Jesse Bodine finishes heaving the last bale of hay and rests against the fence at the edge of his aunt's farm. The eighteen-year-old city boy's parents sent him here for the summer, and he's hated every minute of it. His aunt is cruel and domineering, the work is dull and exhausting, and there is nothing to do around here, nothing but cows and chores and more cows and more chores. The heat only makes things worse; Jesse's already had to strip out of his shirt and underwear, his overalls are only barely clinging to his body (he's slimmed down considerably since he came here), and he is covered head-to-toe in sweat, even with an afternoon breeze kicking it right now.
Out of nowhere, he hears something over the background mooing of his aunt's cattle. Circus music.
Now that's odd. Okay, no. "Odd" is an understatement. The closest thing to excitement Jesse's seen all summer was a trip to Wal-mart last month. A sudden, unexpected circus is weird, and Jesse knows all too well that this is the only break from boredom and drudgery he's going to have in a good long while.
He reaches down and picks up his walkie-talkie. "Aunt Jo, there's something weird at the edge of the property. I think I'm gonna check it out." He sets the radio down next to his discarded shirt and underwear and leaves without waiting for a reply. He can deal with whatever discipline she wants to give out later; this circus will be worth it.
He follows the sound of the circus through the woods. As he gets closer, the music sounds increasingly off in a way he can't really describe. It's like a distorted copy of circus music, or maybe their speakers are just old and crappy. The smells eventually hit him too, and they are also slightly, disturbingly off. It smells like roasted peanuts, cotton candy, and various fried things, but it also smells chemically somehow, or antiseptic. Then again, Jesse thinks, who knows what kind of drugs these circus-folk might be up to? And he's probably coming from the back way anyway, so maybe this is just what a circus smells like from the other side.
In any event, Jesse reaches the circus after about thirty minutes of walking. The circus looks almost empty, just a collection of huge, oddly-colored tents made of a fabric he can't recognize, sitting in the middle of a clearing. He can't see any people around, but the place is obviously set up for people to be there. Jesse slowly circles around the biggest tent--an orange and purple construct over 90 feet tall--trying to find an entrance, or maybe a person. He does find the exit, but there's no one there, just an empty, yawning void inside. The air is cooler in there, much cooler than the outside, though Jesse can't hear any generators.
"Hello?" he calls out. No answer. He calls out again, and again hears nothing back. He glances around, confirms that he is still alone, and sticks his head into the tent. It almost looks bigger on the inside, and the eerie, off-sounding circus music echoes in the darkness. He can faintly make out a pathway, but not quite where it leads.
A white shape shambles out of the darkness, into the faint cone of light Jesse can see from the tent flap. Jesse has to squint his eyes and take a step closer to make out just what it is. He almost laughs when he realizes it's a clown. And "it" is really a "she."
The clown is one of the largest, fattest women Jesse has ever seen. She stands close to six feet tall and probably weighs more than 500 pounds. Her makeup is intense: it makes her skin look lumpy, almost rubbery, and it flows and takes strange, curving shapes across her frame. Her belly is close to twice the size of Jesse's whole body, and each of her mammoth breasts is wider than her whole chest. Her ass must be wider than Jesse is tall. The clown's bulbous red nose looks like it's actually part of her face, and her eyes and mouth are ringed in pale blue paint that make her look like a sinister, scheming beast. The yellow eyes must be contact lenses, and the yellowed, pointy teeth are probably prosthetic. The talon-like fake nails look especially convincing too. The whole effect makes her look grotesquely amusing, and impossible to look away from.
The clown sees that Jesse has noticed her and beckons him closer. "Yoo-hoo," she croons exaggeratedly, like a cartoon.
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