Bobby

In my final semester as a Psychology student, I was required to do a three month internship. It was to my joy and dismay that I was placed in a nut house. Unfortunately, I was the only one. The good news was that I had a chance to deal and handle with patients with serious mental disorders. Being that I was fond of the human mind, I saw it as an opportunity. However, on the day I was told that I would be sent to the asylum, my friend warned me.

“Don’t get possessed,” she said.

She believed that some mental illnesses were the cause of demon possession. Whether I believed her or not, I’m pretty open minded, and if ever it was proven that the supernatural realm had something to do with mental illnesses, I would gladly accept it.

“Don’t worry,” was all I could say at the end of the conversation.

A couple of weeks later, I found myself in the hallways of the asylum. I expected it to be grey and dull, and to have flickering lights that forced visitors into a foreboding state, but I was wrong. It was clean, bright and well decorated. Fresh flowers with curtains drawn back were practiced in every room, reminding me of an old folks home. Often times, I wondered if I came to the right place.

Work at the asylum proved useful to my course of study. Every conversation I had with the patients weren’t all crazy talk, and some of them actually understood what was going on. One day, while saying goodbye to a young girl who was ready to go back to a normal life, I overheard a couple talking about their son and how he needed help.

“He starts chanting at night,” the woman said.

“He wouldn’t go back to bed no matter what I tell him, and he would be so exhausted in the morning,” the man added.

“I see,” my supervisor said, as he nodded his head.

“You have to help our son. Something is not right with him,” the woman pleaded.

“We will send someone to evaluate your son’s condition for a few days, and if we see that he needs help, we will give it to him,” my supervisor said, before asking them to fill out a form.

Once the couple had left, my supervisor turned to me. He must have noticed me listening in on the conversation.

“You think you’re up for it?”

“Huh?” I simply replied.

“You think you can evaluate the boy, and see if he needs help?”

“Erm… maybe?” I answered un-confidently.

“This would be a good experience you know. Plus, it would look good on your internship report,” he said.

“O.k then,” I replied. It didn’t sound like a hard task after all.

A week later, I paid my first visit to the couple and their son. They lived in a small town outside of the city. Their house had a huge yard of freshly mowed grass, and behind it was the woods. A small family in a small town, what was I expecting?

The first visit went on pretty well, and the boy did no chanting. His parents insisted he would only do it at night, but from what I saw, they probably thought his intelligence was a mental illness.

Bobby, their 10 year old son, had a brain like a super computer. As I watched him do his math homework, he threw up all the answers as though he was merely copying them from an answer sheet. A genius he was; that was the conclusion I made on the first visit.

During my second visit, I got to know Bobby a little better, maybe more than I expected. I had paperwork to finish up at the asylum and I ended up getting caught in the jam on the way to his house. The moment I reached for my evaluation, it was already 8p.m.

“Sorry for being late,” I apologized. “I could come back tomorrow.”

“No, it is alright. You only need a couple of hours right? He goes to bed at ten these days,” Bobby’s father said.

Thanking him, I headed up to Bobby’s room immediately. That night, I caught him drawing on his bed. And when he saw me enter, he attempted to hide his drawings.

“What’s wrong Bobby? You can show them to me, I won’t laugh, I promise,” I said.

Bobby hesitated for a while before pulling out his drawings from under the blanket.

Bobby couldn’t draw alright. He was good in math, but he was horrible at art. The first picture I saw was of a man, standing among tall trees. He was in all black, and his arms were extremely long.

Slenderman much? I asked myself.

“He’s in the woods,” Bobby said. Then he handed me another picture, and this time, Mr. Slender was standing in front of a house.

“Is this your house Bobby?” I asked.

Bobby nodded. He handed me another picture, and Mr. Slender was now at a window of the house.

“Whose room is this?” I asked.

“Mine,” Bobby replied. He turned to look at the window, and he never took his eyes of it, even after I asked him more questions.

Just when I was about to turn Bobby to face me, his father entered the room.

“I’m sorry Amy, but you need to leave,” his father quickly said.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“My mother-in-law just had a heart attack, and we need to go.” Turning to Bobby, he said, “Get changed Bobby, we need to go to the hospital.”

“There’s no need. I can look after him while you’re gone,” I quickly suggested. Immediately after, I wish I didn’t have. What was I thinking? Alone, in the house with a boy, who I think, might just be crazy after all.

“Really? I won’t be gone long. I’ll just drop my wife off so I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he said.

Too late to say ‘no’ now, I thought.

“No problem. Bobby and I could have a longer talk,” I said.

A few minutes later, they were gone. Bobby and I watched them drive off and returned to his bedroom where he immediately said he wanted to sleep.

“You sure? Your parents are not around, so you could stay up later and watch TV?” That wasn’t a good thing to teach him, but I wanted to continue our conversation on the Slenderman.

“No. I’m sleepy. I should sleep. I have school tomorrow,” Bobby replied. After failing to convince him further, I tugged him in and headed down to watch some reality game show on TV.

After the game show and a talk show ended, I was starting to wonder when Bobby’s father would be home. It was almost 12 and I needed to get home. As I headed to the kitchen to make a call, I heard a loud crash coming from upstairs.

“Bobby?!” I shouted. Quickly, I ran upstairs and into Bobby’s room, and there I found him sitting in a corner. He was hugging his legs and swaying back and forth.

“Bobby? What’s the matter?” I asked. Bobby did not reply. He seemed to be mumbling something softly and I decided to try and shake him out of it.

Once I was close enough, I heard him chant, “He is in the woods. He is in the yard. He is in the house. He is up the stairs. He is in the room.”

This kid IS crazy, I immediately thought.

Trying to snap him out of it, I headed to the window which overlooked the back yard.

“Bobby, there is no one in the yard,” I said. But when I turned to look out the window, I froze.

Standing in the yard was a man. He was definitely not the Slenderman because he was in the right proportion, but Bobby was right; HE was in the yard.

Taking my eyes off briefly, the man vanished after that.

Bobby stopped chanting once I lost sight of the man, and moments later, he started again. This time, he said, “He is in the house. He is up the stairs. He is in the room.”

“He’s not in the house,” I said. Recalling shortly after that I previously said he was not in the yard too.

But he isn’t in the house, the doors were locked, and I didn’t hear anyone coming in, I told myself.

I was proven wrong immediately when I heard the staircase creak. Quickly, I ran and shut the bedroom door. I locked it and headed to the window, trying to pry it open. My failed attempts pointed out the fact that the windows were nailed shut.

Before I knew it, there was a pounding on the door. I screamed questions at the unknown intruder and I screamed at Bobby, who kept on going with ‘he is in the room’. What happened after, I could not fully remember. All I can recall was a bright flash followed by a car accident; a memory of something I swear did not happen in real life.

Now, all I see is him. The man that was hit by the car. He is in the woods. He is in the yard. He is in the house. He is up the stairs. He is in the room. He is in my head.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

When I was a kid, I remember watching the Twilight Zone. There was a story of a boy who was chanting those exact lines and, if I’m not mistaken, his mother actually hit a man on the road. Upon impact, the man crashed into the car windscreen right in front of the boy, imprinting the image on his young mind. That was how the actual story was, IF I’m not mistaken. As a kid, the idea of a creepy dead person stalking another kid was disturbing, I guess that is why I never forgot the story.

So, this is my remake. I hope you like it 🙂 Let me know what you think!

© 2013 Jeyna Grace

(For more short stories, click HERE)