Clown in the Dark: The Dollmaker's Curse Series, #1

By Ian Fortey and Scare Street

Evil lurks behind a doll's porcelain eyes and painted smile…

Fiona Garris never believed in ghosts or evil spirits. A loner by nature, all she wants to do is complete her latest freelance assignment and retreat to her city apartment. But when she suddenly inherits the sprawling estate of an uncle she barely knew, Fiona soon discovers that the supernatural is all too real…

Deep within her uncle's mansion, a vault has been hidden away from prying eyes, built to hold a very special collection of dolls. But these are no ordinary playthings. Each one is a vessel for a lost soul, an evil spirit.

Fiona finds herself caught in a struggle between good and evil, as a sinister dollmaker seeks to gain control of these vile toys. One night, while the house is still and silent, one of these creations—a maniacal clown doll—creeps through the dark halls… eager to spread terror as it once had.

Can Fiona survive long enough to discover the secret to stopping this abomination?

Or will the murderous doll make her its next victim?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scare Street
• Release date: Jun 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798224017805

Book preview

Prologue

Steam rose from the delicate china teacup as Henry absently stirred in a sugar cube, the metal teaspoon clinking against porcelain. He stared at the paperwork in front of him on the workbench, the numbers fading into one another. He’d never enjoyed the administrative side of business. It was boring and sterile. It was also not really his concern. He’d long ago handed the task over to more qualified people. He was the majority shareholder, but he was hands off. They still insisted he review quarterly reports, anyway.

He glanced at the shelves that surrounded him. Arms and legs protruded at odd angles from a dozen or more boxes. Some were long and slender, some were short and pudgy. Some bore hands and feet, some just ended in ball joints or empty sockets.

A case of heads sat on the floor. Most were eyeless, but not all. They were all remnants of half-finished projects or ideas that ran out of steam midway through assembly. Doll parts from one end of the workshop to the other.

The table at the end of the room showed off six of his nearly finished projects. They were fully assembled bodies, more or less. One still lacked arms, two needed paint, one had no eyes or hair. They all needed clothing still. He found himself getting more easily distracted in his old age. Not that he was on a deadline for any of these dolls. They were hobbies, not tasks. Not like the vault dolls.

The only finished piece in the room sat next to him on his workbench, like a tiny assistant looking over his paperwork. It was unlike any doll he had ever made in the past, and perhaps the novelty of it was what allowed him to focus so intently on its creation.

The doll had a burnished silver surface except for the luminescent blue eyes, illuminated by a hidden internal power source. Gaps within the doll’s small body allowed one to see its insides. Not a design flaw but a feature, a window to the extremely complex clockwork mechanisms that gave the doll a range of motion and abilities no other doll he had ever created enjoyed. It could have just as easily been a robot, though nothing digital existed within its tiny frame.

He had named the doll Tick Tock. Maybe not the most creative of names for a clockwork machine, but appropriate, nonetheless. And cute. His creations had cute names. The ones that were sold to consumers did, anyway. Those that were safe and fun. Not the other ones.

Lifting the mug, he sipped the tea and decided he should have added more sugar. He stared at the report on the desk once more. He should have finished reading it more than an hour ago. He just couldn’t make himself care enough. It was late, and he was tired. He knew he should have called it a night, but sometimes he pushed himself beyond reason.

It made no sense, of course. He was just wasting time. But it was an old habit. He had grown used to long hours many years ago. It seemed like he was too old to take up early nights all of a sudden. Not after all this time.

The hinges on the workshop door squealed. He had made a mental note to oil them a hundred times in the past. But every time he entered the room, they creaked, and he made the same mental note.

He turned in his seat, expecting to see Tallman or Matilda coming to tell him he was being foolish and that he should pack it in for the night. Instead, he saw no one.

The door was ajar, but only just. A crack, big enough for someone to have peaked into the room perhaps, but nothing more. Neither Tallman nor Matilda would have done such a thing, though. They didn’t creep about in the night. It was not their way.

Hello? he called out.

He set the teacup down on the saucer and stood. Doors did not open on their own. There was no breeze and the building certainly wasn’t settling. Someone was in the house.

He patted his pockets, looking for the old trinket he kept around as a lucky charm. It looked like a simple key chain, a circular medallion on a leather strap. Nothing fancy, but it had proven its worth on more than one occasion in the past. It was not in his pocket.

He looked around the room. There was no sign of the trinket anywhere. Of course, he hadn’t needed it in a few years. He played back the day in his head. His work earlier in the evening. Dinner with an old friend. Reading in his study in the afternoon. Breakfast with Tallman and Matilda. Getting dressed in his room. The trinket on his bedside table with the watch he had also forgotten to put on that morning.

Old age, he thought suddenly. He never would have forgotten it ten years ago. But that was ten years ago. Practically a lifetime at his age. All of his friends had retired by now.

He took a step towards the door, and something scuttled across the far side of the room. He felt his chest tighten. He didn’t need to guess what it was. He knew the sound too well. Only a handful of people in the world would recognize that sound. The distinctive click and cadence. The frantic rhythm. The almost inexplicable knowledge that the body producing the sound was too light for its size, which threw off its center of gravity.

That you, Ambrose? he called out.

There was no reply. He took another step and sensed a tingle run up his legs. He had to stop as he felt a bout of dizziness overwhelm him. His hands grasped the edge of a table.

What— he began, unable to finish the sentence.

A dark shape ran across the room towards the vault door. He shook his head, trying to call out to Tallman for help, but finding it hard to draw breath.

The shape stopped at the door, small hands deftly manipulating the digital security panel. It punched in the code and the door clicked open. The passcode had been changed only a month earlier.

Light from the vault spilled out into the workshop. The dark figure was bathed in the white glow of the overhead lights. Cherubic, pink porcelain cheeks reflected the glow. It was dressed in a military style uniform, with leather boots on its small feet. Its hands were alabaster white. The hair on its head was not real but painted. He recognized the doll, though he had not seen it in over thirty years.

The features on the porcelain face moved with an unnatural fluidity. The face should have been set and solid, immovable and permanent. But no longer. The ruby lips grinned, and it lifted a hand, offering a mocking salute before it slipped into the vault.

The man wanted to pursue. Needed to pursue, to stop it from getting to the others in the vault. But his heart raced as though he had just run a marathon and his pulse pounded in his ears. His mouth tasted metallic and acrid at once.

He looked at his cup of tea, licking his lips. The taste was there as well.

His legs grew weak. The room began to spin while he felt a searing pain starting to grow in his chest. He shook his head, trying to deny that it was happening, trying to force it to be otherwise. But the poison coursing through his body refused to listen.

With a grunt, he stumbled to the ground. His hand lashed out, and he caught hold of the clockwork doll on his desk. It fell to the floor with him, resting next to his outstretched hand. He stared at it, gasping for breath. It was his only option.

Henry Garris grasped the clockwork doll and began to mutter words he had never spoken on his own behalf. The words were not English, nor truly the language of any living beings.

Laughter erupted from the vault, and a sense of dread overwhelmed him. The laughter was a sound he knew very well. It grew louder and unsteady. It was not the mirthful laughter of a person hearing a joke. It was the unbalanced laughter of a broken mind.

The final words escaped his lips. His body died soon after, as the rapid poison finished its work. And the laughter continued long after his death.

Chapter One

Melody Truman’s tombstone was the largest in White Field Cemetery by far. It dwarfed the others the way a mansion dwarfs a bungalow, to the point that it was almost comical. It was out of place and ostentatious. It was also a work of art, like Fiona had never seen.

James Lucky Truman had commissioned the tombstone for his late wife after she had died from the flu in nineteen-eighteen. He had originally been a shipping magnate but made a bigger fortune in real estate. Fiona’s research suggested he may have made some unscrupulous deals to line his pockets during the First World War, but that was mostly speculation.

The tombstone was made of marble that had been imported from Italy. It had been carved into an angel that bore Melody’s face, rising out of a base sculpted to look like a natural stone formation. The cemetery caretaker told her it weighed over a ton. He had no idea how it had been transported to the cemetery.

Whatever artisan had carved it had done an amazing job. Melody’s face was captured in a lifelike pose. It looked like a real person had been turned to stone by Medusa’s gaze.

Fiona snapped photos of it from every angle. She took high-definition close ups and others from further back to take in the surrounding cemetery, offering up a sense of the scale and how it fit into the world around it.

She’d been assigned the job by a website she hadn’t worked for in over a year. Her work as a freelance photographer, and sometimes writer, saw her taking on any number of odd jobs. The month before, she’d been photographing penguins at the zoo as part of a fundraiser. Before that, she had done a series of weddings. She’d even won an award the previous year for her coverage of a local police standoff. If there was something worth documenting—and a person willing to pay her expenses—she would turn in composed, innovative, and quality work. That was what she did.

It had taken a few years for Fiona to find her path in life, not that most other people had their heads on straight at a young age. She had lost her parents when she was in her teens and had been mostly on her own ever since. She’d had no siblings and no extended family beyond her great uncle, whom she hadn’t seen in years, and an alleged aunt that lived in Florida. Or maybe Alabama. She wasn’t sure, as she’d never actually met her.

Despite having little support of the family sort, Fiona had still managed to get through high school after her parents died, and even made it through college. Her degree was in English and, as she was fond of telling friends on the rare occasions that she’d hung out with them, still mostly useless.

Photography had always been a hobby, but she hadn’t pursued it as a career for a long time. She’d drifted around from retail, kitchen, and delivery jobs, to even a short stint as a night security guard. She wasn’t picky, and she was willing to put in effort if there was a paycheck involved.

Friends were a passing luxury, but not one she was committed to. Her best friend Vera’s family had taken her in after the death of her parents, giving her a home for a couple of years until it was time to leave for college. Her uncle Henry was an unmarried businessman who traveled all over the world and had no time to care for a teenage girl.

She would forever be grateful to them and indebted, but she battled with the awkwardness of feeling like an outsider even now when they got together. She had already burdened them for years and it made her feel like she was still doing it when she came back to visit. They had never made her feel that way. It was just her own mixed-up perception of the world that had caused doubts.

In her ideal world, Fiona would keep everyone and everything at arm’s length. She’d indulge in dealing with people for as long as she felt comfortable, but no longer. Ideally, anyway. If she could spend maybe two hours a month making appearances with friends, she would have been overjoyed. She didn’t like the stress of feeling like she had to be on, or feeling good so that others wouldn’t worry about her. She didn’t like the responsibility that she felt for other people’s feelings.

Photography had allowed her the opportunity to live life and make money in an ideal way. She could leave home and be on her own getting work done. She didn’t have a desk; she didn’t have coworkers. No one made her come in for brainstorming sessions. She didn’t have to contribute to a fund to buy a retirement present for Judith in HR. It was just her. It was as perfect a job as she could imagine.

The caretaker had left her alone to wander the cemetery grounds and take as many photos as she liked. She had never spent a lot of time in cemeteries, not since her parents died, but she wasn’t the superstitious sort, either. She didn’t get creeped out by the idea of a cemetery. If anything, it was less scary than being downtown. At least everyone in a cemetery was already dead. No risk of being mugged or harassed by the residents if everyone’s already buried. Plus, it was quiet.

Her plan was to spend an hour or two on the property, taking in the sights and getting inspired to construct a narrative around the photos she had taken. And then her phone rang.

Fiona would’ve had no phone if it had been possible. She remembered when she was a kid, and her parents didn’t have cell phones. They had a landline. If they went out somewhere, they were just out. No one could reach them. No one had to be constantly at the beck and call of others. The entire world just accepted that people had to do things sometimes. Now there was no acceptable reason not to be available all day, every day.

The only reason she carried a phone now was to Google restaurants, listen to music, and accept work calls. And maybe the odd text with a friend. But that was it.

Fiona had never been a chatterer. Even as a teen, she couldn’t bring herself to spend hours talking on the phone or texting endlessly. She liked to get to the point. And she also liked knowing who she was talking to.

Her caller ID showed ‘Bremer and Grayson’, a name she didn’t recognize. Her instinct was to ignore the call, but there was something about the name that tickled the back of her mind. She pressed the button to answer.

Hello, I’m looking to speak with Ms. Fiona Garris, please, a man’s voice intoned. He sounded older, and proper. He sounded like a librarian or a lawyer.

And you are? she asked.

My name is August Grayson, of Bremer and Grayson. Is this Ms. Garris?

Bremer and Grayson, what’s that? Fiona continued, ignoring the man’s questions.

It is a law firm, madam. Am I speaking with Ms. Garris?

Why’s a lawyer calling me?

I’m afraid I can’t disclose the nature of the call unless you can confirm for me that you are, in fact, Fiona Garris.

Fiona stared across the cemetery. She wondered if someone was trying to sue her. She didn’t think she’d been in any trouble lately. She’d had to file a lawsuit two years back against some websites that had stolen her photos, but that was quite a different situation.

Yeah, I’m Fiona Garris, she admitted.

Ms. Garris, I apologize for the nature of the call, but it is my deep regret to inform you that your great uncle, Mr. Henry Garris, has passed away.

Fiona blinked. She stared at the tombstone in front of her. The name was Lawrence Hayter. He had died in nineteen sixty-three.

Uncle Henry, huh? she said.

She had not seen her uncle in many years. He had in fact been her father’s uncle, her great-uncle, and he’d been a weird guy. Not a bad guy, as she remembered. She’d had fun with him when she was young. He was rich and eccentric and made dolls for a living. He’d lived in a mansion and was constantly traveling around the world. After her parents died, the two of them had lost touch. She couldn’t even remember when she’d seen him last.

Yes, my sincere condolences, Ms. Garris, the lawyer said.

Yeah, thanks, she replied.

She wasn’t exactly upset to learn about her uncle. Not happy, either, of course. But he was more of a memory than a fixture in her life. When she woke up the next morning, her life was not going to be any different knowing that he had passed away. Still, she felt a pang of sadness. When she was little, visits with Uncle Henry had always been a spot of joy. He was boisterous and fun, and always made sure she was entertained.

I am the executor of your uncle’s estate, and it was his wish that you be present for the reading of his will. Would you be able to come to my office tomorrow afternoon?

Oh, Fiona said. The thought that her uncle might pass away one day had never occurred to her, despite its obviousness. Everyone has their time. And he had no family that she had ever heard of. Am I in the will? Like, he left me something?

I can answer all of your questions tomorrow, if you are amenable, the lawyer answered.

Yeah, I guess, she replied. Can you text me the details?

Of course, Ms. Garris. Again, you have my condolences. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow.

Thanks, she said, ending the call.

Moments later, a text came through with a time and address. The law firm was downtown. She vaguely recognized the neighborhood. All of those massive glass buildings and big offices. The part of town she tried to avoid whenever possible. That’s where she recognized the name from—Bremer and Grayson was a massive firm. And Grayson himself was her uncle’s lawyer. Made sense though, she supposed. Her uncle was obviously a wealthy guy.

And he put me in his will, Fiona said out loud to Lawrence Hayter’s tombstone.

The idea made her uncomfortable. She really hadn’t seen much of the man in years. She was appreciative that he would even think of her, but surely there were people more deserving.

She decided that, if he’d left her a couple thousand dollars, she’d maybe get herself some new lenses for her camera, and then just give the rest to charity. There was a local animal shelter she’d done some work for in the past that she really liked. Animals were easier to get along with than people. And they could always use some financial help. She’d wait to see what her uncle