Clowns

Chapter 2

           

Just about everyone shrugged.

So we sat in a companionable, if somewhat awkward, silence.

And that's when we heard the noise.

It was sort of like a duck quack, if that duck was being strangled and squeezed and muffled all at the same time.

Lauren and I were instantly on our feet, sending the others into a panic.

"What?" Hazel asked, only to have Emily's phone flashlight shined in her eyes.

We all stood clustered around the fire, most of us just behind Nikki as we stared at the nearby woods.

"Didn't you hear that?" I asked when the others still seemed confused.

"Hear what? I didn't hear anything."

"There was a noise in the weeds," Lauren whispered.

"It was probably the boys," Maria reasoned, but she was also making sure to stand behind Andrew, as if his guitar could fend off anything that would jump out and attack us. "They probably haven't left yet."

Lauren pulled out her phone with shaking hands and fired off a text.

Lauren: DAWSON WTF???!!!

Dawson: what

Lauren: NOT FUNNY

Dawson: what's wrong

Lauren: STOP DOING THAT

Dawson: doing what???

Lauren: THERE WAS A NOISE

Dawson: I didn't do anything

Lauren: IN THE WEEDS

Dawson: what are you talking about

"He doesn't know," Lauren whimpered.

"It's probably nothing," Nikki said, but I noticed she had one of her pocket knives out and clenched in her fist.

"I want to go inside." Lauren was pulling on Nikki's arm at that point.

"Me, too," I said. Screw dignity. I wanted to go back to the house and lock the doors and turn on all the lights.

Nikki gave one last glance towards the dark brush beneath the trees. "Okay, we can go back inside."

"Someone grab the Doritos."

"What about the fire?"

"Leave it," Maria said.

Even with the crinkling of bags and rustling of chairs, we definitely all heard the noise the second time around.

And it was closer.

Louder.

If our adrenaline wasn't already sky-high, it was then.

We ran for the house.

I was very much aware of the blood pounding in my ears, almost in time with the pounding of my bare feet in the grass. Thank God Maria's yard was flat and contained no obstacles.

Lauren was first to the door, reaching for the handle to yank it open. "It's locked!"

We were all at the doorwall, pressed to glass, carried forward by both momentum and infectious fear.

"It can't be locked!" Maria tried it herself. When it didn't yield, she took both of her fists to it. "DAD! DAD, IT'S US, LET US IN! DAD, UNLOCK THE DOOR! DAD!"

We all started pounding on the door.

And no one came to open it.

"Don't turn around," Nikki muttered in my ear.

But of course when someone tells you not to turn around, what do you do? You turn around. It's one of the greatest flaws accorded to mankind.

I turned around.

And screamed louder than I have ever screamed in my life.

Looming out of the dark was the subject of our earlier conversation, the thing that struck fear in all of us no matter how much we joked about it.

A clown.

*****

I am so sorry if (like me) you're laughing right now. Like I said before, I do not write this genre as a rule. There's a reason. ^^^^ (I'm not very good at it!)

I'll be the first to admit I can write some pretty good suspense sometimes, but when it comes to writing something actually continuously scary, I fail miserably. It's kind of funny.

I forgot where I was going with this. I don't know. Well, obviously we've reached the end of the true-story portion, with the whole not being able to get into the house thing.

Vote/recommend/comment.

When I was in 4th grade I was introduced to the Goosebumps books, and I read one about a boy who turns into a chicken. That's the scariest thing I've ever read, no joke. What's the scariest story you've ever read?

(I actually want to know!)