Commins' Case: Bloody Burlesque ✅

Chapter 11

Next door to a string of abandoned refreshment stands sits the House of Horrors. It's a low, menacing structure, with the giant head of a clown in the centre. The clown's gaping mouth is the entrance. His pupils are evil slits, and most of his paint has chipped away from his red nose, revealing the grey aluminium beneath. He has terrible red circles on his laughing cheeks and a shock of scarlet hair. I have never been afraid of clowns. Frankly, I never understood why so many people are unnerved by them. However, the fact that the artist stuck a giant clown effigy on the front of this haunted house must mean that he was aware of the fear they instil in people.

Perhaps what makes people so afraid of clowns is the fact they are not trying to be? They are trying to make people laugh, yet they seem more likely to make children cry whilst leaving the adults with an uneasy feeling in the pit of their stomachs.

Though I am not inherently afraid of clowns, I discover an uneasy feeling upon entering through the clown's mouth, telling me that this may be a bad idea.

"Marie?" I call out. "Are you in here?"

-

I stand inside a small entryway with faux dungeons on either side. Behind the bars are scenes of carnage and torture. On my left, a blood-splattered, faceless nurse mannequin has a man on a rack. His extremities are shackled to the device, and his mouth is open in a silent scream. A lumberjack stands with his chainsaw on the opposite side, his face a mask of twisted mutation. One eye hangs from the open socket, and a long purple tongue lolls from his mouth.

"Did a man and a woman pass through here?" I ask him.

He gives no reply.

Probably for the best.

"Marie! Gabriel! We need to leave."

There is only one way forward and an overhead sign with letters that drip blood. TURN BACK. If this were an ordinary circus, I would pass under that sign with a confident smirk on my face, preferably with a savoury snack in hand. Instead, I sneak cautiously up to the door frame and peek through. The hall beyond reveals another series of grisly sights, and I am met with two options; left or right. Two signs accompany these options. On the left, a sign that reads Pour les timides, and on the right, Pour les courageux.

-

I venture right, my ego practically insisting upon it. The path presents me with a collection of grisly animatronics. Lycanthropes with snarling and bloodied fangs, a vampire, tearing the throat from a buxom young lady, and an army of the undead. Perhaps if there were any electricity, the flashing lights, rolling thunder and moving limbs could make for a good fright. The path ends at a pair of heavy wooden doors.

Believing I have finally reached the end of the house of horror, I push through the doors and find myself in a moonlit landscape. A two-storey house stands at the peak of a small hill. Lights burn in the windows like orange, winking eyes. A full moon peeks out from behind dark clouds. One side of the hill hosts a collection of fallen grave markers. The wind howls through the branches of naked trees that stand like skeletal sentinels around the house.

My first instinct is to turn back. Only the door has disappeared.

"Damn," I mutter.

A low wolf's cry rises above the whistling wind.

"For God's sake."

-

I trudge up the incline with my hands in my coat pockets and mount the sagging porch steps. The door is cracked open. The thought of this house inviting me inside is not at all comforting. I wrap my hand around the bandaged grip of my revolver and nudge the door open with my foot. It swings in on rusted hinges.