The train doors hissed shut, locking with a dead thud. Now I was trapped. Stuck inside a sweltering mass of elbows and shoulders that pressed in from every side. My chest felt tight, a dread I knew all too well. There were too many bodies and not enough air. I reached for the overhead strap, hoping to steady myself. Then, as if out of spite, the train suddenly lurched hard. It sent me crashing into a passenger to my left. I anticipated a hard impact, but there was no bounce. My shoulder seemed to just keep going, sinking deep into his coat with a wet, muffled squelch. It felt like plunging a thumb deep into raw dough. I gasped and ripped myself back, or at least tried to. My sleeve was fusing with his coat, threads tangling and dissolving into each other, melting into a single patch of coarse gray felt. Panic spiked through my body. I tried to scream, but the sound caught in my throat as the train tore down the tracks, the metal shrieking against the rails. The lines between us were collapsing around me. The commuter directly across from me, who had been clutching her phone and choking on a sob, let out a horrifying wail as her fingers began seamlessly fusing into the casing. The passenger beside her melted into her shoulder. Their face flattened into a featureless mass of pale flesh, heaving their now shared lungs. A muffled groan rippled through the cabin. Dozens of voices blended into one terrifying drone of agony. I looked down in horror at my feet. My shoes were sinking into the rubber flooring, my ankles vanished beneath a rising tide of gray biomass that sloshed with every sway of the speeding carriage. The mass was feverishly hot. It pulsed with a deafening collective heartbeat, rushing forward, driven by some terrible momentum towards the front of the train. It was as if the entire vehicle were being digested by a singular, hungry organism. The intercom chirped out the next stop, its cheerful digital voice contrasting against the wet, squishing symphony of bone and cartilage dissolving. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds. The transport was decelerating now, screeching against the brakes. Trapped by inertia, the unified mass hurtled forward. I began to thrash, the last remnants of my arms sinking deep into the chest of the merged crowd. My face pressed against a mosaic of other eyes, all wide and staring, weeping thick tears that looked like grease. I felt my ribs crack from the sheer pressure of expanding lunch cavities that no longer belonged to me. I felt myself breathing through someone else’s nose. I began to see through someone else’s tear-blurred eyes. The train screeched to a halt. The doors hissed open. Indifferent travelers stood on the brightly lit platform checking their devices, completely unaware. The breathing mountain of melted passengers bulged against the doorframes, straining, rushing, and pouring outward onto the station floor to claim the next unsuspecting crowd.

“It’s the mask,” Elaine insisted. She was curled up on the settee in the living room next to her husband, Clive. The TV was on, but they were both paying more attention to the stiff drinks in their hands. “You’re being ridiculous,” Clive said. “Jason’s clearly troubled about something and the mask is a way of coping.” “But he was fine before he got the mask. Why did you have to buy it for him?” “It was Halloween!” “I know, I know. But why did it have to be that one. It’s so… creepy.” Clive shrugged. “Jason wanted it.” “Sarah hates it. She can’t look at it. She swears it looks different sometimes. And do you know what? I think I get what she means.” Clive rose from the settee to pour himself more whiskey. “Now you really are being ri-diculous.” “Maybe,” Elaine conceded. “But things can’t go on like this. He keeps on misbehaving in class, getting into fights. And the laughing, Clive. It’s not normal. Usually I have to calm him down on my own, but you’ve seen it yourself now. It’s like he’s having a mental breakdown.” “When’s his next doctor’s appointment?” “Still a couple of weeks away.” Clive nodded to himself, thinking. “Why?” Elaine asked. “Shall we go private? Speed up the process?” Elaine sat forward. “Can we? Afford to, I mean.” “We’ll have to make cuts, but we can make it work. If you think it’s worth it.” “I do. I really do.” That night Elaine had trouble getting to sleep. When she finally did drift off, her sleep was disrupted by fragments of disturbing dreams. She tossed and turned to dreadful screams and laughter that grew louder and more maniacal. It grew so loud it woke her up. But as she lay panting and sweating she could still hear it. The laughter. She rolled over and saw her hus-band’s side of the bed was empty. “Jason?” she gasped as she rushed out onto the landing. Strangely Jason’s bedroom was empty and it was Sarah’s room in which the light was on. “Jason!” Elaine called, throwing the door open. She saw her husband first. Lying face down, his back punctured with several deep wounds. The blade that had inflicted the damage – the sharpest knife from the kitchen – was buried in the small chest of Sarah, who lay in bed, eyes shut, as if still sleeping. Beside the bed Jason rocked back and forth, screaming with joyous laughter. His face was entirely covered by the clown mask he had bought for Halloween. Photos taken that Halloween night show the mask with a sad drooping mouth. But the mask facing Elaine now grinned at her from ear to ear.

I’ve always been terrified of clowns. My girlfriend thinks it’s silly. She’s probably right. No clown ever hurt me. I never went to the circus and had a clown do something creepy or weird. I’m not even sure I’ve ever met a real clown. Truth be told, I’m scared of clowns because my older brother was an asshole. He’s 10 years older than me, and I used to idolise him. Like full-blown hero worship kind of stuff, typical kid brother vibes. He was a teenager, he didn’t really want some pipsqueak trailing hanging around, so he ignored me a lot. But occasionally, he’d let me come into his room and watch movies with him. Our mum worked late a lot, dad was never around, so on those evenings, it was just me and him, cuddled up in his bed to watch movies together. And he’d always pick the movie, and it would always be some fucked up horror. Probably stuff he shouldn’t have been watching at 15, let alone little baby me. His movie niche was murder clowns. Pennywise, Captain Spalding, Art the Clown, fuck if those greasepaint wearing bastards aren’t seared into my brain forever. My brother of course, bloody loved how scared I was. If I tried to hide my face in the covers, he’d pull my head back up and hold my eyes open if he had to, to make sure I got to see his favourite scenes in full detail. He’d even pull out a plastic clown mask on occasion, or a toy knife, or paint his face creepy, messing around. If I tried to run away, he wouldn’t let me watch with him again for weeks, months even. So I stayed put, cuddled up in his bed, through every creepy, colourful scene, so that I could be with my twisted fuck of an older brother. Not that I can tell my girlfriend any of this of course. With her I just laugh it off and say I don’t know why I’m scared, random, whatever. But then, she doesn’t know I have a brother. Had a brother, I should say I suppose. He died when I was six. It’s easier now just to pretend he never existed, at least to other people. It’s not like I was super messed up by it anyway. I mean, I did find the body, but I was basically a toddler, and to be honest it just looked like a still from one of his movies. They told me later on that I’d been found curled up in the bed next to him, as if I’d clambered in to watch a movie with him. I’d even managed to find the murder weapon - they found me cuddling the knife like a teddy, greasepaint on my lips where I’d kissed him goodnight. If it wasn’t for the blood, it would’ve just looked like we’d fallen asleep watching a movie after one of his evil clown pranks. Life imitates art and all that.