The Haunted Circus

For the "Struck by Lightening" flash fiction competition, prompt 'clowns'. Word limit 500.

499 words


Ghost train rides had never scared her, even when she was little. They looked too tacky and cheap. And now this one had stopped. The carriage had rumbled through rubber doors into darkness, and stopped. The silence was sudden, the darkness absolute.

A neon sign hummed into life; 'The Haunted Circus' it read. The cross of the 'H' was flickering, and the loop of the 'd' was dim. As she watched, the 'c' in the middle of 'Circus' vanished. Circus music started playing, sounding muffled and crackly, almost broken.

"Bet there are bad things here," said Jeff from beside her. He trickled his fingernails down the back of her neck, trying to make it feel like cobwebs or spiders. She grabbed his hand.

Three or four feet away a tiny red light popped into existence, looking like a TV standby light. As they stared it slowly grew to the size of a tennis ball, and that's what it looked like, a red tennis ball. In contrast, the surrounding darkness seemed more intense.

A pale pink dot flickered on, above and to the left of the red ball. Another pink dot appeared beside the first; and another, until there was an arch of pink dots.

Then the eye opened, and blinked. Its iris shone peacock blue, encircling a crimson pupil.

Although she looked intently at the eye, she couldn't figure out how it was done. It didn't look like lights. The blinking was especially effective. It blinked several times as if waking up, and the pale pink eyebrow above it twitched.

The eye turned towards them. The iris moved and the pupil grew larger, appearing to focus on them.

"They must have set it up to focus on the carriage," she said. She re-evaluated the ride. Perhaps the appearance of neglect, the fractured sound and half-broken neon sign were all designed that way.

A rosy line appeared below the red nose. The eyebrow grimaced and the rosy line grew bolder and fuller. It took on shape, like lips that had been tightly compressed, relaxing in slow motion.

The eye was looking at them. The size of the pupil kept changing slightly, and it blinked occasionally.

"Listen," said Jeff. Above the cracked circus music there was the sound of someone breathing into a microphone. The rhythm of the music sounded like a heart beat.

Something like cobwebs touched Emma's face and she scrubbed at it with her hands. Not cobwebs, it was warm, fetid air blowing at her. It felt like breath.

Jeff was practically squashing her hand. "This has got to be part of the ride," she said, wriggling across the seat, closer into him, away from the watching blue eye.

The lush, pouting lips smiled. They grinned. The face snarled, lips rolling back to show raggedy pointed fangs, like sharks teeth gone mad.

Emma was holding her breath.

There was a shifting noise. In the darkness she imagined something large stretching and getting up. The clown's face came closer.