The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Mr. Chuckles
by Naching T. Kassa
The sky shone blood-red. As though the day had died around her.
Esther watched the people on the street as she hurried home from school. They passed without acknowledging her, without a smile or a nod. She could have been invisible.
Only one man seemed to see her, an average fellow, one as imperceptible as herself. He stopped and smiled as she walked by. She didn’t return it. She pretended she didn’t see him.
A man selling newspapers stood on the next corner. He shouted the news as pedestrians paused to buy his wares.
“Gene Mark Marston dead!” he cried. “Notorious killer executed!”
Esther peered over her shoulder. The man stood several yards behind her, still smiling.
She ran.
When she reached her apartment building, she glanced up at the second-floor window. A man in a pinstripe suit stood there, watching. She waved, but he didn’t wave back.
Moments later, she reached the second-floor landing. The man still stood at the window, his back toward her.
“Hello, Mr. Chuckles,” she said.
“That isn’t my name, Esther,” he replied in his strange, hollow tone.
“I know.”
“Why do you call me by a name I don’t own?”
“I told you. It fits you. It’s one of those funny names. You know, like when you call a person who moves slowly, Speedy.”
He regarded her, a frown on his face. She smiled back.
“Why do you come up here, Esther?” he asked, returning to the window.
“Because you’re my friend.”
“I’m no one’s friend. Shouldn’t you be home with your mother?”
“She isn’t home. She had to work.”
“And, as usual, there’s no one to watch you.”
“I’m 12. I don’t need watching.” Esther peered out the window. The man from the street stood on the walk below. He stared up at the window. She caught his eye and stepped away, heart pounding.
“Can I stay up here with you, Mr. Chuckles?” she asked.
“You know you can’t. I don’t want you here.”
“Please?”
Mr. Chuckles faced her, scowling. “I’ve told you many times. I don’t want you here.”
“But—”
“I DON’T WANT YOU HERE!”
Esther hurried down the stairs and away. Her apartment lay just past the front doors, and she rushed to it. Once inside, she locked the deadbolt and the chain, even though she knew it was useless.
A footstep sounded in the hall.
She glanced up at the too-high windows. Mr. Bambury, the landlord, had installed bars over them so no one could get in. He hadn’t thought of including a way for someone to get out.
Another footstep.
The useless phone hung on the wall. They hadn’t had enough money to pay the bill. And even if she did call someone, who would believe her? Screaming wouldn’t help. Even if someone heard her, they couldn’t get to her first-floor apartment fast enough.
“Esther,” a familiar voice said. “Esther, I wanna to talk to you.”
As quietly as she could, Esther rushed to her mother’s bedroom and the small closet. She shut the door and burrowed into her mother’s dresses and winter coats.
“Help me,” she murmured. “Please, somebody, help me!”
Silence followed.
She never heard the door open. Never heard his footsteps. The only thing she did hear was his voice. Beside her. In the dark.
“Bet you didn’t think you’d ever see me again,” he whispered.
This time, she did scream.
He dragged her out of the closet and threw her across the bed, into the wall. She lay, gasping on the floor.
Cold swirled about her, a bitter, deathly cold.
“You little, shit! I told you I’d come back to kill you! I told you not even death could keep me away!”
He lifted her into the air.
“You ratted me out! You and your bitch of a mother. I’m going to tear you limb from limb! And when you return, I’ll do it again! Again and again for all eternity!”
“You’ll do what?” a strange, hollow voice asked.
Gene Mark Marston turned to the doorway where a man in a pinstripe suit stood. “Who the hell are you?”
“What did you say?”
“If you must know, I said I’d tear her limb from limb.”
Mr. Chuckles strode across the floor. “That’s what I thought you said.”
He grasped hold of Marston’s head and tore it from its body. When he went for the arm, Esther turned away and covered her ears.
The dead leave no blood. When Esther faced the room once more, she found it empty.
She hurried from the apartment and up the stairs. Mr. Chuckles stood on the landing. It seemed as though he had never left.
Esther wanted, more than anything, to take his hand. But when she reached out, she couldn’t find anything more substantial than a shadow.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Mr. Chuckles doesn’t fit you.”
“You said it did.”
“That was…before.”
He smiled. It was the first time she’d ever seen him do so.
“Chuckles is fine,” he said.
Esther smiled back.
Fiction © Copyright Naching T. Kassa
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from Naching T. Kassa:
Sherlock Holmes and The Arcana of Madness: A Horror Mystery
Discover the untold mysteries of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in Sherlock Holmes and the Arcana of Madness, a trilogy that unveils three captivating cases intertwined with the mystical allure of tarot cards, designed by the renowned, yet infamous artist, Richard Dadd.
A collection of manuscripts, meticulously penned by John H. Watson M.D., is unearthed in 2019 amidst the restoration of Broadmoor Hospital, found inexplicably in the grave of Richard Dadd. The manuscripts’ concealed journey and their remaining unpublished raise a myriad of questions, enveloping them in a veil of mystery.
Spreading the Writer's Word 