Channels: A Collection, page 10
A creature chased after the man. It appeared to be as tall as him, but its appearance was like that of an insect. In the middle of its torso, there was a small set of arms that ended in what looked like giant, curved claws. Its upper extremities ended at hands that each had six clawed fingers.
Jeff watched on as the creature pounced on the man, taking him down, face first, onto the pavement. As it began eating him, three more creatures came up behind it and joined in on the feast.
Standing there, wide eyed, Jeff quickly grabbed a soda bottle and a few bags of chips from the floor before running back to the bathroom. Once inside, he locked the door and sat on the floor where he had been just a few minutes ago. He figured he would wait it out until help arrived... if it arrived.
Waiting there, Jeff felt defeated, but at least there was a toilet nearby if his IBS gave him any more problems while he waited.
Death By Pumpkin
FAGET
That word, that misspelled word crudely written on Jimmy’s locker in black magic marker. He knew it was one of two people who had written it: Paul Kline, or his lackey, Jay Herndon.
Most likely, it was Paul, considering the misspelling. Jay, despite following Paul around like a puppy dog, wasn’t as much of an idiot. He actually seemed to have some semblance of intelligence about him.
For the most part, Jimmy’s high school experience was fine. Middle school was a bit rough with bullying, but high school, overall, was much easier. It was just Paul, the main culprit of his middle school misery, who still gave him problems. Jay just followed along with whatever Paul did, so he just felt more like an add on.
The funny thing about it all was that Jimmy wasn’t even gay. He had a few gay friends, and considered himself an ally, but he had never felt an attraction for the same sex. He didn’t even understand why Paul still insisted on being such an asshole to him, why he hadn’t found a new punching bag for his torment. Or, god forbid, why he hadn’t just fucking grown up and acted like a decent person by now.
It always pissed Jimmy off that Paul had the look and build of a jock without ever working out or playing sports a day in his life. How a guy could be blessed like that and have a hot girlfriend but still be an asshole was beyond him, even if said girlfriend was kind of a bitch.
Jimmy had tried for years to go to the gym and work out, but rarely ever saw any progress. He supposed he was just genetically predestined to have a smaller frame for life. There was irony in the fact that Jay was a similar build, yet Paul didn’t act like a shit head towards him… at least not as often.
Doing his best to ignore the graffiti on his locker, Jimmy grabbed his jacket and decided to take the long way home from school. He often did this, as he liked walking along the train tracks through the woods. It was peaceful and gave him time to decompress. Especially on days when Paul managed to get him worked up, which was at least once a week.
He walked out of the school and down the path a few blocks away that led to the tracks. It was a crisp autumn day, and the leaves were in their peak of changing color, which would definitely make for a beautiful walk.
This was his favorite time of year to take this walk. Something about the colorful trees, the cool air, and the creosote smell of the tracks brought him comfort. He was already forgetting about his locker as he climbed the mound of rocks that bordered the tracks.
“I wish I could have seen his face” Paul said, referring to his graffiti with a prideful smile.
“What did you do?” Kim, Paul’s girlfriend, asked.
“I wrote on his locker. Big letters. F A G E T. I bet he was so pissed.”
Paul started to laugh, but stopped when he saw the look the others were giving him. “What?”
“That’s not how you spell it, jackass.” Lacey, Kim’s best friend, said with a scoff.
“See” Paul started, punching Jay in the arm, “This is why I wanted you to do it.”
“I can’t help it I had to stay after class, dude.” Jay said.
“Too busy sucking Mr. Vaughn’s cock?”
Jay blushed at this. He liked hanging out with Paul, but hated it when he showboated in front of people. Especially when nobody else was around for him to fuck with. This always made Jay the target of Paul’s idiocy.
“I don’t know why you won’t just leave Jimmy alone. He’s not a bad guy. Every time you mess with him, he walks along those tracks looking all lonely and sad.” Lacey chimed in.
“Wait… what?” Paul asked.
“I’ve seen him a few times. I used to walk across the Patrick Street bridge that crosses over the tracks on my way home before I moved. I would see him sometimes.”
“Dude! We should go find him!” Paul said excitedly, punching Jay in the arm once again.
“Okay” Jay said, despite not wanting to.
“You coming?” Paul asked the girls.
“No. I’m kinda over that shit. We’re seniors now. A little old to still be bullying people.” Kim said.
“Suit yourself. Find your own ride home, then.”
Kim and Lacey both rolled their eyes as they began walking away.
“Bitch” Paul muttered under his breath before turning to Jay and nodding to his truck. “Come on, man. Let’s go. I bet we can get there before he does.”
As they hopped in the truck and sped off, Jay was relieved that the girls hadn’t joined them. Whenever Kim was around, she and Paul would just argue the whole time. She also always made Jay feel awkward because she constantly tried to play matchmaker, doing her best to get Jay and Lacey to hook up, despite neither of them remotely being interested in the other. The girls not being around also meant that Paul wouldn’t showboat as much. He was always a much more tolerable person when it was just the two of them.
Paul sped along the road, trying to make it to the bridge before Jimmy made it there. Jay jumped at the sound of something thumping against the back of the truck when they stopped at a red light.
“What’s back there?” he asked.
“A pumpkin.”
“Why do you have a pumpkin in the back of your truck?”
“Because it’s almost Halloween.”
Jay gave him an odd look. Paul wasn’t one to get excited over any holiday like that.
“It’s Kim’s actually. We picked it up yesterday. She must have left it by accident when I dropped her off.” He scoffed, “I was trying to get her to put out, but she was being a frigid bitch. I don’t know what her issue is lately.”
Jay knew why, but he wasn’t about to tell Paul. He had overheard her talking about breaking up with him. He was dreading the day when she finally did it, knowing how obnoxious Paul would probably act afterwards to cover up his anger and embarrassment at being dumped.
“There it is” Paul said as they approached the bridge. “And I have an idea.”
“What?” Jay asked.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
He parked the truck in a small gravel patch at the far end of the bridge, the side closest to the tracks. Paul grabbed the pumpkin out of the bed of the truck as he walked by.
“This ought to make him shit his pants, dude!” He said, excitedly.
“Dude! That could really hurt him.”
“Don’t be such a puss. I’m not going to throw it at him. Just close enough to scare the fuck out of him.”
Jay nodded but knew that probably wasn’t true. He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach at how bad this could turn out.
Stepping onto the bridge, Paul lit up at the luck of their timing. Jimmy was approaching, almost to the bridge. Distracted by something, most likely deep thought, Jimmy didn’t even seem to notice Paul and Jay standing up there about thirty feet overhead.
As Jimmy was just about to step under the bridge, Paul lifted the pumpkin over his head and threw it down with force. It landed directly on top of Jimmy’s head, immediately taking him down to the ground.
“Fuck! Dude!” Jay screamed.
They both stared on at Jimmy’s limp form, not showing any signs of life.
“I didn’t mean to hit him, I swear!”
“We need to see if he’s okay!”
“Fuck that shit! You can stay and check on him, but I’m getting the fuck out of dodge.”
Paul ran back to the truck, praying nobody would drive by and see them there. Jay hesitated for a moment before turning and following just behind him. As soon as the truck started up, Paul had it in gear and floored it, spinning the tires and flinging gravel as he got back on the road and sped off.
Jimmy didn’t know what hit him. One minute, he was walking, thinking about what movie he was going to watch that night, the next, everything was black. For a moment, it was as if he was standing outside of himself, looking down on his limp body that lay along the tracks. Almost in a trance at the realization that he was most likely dead, he was startled by the sound of a loud horn.
A train was approaching. He panicked at the thought of it running over his body. Even if he was dead, that was already bad enough. He didn’t want to see his body obliterated by a freight train. He reached down in an attempt to grab it, but that proved futile, just as he thought it would.
Fuck! No! Please!
He jumped back at the sight of two black figures approaching. They appeared to be dressed like teenagers but had black stockings over their face like something from a home invasion movie. The two figures grabbed his dead hands. Together, dragged his body off of the tracks and under the bridge.
Looking up at him, they waved him over to them. He approached slowly, cautiously, unaware of what was happening. It all felt like a dream. As he once again stood over his own dead body, they each reached out and grabbed his hands. Dizziness overtook him, and everything around him went blurry.
What he experienced next was like a dream that came in flashes. Visions that played like a slideshow. Images of violence, destruction, revenge, blood. He saw Paul up on the bridge, throwing the pumpkin. In the background, Lacey’s voice telling Paul she had seen him walking along the tracks before. The last thing he saw was Paul and Jay’s slaughtered bodies lying on the ground, Kim and Lacey’s just beside them.
His dizziness faded, and suddenly, he was back under the bridge with the two dark figures. “Is that what I’m supposed to do?”
They nodded at him.
“I… I don’t know if I can.”
The figures knelt down in front of his body and turned his head to face them. Leaning down, they pulled the stockings over their heads up, just far enough to expose their mouths. In unison, the breathed into Jimmy’s mouth, and he saw his body begin to twitch.
In an instant, Jimmy was suddenly back in his own body again. He felt different. Not quite alive, not quite dead. His breath felt more shallow than normal, as if it wasn’t necessary for him to breathe. He also couldn’t feel his heart beating.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
The two figures fully removed the stockings from their heads. What he saw before him was two sad-looking teenage boys, their faces showing bruises and abrasions, as if they had spent a lifetime being beaten and battered. Recognition struck, and he knew that they were like him. They had lived a life full of tormentors as well.
“Thank you.”
The one to the left held up a finger, in a ‘one second’ gesture before walking over to the pumpkin that lay on the rocks. Returning, he held the pumpkin up in front of Jimmy. It transformed into a carved Jack-o-lantern; a sinister, almost scary look carved into its face. He noticed that there was also a hole at the bottom.
He knew what it was for, though he was unsure of how he knew. He nodded at the two and dipped his body slightly, tilting his head towards them. They placed the pumpkin over his head until the hole reached the bottom of his neck. He was now wearing it as one would with a mask.
Before he could mention that the eyes didn’t quite line up, he felt a sensation as if the pumpkin was gripping onto him. The next thing he knew, the pumpkin had formed to his head, no longer like a mask, but like an actual part of his body.
The two figures nodded at him, and he walked off into the woods to hide, waiting for nightfall. His journey through the woods brought him to a large shed that sat just outside of the tree line at the edge of the woods. Off in the distance, he could see the house where the owners of the shed lived. It appeared as if nobody was home. He stepped inside the shed to hide, while he waited for nightfall. Looking around, he found this shed to be more useful than he had originally thought.
An array of tools that could be used as weapons were strewn about. He knew he couldn’t carry too many things, so he settled on what was easy to carry, an ax and a hammer. He then turned to see a spear leaning against the wall. Who the fuck owns a spear? He thought. He liked the look of it though, so he grabbed it and sat until darkness took over outside.
Later that night, after driving around for a while, Paul and Jay eventually stopped to grab something to eat. Sitting in the truck with their burgers, Paul could see that Jay still hadn’t calmed down any. He was clearly still shaken, barely touching his food.
Paul, on the other hand, scarfed down his burger and fries fast, as usual. Jay couldn’t help but wonder how Paul was so carefree about the whole thing. He may have actually killed Jimmy, yet he was acting if it was just another day. It kept making him second guess himself, wondering if he was overreacting. It was a tendency he often had, after all. He also hoped that Jimmy was okay, that they would return to school on Monday and see him, possibly hurt, but at least not dead.
After they had eaten, they drove around some more, both seemingly not wanting to go home. Eventually, Paul had driven up the dirt and gravel path a few miles from his house that led up to a cell tower. Up there by the tower, it was surrounded by trees, and not many houses nearby. He often came here for the privacy of it. It was a good place to get high or drunk without getting caught, and also a good place to bring Kim when they wanted to fool around.
Once parked, he reached over and opened the glove box, pulling out a joint. “It’ll be fine, man” he said to Jay. “This will calm you down.”
“But what if he’s…” Jay couldn’t even finish the question.
“He’s not, man. I promise. Sure, it knocked him out, but he probably just woke up seeing stars, not knowing what hit him… well, he’ll know what hit him when he sees the pumpkin, but you know what I mean.” He said with a laugh.
This reassured Jay some, but he still felt uneasy.
“Hand it over” Jay said, reaching for the joint just after Paul lit it. Usually, he wasn’t a fan of weed, but tonight, he wanted something to help calm his nerves.
They sat there for a while with the doors open, passing the joint back and forth, neither of them saying much. The only sound was crickets and cicadas chirping in the trees and the truck radio softly playing a classic rock station. Jay stared off into the sky, taking in the cool air and feeling almost mesmerized as he gazed at the stars above. The joint was doing its job.
Paul sat there, bored, lightly drumming his hands on the steering wheel. Beside him, he heard Jay sigh, and knew that he was finally calming down some. He reached over and patted Jay on the shoulder. “You feelin’ better at all, man?”
Without turning to face him, Jay nodded. He was still stargazing, a bit frustrated that Paul had pulled him out of his trance.
“I knew that j would relax you” he said, lighting up a cigarette.
“Yeah, man. Thanks.”
“You know what would relax me?”
“What?”
“If you took care of this for me.”
Jay turned to see Paul sitting there with his fly open. His dick was out and pointing straight up.
“Seriously?”
“What? You’ve done it before.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like you ever return the favor.”
“I’m not gay.”
Jay gave him an accusatory look.
Paul shrugged, “I’m not. I just happen to have a buddy who gives good head and a girlfriend who never puts out.”
“How are you even turned on right now, after everything?”
“I’m seventeen. It basically stays this way most of the time.”
Jay rolled his eyes and went to turn his back to Paul.
“Come on, man. Who hooks you up with weed and beer all the time, huh? Who got the Grant brothers to stop fucking with you in middle school?”
Jay sighed. He hated that he had an attraction to Paul, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop hanging out with him. Being away from him bothered him even more. He knew Paul wouldn’t drop it until he got him off, so reluctantly, he leaned over and took him into his mouth.
“Thanks, buddy” Paul said before taking a drag off his cigarette and leaning his seat back to enjoy the blowjob.
As he had the previous times he’d gone down on Paul, Jay unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down, taking care of himself while he did it. He was almost disgusted at himself for getting a hard-on, especially since he had just been judging Paul for doing the same.
Jimmy approached the truck quietly, half expecting them to notice him. What he didn’t expect was to find them in this position, Jay on his knees in the passenger seat, bent over with Paul’s cock in his mouth.
This explains a lot, actually, He thought to himself.
With Jay’s bare ass up in the air, almost as if he was presenting it to an outsider, an idea struck Jimmy. He positioned himself a few feet behind Jay, his spear at the ready, lined up for his asshole. He heard Paul begin to grunt and knew his window of opportunity was closing. With that, he charged forward, piercing Jay’s asshole with the spear, lodging it in about two feet deep.
Jay made a grunting gurgle of a sound as his body was penetrated by the spear, but it could barely be heard over Paul’s scream of agony. He gasped in pain, or at least, he tried to.
Paul’s now severed penis, now bitten off at the base, had lodged in his throat. He was bleeding out and choking to death at the same time. His face went red hot, the blood rushing to it as he grabbed his throat, trying unsuccessfully to get his breath. The last thought that went through his head was shame of his body being found this way and his parents knowing how he died.
