The Clown

‘Vengence wears a clown’s grin.’

Chapter 1

“It’s going to be fucking good,”Ez groaned, hitting the accelerator even harder. He was already twenty miles over the limit, and now inching toward thirty. No one said anything to him as he was the only one with the car.“Come on, guys, it’s going to be so sick. You think I’m lying?”

“You always say that,”Maya replied, rolling her eyes.“And then we end up with something so basic, it’s not even worth the trip.”

“You’ll see, Maya.”Ez replied, winking at her.

She didn’t want to get too excited. He always said stuff like that, but he never came through. He was all talk and no game. If he did ever get some good shit, it was usually just a small bag. It would be enough to get himself high, but that was it.

“How long is this going to be? My head’s fucking hurting from being in the car. It’s already been twenty minutes.”Max said, glancing at the maps on the phone screen.

As I remained in the back seat, I couldn’t really tell how far we were. All we had been doing for the past half an hour was driving through a densely packed forest in the middle of nowhere. This was the longest drive I had taken to somewhere, for some pills.

This better be worth it.

It was already nine at night, and the place we were headed to was supposedly some amusement park that had been abandoned a couple of months back. The park used to hold all sorts of festivals until a massive fire broke out one night. The entire park was reduced to nothing, and the police had to close it down.

The police had put up a barricade around the place, but a lot of people had managed to sneak in and loot it.

Now, it was starting to get crowded with teenagers and people from other towns, looking for the same thing we were.

Apparently, there was some guy selling something there.

We weren’t sure what it was.

All Ez knew was that the guy was loaded with this stuff that would send anyone reeling into a state of euphoria and pure ecstasy.

The four of us had been waiting for the opportunity to get a hit of something decent. Ez had heard that the guy was going to be there today, and that was a good enough reason for us to leave everything behind and head out.

Ez had his dad’s car and that was pretty much a godsend. If he didn’t have that, then we would have had to spend hours walking.

Once we reached the park, we headed out of the car and straight inside to get what we came for. I moved along with Maya, who stayed close to me. The two of us walked slowly and quietly while looking ahead at Max and Ez who were jumping around like they were already high on something.

“Do you think it’s going to be good?”

“Probably,”I shrugged,“I hope so. It’s been long since I’ve had any of the good stuff.”

“Well, let’s hope Ez stays up to his promises,”Maya rolled her eyes again.“Or else, this is going to be a massive waste of time. Especially since we came so far.”

The amusement park was dark and filled with trash. There weren’t many people here tonight, but from the conditions of it, I could tell a lot of people had been coming in and going out. The barricades were almost completely gone, and the entire park was littered with empty bottles and trash.

There was even some graffiti on the walls and the abandoned rides.

A chill wind crossed over my face as I looked up at the Ferris Wheel which had been partially burned, but still stood tall and looming in the sky. The rest of the rides weren’t in better shape either. The rollercoaster was broken, the carousel was barely hanging together, and the haunted house was just a hollow structure.

There were some streetlights along some pathways, but most of the park was dark and empty—straight out of a horror movie. I admit there was some thrill to getting high in an abandoned place where no one could find you.

We followed Ez and Max to one of the corners of the park where we could hear voices. There were about a half dozen other people gathered there, with their cars parked right next to them, gates of the park broken behind.

There were a couple of men standing ahead, leaning against their cars and talking amongst themselves. When we neared them, the others noticed us.

“Hey, you here for some candy?”One of them asked.

Ez nodded,“Yeah.”

“What are you looking for?”The guy asked, his gaze fixed on the four of us. He appeared older than all of us, definitely old enough to have graduated by now.

His friends looked similar to him. Old, tall, scary—nothing about them was giving me a warm, fuzzy feeling. But I suppose that’s the feeling people get when they’re about to buy illegal stuff from shady-looking dealers.

“Whatever you got, man.”Ez replied, looking him in the eye.

The man laughed and stepped closer to him. His hand, the one which was inside his pocket, came out with a bag of pills.“This going to keep everyone happy?”

Ez looked over his shoulder at us. He glanced at Maya, and then at me. We didn’t say anything.

“It’ll keep us good.”

“All right,”The man handed the bag to him.“Two hundred.”

I gasped. It was expensive. I hadn’t expected it to be that expensive. But Ez went along with it and handed him two bills of hundred and hundred. He had been saving up for a couple of weeks for this, ever since he learned about this dealer. It was hard for him to even get in contact with him since he was the only one who soldhardstuff.

“What if it finishes? Where do we go?”Max asked the dealer.

“Come here,”The man replied, grinning.“I have a lot more. As much as you want. I’ll be here all night.”

He had a deep voice and spoke confidently like he wasn’t afraid of anyone. It certainly gave me an odd feeling, especially when I looked up at his face. He wasn’t bad-looking. A lot of girls would consider him attractive. But something about his appearance wasn’t sitting well with me.

The dealer was dressed in a black hoodie, and black pants, with his hood up. There was a small beard covering his lower face. He looked at all of us again before turning away and going back to his friends.

I glanced at Ez who was smiling from ear to ear, his hand clutching the plastic bag.“Come on, guys! Let’s have some fun!”

“Finally.”Maya sighed.

And so did I.

Finally.