Clown In a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo by Adam Cesare
Quinn Maybrook, wearing a Frendo the Clown mask, has abducted a guy outside a Waffle House named Charlie who participated in the riots in Kettle Springs (see book two!). She's got him chained to the floor in a dark room and she's slowly approaching him with a pair of bolt cutters. She wants to know where Benjamin Koontz, Clownstick69, is. Charlie, freaking out, starts yelling that he didn't do anything, he only drove Ben to the riot, he thinks everything that happened to Quinn and her friends was bad! Yeah, no shit. Quinn positions the bolt cutters over Charlie's pinkie finger and asks again about Ben. He says he doesn't know where exactly Ben is, only that he went north. Well, they're in fucking Florida so everywhere is north. He says they would kill him if he knew where it was and told anyone. Oh, but doesn't he know? Quinn kills people too. She cuts off his finger.
In the newly incorporated township of Kettle Springs, Tabitha walks with God across the muddy fields to the schoolhouse. Things have changed in Kettle Springs since The Pastor arrived and started preaching his own words instead of the Word of God. Her parents have begun attending church with The Pastor and are changing in ways Tabitha doesn't like. She misses her old friend Ruth who left not too long ago and tries to comfort a younger girl, Hannah, when the church bells ring. Everyone is called to the church where The Pastor, shrouded in robes, brings an apostate before the gathered townsfolk and calls upon another man, Isaac, to cut off his head with an axe.
Quinn calls her dad, Glenn, mayor of Kettle Springs, to tell him that there are going to be rumors that she killed someone, but hangs up before answering if she did. Meanwhile, in Sumter, Alabama, a guy named Johnny D is working under his Mustang with his bros, listening to Insane Clown Posse, when two missionary-looking guys drive up, looking for his brother, Trevor. The bros start to pick a fight with the missionary-looking guys, but then the missionary-looking guys kill them all, violently, like, with scalping, all except for Johnny D, who is still under his car. He calls 911 after he watches the missionary-looking guys drive away in their black sedan with Alton Ministries on the side and waits for police. Unfortunately, Quinn Maybrook shows up instead.
In Kettle Springs township, Tabitha sneaks past her barely cognizant father who is sitting at the kitchen table, candle burning, looking at a hymnal. Tabitha prays and heads outside to tend the cow, but she's not in the barn. Tabitha squelches through the muddy field that won't grow any crops to find her cow, but she's got blood on her muzzle. Thinking she's hurt, Tabitha looks the cow over, but she's fine. Then Tabitha looks around her and sees bodies buried in the mud. She realizes the bodies belong to her friend Ruth and her family, who apparently didn't move away after all.
Quinn is driving and imagining Arthur Hill in the car with her. He's always with her now, even though or maybe because she watched him die. She's worried because someone killed Charlie to make it look like she was responsible. She thinks about just giving up and going home but instead continues on, checking names off her list. She pulls up outside a house and a teen boy runs out into the street, asking for help. But uh oh, he realizes who she is. Then she hears sirens. Quinn and Johnny D get into his Mustang and drive off.
In the township, Tabitha works up the courage to tell her mother about finding Ruth and her family's corpses, but her mother doesn't believe her. She threatens to tell the constable, but it's just that. A threat. Tabitha regrets telling her mother but calls her bluff and they go see the constable. While Tabitha's mother chats with him, Tabitha is approached by The Pastor in his robes. She tries to look at his face, but it doesn't look right, and he doesn't smell right, either. He insists that she attend church on Sunday and take the host. Tabitha only has a few days to figure out what to do to avoid taking the host and becoming weird and mindless like everyone around her. She realizes The Pastor smells just like Ruth. Just like a corpse.
Quinn and Johnny D look up the address for Alton Ministries and drive to check it out. Their trip starts out a little rocky at first, what with Johnny D having to sit on rusty springs in the passenger seat of his own car and then trying to run when they stop for gas and Quinn punching him in the face. After that though, things get better. They, mostly Johnny D, talk about Insane Clown Posse and found family and then they arrive at Alton Ministries, a defunct church in a mostly empty strip mall. They break in and rummage around looking for clues, but they must trip an alarm because security guards show up. They're able to escape, but when they get back to the Mustang, one of the guards starts shooting. Quinn thinks Johnny D is dead, but he's not. He's just fine. He also found some mail with another address in Pennsylvania that they decide to check out next.
Tabitha and Hannah are darning socks, Tabitha talking about God while fretting about having to go to church and take the host. She wonders what it tastes like, what it will do to her. She's seen her parents change, become vacant and angry, will that happen to her? As she and Hannah work, they hear a buzzing sound and then an explosion. Tabitha looks up to see two apostates coming toward them through the muddy field, pushing a small motorcycle. They ask if they have a cell phone they can borrow to call for help, but no, they have no phones, and the two newcomers need to leave immediately. Tabitha tries to tell them they'll be killed if they stay, but they don't listen. Then she hears the door to her house open and close. If she and Hannah don't cry for help that there are apostates, they'll all be in trouble. Finally, Tabitha convinces the motorcycle couple to hide in the barn.
Vivian Murray is in a women's correctional facility. She hasn't spoken in the couple of years since the night in Kettle Springs where she was accused of cutting her daughter's head off. She actually didn't do that, but no one believed her. She's been awaiting trial since then, but when the riots happened, the trials got delayed again. Now, she's being released on bail and two young men dressed like missionaries have come to take her home. Home to New Kettle Springs.
Quinn and Johnny D are at a library, researching Alton Ministries and also mapping out the locations of more people on Quinn's list. Quinn watches snippets of a bunch of YouTube videos featuring various versions of Alton preaching various things. The last one has a link to donate to the Resettlement of Kettle Springs. The what? Before she can research more, an emo library teen approaches and asks for Quinn's autograph. Yep. Time to leave.
Quinn and Johnny D decide to stop off at an RV park to check off another couple of names from her list. The Dozers. Ex professional wrestlers. Only one of them is there though. Quinn feels bad about hassling Cheryl Dozer, who just looks old and sad. She says her husband is dead, or at least dead to her, and that he ran off with all their money. Quinn asks if he might've known anyone in Pennsylvania and Cheryl flips through rage and dejection really quickly. Quinn leaves, but before she and Johnny D can get back on the road, Cheryl comes running out in her wrestling spandex and literally flips the Mustang over with nothing but her bare hands and her roided out muscles. Johnny D cracks her in the head with a wrench and knocks her out. With their car tipped over, they decide to take off in the Dozers’ RV.
The man of the couple hiding in Tabitha’s barn thinks that Tabitha and Hannah are two bored teens playing a joke on them but his fiancée manages to shut him up and convince him that he can think it's all a joke after they're back on the road. Tabitha conceals them in the stall with her cow and promises to come get them and help them get back to the road after her parents go to sleep, and if she's not able to leave her house again, Hannah will keep an eye out and help them leave before dawn. Tabitha spends the rest of the evening worrying about the couple hiding in the barn and eating uncooked chicken prepared by her out-of-it mother. She goes to her room, pretending to get ready for bed, but accidentally falls asleep. She doesn't wake until she hears the screaming the next morning.
The Alton Ministries boys and Vivian pull up at a copy shop and mail center. The man working inside, Robert, wasn't expecting them as they typically only come to pick up mail once or twice a month and they came earlier in the week. This time, they have a woman with them that Robert recognizes as one of the Founders from Kettle Springs. He knows something big must be happening soon. Something big is happening soon! The Adversary, aka Quinn Maybrook, is coming, and they have a message for her that they're leaving at the copy shop. Robert is worried because she's coming there, but he doesn't have to worry for long. The Alton Ministries boys cut off his fingers with a paper cutter then smash his head in with a copy machine. They put a mailbox key in his mouth before leaving. Vivian seems terrified and disgusted.
Quinn and Johnny D are at a rest stop getting closer to Pennsylvania and Quinn takes a shower, feeling relaxed for the first time in a long time, until, that is, she sees the ghost of Arthur Hill behind her, telling her she's rushing to die. Quinn wants everything to be over, but does she want to die or is she resigned to a life in prison? She's still curious about where the people on her list are, especially the ones she hasn't been able to find, so she's got to continue. She thinks about having sex with Johnny D because she hasn't done that yet and if this is the end, she might as well, but no. Johnny D is grilling hotdogs and they have a quick lunch, but then a state trooper arrives. Quinn thinks this is the end. It's not though. The officer leaves, only harassing them a little about throwing their trash away.
The man and woman in the barn, Seth and Lizzie, are startled by sounds in the barn. Then the door to their stall opens and they see a tiny person wearing a creepy as fuck homemade clown mask looking at them before it disappears. Then they hear it laugh. Not it, her. It's Hannah who was supposed to alert them before dawn if Tabitha couldn't come back. Seth is convinced they're being pranked, but then Hannah slices his ankle with a straight razor. The cow gets startled or annoyed and kicks back, sending Hannah flying across the barn. Lizzie and Seth try to leave, but are greeted by The Pastor, The Constable and The Executioner with his axe at the ready. They kill Seth immediately, not wanting to go through an apostate trial with The Adversary set to arrive so soon. Just as they're about to kill Lizzie, she says she's pregnant, so they take her to the jail instead. The Pastor tells them to keep her safe and feed her because Kettle Springs is going to need her baby. Tabitha finds Hannah later and she speaks. Hannah tells Tabitha that she's a bitch and that God told her to attack the apostates. Then she dies.
At the copy shop, Quinn and Johnny D find Robert’s brain smashed all over the floor. Johnny D barfs up all his hotdogs while Quinn searches for clues and for bleach. She makes him clean up his puke to cover up the fact that he's with her. She wants him left out of anything that's going to happen to her, but he wants to stay with her. Should he kiss her to prove it? No. Quinn finds a mailbox key in Robert’s mouth and unlocks the box to find a hand drawn map with her name on it inside. Okay, now, she is really headed to the end.
Tabitha is hanging up decorations in the town square, preparing for a visit from one of the Founders. She is approached by Hannah's drunken father, asking where his daughter is, though he calls her by a different name. Tabitha knows that the newcomers to her town used to go by different names, but she can't tell him that Hannah, no, Amber, tried to murder those outsiders and was kicked to death by a cow. He explains that Amber used to talk all the time before they moved to this town, before the riots in the real Kettle Springs. He says the Pastor helped them out but then they couldn't repay him and now they're here in Pennsylvania, pretending to live in a time before the riots, before Kettle Springs, Missouri, even existed. He hates it and stays drunk all the time and now his daughter is missing. Tabitha finally tells him the truth.
Vivian is in a room in the church in New Kettle Springs getting ready, relishing in the fact that she was given makeup and nice soap. One of the Alton Ministries boys brings her a dress but calls her Mrs. Murray, a name she hates given to her by a husband that convinced her to let her daughter die in a massacre. She wishes she could have annulled their marriage while she was in prison but she didn't do it. Now she's here being treated like a celebrity because of that last name, a Founder’s name. She starts to put on the dress but is interrupted by The Pastor and feels really uncomfortable. Then, she looks at the face under his robes and recognizes the man underneath. It's Arthur Hill.
Johnny D has been sent inside a hardware store with $600 to buy a shit ton of weapons for Quinn. They searched the RV, hoping to find some weapons, but all they found in the storage compartment underneath was a bunch of wrestler t-shirts. Why would oily meathead wrestlers need weapons? Their oily meathead bodies are weapons. Johnny D comes out with flashlights, knives, razor blades, bear spray, a nail gun, a machete and a hatchet. Realistically Quinn won't be able to use most of those supplies on her own and she's not letting Johnny D come with her. She's found the location from the drawn map on a road atlas and is going to drop Johnny D off on the way. They stop at a gas station and he fills up her tank while she calls her dad from a payphone. She gets back into the RV alone. Well, not alone exactly. The ghost of Arthur Hill is there too.
The Pastor has kept the residents of New Kettle Springs out of bed, dancing around a maypole, but many are falling asleep or just dazed out of their minds. Vivian Murray gave a short speech, the reason why they're celebrating, but it was over long ago, so why must everyone remain? At midnight, The Pastor removes the cloth from his table to reveal a glass coffin underneath containing the body of the host. He calls a midnight mass and all the residents begin drooling and get in line to get a bite of the disgusting, rotting corpse. The Pastor insists Tabitha take the host tonight for the first time and she tries to avoid it, seeing the mushrooms growing on it and smelling how awful it is, but The Pastor forces the corpse meat into her mouth. As he does, gunshots ring out, The Pastor collapses and Tabitha falls to the ground, choking on her flesh bite.
The Alton Ministries boys, Colby and Taylor, are on the outskirts of New Kettle Springs, waiting for The Adversary, Quinn Maybrook, to arrive. She might be smarter than they gave her credit for. She might've found the other road in. Or she might've given up and gone home. But no, they don't believe she would do that. They nearly get into a fight about Vivian Murray, one like-likes her and the other is ready to kill her, but then they hear gunshots.
Vivian is disgusted by everything going on around her. She's pocketed a steak knife and is plotting her escape, but then The Pastor, the man wearing Arthur Hill’s face, Jason Alton, is shot. Some of the townsfolk rush to find The Adversary, some rush to help The Pastor and others stand around like zombies not doing anything. This is Vivian's chance to run, but then she spots Tabitha choking on the ground and decides to help her instead. The townsfolk who stayed to help The Pastor carry him off, and some carry The Host, too, but then they start eating it. As Vivian and Tabitha get up to leave, Tabitha sees someone is behind them. It's The Pastor and he's not dead. He was wearing a bulletproof vest. He demands Tabitha and Vivian be taken to the jail cells and for everyone else to go look for The Adversary.
Quinn is smarter than the Alton Ministries boys thought. She found the side road, the other way in. She finds her way to the outskirts of a ramshackle town and sees a man running with a gun. He stops and she approaches, telling him to drop his weapon, but nobody ever does that. He rambles drunkenly about The Pastor being right and his wife and daughter being taken away and that he shot him but he was right. The Adversary has come. Quinn struggles to follow but asks who's after the man. He says she is, says that it was all a test that he failed, then he shoots himself in the head. Quinn has no idea what the fuck just happened, but she grabs the dead man's gun and continues on.
Transcripts of a video featuring Jason Alton preaching are inserted here. He questions his congregation about if the Founders of Kettle Springs were right to murder their children. They wanted to take things back to a simpler time and wanted their children to behave. They were trying for what, the 1950s? They should have gone back much further in time.
Quinn makes her way to a field in the town and sees a lot of people standing, waiting. She plans to take them down as best as she can with just a couple of bullets left and her hatchet, but… the people don't do anything. They look high? Then they start kneeling to her. No, not to her, to The Pastor. Is that Arthur Hill? No, he's dead, and his face isn't moving when he talks. Quinn calls The Pastor by his real name, Jason Alton, then calls out other people she recognizes from her missing list like Dozer the wrestler. She realizes the people here, the missing, were in Kettle Springs the night of the riot and that they stole Arthur Hill's body from the funeral home, and now here they are in some backward, old-timey town. She tells them that the real Arthur Hill died crying and pissing himself. The Pastor has the Alton Ministries boys lead Quinn to the jail.
Quinn is loaded into the jail cell with Tabitha, Vivian and Lizzie and after a quick argument with Vivian and attitude adjustment by Tabitha, they realize they need to get out of the cell and that Vivian still has her knife. She gives it to Quinn but then Quinn is taken back out and is led across the courtyard to a giant pyre. Jason Alton preaches to the crowd that The Adversary is after them all because they are poor and religious, but she's not, but then she realizes that maybe she is? Jason Alton leads the people in a hymn that is actually a mournful singing of the Frendo jingle and then they light the pyre that is built into the shape of Frendo the Clown. They're going to burn Quinn alive.
Back in the jail cell, Vivian reads a note tossed in earlier from Taylor, one of the Alton Ministries boys, warning her that Colby, the other boy, has a gun. Right now, he's twirling a knife. Lizzie needs to pee but Colby doesn't want her to. He threatens her with the knife but then Taylor punches him. They all fight and Vivian and Lizzie get cut and/or stabbed, but Colby eventually takes Taylor down with Vivian's help. Colby tries to escort Vivian out of the cell, leaving Tabitha and Lizzie behind, but then Vivian kills Colby because he's a fucking creep.
Quinn’s clown pyre isn't going so well. The fire won't light and no one is smart enough to realize that everything is wet and it won't burn. They've also stopped keeping an eye on her and so she runs after Jason Alton with Vivian's knife. She slices his leg and he begins to pray for help. Headlights appear then and someone arrives, but is it help? And for whom?
Back in time a handful of hours… Johnny D pumped Quinn's gas, but instead of walking away afterward like she thought, he climbed into the basement storage space under the RV and hid out. Unfortunately he passed out for a few hours, couldn't get out, took the door off and then went inside only to find Quinn didn't leave the keys. He hotwired the RV and headed out to find Quinn, hoping he wasn't going to be too late. When he pulls up, he's happy to see that Quinn is still alive, brandishing a knife at Jason Alton. He drives the RV through and over the crowd.
Quinn takes the moment of distraction caused by the RV plowing through the crowd to kill a few of the people who are still paying attention to her. She sees Dozer going for the RV, probably thinking his wife is inside, while others climb the outside of the RV, trying to get in. Quinn goes to the RV, but is stopped by a guy with a shovel. She mostly dodges the attack, but the shovel hits her foot, taking off four of her toes. She hears gunshots from the jail, but she needs to help Johnny D. She then hears another sound coming from the RV and then she hears screams. Johnny D bursts out, brandishing the nail gun and a machete. Unfortunately, Dozer appears and throws his axe.
Vivian, Tabitha and Lizzie leave the jail with Quinn's backpack of supplies. Tabitha wants to help her parents but Vivian convinces her to lead Lizzie out and away from town instead. Vivian says she'll stay behind and help them, but her actual plan is to help Quinn instead, or let Quinn kill her, whichever comes first. She walks into the crowd of clowns and kills some of them, but then she realizes that most of them were just followers of Jason Alton, just like she was a follower of her husband, so she lets them trample her and tear her apart.
Tabitha and Lizzie head through the woods to the road where Tabitha has never been before. As they rush through, they realize someone else is in the woods with them. Then they spot them. In the trees. The children. All of them. Well, except for Hannah/Amber. Tabitha and Lizzie get scared of course, but then they realize that the children are also scared, and instead of bear spraying them with the supplies from Quinn's backpack, Tabitha embraces the children instead and they pray.
Quinn watches as Dozer’s axe misses her and strikes Johnny D. She holds him as he dies, telling him she got the Alton Ministries boys even though she hasn't seen their bodies so she doesn't know for sure that they're dead, even doubting that Tabitha, Lizzie and Vivian could've handled them. Don't worry, Johnny D. She kisses him and then she goes after Jason Alton, who is obnoxiously praying into his headset microphone about not partaking in the host and begging God to save him. Nah dog.
Quinn finds Jason Alton crawling along the ground and cuts him a little with Johnny D’s machete, asking him why he fed those people an embalmed corpse, poisoning them, and his answer is really very disgusting. He just kept changing his preaching tactics until something stuck, and clown murders is what everyone got behind. He didn't believe in any of it at all. It's all complete bullshit and he gives up, asking Quinn to call the cops and the ambulance, but again, nah dog. Look at all the bodies surrounding them. All those people are poisoned and dying or already dead and it's all his fault. Quinn drags Jason Alton into the clown fire, but as she tries to leave, the pyre begins collapsing around her.
In Kettle Springs, Missouri, Glenn Maybrook listens to a voicemail from Quinn, telling him she's almost done and is going to try to make it back home. Cole and Rust notice that Glenn is in mourning, but should he be? There wasn't a body found after all… Cole and Rust are waiting for a couple of things. One, they're waiting for a bus load of kids from Pennsylvania to show up, kids that didn't have any family anywhere that could take care of them after what happened in their community. Two, they're waiting for a film crew to arrive. Sure, there have been plenty of B movies and TV movies and documentaries and podcasts made about what happened to them in Kettle Springs, but no one has ever gotten it right because they didn't have Cole acting as executive producer. Now he is, so they're going to make a real movie. The bus of kids shows up and Tabitha follows them out.
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