The Guild of Fallen Clowns (3 page)

“No, really,” Dale said. “I think they are
coming to get us.” Then, with a quick jerk of his wrist, the stone
in the hand behind his back flung over his head to the roof of the
porch in front of them. He did it without flinching a single muscle
aside from his wrist, and the boys pinned to him were unaware of
his deceit. The knock and rumbling sound as the stone rolled down
the porch roof appeared to come from within, an audible warning to
all who dared trespass inside Krauss House—Riverside’s own gateway
to hell.

The two boys no longer found comfort in
Dale’s courage. They gasped for air as their bodies broke away from
their protector. With arms flailing above their heads, the two
screamed as they ran past Alan for safety a few hundred yards up
the driveway. Although he was aware of Dale’s practical joke, Alan
got caught up in the fear of the moment and fled in close pursuit
of the horror-stricken duo. His slightly braver friend, five paces
closer to the house, joined in their escape.

Shortly after their retreat, Dale caught up
to the gang, his body hunched over with both hands on his belly as
he tried to catch his breath from his uncontrollable fit of
laughter. When he finally regained the ability to speak, he stood
tall, raised his clenched fists above his head, and proudly
declared himself the winner. The two boys who made it to the base
of the porch with him claimed Dale cheated. They called him a jerk
and a few other choice words, but none could deny Dale his moment
of glory. If he weren’t between the two boys, they wouldn’t have
gotten much further than Alan.

Alan had always both admired and envied his
baby brother’s fearlessness and his ability to take control in any
situation. Their father died when Alan was seven. Dale was only
four. As the older male, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of
failure for allowing Dale to assume the role of man of the house
while he retreated and silently struggled with his own loss.

*****

Alan gradually drove past the small cluster
of houses lining Krauss Drive. It didn’t take long to realize the
address “One” was indeed the old farmhouse. As he approached the
driveway, he couldn’t help but wonder if the Demons inside the
house had ordered a medium pizza with everything just to lure him
back for another visit.

He stopped in front of the driveway. The
house was set back a half mile from the street and wasn’t visible
through the dense forest and winding gravel path. Taking note of
how narrow the driveway was, he knew that once he entered there
would be no room to turn around.

What the hell is going on here?
Alan
thought.

He double-checked the label on the box with
the hope that he was at the wrong house. No, the address clearly
said
One Krauss Drive
. Further down on the label, below the
address, a name was printed. A single word—
KRAUSS
.

Instantly, Alan was transported back to that
moment where he stood motionless, fifty feet from the front porch
of Krauss House. He was back again. Only this time he didn’t have
his brother’s courage or the light of day to draw strength from.
Without those, Alan discovered that his true chicken point was a
half-mile away.

Calling Joe wasn’t an option. What would he
say—I’m scared of the haunted house? No. There had to be a logical
solution. He looked back to the driveway. This time he searched for
signs of life.

It’s not as overgrown as it used to be,
and there appear to be fresh tire tracks
, he thought.

It was possible a person made the tracks. It
was also possible that the spirits were making him
think
he
was seeing tire tracks. “Are you trying to trick me into going to
Krauss House
?
” he whispered, half expecting to get an
answer.

Still parked in the road, he knew that he
didn’t have a choice. He was already on thin ice with Joe. If he
didn’t deliver this pizza, Joe would surely fire him. This
should’ve been enough incentive to push him through his fear, but
it wasn’t.

For additional motivation, Alan needed only
to go back to his last stop. He pitied the old woman afraid to
leave her own home without the safety of her long-deceased husband.
Was he so different from her, believing in haunted houses and evil
spirits whose mission it was to frighten the pizza delivery guy?
Were tin foil hats and garlic-clad doors in his future?

He shifted the car into drive and slowly
pulled forward until he was about fifty feet into the property. He
pressed on the brake and looked around. So far, everything was
okay. He proceeded another hundred or so feet before stopping
again. To his surprise, his chicken point was getting shorter.
Invigorated by his newfound courage, he drove progressively larger
distances forward until ten minutes passed and the old house came
into view.

“Krauss House,” he said as he pressed on the
brake and placed the car in reverse.

His watchful eyes locked on the house for
the slightest sign of trouble. He swung his right arm over the back
of the passenger seat in readiness to retreat. At closer
examination of the house, he noticed the room to the right of the
front door was lit. He also noticed a car parked out front. It
occurred to him that the windows weren’t boarded up and the yard
wasn’t overgrown.

Someone, a human someone, lives in Krauss
House,
he thought.

Whoever this person was, they must be the
bravest soul on the planet. Even Dale at his current age would
proudly surrender his throne to someone this gutsy. This stranger’s
courage was all he needed to put the car back in drive and roll
cautiously toward the house.

I’m about to go to the front door of
Krauss House
—
at night
! he thought as he bravely got out
of his car with the medium pizza in hand.

His pace slowed to a crawl. With every inch
forward, the house appeared to swell around him. The gravity of
each step became more intense.
“My car is at the fifty-foot
mark, and I’m less than ten feet from the porch. What was I
thinking?
Even if there was a human inside, this was still
Krauss House— and he was still that frightened little boy, reliving
a moment from so many years ago.

Those fearful thoughts regained control over
his body, casting out all regard for the consequences of a retreat.
He started to turn, and as he faced away from the house, the sound
of the creaking screen door sent waves of cold shivers along the
length of his body, paralyzing him in mid-stride.

“Don’t worry, you’re in the right place,”
came the comforting words of a woman’s voice.

Alan slowly turned around to see who,
or
what,
had spoken to him. Standing on the porch was a petite
woman in paint-covered overalls with her hair pulled back in a
bunch. With a paintbrush in one hand, she held open the screen door
with the other.

“C’mon in. I need to put this brush down and
get your money,” she said as she turned back into the house.

With those few words, a sudden sense of
normalcy washed away his built-up anxiety. Seeing this woman
casually penetrating the depths of the beast was like watching
someone removing a thorn from the foot of an angry lion. She was in
charge, and the house succumbed to her powers. He inched closer to
the porch. Her reassurance should have been enough to quash his
fears— but it wasn’t. He harnessed enough of her courage to wait
for her on the first porch step, one step closer than Dale’s
personal best.

“Still there?” she called from inside the
house. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite. Bring the pizza in and put it on
the table. I need to wash the paint off my hands before getting
your money.”

“That’s okay, ma’am. I’ll wait here,” Alan
replied.

“Don’t be silly. Come inside,” she said.

Alan never was good at saying no to the
opposite sex. To his surprise, her command was more powerful than
his fear, and his feet eagerly responded to her suggestion. Before
he knew what happened, he was standing in the foyer of—
Krauss
House
. Looking around the rooms for ghosts or evil spirits, he
noticed the left side of the house was piled high with boxes and
old antique furniture. The right side had newly plastered walls,
paint rollers, and a long aluminum platform placed over a pair of
empty five-gallon paint buckets, all indications that the house was
in the state of rebirth. It was coming back to life.

“I’m remodeling in stages,” the woman said
as she approached with the money.

“Is your name—”

“Krauss,” she said before Alan was able to
complete his question. “Mary Krauss. My grandparents used to own
this place. And lucky me got it in the will,” she said while
exchanging the pizza for money. “I suppose it’s a good thing, but
it sure is taking a lot of time and money to restore.”

“I bet. Oh, my name is Alan. I actually grew
up not far from here. I didn’t know old farmer Krauss and his wife
had kids.”

“They had three boys. My father was the
youngest. He moved out before the neighborhood was built. He and my
uncles moved out of state, so I guess people around here didn’t see
much of them before my grandparents left.”

“Have you…been here before?” Alan asked,
still surveying the house for spooks.

“My parents tell me I was, but I don’t
remember. I was maybe three or four at the time.”

Still gazing around the rooms of the old
house, paying little attention to Mary in front of him, Alan asked,
“Have there been any…problems working on the old house?”

“Well—I’ve had to replace the plumbing, the
wiring, furnace, hot water heater, windows, and siding, to name a
few. Oh, I’ve also had to get the foundation repaired. Other than
those few
minor
things, it’s been a piece of cake.” She
smiled.

“Don’t forget the walls,” Alan said,
pointing to her current project.

“Oh, right, like I said—piece of cake.”

It was clear that Mary spent many hours,
night and day, working on the house. Maybe it was never haunted in
the first place. Could it be possible that Krauss House was like
every other house in Riverside? Nothing more than sticks and nails?
With this new realization, a wave of calm rushed over Alan.

“Wait!” Mary said. “Did you mean—have I seen
any ghosts?”

Alan stood in shocked disbelief that she
would cavalierly blurt out such a thing.

Sensing Alan’s discomfort with the subject,
she laughed and said, “I should have known that’s what you meant by
problems
. I’ve heard the stories, Alan. I’ve also had
some—let’s say—interesting observations of my own since moving in
two months ago.”

Alan’s eyes widened.

She continued, “My father warned me that I
might not be comfortable living out here alone in the middle of
nowhere—but the way I see it is if there are spirits here, they
never hurt my father, uncles, or grandparents. So why would they
start now?”

Alan took a step backward and asked, “You
mean the house really is haunted?”

Mary smiled and said, “Haunted? Well, that
sounds kind of spooky. I prefer to think of it as—cared for. My
father and uncles always talked about the shadow spirit, but even
as kids, they never felt frightened of it. They actually felt a
sense of security with it around.”

Alan wasn’t feeling the same sense of
well-being, but his curiosity prevented him from fleeing to his
car. He needed to know more.

“What, uh—what observations did you have?”
he asked as his face tightened to a grimace. He really didn’t want
to know the answer, but it was too late now. He had no choice but
to suffer through the details of her reply. He hoped she would say
the house creaked when the wind kicked up, or a light bulb burned
out in the basement; observations which could be easily explainable
for any other house, but understandably frightening in the context
of Krauss House.

“Well, as I said, this is an old house. I
expected to hear creaks and sounds of the old place settling.”

There it was, the normal things one would
expect of a house of this age.

“But the other night, I heard footsteps in
the hallway outside my bedroom. Then I heard what sounded like a
woman humming a song. I locked my bedroom door and called the
police. When he arrived, he didn’t find any signs that anyone broke
in. The doors and windows were locked. I felt so stupid, but as a
single woman, I can’t be too careful.”

So much for the simple explanation he wanted
to hear. Alan stood horrified. He couldn’t even think of anything
to say as he stared at her with his mouth wide open.

Mary grinned. “Alan. Hello. Are you in
there?”

He snapped out of his trance. “Uh, sorry.
I’m just stunned. I don’t know what I would have done.” This wasn’t
entirely true. If this happened to him, he’d probably still be
hiding under his bed, shaking from head to toe.

Mary laughed it off. “Well, now that I know
it’s just the shadow spirit my father told me about, I feel much
better.”

This confused Alan. He couldn’t understand
how someone could feel comfortable living with a ghost in the
house. More importantly, how could he be standing there knowing
there was an active spirit nearby, probably watching them as they
spoke? Why wasn’t he running away? Was it Mary’s courage or his own
curiosity—or fear—locking him in place? Whatever it was, Alan
needed to have a better understanding before he could leave. He
asked one more question.

“How can you be sure it was a ghost?”

“Because I hear her all the time now,” Mary
replied nonchalantly.

“What?”

“Yeah, but mostly at night. And now I’m
seeing her. She’s just a shadow, but I’m convinced she’s happy that
someone is living here again. I know this is going to sound
strange, but I’ve never felt safer anywhere in my life. I even
named her. I call her Lailah—after
the angel of the night.
I
found the name written on a wall when I removed some old wallpaper.
I thought it sounded nice, and it fit her because she keeps me safe
at night.”