Get ready for clowny spoopiness.

Ch. 1, My Newest Toy

"Ma'am, we got no body, no blood, no casings, no gun, and no sign of forced entry. Now, you say that this clown guy broke into your house –'scuse me, your employers' house-, and yet there are no busted windows or doors. And then you shot him, but there ain't no blood or casings or gun around, and the neighbors didn't hear any shots. Have I got the story right?"

"It's not a story!" Ruby almost screamed. "He was there, twice! I did shoot him-" The detective gave her the same look that the officers earlier had. He didn't believe her, and that wouldn't change no matter what she said. Her account sounded far-fetched, she'd admit, but she swore that every bit of it was true: an evil clown had appeared in the house and had tried to kill one of the twins. The only real evidence of the clown that she had, though, was the hard candy that she told the police had been stashed in the boys' room.

"Where did you get this?" Ruby had asked when she'd found the sweets earlier that day. The children had exchanged glances and shuffled their feet. "Zach," Ruby said, giving one of the five year-olds a serious look that read "no cartoons if you don't tell me." He looked down at the floor and muttered something, and his brother elbowed him hard. Ruby immediately grabbed the other boy and pulled him to her with a stern look.

"Zeke, stop it. Zachary Porter, you tell me where you got this candy or we're not going to the carnival."

At that threat, a distressed look twisted the boy's face. He pulled at his red curls and gave a mournful groan, stomping his little socked feet. Ruby saw Zeke look up at her out of the corner of her eye; Zeke was tougher than Zach, a lot meaner when he wanted to be and a lot less prone to tears, but she knew that the threat had upset him too. The carnival was all either of them had talked about since they'd seen the flyer at the grocery store. Still, the boys refused to answer her.

"All right, then," Ruby said. "No carnival." Zach let out a wail as she bent down and scooped all of the candy out from under the bunk bed, and for a moment Ruby felt like she was being too harsh. There was no telling where they got the candy from, though. It could be dangerous, make them sick or worse. And even if it was just candy, she really didn't want Justine and Louis to come back and find their kids' mouths riddled with cavities. It couldn't hurt to be a little overprotective.

Zeke didn't cry, but folded his arms and glared at Zach as nasty as he could when Ruby found more candy in the toy box and raked it into a pile. After nannying Zeke and his brother for almost a year Ruby knew very well what would happen as soon as she left the room, and so she took the tearful Zach by the arm and led him away with her, the candy pouched in the lower half of her shirt.

"Don't you dare slam that door," she warned Zeke as she left. The boy turned his glare on her, but did as she told him. Even once she was downstairs there was no bang of the door closing, but it was certainly shut when she went to look. Ruby was more than surprised. Zeke and Zach were identical twins, but they couldn't be more different on the inside; while Zach cried when he was upset, Zeke responded with a temper that rivaled a bull's. More often than not after a punishment like this, that temper showed itself in door-slamming or toy-throwing, or bruises on Zach's arms and shoulders when Ruby left the two alone together. She had dared the long-distance charges once or twice to call the boys' parents about it all, but they dismissed it as simple roughhousing. Ruby certainly saw that it wasn't that, but it was difficult to argue with parents that were digging in catacombs halfway around the world and talking to you at a charge of almost three dollars per minute. Separating the twins proved a thousand times easier.

She sat Zach down in the living room and turned on the TV, hoping that cartoons would distract him until dinner time. He sniffled and cried a little about the candy, but stayed put when she went into the kitchen to throw it away.

Before she dumped them into the trashcan, Ruby held a couple of them up to inspect. The bright little candies weren't like anything she'd seen before, wrapped in paper instead of plastic and missing a brand name. They smelled good, like fruit, and on a whim she opened one of them up. The purple sweet winked up at her in the light, its tangy grape scent making the hinges of her jaw ache wantingly.

She dropped it, and all of the other candies, into the garbage.

Zeke didn't come downstairs later when she called him for dinner, but that didn't surprise her much; his tantrums could last for hours when he got angry enough. She debated carrying his grilled cheese up to him, telling herself that he was choosing to go hungry if didn't come down, but she was too soft-hearted for her own good. Zeke hadn't seemed to warm up to her much since she'd first started taking care of him, unlike Zach who oftentimes felt attached to her at the hip. She wanted Zeke to like her, and so she found herself putting his dinner on a plate and slipping one of the special juice boxes from the top of the fridge to bring him. Zach was too busy munching his own dinner and chattering at Dora the Explorer to notice.

Ruby was halfway up the stairs when she heard giggling coming from the boys' room. She smiled to herself, hoping that Zeke's good mood would stick once she opened the door. Then, something else reached her ears that made her stop on the top step. It was another voice, much too deep and coarse to be Zeke play-pretending. Eyes wide, Ruby shuffled closer to the door and listened again, but it was only Zeke talking. Maybe his little TV was on?...

"He's bad at secrets," the boy was saying. Ruby heard him rummage around in his toy box. "He was gonna tell, even after he promised."

"You aren't going to tell, are you?"

Ruby swallowed when the second voice sounded again, low and lulling with a British accent. She put the plate down on the runner rug as softly as she could and then lowered herself to the floor, peeking underneath the bedroom door to see if he was indeed talking to his TV like Zach downstairs. She saw Zeke moving to sit down on the carpet, a toy police car in his hand.

"I won't tell," he said, his high voice soft and secretive. "I don't want you to go away. I wanna go live at the carnival with you, like you said." The other voice tittered, and then it dropped low and rough:

"Soon enough, child."

Ruby shifted around a little, trying to see the whole room. For a moment it looked as though Zeke was indeed alone, but then a flash of movement by the bunk bed caught her attention. She froze.

A sharp-toed, black shoe with a silver buckle was casually rolling a little toy truck back and forth under its heel.

"Wanna trade cars?" Zeke asked, and the shoe stopped rolling the toy. With a little push, it sent the truck skidding over to him. Zeke giggled and caught it, then pushed his police car over. The car veered off-course and was going to slide under the bed, but then the bedsprings creaked and a set of long, black claws dipped down and scooped it up.

Ruby's mouth gaped. She jumped upright and threw the door open, ready to swoop in and snatch the boy away.

Zeke let out a little scream as Ruby launched herself inside, eyes wild. She looked at the lower bunk and saw the police car lying on its side next to what looked like an indent of where a person had been sitting. Ruby stared at the police car, then at Zeke. The boy stared back at her, his blue eyes huge.

"Who were you talking to?" Ruby whispered. The boy's open mouth closed quickly. He thinned his lips. Ruby came over to him, looking around the room nervously, and knelt down. "Someone was in here," she said to him. "Where did he go?" Zeke lowered his eyes and rolled the toy truck along the carpet. Ruby snatched it away from him, making him jump.

"Zeke, you have to tell me!" she hissed. "Who was that?!"

"Ruby?" Zach called. He was standing in the doorway behind her. "Why's there a juice right here? I didn't get a juice-" The boy stopped talking and looked at the bunk beds, then looked away. Ruby hardly noticed.

"You can have that juice," she told him quickly. "I need to talk to Zeke for a minute-"

"I want that juice," Zeke said, his eyes narrowed, and Zach made a frustrated sound. Ruby tried to ask him again about the person in the room, but his attention was on Zach now. The boys bickered as she went to check the closet, then the window; the child-lock was closed on the latter, and nothing around it was disturbed. She looked around herself in disbelief, her eyes roaming over the unplugged mini TV, the open toy box, the pile of laundry in the corner.

Both boys got quiet when she went over to the bunk bed and looked underneath it, finding nothing. She sat down on the bed and picked up the little police car, turning it over in her hands. It took her a moment to notice that the twins were staring at her.

"What?" she said softly, the hair on her neck prickling at the way that Zach's eyes were bulging out of his head at the space just to the left of her. The little boy opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, but then Zeke jumped upright and ran out of the room. He pushed past his brother and shouted something about the juice box, making Zach shriek and whirl after him.

Ruby stared at the police car for a few seconds longer, ignoring the scuffle that was certainly taking place in the hallway, before she realized that something about the room wasn't quite right. She sniffed the air, something sweet and sugary making her mouth water a little. Her eyes scanned the bed, and she caught sight of a paper wrapper poking out from under the sheets. She pulled the sheets back, revealing a spread of bright candies like the ones she'd thrown away earlier.

She swiped them up immediately and went out into the hallway where Zeke had Zach in a headlock.

Sleep didn't come easy to Ruby that night. She tossed and turned in her room at the end of the hall, every sound that the house made causing her to sit up sharply. Eventually her mind wore itself out with worry, though, and she drifted off to dream of the carnival.

It was packed with people, like she'd expected it would be, but no one jostled her as they passed. Dusk had just fallen, and all of the lights from the whirling rides, the stall games, and the fun-houses twinkled and spun around her like jewels. She turned her face into the warm breeze, catching the scent of powdered sugar. Her mouth gushed at the thought of funnel cake.

"Ruby!"

She turned around and saw Zach just before he crashed into her legs. He hugged her tightly, grinning upward. His face had been painted like a tiger's.

"Me and Zeke are going to the mirror house!" he said, all but jumping up and down. He gushed about the games he'd played and the rides he'd ridden so far, but Ruby was distracted. She felt eyes on her, and now saw that someone was indeed watching her from across the main walk where people were passing back and forth.

It was a clown. He was tall, towering easily over the crowd by at least a foot. His clothes, from what Ruby could see, were awfully somber for a carnival clown; black and white with not even a spot of color. Even the balloon he was blowing up was black. He stared at her as he began to rapidly twist the thing into shape with his long, clever fingers. Ruby marveled that he didn't pop it, those fingers looked so sharp. A child screamed shrilly in the distance, and gooseflesh rippled over her arms.

"Do you want to go to with me?" Zach asked, and Ruby almost didn't hear him. She watched the clown tie off the balloon animal and hand it to someone too short for her to see. His pale eyes, watching from beneath an unruly mass of black hair, never left hers.

"Sure," she said absently. The clown was smiling at her now. He parted his dark lips, showing her his teeth-

"I'm leaving without you!" Zach shouted. He rushed off then, disappearing into the river of people. Ruby felt a quick shock of fear, forgetting entirely about the clown and that she was dreaming at all, and hurried after the boy, calling his name and telling him to slow down. He kept along as though he didn't hear her, and the only way that Ruby was able to keep track of him at all was by his bright red hair.

There was no line in front of the house of mirrors when Ruby caught sight of it, and no Zeke either. Zach ran right inside without waiting for her, and she hauled after him, now desperately hoping that the other twin was already inside. She would catch up to Zach, and if Zeke wasn't inside there then they would find some sort of security guard or something to spread the word about a missing child. God, she'd never get work as a nanny again if they didn't find Zeke.

"Ruby Ruby!" Zach teased as she stepped into the dimly lit fun house. He already sounded far away.

"Stay where you are, mister!" she called to him in that stern voice that she knew he couldn't ignore. "I mean it, let me catch up!" To her surprise and frustration the boy only laughed, his voice trailing further and further off. Ruby cursed under breath and traced a hand against the mirrored wall to her right, ensuring she wouldn't get lost as she made her way through the house. She yelled to Zach again, but this time he didn't respond at all. Ugh, he was beginning to take after Zeke.

Ruby made a wrong turn or two, but the maze was short. She could already hear music coming from what she was sure was the exit, an old tune that she recognized quickly. It grew louder, and she picked up the pace.

All around the mulberry bush-

Ruby turned another corner, frowning when she came to a dead end. She backtracked with her hand against the glass.

The monkey chased the weasel-

She took the other path, and the music grew louder again.

The monkey thought 'twas all in good fun-

"Zach!" she yelled. "Zeke!"

Pop! goes the weasel.

Power surged through the caged lightbulbs above her with a high, whining sound, and then the lights went out. Ruby swore nastily as she heard the generator in the building groan its power-down, and then the place was silent. She listened for the exit again, but the music had stopped. Inexplicably, she couldn't hear the crush of people outside either.

"Ruby?" a child's voice called anxiously, and she recognized it as Zeke's. Her heart soared.

"I'm here, baby, it's okay!" she shouted, stepping quickly along the wall again. "Is Zach with you? He went in ahead of me." No answer. "Zeke? Honey, I need you to talk to me or I can't find-" She stopped abruptly as a man's voice began to sing in a hall close to hers.

"Half a pound of two-penny rice,

Half a pound of treacle..."

"Hello?!" Ruby said. "Hey, do you work here? I need to find the exit. Can you turn the lights back on?" The man laughed at her, his voice turning shrill and near-maniacal before he sang the last lines. Ruby began to sweat as she listened, something about the voice becoming familiar.

"... That's the way the money goes,

Pop! goes the weasel."

Without a sound from the generator the power flicked on, and Ruby jumped when a shape was suddenly visible at the end of the hall.

It was Zeke. His hair was a mess, his clothes shredded all over. He wasn't wearing any shoes, and there were dark stains around his feet that made bile rise in Ruby's throat. The boy whimpered softly, his little shoulders shaking, and held his arms out to her. Tears streaked his face.

Ruby ran to him. She dropped to her knees and squeezed him up in her arms, crying his name over and over. She asked him how he'd been hurt, what had happened, but he only buried his face in her neck and shook, his skinny arms wrapped around her. Ruby shut her eyes to hold back tears, rocking him back and forth gently.

The power flickered noiselessly off, then on again.

"I've got you," she told the boy softly. She sniffled and kissed his cool cheek, hoping he wouldn't pull away. He didn't; his grip actually tightened around her, but something was wrong.

She wasn't crouching anymore. She was standing, and on her tip-toes at that. Something feathery was tickling her face, and she smelled sugar, thick and sweet. Her eyes opened, finding the mirror at the end of the hall, and she stared, lips parting in silent horror. The person she had her arms around, and who had their arms around her, was the black and white clown. He was stooping to hold her, his nightmarish claws settled around her waist and against her back. Ruby quivered as she watched his head turn slowly in the mirror, felt his lips against her cheek. His breath ghosted coolly across her skin as he snickered:

"No, love. I've got you."

His claws squeezed her hard then, biting right through and coming out the other side.

Ruby jolted upright, the bedsheets sticking to her in a damp tangle. Without a second thought to whether or not she would regret this later, she kicked the sheets away and rolled out of bed. Her heartbeat thumped unpleasantly in her face, still flushed and beaded with sweat, as she grabbed the handgun Louis had given her out of the nightstand drawer. She checked that it was loaded, like he had shown her, and pulled the hammer back until it clicked.

She was not crazy; that clown was fucking real. She had seen him under the door, heard him talking to Zeke, and goddamnit she wouldn't be able to sleep another minute if she didn't make sure he wasn't in the house again.

It was still late as she stepped out of her room, the only glow in the hallway coming from a little plug-in nightlight by the boys' bedroom door. Ruby's flesh prickled hotly when she saw that the door was shut, not like she'd left it. She stepped lightly forward and twisted the knob, the metal almost slick in her sweaty hand. She threw the door open and lifted her gun.

A great shadow was bowed over Zach's sleeping form, claws spread wide and menacing. The shadow whipped around in surprise when Ruby forced the door, and she caught a flash of silver eyes, wide and gleaming like an animal's in the dark. Ruby shrieked and pulled the trigger, the muzzle flash lighting the room bright as day.

The boys screamed when the first shot woke them, then kept screaming when Ruby fired and fired, emptying the clip into the monstrous clown until he stumbled against the wall and slid down it, leaving a dark streak on the paint. A gurgling sound bubbled from his lips, something that might have been a laugh, and then his head slumped forward. Blood puddled slowly beneath him.

Zach was wailing now, his sheets drawn over his head in terror, but Zeke was still screaming. He tugged his hair, unintelligible words mingling with his screeches. Ruby didn't have the clarity of mind to try to discern what he was saying. She told the boys in a raspy voice to stay in their beds and not look at the clown, and then she was running to call the police.

But then the body was gone, and so was the blood, and the shell casings, and the gun. No proof.

The police took them all to the station and then sent her home without the twins. None of the officers had said it to her, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to take the children home with her until their parents gave the okay. Ruby's heart twisted a little as she wondered whether or not Justine would believe her when she got the chance to explain that a seven-foot tall clown man had mysteriously appeared in her sons' room and tried to kill them, then disappeared without a trace. Part of her gloomily thought that she should go ahead and pack her bags before that phone call.

Zach cried and cried as she hugged him goodbye, even though she gave him a sort-of-promise that she would see him again soon. Zeke stared hollowly at the wall, giving no indication that he heard her telling him that his aunt was driving in from Tuscaloosa to pick them up. Ruby tried to give him a hug, but he cringed away from her and buried his face in his hands. The policeman acting as Ruby's escort home narrowed his eyes suspiciously at that and told her they'd best be on their way.

They rode in silence, and within minutes the policeman was pulling up to the curb. He let Ruby out and sped off, leaving her to wander up the dark drive alone. She stopped a good distance from the front door and mentally wrung her hands trying to decide whether or not she would go in. The police had said they hadn't found anything, but she didn't believe it. She would have to see for herself.

The doorknob wouldn't turn when she tried it; thank god that at least the officers had locked the door behind them. She fished the keyring out of her sweatpants and went in. All of the lamps were still on from the search, giving her some small comfort as she cautiously scanned the kitchen and living room for life. Nothing.

Padding as softly as she could, Ruby slipped into the kitchen and took a carving knife from the block on top of the fridge. She almost went to make sure that nothing else sharp had been taken out of the kitchen before she realized how ridiculous the idea was; if he really wanted to cut her up, the clown certainly didn't need a knife to do it. Her back burned a little, and she flinched at the memory.

The boys' door was open, allowing the choppy light of the ceiling fan fixture to swipe across the landing in a way that briefly tricked Ruby into thinking that something was moving up there. She crept up the stairs, pausing to look down the hall at her bedroom before moving into the swishing light of the ceiling fan. She could hear the fixture's click-clicking as she leaned around the doorframe.

Ruby's mouth fell open as she ran her disbelieving eyes over the spotless wall, the carpet. The clown was gone and, as the detective had said, so was everything else. An ache stabbed at her temple then, and she clutched her head. She needed to sit down, but not here. Not in this room.

She descended the stairs carefully, rubbing the heel of her hand gently against her pulsing temple. The ache seemed to grow and spread with every step she took, and by the time she made it to the bottom of the stairs she was stumbling. The knife slipped out of her hand, clattering to the wood floor with a sound that made her double over in agony. Someone laughed, and that shrieking noise joined the knife's clanging to echo around in her skull and threaten to burst it. She reeled toward the couch, on the hair-thin line of vomiting or passing out from the pain as the laughter howled louder and louder, and missed the furniture by an arm's length. The floor came up under her hard, and that was all she could take before her vision was swallowed up.

Ruby came to groggily that morning in the same spot she'd fallen, her face mashed into the rug and a pool of her own spit. She groaned, shifting slowly and feeling out the bruises she'd earned from the fall. Her head still throbbed a little, but nothing like last night. She flexed her fingers and felt something in the palm of her right hand. Her eyes rolled slowly over, and she dragged the thing up in front of her face.

It was a red lollipop with a little card attached to it by a ribbon. Ruby lifted the card and squinted at the spidery scribbles on it, finally making it out to say, For my newest toy. Her brow furrowed. She flipped the card over quickly and mouthed along with the inky cursive she found there:

I like this game you've started, sweets,

D'you think you can keep it up?

You've set the bar quite high for me,

So don't cry when I play rough.

-Laughing Jack

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