What's this? More cl0wny spoOpiness? Why, I never.
Update 2.4.16 - I've tweaked Laughing Jack's personality, leaving his interactions with Ruby a little different.
Update 11.22.15 - The end of this chapter never sat right with me, so I've made some revisions.
Ch. 2, Laughing Jack
Ruby only barely stopped herself from calling the police. After reading that awful calling card, she had leapt straight for her cell phone and run out onto the lawn with every intent to alert the authorities. It was early, around seven o'clock, and cold as hell since it was December. The wind cut through her clothes and was, in truth, what shocked her back to reality; she was about to call the police over a note and a lollipop, and something told her that both things would disappear the instant she tried to show them to anyone.
She'd shuffled around on the frosty driveway for a little bit, debating on whether or not she should go back into the house. Part of her was certain that the clown was in there, waiting for her. The other part wondered if she was losing her goddamn mind.
It wasn't long before an icy drizzle made a decision for her and sent her scurrying back into the house. She slipped inside and leaned against the door, damp and shivering. The lollipop and the card were gone from behind the couch when she happened to glance that way. Christ, maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe all of this was just some sort of horrible, stress-induced hallucination. She had a lot to be stressed about, and this wouldn't be the first time her anxiety had gotten to her. Not ever to this degree, of course, but she'd had awful attacks in the past, even heard her mother talking to her. That had been a hoot to explain to her psychiatrist, that she was hearing dead people. Ruby chuckled bitterly at the memory.
The more she thought about it all, the more sense it made that everything was a terrible fabrication by her overtaxed mind. It was all the stress. She had, what, a couple thousand dollars saved for nursing school? She would be nearly thirty by the time she had the money to apply. And Zeke, god love him, he drove up her a wall with his temper. He was by far the most difficult kid she'd ever been a nanny to, defying her seemingly just for the sake of defying her, and no matter what she did he made it a point to let her know that she was never going to be his buddy.
Ruby looked around herself at the enormous, empty house. She could remember the first time she'd laid eyes on the place, and how her mouth had gone slack. The agency she'd worked with before Justine and Louis began paying her privately had told her the place was nice, but its sheer size and luxury was nothing she could be prepared for. The realization that she would be living in such a house had thrilled her into a euphoric daze then. Now, all it did was make her feel small and inadequate.
It was about two o'clock in the morning in Bucharest, but Ruby imagined that Justine wouldn't mind being woken up. She called her on the house's landline (something about cell calls being more expensive), and Justine picked up almost immediately. Their conversation was brief, out of habit, but all of the needed information was exchanged. Yes, Ruby was fine. Yes, she knew that the twins were going to stay with their aunt for a little while. No, she didn't think she was in any danger of someone breaking into the house again. No, she didn't think it was necessary to go stay with the twins and their aunt. No, no, no, everything was fine.
"Ben, okay," Justine finally relented, her heavy accent sounding twice as thick over the phone. "Be careful if you stay. Make all of the doors and windows to be locked. The pistol; you know where to find it,ouais? In the little table?" Ruby hesitated at that; she had thought earlier that maybe she had imagined Louis ever giving her a gun. Apparently that part was real.
"Yeah, I know where to find it."
"Good, good. Be so careful. You will call me if anything else happens?" Ruby assured her that she would. Justine said something else then, but static buzzed over her words. The buzzing went on until the line clicked and died, and Ruby put the phone back on the receiver. She rubbed at her temples and started for the kitchen to dig out the aspirin. She was going to medicate up, and then she was going to get some real rest, preferably not in a crumpled heap on the floor.
Ruby dreamed lucidly of the carnival again. It made her uneasy to think that maybe she was preparing to repeat the same nightmare, but when Zach didn't run up and grab her legs she relaxed a little. Organ music pealed sweetly in her ears from the rotating merry-go-round while she scanned the throng of people for the clown, but he was nowhere in sight either. No clown, no Zach. Different dream. A stall game caught her attention as it whooped behind her, flashing brightly, and she turned to see a group of children getting ready to play a water-gun target game. Her eyes lit up, and she hurried over.
"How much?" she asked the short, bearded carny running the stall, then halted in surprise when she saw that it was a twelve year-old boy with a fake beard tied to his face. He tipped his too-big porkpie hat at her and waggled his eyebrows, looking more than precious in his baggy pinstripes and vest.
"For you, sweetheart? No charge." He gestured her to the last free seat and Ruby took it, surprised and pleased.
Night fell quickly. She wandered from game to game, stall to stall, amazed that the fairground stretched so far. Once or twice she heard a familiar tune that had her glancing around herself, but it would be gone as quickly as she would notice it. She chalked it up to paranoia, because this dream carnival was certainly a different one. Momentarily forgetting that she was dreaming, she'd been startled to realize that nowhere, not even behind the stalls to run them, was there an adult. Everything was operated by children, some that looked no older than five, and the customers were children too.
Something that wasn't necessarily different than the last dream, but strange to her nonetheless, was that everything in this carnival was free to her. She watched others pay for their cotton candy and dart throws, but every time she offered her own money it was rejected. "Guests don't pay," a couple of darling little carnies had informed her as they pushed a funnel cake into her hands. Ruby didn't quite understand that logic; weren't they all guests? But she accepted the gifts without questioning anything. Free funnel cake? The only response that should warrant was a "Yessir. Thank you, sir."
She finished her funnel cake in record time, knowing full well and embracing the fact that she would have a horrible bellyache later, and went for a second round of cotton candy before following a crowd of kids to a big top tent at the edge of the carnival. It was an impressively massive thing, black and white with streamers and flags fluttering atop its posts. Ruby wasn't sure what was inside, but all of the children seemed excited. She waited politely in line when the crush of kids reached the ticket booths, though she was fairly certain that the carny running it wouldn't ask for her money. She was right.
"Evenin', Miss Ruby," a gap-toothed girl greeted her brightly when she stepped up to the glass divider. "Go on in. The ringmaster's got a front-row seat for ya." The ringmaster, huh? Ruby anticipated a tiny child in an ill-fitting top hat and giggled, the buzzing energy of the crowd and the sugar finally getting to her.
It was dim and noisy inside the tent. The wooden bleachers that surrounded the center ring were packed so tightly with children that Ruby could hear the supports groaning. Thankfully, the special seat that a carny boy pointed her to was a little chair placed at the very edge of the ring, away from the jostling, yammering children and the bleachers that looked as though they could collapse at any second. She was almost to her chair when she saw something sitting on the seat, and her stomach twisted into a knot.
It was a red lollipop and a card.
No, no, absolutely not. Without preamble, Ruby turned promptly around and walked right back up the aisle to the exit. She slowed when a group of children stepped out to block her path.
"The show's about to start, miss," one of them told her slowly as though she was the child and he was the adult. "You gotta go sit. Ringmaster's rules." Ruby ignored him and kept coming. If they tried to fence her in, she was big enough to push them out of her way. She didn't necessarily want to bully a group of kids to the ground, but by god she wasn't going to stay in this tent another minute, and she opened her mouth to say so. Just as she did, the tent's lighting shut off with a loud snap, like someone had flipped a giant switch. No light shone through the tent flaps, and Ruby realized that all sound had been hushed inside and out.
"No," she whispered, completely unware that she was vocalizing the thought. She threw the cotton candy aside and surged forward, determined to leave the tent, and a dozen cold little hands grabbed at her as she ran into the blockade of children. Their strength caught her completely by surprise, and she was shoved backward so hard that her feet left the ground and she landed on the flats of her shoulder blades. The breath socked out of her as she collided with the dirt, and she rolled on her side, coughing and wheezing. Another loud, snapping sound had her rising up as best she could to see that a spotlight had come on and was beaming down in the center of the ring.
And there stood her nightmare clown, in all his monochromatic glory. He flung his long, ragdoll arms into the air, laughing and turning a circle. The sudden, delighted screams of the child crowd were deafening.
"Welcome, welcome, boys and girls!" he bellowed over the noise. "Tonight we've prepared a special performance for your entertainment, something the likes of which you've never seen! Tonight, be amazed, be enchanted, be shocked as our guest makes herself known to you! Spotlights!"
Ruby lost sight of the clown as a blinding light flashed into her face. She threw an arm over her eyes, streaming with tears from her painful landing, and stumbled upright. It was then that she heard a grotesque hissing and growling begin to cut through the children's cheers, growing in volume to a hellacious roar by the time her eyes had finally adjusted to the light. When she could see, she brought her hands to her face and half-screamed into her fingers.
All around her, the children in the bleachers had been transformed into monsters, butchered, undead things with gaping eye sockets and missing limbs. They hissed and clawed at her from their seats, and Ruby just barely avoided getting her hair snagged by a little boy leaning down to her who had a rusty nail the size of a railroad spike in his head. A prominent growling behind her made her turn, and she saw the group of children at the exit advancing on her with their gory hands raised. The boy who had told her to sit down was in front, and there was something dangling from his teeth that looked an awful lot like shredded flesh.
Ruby shrieked as railroad spike boy tried another swipe at her hair, actually brushing it with the tips of his fingers this time. There was nowhere to go but toward the ring, toward the clown, but the immediate danger of being ripped apart by zombie children didn't let her dwell too much on all of that. She ran between the bleachers, ducking under and batting away the groping hands that snagged at her clothes and hair. The clown cackled with laughter as a pair of girls with fishhooks through their eyelids grabbed hold of her sweater and nearly yanked her into the bleachers. Ruby ripped her arms out of the clothing at the last minute, leaving the children to tear it apart as she staggered into the ring.
And just like that, the tent fell quiet.
Ruby watched apprehensively, her heart banging against her ribs, as the clown folded his terrible claws behind his back and began to circle her. He moved almost like a marionette, his head bobbing lazily atop his stretched form with every step he took. He was even taller than she remembered, over six feet even as he hunched his feather-covered shoulders. A long pull-string with a ring on the end, like the kind found on the backs of toys, dangled from between his shoulder blades, swaying as he moved.
Laughing Jack, Ruby thought, remembering the signature on the note.
She turned stiffly with the clown as he circled, the muscles in her legs locked with the urge to bolt. When he moved especially close she caught the scent of smoke and powdered sugar, and her mouth watered despite her tension.
Not real. None of this is real.
"This is a dream," she said softly, more to herself than the clown, but he heard her regardless. He came to a stop in his circling and cocked his head at her, his bright eyes flashing with wicked amusement.
"You think so?" he asked, a playful note in his coarse voice. His black lips pulled tighter as his grin stretched.
"Yes." Ruby straightened a little bit, unaware that she had been slouching in on herself in fear. "You aren't real. None of this is." She started as Laughing Jack tossed his head back, displaying a set of knifelike teeth, and laughed. The sound was decidedly hysterical and hollow. It made her skin crawl.
"You don't sound so sure of yourself," he teased. He took a step toward her, and Ruby compensated with a step back before she could stop herself.
"Stay away from me," she told him. She had had dreams like this, lucid ones, where she could control the things that others did. And in this one?
She moved again as Jack took another slow and deliberate step forward, giggling like a naughty child doing something he shouldn't.
No, she had no control over this. The realization slicked her palms with sweat.
"What's the matter, sweets?" Jack snickered. "Don't want to give me another kiss?"
"You're not real," Ruby said again, but her voice wasn't as strong this time. Jack's smile faded, and her sweaty hands began to tremble.
"We both know that's not true."
Another step back. The clown was an adamant vision, something that she had seen and heard twice before now. Ruby imagined that he was the embodiment of something for her, something that she was meant to decipher. Wasn't that how it worked? If she could figure out why she was seeing him, then maybe he would go away.
"Why are you here?" she asked, still stepping carefully backward. Jack blinked, the movement eerily slow and precise. Then his broad smile returned, and he giggled coarsely.
"This is my home," he said, purposely misinterpreting her question. "The question is, why are you here?" Ruby frowned at him, then decided to play along in the hopes of getting some real information.
"Fine. Why am I here?"
"Because we're playing a game," Jack said matter-of-factly. "Didn't you read my card?"
"I don't want to play games with you," Ruby said firmly, crossing her arms. The clown's smile didn't fade one bit. One the contrary, he gave another ear-ringing laugh.
"Of course you do!" he exclaimed. "You started it. Speaking of… Watch this."
Ruby tensed as the clown moved abruptly, expecting that he was going to grab her, but he was only bringing a hand up in front of his face. He held the outside of it flat to her, like he was disguising something, and then wiggled the claws of his other hand over it like he was performing a magic trick. She stared as he withdrew a small, faded box from the empty space behind his shielding hand.
He held it out to her, the black greasepaint smeared around his eyes crinkling with his smile.
"For you," he said.
Ruby studied the box sitting on the clown's bandaged palm with absolutely no intention of stepping close enough to take it. It was around five by five inches, the wooden exterior looking as though it had been painted at one point. Little smudges, like intricate carvings that had been rubbed smooth over time, scrolled along its edges, and a small crank stuck crookedly out from one side. It looked ancient.
"Take it," Jack said, his sharp smile cleaving all the way up to his ears now. Ruby shook her head.
"No, thanks. I really just want to stop seeing you. What do I have to do?" The clown's smile flickered a little at her words, but then crept an impossible inch wider. The expression didn't reach his eyes, and Ruby could tell by the way he spoke through his teeth that he was losing patience with her.
"You have to take the box."
Ruby eyed the thing again. There was a dark stain on one side of it.
"No," she said firmly. She mustered her courage and looked the clown in the face. "This is a dream, and you're not real, and I'm leaving. I'll figure it out myself." She prepared to take a wide berth around him, having spotted a back tent flap over his shoulder. It was clear of zombie children and fluttered open almost invitingly, though it was dark and sightless beyond. Maybe if she went through it she would wake up.
"Take the damned box," Jack snarled, the change in his voice snapping Ruby's attention away from the tent flap; it had sounded gruff and distorted, like he was speaking over someone else. It scared the shit out of her.
She ran.
The exit was all the way across the big top, but she didn't hear any footsteps pursuing her. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she thought that maybe she was going to get out of this nightmare unscathed.
She made it almost halfway across the ring before a burst of black smoke appeared in front of her, billowing out to reveal the clown. Ruby screamed and crashed into him, then tried to twist away. His long claws snatched hold of her arm, shredding the sleeve of her shirt and anchoring in the fabric, and she jerked wildly to pull herself loose. Dirt gritted under her heels as she dug for traction and hauled backward, but her spindly assailant had a grip like a machine vise.
He yanked her toward him with enough force to dislocated her shoulder, then threw her to the ground. Ruby's head bounced off the packed dirt, stunning her.
A weight ground itself heavily into her chest, stifling her breathing, and her eyes fluttered to see the clown looming over her. His pointed shoe was settled between her breasts, and when he purposefully crooked his knee and leaned down, Ruby felt her sternum creak.
"Let's try that again," Jack said, smiling and grabbing up her hand. He took hold of her trembling fingers and wrapped them tightly around the old wooden box. As the faded thing was forcibly pressed into Ruby's palm, a white-hot terror struck her. Something inside her was screaming that she was being branded, being marked.
As if reading her thoughts, the clown laughed darkly.
Ruby cried out and tried to throw the box away, but Jack's hand flashed around hers in a circulation-halting grip. The edges of the box bit into her fingers as he brought his face close to hers, silver eyes glinting with a predatory light.
"You're mine now, sweets."
Ruby screamed as the spotlight above them snapped off, swallowing everything in blackness.
She woke fighting the bedsheets. Her skin was clammy and damp with sweat again, but when she sat up in the dark she couldn't think clearly. She had just had a nightmare, and one about the clown, she knew, but only pieces of things would come to her: the carnival run by children, the big-top, a wooden box... Everything else was muddy.
Realizing that the room was dark, Ruby fumbled to switch the bed-table lamp on. Had she really slept all day? She had set her phone alarm for noon. Her fingers twisted the switch, and light flooded the room.
She almost sighed with relief when she realized she was alone.
Not real.
She rested her face in her hands, trying to ignore the strange ache pulsing between her breasts. She hadn't intended to sleep for so long, but there was nothing for it now. Her phone wasn't on the pillow beside her, where she thought she'd left it, and she reasoned that it was probably downstairs.
Shit. What if Justine or Louis had called her?
She sat upright and swung her legs out of bed, then jumped as something bumped noisily against the footboard. She made an exasperated sound and drew the sheets back, expecting to see her phone flashing at her, its alarm accidentally set to silent.
Instead, she saw a faded, wooden box.
Ruby stared at the thing for a moment, blinking in the dim light. Then, she extended a socked foot toward the box and nudged it. It bumped against the footboard again, and the little crank played a twanging note.
You've really lost it, haven't you, honey? a familiar voice scoffed. She could almost hear the wheezing laugh. You should go find your phone. Call a doctor and check yourself in.
"Could be one of Zach's toys," she muttered, ignoring the voice and peering more closely at the box. The boy had spent plenty of time in her room while she hid him away during Zeke's temper tantrums, so why couldn't he have left it in here?
She grunted forward and grabbed the box, flipping it over in her hands. The crank didn't work very well when she turned it, but the buzzing, off-key music board gave her enough of an idea as to what song it was meant to play.
Pop Goes the Weasel.
A wave of fear-born adrenaline washed over her, heating her cheeks and slicking her palms with sweat as the memory of the house of mirrors came rushing back. She stopped turning the crank for a moment, fearful of what could pop out of the box when the song hit that high note.
It's just a toy, she told herself.
Ruby took a deep breath and turned the crank again. The box twinged pitifully as it hit the pop! bit of the song, and she flinched, but its lid didn't open. She finished turning the crank slowly, thinking that maybe the thing was just old, but the song ended without anything happening. Wasn't the thing supposed to pop open? Curiosity overrode her apprehension, and she poked at the lid until she got a fingernail under it. It offered little resistance, creaking open gently when she lifted it.
The box was turned it this way and that as she looked for the music board that should have been connected to the crank, but found nothing. No secret compartments she could see or feel, just solid wood. She leaned over to hold the thing under the lamp for closer inspection, frowning when she saw that the inside was riddled with tiny scratches, like an animal had been trapped inside and tried to claw its way out.
"Looking for something, gumdrop?"
Ruby screamed at the sight of Laughing Jack looming over the foot her bed, then rolled off into the floor just as he lunged at her. She hit the carpet on her belly and scrambled for the door, the box falling from her hands. As she fled the room, hysterical laughter and the squeaking of bed-springs as the clown jumped around wildly rang in her ears. She tore down the hallway and down the stairs, seeing nothing but the front door in her haze of terror.
You're going outside? the voice wheezed as it laughed at her. Look at yourself!
Ruby couldn't help but look down as she ran, realizing that she was only in a baggy t-shirt and underwear, and the distraction was all that was needed to have her slip in a puddle something. She windmilled her arms as her feet slid out from under her. The floor met her back with an impact that thudded through her organs, and she coughed, rolling onto her side and unintentionally pressing her face into something warm.
A heady, metallic scent hit her hard.
Ruby let out a wheezing cry as she hauled herself out of the massive pool of red that was spreading across the entry hall floor. The warm liquid coated her back and side, soaking into her hair and leaving it matted and sticky around her neck and shoulders.
"I'm coming for you, sweets," Jack's singsong voice drifted from the top of the stairs. His two-toned laugh had Ruby slipping and banging her knees against the floor again and again as she scrabbled through the blood to get away. She reached the door and twisted at the deadbolt, but the thing refused to turn.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she gasped, throwing all of her effort at the door. Her heart threatened to burst when she looked over her shoulder and saw the clown's shadow on the wall, taking jolting, marionette-like steps as he came closer.
"Where are you off to?" he cackled, his reaching claws curling around the corner now. "We're playing a game, remember?"
"I don't want to play a fucking game with you!" Ruby screamed, whirling away and banging her fists against the door. "Leave me alone! You're not real, just leave me alone!"
"Never," a hellish voice growled in her ear.
She screeched, instinctively falling to the ground and throwing her arms over her face in a well-practiced attempt to protect herself. When no claws raked through her, she peered hesitantly through her arms to where she was sure the clown was standing.
But there was no Laughing Jack.
Her eyes darted around the room as she pressed back against the door, finding that the puddle of blood was gone. She frantically felt her hair and face for stickiness, but there was nothing. Had she imagined it?
No. She looked around herself again, still shaking. The room was empty, but there was a palpable energy present, one that made it feel as though someone were standing over her. She caught the scent of sugar, and it was so cloying that it made her mouth gush.
Getting to her feet, she swallowed thickly and turned back to the door, struggling to unlock it. The deadbolt refused to turn, as though some force were holding it in place, and Ruby had to take the switch in both hands to finally twist it. She grabbed for the doorknob and pulled.
A hand reached over her shoulder and slammed the door shut on the cold burst of outside air, and the echo rang through the silent house.
Ruby stared in mute horror at the hand resting flat against the wood, its long, claw-tipped fingers splayed like a giant spider. She felt something shift behind her, and then there was a movement out of the corner of her eye. She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut as a lock of her hair was lifted away from her head.
"Naughty girl," Jack sang, twirling her hair around his claw. "I didn't say you could go outside."
Ruby twisted to the side, trying to flee. The clown snagged her easily by the arm and dragged her back, forcing her against the door. He pinned her in place with his arms on either side of her head and brought his face close to hers.
"Still don't think I'm real?" he hissed. His jaws split open and Ruby cringed, expecting him to bite her. Instead, a long, black tongue snaked from between his teeth and ran a glistening path up the side of her face. She shuddered and turned away, grimacing as the clown smacked his lips appreciatively.
"Sweet," he cooed. "Like candy."
Ruby swallowed again, her breath coming to her fast and shallow. She kept her eyes on the floor beside her as she panted, "Please. Please, let me go." The clown cackled at that, his inhuman eyes flashing bright, before he brought his face so close that his long nose touched hers.
"No," he growled. "Not before I show you how real I am."
