Empty Smiles, page 11
Phil said, “We need to get to the carnival, right? Can’t we sneak out? Better to run than to stay put, anyway. Maybe the grown-ups could drive?”
“Will the cars even work?” Coco muttered.
Neither of the boys answered. None of them would bet on it.
The lights dimmed again.
Brian was reaching for his headlamp just as the lights went out entirely. He, Coco, and Phil turned on their headlamps simultaneously. The room filled with a ghostly white glow.
But just as quick, Mr. Adler said sharply, “Turn them off. Right now.”
Startled, they obeyed. Mrs. Greenblatt was still trying to soothe Mikey. Brian’s parents and Phil’s dad had turned on their phone lights, but at Mr. Adler’s words, they turned those off too.
The room was plunged into darkness. The streetlight outside was still glowing, a little beacon in the dark, but a mist was creeping in from the creek.
“Look,” Mr. Adler said, low-voiced. “The Brewsters’ lights are on.”
“Can’t be the power lines, then, can it, Roger?” Brian’s dad whispered back. “That would get the whole neighborhood.”
Mr. Adler nodded. “If it’s just this house—then someone threw the breaker in the basement.”
All their heads swiveled to the basement door, which stood in the corner of the living room. The door was shut, of course, like it always was. Ollie had shown Brian and Coco around down there once. The floor was rock. The walls stony. It was damp and dim. Dug in the seventeen hundreds, Ollie had said proudly. When the house was first built.
“You think someone threw the breaker?” Ms. Zintner said. “No. Surely not.” But she was staring at the basement door. They all were.
“I don’t hear anything,” Mr. Adler said, after a pause. It was pretty easy, in the Egg, to hear things in the basement. Ollie had shown them the old floor grate between it and the ground floor. A relic, Ollie had explained, from the days when a giant woodstove in the basement had heated the house.
Then Brian heard a thump. The adults looked at each other.
Clomp.
It sounded like feet on the stairs.
Thud.
Mr. Adler said, “Kids, go upstairs, right now. Amelia, Anne”—he meant Brian’s mom and Phil’s mom—“Zelda, will you go up with the kids? Keep trying the police. Go into my bedroom. It has a lock on the door.”
Brian’s mom nodded once. “Come on. Up the stairs,” she said briskly. “Anne, can you carry Mikey? Phil, you first, get your crutches.”
“I—” Brian tried.
Crack went a foot on the basement stairs.
“Now, baby,” his mom said. Mrs. Greenblatt was already heading for the stairs with Mikey in her arms.
Mr. Adler had gone to the rack of cast-iron fire tools sitting next to the empty woodstove. “Here.” He handed the heavy iron shovel to Brian’s dad, and the poker to Mr. Greenblatt. He took the tongs.
Mrs. Greenblatt and Mikey were at the top of the stairs already. Phil was halfway up, thumping awkwardly on his crutches. Brian and Coco were behind him, hesitating. Brian didn’t want to just leave the dads to deal with it. He didn’t even know what it was. His mom and Ms. Zintner were on the stairs below, urging him up.
“Go!” snapped his mother and Ms. Zintner together, just as the footsteps stopped on the other side of the basement door. Transfixed, Brian watched the knob turn. Watched the door swing slowly open. Saw a dark shape in the doorway. Brian switched on his headlamp.
Everyone froze.
Brian, astonished, saw baggy clothes in a sickly swirl of colors. Huge red shoes. Bony white hands, with long, pointed fingernails, spread in a ta-da pose in the doorway. A huge, red-painted mouth smiling. Needle-thin teeth.
Mrs. Greenblatt shrieked. The clown mimed applause. Its eyes were yellow and unblinking.
A dainty tap came on the French doors. Another clown stood outside. It gave Brian a coy little wave. Its nails were two inches long. Brian’s mom shook off her shock. “Get up the stairs!” she snapped, backing up. Ms. Zintner was right next to her.
Below them, the clown from the basement had begun crossing the living room with an exaggerated, cartoon-character tiptoe, fingers crooked like claws. Heading straight toward their dads, guarding the stairwell with the fire tools.
Mr. Adler bellowed, “Stop!” but the clown didn’t. Mr. Adler stepped forward and swung the tongs, just as Brian’s dad swung the shovel. Mr. Greenblatt hadn’t moved. He looked paralyzed with fear.
Both fire tools connected with a clang, vibrating. The clown reeled in a circle, a hand to its forehead. Brian thought for sure it was going down.
But as it turned, its eyes fell on Brian, and it winked. Like it was doing a circus pratfall.
“Dad, get out of there!” Brian screamed. “Mr. Adler! You can’t hurt it, you need to run, come on!”
The clown gave a little bow. Then it reached out and tapped the frozen Mr. Greenblatt on the cheek. The fire poker fell from Mr. Greenblatt’s hands. “Dad!” cried Phil from the top of the stairs.
Brian didn’t know what had happened. His brain didn’t process it. His brain wasn’t made to process it, maybe. Just, where Mr. Greenblatt had been was—something small, huddled on the floor.
The clown picked it up tenderly while they all stood frozen in horror. Tucked a Mr. Greenblatt–shaped doll into its pocket. Smiled at them all.
There was a crash of glass. Their stunned eyes all went to the French doors. The clown there had broken one of the panes. It put a hand to its mouth with a wide-eyed expression of oops. Then it reached in, turned the door handle, and strolled into the living room. It waved at the first clown, who waved back.
Mrs. Greenblatt was screaming continuously. All the rest of the grown-ups were backing up. “Up the stairs!” Mr. Adler yelled, and then Phil was stumping up the rest of the way, as fast as his crutches could take him. Brian and Coco were right behind him, and his mom and Coco’s were below that. His dad and Mr. Adler hoisted their fire tools again, right at the foot of the staircase.
“Don’t let them touch you!” Coco screamed. “Whatever you do—”
“Dad!” Brian cried. Coco’s mom, he saw, was trying her phone, uselessly, one more time.
Now the two clowns stood in front of the two dads guarding the stairs. One of them started waving its fists and hopping back and forth, like a parody of boxing.
Brian and Coco were at the top of the stairwell by then, with Phil behind them. Brian could hear Mikey crying. “Dad, come on!” Brian cried. “Please!”
His dad swung the shovel at the hopping clown. Mr. Adler whacked the other with the tongs. The heavy fire tools bounced off. But this time, one of the clowns gave them an exaggerated frown. It wagged a long-nailed finger. Ah-ah-ah. Then it reached out, grabbed both of the fire tools, and dragged both dads forward.
It happened so fast. The second clown reached out and tapped them on the head. And they were falling. Brian swallowed back vomit. “Dad?” he whispered, just as his mom screamed, “Win!” Without looking back, she snapped at Brian, “Baby, get in that room right now. Come on, up the stairs.”
Ms. Zintner was backing up too. Brian could see her shake. “Roger,” she said. “Roger.”
The clowns had collected the two new dolls. Tucked them in their pockets. Then they looked up the stairs. They looked at each other. One made an elaborate gesture at the other. After you. The other waved its hands. No, after you.
Then they faced the stairwell and started to tiptoe up together. Their pockets bulged. Their shoes thumped on the stairs. Their teeth were as yellow as their eyes. Brian was in the doorway of Mr. Adler’s room, with Coco beside him. The clowns were climbing faster and faster.
“Mom!” he and Coco shouted together. He saw his mom and Ms. Zintner exchange a look of understanding. Brian didn’t get it.
“Shut the door, baby,” said his mom.
Then his mom and Ms. Zintner each took a running step forward and tackled the two clowns back down the stairs. He heard the thumping as they fell. Coco screamed.
“Get in here!” Phil bellowed from behind.
Brian was sobbing as he slammed the bedroom door. Coco was too. They all were. Phil tried to turn on the light, but it was dead. Brian locked the door and began shoving a bureau in front of it. Coco helped him, straining. They got the bureau in place just as the door rattled from the outside. The bureau lurched, but it was heavy. It held. They heard the thumping steps as the clown went farther down the hallway. Maybe looking for another way in. There wasn’t one, though. Just the window.
Mrs. Greenblatt had sunk down on the bed with Mikey in her arms.
“Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God, oh God.”
“What was it, Phil?” Mikey whimpered. “What is it?”
“It’s—” Phil obviously didn’t know what to say. “It’s gonna be okay, Mikey.”
Brian leaned on the bureau for a second. He didn’t know what to do. Coco stood beside him, shaking, her face tear-streaked. She obviously didn’t know either.
“Mom?” Mikey said. “Mom, are you okay? Mommy?”
His voice quivered. Phil spun around, staggering on his crutches. He shined his headlamp at the bed. Brian turned too. Coco gasped.
Mrs. Greenblatt was sitting bolt upright and perfectly rigid on the bed. Her eyes were open, unblinking. And wrapped around her ankle, right above her bare foot, right below the hem of her blue summer skirt, was a long-nailed white hand, reaching out from under the bed.
Phil lunged for his mom and little brother, but the white hand was faster. It went up, groping like some kind of white spider, and grabbed Mikey by the foot. Mikey turned huge eyes up to Phil’s face. “Phil?” he said. “I’m so stiff, Phil.”
And just like that, both of them—Mikey and Mrs. Greenblatt—were crumpling, then gone, and there were two perfect dolls lying there on the bed.
Phil was yelling incoherently, dropping his crutches. But Coco leaped forward and dragged him back, just as a grinning clown face peered triumphantly out from under the bed. Its smile was bleached to bone and black blood in the swinging white light of their headlamps. Coco and Phil lurched back against the wall as a leg and an arm appeared, and the clown began to wriggle out.
“Help me!” Brian snapped. He was trying as hard as he could to shove the bureau away from the door, his shoulders straining. Phil helped him, grunting, gasping at the pain in his ankle.
“There’s two outside!” Coco panted.
The clown from under the bed rolled to its feet, dusting itself off.
With a yell of pure rage, Brian whipped around and threw the only thing at hand—the glass of water on Mr. Adler’s nightstand—right at it.
He hit it full in the face with a gout of water.
And—the clown stopped. Its grinning face started to smear as the water ran down it. Just like makeup that had gotten wet. Scarlet drips from the mouth, black lines from its eyes. But—there wasn’t anything under the makeup. Like the clown was a kid’s chalk painting, dissolving in the rain. Its eyes dripped down its face in a black-and-yellow smear. Its mouth ran down its chin.
The clown spun in a circle, hissing. Brian thought, It’s blind, it’s blind now.
“Wow,” said Coco.
But they weren’t out of danger. The clown started groping around the room for them. Brian grabbed the blanket at the foot of the bed and threw it over the thing, trapping its arms, and then he kicked it down onto the bed. Then he grabbed the cup, dashed into Mr. Adler’s bathroom. Filled the cup. The clown on the bed was already getting up.
Coco had opened the door a crack. “I don’t see the other two clowns,” she whispered. “Brian, what do you think? How do we get out of here?”
Behind them, there was a thud as the blind clown staggered to its feet and started clawing at the blanket over its head. They couldn’t stay where they were.
“We can’t stay in this room. Guest room across the hall,” whispered Brian. “I’ll go first.” He hoisted the glass of water.
Coco nodded. Brian went out. His heartbeat seemed to rattle his whole body. A glass of water didn’t feel like much of a weapon. He looked up and down the dark hall. Where were the clowns? His headlamp created a tunnel effect where anything in the beam was brightly lit and the shadows on either side seemed darker. Behind him, he heard Phil thumping across the hall. Heard Coco’s footsteps beside him. He looked down the stairs. Saw a white face at the foot of the stairs, just turning around.
Coco screamed, “Brian!”
He didn’t think. He just whirled and flung the water full on the other clown, which had almost sneaked up on him from the far end of the hall. Then Brian dove into the guest room. Coco slammed the door a second before one of the clowns hit it, rattling the knob. It took them all to shut it. This door didn’t lock. And there wasn’t a heavy bureau to push in front of it.
Brian still had his water glass. But it was empty. And the guest room didn’t have an attached bathroom. The clown outside slammed into the door again. Brian and Phil held it shut while Coco hastily looked around the room, shining her headlamp in corners, under the bed. No sign of more clowns.
But they were trapped.
Now Coco ran to the window. Looked down. Bit her lip. “There’s the big trellis,” she said. “We could maybe climb down.” She twisted her hands together.
“No way,” Brian said. “Phil can’t do it. We’re sticking together.”
Phil’s face was so white, every freckle stood out like a spot of ink. He said, “Someone has to stay behind anyway. To hold the door shut. And you guys have to get out. How are you supposed to beat the smiling man and fix this if you’re trapped in the house?”
Brian and Coco were silent. Phil was shaking like a leaf. He had been turned into a scarecrow back in October. Brian knew that he still woke up with nightmares of it. “What are you waiting for?” Phil added. “You’ll be on bikes for an hour to get to the carnival, and you need to stop at my house in town. Are you hearing me? You need to grab the water guns. They’re in the garage. Some serious Wicked Witch of the West vibes, huh?”
A massive shove pushed them back from the door, and a white hand came groping into the room, a slice of yellow eye and the gleam of teeth just beyond. Phil shoved back, pushing as hard as he could. “Go!” he cried. “And when you see Ollie, tell her that I just beat her in the big hero department.”
“Phil,” Brian said helplessly. “Phil, come on.”
“He’s right, Brian,” Coco whispered. “We have to get out of here, we have to, we have to win, we have to fix this.” She sounded like she was crying. She crossed the room, shoved the window up, unlatched the screen, let it fall. “Brian, come on.”
The doorknob to the guest bedroom was rattling. Coco hoisted herself out the window, started to climb down. Brian, swallowing, followed her. “Phil—” he said. He had his feet on the trellis, his hands on the sill.
“Go!” snarled Phil.
Brian heard the guest room door fly open. Heard the sound of a thunk—maybe crutches hitting a clown face. Then Phil screamed. Heavy steps ran toward the window. Brian started climbing down as fast as he could.
Coco dropped to the ground, staggered, kept her feet. “Brian—jump!” she cried, and he did, falling into Mr. Adler’s neglected flower beds and rolling. A clown face thrust out of the window. It wasn’t smiling now.
“Bikes in the garage,” Brian said. He was already sprinting around the house. Coco was on his tail. They wrenched open the garage side door, and Coco pushed the button to open the big doors. Ollie’s purple Schwinn showed clear in their headlamps, right next to Mr. Adler’s bigger bike. Brian hoped that Mr. Adler had oiled the chain and kept air in the tires on the Schwinn. Brian bent, fingers scrabbling, and pressed the rubber. Seemed okay. “Coco, take Ollie’s,” he said. She grabbed it just as he turned and seized Mr. Adler’s. The two of them wrenched the bikes around and ran out of the garage just as the first clown burst out of the house, not bothering to sneak, just running.
But Brian and Coco were already pedaling, hardly noticing their bare feet. No time to grab shoes. They shot down the driveway, turned left, tires squealing, and picked up speed. The clown was left behind in the summer dust, and they pedaled on into a tunnel of darkness, with only the light of their headlamps to show the way.
14
DURING THE DAY, the funhouse resembled any other carnival funhouse, except it was cooler. You walked through its winding halls and galleries. A bright green exit sign glowed just ahead. The giggles of families echoed off the mirrors. There were mirrors on all sides. Walls. Ceiling. Floor. The mirrors distorted your reflection. Sometimes they made you taller. Sometimes shorter. Sometimes basketball-shaped, sometimes skinny, with an S curve to your middle. Sometimes you’d be pinheaded or bug-eyed.
When Ollie went into the funhouse this time, it seemed just the same. The sounds of people laughing still echoed off the walls. The sound of carnival music slid brightly through the corridors. The mirrors still turned her into a thousand strangers.
Ollie wondered why the smiling man wouldn’t go into the funhouse. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought that he was afraid. But what did he, of all people, have to be afraid of? She hoped she’d never know what he was afraid of.
She started walking. Came to some mirrored steps, just like she would have in the daytime. She recognized a smudge on one mirror. A thin crack in another.
Down more steps. Through a narrow passage. She could still hear the carnival music. Wherever you went in the carnival, the music followed.
Then the path widened into a round room, where the mirrors almost seemed to—smear her reflection somehow. Then the way angled sharply left and started to climb up in a spiral. Around and around.
Now Ollie realized that she could no longer hear the sounds of other people. Just the squeak of her sneakers on the mirrored floor, the huff of her breath, and the constant music.
