“We’ve all had losses,” Peterson explained.”Everyone has been affected.”
“Wrong!” Stank launched at his hostage, swiping the blade and slicing Peterson’s ear away in one clean stroke. Peterson cried out as blood spattered on to his shoulder. Lacey screamed.
“If they move, kill them!” the clown ordered, his sword tip scraping the tarmac. Stank squatted down, clasping the severed ear between his fingers. He waggled the organ in front of Peterson, teasing the teacher who grimaced and sighed with the pain. “Tell me, can you still hear?” Peterson rocked forward before looking up to the sky and gritting his teeth. “I said tell me!” The sword plunged into his thigh, causing him to yelp out once more. Bucky looked across as Lacey and Miss Greene screamed and sobbed. Stank twisted the blade.
“Ah God!” Peterson screamed before busting into tears.
“I asked you a question. Don’t make me repeat myself. Can you still hear me?”
“Yes!” the teacher blurted through the tears. “Yes.”
“Good. Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up.” He withdrew the blade causing the teacher’s tracksuit bottoms to fill in a claret mass. “Now, I take it you people want to pass, yes? That’s why you drove this way?”
“We do. That’s all we want,” Miss Greene blurted.
The clown rose to his feet and wandered across to her. “You’re very pretty, don’t you think?”
He turned to Lawro who stood beside her. “What do you think, buddy? I bet you want to screw her hard, don’t you?”
“Screw you.”
Stank jumped back. “Gosh, aren’t you one tough son of a bitch,” he began, before turning back to Miss Greene. “Youth of today, they have no manners or respect for their elders. Boys, this one is next, if you know what I mean?”
Bucky stood there petrified, so much so his bowels almost opened.
“You know what? I was going to have a little bit of fun. This was going to be it,” Stank began, lifting the ear for all to see. “You would have been going on your merry way right about now, but Mr I-am-a-big-man over there just screwed things up a tiny bit for you.” He wandered back across to Mr Peterson. “I thought all of you were going to be the special ones, the ones I could send out into the world with a message: don’t mess with us, but it seems I was wrong. Yet again. I mean, look at all these people around you, all hacked up and lining the road. They all had the opportunity to relay my message, yet no one left this stretch alive.” A moment of silence passed as the deranged clown studied them. “I see most of you are kids, and in cricket whites no less. I want to make something clear to you all, right now. I’m not a child killer, so I’ll give you one last chance. You like games? We’ll play a game.”
Stank laid the sword down and pulled a pocket knife from his jacket before turning to Peterson. Their teacher screamed as the lunatic attacked him, his back to the crowd. Bucky watched as his teacher’s erratic hands waved and twitched with the attack. The screams echoed through the emptiness, high pitched and sorrowful. Bucky watched as Miss Greene covered her mouth with both hands. Johnny and Lacey matched the tears she streamed. The clown lifted the blade above his head and thundered the knife repeatedly into Peterson’s neck. Once, twice, three times, four times…
Mr Peterson slumped to the side, his face and upper body drenched in blood. The severity of the attack was as immense as the claret puddle formed about him.
Stank shook his head and wandered over to them. Bucky’s legs trembled as the clown stood in front of him.
“Hold out your hand,” the clown asked, softly. Bucky looked to him. “Go on,” Stank replied, encouraging him in a gentle manner.
Bucky extended a shaking hand, palm upright. Stank took it gently and placed something wet and warm inside. He then closed Bucky’s fingers around it, not allowing him to see what was in there. “Keep it closed until I say so. Understand?” Bucky nodded. A tear fell down his cheek.
Stank did the same to Lacey and Miss Greene, who both still sobbed.
“On the count of three I want you to open your hands. Ready? One… two… three.”
Bucky peered into his blood drenched hand. A crimson mass sat there. He cried even more. It was Mr Peterson’s eye. The girls continued their crying. Miss Greene had an eye. Lacey had his tongue.
“Rules of this game are simple. One at a time you eat what you have. That is all.”
“What?” Lacey shrieked.
“Starting with you, miss. Eat it and you go free. If you choose not to, you join your teacher on that pile over there when we’re finished.”
Lacey grimaced. Bucky watched as she lifted it upwards. As if accepting her fate, she turned her palm down and dropped the tongue to the floor. “I can’t. I cannot do it.”
The clown lunged at her.
“No!” Lawro leapt out, grabbing the arm that carried the knife. From his sleeve fell the hammer he’d hidden, right into his palm. A smash to the skull had sent the clown reeling. Lawro turned behind the clown’s body, dragged him back and reached down to the fallen knife. He took the handle and lifted the blade to Stank’s throat.
“Let them go,” he ordered, pushing the blade against his captive’s skin. The three clowns stood motionless. He jabbed the blade into the skin again. “Tell them.”
“Step away,” Stank ordered. The clowns backed down.
“Further away. Tell them to leave.”
“They’ll kill you for this.”
“Maybe, but not before I take you with me. One last time.” Lawro jabbed the blade into the clown’s
