Ben

         After leaving Alex and Shelley's place, Ben walked back to his house. It was only a couple houses down and he thought it was fortunate to live so close to his new best friend and his only friend at school in truth, but they got along so well both of them knew they were best friends after only two days of knowing each other. When Ben got home, he found his parents sitting in the living room, his dad had his arms crossed and his mom had a frown on her face, both were looking directly at him. Shoot, I forgot to tell them I was hanging out with Alex. Ben raised his hands defensively and tried to tell his parents he was hanging out with Alex, but he was having a hard time getting the words out, this happened often when Ben was nervous. 

The words finally came out: "Sorry I forgot to tell you, I was hanging out with Alex." Ben said, with a terrible feeling of guilt. 

His parents took a moment before responding, his dad responded first. 

"The queer boy? Ben, me and your mother don't want you hanging out with him." His father said in a grim tone.

 "He's not queer, he's just different, that's all." Ben said quietly, 

"Baby, his own parents call him queer, they've taken him to conversion camp before, they told us at church." Ben's mother whispered. "We don't want you to become like him, okay? So no more staying out late and hanging out with him, understand?" 

She raised her eyebrows, and Ben took a minute before nodding quietly and walking to his room, but his mother hugged him and kissed him on the forehead, saying 'love you'. 

Ben held in tears as he walked down the hallway, when he got to his room, he finally let them out. It was unfair that he wasn't allowed to hang out with his only friend, and Alex was a good friend, too. He seemed to be the only person who understood Ben and didn't just see him as unsociable and sensitive. That night, Ben cried himself to sleep.

The next day was a school day, and Ben made his cereal breakfast and ate it quickly, wanting to leave the house as soon as possible and make it to the bus. He got his socks and shoes on and pulled his backpack over his shoulders and grabbed his lunchbox, which he also packed himself. But before Ben could make it to the door, his father put a hand on his shoulder and told him to remember to stay away from Alex, Ben nodded hesitantly, left his house, and made it to the bus stop.

For the whole first period Ben ignored Alex, and even chose a girl lab partner, but while he was working on the project with his partner, he glanced at Alex and saw him working alone. Ben felt guilty again, but this time it felt deeper, like a big hole in his chest. And that hole got bigger and bigger in second period and lunch, when he sat at a table alone, and Alex was nowhere to be found in the cafeteria. Ben ate some of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and after that he went to the restroom to wash his hands. When he walked in some bigger kids passed him and he felt scared that they would do something, but they didn't, and Ben made it to the sink. He turned the knob and the water splashed onto his hands, someone walked out of the stall behind him and he heard them sniffling, and when he looked he saw that it was Alex wiping his eyes and washing his hands, looking at the water with a dull face as it splashed on his hands. 

There was a certain quiet feeling in the restroom that made both boys comfortable, like everything was going to be okay. Ben used that comfort to start talking. 

"Were you crying in the stall?" He asked with a gentle expression on his face.

 Alex looked at Ben and rubbed his eyes, "no, I just got something in my eyes."

 Ben kept quiet for a moment, deciding whether to speak again or not, he decided to speak. "Come on, we both know that's a lie. It's okay if you cried. I've been awful to you today." 

Alex nodded and bit his lip. "Yeah, you've been a jerk." 

That added to the already big, guilty hole in Ben's chest, but he knew Alex was right. 

"I'm sorry, my parents just wanted me to stay away from you, but they're wrong." Ben said, looking at the sink as he told Alex why.

 Alex responded by nodding. "It's cause they think I'm queer, right?" 

Ben shook his head quickly. "No, not that. It's just, they thought, well, they thought you did drugs." He lied, but he didn't want to hurt Alex with the truth. Alex could've been queer for all he cared, but he still wanted to be around him and learn more about him.

 Alex looked at Ben with a look that was empathetic. 

"Fine, I forgive you, I guess. I was probably just being dramatic about it anyway. It's not a big deal." Alex said.

 Ben shook his head. "That's not true, it was a big deal. It was a big deal to you and it was a big deal to me." Ben said, looking away from Alex, it was hard for him to say that if he looked him in the eyes, it made him feel nervous. 

Alex wrapped his arms around Ben and Ben returned the hug, even though he felt kind of shy around Alex again. Alex let go and smiled, which made Ben blush slightly and look away. 

The two boys walked out of the restroom and Alex joined Ben at the lunch table. The rest of the lunch period was spent joking and laughing and Ben and Alex forgot about any stresses or anything holding them back, at least for the rest of the period. Who cared about what his parents thought?

Shelley

During lunch, Shelley spent her time sketching in her spare composition book. She wanted to make her own font and sell it so she could make a lot of money. She started by sketching every letter in the alphabet in a scratchy way, Shelley would have hung out with Jack and the others, but they were all being talked to by the principal for apparently fighting with another group of kids, but Shelley knew that they probably just rightfully defended themselves against a bunch of degenerate jerks and still got in trouble for that. 

Now thinking about it, Shelley didn't want to hang out with them today anyway, she knew they would know something was up with her, but she didn't want to let them know anything about it, cause they would think she's loony. The day before, she had a nightmare, but it wasn't a normal nightmare, it wasn't the usual falling off a cliff or losing teeth nightmare, this one involved a conversation, not exactly terrifying, but it was the contents of said conversation that were disturbing. The nightmare had been set in Shelley and Alex's room, but Alex was wearing a button up shirt and dress pants, something he didn't wear often. And Alex was also quiet, even when Shelley tried talking to him, he wouldn't respond. 

There was another person in the room, one Shelley hadn't seen before. The man was wearing a button up and dress pants as well, but his hair wasn't messy, long, and dirty blond like Alex's, but short, combed back, and black, and his face was long, he had green eyes and thin black eyebrows, his face was also pale. Even with the unfamiliar nature of him, there was something that made Shelley feel comfortable around him. 

The man spoke with a quiet quality, "Have you heard of the house on Tally Drive? apparently it burnt down." He said this in a monotone voice, as if describing a boring day at work.

 Shelley took some thought before responding, Tally Drive sounded vaguely familar. For some reason she felt like if she said one thing wrong the man would hurt her, or worse. 

"Why did it burn down?" She asked, trying to keep a similar tone of voice the man had. The man wouldn't respond, and Shelley decided to do a risky tap on his shoulder, but the man didn't seem to respond to that either.

 Why was he here? As she asked herself this question, the man's eyes turned to hers. It was almost like he could hear her thoughts. Shelley felt like she could also hear old music playing somewhere nearby in her dream-house; she wanted to investigate that instead of staying any longer near the man who rarely spoke. She took one last look at him before leaving the room and venturing down the hall as she searched for the source of the music; she didn't remember her parents having a record player. As Shelley walked further down the hallway, it got longer, and the ending of it was getting further away, now the music sounded behind her back in her and Alex's room. So, she wandered back to the room with a puzzled expression etched on her face. 

She came back to the room but quickly realized her brother was no longer in there, the only person remaining in the room beside herself was the strange man. He turned to look at her, and she saw his neck had a red ring running around it: blood, and it was running down to his chest, the blood started from his adams apple and around that, when Shelley took a step closer the blood started gushing out and the man's eyes were red.

 The eyes weren't bloodshot, but instead the white was replaced with red, as if the eyes were filling to the brim with blood, but the irises were still visible. The blood that was gushing was now splashing out of the man's neck from all sides, like a bloody waterfall. Shelley tried to scream in her nightmare but all she could do was open her mouth, no noise came out. And the dream ended with the man taking one final look at Shelley with his pure red eyes.

Shelley got back to sketching, trying her hardest not to think about the nightmare, it had worked before so it was reasonable to assume it would work again. But, she got another thing to distract her from that: Jack dashing across the field directly towards her. Shelley sighed, assuming Jack was probably running from some jocks or something, but when he finally caught up to her, she could see the mix of horror and passion in his eyes. Jack wanted to tell her something. Something important. 

"Shelley, I need you to tell something, and you can't call me crazy, okay?" Jack said with a pleading tone. Shelley nodded. 

"Yeah, yeah, okay. What is it?" Shelley asked, Jack took a minute to respond as he was trying to think how he would explain what he saw. 

"Okay, so last night I was biking to get away from my annoying parents, right?" Jack stated.

 "Right." Shelley responded. 

Jack continued. "Anyways, I biked down that road that's been around for like a thousand years, King's Way, and I saw some old house and I got distracted by it and almost hit a guy who was all by himself on the road, so I swerved and didn't hit him, luckily, but I saw his face and he was the guy who's been missing since November."  

Shelley gasped. "Wait, what? What guy went missing?" She asked.

 Jack groaned. "Allen Hall! Girls here sometimes call him Handsome Hall cause they think he's hot or something? Come one, you have to have heard of him."

 "Oh, yeah, I think I know who you're talking about, but you're saying you saw him?" Shelley asked. 

 "Yeah, but it get's weirder, 'cause I thought he looked familiar and I thought maybe he had some mental issues or something cause he'd been missing for months and he was just walking on the road like he was taking a night stroll, so, I decide to check on him and he smiles at me, but his teeth are all fucked up, like someone performed surgery on his mouth or something!" Jack said, he was breathing fast and Shelley could even faintly hear his fast heart beating in his chest.

 "Okay, did you report it to the police or something?" Shelley asked, she tried to seem more calm than she actually was.

 "No, no I didn't." Jack said, "but it was because that guy seemed, I dunno, like, more than mentally unwell, like he was a ghost, or a zombie." 

"Dammit, Jack." Shelley sighed as she got up and walked to the trashcan to throw away her lunch, Jack followed behind. "You should've reported it."

 "Shelley, you know as well as I do that the police wouldn't believe me even if I did report it. I've been bailed out a couple times by my parents already for shoplifting, so I'm not exactly on good terms with authorities." Jack said in a slightly annoyed tone, he grabbed Shelley's arm. "Listen, just, follow me, I'll show you who the guy was, there's a poster of him nearby. Someone taped it to the flagpole." 

So, with slight hesitancy, Shelley followed Jack around the building, through the shrubs, out into the school parking lot, and onto the concrete where the large flagpole stood, the flag waved above the world. The poster of the missing man was flapping in the wind, but the tape was somehow still holding it down, even with so much pressure. The poster said: Missing: Allen Hall and below that was a picture of him, he had combed back black hair, thin eyebrows, and his face was long. Shelley froze, and Jack noticed this. 

"What? Have you met him before?" He asked.

 "No," Shelley responded quickly, "Well, at least not in reality..."

 Jack was puzzled, "what do you mean 'not in reality'?"

 "I mean, I-I saw him in my nightmare last night. W-Who the fuck is he? And why the hell would he appear in my nightmare?" Shelley asked in a panicked tone. 

"I don't know, what happened in it?" Jack asked. 

"He just told me some place burnt down, and after that his neck started bleeding until it bled so much that it could fill five jars of that shit." Shelley said, breathing fast as well.

 Jack touched her arm, "wait, wait, what do you mean he was talking about a place that burnt down? What place?" He asked quickly. 

Shelley gulped. "He was talking about a place on Tally Drive, all he said was that it burnt down and when I asked him why it burnt down he wouldn't respond."

 After that statement, Shelley noticed Jack was now frozen, and he gulped.

 "Wait, do you know something about this too, Jack?" She asked.  

Jack nodded. "Tally Drive was the street I saw when I was biking before I almost hit Allen, but it was weird because there was only one house on the street, and it was at the very end." 

Shelley took this in. "Well, maybe Allen meant that the other houses burnt down or something, that's why there's one." She said, she tried to find an explanation for all of this

. Jack wiped sweat off of his forehead, "Shelley, don't you see how weird this all is? You had a creepy ass dream with the same guy I saw last night. It has to mean something. And the house too! It must be-" 

"Whoa, let's not just jump to conclusions, we don't know anything, I just had a nightmare, that's it." Shelley interrupted.

 Jack shook his head again. "No, it wasn't just a nightmare, how did you see him if it was just another nightmare?" 

Shelley shrugged and crossed her arms as she looked at the ground with uncertainty. "I dunno, maybe I saw the missing poster before and that's why he was there last night, he looked exactly the same as he does in the poster in my nightmare."

 Jack groaned. "Fine, but how do you explain me seeing him?"

 "Well, I believe you about that. I never said I didn't or anything..." Shelley said, she still had an uncertain look. 

"C'mon! Look deeper, Shelley! You always doubt yourself, but this isn't just some fuckin' coincidence, Allen Hall told you about the house that only I saw, it means something. It has to."

 "Even if it does, what are we gonna do about it, Jack?" Shelley asked.

 "Simple," Jack said, "we're getting the Gang together tonight and going to the house on Tally Drive."