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Symmetry Credited to always_through. This story contains graphic violence (gore). I love symmetry. I’m not sure exactly why, but I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Most children are messy and forgetful of their things. [[MORE]]Not me. I knew everything had its place and in my room, everything was right where it belonged. My parents didn’t have “it”. My grandparents didn’t have “it” either. Not a single person in my family had “it”. I’ve started referring to it as “it” because I truly believe it’s a thing inside me. A stowaway that shouldn’t be there but lives inside me. It’s a need. A desire. A longing to be perfect. Perfect on both sides. As an adult, I’m at the point where I can’t live my life normally. I can’t keep a job. Women don’t stay with me because they can’t handle “it”. Honestly, I don’t even care when they leave. They’re messy and make things difficult. They roll over to my side of the bed instead of staying on their own. They leave dishes in one side of the sink but not the other. I can’t work anymore so when they leave for the day, I have to stay home and fix everything. It’s a relief when they leave for good. That feeling never lasts though, eventually “it” comes back and finds something else that needs fixing. You may be asking, why would I seek out relationships to begin with if I can’t stand them? Well, it’s hard for me to sleep in the middle of the bed all night without moving.Other than the relationship problem, my life is pretty much in order. I say “pretty much” because there is one last issue that must be dealt with. You see, I have what’s called “Heterochromia Iridium”, or two different colored irises. My right eye was cornflower blue, my left pale green. Both my parents have cornflower blue eyes, my siblings and cousins as well. My green eye is the broken one. It makes me…unbalanced.Every time I look at myself in the mirror, it stares right back at me. It’s all I think about now. Everything is in its right place - except my green little mistake. It didn’t hurt at first when I dug the spoon under my eye. It didn’t even hurt when it popped out and was hanging by my cheek. Was it shock that was keeping the pain away or was it “it”? I snipped the optic nerve and blotted the warm fluids that were streaming down my face. My vision being cut in half was a strange sensation. What was left of the dangling flesh, I placed back in the now empty hole. I bandaged the wound, rinsed the spoon, and went to sleep.I woke up…happy. I slept better than I had in years. It was finally done. I was fixed. I got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. My body ached and my head was on fire. I flipped the switch in the bathroom and the light was blinding. I slowly removed the bandage that was soaked with blood and was sticking to my face like tape. When I looked up to the mirror, my stomach turned.Only then had I realized what I’d done to myself and I couldn’t believe it. There was a hole in the left side of my face…but not the right. I was unbalanced. Again. It was much harder digging out the second eye. My hands were shaky, and when I dug the spoon in, I missed several times, puncturing my pupil three times before I got it in the right place. Once the eye popped out, I reached for my scissors to finish the job. The blood from the previous night had dried on the blades, so the scissors didn’t cut very well.You know when you were a kid in elementary school and your teacher made you cut construction paper for art projects? Did you ever try to cut too many pieces at once, but the scissors couldn’t take it? The blades would kind of fold over each other and the paper would get pinned between them? That’s what happened with my eye. The optic nerve was pinned between the two blades. It was stuck, and as I tried desperately and frantically to make it unstuck, I slipped on the blood and started falling to the floor.Reflexes kicked in, and I let go of my eye to try to break my fall with my hand. The weight of the stuck scissors on my hanging eye was unbearable. I knew I couldn’t stand it long enough to make it to the kitchen to get a knife. So I pulled. I pulled it straight out of my head. I felt the flesh tear from inside my skull. I felt it rip and spew liquids everywhere. I knew I was crying but there was no telling the tears from the blood or the ocular fluid.When I heard the wet slap of bloody flesh against the tile floor, I knew I was done. I knew “it” was done. I could live my life now without having to see peoples awful, messy, uneven lives. The relief washed over me and I knew it would last this time. I had never felt this way before, never had this much hope. As I laid in my bathroom on that cold, wet, sticky tile, I smiled for the first time in years.

Symmetry 

Credited to always_through. This story contains graphic violence (gore).

I love symmetry. I’m not sure exactly why, but I’ve loved it since I was a kid. Most children are messy and forgetful of their things. 

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1 May ♥ 4,769 notes – reblog
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AutopilotCredited to Skarjo This story is not necessarily scary but it teaches us that the most horrible things don’t happen because of mysterious malignant intent or anything paranormal. They happen because we’re human beings.Have you ever forgotten your phone?When did you realize you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realization probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were momentarily confused by it not being there. Then you did a mental recap of the morning’s events.Shit.[[MORE]]In my case, my phone’s alarm woke me up as normal but I realized the battery was lower than I expected. It was a new phone and it had this annoying habit of leaving applications running that drain the battery overnight. So, I put it on to charge while I showered instead of into my bag like normal. It was a momentary slip from the routine but that was all it took. Once in the shower, my brain got back into ‘the routine’ it follows every morning and that was it.Forgotten.This wasn’t just me being clumsy, as I later researched; this is a recognized brain function. Your brain doesn’t work just on one level, it works on many. Like, when you’re walking somewhere, you think about your destination and avoiding hazards, but you don’t need to think about keeping your legs moving properly. If you did, the entire world would turn into one massive hilarious QWOP cosplay. I wasn’t thinking about regulating my breathing, I was thinking whether I should grab a coffee on the drive to work (I did). I wasn’t thinking about moving my breakfast through my intestines, I was wondering whether I’d finish on time to pick up my daughter Emily from the nursery after work or get stuck with another late fee. This is the thing; there’s a level of your brain that just deals with routine, so that the rest of the brain can think about other things.Think about it. Think about your last commute. What do you actually remember? Probably little, if anything. Most common journeys blur into one, and recalling any one in particular is scientifically proven to be difficult. Do something often enough and it becomes routine. Keep doing it and it stops being processed by the thinking bit of the brain and gets relegated to a part of the brain dedicated to dealing with routine. Your brain keeps doing it, without you thinking about it. Soon, you think about your route to work as much as you do keeping your legs moving when you walk.Most people call it autopilot. But there’s danger there. If you have a break in your routine, your ability to remember and account for the break is only as good as your ability to stop your brain going into routine mode. My ability to remember my phone being on the counter is only as reliable as my ability to stop my brain entering ‘morning routine mode’ which would dictate that my phone is actually in my bag. But I didn’t stop my brain entering routine mode. I got in the shower as normal. Routine started. Exception forgotten.Autopilot engaged.My brain was back in the routine. I showered, I shaved, the radio forecasted amazing weather, I gave Emily her breakfast and loaded her into the car (she was so adorable that morning, she complained about the ‘bad sun’ in the morning blinding her, saying it stopped her having a little sleep on the way to nursery) and left. That was the routine. It didn’t matter that my phone was on the counter, charging silently. My brain was in the routine and in the routine my phone was in my bag. This is why I forgot my phone. Not clumsiness. Not negligence. Nothing more my brain entering routine mode and over-writing the exception.Autopilot engaged.I left for work. It’s a swelteringly hot day already. The bad sun had been burning since before my traitorously absent phone woke me. The steering wheel was burning hot to the touch when I sat down. I think I heard Emily shift over behind my driver’s seat to get out of the glare. But I got to work. Submitted the report. Attended the morning meeting. It’s not until I took a quick coffee break and reached for my phone that the illusion shattered. I did a mental restep. I remembered the dying battery. I remembered putting it on to charge. I remembered leaving it there.My phone was on the counter.Autopilot disengaged.Again, there lies the danger. Until you have that moment, the moment you reach for your phone and shatter the illusion, that part of the brain is still in routine mode. It has no reason to question the facts of the routine; that’s why it’s a routine. The act of repetition. It’s not as if anyone could say ‘why didn’t you remember your phone? Didn’t it occur to you? How could you forget? You must be negligent’; this is to miss the point. My brain was telling me the routine was completed as normal, despite the fact that it wasn’t. It wasn’t that I forgot my phone. According to my brain, according to the routine, my phone was in my bag. Why would I think to question it? Why would I check? Why would I suddenly remember, out of nowhere, that my phone was on the counter?My brain was wired into the routine and the routine was that my phone was in my bag.The day continued to bake. The morning haze gave way to the relentless fever heat of the afternoon. Tarmac bubbled. The direct beams of heat threatened to crack the pavement. People swapped coffees for iced smoothies. Jackets discarded, sleeves rolled up, ties loosened, brows mopped. The parks slowly filled with sunbathers and BBQ’s. Window frames threatened to warp. The thermometer continued to swell. Thank fuck the offices were air-conditioned.But, as ever, the furnace of the day gave way to a cooler evening. Another day, another dollar. Still cursing myself for forgetting my phone, I drove home. The day’s heat had baked the inside of the car, releasing a horrible smell from somewhere. When I arrived on the driveway, the stones crunching comfortingly under my tires, my wife greeted me at the door.“Where’s Emily?”Fuck.As if the phone wasn’t bad enough. After everything I’d left Emily at the fucking nursery after all. I immediately sped back to the nursery. I got to the door and started practicing my excuses, wondering vainly if I could charm my way out of a late fee. I saw a piece of paper stuck to the door.“Due to vandalism overnight, please use side door. Today only.”Overnight? What? The door was fine this morni-I froze. My knees shook.Vandals. A change in the routine.My phone was on the counter.I hadn’t been here this morning.My phone was on the counter.I’d driven past because I was drinking my coffee. I’d not dropped off Emily.My phone was on the counter.She’d moved her seat. I hadn’t seen her in the mirror.My phone was on the counter.She’d fallen asleep out of the bad sun. She didn’t speak when I drove past her nursery.My phone was on the counter.She’d changed the routine.My phone was on the counter.She’d changed the routine and I’d forgotten to drop her off.My phone was on the counter.Nine hours. That car. That baking sun. No air. No water. No power. No help. That heat. A steering wheel too hot to touch.That smell.I walked to the car door. Numb. Shock.I opened the door.My phone was on the counter and my daughter was dead.Autopilot disengaged.

Autopilot

Credited to Skarjo This story is not necessarily scary but it teaches us that the most horrible things don’t happen because of mysterious malignant intent or anything paranormal. They happen because we’re human beings.

Have you ever forgotten your phone?

When did you realize you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realization probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were momentarily confused by it not being there. Then you did a mental recap of the morning’s events.

Shit.

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1 May ♥ 3,246 notes – reblog
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My Last Night Babysittingby reddit user lemon_extractAfter much wavering and second guessing, I finally bit the bullet and returned to gradate school last fall. I’m sure several of you know how difficult it is to juggle a rigorous PhD program and a full-time job.I was going to need a small source of income, but wanted something that would allow school to be my first priority. As luck would have it, a good friend of mine knew a family in desperate need of a quality babysitter. [[MORE]]Their current sitter had recently graduated high school, and was heading out of state for college. Initially, I felt a little odd accepting work as a babysitter - after all, I was in my mid twenties, a PhD student, and engaged to be married. But hell, the hours were flexible, the money was fantastic, and I could anticipate a great deal of solid study hours after the toddler was sleeping soundly.To be quite honest, it was smooth sailing from the start. The family was overwhelmingly generous with their money, and their three-year-old daughter, Alison, was quite well behaved, even in all her mischievous, toddler glory. Over the next few months, I found myself up there several times a week, mostly relieving the mother, Renee, in the afternoons so she could run errands and catch a coffee break. I occasionally sat on Saturdays, so the parents could enjoy a date night to the movies. I wasn’t especially fond of the weekend night shifts, especially because the family lived in a large home, high up in the mountains, surrounded by acres and acres of trees. During the day, their heavily wooded property was serene and majestic, but once darkness fell, it was eerie in its silence. I tried not to pay attention to the rustling of small, forest animals brushing past bushes, or the sharp snapping of tree branches as the wind went about its nightly weaving. Mostly, I just tinkered around on my laptop, or buried my nose in a textbook until I was relieved to go home.Everything changed this past February. It was an especially cold Saturday evening, and I was due to babysit around 7 that night. Renee’s husband Eric was out of town on business, and she was excited to share a night out with girlfriends. Armed with a backpack of heavy reading, I had my fiance, Marc, drop me off on his way to the gym. The night was mellow; heated up some frozen pizza, drew a bath with an embarrassing amount of bubbles and Elmo toys, and had the kid in bed by 8. I had an exam the following Tuesday, and admittedly had a lot of studying to conquer. My fiance arrived around 9:50, about 10 minutes before I was expecting Renee back home. Right at 10:00, and I mean on the nose, we heard footsteps on the wrap-around deck, and noticed Renee making her way to the front door. I remember finding it funny that I had been concentrating so hard, I hadn’t even heard her suburban drive up.Marc and I exchanged a knowing glance as Renee made her way into the living room where we sat. It appeared she might have had one glass of wine too many that evening, because she had this intoxicating, frozen grin on her face. At first, I chalked it up to booze, but when the grin remained, I started to feel uncomfortable, the way an unknown stranger staring from across a restaurant can make you feel. Renee was usually very chatty, perhaps even a bit ditzy, but tonight, her answers were short, but still polite enough. I began to gather my things, as my fiance continued a game of solitaire on his phone. Renee sat at the oak dining table, that bizarre and unsettling grin still plastered to her face, and wrote me out a check. There was something painfully uncanny about her movements - they were rigid, forced, almost animatronic. By the time we got down to the drive-way, my fiance and I both had baffled looks on our faces. Renee stood in the window, smiling down on us, waving her hand back and forth. I gave a short nod and wave, keeping my eyes on the gravel. That discomfort wasn’t letting go. We walked past Renee’s silver suburban, taking note of how absolutely dusty it was. Especially strange for someone that seemed to take her car in for a wash at least once a week. I traced my finger across the passenger door absent mindedly, leaving a light coat of soot on the pad of my index finger. The car was filthy, like it had been through the elements.“Where the hell did she go tonight? Through a sand storm?” I joked.“Seriously…” Marc trailed off.“I’m not the only person who found that whole thing weird, right?” I asked, attempting to keep my voice to a whisper.“Oh, relax. She was probably just tipsy. Her smile, though….” he said, closing the driver’s door.We began our trek down the winding roads, towards, after a long night of babysitting out in the boonies, what I always liked to call,“sweet, sweet civilization”.The drive from their house to the freeway was dark, lined with redwoods and deer, which I usually quite enjoyed. Tonight, it seemed endless. I had this overwhelming, new desire to be on that highway, surrounded by other cars, amongst other drivers and passengers, heading into the city. We drove for what seemed like too long - something wasn’t right. I reached for my phone and glanced at the time - we were usually passing the first gas station by now. I pawed at the handle of my purse, for the first time noticing the bag’s weight. Ugh. I had totally forgotten my text book. Reluctant to turn around when we had already been driving for so long, I made amends with the fact that I absolutely needed that text if I had any chance at rocking my exam. Marc let out a groan as he swung the wheel, turning back the way we came. Climbing the hill to Renee’s house, I saw that the suburban was no longer in the drive-way. She must had moved it into the garage for the night already. As we made our way to the deck, I saw the burgundy spine of my text on the couch through the sliding glass door. I continued on to the front door and knocked three times - no answer. I knocked again, and then tried the door handle - unlocked, as I usually left it while Renee and her husband were out. We made our way into the house, making sure to keep our footsteps quiet.“Sorry, it’s just me; I forgot my book,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. My fiance was a few steps behind me, peeking around the corner.“Her bedroom door is open, but the lights are off.” Marc said, a confused look spreading across his face.“Renee? I asked, a little louder this time, "Renee, it’s me, you still awake?”Silence.We walked towards the kitchen, and I noticed the answering machine was blinking - I hadn’t noticed it before I had left - there hadn’t been any phone calls that night.I’m not exactly sure what compelled me to push ‘play’ on that recorder, especially when, for all I knew, Renee and Alison were both asleep, and could be rudely awakened. My finger seemed to hover over that button for a mere second, before I pushed it in, rather aggressively. What I heard on that recording has never, ever left me. The time stamp of the message was 10:14 - we had left the house at 5 after 10.“Hey sweetie, it’s Renee. There is some kind of hold up on the highway here; maybe an accident or road work. I’ll probably be about a half hour later than expected. I’m so sorry - help yourself to some dessert while you wait. Hope Alison didn’t give you too much grief tonight.” Her voice sounded cheery, normal…real.I looked at Marc; my heart sunk, my eyes flooded with tears.“A….Alison” I managed to sputter.Marc disappeared up the staircase to Alison’s room, taking steps three at a time. After a painfully long minute, he sauntered down the stairs, much slower than he has ascended them.“She’s fine. Sleeping soundly.” Marc said, without emotion.Marc and I found our way to the living room, where we sat without eye contact or conversation until Renee pulled up the drive way. She seemed exhausted, glad to be home and off the congested road. She chattered on about her evening, wrote me a check with a generous tip, thanked me for my patience, and smiled - the kind of smile that seemed absolutely genuine, and slowly faded when socially appropriate.We stumbled down to our car in a daze, passing Renee’s suburban, which still gleamed from a recent trip to the car wash.I never had the heart to tell Renee what had happened that evening. I also never found the first check from the grinning woman. I ended up canceling my next two shifts, feigning sickness. I finally e-mailed Renee, telling her that my program was getting especially intense, and that I didn’t think it best to continuing sitting for them. She bought the story, and now I’m free…free from the darkness that enveloped the home in the mountains, where I once met a woman who wouldn’t stop smiling.

My Last Night Babysitting

by reddit user lemon_extract

After much wavering and second guessing, I finally bit the bullet and returned to gradate school last fall. I’m sure several of you know how difficult it is to juggle a rigorous PhD program and a full-time job.

I was going to need a small source of income, but wanted something that would allow school to be my first priority. As luck would have it, a good friend of mine knew a family in desperate need of a quality babysitter. 

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1 May ♥ 5,155 notes – reblog
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The Terrorizing Of Our Substitute Teacher, Mr. Mahoneyby reddit user Red_GrinWhat an odd guy, I remember thinking as Mr. Mahoney shuffled into my sixth grade classroom for the first time. Crumply brown suit, crooked tie, flush face, right hand nervously shaking at his waist - and somehow, he already had chalk in his hair. He stuttered out his first words to the class, and he hadn’t even finished his introductory sentence before I knew he was a goner. I’d never seen a grown man look so squirrelly. The principal should have adequately warned him - we were a bunch of sharks.And we smelled blood in the water.[[MORE]]The pranks and jokes started small. Mr. Mahoney was asking for it, in a way. He was so unprepared, so utterly clueless - it was impossible not to mess with him. One activity required Mr. Mahoney to draw a clock on the chalkboard. The class counted along together as he drew the numbers on the circular clock face - “one, two, three, four” - louder and louder as the numbers progressed. And when we got to twelve we kept going.“Thirteen!” everyone shouted in unison.Mr. Mahoney drew 13 o’clock in white chalk. The class erupted in laughter, and Mr. Mahoney turned red in embarrassment. He sheepishly erased the thirteen, stuttered something incomprehensible, and his trembling hand dropped the eraser. It made a eraser-shaped chalk smudge on on his pants.We laughed harder.Mr. Mahoney picked up the eraser, and he banged at his pants with his hand to remove the smudge - the problem was, he was still holding the eraser. His entire brown pant leg turned ghost white. Kids laughed so hard they fell from their chairs.That was the moment I pitied Mr. Mahoney for the first time. Only I couldn’t stop laughing with the others.My two friends - Carson Starkey and Dylan Neukem (everyone called him Nuke) - were the worst offenders. They were fans of the classics at first - tacks on Mr. Mahoney’s chair, turning everyone’s desks backwards before Mr. Mahoney came into the classroom, stuff like that - but their pranks soon progressed. On one occasion, Mr. Mahoney asked the class for the answer to 9 multiplied by 5.Nuke raised his hand and mouthed the words “forty five”, but said nothing.“I…I…ca..ca..ca..ca…can’t…hear…you,” Mr. Mahoney said, walking closer.Nuke mouthed the words again, looking confused.“Spe…spe…speak…up..pa..pa…pa…please,” Mr. Mahoney said, moving a foot from Nuke’s face.“FORTY FIVE!” Nuke shouted into Mr. Mahoney’s face.Mr. Mahoney jumped back and tripped over a desk, sprawling to the floor. The classroom laughter reached a fevered pitch - and then we saw it. A tiny blob of liquid on Mr. Mahoney’s pants, near the crotch.The guy had pissed himself.Mr. Mahoney stumbled to his feet and ran out of the room, but not before tripping one more time. The class was in stitches - everyone but me. I wasn’t laughing this time, but I didn’t come to Mr. Mahoney’s defense. I didn’t tell anyone to shut up and leave the poor guy alone.I just let it happen.That afternoon, Nuke, Starkey and I were called down to the principal’s office. Nuke and Starkey were the dynamic duo of classroom tomfoolery, but me being friends with them - well, I guess I was guilty by association. Mr. Mahoney sat in the corner - wrinkly brown suit and tie, chalk in hair, looking down at the ground. I detected the scent of urine in the air, and so did Nuke - he exaggeratedly plugged his nose.Mr. Mahoney’s hand trembled.The principal lectured us for ten minutes. He jabbed his finger at our chests, and he demanded we stop harassing Mr. Mahoney. There would be dire consequences if we didn’t.Mr. Mahoney said nothing. Nuke shot him the stink-eye the entire time.“I can’t believe he told on us,” Nuke whispered to me as we left the principal’s office. There was venom in his voice.Nuke and Starkey demanded revenge, and lots of it. They quickly devised the prank to end all pranks - the ultimate revenge on Mr. Mahoney for tattling on students.“He’s such a fraidy-cat,” Nuke sneered. “I’ll make him piss so hard he’ll drown in his own fucking pants.”I unwillingly went along with the whole thing - truthfully, I thought my part in the prank wasn’t that big of a deal. I saw myself as the getaway driver in a bank robbery - I wasn’t robbing the bank; I wasn’t the one committing the crime. Sure I was helping, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.But looking back on it now, I was too weak to say no to my friends. I should have said no. But when Nuke and Starkey went over the plan, I merely nodded and said okay. My part was easy, and Mr. Mahoney might not even know I was there.Somehow that made it okay.The prank to end all pranks occurred on a Tuesday night. Nuke called Mr. Mahoney and pretended to be Mr. Neukem, and he demanded a teacher-parent conference at the Neukem household. Mr. Mahoney should have known better, but he agreed to come over to the Neukum home for a chat about Dylan’s recent behavior.It was all set.Nuke’s parents were gone that night. It was just me, Nuke and Starkey. I sat in the basement next to the fuse box. Starkey sat next to me, unable to contain his giggles. I heard the doorbell ring, and footsteps upstairs. The door opened, and two sets of footsteps walked to the family room.Nuke and Mr. Mahoney are sitting on the couch.I waited for my signal, and it came one minute later - a loud crash.Nuke just accidentally knocked over the lamp.I flipped the main power switch to the house. The entire home went black. More footsteps.Nuke is telling Mr. Mahoney that he’ll check the fuse box. He’ll be back in a second.The basement door creaked open, and footsteps echoed down the steps.Nuke is descending the basement steps.A dark figure appeared next to us - it’s Nuke.“Do it, Starkey,” Nuke whispered.Starkey dumped corn syrup all over the front of Nuke’s shirt. Nuke stifled his laughter while Starkey slipped a rubber clown mask over his own head and picked up the silver butcher’s knife.“Let’s do this,” Starkey huffed through the latex.Nuke stumbled upstairs first with Starkey trailing five feet behind. I reluctantly followed from a short distance with a Polaroid camera, and I watched the whole thing unfold.Nuke appeared from the basement door, clutching his chest and sobbing for help. Mr. Mahoney ran over to him.“Oh…my…ga…ga..ga…god,” Mr. Mahoney blubbered, touching the corn syrup on Nuke’s shirt. The killer clown then emerged with a raised butcher’s knife in his hand. Mr. Mahoney screamed and grabbed onto Nuke’s shirt at the collar - it ripped off and Mr. Mahoney fell to the floor. He backed up and trembled against the wall, still clutching the torn collar. I watched him quiver in the darkness.“Do it!” yelled Nuke. “Take his picture!”I brought up the camera, to my face, but I couldn’t do it. Starkey made some monster noises and inched closer to Mr. Mahoney. Our substitute teacher sobbed quietly.“Jesus Christ!” said Nuke, pointing at Mr. Mahoney. “He pissed all over my fucking floor!”I looked down and saw piss emptying from the bottom of Mr. Mahoney’s left pant leg. I had never felt more sorry for another human being in my whole life. It felt like we were torturing an injured puppy.“Tale the picture!” Nuke insisted.I didn’t do it. I just dropped the camera to the floor, and it shattered into three pieces. Starkey removed his mask and tossed it to Mr. Mahoney. It landed in his lap.“We’re just joking around, Mr. Mahoney,” Starkey said. “It’s just a prank.”Mr. Mahoney put one arm against the wall, braced himself, and clambered to his feet. He looked at the torn collar in one hand, the clown mask in the other, sniffled and shuffled out the front door.“He took my mask!” Starkey lamented.“Let him keep the stupid thing,” Nuke muttered.Mr. Mahoney wasn’t at school the next day. In fact, he never came back. Nuke, Starkey and I waited each day to be called down to the principal’s office to answer for our prank, but that call never came. Our class was assigned a new substitute teacher, and life in the sixth grade marched on.Three weeks later a package arrived for our class. It was a stack of math homework that Mr. Mahoney had graded but had never returned to us. The sub passed back the worksheets - each meticulously marked up and graded. But Nuke’s and Starkey’s weren’t marked up like the rest of the class - no cross-outs or corrections. Mr. Mahoney had just written the same thing on each of their essays in blazingly red ink:Nice job! I’m looking forward to seeing more of you soon.I didn’t get a worksheet back - I quickly thumbed through my binder and found the worksheet, uncompleted. Never was I so happy to have forgotten to do my homework.“What a load of crap,” Nuke snickered. He crumpled up the sheet and tossed it on the floor. Starkey did the same. I slipped my unfinished sheet back into my binder, and I wondered what Mr. Mahoney was doing at the moment - maybe he was sitting alone, hand shaking nervously at his side and tears running down his cheeks.Or maybe he sharpening an axe.I shuddered, but the image didn’t leave my head. I put my head down on my binder and closed my eyes.“I’m sorry, Mr. Mahoney,” I whispered to no one. “I’m so, so sorry.”For years I waited for Mr. Mahoney’s revenge to come. I expected him to pounce around a dark corner on the street, or I often pictured him slipping on that clown mask and appearing at the foot of my bed with that axe that he was sharpening in my daydream. His right hand trembles like usual, but then it tightens around the wooden handle - he plunges the axe deep into my chest.I probably deserved it, for what we did to him.But he never came.I grew up, graduated high school, and then college. I married and got a good job. Nuke and Starkey were not so lucky.Nuke tore up both of his knees in high school, and he lost his football scholarship. Cocaine was his medicine and coping mechanism. He still went to college, but dropped out after one term. Nuke moved home and dealt drugs from his parents’ basement, eventually selling to an undercover cop. He resisted arrest, fled in his car with his girlfriend, and he wrapped his car around a pole. Nuke’s girlfriend flew through the windshield and died on the scene. My childhood friend now sits in jail, and the doctors say he’ll never walk again.Starkey graduated college and immediately got engaged. Two months later, his wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Faced with daunting medical bills, Starkey embezzled from his company and was promptly caught. Weeks later, Starkey’s daugther was crushed underneath a falling entertainment unit at the family home. She lived, but she was paralyzed from the neck down. Starkey took out a massive insurance policy and threw himself off a building.I received a letter from Nuke not too long ago. He’s been doing a lot of reading while in jail - books about hexes and witchcraft. He’s convinced Mr. Mahoney used supernatural tactics to get his revenge upon him and Starkey.“Mahoney hexed us,” Nuke wrote. “He left my house that night with a piece of my shirt and Starkey’s mask. If someone has an item that belongs to you, he can use witchcraft to place a curse. That explains why you are completely fine, my life is fucked, and Starkey is dead. Just think about it.”I thought about it. I thought it was bullshit.A week later I saw Mr. Mahoney at a dive bar, miles out of town down an old country road. At least, I thought it was him. He was slumped in a corner booth, half-passed out, three sheets to the wind. He was still wearing that ratty brown suit, but he looked like he’d aged forty years.His right hand anxiously shook on the table.I watched as the man sauntered to his feet and stumbled toward the door - it was the same stumble of an awkward, nervous, substitute teacher from twenty years ago.I followed the man outside.It was a windy night. I lit up a smoke and watched curiously as the drunken man leaned against a wall and tried to light a cigarette of his own. He struggled mightily to keep his lighter ablaze in the breeze. It kept extinguishing. I approached and offered him my lighter - it lit right up. Smoke danced from the tip of the man’s cigarette.We stood in silence and smoked for a few minutes. Finally, I asked:“Did you ever substitute teach in a sixth grade classroom?”The man’s head froze up. His eyes looked straight ahead, never at me. He inhaled deeply from his cigarette.“Are you Mr. Mahoney?” I asked, slowly.I looked into his eyes, but the man did not look at me. He said nothing. For a moment I doubted if it was even him. I looked away.“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry,” I said.I walked twenty feet away when the man called out to me.“Th..th…th…thanks for the..li…li…li..li…light.“I sat in my car in the parking lot, just watching the man outside the bar. I thought about the past and the horrible things we did to Mr. Mahoney. I thought about Nuke and Starkey and how shitty their lives turned out to be. And then Nuke’s letter popped into my head:If someone has an item that belongs to you, he can use witchcraft to place a curse.I patted my jean pockets.Just think about it.I patted the pocket of my sweatshirt.Mahoney hexed us.I patted my jean pockets again, and I finally felt it - I didn’t feel it the first time. The lighter…thank God. I pulled it from my pocket, studied it for a moment to make sure it was mine, and I exhaled slowly.I smiled to myself, and I shook my head. I was being stupid. There’s no such things as hexes and curses. Nuke and Starkey were the victims of horrible choices and bad luck.There’s no such thing as witchcraft.I examined the lighter, and I turned it in my hand. For a moment, I wished witchcraft was real. If that man outside the bar was Mr. Mahoney, he deserved the opportunity to ruin my life. I thought about walking outside and placing the lighter in his hand, but instead I smirked and pocketed it.I was being ridiculous.The man outside the bar was stumbling around. He was chasing something down the road - a tiny cigarette butt. My cigarette butt - the one I had just smoked. The wind picked it up, and the butt blew down the dark, country road. The man limped after it, hand trembling at his waist.What an odd guy.

The Terrorizing Of Our Substitute Teacher, Mr. Mahoney

by reddit user Red_Grin

What an odd guy, I remember thinking as Mr. Mahoney shuffled into my sixth grade classroom for the first time. Crumply brown suit, crooked tie, flush face, right hand nervously shaking at his waist – and somehow, he already had chalk in his hair. 

He stuttered out his first words to the class, and he hadn’t even finished his introductory sentence before I knew he was a goner. I’d never seen a grown man look so squirrelly. The principal should have adequately warned him – we were a bunch of sharks.

And we smelled blood in the water.

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1 May ♥ 7,546 notes – reblog
# story
    
Part 1 – “Footsteps”Part 2 – “Balloons”Boxes By reddit user 1000VulturesIf you haven’t read “Footsteps” or “Balloons” please do so before reading what’s below so you’ll understand. [[MORE]]For those of you who have read my other stories and asked if there was more and received cryptic answers from me, I want to apologize for being dishonest. I said several times in the comments that nothing really happened after “Footsteps,” but that wasn’t true. The events of the following story weren’t locked away in the recesses of my mind; I’ve always remembered them. It wasn’t until I remembered “Balloons” and spoke with my mother about the following events that I realized how intertwined this story was with everything else, but I originally hadn’t really planned on sharing this anyway. My desire to withhold this memory was due mostly to the fact that I don’t think I showed good judgment in it; I also wanted consent from another person to tell it, so as to not misrepresent what transpired. I didn’t expect there to be a lot of interest in my other stories, so I never thought I’d really get pressed for more details, and I would have been happy to keep this to myself for the rest of my life. I haven’t been able to reach the other party, but I would feel disingenuous withholding this story from those who wanted more information now that I’ve spoken with my mother and another connecting line has been drawn. What follows is as accurate a recollection as I could manage. I apologize for the length.I spent the summer before my first year of elementary school learning how to climb trees. There was one particular pine tree right outside my house that seemed almost designed for me. It had branches that were so low I could easily grab them without a boost, and for the first couple days after I first learned how to pull myself up I would just sit on the lowest branch, dangling my feet. The tree was outside our back fence and was easily visible from the kitchen window which was just above the sink. Before too long my mother and I developed a routine where I would go play on the tree when she washed the dishes because she could easily see me while she did other things. As the summer passed my abilities grew and before too long I was climbing fairly high. As the tree got taller its branches not only got thinner but more widely-spaced and so I eventually reached a point where I couldn’t actually climb any higher, and so the game had to change; I began to concentrate on speed, and in the end I could reach my highest branch in 25 seconds. I got too confident and one afternoon I tried to step from a branch before I had firmly grasped the next one. I fell about 20 feet and broke my arm really badly in two places. My mom was running toward me yelling and I remember her sounding like she was underwater – I don’t remember what she said but I do remember being surprised by just how white my bone was.I was going to start Kindergarten with a cast and wouldn’t even have any friends to sign it. My mom must have felt terrible because the day before I started school she brought home a kitten. He was just a baby and was striped with tan and white. As soon as she put him down he crawled into an empty case of soda that was sitting on the floor. I named him Boxes.Boxes was only an outside cat when he escaped. My mom had him declawed so he wouldn’t destroy the furniture, so as a result we did our best to keep him inside. He’d get out every now and then, and we’d find him somewhere in the backyard chasing some kind of bug or lizard, though he could hardly ever catch one because he had no front claws. He was pretty evasive, but we’d always catch him and carry him back inside. He’d scramble to look back over my shoulder – I told my mom that it was because he was planning his strategy for next time. Once inside we’d give him some tuna fish, and he came to learn what the sound of the can-opener might signal; he’d come running whenever he heard it.This conditioning came in handy later because toward the end of our time in that house Boxes would get out much more often and would run under the house into the crawlspace where neither of us wanted to follow because it was cramped and probably crawling with bugs and rodents. Ingeniously, my mom thought to hook the can-opener to an extension cord out back and run it right outside the hole that Boxes had gone through. Eventually he would emerge with his loud meows, looking excited by the sound and then horrified at how we could run such a cruel ruse on him – a can-opener with no tuna made no sense to Boxes. The last time he escaped to under the house was actually our last day in it. My mom had put the house on the market and we had begun packing our things. We didn’t have much, and we stretched the packing out a while, though I had already packed up all my clothes at my mom’s request – my mom could tell I was really sad about moving and wanted the transition to be smooth for me, and I guess she thought that having my clothes in the box would reinforce the idea that we were moving but things wouldn’t change that much. When Boxes got out as we were loading some things into the moving van my mom cursed because she had already packed the can opener and wasn’t sure where it was. I pretended to go look for it so I wouldn’t have to go under the house, and my mom (probably completely aware of my little scam) moved one of the panels and crawled in. She came out with Boxes pretty quickly and seemed pretty unnerved, which made me feel even better about getting out of it. My mom made some phone calls while I packed a little more, and then she came into my room and told me that she had spoken to the realtor and we were going to start moving into the other house that day. She said it like it was excellent news, but I had thought we had more time in the house – she originally said that we weren’t moving until the end of the next week and it was only Tuesday. What’s more, we weren’t completely finished packing, but my mom said sometimes it was just easier to replace things than pack them and haul them all over the city. I didn’t even get to grab the rest of my boxed clothes. I asked if I could call Josh to say bye, but she said that we could just call him from our new house. We left in the moving van.I managed to stay in touch with Josh for years; which is surprising since we no longer went to the same school. Our parents weren’t close friends, but they knew that we were and so they would accommodate our desire to see one another by driving us back and forth for sleep-overs – sometimes every weekend. For Christmas one year our parents even pooled their money and got us some really nice walkie-talkies that were advertised to work across a range that extended past the distance between our houses; they also had batteries that could last for days if the walkie-talkie was on but not used. They would only occasionally work well enough that we could talk across the city, but when we stayed-over we’d use them around the house, talking in mock-radio speak that we had taken from movies, and they worked great for that. Thanks to our parents we were still friends when we were 10. One weekend I was staying over at Josh’s and my mom called me to say goodnight; she was still pretty watchful even when she couldn’t actually watch me, but I had gotten so used to it that I didn’t even notice it, even if Josh did. She sounded upset. Boxes was missing.This must have been a Saturday night, because I had spent the night at Josh’s the previous night and was going to go home the next day because we had school on Monday. Boxes had been missing since Friday afternoon – I gathered that she had not seen him since returning home after dropping me off. She must have decided to tell me he was missing because if he didn’t come home before I did then I would be devastated at, not only his absence, but how she could have kept it from me. She told me not to worry. “He’ll come back. He always does!”But Boxes didn’t come back.Three weekends later I stayed at Josh’s again. I was still upset about Boxes, but my mom told me that there had been many times when pets had disappeared from home for weeks or even months, only to return on their own; she said they always knew where home was and would always try to get back. I was explaining this to Josh when a thought hit me so hard that I interrupted my own sentence to say it aloud. “What if Boxes thought of the wrong home?” Josh was confused. “What? He lives with you. He knows where his home is.”“But, he grew up somewhere else, Josh. He was raised in my old house a couple neighborhoods away. Maybe he still thinks of that place as home, like I do.”“Ohhh I get it. Well that’d be great! We’ll tell my dad tomorrow and he’ll take us over there so we can look!” “No he won’t, man. My mom said that we couldn’t ever go back to that place because the new owners wouldn’t wanna be bothered. She said that she told your mom and dad the same thing.”Josh persisted, “ok then we’ll just go out exploring tomorrow and make our way to your old house—”“No! If we get spotted your dad will find out and then so will my mom! We have to go there ourselves … We have to go there tonight . . .”It didn’t take that much convincing to get Josh on board since he was usually the one to come up with ideas like this. But we had never snuck out of his house before. It actually turned out to be incredibly easy. The window in his room opened to the back yard and he had a latched wooden fence that wasn’t locked. After those two minor hurtles we slipped off into the night, flashlight and walkie-talkies in hand.There were two ways to get from Josh’s house to my old house. We could walk on the street and make all the turns or go through the woods, which would take about half the time. It would have taken about 2 hours to walk there taking the street, but I suggested that we go that way anyway; I told him it was because I didn’t want to get lost. Josh refused and said that if we were seen they might recognize him and tell his dad. He threatened to go home if we didn’t just take the shortcut, and I accepted it because I didn’t want to go by myself. Josh didn’t know about the last time I walked through these woods at night.The woods were much less creepy with a friend and a flashlight, and we were making pretty good time. I wasn’t entirely sure where we were, but Josh seemed confident enough and that bolstered my morale. We passed through a particularly thick patch of tangled trees when the strap on my walkie-talkie got caught on a branch. Josh had the flashlight and so I was struggling to get the walkie free when I heard Josh say,“Hey man, wanna go for a swim?”I looked over to where he was shining the flashlight, though I closed my eyes as I did, because I now knew where we were. He was pointing at the pool float. This was where I had woken up in these woods all those years ago. I felt a lump in my throat and the sting of fresh tears in my eyes as I continued to struggle with the walkie. Frustrated, I yanked on it hard enough to break it free and I turned and walked to Josh who had partially laid down on the pool float in a mock-sunbathing pose. As I walked toward him I stumbled and nearly fell into a fairly large hole that was sitting in the middle of this small clearing, but I regained my balance and stopped right at its edge. It was deep. I was surprised by the size of the hole, but more surprised by the fact that I didn’t remember it. I realized it must not have been there that night because it was in the same spot where I had awoken. I put it out of my mind and turned to Josh.“Quit messing around man! You saw I was stuck over there, and you were just laying here joking around on this float!” I punctuated the sentence with a kick to an exposed part of the float. A screeching rose from it.Josh’s smile inverted. He suddenly looked terrified and was struggling to get off the float, but he couldn’t in a quick manner due to the awkward way he had been laying on it. Each time he would fall back on the float the screeching would intensify. I wanted to help Josh but I couldn’t move myself any closer – my legs wouldn’t cooperate; I hated these woods. I picked up the flashlight that he had thrown in his thrashing and shined in on the float not knowing what to expect. Finally, Josh got off the float and rushed next to me looking at where I was shining the light. Suddenly there it was. It was a rat. I started laughing nervously and we both watched the rat run into the woods taking the screeches with it. Josh lightly punched me in the arm, the smile slowly returning to his face, and we continued walking.We quickened our pace and made it out of the woods faster than we thought we would, and we found ourselves back in my old neighborhood. The last time I had rounded the bend ahead I had seen my house fully illuminated, and all the memories of what transpired came flooding back. I felt a skipping in my heart as we were finally turning the corner and about to face the full view of my house, remembering last time how incandescent it was. But this time all the lights were off. From a distance I could see my old climbing tree and as my mind traced the steps of causality backward I realized that I wouldn’t back here this night if that tree hadn’t grown, and I was briefly in awe of how all events were like that. As we got closer I could see that the lawn looked terrible; I couldn’t even guess when it had last been mowed. One of the shutters had partially broken loose and was rocking back and forth in the breeze, and over all the house just looked dirty. I was sad to see my old home in such a state of disrepair. Why would my mom care if we bothered the new owners if they cared so little about where they lived? And then I realized:There were no new owners.The house was abandoned, though it looked simply forsaken. Why would my mom lie to me about our house having new people in it? But, I thought that this was actually a good thing. It would be easier to look around for Boxes if we didn’t have to worry about being spotted by the new family. This would make it much quicker. Josh interrupted my thoughts as we walked through the gate and up to the house itself.“Your old house sucks, dude!” Josh yelled as quietly as he could.“Shut up, Josh! Even like this it’s still nicer than your house.”“Hey man—”“OK, OK. I think Boxes is probably under the house. One of us has to go under and look, but the other should stay next to the opening in case he comes running out.”“Are you serious? There’s no way I’m going under there. It’s your cat, man. You do it.”“Look, I’ll game you for it, unless you’re too scared …” I said holding my fist over my up-turned palm.“Fine, but we go on ‘shoot,’ not on three. It’s ‘rock, paper, scissors, SHOOT,’ not ‘one, two, THREE.’”“I know how to play the game, Josh. You’re the one who always messes up. And it’s two out of three.”I lost.I wiggled loose the panel that my mom would always move when we she had to crawl under here for Boxes. She only had to do it a couple of times since the can-opener trick usually worked, but when she had to do it she hated it, especially that last time, and as I looked into the darkness of the crawlspace I had a greater appreciation for why. Before we moved she said that it was actually better that Boxes ran under here, despite how hard it could be to get him out. It was less dangerous than him jumping over the fence and running around the neighborhood. All that was true, but I was still dreading doing this. I grabbed the flashlight and the walkie and began to crawl in; a powerful smell overtook me. It smelled like death.I turned on my walkie. Josh, are you there?This is Macho Man, come back.Josh, cut it out. There’s something wrong down here.What do you mean?It stinks. It smells like something died.Is it Boxes?I really hope not.I set down the walkie and moved the flashlight around as I crawled forward. Looking through the hole from the outside you could see all the way back with the right lighting, but you had to be inside to see around the support blocks that held the house up. I’d say that there was about 40% of the area that you couldn’t see unless you were actually in the crawlspace, but even inside I discovered that I could only see directly where the flashlight was pointing,; I realized that this would make scouting around the place much more difficult. As I moved forward the smell intensified. The fear was growing in me that Boxes had come here and something had happened to him. I shined the flashlight around but couldn’t see much of anything. I wrapped my fingers around a support block to pull myself forward and as I did that I felt something that made my hand recoil.Fur.My heart sank and I prepared myself emotionally for what I was about to see. I crawled slowly so I could prolong what I knew was coming and I inched my eyes and the flashlight past the block to see what was on the other side. I staggered back in horror. “JESUS CHRIST!” escaped my trembling mouth. It was a hideous and twisted creature, badly decomposed. Its skin had rotted away on its face so the teeth appeared to be enormous. And the smell was unbearable.What is it? Are you ok? Is it Boxes?I reached for the walkie No, no it’s not Boxes.Well what the hell is it then?I don’t knowI shined the light on it again and looked at it with less fear in my vision. I chuckled.It’s a raccoon!Well keep looking. I’m gonna go into the house to see if he might’ve made it in there somehowWhat? No. Josh, don’t go in there. What if Boxes is down here and runs out?He can’t. I put the board back.I looked and saw that he was telling the truth.Why’d you do that?Don’t worry man, you can move it easy. This makes more sense. If Boxes ran out and I missed him then he’d be gone. If he’s down there then grab him tight and I’ll come move the board, and if he’s not then you can move it yourself while I look in the house!Some of his points were good, and I doubted he’d be able to get in anyway.OK. But be careful and don’t touch anything. There’s a bunch of my old clothes still in boxes in my room, you can look in there to see if he crawled in one. And make sure to bring your walkie.Roger that, good buddy.I realized that it would be pitch-black in there; the power would have been turned off since no one was paying the bill. With any luck he’d be able to see from the streetlights that might cast some light inside – otherwise I’m not sure what he’d do. Before too long I heard footsteps right over my head and felt old dirt raining down on me.Josh is that you?chhkkkk Breaker, Breaker. This is Macho Man coming back for the big Tango Foxtrot. The Eagle has landed. What’s your 20, Princess Jasmine? Over.“Asshole.”Macho Man, my 20 is in your bathroom lookin’ at your stash of magazines. Looks like you’ve got a thing for dudes’ butts. What’s the report on that? Over.I could hear him laughing without the walkie and I started laughing too. I head the footsteps fade away a little – he was on his way to my room.Man, it’s *dark in here. Hey, are you sure you had boxes of clothes in here? I don’t see any.*Yeah, there should be a couple boxes in front of the closet.There aren’t any boxes in here, lemme check to see if you maybe put the boxes in the closet before you left.I started thinking that maybe my mom had come back and gotten the clothes and just given them away because I had outgrown a lot of them, but I remembered leaving the boxes there – I didn’t even have time to close the last one up before we left.While I was waiting for Josh to tell me what he found, I kicked out my leg which had started falling asleep because of the position I was in and it hit something. I looked back and saw something really strange. It was a blanket and all around it there were bowls. I crawled a little closer to it. The blanket smelled moldy and most of the bowls were empty but one had something that I recognized still in it. Cat food.It was a different kind than we gave to Boxes, but I suddenly understood. My mom had set up a little place for Boxes to encourage him to come here instead of running around the neighborhood. That made a lot of sense, and it seemed even more likely that Boxes would have come back to this place. “That’s so cool, mom,” I thought.I found your clothesOh cool. Where were the boxes?Like I said, there are no boxes. Your clothes are in your closet … They’re hanging up.I felt a chill. This was impossible. I had packed all my clothes. Even though we weren’t supposed to move for another two weeks when we left, I remember packing them and thinking that it was stupid for me to have to get clothes out of the box and put them back in. I had packed them, but someone had hung them back up. Why though?Josh needed to get out of there.That can’t be right, Josh. They’re supposed to be in boxes. Stop messing around, and just come back outside.No joke man. I’m looking at them. Maybe you just thought that you left them. Haha! Wow! You sure like to look at yourself, don’t you? What? What do you mean?Your walls, man. Haha. Your walls are covered in Polaroids of yourself! There are hundreds of them! What’d you hire someone to—”Silence.I checked my walkie to see if I had switched it off somehow. It was fine. I could hear footsteps but couldn’t tell exactly where Josh was going. I waited for Josh to finish his sentence, thinking that his finger had just slipped off the button, but he didn’t continue. He seemed to be stomping around the house now. I was just about to radio him when he came back.There’s someone in the houseHis voice was hushed and broken – I could hear he was on the verge of tears. I wanted to respond, but how loud was his walkie turned up? What if the other person heard it? I said nothing and just waited and listened. What I heard were footsteps. Heavy, dragging footsteps. And then a loud thud. “Oh God … Josh.” He had been found; I was sure of it. This person had found him and was hurting him. I broke out in tears. He was my only friend, next to Boxes. And then I realized: What if Josh told him I was under here? What could I possibly do? As I struggled to compose myself, I thankfully heard Josh’s voice through the walkie. He’s got something, man. It’s a big bag. He just threw it on the floor. And … oh God, man … the bag … I think it just moved.I was paralyzed. I wanted to run home. I wanted to save Josh. I wanted to go for help. I wanted so many things but I just lay there, frozen. As I lay unable to move my eyes focused on the corner of the house that was right under my room; I moved my flashlight. My breath hitched at what I saw.Animals. Dozens of them. All of them dead. They lay in piles all around the perimeter of the crawlspace. Could Boxes be among these corpses? Was this what the cat food was for?Seeing this broke my shock as I knew I had to get out of there and I scrambled to the board. I pushed on it, but it wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t move it because it was wedged in there and I couldn’t get my fingers around it since the edges were outside. I was trapped. “Goddamn you, Josh!” I whispered to myself. I could feel thunderous footsteps above me. The house was shaking. I heard Josh scream, and it was matched by another scream that wasn’t full of fear. As I continued pushing I felt the board move, but I knew it wasn’t me who was moving it. I could hear footsteps above me and in front of me and shouting and screaming filling the brief silences between the footsteps. I moved back and held my walkie ready to try to defend myself, and the board was thrown to the side and an arm shot in and grabbed for me. “Let’s go, man! Now!”It was Josh. Thank God.I scrambled out of the opening holding the flashlight and the walkie. When we got to the fence we both jumped it but Josh’s walkie fell, he reached for it and I told him to forget it. We had to move. Behind us I could hear yelling, though they weren’t words, only sounds. And we, perhaps foolishly, ran for the woods to get back to Josh’s quicker and be somewhat harder to follow. The whole way through the woods Josh kept yelling,“My picture! He took my picture!” But I knew the man already had Josh’s picture – from all those years ago at the ditch. I supposed Josh still thought those mechanical sounds were from a robot.We made it back to Josh’s house and back into his room before his parents woke up. I asked him about the big bag and if it really moved and he said he couldn’t be sure. He kept apologizing about dropping the walkie at the house, but obviously that wasn’t a big deal. We didn’t go to sleep and sat peering out the window waiting for him. I went home later that day as it was about 3am already. I told my mom the basics of this story a couple days ago. She broke down and was furious about the danger I put myself in. I asked her why she made all those things up about bothering the new owners to stop me from going – why did she think the house was so dangerous? She became irate and hysterical, but she answered my question. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it harder than I thought her capable of and locked her eyes to my, whispering as if she was afraid of being overheard: “Because I never put any fucking blankets or bowls under the house for Boxes. You weren’t the only one to find them …”I felt dizzy. I understood so much now. I understood why she had looked so uneasy after she brought Boxes out from under the house on our last day there; she found more than spiders or a rat’s nest that day. I understood why we left almost 2 weeks early. I understood why she tried to stop me from going back. She knew. She knew he made his home under ours, and she kept it from me. I left without saying another word and didn’t finish the story for her, but I want to finish it here, for you.I got home from Josh’s that day I threw my stuff on the floor and it scattered everywhere; I didn’t care, I just wanted to sleep. I woke up around 9pm to the sound of Boxes’ meowing. My heart leapt. He had finally come home. I was a little sick about the fact that if I had just waited a day none of the previous night’s events would have happened and I’d have Boxes anyway, but that didn’t matter; he was back. I got off my bed and called for him looking around to catch a glint of light off his eyes. The crying continued and I followed it. It was coming from under the bed. I laughed a little thinking I had just crawled under a house looking for him and how this was so much better. His meows were being muffled by a shirt, so I flung it aside and smiled, yelling “welcome home, Boxes!”His cries were coming from my walkie-talkie.Boxes never came home.

Part 1 – “Footsteps”

Part 2 – “Balloons”

Boxes

By reddit user 1000Vultures

If you haven’t read “Footsteps” or “Balloons” please do so before reading what’s below so you’ll understand. 

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1 May ♥ 2,834 notes – reblog
# story# b
    
Free Coffee With Order of Pieby reddit user deadnspreadJingle JingleThe sound of the bell above the door heralded my arrival at the Roadside Diner and momentarily caught the attention of the few scattered patrons. The waitress behind the counter shot me a smile that was far too friendly for 3 in the morning. She grabbed a menu from next to the cash register and made her way from behind the counter as she addressed me.[[MORE]]“Sit anywhere ya like.”I slid into the nearest booth as everyone returned to their food or coffee. I was just another road-weary traveler devoid of sleep and looking for respite. I closed my eyes momentarily and ran my hands over my face. By the time I opened them again the cheery young waitress was standing next to my table holding a laminated menu out to me. My eyes momentarily rested on her cleavage before finding her face. She still wore that happy, practiced smile; her big blue eyes made more prominent by her golden hair.“I don’t need a menu, thanks.” I grumbled, the antithesis of her bubbly demeanor. She slid the menu into her apron and took a small pad out instead, holding it at the ready for my order.“What can I get for ya?”“The sign outside said free coffee with order of pie?”“That’s right.” She cocked her head to the side for a second as if recalling some deep memory before continuing. “We have pecan, apple, and key lime.”I mused for a second about why every shitty trucker diner thought they could make a key lime pie. They were almost never edible.“I’ll take a pecan and a cup of joe.”She scribbled my order onto her little notepad like it was a difficult order to remember, biting her lip as she did so. I wondered to myself for a moment if this whole cute, ditsy blonde thing was an act; something to drum up more tips from the typical trucker cliental. Much like the obvious cleavage, I figured the button at the top of her uniform she’d left undone was strictly to catch the eye of a man who’d been on the road too long. I’m sure it worked like a charm and probably meant she was the smartest person in this place.“You got it, handsome.” She winked as she walked away.Definitely an act, I looked like shit.The waitress walked by a seated couple on her way back to the counter. She asked them if everything was okay and touched the man on the shoulder. He looked up from his half-finished plate of eggs and smiled at her saying everything was fine. His eyes must have wandered a bit too far south though because as the waitress walked away I could hear his partner sigh with disgust and say something like: “Seriously?”My attention wandered to a fat, bearded trucker who was wolfing down a tall stack of pancakes in a booth across from me. He guzzled down the last of his coffee and held his mug up in the air like some Viking demanding more mead from a wench.“Can I get another cup, sweetheart?” He sounded the way you would expect Santa Clause to sound, with a sharp undercurrent of To Catch a Predator.“You got it, Dale!” The waitress shot “Dale” a thumbs up as she plated my slice of pecan pie and carried it around the counter, her other hand holding a coffee pot. I could have snatched it from her in that moment and guzzled it down straight from the spout. I needed to wake up badly. It had been a long couple days on the road and I had barely slept. The need to keep moving had been overpowering lately. The breakup with my most recent girlfriend had hit me hard and left me with the feeling that I just needed to go. Now here I was in a greasy spoon rat hole on the side of a desolate highway two states away from home, quickly realizing something. You can drive as far as you want but your memories come with you.My inward soliloquy regarding the state of my life was interrupted by the sound of the bell above the door.Jingle JingleI noticed instantly that the man who’d walked in to the diner looked like he didn’t belong there. He was too bright, too clean and looked far too well rested to be in a place like this. He wore a short sleeve white button down shirt tucked into a pair of black dress pants. A thin, black tie dangled from his neck; his whole appearance made me think he was about ready to start handing out copies of the watchtower. He flashed the waitress a grin of large, porcelain white teeth as she passed him, headed for my table.“Sit anywhere you like. sugar, I’ll be right with you.”“No need for a menu, Beth.” The man called out in a voice that didn’t seem quite right. “I’ll have a coffee and a slice of your delicious key lime pie.”I watched the man drop into a booth on the other side of the door. He was seated facing me, although his eyes were fixed on the waitress as she dropped my pie in front of me and filled my cup with coffee. I thanked her and she left my table to fill up the fat trucker’s cup - I kept my eyes on the newcomer.Something about him didn’t seem right. His skin was shiny, his eyes glassy, and his posture stiff. His slick backed black hair sat perfect on his head and his smile was just a little too perfect. It was like looking at a wax sculpture that had come to life and decided it really needed some fucking pie.As the Beth the Waitress (as he’d called her) finished filling Dale the Trucker’s cup, the man turned his attention towards me. His brow lowered and his gaze fixed with mine, becoming almost sinister. It was the kind of look that said: Stick around buddy, this night is gonna get interesting fast.Beth the Waitress walked over to the newcomer’s table and I heard her repeat his order back to him in the form of a question. “Key lime and a coffee, right?“As the newcomer nodded he broke his stare with me and looked again at Beth. She’d started to walk away – no doubt to grab his pie – when suddenly his hand shot out and encircled her arm. I heard Dale’s table shift as he nearly jumped out of his seat, ready and willing to defend poor, little Beth should it come to that. The whole place went quiet for a second and all eyes fell to the waitress and the newcomer."Can I ask you a question, Beth?” That voice, something was still off about it in a way I just couldn’t place.“You just did, now can you please let go of me?”It was the first time since I’d walked in that the ditsy, blonde waitress act dropped and the strong confident woman came out. Just like I thought, it was an act. Her voice dropped a whole octave and her smile turned into a look of disdain. The newcomer laughed in a way that sounded so artificial it brought to mind a robot attempting to mimic human emotion. He then proceeded to ask his question. I noticed his grip on her arm tighten.“Do you ever wonder if you should have taken that other job offer?” He looked over at Dale, who was getting out of his booth and walking over to deal with the situation. Everyone else in the diner just sat with their jaw hanging open, including myself.“Alright Mister, I don’t know who exactly the fuck you think you are but it’s time to let the lady go.”Dale’s pedo-santa voice sounded quite imposing when he wanted it too. He was within arm’s reach of the Beth when suddenly his legs gave out under him. He clutched at his chest while he attempted to keep from falling over by grabbing onto a nearby table. Instead, he knocked the table over, sending condiment bottles and silverware clanging against the ground. The couple from earlier stood up at the same time and rushed over to Dale’s side. Beth attempted to break from the newcomer’s grasp once again but he yanked her hard, pulling her waist into the table and with his other hand brought her head down to look directly into his eyes.“Someone call 911, I think he’s having a heart attack!” The woman screamed when she reached Dale’s side. I saw her boyfriend digging in his pockets for his cell phone and I started doing the same. I pulled my phone from my pocket as if I were racing with the other guy, but before I could even unlock it I felt it building up with a sudden heat. I dropped it to the ground as the phone burst into flames.“Jesus, fuck!!!” The same thing had happened to the other man. I watched him stamp out the small fire as he stood over Dale’s convulsing body. A phone on the wall behind the counter rang once then exploded into pieces all over the floor.I stared at the newcomer. One of his hands still gripped Beth by the arm; the other was tangled in her hair holding her close enough to kiss. He shot a glance my way, his overly toothy smile looking more ominous than ever.“Is everyone done?” He asked. “I really would like to finish my query with the lady if I could. It was so rude of our friend Dale to interrupt like that.”Dale started shaking violently. Foam erupted from the corners of his mouth and his eyes sprung open wide in confused, pained terror. He once again began clutching at his chest, his fingers clawing at his shirt as if he wanted to tear it from his body. “Beth? Did you know that Dale thought about raping you?” Asked the newcomer, his eyes glistening with new joy. “I mean he thought about it a lot. Sometimes he’d sit alone in his truck at night and just-”The woman who was trying in vain to save Dale suddenly screamed, cutting off the newcomer in the middle of his sentence. Beth, who had been frozen in horror listening to his poisoned words, did her best to look behind her at the convulsing body of Dale. My eyes had been fixed on the newcomer as well, and when they shifted back to the floor I saw exactly what had made the woman scream.Dale had finally succeeded at tearing his shirt open. The skin on his chest split and cracked as blood ran over his body. A pink mist filled the air as something pushed up and broke through skin. We all watched in horror as a dozen rats clawed their way out of the open wound. One after the other, they poured out of his chest, covered in blood and gore. They left tiny, bloody footprints on the floor as they scattered off in different directions.We all satin stunned silence, and watched as Dale’s convulsions stopped and his body went still.“What the hell is going on out there?!” a nasally voice shouted from the back, everyone turning toward him in unison, including the newcomer.A thin mustached man in a dirty white hat and apron stepped out from the back area. He was covered in grease stains and had a newspaper tucked under one of his arms. "Beth! It sounds like world war three is starting in my dining room, what…”He stopped dead in his tracks as he caught site of the scene. Beth looked at him with horrified, pleading eyes that were slowly filingl with tears. The stranger shot the man – whom I presumed to be the cook - another one of his trademark shark-tooth grins. I saw Beth wince as he tightened his grip on her hair.“Ted, would you be so kind as to get me my pie and coffee? Beth is indisposed at the moment and a slice of key lime sounds just delightful right now.”I thought about bolting in that moment. The door was only a few feet away; I could get to my car and go for help. I was no fighter, and honestly no one else in here looked like much of one either. It had also become abundantly clear that whoever this newcomer was, he wasn’t a normal man. The uninvited vision of rats eating their way out of Dale’s body nearly caused me to vomit. I looked out the window to try and gauge exactly how far away my car was, and that’s when I realized it.I couldn’t see a single god damn thing outside. Everything was veiled in darkness. There had been huge lights out front of the diner when I had pulled up, as well as a neon sign, not to mention light pouring from the windows. Still, it was like someone had hung thick black cloth over the glass and I couldn’t see anything. Apparently the idea of legging it had occurred to the couple as well. I saw the man grab his girlfriend by the arm and drag her to her feet as he jumped over Dale’s body and headed for the door at full speed.“Iiiiii Wouldn’t dooooo that!” The newcomer sang, as the man’s hand touched the door handle.The way he said it sent a chill down my spine. Without thinking I leapt forward in an attempt to grab them before they flung themselves into that empty darkness. The man disappeared into the void before I even made it two steps, and I just barely caught the sleeve of the woman’s jacket. I heard the newcomer laugh his false laugh once again, as the woman started screaming.Her body was half in and half out of the darkness. I pulled with all my strength but something far stronger than me was pulling her the other way. I hoped it was just her boyfriend, I hoped she was screaming because some strange man was started tugging on her arm, I hoped to god I was wrong.The newcomer whistled through his teeth and as if on command the darkness released her. At least, it released what was left of her. I tumbled backwards pulling her body with me. My back crashed against one of the tables sending shooting pain up my spine and forcing the air from my lungs before I hit the ground. The rest of the woman fell on top of me, her entire right side below the neck line just fucking gone. She had been cleaved down the center of her torso, expertly. What remained of her organs spilled out on me, her blood drenching my clothes. I kicked the corpse off of me in fear and revulsion and watched as some of the blood-soaked rats came over to inspect the situation. I sat panting and staring at the horror before me. I heard the cook (apparently named Ted) screaming like a lunatic. Beth was sobbing, her face still pulled towards the newcomer, sparing her the sight of the carnage.“So…” said the newcomer. “How about that pie?”As the soft words echoed around the room, I vomited.Ted prepared the newcomer’s coffee and pie and brought it to him. I watched from the floor as he delivered it with shaking hands, his greasy face filled with tears, and his moustache crusting over with snot. Beth wasn’t crying anymore, the newcomer had let her go but instructed her to sit in the booth across from him. Her face was streaked with running mascara and her expression was one of loss. She stared down at Dale’s corpse, no doubt thinking about all the time she’d served him and the newcomer’s accusations of what had been going on in Dale’s head the entire time.“Damn, I got really sidetracked there for a minute or two, huh Beth?” The newcomer reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. It was a mock gesture of comfort and it was just as false as everything else about him. He noticed her staring at Dale’s body and he rolled his plastic eyes.“Seriously!? Are you going to mourn the man who would have tied you up in the cabin of his truck had he been given half the chance? Please.”“What the fuck do you want?” Beth asked. There was no longer any trace of the bubbly, blonde waitress that had taken my order. This Beth was stern and cold and filled with rage.“Oh, yes….see, there I go again getting all sidetracked.” The newcomer shot her a wink that made my blood run cold. “I was just wondering if you’d ever considered that other job offer. I mean, it was quite lucrative, wasn’t it?”“What the fuck are you talking about?” Beth slammed her fist down on the table and I heard the clang of the newcomer’s fork jumping up and then landing back on his plate. He picked it up as if she had reminded him and took a bite of his key lime pie. “Fucking heaven.” He spoke as he chewed. The newcomer looked past Beth directly at me and pointed his fork in my direction. “Boy were you wrong about the key lime at a dive like this, it’s amazing! I mean seriously, you’re kinda messed up buddy. There is no way the pecan can even touch this slice of pure magic.” My eyes fell from his intense gaze to idly watch a rat nibble on the half human being that lay on the floor in front of me. I retched one more time.“Guess he doesn’t like key lime.” The newcomer said to Beth with a shrug as he took another bite. “Anyway…I meant when that guy offered you a grand to fuck him.”“What?!” Shouted Beth. “I have no idea what in the hell you’re even talking about!”“Sure you do! That party a couple of years ago, that guy offered you a thousand dollars to take you in the back room and have his way with you.” The newcomer made a couple of quick thrusting motions as he held the table. “I mean that’s lucrative work right there, did you even consider it? It has to pay more than this dump.”“Jesus Christ! Why would that matter to you?”“Maybe I’m looking for a pump.” The newcomer turned to Ted who had taken a seat at the table next to them and nudged him with his elbow, giving him a wink. “Just kidding, just kidding.”“Why are you doing this?” Ted asked meekly, his head hung low as he stared at his shoes.“Doing what? Enjoying this delicious pie? Getting to know some truly interesting people?” The newcomer reached out and grabbed Ted by the collar. I heard Ted whimper as the newcomer pulled him close. “What exactly in the fuck am I doing to you Ted?” There was a simmering ire in the newcomer’s voice that I hadn’t heard yet. The false projection of humanity slipped for a second and something genuine came through beyond the veil. An oppressive weight filled the air as Ted started sobbing again.“I don’t…I don’t. Oh god, please, I just wanna go home.”“Oh! Oh, you want to go?” The newcomer threw Ted backwards in his seat nearly knocking him over. “Did you guys hear that shit!? Ted wants to go! He thinks he’s better than us! Ted: the guy who thinks about burning this place down on the daily just to collect the insurance money. Ted: the guy who skipped his mother’s funeral to go party in Vegas. Ted: the guy who looks a little too long at his 13 year old daughter’s friends!!! That Ted…thinks he…is better…than us.”“Please…please stop.” Ted had fallen out of his seat during the newcomer’s rant and was on his knees in front of him like a man begging for mercy. “Please just let us go.”“Well fuck me sideways! Now it’s us, is it? You are a real piece of work, you know that Ted? A real class act.” The newcomer took another bite of his pie and then stood up, continuing his diatribe with a mouth full of lime green. “How about I make you a little deal? Let’s see just how badly you want to get out of here, you little coward.”I raised my head to watch the situation in better detail. Beth was crying again, her face resting in her hands.“A…a deal?” Ted wiped his snotty nose and looked up at the newcomer. I saw a spark of hope enter his eyes….I felt pity for him.“Kill him, and I’ll let you go.” My heart sunk in my chest as the newcomer pointed his finger at me. “I’m tired of looking at his hangdog expression.”“I can’t…I can’t kill someone.” Ted was speaking without a whole lot of conviction. I got to my feet slowly.“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked the newcomer. “What the hell even are you?!”“Someone who was bored tonight…” He answered. “Same offer to you though, I’m just as sick of his sniveling as I am your mope face.”“I’m not fucking killing anyone for you. Why don’t you just go back to where ever the fuck you came from?”The newcomer looked down at Ted whose tears had yet to dry. He was suddenly wearing a blank expression.A low whisper came from Ted’s lips. “I’m sorry.”“What was that Teddy? I didn’t quite that catch that.” The newcomer cupped his hand over his ear and leaned down to Ted.“I’M SORRY!” Ted screamed as he made a mad dash to his feet and scrambled around the tables. At first I thought he was just trying to make a run for it. Beth realized before me what was happening and shouted at Ted in horror. The newcomer coiled his arms around her and pulled her back into the booth, his hand covering her mouth. It took me a second to catch up to the situation. Ted was running for the kitchen, the kitchen where there were knives.I sprinted after him, nearly slipping on the blood beneath my feet. I caught up to him just as he blew through the door to and I leapt forward slamming my whole body into him. We both went sprawling onto the kitchen floor, my head smacking against an aluminum cabinet. I heard Ted scream in pain. I looked up to see the newcomer standing in the kitchen door with Beth, his arm was over her shoulder like she was his date for a show.I felt a fist crash into the side of my head bringing me back to the situation at hand. Ted was already getting to his feet again. I tried grabbing him by the legs but he kicked like a toddler having a tantrum. The entire time he kept screaming about how sorry he was. His heel caught me in the lip and I instantly felt the coppery taste of blood fill my mouth. He slipped free from my grasp and I heard a clanging of pots being knocked over as he bolted for a knife block on unsteady feet.“Go, Ted, Go!” The newcomer cheered him on. I did my best to block him out and got to my feet as well just in time to see Ted wheel back around towards me with a huge butchers knife in his hand.“I’m sorry mister, I really am. I just wanna go home, god, I’m so sorry.”He rushed down at me with a primal scream. I was able to grasp his arm as he slammed into me and guide the knife away from my body. We both tumbled to the ground again and I managed to brace myself for the fall, still keeping a hand tight around Ted’s wrist. The cook attempted to roll on top of me to get the leverage and I blocked him with my knee, using my free hand to push on his neck, trying to get him further away from me.“This is fucking fantastic!” I heard the newcomer yell. My eyes couldn’t help but shift up towards him and Beth in the door, her head was hanging low. “I mean, this is like two monkeys trying to fuck a greased up football.” He laughed more of that false laugh as I finally wrestled my way into a position of leverage with Ted. Despite my advantage Ted attempted to thrust the knife in me but I still had him by the wrist. I started twisting his hand to turn the point of the blade away from me - and towards him.When he caught onto what I was doing, Ted quickly opened his hand and let the knife drop to his chest. Without thinking, in strict and pure reflex, I grabbed the knife and plunged it into his heart. I heard Beth gasp and the newcomer mocked her with his own gasp. Ted’s eyes went wide and he sputtered once, pawing at my face.“Oh Jesus, oh fuck, I’m sorry…god, I’m so sorry.” I said as I let go of the knife and got off of the cook, backing myself against the nearest cabinet. I listened to the newcomer clap as he walked towards me, the last light of life draining from Ted’s eyes.The newcomer had pulled me to my feet and led me back to the dining room, sitting me in my original booth. My coffee and pie sat in front of me untouched. The newcomer then sat down across from me, Beth next to him in a practically catatonic state.“I’m glad it was you man, I really am.” The newcomer said as he pushed my plate of pie towards me. “That guy…that guy was an asshole. Eat, man, eat the pie, there’s no way it’s as good as the key lime had but you gotta at least try it.”I sat staring out into the void, listening impassively to that not-quite-right voice. I almost wished I hadn’t survived the fight with Ted.“Hey, man, I’m gonna let you go, just like I promised. First though, you have to take at least one bite of your pie.” He grabbed my fork and dug it into my pecan pie, scooping out a bite and holding it up to my face.I gave up and opened my mouth. The sweet taste hit my tongue in stark contrast to every other feeling in my body. I felt like I wanted to cry but was denied the chance.“Good, huh?” I didn’t answer him, just continued to stare out the window. “Hey man, your girlfriend just broke it off with you right? Cause she was fucking your best friend no less. That’s gotta sting.”I turned my head toward him finally. He was still wearing that shit eating grin on his face.“I gotta say, you shoulda handled that shit like a man. Plugged both those fuckers, just capped the shit out of em.” He reached behind his back and pulled out a small snub nose pistol slamming it on the table next to my pie. “Here, a gift from me to you. You did well tonight. You’ve earned it.”He stood up out of the booth and extended a hand to Beth. When she failed to take it he leaned forward and grabbed her by the arm, yanking her to her feet. I didn’t move, just returned my eyes to the veil of black outside the window.“Well me and the new little lady are gonna head out for the night. It was lovely meeting you though and I gotta say, you surprised me with your moxy.”He and Beth started walking towards the door and as he opened it I heard that sound once again.Jingle JingleIt woke me from whatever trance I’de been in and brought me close enough to reality to ask the one question I needed an answer to.“What are you?”The newcomer laughed and reached behind his back again.“I’m whatever you think I am.”He tossed a piece of paper on the table and it slid perfectly across landing next to my pie. I looked down and noted it was a copy of the Watchtower. I almost wanted to laugh, but every emotion in me felt numb.“How was the pecan pie?” He asked before stepping into the darkness outside the door.“It was shit.”“You shoulda got the key lime, brother. Fucking fantastic.”With that he vanished into the dark, dragging poor Beth behind him. I saw the look in her eyes, that plea for the help we both knew I was incapable of. And then she, too, disappeared. The darkness faded away like the clearing of fog and was replaced by a muted sun peeking over the horizon. I sat in my booth for a long time just staring out the window before I grabbed the pistol off of the table and walked back to my car.I tossed the gun in the passenger’s seat and headed back the way I had come. Back towards home.

Free Coffee With Order of Pie

by reddit user deadnspread

Jingle Jingle

The sound of the bell above the door heralded my arrival at the Roadside Diner and momentarily caught the attention of the few scattered patrons. 

The waitress behind the counter shot me a smile that was far too friendly for 3 in the morning. She grabbed a menu from next to the cash register and made her way from behind the counter as she addressed me.

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1 May ♥ 6,824 notes – reblog
# story
    

11 Miles

Written by Emeryy

Do you have something that you truly, relentlessly desire? Despite your state of life, is there something else that you would go completely to the end of the world to get? Well lucky for you, there’s a way to achieve what you’re looking for, and you won’t need to go to the end of the world to get it. But you will need to go somewhere, and the place may be too out of reach for some. It’s not far away, closer than one may believe but there’re requirements that some individuals may not meet.

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1 May ♥ 6,770 notes – reblog
# story# b
    
BalloonsBy reddit user 1000Vultures, Very slightly edited by SixpenceeeA couple days ago I posted a story called “Footsteps.” There were a number of questions that made me curious about certain details about my childhood and so I spoke with my mother. Exacerbated by my questions she said “why don’t you just tell them about the goddamn balloons if they’re so interested.” As soon as she said that I remembered so much about my childhood that I had forgotten. This story will provide some greater context for the previous story, which I think you should read first. Though the order isn’t of vital importance, reading that story first will put you in my place more effectively since I remembered the events of Footsteps first. If you have questions or anything feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them. Also, both stories are long, so heads up on that. I’m just hesitant to leave out any details that might be important.[[MORE]]When I was 5 years old I went to an elementary school that, from what I’ve come to understand, was really adamant about the importance of learning through activity. It was part of a new program designed to allow children to rise at their own pace, and to facilitate this the school encouraged teachers to come up with really inventive lesson plans. Each teacher was given the latitude to create his or her own themes which would run for the duration of the grade, and all the lessons in math, reading, etc., would be designed in the spirit of the theme. These themes were called “Groups.” There was a “Space” group, a “Sea” group, an “Earth” group, and the group I was in, “Community.”In Kindergarten in this country you don’t learn much except how to tie your shoes and how to share, so most of it isn’t very memorable. I only remember two things very clearly: I was the best at writing my name the right way, and the Balloon Project, which was really the hallmark of the Community group, since it was a pretty clever way to show how a community functioned at a really basic level.You’ve probably heard of this activity. On one Friday (I remember it being Friday because I was excited about the project and it being the end of the week) toward the beginning of the year, we walked into the classroom in the morning and saw that there was a fully-inflated balloon tied off with string taped to each of our desks. Sitting on each of our desks was a marker, a pen, a piece of paper, and an envelope. The project was to write a note on the paper, put it in the envelope, and attach it to the balloon which we could draw a picture on if we wanted. Most of the kids started fighting over the balloons because they wanted different colors, but I started on my note which I had thought a lot about.All the notes had to follow a loose structure, but we were allowed to be creative within those boundaries. My note was something like this: “Hi! You found my balloon! My name is [Name] and I attend ______________ Elementary school. You can keep the balloon, but I hope you write me back! I like Mighty Max, exploring, building forts, swimming, and friends. What do you like? Write me back soon. Here’s a dollar for the mail!” On the dollar I wrote “FOR STAMPS” right across the front, which my mom said was unnecessary, but I thought it was genius, so I did it.The teacher took a Polaroid of each of us with our balloons and had us put them in the envelope along with our letter. They also included another letter that I assume explained the nature of the project and sincere appreciation for anyone’s participation in writing back and sending photos of their city or neighborhood. That was the whole idea – to build a sense of community without having to leave the school, and to establish safe contact with other people; it seemed like such a fun idea …Over the next couple weeks the letters started to roll in. Most came with pictures of different landmarks, and each time a letter would come in the teacher would pin the picture on a big wall-map we had put up showing where the letter had come from and how far the balloon had traveled. It was a really smart idea, because we actually looked forward to coming to school to see if we had gotten our letter. For the duration of the year we had one day a week where we could write back to our pen-pal or another students’ pen-pal in case our letter hadn’t come in yet. Mine was one of the last to arrive. When I came into the classroom I looked at my desk and once again didn’t see any letter waiting for me, but as I sat down the teacher approached me and handed me an envelope. I must have looked so excited because as I was about to open it she put her hand on mine to stop me and said “Please don’t be upset.” I didn’t understand what she meant – why would I be upset now that my letter had come? Initially I was mystified that she would even know what was in the envelope, but now I realize that of course the teachers had screened the contents to make sure there was nothing obscene, but all the same – how could I be disappointed? When I opened the envelope I understood.There was no letter.The only thing in the envelope was a Polaroid, but I couldn’t really make out what it was. It looked like a patch of desert, but it was too blurry to decipher; it appeared as if the camera had been moved while the picture was being taken. There was no return address, so I couldn’t even write back if I wanted to. I was crushed.The school year pressed on, and the letters had stopped coming for nearly all of the other students. After all, you can only continue a written correspondence with a Kindergartener for so long. Everyone, including myself, had lost interest in the letters almost completely. Then I got another envelope.My excitement was rejuvenated, and I reveled in the fact that I was still getting a letter when most of the other pen-pals had abandoned their involvement. It made sense that I received another delivery – there had been nothing but a blurry picture in the first one, so this was probably to make up for that. But again there was no letter at all … just another picture.This one was more distinguishable, but I still didn’t understand it. The photograph was angled way up, catching the top corner of a building, and the rest of the image was distorted by a lense-flare from the sun.Because the balloons didn’t travel very far, and because they were all launched on the same day, the board became a bit cluttered, and so the policy for the students still exchanging letters became that they could take the photographs home. My best friend Josh had the second highest number of pictures taken home by the end of the year – his pen-pal was really cooperative and sent him pictures from all around the neighboring city; Josh took home, I think, 4 pictures.I took home nearly 50.The envelopes were all opened by the teacher, but after a while I stopped even looking at the pictures However, I saved them in one of my drawers that housed my collections of rocks, baseball cards, comic book cards (Marvel Metal cards, for those who might remember), and little miniature baseball batting helmets that I’d get out of a vending machine at Winn-Dixie after T-Ball games. With the school year over my attention turned to other things.My mom had gotten me a small snow cone machine for Christmas that year, and Josh had really coveted it – so much so that his parents bought him a slightly nicer one for his birthday which was toward the end of the school year. That summer we had the idea that we would set up a snow cone stand to make money; we thought we’d make a fortune selling snow cones at $1. Josh lived in a different neighborhood, but we eventually decided that my neighborhood would be better because there were a lot of people who cared for their lawns; the yards in my neighborhood were slightly bigger. We did this for 5 weekends in a row until my mom told us that we had to stop, and I’ve only recently come to understand why she did that.On the 5th weekend Josh and I were counting our money. Because we both had a machine we each had a separate stack of money that we put together into one stack and we then split it evenly. We had made a total of $16 that day, and as Josh paid out my 5th dollar a feeling of profound surprise consumed me.The dollar said “FOR STAMPS.”Josh noticed my shock and asked if he had miscounted. I told him about the dollar and he said, “That’s so cool, man!” As I thought about it, I came to agree. The idea that the dollar had made it right back to me after changing so many hands floored me. I rushed inside to tell my mom, but my excitement coupled with her being distracted by a phone call made my story incomprehensible and she responded simply by saying “Oh wow! That’s neat!” Frustrated, I ran back outside and told Josh I had something to show him. Back in my room, I opened the drawer and took out the stack of envelopes and showed him some of the pictures. I started with the first picture, and we went through about 10 before Josh lost interest and asked if I wanted to go play in the ditch (a dirt ditch down the street from my house) before his mom came to pick him up, so that’s what we did.We had a “dirt war” for a while, but it was interrupted several times by rustling in the woods around us. There were raccoons and stray cats that lived in there, but this was making a little too much noise and we traded guesses at what it was in an attempt to scare each other. My last guess was that it was a mummy, but in the end Josh kept insisting that it was a robot because of the sounds that we heard. Before we left, he got a little serious and looked me right in the eyes and said, “You heard it didn’t you? It sounded like a robot. You heard it too right?” I had heard it, and since it sounded mechanical I agreed that it was probably a robot. It’s only now that I understand what we heard.When we got back Josh’s mom was waiting for him at the kitchen table with my mom. Josh told his mom about the robot, our moms laughed and Josh went home. My mom and I ate dinner, and then I went to bed.I didn’t stay in bed for long before I crept out and decided that, due to the day’s events, I would revisit the envelopes since now the whole affair seemed much more interesting. I took the first envelope and set it on the floor and set the blurry desert Polaroid on top. I laid the second envelope right next to it and placed the oddly angled Polaroid of a building’s top corner on top and did this with each picture until they formed a grid that was about 5X10; I was always taught to be careful with things that I was collecting even if I wasn’t sure they were valuable.I noticed that the pictures gradually became more decipherable. There was a tree with a bird on it, a speed limit sign, power line, a group of people walking into some building. And then I saw something that vexed me so powerfully that I can now, as I write this, distinctly remember feeling dizzy and capable of only a single, repeating thought:“Why am I in this picture?”In this photograph of the group of people entering the building I saw myself holding hands with my mother in the very back of the crowd of people. We were at the very edge of the photo, but it was undeniably us. And as my eyes swam over the sea of Polaroids I became increasing anxious. It was a really odd feeling – it wasn’t fear, it was the feeling you get when you are in trouble. I’m not sure why I was flooded with that feeling, but there I sat floundering in the distinct sense that I had done something wrong. And this feeling only intensified as I looked on at the rest of the photos after that the one that had so powerfully struck me.I was in every photo.None of them were close shots. None of them were only of me. But I was in every single one of them – off to the side, in the back, bottom of the frame. Some of them only had the tiniest part of my face captured at the very edge of the photo, but nevertheless, I was there. I was always there.I didn’t know what to do. Your mind works in funny ways as a kid, but there was a large part of me that was afraid of getting in trouble simply for still being up. Since I already had the looming feeling of having done something wrong I decided that I would wait until tomorrow.The next day, my mom was off work and spent most of the morning cleaning up around the house. I watched cartoons, I imagine, and waited until I thought it was a good time to show her the Polaroids. When she went out to get the mail I grabbed a couple of the pictures and put them on the table in front of me as I sat waiting for her to come back in. When returned she was already opening the mail and threw some junk mail into the trashcan and I said,“Mom, can you come here for a second? I have these pictures–”“Just give me a minute, honey. I need to mark these on the calendar.”After a minute or two she came and stood behind me and asked me what I needed. I could hear her shuffling with the mail behind me but I just looked at the Polaroids and told her about them. As I explained more and pointed to the pictures her frequent “uh huh’s” and “ok’s” decreased, and she was suddenly completely quiet and only making a little noise with the mail. The next noise I heard from her sounded as if she was trying to catch her breath in a room that had no air left in it. At last her struggling gasps were conquered and she simply dropped the remaining mail on the table and ran to the kitchen to get the phone.“Mom! I’m sorry, I didn’t know about these! Don’t be mad at me!”With the phone pressed to her ear she was walking/running back and forth and shouting into it. I nervously fiddled with the mail sitting next to my Polaroids. The top envelope had something sticking out of it that I thoughtlessly and anxiously pulled on until it came out.It was another Polaroid.Confused, I thought that somehow one of my Polaroids had slipped into the stack when she threw the mail down, but when I turned it over and looked at it I realized that I had not seen this one before. To my dismay, it was me, but this one was a much closer shot. I was surrounded by trees and was smiling. But it wasn’t just me, I noticed. Josh was there too. This was us from yesterday.I started yelling for my mom who was still screaming into the phone. I repeatedly yelled for her until she finally responded with“What?!”and I could only think to ask, “Who are you calling?”“I’m talking with the police, honey.”“But why? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do anything…”She answered me with a response that I never understood until I was forced to revisit these event from the earliest years of my life. She grabbed the envelope off the table and the picture of Josh and I spun and slid, landing next to the other Polaroids in front of me. She held the envelope up to my eyes but I could only look at her and watch as all the color began draining out of her face. With tears welling up in her eyes she said that she had to call the police because there was no postmark.

Balloons

By reddit user 1000Vultures, Very slightly edited by Sixpenceee

A couple days ago I posted a story called “Footsteps.” There were a number of questions that made me curious about certain details about my childhood and so I spoke with my mother. Exacerbated by my questions she said “why don’t you just tell them about the goddamn balloons if they’re so interested.” As soon as she said that I remembered so much about my childhood that I had forgotten. This story will provide some greater context for the previous story, which I think you should read first. Though the order isn’t of vital importance, reading that story first will put you in my place more effectively since I remembered the events of Footsteps first. If you have questions or anything feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them. Also, both stories are long, so heads up on that. I’m just hesitant to leave out any details that might be important.

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1 May ♥ 3,090 notes – reblog
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