ScetchBorn Mill

Part ONE

The night we got busted, I became a gangster’s hairdresser.

                It was the night before the Fourth of July, 2014 and my friends and I had decided to check out the abandoned high school.  We’d been doing things that night we shouldn’t have been, and instead of spending the night at my house, they wanted to wander around the streets of Thithrop. I’d been trying to convince them that we should just stay home, but they still insisted that we go and light fireworks. I lived on Alamore Street and the high school was across town. Luckily, my town wasn’t very big.

The high school was originally Scetchborn Mill, an old industrial building, but in 1950 they converted it into a high school. Since then, it had been remodeled twice, had an extension added, and two murders had taken place. It closed down and has been rotting for years. Legend says that he bodies are still on campus but after all these years, they’ve probably decomposed.

We are all gathered in my backyard as my friends took turns convincing me to go with them.

Abner Wilson narrowed his eyes at me and snared, “We will go without you, Kit.”

Abner was five foot nine, and wasn’t skinny, but at the same time, he didn’t really have a muscular build. He was  average,  pretty good looking, with short brown hair and brown eyes. He wrestled, so he was in shape, and he got average grades. He was sixteen-- same age as me, but he was a junior. His dad’s vocation was as the football coach for middle school athletes.

“Fine, go. I don’t care.” I snapped back. I really didn’t want to go. We could’ve gotten  caught by anybody in that town, my parents, their parents, neighbors, police...  Anybody.  And weren’t  supposed to leave for a reason. It’s dangerous. There are animals and not everybody in this town was friendly after dark.

Cayla Wined, “No Kit! Come with us..”  Her brown eyes looked more beautiful than ever out here. I had the biggest crush on Cayla since middle school. I’d practically do anything for her-and she knew that.

“UGH.. Okay ,Okay, I’ll come with you guys. But when I want to come back, We come back.- and we aren’t bringing any of that haunted shit back with us…” A wave of relief washes over their faces because I was coming- Probably because I had the fireworks.

Elina, Abrer, Cayla, and I gathered a small bag of things together. We brought my flashlight and fireworks, Elina’s money (20 dollars or something like that), Cayla insisted on bringing all her stuff and Abrer brought his camera and his lighter. We made Caleb carry it all because he had put his Epipen and inhaler in there and the Lord knows he can’t be separated from his inhaler. We put all our stuff in an old drawstring backpack of mine that I had won in sixth grade. It barley all fit in there.

We left my house a little past midnight and walked across our small home town. The night was comforting, like a blanket, surrounding me and my friends. The chilly warm August air brought back memories of this summer. School was starting next month, and none of us had been ready to be sitting at the same old boring desks of our town’s high school. The silence became perpetual and eerie, fast. Similar to when you hold your breath when you’re scared, and your eyes dart around, searching the area for danger. The air seemed to be doing the same thing. Like it has been waiting for something bad to happen.

The tall trees that lined the sidewalk, casted shadows onto the street, making it hard to see anything or anybody among the trees. The only sound that accompanied us was the monotone buzzing of the occasional streetlights and when our footsteps, sometimes scraping the old sidewalk, echoed off the night.   

We walked in silence, too afraid to disrupt the quiet. The moon provided little to no light for our midnight adventure.  I was tired, but I couldn’t tell because of the nervous feelings I got, every time I felt eyes on the back of my neck. We walked past all the streets we grew up on, Monarch Rd, Camberry dr..We had passed Cayla’s house but kept walking. Because that night, we had a destination in mind.

None of us had ever been to the school. I knew what area it was in, and we heard lots of stories from our grandparents but none of us had actually seen the school. After what felt like forever, the road we had been  walking on came to a dead end and all there was, was a bunch of foliage and bushes and tall trees.

We stopped and look around. I looked at Caleb, and even though he was the youngest of us, I could remember seeing  the gears turning in his head. “Let’s head back, we can’t find the school.” Caleb muttered as he turned around really slowly and made a gesture to start walking back.

Impatiently I stated, “You know where the school is… you just don’t want to tell us!”

“Caleb- don’t be lame. Don’t you want to have fun? We’ve already gotten this far. We may as well keep going. ” Elina piped up.

Elina’s ‘Too cool’ attitude, never failed to show. Her naturally brown hair had been bleached that year and cut short. She always wore her black rim glasses. She’s about 5’5 and usually just wore jeans and a sweatshirt. She wasn’t really girly, but more tom-boyish. She was the oldest one in the group, a junior, but she was sixteen still.

Caleb bit his lip “Guys, I really don’t know where this school is. Why would I know?”  He glanced around at each of our faces before looking at his shoes.

“He’s telling truth” Abner said behind me. I turned and met his glance with mine. “The school is right behind the foliage. We just need to find a way to get through.” We all turned to look at the foliage, as I racked my mind for a solution. Elina had been right- we had  gotten that far.