Prologue:
That Night
“They’re coming for
you, Barbarba!”
I cram another handful of popcorn into my mouth. I’ve seen
this one a thousand times. The dead come back to life and feed on the living.
This was one of the first horror movies I ever saw, Mom says I shouldn’t watch
movies like this, that they’ll give me nightmares. Dad always agrees with mom…that
is until she lives the room, he leans in close to where only we can hear. “Nothing
wrong with a boy trying to give himself a fright,” he whispers.
As the first zombie comes on the screen, I jump, not from
the sudden appearance of a walking corpse, but by the creaking of our old
stairs. Mom doing her nightly check in, before her and dad go to bed. I jump
from my bed to across the room to the tv, which I switch it off, with two steps
and a flying squirrel leap I’m back into bed. As I throw the covers over my
head, the door to my room creaks slightly. A second later the door clicks shut
and I let out the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. That was a close one. I
grab a flashlight and an old comic, my older brother, Ben gave me. It’s a bit
cheesy, some tale about aliens. I always thought the idea of aliens silly, but
monsters, that’s what interest me. The more grotesque and terrifying, the better.
“I’m only going out for a couple hours Mom. I’ll be back
before twelve, I promise.” Ben says. He has a date with some girl from his
school.
“Okay, but be home by twelve. No later, young man.” Mom says
in her most stern tone.
“Mom, I’m eighteen. I am practically an adult.”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t know I was dealing with a sophisticated
adult.” Mom teases. “Twelve.”
“Yes mom. “ Ben’s footsteps get quieter as he heads
downstairs and out the front door.
An hour and two comics later my eyes begin to droop. I click
off the flashlight and I’m off to sleep. My dreams are unsettling to say the
least. A strange man who looks a side show reject. He is dressed in a blue suit
something what like a clown would wear, but has piercing green eyes. In my
dream I see him in a room he’s laughing. Staring almost through me. “We’re
coming.” He says as a mix of saliva and blood oozes from the sides of his
mouth. I feel the room close in, drawing the demonic clown closer. He just
continues to stare. It’s paralyzing, the room goes black, but those eyes stay
fixed and visible through the darkness. “Time to wake up Berk.” It’s the clown’s
voice, but it clicks in that weird way it sometimes do when you realize it is a
dream. And that must be Mom waking me up for school. I breathe a sigh of relief
with this realization, but almost in an instant it’s ripped away, when I am
jolted out of sleep by a blood curdling scream. Mom!
I grab the small Louis Ville Slugger out of my closet.
Drenched with sweat and panting I step from the safety of my bedroom into the
hall. It’s cold, so cold I can see my breathe, which is strange since it’s summer
and even at night time it’s usually eighteen degrees out. The air feels empty
as I edge towards my parent’s bedroom. I hear crying. I slowly push my parent’s
room door open, I almost blanched ,the sight inside is one of blood and
steaming pile of guts. There’s what looks like tubes of sausage strewn across
the room. I see a body in one corner, it’s hard to see but I’d recognised those
slippers anywhere, its Dad’s body. “Berkley, run!”
My eyes dart to the other side of the room. Mom is on the
floor crying, she’s beat up pretty bad. Covered in blood. “Get out of here!”
But I can’t move, I’m glued to the spot by the sight of the
cause of this horrific scene. Standing over my Mom, in his blue ripped suit
almost too small for his fat body, the clown from my nightmare. He turns his
head, his bright green eyes grip me in their gaze. He smiles, a dark liquid
oozes from the sides of his mouth. “Berkley, run!”
The clown just chuckles as tears out my mother’s throat. The
breath is pulled from my chest, still she looks at me frightened, not that she’s
about to die, but that I might be next. The clown steps away from my mother
closer to me. “Well, well. Young Berkley Mathierson. Shouldn’t you be in bed,
asleep.”
“You killed them.” I say still unable to break the gaze of
the clown.
“Yes and this is just the beginning, more will die before WE
are done.” He is reaches for me. I want to run, but my feet are cemented to the
floor. Closer. The stench of his breath is vile, the closer he gets the more I
see of the hellish clown’s face. He is covered in blood, crises line his
painted face. The makeup is cracking and flaking revealing dark tissue
underneath. The clowns blue suit is in tatters, he has a large flower sticking
out of his left breast pocket, adding to the horror the center of the flower is
a human eye ball. Closer.
The clown screams and looks down. Mom with her last ounce of
strength stabbed the satanic side show freak in the leg with a nail file. She
throws her arm out at me and with a tremendous rush, I am sent sliding into the
hall. Momentarily free of the stare of the clown, I run for the stairs, but I
am stopped by a snarling creature. It has skin like a lizard, leathery. Its
huge gaping mouth lined with teeth opens with a screech. That isn’t the most
terrifying attribute of the small beast. It’s human like eyes, looks me up and
down. I need to get down the stairs. Before I can think of a plan the beast
launches itself at me. First on two legs then to four, sharp claws dig into the
hallway floor. For the first time since I left the room I remember the bat in
my hand which I remarkably never dropped even when thrown into the hall. I
smash the bat into the creature’s skull. It slams into the wall, not to waste
the chance I make a dash for the stairs. Before I know it I am tumbling down
the steps and hit the floor at the bottom. The hard fall leaves me gasping for
breath. I roll on to my back only to see a mouth of teeth with arms flying from
the stairs down on top of me. The bat is my only protection as I jam it between
the chomping jaws. Hatred fills the eyes of the beast, its hungry. With one
last big clamp of it’s jaws, the creature bites straight through the bat. This
is it. The beast jaws open going for my throat, but something stops it. Just
frozen in mid bite, it looks almost as confused as me. I grab one of the broken
stakes of the bat and stab it into where I believe the beast’s brain to be. It
recoils and writhes in pain on the floor.
As I grab and twist the doorknob open,
I catch sight of the clown just standing at the top of the stairs smiling.
Staring with those eyes. I barrel into the front yard screaming, I am grabbed
and begin to fight my captor.
“Hey Berk. What’s wrong.”
“Ben!”
My older brother is standing there confused by my frantic
behaviour. “Where is, Mom and Dad?”
“Dead! The clown he killed them! There’s this thing in there
too.”
Ben scoffs and gently moves me aside. “You’ve been watching
too many of those movies again.”
“No Ben! Please don’t go in there!” I try to pull him
further towards the street, but he wiggles his hand free. He steps into the
house, cautiously; he can tell something really has me spooked. Even though I’m
terrified of the idea of re-entering the hell I just emerged from, the idea of
being left allow again fills me with dread so I follow my brother. The remnants
of the chewed bat lay on the floor in front of the stairs.
“That’s where the creature attacked me.” I say glancing up
the stairs, remembering the clown.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” Ben asks brow furrowed.
I point upstairs unable to say a word. We come to my parent’s
door. As Ben pushes the door open, the sight of the room turns him pale as a
ghost. He grabs my hand and we run back into the yard screaming for help.
I tell the cops through tears about the clown and his little
pet. They are very nice, but they tell me sometimes in times of trauma the
brain might retreat into imagination to cover the gruesome details. I tell them
it’s the truth, but they don’t believe me. What hurts the most even though he
never leaves my side I can tell Ben doesn’t either. Ben and I get into a police
car, they are going to take us somewhere for the night. Through the crowd of
people gathered around the House of Guts; as it would be come to be known I
catch a glimpse of the demonic clown smiling, always staring.
