Free The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell

talking as we sat down, but when I glance over my shoulder I
find we're the solitary audience.
    If Mark doesn't want to leave, I won't insist. He could see worse
on children's television. I sit up straight and fold my arms, and so
does Mark. Perhaps that's too peremptory, because all the clowns in
the ring scamper to the lowest bench opposite us and sit symmetrically,
the clown with the small head in the middle of the group, the
dwarfs at either end. The giants remain beside the exit and clasp
hands to form an arch.
    Are the clowns on the bench waiting for us to move so that they
can mimic us? Their fixed stares and superimposed contradictory
grimaces don't even hint at their intentions. I'll have to move soon,
because I'm finding it hard to breathe, but I feel as if neither Mark
nor I should be the first to stir. Could we all be awaiting a new
arrival? It might be Natalie, though only by coincidence. I take
another constricted breath, and Mark emits a muted giggle. Then we
both start as a phone begins to shrill.
    The clown with the small head twists around, pulling his costume
tight around his swollen torso, and grabs the mobile from behind
him. Instead of answering it, he holds it out to us. 'Shall I get it?'
Mark whispers.
    'I expect so.'
    As he runs to fetch the phone his shadow slides down the canvas
behind the clowns and shrinks to meet him in the centre of the ring.
The leader of the troupe points at me with the mobile and hands it to
Mark. It repeats the same strident note in pairs – the sound of a
phone from the last century – as he brings it to me. He's so eager that
I hope he won't be disappointed by the pay-off. I poke the button to
accept the message and hold the mobile so that he can hear.
    Has it anything to offer except static? When I press it to my ear I
grasp that the waves of sound are too patterned to be random. As the
hissing grows more solid and more resonant I identify it as the beginnings
of laughter. The mirth is distant, but not for long. It swells until
I have to lower the phone, to save my ear as much as to let Mark listen.
Even now it seems too loud, filling the tent and shivering the canvas,
except that a wind must be doing at least the latter. Are the clowns
adding to the laughter? Their faces are quivering like jelly as they
expose their prominent teeth and clutch at their midriffs, and yet the
gleeful merriment sounds like the product of a single mouth. The
mobile feels weighed down by hysteria, and my senses are so
overwhelmed that I seem unable to move my hand. Then the chortling
begins to subside, and the quaking of the clowns lessens in sympathy.
At last the noise trails off in a series of hisses that dissolve into uninterrupted
static, and the phone goes dead.
    Mark gazes up at me, and the performers watch just as intently.
I've no idea what anyone expects, since the mobile is as inert as a
terminally infected computer. 'Is anything else going to happen?' I
wonder aloud.
    I might as well not have spoken. There's as little response when I
hold out the phone to the clowns, and when I shrug and lay it on the
bench to my right, away from Mark. Why should I be expected to
perform any more? That's the job of the clowns, however they spell
themselves. I'm close to saying so until I notice that they aren't as still
as I thought; their eyes are turning leftwards in unison and then back
to me. They have to do this several times before I realise they're
indicating the exit. 'I think that's it,' I murmur.
    Mark seems happy enough. The outrageousness of the show must
have satisfied him. As we head for the exit I brace myself for a last
prank, but the seated clowns stay where they are. Their united gaze
keeps hold of us, and their fattened fingers wriggle, presumably to
send us on our way. I glance back from the exit, but nobody is
prancing after us, and the jerry-built giants aren't about to collapse
on us. Mark peers up at them in delicious expectant panic as I guide
him clear of their rickety