[Author’s note: PEEL was originally published by A Thin Slice of Anxiety in June 2024. You can never forget the day of your first publication! This version is updated/revised from its original version because of typos, inconsistencies and terrible writing. These, of course, are errors not by the publisher, but by me, the writer. Another few extra revisions rounds never hurt. Anyway…Enjoy!]
PEEL
by Ryan Cecere
In the small Pennsylvania town of Stoneside Township, on a November morning where frost coated the dead branches, the town freak slithered out of bed, snuck out the backyard and ventured down to the lake a mile from home.
He cut through the woods, with crickets chattering around him, rain starting to drizzle from a deep black sky, the sky lit by only brief flash of lightning twenty miles away. He slushed along in wet, beat-up, decade old, sneakers caked with mud. The rain came down a little harder, beginning to melt away the frost coated tree branches. A hanging branch licked the side of his cheek, leaving behind a dark streak. The branches scrapped his scalp and tugged at his khaki pants and flannel as he divided the mass of brush aside with his hands, pushing through a barrier of vicious branches. The rest of the walk would be easy-going. All he had to do was follow the abandoned train tracks north and he’d reach the clearing to the lake, his place of solitude.
He walked on train tracks abandoned since the mid-eighties, stiff legged, arms at his sides and head straight forward, a permanent blank expression, eyes barely blinking.
The bush to the right rustled and he stopped to crane his neck slowly toward the movement. A small critter moved about underneath the bush and along a patch of long blades of grass. His steps were robotic; one foot, then the next, one in front of the other until he stood with both feet side-by-side, standing over the bush. The small critter didn’t jolt away as he parted the leaves and branches. It continued digging in the dirt and grass. The little bastard was persistent, not fazed by him or the sudden clap of thunder and bright flash of lightning, wanting whatever it hunted for. Its fluffy brown tail stuck high in the air and its rear bounced from one side to the other, head furrowed in the ground.
He knelt, watching the determined squirrel struggle to unearth the acorn stuck in the frozen ground.
The Freak’s arms lashed out, seizing the squirrel’s tiny head fully in one hand, its squirming body in the other. The squirrel’s shriek gave him the devilish pleasure of a first orgasm. He trapped its arms in his palm. Dirt and pebbles flung around as the squirrel’s feet flailed in effort to escape. Its nails caught on the fabric of his flannel and tore lashes in the shirt and a scratch down the side of his forearm; he did not react. The scratch felt like it scraped numb skin. His hand covered the squirrel’s head, and he could feel the critter’s warm breath fade the more tightly he constricted his hand over its head.
The squirrel not only proved persistence with the acorn and to be too trusting of humans, but it proved to also be a fighter. For a full minute the squirrel squirmed and thrashed with its hind legs before its body went limp.
The Freak suffocated the squirrel another long minute, to secure its death. When he was certain it wouldn’t catch some unpredictable second breath, he walked to the clearing with it cupped in his hands, staring into the lifeless black beads of its eyes.
He found a spot fifteen feet from the water, knelt, then gingerly let the squirrel’s corpse roll off his palms and onto the wet grass with a sickly, gushy noise.
A smile.
A smile so tiny you wouldn’t noticed unless you put your face close to his, creased one corner of his mouth.
Reaching into his front pocket, he pulled out a shard of glass, the edges so sharp it pricked his skin. A pinch of blood dripped down his thumb. He admired the animal corpse, ran the back of his hand up and down its fur.
In a sudden movement, he snatched the squirrel’s body and lifted it, pressing one sharp edge of the glass shard against the squirrel’s neck, slicing downward to the hip. Its blood mixed with his and the raindrops. He pocketed the shard, inserted his fingers into the skin where he’d sliced, and ripped open the squirrel’s flesh, peeling off skin and fur in one pull. Only the fur on its head remained. He jammed the fur in his other pocket then chucked the animal’s corpse aside.
He rested his scrawny arms on his scrawny thighs, head bowed in concentration. The rain matted his hair. He stretched out and violently scrubbed away the blood in the lake. For a moment, he stopped to stare down at the water’s surface, the drops rippled and disfigured his features. He punched the water, then stormed off.
Jack Carpenter enjoyed peeling things.
***
The violent voice shook the early hours of yet another morning.
Meaty fists pounded the door, rattling it on its hinges, disrupting Jack’s fantasy. He imagined his fake-father standing in the hallway, arms folded, staring at the unmade bed in Jack’s bedroom. Would he rummage the room and discover the bag of animal fur under his bed?
“You awake, freak?”
Heavy boots thudded down the short hall. The growling voice just outside the bathroom door:
“You better not’ve been in here an hour again, boy. I mean it!”
The bathroom door rattled again. Next came a thud followed by another thud. Another thud. On the fourth and loudest of them all, the steel-toed boots crashed into the bottom corner of the door.
Jack’s heartbeat amped. His arm spasming and swept away at the clipper-out yearbook photo of a beautiful red-headed girl. He had been straddling the toilet bowl, hand pumping away at the shaft of the tiny stub of a pecker, hidden underneath a forest of pubes.
“Don’t make me barge in there and drag you into the kitchen by your chicken-shit neck. You quit whacking off in there and get your ass out here, ASAP. Freak! Move it!”
The footsteps echoed down the hallway, bouncing off the walls like a bullet into an underground chamber.
Jack flushed down the fluids after he finished. He stared into the mirror as the hot water misted the glass: an average-looking brown-haired, green-eyed boy fifty pounds severely underweight. Every day he wondered to himself at the person looking back why he wasn’t normal like the others. Why he was a freak. He longed for normalcy.
Jack casually pulled free his hands from under the faucet. It didn’t hurt, though the skin on his hands were raw and red and scabby.
Any thoughts at being a normal teenager evaporated the same way as did the clouds on the mirror.
In the kitchen, his mother was frying bacon and eggs for breakfast. His fake-father sat at the small square table, right ankle crossed over left leg, reading the newspaper, face scowled. Jack took a seat across from his younger sister. She hummed and rocked her legs under the table. He cupped his hands between shaky legs, kept his head down at the empty plate.
Slapping the newspaper shut, his fake-father said, “About fucking time. Boy spends an hour in the bathroom every damn morning, yanking his fucking dick—”
“Please…” said his mother, shrunken, timid, always stepping on egg shells, never really learning how to navigate the man who’d taken over for her late-husband, afraid of another belt whipping along the rear, another near-death strangulation in the bedroom. “Can we have breakfast in peace, just this once?”
Jack’s fake-father stared unnervingly at him, like Jack was some accidental creation or lab experiment gone wrong.
“Something’s the matter with your son. The Freak never talks. A fucking retarded mute. Should’ve had him checked out. Or an abortion. This world don’t need any more freaks and loonies running around.” He huffed and reverted his attention back to the newspaper.
Jack’s mother scooped bacon and eggs onto their plates. Her unwashed hair was disheveled. She wore her pajamas and a robe every day. Her days spent cooking and watching old movies on the TV. She sniffed, walked back over to the stove and stared out the tiny window of their tiny trailer home overlooking their tiny yard. Jack sensed his mother’s closed eyes even with her back turned toward them. Perhaps tired of this life, sick of this man, yet too afraid to make a change this late in life, too terrified of speaking her unhappiness that’d surely earn her another beating…and far worse if Jack’s fake-father downed those tiny bottles of whiskey he kept stuffed in the inner pocket of his plumper’s work jacket, to a point Jack lay suffering in bed with a pillow pressed over his ears to drown out the cries and whimpers of his mother in the next room over, the headboard slamming into the wall, the creaking of the box spring.
“Speak, boy. Speak for once,” said his fake-father, ripping at a piece of bacon, chewing like a cow.
Jack remained silent. The toes of his sneakers planted, he rose his heels and impatiently tapped at the air.
His mother began scrubbing the dishes.
His sister hummed and hummed a stupid, incoherent melody.
Jack stopped tapping the air with his heels and his sister quit humming when their mother spoke.
“Stop picking on him.”
“Excuse me, woman?” Although she said it in a weak murmur, he heard it clear as a whistle.
“Nothing…” She sniffed.
Jack’s sister returned to her humming, ate her breakfast, familiar with the chaos about to ensue.
“No. Say it.”
But she didn’t.
Jack noticed the fists forming across from him. He wanted to grab his sister by the arm and pull her into the bedroom, lock the door and tell her to keep on humming, only he found himself paralyzed all the time during these bouts. Knowing what’d happen, knowing to run away and hide; unable to. Like in sleep paralysis.
The chair collapsed on the ground, jolting Jack but not affecting his humming sister, when his fake-father launched out of his seat. He stepped right into his mother’s face, who spun around and fell against the counter, a cry trapped in her throat.
Whatever threat this man whispered into his mother’s ear, Jack couldn’t hear. She sank over the counter with her head down on her arms. He walked back over to the table and chucked his plate across the kitchen. Glass shattered into dozens of pieces.
“Clean this shit up!” he hollered to Jack’s mother, then stormed out.
Jack’s sister kept on humming.
He went over to help his mother clean up the mess.
“Don’t worry about it,” she told him, low and hurt. “I’ll take care of this. You get to school.” But when Jack picked up some pieces of broken glass, she yelled, “FUCKING STOP!” and smacked away his hand, the scabby hand.
He recoiled as if being snapped at by a venomous snake. It stung, more than the scorching hot sink water.
“Go to school,” she said, defeated and on the verge of breakdown.
He watched her pick up the pieces of broken dish for a half-minute.
His sister was still humming when he left.
***
Teenagers called the dead-end street of Jericho Road Poverty Road due to the trailer homes propped on cinder blocks and low-income residents. Jack stepped through a battleground of ankle-deep puddles and sloshed along past Mrs. Elrod’s, two trailer homes down from the Carpenters. Like the others, she wanted no part of that family.
“Precious! Oh, Precious!” she hoo’ed about like an owl. She held out a small round, purple bowl of dry cat food, shaking it lightly. “Precious, where are you dear? Come eat!”
Generally, the residents of Jericho Road could hear the casual conversations of their neighbors because the street was so quiet. Especially over at the Carpenter house, every day. And though people felt terrible how that man treated his family, and felt sorta bad for the autistic son, they mainly felt sorry for the wife and daughter. But people minded their own business.
Mrs. Elrod’s voice carried over the street as she called out for her precious cat, Precious. When she saw Jack the old bitch looked at him like some plague on humanity. She’d drop dead in the coming years at her age, with her arthritis and chain-smoking habits. It was amazing she still moved around without a cane or oxygen tank.
“Keep on walking, boy,” Mrs. Elrod said. “Don’t want no trouble.” She decided, for the hell if it, to add a snide remark. “I dunno how you people live in such filth. Tell your folks to start cleaning so the smells go away. If you don’t, I will. Promise you that much.”
No you won’t, Jack thought. He’d make sure she never went near their trailer home.
She returned to her search for Precious her precious cat.
Jack still heard her carrying voice as he made it to where Jericho Road turned over to the next street, psst-psst noises and finger snapping and whistling.
Jack looked down at his feet, even as he crossed the road. He had his fists stuffed deep into the pockets of his winter coat, with the hood tossed over his head, so at least two parts of his body would stay dry. Three, including his hair.
Each day he walked the same route, absentmindedly kicking rocks and twigs, soggy leaves sticking to the bottoms and sides of his sneakers, squishing every step. The more rural, poorer section of town opened way to the lower middle-class neighborhood of Cherry Lane. These were mostly two-story houses with attached garages, lawns with sprinklers, all-too-friendly neighbors and white-collar working parents with spoiled children. Jack, whom had no friends, and if a person also had no friends, they’d still have one more friend than Jack, didn’t belong in this neighborhood as much as he didn’t belong in the rest of the town. In his own home. He didn’t speed walk his way through the neighborhood like some abomination who’d get pegged by rocks from second-floor windows with people shouting, “GET LOST, FREAK! YOU DON’T BELONG!” No. He casually walked through the neighborhood, on stiff legs with his stiff walk, like any other part of town.
“Jack?”
He heard the girl’s voice, one he recognized over the heavy patter of rain above his ears, and it forced his legs to stop moving all at once, halting him in place, right by the front yard fence.
She was the only person in town, perhaps the entire world, that called him by his first name and not The Freak.
Jack slowly turned his neck to face her, the girl in the picture clipping, with a vague, distant expression, like his body walked the earth while his soul rested in a purgatory state. Yet, his dullish pale eyes avoided her lively blues. When it became too much, too unbearable to look even in the general vicinity of where she stood under the porch roof, he shot his head down. Inside his coat pockets, his wrists twitched, while the rest of Jack Carpenter’s body felt tense and as heavy as a barrel of cinder blocks.
She called out to him again. “Jack, hey! I’m heading to school now. Just waiting for my mom. She’s grabbing her coffee. Want a ride so you’re not any more drenched by the time First Period starts? Jack…You’ll catch pneumonia.”
Jack’s teeth ground together.
The heavy patter of rain was nearly drowned out by the oncoming of an intense, loud shrieking buzz. Cicadas between the ears, he thought.
Amber called out again.
In a burst of random movement, Jack Carpenter darted down the street, hands still tucked deep into his coat pockets. Legs off the ground. Knees to chest. The hood of his coat flew off his head.
He kept running, yes.
But really, he fled.
***
Jack was soaked worse by the time he was up the street from Stoneside Township High. And not from the rain. The rain had calmed down to a light drizzle by then.
It happened on the prior block. He heard the revving engine and squeal of tires on slick pavement. His head was down, staring at his worn sneakers and the cracks on the sidewalk when the car accelerated behind him. Jack Carpenter was the oddball in town, the freak, so it was easy picking him out of any crowd; on the sidewalk, alone, you couldn’t mistake him for anyone else, not even with the hood on, not in Stoneside Township, populated no more than 5,000, with his distinctive walk and clothes. He didn’t react until the car drove through the large puddle, sending a tidal wave of cold water over his entire left side, to which he froze momentarily, his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palm, then proceeding as if nothing happened.
He recognized the Mitsubishi Lancer, grey, with a black matte G-wing spoiler. The Lancer had peeled off, screeching loudly as the driver slammed on the brakes a little further long down the road, jerking the steering wheel sharply, turning right and racing toward the high school.
Jack cut through the parking lot that was for both students and faculty, to the main entrance. The Lancer was there, parked in the spot reserved for the head P.E. teacher and head coach of the Stoneside Township high school baseball team. Go, Llamas! The team’s name given back in the early 50’s, dedicated to the llama farm in the southwest corner of town. Jared Wheeler, the son, drove the Lancer, with his buddy Eli Dalton sitting shotgun.
He wished to slash those tires someday.
Jack entered the building.
His heart pounded ferociously in his chest. The muscles in his neck, arms, legs and jaw tightened. He tried to take a step, only his legs didn’t want to cooperate. He stood there, eyes sucked behind their sockets, his body stiff as a plank. His hair clung to his face and his clothes, filthy and so old and cheap looked like they’d probably dissolve off his skin any moment.
The student body, along with the two security guards stationed at the front desk in the main hallway, stopped midway in their conversations, hell, stopped midway in their tracks, and looked Jack’s way, this freak dripping over the tiled floor. A faint handful of giggles came from somewhere in the crowd. Followed with whispers and inappropriate jokes. A direct insult: “You think The Freak pee’d himself?”
Then everyone resumed to their own business. Boys and girls flirting at their lockers, the security guards cracking profane and inappropriate jokes that’d get them fired for racism and sexual harassment, other students heading for First Period class. Like he didn’t exist. In this town, in this life, Jack Carpenter simultaneously existed and didn’t exist, the same way a concept or idea does and doesn’t.
The moment his legs found the grounds to move, the hallway fell silent, and what echoed and bounced off the walls was the squelching his sneakers made with each step. Not a single student parted to allow him through. He bumped shoulders with several students. Half of them seemed to want him to touch them, give them a reason to strike or shove or further insult. One kid did; he whacked Jack right upside the back of his head. Jack didn’t flinch, hell, he barely winched or blinked. He kept on walking with his eyes to the ground, the back of his head pulsing stupidly.
Jared Wheeler was a rebellious senior who wore a black leather jacket, black backwards hat, dark jeans and black boots. He’d grown a patch of stubble on his pointy chin and a line of stubble above his lips. He stood by the lockers, no, he leaned against a locker, chatting with his group of friends. One was Eli Dalton, his right-hand man, his amigo since elementary school, the star pitcher for the Stoneside Township Llamas baseball team. He wore the school team’s shirt and carried his bat and glove everywhere like a form of identification. The tallest girl of the two girls was Taylor Schultz. Jewish. She was too tall for the likes of most boys to date, but they admired her busty body and extroverted personality. Standing in front of Taylor, and in the draped over arms of Jared Wheeler, was her. Amber Evans. Amber, like the natural color of her hair, hair which fell neatly over her slender shoulders, athletic shoulders from years of participating in gymnastics. She smiled often, sparkling white teeth that never suffered from braces. Her green eyes flowed from her friend group and the crowd of students and met with Jack. A look of kindness, not pity. She gave the tiniest finger-wave, unnoticed by her boyfriend and friends.
He didn’t wave back, or frown or cover himself when the center of his pants started to press forward.
The universe chose Jared to notice first. Jared looked over his shoulder and followed what Amber was looking at. He gave Jack a long gaze from head to toe and toe to head. That’s when he saw the one-inch pitched tent forming at the khaki pants groin area. Jared pointed for everyone in the hallway to see.
“Hey—look! The Freak’s got a boner, everyone!”
Everyone laughed, all except Amber. Even the security guards whipped their heads around.
Eli joined in: “Boner Boy!” The newly awarded nickname emanated snickers from the student on-lookers, and a few boisterous laughter. “Maybe if you covered it like this—” Eli crossed his hands over his crotch. More laughter.
Neither of his shoelaces were tied together, but it sure felt that way when he lost balance and stumbled forward, like his mind crisscrossed with where to go or what to do. He was horrified. When he bumped into a student, they’d shove him away, causing him to bump into another student, who also shoved him away, until Jack found the stairwell and jogged down three steps at a time. He managed to grab hold on the handrail as he slipped on one step. He descended downstairs to the basement-level. The upstairs laughter faded as he hurried past a whole new crowd of students below, confused as Jack whizzed on down the hall. He went into the boys bathroom and locked himself inside a stall, sitting on the toilet bowl with the lid down.
Five minutes later, First Period’s bell rang.
***
With the new hot topic nickname of Boner Boy spreading around the school like a rapidly mutating virus, Jack Carpenter skipped a lot of classes.
For lunch period, he vacated his usual spot at the fence separating the baseball field from the sidewalk. He’d sit at the far side of left field, sometimes watching a pick-up game or every-so-often the group of kids using center and right field to toss around a football. Normally during the free time, the students left Jack alone. On occasion one might “overthrow” the football so it landed within feet of him. One time the football smacked him in the shoulder. When one of the kids came to collect the football, they’d look at him and say “Weirdo” before running back to their group, usually with snarky laughter.
Instead, he spent lunch period wandering the school’s perimeter and empty halls, avoiding security guards and faculty, but mostly, and most importantly, the student body the best he could. For last period, Jack found a quiet spot behind one of the school dumpsters on the side of the building. Sitting against the cold concrete wall with his knees pressed against his chest, waiting for last bell. The ground still cold and damp from the morning rain. Looking at nothing in particular, just the chipped green paint on one of the dumpster corners that was slowly decaying to rust.
Unlike a normal person who’d freak out at anything unfamiliar touching their skin, Jack reacted like a stone figure when the furry body rubbed against his wrist. The brown mouse squeaked by with its long pink tail, the length of a pencil. The mouse sniffed around Jack’s fingers before moving along to his musky sneakers. It turned to him with beady black eyes, stood on its hind, tiny pink paws clawing into the material of Jack’s pants, nonaggressive and wrinkled its nose at the air, at him, begging to be fed or be acknowledged. Maybe wanting a human companion to look after it.
Jack reached across his body and lifted the mouse by its tail. The mouse immediately shrieked to be put down. Its body curled as it tried to nip at him. Jack held the squirming mouse in front of him. It shrieked horrifyingly, like being brandished on the rear with red-hot metal, when sensing this boy’s empty soul.
The sound of wheels rolling across gravel broke Jack from his spell. He let go of the mouse and the mouse, landing on all fours, scurried away.
He saw the custodian’s head. A thin older man with short white hair and white mustache. The heavy bags under his eyes said he worked too many decades at the school and wanted out, only retirement wasn’t the way out for this individual. The custodian huffed as he hefted a large black garbage bag into the dumpster.
Jack stayed perfectly still, like a person nearly caught trespassing on private property, and if they made any sound, even a remotely quiet sound, they’d lose their advantage.
The custodian came around the side of the dumpster, cigarette held in place between his lips by his index and middle fingers, staring down at the ground, wearing a navy blue work jacket, the sparks flicking off the lighter. His chin lifted off the center of his chest. When the custodian caught a glimpse of Jack, he jumped so tensely the cigarette loosened on his lips and hung for life. Jack thought for a moment the custodian might have a heart attack the way he gripped his chest and gasped. The custodian pulled the dangling cigarette away, held it at his side.
“Jesus fuckin’ H Christ, son! You scared the livin’ hell outta me! What are you doin’ sittin’ here and whatnot!” The custodian paused, seemed to consider his job title and responsibilities. “Ah, hell. None of my business. Could’ve at least made a noise or mark your presence somehow, instead of giving this geezer a second heart attack.” Another pause. “Oh. It’s just you.” Jack kept on staring ahead with barely moving absent eyes that felt dry from not blinking, but his eyes were searching. Searching for the escaped mouse. Morbid thoughts piled into his head, thoughts of what the mouse’d sound like when he gripped hold of it and pressed his fingertips firmly and deeply into its stomach.
The custodian spoke again, voice a little gruff and impatient.
“Somethin’s the matter with you, son. It ain’t my place to tell, but sometimes a guy’s just hast’a go beyond his place of tellin’. Don’t know what kinda stuff that goes on in your household—or if you have a disability. Trust me when I say, I wish you the best of luck. It’s a harsh world, and if you stay inside your head the way it looks like you’re doing, things’ll get harsher.”
The custodian’s words faded behind the pesky cicada buzzing noise between Jack’s ears. He dropped those absent eyes slightly, as if to spy the tiny pink feet of the rat underneath the dumpster.
The custodian sighed before smashing out the cigarette with the toe of his boot and kicking the butt into the storm drain and wheeled the garbage cart and himself back inside.
Jack sprawled forward on hands and knees, and spider-crawled to the storm drain. He peered inside.
The drop wasn’t too far down, say about five feet. Too narrow for even his thin body to squeeze into. He looked down the storm drain and through the grate like a dangerous, cage-trapped animal. Though his stomach didn’t growl with hunger, his eyes had. The mouse, sniffing around the ground, sensed Jack’s presence. Its nose shot in the air at Jack, wrinkling from side to side. With more than enough room in either direction to escape, the mouse stayed put, as if cornered without an exit. Like if it dared to run away that somehow Jack would be quicker and snatch hold of it. A small squeak rumbled up from the mouse’s throat. Ha-ha, sucker, you might scare me, but you won’t get ahold of me down here! the squeak said. And, as if to add an insult and join the rest of Stoneside Township High: Freak!
Then the mouse scurried off into the dark.
Jack pulled away from the grate, small red squares indented on his face.
With the mouse gone, Jack lost interest.
***
Jack kept his head down as he shuffled out of the history classroom and down the hall where he caught an unfortunate elbow from Garvey Williams, a kid so large his enormous belly hung too far over the waistline of his sweatpants, seeing his feet standing up impossible, reeking of body odor so terrible Jack Carpenter smelled like the most expensive and effective lavender shampoo in comparison. Hence the nickname for Garvey Williams: Big Stinky.
“Oh, shit!” Garvey said, like he’d purposely driven his fleshy elbow into the principal’s chest rather than The Freak’s. “My locker got stuck! I didn’t mean to hit you.”
Jack sucked in air, rubbed his chest with his fingers. He stared down at the ground and welcomed back the buzzing cicadas. Garvey’s voice started to sound further away.
“Are you alright?” asked a sweet, kind and caring voice approaching behind him.
The cicadas stopped buzzing.
Amber looked concerned. She stood by the lockers with her group: Taylor, Jared and Eli. The hallway grew less crowded as more students and faculty dispersed outside. Jared and Eli snickered.
“Yo! Big Stinky—why you abusing the little girl who lives down the lane for?” Jared commented, wrapping his arm around Garvey’s shoulder, making a yuck face and pulling away.
Eli corrected Jared: “You mean, Boner Boy?”
A faint smirk lifted one corner of Jared’s lips, barely, before his mouth straightened. He said, “The joke’s played out. Thanks to every moron in this school for overusing it.”
Eli followed up with: “He’s still a Nemo finned peckerwood.”
This got the immature boys cackling like doofuses.
“Good one,” Jared said. “About time you had an original joke.”
“Screw you,” Eli said.
Jared’s attention shifted quickly back to Garvey Williams, accusing him of assault, of racism towards the White Man, of being phobic towards disabled people. And though Jared and Eli smirked and chuckled through the pretend accusations, Garvey Williams shook his head, held up his hands, and practically pleaded for mercy as if standing trail for hideous crimes, both his stutters and sweat uncontrollable under the pressure. Sweat dripped down his forehead and drenched underneath his arm pits.
The jokes and laughter stopped as Jack’s scrawny legs started to carry him forward. Jared called out something. Amber defended Jack the best she could, telling them to quit picking on him, called them jerks. The scene behind him fizzled out. Jack burst through the double doors heading toward the parking lot with an impressive shoulder-tackle. He passed by the Lancer, ran past the bus stop, forcefully squeezing through the small crowd. He cut through various side streets over the next few blocks until he reached the woods.
Over the years, the woods became his own personal domain. He maneuvered skillfully through the trails and bushes, knowing his way around the woods better than anyone else. There was solace in the woods, in nature; more than at home with his timid mother, oblivious sister and fake-father; more than the bullies at school; more than life in town.
Jack came across a chipmunk a half-hour later.
He needed a release.
***
The following day dragged. Probably the effects of another rainy day. Tiring everybody out. Teachers too; they slogged through their lessons and mostly handed out worksheets.
During Fourth Period science, Jack watched a gentle rainfall on the window. Mrs. Evans was in the process of a PowerPoint presentation on a biology topic Jack paid vitally no attention to. She seemed to drag this lesson since last Friday. Every now and again a word or sentence she said slipped into his consciousness, but mostly her voice sounded muffled, like she taught class behind another wall. Not much older than her students, Mrs. Evans wore her brunette hair in a ponytail. She had a slim figure and flat butt. Yet, plenty of male students eyed her like candy and attempted flirtatious conversations after class or when answering questions tried to sound interested, often adding a slight touch of sweet talk. Today she looked exceptionally well: green pants and a long-sleeve gray shirt under a fitted black sport coat.
The classroom overlooked the front entrance and faculty parking lot. A security guard hung in the parking lot, wearing a blue raincoat and rain hat. Across the street a man tugged his excited dog away from the miniature pool at the sewer grate, where it fought to continuously splash more, angry for not bringing an umbrella. The road vacant of cars. The security guard bumped into two wandering female students. He looked to be confronting them on why they were outside and not in class. One of the girls was a tall blonde, the other a short redhead.
A piece of paper bounced softly off his temple. Without blinking, Jack looked over his right shoulder.
Jared and Eli sat two rows over and three seats back, silently howling with laughter. Jared held a second paper ball torn from his notebook, while Eli held the back of his hand over his mouth to prevent an audible laughter. Their laughter stopped, turned to frowns, the complexion of their skin turning a shade of red because Jack the town freak stared long and hard at them.
“Why are you staring at me, Freak?” Jared said, loud. He stared at The Freak with such hot flare it should’ve burned a hole in Jack like cigarette ash on a thin sheet of paper.
The entire class’s focus was yanked away from Mrs. Evans’s lesson. Garvey Williams sat front row. He looked puzzled.
“Jared,” she said with disapproval. “Care to share the problem?” Mrs. Evans was one of the sweetest teachers in Stoneside Township High. She spoke softly and respectfully.
Jared pointed at Jack the way a child might when tattle tailing.
“The Freak keeps staring our way,” he said. The class giggled sheepishly hearing The Freak. “I don’t appreciate being stared at. It makes me uneasy.”
“Me neither,” Eli followed along.
“Jack?” Mrs. Evans said, uneasily. The boy didn’t lift his gaze off Jared. “Jack? What’s the issue?”
“The Freak ain’t gonna speak.”
More giggles.
“Jared, please quit it with the name-calling.”
“Sorry, Mrs. E. My sincere apologies.”
The rest of the conversation dialed out. Jack’s. Ears filled with the cicada buzzing.
Jack now blinked, coming to when Mrs. Evans stood in front of him. He did not realize he had reached for and had been shredding the pink rubber eraser. Eraser debris littered his desk.
Most of the class already piled out, dismissed for next period. Some students, at least a handful, exited the classroom in a slow step, trying to hold out long enough to see what’d happen in the next thirty seconds or so. Nothing really did.
Jared and Eli left, both starring Jack down. Ready to find the perfect opportune time to corner him in the stairwell. To rough him up a little if necessary.
The other students who stalled behind were disappointed and headed to their next class.
Mrs. Evans sighed, pulled out the chair of the desk in front of Jack and sat down, both her hands cupped on the surface of his desk.
“Is everything okay, Jack?” she asked in her soft-spoken voice, the voice of a genuine caring mother. It held plenty of concern.
Jack said nothing. He lowered his head, chin to chest, and shrank in his seat.
She continued,
“I might not be at liberty to ask, or to discuss this with you, especially because there’s not much time before next period begins, but if Jared and Eli are bullying you, you can speak up. You can even tell me, and I’ll sit down with Principal Schultz. You won’t have to worry about any backlash. I promise. I’ll tell him I observed their behavior towards you and that, as an educator, it raised concerns on my end.” After long pause, she said, in an even softer tone, “Or if anything is going on in your home…Please, don’t be afraid to speak out…”
Jack sprung out of the chair (Mrs. Evans gasped and toppled backwards until she was leaning awkwardly against the desk behind her) and left the classroom.
***
The damn cat outside woke Jack in the middle of the night from a dreamless sleep. He tossed the blanket aside, swung his legs over the edge and pulled back the worn and torn window curtain. The moonlight allowed him a clear visual of the back yard, no bigger than the size of two full-sized bedrooms. The grass was dry, browning in most parts, dying with the looming of a harsh winter.
A bundle of leaves paraded by. The wind howled and whipped the tree branches to either side.
Jack wrapped himself back into his blankets. He fell asleep upon his head hitting the stiff pillow. If the damn cat still meowed outside and rummaged through the trash cans in the morning, he promised to kill it.
***
Wednesdays: the ugly stepchild of the week. Felt like you were going so damn slow over a speed bump just to get to Thursday. A gloom hanging over the town like the aftermath of war on a battlefield.
Per his usual route, Jack turned onto Cherry Lane. Approaching the house where Amber Evans lived, he wondered harshly if stuffing her mailbox with the contents inside his backpack was the move he wanted to make. Imagine her horrified reaction when she reached a hand inside to grab the mail after school. Sure, she never did anything to him; not directly. Amber was sweet to him. But she still hung around the jerks who tormented him daily.
Who’d be the target?
Jack prowled the halls of Stoneside Township High, getting those several unwanted dirty glares, with the occasional, “Go away, Freak!” along the way, followed with the chirp of laughter. Anyone of these fuckers was a great, potential target. He wanted to find the right person, to not waste the contents within the bag on just a random student or faculty member.
Jack walked around the entire second floor. Not seeing that potential target he hiked back down the stairs to the first floor, bothered, and ended up bumping shoulders with Eli Dalton. Jared Wheeler was by his side, of course. Taylor Schultz stood behind them on the top step, chewing pink bubblegum. Jack shrank into the wall and stared at his worn sneakers.
These happened to be the same east-side staircases where Jack caught Eli last school year with Taylor, hand down her leggings. When Jack stared on and didn’t immediately turn around and walk the other way, Eli took that as Jack perving on them. His ears burned like hot wax dripped on his skin. Taylor’s breasts heaved, she was on the verge of climax, so close to the orgasm that Jack’s freakish presence didn’t deter her from pushing Eli away. In fact, she stared at Jack while her climax built, with sedative eyes, and only when she released did she gasp and screech. Jack remembered Eli dragging him by the arm into the nearest bathroom and slammed him into one of the stalls; the kid dropping a numero dos on the toilet gasped and farted loudly at the sudden impact, probably dropping another unplanned load in the process. Jack neglected to raise his hands in defense when Eli jabbed him in the nose and slapped the side of his head when he was already now on the ground, spewing vulgar profanity as he walked out.
Jared placed his palm on top of Jack’s head, leaning in.
“Don’t think we forgot you staring at us like a creep yesterday in Mrs. Evans’s class,” Jared said, breath smelling of mint. His fingers pressed on Jack’s skull, to either hold his neck in place or squeeze on him like a pimple. “Not to mention someone keyed my car too. If I find out you were responsible—”
“You have no proof it was him,” Taylor interjected, popping a decent sized bubble.
Jared removed his eyes from Jack and shifted them over to Taylor. She shrugged.
“She’s just saying,” Eli said.
“Point being,” Jared said, trying to hold back the grunt in his voice, “if I find out you keyed up the side of my car, I’ll make sure for the next week you’ll be limping around school.”
Jack felt the pressure ease on his skull as Jared released his grip. He placed his palm against the wall behind Jack, to the side of his head, face still inches away.
There came a flick. Eli brought the Bic lighter in front of Jack’s left eyeball. A waft of an unknown smell came off Eli’s fingers, a smell similar to sweat but not quite sweat alone. Sweat mixed with a tad scent of fish.
“Yeah,” Eli said, “if we find out you scratched my guy’s car, I’ll personally see to you going blind in one eye.” He thought for a second or two. Eli had a better idea. He lowered the flame way from Jack’s eyeball and guided the lighter down near Jack’s groin. “Unless I change my mind and decide burning the tip of your tiny dick is a better suited punishment.”
Jack’s straight face never faltered. His eyes told another story: how unpleasant he felt with a flame, despite a tiny flame, a knuckle’s length away from his groin.
“Did you key my car?” Jared asked. “’Cause there’s not another single individual in this entire school who I can place who’d have the disrespect to do such a thing.”
Eli waved the flame from left to right, right to left. From the excitement and thrill he was getting, his eyes widened and his tongue licked his upper lip. “What do you say, Boner Boy? Do you admit to scratching Jared’s car?”
Jack’s legs started to squeeze together, the way a kid’s might when they needed to desperately use the restroom but was too shy to ask the teacher.
He shook his head no in response to Eli’s question.
Eli swayed the light again from side to side.
Taylor said, “Seriously? Put that fucking thing away, you moron!”
“Don’t call me a moron, babe!”
“If someone catches you you’ll be expelled.”
Eli held her look for a long time, giving Jack an opportunity to slip underneath them and hurry away, had he had courage to do so.
Jared said, “Just put the goddamn lighter away, dude.”
Eli lifted his thumb off the trigger and the flame died instantly. He pocketed the lighter with a sigh.
Jared dropped his chin so he was eye level with Jack. He said, “Want to own up to keying my car or are you going to stall?”
Jack shook his head no, again.
“Is that a ‘No, I didn’t key up your car’ or a ‘No, I won’t answer’?”
If Jack tried any harder to shrink into the wall he’d be a part of it. Already his back was beginning to ache from pressing against the wall. Jared’s nostrils flared the longer Jack took to respond. He braced himself in case of a strike from Eli, not Jared. Jared’s aggression was expressed in words and threats; Eli had no problem roughing someone up or getting involved in a scrimmage just for the sake of throwing fists.
When the stairwell door swung open and banged off the wall, Taylor jumped. They all turned. Jared and Eli immediately stepped away from Jack, who kept his eyes down on the ground.
Had the principal been staying before them the consequences would have been more dire. Had a student walked in on them, the student simply would have saw them and went in another direction, minding their own business.
Mr. Wheeler’s beefy jaw shifted to either side. He locked eyes on his son fiercely after surveying what he walked in on, either because he wanted not to be an accomplice or in total shame over his son’s constant actions and behavior. Taylor went to speak, but he shushed her and she clammed up.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” Mr. Wheeler asked. The tips of his ears burned a bright red while the rest of his head stayed white.
Jared cleared his throat, placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder, firmly squeezing his fingers and thumb into Jack’s skin. He put on a good boy’s smile that only managed to become an arrogant smirk.
“Just a little Q and A,” Jared told his father.
Mr. Wheeler obviously didn’t buy it. But he didn’t press either.
“Shouldn’t you be heading straight to class?” Mr. Wheeler said to his son. “School year just started and if you’re continual lateness to Mrs. Anthony’s class keeps up, I’ll be forced to find myself a new, and permanent, starting second baseman.”
Jared lowly snarled. To his father he nodded his head and said, “Certainly. We’ll get there ASAP.”
Mr. Wheeler finally moved his unfaltering glare away from Jared and looked to Jack. He sighed, then headed downstairs.
Jared said to Jack once they reclaimed the stairwell as their own, “To be continued.”
Eli ruffled Jack’s hair, gave him a moderate smack in the face; those types of smacks you say “Good boy” to. With his pals, they descended the stairs to the ground floor. Taylor giggled when Eli said, “What a loser.”
***
A strange stench grew stronger on the second-floor hallway of Stoneside Township High the following day. The custodial crew had trouble finding the source. When the location of the stench was finally discovered during lunch, a huge crowd surrounding the locker, Principal Schultz pulled Eli aside, and Jack smiled from around the corner.
***
He stood at the edge of the lake and stared off to the other side for a period of time since school broke free for the day. The drizzle of rain hit the water like frozen missiles. Jack dropped his eyes to the water’s surface, to the hideous reflection gazing back up at him. Sure, he looked like a normal teenager. There were no distinct disfigurations. However, the town seemed to see underneath the mask of this normal-looking kid’s flesh, at the freak within.
A nasty voice wormed its way into Jack’s ear. It said, Sink. Sink…and let it be done.
Jack walked away from the lake, away from the tempting voice. He went and sat under a tree, keeping the hood of his jacket pulled over his head, arms resting on knees pulled up to his chest, watching the swaying grass blades.
“Don’t be a prude,” a voice echoed from somewhere in the woods.
“I’m not,” said another voice, a girl’s. The voices grew closer to the clearing. “I’m just not in the mood to get stoned today.”
“Poor Amber,” said the second girl.
Then the second boy said, making Jack snap his head toward the direction of their voices, “I’m telling you guys, it had to be that freak! That freak somehow got into my locker and stuffed a fucking dead cat in there! When we see the Freak again I promise I’m gonna pummel his ass into the ground and burn his groin off.”
Jack placed a hand behind him on the bark and slowly stood. The four exited the woods, a blunt being passed around them, aside from Amber. She glanced down at the mud filling with rainwater, clutching her jacket shut to stay warm.
“Guess we’re not the only ones here.” She noticed Jack and, as if spooked by a ghost, froze.
Jared and Eli followed where she looked. They frowned.
Jack watched them.
“This little…” Jared began.
“Freak,” Eli finished. Yelling, he jabbed a finger at Jack. “I’ll kill you for that stunt you pulled with my locker!”
“Uhm, why’s he staring at us like that?” Taylor asked.
“Freak did the same thing back in Mrs. E’s class,” Jared said. He called out. “Hey, dipshit! You like killing animals and stuffing them in people’s locker, don’t you?”
This time Amber didn’t try to defend Jack. She stayed quiet.
Jared stepped several feet forward with Eli. The girls stayed put.
“Will you for once in your meaningless and pathetic life speak, you fucking freak of nature!” Eli shouted.
“Hey, guys,” Taylor started to say, “maybe we should just leave. Y’know, go downtown to the arcade or hang in the park. We can even go back to my place and—”
Eli snapped back at her. “Give it a rest! This freak’s gonna pay one way or another.”
Taylor argued back. “Don’t talk to me that way, Eli.”
“Then don’t be stupid.”
A shouting match ensued between the four. The girls wanting to call it quits and leave, while the boys threatened to beat the Freak unconscious.
Jack took this moment while they were distracted to slip away.
***
“Whoa whoa whoa WHOA!” Eli hollered.
The others clamped their mouths shut.
“What?” Jared then said with irritation.
“Check it out.” Eli nodded toward the tree.
“Where’d the freak scurry off to?” Jared darted his head from left to right.
“He couldn’t have gotten too far,” Eli said. “I’ll check this way; you check that way?”
“Yeah.”
Eli started wandering off.
Amber grabbed Jared by the arm and twirled him around. “What are you two planning on doing to him?”
“We’re just gonna give the freak a lesson. Staring at people, stuffing dead animals in a locker. Nah. It doesn’t sit well with us.”
“No! You two torment him every single day and I won’t keep putting up with it.”
Jared closed in on her face. “Stop me,” he said coldly.
“Shit!” Eli cried out.
Jack struck.
For a small, punny kid, he managed to bounce on a much taller Eli and tackled him to the wet grass with the ease of a linebacker.
Jack’s fists came in fast and efficient blows. Eli squirmed, kicking his feet and trying to break free of the freak’s wrath. One punch sent Eli’s head back and bouncing off the ground. By the time Jared rushed over and yanked Jack off his friend, tossing the freak to the side, Eli’s nose and upper lip was covered in blood. He tried to speak but his words were indecipherable. He held his side.
By the time the girls reached the boys, blood soaked through Eli’s fingers.
“Did the fucker stab you?” Jared asked.
Eli nodded, wincing in pain.
Amber, Jared and Taylor looked toward Jack. He stood with his arms at his sides, holding a sharp shard of glass in his right hand, the tip doused in blood and dripping.
Taylor cried, knelt over with a hand under Eli’s head. “Oh my God! Shhh, Eli. Don’t try to speak. Just don’t talk and hold on. We need an ambulance!”
A blood bubble swelled out of Eli’s mouth and popped.
Jack dropped the bloody shard of glass and fled through the woods. Their voices and cries carried, but were faint. Jared threatening to kill him. Taylor hysterically crying. Eli groaning in pain. Amber trying to calm Taylor and prevent Jared from chasing after Jack.
He ran home.
The solitude and sanctuary of the lake gone for good.
Jack zipped through the woods and down a narrow trail, nearly twisting his ankle in a ditch. Jared kept repeating, shouting, “You’re dead meat, Freak! You’re dead meat when I catch up to you! Try and hide all you want, I’ll find you!”
He got to the abandoned train tracks.
Amber, somewhere in the woods, at the top of her lungs: “JARED! Where are you?”
Jared, somewhere closer in the woods, hollering: “Get back here, you freak! Where are you? Huh?”
Further down, Jack cut through another section of woods. Three minutes later he was in his backyard. Not once did he stop for a breather, not even with his chest stinging from the cold. He went inside through the backdoor, ran past his sister and mother and fake-father seated at the kitchen table, and into the dark closet of his room.
Jared called out from the backyard. He said, “I’m gonna barge in there and yank you outside unless you come out on your own!”
At some point Amber caught up to Jared. She said, “What if his family’s home? Jared, let’s just go.”
“They can watch. I don’t care. Come out, Freak!”
The backdoor banged.
Jack stepped back to the furtherest part of the closet, placed his hands behind him on the wall.
“Jared!” Amber hissed. “Quit it.”
“Open the door!”
Jack jumped.
The backdoor banged inward.
Amber said, “Jesus, Jared! What the hell?” And she called inside. “We are so sorry! We’re leaving. Jared, come on…”
But her voice dropped. She gagged.
“Smells like shit in here,” Jared said. “What’s with all these flies?” Then…“Holy shit…”
“Oh, my God…”
Amber screamed.
Jack slipped out the bedroom window and into the woods.
***
At the table sat three bodies: a mom, a dad and a younger daughter. Most of their skin had been peeled off to the flesh and bone underneath. The dad’s eyeball drooped out the socket by the optic nerve. A swarm of flies buzzed around the bodies and plates full of days old bacon and eggs.
***
Eli and Taylor were found by the lake, and he was brought to Stoneside Township Memorial. His condition was unclear. Taylor stayed by his hospital bed.
***
Sheriff William Hosmer, Deputy Sheriff Diana Walker, and all four deputies in town gathered around the Carpenter’s trailer. Mrs. Elrod watched from her front steps, arms folded. They searched inside and out. A pair of deputies searched the woods, while the other pair of deputies interviewed the neighbors. Nobody smelled the terrible decay until now, expect for Mrs. Elrod.
Amber and Jared sat on the curb, speaking to Deputy Sheriff Walker.
“How long were they dead for?” Jared asked.
“From the looks of it I’d say a few days to a week, at most,” Deputy Sheriff Walker said. “We’ll know more when the coroner examines the bodies.”
Ten minutes later, Sheriff Hosmer approached them. He was a young, fit man in his late-thirties.
“Where is he? Where’s the freak?” Amber insisted on knowing.
Sheriff Hosmer gave them an apologetic look, sighed, and said, “Sorry. We don’t know.”
For Beth; always
Copyright © 2026 by Ryan Cecere
[Originally published in June 2024 by A Thin Slice of Anxiety]
The Official Website of Ryan Cecere - published short story writer 
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