The Guild of Fallen Clowns (39 page)

Holly tried to spot the figure on the dark
floor. “It talked to me. I swear, that clown thing talked,” she
said.

Caitlyn and Loren shared grins. “Maybe it’s
not alcohol,” Caitlyn said.

Loren looked forward. “Are you okay, Holly?
You’re not on something, are you?”

Barely disturbed from the seat beside her,
Megan’s head remained down when her hand rose and she cheered,
“Jell-o shots.” The backseat girls cracked up, forgetting about
Holly’s questionable driving skills.

“I don’t think we’ll have to wait long,”
Loren laughed.

Caitlyn leaned forward to look at Megan’s
slumped body. “True, but she’ll never stay in a chair. We’ll have
to lay her on the grass.”

A horn honked from the car behind them.
Holly looked up to see the light changed. She continued driving.
The whole time she moved her left foot around the floor in search
of the figure. She couldn’t feel it anywhere.

“Turn the station. Bear sucks tonight,”
Caitlyn said. Loren agreed and Holly reached to the stereo. She
pressed one of the preset buttons and hovered her finger, waiting
for their approval.

“Try again,” Caitlyn ordered. Holly changed
the station again and looked down to ready her finger for the next
button. Movement caught her eye beyond the radio. She looked at
Megan’s leg and saw the missing figure laid across her calf. She
pulled her arm away and screeched. Static cracked from the speakers
from her last selection and she looked back to the road.

“Try again,” the girls chanted in
unison.

Holly gripped the wheel with both hands. “I
need to pull over,” she said.

“Are you gonna be sick?” Caitlyn asked.

“No, I just—it—I just need to get out of the
car.”

Caitlyn leaned forward and looked at the
road. Concrete barricades lined both sides. “You can’t stop here,
Holly, it’s a construction zone and there’s nowhere to pull
over.”

“It’s like this until we cross the river.
The construction ends on the other side,” Loren added.

“Will you be okay till then? You’re not
gonna freak out on us again, are you?” Caitlyn said.

Holly glanced back at Megan’s leg and the
figure was gone. She looked back to the road and nodded. “Okay,
I’ll make it.”

Caitlyn leaned back. “Good, now do something
about that noise.” Again, Holly reached for the buttons, but before
she could press one, the static disappeared. The gravelly voice she
had heard from the figure came through the speakers. “On this day,
your life will change.” Immediately following the voice, a song
started playing by the Black Eyed Peas. Holly turned to ice as
Caitlyn and Loren butt danced and sang along from the back
seat.

“Turn it up!” Caitlyn yelled. “
I’ve got a
feeling. Tonight’s gonna be a good night. Tonight’s gonna be a good
good night,
” they sang.

Holly reached for the radio, but not to turn
the volume up. After hearing the voice come through the radio, she
wanted to turn it off. She pressed the power button, but instead of
shutting the radio off, it switched to another station. A news
correspondent was reporting details of a recent accident. The girls
in the back continued singing as if the song were still playing.
Holly pressed the power button five or six more times, in vain. The
radio wouldn’t turn off and the station was fixed to a news report.
Holly gave up and focused on the narrow road. She was approaching a
bridge, which was shut down to one lane in each direction.

“Witnesses say the accident was caused by an
intoxicated, underage female. Apparently, she was driving home from
a party when she lost control of her vehicle on the bridge over the
lake. Her vehicle slammed into an oncoming minivan, forcing it over
the edge and into the lake thirty-five feet below. The underage
girl survived, but the family of four in the mini-van all perished
at the scene.” The news report ended and the Black Eyed Peas picked
up in perfect sync with Caitlyn and Loren.

Tears flowed down Holly’s cheeks as she
listened to the painfully familiar report. She wiped her eyes in
her sleeve and looked in the mirror for her friends. Looking back
at her, from inside the mirror, were the glistening black eyes and
face of the carnival figure. Terror prevented her from screaming or
looking away. She reached out and lowered the mirror from her
sight. A hand came out of the mirror and turned to grab and adjust
the mirror to the proper position. When the hand retreated back
into the mirror, Peepers was grinning at her. The girls in the back
seat continued singing as if he wasn’t there.

“Peepers knows your secret. Peepers here to
set Holly free.” He pointed ahead and Holly followed his aim back
to the road, where a person was standing twenty feet in front of
her car. She yanked the wheel right to avoid hitting him. The hard
angle of her turn was too much of a direct hit for the bridge rail.
The car ripped through the steel and dove grill first into the
river below.

Standing on the spot of the bridge where the
car broke through, Peepers watched the car as it sank out of sight.
“Good, good night, Holly.”

Standing in front of the moonlit headstone,
Sam saw the name of his old friend and partner.

Jack Gates

1953 - 1986

A tear escaped and he got down to his knees
and folded his hands. “I’m sorry, Jack,” he whispered. Those were
the only words he said as he sat and stared at the headstone. He
rubbed his eyes and bowed his head.

In silence, he stared at the headstone for a
good five minutes. The plot was twenty feet from the road. With his
back to his car, Sam heard the closing of a car door. His head
snapped back to the sound and he saw a dark shadow of a tall, thin
figure approaching.

He jumped to his feet and clenched his
fists. The figure stopped. A streetlight along the road behind the
intruder blinded his view of the stranger. Squinting, he said,
“What do you want? Do you work here? I know it’s late, but the gate
was open—”

“My name is Peepers,” the figure said.

Sam moved his hand over the light for a
better view. Peepers stepped closer until Sam’s eyes opened wide.
“Peepers? Wait, that’s what
it
said—”

Peepers smiled as recognition flushed over
Sam’s face. “The statue,” Sam said. “You look like the prize I won
at the carnival.”

“Peepers here to help Sam.”

Sam stepped backwards. “Stay there. Don’t
come any closer.”

Peepers remained still. Standing at Jack’s
headstone, Sam shifted behind it for cover. “What’s going on? Who
are you?”

“My name is—”

“Peepers! I know, you already said that,”
Sam interrupted. “That means nothing to me. Who sent you and what
do you want from me?”

“Peepers is spirit. Here to free Sam.”

“A
spirit
—to free me?” Sam tucked
lower behind the headstone. “I’m not crazy, and you’re not a ghost.
You’re from the institution, aren’t you? I don’t need more drugs,
and I’m not going back there.”

“Peepers free Sam.”

Sam watched as Peepers’ body transformed
into a swirling cloud of dark smoke. The smoke stretched into a
funnel, to a spot directly in front of Jack’s headstone, where it
spread and reappeared as a solid figure, sitting Indian-style on
the grave in front of him.

“Oh my god, I am insane,” Sam whispered.

Peepers’ eyes lowered to the engraving on
the headstone. “He waits for Sam—but Jack is not here.” Sam didn’t
respond. Peepers looked up at him. “Peepers can bring Sam to
him.”

Sam remained silent, peering over the
headstone.

“Sam can ask his forgiveness.”

Sam became angry and jumped to his feet.
“Look, I don’t know if you are real, or if I’m going crazy, but I
didn’t come here to ask Jack to forgive me. I don’t deserve it and
I don’t believe you. Even if you could do what you say, I doubt he
would want to see me.”

Peepers’ body turned to swirling black
smoke. The cloud floated beside Sam and rematerialized inches from
his left shoulder with Peepers peering down at him.

“Why Sam come to grave?”

Sam looked up into Peepers’ repulsive face
and took a step to the side. “I came to pay my respects. But I
didn’t come to beg for his forgiveness,” he insisted.

Peepers turned away. “He didn’t hear Sam’s
apology.”

“What—how did you hear? What’s that have to
do with anything?” Sam said.

“Sam’s wish—state regret—accept punishment.
Peepers free Sam. Take you to him.”

Sam stepped further away from Peepers. “No
way, I’m not going anywhere with you. I believe Jack can hear my
apology right here. “

Peepers grinned. “Sam still coward.
Paralyzed by his fear.”

Sam lunged forward until his pumped-out
chest was against Peepers’. “You’re wrong. I’m not afraid of
you.”

Peepers laughed at Sam standing his ground.
Then he glared down at him and said, “Peepers not thing Sam fear.
Sam coward to face friend he failed.”

Sam backed down and turned, facing Jack’s
grave.

“He waits,” Peepers said.

Sam turned with a determined look in his
eyes. “Where are we going?” he said. Peepers motioned Sam back to
his car. Sam pulled the keys from his pocket and walked toward the
car. Peepers followed.

*****

Sam’s right hand grasped the doorknob and
attempted to open it. It didn’t turn. He looked at the Peepers
figure in his left hand. “The door’s locked.”

The figure’s face became animated as it
spoke. “Above light,” it said.

Sam looked at the wall sconce beside the
door and reached above it. A key rested on a small ledge against
the wall. He inserted the key and turned the knob. A strong breeze
rushed inside as he stepped out to the roof of the building. The
door slammed shut behind him.

Sam backed himself against the wall beside
the door, in the center of the roof.

“Okay, I’m here. Now what?” he said. The
figure of Peepers started to shake in his hand and as Sam looked
down, the familiar dark swirl of smoke flowed out and drifted to
the edge of the roof, twenty feet in front of him. Peepers
solidified from the smoke and stepped up on the half-wall ledge of
the tall building. He smiled as his body gyrated in an attempt to
maintain balance.

“Come closer,” Peepers said.

Sam stood firm. “You said Jack would be
here. I’m here, where is he?”

“Patience, Sam. Friend is close.” He turned
his back to Sam and looked down to the ground two hundred feet
below. His arms stretched out, aimed over the side. “He is on this
side. Sam must come closer to be with friend.”

With Peepers still facing away, Sam’s hand
crawled across the wall to the doorknob. A quick twist and jiggle
confirmed that the door was locked. He had left the key in the lock
on the other side.

Peepers turned and smiled. “He waits.”

Sam let go of the doorknob. “Waiting for
what? Waiting for me to jump to my death?”

Peepers laughed. “Sam cannot jump. Edge of
this building is place where fear closed door to life. Fear must
open door, to see dead friend.”

“Are you saying my fear of heights is the
only way for me to see Jack?”

“Yes, Sam must open door where fear is
great.”

Sam crept forward and stopped a yard from
the edge. He looked up at Peepers, who was now seated, straddling
the short wall. “This is as close as I’ll go,” he said.

Peepers frowned and shook his head. “Sam
still coward.” He reached out his hand and looked at Sam grasping
his figure. “Peepers cannot help. Return to me.”

Sam held the figure out. Peepers yanked it
from him and turned in disgust. Sam’s shoulders started to turn
when he stopped and turned back to Peepers. He took a deep breath
and sighed. Then with Peepers still facing away, he stepped up to
the ledge and carefully lifted himself on the wall and dangled both
feet over the street side. Peepers’ head turned. Sam’s fingers
tensed as they gripped the wall to his sides. He tilted his head up
to the sky, purposely avoiding the view below.

Peepers was pleased. He threw his outward
leg over the wall and stood on the roof. He placed his figure on
the wall beside Sam and snickered as he stepped out of Sam’s
peripheral view.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked nervously,
never taking his focus off the night sky.

Peepers stepped behind Sam and grabbed his
shoulders. Every muscle in Sam’s body tensed.

“What are you doing? Don’t push me,” Sam
begged.

Peepers’ hands remained firmly gripping
Sam’s shoulders and he leaned in to his left ear. “The door is
below,” he said.

Sam closed his eyes and lowered his
head.

“Open eyes,” Peepers whispered.

Sam’s eyes opened to slits. A vein in his
neck throbbed as the view of the street below became clear. “Where
is he? I don’t see him. I don’t see any—door.”

In his left ear, Sam heard Peepers inhale
deep. Peepers’ eyes were closed as he savored the flavor of Sam’s
fear. He exhaled, and then gave Sam’s shoulders a quick shake. Sam
leaned back hard and raised his head to the sky with his eyes
closed tight.

“What the fuck. Don’t do that again!” Sam
yelled.

Peepers drank in Sam’s predicament.

“You lied to me,” Sam whimpered. “He’s not
here, is he? You tricked me, didn’t you? Who the hell are you? Why
are you doing this?”

Peepers removed his grip on Sam’s right
shoulder. “Look down,” he commanded.

“No!” Sam said.

Peepers pushed slowly on Sam’s left shoulder
until he was hunched over, close to the point of tipping. Sam gave
in and opened his eyes to the ground. “Okay, okay, my eyes are
open,” he cried. Peepers released the pressure and allowed him to
return upright on the wall. With Sam still looking down, Peepers
flipped a small rock off the wall with his right hand. Sam watched
as it floated in slow motion to the ground, where it shattered on
impact with the sidewalk.