The One Who Never Left

An Abandoned School

There's an abandoned school in my neighborhood. There are a lot of abandoned buildings in my neighborhood actually. Ever since the stud mill went out of business, our town is half-ghost, with empty windows and broken doors, blowing open with every gust of wind to terrify young children unfortunate enough to have parents still holding jobs in the forgotten city. No one knows quite how or when the school was abandoned, but everyone knows why.

It all revolves around the story of a boy who got lost. Lost in a little school with two hallways and twelve classrooms. How could he get lost in such a small school? That is the mystery. Was he lured into some confusing, small space by someone and then met his demise? Or did he accidentally lock himself into a closet or a workroom and stay there, slowly wasting away, waiting, hoping for someone to come rescue him. The hunger pains must have grown slowly in his stomach, his throat burning with thirst, his eyes hazy and dim. He must have sat by the door, occasionally lifting a hand to bang against it or to test the knob until he grew too weak even for that. How horrific and miserable the moment must have been when he realized, as a young child, that he would die there, alone.

That is the mystery. What did happen in that little school to the little boy? What horrific event had taken place that had caused his spirit, unsatisfied, to wake from the dead and roam the halls again? Some unfinished deed, the adults said, murmuring where they thought the children couldn't hear them. But we knew. We always knew. Some wrong that needed to be righted, they said, and we heard. And the words burned in our brains, staying there for days, weeks, years, constant, always hanging in the back of our minds. And, when we were alone together, somehow the idea surfaced and dominated all of our conversations, whether we wanted it to or not. It was as if he was there with us, another person sitting beside us, always drawing the attention back to himself. We could not ignore him. His presence was too demanding. So it was that we, as children, became fixated with the idea of the boy ghost.

Johnny was the first one to try to get into the school. He broke a window, I remember, tearing the boards away. We sat silently, watching him. He didn't know we were there. We thought he didn't know we were there. We don't know. We will never know.

The funeral was strange, as if we were dreaming. The casket was closed, I remember, and I thought it was odd. At my grandfather's funeral, the casket had been open, so we could look at his face once more before they put him in the ground. No one ever told me why Johnny's was closed. No one ever talked about Johnny. Not the adults. Not us.

Carin tried it next. None of us saw her. We don't know why she would try to get in. She didn't tell us. When someone went to look for her though, they saw footprints in the mud outside the same window Johnny had used. The footprints looked as though she had been running. There were other footprints too, fainter, almost impossible to see. The man never saw them. I was the only one who saw them, when I went to the school later that night. I was looking for Carin. I knew she was in there, and I was going to get her out. I looked at the footprints. They were Carin's all right. I had seen them so many times in the snow around my house. Then I saw the others. They were so faint I almost couldn't see them. The size was undeterminable. All I could tell was an imprint in the mud, someone walking so lightly they were almost invisible. I followed them to the window. There was blood on the boards. I went home. I knew I wouldn't find Carin then.

Another closed casket. Another somber, quiet, disturbing atmosphere as the people at the funeral whispered in corners, wondering aloud now. Why had the girl gone into the school? Why was she running? And, mine added in silence to the rest, Who was she running from? All these questions remained unanswered. Unanswered and, after that, unspoken of. Carin and Johnny needn't have existed for the thought people put into them. No one seemed to remember, or care.