Inside her bedroom Aria tried to do her homework while listening on her headphones, but sometimes she’d slip them off to get some sense of what was going on in the rest of the apartment. Of course it was a madhouse, Joey and the boyfriend running around and making noise. She should be out there, watching Joey, but the boyfriend was out there too, and she just couldn’t deal with him. She was afraid. She’d feel terrible if anything ever happened to Joey, but she just couldn’t be out there. She guessed she was just some terrible coward.
“Kaboom! Kaboom! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!” That wasn’t Joey—that was the boyfriend. What was he, five? She thought about the creepy clown face, and what she had seen it do. Maybe her nerves were just getting to her. The boyfriend was crazy. That was certainly bad enough, but that was all there was to it. Sometimes your nerves made you see things, incorrectly.
The situation always calmed down a few minutes before Mom got home. The boyfriend was pretty careful about that—he seemed to have a special sense for when Mom was going to walk through the door. Suddenly he would stop what he was doing and start straightening things up, picking up all of Joey’s toys and his own toys and getting the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Sometimes Joey and the boyfriend would be sitting together there on the couch watching television when Mom got home, even when they had been yelling at each other just minutes before. Even when Joey didn’t want to be sitting on the couch. Aria would come out of her room and say hello to Mom, and Joey would look at her like he was begging her to do something, but neither of them ever said a word. What was there to say? The boyfriend looked at her too, not saying anything, but daring her with his eyes as he put his big arm across Joey’s little shoulders.
Tonight was no different. Joey and the boyfriend played like crazy until Mom got home, and everybody said hello as if nothing were going on. Then they went their separate ways. Aria and Joey always had homework to do, and the boyfriend would sit out in the living room with Mom, and she would talk about her day and he would lie about his.
But then later that night, when Mom called them all to dinner, Joey and the boyfriend both showed up in clown makeup.
They were a mess. Obviously, the boyfriend had painted on both of their clown faces. She guessed they were meant to be identical, but that just meant the boyfriend had smeared greasepaint on approximately the same places on Joey’s face. Mom stared at the two of them for a minute or two when they sat down. Aria was sure Mom would yell at the boyfriend for this one, but she looked so tired, and her belly so huge, about to burst, that it didn’t really surprise Aria when her mother said, “He’s kind of cute. What, is he your little twin clown, your little buddy?”
“I’m thinking I might add him to the act,” the boyfriend said. Aria shuddered to hear this.
“I’m Boo Boo the clown,” Joey said, and giggled. But it was a tired, sleepy giggle.
Mom turned to the boyfriend then. “So does that just make you Boo? Or Big Boo?”
The boyfriend frowned, looking like he wasn’t sure if he was being insulted or not. “Boo,” he said. “Just Boo.” He looked ready to be angry, but he looked that way most of the time, just waiting for somebody to say the wrong thing. “Just trying to teach him a few things about work, about being a guy. Trying to spend some quality time with the little fellow.”
The idea of the boyfriend teaching her little brother anything made Aria feel cold inside. Mom stared, looking as if she was trying to decide something. “I’m glad you’re spending time with him, but maybe he shouldn’t dress like that for dinner.”
“He’s fine. I’m dressed like that.” Using his spoon, the boyfriend started shoveling mac and cheese into his greasy mouth.
Mom looked irritated then, but didn’t say anything, so Aria didn’t think she could make a fuss about it either. Mom kept stretching out her hand and holding it under her belly like she was trying to hold the baby in, like maybe the baby wanted to come out right then, and Mom was trying to tell it that now wasn’t exactly the most convenient time. Aria kept watching her face, and sometimes Mom would wince a little, then she made this awkward smile like she was trying to cover it up. Of course the boyfriend didn’t notice a thing—he was too busy feeding his face.
His clown makeup looked creepier than usual. The black grease around his eyes made his head look like a skull, the pale white eyes just flopping around inside the big, deep holes. And the purple spots on his nose made it look like there were pieces missing out of it. And the red smeared and runny around his mouth made it look as if he were eating himself alive.
Aria tried not to watch the boyfriend’s mouth, but it was like seeing a train wreck—she just couldn’t turn away. He was eating just plain old mac and cheese, but every once in awhile something odd would pop up between his lips: a fish head or the tail of one of those plastic ducks from the bathtub, or a skinny bird’s leg, claws and all. It made her put her fork down. She was unable to eat.
So she started watching Joey, and Joey looked all wrong under that nasty clown makeup. He looked worn out, and too old, and like he hadn’t slept for about a thousand years. He had red smeared around his eyes, and it looked like some of the red had spread onto the whites of his eyes. And the way his hair was pulled up on top and dyed orange. An old, old man hiding inside a little boy’s body.
A huge bug appeared between Joey’s lips, its legs claw claw clawing at Joey’s mouth, trying to get out.
“Can I be excused!” she said too loudly, and jumped to her feet. Joey and the boyfriend stopped eating and stared at her. The bug leg disappeared back into Joey’s mouth.
Mom looked up at her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled, not sure if it was actually a lie or not.
“Oh, honey, maybe you should go lie down.” Mom reached up and touched her on the back, and Aria felt a little shiver. She couldn’t remember the last time her mother had touched her like that.
“Maybe I will,” she said, leaving the table. The boyfriend watched her with cold lizard eyes. Joey was busy eating again. The clown makeup was leaking away from his mouth, getting all over his tongue, all over his food.
Aria lay down on her bed with her music, not really wanting to rest or sleep, just needing to hide. And not knowing what to do with herself while she was hiding. If it had been a few years ago, she knew Mom would be coming in and checking on her from time to time, but that kind of thing didn’t happen anymore. Maybe that was okay—maybe she was getting too old for that anyway. Getting older sucked sometimes. Little kids could be dumb and happy. As you got older, you suddenly understood too much about things you couldn’t do anything about.
Every few minutes she’d slip her earphones off and try to listen to whatever was going on in the rest of the apartment. They had music playing too—that weird South American stuff the boyfriend liked to listen to. Usually, Mom didn’t let him play it when she was at home—it made her nervous. Aria hoped Mom wasn’t getting too agitated—it was bad for the baby.
The parking lot outside the apartment complex seemed unusually busy tonight. Headlights kept burning through her curtains, washing across her walls. It made her room look cheap and bare. She should put up some posters, but she never could make up her mind about what to put up. She never seemed to like anything for very long anymore.
Then she heard her mother laughing and the boyfriend making those stupid ape sounds he liked to make sometimes. Mom’s voice went high all of a sudden, like she was in pain. Aria got out of bed and went to the door, cracked it open.
They had most of the lights out except for that little pole lamp by the couch. Mom and the boyfriend were sitting there, and Joey was on the floor in front of them, dancing to that ridiculous bongo and guitar and flute music. At least she guessed it was supposed to be dancing. Joey didn’t know how—he must have just been imitating something he saw on TV. He was twisting his body around and around, and kicking his legs up, and wiggling his head. Maybe it was his little clown dance??
?it looked like he was suffering from some kind of tragic nervous condition. It was hard to watch for long—it made Aria’s head hurt.
Whatever it was supposed to be, Mom and the boyfriend were howling with laughter, the boyfriend making that hooting sound, his arm around Mom, rubbing her shoulders. It was upsetting to see. Aria studied her mother—was she really having a good time, or was she nervous, or maybe even scared? Aria couldn’t tell. Mom’s pregnant belly looked a lot bigger than it had at dinner—it hung so low, like the weight of it might drag her right off the couch and onto the floor.
Aria tried to focus on Mom’s belly, the way it moved. Was that just the laughter shaking it, or was the baby doing a clown dance? She shut the door carefully and sat back down on her bed, put the earphones on, and took them right off again. She was too nervous to do anything, to even know what she should be doing. She sat that way for hours.
Eventually, things got quiet again. She heard Mom put Joey to bed and then Mom and the boyfriend go into their bedroom. There was still laughter sometimes, but eventually the apartment grew silent. Aria still waited. Finally Mom’s bedroom door opened again. That’s what Aria had been waiting for. She walked carefully to her door, opened it, and peeked out. The boyfriend went out almost every night. She’d heard him many, many times before. And there he was, standing in the living room rubbing more greasepaint into his face. But this time he bent down, and when he bent down, she could see that Joey was standing there with him. The boyfriend was putting more paint on Joey as well.
Then the boyfriend and her little brother left the apartment together. She should tell Mom, but wouldn’t that just put Mom and the baby in danger? She didn’t want to, she was terrified to, but Aria waited a few minutes and then followed them outside.
Joey and the boyfriend moved swiftly over the empty field behind the apartment complex, their dark shapes cutting through the tall grass, the moon making the tops of their heads glow silver. It might have been beautiful if it hadn’t been so frightening. They almost looked as if they were flying, and Aria’s chest pounded and her legs ached trying to keep up. Finally, they paused at the far edge of the field, and the boyfriend looked around. Aria crouched down so he wouldn’t see her. His white greasepaint made him look zombielike, and when he opened his mouth, it looked like he had the largest, reddest tongue she’d ever seen on a human being. Suddenly, he reached down into the tall grass and came up with a furry, struggling thing. Was that a rabbit? He thrust it into his mouth, and the struggling stopped.
Aria leaned her face into the grass and started crying. She desperately wanted to run back to Mom, but how could she leave Joey out here?
She raised her head a bit and peeked. The clown was shaking his head back and forth, blood and bits of fur flying everywhere. Then he spit it all out with a great ptui! sound. Then he laughed. Worse, there was a smaller laugh rising up beside him.
They were moving again, and Aria was moving with them. They got to the little kids’ playground on the edge of the field, and the clown leapt on top of the jungle gym. He jumped from one bar to the next, not holding on to anything. Then he reached down and pulled Joey up there with him. Aria gasped and started leaking tears again, she was so afraid. Stop it! Just stop it! She made herself calm down. She wasn’t helping Joey any by crying.
When they leapt off together, it was like two apes, or maybe two fierce cats. If she hadn’t already known, she would never have guessed that the smaller shape was a little boy’s. It looked like something wild and brutal.
At least playing around the jungle gym had slowed their forward progress some, and Aria was close enough to see their faces as they ran into the busy street below. There was a crowd of shabby, swollen-looking men there, and some of them seemed to know the clown, because they laughed out loud, and shouted his name, and slapped him on the back. And the clown shouted back, and he made little Joey perform for them, and when Joey did his silly clown dance they laughed even louder, and a couple of them tried to pick Joey up, but they dropped him. Aria just wanted to yell at them, but she was so terrified, and knew she shouldn’t show herself yet. Joey turned on them with a red face, and jumped up on them, and they screamed. They were actually screaming because of something her little brother was doing to them.
The clown grabbed Joey by the arms and pulled him away. Some of the men were lying on the ground. Joey and the clown ran down the sidewalk toward the highway overpass, jumping, celebrating, shouting as if they’d scored the winning goal.
Aria ran through the group of men, trying to pretend they weren’t there, that she hadn’t noticed them. A few of them said things, but she wouldn’t let their words inside her. Ahead of her Joey and the clown were going onto the bridge that crossed over the interstate highway. Even at this time of night the asphalt below ran swiftly with a glowing stream of light. As she got to the beginning of the bridge, she saw the clown leap up onto the short barrier wall. He was dancing and jumping up and down. He was clowning around.
They didn’t see her approach. The boyfriend was shouting at the traffic below. Suddenly, he turned around and his red rimmed mouth was large enough to swallow a basketball with ease. But she didn’t think he noticed her, even though she was getting very close. He was far too crazy to notice much of anything.
He reached down and tried to grab Joey’s hands to pull her little brother up there with him. And Joey wanted to be up there. He didn’t seem the least bit afraid. But he was so agitated, so excited, that their two sets of hands wouldn’t quite connect.
• • •
Aria ran forward to get between them, or to pull her little brother away from the barrier. Surely, even now he wouldn’t try to hurt her? But he was kicking out at her, trying to kick her away. And the clown had one of Joey’s hands firmly in his grip.
They were howling. Both of them were howling like wolves. It was like the sound they were making was about to swallow up her mind.
She reached up onto the barrier and grabbed the dancing clown by the ankles. He was so surprised. She would always wonder if he fell because she’d surprised him, or if the small push of her hands had been enough to send him over. Either way he had let go of Joey. She would always understand that it might not have turned out that way. The clown might have still held on, and there would have been nothing she could have done.
They didn’t stay. She grabbed Joey by the hand and led him away, and she wasn’t about to let go.
He said nothing for a while. Tears and sweat had cleared the center of his face, leaving the rest of his head a mess of colored shadow. Then he said, “Don’t tell.”
“Joey—”
“Don’t ever tell.”
“Joey, a human being died out here. We can’t just—”
“No, no, he wasn’t. Don’t tell.” She knew it would cost her, but she never did.
A couple of weeks later they had a new baby brother. For the longest time Aria would dread his smile.
Steve Rasnic Tem is a past winner of the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Bram Stoker awards. His novels include Deadfall Hotel and Blood Kin and, most recently, UBO, a dark blend of science fiction and horror.
Website: m-s-tem.com
Twitter: @Rasnictem
Facebook: facebook.com/steve.tem
* * *
Bearwalker
ILSA J. BICK
* * *
Wow.” Bethie uncorks her mouth, her right thumb wrinkly as a prune. (Her sucking’s way worse since the police came for Dad, though that wasn’t on account of Ms. Avery up and disappearing. Mom had filed a restraining order and served papers. Bethie thought Mom fed their dad notebooks for dinner, but what did you expect; her sister was only five. On the other hand, she was twice as old, and that was Sarah’s first thought too. Like . . . Mom, seriously? If she’d been Dad, she might’ve gotten kind of hot, though she wouldn’t have axed the bay window.) Bending over Hank’s front counter, Bethie studies a fringed leather pouch covered with wiry black hair. (Honestly, to Sarah, it l
ooks like a scalp.) “So that’s really Indian?” Bethie asks.
“Native American,” Sarah says, but it’s automatic. God, when will Mom be done? Snatching a glance out the gas station’s window, she sees Mom still chain-smoking and yak-yak-yakking on the pay phone because the phone company cut their landline. They live in the sticks where cells don’t work. Even if they did, there’s no money. (Well, unless Mom quits sucking cancer sticks and chugging Four Roses.)
Please please please, Mom, can’t you just shut up so we can leave? Normally, she likes Hank’s because of all the good smells: yeasty Krispy Kremes, brewed coffee, juicy brats turning on those little metal rollers. But she’s dying here. Partly, this is because the station’s so superhot, sweat oozes from every pore. She wants to strip and run screaming into the frigid winter air, maybe make a naked snow angel.
Sick. Skimming her tongue along her upper lip, she grimaces against the taste of dank salt. Maybe the flu.
Or a guilty conscience, sugar? It’s Ms. Avery, staring out from a mirror mounted on the wall behind the front counter. Her face isn’t smooth and pretty anymore but darkly marbled with green veins like steak starting to turn. She probably smells. Maybe something festering in your innards?
She’s not real. Sarah thumbs stinging sweat from her eyes. Ms. Avery’s aren’t like nice chocolate anymore but as glittery and red as coals. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
Except this one, sugar. Ms. Avery’s voice flowers in a black rose right behind Sarah’s eyeballs. Except the ghost you deserve.
“Actually, it’s Ojibwe,” says Hank.
“What?” Jerking her gaze to the old man, Sarah almost blurts, I didn’t know Ms. Avery was Native American. “You’re . . . uh . . . you’re Native American?”
“No way,” Bethie says. “Your last name’s McDonald.”
“What, you were expecting White Feather? Cut Nose?” Hank kicks his wizened features into a lopsided smile that shows uneven teeth yellowed by nicotine and years of strong coffee. “My great-granddad was Scottish, come over for the fur trade after the Civil War. Met and married my great-gran, who was from a tribe in Ontario, way up around Michipicoten Island. She was a midé, an Ojibwe healer, and this”—Hank gives the mound of black fur splayed on his counter a pat—“was her medicine bag, a midé wayan.”