The way Dr. Lauda looks at me, the way she insists I write these things down…pressing me for details, wanting me to warn other kids, but not share my story with them…I don’t know.
If I disappear…. If you don’t hear from me…
-————————————————————————–
Chris stiffened up and stopped shuddering.
Color returned to his skin.
He brushed himself off.
I grabbed Chris by the shirt and shook him. “Chris! Spit it out! Spit it out!”
“The rules are rules,” Chris said calmly, shoving me off. “He answered when I called. When that happens, a Creep can collect the body at their leisure.”
The body, The creep had said.
Like it didn’t belong to anyone.
“Let him go!”
“As if.” Chris walked over to the offerings and scooped up the bronze lid. “Game over, Chris.”
He put the lid in his pocket, almost ruefully.
“I’ll see you later, Franklin. Maybe.” Then, he turned and started walking away.
“Wait! Give him back!”
Chris didn’t stop. “Plenty of other Creeps waiting to take your body, Franklin.”
I turned back to the circle, just as the twins returned. Just in time to watch Chris as he left the courtyard.
“What happened?” Mindy asked.
Could I tell them?
“He…. He quit.” I lied.
Maybe, I wouldn’t have to. The looks on their faces told me that they knew I was full of shit; maybe they didn’t know what had happened, but there wasn’t exactly an endless list of possibilities.
“C’mon. We have a game to win.”
The twins looked at each other, exchanging some psychic twin communication I couldn’t pick up on.
Four candles, burning cheery and bright in the courtyard,
Three people,
Three offerings,
One point for the creeps.
“I see one,” Mindy said calmly. I didn’t follow her gaze, keeping my eyes alternating between her face, Mandy’s and the circle. No more falling for their voice changing bullshit, no more sneaky steals…
But how does one stop something like a creep?
“The lighter’s gone!” Mandy shouted. I had just looked to Mandy when she sounded the alarm.
“Shit! My bracelet, too!”
I scanned our surroundings. Two lights popped on; two rooms in the same building. “Let’s go.” To Mindy, I added: “Will you be okay out here alone?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“I guess not.”
“Let’s GO!” Mandy was already sprinting toward the building. I did my best to catch up.
The lights in the apartments were both on the second floor. By the time I got inside, Mandy had already disappeared, presumably upstairs. As I entered, all the doors to the apartments began to swing open and slam shut in a cacophony of noise. I couldn’t hear anything.
Huffing and puffing, I dragged myself up the stairs.
“Mandy?” I called. Which room had she gone to? “MANDY?!” I tried to get my voice above the doors.
No response.
From the courtyard, we’d seen that one room on either side of the stairwell had lit up. I didn’t know if Mandy had gone left or right, so I opted to pick right.
The door to the apartment in question slammed shut as I reached it. I waited a second, then pushed it open. It was a studio; I could see straight back toward the window overlooking the courtyard. There, by the window—
A bracelet.
Shit.
“MANDY!” I called again. Still no response. I could feel unease making a home in my stomach, a curdling slow boiling putrid soup.
Somehow, even from here I could see the candles flickering out. I grabbed the bracelet and took off running. As I made it back into the hall, I caught a flash of Mandy hurtling down the stairs. I followed, breathless, legs like rubber, down the stairs, out of the foyer, clear across the courtyard where the last candle burned.
I dove, painfully sliding across the ground and kicking up no small amount of dust. The bracelet tumbled from my hand and into the offering pile. I collapsed on my face, gasping for breath.
Amidst my own panting, I could hear an explosive sigh of relief.
I looked up at Mandy. “Why didn’t you answer? I didn’t know which room you were checking!”
“Idiot!” Mandy retorted. “Did you forget that they can copy our voices? I didn’t know if it was you!”
I sat there, feeling down. Feeling dumb. Hadn’t we just lost Chris that way?
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mindy replied. “As long as all the offerings make it back, we should be okay. No matter who grabs what.”
All at once, the courtyard was filled with creeps. Packed, even, standing room only at the world’s most nightmarish concert.
“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!” they all shouted, filling the space with our voices. the noise split my ears, reverberated my bones. through blurred vision I could see the twins looking just as miserable.
Then, the creeps were gone.
Along with our offerings. The circle, completely empty.
“They took everything!”
Three lights. Three rooms. Three separate buildings.
“We all have to go,” Mindy said.
She was right. There was no way one, or even two of us could clear two separate buildings in time. Someone would get creeped for sure. But as Mindy had said, it didn’t matter, who went where. I just had to bring one offering, any offering, back, and hope that the others did the same.
I hustled toward one building. Mandy and Mindy did the same, growing smaller and smaller as the distance grew between us.
In my case, the light was on in the center apartment on the second floor. Up the stairs again. I grabbed the doorknob…
It didn’t budge. It wasn’t even that it was locked; the handle wouldn’t twist at all. I pushed on the door to no avail. I slammed my shoulder into it over and over, my breathing more ragged by the second- one part exhaustion, one part desperation.
In the corners of my vision, I could see wispy shadows building- oblong shapes lining the halls on either sides, lounging casually about the corridor as I struggled with the door.
“Open…open!”
The door opened suddenly and I tumbled in, kicking up dust. Pushing myself to my hands and knees, I looked around, but saw nothing; as soon as the door had opened, the light had gone out in the apartment, leaving me in near darkness. I staggered over to the window, checking the floor under it for the lighter, a bracelet, anything.
There was nothing there.
Impossible… first the locked door, then no offering- I searched around frantically, but these studios weren’t all that big- a foyer, a kitchen, a bathroom, an alcove for a bed- no furniture, nowhere for anything to hide, and yet…
“Franklin.” Cold and gravely, the unmistakable voice of a creep.
I looked around.
“Candles are burning down, Franklin. Time’s almost up.”
I retraced my steps. Back to the door, the crevice behind it. Nothing. The kitchen counters. Nothing. The cabinets, nothing. Into the bathroom; the tub, empty, curtainless, nowhere to conceal anything. I even lifted the toilet seat and probed the cold, dark water.
I stood up in a panic and caught my reflection in the mirror. The Franklin staring back at me appeared every bit as terrified as I felt. I looked so pale, almost as pale as the stiff shower curtain hanging behind me.
What?
The curtain began to shiver and I could hear a sputtering sound from within. Red flecked the up onto the curtain, and the base of it steadily grew more and more crimson.
“Fr-Fran-k-lin…” a desperate voice gasped. My voice.
I pulled back the curtain.
There I was. In the tub
Throat slit
Choking on my own blood, clutching at my throat, staring into my own eyes.
I could only tear my gaze away on account of the glimmering that flashed as my doppelganger struggled to cling to life- something small and metal in its throat.
I plunged my hand in, daring not to look away, daring not to waste more time. Doing my best not to barf or scream.
My fingers closed around something familiar. The lighter! I pulled it free, and as it came into focus, the tub was suddenly clean again.
No time to waste. I ran. Faster than I ever had, practically charging through the door. I almost tripped twice stumbling down the stairs, and again as I tore across the clearing. Darkness wheeled and whirled about the courtyard, thick clouds of inky blackness, broken only by the last flame of the candle flickering in the wind.
I slammed the lighter into the circle.
The darkness lifted. The candles lit for one final moment, burning away the shadows, and then all that remained was the night- cold, dim, but devoid of horrific, whispering shadows or macabre, humanlike shapes.
“The fuck?” Mandy asks, stumbling out of the fading darkness. “Did it time out? Is it over?”
I look around the courtyard.
There are no lights in the rooms.
There is no Mindy.
“Where’s Mindy?” I ask.
“I’m Mindy, you idiot,” the twin responds. Then, she looks worried. “But Mandy… I don’t think Mandy made it.” She held up a small, beaded bracelet that spelled out
M-A-N-D-Y
My head is spinning. The ground tilts and whirls. I’m on the world’s worst carnival ride, no color, no lights, but something I can’t quite hear screaming in my ears.
“We won!” I shout. “We won The Creep Game! Give us back our friends!”
No response. I look back to Mindy. She’s staring at the ground angrily, her hands balled into little white fists of rage. She kicks at the candles and sends them scattering.
“Give them back!” She echoes.
I’d never seen Mindy angry. Especially tonight, it was unsettling to watch. At a loss, I approached and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She flinched at first, then leaned into me.
“We can… we can call the cops,” I said. “Maybe they can find something.”
“Y-yeah,” Mindy said.
I picked up the lighter again, and put it in my pocket. No more offerings for the creeps.
“Franklin?”
I turned, just in time for Mindy to kiss me. It was deep. It was warm. And for a blessed moment, the whole world slowed. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like we’d lost her sister and my best friend. Some way, some how, it would be alright.
We walked out together.
-—————————–
I wish I could say things returned to normal. They didn’t. We contacted the cops, but they had their hands full with so many missing person’s cases that two more just went into a pile. Our parents worried—
Until Chris showed up at school a few weeks later. As far as the school knows, he was just out of town, but I know better. He’s always watching me when we hang out with friends, all smiles and jokes as per usual, but It’s just not the same. Maybe it’s a result of the Game, but I can feel the difference—I know it’s a creep and not my best friend. I thought about getting him alone to question him. What do the Creeps do, where did they come from, what happened to Mandy…. but to be honest? I’m afraid of what he—what it– might do. Besides, when I mentioned Chris might be… different… to Dr. Lauda, she didn’t take it well. it was the one part of my experience she dismissed, but when I pressed the point, she got angry…
Still, it’s not all bad. Mindy and I started dating. She’s super affectionate, if a little abrasive. She and her family are coping well with the loss of Mandy. We don’t go near Chris.
Still….
Sometimes when I am alone in my bedroom…..
Sometimes when I close my eyes….
Whenever I walk past that abandoned apartment building…
I hear a skittering…..
I smell smoke…
I see shadows moving in the windows.
Sometimes I think the only thing that keeps the creeps at bay is the flickering of my lighter in the darkness.
And then I remember what ‘Chris’ told me before he disappeared.
A Creep can collect the body at their leisure.