The sick joke department

I write this sitting at a makeshift desk, two planks across some
trestles. The electricity supply is variable and may not last, so I
need to get my story down fast.
It begins a few weeks ago - on Christmas day.
The weather was too bad to go for a walk after lunch, so instead we
gathered in the games room, which looks out over the woods at the back
of the house. On the other side of the sliding glass doors that led out
on to the pine deck, the snowstorm swirled. As dusk drew in the house
lights lit up odd snowflakes. We felt isolated, but our family liked
that.
For Christmas, my dad had bought the whole family a state-of-the-art
computer - not this old Macintosh - and installed it in the games room.
He was determined that our late entry into the internet age would be
with a bang. Dad hovered over my sister as she made the first foray
into the Internet. My sister, dad's girl and a whiz on the 'puter
started to surf. We gathered round, my parents, my brother and I, and
watched over her shoulder, as she found a server.
"What shall we look for?" asked Julie.
I suggested we try the family name, Fr?hlich.
"Boring. It's all family trees and stuff. I found all that years
ago."
We made various other suggestions, none of which I can remember now. No
one could agree. Finally, my dad said, "Just type in Joker and see what
comes up."
It was a family thing: Dad always called us the jokers, the Fr?hlich
Family Jokers, like the Trapp Family Singers. Julie typed in JOKERS and
we waited. The list in blue writing came up.
The first entry was HA HA. Nothing else, no address, nothing. She
clicked. The little indicator at the top of the screen flashed a few
times.
"That was quick," said Julie. Then the screen began to turn an ugly
brown color. As we watched, the brown seemed to grow thicker and
thicker. For a few moments it swirled, then it seemed to freeze. Julie
swore a little. "It's acting up already."
I don't know what made her do it, but she reached out and touched the
screen. It shivered.
"That's weird. This isn't supposed to be touch-sensitive."
My brother did the same, but when he drew his finger away, I could make
out the two letters HA. One by one, we stroked the screen and the
letters became sharper; then another HA appeared. I was the last to
touch the thing and as soon as I felt the cold glass against my
fingertip, a head began to emerge from the murk. All of us, without
noticing the others, drew back. The head was grotesque, what we could
make of it, for it could only faintly be traced through the murk. The
red-lipped clown laughed silently and I could've sworn looked me
straight in the eye.
"Horrible," said Julie in a low voice.
The metallic voice that came out of the speakers was distorted. "Hello
kids." It was an ugly - rasping and somehow mean. The words didn't
quite synch with the gory mouth. My mother half-turned away in disgust,
but she didn't leave.
"You lucky little things have reached the sick joke department. We're
gonna have an awful lot of fun, just you wait. The sicker the joke, the
more fun we'll have."
My dad snickered.
The clown snarled: "You fucking little fuckers, think you're so smart,
don't you. Getting on to the internet."
"Turn that thing off," my mother said.
"It's gross, internet gunk," said my sister as she punched a couple of
keys.
"Sorry folks," said clown, "You asked for it, you got it. You ain't
gonna surf the net, the net's gonna surf you." He chortled wheezily.
"The net's gonna surf you hard."
My sister frantically tried different key combos until Dad pushed her
aside to have a go. Finally, they managed to turn the sound off, but
that clown just kept talking and occasionally picking its nose. "It's
no good," Dad said finally. "I can't get rid of the damn thing." But he
was laughing a little and my brother said, "I think it's funny. Let's
just leave him on."
"No," I said. "Get rid of it. It's vile."
"Well, dear. It is only a clown after all and he did seem to be awfully
friendly."
I turned to stare at my mother, who only a few minutes earlier had been
so eager see the back of the thing. She was grinning the biggest grin
I'd ever seen on her face.
"You know honey, you should chill."
"Yeah, chillski, chillerooni," said Julie. "Let's turn the sound back
up and watch the show.
I didn't wait. I yanked the cord out of the wall expecting the screen
to go blank. The clown just kept talking. I looked at the flex, I
looked at my family, then they all started to laugh and laugh. My dad
turned red and started to choke, which just made everyone laugh harder.
They were gasping for breath. My mother had to go lie on the sofa. I
looked at the back of the machine and pulled out all the plugs but that
clown kept talking. Then the screen went a murky brown again. But it
didn't turn off.
I kicked the table that it was standing on, forgetting that I was only
wearing socks. A pair of scissors that had been precariously placed,
tumbled down. I watched calmly as the blades swung open in mid-air and
the cold metal sliced through sock and deep into my big toe. I sat down
hard on the wooden steps leading upstairs and peeled back the sock. I
didn't feel pain. Blood was pouring out of my foot, dripping on to the
bare floorboards.
I laughed. It was so funny. The rest of the family laughed
harder.
Dinner that night was a hoot too. Julie and Dan were cooking up
spaghetti bolognese. When the rest of us got to the kitchen, the plates
full of shiny red coils of pasta were already on the table.
"Dig in," said Julie.
There was a little silence while my parents took their first bites. I
didn't: I could see that Julie and Dan were watching them too
carefully, so I watched too. They were both smirking like crazy and
exchanging little looks.
"Delicious," said Ma. "What's the secret ingredient?"
Dan snorted, tried to take a sip of water and choked.
Julie tried to speak, started to laugh. "Just Floella."
I looked down at my plate and stirred the spaghetti with my fork.
Underneath the pasta was a dark red lump. "Chris, you got her heart,
'cos she always liked you best."
We were laughing again. It was hysterical. The neighbour's chihuahua -
a dog with very little to recommend her - had always given me a
particularly heartfelt welcome.
"She had a soft spot for you too, Ma," said Julie.
"Yeah, called lower colon," added Dan.
"Hey kids, what about me? Didn't I get anything special." Dad smiled
encouragingly. He always liked his kids to be smart. "I wondered where
you two disappeared to."
"Check it out," said Dan.
Dad poked around and after a moment pulled back the strands of
spaghetti to show the rest of us. "Never again will her bark be worse
than her bite."
Floella's pink tongue lay like a piece of ham on Dad's plate. A couple
of months earlier, she'd made the mistake of nipping my father as he
walked up our drive. He'd kicked her and she'd barked and barked.
Hadn't shut up for days.
Well we were a happy family for the next few days. The jokes just kept
coming. Of course, they had to become increasingly gory. We tried to
outdo each other. Each person coming up with a more outrageous
practical joke. Dan really accelerated the pace one evening by doing a
magic show that involved really cutting off his right hand. We managed
to stop the blood, but the house was already beginning to smell. We'd
already had some of Julie's menstrual jokes and my mother's hilarious
brownies.
The computer stayed on in a corner of the TV room. We didn't care that
we couldn't change channels, because we needed to know what that clown
thought about each of our jokes. Each time someone's prank paid off,
we'd rush to the clown to measure the laughs. They were definitely
getting longer, louder and more robust each time. And the image itself
was getting clearer. The clown appeared to be getting bigger too; each
day it filled more of the screen.
Dan was the first to go. He hanged himself over my parents bed leaving
a note that simply said, "Just thought I'd hang around for a while." We
just about bust a gut at that one. Julie was the first to check our
clown. She called us over, excitement making her voice squeak.
"It looks as if it's just the other side of the glass."
We could see the cracks in the greasepaint around its eyes, the yellow
cast on its eyeballs, the fillings in its back teeth.
When we buried Dan in the garden, Dad said, "The boy always did have a
sense of humour."
Then Dad killed Ma, which just left me and Julie. While we chuckled
over the body, I looked at them both standing in the thin snow. Julie
had her red jacket on. She looked really healthy with pink cheeks and
more than the usual sparkle in her long green eyes. Dad wore a
lumberjack jacket with the collar turned up. His face was lit up. I
thought I'd never seen him so happy. When he spoke, the good humour
just bubbled out of him like champagne. When he was alone, I had seen
him clench his sharp, small teeth and smile to himself. I decided then
that I didn't want to die.
We went and checked on the clown. It's face filled the screen now,
pushing right up against the edges. It seemed like it was pressing
itself to the glass on the other side, as if it was caught in the
machine like a fish in a bowl. I knew we didn't have to do anything
clever anymore to feed the clown. That's what was happening. All our
little jokes were feeding the clown, making him grow. And now any old
murder was funny enough.
"Ha ha ha ha, who's got the last laugh, boys and girls?" said the
clown.
My Dad thought he knew the answer; I could tell by that little clenched
smile. He was the master of the house. But Dad always underestimated
the intelligence of the opposition.
We went up to bed happy and smiling. I looked into my Dad's eyes when
we got to the top floor landing. It was going to be me first, then
Julie. Maybe he wasn't so dumb after all, he knew I was a lot more
ruthless than my dumbass sister. "Sweet dreams," he said.
I went into my room and sat on the edge of the bed. Feeling under my
pillow, I checked that the meat cleaver was still there. Extreme
violence was the key. He wouldn't be expecting that. I had to keep
awake. I took my socks off and pressed my feet against the cold boards.
I didn't have to wait long. He was eager.
When I heard him softly creeping down the hall, I went and stood behind
the door. Outside, a board creaked and he stopped moving. I could feel
him holding his breath, waiting. Then he was at the door and very
slowly it swung open. It stood ajar for a moment or two as he gathered
himself on the threshold. Then he sprang through the gap.
I had not expected him to be so agile. After all, he must have been
well over 50 and none too trim around the middle. But when he sprang, I
sprang. I missed slightly with the first blow and only managed to get
the cleaver stuck n his arm. I jerked it away. It had been enough to
stop him. He turned to me. I saw his glinting smile as I brought the
cleaver down again. He laughed, gurgled, died.
In Julie's room, I felt a moment of doubt. Maybe the two of us, I
thought, but then I would never know what the clown would do when I got
the last laugh. I giggled a little as Julie's feet twitched while I
suffocated her.
Then I went down to see my clown. All the lights were out, so the room
was only lit by the faint orangey glow of the computer. At first I
thought it wasn't there at all. Then I crept closer to the screen and I
realized that what had at first seemed to be brown nothingess had
definition. A line here, a faintly etched shadow. A pair of gloved
hands groping through the ether. They were huge and as I watched they
pressed against the glass, palms out. They seemed to push. I held my
breath with excitement. I could see the weave of the gloves. Then there
was glass everywhere and viscous brown liquid was spilling into the
room. I stepped back; the smell was awful. And I heard its laugh.
Strong, joyful. Its awesome head appeared first, followed by a long
body.
The clown must have been about seven feet tall. It stretched like a
cat, standing on tiptoe and extending its arms to the ceiling. I looked
up into its smiling face and reached out to touch it.
"Are you real?" I breathed.
"As real as you are, sugar." It laughed and laughed. I did too. I was
so happy. Then the creature opened the sliding door and walked out into
the snow. I could hear his laugh fade into the distance as he left me,
alone in my house.