Red Is Not A Color (903 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: Fiction
Rating: 1.94 on 21 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by kaos-king (View user info) at 2005-08-20 15:36:52 EDT
Rodney flipped off the television, the idiot box's light receded to nothing, leaving a dull hum in the small office. He stared at the device for a good full extra minute before lurching to his feet. The strain of his considerable bulk being released from the old lazy boy let a out a little groan from the springs. At six three, two hundred and fifty pounds, Rodney was a massive specimen of a man. Exactly the right kind for the job at hand. Usually...
He picked at the small stain of tomato sauce on the sleeve of his white jumpsuit. Not that he cared, but that prick Dr. Wescott had been known to throw a fit over staff appearances. Rodney didn't see why it mattered. The patients weren't going to be complaining to anyone. Most of them couldn't handle the idea of keeping their own slobber in their mouths. "Droolie," he called them some times. Of course, he only said that to himself.
He had been employed at Foster's Mental Home for about six years. He had seen a lot of shit in his time here. Doctors of every kind trying to treat the Droolies, trying to get them to be better. Some were nice, some not so much. Rodney did his best to stay out of the way of all of them. Ever since Malcolm had been fired for roughing up a patient, he had been extra careful about how he went about his job. Sometimes it made him angry. It was his job to protect the shrinks when the loonies got out of hand, but he had to be careful doing it? No way was he going to let some wack job bite a chunk out of him just for some PC bureaucrat.
Then there was the condition of the little girl down in ward seven. Catatonic, yet came down pregnant. All the male staff were being questioned about that one. Rodney was glad his old lady had talked him into getting snipped two years back after their second kid. The whole hospital was in an uproar over it.
Then there was the new patient in his wing, the sensational case. Dutters, R. Richard "Nutters" Dutters. The supposed psycho killer who had butchered his entire extended family over Thanksgiving weekend. The cops had found him sitting in at the family table with his daughter's head in his hands. (The mailman had noticed blood streaks on the window) Of course, old Nutters had said he hadn't done it. Said his imaginary friend from childhood had come back. Said it had done in twelve people in the most violent massacre Ohio had ever seen.
Needless to say, they had thrown his ass in with the Droolies.
But there was something about Nutters that spooked Rodney, and Rodney was not a man to easily be freaked out. When he was on his rounds at night, it was his job to peek in through the observation hole at the patients. Sometimes... sometimes Rodney swore he saw stuff in with Nutters. Most of the time it was just movement, most of the time, Rodney could just tell him self it was a trick of the light. But one night he, honest to god, thought he saw a balloon floating in the room.
Rodney fumbled for the keys attached to his white jumpsuit and unlocked the first gate. He tried not to think about the stuff he saw in Nutter's room. He had never said anything about it to anyone, but Malcolm had once said he got a weird vibe off the guy. Course he did. Droolie killed his whole family. Rodney unlocked the next gate. How could you not get the willies from the fucker?
He made his way down the hall way, checking room by room. Sliding back each observation window, he looked in on the patients. Most were sleeping, if not peacefully, at least quietly. Some were awake, rocking back and forth, some pacing in their small rooms. Rodney made notes on his clip board for each Droolie that wasn't sleeping. Extra bed time meds for them. Window by window he went, careful in his motions, making sure he went in such a direction that Nutters would be his last stop of the round.
Or at least it was suppose to be.
As he neared the South end, he heard the sobbing. Not the normal weeping that comes creeping out from under the doors at night but full blown, body racking sobs. Then an explosive scream of obscenities. Fuck, it was coming from Nutter's room. Rodney skipped the last few rooms on his maneuvers and hotfooted it straight to the source of all the noise.
Light was shinning out underneath the door frame, blinking on and off sporadically. The electricity was powered by the boxes back in the wing office, accessed only by the staff and the faculty. Rodney stopped for a moment and considered this. Maybe that was the reason for the wack jobs screaming. He snuck up on the observation hole and slid it back.
Someone else was in the room with Nutters. Dressed in white. Looked like a doctor, maybe a nurse.
As fast as he could, Rodney made for the keys. Had some poor schmuck locked himself accidentally in the room with the Droolie? He hoped the guy was okay. He finally found the right master lock after what seemed like forever an opened the steel door.
"Hey buddy, are you okay? You shoulda cleared it with me before you..."
Rodney trailed off as the person in white turned around to face him. It wasn't a doctor. It wasn't a nurse. It was a clown. A clown all in white, his costume, his face paint, his hair. There was a god damn clown in the room with Nutters.
"Well hieddy-ho, Rodney-ro," said the clown with a distinct southern drawl.
Rodney couldn't move. This couldn't be happening.
"Well that there ain't too polite, standin' there all quite like. My name's a Mistah Pale, and I'm a Richey's bestest friend in the whole widest world!"
Nutters choked something from the corner of the room. It sounded like "Get Out."
"Yehr a lookin' mighty sad there partner," smiled the clown. "Would yeh likey like a balloon? Sure 'an by gosh yeh would!"
Reaching behind his back, the clown produced a bright red balloon. He held it out at Rodney. Right in front of his face, only at the last minute did he notice there was something in it. Then the balloon exploded, covering him in blood.
Rodney made a gagging sound, trying to catch his breath to scream. There was a clown in Nutters room. There was a psycho clown, an escaped Droolie, a something, in Nutters room. Just as the scream was about to break, he felt hands on the sides of his head.
"Ah, shucks now sugah, I sure can't be lettin' you go and be yelling all cats and dogs like! That wouldn't be right proper now."
Mistah Pale's right hand shot into Rodney's mouth catching his tongue, gripping it hard at the base. Nails dug in and pulled with a strength more than just a mental patient would have. It came tearing out of his mouth, thick crimson liquid spraying all over the clown. Before Rodney could drop, the white creature drove his thumb into the orderly's eye socket and middle finger into his ear canal.
Rodney began to convulse, his jaw flapping up and down like a machine. The blood pouring from his head, coating both victim and attacker. The clown reared back and began bashing Rodney's skull off the door frame, again and again. Eventually the skull cracked open, at which time Pale dropped the orderly to the ground. The twitching had stopped long ago.
Through it all Richard Dutters, formerly called "Nutters" had laid in the corner, openly weeping.
"Why you cryin' big boy?" asked Mistah Pale. "Are yeh still sad 'cause yehr family went all choppity chop? They came between us, buddy, just like this big man was going to. We's is gonna be together forever!"
Richard "Nutters" Dutters began screaming again. He was still screaming hours later when they found him and the body of Rodney White.
User Reviews
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-09-02 18:22:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2005-08-22 10:04:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked the dialogue from the clown very much.
Submitted by Soley_Trinity (user info) at 2005-08-21 15:06:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-08-21 12:52:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Although I love Stephen King he does not own any rights to the idea
of killers clowns.
You could have made this more in depth, yes. However, I rather like
how your stories are short.
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2005-08-21 12:21:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
not bad
Submitted by GaidinCanuck (user info) at 2005-08-21 11:55:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written... Could do with some more (like someone said, a mention of the imaginary friend previous).
And yes, King definately did corner the market on our generations killer clown stories, but that doesn't make those fuckers any less scary.
"It's the story, not he who tells it."
***Probably way too obscure (at least how I mean it, but very relevant). And I'll be very impressed if you can tell me why.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-08-21 04:44:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by truthandterror (user info) at 2005-08-21 01:23:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was amazing, spooky clown. It seemed like it was based on the book version of IT, because of the clown, and the balloon.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2005-08-20 22:58:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this is really good.
Submitted by djgray (user info) at 2005-08-20 20:41:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That is quite fucked up. The images in my mind after this are disturbing. Keep on writing man.
Submitted by Dead_0hi0_Sky (user info) at 2005-08-20 19:57:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
eventhough clowns blow (except SweetTooth from Twisted Metal....that guy rocked faces), this was a legitimately good post.
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-08-20 19:44:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And I thought only Japanese cult movie directors ever thought of things this bloody. Good work.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-20 19:37:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good stuff. As you mentioned, comparisons to It may come, but there were some nice touches in there, so fuck any complainers.
Keep writing, man.
Trivia note. It may be in Danse Macabre, but somewhere King once said, (paraphrasing) "I called the story 'It.' It has Jaws, Frankenstein's monster, the werewolf. It's got everything in it. I should have called it 'Shit.'"
Always liked that...
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2005-08-20 18:05:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by iradney (user info) at 2005-08-20 17:37:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
brilliant - and there goes my night *sigh*
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-08-20 16:25:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Have another +2 for not abusing 'its'. I appreciate it, I really do.
o/
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Grammar nazi
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-08-20 16:21:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Before I read it- I CALL SHENANIGANS! RED IS TOO A COLOR!
Right. Off to read it.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2005-08-20 16:17:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great writing.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-08-20 15:48:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You could have expanded it a little by having him overhear a doctor talking about the clown after a therapy session or something. Given the audience a little more info that would make the fear factor a little better.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-08-20 15:47:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
keep on writin dude.
try my http://www.ubersite.com/m/38797 for a short read.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2005-08-20 15:42:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
There are going to be some obvious comparisons with this to Stephen King's "IT." King really cornered the market of killer clowns, but so many people are terrified of them, I really wanted to take my own spin on it. I felt the Black and White apperance as well as the horrible accent made Mistah Pale a little different. However, when I submitted this and a few other short stories to an online anthology, this one wasn't chosen, although I felt it was the best written. Is it because of the clown stigma created by King? Or was it just not that great of a tale?