“Hey, Four Eyes,” Marcus yelled, and I winced as I heard his sneakers smacking the linoleum.
Marcus and I were far from friends. I’ve known Marcus since my family moved here when I was eight. My first interaction with him was on the playground on my first day of school. Marcus and his small band of cronies wandered up to me as I sat in the sandbox, clearly drawn over by the new kid, and made the dynamic of our future relationship clear right away. I had sand kicked in my face, a sneaker pressed to my chest. Before I knew it, I was on my back in the sandbox as Marcus informed me that he would be collecting my lunch money from now on, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
As I lay there, staring up at him, without a teacher in sight to help me, I knew at eight what it was to be truly helpless.
For the next eight years, I brought my lunch.
For the next ten years, he took this as a personal challenge to make my life a living hell.
My lunches were stolen. My glasses were broken. My things were vandalized, and my friends and I were tormented by the ever-present shadow of Marcus Highens. I did make friends, of course, but many people avoided me simply because I had elicited the ire of Marcus. He was a constant presence in my life. He was always there, always looming, always waiting for his next opportunity to show me what I was; his constant victim. I never owned anything that he didn’t try to destroy or take away from me. I never liked a girl that he didn’t immediately woo and dump in a semester. Marcus made it his business to have anything I wanted but couldn’t afford, so he could rub it in my face. I kept hoping, just as mother had always taught me, that karma would catch up with him, and his actions would be punished by that ever-present force of cosmic justice. It seemed, however, that karma was not on my side.
As we grew, Marcus became the darling of whatever school he attended, and I became known as a bit of a weirdo. I was a quiet kid. I liked to write, my grades were fine, but I was an introvert and didn’t like to show off in class. Marcus, on the other hand, was known and loved by all. I quickly learned that this was how he got away with his bullying. Marcus was large, imposing, but he had a way about him that endeared him to adults. I would never admit it to him, but he was also smart. He never had trouble with grades, never had to study for tests, and seemed to succeed with only minimal effort. He played sports through school and thrived on the field even as he did in the classroom. By the time we were seniors, he had a football scholarship that would let him get into nearly any school he wanted. He was the typical all-American student, and the world was his oyster.
I hated him, especially after what he did.
I had spent three years with one goal in mind, having a seat on the student council in my senior year. It would look great on my college transcripts, alongside my volunteer work and debate team presence. Also, I actually thought that I could make a difference for some of the unheard students at the school. On a deeper level, I realized it might also bring me out of my shell and change me a little before leaving this whole experience behind and going to college. I had lived my life as an introvert, not really wanting to know anyone outside my circle of friends. Senior year was my last chance to really experience what would become the “best years of my life,” or so they said. Maybe putting myself out there could change me a little, perhaps even for the better.
I had such high hopes back then.
I had campaigned, talked to my fellow students, and felt that I had my finger on the pulse of what they wanted in a councilman. I seemed a shoo-in for the empty seat. That was until Marcus realized how much I wanted it. That’s when he joined the race. Suddenly, his flyers were in every hall, his posters plastered over many of mine. His talking points very similar to mine, and his platform was nearly identical to my own. He could say what he wanted to his constituents, but his goal seemed to be to take one more thing that I wanted. He had been trying and failing to throw me off my game for weeks, trying to get in my head and make me drop out of the election before the upcoming candidacy speech, before the student body voted for their representative.
As he approached, I wondered if he had found the toe hold he needed.
I closed my laptop as he came to stand over me, not wanting it broken if he was in a breaking mood. His face was possessed of that mixture of wicked glee and childish meanness. He looked like a kid on his way to pull wings off a butterfly. I guess he was. I had been his caged bug for years and today was just another chance to practice his sadistic craft on me. He came alone, but I could see several letterman jackets hovering nearby, watching the show. I was nowhere near as muscular as him, being on the scrawny side, but that hardly mattered to him.
Marcus never fought fair if he could help it.
“Guess what I did last night?” he shouted, glancing around to see who was watching.
My friends, immersed in a game of Magic the Gathering, looked up like startled animals around a watering hole.
A predator had arrived, and they wanted to know when the best time to start running was.
“I don’t know, Marcus. Something fulfilling and meaningful, but I doubt it.” I said without much interest.
Marcus barked out a sarcastic little laugh, “You’d be right there, Four Eyes.”
He never used my name; it was always Four Eyes and always in tones of the deepest scorn.
“I was at a rager last night when I met this fine-looking piece of tail and took her upstairs for a few hours. God, she screamed so loud I thought the cops were going to come.”
“If you’re looking for a high five, I think your boys are hovering somewhere around here,” I said, already uninterested in this conversation.
I had no idea that his trap had teeth, but he was about to show me just how deep they cut.
“I just thought I’d let you know what a good lay your sister was, four eyes. She screamed my name again and again as I had her.”
The whole cafeteria was paying attention now. I glanced at my friends and saw that their game was forgotten as Marcus laid out his night’s activities for me in intimate detail. My face reddened, the snickers already beginning, as he loudly proclaimed his activities for all to hear. I was shocked. I was incapable of reacting. I simply wanted to stop existing at that very minute.
How could she?
How could my own flesh and blood betray me so thoroughly? How many nights had I confided in my family about the abuse I suffered at Marcus’s hands? How many times had she seen me demoralized at school by this bully? How could she have done such a thing?
I don’t know how his story ended. I grabbed my bag and ran out of the cafeteria, hiding my streaming eyes as I ran blindly for the exit. Someone yelled at me in the hallway, but I didn’t stop. I was outside far sooner than I thought I would be, and I heard a car horn blare as I dashed across the parking lot towards my car. I tossed my bag inside, no care given for the things inside, and was on the road before I quite knew what was happening.
My streaming eyes made it difficult to drive, but I knew I couldn’t stay there a moment longer.
The emotions roiled inside me, and I felt like I might be sick as I drove the streets. There was rage bubbling inside me, an impotent rage that had been festering for years but had never been fully realized. I hated Marcus, but his actions had been those of a bully seeking a release until that point. It was only then that I realized his intention to hurt. He wasn’t content with just hurting me physically anymore; he wanted to break me.
I didn’t understand his animosity, and I never would.
I spent the rest of the day in my room, having a nervous breakdown. My friends didn’t text me. No one texted me. As I lay there, waiting for just one person to reach out to me, I began to feel utterly alone. My anxiety was palpable as I lay in my bed and tried to gain control of myself. Had anyone even noticed I had left school? Of course they had. They were just too embarrassed by my outburst to contact me. They didn’t want to get caught up in the fallout of my shame. I wouldn’t be welcome to sit with my friends anymore; I would be an outcast. My brain reminded me, almost absently, that I could kiss my bid for Student Council goodbye as well. No one would vote for me now; no one would waste their vote on a loser like me. The candidacy speech was tomorrow. How could I mount that stage with everyone whispering about me? How could I tell them how I would be their voice on the council with them all laughing at me behind their hands.
My mind raced, my pulse raced, and I lay in a ball of perpetual anxiety.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, my anxiety so bad that I had worn myself out because the next thing I knew, someone was knocking on my door.
“Hey spaz, why’d you leave school?”
My blood ran cold.
It was her.
My sister, Stephany, was never what you would call a joy. She was two years younger than me, a sophomore, but the two of us couldn’t have been more different. My sister was the foil to my introverted nature. She was a social butterfly who flew in many circles and knew practically everyone. She was their perfect little girl to my parents. They were utterly unaware of her late-night carousing and extracurricular activities. To them, she was an angel, but to me, she was just a spoiled brat. She was needy to the point of annoyance, her needs turning to indifference when you needed something from her.
She had come now to see what could be gained from my suffering.
“Go away,” I droned, not wanting to see her.
She came in instead.
“Heard Marcus spilled the beans about our night last night.”
I turned towards the wall, ignoring her.
“It was just sex. It’s not like we’re dating or anything. He’s cute, and I wanted to sleep with him.”
I turned over angrily and glared at her.
“You slept with someone who has made my life a living hell since I was eight years old. Do you have any idea what that does to me? You’ve made me into a laughing stock! How can I go back to school and look Marcus in the eye, knowing that he’s been with my freaking sister!”
She smirked, not even having the decency to look ashamed.
“As if anyone but you cares. Get over yourself, it’s my life, and I’ll live it any way I want. For the record, he was great too.” she added, the last barb before leaving.
My mother was furious when she came home from work.
Not at my sister, of course. She couldn’t believe that people would spread such lies about her perfect little angel. She was furious at me. How could I leave school early? What was I thinking? Didn’t I care about my future at all? Skipping classes and being truant was no way to live my life! The sermon went on and on as we sat around the dinner table. My sister was smug, of course, as I sat there being chastised, and Dad went right on eating blandly as though the world were just as it always was. To say that dad didn’t care was an understatement. Dad simply didn’t want to involve himself in what he called “women’s work” and didn’t worry his mind about matters concerning the children.
I had started shoveling my food down, barely tasting it, to escape the table and my mother’s howling words.
With my plate clean, I asked to leave. She wasn’t done yelling at me, but I told her that I needed to prepare for my speech tomorrow, which seemed to perk her up a little. She had known that I was running, hadn’t they both told me how small a chance someone like me had of being elected, but as I kept at it, I think she realized how much I wanted this. She released me, threatening bodily harm if she ever heard of me leaving school again, and I was free to return to my room.
I spent the rest of the night in a state of anxious tension. A rainstorm rolled in around midnight, and I found myself tossing and turning in a ball of roiling emotions. I didn’t dare go to school tomorrow. Marcus would be waiting there, all those people would know about my shame, and they would all laugh at me. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t…
The lightning lit up the sky, and I started on my bed, looking at the window.
Had I seen something?
It was impossible; I was on the second story. There was no way I had seen something at my window. My anxiety was creeping up on me now, and it was making me see things; that was all. As the rain came down, I got up and moved closer to the window. The thunder boomed outside, and I crept towards the glass square like a rat trying to avoid detection. There was nothing there. Why was I so jumpy? There was nothing on the other side of the window but…
When the lightning flashed again, I screamed and fell onto the carpet.
Something was on the other side of the window. An inky face had been looking at me, and when it saw me looking, it had smiled. Its teeth had been Colgate white, a stark contrast to its midnight personage, and I felt my breath hitching as I stared at the jet black window. The rain fell against it like angry stones, and I waited in terror for the next flash of lightning.
When it flashed, it was gone.
I curled into a ball on the floor, closing my eyes and trying to will myself to sleep, but all I could see was that gruesome face. I had seen it for the barest of seconds, but it was imposed on my memory perfectly. I lay on the floor as the lightning struck outside, too afraid to open my eyes but too scared to sleep either. My anxiety and fear roiled inside me like a tempest, and I spent the rest of the night huddled on the floor, shuddering.
“Wake up!”
I must have dozed off sometime before the sun came up. My mother was standing over me, yelling and slapping at me as the sun shone merrily through my window. My mother was rousing me, telling me I was going to be late. I stirred groggily and went to my closet to get out the clothes I would wear for the speech today. I was too groggy for the anxiety to hit me all at once, but as I started getting dressed, I remembered the roiling pit of dread in my stomach and stopped with my slacks halfway up. I couldn’t go to school. I’d have to face that mob; alone.
My mother came in with a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs, frowning as she saw me shaking and indecisive.
All of my excuses fell on deaf ears. I was not missing school today, no matter what was wrong, and that was that. She would take me and drop me off herself if that was what it took. I was not ruining my education because of something silly that had happened the day before. People would always be stupid, but I wasn’t going to ruin my future for anything.
In the end, I took the coffee and left just to escape her venom.
As I drove, I honestly felt like I might be having a nervous breakdown. The coffee shook in my hand, and if mom hadn’t put it in a to-go cup, I would have spilled it all over my pants on the ride to school. I looked up in time to see the light turn red, slamming on my breaks just a minute too late and getting a nasty look from a jogger running across the road. I tracked her dully with my eyes and jumped when she ran past an overhang near the deli. The coffee flew out of my hand and hit the passenger window, exploding in a caffeine puddle over the glass. The passersby looked at me, concerned, as the drops slid down the glass, but I was already running the red light and speeding towards school. My heart raced, and my stomach flipped over, my anxiety about the speech and the bully momentarily forgotten.
Under the awning, perched in the shadows, had been two of the oily black things that had appeared in my window the night before.
Their skin oozed with midnight clarity, but their smiles were wide and crazed.
As I drove, I thought I could see others, pairs and threesomes, and foursomes all watching me from the shadows of alleys and the dark respites of awnings and doorways. They were following me, they wanted me, but I did not want to be found by them. I had to remind myself not to speed. I had to remind myself of stop signs and red lights. I did not want to be pulled over. I did not want to stop until I was somewhere with people and light and places to hide from them.
At that point, I would have welcomed the jeers of the schoolyard rabble.
I pulled into the parking lot just as the first bell rang.
The halls were packed, students making last-minute preparations and finishing their conversations around lockers, but when they recognized me, I heard a definite change in the tempo of the conversation.
“Oh my god, isn’t his sister the one who…”
“I feel bad for him. I don’t know how he can come to school after…”
“Ah man, Marcus totally owned his ass yesterday. Told the whole school how he…”
“And he just ran, he ran away and…”
I walked fast, not stopping, not talking, just walking towards my homeroom amidst a gale of gossip. I heard someone laugh, but I didn’t dare look. It sounded fake anyway, teasing laughter, more like the canned laughter on tv than real laughter. The hallways became a gauntlet, people staring, people laughing. Amongst them, I became sure that I could see the black creatures that had hounded me all the way here. They slipped among them, staying in the shadows, and whomever they touched seemed to smile and titter. I wanted to run, I could feel tears on the verge of breaking the surface, but I didn’t want to draw more attention. The laughter was so snide, so fake, that I almost couldn’t stand it. It rattled against my nerves and made me want to scream.
I rounded a corner, still making for my homeroom, and bumped into someone.
I threw my hands up defensively, almost certain that it would be one of those tar creatures with their smiling mouths. Instead, it was Ms. Cunningham, the assistant principal. She looked put upon, her normally well-maintained pantsuit and lustrous black hair looking rumpled and out of place. I wondered if she, too, hadn’t slept last night. She huffed when she realized who she had run into and tapped her foot impatiently.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming today. You’re speaking second. Marcus was on time, so he gets to go first, and it starts in five minutes, so I suggest you hurry.”
She turned and started for the gymnasium.
I could hear that repulsive laughter behind me, heard it creeping up the corridor like a cancerous cloud, and sped off behind her, not wanting it to catch me.
The gym was packed. The entire senior class had assembled, any excuse to miss first period, and were murmuring quietly in the hard bleachers that had been pulled out for the occasion. As I came in, someone noticed me, and the whispered conversations began again. I heard some snickers, felt their stares, and knew that they knew my shame. My stomach was a roil of angry emotions. My brain was befuddled and unsure of what was real anymore. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, my whole life hanging by a fiber before entirely imploding.
I had no clue how much worse it could get.
“Bout time you showed up, Four Eyes,” Marcus said, looking resplendent in a suit and tie that had clearly been tailored for him.
I didn’t say anything.
My attention was on the crowd.
I could see the creatures amongst them, whispering and gnashing those perfect teeth against their ears. Some in the back had begun to chuckle. Some had already started to laugh. Those further down were still engaged in their own conversation, unaware of what horrors lurked behind them. They just sat in their little peer circles, chatting and living their lives free of this overpowering stress surrounding me like a cloud.
How I envied them.
“Looking at all the votes you’re not gonna get, Four Eyes?” Marcus asked, but I continued to ignore him.
As Ms. Cunningham mounted the stage, the laughter had already begun in the back.
She ignored it, opening the proceedings with a little speech before introducing Marcus to scattered applause. Marcus grinned at me, mouthing that I should “watch how it’s done” before mounting the podium and starting his speech. He got straight to the point. Students wanted more free periods and fewer assemblies that served no purpose. They wanted more pep rallies and car washes and less information about booster meetings and boring stuff. He said nothing, but he said it well, and he kept it short, so the students would remember it. The applause were scattered again. The laughter in the top row was taking on that mechanical sound that made my sanity scream from the depths of my skull.
There were more of them now, the house lights dimming in the dark of the upper bleachers, and the darkness was spreading.
Ms. Cunningham had to call my name several times before I finally stood and made my way to the podium. Marcuses’ grinning face welcomed me from the first row, smiling and inviting me to begin my pathetic speech. I had forgotten my papers, my meticulously crafted note cards, but it hardly mattered. I could no more have read them at this point than I could have spoken Russian. From the podium, I could see the black tar monsters crawling over the crowd, working their way down and bringing an inky darkness with them.
“The student…the student body needs a …needs a person who will represent them…represent their interests on the council. I feel that…” I heard a rattling of stuttered laughter, and it threw me off even worse, “I feel that I can…I can be…”
My eyes were as big as dinner plates.
They were smiling at me from within the crowd. Their too-white teeth were horrifying, their teeth too large for their mouth. How did they contain all those teeth? How did they…
Ms. Cunningham was walking towards me, and I’m not sure if she was trying to save me from the shame of making a fool of myself on stage, or she was angry that I had wasted her time.
Regardless, she only got about halfway across the stage when she smirked and began chuckling.
I watched her, terror written across my face, as she doubled over and began to erupt in wracking gales of full-body laughter. There was laughter behind me too. The torpor was becoming a single note of canned and emotionless chuckle as it spilled from throats that were no longer their own. I glanced to the side and saw Marcus doubling up, his fingers dragging over his eyes and cheeks and leaving bloody trails behind. The mob was laughing, their laughter dead and uniform, and I felt my sanity unraveling a strand at a time as I backed away from the crowd.
My foot found open-air, and I felt the wind knocked out of me as I fell from the stage.
Ms. Cunningham was tearing at her clothes as she laughed her life away.
I scooted backward, getting my feet under me and running as that terrible laughter chased me.
It was the kind of laughter you hear bubbling from the windows of an insane asylum.
It’s the kind of laughter you hear in Hell.
I ran then, ran until I found a door and barreled through it as the maniac drone chased after me.
I ran until the school doors opened before me, and I was out on the quad, my sneakers making for home.
I ran, the pavement the most substantial thing I had felt all day.
I ran until I found myself on the porch of my own house.
I banged on the door until my mother opened it; confusion and anger stamped big across her face.
Then I collapsed and didn’t come back to reality for the next three days.
When I did, I was in the hospital.
That’s where I got the whole story from my bleary-eyed mother, who hadn’t left my bedside the entire time I had been here.
Everyone in the gym was dead. The police were calling it a gas leak, and the whole city was mourning the loss of so many young people. The doors had been wedged shut, all but the one I had burst out of. School officials had found everyone inside dead from hyperventilation, including Ms. Cunningham. Some had tried to claw their eyes out, had peeled their faces open, but all had succumbed to this terrible tragedy.
I said nothing. My sister came to visit, apologizing for how she had hurt me and extremely thankful I had been late that day. My mother was the doting woman I had always wanted. She and my sister were never far from my side, and their attention quickly became claustrophobic. I soaked it in as long as it lasted, though, never wanting it to end.
I would never tell anyone about what had happened that day.
They all assumed that my lateness had led to my safety, and they would never have believed me if I told them the truth.
That was ten years ago.
I live on my own now.
I have it all; apartment, girlfriend, mediocre job, the whole experience.
My mom and sister still call to check on me often, my dad his same old ambivalent self, and it’s heart heartwarming to have their love after years of feeling like an outcast in my own home.
I felt I had gotten over the event. I felt that it was in my past that I don’t often talk about it outside of therapy, and I like to think that it may make me stronger for having lived through it. My girlfriend knows nothing about it, of course. She knows I had something traumatic happen in my past, but she knows I’ve moved on, and the less I say about it, the better it is for my mental health.
At least, I had gotten over it.
Yesterday I received a letter in the mail.
A letter from my old high school.
A letter for a Highschool Reunion.
It looked like a postcard, glossy picture on the front, and words on the back, with the banner proclaiming “Welcome Back class of 2010”. The front was a picture of the gym as it had been on the day of the event. On the floor was gathered the smiling creatures as they waved and grinned their eternal grins. On the back was written three words that send chills down my spine even now.
“See You Soon.”