Rumors
“Chad! Chad! Chad! Chad!” The chanting got louder and louder as Chad poured root beer down his throat. High school can be a weird and confusing time, but if you’re us, you can find the brighter side of it.
People used to think we were the crazy kids of the town. The kids who were always up for trouble. That’s not who we are, we’re just kids. Kids tend to live on the edge, all because they don’t see the brick wall that adults do. We see nothing in our way, until someone gets hurt.
Chad was just being a kid, having fun, laughing. But it all went wrong the day that the Weir Twins came to town. Naturally, we saw their adventurous personalities, and we invited them into the friend group. Now Chad was usually the wuss of the group. He never wanted to do anything dangerous like we wanted to, so my friends decided to do dares on him instead. The Weir Twins, Norman and Nathan, were with us that one day, and they decided to dare Chad.
“Dare you to light a match in the broom closet.” Norman said as he came up behind Chad. “We just dared him to drink a gallon of root beer,” Mathew said, “I think we should be done with the dares.”
Mathew was always on the rational side of things, and never did anything that looked like it could get us killed.
“Oh come on fours, it’s just a little harmless dare,” said Nathan coming up on the left side of Mathew. “I told you not to call me that.” Mathew replied red with embarrassment. “What harm is it going to do?” I asked, “It’s not like he’s going to die in there,” Mathew stayed silent.
“Chad! Chad! Chad! Chad!” We all chanted. Chad stepped into the closet with the match and lit it. But as Chad was stepping out of the closet, a big gust of wind closed the closet door and blew the match out of Chad’s hand.
The closet could only be accessed with a key, and we all could hear Chads screams from inside. Norman and Mathew ran up to the door and started banging on it in hopes that it would break open. It didn’t.
“We should leave before we get into a lot of trouble...” Norman said. Mathew started at him in complete shock, “Chad is being burned alive and you want us to run!?” Norman stayed silent. “For once... I agree with fours.” Nathan said silently. I stood a few feet away from the door and saw the bright orange glow underneath it. “The handles probably hot,” I said. All the attention turned to me. I looked at the door, “the door handle is probably hot, we won’t be able to touch it. The yelling stopped too..”
“Jenny, what the hell are you saying?” My older brother Jackson asked. I looked at him with tears in my eyes. “He’s dead. We can’t save him!” My voice rose to a yell as tears streamed down my face. “There’s nothing we can possibly do!” The faces if the others said it all. We all knew the fire would reach the door and set it on fire, better to get away now than to be blamed later.
Mathew looked back at the door. “Come on guys. You can’t be serious.” There was a long pause, “We.. we should be going now...” Nathan said. He grabbed Mathew by the hand and dragged him away.
“Jenny we can’t leave him,” Jackson said. “If we don’t, we’ll be charged for arson.” Our friend Rein spoke up. “What about security cameras?” She said, “They’ll have already caught everything.” I looked up, “There are no security cameras around here... and if there are, they’re the cheap ones that don’t catch anything.” I looked back at her. “Look, none of this is our fault, we never could’ve seen this coming.”
“But before he went in, you said ‘it’s not like he’ll die in there’! Well look at him now!” Norman said. “You’re the one who gave him the damn dare!” Jackson yelled. “Let’s just go.” I said. We all looked back at the door, and left.
