This is a horror story I wrote after learning a bit of the "CreepyPasta" formula. Because it is a horror story, please be warned that there are some gory/scary scenes and some harsh language (curse words). Please stop reading if these are things that will bother you or get you in trouble. I appreciate your cooperation.
On November 13th last year a girl named Rachel was found dead in her room, a clean cut sliced across her neck and blood dripping onto her fancy dress. The police ruled it a suicide. The knife was in her hand and no one had entered her room until she was found by her boyfriend when he came to pick her up to go to the dance.
She had given no indication of suicide and it was a shock to her family and friends. The only hint they found was the phrase “Rachel killed herself, she slit her throat with a knife” scribbled onto one of the blanks of an unfinished history worksheet, as the answer to “Name one supporter of suffrage and what they did to promote it.” It wasn’t her handwriting on the paper, but the police couldn’t find who had written it, and it was deemed irrelevant.
Rumors spread around town after that. Eric, Rachel’s boyfriend, said that the handwriting on the note looked like it belonged to that weird smart kid at their school. No one believed him. There was no way that Bradley Wright could have written the note.
- - -
Suzanna looked over to her left. The boy sitting there had his nose in his biology book, scribbling answers into the open notebook on his desk. She couldn’t remember his name, even though she thought she talked to him last week. She tapped her pencil against her desk and tried to remember. She sighed. In two minutes class would start, and she didn’t have the time to be polite.
“Hey… uh… smart kid.”
The boy scratched the last answer on the page. He didn’t notice her. She tapped him with her pencil.
“Smart kid, hey. Look, I forgot about this assignment yesterday. Can you help me out?”
He turned to her and blinked.
“Can you give me the answers for 4, 8, and 10? The answers for the odd numbers were in the back but I need these three to finish.”
The boy looked back at his notebook and stared for a moment. Suzanna tapped him again with her pencil.
“Come on. I need to finish this. It’s not a big deal, I know you gave Doug answers yesterday.”
“Ribosomes. Osmosis. Proteins,” he muttered.
“What?”
He was opening a paperback novel. She tapped him again. “Hey, what did you say?”
“4: Ribosomes. 8: Osmosis. 10: Proteins. Now stop tapping me, I’m trying to read.”
Bradley Wright liked things to be kept out of his way. At 15 years old he still wore shoes with Velcro to keep loose shoelaces from being tripped on. He tied back his long hair behind his shoulders to keep it out of his face. He kept his locker organized and in order to reach his books quickly. He found and took the shortest path to any destination. Even with all his order and efficiency, however, he suffered from one flaw that slowed him down: Bradley was a procrastinator.
Bradley didn’t see procrastination as a flaw, however. School work came easily to him, so he never worried about putting it off, he could finish it before class as long as he wasn’t bothered too much. Every day at school there were other kids with unfinished work, too. He knew this because every day they would ask him for answers to assignments before class. Sure, his father would often yell at him for putting off his homework or chores, but he had learned to tune that out long ago. As long as the work that was due was done, he had nothing to worry about. As for the work that had no deadlines: his ideas for stories, plans for trips, unfinished drawings of comics… well, they weren’t going anywhere, right?
To say that Bradley was a bit of a nerd would be an understatement. He was barely noticed by his classmates at the large high school he attended, but if you asked anyone who did notice him, all they could tell you was that he that smart kid who could answer your homework questions if you bothered him enough. He had always been a quiet boy, more interested in books than socializing with other kids. Even his teachers found him a bit odd. If it weren’t for his perfect grades reminding them of his existence, most wouldn’t even remember he was there.
Only one teacher ever really paid attention to Bradley; and for this reason she was the teacher he disliked the most. His school’s literature teacher, Ms. Lockerby, would greet Bradley each day and ask what book he was reading. He never answered. It wasn’t her business anyway. He didn’t like that she tried to be friendly - what was the point?
Bradley walked into Ms. Lockerby’s classroom and took his seat. He reached into his folder and took the half-finished poetry analysis assignment from the “literature” pocket and set to work.
“Good morning, Mr. Wright.”
Bradley scribbled some details about the meaning of “Harlem” by Langston Hughes.
“Did you finish reading Dante’s Inferno?”
Bradley shot his teacher a quick glare and continued writing.
“It’s a pretty difficult book, are you getting through it alright?”
“Leave me alone. I’m working.”
Ms. Lockerby shook her head. “You should finish your work before class.”
Bradley signed his name at the top of the completed paper. “I always finish before it’s due.”
By this time the rest of the students had settled into the classroom and Ms. Lockerby began checking attendance. When she finished, she turned to the class with a smile. “Today is the first of November! Do you all know what November is?”
A boy named Rodger who sat next to Bradley shouted out, “It’s a month.”
Ms. Lockerby rolled her eyes. “Yes, very astute. Does anyone know what month November is? And don’t anyone say ‘the eleventh’ at least be a little creative.”
A girl in the second row shyly raised her hand. “It’s National Novel Writing Month?”
“Yes!” Ms. Lockerby wrote on the whiteboard, “National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo’ is an annual challenge to write a 50,000 word story in 30 days. Usually people aim to write about 1,666 words a day. It’s a great exercise in participation, writers encourage each other to just keep writing. Even if you feel like your story isn’t good enough, taking the time to write will help you improve. Lots of writers get stuck because they try too hard to make their stories perfect and so they never finish them. This challenge helps people tell their stories in a time limit so that it can be completed.”
Bradley had opened Dante’s Inferno and was too busy reading to listen to this nonsense. Rodger was texting someone under his desk. Neither were paying attention to a word their teacher was saying.
“I can’t ask you students to participate in NaNoWriMo for a grade, but I encourage you to try for yourself! And to get you started… I am going to assign a 1,666 word short story due tomorrow!”
The students in the class who were still listening groaned in unison at the announcement.
“Now don’t be upset, you’ll have all class period to work on it, and I won’t grade on spelling, grammar, or content. I just want you to get some exercise writing and to maybe inspire yourselves.”
The classroom was soon filled with the sound of typing. A few girls in the front of the class chattered to each other, brainstorming story ideas. Bradley kept reading. The class seemed to drag on for hours and he was getting a bit tired of his book, to be honest. Suddenly there was a cracking noise from the desk to his right.
“SHIT!” Rodger reached down to grab his iPhone that he had dropped on the tile floor. A large crack ran across the screen from corner to corner. “Aw fuck.”
Ms. Lockerby had made her way to the back of the room. “This is the sixth time this year I’ve told you to watch your language in this room, Rodger.”
“You said you wouldn’t grade us on content.”
She snatched the phone from his hand and replaced it with a green slip of paper. “I won’t grade your story on content, your mouth fails this course. Maybe without this to distract you, you can get your 1,666 words written in detention tonight.”
Bradley snorted. Ms. Lockerby placed a slip of paper between the pages of his book. He blinked.
“What do I get detention for!?”
The bell rang and the other students hurried out of the classroom. Ms. Lockerby sighed. “I asked you four times today to work on your assignment in class. You haven’t written a word.”
“I always get my work done! This is ridiculous.”
“You can’t finish what you don’t even start. You’ve got to learn to get to work. Write your story in detention tonight.”
Bradley packed up his books with a huff and stomped toward the door.
“You’re so smart, Bradley. You just need to learn to work. If you don’t do your work…”
“I know, I know…” he rolled his eyes, “No one’s going to do it for me.” His dad had used that line on him a hundred times.
“No,” Ms. Lockerby shook her head, “Someone will do it for you.”
Bradley stopped and raised an eyebrow.
“That’s the problem,” she continued, “Eventually someone will do it for you, and you won’t like the results.” She turned her back and walked toward the front of the class. “Someone at your job will finish your work incorrectly, and leave a mess for you to clean up. Someone at the doctor’s office will fill in the paperwork you’ve left blank, and you’ll get the wrong diagnosis. Someone will overhear that great idea of yours, and while you’re sitting around, they’ll make it happen, and take all the credit.” She began to erase the words on the whiteboard. “Finish your work before it finishes you.”
Bradley lowered his head and stepped out of the class.
Three minutes before history class, he was hunched over his desk in the back corner. He flipped through Dante’s Inferno and thought about exchanging it for a better book at the library after school. A mob of students poured in loudly, giggling and gossiping about who was going with who to the upcoming dance. As they took their seats, one of the boys separated from the group and sat backwards in the seat in front of Bradley.
“Hey, help me out smart kid? I just need the answers for the last two. Lemme see your paper.”
Bradley put down the book and reached into his folder. As he touched the worksheet with his fingertips, Ms. Lockerby’s words rang through his mind. “Someone will do it for you, and you won’t like the results.”
Bradley looked at his own paper. In the blank for number six he had written “Theodore Roosevelt” and for number seven “the Spanish–American War.” He looked up at the boy in front of him. He knew his name was Justin, and that he was on the honor roll, even though Bradley had been giving him answers since the start of the school year.
“The answer for number six is William McKinley,” he mumbled, “And number seven is the Civil War.”
Justin scribbled the answers into the blanks on his worksheet. “Thanks, man.” He strolled back to where his friends were sitting and let them pass the completed homework between themselves to copy.
It was the first time Bradley had told someone the incorrect answer. In the past, it had been so easy to just give away his answers so they would leave him alone. In his hurry to get them out of his way, he hadn’t even thought of lying. Despite himself, he felt the corners of his lips curling up. All the kids up there would be wrong. They had put their grades in his hands and he had decided they would be wrong. It was so small, so insignificant, he thought, but he couldn’t help but feel a tiny rush of power that he never knew he had.
The feeling lasted all day. In algebra class Rachel and Eric asked for answers to the workbook pages they had been assigned. The two of them had been passing notes during work time and neither had even started the pages. Bradley gave them the wrong numbers to every answer. He smiled when they thanked him. In French class, Bradley translated an entire paragraph wrong and watched as it was shared with the other students. He almost felt like laughing.
When the last bell rang, however, his spirit dropped. He had detention. He shuffled to the detention room, a small room attached to the library. It used to be a storage closet before the renovations, but even though it was a “classroom” now, it was still full of junk that the school had nowhere else to store. He took a seat as far away from everyone else as he could. The teacher overseeing the class barely acknowledged their existence; he was too busy checking facebook on his tablet. The door opened and the last students entered. They were Suzanna and Rodger.
“Yeah, I had too many tardies in chemistry so Mr. Davis made me come here,” Suzanna sat down at the table next to him. “Woah, what’s the smart kid doing in detention?”
“Oh don’t you know? He’s a real rebel. A bad, bad boy,” Rodger laughed.
“Shut up,” Bradley slammed his book closed. “It’s your fault I’m here.”
“What? How, dude? I didn’t do anything to you.”
“If you hadn’t got in trouble, Ms. Lockerby wouldn’t have even come to the back of the class to see I wasn’t working.”
Rodger laughed again. “Don’t blame me for you not doing work. You’re just pissed because no one gives a shit about you, even when you get in trouble.”
Suzanna pushed Rodger’s seat away with her foot and turned to Bradley. “You weren’t working? You’re the smart kid you always get your stuff done.”
“Yeah,” he huffed, “I could have easily wrote a 1,666 word story whenever so I don’t see why I should be punished.”
“You can really write that quickly? You got an idea for the story?”
“Well, yeah... Uh… A few.” Bradley had several ideas for a neat horror series he had been thinking about for a while. He often doodled monsters and scribbled notes in his binder, but had never taken time to actually write the stories.
The chair screeched as Rodger slid it across the floor back to Bradley’s table. “Hey, if you’re so good at writing, why don’t you write my story for me?”
“Fuck no,” Bradley spat.
“Fuck you,” Rodger punched him in the gut. Bradley leaned over to catch his breath from the impact. Rodger slid closer and put his arm around Bradley’s shoulders. “Look,” he said with a voice of mock friendliness, “I didn’t get you in trouble, but since you insist that I did anyway, I’ll make your wish come true. If you don’t write my paper, you will be in trouble. Okay?”
Suzanna frowned, “Rodger you shouldn’t…”
“Mind your own business, Suzanna,” he snapped.
There was silence for the rest of the detention period.
When the bell rang for the students to finally leave, Bradley had written 1,652 words. He was almost done with the story, and was feeling pretty good about it. For the first time in his life, Bradley felt like he had some power. Power to make his own decisions, to control people’s grades, to write his own story. He was so pleased he didn’t noticed Rodger coming up behind him.
Rodger put his hands on Bradley’s shoulders and leaned over to look at the laptop. “Finished with my story?”
Bradley threw an elbow back into the other boy, though it didn’t seem to faze him. “This is my story. I’m not writing shit for you.”
“Oh but you’re not even finished,” Rodger pointed at the word count, “Here I’ll fix it for you.”
He reached over and typed on the keyboard. Bradley tried to push him away but he only laughed. When he finally stepped back, the word count was at 1,666. Rodger had written one sentence:
"Then Bradley died a terrible death and everyone else had a party without him.”
“Ugh!” He reached for the delete key but Rodger grabbed his hand.
“Hey, look, I helped you out! I finished your story, now you finish mine tonight.” Bradly winced as Rodger crushed his hand in his grip, “Just give it to me tomorrow, alright? No problem.”
The teacher had already left; they were the last two students in the room. Bradley deleted Rodger’s sentence and packed up his things. He would finish that last bit tomorrow. He followed Rodger to the door. He was about to leave when the door slammed in his face. He jumped back and blinked away the shock. When he went to open the door it was stuck. He could see Rodger through the tiny rectangular window. He growled as he rattled the doorknob and banged on the door. “Rodger, unlock the door!”
“Nah. I think you need a little more time to work if you’re gonna get my story finished for sure.” Rodger winked at him through the little window and laughed. Bradley yelled and pounded at the door.
- - -
The next morning Bradley waited for Rodger in the hallway outside of the literature classroom. Rodger strode up to him with a smile. “So, you finish my story?”
Bradley smiled and handed him a stack of papers, neatly stapled. “Here. After you locked me in there last night, I had lots of time to make it perfect for you.”
Rodger raised an eyebrow at him. “Ooookay? Um… thanks, bro. No hard feelings or anything, alright?”
“No. No hard feelings.” Bradley turned and walked away from the classroom.
Rodger scratched the back of his neck. “Hey, uh, aren’t you going to class?”
Bradley shivered, “No, no I can’t. I’ll see you later though.” He smiled, “I promise.”
Rodger shrugged and headed into the classroom, thumbing his finger along the completed homework. There were four pages plus his name on a cover page, and that was good enough for him. He dropped it onto Ms. Lockerby’s desk without reading it and took his seat at the back of the class. He pulled out his iPhone, still working even with the crack on its face, and started a game of Angry Birds.
When the bell rang Ms. Lockerby still wasn’t in the classroom. The students began to chatter between themselves. Rodger looked up from his game and out the lone window in the classroom. Several police cars and an ambulance had gathered in the parking lot.
Ms. Lockerby entered the room with a serious expression. It looked like she had been crying, but was trying to pretend she hadn’t.
“Kids, go ahead and pack up. No work today. The school is going to send you all home early while the teachers deal with an incident here. Your parents are being called and there will be an announcement soon. You can go ahead to your lockers and get ready to go.”
A couple kids asked her what had happened as they got ready to leave, but she didn’t answer. She just walked to the window and looked at the group of emergency vehicles in the parking lot. The students shrugged and left the room, talking amongst themselves.
There was an explosion of conversation in the hallways.
“Yay, no school!”
“What do you think happened?”
“Did something break?”
“Was there a fire?”
“Who cares? Let’s go to my house and play video games.”
“What are all the police here for?”
“I heard some kid died.”
“No way!”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s just a rumor.”
“No, Greg said he saw a body!”
“Probably food poisoning. Did you eat the lunch yesterday? NASTY!”
“I hope it wasn’t someone I know… where’s Claire?”
“You’ll believe anything.”
“A fire’s more likely.”
“Whatever happened there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m just gonna enjoy the day off.”
Rodger found himself moving toward the library and the small classroom attached to it. His locker was in the other direction, but he couldn’t help it. It was like something else was moving him. The closer he got to the library, the fewer students he saw. Several entrances to the hall were blocked by police. He quietly snuck around into the library and behind a bookshelf.
Police officers were walking in and out of the detention room with laptops and cameras. One officer was interviewing the librarian, who was sitting at the check-out desk with tears in her eyes. The police chief was speaking with the principal near where Rodger was hidden.
“We’re certain it was an accident, but the school will have some things to account for. The librarian who found the body said the door was locked from the outside when she went in to look for some books this morning. The boy must have been trapped inside.”
“We sometimes schedule detention in that room. But the teacher in charge said he thought everyone left.”
“He must not have been paying attention. We’ll need to speak with him.”
“What happened in there?”
“The kid must have tried to push out the tiles in the ceiling to get out, but the shelf he climbed up on was unsteady and he fell. He cracked his head on the floor, and the impact caused some crates of books to fall on top of him and trap him there. He had a bad head injury and several broken bones. We think he died of shock sometime around 2 am, but we’ll know more after the autopsy.”
Two officers carried a stretcher with the body out of the classroom. Rodger could see Bradley’s face staring at him with tired, dead eyes. His long hair was matted with dried blood and his body seemed bent out of shape with broken bones. Rodger backed out of the library and ran from the school.
“No way. No. I just saw him this morning…” he muttered as he followed the sidewalk away from the school. “I just saw him I… I must have been mistaken? Maybe it was someone else? Yeah, I mean, he skipped class. The nerd never skips class.”
“Hello, Rodger.”
The voice sent a shiver down his spine. He turned toward a small alleyway between an office building and an empty old restaurant. Bradley was sitting on an overturned box against the restaurant’s brick wall. He was hunched forward, and his arms looked crooked as they rested crossed on his knees. The top of his dark brown hair was noticeably reddened by blood. Dark circles showed under his cold, almost colorless eyes.
“SHIT! What the fuck is with you?!” Rodger glanced left and right. Maybe he was seeing things. Could it be his guilty conscience? There was no one else around to tell him if Bradley was really there.
“What’s with me? What’s with you?” Bradley cocked his head to the side and rested his cheek on his bruised hand. “I thought you were supposed to have a party after my death? Not feeling as cheerful as expected?”
Rodger shook his head violently. “No, no man this is a joke or some shit, you’re not dead you can’t—“
Bradley’s eyes glowed pale in the shadows of the alley. “Ya know, I guess Ms. Lockerby was right. I should have started my work sooner. I never did finish my story after all. I did finish your story though. Aren’t you glad you let me finish it?”
“What?”
“Your story? The one I finished for you. Did you even read it?” He sighed and leaned back against the building. When he crossed his legs, Rodger almost gagged at the sight of a bone tearing through his jeans. A neat stack of papers appeared in Bradley’s hand; transparent at first, they slowly became solid and he could see it was the story he had turned in earlier.
“Ms. Lockerby was right about a lot of things.” Bradley flipped the cover page over to the back and carefully folded the stapled corner. “I never thought I had any power. I just wanted to be left alone. I finished everyone’s work because I just wanted them out of my way. Now I’m stuck here and it seems like you’re all in my way forever. My unfinished business is unfinished business. But I’m going to finish it my way and I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it.”
Bradley cleared his throat and started reading from the paper in front of him. “Once upon a time there was a boy named Rodger.”
“No.”
“Rodger was walking home from school one day when he came across and alley. He decided not to go home after all, and walked into the alley.”
Rodger felt his feet pull at him. His legs began to step into the shadows of the alley. He could feel his heart beating faster as he tried to will his muscles to stop, but it was no use. “NO!”
“He closed his mouth and didn’t scream. He walked into the alley and sat on the ground behind the dumpster.”
Rodger’s lips clinched together tight, so tight it hurt, so tight he could feel his teeth cutting into his inner lips. He tasted blood. “MmmNNnnmmmgggh!”
“He found a pair of nice strong scissors on the ground beside him. The scissors were a bit rusty, but he didn’t mind.”
Rodger fought against himself as his body moved behind the dumpster and collapsed down to the rough ground. He saw the scissors there, shining behind the red flecks, and he felt a tear roll down his cheek.
Bradley smiled at him and leaned forward. He flicked the papers in his hand and continued reading out loud. “Rodger took the scissors in his left hand, and he cut off the pinky finger of his right hand.”
“MmmnnnNNNNNN! NnnnnnGHH!” His hands were shaking as he picked up the scissors and pressed his pinky between old blades, the chips in the metal gave them jagged texture. He shook his head, tears flying from the corners of his eyes. Then… schwick~CRUNCHHHcraccck. “MNNNNNNHH!” Warm, red blood dripped brightly down his hand.
Rodger looked up at the ghost of the person he had locked away the night before. With tears in his eyes and blood on his hands looked up at Bradley and silently pleaded, he begged for him to stop.
Bradley lowered the paper and blinked. He smiled sweetly at Rodger and laughed. “Oh no hard feelings, bro, but this is only the beginning. After all, there’s still 1,567 words left in your story.” |
