The Clown

This tale has scared more than one young teen and it is touted as a story for children—but not for young children. As an adult I find it disturbing.

It is in a subset of scary tales involving babysitters. The backdrop of young teens alone, responsible for younger children tends to provide a rich setting for tales that want to terrorize.

This is why so many teen slasher films use this premise. The following story does not need the overt gimmicks these films use to scare their audience—it has a clown in it—enough said.

The owners of the big house at the end of my block finally asked me to babysit their two boys. Saturday night, at eight I rang their doorbell. Mr. Ewers answered.

He took me on a tour of the home. The Ewers were into art big time. I was surrounded by elaborate pieces, including large grotesque statues that appeared around every corner.

Once back in the front hall, I met the boys. To my relief they appeared nice and not too hyper. Mrs. Ewers handed me a paper with the usual numbers—where to contact them and doctor numbers.

As the couple left Mr. Ewers turned back with a smile. “I hope you don’t get lost.” He then laughed.

The boys and I got along fine and they even went to bed without much of a fuss. I ended up in the basement where the Ewer’s only television was located.

This big space had been converted into a rec room with all the boy’s toys and games. I wondered if this was to keep them away from all the breakable art upstairs.

I dimmed the overhead lights and found a program I liked. Sometime later I heard a knock coming from one corner of the room. I glanced up and spotted a life-size statue of a clown sitting in this corner. I had not noticed it before. Heavens, the boys even had a statue.

I did not like the smirk on this figure’s face so I found a blanket and covered it up. Now I could ignore it. I happily went back to watching the smiling teens dance on my program.

A little while later, I was interrupted by my phone ringing. It was Mr. Ewers, he was checking up on the boys. As I reassured him everything was fine I noticed the clown figure’s big shoes move ever so slightly.

I squealed. Mr. Ewers asked me if everything was okay. I replied yes, but the boy’s clown statue was putting my imagination into overdrive.

There was a pause on the line and then Mr. Evers said, “Listen carefully, the boys have complained about a clown that comes into their room late at night. We thought it was just nightmares.”

“We don’t own a clown statue. You need to get the kids and get out of the house, now! I will call the police.”

I hung up the phone and turned to the corner where the clown statue sat. But now the only thing that remained was the blanket on the chair.

I then heard heavy footsteps going up the basement stairs.