Excerpt: El Unico Buen Payaso Es Una Payaso Muerto

Jiggling the flashlight with shaky hands, Mei watched Yoko’s fingers flutter like butterfly wings over the stone, the elder woman’s face screwing up in thought. Alestor, kibitzing over her shoulder, urged her on. “Can’t you read faster?” He leaned forwards and squinted at the vague cuneiform-like scratching on the stone. “Man, I haven’t brushed up on my ancient languages in ages…”

“I would if you’d stop breathing down my neck,” she snapped. She mouthed the words to herself, checking grammar in her head.

“Hurry it up, Yoko,” Leo called, glaring out at the darkness. Shapes were moving and he didn’t like how large they seemed. Henri twisted his fingers in knots, nervously watching Leo watch things he couldn’t see.

“Almost done.” Her eyes were closed, her fingers still on the stone and nails in the grooves of the hieroglyphs.

Leo cocked the shotgun and aimed into the dark, where on the edges of seeable ground were becoming misty, foggy. The looming shapes inched closer, tightening the circle.

“Move over!” snapped Alestor, shoving Yoko aside and scrutinizing the stone. She glared at him and shoved back, elbowing her way next to him to look at the rock once more. Mei bit her lip nervously and watched Leo brandish his weapon threateningly.

“Back off, whateverthehellyouare!” He fired a warning shot, which made Henri jump and grab Mei. A chattering and guttural growling noise answered his shot. The fog grew thicker.

“Alestor-san, Yoko-san, hurryyyyy…” Mei whimpered, shaking Alestor’s shoulder. He snapped out of his concentration and looked over at Henri whose green eyes were staring at the rapidly thickening fog. “Henri!” he called sharply, and the boy blinked, startled. The looming shapes on the other hand, did get more solid, bigger, more ominous.

"Yeah?" he asked, tearing his gaze from the shadows.

"See if any of your lil friends can read this scratch," the platinum haired man said, pointing at the stone.

Before Henri could approach, Yoko’s eyes lit up. “I got IT!” She rose so fast she smacked her head on the flashlight and Mei dropped it, the light flickering but not extinguishing. "Aaaaaahhhhhh, fffff...."

“So let’s get going!” Leo shot another shadow, but missed by a long shot. The creatures looked like they were made more of joints and sinews than anything else.

Alestor snatched up the bag and handed the flashlight to Mei. “So who’re we looking for?”

“Not who,” Yoko corrected, taking the bag from him and slinging it onto her shoulder. “A what. It’s a gate and it’s not far from the Mendoza’s farm.”

Mei and Henri shrank closer to the two as Leo started shooting at creatures he could only see when they stopped moving and such opportunities were becoming rarer and rarer.

“I’ll explain on the way, back to the van,” Yoko said, grabbing Mei by the arm, who in turn grabbed Henri.

“Leo!” Alestor yelled as the group started towards the van, moving along the row of flares they left in the growing darkness. “Knock it off! We’re leaving!”

“ 'Bout damned time!” the soldier snapped, reloading the shotgun and sprinting to keep pace with the group’s head start. He wondered why they had to park the van so damned far away.

The mad dash to the van started as a nervous jog and graduated to desperate sprint, as the five followed their makeshift runway down the rocky hill. Like a vertigo lens in a horror movie, the path to safety seemed to stretch and grow longer even as they covered more ground. Behind them, unearthly sounds of growling and hissing grew to a frightening crescendo. In the midst of the sounds came to Mei what sounded almost like words, signals in the guttural howling caught somewhere between feline and canine. “I think they’re talking to each other!!” she yelled to her companions.

“How d’you know?!” Leo yelled, nearly running over her.

“I don’t! It just does!!”

“Then don’t sound like you know everything!”

Suddenly, out of the darkness and fog came something the size of a large chimpanzee, flying out at Henri at breakneck speed. Alestor pivoted, swung his cane and in one balletic movement with strength most of the team didn't know he had, turned and sliced it out of the air, even as Henri was toppling backwards, hands upward in defense. Both he and the creature tumbled to the ground, the latter in two neat, if bloody, pieces. At the last second, Mei hurdle-jumped the child, and Leo, bringing up the rear, snatched Henri out of the dust, still moving forward.

The entire affair couldn’t have taken more than a mere 8 seconds. Mei wondered at the team solidarity even in this infant stage, but thinking too hard would have made her trip over herself.

“Sons of bitches move stupid fast don’t they?” panted Leo, Henri still under his arm, nearly limp in exhaustion.

Alestor, glancing in peripheral vision, pivoted to his left and skidded to a halt, letting the team streak past, the van only yards away. Mei turned, skidded to a stop and was nearly run over by Yoko.

“Alestor!!” Seeing her halt, Yoko stopped, and grabbed at her arm, trying to drag her along.

“I got it!” he yelled back, as 5 or 6 creatures romped into view. “Get to the van!!” Already he was shooting them down and beating/slicing them with the cane, now unsheathed to reveal a thin sword slowing some of the pack.

Leo was already at the van, jumping to the driver’s seat. Henri was beating the creatures off with the pipe, as Yoko yanked the reluctant Mei into the van, slamming the sliding door shut. “We can’t leave him!!” Mei cried shrilly as the engine revved.

“Watch me,” Leo said, getting into gear. One of the creatures leaped onto the windshield, and Henri and Mei reacted with screams. The windshield wipers were proving ineffective, so Leo gunned the engine and after going a good while, getting up to 60 mph, made a sharp turn and dislodged the thing and running over a good bunch.

At this point, Alestor was making his way to the van as it made its extreme u-turn and came back his way. Mei tried to open the door, only to find the chupacabra all too eager to come inside. Yoko and Henri made sure to keep the sides clear of any unwanted passengers. Alestor got ready to jump aboard and realized all too late the sliding door wasn’t open, and Leo’s crazy swerve only served to flatten part of the seemingly endless pack and send Alestor diving away to avoid a similar fate. The van skidded, screeched, wanted to tip over and roll, but didn’t. Losing inertia, the van nearly came to a halt, and was suddenly set upon by the pack.

Shotgun ammo and flare spells were not healthy to the chupacarba.

Cursing, Alestor got off the ground and broke into a sprint towards the van as it revved up and, after shedding chupacabra body parts, came barreling back into his direction. The pack split itself into two and concentrated attacking both the large monstrosity that was the van, and the lone but just as deadly Alestor.

Leo cursed and stomped on the gas pedal. “I was wrong; mother fuckers’er ass-kickingly fast.”

“What happened to Alestor?” asked Henri, worried. He couldn’t see anything but dust and blood and occasionally a brave chupacabra that made like a rodeo rider on the windshield.

Suddenly, Leo said, “Oh Fuck.”

Right after, something larger than the creatures hit the windshield, which miraculously didn’t shatter, and rolled up and over the van roof with a loud thump.

“Shit,” Leo said quite lamely. “I just ran down Alestor.” Mei and Henri gaped at Leo horrified as the van bumped and rolled over the Mexican desert. Yoko shook her head. “You’re so not getting a cut for this job, dumbass.”

Leo glanced in the rear view mirror and not seeing Alestor’s corpse or otherwise, contorted his brow in nervousness. “Should I go back?”

“What, and run over him again?” snorted Yoko, rolling up her window as the creatures started to swarm around the van.

Just as Mei opened her mouth to suggest that, yes, they should go back and at least administer last rites, a shakey hand suddenly thumped hard on the top of the windshield. Mei and Henri screamed again, and Leo swerved and sputtered many curse words. The hand thumped again and made a pathetic waving motion.

“Easy cupcakes,” sighed Yoko. “Its just Alestor. He wants us to keep going.”

“Good thing we got the luggage racks,” Henri said.

Meanwhile, on the roof, Alestor was catching his breath and counting the ribs (among other things) that were either broken or sprained and bruised. Wishing that he’d stayed in long enough at the Academy to acquire a faster healing rate, he rolled over onto his back, still gripping the luggage rack for dear…well, not life but a reasonable facsimile. He could hear the pack swarming the van and keeping pace despite the fact that he knew that Leo wouldn’t be going any slower than a good 80 mph.

The creatures sprang onto the van, with the usual result of lacking something to get a good hold of and being dragged along the sand and rocks until they let go (or the limb came off). Eventually one grabbed onto his leg, to which he responded with a swift kick. Realizing that even on the roof of a van going way past any reasonable speed limit, he wasn’t getting any rest, Alestor pulled out his gun and started to shoot with X-Games extreme prejudice.

"Welcome to Mexico," he said, echoing his earlier, now ironic words. "I'd rather the Jersey Devils...."

By Dio (10/1/12)

All characters and art belong to Dio.