Victim One

Chapter 3

 

            We ran way more than a mile. Looks like Mr. Dane had Jensen in the bag. He came out after 13 minutes and told us to go back to the lockers rooms.

Most of the time, Alex didn’t talk to me. He looked troubled and disturbed. I asked him what was wrong with him, but he just snapped at me to mind my own damn business.

I was walking to the locker room when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the right, and saw a man in a black coat in the grass field. He doesn’t have a guest tag on his shirt- Which means he can’t be on school property. I didn’t decide to go tell Mr. Dane, he probably will just turn a blind eye to it. Instead I did something extremely stupid- I decided to check out the mysterious man myself. Time for my heroics again right? Wrong.

I crept up to the bushes on a hill (a few feet above the man) and peaked a little bit over the bush. The dark looking man was just standing there. Just standing! He didn’t do anything else. He almost looked frozen!  It looked like he can stand like that forever. I squinted to get a better look at his face but his top hat wouldn’t allow me. I bended over a little closer to look at him more clearly. I leaned in closer. Just a little bit more… Come on… A little bit more... That’s when I fell out of the bushes. I fell down the hill and hit a few branches from a tree and landed flat on my back. I coughed and groaned. After I got my air back to my lungs I looked in the man’s direction. But he was still staring in the same direction.

“What?” I thought in my head. “Why didn’t he even take a second glance at me and ask if I’m Ok?”

I walked up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Uh sir, you can’t be here without a guest tag. I can tell you where to get it, go the front office and-” I began to say. But as I turned him around in my direction he fell to the floor. I gasped and turned his body around so I could take a better look at his face. What I saw will forever haunt me.

Well no duh! He really was frozen! His face was completely blue. With dark bloody cracks all over. His face was in a mask of horror. It looked like he turned around and saw a ghost and his terrified face stayed in place. Something happened to this man. Something… horrible! I felt sick and clenched my stomach. And I did the natural thing.

I ran off to get a teacher or the principle.

 

They couldn’t describe what happened to him. Everyone was freaked out and scared. Some even went home. When my favorite teacher Mr. Phase saw him, he had his mouth open in shock. His jaw was 5 centimeters off of where it should have been. He kept slowly opening and closing his mouth saying nothing, like a fish. After a few seconds of awkward terror his face hardened and then he called the principle with his walkie talkie. Bunch of other kids crowded in to see the man. A few minutes later the cops showed up. They didn’t know what happened either.  They called over some priests to describe the accident. Even the priests were stunned. They gave a silent prayer to the dead man and left. Some people murmured “demon” and “exorcist.” I had a sick feeling in my stomach that this might have connected to my dream in any way. But I told myself that was silly and decided not to have another thought about it.

Everyone was shocked when they saw the man, everyone except… Alex. When he came over to see what the fuss was about, his face turned grim and he ran off. A few people thought he was just scared, but I know Alex too well. Something was going on, and Alex was leaving me out of it.

I pushed myself out of the crowd to go after Alex. I had to run to catch up with him. When I saw him I was about to yell out,

“What the hell’s going on?!” But I decided that might ruin a chance of getting to understand what’s going on. So instead I just followed him like a ninja. He looked back a few times but he never caught me. I followed him a few more yards until he stopped in front of the boy’s bathroom. He walked inside. So that’s it? I was following him to end up going to the boy’s room? But I decided that was silly because he was using the 6^th graders bathroom when he could have just gone to the eighth grade bathroom which was much closer. I waited a few minutes then I went in. I looked around the boy’s room but Alex was gone! Completely gone! I didn’t even see him exit! It’s like he just disappeared!

The only evidence I found about proof of his existence was his backpack. He left it behind, to wherever he went to. The window wasn’t open. You would need a key to open it. And it wasn’t smashed. So where did he go? Did he flush himself down the toilet?

Right then I had a crazy thought in my head. It said Maybe Alex Was The Murderer… It makes sense. Right After You Find A Dead Man, Your Best Friend Alex Disappears Without A Trace. But then I just shook my head and said aloud that Alex would never do that. He is wild and a bit crude, but he’s not evil.

I decided that I would waste my time being the bathroom so I left. But with Alex’s backpack…

 

I’m at my home laying flat on my stomach on top of my temperpedic bed looking through the contents of Alex’s bag. Nothing important, just assignments, crap, junk, and- Wait! Whoa! What’s this? Out of the pocket of a folder I pull out something smooth. And sharp. I cautiously pull it out to reveal a knife. A KNIFE. In Alex’s bag. Why did Alex have a knife?! My suspicions of Alex are getting stronger by each minute but I made up an excuse for the knife as well. The knife was probably just for protection and this little knife couldn’t possibly make that man all blue and disgusting looking.

 

My parents eventually heard about what had happened and decided to keep me and my sister at home for one whole week away from school. On Wednesday, cops arrived at our house to interrogate me. They asked a bunch of questions like,

“Since you were there first, did you see what happened?” “Do you know that man?” They even asked “Were you the murderer?” Yeah right, like I would give that away if I WAS. Which I’m not.

 

The next few days went by extremely slow. I didn’t talk about Alex to my parents or the police. I wanted to keep this critical information to myself for a while until I understood things better. I stayed away from school for another week. My parents didn’t complain.

 

I came back to school eventually, but there were only a few students around. Most were still probably at home. More kids arrived as they have heard of no more accidents. Eventually the whole school was back. Everyone got on with their lives although some kids were still a little edgy. Weeks passed, MONTHS passed without any incidents or anything strange. School was like hell for me though, Alex wasn’t around and I was stuck thinking to myself what had happened every waking hour of the day. But our peace and prosperity didn’t last for long. 15 weeks away from the incident, the attacker struck again. And this time the victim was Josh. 

Author's Note

In case you guys forgot who Josh was, he was mentioned once in Chapter 2. I decided to kill off Jessica instead but decided in the end that I was going to make her a main character near the ending of the story.