48 Hour Short Story Contest

Dave unlocked his front door, juggling in his arms a heavy newspaper, his still-steaming cup of coffee and his briefcase. He cursed as some of the coffee sloshed onto his hand, burning the skin between his index finger and thumb.

He kicked the door shut behind him, and set his things on the table beside the door. He ran his now-free hand over his thinning brown hair, and adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses.

Dave was a boring person, he knew. He sold insurance and slept. His reed-thin body was alive only because of yogurt and the gallons of water he consumed on a weekly basis. His one cup of coffee a day was his guilty pleasure. He had no wife, no children; his parents were dead and he was an only child. His extended family was scattered all over the globe, and he knew that when he died, it would be alone and boring.

Exactly how he wanted it.

He turned to hang his keychain on the hook he had screwed into the doorframe when a hand clamped over his face, roughly placing a smelly cloth over his nose and mouth. The sickly smelling fabric filled Dave’s nostrils as he collapsed to the ground.



When Dave finally opened his eyes again, everything looked hazy. His head felt like it was filled with cotton, his tongue thick and fuzzy-tasting. He leaned his head back, waiting for his vision to clear.

He was tied to a metal chair in a basement type area, a leaky sink across from him, the drip-drip sound irritating, and a table with a variety of hammers lying harmlessly upon it.

Behind him, the telltale sounds of creaky stairs were loud and overpowered the drips of water in the sink.

“Hello, Dave,” his kidnapper greeted.

Dave turned his head, his eyes widening when he saw the criminal before him.

He was a clown. Literally, he was a clown. His outfit was typical of the merry-jokesters of the circus, white powder and red lipstick masking his true features. A bright red ball was stuck on his nose, and a blue tear was drawn under his eye. His make-up face was a sad one, the mouth a large and exaggerated frown. He wore a large white afro-style wig to complete the get-up.

Dave looked closely, hoping that if he could escape then he would be able to identify the man somehow.

“I suppose you’re trying to figure out who I am and what you’re doing here.” The clown said, walking around to stand in front of Dave, his hands on his hips.

“What do you think, Eugene? Should we explain it to him?” The clown looked at his shoulder.

Dave thought it was just his luck to get kidnapped by a clown who talked to his own shoulder.

Then he saw it, and he knew it was worse than that.

It was a grasshopper. It sat on the clown’s shoulder, its tiny black eyes glaring daggers at Dave. It was larger than the normal grasshopper, about the size of a small kitten, and Dave wondered how he had missed it before.

Don’t you watch movies, Squeaky? The grasshopper chirped. Dave blinked and hauled in a breath. The grasshopper had just talked.

Grasshoppers don’t talk, he insisted to himself. Surely, he had simply imagined it. The chloroform must still be affecting him, that’s all.

“Of course I do, Eugene. You know that the movies are my favorite thing to do…well, after this.” ‘Squeaky’ the clown laughed; a high-pitched, creepy sound that sent goosebumps over Dave’s skin.

Haven’t you ever noticed how when the villain starts a monologue, telling his victim the hows and whys of everything, the villain is always caught? Eugene twittered at Squeaky.

This statement caused the clown’s drawn-on eyebrows to furrow together, his eyes blinking a little in confusion.

“But I like to tell them why. It’s fun.” He replied to the grasshopper.

Eugene rolled his beady eyes, and sighed, his legs rubbing together, a sound much like a sorrowful violin filling the room.

But you don’t want to get caught, do you?

“Well…no. But I won’t! After all, it’s just Dave. He isn’t dangerous. I’ll tell him everything and then I’ll kill him. Simple as that.” Squeaky grinned.

Something about the sight of the sad makeup and the clown’s deranged smile of pleasure and accomplishment just freaked Dave out.

It was then that Dave noticed Squeaky’s shoes.

They were entirely too small for a clown. They were tiny, almost dainty, compared to the typical shiny red monster shoes that clowns generally wore.

“You have the wrong shoes,” Dave told the clown, unable to keep his mouth shut.

Squeaky blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Dave motioned his chin at the clown’s shoes. “You have the wrong shoes. They’re black, not red. And they’re too small. Clown shoes are big and red and shiny. Those aren’t.”

“My shoes fit, though.”

“But they’re wrong. If you’re going to be a clown, then you must have the shoes.” Dave insisted, unsure as to why exactly he felt the need to argue with the insane man who had kidnapped him from his own home.

“I don’t care. They are my shoes.” Squeaky shouted. Eugene chirped softly in Squeaky’s ear. The clown took a breath.

“You’re right, Eugene. You always are. I’m not going to bother telling Dave here why I want to kill him. I’m just going to do so.”

Squeaky picked Eugene up gently, the grasshopper fitting easily into his palm, and set him down on Dave’s lap. Dave tried to wrestle his hands free of the rope that kept him trapped but to no avail.

The clown walked over to the table where the hammers lay, once unobtrusive and supposedly harmless, now items of dread and death. Dave couldn’t figure out who to keep his eyes on.

The talking grasshopper in his lap, or the demented clown across the room.

Squeaky turned back with a hammer in hand, his white-gloved hand caressing the handle of the tool.

“Don’t worry, Dave. I’ll cry for you.” Squeaky trailed a finger down the blue tear on his face.

As the hammer came down, Dave’s last sight was the grasshopper’s tiny eyes, glimmering with laughter.




WC: 1,037

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