Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 11

It didn’t take long to reach his house, probably only about ten minutes to get to his place from mine. I crossed over his lawn and approached the front door, ringing the doorbell. On the second bell, the door opened revealing Poppy. Wow. How long had they been here waiting for me? Poppy was smirking at me, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I knew it would fail. Now, it’s my turn.” I almost turned right around and go home but she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the house.

“It only failed because you butt in.” I mentioned. I still was not pleased with her over ruining my “date”.

“Eh, whatever.” She waved her hand at me, “Are you ready!? I already have blankets, flashlights, some thermoses, snacks, and…” Poppy trailed off, trying to build suspense, “my very best friend, Skye, on video chat ready to tell us all the gory details of our school!”

Poppy dragged me up the stairs and into her room, where Layne and Ji-Yeong were waiting for us. I waved shyly at Ji-Yeong, but he just huffed and looked away from me… Makes sense. It still hurt though. Poppy crossed the room and gathered up some backpacks that she had in the corner of her room and handed them out to us.

“I’m glad you’re all dressed warmly. Now come on! Let’s go to school. Ji-Yeong?” She turned to look at him, “Can you please drive us? Since Layne still isn’t allowed to drive friends.”

“Yeah. I can do that,” He said, pulling his backpack onto his back. “Let’s go then.” Layne and I pulled on our backpacks as well and followed Ji-Yeong to his car.

~

We were silent as Ji-Yeong drove to our school. I’m sure that we were all wondering what in life brought us to go to our school at 12 pm. I already knew why Ji-Yeong and I were here. I wanted to make amends, and he was just interested. Though I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Layne and Poppy were coming along.

“We’re here!” Poppy’s voice roused me from my thoughts. I took a deep breath and stared out the car window at the dark school. Somehow, it was even creepier at night, the windows were dark, but shadows lurked behind them making me believe that someone was there. Watching. The dead trees looked as if their barren branches would grab us if we got to close to them and the loud whipping of the ice-cold wind sounded loud even from inside the safety of the car.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Layne asked Poppy, there was a slight tremor in his voice. It sounded like the exterior of our school had him frightened already.

“Yeah, yeah. I sure. Now come on,” her voice was small, she sounded as frightened as her brother was. But unlike him, she was putting on a brave face. Poppy left the warmth of the car and sprinted over to the entrance of the school. She waved us over and we all unwillingly left the car and trudged up to the school.

Poppy had already unlocked the schools’ door and was waiting for us inside. I eyed Layne curiously and asked. “How the hell does your sister have the keys to the school?” he just shrugged for his reply. Well great… We entered the school and immediately I felt a difference from the cold, harsh outdoors. I peeked outside just to make sure no one had seen us and then I closed the doors.

Leading us into an open classroom, Poppy moved the desks into a circle surrounding, leaving a desk in the middle. She propped up an iPad on the middle desk and set up a video call. It didn’t ring for long when a red-headed beauty answered the call.

“What’s up, Popp?” The girl asked. Her voice was cool sounding like, despite the fact that a friend had called her, she had better things to do. Maybe that was just how she always sounded, who knows? But what I was sure of was that we had interrupted her getting ready for bed. Currently, the redhead was wrapped in a towel and her red hair was hanging damp and stringy. Ji-Yeong had his eyes downcast, avoiding the iPad at all cost, and I saw a slight tint on his cheeks. I assumed he was embarrassed over the fact that there was an almost naked girl on the screen.

“Not much! You know that story you told me about our school?” the girl nodded. “Well, I was hoping that you could tell us it right now!” Poppy asked her, conveniently leaving out the fact that we were currently at the school.

“Yeah, I got you, hun. Just give me a sec to get dressed and I’ll tell all of y’all again.” And with that she turned her device around, all that we could hear was her rummaging around in the background. I waited patiently for her to come back, Layne was rubbing his hands together anxiously. He had never been good with scary things, like any time we tried to do a haunted house, he’d always scream even if it was his shadow!

Ji-Yeong though, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, though I usually was never sure what he was thinking.

“And, I’m back.” The girl announced, returning to the screen, this time fully dressed in a tank top and… well, I wasn’t sure what else. I could only see the top half of her. “First off, my name is Skye, and I really would not suggest going to the school for any kind of “ghost hunt”,” Skye said, giving air quotes around the word ghost hunt. “Ghosts are not things to mess with or there will be consequences.” We all nodded, while I chuckled to myself, trying not to be heard so that way Skye wouldn’t yell. Did this chick really believe that ghosts were a thing? This was hilarious. She took a deep breath before she began speaking.

“It was almost thirty years ago, and our giant school had once been a house. It wasn’t a nice house, like the other ones around the neighborhood, no. It was graying, old and the wood was warping from its age. The windows were constantly dirty, smeared with handprints, and dust, yet no matter how often they were cleaned they stayed dirty. Living in this house was a nice, older couple; a man and a woman. They were poor, but cheerful and kind. The whole neighborhood enjoyed their presence. But the problem wasn’t the people, it was the house.”

“While inside the house, the couple would experience strange happenings at night. When the couple would wake up there, outside their bedroom door, the couple would their walls had huge claw marks marking the width of them, furniture would be destroyed, and what looked like blood was smeared on the floor and walls. Each time the couple tried to fix the furniture, but it was useless, so they gave up.”

“Every night the couple were terrified by what the morning would bring them or what they would hear in the night. One night, the woman awoke in the middle of the night to hear thumping on their bedroom door. It was soft, at first, but it slowly increased in volume until the thumping was hard, heavy pounding that caused the door to shake in its frame. At this point, the man had woken up as well and was holding his wife tightly against him.”

“He wished that he could get out of bed and call the police, but he was so shaken that he could barely sit up. Soon though, the pounding stopped, and the door no longer shook, but the couple refused to go to sleep. They were too frightened. Too afraid of what might occur if they were to close their eyes.”

“When morning finally arrived, the couple could barely keep their eyes open. They were exhausted from staying awake. If this kept happening the couple would never be able to sleep again. The woman asked her husband to check outside the door. See what had been left by whoever was outside their door terrorizing them. Her husband climbed out of bed and checked behind the door. There on the back of the door were words written in smeared blood “LEAVE”. It was the first clear message of many more that they would receive in the coming week.”

“The woman immediately wanted to go and live with her parents. She tried to convince her husband to follow, but he just thought that it was some elaborate practical joke. Someone kept coming in, destroying everything, and scaring them. So, each night, he kept his shotgun by his side of the bed. His wife, not wanting to leave him there alone, stayed by his side. But as the week progressed, each night was worse than the last. “DIE”, “GET OUT” and many more things were written. The woman was a sobbing mess, she just wanted to leave. The poor woman was at her wit's end, thinking she’d go insane. Her husband decided that this was the last night this was going to happen to them.”

“That night, the man stayed wide awake. Keeping watch to protect his wife. Once 3 am hit the soft thudding began. His wife whimpered and clung to him. This was it. The man steeled his nerves and climbed out of bed, holding his shotgun with a death grip. He swung the door open and saw only darkness. His sigh of relief was short-lived as a huge shadowy figure formed in his doorway. It was huge, almost 8ft tall, with claws as long as his forearm. The creature swung its claws down across the man and tore him to pieces. His body was flung against the old, decrepit wall of their house, his blood smearing as he fell to the floor. His wife screamed bloody murder and without a single thought hid under her bed covers. It was the only rational thought she held, her bed was safe and that’s where she should hide. But unfortunately, it wasn’t as safe as she wished. The monsters thudding steps came closer and closer, she quivered in fear, praying to God, underneath the thick quilt on her bed. The monster slammed its hand on her body, holding her down before it peeled the covers back to reveal her face. The poor woman screamed in terror. Despite the creature being mostly shadowed its face was horrific. It opened its mouth in a smile, but his eyes were what really scared her. They were feral and glowed a disgusting yellow color. Tears streamed down her face as the monster attacked…”

Skye’s voice was chilling. She was so into the story that I actually was kind of believing it. A shiver ran up my back. Had it always been this cold in here? I rubbed my arms, trying to bring some warmth back to me. Ji-Yeong noticed that and reached into his backpack to pull out the blanket Poppy had packed. I smiled gratefully at him, he was still being kind to me, despite how rude I’d been to him. I mouthed the words thank you to him and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders, pulling it tight against me.

“The couple wouldn’t be found until weeks later. Their deaths were investigated by the police and would be in every newspaper for months afterward, detailing their gory deaths, but in the end, nothing was found. And in the end, the tiny decrepit house was demolished. The lot was left empty until someone decided to build this school on top of it. Nowadays, no one is allowed in the school at night, because anytime someone was here at night, the thudding would begin again. Signaling that the monster has returned.”