The Final Joke

Do you know what's surreal? The passage of time. I often stop to think about how different our world is with every passing moment. I think about how those moments add up to the minutes, hours, days, and years and how they bring about unfathomable change.Think about all the things that would be considered magic hundreds of years ago, from cars to phones to the internet. We live longer, we create virtual worlds, and we've changed entire ecosystems simply because we can. It really is fascinating stuff.Personally, I'm more into the little things. The simple changes in our norms and traditions that often overlooked and under-appreciated. I frequently wonder what our world... Or rather, what my world would look like if those traditions were different.As an example, there used to be a time when kids wanted clowns at their birthday parties. I'm sure that if you suggested such a thing today, your kid would give you a strange glare that said... "Why on earth would I want someone in creepy makeup at my birthday?" Guess they don't find as much amusement in balloon animals when they've had iPads since they were two. But I digress.I was having a conversation with my wife about what to do for our son Adrian's sixth birthday. She suggested we go the standard route and take him and a couple friends to an amusement park.But being the overachieving father that I am, I wanted to do better than that. I wanted to give Adrian the experience that I knew he'd hold in high regard."What if we threw him a birthday party here with a clown?" I suggested.My wife scoffed. "I'm fine with a birthday party but a clown? I don't think any kid would be thrilled to see a clown. Hell, most adults wouldn't be too comfortable around one.""C'mon!" I pleaded. "I think he'd really enjoy seeing one! He could do magic tricks, and we could have food and a bouncy house! Kids love those things!"My wife crossed her arms and eyed me up and down, intensely suspicious of my motives. Placing her hand to her chin, she gave me a wry smile and pointed out, "You just want to re-live some of your nostalgia, don't you?"I couldn't deny it. I wanted my son to have the same fun I did when I was a kid, and damn it, a clown was going to be part of that. My wife gave me a little bit of pushback, but in time she reluctantly agreed, so we went about setting everything up.The clown we ended up going with came from a somewhat sketchy website. In hindsight, we should've gone to a more reliable source. But as you'd expect, party clowns aren't exactly in vogue these days, and we figured what we got was what we got. Luckily for us, preparations for everything else went great. We were able to get a few friends and family to help set everything up.On the day of the party, everything had been a complete success. The kids were happily playing. The parents were excited to see their kids enjoying themselves. The party was going according to plan. After cake, we managed to sit all the kids down in the backyard for the guest of the hour... Bongo the Clown.From the second Bongo came through the backdoor, I knew this shit would be a disaster.The boisterous clown with a large suitcase strolled through the door in typical clown attire. The goofy yellow suit, large shoes, big red nose, white makeup, and rainbow wig were a clown's textbook trademarks. Still, the raspy cigarette-burned voice and cold eyes told the story of a man who anyone could tell really didn't like being laughed at. Overall, he gave off the vibe that he had seen more dead bodies than laughing children."HELLO, boys and girls!" He said while giving them a goofy little wave. "My name is Bongo, the Clown! I heard we had a special little man here!"Before Adrian could even speak, one of the girls shouted, "We don't like clowns!"Both her moms were chaperones at the party and quickly scolded her for insulting the man.Bongo gave a nervous laugh and tried for a witty retort. "Well, little girl, I don't know who 'We' is, but I sure do bet that you'll like this clown! Look here." He pulled a balloon from a tiny pocket in his chest, gave it some air, and quickly fashioned it into the shape of a dog. He then politely handed it to a boy in the front row.The little boy cautiously took the balloon animal and took one look back at his disapproving peers. Turning back to the balloon animal, he frowned and yelled, "She's right, clowns are stupid!" popping the animal as he did.Immediately after, another young girl in the front row followed with, "And you smell funny!"Before long, there was a mini-uprising of kids. Each one how making sure to voice how much they hated Bongo the Clown. One especially unruly child even launched a piece of cake at Bongo where it lodged in his wig.The rest of the parents and I had to step in to calm everyone down before the children started a full-blown riot.I managed to sneak Bongo into the house, where I helped him clean off the cake and change back into the street clothes he had in his suitcase."Look, I'm really sorry, man." I started. "I didn't think any of this would happen and, I'll absolutely pay for the whole day."The now normal looking man eyed me up and down with a disapproving look. He scratched at his patchy beard and ran his fingers over his bald head before waving me off and going back into his suitcase to pull out a small bottle of rum."You know?" He said, taking a large swig. "You've got some pretty shitty children out there." He then took another gulp muttered something about them being "Little bastards."I know the guy had a rough go of it, but that seemed overly harsh to me. I understood that their behavior was unacceptable, but they're kids, and I felt the need to confront him. "Hey! That's my kid and his friends you're talking about. I'm sorry about what happened out there, but most of those children are years away from reaching double digits. Cut them some slack.""And that's an excuse? Maybe you should do your damn job as a parent and teach those fuckers not to treat people like that. Four parties like this just this week and I always sit back and take it. All because I'm the clown, right? You're all supposed to fun of me? I'm just trying to make a damn living."I wasn't going to stand there and be lectured about parenting by some clown. I marched up to him and stuck my finger in his face. "Look. I said I'd pay you and that I'm sorry. But if you keep insulting my kid and my parenting in my home, you're gonna have to worry about a lot more than a broken ego."He scoffed. "Yeah, okay." Packing all of his stuff into his suitcase, he turned to leave. But just before he got to the door, he stopped and turned around to look me in the eye. "You know, I bet half these kids are probably monsters at home too. Their parents don't want to put up with their constant bullshit. And yet, they do because if they didn't, then those kids would spend hours and hours bitching." He sighed. "But I suppose it is your kid's birthday. And you did order a clown. Not enough kids get to see clowns these days." A disgusting smile started to form on the man's face. "So... How about I give them clown?"He dropped his suitcase to the floor, and I watched in pure disgust and horror as his already wide smile stretched literally from ear to ear. His lips began taking on a blood-red pigmentation as they puffed up to about three times their size. Rows of long thorny-like teeth began pushing through his gums, and his already pale skin began to turn pearly white. Tufts of patchy brown hair started to emerge from the right side of his head, and a seam formed in the middle of his face, giving it a stitched together mask-like appearance. Dark circles appeared around his now milky white eyes as they widened to the corners of his face. And in the center of it all was a large goofy red nose.I was so focused on his face changing right before my eyes that I was shocked to see his clothes had revered back to the clown costume he was wearing earlier. He was also now twice as tall with disproportionately lanky arms and legs with fingers tipped in talons.He let out a petrifying cackle as he slammed straight through our closed backdoor. I ran outside in hopes of catching him only to meet the multiple pairs of terrified eyes looking above me. I spun around to see him clinging to the top of our house, looking down on us and salivating.Everyone was frozen in fear, and I could tell that he took pleasure in seeing our frightened faces. In an instant, he swooped down, positioned on all-four of his now backward-facing libs. He moved with incredible speed, managing to literally slash through the crowd of screaming people.I remember watching as he pounced on top of one of the parents and ripped their jaw off in one fluid motion, laughing violently as he went.There wasn't anything in his path he didn't make an effort to destroy. In a desperate attempt to defend themselves, one parent took the cake knife and tried to stab the demonic clown, but he merely laughed as the blade made contact. No blood came from the wound, and the clown made an awful joke about how he wasn't going to cut him off that easily before driving his hand straight through the man's heart.Perhaps the most sicking was when he chased down the little girl that threw cake at him. He corralled her into up against a wall, and unhinging his jaw like a snake, he swallowed her whole.But when he locked eyes with my son... I... Everything happened in slow motion. He was cowering in a corner, unsure of what to do or where to go. I ran towards him. I didn't think I'd be able to stop that clown, but I could at least get in front of him and maybe buy Adrian some time.But it was as if the clown could see in 360 degrees. Without taking so much as a glance at me, he snatched me up by the neck with his impossibly long reach before I could even reach my boy. He held me in the air with a tight stranglehold, just barely giving me room to breathe.The clown loomed over my son. It looked down on him like a hawk eyeing its prey. Slowly, he leaned in towards Adrian until they were face to face.And then he spoke with that same raspy voice, "Hey, Adrian. I've got a joke for you." I could see the pools of saliva forming under him.My son wouldn't speak. All he could do was scream and cry in the face of this creature.Bongo laughed. "No! No! I swear it's hilarious! If you answer this correctly, I won't kill you and your dad. Why does the clown call the little boy he made smile?"I pleaded for him to go away and that I'd do anything to make this right. He simply slammed me on the ground and told me to shut my mouth. For a moment, his voice taking on a much more demonic quality before turning back to my son.He looked deep into Adrian's eyes. In a moment I'll never be able to explain, Adrian smiled."That's right, boy! That's right!" Bongo exclaimed in a sing-songy voice. "A fucking happy meal!" And in less than a moment, Adrian was gone. Consumed by the clown that I hired to make him happy.Once he was done swallowing my son, I watched him collect pieces of the various body parts strewn about and stuff them into his large suitcase. Making his way to the back door, he spun around and announced, "Thank you all! You've been a terrible audience!" He then took a bow and disappeared. Moments later, I heard his car driving away.The police obviously called. Not just by the surviving parents but by the neighbors who heard the chaos. Everyone had a million questions, and we could do is give them the same answers. "No, I don't know what happened. Yes, he was a clown. No, I wasn't under the influence of drugs. No, I'm not lying to you." I must've said those statements thousands of times over.I even managed to show them the site where we hired Bongo. It was weeks of questioning and evidence collection.Maybe it was the alcohol, the imminent divorce, or my general numbness to everything, but I never even saw anything on the news. There was no big story about the massive party massacre at the hands of a crazed clown creature. I remember finding it odd. This should be everywhere. There's something out there that's insanely dangerous, and the whole world should be doing everything they can to make sure it's dead.That is until my buddy, who works at the department, told me that the cops actually believed our story. They had seen footage of the thing from our neighbors and had looked into similar incidents. Still, They didn't want to cause a panic over something they had no control over. In fact, they tried to hide evidence. Pay people hush money and convince the general public that there was a tragic accident. A drunk driver crashed through the backyard or something like that. I don't remember. Either way, they were cops, not demon hunters.What a load of horseshit. Honestly? Fuck them.Ultimately, the passage of time has been an interesting thing. Much like seeing that thing transform in the face of trauma, I think I've changed too. The most notable change is the development of my many new addictions. One of which being the drinks I'm partaking in right now.But perhaps the thing that is the most self-destructive is my new life path. I've bought a house in the middle of nowhere and dedicated the past ten years to find that damn clown. I've seen a lot of information regarding "things" like him and the trail of destruction and pain they've left behind before. It's far too much to get into here, but I figured knowledge is the greatest weapon I can have. And once I feel satisfied that my weapon is strong enough to take him down, we'll see who has the last laugh. via /r/nosleep https://ift.tt/3lNVJ0S