Scary Stories, Rituals, and Urban Legends

The man in the other stall

I recently started eating lunch in the washroom stalls at school. It's not because I'm a weirdo or a degenerate by any means, but I have always been an easy target at school... and everyone in my grade knew it.

The fact of the matter is, the other students wouldn't know you were a recluse if they never actually saw you. If I was doing laps in the school hallways at lunch, I was totally a "fucking loner freak!". And they couldn't take my bologna sandwich and pretend to stuff it up my ass if I didn't hang out near the bike racks at the front of the school. I was safe here in the washroom stalls.

Plus, I was rather intrigued by the things that were written in the stalls.

Hunter is gay

I'm pretty sure Hunter has a girlfriend, I thought as I scanned the rest of the writing on the stalls.

Ms. Delany takes it up the ass. And as if to prove it, there was a crude stick drawing of Ms. Delany, in fact, taking another stick member up her hindquarters. The kids at my school found a lot of humor in putting objects in other people's butts.

The washroom door suddenly swung open and the sound of footsteps led to the stall next to mine.

I heard a belt unbuckling and zipper going down. A pair of baggy corduroy pants pattered to the ground around the man's giant shoes. They were, in fact, nearly comically large, brown, leather shoes.

Those must be the biggest feet I've ever seen, I thought.

"What are you looking at?"

I nearly jumped off the toilet. The man had a deep, gravelly smoker's voice.

"You know it's not nice to stare at people's feet," he continued.

"I-I'm not," I stammered.

The man chuckled.

"I'm just messing with ya, sport. What are you doing in there?"

"What do people usually do in a washroom stall?" I asked, trying to sound brave.

There was a moment of silence.

"Not you," the man said. "You've been in there for 20 minutes."

Had this man been waiting for me outside of the washroom? What if he was one of the teachers here to finally put an end to my afternoon washroom lunch breaks?

"Who are you?" I tentatively asked.

"The name is Jeffrey. I'm one of the janitors here at the school. I was waiting for you to leave the washroom so I could close it down for cleaning."

I felt a rush of relief.

"Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't know!" I began to explain. "I must have eaten something earlier that... disagreed with me."

The man chuckled again.

"A large number two, huh, Brad?"

I felt my blood run cold. How the hell did the janitor know my name?

"Yea, I guess," I said with a fake, nervous laugh.

"Or is it because the other kids are mean to you? You shouldn't let them do that."

"That's not why!" I retorted.

"You can make it stop," he said. "I can help you do mean things back to them."

I needed to get out of here. This man was giving me some bad vibes. I pretended to start doing up my own belt buckle.

"Where are you going in such a rush, Brad?" Jeffrey asked. "Why don't you hang around for a bit and chat?"

"I have to go," I said and flushed the toilet.

There was another moment of silence as the water sloshed against the porcelain underneath me. I went to stand up.

"Now you're trying to hurt my feelings!" the man pouted.

"I really have to go," I insisted. "Class is starting soon!"

"Are you a fast runner, Bradley?"

I froze. The man in the other stall started to pull his pants back up.

"Because I bet I could get to the door faster than you can," Jeffrey said.

I still hadn't moved; I felt like I was paralyzed.

"What do you want?" I managed to ask.

"I just want to talk," Jeffrey said. "How about we play a game instead? How about this: You guess the size of my shoes correctly, and I let you leave this washroom?"

This guy is completely crazy, I decided.

"I can leave if I want!" I said, without conviction.

The man chuckled again.

"Of course you can, Brad! I'm just having some fun with you, is all. Say, why don't you come back to my place and we play on the computer together? I could drop you off at home right after. We don't live very far from each other at all!"

I saw his shadow moving against the stall and a large indistinguishable frame settled behind one of the cracks. He was trying to look at me.

All my insides clenched at once. I banged open the stall door and took off sprinting.

The man's chuckle followed me as I made for the door.

"I'll see you soon, Brad," the man said.

I didn't stop running till I got to class.

I didn't tell anyone right away. I didn't feel like I had a reason to. The man hadn't done anything to me after all, had he? But when I got home later that afternoon and found a letter tucked neatly in an envelope on my front porch, I felt like I had no choice.

Hi, Brad! Sorry if I spooked ya back there. If it's any consolation, you really hurt my feelings. I think you owe me one, Brad. How about you keep all this between us? And maybe next time you can come over to my place and we can play on the computer together. It will be fun. I promise. See you soon, sport.

Of course, the police later discovered that there were no janitors at the school named Jeffrey. In fact, that name didn't pop up on any of the school's registries. The police found no traces of the man at all. Regardless if he had up and vanished, my family and I felt a lot better knowing that the police department allocated some extra surveillance resources to my neighborhood for the next little while.

Also, I stopped eating lunch in the washroom stalls at school. I just think I've outgrown that phase in my life.

XOXO Jade