The Mysterious Death of George Finkle

George Finkle and his Concerning Cousin

George Finkle was found dead in his bedroom today. The cause of death, unknown.

George went to a high school 20 minutes outside of the city, and only a few students at Central High School knew him, but his death spread quickly throughout the school for its peculiarity.

His body was found with his skin stretched out abnormally, with an incision at the back of his neck. His eyes were gouged out. His fingertips and toes had gaping holes on the finger pads. Jacob, a distant relative of George, said he looked almost like a hollowed-out puppet.

It was disturbing, to say the least.

Jacob wasn't doing well, understandably. He missed a couple of weeks of school, and when he came back he had shaved his head. Stopped talking to all of his friends.

I felt bad for him. I have known him since we were kids, but we haven't talked since middle school. We grew apart, started hanging out with different groups of friends. Not much to it.

When I saw him at school today, he was eating lunch in the hallway outside of the women's bathroom. Jacob was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a tray in his lap, eating macaroni and cheese with a fork. A single apple was on his tray.

I decided to check up on him. It'd been a while since we've talked, but I still cared about him. As I approached him, I started to smell something utterly putrid. Intense body odor, masked by a cheap-smelling body spray. As I got closer to him, I could see his sweat stains around the armpits of his t-shirt. I pretended to ignore it as I got close to him.

"Hey Jacob," I said.

Jacob pushed around his macaroni and cheese on his tray, taking a few seconds to process what I said before looking up at me.

His eyes. They were sunken in and seemed almost...darker than they used to be. Maybe I just misremembered.

"Hey Harry, what's up?" Jacob said, groggily. His voice sounded tired, like this was the first time he'd spoken today.

"Oh not much," I said, breaking eye contact. For some reason looking directly at his face made me feel uneasy. "Why are you eating lunch on the floor?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Sometimes you just gotta," Jacob said, trying to make a joke. It felt so awkward. He looked to the ground again. "You probably know about my cousin. I'm okay, thanks for checking on me."

He didn't seem okay, but I didn't want to push him to talk.

"Yeah no problem," I said. "If you want, I was planning on getting some cheap food after school. We could talk about the Terraria update. Have you played it yet?"

I looked at Jacob's face to get a read on him. As I turned to look at him, I saw an emotion flicker over his face. I didn't see it long enough to know what he was thinking. It'd also been too long since we'd talked for me to know him, really, which is kind of sad.

"Would you want to go now?" He asked me, eagerness in his voice. I was surprised by his reaction. I didn't think he would want to hang out with some kid he didn't even really know anymore, especially when he had friends that knew him better.

I didn't want to skip school, but I felt a lot of pressure at the moment. His cousin or whatever did die recently. I agreed, and a few minutes later I was driving us to the closest Taco Bell. We talked about video games, the music we had been listening to, that sort of thing. It was pretty nice actually.

After we ate I drove him to his house. We watched some funny videos on his phone before I gave him my number and we parted ways. George wasn't ever brought up, so I didn't think Jacob wanted to talk about it.

It'd been over a month since George died, and Jacob and I started hanging out more. He would come over every other day. Jacob said he had been having trouble sleeping at his house and sleeping at my house was easier on him.

Kids at school had been teasing him for shaving his head, calling him Sigourney Weaver and things like that. I think their bullying was getting under his skin. Sometimes when he thought I wasn't looking, I would watch him stare in the mirror at his own reflection. He wouldn't fix his hair or check his teeth like you see people do. I would catch him just staring.

We're teens, so it's not unusual to look in the mirror from time to time, but relentlessly without fail, if I left to go to the bathroom or something, when I would come back he'd be looking in my car mirrors, or in his camera app just looking, not taking pictures.

One night we had a sleepover I caught him looking at himself in the mirror. It was late on a school night and I couldn't go to sleep. I get bad test anxiety, so the night before my mind feels electric almost. My mind would toss and turn for me.

I was in my bedroom upstairs and Jacob was supposed to be asleep on the couch on the main floor. After checking the time on my phone, 3:27 a.m, I decided to go downstairs and get some water. As I walked to the kitchen, I noticed Jacob wasn't on the couch. I thought it was odd, but I brushed it off. He probably went to the bathroom or something.

After getting something to drink, I began to walk back upstairs when I heard heavy breathing. I got grossed out, thinking to myself that I was maybe overhearing Jacob jacking it or something.

I tried to ignore it for that reason, but then I heard whimpering. Raspy breathing. Sniffling. Jacob must be crying.

The whole house was pitch black, so I couldn't find him via light. I listened to the echos of soft crying spells, followed by deep, almost unnerving breathing.

The breathing still haunts me at night. It sounded simultaneous like he was fighting an upper respiratory infection, and had finished running a marathon.

The sounds grew louder as I approached the bathroom. The door was ajar, but the lights off. Why is he in the dark? Why is he crying in the dark?

I waited by the door for the longest time. I was debating about whether I should say anything at all, just ignore the situation, and walk back upstairs. Maybe ask him about it in the morning.

Something inside me told me to stay, even though my adrenaline was skyrocketing.

Slowly, I opened the door and called out softly, "Jacob?"

Though the bathroom was dark, I could see his thin frame. Jacob was sitting cross-legged on the floor. I couldn't see much, but his pale skin stood out against the dark bathroom. He seemed larger than I had thought he was. Not in mass, but structure.

Even in the dark, I felt like I could see too much. Like this was something I wasn't supposed to see. I felt compelled to turn the lights on, but a part of me was screaming not to.

His thin frame responded to the noise and turned to look in my direction. The light from the window falling onto his eyes. Dark marbles that shined in the light. Animal-like.

"Don't turn on the--," Jacob started, but before he could finish I hit the lights.

Holy shit.

My bathroom mirror was in his lap, and I had walked in on Jacob holding the mirror, staring into it. Sitting hunch-backed, his body looked so boney, yet I never noticed how much sagging skin he had. His body looked malnourished, his eyes were wide awake, and somehow even darker.

Jacob stared at me. We stood in silence for what felt like an eternity. I was trying to find the words to say, and he must have been thinking about what to do in this situation. As I stared into his eyes, I could see gears turning a million miles a minute.

The air was so tense, breathing felt too loud of an action. Finally, I broke the silence.

"What are you doing?" I asked. "...Is everything okay?"

Slowly, Jacob stood, and he looked taller. His bones were so pronounced, I can't believe I never noticed it before. He took the mirror, and after taking another glance at his reflection, looking at my face in the reflection of the mirror, he placed it back on the wall above the sink.

He approached me slowly, thinking. I felt immediately afraid. Jacob didn't seem like himself.

He extended his arm, and carefully pushed me out of the door frame. He started to walk away, calling out to me as he left, "Sorry, I was just using the restroom."