Castle High's After School Horror

Everything hurts.

Her head burns with all the memories of the past few hours. Her chest feels like it is being squeezed. She’s shaking from head to toe, tears silently falling down her cheeks. She’s isn’t aware of her shallow breathing. She isn’t aware of the policemen standing in front of her, talking to her, trying to get a reaction out of her, asking her if she’s okay. All she can think of is Mikey. Everything he’d done and everyone he’d wind up hurting. Because he was miserable, desperate, angry. He was an outcast and all he’d wanted was to feel normal. And he’d lost it. He couldn’t take the way he was being treated anymore. And now he is dead. All because of Chelsea.

And Beth. Chelsea had bullied her to the point that her mind had been sensitive to the manipulation that brought her to commit all those horrendous murders. Chelsea shudders. It wasn't Beth. It was Mikey. Beth was innocent. She was a good person and Chelsea had envied her. Mikey had caused everything to happen. But it wasn't his fault, either.

“Ma’am?”

Chelsea flinches. Her eyes are only torn from Mikey’s when the policemen help her up and lead her away. EMTs run passed them down the hall.

“More bodies here!”

“This one’s barely breathing.”

“Get 'im in an ambulance!”

Chelsea closes her eyes, holding on to that little bit of hope.

In a school as big as Castle High, there cannot be security cameras at every corner. So they are only at the exits. And with one survivor of a high school massacre in a coma, a traumatized girl's account of the events and the images captured by the cameras were the only things that told the true story of what happened.

No one knows the whole truth.

It’s June 25th. The early summer sun is shining through the large glass windows of a room filled with teenage girls broken beyond repair. Chelsea Johnson, quiet and lonely, is among them. Her hair is dark and matted down, tangled and uncared for. Her eyes reflect the sunlight but she doesn’t seem to feel it. She has a paper out in front of her and she is drawing, just like her therapist told her to. She doesn’t do much else.

It’s visiting day. Every once in a while, her parents go to visit her. But she won't talk to anyone that doesn't believe her. So she doesn't talk.

Limping across the room is Bob Bryar. He hasn’t seen Chelsea in months. Not since…well, since it happened. The grip on his cane tightens, becoming more determined as he approaches her. He can barely curl the fingers in his right hand and his right leg is always numb or in pain. It’s not a pleasant feeling. It’s just a constant, aching reminder of what he’d “survived”. That’s what they call him. A survivor. He’d “survived” the Castle High Massacre. Of course, plenty of fingers point at him for his bullying of the psycho that went on a killing rampage. Bob knows well that fingers should be pointed at him.

Bob walks around the table where Chelsea is at. He pulls out a chair with his shaking right hand, supporting himself with the cane held in his left. He grunts and, as slowly as possible, sits down.

Chelsea’s gentle movements come to a halt. Her hand is shaking. She drops the pencil she is holding and starts breathing so quickly that Bob fears something will happen to her.

“Chelsea, it’s me,” he croaks. He clears his throat. His odd new lisp makes him feel uncomfortable. “I-it’s me, Bob. D-do you remember me?”

Chelsea raises her head and meets Bob’s eyes with hers. Bob is hurt to see the state she’s in. Her mud brown eyes are empty and completely shattered. Her skin is pale, her eyes are sunken in. She looks like she hasn’t eaten in days, weeks. She is being treated as if she is insane. Bob knows she isn’t. He’s the only one that does.

He reaches up and touches her scarred cheek, trying to relax his nerves as he touches her. She flinches but still no emotion betrays her empty expression. Bob wonders how she must feel. With a scar on her face and the knowledge of knowing that millions refer to her as “that crazy girl” or “the other survivor”. Bob takes in a deep breath, ignoring the voices of other patients and their visitors. He leans forward, trying to find something in her eyes. Some kind of sign that being treated like a crazy person hasn’t actually turned her crazy.

That’s when Chelsea’s hand moves. She reaches up and touches his neck. There’s the smallest of scars there, barely noticeable. Definitely not as prominent as the pink line on her own face. She swallows and blinks a few times. Finally, Bob sees the emotion: sadness. An emotion he is completely sick of seeing.

“Bob,” Chelsea breathes. Bob nods.

“You saved my life, you know,” Bob mutters.

Chelsea’s hand reaches up and grabs Bob’s wrist. She smiles softly. It looks as if it is something difficult for her to do. “I’m so…glad…you’re alive.”

Bob doesn’t respond. He stares at her blankly. She frowns and pulls his hand away.

“Why haven't you told anyone?”

Bob sighs and leans back in his seat. For a while, it was believed that Chelsea was the murderer or at least had something to do with what had happened. With no one conscious to speak up for her and her fingerprints on the murder weapons, she was treated like a criminal. And when she went on about how Mikey had been a psychic and “controlled” Beth, they were sure she was crazy. When Bob woke up from a coma that everyone was sure he would never wake from, he testified that Chelsea had been telling the truth. That Mikey and Beth had worked together. Bob and Chelsea’s stories matched, except for the psychic part. So they sent her off to a mental institution for the trauma she had gone through that had "so greatly affected her mental stability". Bob started seeing a therapist as well, but he isn’t crazy. Shaken, traumatized, scarred…but not crazy.

He wants to be sure that Chelsea isn’t, either.

“I had to lie,” he whispers.

“They would’ve believed me if you had told them the truth!” Chelsea hisses. “And it explains everything! Why it took six gunshots for someone in the neighborhood to call the damn cops, why Beth would dare kill a soul!”

Chelsea had become fixated on Beth. It’s been covered by every sleazy newspaper and magazine in the Tristate area. She constantly defended Beth, claiming that Beth wouldn’t hurt a fly and that she wasn’t in control of herself when she did what she did. It’s one of the things that everyone’s talking about. The crazy girl doesn’t want to admit that Beth was a killer because that would mean claiming some responsibility for what happened. A lot of people hate Chelsea because of it. She and Bob are the bullies that pushed two of their classmates to the edge.

“Let’s talk about something else, yeah?” Bob says nervously, glancing around at the eavesdropping nurses. Chelsea, who’d turned red in the face, relaxes down in her seat. She starts to slowly continue her drawing. Bob takes in a deep breath and lets it go slowly. Chelsea smiles.

“So,” she starts. “Are you still living with your dad?”

Bob tenses. Chelsea glances up at him. “No,” he mumbles. “I, uh…they saw the bruises in the hospital and when I woke up…I told.”

Chelsea’s face again holds no expression. Bob wonders if she believes him.

“Well, that’s good.” She smiles. “I’m really glad to see you, you know.”

“I’m glad to see you.”

Chelsea stands up. Bob watches her as she grabs a chair and sits down next to him.

“Do you get a lot of visitors?” Bob asks.

“Mostly people that, you know, hate me,” Chelsea mutters. “Or the opposite. They want to help me. I don’t get it.”

Bob smiles.

“Ray’s family…hates me,” Chelsea whispers. Bob stays quiet. “I loved him.” Chelsea reaches for her paper and leans over the table to continue drawing. Bob takes a peak at her drawing and his eyes go wide. “I love him still.”

“That’s…a good drawing,” Bob says.

“My mom never liked me drawing. You know, she’s a big shot lawyer and all. Doesn’t bode well.”

Bob hadn’t known seeing her again would be so awkward. He’d never been very close to her. He just needed to see her. He hates feeling like a lab rat, constantly under watch and being scrutinized for what had happened. He wants to feel normal again. He wants some kind of solace. And he thought he could get it from Chelsea. He was probably wrong to think that.

Her drawing is beautiful, though. Cartoon-looking teenagers in gowns throwing up caps, all smiling and hugging and kissing and just looking generally happy. All except for one. Bob is nervous to ask who it is.

“Mikey,” Chelsea says. “The one that’s alone is Mikey.”

Bob’s eyebrows furrow. “How’d you-”

“I realized it too late,” Chelsea went on. “That I love Ray. And now he’s gone. And…his family, they…they blame me. Because they don’t…have a…b-body to…”

Chelsea breathes in shakily. Bob wraps an arm around her, feeling a sudden calm come over him.

“It’s not your fault, Chelsea,” Bob assures.

“Ray’s mom came here and yelled at me in, like, Portuguese or something,” Chelsea chuckles nervously. Bob looks down at her. She’s crying.

“Well…at least you couldn’t understand it,” Bob mutters. Chelsea chuckles. She wraps her arms around Bob’s waist.

There’s a moment of comfortable silence as they hold each other. Bob rocks Chelsea back and forth slowly. He hums a melody to a song he can’t remember the name of.

“You know what my therapist says?” Chelsea mutters after a few minutes of silence. She pulls away from Bob slightly to look at the expression on his face.

“What?” he replies, unsure of how he should be feeling.

“That I made up this stuff about Mikey because I didn’t want to feel responsible.” Chelsea spoke in a breath and inhaled sharply at the end.

“You aren’t responsible.”

“But I am.” Chelsea sighs. “And I know it.”

Bob stays quiet. Chelsea smiles and touches his cheek gently.

“You’re really nervous,” she says quickly. Then her eyes go wide and she looks away, pulling her body from his completely.

“A little,” Bob admits.

Chelsea looks towards the tall glass windows with wide eyes. Then she gives Bob in incriminating stare. Bob feels hollow. Chelsea’s stare softens and she smiles.

“You can have this,” she says. Bob looks down. It’s the drawing.

“Uhm…thanks,” Bob says, holding the paper awkwardly.

“It is my fault,” she goes on. She nods and looks away. As if she’s talking to someone standing in front of her. She starts trembling and Bob knows right away that she’s gonna start crying again. “I mean, if I didn’t… i-if I hadn’t… she wouldn’t’ve…” Chelsea turns back to Bob, looking desperate and red in the face. “Am I just making it up?” she hisses as if she’s telling him a really big secret. Her eyes are wide and teary. “Am I crazy?”

“You’re not crazy,” Bob says softly.

Chelsea’s expression turns hopeful as tears stream down her cheeks. She hops up on the chair and looks at Bob excitedly, grinning.

“So it’s true, that stuff about Mikey being psychic,” she squeals. Bob feels like he’s gossiping. “Right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know!”

Bob is taken aback by her outburst. She seems like she’s angry, ready to explode.

“Yeah…” Bob utters, subtly inching away from her.

“Then why didn’t you tell?! Huh?! Why are you letting people believe I’m crazy?!”

Bob uses his cane for support as he turns his chair in her direction. He wants to face her even though he’s quite frightened of being yelled at by her. He’s sure she isn’t quite as vicious as she used to be but…her voice was loud and piercing and he couldn’t handle ignoring it. If he’s gonna be confronted, he’s gonna be confronted face to face.

“Because if I told,” Bob starts softly, knowing his response wouldn’t get a good reaction, “they’d think I’m crazy and throw me into one of these places and that’s just a waste of time.”

Probably not the best defense.

“But Beth’s family deserves to know!” Chelsea screams. “Their daughter was not a murderer!”

“I’m sorry, Chels. We can’t do anything about that.”

“Yes we can! We know the truth!”

Bob looks around. Movement around them seems to stop. Everyone’s staring at them.

“Chelsea, relax.”

Chelsea stands up on the chair, breathing hard and shaking.

“How could you do this!?” she yells at the top of her lungs. “You selfish PIG! It’s YOUR fault! What happened is ALL your fault! YOU killed them.” She sucks in a deep breath, tears dripping to the floor. Bob doesn’t know what to do. “Ray’s dead because of you! The Twins, Gerard, Beth, Malone. They’re all dead because of you!”

Bob stands, holding his cane tightly with one hand and reading the other one up to Chelsea. She slaps it away angrily.

“Is everything alright?”

Chelsea and Bob both look at the nervous nurse that’s standing near them. She looks between them with concern troubling her features. She looks uncertain.

“Oh, fuck off,” says Chelsea.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine,” says Bob. He gives Chelsea a meaningful look, wordlessly begging her to get down.

“No it’s not.” Chelsea grudgingly takes a seat. She taps her foot and folds her arms.

“Chelsea, calm down. Please.”

“Whatever.”

Bob turns back to the nurse. “We’re fine, thank you.”

The nurse nods, obviously unsure, and walks away. As Bob makes to sit down Chelsea snatches his cane and he falls to his seat, heart beating hard. Bob clenches his fists subconsciously. He stares at Chelsea. She’s examining the cane.

“You need this?” she asks. Bob nods. Chelsea smiles innocently. “Let me see your tongue.”

Bob arches a brow. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Bob sticks out his tongue. Chelsea flinches. She passes his cane back to him. He grabs it and holds it close to him. After that, they are silent. Bob stares out the window, watching as the sun begins to sneak behind the horizon. He wonders how long he’d been there. He wonders how much longer he should be there. Chelsea isn’t making him feel any better. Just the fact that she’s alive is solace enough. He doesn’t want his fears to be confirmed. He doesn’t want to be one of the ones that think she’s crazy. Maybe he should leave…

“I killed Mikey,” Chelsea says suddenly. Bob looks at her. He doesn’t like hearing mention of him but Chelsea’s abrupt confession drew Bob’s attention. “I did. They let me off on self-defense. Is that fair?”

“It was self-defense,” Bob says with a shrug.

“How do you know?”

Bob’s heart skips a few beats. Chelsea stares across the room, a small sad smile on her face.

“Wasn’t it?” Bob utters. He isn’t sure he wants to enter this territory.

“I suppose. My mom’s a good lawyer…”

When Bob found out Mikey had died, he was beyond relieved. When he found out Chelsea had killed him, he was beyond scared. He didn’t know how to feel about what had happened that day. He just wished it never happened. He tried to convince himself it was a bad dream. But whenever he is reminded that it had in fact happened, he feels his palms get sweaty and his hands get shaky and his chest burns. The memories are vivid in his mind and even though the last he saw of Mikey he’d been ready to kill him, Bob wishes he was still alive. He wishes they all were.

But that’s part of the reason he can’t tell the truth about Beth. It’s ridiculous. No one would believe him. He’d be stuck like Chelsea and he’d never escape what happened. Sure it’s selfish but there’s nothing he can do for Chelsea. She got herself into this. The least he can do is keep her company and help her cope, too.

“I really regret it,” Chelsea whispers.

“Anyone would,” Bob mutters.

“I get what Mikey went through now.”

Bob furrowed his brow. “What do you-?”

“Please leave.”

Chelsea sits up straight, eyes wide and with the expression of a deer in the headlights.

“Excuse me?” asks Bob.

“If you aren’t going to tell the truth, I don’t want to talk to you. Leave.”

Bob’s head aches and a familiar, uncomfortable feeling begins to consume him.

“Chelsea-” he tries, rubbing his temples.

“LEAVE!” She’s really screaming now. Bob flinches. “You’re a fucking liar and I don’t want you near me!”

“Chelsea, I’m sor-” he starts again. He’s interrupted by having Chelsea shove him off of his seat. He falls with a thud and nurses appear immediately.

“LEAVE!!! NOW!! I HATE YOU!! FOR EVERYTHING!!”

Bob mindlessly grabs his cane and with the help of a nurse gets to his feet while other nurses drag Chelsea away as she screams at the top off her lungs. Bob stares, feeling dizzy.

“I’ve never seen her have an outburst like that,” whispers the nurse.

Bob wipes his eyes furiously, takes one look around the room at everyone that staring at him, and turns to limp away.

Waiting outside of the hospital standing in front of an old Ford truck is a tall, built man. He’s got a cigarette in between his lips and sunglasses shielding his eyes from the early summer sun. His hair is short and blond and greasy. His arms are folded in front of his chest. Bob looks up at the glass windows that he’d been looking through just moments before as he approaches the truck.

“How was it?” asks the man leaning against the truck.

Bob doesn’t say anything. He walks around the truck, opens the door to the passenger’s side, and jumps in. He stares at the dashboard, trying not to let show how vulnerable he is and how he just wants to break down and cry. That’s just the kind of situation that Bob’s father would take advantage of.

Bob flinches when his dad slams the door as he enters his truck.

“Please put that out,” mutters Bob as the cigarette smoke fills the car and then his lungs.

“Is she really as crazy as they say?” Bob’s father asks crudely, ignoring Bob’s last comment.

“I think so,” Bob mutters, trying to make sense of what had just happened. His father chuckles.

“You look scared. You probably don’t wanna see her again.”

Bob looks down at the drawing Chelsea had made. The one person that was alone couldn’t be Mikey. This person has long, dark hair and is wearing a skirt.

“Just drive,” says Bob, dropping the paper as to not have to look at it.

“Well, look who grew a pair of balls,” jokes Bob’s father loudly. Bob flinches as the car starts to move. “Don’t think I’m gonna go easy on you now that you have a cane. That just means you won’t be able to run from me.”

“Yeah and that I’ll have a weapon with me at all times,” Bob mutters.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” says Bob. He stares out the window at the dim blue sky.

“So are you done now? No more visits to cemeteries and hospitals, right?”

Bob sighs. He closes his eyes and silently prays for Chelsea.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m done now.”