He's Harvey, a new friend I made in school a few days ago. He agreed to come just because I said I have a PS4 in our house.
We had a dinner first before we went upstairs in my bedroom. I brought snacks for us to eat. As he roamed his eyes surrounding my room.
"Where's your PS4? I agreed because you said you have one." Yeah, I said it. I lied. His eyes flicked around the bedroom hoping the console will magically appear out of nowhere.
Harvey yawned. He was obviously bored. I can tell he was already regretting his decision. We already explored my room, we chatted for a bit and watched some random shows on Netflix. Things are going okay at first. But as the last light bled out of the day and the sky outside darkened. I could tell Harvey was losing interest.
That was when I suggested we do something a bit different.
"Is there no other you can suggest?" he asked when I suggested we tell each other stories.
"Nah I don't have one," I said.
"Sorry. Are you still up for having a go at this game though?" I asked.
"What? Telling each other stories? Isn't that a little kid stuff?" Harvey glanced at the watch on his wrist. I followed his gaze. Harvey's watch was the first thing I noticed about him. He sits in front of me during Math class and I spotted the watch after a ray of sunlight entering through a window. It's a really nice watch. Most of the kids have that digital ones that light when you press a button on the side. But Harvey's watch was different, more adult. It was one of the reason's I'd picked Harvey to invite over.
"Hey! Can I try your watch on?" Harvey looked up at me and frowned.
"What?"
"Your watch! Can I try it on? It's really nice." Harvey stared at me for a second longer.
"Sorry! I don't let anyone try my watch on."
"My dad says I'm not allowed." He glanced around the room once more. His eyes are going from the door to the dark window.
He sighed. "Okay! Let's play this dumb game then, what do I have to do?"
Ignoring the bored look on his face, I smiled.
"It's really easy, we just take turns telling each other a scary story. Like, the scariest story you can possibly think of," I answered.
"Then whoever has the scariest, wins the game." Harvey rolled his eyes.
"I don't know any scary stories. Besides I think I might get some sleep soon, I'm pretty tired." He said with a bored look sitting on his face.
"Come on! Just one each. You must know at least one scary story. Everyone does, plus I know loads of good ones." I suggested one more time.
"Unless you're one of those kids that frightens easily, that is. Then I guess you might not like the game." It was risk but Harvey bid.
"I'm not scared of anything. I watched loads of horror films with my brother that are rated 18, we even found one on Youtube that's been banned but I still watched it," I didn't say anything. I just looked at Harvey and smiled. After a few seconds, he let out another sigh.
"Fine! Let's play this stupid game then. But after you're done failing to scare me. That's it, I'm going to bed." George went first. His story wasn't bad in fairness. It was when he said his uncle told him a couple of years back. Nothing I hadn't heard before.
Basically, there are two kids. One of them gets hit by a car and dies. After the funeral, the mother give the surviving kid some money to go get liver from the store. Something to cook up for dinner. Because he's sick in the head though, the kid pockets the money. Digs up his brother, and removes his liver instead. Then later that night, the dead brother rizes from his grave to come and get the kid from his sleep.
It's a decent enough story, but I heard it a hundred times already. I didn't let on though. I made all the right faces, jumped at the right parts. Harvey got quite into it. He gestured his arms and his watch ginted in the light from my bedside lamp. He was so into the story and he didn't seem to notice.
Our first was over. He sat back and grinned.
"I thought you were gonna start crying at one point," he said.
"You might as well give up now anyway, I'm not scared of anything." He boasted and crossed his arms in his chest, proud.
I looked across the room with him. The house was quiet now and had been for a couple of hours. It was getting late at night. And that was it. I grinned at Harvey.
"So, you're not scared of anything at all?" I asked. As he answered proudly.
"No! Nothing." he replied.
"Not even stories that are true?" I asked him a question once again. He let out a bark of laughter.
"Ha! Nice try. Just hurry up and get over it, will you?"
"I'm already bored," he continued. And so I started telling him my story.
"Okay, fine. My story is about a family," I began.
A family that looks normal enough on the outside," I continued as he yawned.
"But it isn't really normal at all." Harvey rolled his eyes again. He started to annoy me quite a lot by now. But I didn't let on. I just carried on woth the story as if I hadn't noticed.
"This family moves around a lot. They never stay in one place for too long. They can't, you see. The family's good with disguising themselves. They're good at hiding their secret. But they still can't go taking risks." I told him.
"If they stayed in one place fow more than a week, they might get found out. Someone might discover what they really are," I continued.
"So, what are they then?" Harvey interrupted. I wanted to tell him not to. And just sit still and listen to the story. But I bit down the urge. Instead, I just grinned at him.
"The family are monsters. They are all monsters," I said.
"They travel from town to town and they leave a trail of dead kids wherever they go," I paused, expecting him to interrupt me again, but he didn't. He only stared back at me with a dull blank expression.
"The family has a very specific way of doing things," I continued.
"When they move into a new area, they find a house that has been left unoccupied."
"Not a completely empty house, just one that people normally live there off on holiday or something."
"One that will be empty for a week or two. The family doesn't live long. A couple of week sits them just fine."
"So they break into this house and then they go about setting the trap. It's their own kid they use. They send him off to make friends in the neighborhood. Round the nearby parks."
"Maybe after the local school under a fake name. Tell him to know the other kids." He just staring at me while I continue telling him the story.
"The family is hungry by this point. But they don't do anything just yet. They've learned to be patient." I paused and took a breath. This was a story I told before, but I found I like it more and more with each retelling. The trick was not to rush though. You had to savor it.
The window was open when we first came upstairs. And now it dragged a cold air blew in and ruffled the curtains behind Harvey. Tree branches shook in the garden outside. The leaves whispering to each other. Harvey watched me, not saying anything. I had his attention.
"The kids parents don't have to wait long," I continued.
"They never do. They've trained the kid well, you see. He's not just the victim in all this. He may only be young but he knows how the game works." I took a deep breath and continued.
"Once the family has been in the area for a little while. A few days, maybe a week at most. The kid makes his choice."
"He picks a new friend to invite back to their house. The parents give him an incentive too. He's still too young to share the tastes they have. They tell him that something he'll only acquire when he gets older. But still he gets something out of it." As I expected, he asked a question.
"W—What does he get out of it?" His eyes were fixed on mine as his knees began to fitted.
"He gets the other kids stuff," I replied
"Whoever he picks, he gets to keep all theit belongings after his parents are finished with them." Somewhere in the house below us, a door slammed. Harvey's eyes flicked away from mine towards the bedroom door then back again. I smiled at him.
"So..." Harvey kept his eyes on me as he tried to formulate the question.
"So...What exactly..."
"What exactly do the parents do with the kid they take?"
"Oh! They eat them," I replied
"They eat their insides. They tear the kids open while they're still screaming and they pull out their guts and intestines by the handful. Move everything down until there's nothing left but a husk." I grinned. Somewhere below us, a floorboard creaked. The sound was failt and muffled and I don't think Harvey heard it.
"Can you imagine what someone's look like when they've had everything inside them removed? They hardly even look like a person at all. It's like the stuff a snake leaves behind when it sheds its skin." The glow from the bedside lamp made Harvey's skin look pale. His lips were slightly parted as he stared at me.
"But, how do they get away with it?" He asked.
"Don't the parents of the kids they get taken come looking for them the next day? When their kids don't show up back home." I grinned back at Harvey. I've been hoping he'd ask this.
"Oh, the family's long gone by that point," I said.
"They vanish like shadows in the night. The only thing they take with them, is the remains of the dead kid. And when their parents come looking for them the next day."
"All they find is the locked house, that belongs to somebody else." Another floorboard creaked. I was louder this time, we both heard it. The sound had come from the corridor outside the bedroom. Harvey's eyes darted in the direction of the door.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Oh! There was nothing!" I lied.
"Probably just the house setlling. There's nothing to be scared of, Harvey." I hide the watch on his wrist. And imagine what it would look like on mine.
From the corridor outside, came the soft sound of approaching footsteps.
A door was opened. It must be my parents, they switched the lights off. All I heard was my parents growls ripping Harvey's body while he was screaming.
END.
