Jokers Club by Gregory Bastianelli Page A

creepy,” she continued, “and gave me chills, even here in the bright daylight. I guess,” she shrugged her shoulders and tossed her wavy brown hair, “it’s just not as gruesome as you usually write.”
    I looked at her in silence, thinking it over.
    I remembered the story I wrote about the fishermen in the lake, trying to catch what turns out to be a prehistoric fish. I got pretty graphic with that one, with dismembered limbs and blood-churned waters and the jaws of the lake creature chomping on the helpless fishermen. Yeah, that one was a bit gory.
    At some point the gore seemed to lose its bite. Maybe it was because of that one summer when I came face-to-face with true horror. That had been real and diminished all the grotesque blood-drenched images my mind had conjured up. The Joker in that attic room in my mind had helped me conjure up those visions. He seemed to relish the most absurd demented tortures any soul could bear and laughed as I wrote them down.
    When I entered through the door into that attic room, the Joker was the one really in charge. He knew. He guided me, helping me wade through the tide of blood.
    “That’s what they want,” he’d say. “They want blood. Deep red blood.” And he would grin, his teeth shining, and I would write.
    But once I had seen real horror, I realized the Joker’s tapestry of terror was not nearly as unsettling as what deeper, darker things could scare the human mind. For a while I couldn’t even write at all, thought maybe I’d never be able to again. But the Joker was always there to help me and eventually I was able to get back to it. But things were different now. Maybe it disappointed my muse, maybe the Joker understood, but I tried to write my stories with a truer sense of what was really frightening.
    “Maybe I’ve matured,” I finally said, looking at Meg. “Don’t need to always go for the guts.”
    She leaned over and pressed her soft lips against my cheek.
    “Well, it’s subtle, I like it. I think it’s great progress.” She leaned back in her chair smiling and I just marveled at how adorable she was and how lucky I was to have her.
    But now I had seen real horror once again, right there behind me on that porch swing. Meg had it all wrong; the Joker was right. There was nothing subtle about horror. It was gruesome and grotesque and Dale’s blood soaked the wood of the swing and the floorboards beneath and you could see the ragged tearing of his flesh and the innards through the opening in his abdomen.
    No, nothing subtle about that. That was horror.
    And no matter how much I stared out at the beauty of the lake, I couldn’t ignore it. Not when the wail of the sirens approached to remind of what was going on behind me. I had to turn around and face it. There was no other choice.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Police Chief Hooper hadn’t changed at all. He was just as fat and ugly as I remembered. We all stood at one end of the porch: Lonny, Oliver, Martin and myself. I looked at the faces around me. They were all pale, and I imagined my own to be the same. Nobody spoke.
    A little further away from us stood Bob Wolfe, Sandy the chambermaid, Professor Bonz and the woman guest. They too were silent.
    In the middle of the porch were Hooper and several other police officers, all standing around the swing. With them was a medical examiner looking over the body. One of the police officers was taking pictures from a variety of angles.
    Dale remained seated, unaware of everything going on around him. Like the rest of us, he too was silent, would always be. It was crazy. He couldn’t be dead. I was sitting there right beside him on that swing just hours ago. And now he was still there. But he wasn’t ever going to get off of it. Not on his own. Dead. Murdered. It was all a dream. No more spooning peanut butter from jars snatched from our mothers’ kitchens. No more racing through the ravine during a game of Relievo. If I could just shake his body hard enough