April Reigns (April Almighty Book 4) Read online

  April Reigns

  April Almighty Series Finale

  Tim Miller

  Copyright © 2015 Tim Miller

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover model: Meghan Chadeayne

  Cover photo by Katelyn Oliver

  Chapter 1

  April figured out a way they could really fuck with this guy. She didn’t trust him at all, but part of her wanted him to be on the outs with Jericho. After the past several days of all the death and violence, the chance for some answers and maybe even a break really appealed to her. With what she had in mind for Grant, there was no way he could lie to them. They stripped him to his underwear and strapped him to the table.

  “Don’t fuck him up too bad,” April warned. “We may need him later. If I decide we don’t, then you can go to town.”

  “Oh don’t worry,” Isis said. “My old man did lots of shit to me that hurt like hell, but never left marks.”

  “Well good. I think. Let’s get started.”

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Grant said. “Did you know your dad is the one who called me? He sent me to get you.”

  “Now you’re stepping on dangerous ground asshole. So if I were you, I would tread lightly,” April warned.

  “Listen, I’m not lying to you. He knew you’d been gone too long and knew what you were capable of. He was worried for you. It wasn’t his fault they were going to kill you though. But he made a deal.”

  “Shut up!”

  “They were going to send him to Washington in exchange for you. He was going to be a deputy director. They told him you’d just be observed is all, not harmed,” Grant insisted.

  “Fuck him up!” April said.

  Isis smiled as she took a scalpel and began slicing the skin between his toes, not too deep, but deep enough to hurt. He grunted and tried to hold in a scream as she went from toe to toe making nice and slow incisions. Finally, he let out a scream as Isis giggled.

  “This kind of makes me hot,” she said. “I never just tortured someone like this.”

  “You need serious help,” April said.

  “Right, miss make them cum with my brain.”

  April looked at him as his screams turned into moans as he struggled against the restraints and a bulge appeared in his shorts. He wiggled and grunted, as he got closer to climax.

  “Cut him again,” April said.

  Isis took the scalpel and stuck it into the bottom of his foot, slowly poking the pointy end through his flesh. His moans again turned to screams as April continued to use her mind, bringing him close to climax. She backed down after a few cycles of the pain/pleasure treatment as Grant was trying to catch his breath.

  “Pretty fucked up isn’t it?” April said. “You feel so good, so close to climax, then pain! Extreme pain! Then pleasure. I bet your body and mind don’t know what to do.”

  “You’re further gone than anyone thought April. If you want to kill me, just kill me. I told you we can help each other. I know a lot about Jericho, more than they think I know. If I helped you two, we could bring them down for sure.”

  “Just seems odd to me that you’d turn on them so quickly.”

  “They have a zero tolerance rule on mistakes. I finally made one.”

  “That you did,” April looked at Isis. “Go back to work.”

  Isis started once again on his feet while April worked him back and forth on the brink of climax again. They did this for over an hour until April was satisfied Grant was telling her everything he knew. She finally let him climax as she took control of his mind and let him up.

  “Now get dressed. You can live for now, but under my control,” April said.

  “That’s not what I had in mind,” he said as he tended to his bloody feet, wrapping them in gauze before getting dressed.

  “I am what is in your mind, whether you like it or not. Now get dressed and let’s go.”

  Gunshots rang out as April spun around. Isis had the MP-5 on full auto and was mowing down the rest of the Jericho staff. She then went door to door and room to room, killing whatever abominations may have been lying beyond those doors. April was glad she didn’t have to see them at least.

  “Jesus Christ. You didn’t have to kill all these people!” Grant said.

  “They were guilty, just like you. Look at this place. All of them were a part of it. So, you are going to help me bring Jericho down for good. And how many like me are out there?”

  “That we’ve located? Several dozen at least. Most are hard to find anymore. They keep a low profile and keep moving. You, for some reason can’t seem to help yourself.”

  “Yeah thanks. Let’s go.”

  They made their way out of the building and just down the street to where Grant was parked.

  “Where we going?” Grant asked.

  They wanted to see you in Dallas. So we’re going to Dallas,” April answered.

  “They’re going to kill me.”

  “No they’re not. Come on.”

  They drove north and out of San Antonio. No one had said much as Isis had even fallen asleep in the backseat. April jumped when Grant’s phone rang. She let him answer it and tried to listen to his half the conversation, but he didn’t say much. Finally, he hung up and looked at her.

  “Mind going back to Happytown?”

  “Are you kidding me? For what?”

  “When you trashed that Funhouse, apparently a couple of clowns escaped. They just wiped out an entire circus in a nearby town and aren’t near done. Jericho has known about them for a long time, but for some reason just lets them do their thing. They’d like me to nab one and bring it in for them to study. Apparently they’re not human.”

  “No they’re not and the answer is no. I barely survived those fucking clowns, I’m not going near them again.”

  “We could just kill them, don’t need to take it back to Jericho.”

  “Wait a minute. You just gave me an idea,” April said. “Head toward Happytown. This will really be fun.”

  Chapter 2

  Happytown, Texas

  The clown walked through the empty streets, twirling his cane. He didn’t use nor need the cane, but it was handy to have and it perfected his look. The town had become boring. Happytown sure wasn’t feeling so happy, the place was dead, literally. The thought sparked a laugh as he looked over the dead bodies lining the streets.

  Where were all the men in this shithole? There were bodies and body parts of women and children strewn about. A little boy’s severed head lie on the sidewalk just before him. The clown took a stutter step and kicked the head as if it were a game of kick ball. The small head shot off his foot and sailed over a car parked half on the sidewalk and half on the street. He threw his hands in the air. “It’s good!” He yelled as he laughed once again.

  He needed to find some better companions though. He arrived to see these other two clowns fucking around. Talk about a pair of idiots. What had their race become? They used to rule entire civilizations. Now they were relegated to these ridiculous funhouses. Except for him. He refused to take part in such ridiculousness.

  The other two clowns, whose names he never did catch, both ran to him as if he were their long lost papa. They showed him around town and some of the pathetic ideas of torture they’d begun to implement. Total amateurs. He killed them both immediately. Such fools couldn’t be salva
ged unfortunately. He was no normal clown. He was Mad Maxwell for God’s sake. And no, he had nothing to do with that silly Mel Gibson movie. He’d been around long before that. He lived up to his name quite nicely. For example, after killing the other two morons he had his own fun with the town. Much more satisfying his way.

  He walked by one department store and looked at himself in the mirror. His top hat was still intact. Unlike some of the other clowns, he didn’t have a big weird nose. His nose curled back and almost looked like a pig snout, but he felt it added character. His hair was bright red, almost orange, but at least he had a nice, full head of it. His lips curled into not a smile, but a smirk. They curled way up the side of his face on his right side, the left almost no curve at all. Thus, he always looked as if he were mildly amused.

  As he turned from the mirror, he’d wondered what happened to the Funhouse in Happytown. When he arrived the place was empty and the only two clowns were those two he’d found wandering the streets. A big funhouse no, no. Another reason he didn’t take part in their stupidity. No one was going to keep him cooped up inside of a boring Funhouse. He was like a bird who need to fly free of the cage.

  They had tried to coop up Mad Maxwell many, many years ago. That had not gone so well however. No other clown had strength like his, but he was one of the few if not the only clown his age still around. They had euthanized most of the others. They were just too powerful. He got away though, like he always did. He walked to the outskirts of town and looked down the town’s main street. The dead bodies and wrecked vehicles littered the streets. It was a vast improvement over how he had found the poor town.

  Silly townspeople had no idea what had hit them. They thought the other clowns were so scary. Once they saw him, they learned what true fear was. This was why he felt his job was so important. He was performing a service for people. Most go their whole lives and never know what it really means to live, or to feel alive. He gives them that. Now, granted it is short lived. They usually experience this while undergoing extreme pain, only to die shortly thereafter, but those few minutes are worth a lifetime.

  Yes, he was the only clown left doing his actual job as a clown. Traveling the world and putting smile’s on people’s faces. Looking down at some of the dead bodies, he enjoyed the smiles. He’d meticulously carved smiles into each of their faces. Crooked ones, just like his. He liked the permanent smirk. It was as if there was an ongoing joke that only he was in on. Now the wonderful people of Happytown were in on it as well.

  As he stepped over one woman, her lifeless eyes stared up at him as the bloody and crooked smirk was permanently affixed to her face. He walked past the city limit sign and stood in the middle of the road looking at the sunset. Such a lovely day and he’d put in such a good day’s work. It had been too long. Felt good to let his frustrations out.

  He wondered where the next Funhouse was. He usually went from town to town, dismantling the funhouses. Mind you, he enjoyed dismantling a good part of the town in the process. The funhouses were always set up in small towns in the middle of nowhere. That suited him just fine. Though playing in a bigger city might be fun too. In all his years, he’d always stayed hidden in the shadows, hiding in the hills from society. It may be time for an introduction.

  The thought was pushed aside when he saw something coming in the distance. A car? A truck! It was a pickup truck. It was approaching from just over the hill with the sun setting behind it.

  “Well, now who might you be?” He said out loud.

  In the several hours he’d been here, no one has just passed through Happytown. It was one of those towns you either found it by accident, or you headed here for a reason. Something told him they were coming for a reason. Oh goody! This was going to be so much fun!

  Chapter 3

  The drive to Happytown was long and boring. April had fallen asleep several times. The last time she woke up, she and Isis were both leaning on each other. Isis was snoring. Grant hadn’t said much the entire trip. All of them were exhausted from the earlier chaos. April hoped she was near the end of this crazy journey she’d been on the past couple of years.

  “You girls awake?” Grant asked. “We’re almost there.”

  “What is so special about a couple of goofy ass clowns?” Isis asked. “Why do they need some hotshot Ranger to go take them out?”

  “They’re not normal clown’s kid,” Grant explained. “They aren’t human.”

  “Then what the fuck are they?”

  “No one is really sure. They are from an ancient race. Earliest we’ve been able to track them back is ancient Egypt. Though they may go back further. They are tough sumbitches and not ones to be fucked with lightly.”

  “So what does that have to do with Jericho Systems?” Isis asked. “They develop shit don’t they? The clowns are too old for them to have made up.”

  “True. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t study them.”

  “Oh God,” April said. “Are you shitting me?”

  “I’m afraid not. Wasn’t any area I worked in mind you,” Grant explained. “They captured dozens of them and cut them open to see what made them tick.”

  “Well what was it?”

  “Hell if I know. That shit is all classified, but a few of the clowns got loose and wreaked havoc, killing a bunch of scientists. They finally decided the clowns were too dangerous to have in captivity, so they built the Funhouses,” Grant explained.

  “The Funhouse? Jericho systems built that place?” April asked.

  “Wait? What funhouse?” Isis chimed in. April took a minute to explain it for her.

  “Yeah. The clowns I’m sure modified them themselves. One thing we learned having them in custody, they’re like dogs. They need to be kept busy and need to have a purpose. They think the Funhouses are alive, but they are operated by someone at Jericho, all the electronics there and such.”

  “Wait. They turned my friend’s boyfriend into a fucking clown,” April said.

  “Yeah. That was their contraption. We have no idea how they do it. Or their giving birth. I saw that happen a time or two, it was rather scary.”

  “Yeah, they raped my friend to spawn one of those little fucking monsters.”

  “Jesus Christ you two,” Isis said. “You sound like some shit out of a comic book.”

  “I wish it was,” April said.

  “I’m finding this hard to believe.”

  “Well, I can make men jizz in their pants with my mind.”

  “Yeah, but you’re hot enough to cause that anyway,” Isis said. April shoved her as Grant continued.

  “So anyway, we built the funhouses and left them with these rules not to leave and such. For the most part they followed them pretty well. Like I said, they’re kind of like wild dogs. You can train them and get them to work for you, but you’ll never domesticate them.”

  “Why not just wipe them all the fuck out?”

  “The powers that be at Jericho thinks there is potential to use them as a weapon. There had been talk of turning some loose in Iran. They almost did when they decided there was no way to keep them from spawning more clowns. So that was scrapped. But trust me, they figure out how to control these monsters, or better yet gut them and use whatever it is that makes them who they are and inject it into our soldiers. They won’t pass that up. So even though the Funhouses are evil, psychotic, and kill hundreds of innocents a year, Jericho finds it worth it to keep them around.”

  “I’m gonna burn that fucking place to the ground,” April said through gritted her teeth.

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “You guys? What the fuck?” Isis said pointing up ahead. The road was lined with dozens of scarecrows a hundred yards ahead. Yet, as they got closer, it appeared they weren’t scarecrows at all. They were people. Hundreds of them women and children were nailed to wooden crosses and lining the road. Each of them had a hideous half grin carved into their faces. Their eyes were all wide open in some eternal smile of terror.

  “Wha
t in the fuck?” April asked. “Those clowns killed this whole fucking town. They crucified everyone!”

  April’s stomach lurched as she looked over a little girl on one of the crosses. She was just a toddler. No telling what kind of suffering the poor kid had gone through. So much death and carnage, she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. Just ahead there was a man standing in the middle of the road. As they approached April saw it was a clown, though she didn’t recognize this one.

  “Oh my God,” Grant said. “It’s him.”

  “Who?” April asked.

  “I’ve heard the stories, but I thought it was all bullshit. We figured if he had existed, he was long dead. I’ll be damned.”

  As they drove closer, she saw the clown was wearing a yellow suit with orange pin stripes. His top hat was also yellow with an orange band. His own face was twisted into a crooked smile and he appeared to have no nose or a just a flat one.

  “That is Mad Maxwell. He was bad news for the clowns a few hundred years ago. Some of them told stories about him, most never mentioned him and would freak out if you brought him up. Some terrifying stuff in his past.”

  “This is too fucking weird,” Isis said.

  “I’m not gonna argue that one bit,” Grant said. “I’m sure he’s the one who did all this. We’re fucked.”

  “So let’s turn around. I hate clowns as it is!” Isis said.

  “Can’t do that,” Grant said. “This creature is like the Moby Dick for any Ranger. If I brought him in, not only would Jericho not kill me, they’d probably promote me.”

  Grant had been a Ranger for Jericho systems hunting down people like April and either capturing them for research or killing them. After she’d destroyed an entire Jericho facility in San Antonio, they decided he was a failure and planned on killing him, but sent him to Happytown first. Where they find this Mad Maxwell guy. Grant slowed the truck to a halt as the clown stood there, smiling at them.

  “Welcome to Happytown!” Mad Maxwell said, removing his top hat and taking a bow. “Where we always put a smile on your face!”