Jo-Jo - would you like flies with that

Killing consumed him.  No longer were they simple murderous urges.  Jo-Jo didn't have impulses, but a constant hunger for flesh.  His days were a blood-starved blindness, his nights were precise joy.  Much like a runner's high, but less embarrassing or public.

Gone were the days of the occasional Pogo stew, of sauteed Bim Bom liver, the refinement of carpaccio di pagliacci.  Jo-Jo carved with finesse, craft and enthusiasm lest his work be less than art in the eyes of those who found his latest victim's remains, but dining was a raw, beast-like endeavor.  Blood was drunk from newly opened veins, the choicest tender morsels of marrow and vitreous orbs consumed with haste to stave off the dizziness of hunger. 

Jo-Jo was nimble, despite fattening himself daily on the contents of another unlucky clown's skull.  His stealth after the mocking cries of his childhood tormentors was amazing.  Such speed that the whole world slowed around him when he struck true.  A severed Achilles, followed by the plunge of his blade between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae just deep enough to terminate all nervous activity past a heartbeat, to render his victim immobile yet fully conscious of the vivisection that followed.

Jo-Jo would peel each layer of flesh from the unlucky, careful not to nick anything that might speed death along.  As he went, he would show his audience of one a spleen, a tibia, a pulsing and writhing large intestine.  The chest cavity he preserved for as long as he could endure so as not to burst the lovely pleural balloon that helped keep oxygen flowing to his dinner's terror-filled brain.  Only once everything that had once been inside was out would Jo-Jo pause, slice across the diaphram and watch the skinless face of his latest meal gasp helplessly at his curious smile.  Only at the last twitch would the eyeballs be plucked from their cavities, only then would the soft palate be breached to gain access to the holiest of holies. 

On cold nights, Jo-Jo might defer to crisp some skin over the fire, to create a chewy jerky to content his mind in the daylight that followed.  On summer evenings such as this, though, the precious delicacies of clown-meat were consumed raw, the bones left arranged like a walkway through the woods while the remaining muscle was wrapped inside a skin suitcase, tied with sinew.


And so quick was his work, Jo-Jo's hunger was sated long before the funk of death drew flies.

Jo-Jo, the Clown Butcher of Sprickmantle (or…does this taste funny to you?)

Evil clowns, evil clowns.

Jonathon Joseph Spurious was a child of circus heritage, brought up in the tents and caravans of yore. From birth he was the subject of ridicule from far and wide, pointed cruelty in an otherwise festive environment. Amongst all the circus cliques, the clowns were the quickest to torment him, mock his turned-up nose as he snorted when he laughed, mock his stammer as he fought his way through simple sentences, mock his bloodied face as he tripped on the tent posts or was dragged through the mud by the horses. He learned through his youth to become a phantom, blending with the background and completing his chores, the other workers noticing the results of his labors as though they performed themselves.

(As an aside, John Waterson writes in his book ‘The Physics of Invisibility’, quite extensively on the gray area between real and perceived invisibility. The author could not be located for comment.)

Now grown, Jonathon had withdrawn into himself completely. He found no joy in the circus, as he invisibly cared for the animals, lugged canvas and rope, drove stakes. When in the vicinity of the clowns, their pratfalls and staged idiocy made his blood boil, he saw their antics, their mock joy as a personal affront to his anger. A solution must be found.

The Greeks had a way with words, and Jonathon had a way with languages, thanks to his early and stringent education and, more recently, to his unnoticed comings and goings, his lingering beside tents and caravan windows to eavesdrop on the performers. Coulrophagia. The consumption of clowns. Splitting their kidneys and soaking them in milk to remove the bitterness before he made a pie with those and the choicest cuts of clown steak. Stewing their heads until the meat fell from them, mixing the meat and gelatin with brains and paprika for a wicked clown head terrine. Never was cooking so satisfying as when hunger was fueled by vengeance.

In a stable community, with privet hedges and garden walls, a pub filled with regulars and few outside visitors, this thinning of the population would not go unnoticed. However, the Sprickmantle Show of Shows was a community constantly on the move, with residents ever changing, running off to seduce the town’s teenage girls and lonely wives, or passing out drunk in the forest, one clown more or less (less, less, always less) was never a cause for concern.

author notes for incorporation:
(Lester Eddy, the famed monkey-boy of Borneo.)
(your existence is but a saliva bubble left by hyenas on the umble of carrion – nobody will ever touch you and in an instant, you’ll dry up, blow away and be forgotten.)