Creepy - Day 7 - Traveling Clown & He Paces

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

Traveling Clown***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Bonus episode: "He Paces" Written by: Jonathan Gensler and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***Content warning: mention of miscarriage and infidelity***Support the podcast at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling and disturbing creepyposters and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy Presents The 31 Days of Horror

Day 7 Traveling Clown Growing up, kids used to talk about their dads with this kind of awe and reverence. You know the playground taunts? My dad could beat up your dad and all that. Some dads made all the money. Some were sports coaches.

Others wowed this stuff. students a career day with tales of being a cop or firefighter or shit, even a manager at a pizza hut. I know I was. Pizza house was my jam back in the day. I can't even remember how many books I lied about reading to get one of those personal pan pizzas. Anyway, that's a long way of saying that I wished my dad was just about any of those other things than what he really was. A clown. Not a clown like he was dumb or drunk or unemployed or.

any of that, an honest-to-goodness birthday clown. Think balloon animals and squirting flowers, all nine yards. And when I was little, it wasn't so bad. When you're three, four, five years old, it's not that far away from having a superhero for a dad. A little close-up magic goes a long way to capture kids' imagination. By the time you start to hit second and third grade, those kids who are just looking for something to make fun of you for start to show themselves.

And just like that, I didn't talk about what my dad did. Oh, I tried to talk to him about it. Me and my dad always had a good relationship. Even being an 80s kid, I had a dad who was open-minded and communicative. Probably important for a professional clown. Of course, he'd listened to my issues with his profession and calmly tell me that he loved his job. He loved making kids smile and being able to provide for his family in the process. He told me I'd always be around people who were looking for some way to insult me,

and I couldn't start letting them bother me now. Sometimes I wonder if he was talking to me or himself. Anyway, it all came to a head just after my 10th birthday. November 18th, 1990. A day that probably doesn't mean anything to anyone except for me and the cast. But that's the day that the It miniseries hit TV sets around the country, and everyone who hadn't read the book was introduced to Pennywise the dancing clown.

Tim Curry almost single-handedly created an entire generation of people claiming to have chlorophobia. Go ahead. Ask people you work with if they like clowns. You'll find someone who just shudders a dimension and tells you about seeing Pennywise as a kid. But Dad didn't give up. He loved being a clown so much.

He just like making kids happen. He was good at it. Not just the parties. He was really great. So neither me nor mom tried that hard to talk him into finding another job. Or maybe Mom did, but I don't remember. Those were the lean years in our household. Suddenly the job that had been able to sustain a family of three was barely enough to feed just one of us.

Mom got a job as a teller at the bank and Dad's travel limitations opened up to a wherever you could get work. And just like that, I was a latchkey kid. Sometimes I'd come home, make myself a snack, and watch old TV shows. We had to give up cable, and this was long before streaming services. Most of my options were the end of local talk shows or TV shows on reruns. Gilligan's Island, leave it to Beaver, that sort of thing. I remember watching some show with a traveling salesman and getting sad.

I'd spend most of my time feeling sorry for myself for all the things I had to give up. I didn't spend any time thinking about what it must have been like for Dad. Sometimes he'd had stuff books so far away that it was just cheaper for him to stay out on the road in crappy motels than having to drive back and forth. And then, one day, he didn't come home. He'd called home the night before, saying that he had one more gig and it was going to be a really good one for us. He said he'd be able to stay home for a couple months if things worked out like you've been told. I remember being so happy. I remember thinking that I could hear him smile.

I hadn't heard him sound like that in forever. The next day it was a Sunday and after mom and I got home from church, I spent the rest of the day sitting in the bay window staring out at the road and driveway, waiting to see the station wagon rattle home. At dinner, mom allowed me the almost unheard-of treatise. of eating outside the kitchen table, so I could keep watch. I think she could see the worry in my eyes. If I'd been paying attention, maybe I would have seen it in hers too.

This is the time before cell phones for anyone except millionaires, so there's no concept of constant contact. Still, by 10 p.m. that night, when Mom told me I had to go to bed, he still wasn't home. When he didn't call or show up overnight, mom started to make calls to family and friends. She didn't have the contact info for his last show, but she called the motel where he'd been at,

and they said he hadn't returned the room key. When the cleaning crew went to his room, all this stuff was still there. The police called us from the motel a few hours later, confirming what the motel worker had said. Stuff's still there, no sign of him or the car. When they listed off the stuff that was there, the only thing I know missing from his effect,

was his clown gear. I don't know if it's possible to move on from losing a loved one, especially when they disappear. There are never any tips, no calls, no body, no answers. Most of the time I dream about coming home and seeing him there with a wild story so fantastical that I couldn't even care that he'd been gone all that time, that he'd missed my first girlfriend,

my first performance in the school play, my graduation. both of them. In my darker times, I'd hoped, I'd wished, he was that. I could forgive, Dad. I couldn't forgive neglect, or the idea that he was just living somewhere else with another family. He'd been gone 24 years, missed my getting married, the birth of his granddaughter. At that point, I'd moved on as much as any person really could.

I barely thought about him at all outside of his birthday or when he'd. I bring the family to visit mom. She never got remarried. I wish she had. Then the news started up. I don't know what you remember about 2016 other than politics. At this point that in itself feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, for one insane moment,

the world seemed to be captivated by clowns. Every day on the news, on Twitter, everywhere, there was a new clowns sighting. I was as interested as anyone else. Not because of dad, but because it was so fucking weird. It started in August of that year, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with other sightings reported in Greenville County, South Carolina by the end of the month. There's all that stuff with the bogus gags the clown stunt,

but that was just the beginning of it all. By October, reports it spread to Canada and the UK. It was bad enough than Ronald McDonald, one of the most beloved icons from my childhood all but disappeared in the wake out of fear of it hurting business. There were dozens of arrests and at least one death. Most seemed to just be people trying to get attention. Then I saw one clip.

It was only a few seconds and had the typical potato quality of 2016. Whoever was holding the camera was trying to get the person they were with to see something. and you could only see it for a few frames before the video ended, but it looked like a clown face was looking in through someone's window, which wouldn't matter to anyone except people dealing with it, except for one detail that hit me right in the heart, the design of the clown's makeup.

See what people might not know, and honestly I don't know why anyone outside of a clown would, is that clown face makeup is unique, or at least it's supposed to be. There's an unwritten rule in the profession that you don't use in other clown-specific face paint design. Technically, there's even a registry. Back in the 1940s, a guy named Stan Bolt started an organization called Clowns International. Stan started drawing the faces of club members and famous clowns onto chicken eggs.

Why eggs? No clue. Maybe because they're sort of head-shaped, I guess. The purpose was to avoid the possibility of accidental or intentional plagiarism. An unofficial rule prohibits any two clowns from sharing a single face paint design. Real eggs were originally used and were later replaced with ceramic eggs. I swear you can even visit the gallery in England on the first Friday of each month. Even that split second was all it took for a floodgate of fields to hit me. I did what I could to track the video down.

I must have watched every clip I could find online hoping that maybe, just maybe, my dad was in one of them, that he was alive and just doing his thing. The best I could figure was that the video had been taken in Florida, which shouldn't have been a big surprise. Weird shit always happens in Florida. But there was a connection. We were living in Florida when dad first disappeared. Out of curiosity, I tried to find out more about the video, but, I couldn't confirm exactly where it was shot.

About a week later, I was scrolling through Twitter and saw another video. This one a little longer. And I'll be damned if it wasn't the same clown. The camera was shaky, so I couldn't get a good look at the actual face. But I could more definitively make out the design of the face paint. It looked exactly like dads. I know, I know, a fluke. It's not like dad was some YouTube makeup art.

artist with some impossible to recreate design. But still, it's weird. Weirder still, the video was shot near Tulane University, where I went to college. I didn't show Mom the videos. I don't know if she saw him, but I couldn't imagine how it would help her to see him. So I kept my eye out, set up search engine notifications for clown sightings, and added filters to the places I'd lived for the last 30 years. And that's when I saw it. The pattern.

I can't speak for any of the other clown sightings, but I found a trail of videos all happening near apartments and houses I'd lived in over the years. I'm not some tin hat wearing conspiracy nut, but it was weird. Weird enough that part of me had to wonder if my dad was trying to find me, using the clown sightings as a way to get more attention, more eyes on him. I became a kid again. thinking he was lost, had amnesia or something like that, and was just trying to find me again.

Do we ever really grow up when it comes to our parents? And just as quickly as it started, it all ended. The world moved on to other things. No one cared about clowns in white face paint anymore. The videos tapered out quickly, and with it, whatever version of hope I'd felt. If it really was my dad, as ridiculous as that might sound, it felt like he'd abandoned me all over again.

It wasn't closure, but it was something like it, like a door closed on that part of my heart that still held out hope. A few months ago, we started having issues with people stealing packages off our porch, so I got one of those home security deals you hear about. I know it doesn't really stop anyone from stealing, but it made my wife feel better for a little while. The system will notify you when the motion sensor turns a camera on, so you can see in real time, who's at the door or whatever a camera is picking up the movement.

I turned off the notifications after the first few nights being alerted that a deer had walked through our yard. So the morning I woke up and saw the face staring back at me from my phone, I almost passed out while I was standing there taking a piss. The video was five seconds long and showed someone walking up the phone. path to our door. He kept walking until his face completely filled the frame. The face paint I had known since I was a child. But the eyes, they were black. No, no, they weren't black. They were gone. Then he was gone. No walking away, no moving off screen, just gone. I woke my wife up, who was even more freaked out than I was. We even called.

called the police who responded how you'd think with their own version of, what are we supposed to do? There was nothing they could do. Just like there was nothing they could do when the outside camera showed five seconds of a clown standing in our backyard that night. Or the side door camera showing a clown press his face up to the glass. His hands on either side of his face as he tried to look in. The best they could do was say they'd send a squad car by periodically to check on things. and when, in a crying fit, we showed them the video of the clown standing over our newborn son's crib, a single black balloon on a string in his hand.

I think they thought it was something we were doing. Like that fucking gags fake documentary. But that's all we have. The videos. No fingerprints, nothing missing, nothing. Like you only exist on video screens. for now. Up until that point, I hadn't talked with Mom about it.

I didn't want to do that to her. It was my weird theory about what was happening. Then it was my weird events to deal with. But at that point, I at least needed to call her to check in. I wasn't sure how I would tell her. Except that I couldn't get in touch with her. No phone calls, no email, nothing. I called one of her neighbors to check on her.

But they said there was no response when they knocked. There was mail in the mailbox and a single black balloon tied to the front door knob. I immediately called the police to have him to a wellness check, then sent my wife to live with their parents and I left my house. My dad or whatever it is that looks like my dad is following me. I can't let it get my family. I think it already got Mom. The police didn't find her when they broke down.

the door. I don't know where he was for all those years, but something happened to him. He isn't my dad anymore. And if there's something inside of him telling him that he needs to find us, then I guess I need to hit the road for my family. Like father, like son. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents. He Paces. Written by Jonathan Gensel. and narrated by Michelle Kane. He is pacing in the next room, grinding a circular path into the bare flooring, into the subfloor, into the crawl space below. His footsteps echo down the hall, bouncing off white oak floors and drab shiplab walls. Back and forth, back and forth.

The sound gets closer, then veers away. I tried to write in the dining room. I had to leave the nook by the window, the one where we used to eat breakfast. We used to love that morning light. He would paint, correction. He would watercolor, serene strokes of orange and blue, yellow and red. He licked the bristles with the smudge winding up on the side of his mouth,

but most of the color making it onto the canvas. I'd dribble and drabble words and phrases into my journal, creating worlds in black ink with an old fountain pen. My fingertips stained in a fun-house mirror reflection of his mouth, marking us both as less than meticulous. If only he had been more so, or maybe I. And now he paces, while I write down the hall. Dear Susan, I scribble. Then, hey, bitch. His pacing makes my skin crawl.

Can he hear me? Does he know I found out? Is that what's driving his incessant, stepping, walking, pounding, throbbing? Oh my God, just stop with the pacing! I back off. Susan is just another woman. Susan, I know. know what you did. Is that cryptic enough? Should I be more direct? In her face? Do I want her to have

time to react? To plan? To realize why her dear little Eric hasn't shown up for their little trists? Bz, bz. His cell phone sits on the table next to my journal. He hasn't answered Susan Henny in two days. Is she getting worried? Is he? He paces still. I want to shout at him to just stop, quit, give it a fucking rest. I don't. I'd never shut up once I began.

I'd let every overcooked regret out like I didn't before. He never knew I knew. I didn't tell him. Bz, bz. I drop my pen and pick up his phone. It's her, of course. Hey, you big bear, why don't you answer me? Is everything okay?

I miss your arms around me. Ugh. Choking back the bile in my throat before the acid can eat away my rage. I rest my fingers on his screen, the screen hiding selfies of her ass in his face, as if I didn't know his stupid unlock code. Dot, dot, dot. She'll see the blinking ellipses and know someone read her message.

So I tell her. Hold on a minute. She's in the other room. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Okay now, Susan Honey's so sorry I haven't been out. Something didn't seem right at home. I think it's fine now. Dot, dot, dot.

Was that awkward? The Lord knows Eric was always awkward, so it has to be all right. right? Is it awkward enough then? The creaking in the next room stops for a few seconds. Does he know I'm writing to his little slut? The pacing picks up again. I am in the clear. When can I see you? I really need you right now. I need to feel you. Dot, dot, dot. I'm going to vomit. This little woman has no clue what she's done. What she's done? What you? She's responsible for. I need to make sure she learns her lesson.

Dot, dot, dot. Come on over. She just left and we'll be out all day. Dot, dot, dot. You sure? Your place? That has always been off limits. Dot, dot, dot.

Yeah, bitch, I'm sure. Yes, need you here the hell with it. I want you here with me, Susan, honey. Dot, dot, dot. Fifteen minutes. Get yourself ready, X, X, X, X. Dot, dot, dot. I'm in the back room waiting for you.

The stinging venom has crept up in the back of my throat while I continue this revolting back and forth. I cough and swallow once more. Hey! I shout down the hall. Your honeypot Susan's on her way over. Of course he doesn't respond. Always the silent treatment.

Never wanting to talk about the real meat of our marriage. Ever since the second miscarriage, he's grown more and more distant. The steps stop again, though, for a second or two. The floorboards creak, as if he's swaying back and forth, leaning one way and then the other, caught in a breeze, unsure of himself. And then he continues pacing.

Still getting his steps in, I guess. His shadow dances on the wall down the hall. I have 15 minutes to prepare myself, as Susan suggested. So I unlock his phone and type out the note she needs to find. Dot, dot, dot. Susan, honey, Laura found out. She found our texts and saw the pictures. We knew she would.

She left and is gone to her mothers. She would ruin me. She would ruin us. This was all a mistake and one I can't take back. I am so sorry. Mostly to Laura, but to you two. I did love you, but not enough, I guess. You're big bear.

dot dot dot I didn't hit send that whore will walk up the front steps and find the front door ajar I'll be gone off to my mom's like the note says she'll find his phone unlocked in the living room on the floor below the body hanging from the staircase banister creaking in the breeze from the open window off the breakfast note she'll scream pick up his phone and read the note and then scream some more.

Strangling him in his sleep had been the easy part. Dragging him through the hallway and lifting his heft over the banister nearly broke my back. Now his body's been swinging for two long days and it is starting to reek. Filling the hallway and my nose with the scent of old sex and rotten meat. I opened the window to air the place out. After she stops screaming, maybe she'll hear his pacing footsteps too. Maybe they'll drive her to join him.

I should be so lucky. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube, All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share-a-like licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.