Why are you running?

After seeing him, alive and fine… Well, I got too happy. I just… Seeing Anderson alive… Seeing other people alive… It wasn’t over, as we thought… Maybe things could go back to the way they were before…

So Cindy and I ran to the plaza. Last time we checked, the countdown was at two minutes. When we arrived, there was a complete carnival… thousands of small stands offering popcorn and candyfloss, performers doing their acts… And a huge tent in the middle of the plaza, from where faint remnants of laughter and applause could be heard.

“That’s weird…. I heard a party, not a carnival.” I said, looking around in confusion

Cindy barely acknowledged my question. She always liked carnivals. “Maybe the countdown was the time they would take in setting this! Let’s enter the tent!”

She dragged me inside, so excited to see a carnival after so much time… Once inside, we noticed that the seats were empty. But that didn’t stop the artists from performing. Stilt walkers were dancing with their enormous stilted shoes, the jugglers were performing all kinds of tricks with their… knives… And the clowns were… The clowns….

“Ooh… You are so late! Late! Late! LATE!” The main clown said, in Joey’s unmistakable voice, before bursting into maniacal laughter.

Beneath the heavy makeup of the performers, I saw all the people I knew… All my other coworkers, my friends, my family… They all were there. They joined Joey in his insane laughter, and then they lunged at us. We ran outside the tent… but they were already outside.

They came menacingly slow, savouring the moment… Joey the Clown still laughed like crazy, often honking his big red nose.

“It’ll be the best meal I had in ages!” He said, barely containing his laughter. “Afraid of sleeping again, little fella? You will soon be!”

The clown and his group were closing on us. They were pushing us back to the tent, now decorated as a dining room, with a table and chairs… But then, we saw something… A little light… A light in the sky, shaped like an arrow.

The clown saw it, and went ballistic. “No! No! NO!!! HE’S MINE! I got him first!!”

The arrow was pointing back to the chemist store.  While the clown was distracted, shouting at the sky, we made a run for it. He noticed our intentions, and gave chase. He was fast, and very angry, shouting loud curses while trying to catch us.

With the chemist’s store just inches away of us… The clown appeared just in front. He didn’t look like a clown anymore… he looked like a beast. Horned, covered in black fur and with the tattered remains of its clown outfit.

“You aren’t going anywhere!” It hissed at us as it approached.

The creature grabbed Cindy by the arm and pulled her close to it. His hand then turned into a big scythe, and he put it at her throat. She screamed, she tried to kick it, but the creature wasn’t affected by any of it. It was laughing the whole time, like if was told the funniest joke ever.

“This is your worst nightmare, am I right?”

The creature was simply delighted, licking his lips with its inhuman tongue, and licking Cindy’s face with it, as she reeled back in horror. I was frozen, I… I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared to do anything… He was going to hurt her… He was going to hurt me… I just wanted to scream. I closed my eyes for a minute… as he drew the scythe closer to Cindy’s neck…

For a brief minute, when I opened my eyes, I found myself back in the chemist store… A blink of my eyes took me back outside the street with the creature. It kept alternating… It was like if the two scenes were superimposed… One blink, I was inside… Another blink, it was with the monster… But after a minute, I found myself inside the store, with the goat monster inside… fading away…

Noticing the change in scenery, and its fading condition, the goat-beast lost it all. “NO! NO! INTERLOPER! INTERLOPER! HE IS MINE! MINE!”

He was distracted enough that Cindy slipped out of his grasp. She ran to me, and we both huddled in the corner. The monster let out agonizing yelps, as it brought down shelves and stomped the ground, as it slowly vanished. I looked at us one last time before fully disappearing, its face now hideous and frightening than ever, its crimson eyes staring deep into us… It let out such a growl. A growl so horrifying… The blood in our faces fled, I think that for a minute... Our hearts stopped….

And we suddenly woke up. We were all sweaty and fighting for breath… The sounds of looting and screaming and the man’s mad speeches resonated in the air, bringing us back to the reality we knew…

We threw all of the bottle of tranquilizers and smashed all the pills…

We took some moments to catch our breaths… It… was impossible. In… In our dreams too? Was there someplace safe?