She Was Only A Clown: the Complete Novel


Gang! After an epic 9 months of weekly serialization, SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN, the 18th book from award-winning novelist Kevin Strange is complete and available for you to read FOR FREE right here at KevinTheStrange Dot Com, start to finish.

Remember the weird clown sightings around Halloween 2016? Ever wonder why they stopped? SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN is a trip through cosmic hellscapes, far-flung galaxies and the most terrifying vista imaginable: the human mind.

Join Elwood on his nightmare journey to discover the secrets of the possessed clowns lurking in darkness with eyes blacker than the blackest night.

One part backwoods hardcore-horror, one part science fiction terror, one part portrait-of-a-serial killer, and ALL parts Strange. You’ve never read a mind-bending, planet-smashing thriller quite like this. Join Kevin Strange on his most intense trip yet!

SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN is a special serialized novel presented in weekly installments every Saturday. Click here to read chapter 1, click here to read chapter 2, click here to read chapter 3, click here to read chapter 4, click here to read chapter 5, click here to read chapters 6 an 7, click here to read chapters 8 and 9, click here to read chapters 10 and 11, click here to read chapters 12 thru 14, click here to read chapters 15 and 16, click here to read chapters 17 and 18, click here to read chapters 19 thru 21, click here to read chapters 22 and 23, click here to read chapters 24 and 25, click here to read chapters 26 and 27, click here to read chapters 28 and 29, click here to read chapters 30 thru 32, click here to read chapters 33 and 34, click here to read chapter 35, click here to read chapter 36, click here to read chapter 37, click here to read chapter 38, click here to read chapter 39, click here to read chapter 40, click here to read chapter 41, click here to read chapter 42, click here to read chapter 43, click here to read chapters 44 and 45, click here to read chapter 46, click here to read chapters 47 and 48, click here to read chapter 49, click here to read chapter 50, and click here to read chapter 51.

She Was Only A Clown: Epilogue

30SHE WAS ONLY A CLOWN is a special serialized novella presented in weekly installments every Saturday. Click here to read chapter 1, click here to read chapter 2, click here to read chapter 3, click here to read chapter 4, click here to read chapter 5, click here to read chapters 6 an 7, click here to read chapters 8 and 9, click here to read chapters 10 and 11, click here to read chapters 12 thru 14, click here to read chapters 15 and 16, click here to read chapters 17 and 18, click here to read chapters 19 thru 21, click here to read chapters 22 and 23, click here to read chapters 24 and 25, click here to read chapters 26 and 27, click here to read chapters 28 and 29, click here to read chapters 30 thru 32, click here to read chapters 33 and 34, click hereto read chapter 35, click here to read chapter 36, click here to read chapter 37, click hereto read chapter 38, click here to read chapter 39, click here to read chapter 40, click here to read chapter 41, click here to read chapter 42, click here to read chapter 43, click here to read chapters 44 and 45, click here to read chapter 46, click here to read chapters 47 and 48, click here to read chapter 49 and click here to read chapter 50.


Epilogue

Minutes later

Officer Ron O’Fallon sat in his squad car parked discreetly just off of service road K in Medora, Illinois. He was neither happy nor excited about his current activity. He’d been called out to check on a seemingly abandoned car parked behind a series of trees just west of the Nelson family farmhouse when he’d received the call from dispatch he’d been dreading.

It was Sarah’s shift. He hated Sarah’s shift.

Ron and Sarah had known each other since before their time on the force, sort of. But the two could hardly be described as close. Ron only spoke to her when he absolutely had to respond to a call, and even then, he kept it as short as possible.

And there was good reason for that.

Ron, You there?”

Officer O’Fallon sighed and picked up the car’s radio, taking a deep anxious breath before responding.

Yeah, I’m bout to run these plates. What’s your hurry?”

There was a flinching fear in Sarah’s voice when she responded. There was always a faint hint of fear in her voice, ever since what had happened to her in high school.

Not the car, Ron. Look outside. Look up.”

Officer O’Fallon rolled his window down and looked into the sky. What he saw there made him drop the radio, open the car door and step outside.

I’ll be fucked sideways!” He mumbled to himself as he stared up.

The entire skyline was lit up a brilliant crimson as what looked like a million tiny red meteors cascaded down from space.

They’re calling it a once-in-a-lifetime celestial event,” Sarah said from the radio laying in Officer O’Fallon’s seat. “Saying it’s a mix of aurora borealis-like gasses and some kind of meteor collision. Saying nobody’s ever seen anything like it in recorded history.”

Ron stood there with his hands on his hips, the anxiety he felt every night when he had to talk to Sarah intensifying. Something about large cosmic phenomenon made Ron feel tiny, insignificant, like the human version of his little pecker. He didn’t like star gazing. Hell, he didn’t even look up at the moon if he could avoid it.

And his anxiety was about to get a whole lot worse.

***

He’d been at a house party all those years ago which featured the biggest beer bong he’d ever seen. The owner of the house, or the kid who’s parents owned the house anyway, called the bong Jesus and was making everyone “worship him” as the kid held a giant funnel that contained a whole six pack which would flow down through ten feet of hose before exploding in the unsuspecting victim’s face unless they were schooled in the tricky art of “sucking Jesus off.”

If one wanted to survive the “Jesus blast” one had to thumb-up the end of the tubing until the entire six pack had gathered down at the base, then suck the beer out of the tube calmly at their leisure.

One unfortunate young lady had taken one too many Jesus blasts to the face and had ended up naked and passed on on the floor in a spare bedroom. A spare bedroom Ron happened to have stumbled into while looking for the bathroom so he could take a piss and relieve himself of his own Jesus blast.

At first he thought he’d walked in on a couple having sex.

She was laid out on the floor, all of five foot three, butt naked, maybe a hundred pounds with a shaved pussy and bare feet laying on her back spread eagle, bald pussy pointed in Ron’s direction. Her marble-pale skin practically gave off its own light in the darkened room. The guy was fully clothed but his pants were around his ass and he was on his knees kneeling in front of her face. The room smelled like dick and it didn’t take but a second before Ron realized what was really going on.

The girl was passed out and the guy was jacking off on her face.

Ron’s breath hitched his throat. What was happening? He was about to say something, try to get the guy off her or… he really didn’t know what he was going to do. Ron wasn’t exactly the biggest guy in any room and the only fights he’d ever been in he’d lost. He was more likely to just piss the guy off than stop any kind of assault. Besides, he suddenly found himself more aroused than offended at what was taking place….

 Confused He decided to just leave the room and go back out to the garage and take a few more hits off the Jesus bong when the guy started moaning.

Fuck, I’m gonna come.”

The girl came to life at that point, like a corpse returning from the dead. Her hand lazily found its way to her pussy and she started rubbing it in sloppy drunken circles with her fingers. “Do it on my face,” she mumbled, clearly only half conscious.

The guy grunted and then, sure enough, ejaculated all over the drunk girl’s face, covering her heavily eye-shadowed brow, adding a few squirts across her nose and lips as a kind of gentle after thought.

Ron popped an inadvertent boner which became all the more awkward as, without warning, the guy stood, pulled up his pants and turned to exist the room, catching Ron blatantly rubbing the front of his pants as he peeked through the door.

All yours, Casanova,” the guy said, chuckling to himself as he pushed past Ron and returned to the party. “Let Chucky know when you’re done,” he added as he strutted down the hallway, clearly proud of his dick-art skills. “He’s got next.”

Ron looked at him, confused. What the hell?

Shut the door, it’s cold out there,” the girl said, still masturbating as she tried to tongue the cum off her top lip and nose. “I need dick in me, right now.”

She hadn’t even opened her eyes. She didn’t know who Ron was. She was wasted. This wasn’t right. Nothing about this was the way Ron had expected to… What? Lose his virginity? Is that what this was?

Ron slipped in the room and closed the door quietly as if he’d be caught and punished if anyone knew he was in the room, even though he’d been told by both jack-off boy and cum-face girl that it was his turn.

This is how lots of guys lose it, Ron told himself, heart hammering in his chest.

When he got close enough to smell her sex and the spunk on her face, Ron pulled down his pants, letting his smallness breathe in the stuffy room. He took quick shallow breaths as he knelt and crawled between the girl’s legs.

With shaking thighs and trembling hands, he maneuvered himself in position and, as politely as he could, entered her. He was immediately surprised by the snug warmness. He let out a surprised grunt and began to slowly move in and out, doing his best not to cum too fast even though he’d felt on the verge since he first saw what was happening in the room.

That’s when she said it.

Fuck me, Bill. Fuck me hard.”

A pang of anxiety shot through Ron. Who was Bill? Why did she say that name? Oh no. Oh fuck no. The jack-off guy, he didn’t know this girl either. She was blackout drunk. He must have seen her naked in here and taken advantage of her, and now Ron was taking it even further!

Was this rape? Would he go to jail? Was his life about to be ruined?

Any person with a shred of sense in the situation would have stopped what he was doing, at the very least–gotten the girl help, tracked down the jack-off guy and done everything he could to make sure someone like that could never harm another girl again if they were the heroic type.

But in that moment, Ron was neither sensible nor the heroic type. It was in that moment that Ron realized he was a disgusting individual because he did not stop. In fact, the thought that he was inside a girl who was so drunk, so helpless that she thought she was being fucked by another man? It made him even harder.

He sped up, in fact, egged on by the girl’s moans for Bill. He smirked and kept working away between her legs, nearly laughing out loud as he did so, quietly wondering to himself what the fuck was wrong with him, but not concerned enough with his despicable behavior to stop. In fact, that small voice of morality inside of him added to the excitement of the… what had this become? A violation?

Ron was happy to think of it that way and happy to continue right on doing exactly what he was doing, right up until the minute that the girl opened her eyes.

Y-you’re not Bill! Where’s Bill? W-who are you?”

Getting caught only excited Ron more. The room was too dark for her to see his full features, but as he had no intention of stopping until he was quite finished, Ron glanced around the room for something to hide his face to completely ensure his victim had no means by which to identify him.

It was only then that Ron noticed that the room was decked out in some kind of weird clown motif. There were clown sheets on the bed next to them, a clown lamp on the nightstand, clown curtains, plush and toy clowns littering all of the shelves and surfaces and, to Ron’s delight, a life-sized bust on the dresser wearing a full clown mask.

While the girl struggled beneath him, he reached up and yanked the bust down, pulled off the mask and placed it over his own head.

Shut up and take it!” He said, voice muffled through the long, joyous smile on the clown face.

The girl struggled for another moment until Ron slammed his hand over her mouth and leaned in, never missing a thrust. “Scream and I’ll fucking kill you!”

She went still then, her eyes sort of drifting off, glazing over. She remained limp like that as Ron finished his business. He’d never spoken like that to anyone before. Never forced himself on anyone sexually or otherwise. And it felt great. All the frustrations of a quiet, meek existence melted away as he raped the drunk girl. He felt strong, powerful, able to conquer anyone or anything.

Right up until the moment he came.

The girl, seemingly sober now, lay trembling, sobbing softly to herself, still just staring off. Ron’s stomach dropped. What the fuck had he done? He wasn’t the type to hurt anyone. He immediately stammered, “I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He tried to touch the girl’s face but she yanked away, jamming her eyes shut.

Oh fuck, oh fuck. P-please don’t tell anyone! I-I-I…”

But what else was there to say? Ron’s anxiety and paranoia piqued as he heard voices of people walking past the closed door. Someone would come in and find them there any moment. His life would be ruined. His prospects of becoming a cop like his asshole father were evaporating before his eyes. His father would be the one to put him behind bars.

Ron couldn’t bear the thought. He leaped up without even pulling his pants up or taking off the clown mask. He ran to the bedroom window, flung it open and crawled outside. He ran two blocks through back yards and alleys before he tossed the mask and buttoned up his pants.

He didn’t sleep that night. Didn’t eat for the rest of the weekend. He imagined every car that drove by his house was a squad car there to pick him up and take him to jail. Each evening he expected his father to come home from the station, beat the living shit out of him and haul Ron in himself.

But none of that happened.

Monday morning came, Ron went to school and no one said a word to him. Not just that, but no one from the party mentioned anything about a girl being raped. Were they covering it up? Had “Chucky” come in and fucked her, too as jack-off boy had mentioned on his way out the door? And where had “Bill” been while random dudes had their way with his girl?

Why was no one talking?

Days passed, weeks. He saw the girl in the hallways, did his best to avoid eye contact. Even had a class with her a semester later. She didn’t acknowledge him. She hadn’t seen his face. Seemingly hadn’t reported the incident to police. Maybe not to anyone.

Whoever Bill was, he had never manifested. Ron watched the girl from afar with a tremendous sense of guilt and remorse. She never dated for the rest of high school. Never seemed to have friends. He would watch her walk up to the school alone in the mornings and away alone in the afternoons.

Ron never dated either. Never even approached another girl for the rest of high school. He’d terrified himself with his actions, too scared that he would unlock whatever had come out in himself again should he attempt to court another girl.

Those two sad, tragic parallel paths continued, Ron with his guilt isolating him, the girl with violation isolating her until fate played a cruel joke on them both.

After Ron had joined the force and volunteered to take the overnight shift 4 nights a week, that very same girl from high school applied and was hired on as the midnights dispatcher.

Her name was, of course, Sarah.

***

I don’t like this,” Ron said into the radio.

I think it’s pretty,” Sarah said. But her voice betrayed her as it did every night. No matter the call, no matter the conversation she inevitably tried to start with Ron, she sounded sad. Like she’d never gotten over that night at the party. The night she’d been raped by a clown.

Many nights Ron sat in his squad car staring at the radio trying to find the words to confess what he’d done. He wanted more than anything to make good with what had happened. It wasn’t right that he’d gotten away with what he’d done to her. Even worse that he was now in a position of authority over her. And downright horrific that his was the only voice she could speak to during the long night hours.

Ron had considered leaving the force or asking for a transfer to another town but his father had only just recently retired and given his spot in seniority over to him. His sense of duty to his father was just as intense as his guilt over violating Sarah all those years ago.

These thoughts, ever present in Ron’s mind, especially so on nights he shared his shift with Sarah, were with him as he gazed up in curious apprehension at the fiery-red show happening in the sky. His guilt clung to him, suffocating him like a thick, wet blanket when the dog trotted up to him.

She came up from the woods, the thumping of her steps through the underbrush in the clearing pulling Ron’s attention away from the meteor shower.

His initial thought was that she was wet from playing in a creek or puddle somewhere deeper in the woods. Her coat was flecked with red, but everything in sight was bathed in a slightly red hue from the intensity of the meteor shower. As she crossed onto the gravel parkinglot next to state highway K, he saw the chunks missing from her haunches.

Then he saw that her eyes were missing.

S-Sarah, I, I, I have ah…” He dropped the radio. Beyond the eyeless dog standing just a few feet from him silently staring at him with her deep, empty sockets, figures emerged from the treeline. Only two at first. A male in head-to-toe clown suit and big goofy looking monster gloves for hands and big purple clown shoes shambled forward next to a short, petite naked female covered in clown body paint.

Ron drew his revolver as they slowly, lazily stepped into the gravel lot. He nearly dropped that revolver when they came close enough for him to see that their eyes were missing as well.

G-get the fuck back, right now!” But the words didn’t even convince Ron himself as he immediately backed up until he hit his squad car. “I swear to god I’ll shoot! Don’t come a step closer!”

The eyeless figures had already stopped. They stood stark still next to the mutilated dog. Ron might have been able to keep his composure and at least fake his way through acting like a confident officer of the law if the bizarre incident had remained a confrontation between two weird blind clowns and their injured dog. But that’s not what happened at all.

Four more figures appeared from the woods. They trudged just as slowly, lead by a stocky man with a giant gaping hole in his throat. The three things behind him were so twisted, so hideous that they defied Ron’s ability to process their appearance. He simply looked down and began to cry.

He didn’t look up again until he heard the sounds of more footsteps. With dread he lifted his head and cried out in terror. The treeline was littered with clowns. Hundreds of them. None of them with eyes.

It was then that Ron fell to his knees. He picked up his radio, with dread in his voice he said, “they’re here, girl. They’re here. I’m so sorry.”

Sarah immediately answered from the other end of the radio. “Who? Ron? Who’s there? What are you talking about?”

The clowns. I’m.. I’m so fucking sorry…”

Ron and Sarah had discussed the clown sightings on the internet. It was a conversation so difficult, Ron had gone home and drank himself slobbering stupid for his entire three day off stretch.

As Sarah had told him in that awful conversation that she’d had a deep fear of clowns since high school and that she hoped to God that the creepy sightings that had been popping up all over the world never made their way to Medora or Hopp’s Hollow, Ron had nearly confessed to her.

Clowns?” Sarah asked slowly. The dread in her voice matching Ron’s own. “What do you mean, clowns? Like we read about online??” She was practically sobbing now. “Ron?! Ron answer me!”

But Ron had already discarded the radio. He placed the barrel of his revolver against his temple. They’d come for him at last. Their twisted bodies and mocking smiles. He’d known. He’d known he could not escape what he’d done to poor Sarah. He’d always known that one day, someone or something would come for him to punish him for his unforgivable actions.

He’d never really considered that his sins would manifest themselves supernaturally. Ron wasn’t a bright guy, not the least bit creative. But it made sense. He believed in ghosts and demons. He knew he’d have to answer to God eventually. And now, that day had come.

The clowns shambled around in a rough semi-circle totally encircling Ron and his squad car.

He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his finger on the trigger, trying to find it in himself to end his life so that he could escape at least whatever suffering the clowns had in store for him in the here and now. But Ron was a coward. He couldn’t kill himself any more than he could confess to Sarah what he’d done to her.

Unbeknownst to him, of course, the Entity had set it up that way. It knew Ron wouldn’t kill himself. It knew that the events of the night would lead Ron and Sarah to go to the media with their clown story and set in motion the final hysteria that would plunge the world into utter chaos.

Ron opened his eyes, resigned to his fate, ready to have his body and soul torn apart by the horrific clowns crowding around him. To his utter astonishment, that’s not what happened.

The man in the monster clown suit and the naked girl stood directly in front of him, smiling at him as they look at him without eyes. They grasped hands.

In a hollow, creeking voice like sandpaper on rust the clown man said one word:

Finished.”

And then he, the girl, the maimed dog, the ugly man with the hole in his throat, the three horrors beside him and all of the hundreds of clowns menacing Ron slowly turned gray. Cracks appeared in their bodies and, as a warm summer wind kicked up through the woods, every last one of them turned to ash and blew away.

This was the final night of the clown sightings. All across the world the menacing, evil beings vanished overnight, never to be seen again thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of two bad people. Two people who’s names Ron O’Fallon would never know. Two people who gave their lives for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.

Ron sat for a long while until the smell of his own pissed pants was too much for him to bear. He rolled onto his hands and knees and vomited into the parking lot.

Ron I swear to god,” Sarah cried through the radio now covered in bile and tonight’s supper. “If you don’t talk to me right now I’m calling the chief! I-I’m calling your father! I’m, I’m calling the god damn national guard! ANSWER ME!”

He picked it up and wiped it off. “Listen,” he said, staring up into the meteor shower. He gazed at the sky for the first time in his life without apprehension, somehow knowing in his gut that the strange night sky was connected to the end of the clown panic.

He knew in his heart that the Earth had been granted a second chance. He hoped, too, that he might be granted one as well. A slow smile crept across his face as he watched what he could never know was the body of the universe’s most ancient scourge burn away in the upper atmosphere. “I have something I’ve been meanin’ to tell you for years, girl. And you ain’t gonna like it one bit.”

THE END