A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (17 page)

“
And what should I do?”
Jacob asked, unsure.

Binkman shook his head.
“Oh, you will do nothing. I will protect your friend, boy. Harry
will be
just fine
.” And Binkman’s head nodded up and down, causing a slight
shift of his tall top hat.

Jacob seemed surprised at
first, before accepting that he wouldn’t have a part. Actually,
Jacob preferred it that way. He stepped back, as if preparing to
leave. “And... you won’t hurt him, right?” Verifying what Binkman
had said one last time.

The doctor refused to
offer a verbal response, but his head went from a fervent nod to a
slow, sly shake.

Jacob smirked and decided
to sneak off back home. It wasn’t until the next day that Jacob
would discover the result of Binkman’s accomplishments.

Jacob and Harry decided
that they would stay together throughout the day. Harry was
confused about how confident Jacob seemed about the situation,
especially since the actions committed the day before, to include
Harry almost shoving Barker into oncoming traffic, left Harry
running home for his life. The walk to school seemed more like a
death march than anything else; an inevitable crawl back to the
consequences of standing up to the quartet. Harry considered that
Jacob might have resolved that this was the end. Maybe Jacob
thought that, if death was coming, he was going to accept it
smiling. However, Harry couldn’t do the same. It wasn’t until the
two of them arrived at the school that morning that it became
clearer as to why Jacob was so nonchalant.

There was no sign of
Barker and the gang. For most of the day, things seemed as normal
as they could seem. When the students all descended upon the quad
at lunch, the gang finally revealed itself. However, they
occasionally looked back toward Harry and Jacob, but didn’t
immediately approach them and didn’t made a stand. The one person
that Jacob was most interested in seeing was Brain, the only one to
have been exposed to Binkman, but Brain wasn’t even there. It made
Jacob terribly curious about what happened. Still, whatever it was,
it was keeping the group at bay.

Harry didn’t understand
why he was still being allowed to breath on the day he expected
would hold his execution. Finally, he had to ask.

“
Jacob. Why aren’t they
pounding the life out of us right now?” Harry sat at one of the
tables, being sure to be on the side that faced the distant gang of
misfits.

Jacob shrugged with a
smile. “I don’t know.” While eating from a sandwich.

“
You’ve seemed fine all
day long. You don’t know anything?” Harry inquired
further.

“
Nothing. Well, I know
that we don’t have to worry about anything anymore. It’s over,
Harry. It’s all over.” Jacob professed.

Harry’s eyes slowly
widened, expressing quite the opposite. Harry’s enlightenment came
only because he was able to see the impending doom walking their
way. The whole gang, to include the pigtailed Caitlin (Gassy’s
awkward, terribly resilient girlfriend) stepped up right behind
Jacob, casting a shadow over him as the houses shadowed Brain for
Binkman’s unknown assault.

“
Hey, fucktards.” Barker’s
voice was distinct and angry, but the words weren’t accompanied by
the customary slap-to-the-back-of-the-head that usually came with
an approach from the flank. Jacob spun around in his chair,
abandoning his sandwich to the table to swallow hard. Maybe he
wasn’t so safe after all.

Jacob replied, shakily.
“B-Barker! How’s it going?” And Jacob offered and awkward
smile.

Barker immediately grabbed
a hold of Jacob’s shirt, pulling him from the table to literally
stand him up in front of him. “You must think you’re real funny,
doing what you did to Bryan, huh? You’re a sicker fuck than I
thought.” Releasing him just to allow for him to get closer and
more in Jacob’s face.

“
S-sick?” Jacob
whelped.

Harry scratched his head,
rising as well when his instincts to flee began to flood in. Both
confused and terrified, he watched what was happening as if his
life depended on it.

“
Yeah. Brain won’t even
come to school. Won’t even say what happened. He’s in the hospital
and all he can say is your name. Your name!” And he shoved Jacob
hard, sending him back toward the bench of the table. Jacob caught
himself with a hand to the bench before standing up
again.

“
In the hospital? Is he
hurt?” Jacob asked, wondering if Binkman didn’t satisfy his
promise.

Crater smacked Barker on
the arm, chiming in as he usually did. “Now this idiot wants to act
like he wasn’t responsible?” And that high-pitched laugh rang out,
only with a tinge of desperation.

“
You
tell me, shit bag! You’re the reason he’s there, aren’t you?”
Another sharp shove came. Another quick save on the part of Jacob.
The only reason Jacob could assume that he wasn’t a bloody mess in
the grass was because Barker seemed interested in knowing what
happened to Brain. He wanted to know for his own sake. The mystery
scared Barker and concerned Jacob. But, the fact was this:
Jacob
was not
a bloody mess. That was progress.

In a moment of sheer,
foolish bravery, Jacob puffed his chest and proclaimed: “You might
want to watch out! If you don’t leave Harry and me alone, it’ll
happen to you too!” An overzealous bluff. Harry’s jaw dropped in
shock. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had Jacob lost his
mind, he thought? If they weren’t dead from yesterday’s actions, it
appeared Jacob’s “last stand” here in the quad solidified their
sentence.

“
What the fuck did you
just say to me?” Barker neared again, showing the bluff didn’t work
as Barker’s aggression rose.

Instantaneously, Jacob’s
own fight or flight instincts kicked in, but he remembered what
Binkman said:
Simple, boy. All you need to
do is get the cretins to follow you into a dark place. Wherever
that place is, I will be waiting!
Jacob
shouted as Harry had the day before after the bold act. “Run,
Harry! Run to the pool!”

Harry didn’t have to think
twice. He flew with his long, lanky body in the direction of the
pool house, beside the gym. The pool seemed a strange place to run.
It had been shut down for almost a year due to a spread of a
bacterial infection on those exposed to the water. The building was
closed and the pool was covered. The lights were turned off, but
children often snuck into a small window near the back to do
whatever things they wanted to do that they shouldn’t have. The
window itself allowed anyone entering into the girl’s locker room,
which then led out into the main pool area. Jacob and Harry had
used the location more than once to skip classes in attempts to
avoid coming across the gang, so they both knew where to go to get
in.

The race was on, with
Harry leagues ahead of the others. Jacob, having made the call, had
a short lead ahead of the four others, Brain’s spot filled by
Caitlin. Quickly they rounded the large building to the back and by
the time Jacob had turned the corner, he could already see Harry’s
legs slipping into the window. Jacob was next. He leapt to the low
window, pulling himself inside as quickly as he could. It was then
that he felt a firm grip on his left shoe and a force trying to
pull him back out.

“
I don’t think so!” The
voice was Gassy’s. “Cait, grab his other foot! Don’t let him get in
there.”

Jacob struggled
hopelessly, trying to overcome the strength of the two on the
outside intending to draw him into his demise and away from safety.
Jacob looked up and saw Harry inside of the dark locker room and
begged. “Harry! Harry, for Christ’s sake, pull me in!” And Jacob’s
hands pushed on the inside wall of the locker room, trying to get
leverage.

Harry froze in that
moment, as he usually had when things became too stressful or too
frightening. Jacob immediately noticed the glaze-over in his best
friend’s eyes and shouted to pull him out of it.

“
Harry!
If you don’t pull me in they’re going to
kill
me!” Jacob plead, tears welling
in his eyes.

Harry suddenly snapped out
of his haze and rushed forward to grab a hold of Jacob’s hands,
beginning to tug with all of his strength. At the same time Jacob’s
legs kicked and squirmed violently, thrashing in any way he could
to try and free himself from the grip of the two.

“
Pull harder, damn it!”
Crater could be heard. A third hand could be felt grabbing a hold
of Jacob’s leg just as soon as he broke free from the grips of the
others, sending a swift foot into Crater’s face. Free from the
others, Jacob was pulled into the locker room and safe... for a
moment. It occurred to Harry, at least, that they were trapped.
Even if they had made it this far, it was a dead end, one that
would only delay the inevitable.

Jacob seemed less
concerned and tried to regain himself after his close encounter
with death. He wasted little time in directing Harry to the door
that led out to the pool. “We need to go!” And they rushed out into
the large room with the covered pool.

Chairs lined the edge of
the pool. Jacob swiftly closed the large, metal door to the locker
room and propped one of those chairs under the handle. Then, Jacob
realized there was nothing else he could do but wait and hope that
Binkman would do as he said.

Outside, Crater was
furious and bleeding from his mouth. “I’m going to kill them! Kill
them this time!” He shouted.

Barker swat Crater on the
arm and pulled him from the ground. “Let’s go around to the other
side and see if there’s another way in. We’ll surround them! Gassy,
you and Cait go in through the window and we’ll meet you in there
when we find an entrance. Got it?” Barker’s orders were swift as he
gestured with his head the direction him and Crater were to go.
Crater, begrudgingly, wiped at his lip and followed swiftly after
the gang’s leader.

Gassy looked at Caitlin,
offering her an irritated look. “Of course, they’re gonna send the
fattest one in the window!” And he shook his head, looking at the
small space he’d have to crawl through to make it in.

“
I’ll go in first. You
come in behind me. I’ll help you get in, alright?” Caitlin assured
him.

Caitlin then hopped into
the opening with ease, shifting in a way that allowed for her body
to make it through. Once inside, she gestured for Gassy to follow
instead of examining the door closed behind Jacob and Harry. Gassy
sighed and hopped meagerly toward the window, at first with no
luck. Immediately, he started to sweat. He tried again, struggling
with all of his might to make it into the window, and did so with
much effort. He pulled his body forward as far as he could before
the window would allow him to move no further. At the peak of his
blubbery stomach, he became stuck in the window frame. Caitlin
pulled as hard as she could, but her tugging only seemed to make
the situation worse.

“
I’m stuck!” Gassy
shouted, expressing the obvious.

“
I know! Keep pushing
yourself in!” Caitlin replied, trying to get her odd choice of a
boyfriend free.

Harry and Jacob listened
at the door, concerned that they only heard two voices, but
temporarily sated knowing that Gassy couldn’t make it through the
window. It was then that a third voice was heard, but it wasn’t a
voice of one of the gang’s heathens.

“
Too fat, boy. Too much
fried food.” The strange voice spoke from one of the aisles between
the lockers.

Immediately, both Gassy
and Caitlin looked up, no longer working on getting Gassy through
the restrictive opening.

“
Who’s there?” Caitlin
asked with a noticeable crack of fear in her voice.

Only the tapping of shoes
was heard in response.

Gassy looked quickly to
Caitlin. “Who is that?” He whispered. “Is that them?” Before his
wide eyes followed the approaching sound.

“
They
say: ‘An apple a day keeps the
doctor
away.’” The voice came again,
with a sharp, threatening cackle.

Gassy began trying to pull
himself back out of the window at this point, believing it was best
to abandon the effort altogether. Caitlin struggled to try and help
him out the other way, but there wasn’t a chance. Gassy was stuck
and so was she.

Harry, outside of the
barricaded door asked in a whisper. “Who is that, Jacob? Are one of
the faculty members in here or a janitor or something?”

Jacob shook his head,
knowing the voice that he heard was that of Doctor Binkman. He
didn’t answer Harry and continued to listen.

It was at this point that
Binkman emerged from the shadows to which he melded. His now wide
body, carried on elongated stilt legs wandered forth. His twisted
grin stretched across his entire face, literally from ear to ear,
with a maw so wide and so terrifying it seemed it could have
swallowed a small child whole. In his hand, however, was a red
gasoline can, which was a familiar sight to the now tightly-wedged
Gassy.

Caitlin immediately flew
back and away from Gassy, all but abandoning him to the nearing
monstrosity that stepped from the shadows, as if a shadow of a
shadow, darker and more corrupt than anything she’d ever seen.
Gassy started to scream, as did Caitlin, who was near one of the
corners, as far away as she could manage herself.