Tell Me Where We Go From Here

I walked into the tunnel where I found Mikey sitting with his head buried in his knees.
“I got your note. What’s up?” He looked up at me. He had a black eye and a bloody lip. I sat down beside him.
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
“No. No it won’t. It will never be okay,” he said,” It’ll just keep getting worse. They won’t ever stop.” I saw a tear or two drop from his eyes. I hugged him.
“You have me,” I said. He looked at me and smiled.
“Yes. Yes I do.”
I smiled back. “I can’t believe we’ve been coming here since we were 7.”
“Haha. Yeah it’s still the same. Except a bit smaller.”
“That’s because you’ve grown.”
“Oh yeah!”
I rolled my eyes. “This tunnel needs something,” Mikey said.
“What exactly?” I asked getting a little worried.
“Hmm…,” He got out his pocket knife and stabbed the metal. When he was done, I looked at it. I said, ‘Maggie & Mikey’. I smiled.
“Now when kids come in, we can shoo them out without any problem,”
“How?”
“We can say our names are on it,”
“Very smart,” I said and rolled my eyes.
“Hey!” he tickled me in the sides.
“Stop! Stop!” I fell back while Mikey still tickled me. Some kid ran into Mikey, pushing him on top of me.
“Sowwy,” the little boy said. He was about 4 or 5.
“It’s okay,” Mikey said. I laughed.
“That little kid was cute,” I said.
Mikey looked at me in the eyes, “I love you,” He said and smiled.
“I love you too.” I said and hugged him. I caused him to roll over and I got payback for him tickling me. We played around like that for hours until we had to go home.

I got back in the car after about 30 minutes. I thought about all the memories we shared in the tunnel. I drove back to the house. Everyone was sitting on the couch or on the floor.
“Did you find him?” Gerard asked. I shook my head and sat on the floor between Gerard and Rachel. Rachel gave me a hug. I looked over at Gerard. He had tears falling down his face. I gave Gerard a hug, “It’ll be okay,” I whispered in his ear. He nodded.
We all sat silently for a while. Lucia was bawling. I held her as she cried.
“Matt is an asshole. You don’t deserve him. And he doesn’t deserve someone as pretty and sweet as you.”
She smiled. “Thanks, I guess.”
Everyone went home after our sobber-fest. That left me and Gerard. He turned on the TV. I barley paid attention. How could I? I felt tears roll down my face.
“Come here,” Gerard said. He laid down on the couch. I laid down on top of him. I faced the ceiling. “Where could he possibly be?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Wherever he is though, I’m sure he’s safe.” I nodded and closed my eyes. I thought of Mikey. Hoping he really was safe.

I walked into Mikey’s room the next morning. Everyone was there. “What’s going on? I asked.
I noticed everyone was crying. “We have to tell you something,” Ray said.
“What? What is it?”
: Really? Where is he? Is he okay?”
“See for yourself,” Gerard said. Everyone pointed to the closet. I opened the door and screamed. Mikey was there, with blood all around him. His eyes were at the back of head. Worst of all, he was hung by a rope. I turned around to the others. They had blood coming out of their mouths as their eyes fell to the back of their heads. Ropes came down from the ceiling. All but one stepped onto a stool to be hung. “You’re next Maggie,” they said. I turned around to Rachel as the forced my head into the rope, “You were a good friend. But I had to make sure you did this,”
I struggled away out of the room, as they all fallowed me. They cornered me and came closer and closer…..