Watch Your Back

Chapter 11

Aaron had to go to school the next day. Which meant that he had a lot of things to do. No one even noticed he was gone. But he had a lot of things to make up.

"Mr. Jetsten." Aaron's history teacher, Mrs. Arlert, had given him a packet of things to do in order. She was so fucking organized. Too fucking organized. All the teachers though he was sick, so he had to collect his "sick" papers. Algebra. Algebra. Some chemistry. More algebra. A shit ton of history, and the test he missed didn't help. He mentally slept through his classes. When lunch came around, he practically sprinted to the lunchroom. Nachos and rice. Pizza. Chicken sandwiches. The usual. Fruit. Chips. Eyes. Wait--eyes?! He looked back at the eyes, who looked back at him. The fuck?! The eyes were different eye colors, and had the optic nerve still attached. Aaron gagged. The eyes were dripping blood and other fluid all over the potato salad. There were green ones, browns, and blues. Aaron squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. They were gone. Normal baked beans. Wait. Aaron looked back at the potato salad, and the food was still covered in eyeballs. One girl with a brown braid screamed. Another guy with glasses almost threw up. One teacher came in and frantically herded the kids out of the lunch line, ordering them to sit down at the lunch tables.

Aaron ended up walking back to a nearby table and sat with his best friend, Carl Hopes. Carl was a decent kid who had decent grades. He always smoothed back his blonde hair to accent the thick rimmed hipster glasses he wore. He liked to joke around with Aaron, but his forehead creased whenever he was being serious. He came from a good home, and whenever Aaron had spent the night at his house, they would always hide out in Carl's room to avoid his little twin brothers- Josh and Jason. Otherwise nicknamed as the twins from hell.

"Dude, did you see the eyeballs in the potato salad?" Aaron asked, to clarify that he wasn't insane.

"You saw them, too? I just thought they were Halloween props!" It had been more than a month since Aaron had demanded to hear the asylum's terrifying backstory, but he started thinking maybe his curiosity had something to do with the organs appearing in the mashed potatoes. Someone who knew who he was had done this. And they were messing with him. More specifically, his mind.

"Who the hell would do that? That's fucked up." Carl asked.

"This is crazy." Aaron said, mentally shaking like a leaf.

"Oh, yeah. Where have you been, dude?"

"Uh, I was sick. Stomach flu. Throwing up everywhere."

"Oh. Okay." Carl was quiet, "well, I'm gonna go to the bathroom." Carl stood up and left. There was an awkward silence as the lunchroom seemed to quiet down. But the silence didn't last long, as a scream rang high and clear in the air, followed by a string of curses.

Aaron's head snapped up as he recognized the voice as Carl's, and despite the various commands barked from nearby teachers, Aaron jumped up and sprinted to the direction of the bathrooms down the hall, narrowly avoiding clipping his hip on a nearby table that was packed with girls whispering about the eyes in the salad. Aaron ignored their whispers and dashed past various teachers, some tall, some skinny, some fat. He was solely focused on finding out what happened, if anything happened, to Carl. Aaron arrived at the bathrooms and skidded to a stop, his stomach lurching at the sight that was before him.