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I’m not sure how to start this, but I suppose that might be how everyone feels when they’ve got a story to tell… well, at the very least, whenever it’s like the one I have.
Up until a few days ago, I was a teacher at the primary school in my neighbourhood; right now, I’m writing this on my laptop in my hospital room –I’m just glad that the staff here realised that I needed something to keep my mind busy… But I’m getting a little sidetracked.
I was in charge of some of the fourth-graders, and I guess my story truly begins during the morning classes when I got one of my students –a typically-shy boy by the name of Lachlan– to do his class presentation. I’d given each of them the chance to choose what they talked about, with the only requirement being that it was based from true events.
For once, Lachlan seemed happy to be standing at the front of the classroom, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet as he shuffled the papers held tightly in his hands. I gave him a smile, shushed the other children, and nodded at him to begin. However, my expression tightened as he spoke while I tried to keep it from falling into a confused frown, knowing quite well that such a thing would only cause the boy to stumble over his words until he fell completely silent and then force me to pull his mark down for not finishing the schoolwork.
He had launched himself into a story about a boy named Robin who he’d met on the previous Saturday, which in and of itself wasn’t the problem… the problem was that Lachlan told the class that this new friend of his was always floating in midair, that this new friend wore metal cuffs around his wrists, that this new friend could make toys appear out of nowhere…
For all of its fanciful nature, Lachlan’s story seemed to enthral the rest of the class. They stared at him with a sort of eagerness that they’d never shown the boy before, and this attention –instead of making his shyness rear its ugly head– actually had Lachlan grinning and laughing in between his sentences.
I didn’t have the heart to interrupt and remind him that the presentation was supposed to be on something that was real… In fact, I decided to let this one slide, and only talk to him about it if something similar ever came up again. When the story finished, Lachlan got an honest applause from his classmates, which seemed to snap him back to his usual self as his face became redder with each step he took back to his desk.
The rest of that day passed without any further strange incidents… but the next day, Lachlan had become the centre of attention once again. Several of his classmates crowded around his desk or followed him around the playground whenever they had the opportunity, asking him questions about his strange new friend.
By the end of the week, the sudden popularity had evolved into something much nastier, once one of the other children declared that Lachlan had made up the whole thing, and in light of the bullying they levied at him –despite my best efforts– he retreated further into his old shell than ever before. I took him to one side when classes ended that Friday, offering him a few chewy mints as a sort of bribe to keep his attention.
“Lachlan, I wanted to ask you something about your presentation.” I said, starting things with an easy opening into what I really wanted to discuss. He nodded, chewing slowly, and I smiled. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. In fact, I think you did really well with it.”
“What did you want to talk about, then?” he asked, blinking and fiddling with the hem of his shirt.
I laced my fingers together and tilted my head slightly. “I noticed that the others are harassing you over it… Are you okay?”
He started, eyes wide, and he was silent for a while before giving me a shaky smile. “I’m fine. In a way, it’s kinda nice that things are going back to normal…”
Nodding, I leaned back a bit in my chair and made a mental note to crack down even harder on the bullies under my care, offering him a bright smile at the same time while nudging the subject in a slightly different direction. “Well, if nothing else, you’ve got that new friend of yours to do things with, right? Does he go to a different school?”
“I don’t think Robin goes to school at all, actually… I’ll ask him when I see him next.” Lachlan’s smile steadied, and I couldn’t help but grin. “I need to get going, though… My mum’s picking me up, and she won’t be happy if I’m too late.”
“Alright. Have a good weekend, and tell your mother that I just wanted to congratulate you on your class presentation, okay?” I waved him out of the room and sat down to go through the day’s schoolwork.
As I worked, in the back of my mind, I ran through Lachlan’s story once again. Something about it just didn’t sit right with me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Shaking my head, I tried to focus on my job, and eventually the tale about a floating boy named Robin who made things appear out of thin air faded into the background.
Maybe, if I’d pushed Lachlan for more information, I wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed now. Maybe we might have avoided what happened…
It was late on Sunday night when the next thing in my story took place. I was leaning against my kitchen bench, waiting for the coffee machine to work its magic, when the knife block fell over with what seemed like an ear-splitting clatter, sending the knives skittering across the bench and to the floor. A sharp yelp left me when the meat cleaver spun to a stop with its blade just millimetres away from my bare toes.
For a couple of minutes, even after my coffee had finished brewing, I just stood there with my heart beating powerfully in my chest… only for it to stop when a noise that simply didn’t belong graced my ears.
Laughter… Musical giggling of a child, seemingly coming from all around me.
“Who… who’s there?!” My voice came out louder than I’d intended but whatever the giggles were coming from didn’t seem to mind, as the sound merely grew in volume until my head was starting to spin. Frustrated, I blurted out, “This isn’t funny!” and a sudden and very empty silence was the response I was given. Once I could think straight, I picked up all of the knives, put them beside the sink to be washed, and grabbed my much-deserved drink.
Monday morning came… and the knives were back in their proper places with the knife block standing upright, as if the previous night hadn’t even happened; at the time, I actually believed I’d imagined it all. While I got ready to head to the school for a new day of teaching, I turned on the television in my living room, letting the first news program I came to fill the silence.
I wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary, if it weren’t for the news anchor starting to talk about some ‘breaking news’…
“At 3am this morning, police found an entire family murdered in their home, after being called by neighbours multiple times over the course of several hours regarding horrific screams reportedly coming from the property. While we don’t know all of the details, we can say that the home was in an absolute shambles and while police haven’t completely ruled it out, it appears that robbery isn’t the reason behind this terrible event. Both of the parents were found strangled and half-buried under numerous household objects… but their nine-year-old son was found in such terrible shape that the authorities haven’t even released the information to the press just yet. We’ll cover this story more as more information is made available to us.”
A sinking feeling started to tie my insides into a heavy knot. Somehow, I was certain that the boy they were talking about was Lachlan… I tried to reassure myself that there wasn’t anything to say one way or another, given what I’d heard, but it didn’t do much to alleviate the feeling.
Suddenly, I jolted, one hand flying up to cover my ear; it felt like someone had stuck something cold and wet into it. Looking around and rubbing my ear to rid it of the sensation, nothing out of the ordinary met my gaze, and a deep scowl pulled at my features. The knot in my gut tightened when that same laughter from the night before sounded out from somewhere near the television.
My mobile phone rang, making me jump once again. I fumbled with it for a moment before I brought it up to my ear. “Hello?”
“You heard about it, right?” the familiar voice of the school’s principal asked, skipping any of his usual preamble or pleasantries. “The murders this morning, I mean?”
I nodded, gripping the phone tightly while my other hand reached for the TV remote to mute the speakers. “Yes, it was just on the news. Do you know who they were?”
“The kid was one of yours,” he replied curtly, following it with a muttered apology before launching into the real reason behind his call. “Look, I’m calling to tell you not to come in to work, today… there was an incident at the school, too.”
I was shocked, blurting out “What? Why, what happened?” before I even realised it.
He was quiet for a while, more than long enough for the knot to start to freeze. “…The police think that Lachlan was killed at the school –in your classroom– and they’ve rightly shut it down for the day, at least, to gather evidence… The whole room’s a mess, and whoever did it fancies themselves a damned artist…”
“…An… artist?” I pressed, my voice coming out strangled and hushed; being right had never felt so disgusting and painful.
A harsh grunt was my only answer at first, but after clearing his throat, he told me… and even now, I wish I hadn’t even asked… “They used blood to paint pictures on the walls, furniture, even the ceiling! What has the police really worried, though, is this warning they left… ‘Who needs school? All he needed was a friend… I was his friend and you made me kill him… You’re next’.”
It felt like I’d been dunked in icy water. Could it be a coincidence, or had Lachlan and his family actually been attacked by that boy who couldn’t possibly exist? “Do… do they know who it’s supposed to be for?”
“Not a cl—…” his voice was cut off and sharp static filled my ear, making me wince and quickly pull the phone away. Looking at the blank screen, I scowled… I was certain I’d charged it overnight…
Again, those giggles cut through my train of thought and I looked around wildly. The sound was closer this time, and I’m not sure if it was my panic or not, but I could see a sort of rippling effect in the air –like a mirage– at the entrance to the kitchen; large enough to be one of my students, hovering about half a foot above the floor, my mind supplied unhelpfully.
At this point, I was terrified… Logically, I knew that Robin, as Lachlan had described him, couldn’t be real. It was impossible. But, so were objects falling over for no reason, let alone sounds coming from nowhere…
I walked over to the knife block and grabbed the largest knife there. Leaving my home wouldn’t do anything to protect me in the long run, as –if there really was someone in the house with me– it would simply give them free rein to do whatever they wanted while I was away… and I’d need to return eventually. As I passed by the old fireplace that I never used, I grabbed one of the pokers as well, and then I hurried into my bedroom and closed the door.
I could recharge my phone there, and once it had enough power, I’d call the police and tell them everything –no matter whether it made me look like I’d lost my mind or not.
A strange pattern of rasps coming closer to the bedroom door caught my attention, almost like a set of light footsteps on something other than my carpeted floor, and I could swear I heard a soft humming alongside it. My hands tightened around my chosen weapons, slowly at first but clenching suddenly tighter when something knocked on my bedroom door. I didn’t move… I didn’t dare move. A few muffled thumps came next; I could swear that who or whatever it was had hit the ceiling followed by the walls, before knocking again.
“Who’s there?” I tried to keep my voice from shaking, but going by the answering laughter, I didn’t really succeed. “Answer me!”
There was complete silence for a bit; it felt like hours, though it was probably only a minute at most. For all of a few naïve seconds, I thought that this whole thing was over…
Then something slammed against the door.
Just like the night before, I yelped, and then that mocking childlike laughter came once again. I was about to say something else –perhaps demand that they leave my home– when my throat went dry. The doorknob was turning.
I stared, frozen in place, as my bedroom door opened to reveal… nothing? My door just… opened by itself? I couldn’t believe it. That’s when I noticed that strange mirage-like effect in the doorway, and I sprang to my feet, holding the knife out in front of me. I tried to ignore the shaking steadily overtaking my body, made obvious by the quivering blade in my grasp, and glared at the doorway.
Whoever –whatever– it was, giggled yet again, and slowly, the rippling in the air seemed to melt away to reveal a child… floating in midair…
He seemed to wait, letting me take in his appearance with a wide sharp-toothed grin on his face, and I took advantage of that; I hoped that, if I could survive this encounter, that I could tell others about him and even provide a clear description of the strange boy…
His hair was messy and bright red, with long pointed ears peeking out from the midst of the curls –although, it almost looked like his hair was becoming more and more frizzy the longer I stared at him. His eyes were almost fever-bright –one silver and one golden– and were ringed in deep, dark shadows that stood out against his tanned and heavily-freckled skin. The clothes he wore looked like they were almost out of another time, and could even have belonged to a farm boy two hundred years ago, complete with old heeled boots that no boy of around ten years old would be caught dead wearing, in my experience.
While my eyes travelled over his form, he started to giggle again, swinging his arms and legs as if this encounter was completely normal and we’d been playing hide-and-seek, or something. As he did so, I noticed the horrendous scars that littered his lower arms, drawing my gaze down to the manacles wrapped securely around his wrists –the chains that dangled from the cuffs jingled quietly with each movement he made…
I licked my lips, forcing myself to look back at his face. “Are you… Robin? Lachlan’s friend?”
In response, his cheery expression morphed into an animalistic snarl. “Bingo! Guess you oldies ain’t always complete morons, then! Good f’you!” He floated closer to me, stopping just short of the shaking tip of my knife, then clasped his hands together and tucked them under his chin. “Poor li’l Locky… I told ‘im you bloody adults don’ like stuff they can’t make no sense of… then, ‘e jus’ had t’go an’ tell people ‘bout me.”
A soft sizzling caught my attention, and I looked closer at his hands; when he let them fall back to his sides, there were red marks where the manacles had touched the skin there. “He told people, and you hurt him for that? You hurt his whole family over being talked about?”
Robin’s hair spontaneously frizzed up to resemble an afro and he let out an almost catlike hiss through his teeth. “Not ‘coz o’that, y’damn twat! ‘Coz he wen’ an’ talked to you! A grown-up!” Again, he floated closer, skirting the blade in my hand for a moment before slapping it out of my grasp. His face was almost right in front of my own, and he spat at me. “If Locky’d only talked ‘bout me t’other kids, I’d’a been fine with it! We could’a had even more friends an’—…!” The strange boy took a deep breath, his hair smoothed out into what seemed to be its natural curly texture, and he drew back away from me, giving me space to wipe the saliva off of my cheek.
I also moved back, only to freeze once again as he bent to pick up the knife he’d made me drop. “Look, Robin, I was only worried about him… The others were—…”
“I know. I was watchin’ ‘em. They weren’t very nice, were they…?” he interrupted me, his voice dipping lower than seemed right for someone who looked that young. The hand holding my knife waved a bit in the air, as if he was testing its weight, and my stomach dropped. “Maybe, after this, I should pay ‘em all a visit, whaddaya think?”
“No!” My own hands raised, although I’m not sure if I was trying to stop him or just trying to get him to calm down before anything went too drastically awry… Regardless, he was startled, staring back at me with his eyes wide and almost fearful. His body slowly drifted down until his feet were touching the floor, and it was only after a few seconds of tense stillness that I noticed what his stare had locked onto…
The poker in my other hand.
I’d almost forgotten that I’d even grabbed it. Without thinking, I swung it at him like it was a baseball bat and his body was a very large ball.
He shrieked loudly the moment that it started to move, but the sound that came out of him when my swing hit home… I’ll never forget it. It pierced through my entire body, and didn’t seem like it was even from our plane of existence. That sizzling I noticed earlier was much more obvious now, and his body was actually smoking…
I drew the poker back, preparing to strike again, but he rammed the knife into my leg. The pain sent me to the floor, and before I could even blink, his hands had wrapped the chains on his manacles around my throat…
That’s the last thing I remember, before waking up in this hospital bed. I suppose someone called the police, or something, and they startled Robin before he could actually kill me. Apparently, just like at the school, they found pictures and writing all over my home, though they haven’t told me what the message actually was, yet.
Since waking up, I’ve been trying to figure out what actually happened… and what Robin really was. I mean, it’s blindingly obvious that he’s not human! Unfortunately, nothing really came to mind that makes any sense… then again, maybe I need to stop thinking about what makes sense, in light of what I saw…
There’s tapping at my window, now… and something red is being painted onto the glass, with nothing there to even do it…
He’s here. Has he come to finish the job? I’ll try to keep writing for as long as I can, but…
‘Found you’.
Whoever finds this, please, don’t just dismiss it as madness.
‘I like playing, but…’
I don’t think I’ll survive his second visit… I’m not crazy!
‘…NO ADULTS ALLOWED’.
…Goodbye.