Haunted

A boy finds himself frequented by the malicious spirits of his worst bullies

 

Haunted

 

By W.C.Jones

 

 

When I saw Clyde Johnson and his friends come through the door of the classroom, each straying back from anyone else so they would not touch them, a chill danced up my spine and did cartwheels on my nerves. They were the worst bullies at Slaystone High, and I was their target, only, it was not possible they were coming through the door to torment me right now, because Clyde and his friends were dead. The same kind of dead that takes away grandma and grandpa, the same kind that snatches the life of the cancer patient in the ICU of a hospital. They were f*****g dead, but yet, here they were, the same sinister grins on their greasy faces, eyes on me.

            Clyde stepped into the room and stood before the front of the class, his hands on his hips. The letterman jacket he wore, along with the blue jeans on his legs, holding in all his muscles earned from two years on the Slaystone Yellow Jackets football team. He liked to wear his brown hair short and spiked same as his other two friends, Louis Kramer, and Jared Masson. The only thing which set him apart from his friends was his demeanor, and how violent he acted over even the smallest things.

            “Missed you in the parking lot yesterday,” he said with a sharp intake of breath. His voice came out dry and muffled as if his lungs were full of the damp earth he and his friends would be buried in come this Thursday.

            “Yeah,” said Jared, joining in with him, “we waited and waited for you but you never showed.” He followed behind Clyde and the two of them advanced toward my desk, completely oblivious to the teacher taking role at the front. Louis walked around the back of the chairs, his tall, slender frame never leaving a shadow even though a light shined bright above his shoulders.

            “It was because he’s a chicken s**t,” Louis said, pointing at me. “And he always will be.”

            I sat glued to my desk with fear. Every time they took another step toward me, my heart beat faster; with each c**k of a smile they sent toward me, I shuddered; and the cold emanating from their presence gave the room the feel of a meat-locker. As the air assaulted my skin, I imagined hulks of beef hanging from the ceiling by steel hooks, the circulation of the air causing them to sway back and forth.

            This isn’t happening, I thought. I closed my eyes in hope that the horrible image of the approaching specters would vanish but it didn’t work. Clyde, his mouth hanging open in a frozen grin like a door in an abandoned house, kept walking toward me with a purpose I knew well by now. No one in the room saw him but me, or if they did, they sure as hell didn’t seem to care that three dead teenagers were attending class today. Jared took up the rear, and he moved even faster than Clyde, which didn’t surprise me because Jared was one of the fastest runners on the team. He was not tall, but he was not short, and he wore his hair the same way Clyde did, except his was blonde.

            I heard a footstep behind my desk, and when I turned around I was greeted by Louis’s slender face and his fierce, brown eyes as they bored into my soul.

            “This isn’t happening,” I said through trembling lips. “You guys aren’t really here.”

            “Oh yes we are,” Louis said. “And this time, you won’t be able to weasel yourself out of our meeting.” He smiled after he said this, and knocked the books off my desk in a loud clatter that filled the room in a thunderous wave. The teacher suddenly stopped taking role and stood static, staring in my direction. All eyes were on me, but I never noticed. I was too busy keeping my eyes on the three figures who had haunted me since my first day in the ninth grade, my heart playing a frantic rhythm on my ribs.

***

            It was my dad’s idea to begin with. He was always the one person I came to for personal advice, because my mom had been gone for six years. I used to ask him if it was my fault that she left, and he would always shake his head, saying “no son, it wasn’t your fault, and don’t start thinking it was.” All through my early teen years, his advice had taken flight in how to keep my face clean, how to rearrange my sock drawer, and (I say this with slight embarrassment) why I feel “strange” around pretty girls. So naturally, when I started getting bullied by Clyde and his friends I came to him and asked him how to deal with the situation.

            “Just try to ignore them,” he said. “And eventually, they will stop picking on you.”

            I tried his approach, and for a good while it did work, but then Clyde and Louis found entertainment in seeing how many paper wads they could shoot into my hair before they started falling on my desk while I was trying to read in study hall. The teacher on duty was Coach Crall, and he was their coach; naturally, he found the act amusing, and I would constantly catch him watching every time I got hit with another paper wad, a slight smile splayed across his wrinkled face.

            Things kept getting worse with them. I was afraid to stop by my locker between classes because Clyde’s was only a few feet away from mine, and so I carried all my books to every class, which gave me sore arms and a screaming back by the end of each day. Clyde was in two of my classes: algebra, and earth science (which I hated with a f*****g passion). Every day he found ways to get me in trouble with Mr. Leech, who never examined anything closely because he felt no need to do so. One of the worst things Clyde ever did was hand me someone’s test paper and then raise his hand, saying “I think little Danny boy over here is cheating, sir,” with a smirk on his face.

            I got a zero on the test that I had studied over six hours for over the last two days, and Clyde squeaked out with a B- using the paper he framed me with. I think if I would have had Clyde and his friends in those classes, I would already have hung myself, but the only class I had all three of them in was study hall, and in there, every day was a test of my nerves. They sent me threatening messages which I showed the teacher one day after the period was up.

            “Oh, it’s nothing, Danny,” Coach Crall told me. “They’re just playing with you.”

            Just playing with me? Yeah. Right. If “playing” includes Louis and Jared holding me by the ankles while Clyde dipped my head in a flushing toilet, then I guess that is correct, but I sure as hell didn’t see it that way.

 

            When I went back to my dad and told him that ignoring them wasn’t working, he smiled, and held up his fists. “Then maybe it’s time you show them that you’re not one to be messed with,” he said. “I guarantee if you give that Clyde Johnson a pop in the nose he will leave you alone.”

            I stood motionless, a queer expression on my face. What had my father just asked me to do? “You mean you want me to fight him?” I asked.

            My dad nodded. “You can do it, son,” he said. “I’ve been in your shoes before, and I know you’re afraid, but standing up for yourself is something you’ve got to start doing. If you let people run over you now, then they will continue to do so for the rest of your life.”

            “But I’ll get creamed,” I said, raising my voice. “Have you ever seen how big this guy is? He’s a football player for Christ’s sake!” I started pacing the room, waving both hands sporadically. “He could bench press me, along with three other guys on his back. He’s a monster, dad, a real live monster. And what about his friends? Even if I managed to beat up Clyde, I’d have Louis and Jared to contend with also!”

            “Okay, okay, I get it,” dad said. “Fighting is out.” He scratched his head, knocking his bifocals askew for a moment. He fixed them back, and then a smile spread across his face. “I got it,” he said.

            My eyes lit up in anticipation of what he was going to say.

            “Just tell them to leave you alone,” he said. “Tell them that you’re fed up with it and you want it to stop.”

            “I guess so,” I said. “But what if that doesn’t do the trick?”

            My dad’s smile turned menacing for a moment as he spoke. “Then I’ll deal with them myself.”

            I smiled at the thought of my father punching Clyde Johnson in the face while I sat back and watched. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do it.” I started to walk away, but then I remembered something. “Where do I tell them this?” I asked.

            “That’s up to you, son,” he said. “I’d just tell them to meet me in the parking lot after school, that way, if they give chase, you’ve got plenty of open space to get away from them in.” He smiled and walked into the kitchen to get the phone. “Just make sure that you let them see that you’re no longer afraid of them,” he said. “Because that’s what keeps them coming after you.”

            “Right,” I said, and I walked into my room to get ready for school.

***

            Louis placed an icy hand on my shoulder and smiled. My eyes widened in horror as I saw the back of room through his chest, the black clock on the wall reading 2:21 P.M. I waited for the numbness of the cold surrounding him to carry me away into darkness, but instead, all he did was look down at the books on the floor beside my desk.

            “Pick them up, dick head,” he said. “Before I knock your head clean off your f*****g shoulders.”

            I reached down for my books, but I was stopped by Clyde’s boot as he stomped on my history book. A sticky chill bit at my arm as my hand slid through his leg, my fingers twitching. By now the whole room was alive with laughter at the unexpected calamity going on before their eyes. It is not every day that you get to see one of the biggest nerds in school actually talk to someone no one else can see. But I did just that, for fear of what would happen if I didn’t.

            “What do you want from me,” I asked.

            Jared came up behind Clyde, a paper wad clutched in his hands. Everyone in the room suddenly gasped at the sight of the floating paper ball, and when he threw it at my face, people scrambled out of their seats in a panicked frenzy. Even the teacher dropped the role sheet and ran from the room, never taking a second glance into the supernatural event happening in her classroom. The paper ball struck my glasses, leaving a large streak on my left lens.

            “I wonder,” he said sarcastically. “Could it be that Danny boy here has forgotten what he told us yesterday?”

            Clyde smirked. “I guess he did.”

            Louis shoved my desk against the row next to me, and my glasses fell to the floor, the right frame cracking when it hit. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Because he told us he wanted to see us, and here we are.” He walked over to me, and slammed his hands on my desktop. “What’s the matter,” he said. “Cat got your tongue?”

            I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. With the deadly cold assaulting me all over like shards of glass, and the fact that I could see the room through the three guys standing in front of me, words were something I could not manage to form. Sweat rolled down my cheek and dropped to the desk, leaving a tiny wet streak on my face. Clyde laughed when he noticed, and Jared followed soon afterwards. Louis, however, found this unamusing, and he came face-to-face with me, his eyes glowing bright crimson.

            “You had better say what you got to say,” he said, “or I’ll kill you where you f*****g stand you sorry excuse for a human being.”

             I opened my mouth to say something, but the expression on his face kept me from finishing. Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife, flipped open the blade, and lunged at me. Clyde stepped in front of him before the blade could touch my skin.

            “Not just yet, man,” he said. “That would spoil all our fun too quickly.”

            “Yeah,” said Jared, stepping up beside him. “Think of all the fun we’re going to have hunting this little f**k down.”

            Louis turned away from me, the glow gone from his eyes. He folded the blade of his knife and stuck it back in his pocket. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll let the coward live.” He turned back to me and smiled. “For now, at least.”

            I had been holding my breath up until this point, and when I let it out, Clyde and Jared cackled in a way I never thought was possible. Louis withdrew his hands from my desk and took a seat beside me on the other, a cruel smile beginning to spread across his face like skin cancer. Clyde didn’t move from where he was, but he turned around to face his friends, nodded at them, and then turned back to face me.

            “Run,” he said. “Run unless you want us to gut you where you stand.”

 

***

            I told them I wanted them to meet me in the parking lot after school yesterday. I still remember Clyde’s reaction. The smirk he already had grew into a sinister smile, and he leaned over toward me in study hall.

            “You want to fight me, or something?” he asked. “You’ll get creamed, and you know it.”

            Louis threw a paper wad at me and laughed. “I have to agree with Clyde,” he said. “You don’t stand a f*****g chance.”

            I started to tell them that I wasn’t asking them to fight, but then Jared stuck in his two cents worth.

            “That’s going to be some funny s**t,” he said. “Just thinking of seeing Clyde knock the hell out of you puts a smile on my face.”

            I opened my mouth to tell them the real reason I wanted them to meet me there, but the bell rang before I could get the words out of my mouth.

            Clyde stood up, patted me on the shoulder. “See you in the parking lot after school,” he said. “And don’t forget to bring every bit of fight you have in that scrawny body of yours because you’re going to need it.”

            He walked out, and so did his friends. I sat still until the last person had left the room, thinking of the mess I had just gotten myself into. A fight with Clyde meant certain death to me, and the thought of it made me shiver.

           

            After the last bell of the day, I walked toward the double doors at the back, preparing to try to talk some sense into Clyde. The parking lot lay at the bottom of a hill. A staircase cut through the heart of it, and at the bottom lay the place I would shed some blood today.

            A small crowd of people gathered in the center, and Clyde stood in the middle, like a prized fighter before an audience of over sixty thousand in Las Vegas. Louis and Jared stood next to the crowd, looking over at him.

            No one had noticed me up at the beginning of the stairs, and in realizing this I stopped to think about what I was about to do. On the one hand I wanted to confront them, but that meant the possibility of ending up in a hospital bed with several broken bones; on the other end, they weren’t going to leave me alone unless I did something now.

            I suddenly saw in my mind’s eye, Clyde stepping up as I tried to talk to him and punching me in the nose. God, how that would hurt. Then that image became Clyde twisting my arm until it snapped, jagged pieces of bone sticking through my elbow as I screamed in pain.

            The latter image was too strong for me to overcome, and I turned back around and walked back into the school, where I phoned my father and told him to pick me up out front instead of in the back.

            I don’t know why, but I learned later that after I didn’t show up, Clyde and his friends peeled out of the parking lot and headed around the street corner to see if they could find me. They didn’t bother stopping at the stop sign, and a large van slammed into the front of their car as they started to pull out.

            When I first heard about their deaths on the evening news, part of me wanted to jump up and dance with joy that I didn’t have to face them, and this was the side I held on to until I saw the dead teenagers walk into the classroom.

 

***

 

            I got to my feet, my legs feeling of cheap Jell-O, but I managed to stand straight. I knew what came next, because I’d had runs with them before, only before it had been outside, and they hadn’t threatened my life.

            “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked as a single tear slid down my cheek. “What did I ever do to you guys?”

            Clyde’s demeanor changed; the smile he wore became a snarl, and just as Louis’ eyes did before, his glowed crimson now, only his was full of hate that blinded me for a few moments it was so strong.

            “You didn’t f*****g show,” he rasped. “And now you’re going to pay for making us this way.”

            He reached over to hit me, but I ducked away and started to run toward the classroom door, my heart racing. I glanced back just as Jared started for me, then Louis followed him, only he went through the wall and appeared a few feet in front of me, holding the pocket knife in his right hand. Clyde stepped through the door and motioned his friends to stop. They did. He then looked over at me.

            I was trembling from the fact that no matter where I went, behind any locked doors, or cement walls, they would find me, and not only that, but they would just walk through any obstacle I put in their way.

            Clyde saw the fear in my eyes, and he smiled. “Tell you what Danny boy,” he said. “Since we have a slight advantage, we’ll give you a ten second head start.” He held up his hands, fingers spread, and started to curl them back in…counting down.

            10…9…8…

            I ran forward, ducking around Louis. Several people stood in the hallway and as I noticed this, the bell above my head started to ring.

            7…6…5…

            A few girls gasped as I shrugged my way past them, sweat rolling down my face. I ran into a big group of people gathered at their lockers, and one of them happened to be Tad Leffer, an obnoxious teenager with a grudge against me. He stuck out his foot and I tripped over it, falling to floor in a heap.

            4…3…2…

            I scrambled to my feet amidst the sound of laughter. Blood dripped from my nose in a single bright rivulet that spotted the floor as I struggled toward the front of the building. The doors at the entrance leered at me like a pair of yellow teeth, but I pushed the first set of doors open and---

            “One!” Clyde shouted. His voice carried through every person in the hallway.

            ---I stepped out into the dull grey afternoon. Clouds hung oppressively overhead, the tips seeming to touch the ground. I heard footsteps behind me, and I glanced back in time to see Clyde appear out of a wall to avoid the people in the hallway. Jared soon appeared beside him.

            I turned back around and was met with Louis running at me with his drawn blade. The blade hissed across my left arm as I turned without stopping, my feet sliding on the wet grass. I came to a stop without falling, and I was fortunate; Louis lunged at me again, but I broke away from him and reached the stairs leading down to the parking lot.

            I remember thinking suddenly, If only I had gone then, this wouldn’t be happening to me right now. The thought quickly vanished as a new thought emerged. I’m being haunted, I realized, but it wasn’t just by Clyde and his friends; the people who tripped me up in the hallways were part of it to, and I could see all of them staring at me now, their eyes fixed on mine. Their lips moved in unison, and all of them were saying the same thing: “Coward.”

            No, I thought, I’m not a f*****g coward. A coward is someone who runs from an obstacle they could work around, but I couldn’t work around three malicious spirits, could I?

            My sneakers bounced off the cement as I bolted down the stairs, not chancing a look behind me. Cars littered the way before me like pieces to a puzzle that some cruel hand laid out to rot. An open space in the middle of the lot caught my eye, and I ran toward it, a glimmer of hope surfacing within me.

            I could see the edge of the parking lot at the far end. Beyond it laid a neighborhood my cousin lived in. If I could make it to his house, I could—

            What? I asked myself.

            I could—

            You could what? I asked myself again. Then the answer hit me, and it stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t do a f*****g thing. Clyde and his friends weren’t going to just leave me alone once I reached my cousin’s house; in fact, they might come inside and hurt my aunt if she’s there.

            I pictured her face, eyes wide and frightened, as Louis drove the blade of his knife into her chest. I couldn’t do anything but watch, I couldn’t help her—

            --unless I helped myself first.

            Courage seized me that moment like a rope sliding across my skin. I felt the adrenaline kick in, and my knees shook, but I turned around with a will to face the future I had let consume me, even if it meant certain death.

            Louis reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. He looked back, and Jared scrambled down the stairs toward him. I didn’t see Clyde, but I knew he would show up any moment.

            I started walking toward Louis, my face stern, eyes on his and Jared’s.

            “You don’t scare me anymore,” I called out to them.

            They laughed high and deafening. The sound poisoned the air around them, until it cracked off the walls of my sanity, ringing my ears. I started to call to them again, but I stopped and my eyes widened in horror at what was happening a mere few feet in front of me.

            Clyde’s head, the skin matted with dried blood, rose from the pavement like a cancerous sore on the side of an elderly person’s skin. Then it continued to rise, revealing a torso drenched with blood. The cuts in his clothes from the broken glass in the accident revealed how badly mangled his body had been when he died. As I looked on, my eyes glued to the hideous scene, the rest of him glided to the surface, stopping when his sneakers struck the pavement.  

            He started toward me, a slight grin etched on his ruined face. The left side of his mouth revealed his top jaw under a layer of shredded skin, along with several holes where his teeth had once been. Only a few remained, and all of them were cracked and bleeding.

            I wanted to run, but I couldn’t; and I didn’t figure out why I couldn’t until later. Hatred boiled within me as he took another step, and my feet started to move under me as well; I was walking toward HIM now.

            “That’s it,” he said. “Just keep it up, and I’ll be happy to smash your face in like I was going to the other day.”

            Usually I would have stopped right then, but my legs refused to stop moving. I opened my mouth, and out came a stern voice I had never possessed before.

            “I’m not afraid of you, anymore, Clyde,” I said, “so if you’re going to kill me, then just f*****g do it!”

            Clyde sneered, and with one final step, he was upon me. He shoved me down hard, and his touch chilled my skin, but that was nothing compared to the icy hot sensation of his fist against my cheek. His punches came swift and hard, drawing blood from my nose and my cheek.

            He drew back his bloody fist for another shot, but I rolled out of the way. This startled him, and I still remember the way his eyes widened as if he was afraid.

            He quickly shook this feeling off and tried to hit me again, but I dodged him. His face was close to mine, and I don’t know why I did, but I tried to punch him in the mouth. My hand went through his jaw and out the other side of his cheek. Cold assaulted my hand, and I could feel the blood freezing in my veins.

            Clyde suddenly backed away, his eyes wide again, a look of horror on his bloody face.

            “But, you never fought back before,” he said, “why are you fighting back now?”

            I shook my freezing hand in a desperate attempt to get the circulation back.

            “Because I’m sick of being pushed around all the time,” I said. “By you, your friends, and everyone else!”

            It was Clyde’s turn to back pedal now, and as he did so, I noticed his body was beginning to lose definition. The first to go was his legs, then his arms, and finally, I could no longer make out the face of the thing which stood before me.

            The same thing was happening to Louis and Jared as well. The two of them walked toward me, but as they did, their forms became a hazy mist that slowly began to disappear. I looked on in amazement as Clyde vanished, and then Louis. Jared was the last to go, and as he did so, I heard him cry out as if in agony, “but, you’re supposed to be ours!” before his form faded into nothingness.

            I’m not yours, I thought, a smile surfacing on my bloody face, nor will I be anyone else’s anymore.

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Hi WC.

Very good story. Good character developement and an ascending plot leading to a frightening climax. I like the way the story ended with the boy taking control and forcing the ghosts to fade away, empowering him in his own mind. You described your setting and tertiary characters well.

A couple of things I'd like to point out, if I may. First you should have classified it for aduts because of the nature of the bullies and the colorful language, for teens at least. You wouldn't want to offend the wrong parent or fragile brainiac child in ways that reflect other than what you're trying to convey as the writer.
Second, you need to look at your sentence structure and your use of commas, semicolons; and the way you set up your paragraphs. A semicolon is used to seperate two complete statements in a sentence to avoid using incomplete sentences as you paint your picture with your text. In several places you used semicolons where it would've been alot more effective, and downright easier on the reader, to just place a period and seperate the ideas by starting another sentence. And the use of excessive commas doesn't necessarily work unless your specifying certain points in what you're saying by using a comma as a seperator in your text. When using commas more is not better. Using too many of them make your sentence choppy and difficult to digest for the reader.
Lastly you may want to proofread your story a little more for how you're saying things and making the text more pleasant for who reads it. It's vital that when you write, especially when you have as much to say as you did in this story, that you make your text much more enjoyable to who will potentially read it than you as the writer. It's much too easy to put the story down and find something more entertaining and enjoyable and less difficult to understand. I'm the reader and I have to understand where you are, what you're trying to convey as far as subject, action, feelings of the writer as well as the subject; and most especially where you're going so that I want to turn the page and see where it is that you go further down the text.

Again, a very good story that relayed a scary, ghostly experience. Keep it up my friend! Writing is like playing the guitar. You have to practice and get it right before you get to cut a record that people will look forward to buying and listening to.
BZ