Chapter Text
I didn’t see the dead kid that ruined my best friend’s life, and maybe that’s worse.
“Don’t come over here,” was the last coherent thing he said to me as he sat, slumped against the wall of whichever abandoned mall we’d decided to haunt that day. “Don’t come over here.”
The police talked to both of us for a long time after that and deduced with the highest level of brilliant inquisition that my friend had seen the dead kid, and I had not. The therapist deduced the same thing.
“I’m sorry sir but what exactly is your problem?”
“My friend quit his job. He’s in an institution now.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“It could have been me.”
It wasn’t even a bad area, not really. It wasn’t night time. It wasn’t Friday the thirteenth. We were eating granola bars and taking pictures of graffiti, the sort with the man peeking over the wall and various spray painted euphemisms. But somewhere along the line a dead kid decided to hide behind an old door and grin his yellow, rotting teeth at my best friend when he opened it. Decided to expire right there in front of God and everyone except me. Decided to slink into my friend’s nightmares every night in full, wretched detail and stink and grin and ruin his life.
Or maybe his teeth weren’t yellow. I wouldn’t know.
“The uber will bring him straight to your house, all you have to do is open the door.”
“Does he have to come this weekend? Mark and I were just exploring, he saw a dea-”
“Kyle has been looking forward to spending time with his favorite uncle. And stop with that stupid excuse, you know that was months ago.”
I guess I’m supposed to feel lucky. That’s what everyone says. I should feel lucky that I have gone through my whole life so far without stumbling over a seventy pound corpse placed intentionally in my way. But up until the dead kid that I didn’t see, I hadn’t realised such a thing was even a possibility.
Now I live in a world where dead kids make your friends go crazy. A world where they plot and scheme, giggling to each other in high pitched voices choked with fluid as they climb into cupboards and cram themselves under your bed.
“Please don’t...oh god please don’t open it.”
“What the hell are you talking about? It’s a filing cabinet I have to open it.”
“You don’t know what’s in there. There could be anyone! Please!”
“Maybe you should go home early today man.”
I devoted the extra time I had from quitting my job to making my house completely child proof. Carefully, painstakingly, I opened every cabinet and pulled out every drawer, always covering my eyes and feeling the space with the tips of my fingers before deciding it was safe.
I had the carpeting removed, and all the doors except the front. So now I always know the contents of rooms before I enter. I got rid of my blankets, because I could feel their dead flesh pressing into the empty space at my back, rubbing against my skin.
“It’s the middle of winter James, you must be freezing. Are all these precautions really necessary?”
“Have you heard of Schrodinger’s cat Doc?”
“I’m familiar.”
“Well imagine a closed room, or a drawer. You can’t see in it right? What if there’s a dead kid in there?”
“What if there isn’t?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
I don’t leave the house these days. Just approaching the front door makes my chest feel tight. I can’t touch the handle without coating it in sweat. I get the strangest feelings too, like someone is watching me.
I can feel their unseeing eyes peering at me from the shadows...those dark crevices that no amount of lighting seems to correct. I hear their voices mocking me behind corners, and I freeze up, the world lurches.
My house isn’t safe either, not while there are walls obscuring my sightlines. There are hundreds of them in here with me, waiting for me to find them.
“They like to knock on things. And push things over when I’m not looking.”
“Uh huh...I understand you’ve stopped sleeping.”
“They like to hide just in front of my eyelids.”
“Sounds like you know a lot about them. Yet you’ve never actually seen them?”
“Not yet. And it’s a good thing too. They’re trying to ruin my life.”
Last night the knocking was clearer than it ever has been. At the front door, accompanied by a squeaky, youthful voice. It knew my name.
They know my name!
“GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!”
I listened to the knocking for hours, staring at the door, knowing what was behind it. The voice just kept calling out, garbled and nonsensical save for my name, which rang loud and clear.
At some point it started to storm. The knocks ceased. My phone rang. The dead kids in the hallway laughed and laughed.
“SHUT IT! SHUT UP!”
Heavy sleet pummeled my windows, rocked the house. The wind screamed at me. Outside, the temperature dropped.
The dead kids under my fingernails pulsed with glee. The ones in my hair scratched my scalp.
The one behind the door was silent.
“James? It’s me. Work ran late last night and I have a few missed calls from Kyle. Did he get in okay last night?”
Fifteen minutes ago I heard my neighbor screaming just outside my house. Now I hear police sirens in the distance.
They’re going to want to talk to me. They’re going to want me to open my door. But I won’t. I can’t.
There’s a dead kid just outside of it.