He’s coming for you.
That’s what the formerly demon possessed man said. He meant it for everyone, but he pointed at just one person: Me.
Lending gravity to his infernal tale of woe was the pentagram tattoo on his neck and the sixes across all of his knuckles. Pastor Cam introduced him as an ex-devil worshiper named Pat.
Pat looked, however, like he’d lied about giving up Satan. Finding Christ came with a wardrobe change and a makeover, no?
He paced the orange carpet in the musty, church basement, leaving dark footprints from the dirt on his motorcycle boots.
“I watched my mom try to kill herself with our old furnace.” He didn’t explain how. Having limited knowledge of furnaces, I pictured someone cramming their body into a fiery opening.
“A demon appeared to me on the basement stairs as I listened to heavy metal and took drugs.” The vague way he referenced the music and his altered state made him less convincing. He sounded like an afterschool special or PSA between cartoons on a Saturday.
“I couldn’t touch a bible or look at one. Going inside a church burned my skin.” Since we were in one, I assumed his discomfort had ended. Throwing a bible at him and yelling, “Catch!” would probably be frowned upon.
Chelsea wouldn’t like it. Coming back to the youth group on Fridays had been her idea. I took it as a prerequisite and a condition of our carnal relationship, which had begun a week ago at school. We kissed at the dance and I almost touched her bra.
It’d gone no further than that. She worried for our eternal souls. I wasn’t sure we had any, but didn’t want to pressure her and become the known creep of the community.
Christians are funny. Because they give themselves the option to repent and be redeemed, they do all the things they think they shouldn’t. It wasn’t the atheist girls having premarital sex and babies. A paradox that worked for an opportunistic asshole like a teenage boy.
So I agreed to come and even thought Pat might be interesting when the youth pastor announced the guest speaker of the night.
He seemed confused and mentally ill. I felt sorry for him, and then I was impatient. We were going to the fast food burger joint I don’t need to name because you know it and have probably eaten there. You’ll understand why I don’t name it. I don’t want any legal trouble.
“Satan is real,” Pat said, leading to a final statement. “He’s real. He takes many forms. Your father. Your mom. Your brothers. Yogi Bear. Super Mario. You’ll know it’s the devil, when he’s coming for you.”
That’s when he pointed at me and breathed heavily, wheezing almost, and my face became uncomfortably warm from the unexpected scrutiny in the room. I smiled and looked for support but everyone looked worried.
“Thank you, Pat,” Pastor Cam said, clapping a few times and then giving up when the silent tension would not relent. Pat sat down in the back row of chairs.
The pastor started a prayer to conclude the evening. I snuck a look at Pat and found him staring right at me. He looked sweaty and trembled with a secret delight revealed only by the hint of a smile.
I quickly looked away.
“Amen,” the Pastor concluded. “Have a good night, kids. Be safe.”
We milled around for a few moments, confirming plans to meet up at [that burger place]. I tried to keep an eye out for Pat because the dude was clearly fixated on me.
I do have a tendency to wear my thoughts on my face. He probably noticed I wasn’t buying his crazy story fragments.
He remained in the back row seats. He hadn’t stopped watching me. I shrugged at him like, “What the hell?”
Chelsea tugged my arm and I looked away. “Come on, we’re going.” I acknowledged her with a nod. In the brief distraction, Pat disappeared. What a joke. He was trying to scare me. Too bad I couldn’t convince myself he hadn’t.
The night turned frosty. Paul, the weird kid, fidgety as the formerly possessed, made the lame joke about smoking, posing his fingers and breathing asthmatically. Nobody laughed.
The crunch of boots on a thin layer of snow marked a grim journey to [that burger place]. It was too cold for etiquette.
As the seven of us crossed the street from church to the edge without a sidewalk, the streetlight above went out. We didn’t remark on it until we left the vicinity of predicted illumination. It went back on.
“Spooky,” Paul said, laughing like he’d told another joke. It became spooky when we reached the next streetlight; it went out too.
We stopped, uncertain what to make of the mildly interesting phenomenon.
Chelsea took my hand and squeezed. “Let’s keep going. It’s cold.” More like, let’s keep going because I’m scared. I didn’t mind so long as she kept holding onto me.
Again, the light resumed when we were outside its casted glow.
The next block contained mostly mud and unfinished houses from some development gone sour. Streetlights here were fewer, only two. Yet they were enough to unnerve us with sudden malfunctions.
“This is too weird,” Paul said. He wasn’t laughing anymore. His dumb face looked thoughtful. “Can we try something? Leave one at a time.”
“No and no,” I said, moving along and inadvertently cooperating. I was the only one to go. Chelsea had stopped holding my hand and I guess I’d been distracted by the mystery lights. The circular bugle of electric sight blessed the six still beneath it.
“It’s you,” Paul accused without regret and more than a little delight. I was an outsider to the youth group. Chelsea had stopped going to the church before I met her. None of the boys were happy to see her return with a new guy.
“Sure it is,” I said, unnerved and trying not to show it. “Let’s go.”
The group started moving.
Chelsea touched my arm. “Go back to the light.”
“What?”
“Go back. I want to see.”
“Come on, can we-“
“I want to see,” she insisted.
“Fine.” I marched back to the light and started thrashing, gripping my throat. “It burns! It burns! Oh, the pain!”
The others laughed. Chelsea did not. Nothing happened to the streetlight; it stayed on.
When the next one went out, nobody commented and we kept walking.
On Rockchurch Road, there were no street lights until [that burger place] and those were already flickering. A lot of the restaurants had undergone extensive renovations to appear more like coffee shops. Not this one though.
This one looked forgotten in the midst of a developer’s hell. Fields of mud surrounded it, staked out for houses that hadn’t even started construction. More remnants from economic stagflation.
We were only going to [that burger place] because it was within walking distance. Plus, it was on the way home for both Chelsea and I. Now that we’d arrived, however, I didn’t feel like going in.
“Want to go home instead?” I asked her.
She frowned. “Fellowship with Christians is important.”
I relented, of course, and tried to pass off the suggestion as a joke. She didn’t look like she bought it.
Inside, Pastor Cam surprised us with soft serve cones on his youth pastor’s salary. Twenty-one cones for twenty one bucks. The bulk of the youth group had traveled by car.
I was glad for the free ice cream. I only had five dollars in my wallet, enough for one happy meal. Fortunately, the cone sufficed for Chelsea.
The deep fried air felt thick, heavy. Breathing it couldn’t be calorie wise. A number of track lights had spent bulbs, creating a dull atmosphere punctuated obnoxiously with blue pools of sterile illumination. We in the shadows looked ill. Those beneath the stark light appeared insane. All of us struggled to sit comfortably on hard plastic benches and chairs.
I hated [that burger place] in general. This one, in case my description wasn’t clear, I loathed.
I tried not to look like I wanted to leave.
We took a table at the end and observed the cavorting teens. They told jokes and shot spitballs while a tired looking employee appealed to the pastor “for proper behaviour.”
I agreed with the employee. The group was full of awkward nerds bound by vague religious ideas. Outside of the church, at school, they were quiet outcasts. I preferred them that way. Even Chelsea seemed embarrassed.
“Could be worse,” I whispered. “Could be other people here.” Aside from the employees, which were few - I only saw two - our youth group members were the only patrons.
I jumped when that changed. A heavy thud against the window presented two oversized white gloves.
That clown, that one, stared at us. The one you’re thinking of, the trademarked man with red hair and a maw of grinning crimson. He belonged to [that burger place] ideologically but had no business appearing in the flesh at a random franchise in the middle of the night.
No cars but Pastor Cam’s were in the parking lot. That clown arrived on foot.
The group, the employee too, watched as he grinned and pressed his nose against the glass, which frosted quickly to obscure and distort his colorful features into something sinister.
Before I could act on the urge to tell the employee to lock the door, that clown flung it open, creating a vacuum that sucked the breath from the dining area.
With his big shoes, he stomped into our midst, aggressively shrouded sweat steaming from his skin. Heat emanated from him and an anger fixed his expression permanently into revulsion.
An attack was imminent. I was sure.
But then he saw me. Latent rage became further buried under a lazy smile. He extended his glove to shake and with the other, dug around in his yellow coveralls, presenting a limp balloon, a prize for my expected comradery.
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
He handled the rejection well and spun away to the others who found an unexpected clown in the night more fascinating than scary. Paul shook his hand enthusiastically and looked at me like he’d won a race.
That clown looked too and every time he got a handshake from another. Even Pastor Cam thought it was funny; he quickly accepted the balloons, stuffing them into his jean pocket.
Chelsea accepted his hand reluctantly and simply put the flaccid balloon on the table beside her napkins.
I could see the employee on his phone talking about that clown to a manager probably.
Nobody expected or wanted a clown in the night.
When he offered his hand to me again, his mouth was open slightly as if he were out of breath. All this time he hadn’t said a word.
That nobody found that weird speaks to the quality of the company.
“Shake his hand,” Paul encouraged. “Come on.”
That clown waited.
I crossed my arms. I would not relent.
“Shake his hand,” Pastor Cam said, starting a chorus of “Shake it, shake it, shake it.”
Centered out, I began to feel the pressure to just give in and move on with life.
But then I looked into his eyes. What colour are that clown’s eyes? I bet you don’t know and never did. I do, however. I learned that night, and I’ll never forget.
“No,” I said, maybe a little too loudly. The chant stopped. He didn’t move though.
Neither did the white glove. “I’m not shaking your hand. Now piss off.” It was the send off that incurred the vocal disapproval of the group. Pastor Cam started some admonishment I couldn’t make out with all the noise.
I stood up and pushed by the clown. “I’m going,” I told Chelsea. “You coming?”
Because she hesitated, I quite unfairly left her behind. I left my girlfriend at [that burger place], and regretted it before reaching the end of the parking lot.
When I turned around, she was leaving [that burger place] with another group of kids. I think she saw me. She wouldn’t acknowledge my presence though. I was too much of a stubborn idiot to apologize in front of others.
I began the long walk home alone. It was forty minutes along Rockchurch Road to my neighbourhood but longer to my house because of the forest remnant on the southside blocking the park. Walking through the woods at night? No thanks.
I planned to pass the forest via Gorth Street, the only intersection with vehicular access to my survey. Apparently, the closed design made the area crime proof. Plenty of houses still got robbed, however. The thieves just came on foot.
The stretches between streetlights were long. I stepped into the first with the expectation that it might snuff out. When it didn’t, I felt relieved, and focused on a real problem: How to apologize to Chelsea, and get her back.
Passing beyond another row of unfinished houses, the land opened into fields gone wild. These were farms about ten years ago, bought up by hopeful developers but never put to use. The next closest structure ahead was the namesake of the road. Rock Church no longer held services, and the old stone walls had crumbled into ruin.
Still, the freezing wind had nothing stopping it. My ears and fingertips burned. As a “cool” person, I rarely wore a hat and mitts.
Stopping within the dark hollow of the abandoned church to warm up seemed like a good idea. I huddled into the corner of two remaining walls and breathed into my cupped hands.
That’s when I saw the first streetlight, where the houses ended, and the road split the fields, turn off.
I squinted through a fresh swath of flurries. Watery eyes blurred my vision. I couldn’t see very far. The streetlight blinked back to life. I continued watching. Uncertainty became full blown fear when, a few moments later, the next streetlight snuffed out.
I stood up, feeling trapped in the corner of the ruined church. Silently, I cursed the frozen grass as my shoes crunched to the sidewalk. Like an idiot in a horror movie, I tried looking back and walking at the same time.
These sidewalks were older than my dad and never maintained. An edge from the undulating slabs of concrete caught my heel. Down I went, and the next closest streetlight shut off.
They were near. I saw limbs stalking, flailing, walking with an unfortunately familiar intensity. He stepped into the lit pool I’d spilled onto, snuffing it out. I scrambled backward, and failed to get up as the shadow loomed.
I shut my eyes and his breath coated my face, the grease laden air of [that burger place].
“Leave me alone,” I whimpered.
When the foul stench relented, I forced myself to look. He hadn’t left, and the streetlight came back. That clown held out his glove for a handshake. Sweat had smeared his makeup; the red rim around his mouth dribbled like blood onto his yellow jumpsuit.
The swell of light around us began to diminish, and flicker. He blinked rapidly, in time, and I knew he willfully powered the streetlight as if such a creature could not exist long where others could see.
It offered its hand. It only wanted a handshake. I reached to obey even when I knew it wasn’t true. Much more would be given if I relented. Maybe everything.
“No,” I said quietly.
That clown crouched lower and pushed the glove under my nostrils. Writhing worms rippled beneath the fabric, scarcely containing the stench of decay. Burger meat. Not worms. Moving strands of ground beef roiled into form, held by an idea, some acknowledgement given by the reluctant handshakes of the living.
I can’t say where these ideas came from except possibly that clown itself. I’m just not that creative or depressed.
“Shake my hand,” it said without moving its slightly parted lips. The voice, it should be noted, was nothing like the real thing. It was deeper, and raspy, almost like a whisper with the last syllable drawn out until the increasing snowfall absorbed the sound. “Shake it. Shake my haaaaaaannnnnnd.”
“No. Leave me alone.”
For a moment, it froze.
Then, it opened its mouth fully to allow a purplish tongue to unfurl over rotted teeth.
Yellowish mountain dew tears drove canals through white makeup cheeks. It wept and looked to the waning streetlight above.
“You must shake my hand,” it said, again, without air, without lungs.
When its gaze returned to me, I saw the colour of its eyes once more. Death was the price of resistance. I knew it.
The light went out. That clown could no longer maintain its camouflage, so it had to return to its natural habitat, the dark.
Without the oppression of a horrific visual, my instincts to survive seemed to reboot. I scrambled backward and turned into a flat out sprint down Rockchurch. Shadowy trees swayed invitingly in the distance. I could be home in five minutes, maybe less, if I cut through the woods.
Another extinguished light behind me obliterated any hesitancy to go in there.
Secret skeletal branches threatened to impede my escape, but when the stench of that clown increased, I screamed and flailed and defied the call to stop and shake that fucking clown’s hand.
My sense of where my house stood failed me. I popped out of the woods on Rockchurch again.
That clown showed itself with the briefest ignition of the nearest streetlight.
It laughed or I did as I despaired into madness. The forest wasn’t so large. I picked a point ahead, a porchlight, and went for it.
I was so close. I could see the failure of the trees to stand against the encroaching homes and the park no one seemed to use.
Its footsteps closed fast. Velvety fingertips lightly grazed the back of my neck.
“Oh shit! God! Help!” I ranted.
We fell at the same time. I from its barest touch and the acceptance of being unable to continue running. It from some chance infirmity in the ground or something more divine. I opened my eyes.
That clown lay over a narrow tree stump, impaled beneath its ribs and stuck. It writhed, a bulbous insect pinned by the collector, confused by circumstances it could not understand. True blood overwhelmed the red make-up mouth and stained the light snow.
I got to my feet, waiting to see it die.
That clown’s glove shot out toward me. I flinched and when I looked back, it was looking at me, no longer fearsome but sad, pathetic. Unbelievably, I felt pity for that clown. Even after it had chased me and grossed me out with its smell and freakish body, I began to wish it hadn’t come to impalement.
It was relief found in hindsight. I know because I strongly regret what I did next.
I knelt by the clown to pray. I’d never prayed before. I didn’t believe in god. So this was pretty dumb.
As its breath ran out, and the eyes stared at the world beyond, I did the only thing left I could think of to honour that clown.
I took its limp hand in mine, and finally gave in. That clown died, and I left its body. No police came knocking. No news stories were written or shared on social media.
I know why now.
Because I shook its hand.
And now I can’t touch the bible.
And the church burns like Pat said it would.