It was seven a.m. on a Friday. A man named Mr. Fishman was preparing a lesson on square roots; every high schooler's bane of existence. Mr. Fishman was a tall, balding man in his late forties; his face was rough with scars from years of toil and sweat. His voice was so loud; teachers had to come from the second floor into his dungeon classroom to tell him to tone it down. Like most, Mr. Fishman had his secrets. A past life no one, not even his wife, knew about.
As he sat at the pinewood desk, his pen scratching problems into a worn notepad. The closet at the back of the room came alive; bangs and scratches emanated from the thin wood, followed by a faint squeak that resembled a human but fell short. The teacher rose calmly from his leather seat, letting his pen drop on the desk before him, and walked quickly across the floor. He shut the heavy classroom door, allowing the noise echoing from the room to mute. He approached the door and sighed as he turned the knob,
"I told you to shut your mouth. Shut the Fuck up! You'll get me arrested," he said, opening the door and blocking it with his body.
"P—please." a small, dehydrated voice fell from the open door, like leaves falling from trees in the fall "let me go! I-I won't say a word to nobody! I'll tell my folks I ran away, just please let me go home sir!" the voice pleaded.
Mr. Fishman smiled. It gave him pleasure to hear the small, dying voice beg. He loved the control he felt when he watched the tears fall from his dirt-covered face.
"No, you are not leaving. Not until I'm done with you." He began to close the door when a skeleton-like hand stopped it,
"then may I have some water, please!" begged the skeletal voice within.
"You want water? I'll give you water," Mr. Fishman said, a cruel smirk on his face. He gathered water in his mouth and spat into the dim closet.
*
It was halfway through the first period; Mr. Fishman was making a joke to his class. The closet in the back of the room exploded with banging, banging so hard the door arched off the frame. It was like the door itself was trying to get away from the chaos that was ensuing. The teacher did not hesitate. He ran to the back of the room; he ran so fast he knocked over an unoccupied desk in the third row. As he reached the brass knob, he was hit by the door as it flew away from the opening. The students stood up, shocked and scared. They ran out of the room through the fire exit. A loud siren blared, and red lights flashed as a white sparkling cloud rolled from the open doorway. A figure stood engulfed in light.
Mr. Fishman covered his eyes, shaking with fear as the figure spoke in a booming voice, louder than even his own.
"James Fishman! You have hurt me for the last time." The white mist wrapped itself around the kneeling teacher's throat and lifted him to his feet.
"P-p-please!" the man choked as he grabbed at his neck.
"How dare you beg for my mercy!" The man's eyes squeezed shut to block out the image.
"I begged you for mercy every day for six months. Since the day you took me from my home! Since the day you began torturing me." The voice was now hissing, steaming with anger. "Everyone will know what you did! Everyone will know the monster that lies within."
*
Blurry figures filled Mr. Fishman's vision. Aliens in blue skin, he screamed and covered his face with his arms. His vision cleared, and he realized it was the police; he looked around, rubbing his aching head. What am I doing in the closet? He thought. He felt himself being pulled up,
"thank you, officers, I-" He tried to turn to face the officers surrounding him but found his hands cuffed behind him. It was then he realized it was over.
"James Andrew Fishman, I am placing you under arrest for the kidnapping and murder of Jason Woodrow. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you..." an officer said, walking the man out in handcuffs to a waiting police car.
The coroner could not help but gasp at what he saw when he walked in. crumbled on the narrow closet carpet was a thin skeleton with skin stretching over it. He had been wearing the strips of what used to be a green t-shirt and jeans two sizes too big. Upon seeing the sight, the coroner and his young apprentice assumed he was dead. As they began to move him, however, a scratchy voice lifted the hairs on the back of their necks,
"Water, Please!" They jumped as they heard the voice. Jason was alive! The coroner quickly reached in his pocket, shaking. He brought out a plastic bottle of cold water. "Andrew," he said to his young apprentice as he held the bottle to the young man's lips, "get the paramedics in here, now! He needs to get to a hospital quickly."
*
"Jason! you have a visitor!" His mother said as she entered the hospital room. Mr. Fishman would not have recognized the boy lying in the hospital bed. Jason had gained weight, and his hair was cut and washed; instead of a tangled, greasy mass on his head. He wore a smile on his clean face.
He looked up from his phone to see a woman in her early twenties, with shiny brown hair held back from her face by a slick ponytail. She wore a maroon, low-cut top and blue jeans that accentuated her wide-hipped figure. She was followed by another woman with blond hair, pulled into a messy bun at the top of her head. Her top was covered by a grey sweatshirt and blue ripped jeans.
"Hi, Jason! My name is Anna Lamour. This is my camerawoman Victoria. We're with DHR news." She reached out to shake his hand; he took it and said,
"Hello, I'm Jason" he gave a smile and a wink. Anna gave him a side glance and giggled.
"That's why we're here. I want to interview you for a segment on next week's eleven o'clock news. Is it alright if I ask a few questions?"
He did not like to remember those six months. Whenever he did, his nightmares were filled with his teacher's awful face. The nights of torcher he endured played like movies in his mind.
He took a deep breath and nodded his head. He knew in his heart the only way to face it was to talk about it.
*
After an hour, the final question came: "Jason, the officers that rescued you said that you experienced something like an out-of-body experience. Can you tell me anything about that?"
He nodded his head and told the story, "I had just had a conversation with him. He spat in my face after I asked for water, then slammed the door. He loved stuff like this. He loved it when I begged for anything. As he walked away, I felt this tingling in my hands that spread all over my body. At first, I thought it was dehydration, then blinding light shot from my fingertips. I moved my right hand, and the door shook hard. I kept doing it. Whatever it was until the door flew from the hinges. I saw him, and my first instinct was to strangle him, so I stretched out my hand. As I did, he was lifted off the ground, flailing and pleading; this made me so angry. I thought, if only he were stuck in here."
He stopped to take a drink of water and let the suspense in the room build. "Then, before I knew it, he was on top of me. It was like I died and became a ghost just long enough for me to escape and him to get caught. It didn't feel like" he did finger quotes in the air "Out of body" "it was like somebody finally gave me the reins and gave me the control that he had over me, but I never left my body. It was like magic."
The room was silent, everyone just staring at each other. The only noise was that of the beeps and hums of hospital machinery. He laid there staring, holding the plastic cup to his lips. The silence was broken by a man clearing his throat. It was a nurse,
"excuse me, Ms. Lamour, visiting hours are almost up. Mrs. Woodrow, you're welcome to stay."
"Yes, sir, thank you." She grinned. "thank you, Jason, Mrs. Woodrow, for your time."
She and her camerawoman left the room. Jason's eyes grew heavy, he may have been doing a lot better, but he was far from his old self. His old self would stay up until the crack of dawn when given a chance. His new self went to sleep early. His body craved sleep all the time. In a few weeks, his body would recover, but his mind would take years of counseling and comfort from his new therapy dog, Bow, who laid on his chest as he slept in the stiff hospital gurney. To get over the memory of the horror he endured as the skeleton in Mr. Fishman's closet.
