Romancing the Clown
8
Killer Clowns
CATHY SCREAMED.
Persephone screamed.
I screamed, you screamed, we all screamed for ice cream. Persephone charged ahead of us to the healing chamber and I unceremoniously dumped Cathy on the floor with my canes. She’d apparently hit the artery and I was spurting blood and weakening rapidly. I fell into the chamber and the lid was closed before she stopped yelling. I heard one solid thump on the lid before it sealed. My last thought was ‘Good luck, Seph.’
When the lid to the healing chamber opened, Cathy was still yelling on the floor next to us. Persephone had the canes and a welt over her left eye.
“Why did he get to go first? I can’t even walk!” Cathy yelled.
“He was bleeding. You’ve been this way for months,” Persephone yelled back. I stepped out of the healing chamber, picked up Cathy, and dumped her in.
“Sweet dreams,” I said and closed her last scream in with her. I sank down to the floor and looked up at Persephone. She was standing there rigid, the canes clutched in her hand.
“Where is Lisa?” she demanded. “Please don’t tell me she is dead. Please!” I shook my head.
“She refused to come back.”
“Refused? You left her on Chaos?” For a moment, I thought it was a bad idea that Persephone had my canes and I was sitting on the floor. Instead of swinging them at me, she threw them at me and stomped out of the room. I was seriously beginning to think being a hero was not worth the hassle. I went into the bedroom, propped the canes in a corner, and stripped. I walked into the shower.
Nothing.
“Give me a little help here, Computer,” I said. “Some water, please?”
Nothing.
“Seph!” I called.
“Computer, give him a shower,” she yelled. Water.
I spent a good bit of time under the flow. I hadn’t had a shower in a year. I’d bathed in tubs of water heated over a fire. Usually, the last of the six people in my family to bathe in tepid, dirty water. I let the spray sluice the accumulated grime and dried blood off my body and relax my taxed muscles. The water began to get cold.
The water never gets cold on Crossroads. The temperature is maintained by Computer. Seph!
“Thanks a lot, Computer,” I muttered. “In case you are not aware, the responsibility of the Caretaker is to provide for her hero’s comfort and needs. Not to torment him.” The temperature improved, but fluctuated as Computer processed the information. I got out of the shower and dried myself. There were no robes and I wasn’t about to put my filthy Chaos clothes on again. Not that they were around. I walked naked into the dining area.
“You left her!” Persephone accused when she saw me. “How could you leave your caretaker behind? I can’t believe you did that!” Persephone was barely holding it together. Our entry into Crossroads and the discovery that Lisa was not with me were taking their toll on the girl. I had to remind myself that she was only nineteen and was as desperately in love with Lisa as with me.
“Persephone, I love Lisa with all my heart. She is everything to me. Do you think I wanted to leave her on Chaos?” I pled. “She’s safe. Safer than she would be returning to Earth with me. She has a purpose and is determined that she has done the right thing. Do you think I would abandon my love?”
Persephone hesitated and then ran to my arms weeping.
“They never prepared us for this,” she cried. “They never said we would love our hero’s companion as fiercely as our hero. They didn’t even have a category of Earthly Caretaker. Lincoln, I love you so much I can barely stand it when you are gone. And I love Lisa just as much. I know that when you bring Cadence, I will love her, as well. Please help me through this. I feel such loss that she did not return with you!”
I carried Persephone back to the bedroom, undressed her, and showed her in the best way I could how much I loved her.
I basked in the glow of making love to Persephone. I knew that on Earth, fifteen minutes had not yet expired. But I had been without intercourse for over a year. Lisa and Legs had done their best to keep me sexually sated, but there is absolutely nothing like feeling your cock throbbing in the heat of a woman’s sex. Simply having an orgasm just isn’t the same.
We heard the chime of the healing chamber. I looked at Seph and stroked the entire length of her beautiful body.
“Let us hope her attitude has improved,” I said. We went to the chamber and opened it.
Cathy’s eyes popped open and she looked at us.
“Is it true? Is this really Crossroads? Do I truly have a hero?” she asked.
“It is true, Cathy Temp,” Seph said. “I am Persephone Caretaker and this is Hero Lincoln.”
“I thought it was all a ruse,” she said. “I lost all hope. I thought I had been sent there to die.” I offered her my hand and she pulled forward. Then her face fell. “I cannot move my legs. I thought I was healed. I can’t move!” she cried.
“Perhaps it is the muscle atrophy. I was paralyzed for six years and it took months for me to regain all the strength in my legs. Be patient, love,” I said as soothingly as I could. I held Cathy’s hand as she panted for breath in near panic. Seph looked at the readout on the unit. She shook her head.
“Your broken pelvis was already healed. The chamber only heals unhealed wounds. It didn’t touch the injury that caused your legs not to work,” Seph whispered.
“No,” Cathy wailed. “Lies. All lies. I cannot conceive and raise a child like this. I can’t even get out of this stupid box!”
If ever a woman had woken up to hope only to have it dashed to bits, Cathy was that woman. She had denied that any of it was possible and we brought her to a healing chamber with the promise that she would be healed. She clutched my hand and wept, her anger and violence subsumed by her grief. I read the very detailed report displayed on the healing chamber. Persephone had identified every injury that I had when she read the chamber’s report on my healing. My bones had knit together just fine. But I had severed nerves that had not reconnected. The chamber repaired that defect. Cathy’s pelvis had healed in such a way that she could not move her legs. She had feeling, though, and was in near-constant pain. The chamber had not reconstructed her pelvis so that her legs would work.
I reached into the chamber and gently lifted Cathy out of it. I held her to my chest as she wept.
“I am so sorry, Cathy. I am so sorry for the pain I must cause you,” I whispered in her ear.
“Just do it,” she responded. “Kill me and let this nightmare end. I beg you. If you are a hero, end this misery.”
I gently kissed her lips, then lifted her body. I brought up my right knee and smashed her body down against it with enough force to shatter all the bones of her pelvis and lower spine. She screamed. I pushed her quickly into the chamber and closed the lid.
I leaned over the chamber and wept.
“What did you do?” Seph whispered in horror. “Hero Lincoln, who are you?”
I turned to her with tears running down my face. She stepped away from me in horror.
“It’s our only hope,” I rasped. “I broke the bones that were damaged before. Now the chamber has to heal them. The chamber only heals things correctly. It has to put her back together the right way.” I sank to the floor beside the healing chamber and wept. Persephone sank to my side and we held each other as we waited for hours for the chamber to chime.
“I’m not dead,” Cathy said when we opened the chamber. “Or this is the mythical hell and I will continue to suffer my fate over again.”
“Let us hope not,” I said. “I could not do that again. Can you move your legs?” For a moment, Cathy was silent as she tested her muscles.
“I believe so,” she said hesitantly. “They feel weak, but I can feel them move. And there is no pain.”
“Let us get you out of there and see if you can make them move,” Persephone said. We both helped the damsel from the healing chamber and she tentatively moved her legs forward.
“I can! I can move my legs. But they are so weak.”
“The chamber heals you, but it doesn’t necessarily restore your strength. When I came out of the chamber, it took months of physical therapy for me to fully get my legs under me. But Cathy… You are back. I am Hero Lincoln and you are my damsel.”
“Fuck me!” she cried. I believe she meant it literally. Instead, Seph and I helped her to the table where we ate a full meal. “It’s real!” Cathy said. “I had let myself believe that it was all a ploy to send me away to die. I am so worthless. I have never been able to keep a job. I have always been prone to accidents. I thought they had sent me to Chaos so I wouldn’t hurt anyone again. Will you? Will you really make me pregnant?”
“Well, I will do my best,” I said. “But I think we should help you get your strength back before we start planting a baby in your womb.”
“Fuck that!” Cathy said. “I promise to work on my rehabilitation every day, but please fuck me now, my hero. Please show me that it is all real!”
I could not resist. Like all Cassandran women, now that she was rescued and essentially healed, all Cathy could think about was her libido. She needed sex and lots of it. I carried her to the bed as soon as we had finished eating enough to give us strength. Her legs were weak, and I was actually thankful for that. I barely managed to pull my face from between her thighs when she came the first time. When I tentatively placed my cock at the entrance to her vagina, she pulled me violently forward and into her pussy. She had no interest in making love. She wanted to be fucked and fucked right goddamned now. I did my best to satisfy her wishes, but there is little that a man can do to improve the experience that a Cassandran woman can have all on her own. Simply having my cock in her was enough to send Cathy into the stratosphere. In a strange way, that made me miss Cadence all the more.
I knew that with Cadence, it wasn’t having a cock that turned her on. It was having me.
“My love,” I said to Persephone over Cathy’s unconscious form. “How can I tell you how much I love you?”
“I find I scarcely know you, my hero,” she replied. She looked at me over our sleeping damsel. “How could you know that you needed to break her bones again?”
“It was in Hero Seth’s journals,” I said. “He once rescued a damsel who had broken her arm. It had not been set properly and she was in constant pain. They determined that she needed to rebreak her arm in order to have it healed properly. Lisa was prepared to do the same thing with my back if it had not worked when I went into the healing chamber. But my bones had knitted together correctly. There were simply nerves that had been severed that never got reattached. The chamber was able to do that.”
“But to… to break her body… how could you… even think…?”
“I did not think, my love. I knew what had to be done and simply did it.”
“You left Lisa Caretaker on Chaos. You brought back a wretched woman, and then you broke her body against your knee. I hardly know who you are, Hero Lincoln.”
“I am the sad and uncertain boy with whom you fell in love,” I said.
“I will do my best to remember that.”
“Seph, is it possible to get in touch with other caretakers? Or former caretakers?”
“Yes. If there is a reason.”
“I would like to reach former Caretaker Mei-Xing.”
“That name sounds familiar. She must have been well-known.”
“She was Danny Sun’s caretaker.”
“Oh, my! Why do you wish to reach her?”
“Because of what you said. You said you were not prepared to love a companion as much as you loved your hero. Mei-Xing deserves to know that Danny’s companion, Chang, loved her and is safe on Chaos.”
No matter how much Cathy wanted to conceive and return to Cassandra, the path was arduous. She still held bitterness toward the system and what she had been through on Chaos. She also held onto some antagonism toward me for having not rescued her more quickly and then having delayed bringing her back to Crossroads, and finally for reinjuring her. No matter how much I explained my responsibilities to others, she still believed a hero only had to rescue a damsel and leave. Damn all others.
And she needed daily physical therapy to regain the muscles in her legs. She was lucky that it had been only a little over a year since her accident. Her muscles had deteriorated, but had not completely atrophied. Daily exercise helped her get stronger. And nightly romance helped heal her soul. I wined and dined her, sang to her, caressed and kissed her, and finally seduced and made love to her.
After three months, though, both Cathy and Persephone began to worry about whether she was fully healed and could bear children. Cathy went into the healing chamber and almost instantly I felt a pang of nausea in my stomach. I grabbed a pair of sweats and my canes and headed toward the portal. Cathy and Seph came from the healing chamber.
“Hero Lincoln, I can never thank you enough for saving me. I will endeavor to be the kind of mother that your child will be proud of. I am pregnant,” Cathy said. She turned and walked through an open portal and out of my life into her own world. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for my own adventure.
“No!” Persephone cried as I stepped forward. “I love you!” She threw herself toward me and the impact took me off my feet and sent me through the portal.
I came through the wardrobe portal in a roll as an axe swept over my head and into the side of the wardrobe. I knocked the wielder off his feet as I tumbled back to mine, both canes raised for battle. To my relief, Seph had not come through the portal with me.
“You said he was a cripple,” a voice said to my left. I spun and swung a cane down on the gun hand of one of Wilson’s goons. He screamed and rolled backward out the bedroom door. Beneath me, Wilson was scrambling backward and grabbing for his pistol.
“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve just bought the farm, buddy,” he yelled at me.
“I’m your brother, you stupid fucker,” I screamed back at him. It made no difference to Wilson. He had his gun out and I swatted it with one of my canes. The gun went flying into the hallway.
“Where is Lisa?” he demanded.
“Where you can’t get her,” I said. “Same as Cadence.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll bury all of you!” He scrambled away from me and into the hall. He pushed his goon in front of him and out the front door. The three of them piled into a car and peeled away from the curb. I was alone. I hoped.
I grabbed jeans and a T-shirt from my dresser drawer and my wallet off the floor of the wardrobe, then hustled out the back door. I didn’t for a moment think I’d seen the end of Wilson. But what I needed now was to find Cadence before he did. There was a low hiss from near the bushes and I looked over.
“Over here. They’ll be back. I called the police,” my neighbor called to me. I went through the break in the hedge and the old woman motioned me to her back door.
“Thank you, Mrs. Smith. I didn’t want to stay in the house. They had me at a disadvantage.”
“It sounded like a nasty fight. I got home just as that man went through the front door with an axe. I was at my afternoon tea, you know. We girls still love to get together and lie about our sexual conquests. Now you get right into the bathroom and get a shower and dress. You’ll find everything you need in there. I keep that bathroom stocked for my gentleman callers.”
“Mrs. Smith!” I said in shock. For as long as I’d known her, she’d been a fun-loving tease. She was a good bit older than my mother would have been and had sat with Mom almost continually during her last days. She was like the grandmother next door, but talked like a twenty-something most of the time. She gave me a good-natured shove toward the bathroom and I locked the door behind me, not entirely certain that she wouldn’t come in to join me.
The bathroom was, indeed, equipped with everything a man might need, including packaged toothbrushes, razors, aftershave, and… holy shit! Hemorrhoid suppositories? I wasn’t sure what kind of gentlemen called on Mrs. Smith, but she was definitely prepared. I dressed, grabbed my canes and went to meet her.
“Shh!” she commanded as soon as I opened the door. She was sitting in the living room with the lights out and watching my house through the curtains. Flashing lights were in the drive and a policeman walked out of my house talking into his lapel mike.
“I’d rather not deal with the police at the moment,” I whispered to Mrs. Smith. “I need to find Cadence and make sure she’s safe.”
“I thought as much. What about your sister-in-law?” she asked.
“I’ve stashed her where she is safe for now,” I said. “Wilson nearly killed her.”
“If the police canvass door-to-door, which they will, go to my bedroom—second door on the right down the hall. Keep the lights off and just wait. If there is much damage in your home, the police will be there for quite a while and all three of you will be sought.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Smith. You know a lot about this kind of thing.”
“Oh, I watch all the CSI television shows. I know everything about how police work.” I about choked on that, but kept my cool. That’s like learning to be an astronaut by watching Star Wars. Oh well. We sat in the living room and she brought me a mug of tea. She told me to be sure to take it and my canes with me when I went to her bedroom.
Reinforcements arrived at the house and sure enough a couple uniforms went door-to-door. Since Mrs. Smith had called in the report of suspicious behavior next door, she was first on the list. I listened from the bedroom as she talked to the officers and expressed how worried she was about her nice neighbors and didn’t know if we’d been home when the brutal men broke into the house. She’d heard an awful racket, she said, and then three men ran from the home and drove away.
The police took down her information and said they would try to locate my family. They’d collected two abandoned guns and an axe as evidence, but they did not think it had been simple vandalism. The invaders had definitely been looking for something and been interrupted. Mrs. Smith was asked to please have the family get in touch with the police as soon as possible if she saw us. Then they left.
She told me I needed to stay the night and not leave the house while the police were crawling around. I agreed, but declined the invitation to share her bed. She giggled like a teenager.
“Well, I had to ask,” she said.
Attendance for the last week of high school was not required for seniors. I’d never experienced this directly since I was laid up in bed and home schooled by Lisa my last year. I was pretty sure she kept me working right up until graduation. Nonetheless, I slipped out of Mrs. Smith’s house early in the morning and found a spot near the school to watch and see if Cadence showed up.
I wasn’t the only the only one staking out the school. There was a police car at the door and I was sure I caught a glimpse of Wilson cruising past. Everyone was looking for Cadence. If that was the case, I knew they’d have Shannara Magic and Games watched, too. I figured the best way to keep pressure on Wilson was to stay silent and out of the way. I just needed to find Cadence before he did.
“What the fuck is going on?” a voice hissed from my left. I had to look twice. Cadence was dressed in her green leathers with a green tie-dyed T-shirt beneath her vest. Her face also had a mottled look. It was almost as good as camo.
“Cadence! Love, I’m so glad I found you.”
“You didn’t find me. I had to let you know I was here.”
“You did a good job, honey. We need to get out of here and talk about what’s going on. There’s a whole pile of shit that hit the fan. It’s not safe to go to our house yet, either,” I said.
“I’m hungry,” Cadence announced. “Let’s go get food. My car is parked at K-Mart.”
“Not safe,” I said. “Both the police and Wilson are looking for you and your car. Maybe other people, too. You need to get your face washed and we need to find a place to eat that we aren’t likely to be seen.”
“I know where you could eat and not be seen,” she giggled.
“So, all I need is to be eighteen and have my high school diploma?” Cadence asked as we finished our burgers. I’d been lucky to find my wallet on the floor of the wardrobe when I grabbed clothes.
“That’s it. Then there’s the reading of the will that is at the bottom of the Crossroads box,” I said.
Our day had been spent hiding out with me trying to relate all the story to Cadence as we moved about. She was as upset as Persephone over my leaving Lisa on Chaos and was at the point of insisting we return at once. That argument had gone on all morning. It was after two when we finally found an out-of-the way burger joint. We’d seen police and/or Wilson scanning all the normal hangouts for teens.
Cadence seemed to reach a decision and pulled out her cell phone.
When she turned it on, it chimed with a dozen voice messages.
“Shit! Mom said I should keep my cell phone off,” she said. She quickly shut it off, pulled the battery and SIM, stuffed them in the uneaten portion of her burger, and threw them in the trash as we paid and left the restaurant. We were half a mile away when we saw police racing to the burger joint. “I need a phone,” she said.
“Where is yours?”
“Probably in a police evidence bag along with assorted other strange things like all the rivets and zipper from my jeans. I didn’t exactly have time to change into traveling clothes when I grabbed Lisa and ran into the portal.”
“Jesus. I need a phone now.”
Payphones, unfortunately are pretty much a thing of the past. I tugged Cadence along with me down the alley behind our house and up to Mrs. Smith’s door. The old lady smiled at us.
“Ah. One fair maiden rescued. Come in, kids.”
“I need to make a phone call,” Cadence said, looking up at the clock. Mrs. Smith actually had a landline and pointed Cadence to the phone on her counter. Cadence grabbed it and dialed the number from memory. “I need to speak with Principal Anderson, please. This is regarding one of his students, Cadence Reynolds.” There was a short pause. “Hello, Mr. Anderson. This is Cadence.— Yes, I’ve been found. The police said they had alerted you. I wanted to let you know everything is okay.— No. It’s a family emergency. My grandfather passed away.— Well, it puts me in a bit of a bind. Mother has already left and I’m headed out tomorrow morning.— With my Uncle Lincoln. You remember him.— Oh he doesn’t blame you for that. It’s not like you kicked him out of school. And he’s almost all better now. It’s amazing what six years of intense physical therapy can do.— Well, that is what I wanted to ask. I won’t be able to be at commencement Sunday. Is it possible… I know this sounds silly, but me graduating was very important to my grandfather. It would mean so much if… Could I pick up my diploma on the way to the airport tomorrow? Even though he’s dead, I want to show him.— Yessir. Seven o’clock would be perfect. Thank you so much, Mr. Anderson. I’ll tell them.” Cadence hung up the phone.
“That was clever,” I said.
“I’m exhausted,” Cadence said. “Mrs. Smith, can we sleep here?”
“Well, of course, you can. I have the guest room made up for you. Young lady, when I was your age, I’d have had this young man wedded and bedded by now. Not necessarily in that order. What is taking you so long?” We both snorted.
“You know very well that I’ve been sleeping with Lincoln for over a year now,” Cadence laughed. “The wedded part has had some complications, but I don’t expect them to hold things up much longer.”
“Well, I didn’t know, but I suspected as much. Reminds me so much of my first husband. Well, don’t let me get started on that. I’ll have dinner on the table in two hours. Go take a ‘nap’, if you know what I mean.” I followed Cadence back to the room I’d stayed in the night before. No matter what Mrs. Smith’s prurient thoughts might have been, we collapsed on the bed and went to sleep until she called us for dinner.
We were at the high school half an hour before most students started arriving. Mr. Anderson was impressed that I was walking with the aid of two canes—an image that I adopted for effect. He handed Cadence her diploma and shook her hand, offered her his condolences on the loss of her grandfather, and bid us farewell. The first school bus was arriving when we left the building and we quickly slipped to the side and out of sight in the confusion.
Cadence led me to the spot in the woods where I’d hid the day before. The brown leathers that she wore today blended into the woodland almost as well as the green had the day before. She dug in the leaves and sticks beneath a bush for a minute and extracted an oilcloth bag in which was the Crossroads box.
“Okay,” Cadence said. “Mother’s instructions were that as soon as I had my diploma and the will, I was to take them to the attorney. I think she expected that I would get the diploma on Sunday, but we’re five days early.” She had a sheet of instructions that she pulled out of her leather knapsack and got the directions to the lawyer’s office.
In an hour, we were seated in front of one of the guys who had shown up at our house on Sunday evening and started all this in motion. He nodded and approved.
“This will all help legitimize the claim,” he said. “However, the terms are that the reading of the will is on Monday. You still need to be alive to inherit.” He handed an envelope to Cadence. “There is a hotel key, and cash. The room has been prepaid for the week. I expected your mother to come for it. It makes no difference. Your name is not mentioned on the registration. I would suggest you lie low until Monday and just stay out of sight.”
“Thank you,” Cadence said. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
We went to the hotel and found the huge suite. Of course, the first thing we did was make love.
“Did you make love to mother when you were on Chaos?” Cadence asked in a small voice.
“No,” I answered. “Even though she’d been released from her vows, we hadn’t talked to you about it yet. Neither of us was willing to take that step without your knowledge.”
“It would have been okay,” she said. “But… I’m glad you waited. I want to help make it special for Mom like she made it special for me. I’ll be like her bridesmaid.”
“No, she’ll be your bridesmaid. Cadence, will you marry me?” I asked. She looked at me with round eyes.
“We can do that, can’t we!” she exclaimed. “There is no consanguinity in our relationship. Yes, Lincoln! Yes, I will marry you.” I was smothered in kisses and then in deep passionate loving. As my cock parted her folds and sank into her depths she chanted ‘I love you,’ and ‘married, married, married.’ We’d made love just last night, but the flood that came out of me was the strongest I’d ever experienced on any world.
She looked at her left hand often as we lay together recovering from our exertions. Then she rolled toward me.
“Ceramic,” she said. “I want a ceramic wedding ring.”
“Why, love?” I asked.
“Because I don’t want to take it off when we go to Chaos.” I kissed her again.
“Ceramic it is.”
“Speaking of which… I have my birth certificate, my diploma, and the will. Let’s go get my mother.” With that, she was out of bed and dressing. I caught up as quickly as possible, choosing my sweats instead of jeans. I really couldn’t afford to keep ruining jeans each time I used the portal. We left everything but what would go through with us in the hotel room. We’d be back in an hour or so. We’d leave the key in my nightstand.
It took a while to get home. We took a cab within three blocks and then slunk down the alleys, practicing our stealthcraft. Cadence was nearly invisible in her black leathers. We checked thoroughly to make sure the house was empty before we went to the bedroom. I deposited the key and took Cadence’s hand.
“Let’s go to Crossroads, my love,” I said. We stepped through the door of the wardrobe.
And nothing happened. “Lincoln? Why didn’t it work?”
“Damnit!” I said. I ran my hands over the frame of the door. There. Wilson’s axe had narrowly missed taking off my head. But it had struck completely through the frame of the wardrobe.
“No,” Cadence pled. “I want my mommy.”
“We’ll figure it out, honey,” I said. Lisa, stranded on Chaos. Persephone on Crossroads. And here we were on Earth.
With no portal.
The End
of this adventure
THANKS! Once again, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my editors, Floyd Kemper, Pixel the Cat, and Old Rotorhead. Their labor improves my writing so much! And thank you to Lazlo Zalezac who created the wonderful universe of “Damsels in Distress” and allowed others of us to play there! Finally, thank you to my patrons who make it possible for me to produce stories for your entertainment.
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