Thanks for reading Nerdsters!
C.
(P.S. The font and paragraphing on the website changes the original from the book so apologises on that.)
Prologue:
That Night
“They’re coming for you, Barbara!”
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 very 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 leaves the
room, then would he lean in close to where only we could hear. “Nothing wrong
with a boy trying to give himself a fright,” he would whisper, usually followed
by a goofy maniacal laugh.
As the first
zombie comes on to the screen, I jump, not from the sudden appearance of a
walking corpse, but from the creaking of our houses old stairs. Mom is doing
her nightly check in, before her and dad go to bed. Quickly jumping from my bed
I race across the room to the TV. I switched it off, and took two bounding
steps followed by a flying squirrel leap and I’m back in bed. As I throw the
covers over my head, the door to my room creaks open slightly.
A second later the
door clicks shut and I exhale a deep breath unaware I had been holding it. That
was a close one. I grab my flashlight and the comic book that my older brother,
Ben gave me last week from his old collection; kid stuff he says. It’s a bit
cheesy, some tale about aliens attacking a small town. I always thought the
idea of aliens silly. Why would they want to invade a planet with a bunch of
hairless monkeys when they have lasers and space ships? We would be instantly
vaporized. We have a clear weakness. Aliens seem almost too impervious to our
technology. But monsters, that’s what really interests me; the more grotesque
and terrifying, the better. There’s clearer rules in a monster movie. The
director gives you hints in the beginning usually within the first few pages.
The bad guys are bad, usually nefariously evil for evil’s sake. Anyone
committing wrongful acts get their comeuppance in some gruesome fashion.
Normally the hero or some virginally high schooler saves the day at the last
minute with some piece of trivial knowledge they picked up earlier in the
story. Unfortunately real life has no real monsters. Just bad people. With
undefined motives, and unscripted blurts of dialogue that often gets trailed
off-
I over hear voices
in the hall.
“I’m only going
out for a couple hours. I’ll be back before twelve, I promise.” Ben explains.
He has a date with some ‘hot chick’ from his school.
“Okay, but be home
by twelve. No later, Benji” Mom says in her most stern tone.
“Mom, please don’t
call me that, I’m eighteen. I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“Oh sorry sir, I
didn’t know I was dealing with such a sophisticated individual.” Mom teases.
“Twelve.”
“Yes Mother. “
Ben’s footsteps get quieter as he heads downstairs and out the front door.
An hour and three
comics later my eyes begin to droop. I rollover, click off the flashlight and
I’m off to sleep.
A cold darkness
surrounds me, but I am not alone. Out of the black steps a strange man dressed
in a blue suit similar to what a clown would wear. His eerily bright green eyes
pierce the darkness. He’s laughing, staring almost through me. “Who is this?”
He asks smiling, taking a long whiff of the air. It sends chills down my spine.
“Be seeing you soon.” He says as a mixture of saliva and blood oozes from the
sides of his mouth and onto his stubble covered chin. I feel the blackness
close in, drawing the demonic clown closer. He 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 crackling voice, but it
clicks in that weird way when you realize it’s all a dream. When the curtain is
pulled back in Dream land and your shown the secrets of how it all works. “Wake
up.” That voice again, just Mom waking me up for school. I breathe a sigh of
relief with this realization, but in an instant it is ripped away, as I am jolted
out of my sleep by a blood curdling scream. Mom!
I grab the wooden
Louisville Slugger from my closet. A birthday gift from a relative who never
visits. Clenching it tightly and drenched with sweat I step from the safety of
my bedroom and into the hall. It’s freezing, so cold I can see my breathe, which
is strange since it’s late August and even at night it’s usually quite hot. The
air feels empty, almost devoid of life. I edge towards my parent’s bedroom door.
I hear crying, which makes me stop just short of their room terrified of what
might be on the other side. Another sob. Slowly I push open the door in an
instant vomit fills my throat from the sight inside. The room is splattered
with a dark red goo. The air is thick with the smell of wet pennies. A trail of
what looks like tubes of sausage are strewn across the room. I see a body in
one corner, it’s hard to see through the nauseating smell coming from the room,
it causes my eyes to water but I’d recognised those slippers anywhere, its
Dad’s.
“Dad?”
“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!” She screams.
But I can’t move
I’m glued to the spot. Fear stabs at my gut, paralyzing me in the frozen scene.
There standing over my Mother, in his blue ripped suit; too small for his
grotesquely fat body, is the clown from my nightmare. He turns his head. His
bright green eyes grip me in their entrancing gaze. He grins, dark liquid oozes
from both sides of his mouth. The strange being licks his lips. “Berkley, run!”
my mother cries.
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 and closer to me. “Well, well, young
Berkley Mathieson. Shouldn’t you be in bed, asleep?”
“You killed them.”
I mumble still unable to break the gaze of the gore drenched clown.
“Yes and this is
just the beginning, more will die before I am done.” He reaches for me. I want
to run and flee out into the street and scream for anyone to come, but my feet
are cemented to the floor. He steps closer. The stench of his breath is vile,
the closer he gets the more I can see of his hellish clown face. He is covered
in blood with deep creases lining his painted face. The makeup is cracking and
flaking revealing dark tissue underneath. The clown’s blue suit is in tatters,
he has a large flower sticking out of his left breast pocket and to my horror I
can see at the very center of the blossom is a human eye ball. He steps closer.
The clown screams
and looks down. Mom with her last ounce of strength pulls out and stabs the
satanic side show freak in the leg again 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 make a dash for the stairs. But
I’m stopped by a snarling creature. It has scaly grey skin like a lizard,
leathery. Its huge gaping mouth about a foot wide lined with razor sharp teeth
opens with a blood curdling screech. Although that isn’t the most terrifying
attribute of the small beast, it’s the human like eyes, which look me up and
down. Anticipating my next move. I need to get down the stairs. Before I can
think of a plan the thing launches itself at me. First on two legs then on
four. Its sharp claws digging into the hallway floor. For the first time since
I left the room I remember the bat in my hand; somehow I remarkably never
dropped it. I smash the bat into the side of the creature’s skull. It slams
into the wall, without wasting the chance I sprint for the stairs. Before I
know it I am tumbling down the steps, and with a loud ‘thwack’ I hit the ground
floor near the front door. The hard fall leaves me gasping for breath. Stars
flash, obscuring my vision. I roll on to my back only to see a mouth of teeth
with arms flying from the top of the stairs down onto me. I quickly reach for
the bat and jam it between the massive chomping jaws. Hatred fills the eyes of
the beast, its hungry. With one last big bite of its jaws, the thing bites
straight through the bat. This is it, I wish I could stop it. Press pause on
the DVD, skip to the next scene. The beast’s mouth opens going for my throat,
but something stops it. A strange tingling sensation fills my body. Frozen in
mid bite, the small monster looks almost as confused as me. I grab one of the broken
stakes of the bat and plunge it into the beast’s right human-like eye. Juices
spew out onto my face from the impaled socket. It recoils and writhes in pain
on the floor. Scrambling for the front door I grab and twist the knob throwing
it open. I turn back only for a second, long enough to catch sight of the clown
just standing at the top of the stairs smiling, staring with those bright ever
glowing green eyes. I barrel into the front yard screaming, though once again I
am grabbed and begin to fight my captor. “Berk, what’s wrong?”
“Ben!”
I look up to see my
older brother is standing there in confusion 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 arm free. He steps into the house, cautiously; he can tell
something really has me spooked. Even though I’m terrified by the idea of
re-entering the hell I just emerged from, the idea of being left alone fills me
with more 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 point to the floor before glancing up the stairs,
remembering the clown.
“Where are Mom and
Dad?” Ben asks grabbing my shoulders angrily. I can tell he is frightened now
too.
I point upstairs
unable to say a word.
We come to our
parents’ room. As Ben pushes the door open, the sight of the room turns him as
pale as uncooked shrimp. He grabs my hand and we run back into the yard, this
time we both are screaming for help.
I tell the police
through tears about the clown and his little pet. They are very nice, but they
don’t believe me. I overhear one of them say “Do you think the poor kid went
crazy?” Is that what they think I did it? The words to explain myself properly
fall away down my throat, I can’t seem to talk anymore. They say it’s a form of
shock. I told them the truth, but they don’t believe me. What hurts the most is
even though he never leaves my side I can tell Ben doesn’t either. They tell us
they are going to take us somewhere for the night and guide Ben and I into a
vacant police car. 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 with those bright ever glowing green eyes.
