The Backpack: A short horror story written by Jules Fox
“It all started when I took the wrong backpack home from school…” My
therapist looks at me with a raised eyebrow and speaks in a calm
professional tone, “Go on…” I run a hand through my short rust colored hair,
as I gather my scattered thoughts. “Well, it was a Friday, and we were
packing up to leave from seventh period. I was rushing to get out because
my mom told me to get the dishes done before she comes home, or I would
be grounded over the weekend.” My foot taps anxiously on the forest green
carpeted floors. “I grabbed my bag, or so I thought it was my bag and ran
out of the school as soon as the bell rang.” The man sitting across from me,
who introduced himself as Dr. Martinez, looks down at me through his thick
rimmed glasses. The ones that ‘the geeky nerds’ would wear in bad teen
movies. “Mr. Riley, what does this have to do with you supposedly seeing an
apparition in your room?” He speaks down to me like I’m a toddler, as if he’s
a parent comforting their seven-year-old after they had a nightmare. My nails
dig into my palms as I clench my fists. “Not supposedly, I did!” I take a deep
breath and begin sharing my story, I get consumed in the retelling and it’s
almost like I’m back in the chilly Washington State afternoon.
I speed home on my bike the crisp autumn air biting at my skin. The
dark streets of Hazyville zip past me causing my baggy jeans to ripple in the
wind as I make steep turns all in an attempt to save time. In a moment of
distraction, a sudden sensation makes my heart skip a beat. A warm liquid
flows down my back, resulting with me swerving into a ditch. I throw my bike
off my torso with a groan, already able to tell my abdomen is gonna be
bruised. I bring my hand to the deep scratch on my cheek, the wound
surrounded with a grass stain. A change of color from the dead grass catches
my eye causing me to look over at my backpack, even more so to the dark
crimson puddle it sits in. My stomach lurches and I gag as the smell of iron
and rotting flesh fills my nostrils. I resist the urge to throw the bag into
oncoming traffic, mainly because I didn’t want to touch it and there was no
traffic in the deserted town I was forced to call home. I shut my eyes tightly
praying for the nightmare to be over until I hear a car pulling over and
heeled feet running in my direction.
I open my eyes to see my mom crouched in front of me, her ginger
hair slicked back into a ponytail and her pale skin darkened with shadows of
the leafless trees surrounding us. She looks down at my freckled face with
motherly concern. “Riley are you okay?” I clear my throat and speak trying to
keep my voice from shaking. “T-The bag…” She turns her head to look at the
navy-blue bag with confusion. “What about it?” My eyes widen and I stumble
over my words. “The blood! Don’t- don’t you see the blood!?” She cups my
scraped cheek with her hand. “I think you hit your head when you fell off
your bike honey.” She says softly. “No! No, I didn’t! I felt it! Mom, you have to
believe me!” She looks down at my frantic state and her emerald eyes flicker
with a range of emotions I can’t quite identity. “C’mon bud… let’s get you
home.” I can’t change her mind… I think to myself as we drive back to the
house no words being exchanged the entire time. I look at her eyes in the
rear-view mirror seeing them flicker too much more sinister and scary ones
for a brief moment, but I decide it’s nothing.
The next few hours pass me by swiftly, and before I know it, I’m lying
in bed, my pitch-black room surrounding me as I pick at the oversized
bandage my mother forced me to apply to my cheek. I eye the backpack on
the ground next to my door with suspicion, watching, waiting, for something
to happen. Nothing happens. I shut my eyes tightly trying to ease my mind
and just fall asleep, before an ear-splitting scream of bloody murder shatters
the once peaceful silence in my room. I sit bolt right up in bed and look
around like a mad man. A barely there scuttling comes from the corner of my
room. I feel tears well up in my eyes as the smell of roadkill and blood fills
my nose yet again. My head snaps in the direction of a shadowy figure
hunched over me, my pupils dilate, and I scream in a mix of agony and fear
as I feel five clawed fingers rake across my face.
My eyes slowly open to bright florescent lights and the smell of
sterilized equipment. I overhear a man seemingly in his thirties speaking to
no one in particular, I listen in trying to figure out where I am or what
happened. “Patient name, Riley Maddix. Age, thirteen. Cause of stay, severe
gashes in cheeks, forehead, and chin, narrowly missing the left eye. I begin
to speak, but look up to see the doctor looking down at me with same beady
rodent-like eyes I saw before being brutally attacked and in the rear-view
mirror. Terror washes over me, and I throw myself out of the hospital bed,
disconnecting myself from the machines and monitors as blood soaks
through my fresh bandages covering my face. “Get away from me!” The
doctors face spreads into a toothy malice filled grin and he speaks, “Patient
seems to be experiencing trepidation.” I watch frozen in place as his fingers
curl around a nearby scalpel. Without thinking I run at him, fighting him for
the scalpel, my hand getting pierced in the process. I rush over to the
backpack that lays on the white tiled floor and repeatedly stab it with a
shaking hand. Another scream fills my ears, and the doctor vanishes leaving
behind a pile of ash. My eyelids droop and blood runs from my nose. My
vision goes black, last thing I know I fall backwards hitting my head with a
dull thud.
I’m brought back to the present by Mr. Martinez clearing his throat.
“Riley… I think we should get you evaluated for paranoid schizophrenia.” I sit
there dumbfounded. “Why does nobody believe me!? I’m not crazy!” He
writes something down and accidently drops his pen, he leans down to get it,
drawing my attention to underneath his chair. Especially to the navy-blue
backpack that sits in a puddle of blood. He sits back up straight holding his
pen with an eerie smile. I bring my head up to look at him and see two beady
rodent eyes staring back at me…
My eyes go back to underneath his chair the shadowy figure I saw in
my room emerging from inside of it, growing larger and larger as it
approaches. I sit there too scared to move and the figure reaches a hand out.
My face pales and I feel as if my intestines were being slowly ripped apart.
Blood dribbles from the corner of my mouth, and my fingertips blacken. The
last thing I see as my vision goes dark is a hand blanketed in shadows
reaching into my rib cavity clawing out my stomach, my organs dangle from
my spine, thick strands of blood keep my intestines bonded to me. Before
being forcefully stolen from me, and put into the navy-blue bag. My vision
darkens and my heart stops. The thing I take in is the scent of death
enveloping me, I shut my eyes and feel my soul retract from my body.
THE END!!
