Crooked
It all started with a revenge plot. An inane plan born out of teenage spite and rebellion. Who knew it would go so terribly wrong?
Back in 1995, I was seventeen years old, and spent most of my time with my three best friends: Monica, Heather, and Jenna. The four of us had been inseparable since grade eight, and as graduation approached, we dreaded having to go our separate ways. Still, the prospect of finishing high school left us all ecstatic. Once we left that soul-sucking prison, our lives would truly begin.
Since we would be parting ways soon, we had written up a “bucket list”-things we wanted to do together before graduating. This included things like skinny-dipping in the local lake, car-surfing, dyeing our hair pink, having a dance competition, and exacting revenge on Kenneth Barclay.
That last item was very important to all of us. Kenneth Barclay was Heather’s ex-boyfriend. They had dated briefly in grade ten, and Kenneth had always been a prick. Even after things ended between him and Heather, he continued giving her trouble. He also tormented her friends. I was a prime target, since it had been me who talked Heather into dumping Kenneth in the first place. Kenneth would insult me any chance he got, and when word got out that I’m a lesbian (keeping secrets in a small-town high school is impossible) made several extremely offensive homophobic remarks to my face. Once, he even wrote DYKE on my locker in thick black marker, and when I confronted him about it, he just shrugged and said, “That’s what happens when you pick that kind of life.”
Like I said, a prick. We all decided we would give him a taste of his own medicine, just once, and that it would be glorious.We never thought about consequences-we just wanted vengeance. Especially Heather and I.
We spent several weeks formulating a plan. Kenneth lived with his parents and sister in a house on the edge of town, backed by woods. The road leading to the property was isolated, and cars rarely drove by. That made our devious plot much easier to carry out.
Earlier that year, Kenneth had bought a second-hand car after saving up money for months. Despite the vehicle’s less-than-shiny and new state, Kenneth was very proud of it. So my friends and I planned on vandalizing it. We would drive out there at night (leaving our own mode of transport down the road), mess up the car, and go hide in the woods. We would wait a while just to be safe, then drive off before anyone knew what had happened.
To our immature teenage minds, it seemed perfect. Especially when, the day before we were set to carry out our plan, Kenneth fell sick with the flu. There was no chance of him leaving with the car. It seemed nothing could go wrong.
Since it was a Saturday night, we had all planned a sleepover at Heather’s house. Her parents were at the movies, but trusted us not to get into trouble. Heather asked her mum if we could borrow her car and take it for a spin, and she agreed, as long as we took good care of it.
We waited for half an hour after Heather’s parents left before piling into her mum’s car, loaded down with supplies: a sack of manure, two cans of black spray paint, markers, a knife, glue, and feathers. You probably have an idea of how we planned to mess up the car.
“This is going to be amazing,” Heather gushed from the driver’s seat.
I grinned at her. “That asshole is going to be pissed.“
“Vandalizing his car,” Monica snorted. “I’d say it’s too good for him.”
“I wonder if he’ll suspect us,” Jenna mused.
“He can’t prove anything. We’ll be wearing gloves.”
We parked the car about a five minute walk from the Barclay house, along an uninhabited stretch of road flanked on either side by woods. Doing our best to stifle our giggles, we kept to the shadows, despite knowing it was highly unlikely that anyone would drive by. By then, it was 10:30 PM. The sack of manure was heavy in my arms, and I was relieved when Kenneth’s house finally came into view. His car was parked in the driveway, right behind Mrs. Barclay’s. The lights were out; it seemed the family was asleep.
Heather smirked. “Let’s do this.”
We set to work, painting the windows black, scribbling swear words all over the hood and doors, and slashing the tires. We glued on patches of chicken feathers. After years of abuse from Kenneth, it felt great to ruin his beloved car. I even drew a picture of him on the driver’s side door, with an arrow pointing to his crotch area and the words “small penis” next to it.
I knew that would cut deep, because according to Heather, Kenneth wasn’t very lucky in that department.
Although I was as caught up in the action as my friends, it was me who first noticed the figure standing on the opposite side of the road.
I immediately stopped what I was doing. I even dropped the marker in my hand. My friends noticed I had gone stiff, and followed my gaze.
Even in the dark, we could make out the form of a woman. My first assumption, at least, was that it was Mrs. Barclay. She was one of those delusional parents who think their child is a freaking saint regardless of what they do, so I knew she would assume we were ruining Kenneth’s car just to be assholes. Even if she were at least slightly aware of her son’s true colours, though, what we were doing was still illegal, and she would no doubt call the police.
“Fuck,” Heather hissed. “Fuck. Fuck!”
I turned to her and put a finger to my lips, but the figure moved forward. That was when it dawned on me: why would Mrs. Barclay be standing at the tree line?
“G-guys,” Monica stammered. “I don’t think that’s her.”
At that very moment, as if cued by Monica’s frightened words, the cloud that had been shielding the moon drifted away, and ghostly silver light spilled over the figure, illuminating her in grotesque detail.
It certainly looked like Mrs. Barclay. But it wasn’t. Something was off. The best I can describe this woman is that she resembled someone wearing Mrs. Barclay’s skin. Her expression was blank, the muscles in her face slack, as if she wore a mask. And as she moved, her body began to morph.
Yes, you read that right. She quite literally shape-shifted right before our very eyes. With a series of pops and cracks that still make my stomach turn to this very day, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, her torso warped into a sickening Sshape, and her limbs bowed like tree branches laden with snow. From behind her glasses, her eyes popped out of their sockets, pressing up against the lenses, looking ready to fall right out of her head.
I backed up and hit the side of Kenneth’s car. Monica, Heather, Jenna, and I huddled together, watching in silent horror as this crooked double of Mrs. Barclay scuttled across the road, inch by agonizing inch. Her mouth gaped open, and she kept making these awful sounds that made me think of a dying sheep. In her bulging eyes, I saw malice. I didn’t know what she planned to do once she got to us, but I knew it couldn’t be good.
“Oh, my God,” Jenna whimpered from beside me.
“Oh, my God,” the creature echoed, in what almost sounded like Jenna’s voice, but far to deep and gravely, “Oh, my God.”
“RUN!” Heather screamed, and we were off, fleeing into the woods. I didn’t dare look back, but I knew the woman was following us; I could hear her uneven footsteps as she lumbered forward on her twisted, malformed legs.
The four of us held hands so that we wouldn’t lose each other in the dark. You’d think we’d be screaming bloody murder, but we were silent; I guess we were all in shock-or just didn’t want to alert the monster to our presence. Not that our pounding footsteps wouldn’t have done the job.
Behind us, the woman continued making those bizarre sheep noises, and occasionally letting out an ungodly screech that nearly made my bladder go. My lungs were beginning to burn when I saw a shape up ahead in a nearby tree.
“The treehouse!” Heather gasped, and I vaguely remembered her telling us about the old tree fort Mr. Barclay had built for Kenneth and his sister when they were kids. The four of us reached it in record time, scrambling up the ladder and huddling on the dirty wooden floor, me peeking through the window while trying to remain as hidden as possible.
The woman appeared only moments later, stumbling through the brush and falling to her knees. She began sniffing at the air like a dog; her neck was so twisted that her head nearly faced backwards. Her eyes seemed to glow in the dark… like those of a cat. Her long dark hair coiled around her head like writhing snakes. For a while, she sat crouched on all fours, sniffing and grunting, seemingly aware of our presence, but not knowing where to look.
When we heard the floor crack, we all knew we were fucked.
The floorboards were old and rotten; they couldn’t support all our weight. Sadly, it was only Heather who fell through. I let out an anguished wail as she tumbled through the air, her pale blonde hair flowing behind her like a cape. She hit the forest floor with a terrible thud, and we all heard the muffled snap as her neck broke.
“No!” Jenna wailed. “No! No! No!” Monica sobbed, and I just screamed. We were all to distraught to care about giving away our position.
Through the gaping hole in the floor, I saw the woman crawl forward and grab Heather’s limp, lifeless body by the neck. She dragged her away, but I turned back to the window and saw her tear into my friend’s stomach.
Heather began to scream.
She wasn’t dead. Her neck was broken, and she likely couldn’t feel what was happening, but she could see it, and she was terrified. I remember screaming myself, I was so shocked. Then I spotted the knife. The one we had used to slash Kenneth’s tires. It was tucked into Jenna’s belt; none of us had noticed it before.
Without a word, I grabbed the weapon and hustled down the ladder. Ignoring Monica and Jenna’s cries of protest, I charged at the monster and shoved it off Heather. She lay on her back, whimpering and bleeding heavily from an ugly gash in her stomach. “Ellie,” she sobbed. “What are you doing?”
I ignored her, instead turning my attention to the monster, who snarled and clawed at my face. I plunged the knife into her throat, and blood began to spew out. The smell was repugnant, and the liquid emitted smoke. It burned my skin; I still have the scars to this day.
I kept stabbing and stabbing, wherever I could reach: neck, chest, belly, arms, face. The woman stopped thrashing, but she was still alive, snarling and biting.
“Monica!” I hollered, without looking away.
“Y-yes?” she stammered.
“Go get help! Run to one of those houses we passed and have them call the police! Jenna! You stay up there!”
I heard Monica run off, and stabbed at the woman’s chest once more before dropping the knife. The blood had seared the skin of my arms and hands, leaving behind ugly red and yellow blisters. I flopped onto my back, next to Heather, and reached over so that I could hold her cold, sweaty palm.
“Don’t you fucking die on me,” I hissed.
“You too,” she muttered.
We lay in the dirt and waited for help, while less than two feet away, the woman’s body bled out and shrivelled into a grey, lifeless husk.
Amazingly, Heather survived.
Her broken neck, by some miracle, didn’t leave her completely paralyzed; to this day, however, she still walks with a limp and deals with the effects of nerve damage. My burns healed. Monica and Jenna were unharmed-physically, at least. We all regretted our stupid plan to get back at Kenneth.
Speaking of Kenneth…
The police found him dead in his bedroom. He had been decapitated, and the head was never located. His parents were dead too; the only survivor was his sister, who had been sleeping over at a friend’s house.
That crooked Mrs. Barclay… it hadn’t been Mrs. Barclay at all.
While recovering in the hospital, I overheard a police officer talking to one of the doctors. He said it appeared that Kenneth’s head had been chewed off.
Naturally, the incident was the talk of the town for months. Nobody even mentioned that my friends and I had gone out there to vandalize Kenneth’s car; it just seemed so insignificant in comparison. Still, I felt pretty awful, and I know the others did too. Kenneth was already dead when we got there, and all we cared about was revenge. He may have been an asshole, but he didn’t deserve such a gruesome fate.
I did my best to move on, but it wasn’t easy. What had happened was beyond anything I could have imagined, and it made no sense to me. Without any answers, I felt trapped in a nightmare. I would wake up at night screaming, and lost fifteen pounds in the ensuing months. But as time went on, I had no choice but to get on with my life.
Graduating came and went, and we headed off to college-except Heather, who was still recovering. A year later, though, she herself left town, and did well in her college classes. I can’t tell you how proud I was of her.
Twenty-three years later, I’ve more or less gotten over the incident. But the memories and the fear are still there, and occasionally, something will happen to bring it all back.
Take the other day. I was on the phone with my mother, who still lives in that town, and she mentioned that she had been driving past the cemetery when she saw a strange woman standing at Kenneth Barclay’s grave.
“Really,” I said. “Who was it?”
Mum was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure. It looked a little like Mrs. Barclay, but that’s impossible. And something wasn’t right about her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling as if I’d been dunked in ice water.
“Well, she turned around and watched me drive by, and there was something off about her face. Plus, her neck was crooked. Bent at an unnatural angle. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I gotta go, Mum. Talk to you later, okay?”
I hung up the phone and went into my room.
It was a long time before the trembling stopped and I could finally breathe again.
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Wow, this is great. I loved your description of the shifting, the screeching, and the consequences of the Ellie stabbing the creature. And what a spooky, intriguing ending!