One
“We have to get rid of him,” Johnny and Klarissa whispered to each other while Daniel walked ahead of them. He walked along watching the fall leaves fall from their places on the trees and hitting the ground. Every now and then he would try to catch them with an embarrassing fail.
He wanted to hurry along and get back home. He knew Johnny and Klarissa would leave him alone, as they seemed to make it their mission to follow him around everywhere. They never hung out with him until a week ago. They didn’t even know he was a living and breathing human, Daniel didn’t think, until a week ago.
Until Sadie Holt had died on the football field. The next day, after everything was still crazy, Johnny and Klarissa both decided to sit with him at lunch. He almost thought it was a popular thing since he was at the Football stadium when Saddie died, even though he didn’t see anything, only heard a scream.
But no one knew that since he wasn’t allowed to say anything since it was still a working investigation so everyone in school thought he saw the person or people who had hurt Saddie. He did kind of like the new found popularity and superhuman rumors that were being spread about him.
Though, once Klarissa and Johnny started following him everywhere, everywhere, it started to become burdensome. Troublesome.
They follow him everywhere and never let him be alone.. And any time he tries to grab his phone or lose them, they get mad for some reason. They went off on him and it seemed like forever to get them away from him.
Now they were following him home as if he had anywhere else to go. But this time, they were pretty quiet. They were staying behind him and whispering to each other. What used to be non-stop chatter was nothing.
Maybe they were getting tired of him, he thought. He hoped so anyway.
“Hey, look over there,” Klarissa whispered to Johnny. She pointed way past Daniel and closer to the black metal fence, was a wooden ladder that was opened into an upside down v.
“What does that have to do anything?” Johnny asked.
“Come on,” Klarissa said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s Friday the Thirteenth. Going under a ladder is bad luck, especially on this day.”
“Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff,” Johnny said. “Ghosts are enough for me.”
“It happened to Toby, he said he walked through and the next step he took he fell right down and broke his leg. And when he looked into it, it said people have had so many different experiences. Going into different worlds, stuff like that.”
“Toby’s an idiot and the rest of it… that doesn’t make sense. We’ve only got to do this a little while longer,” Johnny said as he glanced over at Daniel. “I don’t know why he hasn’t said anything though. Or how he hasn’t tried getting rid of us.”
“He’s trying to torment us,” Klarissa said with a glare towards Daniel. “And it’s working. Do you want to kill him? Huh? If we do this and nothing happens, whatever, but I’d like any other chance to get out of this cleanly.”
“I don’t want to have to kill another person,” she added.
Johnny was silent for a long moment. He stared over the ladder that got closer and closer. He watched the fall leaves blow down the sidewalk they were walking on. He watched Daniel purposefully stepping on each one as he got closer.
Closer and closer and he knew he had to make a decision.
“Whatever,” Johnny said with a sigh. “Do it, but it’s not going to work.”
“I am not going to push him through,” Klarissa said, she sounded pretty confident she wouldn’t. “I was the one who took care of it last time, you do it this time.”
“Fine,” Johnny said. “But when it doesn’t work we still have a liability to follow around. We should have just killed him already like I suggested.”
“Then we’d be in jail, they’d definitely connect us,” Klarissa said. “Now go.”
“Okay!” Johnny gave one more look at Klarissa and with a small thought of, what did I do to deserve this? He sped up and reached Daniel.
He wrapped his arm around him and they started talking about hockey which Daniel seemed to be interested in.
They got closer and closer to the ladder. Daniel saw Johnny staring at the ladder like it was a dark spot and when he looked back at Klarissa, she raised one hand and waved like she was saying goodbye. Even though they were nowhere near his home.
Before he could look back fully, he felt himself being pushed forward. He felt his legs trip up from under him and the last few things he saw were the last two bottom steps of the ladder and a green leaf. He fell through the v of the ladder and fell onto the ground.
The first thing Daniel felt was cold. He didn’t feel pain or anything like that, even though he landed straight on his knees. All around him, he heard the sound of wind howling. It was really strong.
And when he looked up, he didn’t know if he was still on that sidewalk with Johnny and Klarissa. “Hey!” He shouted. “Guys!”
Daniel lifted his head and looked for Johnny and Klarissa behind him. But they weren’t behind him. There wasn’t anything behind him. Just a gray area. He almost spun in a full circle as he moved to see where he was. He wanted to see the black metal fence. He wanted to be able to see the sidewalk and the houses that lined down the block. He wanted to see trees and the sky, but he saw none of these things.
The only thing he saw was a gray like fog that swarmed around him. The ground was a fog itself, he could not see his knees, but somehow he was still sitting up.
He forced himself to stand up and at first, he thought he was going to fall through the floor since he couldn’t see the bottom, just the fog. He couldn’t see anything around him, he didn’t think there was anything else around him.
“What’s going on?” He muttered.
“You’re in hell.”
Daniel jumped back and turned. He looked over and right there was a person standing in the fog. The more she moved forward, Daniel could see more things about her. Her blond hair that seemed to be turning black in some streaks. Her eyes were a faded blue. She wore a long-sleeved white shirt that was ripped in the bottom and blue jeans.
And he noticed one more thing about her. Who she was.
Sadie Holt.
“N-No, you’re dead,” Daniel said, he took three more steps back and would have continued if he hadn’t frozen up by how this person in front of him looked so much like the Sadie he had seen a few times. Minus the dark streaks in her hair and the faded blue eyes and the slightly silver skin.
“Sadie’s dead. She died a week ago.”
’You’re dead too,” Sadie said, a small smile forming on her lips.
“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked, he took a step back. “And who are you?! Where am I?”
“Johnny and Klarissa? Those two… They killed you,” Sadie said. “They killed me too,” she said when Daniel did nothing but stand there stare at her with those wide blank eyes.
“How could they have killed me?” Daniel asked, he continued to remain conscious. He did not believe he was dead or that this was sadie. He figured he was dreaming, it had to be the only reason for this. He had to be dreaming.
But he didn’t remember falling asleep.
“They pushed you under the ladder. Don’t you remember that?” Sadie asked.
The image of the wooden ladder appeared in his mind. The ladder, the last thing he remembered before he opened his eyes to be here.
“You do remember it,” Sadie said. “Well, they pushed you through it and sadly for you, you died. From what I hear from other… demons, being pushed through the ladder on Friday the Thirteenth could do many things. Some people broke their bones, lost a relative, some got rich, some… Well, they died and were dragged down here. To what we would normally call Hell, we’ll keep it at that.”
“So you’re saying that I’m… dead and in hell?” He didn’t even know how he was able to spit out the words. Never once did he think he would have been able to say these things in a serious tone. He knew he would die one day, but when he thought of that, he thought of old age. He thought of laying in a hospital bed with a weeping wife and possibly a couple kids there too.
He never once thought of this.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Sadie said.
“I’m not believing this but if I did and am dead, are you… in hell too?”
“Yeah, well not for long,” Sadie said. “Hopefully, you won’t be either.”
“What does that mean?” Daniel asked.
“We’ve been given another chance to get out of here, or at least be put to rest. We’re dead, there’s no way either of us will be breathing fresh air again.” She gave a comforting smile when Daniel’s expression dropped just a little bit.
“But we can be put to rest. If you—”
‘Wait, If I’m dead, why am I in hell?’ Daniel asked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“It’s not really hell,” Sadie said. “From what I understand, heaven and hell don’t exist. For our stupid human minds, we say these things to have more sense. To get a feeling of… right and wrong. Demons and angels and everything in between on the other end, are real. And we can be angels. We can be the souls that are put to rest, that do good.”
Sadie walked over and took Daniel’s hand. Like everything else, her hand was ice cold. “But we only have one chance to do so.”
Daniel stared at her for a long moment. He looked for any indication of this not being the real Sadie. He tried to pinch himself and order himself awake. But nothing was happening. And he remembered this entire day like the back of his hand. There was no way he was sleeping.
“Why aren’t we put to rest then? Or angels? Even demons?!”
“Because,” Sadie said as she let his arm go. “We’ve got unfinished business.” She took a step back and pushed her hair off her shoulder. With a smile, she waited for Daniel’s slow brain to catch up and speak.
“Unfinished business?”
“Johnny and Klarissa. They killed me, and they killed you because they thought you knew what they did.”
’But I didn’t know that—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sadie snapped. “They thought you did. They killed you and they killed me only because I was going to rat them out to the police.”
“For what?”
“Unimportant,” Sadie said.
“Well, I guess that makes sense why they kept following me around all week,” Daniel said as he looked at the ground, at the fog that covered every inch of this… place “So they knew if I told anyone something I didn’t even know.”
“They are the real ones,” Sadie started, “The ones who deserve to be here. To be turned into demons and be tormented for eternity. Not us. And we’ve been given the chance to make that happen. To switch our places.”
“Is there a chance we can be alive again?” Daniel asked. “That I’ll be able to see my stuff again?”
“No,” Sadie said plainly. “But you can get revenge. You can be put to rest while they spend eternity being ugly disgusting creatures who will never know a day of comfort in their lives.”
He saw that Sadie was not kidding. She believed what she was saying and he guessed she knew how to. By now, he could only accept what Sadie, or fake Sadie, was saying and take it as fact. He didn’t very much want to, since he liked life for the most part, but he had to accept it.
He had to move on.
“Come on,” Sadie said. “It’s not like you haven’t killed a person or two before.”
Daniel swayed his head back and forth before he nodded. But he never really meant to kill those people, those few family members. They only got on his nerves and when it reached his limit, they ended up not breathing anymore.
He kind of smiled a bit at ending Johnny and Klarissa’s life.
“How are we going to… you know, get revenge on them or whatever. We’re dead, like you said and stuck in… this place.” He didn’t like it, it was cold and smelled a bit weird.
“Just run back through the ladder,” Sadie said.
“What….” Daniel watched Sadie turn around and when he looked over he saw what could only be the same ladder Johnny pushed him through. “....Ladder?”
“Come on,” Sadie said. “It’s time to go get revenge.”
Daniel looked down and saw Sadie holding out her hand for him to take. And with a long sigh, he took it. “Can we go after Johnny first?” Daniel asked. “I’ve got a couple ideas.”
“Sure, sure,” Sadie said. “Good idea.”
Sadie and Daniel walked forward. They walked towards the ladder together and with one more smile from Sadie, Daniel let go of her hand and walked through the ladder. But he hadn’t watched Sadie as long as he should have. If he looked back, he would have seen her change. Into something that wasn’t Sadie at all. A monster with big bright teeth and oozing, peeling off skin. A smile on its face, as its next meal had just come to him.
Because the truth is, this thing was not Sadie. Sadie was dead and gone and Johnny and Klarissa were behind it. They did push Daniel through the ladder and into this world, but Daniel wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead, not until he walked underneath that ladder once again and now he was torn apart and eaten.
The monster who tricked him had a lovely dinner that night.
