Chapter 314

The night outside was quiet, too quiet. Only the soft sound of wind rustling through the trees could be heard. The moon hung low, a pale ghostly orb in the sky, barely casting any light. It was a town like any other, tucked away in the middle of nowhere, where everyone knew everyone, and nothing ever seemed to change. That was until the clowns arrived.

The first one came on a Tuesday. Nobody saw it land, but by morning, the fields outside town were scorched with strange marks, as though something had scraped across the earth. The grass was flattened in odd patterns, like it had been stepped on by something that wasn't human.

There were no other signs. No footprints, no debris, no indication of what had happened. The people who lived near the edge of town felt uneasy, but life went on as usual.

Then the disappearances started.

It began with Joe, the mechanic who lived on the outskirts. No one heard from him after sunset, and by the time his wife went to check on him the next morning, there was nothing but his clothes scattered on the floor of his shop. The blood stains were few, but the silence that filled his shop was unnerving. No struggle. No body.

People said it was a robbery gone wrong. The town was small, but things like this happened in small towns. They didn't expect the others.

The next night, it was Sandy and Mark, the couple who owned the diner. They disappeared without a trace, their cars left parked in the lot. No one had seen them since the night before.

By morning, only their empty home remained. The house was left untouched, the lights still on, the TV buzzing static, a half-eaten meal left on the kitchen counter. It felt wrong, more than wrong, as if the very space they had occupied had been erased from existence.

The local sheriff, Darren, started to notice a pattern. Each disappearance occurred on a night when the clouds blocked out the stars, and the air felt unusually still. It was a strange coincidence, but one that gnawed at him.

He'd spent most of his career in this town, but he couldn't remember a time when things felt this wrong. It wasn't just the missing people—it was the emptiness left behind.

Two days after the second disappearance, Sheriff Darren decided to take a walk around town. The sun was setting, casting an orange glow over the streets. He passed by the homes of the missing and found nothing. Nothing but the thick, unsettling quiet.

He stopped by the diner, his hand hovering above the door. The bell rang as he entered, but there was no one inside. Just tables. Empty plates. The stench of something foul lingered in the air. He couldn't place it, but it made his stomach churn.

That night, Sheriff Darren sat in his patrol car, watching the empty streets, his mind racing. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew it had something to do with the clowns. He had seen them—just once—but that was enough. They weren't from around here.

No one was. The bright, garish makeup, the painted smiles that never quite matched the eyes, the long, spindly arms that moved like they weren't quite attached.

He had seen one standing at the edge of town the night before. He wasn't sure if it had been real or if his mind had conjured it up out of stress, but something about it felt off, like it wasn't supposed to be there. Like it had slipped through from another world. But when he blinked, it was gone.

He drove down the darkened road, the headlights cutting through the thick darkness. His grip tightened on the wheel. He had to find out what was happening, even if it meant facing the things that didn't belong here.

As the minutes passed, the world around him grew quieter. The trees seemed to lean in closer, their branches almost clawing at the sky. The road stretched out ahead of him like an endless black ribbon. His tires hummed softly against the pavement. But then, ahead, he saw something. Something in the distance. A shape.

It was one of them.

Darren slammed on the brakes, the car jerking to a stop. The clown stood at the edge of the road, the colors of its costume garish against the night. Its face, painted in a grotesque, smiling mask, seemed too wide, too stretched.

Its eyes—there were no pupils, just black voids, sucking in everything around it. Darren's heart pounded in his chest. He was frozen, unable to look away.

The clown's lips curled, the smile too wide, too deliberate. It raised one long, skeletal finger and pointed at Darren. A high-pitched laugh echoed across the night air, but it didn't sound like it came from the clown. It felt like it came from everywhere. It filled his head, his chest, his bones.

And then, the clown vanished.

Darren sat there in silence, his breath ragged. He should have driven away. He should have gone back to town, warned everyone. But something rooted him to the spot, something more than fear.

He was going to find them.

The moon was higher now, casting an eerie light across the landscape. Darren got out of the car, his hand shaking as he reached for his flashlight. He scanned the dark woods around him, but all he saw were the trees, their shadows stretching unnaturally long.

A scream tore through the night.

It wasn't far. Darren rushed toward the sound, his flashlight shaking in his grip. He couldn't see anything, but the scream was still there, echoing off the trees. Then, he saw her.

A woman, her face frozen in horror, her hands outstretched as if reaching for something that wasn't there. Her body was twitching, jerking unnaturally, like something was pulling at her from the inside. She wasn't alone.

Behind her, the clown emerged from the darkness. Another one. Its face twisted into a grotesque grin, its mouth stretching impossibly wide. The woman's body snapped back, her bones cracking as she was yanked into the air. The clown was holding her, lifting her up, its laughter filling the woods.

Darren could barely think, his body moving on its own. He pulled his gun from the holster and aimed at the clown. But before he could fire, the woman's body was thrown aside like a ragdoll. She hit the ground with a sickening thud, blood pooling around her.

The clown turned, its attention on Darren. Its smile widened, impossibly so. It stepped forward, and then—nothing.

Darren was no longer standing in the woods.

He was somewhere else. Somewhere dark, cold, and wrong. His flashlight flickered weakly in his hand. The ground beneath him was cracked and uneven. Above him, there was no sky. No stars. Just an endless expanse of darkness, stretching in all directions.

The clown was there, but it was different now. Larger, more monstrous. It reached for him with spindly, long fingers, and its mouth opened wider than should have been possible, revealing row upon row of jagged teeth. But before it could touch him, Darren did what he thought he had to do. He pulled the trigger.

The gunshot rang out, but nothing changed. The clown continued to move toward him, its laugh rising in pitch. The bullet did nothing.

And then, Darren understood. There was no escape. There had never been. They had come for him, for everyone, and they would not stop. Not now. Not ever.

The clown's mouth was on him, the teeth tearing through his skin. The pain was overwhelming, suffocating, and then... nothing.

The night returned to its silence, as if nothing had ever happened.

Back in the town, Sheriff Darren's patrol car sat abandoned at the side of the road, headlights still shining. There was no sign of him, no trace, nothing. Not even his blood remained.

And so, the clowns continued their hunt.