Sharon’s note: I know technically you can have a romance without an action scene, but I’m writing this story, so let there be a fight scene. Warning: Author’s obsession with dark carnivals is showing.
The clown charged the booth with its arms outstretched. A glove hand swiped at Jim’s face, and he brought the cleaver down on the wrist. With hardly any resistance, the hand separated and flopped onto the counter, dark brown sludge spraying from the stump.
“Run!” he screamed at the woman on the ground. She stared at him with slack jawed shock, clutching her bleeding arm to her chest. The clown punched the booth with its remaining hand, sending a chunk of wood flying into Jim’s face. He yelped and fell to the floor, dropping the knife and it skidded partially under a table.
More wood fell as the clown skittered over the counter, fighting to squeeze itself down into the confined space. Jim rolled to avoid the giant clown shoe that stomped down. He grabbed another jug and brought it up just in time to meet the hand coming down. Gray claws sprung through the glove and into the plastic. Oil sprayed up into the clown’s face, making its drawn-on features run. It pulled back, shaking its hand, to dislodge the jug from its claws.
Jim scrambled to the cleave and snatched it from under the table, dragging a long handled lighter out with it. He swung the cleaver at the clown’s face, and the face cracked like it was really an egg. The foul smell of rotting sulfur gagged him. Splattering Jim with viscous brown liquid, the clown reared up, jabbing its arm stump across its face, screeching like an angry hawk.
“Die!” Jim grabbed the lighter, clicked it to life and jammed it into the clown’s oil soaked jumpsuit. The suit smoldered for a second under the flame, but didn’t catch before it tried to grab him. Screaming, he hacked at the clown, catching the arm, the chest, and with one last swing, straight across the mouth. The head exploded, showering him in rancid goo. The clown’s body started to fold in on itself like a deflating balloon, flooding the ground with foul smelling brown liquid.
Climbing over the counter, Jim fought the urge to vomit. The injured woman was still sitting on the ground, not moving. There were more people screaming, and more people dying, and he could either help her, or save someone else. Time to split the difference. He grabbed a woman who was rushing by the arm. She screamed and swung at him, missing wide and nearly toppling them over. Jim jabbed a finger towards the woman on the ground. “Help her! Get her out and to a hospital or something.”
The woman looked at him in blank terror for a moment, then shook herself aware. With a sharp nod, she seized the woman on the ground and dragged her to her feet. Together, they hobbled towards the exit and Jim ran against the crowd towards the ferris wheel.
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Gray Matters: The Works of Sharon and James Gray 