The strange hors d'oeuvres the waiter kept offering him were met with enthusiasm by the other guests, who seemed to snap them up with gusto.
Then there was the bundle of human hair, nails, and teeth clogging the toilet; he had blamed it on his fatigue. But for some reason, he had never questioned the fact or resumed his line of thought.
The man sitting next to him in the restroom was deadly quiet; he had never moved nor made a sound.
Then there were the seemingly missing guests. He had presumed they found another restroom; however, was that really the case?
The clock showed 9 a.m., not 9 p.m. It had actually been 12 hours, hadn't it?
Worst of all... Professor, where is the professor? Did he truly go home?
Asher heard the sound of glass breaking, like a mirror dashed against a stone staircase.
Slowly, his eyes regained focus. It was as if he had been in a room full of fog, looking but not seeing.
His mind, which he hadn't known was clouded, cleared, and all of his memories returned. Fear gripped his very soul; he already knew the truth, though he wished he didn't.
Still, he could not bury his head in the sand now that his gaze was clear.
Slowly, he raised his head and looked at the piano again. This time, the piano stool was not empty; no, it had never been.
Sitting there was a tall man, perhaps 6'3", wearing clown makeup. No matter how much he applied, it did little to hide the atrocious scars decorating his face. Nor could the makeup conceal his bloody mouth or his vicious, bloody fangs. They protruded from his lips, sharp and lethal, black as soot. His hands appeared as if they had been dyed in red paint over and over again.
The layers of blood dried atop one another, performing a mad dash as they danced across the piano keys.
In their wake was a chaotic painting of bloody fingerprints.
The guests were not disappearing; perhaps that would have been a mercy.
Even Asher wasn't naive enough to ignore the depravity of this clown. He had eaten them, hadn't he? He had devoured them all... which explained why those bits were in the toilet.
Those were the parts he didn't like.
At that moment, the final note of Moonlight Sonata Movement 3: Presto Agitato fell across the room.
The silence was deafening; Asher could hear his heart beating like a wild animal.
He had been there all along, watching them, watching him.
Like a shepherd watching his flock, the horrible Lovecraftian clown had been ripening them like pigs for slaughter.
The clown finished his performance; no one seemed satisfied. He looked across the hall, admiring his prey. But when he reached Asher, staring back at him, he couldn't hide his surprise.
It was evident that he did not expect Asher to dispel his illusion. He thought it impossible, and perhaps it was, had it not been for the man in the trench coat.
Not a second later, the man produced an antique revolver and shot three times in the span of a heartbeat.
The clown's head exploded like a watermelon crushed by a hippo. Then his entire body blazed as if soaked in gasoline; a moment later, it disappeared. His clothes were gone—nothing remained.
The sound of something whistling through the air caused Asher to turn. He saw the clown reaching for the man in the trench coat with both of his horrible, bloody hands.
In a surprising display of agility, the man ducked below the clown's grasp. He twisted his body, rolling off the clown's momentum. The clown traveled a little further due to his speed.
The clown immediately tried to turn around, but before he could—
BAM! BAM! BAM!
A metallic clink echoed in the silent hall as the man reloaded his gun.
No sooner had the empty shells hit the marble floor than—
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Blood flowed across the smooth stone floors, reaching Asher's feet. Where the clown had been, now lay a headless corpse.
The clown was dead this time for good.
As if waking up from a nightmare, the guests slowly regained their senses. Their eyes glazed over in sheer horror. Some wept for their companions and friends. One guest, unable to handle the terrifying sight before him, felt so violated that his mind was no longer his own. Unable to stomach such a scene, he ended his own life with a loud boom. Sirens blared in the background. A knock came at the door, followed by the heavy footsteps of a squadron of very strange-looking policemen entering the room.
On the roof, the latecomer smoked a cigarette.
One of the police officers questioned Asher. He answered truthfully about everything. He was quickly told he could go home and not to spread any rumors until the investigation was complete.
His eyes hollow and vacant, he saw the sun beaming outside. How could this be? It felt like he had been there for at most an hour. Dragging his body, he moved like a zombie until he reached Hobble Street and turned onto Kensington.
He entered his tiny apartment, opened his liquor cabinet, and downed half of his only bottle. Then, sitting at his kitchen table, he fell asleep.
"Detective, if you keep doing everything by yourself, we will lose our jobs."
The man in the trench coat gave a bashful smile, then chuckled.
"Did you question Asher Moretti?"
"Yes, Detective, we did. He's a research fellow at Hearth University in the history department."
"Is that so? Maybe it was meant to be. See to it that he finds a job posting in his mailbox. Make sure it's well compensated. That kid has talent. If we get him early, maybe that talent won't become a disaster like what happened here."
A young girl snuck out of her apartment next to Asher's. She had hazel eyes with specks of green. Her hair was brown and curly, like springs heated and stretched.
She looked no older than 18. When she reached Asher's door, she knocked quietly. A few moments later, a man opened the door. He reeked of alcohol and seemed to have been out all night; he hadn't slept much, that was certain.
"Hi, Mr. Moretti, is it a bad time?"
It was barely noon when she noticed her father had fallen into a nap. She had snuck out.
"Janice, dear, no, not at all. Please, come in."
The man moved to the side to allow her passage. The door slowly closed, followed by the sound of the door locking.