enforcement officials. The road, teeming with emergency vehicles, includes those from the fire department and coroner’s office. Two different news vans are also present; their crews reporting live to their stations.
Several curious spectators line the street as the bodies of Mayor Crenshaw and Jean Lynwood, protected by various police officers, are carried out of Laurel’s house by paramedics. Some of the onlookers scattered around are crying; others are also recording videos and streaming them live to Facebook. Forensics officers are roping off the perimeter, gathering fingerprints, bits of evidence, and other items.
Torrance, disheveled, in obvious pain, and plastered with bandages, hobbles over to Laurel and Julia using a cane for support.
“Hey, ladies,” he greets them.
“Hey Sheriff,” Laurel tells him, “don’t you think you’d better get some rest?”
“Why?” he questions her. “I could run a marathon right now.”
“When I wake up tomorrow,” Julia hopes, “I know this whole thing will be just a bad dream.”
They survey the scene like they were astronauts discovering a new planet, then watch as the paramedics lift Jean into an ambulance.
“Me and Matt were on the basketball team together,” Torrance explains. “This was in 11th grade. By 12th grade, he’d changed. He started coming out of himself, so to speak. Kids used to give him a lot of flak for dressing like a girl, picked on him and whatnot. It got so bad that the school had to have an intervention meeting with everybody. But you know? By then it was probably too late. He really wanted the others to like him, and accept his change, but they didn’t. He became a marine but something happened there so he was dishonorably discharged.”
“What happened?” Julia asks.
“I don’t know,” the sheriff replies. “Head trauma, maybe. Maybe all that training eventually took its toll. I don’t think he was too balanced to begin with. He was brilliant in his day, though.”
“Maybe it was shell shock,” Laurel suggests.
“Well, he’s never been the same since,” Torrance offers. “Came back here about four or five years ago. Tried to set up relationships with several people, including students I heard, but it always went south. Went from being the most popular guys this town’s produced to being the most despised. After that, he disappeared. I guess this was the result.”
“Revenge?” Julia wonders.
“Probably,” Torrance surmises.
“That would explain why she can change her voice from masculine to feminine like that,” Laurel observes. “Being a trans’ gotta take a lot of practice.”
“Or a lot of hormones,” Julia adds.
Torrance holds up a clear plastic Ziploc bag with a white sticker on it. “Look at this.”
They see a handbook, small electronic devices, and small bottles of red and yellow liquid.
“They found this in her car,” Torrance explains, “a bomb manual and devices for making them. I guess in her own twisted reality she thought she could cripple this town by taking out the best and the brightest it has to offer. In another space and time, that would’ve been her.”
A paramedic comes over to the sheriff.
“Are you coming, sir?” he asks the lawman.
“Yeah. Patch me up, doc.” He turns to the girls. “Are you ladies gonna be okay?”
“Yes,” they answer in unison.
Holding on to the paramedic for support, Torrance limps to a waiting ambulance. Turning around, he gives the girls a ‘thumbs up.’
“Everything will be alright,” he promises.
The students wave and watch as he is helped into the ambulance. Laurel turns to Julia.
“Can I sleep over at your place tonight?”
“Of course. Mi casa es su casa.”
They go hiking down the street towards Julia’s house.
“I heard you’re planning to leave town,” the pianist guesses.
“What?” Laurel protests, “and give up show biz? What’s this town gonna do without avengers like us, huh? Anyway, I’m just glad this nightmare’s over. I can’t wait to go home and crash out.”
“Me, three.”
***
EPILOGUE
A basement bathroom is swaddled in complete darkness; a man is half-humming, half-singing, in whispered tones, the Smokey Robinson & the Miracles #1 hit, “Tears of a Clown”.
“If there’s a smile on my face / it’s only there tryin’ to fool the public…
There is the familiar sounds of trousers being donned, zippers zipping shut, and a belt getting buckled.
…but when it comes down to fooling you / now, honey, that’s quite a different subject…”
Slightly heavier breathing arises as the shoes are slipped into place and their laces adjusted.
…So, don’t let my glad expression / give you the wrong impression…
A hand is heard rummaging through a glass container filled with plastic trinkets and buttons.
…Really, I’m sad / Sadder than sad…
The sound of a metallic zipper closing is heard, followed by a cabinet door slamming shut.
…like a clown I appear to be glad…”
An incandescent light clicks on by one pull of its string. Beneath it is the face of a New Clown, painted similar to Jean Lynwood’s, complete with black puffball nose, gazing into the mirror. The unknown jester turns his head slowly to the left, then the right, as he examines the bizarre designs on both sides of his face. Then, picking up his five-tined handclaw from the dresser, he poses it in front of his face in the mirror and smiles.
“Perfect,” he whispers.
The light clicks off.
THE END
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