The Guild of Fallen Clowns (48 page)

“Yeah, makes perfect sense,” Alan said. He
turned his attention to Lyle. “Are you sure you want to do this,
Lyle? You’ve already helped me more than I could have ever
imagined. You don’t owe me anything.”

Lyle smiled. “First of all, stop calling me
by my street name. I’m Popsicle. Second, stop thinking this is
about you. There’s a killer clown on the loose, and we—you, me, and
Cracky—are the best chance of stopping him. This may be new for me,
but you aren’t the only person who wants to do the right thing. So
stop making this about you and let’s go save Gotham.” He reached
his closed fist up between Alan and Cracky.

A triple fist bump later, they dispersed.
Cracky and Lyle went for the front door while Alan slipped around
back.

Lyle led the way as he and Cracky crept down
the dark corridor toward the opening to the large chamber. Halfway,
Cracky bumped into Lyle, who stopped to retrieve the Poppy figure
from his pocket.

“Hang on, Cracky,” Lyle whispered. “This is
a good time to introduce you to my dad.” He stretched his hand with
the figure out in front of him. Nothing happened.

“I thought you said it comes ta life,”
Cracky replied.

Lyle gave it a few hard shakes and waited.
Again, nothing happened.

“Did you break it?” Cracky asked.

Lyle pulled it back to examine the figure.
Cracky’s large body behind him blocked the limited light from the
slit in the entry door. He looked to the sides of Cracky, but his
wide shoulders and enormous chest left no room for him to step
aside to allow light to pass. Lyle bent down and held the figure to
the light slipping between his large legs. Cracky spread his legs,
each foot pressed against opposite walls.

“Is der a button?” Cracky asked.

“No, there’s no button,” Lyle scoffed. “And
it’s not broken.” He shook it again and looked over his shoulder.
“I don’t understand. It worked before.”

“Is there a magic word? Oh, maybe you gotta
rub it,” Cracky said.

Rub it? Are you crazy? My father would tan
my hide if I tried that,” Lyle replied.

*****

The door was locked so Alan reached the key
toward the lock. As he flipped it into the proper direction, the
key slipped between his fingers. It bobbled between the fingers of
both hands before it escaped and fell to his feet, where it bounced
three times on the metal grate before falling through to the dirt
below.

“Come on, Alan, hold yourself together,” he
muttered as he started down the steps in search of the key.

*****

“I told you, it only works for me,” Lyle
said, yanking the figure away from Cracky’s rubbing hands.

“Well, it ain’t workin’ for you neither,
Popsicle. I say you put it back in your pocket and we keep
movin’.”

“Okay,” Lyle said. He returned the figure to
his pocket and continued to the end of the hall.

With one hand in front of him, and the other
feeling for Cracky behind him, Lyle stopped short of the doorway.
“It’s pitch dark. I can’t see a thing,” he whispered.

“Just keep goin’. Our eyes should adjust
soon,” Cracky said.

They continued into the room. Lyle’s fingers
lost touch with Cracky.

Oh, sorry, pal, I thought you went da udder
way,” Cracky said quietly.

“Sorry for what? I’m over here,” Lyle
replied from behind and to the left of Cracky.

The mirrored walls remained dark as dim
light glowed throughout the space. Cracky’s head was turned back to
where he heard Lyle’s voice. Upon seeing Lyle, he jumped back from
whomever it was he bumped into in the dark. Lyle’s father stood
with his back to them. With his fists held out in front of him, he
stared straight ahead at three Peepers lined up in front of their
three prisoners bound and gagged in folding metal chairs against
the opposite wall.

“He’s with us,” Lyle said, pointing to his
father as he tightly gripped its figure in his other hand.

“You found da button,” Cracky said. “Now
what?”

*****

Alan grabbed the key from the dirt and
returned to his feet. He pulled a black tarp off a stacked pile of
pallets against the back fence and dragged it up the steps with
him. With a firm grip on the key, he slid it in the lock and turned
it. Before opening the door, he hooked a corner of the tarp over a
bent corner of metal siding above the hinged side of the door. He
held the other side above the door with his free hand, then kicked
it out at his feet to spread it as wide as possible. Feeling
confident that the tarp would block daylight from his opening of
the door, he slowly pulled the handle until the door was opened
enough for him to slip inside. He released the tarp and braced the
door with his hand as he eased it back to a closed position.

Inside, Alan stood in total darkness,
waiting for his eyes to adjust. The first thing that came into
focus was a long floor to ceiling line of dim light in front of
him.
That must be the panel Cracky told me about that leads into
the mirrored room,
he thought.

Seconds later, the light illuminated the
corkscrew handrail of the spiral staircase leading to Geno’s lair.
So far, Cracky’s intel was accurate. As his eyes continued to
adjust to the darkness, the steps came into view and he moved his
right foot on the first stair. As he rose to the next step, he
heard Lyle shout, “Get them, Pops!” Alan stepped off the stair and
moved to peer through the crack of light.

*****

Lyle’s father stood firm as the three
Peepers stepped toward him. “Even you know I can’t take ’em all,
Stinky. Get out of here. Save yourself,” Lyle’s father ordered.

From behind the panel, Alan reached for his
pocket and pulled out his Poppy. He threw his shoulder into the
panel, which offered zero resistance, and stumbled into the room.
Instantly, his father appeared and guarded him as he moved toward
his friends.

Lyle looked at Alan’s father. “Why did he
change?”

Alan studied the vision. When he appeared in
Dave’s basement, he had to duck his head in order to fit. Inside
the Labyrinth, he wasn’t much taller than himself. Alan glanced
back to Lyle’s father and didn’t see any noticeable changes. His
appearance was identical to when he came out in Lyle’s apartment
and Dave’s basement.

Alan should have been focused on the
three-to-two odds against them taking place in front of him, but
instead, he tried to find an answer Lyle’s question. He stared at
his father and wondered what could have happened to cause him to
shrink in size. This was of major concern to Alan because he needed
the much larger version of his father to battle the Peepers.

As he stared at his back, his father’s head
turned. He smiled and said, “It’s not me, son. It’s you.” Then he
turned back to stand against the trio of Peepers.

With his own fists prepared to fight, Cracky
became nervous with the three Peepers stepping closer, spreading
apart in a half circle around them. “Hey Boog, I changed my mind.
How ’bout you make dis reunion complete and gimme dat little thing
you showed me before.”

No further explanation was required as Alan
reached to his other pocket and grabbed the third Poppy figure.
With his hand barely out of his pocket, Cracky yanked it from him,
held it out, and shook the dickens out of it.

“C’mon, show yourself,” Cracky
commanded.

He didn’t have to wait long before a
massive, muscle-bound man wearing wrestling tights appeared between
Alan’s and Lyle’s fathers. His size was so large that his
appearance almost knocked them over. The Peepers stopped and
watched as the new father stumbled and leaned on the other fathers
for support.

Cracky’s father turned back and smiled at
his son. “How many times do I have to tell you not to shake me out
of a sound sleep, boy?”

“Sorry, Pops,” Cracky replied. “Wait, how’s
dis possible?”

“It’s not really him, Cracky. It’s your
memory of him,” Alan said.

“My memory?”

“Yes, looks like you have a great memory,”
Alan replied as he took in the sight of the giant man. Lyle gave
Cracky a satisfied slap on the back.

As Alan, Lyle, and their dads gained a new
confidence over the sudden reversal of odds in the fight, Cracky
frowned. His father’s brief time of stability gave way to a drunken
display of rubber legs and slurred speech.

“Next rounds’r on me!” Cracky’s father
stammered.

Alan shot a look at Cracky. Embarrassed,
Cracky shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, Boog. My father was a drunk.
Dis is how I remember him.”

“Was he always drunk?” Alan asked with great
concern as he watched the Peepers grow more emboldened over the
sudden turn of events.

“No, not always, but almost,” Cracky
replied.

“Okay, good,” Alan said. “Think of a time
when he wasn’t drunk. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think so,” Cracky said as he
closed his eyes and concentrated.

The image of his father stabilized. His
tights transformed into a two-piece suit with six-inch wide strips
of patchwork fabric splitting the seams, looking as if they had
been sewn in by a novice tailor in a hasty attempt to alter the
garments to fit his enormous build.

“Much better,” Alan said.

Cracky’s eyes opened. Upon seeing the new
version of his father, he smiled. “Mom’s funeral.”

The three Peepers backed up to their
original positions in front of Dale, Ringmaster, and Joe. The
Peepers attached to Joe turned and looked past Joe to the mirrored
panels. His hands lifted and the dim lights brightened. “Poppy no
match for Peepers and Guild of Fallen Clowns.”

Circus music returned as Guild members
appeared to step through a thick white fog ten feet into the
mirrors. A gang of approximately thirty grotesquely twisted clown
depictions amassed at the edge of the two realms behind Dale,
Ringmaster, and Joe, energetically pumping their fists, taunting
the Poppys, and encouraging the Peepers.

*****

Mary cautiously stepped inside and eased the
door closed behind her. The pivoting door panel was partially
opened about twelve inches from Alan’s recent entrance to the large
circular room. She backed herself out of view to the left wall and
listened to the commotion of fast-paced organ music mixed with
raucous voices all shouting at the same time.

Assured that she entered unnoticed, she
leaned forward to peek into the room. From the left side of the
opening, the panel was pivoted into the room, blocking her view of
the opposite wall. She first spotted Alan. His body was tense as he
stood in full Boogy dress. Beside him stood another man, also
dressed as a clown, followed by the easily recognizable stature of
the clown-faced Cracky. All had their backs to the mirrored wall.
She leaned in further to see more men standing in front of them,
like boxers poised to either attack or protect.

From her position and the tilt of the
mirrored door panel, she was unable to see the target of the six
men’s gaze, and the source of the loud voices. With the back door
closed, the eight-foot-square space was darker than the main
chamber. She slid across the back wall to the other side of the
space and quietly continued to the front corner. On the other side
of the room, the panel swiveled into her space and she didn’t need
to lean to the opening for a glimpse inside.

Taking advantage of the mirror in front of
her, she saw the reflections of three men tied to chairs and
gagged. Each had the familiar figure of Peepers propped upright on
the floor in front of them. Still fresh in her mind was her earlier
encounter with a single Peepers figure. She knew this was a deadly
serious situation, but the scene before her was puzzling. She
leaned slightly to the left and right to see if she missed
something because her reflected view of the right half of the room
didn’t show any opposition, just three bound men with inanimate
figures by their feet.

*****

“You can’t fool us, Peepers,” Lyle’s father
said.

“They don’t have the power to escape the
mirrors to fight us,” Alan’s father added.

The Guild jeered. All three Peepers smiled
as Joe’s and Ringmaster’s turned to acknowledge the Guild’s disdain
for Poppy, using their hands to pump up the intensity of their
anger. Still focused on the Poppys, Dale’s Peepers responded with a
smug headshake.

“Now!” Cracky’s father yelled, triggering
all three to lunge across the floor toward the three Peepers. Joe’s
and Ringmaster’s Peepers didn’t know what hit them as Cracky’s
father’s thick arms wrapped around their necks and pulled them to
the ground with him. Both of the Peepers turned to mist and started
slipping out of his grip. The mist instantly vaporized and didn’t
reappear. Lyle’s father stood over the two partially crushed
figures, stomping them into the floor. At the same time, Alan’s
father rushed the third Peepers, but it narrowly escaped and
appeared behind Dale with his arms locked in a death grip around
his neck. Alan’s father thudded to the floor. His fingers knocked
Dale’s Peepers figure over and it slid under the chair out of his
reach. All three Poppys froze.

“Twitch single muscle, Dale’s neck snaps,”
Peepers warned.

*****

Still looking at the reflection from the
mirrored panel, Mary jumped back from the sight of the three bound
men jolting in their chairs as an invisible source crushed two of
the Peepers statues into thousands of pieces, while the third fell
back and slid below a chair. She jumped to the opposite side of the
room to see if anything changed with Alan. The three front men
guarding them were gone, but Alan appeared to be okay.

As she watched, three frightening clown
images materialized in the mirrors behind Alan, Cracky, and the
third clown. One held up a white-gloved three-fingered hand. The
other two watched as three fingers turned to two, then one, and
quickly folded to none. All at once, the three projections did
something Mary didn’t think was possible. They threw rope lassoes
through the mirrors over the figures in the three men’s hands. The
images simultaneously yanked, freeing the figures from their
grasps, and then pulled them through the solid surface of the
mirrors.