Will Pallasso stopped at the entrance to Billy’s bedroom. The clown leered up at him. He wanted to smash it to pieces, because it reminded him of his father.
Instead he only cinched his bathrobe tighter, protectively, and stepped into the room, bare feet making no sound on the carpet. He stood beside his son’s bed, all the while keeping his eyes focused on the night light. It was in the shape of a clown’s face, glassy white with illuminated red hair and make-up. The blue eyes glowed the brightest, two cold beams reaching across the floor to Billy’s bed.
Will wished he’d never noticed the damned thing at the store the other day. But Billy had followed his father’s gaze and grabbed it from the shelf, insisting it would help him sleep better while they were staying in the house. Will tried not to connect the onset of Billy’s nightmares with their arrival here on Saturday, but it was hard not to. They had begun that night and did not stop until the damned clown was plugged in on Tuesday. Nothing else had worked, and Will had been willing to try anything. Unfortunately, the clown’s nightmarish face glaring across the room worked perfectly. Two full nights of peace. Billy fell asleep convinced his nocturnal companion would watch over and protect him from the evil that lived in the house.
This house, where Will himself had grown up, and the source of his own nightmares. He had to admit the place was a decided step-up from their apartment in Shiloh. Even so, living—surviving was a better word for it—in a two bedroom hole-in-the-wall on one income, at least until Lisa could get a new teaching gig, was better than spending more than the two weeks he’d managed to get off from PSE&G Power to come up to Massachusetts from New Jersey. It gave him a chance for closure, to wrap up his mother’s affairs in the wake of her death and give him a chance to finally remove their secret from the basement. At the time, bringing along Lisa and Billy seemed like a good idea. Make it a family thing, a working vacation. Too late to change his mind now.
Will made himself turn away from the illuminated clown face, sure it was watching him now, shining its light across the back of his legs, reaching into his son’s nightmares, and his own. Will had lived here until his blessed exodus to college. He was never free of the fear, of the dreams he’d suffered through every night. A self-inflicted torture. Not for much longer. He would have his closure, at last. They all would.
Both hands were clenched into painful fists. Will breathed out, silently willing his fingers to relax. His son was convinced that there was something evil here. And he was right, but Will wouldn’t admit to such. Not to his son, nor his wife. Not even, fully, to himself. And so, for the first few days, the boy’s fears infuriated him, fueled by Will’s own lack of sleep as he thought about the basement, trying to calm his son down and never believing his own words of comfort. Lisa’s words, actually. She could wrap her softness around Billy and calm him, keep him safe, while Will would stand in the doorway and clench his fists like he’d been doing tonight and know she was wrong, there was evil here, always had been, but what could he do? What could he say? Late Monday he’d been the first into the room when Billy’s night terrors woke them up. He’d grabbed the boy by the arm, dragging him to every room, every corner both dark and light and said, “Do you see any evil here? I don’t see any!” Never did he say, There is no evil. There is no monster coming to get you. He would not lie. Only grow angrier, more desperate, questioning the idea of coming to this fucking house instead of burning it to the ground.
Burning the house to the ground would only uncover the skeletons buried there.
Billy had cried, “No, I don’t,” and tried to pull away, hoping his father would let go without breaking his arm. Lisa had scrambled into her robe and followed them, crying and pleading with Will to stop. Billy just needed to adjust, she said, why was he acting like this?
The shame of seeing how his wife looked at him that night, Will could almost feel his father’s greasepaint seeping into the pores of his own face. This only made him more angry. He’d wiped at his stubble, no white makeup there, no red nose, and ignored her pleas, her tears, as he pulled his son farther along the tour of dark places, intent on convincing Billy there was nothing to be afraid of. It was all in his head.
But it wasn’t. It was in his soul, and he could not let it hurt his family.
Like it had done that night, so many years ago.
Will now carefully rolled the small desk chair next to Billy’s bed and sat. In the old apartment, he would sit in a similar chair and read his son bedtime stories every night. That routine stopped when they arrived here. Too tired, too much to do. Lisa had taken up the story-time reins, but not without a look Will had never known on her face before these past two weeks.
A look that said, What have you become?
More like, who was he becoming?
The damned clown eyes offered just enough light for him to make out his son’s sleeping form and soft, contented face. The boy was snoring softly, having been lulled to sleep by his mother’s voice and the glowing face of the demon on the wall.
Lisa had been both frightened and furious Monday night after she’d finally managed to get Billy to sleep. Her cheeks were drenched with tears from eyes as sharp and hateful as the night light’s. What the fuck was that, Will? What’s wrong with you? You think scaring your son half to death is going to help him sleep?
Then, she did something which reminded Will why he loved her so much. Her face softened, the tears stopped. He never talked about his childhood, a part of him they both had agreed to leave buried. She must have remembered. What the hell happened here when you were a kid, Will?
That had been his moment of salvation, and if he’d accepted it, maybe he wouldn’t be here now, feeling alone and scared: the only two feelings he’d ever known as a child in this place. He hadn’t taken the opportunity to tell her everything, and even as he answered her, he wondered if the right moment would ever come again.
A lot of bad shit, hon, he’d whispered. I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you. Both of you.
She’d curled against him, a little at least, an offer. You have to tell me, if it’s going to do this to you, and us.
He’d nodded, having no intention of telling her, at least not yet, not until he’d finished what he had to do, if for no other reason than her protection. No one else should live through that. Maybe, he’d said, soon. I just need time.
It was enough, but he knew another outburst like that and it would not be.
Will got up, rolled the chair back to the desk, then returned to his own bedroom. He undid the bathrobe and slipped into bed. Almost two o’clock. He’d fallen asleep quickly earlier in the night, but something had woken him. A bad dream of his own, most likely. They came every night, blending together until he no longer remembered details. Assuming it had been Billy, he’d gotten up to check. Now, he slowly rolled over and draped an arm around his wife, hoping sleep would return.
“He okay?” Lisa whispered. Her arm tightened around his. Will nodded against her shoulder.
“Fine, just thought I’d heard something.”
Another squeeze. “Go back to sleep.”
And he did.
Billy!
His father’s voice, using the nickname Will had eventually used for his own son. Now he was the child, older than Billy was now, thirteen instead of eight, but in this moment he was the child, awoken by a sound, a soft muffled whoosh of footsteps outside. He scrambled free of the blankets and looked out the window. The clown in the yard walked with large steps into the woods behind their house. It stopped, turned and waved toward Will with a slow sweep of one white-gloved hand. Red painted lips moved in a whisper and though young Will should not have heard, the name came again. Billy.
He raised the bug screen and climbed out the window, finding the sensation of floating softly to the ground perfectly normal, like being Superman. He landed lightly on the grass below his window in bare feet. As he did, he realized that he wore his father’s necklace, the near-sacred heirloom the man always wore, sometimes even to bed. A long silver chain which normally hung to his father’s chest, but which reached to Will’s belly button, suspending a polished silver sphere encircled three times in Saturn-like rings. How had he gotten it? He touched the rings self-consciously as the clown turned back toward the woods behind the house and disappeared into the darkness beyond. The ringed sphere shifted against his belly, swung forward as if trying to follow. His father would kill him if he lost it, so Will gently held it in a loose grip and followed. He wore only his pajamas, but the air was warm, the wind wet with a promise of rain. His bare feet pressed onto the old leaf cover when he entered the woods, but Will knew he would be safe, somehow knew there was nothing that could hurt him here. Unless he’d been mistaken, unless he’d misunderstood, like he always seemed to do lately, then his father would punish him for being out here in the middle of the night.
But the boy followed the drifting figure, staying hidden tree to tree but never losing sight of the large white blur moving farther and farther into the woods, too far to be the same woods he’d entered. Where was Moody Road? They should have come through already and come up on Mrs. Carlson’s house.
Deeper still.
No Moody Road. Instead, more trees but not enough to completely block out the moonlight bleeding through. He’d closed the distance between them when the clown stopped walking and only paced back and forth in the center of a clearing. Will slipped forward, quiet as a ghost drifting tree to tree, until he was close enough to see better.
There was another boy, younger than him, maybe nine or ten, tied to a tree, squirming beneath tight ropes which glistened wet in the murky light. Like Will, he wore pajamas, but only the bottoms. Smudged lipstick kisses on his face and chest, red like the clown’s mouth. The clown stood over the whimpering, squirming boy, rolling the long flat of a knife across his belly, across his chest. Not cutting, just rolling the blade along. The boy moved his head back, away from the knife. Will watched less than twenty feet away, clinging to the tree like the squirrels would do when Mister Panchek’s Labrador ran into his yard. The clown stopped rolling the blade when it reached the boy’s throat, pressed against the bulge of his small Adam’s apple, slid sideways then, slicing quick and deep. Blood spurted onto the leaves, across the clown’s shiny white pants and shirt.
Will looked around wildly, searching for the light from Mrs. Carlson’s house, any house, but there were only trees everywhere, closing in, and yet the horrible scene was illuminated, as if lit on a stage in the middle of the forest. The thing with the knife looked over its shoulder, knowing it was being watched, and it laughed when its eyes met Will’s.
This couldn’t be who he thought it had been. Someone else, something else. But no, even with the blood-spattered greasepaint, Will knew who it was.
“Daddy?”
Will’s eyes jerked open. Darkness, then slow details revealed in the green glow from the clock behind him. His heart was racing so fast he was afraid of waking Lisa. At least he hadn’t screamed. He hadn’t woken this scared in a long time.
He waited for his pulse to slow, for the dream to fade from memory as all of them did, eventually. This time, however, it lingered. He closed his eyes and tried not to cry.