Headed for Teener Pastures

The drunk boy shuffled along in the shadows, teetering from side to side like a Weeble on a skateboard.

Cacophonious Grin grinned. It had been a while since he’d had a kill. He’d begun to get jittery. Time to get him before any of the others did. It was slim pickings. Grin unsheathed his knife and crept after him. His giant shoes made no sound as they slapped against the path.

The boy stopped, wobbling, head tilted. He wore a tilted hat. The skeletal Ferris wheel towered above him.

Grin’s grin faltered. In all his years – almost one hundred and twenty, to be exact – nobody had ever spotted him until it was already too late. He froze in place, watching, unblinking, unbreathing.

The drunk boy shook his head and carried on walking and whistling a tune that came out all moth-eaten and ragged.

Grin frowned, his makeup crinkling. Where did he know that melody from? He shrugged – whomp, whomp – and tiptoed after him like a Scooby-Doo character, a silent laugh on his face.

The boy followed the path without pondering direction.

Grin snuck faster and faster until he caught up with his mark and raised the knife.

And with his other hand, he honked his nose.

HONKA-HONKA.

The boy staggered around, taking about ten seconds to face him.

Grin sagged. ‘Theyson!’

The zombie stared at him, eyes rolling. His paper popcorn seller hat jutted off to one side. ‘Grr… in.’

‘For goodness’ sake. I thought I’d gone and scored me a right old good ’un.’

Theyson shook his head slowly and growled, all teeth.

Another wasted night. Another full moon with no spilt blood. What kind of killer clown was he? An utter failure. They sat together on a bench. ‘What were you doing out here?’

Theyson smiled and chomped his teeth, like a man miming eating a chicken wing. He then whistled the jaunty tune that had been all the rage back when he’d had a pulse. He pursed his rotten lips and pushed out the breath of the crypt, full of cobwebs and dust.

Grin shrugged. ‘Yeah, ‘course. Same reason I am, ain’t ya? Looking for fresh meat. ‘Cept there don’t seem to be none these days, do there?’

Theyson shook his head, looked down, and moaned.

Grin patted him on the shoulder.

It dislocated. Theyson sighed.

‘Oops,’ said Grin, grabbing the boy’s arm. ‘Lemme get that for ya.’

The zombie whined when Grin popped it back into its socket.

Grin shook his head and stared at the full moon, which peered out from behind the clouds. ‘I tell ya, Theys. Things ain’t what they used to be. Back in the eighties it was a free-for-all! But now—’

A high-pitched giggle slashed the night.

They both turned to the shadow-cloaked bushes behind them.

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake!’

‘Alright, Chuckle?’ said Grin with a nod.

The other clown stomped out of the bushes. ‘You two? I thought I’d finally get a piece of action tonight. It’s been ages since I last saw blood!’ he said, raising his rusty axe. ‘I’m getting the shakes, man!’

Grin bobbed his head and raised his bone-dry knife.

Theyson wheezed, showing that his nails held only history’s skin and blood under them.

Grin scooched up and patted the bit of bench next to him.

Gloomily, Chuckle took a seat. ‘What’s happening, Grin? Seems this place has done dried up. I miss the eighties. Boy, were those the days for idiot teens getting drunk and high and having premarital sex! Seemed every other group split up and paired off,’ he said, chuckling as he reminisced. ‘Where are they all at now?’

Grin spread his arms to the rest of the park, moonlight glinting off the remaining bits of rust-free metal. ‘Not here.’

Theyson shook his head, which seemed like it might snap off at any second.

‘I tell you, lads, I’m beginning to think that—’

A damp slithering whispered down the path, followed by a wet slap.

Grin rolled his eyes and stared heavenward. ‘Selene,’ he called out to the night, ‘let me save you the disappointment. It’s just us boys. Me, Theys and Chuckle.’

A melancholic song bubbled from behind a nearby tree. Selene snaked out, protruding fangs preventing her from closing her mouth. Her mermaid scales had rotted and dulled; moss and algae clung to her body. She let out a confused falsetto when she saw the group.

‘Same thing as you,’ said Grin.

Theyson tossed some decades-old popcorn to Selene, who caught it like a seal catches fish. She brightened as she ate the hard-as-bone treats, and slapped her tail on the floor, as though clapping.

‘Seems we ran out of kids so long ago that we’re accidentally hunting each other, ain’t we? Like dyin’ man sees an oasis in a desert, we’re seeing victims in this park.’

‘So, what do we do?’ asked Chuckle.

Grin deflated like all animal balloons eventually do. What could they do? They lived off death. And everything around here had beaten them to the posthumous punch. ‘It seems to me, lads. And ladies,’ he added, raising a non-existent top hat to Selene. ‘That the youth of today has gotten wise to our antics, eh? There are so many of us here – anyone seen the wraith, lately, by the by? No? Ah well, she’s bound to be about here someplace. Like I was saying, there are so many of us here, that as soon as one of them comes in here at night…’ He slid his knife in front of his neck. ‘They ain’t smart, but they learnt. If you sick up after eating a single pie, you’d probably try another pie again in the future. But if every time you ate a pie you sicked up, boy, you’d sure never touch a pie again. That’s what this place is. A pie that makes teens sick up.’

They all watched Grin intently. Chuckle urged him on. ‘So, what do we do, Grin? Wait for ‘em to forget what they learnt?’

Grin shook his head.

Theyson sighed. Selene scream-sang, her breath perfuming them with dead fish and rotten seaweed.

Grin pondered, staring at Selene. She’d slithered out of her water to come and find some victims to kill. Even though the air was toxic to her, she’d pushed herself to do it because it was the only way. When he spoke, he spoke slowly, piecing it together as he went. ‘This place is used up. Empty. We bled it dry. What we gotta do now is find a new place.’ He looked from monstrous face to monstrous face: ‘Move on.’

Theyson snarled. Selene wailed. Chuckle hit his thigh and said, ‘Gosh darn it. But what’ll we do? I’m a clown and so’s you. Theys’s a popcorn boy. Selene is a mermaid born of the poisoned water. God knows where the wraith came from. We work because we fit in here. You see a clown in an amusement park, you think “fun”. You see a popcorn boy, you think “snacks”. You see a mermaid you think “attractions.” Any of us out there–’ he waved his axe towards the park fences ‘–will draw a helluva lot of attention.’

Grin offered a sad smile. ‘Well, we do have our props, don’t we?’

They found the wraith floating upside-down in the changing rooms. She did not answer when they called, but she screeched and flew around like a cow in a hurricane when they found her. She passed through doors and walking corpses, black tendrils floating out behind her. They tried to dress her first, but they had a hard time, as the items passed right through her. But eventually, Grin managed to balance a blonde wig on her head. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but it was something.

‘There we go,’ said Grin. ‘How’d you feel?’ he asked the wraith.

She twirled and screeched, and all the glass shattered.

‘Right,’ said Grin. ‘Our turns. Does anyone know where teens these days are usually found? All I knows is, they ain’t here.’

Chuckle scratched his head with the axe handle. Theys’s cloudy eyes rolled in their sockets as his worm-infested brain struggled to work. Selene burped a fish-popcorn cloud. ‘Jail?’ said Chuckle. ‘When they speed or get caught rebel rousing?’

Grin clicked his fingers. ‘Good, good! And they’re always hurting themselves. One impaled themselves while trying to run from me. Another snapped their leg in two. One fell from the Ferris wheel. So, hospital might be good pickings?’

‘Hey, yeah! They also go to their ma when they’re in trouble, like when they’re in the family way or got arrested for shooting dice.’

‘Perfect!’ said Grin, tapping his lip and eyeing Theyson. ‘And for our zombie friend?’

Chuckle chimed in, throwing an idea into the ring. ‘Teens still love a good milkshake after school, don’t they?’

Twenty minutes, a bunch of awkward shuffling, and a lot of swearing later, the five of them stood there. On the floor lay items of clothing, mermaid blood, and bent nails.

The group looked uncertain. Theyson wore a milkshake vendor’s getup: a bowtie, a striped apron, and a tray. Beneath all this, he still wore his popcorn seller’s clothes; they’d fused with his decaying skin. Chuckle had shoved a police officer’s hat onto his head, pushing out his two stalks of green hair to the sides. He’d also stuck a star on his shirt and wrapped a bandolier around him. He said he’d find a gun somewhere. Selene had become a housewife, with a beehive wig, lipstick on her lips (and teeth), and a red dress. They’d helped nail high heels to her tail.

Grin blinked and did a double-take. ‘Whoa!’ he cried. ‘For a second there, I thought I’d stumbled across a right load of victims! Who the hell are you lads and what’d you do with my pals?’

Theyson grinned, looking from one arm to the other. Chuckle polished his star and flicked it, making it spin. Selene sang – something almost in key – and slapped her tail on the floor. The wraith flew around above their heads and made a noise that blew the door off. ‘And you, Grin,’ said Chuckle. ‘You make a helluva doctor!’

Grin rearranged the bloody lab coat and adjusted his head mirror. He’d swapped his knife for a hacksaw – it seemed more medical in his mind. An actual surgical tool. He smiled at everyone. ‘We’re gonna fit in like a knife between the ribs! None of them’s gonna s’pect a thing.’

They all beamed, showing wonky zombie teeth, smeared grease paint, and dagger-like chompers.

Grin sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘This is it, you lot. We’re ready. I’m gonna miss you all, but we gotta go our separate ways.’ He pulled out an oversized handkerchief and blew his nose dramatically. ‘This is life, y’know? Or unlife, rather. I’ll think of you all the next time I’m pulling out someone’s guts or hacking off someone’s head.’

They all nodded, knowingly, and made sounds of agreement. Some sobbed.

Grin offered his hand to Theyson, who linked arms with Chuckle. He took hold of Selene’s fin, and she put her fin in the place where the wraith’s hand ought to go.

Together, they walked toward one of the many holes in the fence the kids used to sneak in. One by one, they crawled under, except for the wraith, who floated through the fence, losing her wig in the process.

Like teens in an amusement park after nightfall, they each disappeared into the dark.