I had laughed when my friends had egged me on to walk on the downs where the clowns were.
"I ain't afraid of no clowns" were my exact words.
I walked on the luscious green of the down, and into the woods a hundred times during the day. It was a quiet place to have a sit down and think away from the hustle and bustle of the town.
But not tonight according to Facebook's warning...
"You can't believe everything you read on Facebook" were my parting words.
So there I was, it must have been 3am walking about all alone on the downs, happy as a dog off a lead.
The little Dutch courage in my system was keeping me warm, but I had all my senses about me.
There wasn't going to be anyone here anyway.
Even if I saw a clown, they are not that scary. I blame Stephen King - he gave clowns a bad reputation.
I'd almost convinced myself that the Downs were completely void of human life and clowns at this time of night and was ready to go home and show that I had survived...
When I heard some strange laughter...
The lonely street lamp was silhouetting a man with Ronald Macdonald hair. He appeared to be practising Shotokan katas smoothly and forcefully going through the karate moves, without missing a beat and laughing manically.
As the kata brought him closer to the street lamp, it shone on his face.
Surprise, surprise he had a red nose.
His smile was painted on as wide as the Jokers and his eyes were painted silver and wide.
Crazy wide?
Or drug wide?
I could not decide, but either was not good.
Dare I admit it. I was little a bit scared.
Unnerved.
Not only was this a clown, but a clown with karate knowledge.
A karate clown. Great!
It was long time ago since I had done any karate.
The kata sequence was edging him closer to me.
I stood to the side to he could get past me if he wanted.
But there was something about the precise movements that was unnerving me more by the second.
I kept my eyes on him and caught a closer look of his eyes.
They looked wild and cold as if he didn't care what happened tonight.
That made my legs move and I crossed the road to avoid him and something made me look back.
Growing fear?
He was standing there stock still, like a statue.
But somehow he was still laughing.
That eerie laughter still followed me as I turned to pick up the pace to walk home.
I turned back again and the clown was gone.
My heart was pumping overtime, so I stopped and breathed some long deep breaths to calm down.
Maybe the drink had affected me more than I though and my senses must playing up after all.
My thoughts began to stop racing.
Then I caught another glimpse of him.
He wasn't doing katas anymore...
He was running full pelt towards me.
My legs wouldn't work. I was rooted to the spot. My body just wouldn't listen to my brains commands.
He stopped just a sofa's width from me and stared at me.
There was no smile now. Just a menacing grimace.
I saw his hand move and what I thought might be a glint of silver.
I tried to say something, but the mutter came out a high pitched nonsense noise.
I was petrified.
Somewhere behind me a car door slammed.
The next second the clown's grimace turned back into a grin and he turned way and started more karate katas, kicking, punching, blocking, but moving away at least.
Laughing that joyously evil laugh.
I walked away as fast as I could.
I looked in the direction of the door slam, wondering if they knew that they probably saved my life.
As soon as I couldn't hear the laugh anymore, the fast walk turns into a sprint as I couldn't wait any longer to be home and behind locked doors.
My friends laughed at my white as a sheet face, but I wiped those laughs away with the tale I told.
From now on, we'd leave those clowns on the Downs alone.
I wish he'd stay out my dreams though, as I still hear that laughter and it still has me waking in sweat of panic.
Stephen King was right after all.
This story was inspired after reading this story by Blue_Tidal, I hoping I've done enough to change and add to it to make it my own story.