was
far from perfect work, being done behind his own back, but there was no gasping
from the agent. If he cut him, nothing was said about it at all. After a
minute, as shooting continued outside, a second round of it with holes
appearing in the little shack wall, the tool was taken from his fingers.

The man had his left hand free
and was far more efficient about getting the other one done than Jay had been.

It gave them just enough time to
get McNab free too, so that when Mills came back, there were three people
rushing the door. Two and a half really, since Jay had his hands still cuffed
behind him. There were no guns around for them, and the clown trying to walk in
had one, but faced with the scene, for some reason, turned and ran, rather than
fight to the death. He was, most likely, out of bullets.

There was the sound of a large
vehicle taking off then. So not one of the cars. Something else. Taking a risk,
he popped his head out to see what had happened.

It was a bloody scene. Deputy Pensley,
the female on the force, was dead, having been shot in the face several times.
So was Richmond. At least he would be soon. He'd been hit in the throat.

When Jay got there the man tried
to whisper something, but it was hard for him to make out. When he got it, he
blinked, but then just stood up and went back in. He needed a key for the
handcuffs and they needed to get help, for all of them. The Deputy spending his
last words telling him to screw himself, if not that kindly, wasn't important
enough to share.

He let Daniels take care of most
of that for him. Honestly, Jason just didn't know what else to do.

The little double wide shack didn't have anything that
useful. Not given what they needed at the moment. Some towels, which he used to
try and stop the blood coming out of Carl. He was still alive, by some strange
happenstance, but was so close to dead that it was probably a wasted effort. As
soon as the FBI men got their mouths free, Daniels ran outside, yelling. He'd
said that he'd call for help, and try to follow Mills.

It was a desperate time, with the dark FBI agent seeming to
have about as much clue about what to do as he did. Basic first aid didn't
really cover it. For instance, how did you handle someone that had been skinned
like that? Who had also been castrated, and had his tongue cut out?

"Wet some towels. We need to drape them all over
him." He said this in his real voice. It was strange, but the rest of the
time he'd been his character. Joey the Hobo Clown. One of his many faces. Now
he had to be stronger than that. Efficient and proactive. "Lynn, hang on.
Try not to move too much. Help is coming. Most of your wounds have been taken
care of for now." How that was done, he didn't know. From the leavings on
the tray it was probably that the stumps of the tongues had been tied off,
rather than burned shut. Cauterization would have sent both into shock. Not
that they wouldn't be anyway.

What had been done was so monstrous that Jason couldn't really
capture it all in his mind. It was completed for now, he thought. Not over, but
broken up a little. How Mills was going to finish the job, he didn't know, but
the man would try. He
had
to. His entire life had been focused on
killing the two people he'd been torturing. That being stopped wasn't going to
be the real end. Not for him.

That was wrong though, wasn't it? He tried to work, to stop
what bleeding he could and keep talking to Lynn, being soothing, even as she
glared at him. It was clear the she'd already decided to blame him for what had
happened. How that worked, what mental gymnastics it would take on her part, he
didn't know. The one saving grace was that he didn't have to listen to her
belittling him over it. It was a petty thought, but he didn't take it back. He
had no doubt it was accurate, as well as mean of him to consider. Her lacking a
tongue was, for him, probably a good thing.

"Hang in there." He said it, or variations of it,
over and over. Nothing they could do there was going to help either of them
much. Shock was a real problem, one that could end in death if not treated, but
just hitting Carl with a blanket would probably kill him too. They couldn't
eat, if there was any food there, their mouths being injured. The same was true
when it came to getting them water. Drugs would have been a good plan, but Carl
wouldn't have kept a hidden stash of them there, or not useful ones, Jay was
willing to bet. Not that he had time to check.

What they did have was water, so Carl could be kept moist.
It was probably the wrong thing to do, but it was something, and seemed to hurt
less than the dry towels did. He could tell by the screaming. It was softer
when the damp towels came. That could just be him dying, of course.

Mills had treated Carl harshly, but he wasn't the main focus
of the exercise, was he? The former deputy had talked about not knowing about
him, thinking Tony Mills was his real father most of his life. He was mad at
being abandoned, left with a crazy and abusive woman, so blamed
him
. His
dead father. Not Carl at all.