Two flies circled the computer monitor, bumping in a dalliance. With a lazy wave, Sung-ho shewed them away. The security cameras on the screen surveyed the parking lot, halls, and rooms of Serums United. The coffee in his mug had gone cold. He checked each camera with a bored glance, something he did frequently.
The text conversation with Latesha had stopped. She’d probably fallen asleep. Their online interlude had gone on for a few months, but they’d yet to meet face to face. Three hours separated them and opposite shifts.
A lingering smell of hot pockets filled the room.
The door to the bathroom swung open and Big Joe stepped into the frame. He didn’t walk down the hall so much as waddle. Sung-ho considered pranking him on the radio, something he did from time to time. Tell him his shoe is untied or something is behind him.
Consumed by darkness, the lab looked eerie. Not that it looked much better during the day. Robotic arms and lab equipment crowded the place, giving it an evil ambiance. For Sung-ho, it wasn’t the aesthetics he couldn’t stand, but the noises. The animals they kept there.
If Latesha knew they did animal testing, she’d press him to change jobs. Having volunteered for a shelter for years and working on her degree in veterinary medicine made her a card carrying animal activist.
The door squealed, revealing the true size of Big Joe. He rubbed a hand across his belly. “Hot pockets, man,” he groaned. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.” He hiked a massive finger over his shoulder.
Sung-ho scoffed, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The two flies were back, circling the monitor in an endless pursuit. Again, he swatted at them. Something shifted on the screen. He turned for a better look but saw nothing. Double clicking the window to zoom in, he looked closer. Still nothing. He’d been about to alert Big Joe when he blurted, “Coffees out.”
Afraid that he’d missed something, he rewound the footage. Rubbing his eyes, he wondered if his idle mind had played a trick on him.
Thumping and shuffling came from behind him as Joe made another pot. He continued watching the screen, just in case. Checking that camera and the next one eased his mind. Satisfied with the stillness, he looked at his phone, hoping she might send another text before bed, or a flirtatious photo. Latesha wasn’t shy about what she wore under her scrubs.
Joe closed one of the cabinets, cleared his throat, then spoke. “Have you been checking the memos?”
Sung-ho chuckled. “Dude, we work security. What do I need to check the emails for?” He looked over his shoulder just in time to catch Joe gripping the bridge of his nose.
“There are some important things going on in this company, things that might impact the future.” To clarify, he said, “Impact your future.”
Waving his hand, Sung-ho said, “Unless those emails explain how to find my mother, they don’t pertain to me.”
Raising an eyebrow, Joe said, “If she’s here in the city, they might.”
Intrigued, Sung-ho turned in his swivel chair. “How so?”
Replacing the contents back into the cabinet, he explained. “Well, they’ve been scanning the city using lidar and digital mapping.”
Sung-ho had noticed some of the company cars roaming around carrying cameras on their roofs. He’d also caught a few seconds of one of the news anchors talking about a hoard of drones released from the company.
Shrugging his shoulders, Joe clicked the button on the coffee pot. “Between the emails and the rumors I’ve heard from other employees, they’ve hit a bunch of glitches.” He leaned on the counter. “They tried scanning the old fairground, and the computers went ballistic.” For effect, he threw his hands in the air.
Time had gotten away from him. Sung-ho got up from his chair, stretching the kinks from his back. Every hour on the hour they made their rounds, and he’d missed his mark by two minutes. He didn’t much care for the patrols, especially on the first floor. As he moved further away from the office, the gurgling coffee pot softened until he couldn’t hear it at all.
The clicking of his heels in that empty hallway reminded him of horror movies. He didn’t like them, didn’t need a reminder of how cruel the world could be. At less than ten, he’d dealt with the disappearance of his mother and had been working, with help from Latesha, to find her.
From the paper trail he’d found, he learned that she’d lost custody of him when he was nine. She’d been put into a facility and had escaped.
On either side of the hallway were offices and other dark rooms. Most of them had their doors open, which made him paranoid. He’d been instructed not to go inside unnecessarily. Considering their shifts were uneventful, he’d never needed to. The lab at the end of the hall was the exception. He had to patrol that. If there were a way to get out of it, he would have.
Rows of black computer screens stared back at him. The rats scurried in their cages just out of sight, making his skin crawl. Halfway through the room, he noticed he’d been holding his breath. “They’re locked away” became a mantra he repeated. For years, he’d had nightmares about them escaping and even more graphic ones about being bitten.
With his hand on the flashlight, he prepared to use it at any second. He felt like a gunslinger in an old western. Whatever he’d seen on the computer came back to him, and with it came the feeling that he wasn’t alone. Worse than not being alone, he felt like someone was watching him. As he progressed further into the room, he reminded himself that he didn’t find anything on the footage.
The rats chittered, making his ears twitch. Gooseflesh rose on his arms.
A few steps took him to the doorway and the cages beyond. Like a child scorned, he dared not look at them. The desk in the corner sat undisturbed. Clutters of paperwork covered its surface, the same as it had the night before.
Two steps took him away from the office before the lights went out. As the fans and machinery powered down, the lab went silent.
Before he could pull the flashlight from its holster, something illuminated the corner. Circus music filled the room. More curious than afraid, he stepped back inside. At a closer look, he noticed it came from the phone. The caller ID read Binkie’s Circus.
Doo do doo da doo doo.
“What the fuck?”
Hell would freeze over before he answered that call.
Shortly after the lights came on, his walkie crackled. “Something popped the breaker. I got it back on, though.” Static filled the airwaves before he said, “Better come up here and take a look for yourself.”
The circus music stopped, filling the lab with an uncomfortable silence. Even the rats were still. For a while, Sung-ho stared at the phone, trying to determine what was going on. Rationally, he knew phones didn’t ring like that. Confused and terrified, he stood there, wondering if his sanity might be slipping like his mother’s. The phone had rung without power.
Walking down the hallway, he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t explain what had happened, didn’t know what to think of it, really. Circus music, of all things. Under ordinary circumstances, it wouldn’t seem intimidating. Part of him wondered if someone had been playing a prank, perhaps Joe. Even that didn’t explain Binkie’s Circus on the caller ID.
Big Joe leaned against the wall in front of the circuit breakers. “You’re not going to believe this.” From behind the door, he pulled a wad of silly string.
To be sure he wasn’t seeing things, he touched it. It was still damp, as if it’d just come from the can.
Together they marched back into the security office, where they rifled through the footage. Not being alone left them feeling uneasy. Flicking through hours of footage, he tried explaining the circus music to Big Joe, all the while checking his face for guilt. By then, his suspicions had dwindled.
Joe groaned. “You mean to tell me that someone changed the ringer on the phone? Then they put silly string in the electrical box? Why?”
He didn’t have an answer. Even if he could explain why, he couldn’t explain how. Changing the ringer on a cellphone was one thing, but those multi-lined office phones were different. He’d never heard one with anything but a generic ring.
They rewound the footage back to the night before without finding anyone touching the box. A couple of people had walked by during the day shift. They were feet away and never stopped, not even long enough to tie a shoe.
Throwing his hands in the air, Joe said, “I got nothing.”
Sung-ho concurred. “Well, we should probably take a look around.” Even as the words escaped his mouth, he knew he didn’t want to. He certainly didn’t want to go back into the lab. The only thing worse than rats was the circus music.
Joe agreed, finding his feet.
Outside of the security office, Joe turned left, and he went right.
The clicking of his heels echoed in the long hallway. This time, with the possibility of someone else inside, dread swept over him. With every step, he tried to piece together the puzzle. Circus music. Silly string. What did any of that have to do with a laboratory? And what the hell is Binkie’s Circus?
None of it made sense.
Even with the lights on again, he used the flashlight for the dark corridors. He didn’t want to risk missing anything. If his boss were to find out that someone had gotten inside, he’d be fired. Protestors had breached the property once before. They’d made a scene, trying to gain press attention. The situation had been resolved quickly without police or media presence.
Creeping by conference room three, a flicker of light caught his attention. He didn’t dare go inside but pushed the door slightly. Its hinges screeched. In the middle of the conference table sat a three-dimensional rendering of a red and white striped yurt. The pixels shifted, cracked, and tried to correct themselves over and over. The image got blurry, shifted, and tried again.
Scratching his head, Sung-ho carried on down the corridor.
Entering the lab, his flashlight beam caught a monitor, and he nearly fell over at the sight of his own reflection.
After he’d cleared the room, he turned for the door. Circus music began playing again, stopping him cold. This time from the intercom instead of the phone. Chills raced down his spine.
His hand trembled as he reached for the walkie. “Joe, you aren’t fucking with me, are you?”
Static.
There’d been a handful of pranks over the past five years, but nothing like that.
Joe’s voice, distant and broken, returned. “What’s that?”
“You’re not touching the intercom, are you?”
His response took a long time. “Can’t control the intercom from here, only the phone in the office does that. Why?”
Hair stood on the back of his neck. For a moment, Sung-ho couldn’t move. His legs were frozen in terror. The office which held the phone in question remained empty. He stared at the void where someone would stand to use it.
Something shifted in his periphery, causing him to jerk. There, in the corner of a monitor, was a green balloon, vibrant against the black background. He checked, double checked. The light on the monitor remained solid red, indicating it wasn’t on.
The walkie crackled. “What’s going on down there?”
The green balloon drifted across the screen, slow and ominous. It disappeared momentarily before reappearing on the next monitor as it floated on a breeze. When he could move again, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Sung-ho held the walkie to his mouth and stuttered, “D-do you see a-anything on the monitors?”
Silence.
Confused and hesitant, Joe asked, “Like what?”
“Anything at all.”
The red battery light flashed on the radio. He smacked it a few times, hoping to save it. When he checked again, it died.
Marching for the door, he didn’t dare look back. He tried ignoring the circus music penetrating the room, but instead, he made the mistake of turning back. If not for the voice that came from the monitor, he may have escaped.
At first, it came softly, then grew. The monitor closest to him lit up. Making eye contact with the camera on the ceiling, he hoped Joe would come to help.
Through the silence crept the sound of breath. In seconds, the unmistakable characteristics of a balloon animal appeared on the screen. The circus music amplified, filling the small lab with terrible, jaunty sounds. The sheer volume made him wince.
Doo do doo da doo doo.
Simultaneously, the balloon popped, and the music died.
Filled with dread, Sung-ho waited. A clown stepped on screen. Rather than soft facial painting and a smile, his makeup looked ridged and mean. “Hi there, Sung,” he said, floppy shoes taking center stage. The lines of face paint weren’t round and whimsical, but sharp and malicious.
His heart froze at the sound of his name.
“That’s right. I know you.” He waved as if that were old news. “I’m Binkie the clown and I know what happened to your mother.”
His eyes grew wider. The difference between what happened to your mother, and where she is, ached in his heart. He’d always been afraid he’d find her too late. In his imagination, she’d always been out there without him.
The clown snapped his fingers. “Ah, that got your attention.”
Sung-ho wanted to reply, yearned to know what he knew, but closed his mouth before spewing questions. He didn’t want to go in loosely, but wanted to remain skeptical, cautious even. The last thing he wanted was to be fooled by a damn clown.
In a sing-song tone, Binkie said, “I know what happened to Areum.”
Another unsettling feeling rose from within because the clown had gotten his mother’s name right, too.
A whisper crested his lips. “Tell me.”
He vanished, leaving behind a black screen. From there, his voice descended from the intercom. “Wouldn’t you rather I showed you?”
The monitors flashed in patterns like Christmas lights. They blinked and flickered, flashed and cajoled. He contemplated running, but couldn’t convince his feet to move. Part of him, a deep part, wanted to see what happened.
All at once, the lights went out. Then, he saw his mother slipping out of a building he knew to be Dr. Maverick’s Asylum. He’d gone there in search of information but had never been met with documentation or even a smile. Their files, like their manners, were locked away.
When the image cleared, he saw her standing at a train station with her hands clasped over her ears. As she did, she spoke. There wasn’t anyone with her to speak to, but her mouth moved. Her eyes were cast down, as if the imaginary friend were much smaller than herself.
Another flash placed her on the train, sitting in the aisle seat. Her lips were still moving, although there wasn’t any sound. When she spoke, she directed her words to the empty seat beside her. Just then, Sung-ho knew she’d been talking to him. It warmed his heart.
A man in a blue suit stood in the aisle. His gangly fingernails wrapped around her boarding pass. With the snap of his hole punch, she winced. The discomfort on her face brought tears to his eyes. She looked so scared and so alone.
The doors whooshed open, revealing something horrifying in a dark, birdlike suit. The passengers on the train weren’t bustling morning commuters like they’d been before, but sick with some sort of contagion. Before he could see the conclusion, the screen went black.
The clown emerged from the darkness. Its teeth sharper than before and its smile vicious. “I told you I knew what happened.”
A thousand thoughts crossed his mind all at once. Throwing caution to the wind, Sung-ho pushed forth for answers. “What happened? Where is she now?”
The circus music began again, drowning out his questions. Binkie danced, giant shoes slapping the floor. He made a show of his routine, complete with seltzer water and everything. When it stopped, so did he.
Annoyed, he asked, “Where is she?”
Binkie disappeared.
The lights on the monitor flickered. Black. White. Black. White. Then he saw something he’d hoped to never see. An unimaginable scene where his mother was tied to a table. Binkie and two other clowns stood on either side, pushing pins under her fingernails as she screamed in agony.
Fire rose from within. Sung-ho punched the screen repeatedly. Cracks spread across it in a spiderweb. Five hits destroyed it. Chest heaving, sweat trickling, he turned for the other monitors.
Giant pounds came from the door, drawing his attention. Through the tiny window, he saw Big Joe as he slammed against it and shook the handle.
He moved to open it.
From the intercom, Binkie asked, “Where are you going Sung? The fun has just begun.”
His mother’s scream filled the room in a crescendo that popped like a confetti cannon.
Staring at Joe through that little window, he considered everything he knew about the menacing clown and its evil circus. One thing that stood out was that he moved from monitor to monitor. When he wasn’t on the screens, he reverted to the intercom. It made him wonder if he could take a physical form. He didn’t think so.
They made unwavering eye contact. He wanted to let him in. No, he wanted to get out, but knew bad things would happen if he opened that door. Joe threw his hands up in frustration as Sung-ho turned away.
Two honks of a rubber nose blurted from above.
Furious, he grabbed one of the power strips and ripped it from the wall. All the monitors in that row went black. Although he couldn’t be sure, he believed those computers were inaccessible to him now. He didn’t fully understand how, but he knew the clown moved digitally, which gave him limitations.
That’s when he formulated a plan.
The voice over the intercom taunted him, “Had enough?”
He remembered something Joe had said earlier. “Can’t control the intercom from here, only the phone in the office does that.”
The clown’s menacing voice followed him into the office. “You’re making a mistake. You’re making a terrible mis—” With a jerk of the plug, it stopped.
More banging and clashing commenced. Through the tiny window, he saw the red of a fire extinguisher smashing the glass. Behind it stood a fierce-looking Joe.
One at a time, he unplugged the power strips. Rows of computers went dark one after another.
On the final row, Binkie appeared wielding a cartoonishly large hammer. He screamed, “You’re going to pay for this, you little shit.” The hammer cracked the ground, once, twice. The monitor itself trembled with every hit.
Sung-ho smashed the first screen, forcing the clown to retreat to the second. He could have unplugged the strip, but he wanted to prove his theory. Then he smashed the second.
Binkie began his tirade. “That’s a lot of rage, son. You’re angry because she abandoned you, huh?” He mocked and jeered. “Poor little Sung-ho.” The clown rubbed his gloved hands against his cheeks in a crying motion. “Mommy never came back for me.”
Another monitor smashed into pieces, and he knew he was onto something. A glimpse of fear crossed the clown’s face, only for a second.
All that remained was an out-of-date printer at the end of the row. Binkie looked over his shoulder, as if he knew there wasn’t anywhere else to go. His face softened. “I was just messing with you, kid.” The hammer clattered against the floor as he lifted his hands in surrender.
The banging ceased, which meant Joe had gotten in. He wanted to look but couldn’t take his eyes off the clown, not even for a second.
He stopped with his hand on the cord. “Last chance. Where is she?”
The clown squabbled. “Alright. Spare me. I’ll tell you where she is.”
“She’s alive?”
Binkie inhaled deeply, wind whistling through his nostrils.
Panting, clutching his knees, Joe wheezed. “When I figured out what was going on…I started shutting off the power.” He gasped. “I cut it to most of the building, but I couldn’t shut it off here. The switch wouldn’t move.” When he regained his breath, he stood upright. “You can’t trust him, Sung.”
He knew he couldn’t trust Binkie the clown, but wondered if he might be telling the truth. After a few seconds of consideration, he slammed his phone on the tile and crushed it under his heel. He didn’t want to take the chance he’d get inside it. Joe did the same.
Binkie didn’t say anything as Sung-ho tipped the monitor over, dropping it to the floor below.
To his right, the printer whirred. At first, it sounded like it was about to explode before it began firing off sheets of paper, one after another. Sung-ho watched as the clown struggled with his new confined space, one picture after the next. The last piece of paper landed on the floor. Unlike the others, it didn’t have a picture of Binkie’s trapped face. Instead, it had an address.
Lifting it, Sung-ho read the address. It belonged to a mental health facility in Texas.
