Saturday, November 1, 1919
   Our names are Cait and Blaine.  I am twelve and my little brother is eight.  I am about five feet tall and Blaine is four-six.  I have black hair; he has red hair.  Eye color does not matter because if our bodies are found, our eyes will probably not be left.  The sun is setting now and casting long shadows.  I no longer smell the blood on the man’s face, but his harsh laughter still pierces the night every few minutes.  I hear him howling now.  We are deep in the woods where no one can hear him.  No one but us.  Blaine is crying again.  I still need to find a stream to wash Judy and Will’s blood off of him.  I do not know what happened to the others.  It is almost too dark to write now.  If I survive the night, I shall write again.  If not, I pray someone finds this and catches him.
   Sunday, November 2, 1919.
   We had tried to sleep in a small field.  Blaine found it, actually.  We were walking through a forest full of evergreens and trees with orange and red leaves.  The forest must have been gorgeous, but the colors were dulled by the night.  Anyway, as we were trudging along, Blaine saw something ahead.
   “Look Cait,” he had yelled.  “Deer!”  In hindsight, that exclamation is probably what almost got us killed.
   “Sh sh sh,” I hushed.  “Don’t speak so loudly!  You might let him know— I mean, you might… um… You might let the deer know we’re here.  Then they might run away.”  One look at Blaine’s face told me he didn’t believe a word I just said.  He knew what I had meant to say.  My brother may be young and annoying, but he’s no fool.
   “Do you think the man is still after us?”  I sighed.
   “Yes, Blaine.  Look.  The deer are leaving.  Let’s lie down in the field and use dead leaves as blankets.  It will be fun, like camping.”  Tears were beginning to form in his eyes.  I just hoped he didn’t do anything to let the man know where we are.
   Camping under rotting, moist, bug-filled leaves was not fun and certainly not like camping trips I’ve been on.  I may be a tom girl, but having a centipede try to climb up my nose is my limit.  As I cleared my face of leaves and crushed that wretched bug, the cold air hit me so hard I froze.  Then my eyes widened.  My heart beat against my chest so quickly, so loudly, that it must have been heard for miles around.  It was because I could make out a figure silhouetted against the tree line.  Through the darkness I saw his size-enormous shoes, gargantuan baggy pants, and hair worthy of Einstein.  It had to be him.  He casually dangled a knife from his hand.  I knew from experience that the knife was rusty and just sharp enough to cause pain.  Then the man howled, which I’m sure woke Blaine.  ‘Okay,’ I thought.  ‘Maybe he won’t see us.  Maybe he will think we’re farther ahead.  Maybe he will keep on searching and we can double back to the town.  Maybe then he would never catch us!’  I held my breath as the man walked past me.  Then he stepped on Blaine and I heard my little brother let out a grunt.  The man’s maniacal laughter once again sliced through the night as he kicked my brother over and over and over.  As he was doing this, I gradually shifted my position, counting on the man to be too focused on my brother to notice.
   “Let’s have some fun,” said the man.  He slowly drew back that long rusty knife of his and I heard a crack as I kicked his kneecap.  I sprung up and, just for good measure, kneed the man in his groin.  Then I put Blaine on my back and ran.  I looked back once as I was letting Blaine down.  The man was still standing in the field. I saw him lean back and begin to laugh the laugh of the insane.
    Blaine and I zigzagged through the forest this time, so the man could not find us so easily.  At dawn, I found a large evergreen tree with a thick outer layer and not too many branches on the inside.  I wrote; Blaine slept.  I am hungry.  If we survive, I shall write again.
   Monday, November 3, 1919
   Yesterday, after I finished recording Saturday night’s events, I fell asleep.  I woke to Blaine shaking me and complaining about how much pain he was in and how hungry he was.  We hadn’t eaten since Halloween night, when it happened.  I couldn’t do anything about Blaine’s pain, but I led him outside and we cautiously gathered some food.  We found a surprisingly large variety of berries.  However, once my brother ate some bitter black berries, he threw up.  I decided we had to leave our tree in case the man found the throw-up and figured out we were nearby.  Blaine and I wandered until we found a cold, slow-running stream, where we drank and found some mint to chew on.  I decided against washing our clothes for two reasons: the blood of my friends was dry by then and I didn’t want to walk around with cold, wet clothes.  We headed upstream for a while, but then branched off in a new direction when we heard the howl of the man.  I found a large sharp stick for protection and Blaine had been collecting rocks.  By nightfall, we found a new pine tree to rest in.  With our stomachs finally satisfied, we each slept until dawn.
   Once we awoke, I told Blaine to stay put while I went out to gather berries.  I only took the berries which I knew were safe from yesterday.  When I came back, we prayed, ate, and I began to write.
   “Why do you keep on writing in that diary?” he asked with a cute hint of a lisp.
   “Well,” I said, “I don’t really know.  I guess it’s so I can tell the world what we’ve gone through once we’re done with this and can go back home.  And, of course, so I can remember this time I get to spend with you.”
   “But I thought you hated me.  Like, a lot!”
   “I did.  But… things have changed.  I mean, what we’ve been through together over the past few days, especially on Halloween…”  My voice started to die just thinking of the terrors we experienced.  “But it’ll be okay,” I lied.  Blaine just smiled and started playing with his rocks, pretending they were soldiers and tanks and ships, but I can’t stop thinking about what happened on that terrible All Hallows Eve.
   On Friday, a few friends had walked to my house with me after school.  On the way, we each bought some candy from the store.  It was for my Halloween party.  Later in the evening, around eight o’clock p.m., we all sat in a circle and began telling horror stories.  When Blaine wanted to join us, I tried to kick him out.
   “But I want to join!” he had screamed.
   “Go away,” I responded.  “You are so annoying sometimes.”
   “Come on, Cait,” said Martha.  “He’s not that bad.  Plus, you don’t want him to get your parents involved.”
   “Yeah,” Blaine said in an irritating voice.  “If you don’t let me join, I’ll get Mom and Dad!”
   “Fine, I’ll give in.  But you don’t have to deal with his nightmares, Martha.”  The stories became progressively scarier as the night went on.  Finally, it was Will’s turn.
   “Twenty-two years ago,” he began, “there was a clown who had travelled the world.  He called himself The Jester.  He did many solo acts, but occasionally worked with circuses.  This clown was simply marvelous.  He was everything other clowns wanted to be.  He could fit inside the tiniest car, wear the biggest shoes, and breathe fire on torches while juggling them.  This clown wasn’t even scary.  The Jester had a heartwarming smile and told incredibly funny jokes.  Even the most clown-o-phobic audiences instantly loved him.  It’s amazing how fast all that changed.
   “One evening, around eight o’clock, he was beginning his act by pulling dozens of feet of ribbons out of his throat, his nose, his ears, and even his eyes!  Ever the comedian, he would stuff some ribbons in his mouth only to have them fall out of his ears.  Soon enough, The Jester was juggling knives and torches while standing on stilts that were twenty feet tall.  About half of an hour later, something went wrong.  First, a knife plummeted into his eye.  Then, a torch fell onto his face, catching the makeup on fire.  As more of his costume went up in flames, the clown ran toward his audience, throwing knives and shrieking something that might have been passed for laughter.  The Jester no longer looked happy.  He had a crazed look in his eye and his twisted smile was purely evil.  Those who got a glimpse of his burnt face screamed at its grotesque features.  Finally, firemen came and shot the clown off of his stilts with a hose.  He had killed thirteen people.  The clown was locked up in an insane asylum.  Everybody thought the problem was over.  Boy, were they wrong.
   “Four years ago today, there was a couple who went out to dinner and left their kids with some candy and a babysitter.  Around eight-thirty, the parents got a call from the babysitter.”  I had taken a nervous glance at the clock.  It was almost eight-thirty now.  This story was turning into something very eerie.  “The babysitter asked if she could cover up the creepy clown statue because it was making the kids nervous.  Except there was no clown statue.  The father tried to tell the babysitter this, but the only response was a chilling scream.  The parents rushed home and found nothing but the dead, mutilated bodies of their two children and the babysitter.  On the wall was a picture of a one-eyed clown drawn in blood.  The Jester had escaped from the insane asylum.  This incidence has occurred once a year on Halloween night since.  Every time it was the same situation: dead, mutilated bodies and a picture of a one-eyed clown drawn with the victims’ blood.  The clown was never caught.  Today, he is still wandering the countryside, waiting for the perfect time to strike.  At eight-thirty tonight, he’ll have his next victim.”   The instant Will finished his story, we heard a blood-curdling scream from my parents’ bedroom, followed by maniacal laughter.  I looked at the clock: eight-thirty exactly.  Then I saw—
   Oh damn!  I hear him now.  First it was just a faint howling in the distance, but now I can hear rustling nearby, too.  I have just told Blaine to be quiet.  If it were nighttime, I would not be worrying.  But now it is almost noon and The Jester might see us.  I hear his crazy laughter.  I am hoping, praying, pleading.  Oh, God, please don’t let him find us!  If we survive, I shall write again.
   (Here the writing has been broken off and continued in another script)
   My victims are MINE!  They can NOT hide from me.  I will always find them!
   (Below was found a crudely drawn clown in what appears to be dried blood.  Given the proximity of the mutilated and probably tortured bodies of two children, as well as the one-eyed clown-drawing, it appears that the story recorded above, though at first glance implausible, is not merely a product of the twisted imagination of a girl, but instead a true account of a deranged murderer.)
Laughter, 6-8, p. 1