Creepy Clown Stories Like Joker 2 and Terrifier 3

You can’t talk about scary clowns in fiction without mentioning Pennywise, the true king of all interdimensional demons who represent evil in its truest form. Stephen King’s IT has been terrifying readers for generations and could easily be viewed as the source of our societal fear of clowns (King himself has said it’s time for us to get over such things, but how are we meant to do that when Pennywise lives?!).

In the town of Derry, Maine, a malevolent spirit dominates every corner of life. The adults turn a blind eye to it, but the kids are forced to bear witness to the violence, the cruelty, and the dread. In the storm drains, in the sewers, It lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare the kids could imagine. Those kids became adults, fleeing Derry and forgetting all about It. But It never forgot about them, and now they must return home and destroy the evil before it devours another generation.

A slew of beloved and award-winning urban fantasy authors unite for this anthology edited by bestselling author Rachel Caine, which tackles the unsettling world of traveling carnivals. These circus shows are part of a bygone era that mix the magical and the grimy. They promised freaks, illusions, clowns, and something decidedly different from the mundane lives of their curious visitors. 

Carniepunk imagines the many grotesque, freaky, and funny adventures of the carnival, with stories about bearded ladies, clowns, acrobatics, and psychopaths prowling the tents for new victims.

Jimmie Aussapile, Lovina Marcou and Heck Sinclair are members of a secret society dedicated to protecting those who travel America's highways from monsters both supernatural and mundane. The Brotherhood of the Wheel journey on haunted roads and the bleak truck stops where all manner of oddities lie. In Lenoir, North Carolina, Jimmie and his squire Heck find themselves drawn into an all-out war between two competing biker gangs: one is an all-female werewolf pack while the other are powered by strange supernatural abilities. 

To make things even tougher, Lovina is drawn into a missing-person case that leads to a Pennsylvania trailer park seemingly haunted by killer clowns. Just another day on the road for the Brotherhood, but if they don't maintain the safety of America's highways, their own souls could be at risk. 

Quinn Maybrook moved with her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. It's a desolate place with no place to work since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down. The adults are determined to revive the town's fortunes while the kids just want to mess around, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can. 

Quinn just wants to survive until graduation, but there are more nefarious forces at play ready to destroy everything. Frendo, the Baypen mascot (a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat), has decided that the only way for Kettle Springs to recover is for its rotten kids to be culled as sacrifices. It’s kids versus clown in the middle of the cornfields. Who will make it to morning? 

One day in the summer of 1989, the legendary Bonkin's Bonanza circus reopened. Some came looking for fun, like Candy Barton and her best friend, Leigh. Others, like Rocky Rhodes and Sully Sullivan, came looking for something more serious: a second chance. Bonkin's was famous for its wild parties but on this particular night, things are destined to take a very dark. For this when an evening of ceaseless terror and bloodshed will unfold, a calamity that will come to be known as the Cotton Candy Massacre…

Jaunty the Clown just wants to entertain families and make children smile, but everyone hates clowns now. They think of them as evil and nightmarish creatures, not joyous and light-hearted jesters. Jaunty, along with his fellow performers Guffaw, Wagon, Reginald The Pleasant Clown, and Bluehead are fired from the circus due to the growing distaste from audiences. 

Still, they have to work, and since clowns are scary now, they're forced to take a job in a popular haunted attraction: the Mountain of Terror. Now they're the bad guys. But the town is about to discover something more frightening than clowns. Because on opening night, millions of oversized spiders emerge from a cave and begin their deadly invasion. It's up to the clowns to take a stand.

In the moments before he is born, Jimmy Tock has a strange destiny thrust upon him. His dying grandfather prophesizes five dark days in his grandson's future where Jimmy will be forced to face all manner of terror, violence, and deviance. The first is to occur in his 20th year, the second in his 23rd, the third in his 28th, the fourth in his 29th, and the fifth when he turns 30 years old. It is his sacred duty to struggle against a perverse evil that could engulf the entire planet. 

Only a truly extraordinary spirit can break through such darkness, but why Jimmy? What is scheduled to happen on these five days? What madness is the world going to throw at him?