Full Body Chills - CIRCUS: Too Many Clowns

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

A story that is no laughing matter.Written by Ryan C. Major. Full Body Chills is brought to you by Max. This Halloween, the movies that haunt you are available on Max. Stream all month long. Subscription required. Visit max.com. Looking for more chills? Follow Full Body Chills on Instagram @fullbodychillspod. Full Body Chills is an audiochuck production.Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

This episode was produced with immersive audio. For the best experience, we kindly recommend you listen with headphones. Welcome, welcome. I am Zorro, teller of fortunes, misery, and sorrow. If thrills and chills are the pleasures you chase, sit back, relax, you're in the right place. Here in this circus, this blissless park, you'll ride on your fear as we embark. A six-stop nightmare, a series of fright. So listen and follow your senses tonight. Forgive me my parlor has need of repair.

But that's not to worry. Here in this fair, I'll keep you safe as long as you stay inside the cart. But don't disobey. Thank you. Now, while you are here, I'd like to forewarn you, just so we're clear. The stories in store may cause despair, so fasten your bars and viewer beware. Careful now as cables churn. Trust in fate and you will learn. Along the track, these twisted tails. You're in for a ride.

Hold on to the rails. Welcome, welcome. I am Zorro, teller of fortunes, misery, and sorrow. And now we continue on with our ride. Let's see what fun we've come to decide. The lads, jesters, Harley Quinns,

in violent colors and painted grins. Despite the laughter they invoke, our tale this round is no joke. A sullen writer lands her scoop, reporting on a disturbing troop, in the dead of night, a freakish sight stands outside her window bright. What happens next is quite morose, so gather round and listen close. Close. Cigarette smoke stung my eyes as I sat at my kitchen table, vulture-necked in the dark, watching the looping video of the clown standing behind the Clay's Mill Junior High sign. The man was only half visible,

standing near the trees with a heart-shaped miler balloon anchored in his left hand. His electric blue wig whipped in the wind, a large smile of shark-like teeth

painting the center of his face. Slowly, about halfway through the video, he lifted a hand and gave a small wave to the camera person before backing into the wood line, vanishing from sight. The video itself was uncomfortable, but nothing overly strange. We live in a world where people make a living producing prank videos and posting them to YouTube. If I'd only seen one of these clown videos, it would have been just another piece of pointless online content.

However, it wasn't just one video. That was the 17th I watched in the last month, filmed in our small town. Clay's Mill only had a population of 9,000, so word gets around pretty quickly when anything out of the ordinary happens. And dozens of clowns popping up throughout the area, watching people from alleyways and from behind trees in City Park was definitely out of the ordinary. It was all the locals could talk about. I hate clowns. I've always found myself recoiling at the sight of them. It's not a simple aversion. It's a visceral,

instinctive reaction that has haunted me since childhood. I can't pinpoint when the fear began, but the very essence of those painted faces and exaggerated expressions sends shivers down my spine. There's that uncanny valley effect about them, like they're almost human, but not quite. It's like they need those fake painted smiles to cover the true emotion hidden behind them. Watching these videos was the last thing I cared to do. But I had to. My name is Paige Clemons, and I work as a general assignment reporter for the Clay's Mill Daily News.

It's a small paper in a small town, and there's almost no event here that my editor, Cara Gray, didn't think was worth reporting. When the Clay's Mill killer clowns popped up, it sparked local interest, and Cara had me write 1,200 words after the third sighting. When I wrote the first article, there wasn't much to tell. A few parents spotted the clowns watching their children from the woods near the park.

They called the cops, but by the time they arrived, the clowns were already gone. My interview with the responding officers didn't result in much information, so I supplemented the article with a few of the eyewitness reports and included a brief account I found online about similar incidents from eight years earlier. Back in 2016, a handful of creepy clowns were photographed roaming through Green Bay, Wisconsin. It made the news for about a week until they were found to be the work of a local filmmaker who was using the stunt to promote his next horror movie. The reports died off for the most part,

but very soon similar sightings began popping up all across the country. National news outlets went wild reporting on the incidents, stirring up hysteria to the point that students at Pennsylvania State and Michigan State formed mobs to rout out the local clowns. The clown spotting column became a regular fixture in the paper. Kara would email me links to the videos and ask for a short write-up. I would watch a handful of poorly filmed clips, write a brief description,

and update the clown count at the end of each article. Not exactly the Pulitzer Prize winning work I daydreamed of in college, but what can you do? When the public was still enthralled with the increasing amount of clown sightings, by the 10th article, I was sick of them. I'd been stuck sitting at my kitchen table until 10.45 p.m. watching the video of a shark-mouthed clown on loop. I'd put off opening my word processor, but topped off my glass of bourbon. That's when I noticed the bright spill of streetlight pouring in through my window. Stubbing out my mostly forgotten cigarette, I stood from the desk and went to shut the drapes.

It was rare that I kept them open this late, but the bourbon and unenviable writing task had me anchored to the chair well past sunset. My mother, God rest her soul, would have chastised me for leaving them open, exclaiming that any peeping Tom wandering the neighborhood could be staring at me. The rational part of me chuckled at the thought, but that ever-present inner child made me quick to close the curtains. Right as I was pulling the drapes, I thought I saw something, just across the street, outside the pool of illumination. My heart jumped, and for a moment, I stood there, staring at the now-closed curtains with a rising fear of what could be beyond.

But after a moment, the rational part of me wanted to laugh at how easily I'd gotten scared. The mix of the creepy video and the bourbon was putting me on edge, and I'd probably just seen a branch moving in the wind. And that was it. No need to get worked up over nothing. I'd nearly resolved to turn around when an abrasive sound cut through the silence. I just about ran out of my skin, and before I could think, my right hand swiped the curtain, letting in an inch-wide sliver of light. There, standing directly below the streetlamp, was a clown. His head was bald, aside from a crown of long, red hair falling to his shoulders. A pair of bright yellow overalls sagged from his body, patched and heavily stained.

The stark white paint on his face glowed under the fluorescent light, contrasting with the exaggerated orange frown painted on his face. Red teardrops were drawn near the corner of his eyes, making him look like he was crying blood. I watched, transfixed by the horrifying image, as he lifted a white-gloved hand and honked a broken bicycle horn. The sound wheezed as though it was struggling to breathe. Heart-hammering, I yanked the drapes closed and ran for my phone. I dialed 911 and a woman's soft voice answered, asking my name, location, and what was going on. I tried to speak as calmly and clearly as I could, but as I was describing the man in the street, a pounding at my door pulled a startled shriek from my lips.

The woman assured me an officer was en route, but the knocking only intensified. They rained down with the fury of someone who wasn't going to let something as insignificant as a door get in the way of their nefarious intentions. I ran to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the block, then peeked around the corner, eyes locked on the rattling door. Then, as quickly as they began, they stopped. I waited, holding my breath against another blow, but all was silent. Slowly, the silhouette of the clown washed over the curtains. He ambled to my window and then stood still, almost as if he were watching me. I cursed myself and realized that I had left the light on. It was obvious to anyone that someone was here. He tapped on the window lightly before lifting his horn and strangling another note. And then the outline vanished.

Blue strobing lights replaced the horrifying figure a few minutes later, and I slowly crept to the window. My heart felt as though it were in my throat as I pulled back the curtain again, just wide enough to glance toward the lights. A Clay's Mill PD car was parked in the road in front of my house, and a young officer began up the walk. It's no surprise that the officers never caught the clown.

They never found the others, so why would the one outside of my house have been any different? I sat shaking at Kara's desk the next morning, recounting the horrible night as she listened intently. She nodded in all the right places and seemed concerned, but her response when I finished was a punch in the gut. Her only question was, why didn't you finish the article? To say I was shocked at how unbothered she was would be an understatement. Sure, she'd never been particularly warm or interested in my life outside of work, but it never occurred to me that she'd be less concerned with my safety than some stupid article telling basically the same stupid story over and over.

I went to my office and slammed the door, struggling to convince myself that I needed this job. Telling Kara how absolutely shitty her response had been would not be in my career's best interest. But I was scared and seething. The feeling of horror the other people felt seeing those damn clowns settled on me like a ship's anchor. And my stomach turned with guilt at how dismissive I'd been. So many of the other residents were the same way. It was more entertaining than terrifying because it hadn't happened to them. So I wrote the damned column.

When I dropped it on Kara's desk two hours later, she smiled and thanked me. I lingered at her desk for a few seconds, expecting an apology. But she had already turned towards her computer, scanning and correcting the pages I just wrote. As I went to leave, she called my name. I turned to look at her. In an almost casual voice, she mentioned that 2,000 words on my own experience should be on her desk by the end of tomorrow. I sat in my bathroom the next night, chain-smoking as I typed away on my laptop.

The article, which I was loathe to write, was coming slowly. I'd already scrapped and started it over a half dozen times. The quarter bottle of bourbon I drank didn't help anything either. Anytime the words began to flow, the tone was either sarcastic and spiteful or too panic-stricken to be seen as serious. I wanted to slap down 2,000 words on Kara's desk that were grossly unprintable, but I knew that would be a quick ticket to the unemployment line. My back was beginning to ache from hours on the toilet, but moving anywhere else was an unappealing option, at best. The bathroom was the only room without a window and a small voice in the back of my mind

assured me that a greasy frowning clown would be standing under the streetlight again. If he saw me he would come knocking once more. A call to the police department earlier that evening had done nothing to calm my nerves. I spoke to the shift commander, requesting that they send a car to patrol my neighborhood. But he was politely dismissive. With the increasing number of clown sightings and near-constant calls, he couldn't commit a unit to my area. He did concede to having an officer

pass through the neighborhood once or twice that night, but assured me that they were like lightning. The clowns never struck in the same place twice. I looked away from my laptop, toward my father's old revolver. After he died and it passed to me, it had lived in a wooden box at the top of my closet. But seeing the clown the night before, I kept it handy. Not that I was much of a shot, mind you, but I felt better with it nearby. The silence was shattered when my phone rang, the piercing sound making me jump like a startled cat.

After settling myself back on the toilet and taking a few calm breaths, I looked down to see spam risk listed below the unknown number. I hit reject, ending the call and bringing up my home screen. It was 10 45 p.m. I took another steadying breath. He's not out there. The little voice in my mind whispered, if I step into my kitchen and I look outside the window, he won't be there. Just check. Maybe you'll be able to get some sleep tonight. Take the gun, of course. But just take a look because he won't be there.

Now, I've seen a few horror movies. I'm not a big fan of the genre, mostly because the characters always walk right into the danger that's obviously waiting for them. I never got why they always felt the need to investigate the creepy noise or go off on their own. But in that moment, staring at the door out of the bathroom, I understood. I gripped the gun in my hand, creeping silently into the living room. The streetlight piercing through the curtains I hadn't opened since the night before.

My bare feet were sticky with nervous sweat as I got closer. I jerked the curtain aside quickly before I could stop myself. The street was empty. Nothing moved aside from the bobbing tree branches across the street, rattled by a breeze that sent the first autumn leaves scattering across the ground. My grip on the revolver began to ease, and I shook my head, nearly laughing out of relief. My head snapped back to the streetlight.

No, the tree line just behind it. The clown was there, partially obscured by the trees and further away than he had been before. But his frowning face was fixed on mine. As we locked eyes, he slid something from behind the tree, the tip of it reflecting the lamplight. An axe. I threw the curtain closed and ran for the door, disengaged the lock and pulled it open. The storm door slammed against the side of the house as I bounded onto the porch, leveling the pistol in front of me and scanning the tree line.

Catching a glimpse of the shining axe head, I aimed and fired the gun. Instantly, the clown ran into the woods. I emptied the remaining chambers as he vanished out of sight. My second visit with the police wasn't as friendly as the first. Three of my neighbors had called 911 reporting the gunshots. Ironically, while my earlier request for a night patrol had gone unfulfilled, my late-night escapade was worth three cruisers and six thoroughly pissed officers. Going to jail seemed like it was firmly on the table until, over their radios, two additional clown sightings broke our heated discussion.

It wasn't exactly a clean ending to the interaction, though. Jeffrey Randolph, chief of police, came to my office the next day. It's never a good look when the police show up at your job, even when you're a reporter. And I expected to be let out in handcuffs. But instead, he surprised me by sitting down across from my desk and telling me that reports of clown sightings were on the rise. As if that weren't troubling enough, the witnesses reported that they were becoming more menacing, following people downtown at night, showing people weapons as they silently smiled at them, prowling in backyards during the night and banging on windows. And still, they always managed to vanish before the police arrived.

What's worse was that there didn't seem to be a motive other than causing fear and chaos. They were succeeding, and it was only a matter of time before someone got seriously hurt. After Chief Randolph left my office, Kara came in and asked what the visit had been about. I recapped the meeting, highlighting the chief's concerns, to which Kara smiled. 1,500 words, she said, would be just the right amount for Monday's paper. It was Friday, and she wanted

to lead the next week with an insider article from the chief. I wrote the article as soon as I got home. It was the sloppiest work I had ever done, but I didn't care. Sitting in the kitchen late into the night typing while I swilled whiskey wasn't how I wanted to spend the evening. No, I expected my horrific visitor again, and I wanted to be ready. That night, I sat hunkered in the bushes beside my front door. An early autumn chill was settling in, and I felt half insane as I shivered, crouched on the ground. I shielded the light from my cell phone with my hand and looked at the time. It was 10.43 p.m., and in two minutes, I would know if that bastard clown was going to pop up again.

Almost on cue, I could hear a heavy rustling in the trees across the street. Fallen branches cracked under clumsy footsteps and dry leaves crunched. I expected him to stay in the wood line, like he had the night before. But the loud clop of hard-bottomed shoes began tapping across the pavement toward my front door. The sound of a bicycle horn caused me to jump, but I ducked back down before he could see. I pulled back the hammer of the revolver with a dull click and inched myself forward,

watching his shadow creep up the walkway and to my front door. He couldn't have been more than ten feet away when I bolted upright, aiming the gun. The light was on his back, his face washed over in the dark of night, but the costume was unmistakable. The coveralls hung loosely from his thin frame, and the greasy, stringy hair fell scattered on his shoulders. There was no axe this time, but a bicorn was clutched in his hand. He stumbled back a few inches when he saw me, and froze in place,

his dull eyes locked on my revolver. Get on the ground or I'm going to shoot you, I said, my voice shaking. The clown just stood there, head cocked to the side, looking like a confused dog. I said get on the ground, asshole! I shouted. He released the horn, which made one last honk as it bounced off the pavement. He lifted his hands and got on his knees without saying a word. Porch lights flicked on down the street, and I could see my neighbors sticking their heads through their front doors, staring at me as I pointed my gun at the clown. Paul and Sarah Johnson, my next-door neighbors, were standing on their walkway, clad in robes, while Sarah talked into her phone. I could hear her giving her address and breathed a sigh of relief, certain she had

called the police. On your stomach, I said to the man as he settled forward, stretching his arms to his side. If you move an inch, I'll shoot you in the leg. I'm a bad shot, though. No telling where I might hit you. I walked toward him slowly, the gun shaking in my hand. There was something different about him now that I could see him in the light. The saggy overalls had been yellow before, but that night, they were a vibrant orange with no stains or patches. His hair was blue, and a red smile arched up his face, not the menacing frown from before. Had he changed his costume?

Was it the same man? In the distance, I could hear the soft wail of sirens. It was almost three in the morning when I got back from the police station. A Clay's Mill officer interviewed me, followed by a detective from the state police, who'd been called in to assist. They showed me photos of the man, and asked if I could identify him as the same clown who had been outside my house the two previous nights. I told them I was pretty sure it was, but added that he must have changed his outfit.

I slept till almost five that evening. Once I'd gotten home, I finished off the bourbon sitting on my kitchen table and fell into the deepest sleep I'd had in days. The sun was setting when I woke up, and I forced myself to a few pieces of toast and a glass of water before settling into my recliner and flipping through the TV. I was awake for less than four hours before I drifted off to sleep once again. I woke in the early hours of Sunday morning when my phone chirped at the arrival of a new email. It was from the chief,

so I opened it quickly and scanned it over. The clown outside of my house had been identified as Wilson Pickering from Lexington, Kentucky. He said he and dozens of other party clowns had been hired by an anonymous person to appear throughout Clay's mill, but none of them understood why. A viral stunt, maybe? Pickering had provided dozens of names, and the state police were contacting them for questioning. But toward the end of the email, the chief said two things that caught my eye. There hadn't been any more clown sightings since the arrest at my house. And according to Wilson Pickering, he was only outside of my house on the night that he was arrested. The other clown must have been someone else.

Monday morning rolled around, and I sluggishly prepared myself for work. The weekend had been long, and the lingering discomfort still hung heavily in the air. I was relieved the chief seemed to think it was all over, but the whole thing still bothered me. Who would pay dozens of clowns to terrify a town for seemingly no reason? Sure, maybe it was some asshole trying to go viral, but who? No one had come forward to say it was them, and the person behind the stunt still hadn't been identified. I was finishing my fifth smoke of the morning

as I pulled into the parking lot at the Clay's Mill Daily News. The parking lot was unusually full, and it took longer than it should to register the half-dozen police cruisers in a messy half-circle around the front door. Yellow caution tape fluttered in the cool morning breeze, and a few officers stood beside their cars. Parking haphazardly, I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. A tall man with gray hair and thick glasses slipped between the police cars and headed toward me. It was Chief Randolph, and his face looked grim. He ushered me, without speaking, from the front doors of the office.

The pane of glass on the right side had been broken in and the shards crunched under my feet. I wanted desperately to ask him what happened, but his firm grip on my left arm pushed me forward. Silently, we approached the IT office. Down the adjoining hall, a group of officers crowded around the door at Kara's office. The wooden frame was splintered, as though someone had kicked it in. Chief Randolph sat down in a chair in front of the computer and opened a black and white security video. In the corner, I saw the date. It was from two days ago. The timestamp read 10.42 p.m.,

and I watched as the first camera showed an interior view of the front door. Slowly, illuminated by the street lamp outside, something approached the front entrance. A figure, obscured by the window tint, appeared to be knocking on the door. It was late and I didn't think anyone would still be in the building, but I was surprised when the camera view suddenly switched to the inside hall. Kara was in frame, walking, hesitant, out of her office and approaching the lobby. As soon as she peeked her head around the corner to look through the door, the glass exploded inward.

A man, dressed as a clown, squatted beneath the broken frame and leaned in, waving excitedly at Kara before she turned to run. She bolted for her office as the clown clambered inside. His profile darted across the scene and down the hall where the camera view held. Everything was still for a few moments. I could feel my pulse quickening as I waited for more. After what seemed like an eternity, a head peeked around the corner. The clown gazed at the camera. His greasy hair dangled to his shoulder. And now, frozen, I could see the painted frown stretching down his face, the dark teardrops at the corner of his eyes. He lifted an old bicycle horn and honked it silently at the camera before stepping fully back into the lobby. It was the clown from outside of my house those first two nights.

He was dragging Kara's limp body behind him. Four people were taken that night. Andrea Wells, a nurse, vanished from her home. Philip Redmond, a middle school math teacher, was taken from the parking lot of the grocery store. Jacob Denny, a student, was taken while smoking a cigarette outside of the community college library. Cara Gray, my editor, made the fourth. I've been working as a stand-in editor at the paper for the last few months, and not an issue goes by where the clowns and the missing people aren't slathered across the headlines.

For most people, it's a sick fascination. But for me, I still need answers. I've spent a lot of sleepless, drunken nights poring over the videos of the killer clowns, articles from the 2016 stunt in Wisconsin, other missing people from around the areas where clowns have been spotted lurking. Chief Randolph has become all too accustomed to my late-night calls.

The conversation is the same each time. He'll update me on the recent interviews and say they still haven't been able to find who hired the clowns. They also haven't found any sign of the missing people, dead or alive. In return, I tell him about any information I've gathered, however slim or out of left field it may be, but we always come back to the four they took.

Fear and chaos. I thought it was their motive. And maybe it was. With every sighting, with every article, with how thin police were spread, we were giving the clowns attention, their window to act. And there it is. For all of my reporting, the only solid fact. The clowns were just a distraction.

The temptation of a smile. The extortion of a scream A jester acts And distracts From their hidden scheme One whole story Down and done Five more stops Left to run

There's no way out This ride is hexed Just wait and see What comes next Full Body Chills is an AudioChuck production. This episode was written by Ryan C. Major and read by Marlene Martinez. Intro and outro written and read by David Flowers.

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