The clown dream

I had a dream last night. I stood at the window overlooking the park. I could see the haunted house, silent and still, encased in a thin film of early morning dew. The clownface was ripped from its housing and was nowhere to be seen. I saw a grey figure with a frilled white shirt and what seemed a blue scarf at the far end of the park moving rapidly between the bushes. As the figure reached the last hedgerow my heart began to race. In the dull, straining light, the tall emaciated body sped across the field and revealed itself with a deafening hysterical laughter it made sure only I could hear. Somehow it had torn free from its prison, its jaundiced hatred no longer the generator of fear for the children's unsuspecting delight as it watched for the right moment to make its escape from whichever twisted showman had tried to trap this concentrated evil. The maniacal funhouse horrorshow that was the clown bound towards the house, fast faster until the screech threatened to shatter the windows, the hollowed out eyes widening more deranged with every spindly closing gallop, its fiery crimson hair drawn back with the terrifying velocity of its approach, the teeth sharply pointed, brilliant white between the bloody lipstick grimace and the cracked menace of its jutting cheekbones and balding death-pallour shrieking shrill and insane, and the only thing loud enough to blot out its demon bleet was the sound of my own scream to wake me from this nightmare.