The Story of Josh Part Thirty Eight: It had to be a Clown

The amusement park was creepy as fuck and our “Investigation” consisted mostly of stopping strangers and demanding that they tell us what they know followed up by busting into two groups and breaking into random buildings around the park. I went with the Hippy, the dog, and hot brainy chick in glasses. The other group was the guy in the ascot and the vapid red head, personally I think they just wanted to go off in private and fuck. But hey I don’t care how they make their own fun.

After about an hour of poking into dusty abandoned buildings and being attacked by hornets we decided to take a break. The Hippy and the Brainy Chick went off to “Find the others” but I think that they wanted to get a little naked. The dog however stayed with me and when I sat on a clean piece of ground he laid his head on my thigh.

I stared into his big liquid eyes and what I saw was something more than doggy intelligence. I asked him if he wanted to hear more of my story, the part that sort of dealt with an alternate reality version of him and his friends. I did not expect to get an answer but the damn dog raised his head and seemed to nod at me. I was surprised but less shocked than I would have been before I met these travelers.

“Alright mutt, if you want to hear it then I want to tell it.” I said and then settled into a more comfortable position.

This, as always, is a therapy session and the doctor appears to be in.


I fucking hate clowns. And when I say hate I mean they scare the shit out of me. They make me want to run and hide in a closet and not come out until someone in a position of authority comes and assures me that they have all been eliminated and presents me with a semi truck filled with their bloody fucking noses as trophies.

Let me back up for a second.

I like to think that I am a more or less practical man regardless of my bent for science fiction and horror. I believe in science and logic no matter how much I wish there was magic and fantasy. I enjoy playing in the boxes that were created by the artists and dreamers that walked this path before me, even more than that I love building my own boxes and filling them with monsters and fairies that have been birthed in the furnaces of my imagination, but at the end of the day I will take the words of men such as Einstein, Hawking, and Darwin as my gospel.

That being said I have three very real and very irrational fears. Firs I fear the dark. That is a universal fear that most if not all human beings share and I don’t think that I really need to delve into it. The second is zombies. Everyone knows of my fear of the ravenous dead and there have been several essays dedicated to that very subject. I am sure that there will be even more of those entries before I tire of the subject. I also have deep terror of having dysentery, but since in my mind that is a rational fear it does not fit the criteria of this essay.

My third fear is clowns, and I can tell you moment that I developed that fear. When I was very little my favorite television show was Scooby Doo. On one of the episodes, I believe they were in a recording studio, there was a maniacal clown. There was a scene in this episode where the clown sprang out and scared Shaggy and Scooby. It also scared the shit out of me. I screamed and ran from the room. Even back then my flight or fight response was skewed toward flight.

As the years went on there were other things that cemented my fear of clowns. The movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space, the crimes of John Wayne Gacy, and most dramatically the book IT by Stephen King followed by the miniseries where Tim Curry played the monster clown Pennywise.

Everyone that I tell this fear to laughs and acts like it is a big fucking joke. I think because I have been able to control my fear reactions since I was little, in my family if you seemed afraid of something it would eventually be used against you, it has never been taken seriously. I don’t react to clowns with panic and cries, instead I clam up and be as quiet as possible. I try not to draw any attention to myself in hopes that the clown will pass me by and devour someone else instead. I think of it as a plain sight way of “Hiding in the closet”.

I always try and tell myself that it is stupid to fear clowns. I try to remember that they are supposed to be funny and that it is supposed to be their job to make children laugh and entertain the masses. I try to think of Krusty the Clown but to me a Simpson’s character can never be terrifying. I try to think of all of this but then I see a clown on TV or gods fucking forbid in person and all I can think is that this mother fucker wants to rape, kill, and eat me … maybe not necessarily in that order either.

So yeah I hate clowns, I just fucking hate them.


I was going to say more but there was a noise from deep in the dog’s throat. I heard it and I was sure that I had heard wrong but before I could say anything else he lifted his head, licked my hand, and then trotted away.

I swear to god that dog said he was sorry.