#teensiest

When the City Council voted to construct new parking lots around the more serene parts of Derry, you would think at least one of them would foresee the local teens using them for a late night rendezvous point—especially the one that overlooked the river. It was a popular hotspot for Forth of July and Labor Day barbecues, since it provided the best sights for fireworks. Beside it, a small clearing was developed by the woods with a circular array of picnic tables and streetlamps that were set up by a stationary grill, free for anyone to use. Despite the 7pm curfew, several of those whose parents worked late shifts—or perhaps didn’t care one way or the other—would find themselves sneaking off to this area in the offseason when they knew it’d be deserted.

It was a Friday night when a couple found themselves alone at that same lot. It was the first cold night of winter, at least for Maine’s standards, and snow was due any day now to cover up the fallen leaves.

Brandon and Daisy had just shared a pizza and a couple of root beer floats together at a local, family-owned arcade where Daisy worked part-time and where Brandon was sent to chaperone his kid brother for a birthday party of one of his classmates. When the birthday boy’s mother offered to have the kids join her son at their house for more cake and a slumber party, Brandon was more than willing to agree, thinking that on the drive home to drop off Daisy, they could make a short pit-stop without the interference of his brother in the backseat.

Brandon pulled his dad’s ’82 Camaro into a cracked, graveled spot near the edge of the lot—a section that seemed half-finished compared to the rest of the smoother pavement, but it was closest to the picnic area and more well lit. With that maniac on the loose that took three of his classmates in the past eight months—depending on which rumors you heard—you never could be too careful.

The eighteen year old killed the engine and the lights, but kept the radio on a low hum to give some ambiance to their impromptu date night. They’d only been together a short while but dates over the past couple months were few and far between, so any chance he could to spend some time alone with her, he welcomed. He’d often wondered if Daisy felt the same, considering she was quiet experienced in an area that he wasn’t, unless he was in the locker room with the boys in which case, he flaunted that he had a long history with the ladies.

He’d been held back a year in grade school, and since he was technically an adult at eighteen, the lie wasn’t that farfetched. Most of the guys believed him anyway.

Neither needed words to immediately want to go in for the first kiss of the night, and Brandon’s hand was already up to cup her when her chest would inevitably push against him. But despite this, there was some hesitation on Daisy’s part and to block him, she put up her own hand to hold onto his.

“I’m thinking of trying something new,” she said in a whisper, and his eyes fixated on her soft pink lips covered in gloss.

“O-Oh?”

He tried to act surprised, but really he’d been waiting for this night to happen for a long, long time.

“Yeah.” But her voice wavered slightly—as if having second thoughts about being so bold with him. “But I’m just going to…freshen up first.”

Daisy leaned back away from him and against her door. Her blonde hair slouched where she leaned against it on the window, and with a sultry move, she opened the latch to climb out.

“Wait here, okay? I’ll be back in a second.”

Brandon watched with one hand on the wheel as she shut the door and walked around the back of the car toward the picnic tables. He waited until she disappeared behind a lock of trees before he sat back and blew out, tugging at his collar.

“Happy birthday, kid, and happy birthday to me,” he said under his breath.

Outside, Daisy walked further toward the end of the picnic area until she was out of sight of the car. She found herself soon after down a trail into a small wooded area, where she too blew out a breath she held. She ran her painted nails through her hair, pacing back and forth, trying to psych herself up for what she wanted to do.

Sex was no problem for her. Even at seventeen, she already had over four different boys under her belt—literally and figuratively—but Brandon was different. She wanted their first time to be special, and considering she had a feeling Brandon was still a virgin, she wanted to make it comfortable for him too. But was his dad’s car in a parking lot really that special? It was different than what she was used to, which was usually a bed of one of her classmates or in the shower stalls of the locker rooms at school. At least this place had a view.

Maybe she’d start out soft and see where that went. Not too soft, but something...sexy? An idea popped into her head as she slipped off her small cardigan to hang over the cook of her arm, and she then began to unbutton the peppermint-striped blouse of her uniform. It would really make her night to make him blush if she came back to the car like this. Maybe a soft slide over the hood with her breasts pressed against the windshield would do the trick. Yeah, that would really get him rolling…she giggled to herself.

“Oh, thank God. I haven’t seen a pair of tits for hours!”

Daisy’s head jerked up in the direction of the woods, the soft giggle dead on her lips. The streetlamps around her flickered slightly, but it didn’t stop her from trying to see beyond the light into the darkness. That voice...a man’s voice...it came from just past the clearing where the lights stopped glowing and there was only a void where the rest of the forest flourished.

She waited to hear for something, for anything, but there was nothing. Not a scuffle of feet against leaves, or the creaking of a picnic table. Not even a breath or a giggle from the man at what he’d said to her.

“Is someone there?” She took a step back toward the car. She didn’t want to think she was crazy, but that voice was too loud to be imagined. There was still silence, but that rough, deep voice had unsettled her down to the bone. She swallowed.

“I have a boyfriend you know! He’s here with me right now!”

Silence again. Her nerves were starting to settle but when she turned to head back, that voice boomed loud in her ear once more.

“A boyfriend! Then thank Baby Jesus, cause I haven’t seen a dick for months!”

She whirled back around and pulled her cardigan back up over her chest, frantically searching for the source of that awful sound.

“Fuck off, creep, or I’m calling the cops!”

Back to silence…Surely that must have scared him.

“Yeah...yeah, won’t be so funny when you get arrested, huh, you fucking weirdo!”

Quiet.

She smirked to herself and went to retreat back to the car. She was out of her sensual mood now, but hopefully Brandon would understand she wanted to get out of here as quick as possible after she’d tell him what happened. Maybe she would call the police...if she’d be the one to turn in that guy kidnapping and mutilating all those kids, she’d be a hero.

But when she turned around, her vision was blocked by a short, stocky silhouette that stood on top of a picnic table in her immediate way—a shadow cast over her.

Had that table always been there? No, that was impossible. It was right in the path she took to get here.

She didn’t even hear it move, or be put down, and that man...

No, wait...a clown?

xxx

Brandon had turned up the music on the radio, psyching himself up in the meantime until Daisy got back. Rock n’ Roll was a great decision. That would be a great underscore for his first…well, score.

He didn’t even hear the passenger door open again before Daisy came back and sat herself down, smiling at him with a seductive, half-lidded look. She seemed older somehow, like a girl in her late twenties in one of those Hollywood movies, or was that only because he was seeing her in a different light?

Before he could say anything, she leaned forward and stared him right in the eye as she popped off every button of her blouse with one long finger, pulling the fabric back to reveal soft skin underneath without even one goosebump on her flesh from the cold. Her pastel bra was pushed out toward him, as if inviting him to take a grab.

And in speaking of grab, she had crawled forward ever so slightly to place her other palm over the bulge of his pants.

“Oh, what, that’s it?” she teased him. “You’ve got to be joking! It feels like a dead mouse! Man, if I was you, I’d hang my folks for giving me a smell pecker like this sad excuse here. Ha! I’d be crying tears!”

“What? Daisy?” He was half insulted at what she said to him, but also concerned and worried over the fact she said it at all.

“Don’t rain on your own parade, sweet cakes. I’ve done more with less.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He sat back to get away from her.

“This is how big girls talk, Brandy. Girls like me talk a dirty game. You’d know that if you’ve ever been around one longer than the size of your dick.”

“Okay, fuck this.” He readjusted himself in the driver’s seat to reach for the keys. He was taking her home and breaking up with her the minute he dropped her off. What a—

“Bitch?” she said, a hand against her chest, as if shocked. “That’s what you call your dates? Well then, I’d better start acting like one and charging money for that kind of dirty talk.”

“Daisy, seriously, what the fuck? What’s gotten into you?”

“Into me? Girls like me are like gumball machines, Brandy. You put a little money in and I’ll put a little somethin’ out back. Isn’t that what you want?”

“No, and I’m taking you home.”

“Well, someone’s being a buzzkill. Bet I could take care of that.”

“Not tonight you aren’t.”

But as he tried to start the engine, Daisy practically crawled onto his lap and turned his head slightly to the side to kiss at his neck.

“Daisy, stop it.” He was mildly annoyed more than anything.

“I’m sorry for being such a mean girl,” she said with a pouting baby face. “I didn’t mean to hurt your fee-weeings.”

“I said cut it out!”

But she didn’t listen. Instead, Daisy’s mouth trailed around his neck as she continued to turn his head, as if wanting to reach and kiss the tip of his spine. And what he felt against his skin as soft lip balm soon mushed against his neck in globs, and he felt sticky and disgusting.

He shoved her off him and didn’t look at her when he felt the back of his neck and pulled his hand back to reveal red lipstick. Even though she wasn’t wearing any red...

He glanced up, wanting an explanation, but Daisy wasn’t there.  He sat forward and looked in the backseat but it too was empty. Did she leave? He didn’t hear a door...

But something touched his knee from the passenger seat, and when he looked again, a small, frumpy clown was sitting there with him. Red hair popped out of his head in a cartoony fashion, as if he’d stuck a fork in an electric socket, and his mouth was smeared with red, as if he had been the one to kiss Brandon’s neck.

Brandon threw himself against the door in shock.

“You shouldn’t push a girl like that, Brandy,” the clown said, but what should be something low and gruff sounded more like Daisy. It was her exact tone. How was that possible? Was he hallucinating? This car was old, and the gas fumes...

“What’s wrong, Brandy?” the thing taunted. That feminine tone turned sour after each word, and his voice finally dropped several octaves to match the one he’d imagine a thing like this having. There was a flick of long eyelashes against his painted skin, and a delicate, gloved hand curled into a fist against one of his chubby cheeks. “Don’t you wuv me anymore?”

Brandon screamed and felt for the door handle behind him, and with a quick yank, pulled it open and pushed out in one fluid motion, all before toppling like a sack of potatoes onto the ground outside the car. He scampered up sit on the rear of his pants and backed away from the Camaro—his eyes entranced by that circus clown now making its way into the driver’s seat. Although this wasn’t any circus clown he’d ever see near kids—this one was something out of a nightmare—a drunken imposter out for shits and giggles.

“Why won’t you kiss me, Brandon?” he whined in a mocking cry. “Is it because I’m ugly?”

His body was frozen. Why couldn’t he move?

“Is it because I’m fat?”

And now his heart was racing, trying to make sense of this. But before long, those painted lips curled into a sneering, shit-eating grin.  

“Or, is something in my teeth?”

Each corner of those cracked lips stretched further up its face, more so than what any human was capable of doing—and for a moment, Brandon thought Jim Carey would be put to shame—and the clown bared for him several rows of sharp, drooling fangs that protruded from his mouth.

That was enough to emit a horrified yell from him, and he crawled backwards, trying to get his feet to stand himself up. There was no question of fight or flight. Flight was the only message his brain could shout to him from the corners of his mind as the clown was now halfway out the frame of the door, mocking and laughing at the boy’s fear.

“C’mon, don’t be like that!” His voice was practically growling. “It’s a beautiful night out to kiss under the stars!”

Finally, Brandon could take hold of his nerves, and he rolled over onto his stomach and broke out into a run toward the main road. He could outrun that fucking thing, no problem. Those clown legs were like stumpy little sausages.

As soon as he hit the road and began to make his way toward town, thoughts were bouncing around in his head like the love handles on his hips that did so with every running stride he took.

Was this the guy killing kids and teenagers? It was possible; the dude was crazy enough. He was minding his own business, thinking about Daisy, and then he just snuck into his car! So this fucker is why there was a curfew?

And what was worse...did he get Daisy?

Headlights appeared from around the bend and in defense of his senses, he raised his hands to shield his eyes. A horn blared from the vehicle, but it wasn’t that of a car horn...it sounded more like a bicycle horn, followed by a silly carnival tune like when the clown car comes out at the circus.

Brandon’s legs instinctively curved to the right, leading him to crash into a telephone pole that knocked him down to the ground.

He coughed, feeling the wind knocked out of his back and a hot trail of something oozing down his head. He hit his head pretty hard on the base of the pole, and one swipe of his hand to illuminate in the headlights of the car would show it to be blood.

He was blinded as a car door slammed, and the soft crunch of sneakers on gravel filled his ringing ears. He sat up against the pole and tried to make out the figure, curling up into himself with a racing heart.

When the dark silhouette approached, he saw his Daisy.

“Brandon, holy shit! Are you okay?” She knelt down beside him and blocked the light with her body. He could see her a bit more clearly now—a worried expression painted on her face.

“Daisy…that fucking maniac…did you see him?”

“See who?”

“Th-the guy, th-the clown guy…” He stammered trying to find words as crazy as they sounded. “He snuck into the car…”

“Brandy,” she giggled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He looked up in to her eyes.

“Daisy…?”

She smiled in a wide grin with sharp pointed teeth. “You look like you could use something to eat.”

She got to her knees and reached behind her to bring forth a silver platter with a round, dome atop it to match. Brandon saw his reflection in the silver—frightened and bloodied and panting with sweat pouring from his temples—and when it was removed, he was face to face with Daisy’s severed head. Her eyes open, mouth ajar in fright herself, and char marks on her as if she’d been barbecued on a grill.

He cried. He couldn’t even scream as the plate and head were thrown aside, and that clown was in front of him again, those fangs bared, eyes a demonic yellow, and two strong hands reaching out to hold him still.

“Not hungry?” he threatened.  

As he said this, the headlights beyond had died out, and yet in the darkness, Brandon could still see the glow coming from his eyes, as he teased him one final time before those awful rows of teeth descended onto his body.