Just the night before, at 10PM, I'd dashed off a little ghost story for the event. I was in bed by 11PM, so it took less than an hour to write Johnny, Who was Scared of Nothing. I volunteered to read first. Here, for your enjoyment, is the story I read at that event:
Johnny, Who Was Scared of Nothing by Susan Buffum
This is the story of Johnny, who was scared of nothing. There was nothing special about Johnny. He was average height for his age and on the thin but wry side. He always wore overalls and t-shirts, work boots with the laces dangling. Clomp! Clomp! Clomp! You could hear Johnny coming down the road. Coming up behind you on the sidewalk. It was always god to get out of Johnny’s way.
Even dogs whined and strained against their leashes when they heard Johnny coming. Dogs safely behind fences in their own yards bolted to hide under front porches. Johnny carried a stick and liked to poke dogs with it and make them yelp. Johnny would just laugh. He liked that the dogs were scared of him.
With a defiant glare, Johnny would silently dare the green grocer to ask for the cost of the apple he’d just helped himself to. He scowled at an old woman who timidly asked for his assistance in crossing the road. He liked to whistle and often broke into song in a loud, off key voice when passing by babies peacefully sleeping in their carriages, startling them awake, making them cry.
Johnny killed spiders and flies, frogs, garter snakes, and even mice and rats down by the river. He threw dead frogs at little girls making them scream.
He dared bigger boys to go ahead and hit him and see what that got them. They wisely never rose to the bait Johnny was always tossing out, itching for a fight. No one dared clobber him.
Only little Freddy seemed to like him. Freddy the Flunky the other kids sneered at the little red-haired boy with the big blue eyes and smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Often he was called Freddy the Ghoul, or simply Creepy Fred, because his father was the caretaker of the Old Burial Ground. The monuments, markers, stones, table monuments, and such all dated back to when the town had been founded. There were a lot of important people in the town’s history buried in that old cemetery. People said the Old Burial Ground was haunted and that’s why they kept the gates locked and had enclosed the graveyard with a tall chain link fence. None of us ever dared try to get in there, especially after dark. Freddy the Ghoul had told us there were ghosts there, that his dad had seen them with his own eyes, and so had he.
Johnny said he wasn’t scared of any old ghosts. He said ghosts couldn’t do nothing to you. He said he’d go in that old cemetery and show us all that we were nothing but a bunch of cowards, ninnies and scaredy cats afraid of our own shadows.
So, one October night when the big orange harvest moon hung low in the sky above the town, Johnny, who was scared of nothing, clomped along the sidewalk with Freddy the Ghoul beside him in sneakers, his baseball cap turned backwards, the lenses of his round glasses glinting in the moonlight like owl eyes. I was the other one, trailing a few steps behind them, chosen by my classmates to act as a witness to Johnny being locked in the Old Burial Ground. Johnny had given me a bloody nose and a shiner once.
We came to the tall iron gates. Freddy the Ghoul used the key that he’d swiped off the top of his dad’s dresser after supper so he could unlock the gate. “Go on in,” he whispered, pushing the right hand gate open about a foot. It creaked and shrieked in protest, its hinges in need of oiling. “Don’t be scared,” he added.
Johnny laughed, a short bark of a laugh full of derision and scorn. “Whatsa matter, ghoul boy? You forget who you’re talkin’ to? You forget I ain’t scared of nothin’?” Before Freddy the Ghoul could answer Johnny gave the gate a shove. It screeched as if in alarm, but opened another half foot. “Lock ‘er up,” Johnny commanded. “Let me out at sunrise.”
“We’re going to wait right here,” Freddy the Ghoul whispered in reply.
“Better hide in the bushes then so the cops don’t see you,” Johnny said as he took a few steps into the shadowy darkness of the graveyard. “Hey, Beaman! When you pee your pants like a baby if you see a ghost you’d better run straight home to your mommy so she can wipe you, powder you, put you in dry panties and tuck you safely into bed with your teddy bear!” He walked deeper into the cemetery.
Jerk, I thought as Freddy the Ghoul pulled the groaning gates closed and locked them. We then ducked under the bushes nearby, huddling there side by side. Freddy the Ghoul smelled like onions and apples, a weird smell with the odor of mothballs underlying it. He was whispering to himself as he played with the keys on the ring. It looked like he was counting them, occasionally sinning one completely around. “Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked him.
“Shh!” he hissed softly.
I hunched there listening to the squeak of mice in the grass, the hoot of an owl high in a tree in the cemetery, the shush of cars on nearby Main Street, the occasional footfalls of someone walking past us on the sidewalk, the skittery rustling of dry leaves, the rattle and clatter of branches in the wind. Gradually the car sounds lessened. No one walked by anymore. The owl fell silent.
Beside me, Freddy the Ghoul had stopped whispering. “You think he’s all right?” I murmured.
“Shh!” His face was suddenly illuminated a glowing blue by the light emitted by his cellphone screen. He’d swiped it to check the time. I saw it was almost three o’clock. Suddenly, I was cold and tired of sitting all scrunched up under the bushes. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go to bed.
And then suddenly, from somewhere within the burial grounds there came a piercing shriek that made all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and all down my arms. I started to move, but Freddy the Ghoul’s arm shot out and he stopped me. “No,” he whispered. “Don’t move.”
The thud of running footsteps reached my ears. More shrieks rode along with them, rising and falling, drawing nearer. I peered through the branches where tattered, brittle leaves clung fast. And there was Johnny, reaching through the bars of the gate, his hand like a claw. His face was terrible, eyes bulging, mouth stretched wide open as he screamed. “Let me outta here! Freddy! Get me outta here!”
Beside me, Freddy the Ghoul chuckled softly as he tapped the camera icon on his phone screen. “Follow me,” he whispered as he crept out of the bushes we’d been concealed in. Silently, he snapped a picture of Johnny, who was scared of nothing. “Come on, Beaman,” he said as he turned away.
“Freddy! Hey, no! Let me outta here! Freddy! Come on, open the gate! Let me out! Don’t go! Beaman, hey!” And then he was screaming and shrieking again.
I heard low moans and murmurs. “Don’t look back,” Freddy the Ghoul whispered.
I held my hands over my ears, blocking out the sound of Johnny, who was scared of nothing’s screams. I followed Freddy the Ghoul to his house, the both of us sneaking back inside and upstairs to his room. I was sleeping over.
Crawling into my sleeping bag, I couldn’t get the echoes of Johnny’s terrified screams and shrieks out of my ears. Freddy the Ghoul’s bed creaked as he shifted in it. “Johnny, who’s scared of nothing? Ha! He’s scared of ghosts!” he whispered.
I lay there in the dark thinking about that. I’d thought Freddy the Ghoul was Johnny’s friend, but maybe we’d all been wrong about that. Maybe Freddy was actually our friend.
Well, whatever. Johnny, who wasn’t scared of nothing, wasn’t going to be bothering any of us ever again. Johnny was history.
No comments:
Post a Comment