The Dare

Chapter 7

My sister stands shakily, holding her hands out to me and stepping over the body on the ground. I step back when she gets closer, shying away from the amount of blood on her body.

"Sage.." She starts to say but she trails off, frantically looking at the group of us then at her hands, before looking back at the group. "It came from nowhere, i-it just appeared, and now.." I can't think straight still, my brain feels foggy and my hands sweat with nerves. All I can watch is her hands, covered in now dry blood, shaking with her fear.

"What happened Salem?" Avery whispers from behind us, and Grayson walks over to the boy on the ground. He bent down beside him and put his fingers to his throat for a moment before looking back at us and shaking his head. This guy's dead? It's not a prank?

"This has to be a joke. You're all trying to pull something on me-" Teagan snaps at us, her voice raising with an edge. She marches forward and pushes Grayson out of the way for her to bend over the body, and replace her hand on the throat.

There's a moment, a pause of silence where the only thing I can hear is Salem's breathing. It's sharp and high-pitched, tears stream down her cheeks without stopping making her mascara darken her face. The silence is broken by Teagan letting out a cry, startling all of us.

My sister flinches into my arms, I peer over her head and my whole body feels like it plummets with shock. The bloody body is standing, his head hanging to the side like a sack of cobwebs. Blood drips out of his mouth, nose, and eyes.

"Help me-" He moans, blood gurgling his speech. Grayson's face is white, but he reaches forward to help the boy. Before his hands can even reach him there is an ear-piercing snapping sound and the football player falls to his knees.

Salem screams and pulls herself behind me, using me as a shield to whatever is happening. There is another snapping sound and this time the boy's elbow appears through his skin as it breaks, he drops to a crouch; screaming in pain making blood surge from his mouth.

My heart pounds in my throat and I can't breathe while watching the boy writhing in pain on the cafeteria floor.

"Make it stop," I say, my words drowned by screaming and the sound of snapping bones. "Make it stop, help him!" I yell, finally covering my eyes to try to un-see his ribs breaking through his lettermen jacket. What is this? What is happening? I've never seen anything like this and I don't know how to understand it.

My eyes open when the screaming finally stops, I see him lying on the ground in his blood again; this time his bones poking through his clothing. There is silence now, the only thing I can hear is Avery, Hazel, and Salem crying behind me.

"We need to call the cops," Mason whispers from behind me, and I turn to watch him pull out his phone. His fingers shake as he dials 911 and we all wait, impatiently holding our breaths, everything so quiet that we can hear the dialing tone.

What Mason plans to say to the cops, I don't know. How does one explain that one, we broke into private property; and two that a varsity player had his bones broken repeatedly until he died?

Faintly we hear a woman's voice pick up on the other end, asking the emergency. His eyes water when they meet mine, I can't read his face exactly; but I can guess how he's feeling. It's how we're all feeling; confused and afraid. How did it get to this? How did it go from a prank that my sister bestowed onto me, to someone being dead?

He coughs, blinking the tears away, and he starts down the dark hallway we came from. "We have a-a, a dead body?" Mason says it as a question, like a football player on the ground has a chance of being alive. His voice trails off as he gets further away, and I hope that the cops get here fast so his body can be taken care of.