We kill killer clowns.

A support group for coulrophobics... Who would have thought - in the year 2016 - that this would be a thing? Coulrophobia...Say the word 10 times and it sounds like we’re helplessly afraid of cows, but Coulrophobia - for the fortunate and uninitiated - is the fear of clowns. Bozo, Ronald McDonald, Popov, Crusty...John Wayne Gacy. Corpse-like faces, rapey smiles, fever-nightmare color palettes and phallic balloon animals - yet people will insist that the phobia is a mere result of too many Stephen King novels.

Well, personally – for me – the fear came from childhood trauma after witnessing my Pomeranian, The Dude, get stomped to death by a disgruntled carnie when I was only 7 years old. Clowns to Arnie Washington were the pneumonia induced fever dreams of big purple lips barking at him from beneath his bathroom door. Clowns to Alex Hayes were reminders of the childhood trauma he endured: courtesy to his abusive alcoholic father who’d beat him in order to cope with the circus hustle. We even had matching pill bottles: Haldol, Xanax and a cocktail of antidepressants.

Where do guys like us fit in? Well we went to these groups every Tuesday - high off of our medication - while everyone else pecked each other's hands for the last jelly filled donut. Everyone else’s problems at the support group seemed so trivial to our own. “My brothers tied me to a chair and forced me to watch, ‘IT’ back when I was 8,” said Dylan. “When I was 6 my parents carried me through a haunted house,” said Blair. Then they’d laugh about the chubby Dominican guy who bombed on last night’s episode of, ‘The Voice,’ while they sipped watery coffee.

So while everyone else was mooching free coffee and donuts over their poppy little issues - Alex, Arnie and I were conjuring up this insane plan. We would kill every single Evil Clown we could find on this side of the Bay Area. Why not? We were all strung out college dropouts, each of us boasted our fair share of childhood trauma, all of our names started with an ‘A’ so we had some chemistry... But mostly, we were running out of money to fuel our benzo dependencies. Opportunity was ample and we were all blue-blooded capitalists. The local news was constantly opening up with headlines such as; “GRIEVING PARENTS BLAME THEIR MISSING CHILD ON COLORING BOOK CLOWNS.” The parents were chalked off as either schizoids or paranoid acid users and the hysteria would settle but we knew the truth.

We saw those headlines as opportunities. It was perfect: the day-dream chance to finally get back at the monsters that caused us to be in such a terrible and paranoid state. The hardware store was our first destination as a group. We pooled in our drug money to buy hammers, chains, sledge hammers and nail guns. Spare the pale and neon shitheels a quick death. It’d be personal and we’d seen enough Tarantino movies to be sensitized to the violence our power fantasies would entail. Little did we know, the horrid and insane world we were about to get ourselves into when we took on our first distressed clients.

Jacob Donovan, 10 years old, disappeared without a trace - in his own bedroom - in a Palo Alto suburb: the kind of place where no one locked their doors. The kind of place where sprinklers are always on despite the harsh California drought. Abe Avenue was the slice of American Pie where we’d kill our first clown.

At that point we’d already splattered lime-green paint on our band van, we’d already spent hours welding nails to our brightly colored weapons, we’d already cut off the sleeves and studded our denim jackets with clown resistant popcorn kernels and we were too far into this thing to wimp out. We were the Xanax Zombies and we’d left our doubts in some garage filled with opioids, psychedelics and cheap band instruments. We were ready.

We met the grieving family at the front door of their peach colored two-story where they described their encounter in verbatim. The father looked on the verge of a panic attack while the mother maintained her composure to describe the story to us. “Jack - my husband - gave Jacob this old coloring book he found in the attic.” She handed it to us. It was a tattered and worn out thing: a candy colored clown was grinning on the cover.

“He went in his room with the crayons… And-” She began to choke on her words. “Well we saw flashing lights beneath his door and heard a demon’s giggling… Good god, something evil was with him. The neighbors think we’re insane.” The mother finally began to break down. Alex gave her a sympathetic back rub while her husband looked at him with dead eyes. “So,” she choked. “We go in the room and Jacob was gone. Just his little ‘cure cancer’ bracelet was left of him.” She clutched the rubber bracelet tightly to her chest. It was an ‘I love boobies,’ bracelet.

We weren’t fools. That look in the mother’s eyes was a read of pure doubt: in herself and in her sanity. The father relaxed on the couch - covering his eyes with his hands - to separate himself from the ridiculousness of the situation. They were praying that a small gang of chain-swinging punk rockers could provide them with the closure they needed. Our price was $1500.

“This money was raised by Jacob’s school,” the father said. “Now I’m not sure how I feel about giving a bunch of strange...popcorn wearing characters this much money - let alone cash that was raised for our missing son - but life's a rollercoaster of chance-taking isn’t it?” We all nodded.

“Alright,” he sighed. “Go upstairs. Don’t mess with any of his stuff. Kill the clown; summon it - whatever the hell you guys do.” He cursed to himself and kicked his legs back up on the couch. The mother sat beside him. The floor was ours.

The three of us each took a bar of Xanax to shut down our adrenal glands and some beta blockers to steady our heart rates - but we still didn’t go into the thing without any skepticism or worry.

“So what,” Alex said. “Are we just gonna sit around in this room, playing with ourselves, while we wait for Ronald McDonald to make a McCameo from under Jacob’s race car bed?” Arnie and I ignored him. We were looking around the room for clues.

The boy’s room was untouched. The ceiling fan was still spinning, the soccer-ball blankets were tucked in his bed neatly and all of little Jacob’s baseball gear had been stood up against his dresser. Some parents have a real hard time letting go. I’d never understand this, of course, because I was neutered by a fence post many years ago after a botched penny board trick.

Arnie got up and picked up little Jacob’s tee-ball bat. “Come on man,” I said. “Put that down. You heard the dad.”

He was looking at the small bat with evil in his eyes. “Wouldn’t it be poetic,” he gave the bat a few practice swings. “...If we killed the clown with little Jakey’s baseball bat? Bash the thing’s nose right into its ugly face with its victim’s own bat?” I liked where he was going with that, but we had guidelines to follow. “I prefer my idea,” said Alex. “I’ll just saw his head off with my chain.” He was about to swing his evil whip around before I stopped him: “I’d rather we just do our job…” I said. “Besides - doesn’t this seem a little out there? Like Alex Jones levels of bizzaro? I mean, only a teenage delinquent could come up with shit like this.” The guys ignored me. We waited.

Then the pages of the coloring book started to flip right before our eyes. It was some Harry Potter looking shit, not going to lie - watching that coloring book just open itself up as the pages were blown through by some kind of supernatural wind. We were all speechless. Then the page landed on our guy.

“Color: Fuzzy, The Friendly Clown!” The text on the page read. The image was of an elongated and deformed clown with sharp porcupine-like quills poking from his neck and jagged teeth stabbing through his fat lips. We stared at each other in bewilderment. “HOhO-HeYyY KiDs,” the clown’s mouth started to move on the page. “JUSt gO RiGHt oN aHEaD AnD CoLoR Me iN!”

Our jaws hit the floor. Was this coloring book actually talking to us or had our Xanax been cut with some kind of hallucinogen? We all swallowed our Adam’s apples in unison. We didn’t know what the hell to think. Then Arnie pulled a green crayon out of the box. “Are you guys ready?” He asked.

“Christ,” I said. “Are you nuts? We need to hire a goddamn priest or something man. We’re out of our minds.” Then the clown’s face started to animate on the page. His eyebrows were furrowing down. He was growing impatient. “COmE oN KiDs,” he giggled. “JuST CoLoR mE iN AlReAdY! oH-HoHo!” That did it for Arnie. He just started scribbling away: fueled by bloodthirst.

Then the closet door swung open. All of the Call of Duty posters flew off – blown right towards us through the wind. Arnie tossed me the baseball bat. “You’re going to need a weapon, Aaron.” I took a deep breath. It was hard to maintain my composure. I mean, we were looking right into some kind of strange void. A portal of some kind: into goddamn Clown Narnia.

“Well,” I said. “Who’s going first?” Arnie dove right in. Alex followed. They disappeared just like that. I was hesitant at first. The moaning of lost child souls was not a comforting ambiance but if I were to maintain my role as the leader of this ragtag gang I figured I’d make the same leap my ‘droogs’ did.

I met the guys in what looked like the inside of Tim Burton’s mind. We were standing in a hallway that lead through these crooked green neon doorways, the floor was made up of warped, neon-green checkered tiles and all of it led into an enormous wax purple mouth. I could see Arnie began to sweat at the sight of that thing. I led the pack up the way while Arnie swallowed more Xanax. “Let’s go,” I said. “And don’t take too much of that stuff - you’ll pass out dead on the floor. Stay alert.”

“OH-HoHOheEy!” Fuzzy’s voice echoed from the giant mouth. “CoME oN iN BoYS aND GiRLs, tHeRE’s CaNDY In HeRE!” I tightened my grip around Jacob’s bat and prepared a swing for anything that would come jumping out at me. The offer was tempting but we already had all of the candy we needed and it came in 2 MG bars.

So we danced to Fuzzy’s tune. When we crept through that mouth, our dongs were beginning to work up a decent chub. Well, at least mine was. I’m only assuming Alex and Arnie felt the same based on the sinister expressions that their faces were forming.

“Dudes,” chuckled Alex. “This looks like the Bicycle Dream from Pee Wee's Playhouse.” He wasn’t wrong either. The whole world took on a sinister and nightmarish appearance. The mouth swallowed us into a circus tent of depravity. There were wax-doll puppet acrobats swinging from the Big Top with knives in their hands and the wool on the tent was neon green with pink polka-dots. “Come on out, ‘Fuzzy,’” I said. “We’ve come to fuck you up.” Fuzzy thought I was joking. “Ho-HOoHuh?” It laughed through the sinister little dream labyrinth. “KiLl mE? COmE oN KiDs, YoU wOUlDn’T wAnT tO KiLl FuZzY tHe FrIEnDly CloWn!”

I stared at Alex and Arnie in search for some kind of suggestion. They didn’t have one. “Look,” I shouted at the walls. “Just come out and we’ll make this thing quick. Jacob’s parents miss him."

Fuzzy didn’t answer. Alex nudged me and pointed at the popcorn stand at the end of the room. “Maybe we gotta order some popcorn or something to get him to show himself?” I nodded. I leaned on the food stand. The kernels were blood red and bouncing like Mexican jumping beans in the popper. “Ok,” I said. “I want a large tub of whatever this stuff is and I want it now. Got it?”

Then Fuzzy materialized from some puddle of pink sludge behind the popcorn stand. The clown rose out of the hot muck - a whopping 9 feet of disfigured and color-filled fever nightmare. It opened its big bright green eyes and was surprised with what it saw. “WoAhaH,” it tried to chuckle. “YoU gUyS aRE a LiTtlE tOo OlD To BE iN FuZZy’s PlAYGrOuND!” I shook my head. The naivety was too much to handle and I didn’t have time for its bullshit. The Xanax was beginning to hit me hard and my eyes were heavy.

“Listen,” I said. “We’re going to kill you. It’s as simple as that. If you tell us what you did with little Jacob, we’ll make it quick and be on our way.” Fuzzy held its belly and began to laugh heavily. The hideous inbred incarnation of Bozo was beginning to get right on top of my last nerve. I looked at Arnie and Alex: wondering if they could ‘believe this guy.’ For once we had our nightmare by the balls. For once we were in control but only we could appreciate it. Fuzzy had no idea of what three dudes - under the influence of anxiety medication - could do.

“Alright,” Alex said. He held his chain out and gave it a few whirls to make our leverage more clear. “We’re going to ask one more time. Where. Is... Jacob?” Then Fuzzy started to make strange digestive noises. It began laughing wildly as a massive lump started to work its way up its pale throat. The clown held a sharp finger up for us to wait while it did this nasty thing.

Then it coughed him right up. A bright red and half-digested child’s corpse came sliding out of Fuzzy’s gaping pointed mouth. Little Jacob fell right at our feet - a bloody and gored 75lb 10 year old fetus. That set the violent scene. Alex was the first to act. He swung his chain around like a cowboy and then wrapped it around Fuzzy’s neck. The nails of the chain dug in. Then - when Fuzzy’s 9 foot stature collapsed at Alex’s pull - Arnie dove right in with his sledgehammer. He landed a good few heavy blows on the monster clown’s joints and left the enormous freak-show writhing and limp. Its pink blood was spraying from its elbows.

Fuzzy ‘The Friendly Clown,’ was a squirming neon worm: now under the mercy of a band of pissed off punk hipsters. “cOMe On,” it tried to beg. It tried to giggle. “YOu KiDs dOn’T WaNT tO HuRT mE!” We had no sympathy. “Go fuzz yourself,” I said. Then I swung the bat right into the clown’s swollen forehead. It was a good swing. Not even Babe Ruth could top the anger and power of that one. The right side of the clown’s deformed and hideous head exploded instantly in a firework of pink-colored gore.

We all felt it: the relief and the eventual addiction. Cathartic violence. Up close and personal. The kind of action Hollywood is made of, only we’d be the Bruce Willises and the evil clowns would be the Russian extras in tuxedos. Badass.

To finish the job, Alex wrapped his chain around Fuzzy’s limp neck and then ripped it back and forth like he were trying to dry the helliquin’s neck. Once the clown’s head was mostly severed from its rotten spinal cord - Arnie stepped in and grabbed the clown by its bright, blue funk-perm...Then he pulled its half bashed head right off. The force of his pull caught Arbue by surprise, causing him to lose balance. The clown’s pink blood splattered on the neon green walls of Fuzzy’s world: creating a work of morbid art. We carried the crumbled skull out.

We arrived back into the Donovan residence, weary and aching - with Fuzzy’s Pepto-Bismol colored bodily juices dripping all along the late and Little Jacob’s beige carpet. Soon, I knew, we’d have to deliver the terrible news to the child’s distraught parents. When they ask the question, “Where’s our boy?” We will have to stare at each other in a morbid silence… And yet, at the same time: I’d totally been looking forward to the moment where I’d get to dramatically slam the candy colored monster’s bashed-in dome on their coffee table… That pink shit would splatter onto all of the Missing fliers that they’d been printing up, perhaps even in their coffee... And then we’d demand our pay.

Our first day in the field had went swimmingly. It seemed almost too easy. We took the grieving parents’ money, split the cut down to $500 each (although I did most of the heavy lifting - but hey, I’m a generous leader), sold all of our medication to an aspiring soundcloud rapper and then we took to a dive bar to squash our scrotes and contaminate our livers with watery liquors. We didn’t even change or wash up. We were just sat in a corner booth: sipping 40oz mugs of lager, covered in clown’s blood while a heavy Royal Blood song boomed through the bar haze.

The TV news in the corners of the bar were about a big Toy Company which might be holding an odd and unlikely connection to the strange disappearances of young children. The program was brought to us by a desperate local news station, of course, because most American couch potatoes would be too quick to chalk it off as ‘fake sensationalism.’ We drank our beers while the talking heads blundered on about the, ‘Coloring Book Disappearances.’ Then it was onto the next news segment.

We all sat up in the booth and leaned in as we took in the caption. “GRIEVING PARENTS CLAIM THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN CLOSURE BY STRANGE, ODDBALL VIGILANTES.” A busty blonde news intern was standing in front of the Donovan household. “Holy shit,” said Alex. “This is about us.” Arnie and I silenced him.

“Yes, Chris,” the reporter said. “I’m standing out here, tonight, in front of the Donovan family’s home. As you can see it’s a very nice neighborhood - it’d seem out of the realm of possibility that anything bad could happen to anyone here… But this happens to be the same neighborhood where, just a week ago, 10 year old Jacob Donovan disappeared without a trace.” The camera panned over to a chubby Mexican guy - the reporter shoved the microphone beneath his chin. “We’re here with Omar Lopez, a family friend of the Donovans, who claims that a group of so-called ‘Evil Clown Hunters,’ actually confirmed and avenged the Donovans’ son’s death. Mr. Lopez, what can you tell us about your interaction with these vigilantes? It seems odd.”

“Well it’s undoubtedly odd,” said a Omar. “When Jack - the boy’s father - told me about it earlier, I was just thinking ‘christ, the guy’s actually lost it.’ I’ve been there before when my dog got hit by a...” The reporter interrupted him. “Yeah, but we want to know what made you believe the Donovans’ story.” Omar held up a big burlap sack which was dripping with clown’s blood. “I’m not sure if I can show this on TV,” he chuckled.

“It’ll be fine,” the reporter insisted.

Omar shrugged and then pulled Fuzzy’s decapitated and bludgeoned head out from the bag. The reporter looked repulsed. We were able to hear a couple of camera guys gag and choke. “Yep,” Omar said. “Jack gave me this to speak on his behalf. He trusts me to give it back to him when this interview is done.”

“Can you tell us exactly what we’re looking at?” Asked the reporter. “Well,” Omar said. “It’s pretty self explanatory. It’s a f*cking evil jester’s head. Those weirdos cut it right off and brought it to the Donovans for their payment. If you guys want to zoom in you can see it’s 100% real. It has sharp teeth, a little bit of brain left and an eyeball. Its blood also looks kinda pink, I just realized. Wow that’s kinda freaky.” Omar wiggled the head around for the cameras and then they cut back to the faces of two wild-eyed desk anchors. “Well…” Said one of the anchors. “That was extremely graphic. Sorry to the folks at home.”

“Uhhh yeah,” the female anchor agreed as she nervously clicked her pen. “Sorry we had to cut there guys… We are unsure, exactly, of what that Palo Alto man was showing. It looked like some kind of extremely realistic horror movie prop.”

“Yeh,” the anchorman said sadly. “Some parents grieve in strange ways. We hope the Donovans will be able to pull through.”

The three of us looked around the table. Shit-eating smiles from all of us. Our first day on the bloody grind. We were still amateurs and yet we’d already earned money and caused hysteria. “So what are we going to do next?” Asked Arnie. “We gonna keep going?” I slammed my bat on the table - for dramatic effect. The light revealed Jacob’s name: engraved on the handle of the bat.

“All Evil Clowns,” I said. “...Must die.”

Submitted June 13, 2018 at 06:22PM by DeanTheDude https://ift.tt/2LPyMsq