Finding
some solace in the giant dagger he grasped tightly within his right
hand, Jack rushed through the open door and entered the Haunted
Funhouse. The stygian darkness enveloped him like a crashing glove.
Already, he wondered why any normal person would have continued, but
this question became quickly answered when the iron doors slammed shut
behind him with a loud echoing clang.
“No way but forward now,” he whispered under his breath.
Within
a few yards, the darkness was lanced with glowing bones. Skulls and
shattered human rib cages hung and slowly spiraled in the void of black.
They had the luminance of children’s toys, but appeared wet and dripped
whatever created their glowing property. Small pools of bruised green
splattered onto the unseen floor to create small pools.
Soon,
the smattering of hanging bones grew thicker. Before long, Jack was
forced to shoulder his way through them. The clinging glowing liquid,
they had perhaps been dipped into, came away on his hair and clothes. A
splash hit the back of his hand and sizzled the hairs off his wrist.
“Son of a…” His jacket began to smoke and Jack found himself ducking
lower as he hurried through the swarm of bones.
That
was when something connected with his ankles and his body pitched
forward. Despite his wishes, the unexpected fall caused him to lose the
grip on his dagger and he plummeted into some sort of black pit.
His
fall was halted by hundreds of round objects and it took him a few
seconds to realize he had fallen into a pile of plastic balls not unlike
those designed for kids to enjoy in children oriented restaurants and
the like. As soon as he had hit the balls, a swirling cluster of
multi-colored lights had erupted over his head. Blues and reds mixed
with dark greens and deep purples.
Jack’s
first thought became concern over his missing dagger. Dropping lower,
his hand tried to fish under the balls for his lost weapon. In order to
reach the bottom, he was required to dip his head below the chest high
pile of balls. He found this unsettling. The lights were also
disturbing. They seemed to make his eyes blur and his scalp tingled like
two dozen spiders dancing there.
So
far his search for the dagger had proved useless. He considered leaving
it there, but his weapon supply was already so minimal that he had no
wish to give up too easily.
The
searching grew more frantic. He turned in circles scrambling for his
war dagger of Yig. As he searched, he thought he heard the sound of
scraping behind him. It grew in volume and part of him didn’t want to
look, as though if he didn’t look he wouldn’t have to be forced to admit
something lurked there.
Instead,
he drew a throwing knife and whipped around. A shape rose out of the
pile of filthy balls. At first it looked like nothing more than a
pyramid of balls collected over the top of the pile, but these began to
topple away revealing a jagged faced clown. It had small pig eyes buried
within a sea of thick creamy makeup. Red lips formed a humorless smile,
which contradicted the sick laughter that started to pour out of the
horrid thing. A torn rainbow of colors followed as its oversized
polyester outfit could be seen. Seconds later, he raised his hand and
Jack saw the thing held his war dagger.
“Lucky
thing I don’t have a clown phobia,” Jack said, while he struck a battle
pose. When the laughter continued, he added, “So it looks like you’ll
get to be the first one of your kind to die tonight.”
Then it was on.
The
clown lunged at him with his dagger in the murder poison. The creature
loomed large and came at him like a runaway train. Jack tried to move to
the side, but the balls made normal maneuvers almost impossible. He
managed to dodge the swipe of the dagger, but the air was smashed from
his lungs by the Xemmoni crashing into him.
Jack
lost his footing and when down. The balls covered over his face and he
had the sensation of drowning as one of the clowns hands held him under,
while the other stabbed down at him again and again.
For
once the balls helped him for the first two stabs impaled the balls
instead of his flesh, but the third slashed Jack in the shoulder. His
jacket took the blunt of the blow, but a red line of pain tore down his
left arm.
“Screw
this,” he said and dragged the edge of his throwing dagger across the
freak’s left wrist like he was training him on how to become a
border-line.
The clown drew his hand away, even if it did keep laughing.
Instead
of fighting the thing, Jacket went low, almost like he was swimming
along the bottom of a pond. His left hand grabbed a fistful of the
Xemmoni’s costume and he hamstrung the villain a second later.
It still laughed.
As
it toppled back into the balls, Jack hamstrung the other ankle for good
measure. He gasped in frustration when the clown pulled away and he
lost his grip. Jack hurried to stand up, but like a man seeking a
crocodile under water in the darkness, of the evil clown there was no
sign, until his own dagger was stabbed deep into the back of his left
calf. Jack cried out as he spied a doorway to his right.
He
hurried toward it as the manic clown crawled after him. Disturbed balls
rolled in odd patterns and the clown remained on his heels as he
struggled through the spheres. The thing stabbed him two more times, but
he was finally able to fight his way free of the balls.
The
clown emerged a few seconds later. “I’m ready for you now, you
bastard,” Jack yelled before driving his throwing knife deep into the
crawling fiend’s eye. Leaving his knife there, Jack snatched up his war
dagger and stumbled away from the dying clown.
To be continued next Monday
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