(CCHWC) The Halloween Costume

The Halloween party was more of a disappointment than Rachel could have imagined. Brad had not even come to the party, and his presence was the only reason she had accepted the invitation. The other party goers were dressed in costumes and she was one of only a handful that thought wearing a costume was too childish. Now she and the other humans stood out more than the werewolves and zombies ever could. The music was so loud that conversation was broken at best. The drinks were free flowing, but she wasn’t in the mood to drink. That didn’t stop anyone else, though. She had already seen two people vomiting and it was only 10:30. Even the decorations reminded her of something more appropriate at a Junior High dance. There were black and orange crepe paper streamers all joining in the center of the room. Purple balloons filled with helium bobbed around the room with curly black ribbons hanging low enough to touch your face and make you think of spider webs. The only lighting came from red light bulbs and strobe lights that made everything look disconnected and bloody. All things considered, she should have stayed home and started the English paper her professor wanted next week.
Rachel saw her roommate grinding against some unknown guy on the makeshift dance floor. She was dressed as a fairy, if there was ever a fairy dedicated to sadomasochism, that is. Rachel couldn’t tell what the guy was supposed to be, but he had green hair. She waited until the song faded into another, slower rhythm and approached the groping couple.
“Hey, I’m ready to get out of here. How about you?” Rachel registered the look of shock on Mandy’s face. She guessed that Mandy had been having a far better time than her.
“NO! We can’t go, yet! The party is barely getting started.” Then she pulled out the big guns. “Brad will be here any minute.” Mandy knew that Rachel wanted to see him badly. They had only been on a few dates, but there was a connection between them. It felt like the first possibility of a relationship since starting college.
Mr. green hair broke in. “Let her go, love, she looks miserable. I can make sure you get back to the dorm safely.” Rachel now noticed why Mandy was so reluctant to leave. This guy was really cute and had a sexy accent to boot.
“Are you sure? You’re going to be stranded if he falls through, because I’m going to be buried in that paper.” She knew the answer before Mandy’s squeal of yes.
………………..
Rachel walked to the closet to retrieve her jacket. As she slid into it she looked across the room and out the side window. She stopped with only one arm inside and tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Through the strobing lights and the dancing bodies she saw what looked like the world’s most twisted clown, standing just outside the window. The mask looked old and dirty. It had the classic white face paint, but it was peeling in places, letting the grey latex show through. The eyes were bright blue triangles with tufts of orange hair for eyebrows. Through the eye openings, Rachel could tell that the wearer had gone to the extra lengths to wear a pair of those cat eye contacts. The yellow stood out in bright contrast. There was the big red ball of a nose perched above the place the smile should have been. Instead, there was a gaping hole in the bottom of the mask. Through it, you could see some type of prosthetic teeth that looked like they were modeled after a Great White shark. Rachel barely had time to register the hobo like clothes before her view was blocked by a pair of slow dancers. As they passed, the clown was gone and only the reflection of the strobe lights could be seen in the window. Rachel wondered briefly why this freak wasn’t inside at the party. He would take the best costume award for sure.
She finished buttoning the jacket and walked outside into the cool night air. It took her a few minutes to remember where her car was parked. When she saw it near the most lighted corner of the block, she breathed a sigh of relief and started swiftly walking towards it. She kept glancing over her shoulder back at the house. At the side of the house she saw what looked like a sheet someone had left there. For some reason, it made her shiver.
Making it to her car, Rachel jumped in and locked the doors. She wasn’t normally this edgy, but she couldn’t shake a feeling of being watched. She turned over the ignition and the little car came to life. After the heater was adjusted to full blast, she eased away from the curb. She relaxed as she put distance between her and the party, and turned on the radio to some old country classics station. All along the neighborhood roads, Rachel saw a few straggling trick-or-treaters, mostly teenagers due to the late hour. She drove slowly down the center of the road, avoiding the rows of parked cars on either side. Each a coach for the drunken ghouls that would later leave their parties and try to make their way home. Rachel slammed on her brakes, when from only twenty feet in front of her, a figure stepped from between two parked cars. She had been going slowly enough that she was able to stop, but the sudden reduction in speed made her seatbelt clinch tight on her chest and take her breath away. While gasping for air and brushing the hair out of her eyes she froze. The clown stood in front of her. He leaned over and put his hands on the hood. More details of the costume popped out at her. The clown’s hair was not the usual multi-colored do. Instead it was coal black, long and unkempt. There were bits and pieces of leaves stuck in it. The shirt and jacket were not in much better shape. There were worn spots and rips, stains and filth. The shirt was untucked, but Rachel could tell that the body underneath was extremely thin. The clown’s hands were emaciated with huge knuckles and jagged fake nails attached to the tip of each finger. They, too, were covered in grime.
Rachel put the transmission in reverse without thinking about it. As she backed the car away from the clown, a sickeningly long tongue snaked out of his mouth and left a snail trail of slime over his chin. She heard the horn blare behind her in just enough time to avoid colliding with the pick up truck behind her. When she looked back to the road, the clown was gone. She sat perfectly still until the truck was again laying on the horn. Again she began to ease forward.
Rachel couldn’t believe what she had seen. There was no way the clown could have traveled the three blocks that she had, in the same amount of time, on foot. There was also no way that two people would have been wearing a costume like that. Not only was it terrible, it was completely unique in it’s customization. As she left the neighborhood for the highway, she had convinced herself that it must have been a different clown costume and her mind had played tricks on her from being so freaked out earlier. It was the only account that made sense. Rachel was vehemently opposed to being crazy, but it was at least an explanation she could logically understand.
………………
A few miles down the highway, she had relaxed again and was making peace with her hallucination. There were few other cars out that night, but the one behind her was approaching fast. Thoughts of all the drinking and driving accident films she was shown in high school caused her to ease off of her gas pedal. She would let them pass. The car realized her intentions and sped up even faster. They smoothly negotiated into the other lane. Then as the car pulled parallel to her, it braked to match her pace.
Rachel looked over to see what the guys problem was, and was horrified that the clown’s face again stared back at her. He held something up to the passenger’s side window of the car. It was small and square and eventually Rachel realized it was a photograph.
Not being able to stand this anymore, Rachel pulled into a brightly lit diner on the side of the road. The lot was full of big trucks as well as a few sedans. There were even a few guys standing around outside one of the rigs drinking from Styrofoam cups. The car carrying the clown sped past and never even slowed down. Rachel cursed herself for not remembering to see what type of car it had been. It didn’t matter much, though, because there was no way she would be calling the police and telling them her story. They would think she had been on a cocktail of drugs all night. When they realized that she was judge sober, the next thought would be mental illness. It was alright for Rachel to doubt her own sanity, but the thought of other’s doing the same thing was unbearable. Instead she would go inside the diner, call Mandy and hear how much fun she was having, and most importantly, let the clown get miles ahead before she returned to the road.
………………..
After a strong cup of coffee, and several failed attempts at calling Mandy’s cell phone, Rachel decided it was safe to make the two mile trip to the dorm. Even if something weird were to happen, she would only be minutes from home, and there were always people milling around there.
Rachel walked cautiously back to her car, got in, and locked the locks again. As she pulled the vehicle back onto the blacktop, she tried again to make sense of all that had happened. There was just no sense to be made of it. There was no way that damned clown could have been in all the places she had seen him. Maybe there had been more in the glass of punch she had at the party than she knew. It was possible that someone had spiked it with some type of drug. Rachel didn’t believe that seeing the demented clown would be the only effect from being drugged, though.
She tried again to remember what type of car he had been driving. Maybe it was one of the parked cars that he had stepped from between earlier. It would make more sense of the timing if he had driven there, but not how he was able to know where she would be. He could have guessed which direction she was heading, as most of the people at the party were from the college, but there were several streets that could have taken her to the highway.
Recollection dawned on Rachel’s face as she was reliving the details of the night. The knowledge that came to her was so profound that she stopped pushing the gas pedal with her foot and didn’t realize it. When she had been leaving the party, Mandy had tried to tell her that Brad would be there any minute. She must have spoken to him in order to know that. She was, after all, how she had been introduced to Brad. They were good friends. Now she remembered that Mandy had even helped him decide what costume to wear tonight. Mandy had said that he had the perfect tall build for a mummy. When Brad protested that it was to late to try and buy a costume, Mandy had given him an old white sheet to tear into strips and wrap around himself. She told him to make sure and get it good and dirty first.
As the next two thoughts connected in her head, she braked the car to a full stop in the middle of the highway. There had been what looked like a pilled up sheet, laying on the ground outside the party. It would have been directly under the window that Rachel had first seen the clown peering at her. She also realized that the photograph that the clown had tried to show her, was one of her. It was the same photo that Brad had teasingly stolen from her on their last date. He had vowed to carry it in his wallet to show her off to his friends.
The first tear spilled from her eyes for Brad as she looked into the rearview mirror and saw the clown sitting in the backseat. He was only inches from her and grabbed her by the hair as she started to scream. When he pulled her over into the backseat, the car slowly idled off of the road and into a ditch. As she landed, half in the floor and half on the seat, she grabbed two handfuls of the matted hair and pulled. There was no reaction in the mask face. She clawed at the monstrosity and the latex pulled away. As she stared into a face born of evil, she knew that the yellow cat eyes had not been expensive contact lenses. They were real organs of a face that was misshapen. They were surrounded by rotting flesh that pulsed with what seemed to be thick liquid barely contained underneath it. As he ripped away her blouse and bra, opening her skin at the same time, she knew that the claw tipped fingers were not glued on, but natural growths from the cold, crawling tissue of his fingers. As he pinned her still with iron strength and began raping her, she knew that no clown, real or costumed, had ever had such unearthly strength or could cause such ripping pains deep within her body. While she heard her own insane screams in her ears and felt him bite into the soft flesh of her neck, she knew that the shark teeth were completely his own. As her hot blood soaked them both, taking with it her life, her pain and consciousness ebbed. Her last thought, as her body was ravaged with one depraved act after another, was a strange one. She wondered what the monster was going to be for Halloween next year.

reply to post by Cameoii


And here I am thinking that I am twisted! That was a great story Cameoii. I loved the sinister clown. And your ending! What would it be for Halloween next year? Awesome! You just put the idea that this evil entity could dress itself up as anything and re-appear every year. The suspense leading up to the inevitable encounter with it was great. Then the horrific scene itself! I cannot say enough how awesome. Very descriptive. I loved it.

Great story. You are so skilled and creative. I enjoyed following her thoughts as she tried to figure out what was going on. (Ah, she thought it was Brad.) Sigh. From the untidiness of his costume, I suspect he will go as a clown again next year!....and the year after that....and the....

You got what I was going for, Jackflap. To me the suspensful build up is always scarier than the climax. Not many of us have been ripped apart, but most of us have had those moments that we were totally creeped out by something that just wasn't quite right.

Ladyinwaiting, you're right about the clown. This thing probably uses it's imagination for far more sinister things than a new costume idea every year. As a matter of fact, that is probably why he chose a clown...they never go out of style!

This is a terrific story Camoii. It actually DID give me chills especially at the oh-so-descriptive ending you gave it.

I thought it was going to be a run of the mill "fear of clowns" story at first but you definitely made it into much more than that.

Nicely done.

I'd like to read this story, but can you break it up into 4-6 line paragraphs, please. Much easier to read than giant blocks of words.

Thank you, Elaine. I knew that alot of people seem to have an uneasiness about clowns, including a few friends of mine with actual phobias, but didn't want my monster to actually be one. That's when the idea for a monster wearing a creepy costume and somewhat fitting in with other people popped into my mind!

Historical-Mozart:
Check your U2U inbox for an edited version that may be somewhat easier for you to read. Thanks for spending the time to let me know what you needed!

Wow, creepy.
Well written too.
I liked Jackflap's story best until I read this one.
Congrats!

reply to post by Cameoii


It kept me reading. And, above all, isn't that what a writer wants?

Well done, Mike

Originally posted by Historical-Mozart
I'd like to read this story, but can you break it up into 4-6 line paragraphs, please. Much easier to read than giant blocks of words.

I agree. It is difficult to see where the paragraphs end, and that detracted from an otherwise highly entertaining story.

I suspect there were some paragraphs that I missed during the reading.

There was some really nice images in this story (and by that I mean really horrible images -- you know what I mean.)

Thank you all for the compliments. I believe I have figured out why it seems that there are no paragraphs. I wrote the story in word, then copied and pasted it here. For some reason, the indentions of the paragraphs did not paste correctly. I would try to edit the post to correct this, but I'm not sure what the rules of the contest are concerning editing this long after posting. I apologize for not catching this before posting.

yikes. eeeeek, and eeeooww.

Cool story.