‘Chicken’, that petulant taunt is what sticks in my mind, why did I have to rise to the bait. My once simple existence has now been consumed by chaos, all due to that small, single, seemingly insignificant fucking word. If I’m going to relive these nightmarish memories, I’m taking you with me.
It was October 27th 2007, the days were growing shorter and the nights grew ever longer. I’m Benjamin by the way but everyone calls me Ben. Being your typical 18 year old, I would normally spend my evenings in my room on windows messenger with my friends Paulo, Tyler, Sarah and Dani. We all attended the same college together four days a week. The rest of the time we used to hang out on the grounds of a long time closed and decaying private School, situated at the end of a single track road called Charter Lane. We would meet up with a few other groups of people that we knew from college in the unused run down playground. Someone would be inevitably playing music off a small tin sounding portable speaker. We would bring a couple of crates of beer and some cheap ass vodka that tasted more like paint stripper to fuel our fun.
Kyle was one of the guys that would always be here, like one of them people that were ‘always out’ if you know what I mean. He would frequently climb onto the old school building and clamber through a small skylight window to grab cans of drink and snacks from the abandoned vending machines inside. He would always come out looking all smug, like he’d just won money from a slot machine. This was except for that one night, yeah this is where my nightmare begins.
There was only five of us and Kyle over at the playground that Saturday night, the girls Sarah and Dani, were chatting half way up the blue paint peeled climbing frame with Paulo. Him and Sarah had been having a thing for about the last 3 months, they hadn’t said anything but we all knew about it. Me, Tyler and Kyle were sat around a small flickering fire, that was barely keeping lit in the chilled October breeze. Each one of us passing a small joint around to aid in our attempt to keep warm.
Kyle stood up.
“You know what time it is guys!” He said trying to contain his excitement.
I gazed up to him, “go on then spidey!” I chuckled sarcastically.
Dani shouted over “get some chocolate for me this time Kyle, please!”
He turned, pulled the hood of his red hoodie over his head and gave her a quick wink “of course babe, anything for you”.
She held her hands up in a heart shape and announced “My hero!”
As he faded from the fire-lit glow, I could see him proceed to a small wall next to the building, he jumped up and hoisted himself up onto the flat roof above. His faint outline seemed to evaporate into the darkness. We were now one crate and half bottle of vodka into our night. It had been about 20 minutes since Kyle had gone in to the school and he still hadn’t emerged. We were all sat around the fire trying to scare each other about the history of the school, the rumours of past murders and torture were rife in our area.
“Kyle is normally back by now, it’s been like 20 minutes” Tyler interrupted.
“What are you his mother?”Dani said in between sipping the dwindling bottle of vodka. “He probs just went to a different machine, don’t worry” she continued.
We all paused for a minute as if all in deep thought of where Kyle could be, only the slight crackle of the fire sounding in our ears. The silence was shattered with an uncontrollable horrific scream, coming from inside the school.
It was Kyle.
“What the fuck was that” Sarah breathed from her hand covered mouth.
“That’s Kyle, shit maybe he’s hurt” Paulo responded.
We all got up and started walking towards the desolate structure. We began calling out for Kyle.
“Stop messing around dude and get back out here” I yelled.
Our cries were met only by eerie deafening silence.
“Right, fuck it, I’m going in” Tyler confidently stated.
Paulo followed with “we should all go in, come on it’ll be easier to search the place with 5 of us”. I saw him give Sarah a quick wink from the corner of my eye.
I quickly tried to rationalise the situation.
“I think we should stay out here, at least wait for 5 or 10 minutes, if he’s not out by then we can call someone for help”.
Tyler smugly replied “What’s wrong Ben, Chicken?”
“If you’re too chicken Ben, you can stay out here while we go in” Dani said while placing her arm around Tyler.
“I ain’t no chicken, come on let’s go” I responded pushing Paulo out of the way, I then proceeded to climb onto the roof and down the open window. I helped the others down, one by one until we were standing in a large corridor. I had a small flashlight in my coat pocket, luckily I had remembered it before I left. Paulo also had one with him in has small Nike bag, that thing always seemed be attached to him.
The corridor was blank and hollow, it reminded me of the halls throughout a hospital only the floors were littered with old books and pieces of broken ceiling panels. We decided to split up as we didn’t know which way Kyle would have gone, none of us had been inside the school before. We all found it odd that we didn’t hear another noise since the initial scream. Paulo went off behind us with Sarah, then Me, Tyler and Dani went in the opposite direction. We walked past about half a dozen old classrooms. The ones we could see into were trashed, not even a chair was upright. There must have been people living in here at one point due to the stained single mattresses and discarded food wrappings on the floors.
“It’s amazing there was anything left in them vending machines” I said trying to lighten the tense mood.
“Yeah true, they’re probably hidden away somewhere” Dani responded.
We all came to an abrupt halt, there was a faint squeaking sound coming from up ahead. It sounded like an old wheel in dire need of some oil. I lifted my flashlight and illuminated the passage ahead. The sinister sound stopped but i could hear what sounded like white noise coming from one of the rooms in front of us.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered to Tyler and Dani.
“It’s probably Kyle fucking with us” Tyler said before shouting “Hello, Kyle, we know it’s you, stop messing around man!”
The steady squeaking started again with the white noise accompanying it. Emerging from one of the open doors further ahead rolled an old static screened tv on a metal trolley, the power cable trailing behind it. We all took the same deep gasp as the cable sprung out of the room as the screen turned to a black glow.
Tyler now with fear in his voice shouted “Kyle, stop being a dick, this ain’t funny anymore!”
He snatched the flashlight from my grasp and marched up to the room that where the TV had come from. We followed behind him and scoured our eyes around the now lit room. No one was in there, no cupboards or rooms to hide, just nothing but scattered wooden debris. The goosebumps started to form on my arms as a chill fell upon us.
Dani muttered “I want to get out of here, I don’t like it, I want to go home”.
Tyler discounting the last few minutes snapped back “it’s Kyle, he is trying to scare the shit out of us”
Dani nodded her head while stuttering “OK, I just don’t like it here”
I was freaked out and I had the same thoughts running through my head as Dani but I wasn’t going to leave my friends alone in here. Tyler passed me back our only light source, as we hesitantly carried on down the corridor. A couple of minutes later we heard what sounded like hushed muffled footsteps that were running behind us. I pointed the flashlight from where we had just come from. There was nothing there but the heavy fast paced steps where getting louder, which could only mean they were getting closer. We were just about to run when Paulo came into sight.
“Guys, stop, wait” he shouted trying to catch his breath.
“What’s wrong? Did you find Kyle?” Dani responded, I could tell in her voice that she wanted this night to be over.
Only finding Kyle would mean that we could leave.
“No, I can’t find Sarah, she was right behind me”
Paulo then proceeded to then tell us how they had blown off the search and found a room for some alone time. They were on their way back to us, when he heard a thud followed by a dragging noise behind him. He searched the rooms around him but she was gone, she had just vanished.
My apprehension was now only growing with every minute that we were in this tormenting school. We all decided to walk back and look for Sarah, she may have just wandered off or left even.
“Here, this is where we were” Paulo stated, I could see the anxiety in his eyes.
“Listen, do you hear that?” Dani whispered behind me.
It sounded like a dripping tap coming from the room up ahead. Tyler once again took the flashlight from me and said,
“Let me have a look”.
He walked slowly up to the crumbled opening and cast the light into the room.
“Fuck!” He winced while flinching his body away.
“What’s wrong?!” Paulo asked, the concern in his voice was harrowing as he walked towards Tyler.
His head turned and he fell to his knees, through flowing tears as he uttered “no, Sarah”.
Me and Dani nervously walked up to Paulo and Tyler, there sat in a wooden chair was what was left of Sarah. The drip of her crimson blood fell from her hand as it dangled beside her. Dani screamed and buried her head into my chest as she started to weep. I felt a combination of numbing pain and sickness. Who would even do this? I asked myself just as my thoughts were interrupted by Tyler, who said while giving me back my flashlight.
“This has to be Kyle, that sick motherfucker” the anger in his voice seemed to snap Paulo from his wailing trance.
“I’m going to fucking kill him” Paulo snarled while fighting back his tears.
We all in that moment thought the same thing, how well did we actually know Kyle? A whistle echoed from the darkness ahead, our gaze altered in unison.
Tyler announced “it’s him, come on guys, let’s get him”.
Tyler and Paulo started running down the corridor forwards the whistling.
“Tyler, Paulo, wait up!” I shouted as their flashlights faded around the tight bend ahead.
The whistling abruptly stopped.
“What the fuck!” I heard Tyler shout as I pulled Dani round the corner with me. I heard the painful scream of Paulo as I engulfed the walkway in light. Just in time to see Paulo’s legs and boots slowly slip into a room up ahead. A smeared trail of blood followed him starting at the planted feet of Tyler. He was stood, unlit flashlight in hand covered in the splattered blood of Paulo.
“What the fuck happened man?!” I yelled at Tyler. His face stared blankly at me, his hands shook uncontrollably as he struggled to say the words.
“The flashlight turned off, I felt something brush across me and then I heard his cries” he said while tears now started forming in his eyes. His previous confident demeanour had been replaced by a broken, fear stricken shell of his former self.
A laugh then rang around us, it bounced off the cracked walls as it droned off into the shadowy depths behind us. I directed the flashlight towards the source of the menacing cackle, there was a pile of debris that ran across the hall further up. What I saw next made my blood run cold, facing the wall at the end of this seemingly never ending corridor stood Kyle. He was wearing the same trainers, ripped jeans and red hoodie. He was writing a strange language in what I can only assume was blood on the wall, Paulo’s lifeless body laying by his feet.
“K-K-Kyle?” I called out, hoping for a reasonable answer to what was going on.
He stopped writing, his arm slowly dropped beside him.
“Kyle please, what ever is going on let us help” Dani cried out beside me.
A rolling crunch followed as Kyle’s head fell backwards between his shoulder blades. We all jolted back in pure disgust as we stared into his glazed, clouded eyes. His face was grey, populated with raised blue branching veins. Deep red blood slowly flowed from his nose and eyes. He spoke words from is foamed mouth in a language we didn’t understand.
“Moriatur, auferam caput tuum. Bibe humores de corpore exanimo, et carpe dentes meos ossibus tuis.”
My knees buckled from fear, we all knew that we had messed up bad. We all should have left here after we saw that rogue TV wheel itself into our path. We all turned and ran, we could hear a fourth set of running footsteps in the deathly dark behind us. I heard a scuff and a smack behind me, Tyler had tripped over a chair. Me and Dani slowed as we realised, this was quickly followed by the sound of ripped clothing and the horrific deafening sounds of Tylers last breath. I pulled over a large old wooden cabinet across the corridor, grabbed my lighter from my coat pocket and lit a few old textbooks. I threw them all into the antique piece of furniture, it exposed the gruesome scene we had left in our trail as it set alight.
I clung to Dani’s hand as we sprinted towards the skylight window in-which we entered this hellhole. I moved a chair into position underneath and pulled myself out. I began to pull her up as I felt a sudden resistance as Dani started screaming, smoke filled the opening making it difficult to see what was happening. I used the last of my strength to pull, she immediately became lighter. I looked down, her eyes grew wide and blood trickled from her gapping mouth. That’s when I noticed, her torso had been ripped in half. “I’m so sorry” I sobbed as my grip loosened and she fell back into the plume of black smoke. I closed the window and jumped from the roof, I heard a crunch from underneath me as I landed. This would later turn out to be my right ankle breaking, I felt nothing as the adrenaline coursed through my body. I ran as best I could out of the gates while calling the emergency services.
In the weeks after the fire was extinguished and the investigation was in full force, they found four charred mutilated bodies inside. It seemed Kyle was never found and for a brief moment I became a prime suspect. Only a nearby security camera that caught Kyle and us climbing into the old school and me clambering out while trying to save Dani cleared my name. Even though that wasn’t enough to prove my innocence a lot of people in the area. No one ever did find out what happened to Kyle. The police searched the area for months, but they found no trace of him. Three torturous months later I got the first phone call, I answered the unknown number half expecting it to be about the events that had consumed my life recently. “Hello”.
A deep demonic yet familiar voice answered me,
“Moriatur, auferam caput tuum. Bibe humores de corpore exanimo, et carpe dentes meos ossibus tuis.”
The line then went dead.
I have since looked up this horrific phrase that has been etched deep into my brain, this is roughly what it translates into:
“ Die, I will take your head. Drink the juices from your dead body and pick my teeth with your bones”
I knew in that moment that my cursed torment was not over, it had only just began.