Happy Birthday

Short horror fiction.

Scarlett came to with an overwhelming sense of nausea that was so severe she thought she might vomit her stomach clear out of her body.  Her eyes stung and she was racked with pain, particularly her wrists and ankles.  Candle flames flickered and danced overhead, throwing grotesque shadows onto the walls and roughly outlining the circular shape of the room.  As she slowly adjusted to the darkness, she began to make out her surroundings.  Jagged stone walls that resembled a very large well rose about twenty feet overhead, with a crude fixture encircled in more candles dangling from the center.  Scarlett quickly realized that she was bound at the wrists with rusty iron shackles that were attached to the wall behind her.  She cautiously leaned back and ascertained that she was about three inches from the wall.  Looking down to the floor, she saw that she was positioned on a large stone cube that rose about two feet off the floor.  Her ankles were bound to the cube with more iron shackles.  She could feel that her wrists and ankles had been rubbed raw by her restraints.

 

The only entrance to the room was on Scarlett’s right; just far enough away that she could see that it appeared to be the bottom of a spiral stone staircase.  The candles she had noticed earlier were placed in metal fixtures that were spaced five feet apart and stretched around the whole room.  Piles of wax littered the dirt floor directly beneath the candles.  This place was clearly some kind of dungeon.  Scarlett racked her brain for any recent memories, anything to connect her current predicament with the rest of her life.

 

Visions of a party infiltrated her consciousness.  A children’s party, most likely a birthday.  She had been helping with decorations; blowing up balloons, hanging streamers, making punch, and other typical things people do when preparing for a child’s birthday party.  Scarlett’s clearest recollection was the arrival of the clown, a large, jolly-looking man who showed up dressed in street clothes and asked if he could change in one of the bathrooms.  He emerged about a half-hour later in full costume.  He wore huge red and green shoes, a puffy, yellow clown suit, and a blue, fuzzy wig.  His face paint, however, had been decidedly gruesome.  Although he sported the requisite white greasepaint and red, bulbous nose, he had somehow used makeup to extend his mouth into a frightening smile that stretched from ear-to-ear and was rather unsettling. 

 

Scarlett vaguely recalled the clown briefly leaving the house to survey the backyard party site, then coming back into the kitchen, seating himself at the table, and asking for a glass of lemonade.  It was a particularly humid day, and Scarlett remembered thinking that the man must be terribly uncomfortable underneath all the clothes and makeup.  Spinning around towards the refrigerator, she suddenly heard the scrape of the chair across the tile floor and the thick, plodding footsteps behind her.  Before she could turn to face him, the clown’s enormous hand violently pressed against her face.  Scarlett could feel the wetness and sensed a chemical smell and, then, nothing else. 

 

The sound of a door slamming startled Scarlett and drew her attention to the only opening in the room.  She could faintly detect the heavy, descending footfalls that sounded as if they were coming from far overhead.  As the steps grew louder, an eerie, dim light flickered in the opening to the staircase.  Within a minute, a hulking figure came into view.  The candle he carried illuminated his chest and face, which still displayed the horrible, insanely exaggerated grin.  Entering the room, he turned right and followed the wall away from Scarlett.  When he was almost directly across from her, he lifted the candle to his face and turned in her direction.  The clown erupted into a hideous cackle as he bent to the ground, never once breaking eye contact.  As he lowered his hand, Scarlett could see that he was actually holding several tiny candles.  She let out a piercing scream as the pile of bones on the floor became visible in the dim, wavering light.  Still whooping with perverse laughter, the clown stood and headed across the room, stopping approximately two feet in front of the stone cube.  As he extended his arms upward, Scarlett could distinctly make out a cake with six dancing flames, one for each year of her short life.

 

“Happy Birthday, sweetheart,” the clown chortled.  Setting the cake on the cube, he fished into one of his pockets and pulled out a small tool.  Grasping her left hand with considerable force, he secured her pinky and raised the wire-cutters.  Scarlett howled inhumanly as the metal cut through her flesh and crunched the bone, severing the tiny digit.  The clown bent to the floor and retrieved his prize, jamming it into chocolate frosting.  Hauling himself to his feet, he held out the cake so that she could see it. 

 

“Six years, darling,” he rumbled, “and one to grow on,” he continued as he yanked her pinky from the cake and greedily licked off the icing.  Scarlett was wide-eyed with fear and shrieking like a banshee. 

 

The clown chuckled and sang, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Scarlett, happy birthday to you…”

 

Scarlett surveyed the man in utter horror.  The last thing she heard before passing out was the terrible sound of the man laughing and promising,

 

“…and many more.”

 

The End

Reviews

[-WolfReaper (NERV)]

why. Always. With. The. Clowns. ???.

I think you need to give Scarlett more character. More crying, screaming ECT. Thank, what would a real 6 year old girl do there?

[ATG]

Creepy story. It was intersesting. Definately a scary story for someone who is afraid of clowns.

Nice job.

[Mark D. Chevalier]

Creepy clown...I never did like them.
Truly a horrifying tale with some well placed brutality, I can respect that. Noce job!
M

[LadyLove]

Truly creepy but why a child so young? Geez, that makes it scarier...unless you really want people to think twice about hiring a clown for a kiddie party. I already don't like clowns...his makes me dislike them even more! Damn!

[ghostwritter]

good work the pinky thing made me want to vomit lol.

[linda-sands]

creepy and imaginative
try rewriting without the adverbs- and in present tense
wish there was a better way to do formal critiques on here- with line edits, etc.
keep at it

[Nicole (Carpe Diem)]

wow, that is a freaky scary story... you did such an excellent job at writing this piece... i will probably have nightmares now...

[Ice Queen of the Vampir..]

Oh god, this story is creepy. I think you just made me afraid of clowns. lol Great write!!!

Heather