Roscoe the Clown

It's the month of October, which means one thing...Halloween. This year things got a little...funny. Or maybe not so funny. A lot of people have been clowning around, as we all know from what we've seen on the news. Creepy clowns walking the streets, attacking people, scaring children, making threats on social media, and even doing an interview on one of my local news stations. It's crazy! (That's the tagline for Killer Clowns From Outer Space, by the way.)

To celebrate the madness, I thought I would make my own contribution in the form of a free story. It's a short one. You can read it in less time that it takes to check your twitter feed for the latest Killa Clown sighting. No really, it's that short, but it packs a punch...or maybe a squirt of hydrochloric acid from a fake flower?

Go ahead and play the music above if you are in the position to do so. It will accompany the story quite nicely.

ROSCOE THE CLOWN

Roscoe the clown was looking pale--well, beneath the white greasepaint, bright red painted lips and dark circles around his eyes, he was as pale as death.

His demeanor was lacking. The buoyancy of his gait had been reduced to something along the lines of a lethargic narcoleptic, always appearing to be one step away from collapsing on the ground, or perhaps falling and crushing a gleeful child.

The eyes were gruesome to behold, but the children didn’t seem to care, just the parents that would grab their child’s hand and hurriedly rush them away as if Roscoe would grab and violate them.

“Hey kids!” The voice came from Roscoe’s crooked mouth muffled and low.  “Do you want to see a trick?”

If it weren’t for the smile painted on his face, the kids would have been more aware of the slack jaw with the dried spittle and blood decorating the corners of his mouth.

The kids were uninterested as if they couldn’t hear the faint voice of Roscoe the clown.  They walked away in search of a livelier clown, or perhaps some cotton candy.

Roscoe retreated to his trailer, his steps stiff like a silver screen zombie.

Inside, he collapsed on the bed.  From the back of his colorfully striped clown suit there was movement, and then little hands began unbuttoning the large buttons.

Larry pulled the clown suit back and exited the hollowed out cavity of Roscoe’s body.  The interior had been lined with plush leather--well, as plush as a midget could afford on a carnival wage.  The legs were equipped with stilts that his feet strapped into, the arms with a series of grips fastened to Rosco’s tendons that allowed Larry to manipulate the dead clown’s hands. He was looking forward to showing the children the trick he learned to do with his crude manipulations, but they weren’t paying attention to him.

Roscoe’s body was beginning to rot and it was harder every day for Larry to mask the odor, but he wanted to do just one trick for the kiddies, just one balloon animal.

Larry grabbed a microphone and gutted his stereo system.  If the kids couldn’t hear his muffled voice within Roscoe’s body, damn-it, he would just have to wire the clown for sound.

 

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed my little Halloween treat. If you did and you would like more, please check out my Amazon page, featuring my latest release, Salpsan.

"Robert Essig has crafted one creepy-as-hell tale of modern gothic horror that sets an ominous tone from the first few words and never lets up. Told from the POV of an unconventional narrator with secrets of her own, Salpsan is a dark, dark story that will prove you wrong several times when you think you know where it's going. I enjoyed it immensely, and can't wait to read more from this writer!" -- James Newman, author of Odd Man Out, Animosity, and Ugly As Sin

"With Salspan, Essig takes you on a twisted journey through the Spanish hillside; one full of intrigue, memorable characters and hellish encounters. This is a story that will stick with you, long after turning the last page. --K. Trap Jones, author of The Charm Hunter, The Sinner and The Harvester