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I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to dispel his echoing screams from my mind. “Fine, you win…” I said, sighing. “We’ll wait for the cops.” It was another five or so minutes before the police showed up. When they arrived, I let Ray do most of the talking. Finally, the officer turned to me and asked for the photo.
“And you said the person that took this photo was the same one that chased after you?” he asked, periodically exchanging glances between me and the photo.
“Y-Yeah…” I stammered, dreading the question I somehow just knew he was going to follow up this one with.
“And what did you say this person looked like again?” I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.
“She had red and white face paint around her eyes and mouth… You know, like a clown…” I remember feeling so stupid when I said that last part. I was almost sure he was gonna blow the whole thing off as a prank. Surprisingly, though, he actually looked serious.
“Would you know of any reason at all why this person would want to hurt this girl?” I just shook my head. I knew, though, it was to get to me. Why, though, I honestly wasn’t sure. They took my friend away from me, what the hell else do they want?!
(The devil was never satisfied until he’d destroyed everyone, and neither was “The Amazing Beliar”…)
Finally, he handed me a card with a phone number on it and told us to call if either of us saw her again. I realized then that I needed to get home. The sky was pitch dark by then. They’re gonna kill me! I thought to myself, despite the fact that I was, of course, far more terrified for Liza at the time. Using Ray’s house phone, I called my house, immediately bracing to get both barrels from Ma as soon as she picked up the phone. What happened next, though, scared me far worse.
At first, I was a bit relieved – though of course a bit confused – when it was actually quiet on the other end for a solid minute or so after the call connected. “H-Hello, Ma? It’s me, Linus… Listen, um, I–” That’s when I was cut off by a high pitched, squealing giggling from the other end.
What the fu– My thoughts were cut off, however, when another, hauntingly familiar jittery voice spoke from the other end.
“Come home, Piggy, we’ve got a surprise for you!” I began trembling and my hand shook so bad that I ended up dropping the phone, leaving it to dangle from the cord.
No! No, no, no, no, FUCK! They know where I live! Immediately, my thoughts betrayed me by cycling back through the worst possibilities of what those freaks had done to my parents.
“Linus?” I felt hands on my shoulders, shaking me. “Dude, what’s going on, what’s up?!” I snapped my head over to him, still shaking.
“Th-Th-They’re in my house!” I ran to the doorway just as the officer was about to leave and told him what’d happened. He asked me my address and I told him and he told me to get in the car.
As we basically sped the entire way to my house, I shook to my very core with one very damning question. What have they done to Ma and Dad? I half expected the house to be in flames, with Ma and Dad trapped inside, slowly roasting alive. I was only half relieved, though, when we arrived to find that the house was still intact from the outside. Of course, I was still very much terrified of what I’d find inside. I grabbed the handle of the door and was about to bolt out when the officer told me to stop.
“B-But…” I tried, wanting to just bolt out and help rescue my family.
(Just like how I wanted to help Derek…)
He radioed for backup and, ten minutes later, two other patrol cars arrived. “Stay here.” he told me as he got out of the car and made his way to the front of my house. The two others I saw approached from the back. I saw the officer knock on the front door twice, drawing his gun after the second attempt. I was shaking, sweating bullets, when I saw the officer draw his gun. Oh God, please let them be okay…
He then opened the door, apparently having been left unlocked – something I knew my folks wouldn’t ever do under any normal circumstances – and went inside. What’s going on in there?! I wondered with nauseating anxiety as I saw the lights being turned on from the windows. About fifteen minutes later, they all came out of the front door and walked back to the car. I was on the verge of a heart attack, bracing myself to hear the horrific news of what’d happened to my family. Then the officer opened my door.
“Come on out, son, it’s all safe.”
“Where’s Ma and Dad?” I asked, my voice quivering and sounding like a small child about to burst into tears – which I very much was. He then handed me a sticky note that read “Had to step out. Door’s unlocked. Be back later. Love Ma.” Despite the note, relief was still very slow to return to me.
What did they mean by “Surprise”?
I was immediately taken back to the dark room with the three doors. I could faintly hear Happy Bob’s deep voice boom, “… And the last door leads to a special secret surprise!” As you can probably guess, I lost myself again to the haunting images of the altar and the… the… Well, you know…
(“Would you like that, Piggy?”)
I felt the officer’s hand on my shoulder. “Did you hear me?” he asked.
“Huh?” I replied, crashing back to reality.
“I said we’re gonna stay here with you until your parents get back, okay?” I nodded blankly, still just barely registering anything around me. “Would you have any idea as to when they’d be back?” I shook my head, dazed. Then, however, I remembered something.
I remembered how Dad always kept a pager on him from when he was selling cars back in NY. He kept the number for it written on a piece of tape across the front of it. He always told me and Ma that we were only ever supposed to call it in the event of dire emergencies.
I told the officer about calling the pager and he, along with two others, accompanied me back inside my house, leaving the other three outside with the vehicles. I dialed the number and waited, still trembling and by this point, just two seconds away from going straight into shock. It didn’t help at all that, even with the pager, I still had to wait for one or both of them to actually get to a phone, assuming there was even one nearby. All the while, I was still panicking, wondering what the clowns were wanting me to find.
“Hello? Linus? Is everything okay?!” The anxious voice of my Dad jarred me.
“Uh… I… I…” I began tripping over my own thoughts. How the hell was I supposed to explain this?
“Linus, what’s going on? Are you hurt?” Unable to form a coherent sentence, I handed the phone to the officer.
“Hello, this is Officer Hagan from the Nashville Police Department.” He began. I listened to him explain the situation at Ray’s house and the “possible home invasion”, as he termed it. About three minutes later, Officer Hagan handed the phone back to me.
“Son! Baby, Oh God, are you okay?!” It was Ma.
“Y-Yeah… Yeah, I’m okay…”
“We’re coming home right now, hang in there, baby!”
“O-Okay…” I squeaked out. I was barely being held together by shoestrings by that point, and I couldn’t hide it in my voice, either. “I-I-I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too! Just hang in there, we’ll be pulling into the driveway in ten minutes!” she said before hanging up. About a minute after hanging up, one of the officer’s walkies beeped. “Officer Whitmore, here, Over.” he answered.
“A call’s just come in about a domestic disturbance at a residence in the next neighborhood over from our position. Over.” I saw him look to Officer Hagan questioningly.
“Go ahead,” Officer Hagan replied. “Me and Gorman will stay here until the kid’s folks arrive. Keep me posted if anything goes south.” Officer Whitmore then stood up and headed for the door.
“Copy that,” he said into the walkie on his way out, “Where’d the call call come in from? Over.” As the officers left, leaving only officer Hagan and his partner, Gorman, one question after another continued pounding like a jackhammer in my head.
How did they find my house? How long have they been following me? WHY have they been following me? Then, of course, There was still the unshakeable, spine chilling question of what they planned to do with Liza. What was the “Secret surprise”?
While my mind continued brooding over this, I could, albeit very faintly, hear voices breaking through the static of one of the officer’s radios. “Nashville P.D. to base… Repeat, Nashville P.D. to base… We’re En route. E.T.A. ten minutes…” was all I was able to make out at the time. I remember hearing a multitude of sirens in the distance, mentally noting with a shiver at just how close they sounded.
Why are there so many of them? My head began spinning so hard from the hysteria and the confusion that I actually began to feel dizzy physically. “You okay, there, kid?” I faintly heard officer Hagan’s voice say. “Why don’t you go splash some water on your face? Help you relax.”
“O-Okay…” I meekly muttered, trudging upstairs to the bathroom. I had to hold onto the railing as I slugged along. My head was swimming. What is the “secret surprise”?!
This constant paranoid thought process caused me to immediately begin turning the bathroom inside out as soon as I turned on the light. I shivered, fearing what I might find.
Nothing. Nothing was wrong here. Nothing had been moved, taken, opened, or broken. There wasn’t so much as a hair out of it’s place. At least, not until I opened the medicine cabinet and a small slip of paper fell out onto the sink below.
Eyes wide, I picked it up with reinvigorated terror. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to try and relax my quaking hands long enough to hold the paper still. Once I was able to hold still, I opened my eyes to see that I was holding another photo. This one was of Derek. Looking closer, my heart nearly stopped dead in my chest when I realized that it was the same photo from the park. The eyes and mouth had been defaced with the red clown smile just like the photo from earlier with Liza.
I felt my stomach turn over on itself as I turned the photo around to see that it, too, had a message written on the back of it.
“We had so much fun with him, didn’t we? Remember how happy he looked?”
“Please! PLEASE, NO MORE!”
Vertigo finally got the better of me and I began to retch into the toilet. Images of Derek’s scarred face flooded my mind. in an almost endless barrage, each accompanied by his pleas for mercy. A knock at the bathroom door took my attention away from the toilet. “You okay in there, kid?”
“Y-Yeah… Yeah, I’m okay…” I weakly responded.
“Alright, well, when you’re ready, your parents are waiting for you outside.” I slowly picked myself up and made my way back downstairs, still feeling extremely nauseous. Ma nearly bowled officer Hagan over as she swooped me into her arms before I could even reach the last step.
“Oh my God! Baby, are you okay?!” I just stared back at her in a blank daze, before just burying my face into her chest like a shy toddler. Once again, I heard one of the officer’s radios go off, faintly hearing the words, “Attention all units, this is officer Whitmore requesting backup… We’ve got two adults and a minor in critical condition!”
“Copy that, you said two adults and a minor? Over.” I heard officer Gorman respond as he walked outside. I just clutched tighter to Ma as officer Hagan showed her and Dad the photo of me and Liza. I felt Ma’s embrace tighten around me as officer Hagan asked if they’d know of anyone who’d want to hurt me or Liza. Of course, they didn’t. They wouldn’t have known about the clowns… About Derek…
I didn’t ever talk about it. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to remember.
(It was all because I wanted to forget…)
He then explained that a patrol would be stationed outside my house for the next week or so when officer Gorman came back inside, gesturing for his partner to follow him out. About two minutes later, officer Hagan came back inside and asked to speak with Ma and Dad privately. Obliging, Ma and Dad told me to go wait in the living room while they relocated to the dining room to talk.
At the time, I couldn’t make out any of what they were saying, noticing instead the periodic glances in my direction from the officers as they spoke. What happened? What’re they talking about in there? I wondered with a sinister chill pricking down my spine when I watched Ma cover her mouth with a horrified expression. Almost immediately after she turned back to the officers, I noticed a small series of flashes from outside the living room window.
And keep in mind, these weren’t police flashes. No, rather, these were bright, white flashes that seemed to just occur sporadically, about two or three flashes every few seconds. I slowly got up from my spot on the couch and went over to the window, squinting my eyes. Cupping my face to the window, I strained my eyes to try and make out the source of the flashes. At first, I thought it might’ve just been one of the neighbor’s porchlights going on the fritz from across the street. But once I got to the window, however, I noticed the flashes were occurring about two and a half or so feet away from the neighbor’s house to the right of it.
Despite straining my eyes to the point where it was actually beginning to feel uncomfortable, I couldn’t see exactly what it was that was causing the flashes. Who or whatever was responsible for it appeared to be – almost strategically – placed in a spot just outside the illumination radius of the streetlamp that was situated just beyond the front yard of the house across the street, under complete cover of night.
“Oh God, Linus, sweetheart, I’m here! Momma’s here now!” I heard my mother softly say, shuddering as her arms wrapped around my waist and began to squeeze. A feeling I will always miss. I was jolted away from the window to see my mother’s red face and watery brown eyes. “Everything’s gonna be okay, baby…” She tried, futilely, to smile. Turning back to the window, I saw that the flashes were now gone. “What, what is it honey? What did you see?”
I stared at the window, blinking in confusion. What was that? “It’s nothing. I muttered, shaking my head. I felt her arms tighten around me.
“Are you sure you saw nothing?” I saw her face take on the most worried and downright terrified expression I’d ever seen in that moment. It scared me, but worse, it broke me because of how much I could see the way this whole crisis was tearing at her. She was scared, which meant I was in trouble – even if I didn’t know (Or at least wanted to pretend I didn’t know) why. I never wanted to see that look from her again. (Like I’d get what I wanted…)
“Y-Yeah… Yeah, it’s nothing, I promise. I think I’m just tired. I think my eyes are messing with me.”
She pulled me in for another snug embrace, burying my face in her chest. She just held me like that for another moment before telling me to go ahead and go lay down. I looked at her and then to Dad and the others. “Go on ahead to bed, son. I love you, we’ll talk more in the morning.” Dad said, giving me a brief, but firm side-hug before I shambled blankly upstairs to my room. Once I found my bed, exhaustion overrode my restless thoughts and I was out cold almost before my head could even hit the pillow.
That said, my sleep was anything BUT peaceful. I’d spend that entire night tossing and turning with a very specific – and very vivid – nightmare. I dreamt that I was back inside of the dark room in HappyWorld. The “Balloon Room”, surrounded by all of those dead kids. Only, they weren’t dead. They all looked at me with their scarred, mutilated smiles and crawled towards me, screaming “Always remember to smile! Smile for us!” before bursting into flames. That’s when Derek appeared on top of the altar. At first, he looked normal, but then he peeled the skin away from around his eyes and tore his mouth upwards ear-to-ear.
He says to me “I wanna thank you, Linus. Now I can always be happy.” I then become seized by the screaming, burning, mutilated kids as Derek walks up to me and says “Now we can both smile together.” Then, he digs his fingers into my face to rip off my eyelids. As I scream in pain, I see the Amazing Beliar, smiling in demented glee, then plunge his blade into Derek’s head, causing it to explode and shower the entire area around in gore. He then lets out an inhuman laugh as he sticks the blade in my mouth and drags it from one side to the other as his head morphs into that of a black goat with fangs. I screamed harder than ever as I then burst into flames myself, before suddenly being shaken awake.
“Linus! Honey, wake up!” My eyes shot open and I immediately saw my mother’s face illuminated in the moonlight from my bedroom window. I just laid there, sweating and breathing heavily when she asked “Are you okay?”
I stared back at her in a groggy daze, mind completely lost in a scrambled trance and answered “Y-Yeah…” She kissed the top of my head before telling me to follow her. She led me down the stairs into the kitchen. When she pulled up two chairs to the kitchen counter, I knew immediately what she was doing. In a soft, soothing voice, she whispered, “I know you’re all grown up now and all, but I can’t let my little one go without some of momma’s delicious cookies and warm milk after a nightmare like that.” She began setting the oven.
I sat down at the counter, a smile molding into my face as I saw her get out the ingredients. She winked at ne when she pulled out the chocolate chips and M&Ms. While I watched her knead the batter, I was instantly reminded of the nights when I’d walk into her and Dad’s room after having a bad dream and she’d always whip up about two dozen cookies, each perfectly soft and crumbly to the point where they’d melt in your mouth on contact and each and every flavor would basically be imprinted in your tongue. She’d always serve them with a glass of freshly warmed milk that’s heated just right to where just one glass (Or Hell, just ine good gulp if we’re being completely honest) and it was lights out quicker than taking a tranquilizer in your ass.
(I wish to God I could have that now. Who am I kidding, though, I doubt even THAT would work anymore…)
Once she was finished mixing the batter, she handed me the spoon for me to lick clean, just like she would when I was little. Smiling, I took it and gave my taste buds a sense of heaven while she did the same, licking her fingers clean with a warm smile. I almost couldn’t contain my excitement when I watched her dump half of the jar of M&Ms into the batter before mixing then in by hand. As she had her back to me to put the cookies into the oven, I caught a slight, bright flash out of the corner of my right eye from the kitchen window.
It was instantaneous and, had the house not been dark and quiet, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. I looked over to the window to see nothing but the dark backyard. Nothing out of place. Am I seeing things? I wondered.
“Whatcha looking at?” Ma whispered. looking out through the window herself.
“Uh… N-Nothing.” I responded, rubbing my eyes before putting an excited grin back on my face, anxiously anticipating the cookies. For a second, she held a somber, sympathetic sort of look on her face before melting away back to her warm, smile again. “Why don’t you wait on the couch in the living room, I’ll join you when the cookies are ready, eh?”
I nodded and sluggishly shambled ny way to the couch. As I sat there, teased by the intoxicating aroma of baking goodies, my mind continued to, albeit only mildly, brood over one question. What the hell are these flashes? Eventually, Ma joined me on the couch with the treats, hugging me close with the cookie platter between us and lovingly whispering “Enjoy sweetheart.” For about the next ten minutes or so, I did just that, smiling back up at Ma and telling her she was the best mom ever.
Then I saw it again, another series of bright, blinking white lights from the corner of my right eye from outside the living room window. They were occurring even closer to the window than before, yet, I still couldn’t really make out who or what it was actually coming from. I found myself then huddling closer to Ma.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice beginning to break. I looked out of the window again to see – just like before – no flashing, no lights.
“Nothing, I think I’m just seeing things…” I groggily answered again. (Goddamn it, WHY DID I HAvE TO BE A COWARD!) Ma put her hands on my shoulders, positioning me to meet eyes with her.
“Linus, honey, please,” I could see her eyes starting to glisten in the moonlight, “I need you to be honest with me.” I just stared back at her, not knowing at all how to even begin telling her. That five months ago, I watched my friend get murdered and sacrificed to the devil by a group of psycho clowns in a funhouse. And that now, they were for some reason stalking me, as well as possibly targeting Liza, AND NOW, I’m seeing random, mysterious flashing lights outside.
I know what you’re thinking here, and I can’t necessarily blame you to a degree. I know you think I should’ve just came clean already, but damn it, I WAS SCARED, OKAY?! Back then, I was just a stupid kid, loved life and just wanted to have fun. Then I met Derek, made a kickass friend in him. And then “The Balloon”, and now all of this. I… I… Oh God…
(I just wanted to keep running. I still do…)
“Officer Hagan told us about the photo.” she squeaked, her voice continuing to quiver. “Who’s doing this? Who’s trying to hurt you?”
“I… I… I don’t know.” I lied. My body and mind were both trembling furiously, just wanting to write the day’s events off as just one big nightmare that’d pass by morning. She just stared at me, just seconds – no, less than seconds -- away from straight up breaking down.
“I love you so much, Linus…” With that, I just curled back into her embrace, clinging to her like a frightened animal for dear life. Before I fell asleep, my mother pressed my head into her chest and whispered the words that bring me so much more pain even to this day when I remember them, “I couldn’t take it if I lost you.”