Little Cup of Horror

The Creepy Man

Once upon a time, I dreamt of a place I had not seen in a very long time. I believe the last time I had seen this place was when I was thirteen maybe twelve. It was my old middle school. I remember it so well. I remember it because of all that happened there so long ago.

The school was shut down after what had happened there. One of our teachers had snapped and started kidnapping students, killing and eating them. No one knew, until after the death of five students, that it was him. He almost got away with it, if it wasn't for the fact that he made treats for his class... My class. He was to be taken to prison, but on his way, the police car that he was in was overtaken by the town's people. He was brutally killed.

I remember the echoes of his laugh and screams as they killed him.

The dream though. That showed me and reminded me of this place was a dark and twisted version of it all more twisted than it really was. The dark and twisted version of it reminded me of him, Mr. Croker. My old, middle school, science teacher.

I had gotten home from work and decided to go to bed. When I fell asleep I found myself standing on the old playground where the elementary kids would play. I loved that playground so many memories. Just nothing but amazing memories of my time that was sent out there when in elementary, but something about the sight of this playground didn’t have the same comfort as it uses too. Maybe it was because the air was cold and stale, or it could have been because I thought I saw something running around in the shadows nearby the castle of the other side of the playground.

It seemed so quiet as I stood there. I thought that maybe if I stayed still it would all go back to its happy feeling self, but it wasn’t changing. Not at all. It seemed to have been doing the opposite. It felt to get more creepy the longer I stayed put. It felt as if it was getting worse. I finally shook my head and decided to take a step back, and it seemed I must have gotten something attention. Something began to crawl out of the shadows of the castle in the far back. At first, I thought it was a man, but then I noticed its arms were too long to be a man’s arms. Then I saw its legs were long yet bent strangely as if broken. It sent chills down my spine.

Before I knew it, I had turned and begun to run as quickly as I could away from it. As I ran I had a strange taste form in my mouth. It tasted horrible like sour cottage cheese that was left in the fridge for far too long. However, the taste was more familiar than that. I was like something that no human being should ever eat, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

As I ran the creepy looking man came bolting after me like a hungry dog. He was running on all fours. His arms seemed to have been pulling him forward as his legs kind of helped but were more like they were being dragged behind him. His head though, it just hanged between his arms like a rag doll. It was as if his neck had been snapped with nothing connecting the two pieces of the spine together. It moved more like a rubber band.

As I ran my heart was beating heavily in my chest. I thought my heart was going to explode any minute, but all of a sudden, I began to have flashes of images playing before my eyes. I saw a series of images where there were two little boys playing on the playground, and one of the boys had a red balloon. It had happened so quickly yet foggy. Just barely in the background I could see the creepy man slowly getting closer and closer. Before I knew it, one of the boys were gone and the other boy was staring at the creepy man now holding the missings boy’s red balloon. Then it was as if I blinked and the other boy was gone as well; however, there was an arm hanging out of the creepy man’s mouth. He then sucked it up like it was a noodle.

It was terrible… but what happened next made me want to scream and rip open my eyes. He then turned to me and made eye contact with me. He had black empty eyes and two little holes that made his nose, but the one thing that made me screamed to ever sleep again was his mouth… it wasn’t right. When he looked at me, he had this grotesques smile that just crawled across his face.

Within seconds I was back to running. I was no longer within the flashing images, but back to running down some alleyway in town that kids would hide in when playing hide and seek at the town square. As I ran out of the alleyway I could hear the trash cans that were back there get thrown around as that creepy man ran them over as if they were nothing. I kept pushing myself to run even faster and faster and faster, but I could feel my heart about to give out. I didn’t realize that my feet were picking where to go as I ran. I didn’t give it much thought as I ran, but before I knew it, I had run into a trailer home just towards the end of town in hopes of taking a shortcut. However, that was the worse thing I could have done…. The back door to the trailer home was locked.

“No!” I screamed as I slammed the door, but my efforts were frozen in places once I heard the ugly twisted gurgle of laughter coming from behind me.

As I turned around I saw the creepy looking man standing there staring at me like a depressed hungry dog with its ribs showing. I felt myself tighten up against the wall and my breathing began to grow heavy as he walked towards me with his mouth opening up widely. His mouth slowly grew wider and wider slowly reaching down to the ground. His bottom jaw seemed to have no end with how big his mouth had become.

Within seconds everything went dark.

When I finally woke up, I realized why I remembered that. Why the man looked so broken. It was because Mr. Corker had his jaw broken and the rest of his body as well. Not only that, he had kidnapped even more than five children. He had taken so many from the places he had worked before my school. He had even tried to kidnap me and had almost sussed if it wasn’t for that fact that I had run away as quickly as I did. I  had been over fifteen years since that event had taken place of his taking and killing children.

Without realizing it I turned and turned on the radio, and there on the radio I heard, “I see you, Jenn. You can’t run from me…”