The Man | Teen Ink

The Man

January 10, 2018
By Lettigula BRONZE, Raliegh, North Carolina
Lettigula BRONZE, Raliegh, North Carolina
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

To tell you the truth I don’t think I have ever been scared before. Maybe the only time I was scared was when I had gotten lost in this huge store, I was only 8 at the time. I still

remember it well, I was attracted to the toys on the right aisle, so I went
there without telling my mom. I remember playing with the cool action figures
like Captain America and Spider Man. I must have been there for over an hour,
but then a store employee went up to me and asked if I was lost. It wasn’t
until then that I had realized that I had been without my mom for an hour. So I
ran from the aisle and dashed across the store. But after minutes of searching I
couldn't find her. I went into the aisle closest to me and broke down.
     I was sitting there crying on the floor with my knees in my forehead. Then I felt a
tap on my back. I looked back, but there was no one there. I stopped my sobbing
and stood up. I went searching the aisles for whoever could have tapped me. I
kept looking, but by this time the store had closed. The lights in the store
started turning off and then right in front of me down the aisle was a man in a
hooded cloak. I couldn’t see much of him, but his eyes shone a bright yellow
color. Then the light in the aisle I was in shut off, so I looked up at the
bulb, then I looked down and saw the man had disappeared.
     At that moment was when I was scared the most in my whole entire life. I ran down
the aisles and straight to the front door. Outside I saw there were a few cars
in the parking lot, but one had caught my attention, a police car. I walked up
to the car and knocked on the window. The officer inside the car got out and
started asking me questions. I remember telling him that I lost my mom a few
hours and that when the lights went out there was a man in a dark cloak. The
one about the man, got his attention as he opened his door and talked through
the radio that there was “suspicious” activity. He told me to wait inside the
car as he would investigate the store.
     A few hours later the store had been turned into a crime scene. The officer had
turned on all the lights and searched the whole building. But he couldn’t find
the man, but he did find the body of an employee in the back room. After he
radioed the station 3 more police cars came and the coroners came and took the
body. My mom was nowhere to be found so they took me to the station and called
any of my parent’s relatives. The next day my grandparents came and took me to
their house.
     That was 10 exactly ten years ago on this date. They never did find the killer and I
never saw my mom again. Living with my grandparents was pretty cool, they would
let me stay up as long as I wanted and I could borrow their car anytime. I
recently graduated from high school, in fact last week was graduation. But no
matter I accomplish I will always think back to the time that I was trapped in
a store with a killer.
     I hang out with most of my friends every week. We usually go watch movies or go
to each other houses. Today I’m meeting them so we can all go hang out in the
woods. Steve Tyler is hosting a huge party in the forest behind his parents’
house. I’m not really good friends with Steve, but we talk to each other from
time to time. He asked me if I could bring the soda.
     When I was driving to my friend Alex, I picked up Andrew. We both had a conversation
and started telling each other terrible jokes and just goofing around. I picked
up Alex, so then I went to the store to pick up some soda.
I traversed through the aisles looking for some diet coke and sprite, but it seemed as if the store had run out. Then I noticed an employee, so I asked her where the soda was. She
told me that there was some in the back of the store and I should go with her
to grab some. So I followed her to the back of the store and there were a few
12 packs of Coke and Sprite. I grabbed them and took them to the cashier to buy
them.
After I paid for the soda’s I
needed to use the bathroom. I went down to the other side of the store, where
the bathrooms were located. After I finished up in the bathroom I noticed that
the sun was going down outside. So the store turned on the lights and made it
brighter.
As I walked down the halls I decided to look at what stuff the store was selling. There were things for gardens like shovels and buckets in the back aisle and nearer to the middle there
was clothes and crafts supplies. I looked to my right and there was a man
wearing a black coat and with a knife in his hands. I jumped back and fell on
my butt, then I looked again and there was no one there. “I just made it up”, I
thought to myself. I grabbed the sodas and dashed out of the store.
My friends were there in the car laughing. I entered the car and they started asking questions like, “where were you” or “why did it take so”. I said to them that I had to use the
bathroom and Alex said, “Wow must have been a big one”. So we all laughed and
drove off to Steve’s party
When we arrived at the party his house was almost full. There were people in the lawn and people on every floor of the house. I saw Steve hanging out in the couch with some of his friends. He was drinking some beer and making wild gestures with his hands. I
greeted him and showed him the coke and sprite, he pointed to a table to the
right of me and there was huge selection of food.
Andrew dove straight into the chips and salsa and Alex tried his best to sweet talk some of the girls in the party. I sat back and went upstairs with a can of soda and started drinking
it. I looked at my phone and there was a text from my grandparents. I opened it
and it said, “Hey Chris I hope you’re all right, the store that we usually shop
at had been turned into a crime scene, there was a body of a girl who worked at
the store in the back room found”. I closed my phone and started to feel my
heart beating in my chest. I ran downstairs and outside to start catching my
breath.
“This can't be happening again” I started talking to myself. Then I felt a quick shove on my right shoulder and saw Steve behind me. “Hey man are you alright” he asked. So I
asked him “Do you remember the murder that happened in Perry’s that happened a
decade ago” He nodded his head and said, “Yeah, I know it was an employee, but
why are you bringing it up now”. “There was a person found dead, exactly
today”. “Wow dude did they find out who it”, but he stopped mid-sentence. He
started coughing and I turned around to see a sharp knife protruding from his
Chest.
He fell forward and behind him was the man wearing the black coat. He raised up his knife and tried to swing at me, but I moved out of the way and ran towards the house. When I reached the door of the house I started pounding it, and after a second or so
it was opened by Alex. “Hey what’s up man” he asked. “Steve is dead, someone
murdered him” I shouted back at. His face dropped from a smile to a dead
serious expression. “What do you mean that someone murdered him”, he asked. So I
told him about how the man in the black coat had been following me.
“So there has been a man that was following you” he asked
“Yes this person has been following me since I was a child” I replied
I looked behind him and there was the man in the black coat.
I jumped and started to dash towards my car. Alex joined me in the run after he saw the man. We both got inside the car and turned it on. I looked around to see if anyone was near, but there wasn't anybody. So I pushed The truck pulled up faster and faster, until it was next to me.
Then the car bumped into ours, we looked at the driver and it was the man in black. He rammed us once again. I tried to out maneuver him, but it just didn’t work. Then after he hit us for the third time. This time I lost control of my car and it dove straight for a ditch. I told Alex to hang on and then we crashed into the ditch.
When I awoke I couldn’t feel my legs. But everything above my waist hurt. I was in so much pain all I could see was white, but when my vision came to, I turned to my right and Alex wasn’t there. But written in the blood of someone on the car door that said, “You’re too late”.
Then I smelt gas and turned to see the man in black pouring a red container of gas on the wreckage. I shouted at him, but he didn’t say anything. He pulled down the cloak and it was Andrew. I kept on shouting at him to stop, but nothing fazed him. Then he pulled out a match and threw it into the pool of gas. But before everything went black all I heard was, “Good luck next time”.
Then I woke up and I was in the store looking for my mom, but she was nowhere to be found...



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