Send in the Clowns

A new Monica Minors series based on a story by Wolf Hour!

My name is Monica Minors. I was at home when the call came from my friend Derek with Atlanta PD.

“Monica, how are you doing?” Derek always speaks with short, clipped diction. He worked hard to get rid of his Savannah accent. I kinda miss it.

“I am just peachy. And if you are calling me, then you are obviously not. What do you need?”

He hesitated.

“I have a body down here. Young woman, age 23. Beheaded. Forensics has nothing. No prints. No signs of forced entry.” He takes a deep breath. “Weirdest thing though. Her computer was wiped. Like impossible to recover wiped.”

“Sounds like you need a computer expert.” I say.

“I have computer experts. I need your expertise. This one feels weird. Like that Paulson business.”

I freeze. Memories flood back. I think about Grace. Shake my head.

“I’ll be down in the morning.” I know he wouldn’t bring it up if this wasn’t my flavor of weird.

I was standing in the morgue. Derek, a tall scarecrow in his ill fitting suit, raw boned with keen eyes stood in front of the cabinets. He had cleared the room like I had asked him to.

I put down my backpack. He pulls out her drawer. Rachel Wyatt. Age 23. Ragged knife wounds in the flesh of her chest. One had split her sternum.

“She was stabbed 23 times exactly. We have had five other people. Age 23. Computers wiped. Stabbed exactly 23 times and beheaded.” Derek tells me.

“Go get some coffee, Derek. And make sure nobody comes in here. Do you understand?” He nods. Derek knows to take my very specific instructions seriously.

I pull up a chair. I sit down. Calm myself. I slow down time. I release space. I become the corpse on the table in front of me.

The head is in a dark space. It smells like leather and blood. A bag.

I move my consciousness back into the heart. The astral body hasn’t deteriorated yet. Good. I can reach through the history of Rachel. I see her. College. Bus stop. A day like any other.

I see the USB drive she finds on the bus. She couldn’t hear it. But I can. I can hear it calling out for someone 23 years of age. Speaking to the unconscious minds of its targets. Rachel picks it up. The spell goes silent. It’s magic. Simple, subtle, not powerful but effectively used.

I move with Rachel through the day. She gets back to her apartment on Starnes Avenue. I smell dinner as she cooks it. A vegetable stir fry. I see her studying. Then I hear the call from her bag. It’s shifted.

The deadly small silent voice now whispers: Remember me.

Poor Rachel obeys it. She listens to it without listening.

She puts it in the laptop. The entire time assuming that it’s her idea. Her curiosity.

I saw the snuff movie. The naked men in clown masks. The stabbing. The beheading.

I feel her waves of revulsion. They almost push me back to my own body. I persist.

She freaks out as the laptop blanks.

She is annoyed.

She sleeps.

She sees the men. The one in black with the camera.

The clown masked men wearing nothing but the rubber fright masks.

One carries the knife.

The other carries a leather bag.

I recognize the bag.

I know what comes next.

Then I noticed. The clowns aren’t breathing.

Shooting pain. Darkness.

Then the sunlight and the road.

I won’t go that far into the story of her. Rachel Wyatt ends at that road.

I gasp as I come back to myself.

I need to find that USB drive. I need to find the man with the camera. Derek was right to call me.

Check out Wolf Hour’s original chilling tale!

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