I Quit Teaching Because Of This Terrifying Incident. I’ve Never Told Anyone About It Until Now.

“The man who did that was not a good man,” he began. “People downtown already talked about weird things that happened everywhere he worked. In one school, a rabbit went missing from a classroom. It was found the next day hanging from a tree, skinned and headless. Another school had a small fire in the park behind the building. There were dead animals burnt on a big table or something. And there were candles all around that table of dead animals which caused the fire. And here, before this year, I heard of strange drawings appearing on different walls. That guy worked at all these places. He did something bad with that girl.”

I had forgotten about the graffiti placed around the school the previous year. I had heard some kids broke in at night and placed demonic symbols — pentagrams, occult numerological signs, strange phrases — all over the building. That’s when they installed security cameras all over the facility. But I felt he was conflating different things just for the sake of sensationalism and it was frustrating.

“What makes you so sure of that?” I asked.

“That box,” he continued, “with what it had in it. My uncle is into reading about this kind of thing. He told me. The hair — a remnant of pain and sacrifice. The bible — to mock what’s in it.”

Then, he leaned closer. “I bet there’s something else down in the basement.”

My palms were getting sweaty just hearing this man talk. There was something unstable in his eyes, the way he stared as he spoke.

That’s when I heard the screams. They were coming from my room.