Chapter 9: S#2. That (4)
by fnovelpia
I emerged from the sewer, dragging the unconscious clown behind me.
The rain, which had briefly softened, was raging once again.
It fell so heavily that it stung my skin.
Holding onto the clown’s nape, I set off on the road.
My destination was the police station.
Sorry to Nancy, but I couldn’t rescue the assignment.
What was inside the envelope turned out to be a balloon dog.
Wait.
Then where did he hide the assignment?
“Hey, clown. Where did you put the paper that was in the envelope?”
There was no response. Only the sound of rain filled my ears.
“Not going to talk?”
I turned around.
The clown had disappeared.
What I was holding wasn’t the clown’s nape, but a soaked bundle of papers.
This is… Nancy’s assignment paper.
Where had the clown gone?
How had he slipped from my grasp without me noticing?
Thunder boomed.
Mixed with the sound of the rain was the clown’s laughter.
“……Ah.”
A chill ran down my spine.
The real chase had begun. The clown was heading to Nancy’s house.
To that house where Ellen was all alone…
I sprinted through the downpour.
Ellen Strode sipped her coffee.
She was in a space surrounded by towering bookshelves that reached the ceiling.
It could easily be called a library.
This was Ellen’s studio.
Sitting at her desk, Ellen typed away on her typewriter.
Creating stories was her job.
But today, she couldn’t produce a single proper story.
The words stumbled, and the sentences tangled. She couldn’t concentrate.
It was all because of Summer, the man her daughter had brought home.
Nancy had pleaded with her to let Summer stay, claiming he was her savior.
Though Nancy was her only daughter and family, Ellen couldn’t easily agree.
And for good reason, Summer was intimidating.
With his bear-like stature and viking-esque bushy beard, his gaze was fierce. He looked as though he could have buried a few bodies.
Talking to him, he didn’t seem like a bad person.
But still, some things just can’t be ignored.
“Oh, really. What an inconsiderate man. If it were me, I would have left on my own to avoid being a nuisance.”
Ellen pressed her forehead and sighed.
Suddenly, the sky outside flashed, followed by the sound of thunder.
Boom.
An unexpected loud noise.
Her startled body jerked.
“That scared me…”
She rubbed her chest.
Even as a mother of a grown daughter, thunder still scared her.
Speaking of which, she hadn’t yet heard if the escaped convict had been caught.
Is a mad killer, dressed as a clown, roaming the rainy streets?
Realizing the fact, she felt a shiver down her spine.
It felt as if a sinister energy was emanating from somewhere.
That’s when it happened.
A faint sound brushed past Ellen’s ears.
Heh heh heh, heh, hoo hoo hoo… hoo hoo hoo, hoo, heh heh heh heh…….
It sounded like rusty hinges creaking, or like a demon trying to stifle its laughter.
“What was that just now? Did I hear it wrong…?”
She got up and headed towards the living room.
In the living room plunged into darkness, the TV screen was emitting a dim light.
“When did I turn on the TV…?”
Whoosh.
The sound of wind came through.
Across the living room hallway, she saw the front door wide open.
The door was banging.
The storm was blowing into the house.
…How long had it been open?
She hurried to close the front door.
No matter how much she thought about it, it didn’t make sense.
She was sure she had locked the door thoroughly.
Why was the front door open?
The rainwater that had come in through the open door left an unpleasant puddle.
It was an ominous sign.
It felt as if a stranger had invaded the house.
Ellen headed to the kitchen.
There was a double-barrel shotgun there for self-defense.
The kitchen was dark. Feeling as if she was being chased, Ellen’s heart raced.
As she approached the table where the shotgun was placed, the cloudy sky flashed again.
The lightning illuminated the kitchen through the window.
There were wet footprints on the kitchen floor.
They weren’t Ellen’s footprints. Nor were they Summer’s.
This was…
“……Heh heh heh, heh, hoo hoo hoo…”
Then, a chilling laughter came from behind.
Ellen turned around.
A giant figure was standing there, looking at her.
Wet clown clothes.
A clown wig and a red sponge nose.
An ugly face and eyes blazing with madness.
It was the clown.
“Hehehe, looking for this?”
The clown laughed, waving the shotgun.
Ellen’s heart sank. She was too shocked to scream.
The clown drew a large dagger and strode towards Ellen, whose legs had given out.
“Who’s the mother of a moth~?”
“Ma… Mammoth…?”
Ellen stuttered out the answer.
Then, the clown’s face contorted hideously.
“Why did you guess it?”
Boom.
Lightning struck again.
The clown stood right in front of Ellen, swinging the large blade as if ready to draw blood at any moment.
“I went to all the trouble of preparing a joke, and you ruin the fun like this. Don’t you have any manners?”
“……”
“Such a naughty mouth.”
“Pl… Pl… Please… spare me…!”
“I’ll rip your mouth open.”
The clown grabbed Ellen’s hair with his large hand.
Ellen cried. Her mind went blank.
The merciless blade was coming closer.
At that very moment, when Ellen closed her eyes in overwhelming fear, the front door exploded.
It didn’t just open. Literally, the door burst open.
Shattered pieces of wood flew everywhere.
Both the startled clown and Ellen looked towards the entrance.
The silhouette of a man stood against the fierce rain.
It was Summer.
He charged in like a bull and shouted.
“How many bullets can a bald man shoot?!”
“The answer is one────!!!”
Bursting through the front door, I ran at full speed towards the clown and leaped, kicking off the ground.
Like a missile, my legs hit the clown directly in the chest.
Crack!
A fiery dropkick.
The huge impact made the clown’s ridiculous wig come off.
A bald head was revealed.
“Because a bald man doesn’t have two.”
The clown, hit by the dropkick, flew and crashed into the wall as if he was hit by a truck.
The wall cracked. The clown fell.
He lay there, curled up, struggling to breathe.
Maybe his heart or lungs had burst? I hoped so.
“Wait…! Heh heh heh, it’s so funny, I can’t breathe!! Hahaha!!”
The clown lay there, laughing insanely. Unfortunately, he was fine.
Disgusting creature.
“Clown. It’s over now…”
The moment I spoke, the clown suddenly stood up.
Before I could react, a blade slipped into my mouth.
“Why aren’t you laughing, George?! Ahh?”
“……”
“I’ll make you laugh…! I’ll rip your mouth up to your ears!!!”
People laugh when it’s funny, you sick f*ck.
I bit down hard on the blade in my mouth.
“…..Huh?”
The clown pulled the dagger from my mouth.
The blade was split, leaving only the handle.
My bite, rivaling that of a shark, had cracked the steel blade.
I spat out the broken blade and threw a punch.
Three of the clown’s yellow teeth went missing.
“Gr… Grgr…! My teeth…!”
“I told you. I’d send you not to jail but to hell.”
I lifted the clown up and then smashed him down onto my knee, breaking his back.
Crunch- The clown didn’t laugh this time.
As the clown lay there groaning in pain, Ellen approached with the double-barrel shotgun.
“Get out of my house, you son of a b*tchhhhhhhhh!!”
Ellen pulled the trigger.
The clown’s head blew off.
Bits of his brain, like raspberries, scattered everywhere. Everything above the clown’s lower jaw was gone.
Hmm.
There was no need for it to go this far.
It was a bit of an excessive finish.
“Um, it was self-defense.”
Ellen said, as if making an excuse.
It wasn’t exactly wrong.
-The clown killer has been caught.
Echoed the narrator’s voice in my head.
It was as if a bell signaling a break had rung. I felt relieved.
“Phew… Are you hurt, Mrs. Strode?”
“No. I’m fine physically.”
Instead, she was drenched in bright red blood from the clown’s head.
In contrast to me, who was soaked in rainwater.
Ellen hesitantly looked into my eyes.
“Summer… I’m sorry for being unpleasant yesterday. I misjudged you.”
“……”
“You can stay here as long as you like. So… will you forgive me?”
“Of course.”
I nodded and said.
Ellen smiled with relief. She was covered in blood but her beauty remained.
Just then, news started playing on the living room TV.
-[Breaking news just in. ‘The Clown Killer’ John W. Gray, who escaped from Animosa Prison around 4 a.m. yesterday, has just been caught]
What does that mean? Caught? But we just blew his head off?
Ellen and I were stunned.
The TV showed a man being led away in handcuffs.
-[The escaped John W. Gray, dressed as a clown, was found hiding in a storage room of a nearby elementary school after children reported him. Fortunately, no casualties occurred]
Wait a minute.
Then… who did we catch?
-The clown killer has been caught.
…But the one caught by the axe murderer was not,
The narrator whispered.
It felt like we were under a spell.
Ellen and I hurried back to the kitchen.
The clown’s corpse with its head blown off was nowhere to be found.
Only a balloon dog was left on top of the puddle of blood.
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