"He comes calling every once in a while."   Shawn heard the sad Clown say as he fell onto the ground near the front tire of the car.

His face briefly touched the earth, smelling of hay that was sharp, musty, almost metallic. Loose strands of straw matted against his clothing as he struggled to his feet.

"He comes calling." The Clown said, peering down at Shawn from the driver's side window of the small car, elbow crooked and jutting outside the window, a said expression on her face.

She had stopped honking the horn. Shawn gathered his bearings and it appeared that Bobby had not gone through the Book.

Shawn brushed straw from his clothes and hair as he hauled himself to his feet. He was relieved to see Bobby hadn't followed him in - that relief allowed him, at least for the time being, to suppress the dull terror that he felt around this clown. He closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to force the image of Mr. Sellick's death out of his head.

He looked at the clown. "Am I taking a ride, or...?"

"Yes. You should ride in the passenger side. It makes me sad to see you this way. Are you afraid?" The Clown asked, opening up the door, the smell of rotten fruit stinging Shawn's nose.

"Sometimes, you feel sad without any reason, and you can’t help it. And you can’t deal with it. We all want someone to notice, but as soon as they do, we wish they never did. Let your tears come from your eyes. Let them water your soul. That's what I do."

Shawn hopped into the passenger seat, doing up his seatbelt out of habit. "I am afraid. But I know exactly why I'm feeling sad." He was at the despairing point in his fear where nothing seemed like it would matter, so why not be honest?

"Yes, I know you know. But I don't know. I'll tell you why I am sad if you tell me why you are?"

The seat-belt clicked audible as the Clown finished this sentence. Before Shawn could say anything, the Clown continued.

"I'm sad because this time I'm in the body of a little girl named Abbey. If only sorrow could build a staircase, or tears could show me how to be happy. I would climb my way out, and bring her back again. So she could live without me haunting her. But I can't. She's dead. I would do anything to bring her back. Because if I got her back, others would get back the friend and daughter they once knew."

"But it's too late for that now. I am his servant. And I am damned just like she is dead. Forever."

"Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones."

"That's easy to say. But I watched you kill Mr. Sellick for no reason!" Shawn was surprised to hear self-pity from a murderous clown, but for some reason it made him feel angry. Not enough to dull the fear, but enough to notice.

"I'm sad because you killed Mr. Sellick and all I did was watch. I'm sad because I care about Bobby, but I can't help him because you killed his parents. And I'm sad because you made me into a killer while I was still alive!"

Part of Shawn expected the Clown to lash out with hidden cleaver. But it didn't happen. Instead, the Clown shed a few bloody tears that ran down the pale skin on her face and dripped crimson red onto her hands.

"I am sorry for what I am. No matter how you love a person, there will come a time that you will hurt that person whether you like it or not. Not all things are in our control. Sometimes we do not have a choice because of what we are."

"For every person I must slaughter, I shed a tear. At least you have the memory of Mr. Sellick. Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."

The clown's continued sorrowfulness was really starting to confuse Shawn. Was it self-justification, insanity, or something else? "Why don't you have a choice?"

"Because I am Gaggles the Sad Clown. I belong to the Evil Circus forever. I die. And I return. I am damned. Forever. I will forever be a killer. I must forever serve the head of the Clown Troop. Mr. Cherrywinks and whatever body he is riding. Because the proprietor demands souls. And Mr. Cherrywinks must provide them." Gaggles explained.

"Why not refuse? Why not run away?" Shawn knew there was every chance this was a lie, every chance this was some kind of trick, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. And this was the first he'd heard of a proprietor.

"I sold my soul to Mr. Cherrywinks so I could keep living forever.  That's the sad thing about it. It becomes a debt that can never be paid off. He owns my soul, so I can't leave. Ever. It might be the saddest thing, except the look on everyon's face right before I slice them open. Part of me wishes I could feel something else. That I could be something other than a sad Clown. But every circus needs a sad clown."

"Wait, you used to be human?" Though Shawn was experienced in hiding his true feelings, the disbelief he felt shone through in his voice. "Were all of you human?"

"We come and we go. Just like a real circus.

But unlike the real Circus, we only come around when some one puts on Mr. Cherrywinks' clown nose.  Then, when someone puts that on, either on purpose or by accident, he starts to try to bring the Evil Circus back. It usually starts that way."

"Then he brings us back. We're always there you see. We just need to be brought back. But to bring us back, he has to cut off noses of little children and put clown noses on them. Then, that's when we come back."

"He has to bring the Evil Circus back because he owns a debt as well. A much worse debt than we do. He must pay the proprietor of the Circus. Everything is a series of debts you see. It's really sad."

Shawn had any number of questions, ones he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to. But like Bobby would say, you had to gather intel when you found yourself in enemy territory. "Who's the proprietor?"

Gaggles went on to explain that she didn't know who the proprietor was. No one knew but Mr. Cherrywinks. The proprietor lived somewhere deep in the ground. After every show, when the Evil Circus was open, souls would be harvested from the clientele. Mr. Cherrywinks had to lower a certain amount of soul harvest into the well for each area the Circus stopped at. This would go on for several years, sometimes as many as ten. Then, when whoever Mr. Cherrywinks was occupying died, it would stop.

"You understand how sad that is?" Gaggles asked.

"Why children? Why clown noses? This is...all of this was for a debt!?!"

"You know what the saddest thing about being hurt is? A lot of people think that if someone gets hurt, it makes them think about others. That you should be able to sympathize with other people and see someone's pain from their perspective. But that's not true. When you're hurt, or when someone hurts you, you only ending up thinking about your own pain."

"You end up thinking about yourself." Gaggles concluded.

"It's not a debt for Mr. Cherrywinks really. It's a quota that he has to deliver. A quota of souls. In the end, he is just a clown nose really, that someone puts on. His whole spirit is in the nose. I heard that somehow his nose made its way into an antique shop this time. Some poor fool put it on by accident to try it out. That's how things got started here this time."

"I don't know why everything is focused and takes the form of the Evil Circus. I suppose it happened with Mr. Cherrywinks before he was damned for eternity. I sold my soul in 1913 and we learn to never ask questions. Just take children and leave them dead but not too long. He has to get there in time to cut the nose off. If you do it too early, the soul dies and it can't be captured. Then one of us has to collect all the bodies and dump the bones in the 'Cave of Dispair.' I named it that because it's so sad."