The Guild of Fallen Clowns (23 page)

“Consider the consequences,” Spanky
warned.

“Ha!” Dave shouted. “Still making threats?
Take a good look, freak. Your nuts are in my hand and I’m about to
crush them and sprinkle them on ice cream.” Instinctively, Spanky’s
hands lowered to cup his crotch.

“That’s right,” Dave said. “You’re mine,
bitch! You never should have told me where your power comes from.
That’s my other rule. Never expose your weakness. I can’t believe
how stupid you are. When you expose your weaknesses, you’ll get
crushed.” Dave grinned and kept his eyes locked on Spanky as the
heavy tool thrust downward. Spanky smiled before vanishing in the
blink of an eye.

The arms of the figure in Dave’s hand
reached out for the edge of the table and pulled, dragging Dave’s
hand directly under the force of the jagged side of the
tenderizer.

“FUCK!” Dave shouted, dropping the
tenderizer and the figure on the table. His pain dance brought him
into the living room. With his body bent over, he used his good
hand to cover and press the blood-speckled wound tight into his
gut.

“Your rules are useless if you don’t live by
them,” Spanky said from behind.

Dave turned to see the spirit back in the
room with him. Through a mixed expression of pain and confusion he
muttered, “Wha?”

Spanky smiled. “Never expose your weakness.
Arrogance is your greatest weakness. Yet you wear it with pride and
give it a new name. You call it

confidence. Confidence needs no introduction upon
entering a room. Arrogance demands complete attention before
announcing his own arrival.”

Muffled by pain and anger, Dave didn’t hear
Spanky’s words. “You broke my fucking hand,” he cried out.

“I didn’t do anything to your hand. You
bruised it yourself,” Spanky replied. “It will heal. And so will
your other wounds. They will all heal in time.”

Dave uncovered his hand, stretched out the
fingers, and made a fist. To his relief, Spanky was right; no bones
were broken. He looked at Spanky with a new concern. “Wait, what
other wounds?”

“So you are listening,” Spanky chuckled. “I
warned you what would happen if you tried to destroy my figure. Now
it’s time for your punishment.”

Dave sprung in the direction of the door but
Spanky stopped him with a grip on the back of his shirt. Dave
struggled to escape, but Spanky effortlessly dragged him and flung
him face down on the kitchen table. Thrashing to get free, Dave was
no match for Spanky’s single hand pressed into his back, pinning
him in place.

“Help!” Dave screamed. Spanky untied the
ball-size nose from his face and shoved it in Dave’s mouth. He
mounted Dave like a saddle and used both hands to securely tie the
gag behind his head. Next, he removed his rope belt and hogtied
Dave’s limbs.

Dave moaned and wriggled, to no avail. He
was trapped face down with his mouth gagged. Spanky took his time.
Before commencing with the beating, he bent over to Dave’s face and
said, “It’s time to review the rules. But first, I think you
deserve a little more humiliation.” He returned upright and walked
to the back of the table. Then he reached around to Dave’s belt and
unclasped it along with the button and zipper of his pants. Dave
moaned louder as he feared the worst. Spanky yanked Dave’s pants
down to reveal his bare ass. Again, Dave moaned. Tears poured down
his face.

“Relax,” Spanky said. “I’m not going to rape
you—this time. However, you won’t be so lucky the next time you
defy me.”

Then Spanky grabbed the rope between his
arms and legs and shoved them to the side, clearing the airspace
between Dave’s bare ass and Spanky’s other distortedly enlarged
hand cocked behind him.

From the corner of his eye, Dave saw the
hand flash towards his exposed flesh. WHACK!

“Oomph!” Dave’s body clenched. Muffled
whimpers and drool leaked from around the clown nose stuffed in his
mouth.

Spanky’s arm pulled back for the next blow
as he said, “Rule number one—”

“Believe only,” Alan whispered to himself
while driving. He was second-guessing himself on the wisdom of
giving the Spanky figure to Dave instead of following his original
plan to give it to Lyle. Lyle was a threat to him, but Debbie would
be helpless if Dave actually snapped and decided to take his
aggression out on her. He knew he could deal with Lyle another time
or another way, but Debbie wasn’t even aware of the danger she was
in so it was the right choice.

His only concern was the results of the
three Guild figures he created and distributed. Would they work?
Would they help people or would they just scare them with their
creepy clown faces?

While pondering those questions, he drove
past Old Lady Henderson’s Hidden Valley neighborhood. “One way to
find out,” he muttered. He turned the car around and drove back to
Hidden Valley.

This would be the perfect opportunity to
discover the effectiveness of Peepers,
he thought. He imagined
how his visit might go. The first thing he would see as he pulled
into her driveway would be the curtains pulled back, flooding the
house with light. Foil would be removed from the windows and the
door would be garlic free. Seconds after he rang her bell, Mrs.
Henderson would fling the door wide open. She would warmly greet
him with a smile and invite him inside for tea and biscuits.

Inside, he envisioned the Peepers figure
prominently displayed on a shelf. No, it would be where all old
people like to display treasured family photos and mementos—Peepers
would take center place on her upright piano. If possible, Peepers
might even give him a wink and Alan would be assured that he wasn’t
crazy for believing in the power of the Guild spirits.

He turned into her street and noticed
flashing blue lights in the direction of Mrs. Henderson’s house. As
he got closer, he realized the lights were from emergency vehicles
in her driveway.

“What the hell is going on?” he said as he
parked his car on the street outside her house. He watched as two
EMTs wheeled a gurney with a draped body from the house. He knew it
could only be Mrs. Henderson. Two police officers exited the house
shortly after. One was Alan’s brother, Dale.

Alan exited his car and called out to his
brother.

“Alan, what’s up, bro? Got a delivery in the
neighborhood?”

Alan didn’t answer Dale’s question. He was
more interested in what happened to Mrs. Henderson. “What’s going
on? Was that Mrs. Henderson?”

“Oh, so you knew her. Uh, I hate to be the
bearer of bad news, but yes. She died last night.”

“Oh my god! I was just here last night. She
didn’t answer the door when I rang the bell, but I just assumed she
was asleep or too scared.”

Dale looked puzzled. “Too scared?” he
repeated.

Alan wasn’t thinking clearly. It didn’t
occur to him that Dale was unaware of her problems.

“Yeah, well, no. I’m not saying she was
scared of me. She was scared of everyone. She doesn’t, eh, didn’t,
open the door for anyone. I delivered pizzas and she slipped the
money through the mail slot in an envelope.”

Dale laughed. “You mean there was actually
someone worse than you?”

“C’mon! Be serious, Dale,” Alan said.

Dale held back his laughter. “I know. You’re
right. I shouldn’t be joking about this. I’m sorry for your
loss.”

“So, what happened? Was she gone when I got
here last night? That would explain why she didn’t respond when I
left the pizza. I knew something was wrong. I’m such an idiot. I
should have done something. Maybe it wasn’t too late.”

“Hold up, Alan. First of all, she was okay
when you delivered the pizza so you didn’t do anything wrong. She
died of natural causes. She was an old woman and her heart gave
out. That’s life. She was lucky to live so long.”

“How do you know she was okay when I showed
up?”

Dale smirked. “You might not be aware of
this, but your brother here is an excellent detective and forensic
scientist. I was able to ascertain the approximate time of death,
based on decomp, liver temperature, and a careful examination of
the evidence. The deceased passed post-pizza delivery.”

Alan’s mouth dropped and Dale cracked a
smile and then laughed. “Oh, and there was a half-eaten slice of
pizza in the kitchen. She lived alone, so my guess is she ate
it.”

Alan didn’t share in Dale’s amusement over
his own joke. Instead, his focus shifted to the Peepers figure. Was
he responsible for her death? After all, she was alive when he
delivered the pizza. Then she died the very night he showed up with
Peepers. Could it be that she became too frightened as a result of
looking at his ugly face? Or was there was something more sinister
going on? His heart raced from the possibility that he might have
been responsible for her death. He needed to know what happened.
Where was the Peepers figure? Did she even take it in the house
with her?

“Dale! Did you see anything strange in
there?

“You’re starting to worry me, Alan. Strange
like what? Why would you even ask a question like that?”

Alan realized how odd his question must have
sounded to his brother, the detective. Even if the figure were
inside, how would Dale know this was the strange thing he was
asking about? More importantly, how would Alan know about the
figure, and why was he so interested?

He covered for his flawed choice of words by
saying, “I don’t know. It’s just that after her husband died, she
never opened the door. I’ve always wondered if maybe she had him
stuffed, and positioned on the couch, reading a paper and smoking a
pipe.”

“Yeah, that would be strange. You have a
wild imagination. The things you come out with. Anyway, to answer
your question, no, there wasn’t anything even remotely as strange
as your imagination. She wasn’t a hoarder. There weren’t any cats,
and the house was surprisingly clean.”

“Well, that’s good to know. With all the
aluminum on the windows, I thought she might have a house full of
stuff to ward off evil spirits. You know, like a shelf full of
troll figures, or other creepy statues.”

“Again, sorry to disappoint you, but she
didn’t have any of those things. Oh wait, I’m wrong.”

“What? What did you see?” Alan asked.

“Well, there was this one thing you might
consider to be a little odd.”

“Tell me! What was it?”

“On a shelf in her living room—”

“What?”

“Keep your pants on. Maybe it was nothing,
but it did cause me to do a double-take when I saw it.”

“Dale! What was it already? What did you
see?”

“I’m getting to it. On the shelf in the
living room she had a—wireless router.”

“What the hell is so strange about that?”
Alan said.

“Well, she must have been, like a hundred
years old. How many hundred-year-old ladies do you know that know
how to use a computer? I’m telling you, WiFi, that was really
strange.”

Frustrated with Dale’s success in stringing
him along for the anti-climatic answer to his question, Alan felt
that it was safe to assume Peepers wasn’t in the house. He couldn’t
have set it up any more clearly without appearing suspicious of
something. The only thing he could do was backtrack to be sure
Peepers and the Guild weren’t misleading him. There were two more
figures out there and he had to move fast so nobody else would
potentially get hurt.

Alan told Dale he had to get back to work.
Before Dale could say goodbye, Dale’s cell phone rang. He looked at
the caller ID and sighed. “It’s Cheryl, hang on a sec.”

This was good news for Alan because it meant
she was alive. However, was it possible she was calling for help?
Was Agor tormenting her, when she somehow managed to break free and
call Dale?

“Hello, baby. What’s up?” Dale said.

Here it is,
Alan thought.
She’s
going to cry out in distress.

“Sure, honey, milk and eggs, anything
else?”

Not a distress call. Thank god.

“Oh, by the way, Cheryl,” Dale said as he
turned toward Alan, “you did a great job on Alan’s hair.” He paused
and smiled at Alan.

“Yes, I’m looking at it right now. He saw me
on the job and stopped to say hi.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Alan said.

Dale held out his finger as he tried to hear
what Cheryl was saying.

“Yes, I know. Well, you did your part. Now
it’s in his hands. He’s a little rusty, but I’m sure he’ll do
fine.”

Alan leaned toward Dale and whispered, “Hey,
I have to get going. Tell her I’ll let her know how the date goes.”
He loped to his car and drove away. In his rearview mirror, he saw
Dale still chatting with Cheryl.

Okay, the good news is that Cheryl is
okay. However, the reason she called Dale was to have him stop at
the store on his way home. If Agor worked his magic, wouldn’t she
do the shopping herself? Why did she call Dale? Shouldn’t she be
cured?
Then he remembered his own experience with Peepers. His
progress was gradual. He still had a long way to go before he could
say he was completely over his own fears. Cheryl only had Agor in
the house for a few hours. He shouldn’t expect her results to be
any different from his own.

While his logic appeared sound, there was
one outstanding question he needed answered before returning to
Vince’s. He needed to go back to check on Dave.

At Debbie’s apartment complex he pulled into
the first open parking spot and shifted his car into park. With his
keys still in the ignition he ran to Debbie’s apartment. He pressed
the doorbell three times and then bent down to catch his breath.
After waiting a good twenty seconds he resorted to knocking. He
pounded his fist hard three times and waited again.

“Oh, come on. Answer the door,” he said
impatiently. He started to pace when the door opened. Debbie stood
in the doorway wiping tears from her eyes.