the demon In the lockers

"I'm telling you," Jane said in a quiet voice. "I've seen him come out of the lockers before. He was folded like an urugami inside, waiting…"

    "Waiting for what?" a small boy in their circle interrupted. Everyone in the class was either reading, talking or seated in the circle listening to Jane. She loved the effect her story was having on them, the fear and rapt attention.

"Waiting for his next victim." She turned her head from side to side, watching everyone, and punctuating her words with sounds she thought a ghoul would make. "He stays there all day, and at night he roams the school, crawling on its walls and ceilings like a spider." She smiled to herself as a gasped escaped the lips of one of her listeners. "He was once a student here..."

"Then what happened to him?" The same boy interrupted her again. She rolled her eyes and looked in his direction.

    "You'd know if you let me finish the story Tayo." He did this every time, always interrupting. Next time she gathered everyone for her stories she'd kicked him out of the group.

    "You lie too much Jane." Chris Adekunle said as he walked towards their circle. Chris was their class resident bully, and Jane's ex boyfriend. He picked on her anytime he got a chance. It was obvious to everyone that he still liked her, but he was too hardheaded to admit it.

  The circle broke up slowly, nobody wanting to stand in the way of Chris and his heartthrob. All except Tayo.

"I've told you this before, leave me alone." She retrieved her bag from the corner she had kept it, and got up to leave, but Chris caught her by her wrist, and drew her close to himself. They were so close that Jane could feel his breath on her.

    "And what will you do if I decide not to?" he asked, his voice a whisper as his eyes bored into hers. Jane felt her heart in her throat. She had discovered that she still liked him, but she was as hardheaded as he was and she was not good with her emotions. They were liars and they were always misleading, but standing here in his arms, she felt her emotions at a precipice, and nothing mattered…

   "She said you should leave her alone." A tiny voice squeaked in front of them. Jane looked down to see Tayo, hands curled so tight they shook. 

Chris threw his head back and roared in laughter, his voice echoing throughout the class. Sniggers erupted and one girl coughed awkwardly. Jane pushed Chris away, cheeks flushed and heart throbbing.  How could she have forgotten so soon. Why did his touch always affect her in such a way. No more, she thought, emotions were liars, and her feelings were the devil.

   "So you've grown balls." Chris sneered at Tayo, "It seems you've forgotten what Daniel and his gang did to you. Do you want to relive that memory?" He picked Tayo up by the armpits like he only weighed as much as a feather, and he began to shake him like a ragdoll.

  No more

    Jane tried desperately to break them apart but Chris was too strong for her. All she could do was hit him on his arm, but she could as well have been a feather, for all the damage she did.

"Leave me alone." Tayo said stubbornly. He pinched the bigger boy's arm hard, a small act, but it was enough. Chris's grip loosened, and Tayo capitalized on the momentary show of weakness. He swung his leg up, catching Chris in between the legs. A gasped rose from somewhere in the class as Jane watched Chris crumble to his knees, face contorted in pain.

  Tayo had a pleased look on his face. No one had ever done that to the bully and he was proud of himself. Chris began to struggle to his feet, eyes red, veins bulging and body shaking violently.

       "You're dead." Chris whispered, his voice almost inaudible. "You hear me?  YOU'RE DEAD!!" Tayo's proud look melted in fear and he took to his heels, bolting out the door with Chris at his heels.

        Jane slumped back on her seat. She would never understand boys, no matter how hard she tried. She looked down at her watch and the time read eight: fifteen pm. They still had an hour and thirty minutes of prep, and she was not about to open her books, not on the first day. She picked her bag up, fluffed it like a pillow and threw her head face down on it.

          Jane awoke to find the class empty and dark, the school's night lights immersing the hallways into a world of red and black. Her watch read 3:00pm as she picked up her bag and got up from her seat.

She had never really paid much thought to the stories she told, they came freely to her and she relished the attention it got her, and the way the members of her circle feared them made her feel powerful. Stories about Lady Koi-koi, the bush baby and the man in the lockers have been around most boarding schools, and all she did was spice it up a little with her own details. But walking down the world of red and black in the quiet of the night, her stories came crawling into her mind, filling her up with fear. She hurriedly half ran-half walked down the hall, anxious to get back to her hostel.

A loud sound from the other end of the hall stopped Jane in her tracks. The sound came again; the sound of stone on iron. Jane's body froze as her mind ran back to her story. Lady Koi-Koi. The bush baby. The man in the lockers. On second thought she could be over thinking; the school was overrun by rats, and that was probably the cause of the sounds.

"They're not real, they're just stories." Jane reassured herself, and continued down the hall with renewed vigour.

    Another tap came from behind Jane, causing her to jump. Fear sipped backed into her soul. She turned around slowly, not wanting to face the darkness but she also did not want to leave without finding the source of the sounds. The night light flickered off, one by one until Jane was surrounded by darkness. The tapping sounds began to come rhythmically. Tap.tap.tap.tap.

   And suddenly the lights in front of Jane came back on, flooding her sight in its reddish glare. All the other lights stay off making an island of reddish light in a sea of darkness. The tapping sound stopped suddenly, and the whole building was plunged into silence. Jane stood rooted to the spot as she watched the locker open by an inch. Rotting fingers tipped with long and dirty fingernails, slid out of the darkness, grasped the locker's handle, and threw the lid open. Another hand appeared, long, bony legs sprouted from the darkness. And then its head appeared.

  Hairless and wrinkled, it burst out of the darkness. It turned its head in Jane's direction, and her eyes widened in shock, it had neither eyes nor nose but a mouth that covered its entire face.

  It stretched its legs and proceeded to crawl on the walls as easily as a spider would. It shrieked as it moved from ceiling to wall.   Sharp jolts of pain search realized sounds it made reminded Jane of the one's she had made earlier.

  After standing in silence for what felt like an eternity, Jane was certain that the man from the lockers was not aware of her presence. She forced herself to move, ever slowly but not daring to turn her back to it. She walked backwards until she reached the corner that broke right into the stairs, the exit at the bottom.

      Just she was about to turn the corner and run to the exit, her foot struck a mop stick that had been placed carelessly infront of the way. 'CLANG!!!'  The sound echoed  throughout the hallway.

  Jane's breath caught in her throat as she watched the ghoul' s body vibrate to the sound and she felt like the silence that followed would kill her before the ghoul did. It crawled up and down the walls restlessly, but it made no move towards her. She was about to continue her retreat when she spied the mop stick tilting at the edge of the stairs. The creature behind her had not come for her after her first fuck up and she was not willing to give it a second chance to redeem itself. She made her way quietly towards the mop, hoping to reach it before it fell, but she was too late. It rolled over the edge, landed on one stair noisily, rolled down to the next until it reached the bottom, and rolled to the door.

    Jane felt her heart beating a million times a second. A loud shriek rose from the island of red light and she heard the sound of nails on the tiled floor as the man from the locker bounded towards her.

    Samantha awoke from her dreamless slumber to the sounds of a girl's screams. Outside she heard the quiet platter of slippered feet as people rushed to see the source of the noise.

  She and her roommate, Ella, walked amongst the others to the room at the end of the hall. Inside the room, the hostel mistress was comforting a girl that looked mad with fright. She was sobbing and shaking violently and the hostel mistress looked back at her assistant, confused and shocked.

Samantha immediately recognized the girl from prep. She had been telling stupid old wives tales to a group of students, and two boys had fought over her afterwards.

Samantha immediately recognized the girl from prep. She had been telling stupid old wives tales to a group of students, and two boys had fought over her afterwards.

  "Oh my God" Ella whispered, covering her mouth with her hands. "She's bleeding." It was only then Samantha  saw the three long slashes on the girl's arm. She looked like she had been locked in a cage with a tiger. Her white bedsheets had turned red with blood. The atmosphere all around was tense as Samantha stared at the girl, eyes wide in shock and fear.