“Yeah, uh, you promise you won’t laugh?”

  “Of course I won’t laugh.”

  “I’m chased by a clown.”

  “A clown.”

  “Yes. Big red nose, white face, floppy shoes, blue hair.”

  “How long have you had this nightmare?”

  “My whole life.”

  “What happens in the nightmare?”

  “It’s dark. He chases after me. Then he grabs me and puts his hands around my throat and begins to choke me. As I start to black out, I wake up.”

  “It sounds horrible.”

  “This nightmare has destroyed my life. It’s turned my days into a tired existence. It’s made my nights unbearable. I’m always exhausted and depressed.”

  “Do you have any idea where the nightmare comes from?”

  “No. I’ve never had a problem with a clown. Although I am terrified of them.”

  “Well, it’s no wonder, considering.”

  “I’ve been to a psychologist.”

  “What did the psychologist say?”

  “He gave me a lot of double talk about my anxieties. I saw the guy for six months. I got nowhere with him. That was five years ago. I still have the nightmare, sometimes four or five times a week. In a good week I’ll only have it two or three times.”

  Dr. Anders blinked and said, “In the short term I think I can help you get some sleep, but to have a real lasting effect we need to get at the underlying cause.”

  “If you could really do that it would be great,” said Jack, yawning. “But I’ve had a long history of being disappointed.”

  “The psychologist probably asked you about trauma.”

  “Yes, only I couldn’t remember any. My parents treated me well, loved me. I was an okay student, no problems with bullies.”

  “Military service?”

  “No.”

  “Victim of a crime?”

  “No.”

  “Sexual abuse?”

  “No.”

  “Violence?”

  “No. My parents never hit me. “

  “How about other kids?”

  “No.”

  “Ever been in an accident?”

  “No.”

  “Problems with love?”

  “Like I said, it’s hard to maintain a relationship if you can’t get much sleep.”

  She nodded, then said, “You mentioned that the psychologist talked about your anxieties. That suggests that he might have been implying that your mind was making up this nightmare based upon any phobias you might have.”

  “Do you think that’s what’s happening?”

  “Maybe, but rather than your phobias I’d like to explore your unconscious mind.”

  “My unconscious?”

  “Yes. It’s possible for the mind to take an actual incident that really happened, that was so traumatic, so disturbing, that it couldn’t deal with it on a conscious level, and then bury it in the unconscious. In a sense, it’s a kind of self-induced amnesia that the brain creates as a form of protection.”

  “A repressed memory.”

  “Exactly. But it’s in there and it wants to get out; and the only time it’s free to do that is in the dream state.”

  “The psychologist never suggested that this nightmare might have really happened to me.”

  “I’m not a psychologist. I look at things from a different perspective.”

  Dr. Anders had Jack lie down on the couch and close his eyes. She told him to relax and picture himself lying on a tropical beach on a secluded island. She suggested he feel the warm sunlight on his face, the texture of the sand, the smell of the salty air. Within minutes Jack felt himself slipping into a tranquil, surreal state.

  * * * *

  Dr. Anders didn’t get to the bottom of the mystery during that first session, but after Jack left her office he felt relaxed, and that night slept unusually well. During the next few days, in between searching job sites on his computer, Jack thought about the hypnotist and wondered if she could really help him, or would she just turn out to be another dead end like everything else he’d tried. He decided that he’d give her a chance, just as he’d given all the others who’d tried to help a chance, but he wasn’t expecting much.

  A week later Jack went back to Dr. Anders for his next session. She had him lie down on her couch again and close his eyes. She asked him to start counting backwards very slowly from one hundred. Then she had him visualize being twenty years old, and then nineteen, and eighteen. Within a few minutes, he saw himself at fifteen, and then at ten. There were birthday parties, school classrooms; he was on a swing at a playground, running through a sprinkler on a lawn, and then was back at the house that his parents rented on Long Island during summers when he was a child.

  He was seven years old, wearing a t-shirt and sneakers, getting on a bus that took him from his parents’ house to a day camp by the ocean. When he arrived at the camp, he got off the bus and saw his counselors and other kids. Everyone was excited because that day they were going on a field trip to the boardwalk.

  The other kids got on the bus and Jack did, too. After a short ride, the bus pulled up at the beach and everyone got off and went to the boardwalk. Jack and the kids went on a children’s roller coaster, which he thought was very cool. Then Jack and the kids walked into an arcade, where he heard the sounds of pinball machines and smelled fresh popcorn. Jack played skeeball and won enough tickets to get a small plastic dinosaur. Then the group went outside and the counselors stopped in front of a fun house maze. The grown-ups said that when the kids went into the maze that they should stay together so nobody would get lost. The adults would meet them when they got out. Jack went into the maze with the other kids. It was dark and creepy. He saw his reflection in the mirrors, making him look tall and short. And then suddenly Jack realized he was alone. He’d somehow gotten separated from the other kids. He was scared, crying and couldn’t find his way out. He yelled for help but no one heard him. Everywhere he turned there was another mirror.

  And then someone grabbed him. Jack couldn’t see who it was, only the person’s white gloves. Jack tried to pull away, but the hands held him tightly; and then they were around his neck, squeezing his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He managed to look up at the face of his attacker. It was a clown. He had a white face, big red lips, and blue hair. Jack heard a woman calling his name. The clown looked frightened and let Jack go. Jack fell to the ground and everything went black.

  The next thing Jack knew he was outside in the sunlight, lying on the boardwalk. Counselors were standing over him. Jack felt groggy. He sat up slowly and was given a cup of water. He heard the counselors talking.

  “He’s okay,” said one.

  “Luckily we found him on the floor of the maze,” said the other.

  “Must’ve fainted,” said a third.

  “Good thing we noticed he was missing.”

  “Let’s not tell anyone about this.”

  “We could get fired.”

  Dr. Anders brought Jack out of the trance, and he opened his eyes.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  Jack sat up slowly, catching his breath. “I’m okay,” he said.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Dr. Anders.

  “Yes,” he said. “I saw him, the clown. I was in a fun house and he found me alone. He would have killed me if he hadn’t gotten scared and ran.”

  “What are you feeling?”

  “Scared and relieved. I can’t believe that I’ve been walking around with this experience most of my life and didn’t know it.”

  “There’s your nightmare.”

  “It really happened.”

  “Yes, but you’re safe now. He can’t hurt you.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know who he was, but I know what he was.”

  “What?”

  “A repressed memory.”

  * * * *

  That night Jack slept peacefully. The next morning, he woke up refreshed. It was the first time he could ever remember feeling that way. It was like being reborn. He took a shower, got dressed, shaved, ate some toast, a couple of fried eggs, and went out for a walk. Then he thought about the clown. If Dr. Anders’s theory was right, now that he was aware of what had happened, he’d be able to let go of it. Was it really possible, after all these years, that he’d finally be able to sleep well every night?

  As he walked down Broadway in the bright sunlight, Jack wondered why he wasn’t feeling happier. By all rights he should be ecstatic, celebrating his new found freedom. And yet, despite the number of years that had passed, he couldn’t stop thinking about how close he’d come to death. It was only by chance that he’d been saved. A few more seconds of being choked and he would have died.

  On 66th Street, feeling dazed, Jack went into the subway and took the train to 42nd. He got out and walked to Fifth Avenue, where he entered the library and went upstairs to the microfilm section. He asked a librarian if she had a newspaper from Beachton, Long Island. She looked it up, then told him that they didn’t carry it. She asked him if he might be interested in Newsday, which covered all of Long Island. Jack filled out a call slip for July and August of the year when he was seven. He presented it to the librarian, who gave him a few small boxes. He took them to a machine, threaded up the film, and sat down.

  He spooled through advertisements featuring men and women wearing old clothes and photos of ancient-looking cars. There were editorials about local politics and pictures of forgotten movie stars, and then he found a small article with the headline “Child Found Dead in Beachton.” The piece recounted an incident that had happened on the boardwalk. A six year old boy had been separated from his parents and later found dead under the boardwalk. Official cause of death was still pending, pursuant to the coroner’s report, but police at the scene believed it to be asphyxiation from being choked.

  Jack printed out the story then went through more reels of microfilm. He found another story about a seven year old boy who was found dead near the arcade, also from asphyxiation, cause pending. Jack printed the second story, then returned the microfilm to the librarian and left the building.

  He felt queasy as he walked west toward the subway. The idea of looking in the library had come to him on a whim. He’d wanted to see if his experience had been an isolated incident or whether there were others who hadn’t been as lucky as he was. But now, having discovered this information, he was deeply disturbed. Two other boys, both near the maze. Both dead. When Jack got to the subway steps he was so shaky he had to grip the handrail extra hard, for fear that he would fall.

  * * * *

  That evening, he sat in his apartment trying to figure out what to do. After a few minutes he picked up his cell phone and texted his friend Mike, telling him what he’d found out both at the hypnotist and from the library. He didn’t expect to hear from Mike for a while. Mike was always working and usually took a few days to get back to him.

  Jack thought about making something to eat, but instead went out to take a walk. He wandered the streets for a few hours, thinking about his own experience and those of the two boys he’d never met. He imagined them walking through the maze and the white-gloved hands around their necks. Jack decided he needed to find out more for his own sake and for the boys who were never given the chance to grow up.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Jack left his apartment, went to Penn Station and bought a round trip ticket to Beachton. A half hour later he stepped into a train and found a window seat. As the train pulled out of the station, Jack wondered what he was going to do when he got there. He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he felt compelled to go.

  For the next hour and a half he watched houses, factories, billboards, and trees go by. Then warehouses, gas stations, quaint little towns, and ugly small villages. When the train pulled into the Beachton station Jack got out. The train departed quickly, leaving him alone on the quiet platform. He walked across the tracks and saw an old man sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper. Jack asked him where the beach was. The man looked up at Jack as if he were the dumbest human he’d ever seen, then pointed and went back to his newspaper.

  Jack walked along empty streets, past houses with peeling paint and overgrown lawns. In a few minutes the boardwalk came into view and beyond it the ocean. A cool winter breeze was blowing as he climbed the wooden steps that led to the deserted boardwalk. The beach was barren except for a few seagulls.

  All the shops and restaurants were closed for the winter. As he walked he thought about that day, a lifetime ago. It was a strange feeling, being back after so many years. What if the arcade no longer existed? And even if it did, it would be closed this time of year. How could he ever hope to find the clown? Then he thought about the other two boys. He owed it to them to keep going.

  Jack found a boarded up building where the arcade had once stood. There was a ‘for rent’ sign on it which gave the name and address of a local real estate company.

  * * * *

  The Azore real estate company was located in a house just off Main Street.

  Jack walked inside and saw an overweight woman with dyed blond hair, wearing a white blouse, sitting in front of a computer. She turned to face him.

  “You in the market for a house?” she asked.

  “No, I’m interested in a store on the boardwalk.”

  “Which one?”

  “It used to be an arcade.”

  “You want to rent?”

  “Actually, I’d like to find the previous tenant.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Jack realized that he couldn’t tell the woman the truth about why he wanted to locate whoever ran the arcade and maze. He didn’t want to sound like someone who might be dangerous. He had to come up with a plausible-sounding explanation.

  “Uh,” he said, “my family used to spend our summers here when I was a kid, and I have fond memories of the arcade and maze. I’m writing a book about the boardwalk and I was hoping that I could interview whoever ran the arcade.”

  “You’re a little late for that. He died two years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “But maybe his daughter could help you. I’m not really supposed to give out personal information.”

  “A book about the area could help bring tourists here.”

  “Now that wouldn’t be a bad thing,” she said, smiling, as she wrote something down on a pad, then tore off the page and handed it to Jack.

  * * * *

  Marie Denning, who looked only a few years older than Jack, was dressed in a pink blouse and standing outside her beauty shop, smoking a cigarette and checking the messages on her cell phone, when Jack walked up to her and explained who he was and why he was there.

  “A book, huh?” she said, blowing some smoke from the side of her mouth. “You write any other books?”

  “No, but I have so many good memories of those summers ….”

  “A poor man’s Coney Island is what it was. My pop was always trying to make the big score. He was kind of a dreamer.”

  “I liked the maze.”

  “Yeah, I used to work in the maze when I was a teenager.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sure. All kinds of crazy stuff happened in there.”

  “Like what?”

  “One time a guy proposed to his girlfriend in the maze. Go figure. Another time, some pickpocket tried to hide in there. The cops had to go in and look for him. Wouldn’t you know it, the cops got lost. But eventually they caught him.” She laughed.

  “Do you remember a clown with blue hair being in the maze?”

  “You mean my Uncle Morty?”

  “White face, white costume, big floppy shoes, blue hair?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. My father’s no-good brother. What about him?”

  “Did he work there?”

  “Sometimes, when he couldn’t get a circus job. He would scare people in the maze. My pop thought it would give customers an extra thrill. The truth is Morty was a miserable drunk. I guess I shouldn’t say that, but when I was a kid he used to give me the creeps. He’s in his late eighties now. He called me a few months ago to hit me up for money. Can you believe it? When I was a kid he wouldn’t even buy me an ice cream and now he’s begging me for a hand out. Not that it’s a surprise. He was always mooching off my pop. I guess my dad felt sorry for him. Besides the drinking, Uncle Morty also had a little problem with the horses, if you know what I’m sayin’. Some people never change.” She looked at Jack and said, “But you don’t want to hear about him.”

  “Actually, I’d like to interview him. I think getting a clown’s perspective would be interesting.”

  “Why waste your time? Besides he’s all the way down in Florida. He’s been retired for years.”

  “Do you know where I can contact him?”

  * * * *

  When Jack got back to the city, he went to his apartment and texted his friend Mike. He told him what he’d found, and that he was going to go away for a few days. He promised to call him when he got back.

  That night Jack got eight hours of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. When he woke up he felt rested, energetic, and determined to pursue his goal. After dressing, he filled a luggage bag with a change of clothes, his electric shaver, and a toothbrush, then left his apartment and walked two blocks to a bank. He went inside and withdrew nine hundred dollars from his account, his entire life savings. Then he took the train to La Guardia airport.

  Jack was in a plane, thirty two thousand feet in the air, when he decided to kill the clown. The idea popped into his head while he was looking out the window at sunlight shining through some clouds. It was as if it had been divinely inspired. Someone had to avenge the dead. It was beyond what the law could do, but that didn’t mean that there would be no justice. Jack would be the judge, jury, and executioner. The victims would not be forgotten. He alone could balance the scales. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it. He just knew that he would find the predator and decide on a method when the time came.