Newly Abandoned

Have you ever seen one of those old abandoned houses or buildings that always seem to litter the town? You know the ones. The old withering structures that haven’t been touched in years, but are somehow still standing? The ones that always have rumors of ghosts or monsters hiding in them, waiting to scare the little boys and girls of the town? Well, what if I told you, that they are so much worse, right after they are abandoned, whether anyone has ever died in it or not. I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, the last thing you want to do, is to be in a building that was recently left to rot. I should explain myself a little bit. My name is Shelby, Shelby Bracket. I am sixteen years old, and live in Sioux City, Iowa. Haven’t heard of it? It’s okay, no one has. Anyways, I live just a block away from Hemingway Elementary school, or, at least what’s left of it. A year ago it was shut down, due to the fact the school didn’t have air conditioning, and it wasn’t safe for students to be in during the hot days at the beginning and the end of the school year. Since it was an unsafe building, the city decided to build a brand new school, twice the size of Hemingway, and take all the students from Hemingway and another local school and put them together. This left a pretty large sized, 4 story brick building, just one block away from me. Well, about two nights after it was officially closed down, my parents decided to go out for a weekend alone, leaving me by myself. Of course, being a sixteen year old, I called some friends over. I called over my best friends Alyx and Jack. Both of which brought their boyfriends with them, unbeknownst to me. Upon seeing there significant others, I decided I should call my boyfriend, Rowdy over, His real name was Ronald, but no one called him that in fear of him throwing a fit and kicking the shit out of them. Rowdy was about five years older than I was, but since Iowa’s legal age of sexual consent is sixteen years old, we started dating about five months ago. He came right over, and we all settle down in the living room to play some Cards Against Humanity. It didn’t take long for the subject to turn to the abandoned school. “Hey Shelby,” Rick, Alyx’s boyfriend said, “Isn’t that school down the street closed now?” I nodded my head, not wanting to talk about it and trying to continue o with the game. “Dudes! I got a sweet idea! Why don’t we head down there huh? Go in there, smoke some bowls. It’ll be sweet!” Stacy, Rowdy, and Shane, Jacks boyfriend, all agreed. I didn’t want to, but I was too embarrassed to tell them that. Luckily I didn’t have to. “Come on Shane, you promised to stay clean for a week, remember?” Jack said, pulling on Shane’s arm playfully. Shane rolled his eyes, “Come on Jack, it’s not that big of a deal. I promise I won’t make you smoke any this time. Let’s just go have some fun.” Jack made childish ‘pouty-face’ which Shane removed by poking him a couple times in the side. After a little bit of prodding, Jack agreed, and without even asking for my opinion, everyone started grabbing there things and walking out the door. Rowdy took my hand and practically pulled me outside to follow the others, but right as we stepped outside, I could feel the bile rise up in my stomach. I practically threw myself at the railing of my front porch as vomit spewed out of my mouth. In seconds I could feel Rowdy’s hands pulling back my long, red hair and rubbing my back. He has gotten used to having to do this, since I have had a stomach bug for the last week or so. No matter what I didn’t it didn’t seem to get any better. I ran inside and grabbed a wet wash rag to wipe my mouth with and put it in my purse in case I got sick again, and followed everyone back outside. After verifying with everyone that I was just fine and nothing was wrong, we started our way down the street to the school. I shivered when the school got in view, I hated this school, hated it for years, but I never really knew why. I used to go here myself after my family moved into or current house, but after I left, it just gave me the chills. Now it was so bad I was actually shivering, and with it being a rather warm night in May, that is saying something. Rick and Shane went around to the back of the school to try to find a way in, and only a moment later came back around the corner, motioning for us to follow them. It appeared that the city forgot to lock the back door to the school, that or they just didn’t care anymore, and we took our chance and went inside while no one seemed to be watching us. We walked around the school, amazed at how nice it still looked. There were no leaky roofs, broken windows, nothing seemed out of place. Well, except the lack of furniture, light, or anything to show that this once housed human beings. We decided to go downstairs into the gymnasium, yes the gymnasium was in the basement, and smoke down there were no one outside could see us in there. We sat on the floor near the center of the room and Rick pulled out his pipe and started filling it up. I sat there, still shivering, for some reason, I was freezing cold. No one else seemed to have any problems, but Alyx and Rowdy did take notice of it. Rowdy wrapped his arm around me, and commented how my skin was freezing. Alyx reached into her purse and found a thing of hand warmers, she always had some on her since she was constantly getting cold, and handed me one. I grasped it in my shaking hands and begged for it to start taki9ng affect. A moment or two later it started to heat up and I placed it in my lap so as to not burn my skin on it. Rick took a big hit off of his pipe and passed it to Shane as he blew it out, immediately making the area smell of pot. I could feel my stomach start to turn, but not bad enough that I needed to excuse myself, I tried to ignore it and watched the pipe travel along the group. Rowdy took his hit and was handing it to me, when something happened that I couldn’t ignore. Neither could the rest of the group. We heard a large crash, coming from what sounded like the top floor of the school. Everybody froze, the combination of the silence and the smoke in the air almost suffocating me, as we waited to hear something else. Nothing. Jack finally broke the silence by saying, “Maybe someone just through a rock or something through a window. I am sure it’s nothing.” We all nodded in agreement, but something didn’t feel right with me. That crash was too loud to be just a rock, and in order to hear it from all the way down here, it couldn’t have been just a rock. Could it? We were about to continue our conversation, when we heard another noise, this one we couldn’t just pass off as someone throwing a rock. There was a loud scream, on that made every hair on my body stand up. It sounded like it belonged in a horror movie, not in a school. This scream though, only came from two floors above us. I don’t know why, but I got the feeling that something was coming closer to us, and the, we needed to run. I said this to the group and without saying another word we all started towards the door we had gotten in by. Jack was the first to reach the door, but when he grabbed the handle we heard a soft sizzling noise, then joined by Jacks scream, and the smell of something burning. Jack removed his hand from the door handle, only to find that his skin had melted off. There was nothing left of his palm but bones and some scraps of muscle, barely hanging on to itself. His screams echoed in the halls as he gripped his wrist, as if doing so would numb the pain in his hand. Rick cursed aloud then started running towards the main entrance to the building. The rest of us stayed with Jack, not even knowing Rick had left, until we heard the sounds of something scraping against the marble floor, then Ricks screams, coming from the other end of the school. The scream didn’t last long, only a couple seconds, before it was transformed into a sick gurgling sound that made my skin crawl. Now the school wasn’t that large, so we knew that the scream didn’t come from too far off. Alyx started to freak, constantly screaming Ricks name, while Rowdy and I tried to keep her quiet. It didn’t help though, because we soon saw a strange, sickly silhouette at the end of the hall. It looked hunched over, dragging its hands against the ground, making that sickening scraping sound as it walked. Oh God! It was walking towards us! I stared in horror for a second as I saw it slowly make its way down the hallway, whatever it was, either it couldn’t move very fast, or it chose not to, knowing that no matter what, we weren’t going to be getting away from it. Rowdy, Alyx, and I ran up the nearest stairwell and threw ourselves into a class room, locking the door behind us. We heard Shane and Jack trying to follow behind us but they were soon replaced with the sounds of screams and of muscle and bones being ripped apart, followed by more of that god damn scratching. Alyx was still hysterical, still crying and sobbing about Rick, Rowdy was trying to calm her down to quiet her. I on the other hand, felt like something was wrong. Not just with this situation, but something was wrong about this room. Something was wrong about locking the door. We heard the scraping sound reach our floor and we all stayed quiet, not wanting to alert it to where we were. We heard it, right outside the door, and Rowdy had to place his hand over Alyx’s mouth to keep her from screaming. That’s when I got the feeling I should look at the room, take a really good look. The room was dark, and it was hard to see anything in this light, but I could make out the basic shapes of the windows, the chalk board, the other door… Shit! I forgot about the other door. The class rooms were all set up to be connected to a closet for the kids backpacks and coats, and it had its own entrance to the hall. That is when we heard the scraping sound start moving down the side of the room, towards the other door. It was in the closet. I ran towards the other door, slamming it shut loudly, scaring Alyx and Rowdy enough to make them both scream as I did it. I realized suddenly that the door didn’t lock though, so I pushed against it as I heard the old bronze handle start to turn. Rowdy heard it too, and was immediately by my side, pushing the door closed as hard as he could against the thing that was now pushing from the other side. We were trying as hard as we could, but something told me that this thing wasn’t. It felt like it was toying with us. I looked over at Alyx to see her shaking by the other door, and before I had a chance to yell at her to help us, she unlocked her door and threw it open, ready to run. In a flash, the pushing stopped on our door and that, that thing, was in the room with us, Alyx was in its hands, its long, bladed hands. It didn’t have fingers just long blades, the size of steak knives, but something told me these would be much, much sharper. Its hands were around Alyx’s throat, blood was pooling down her body to the floor. I watched as she desperately tried to claw at the hand around her throat, abut all it did was cut he hands on his fingers and soon there was barely anything but stumps left. She turned to me then, and I looked deep into her eyes. There was nothing there, but unaltered, unbelievable terror. Then, in an instant, it closed its fingers, and her body fell to the floor. Her head stayed on the wall however, until he dropped his fingers to his side. That is when it turned and looked at us, and I finally got a good look at just what the fuck it was. Its skin was pure white, and very thin, since you could see dark greyish veins sporadically over its body. It was partially hunched over its own hands, as if those claws it had weighed more than the rest of its body. Then I looked at its face. It looked, mostly human, it had ears eyes and a nose like a human, though its eyes seemed to be almost completely black. Its mouth however, that was a different story. Its mouth was abnormally long, with sickeningly long, white teeth that ended in points just as sharp as its claws. And its tongue, oh God its tongue was the worst part. It was long and thick, thicker than my wrist, and as long as a pen, and it was jet black. Blacker than the night itself. I watched its tongue wiggle and squirm, its wet surface looking like it had been dipped in ink. I didn’t have much of a chance to stare though, because after it set its eyes on us I felt the vomit start to rise in my stomach. I turned and through up all over the door next to me, while Rowdy stood between me and that thing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his favorite knife, he always kept it on him, and yelled at the thing to stay away. That, that is when it started, to laugh. It was soft at first, barely audible over the sound of my vomiting, but it got louder. It was hoarse, and low, like it had been smoking three packs a day for all of its life. But it got clearer as it got louder, more youthful, more menacing. I finally stopped by vomiting as it stopped laughing. Then, it moved. In a split second it was in front of Rowdy, its hands grasping his arms and lifting him into the air. Rowdy screamed and stabbed the knife as hard as he could into the things arm. A black, oily liquid dribbled out of the wound and onto Rowdy’s hand, making that hissing sound, and burning his skin and muscle quicker than seems humanly possible. The thing didn’t even flinch, it just started laughing again, its tongue squirming violently as it did. Then it pulled Rowdy closer to its face, and dragged its tongue all over his cheeks hair and eyes. Immediately Rowdy started screaming, his skin rising up in welts and boils as the acidic tongue trailed along his face. Finally the thing wrapped its tongue around Rowdy’s neck, making his scream turn into a sickening gagging sound, then silence. His tongue unwound itself from Rowdy’s neck and he dropped to the floor. It turned its head towards me, and I fell onto the floor, my ass landing in the vomit I had just spewed, as it started to walk closer to me. I closed my eyes and turned my head, but I could feel it breathing on my cheek. I whimpered almost like a dog, until I heard it give a sudden intake of breathe, like someone does when they learn a big secret. I felt its breath leave my cheek, and I forced myself to turn my head towards it, and open my eyes. It was just standing there, a huge smile on its face, its teeth mockingly white against the blackness of its mouth. “You…” It’s voice was deep, but gravelly, like one does when they have a sore throat. “You, I cannot kill.” Then it turned around and walked over to Rowdy’s body. It turned Rowdy’s head towards his and stuck its tongue down his throat. I watched, as I could see its tongue moving under Rowdy’s skin, down his throat, and into his chest. It stayed there for a second, then I saw Rowdy’s eyes turn completely white, no source of color at all. Then it dropped him to the floor. Why couldn’t it kill me? What was so special about me that I get to live while my friends had to die! I suddenly found my voice, though it was shaky. “W-w-w-why?” I said. It didn’t even bother looking at me, it just slowly spoke, as if it was not used to speaking, “This place. It’s empty. I don’t like empty. So. I make souls to fill it.” It then moved on To Alyx, doing the same sickening thing with its tongue that it had done to Rowdy. “no,” I stammered, “Why not me? Why make me live with this memory?” It turned it’s head to me, and pointed one of its big, blood soaked claws at me. “Innocent.” “In-innocent? Me?” It shook its head slowly, then walked a couple steps closer to me, and pointed at my stomach. “Him.” It then turned around, and slowly left the room. I heard its claws scarping against the floor, all the way down the stairs, it stopped for a short time, then I heard it again, down the stairs, and out of the building. I sat there for a moment. Trying to understand what had just happened. Then, it came to me. I laid my hand on my stomach, and started to cry softly. I stayed there for a short time, then called the police with my cell phone. I explained to them everything that had happened, but they didn’t believe me of course. They figured some psycho killer murdered my friends, and that I used my baby as leverage to stay alive. I tried to tell them that I didn’t even know I was pregnant then, but they didn’t care. I went home, and the police never caught the “Psycho” they were looking for, and something in me knew they never would. Now I sit here at my computer, typing down the entire incident as I remember it happening. Rowdy Jr. is asleep in his crib next to me. I never let my little miracle out of my sight. He will never know how he saved my life, before he was even three months old. But I warn you, you may not be as lucky. Don’t go into recently abandoned buildings, wait awhile, a year at least if you have to go, but be careful. It will come for you if you don’t.

And it won’t show mercy.