I woke up with a sudden jolt of terror shrieking through my body. The sheets, sodden with perspiration, stuck to my skin as I stepped off my bed. I walked down the hall of the three-story building. I crept into the upstairs bathroom and washed off my face. I stepped over to the toilet and went to the bathroom. I tiptoed back over to the sink, still not fully awake yet. I peered into the mirror adjacent to me and stepped back in horror. What I saw in that mirror was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was the monster keeping me up at night, the clown zombie of my nightmares. I peered in closer and realized it was just the aftershock of the nightmare that had woken me up with fright this fateful night.
My room felt comforting compared to the horror-filled bathroom I had just been in. I somehow felt safe from all harms as long as I was lying in my bed awake with my imagination as my best friend. I peered out through the window. The moon shown brightly and sent chills down my spine. I soon drifted back to sleep still trying to forget about the nightmare.
The desert frontier was my best friend as I walked past the prickly cactus and through the Mojave Desert. Then a strong arm grabbed my shoulder and I fell to the ground in fear. When I awoke I was in a circus. Looking around at all the faces I realized that they were all staring at me. I felt scared, embarrassed, what was I doing in the circus. Suddenly the clown from all my nightmares burst out laughing. I sat there in the stool trying to move, but compelled to sit still. This was getting me nowhere. The harder I tried to move the harder it became. Then the clown came up to me. My heart was pounding, my legs shaking, my feet dangled from the stool as he stepped closer. I felt scared, horrified. I stared into the crowd looking for comfort when I felt a hard "THUMP" straight across my face. I fell to the floor unconscious as the crowd roared with laughter. I felt another arm grab me and then...
"Did you study for your test today class?" what...I had forgotten all about the social studies test that we were having today. I slouched down into my seat as my hopes sank lower and lower. I got my test and soon later handed it back in feeling ashamed of my stupidity. Then we went to English class with Mr. Marsh.
"Today...we will be studying the art of horror fiction. Does anybody have any ghost true life stories they would like to share with the class?" No one raised his or her hand so he started one of his own. We could always count on Mr. Marsh to give us a good story or two every class. This time he started about true ghost stories.
"There' s this man I used to know. An old man, he lived along in a big house. Every once in a while I would see him standing on the street waiting for the bus for a ride home. Whenever I saw him standing there, I would offer him a ride since it was only down the block from me. So I've known this guy for two years now and we never really talked maybe a greeting once in a while but never too serious so we never really got to know each other. So, I guess it's a Thursday. I am driving home from school and I see him waiting for the bus. I go over to him and say, "Hey, it looks like it's gonna rain, would u like a lift home." He says yeah and I take him home and then he waves goodbye and for the first time he says something different than the usual. He says, "I am gonna go lie in my bed and rest my legs." This is the first time he ever really shared his feelings with me so I'm pretty surprised. So we say our good-byes and then we part. I got home and did the usual routine. Friday night I was just at one of my friend's houses to stop by and he tells me this story about an old man. My buddy is a firefighter so you know he puts out fires. Well, there's this house that caught on fire but it was just a little kitchen fire and they put it out with ease so it wasn't really a big deal around the neighbor hood. He told me that he found an old man lying in the upstairs bedroom. He was dead. His leg muscles had decayed before he even died, that's what the doctors said. This was on Tuesday. I said to him, but today's Friday and I just saw him yesterday and drove him home. What's up with that you're kidding me right. He tells me no and I get home later on wondering if I was really seeing things and then that night I had a dream about the old man. He told me to firmly believe everything that happened in my life. Well that's my story I hope all of you can find something at least 1/4 as scary as that one. Remember, It has to be true."
The whole class was completely mesmerized by this story and couldn't think of anything to do. Then I thought of it. I could just do a story about my dream last night. That's scary enough. I almost wet the bed as if my sweat didn't soak it enough. Well that was it; the end of English class and it was back to homeroom for lunch. After lunch we were going to have gym.
Gym class, the hardest and easiest classes in high school. Hardest because it tests your physical strength; easiest because it give your brain a rest from all the thinking. Today we were going to climb the dreaded "rope". This "rope" isn't an obstacle for me. Every week I climb over it with ease and ring the loud bell at top, as it gongs through the gymnasium I would slide down the rope and watch the rest of the class. This time I went last! I waited patiently for my turn watching failures and successes. When my turn finally came up, I anxiously stepped up to the mat and put my hands around it firmly. I wrapped my legs around it while using my upper body strength to pull myself up and when I reached the top I stared at the bell. The clown face appeared to me again, right on the bell. This was the second time I'd seen it ever since that nightmare. I looked at him and he looked at me. I grabbed for the little handle used to ring it but my body was frozen. I looked at him and he opened his mouth, showing four rows of teeth. I felt scared, strangely hypnotized, and I felt stronger than I ever had so instead of taking hold of the bell's handle I let go of the rope to get away from this evil demon.
It felt like I was falling for an eternity, down an endless pit. Then it seemed as I was falling too fast. I fell against the ground, arms, legs trembling I failed to get back up. I lay there like a motionless action figure, being bent out of shape by the way my body was positioned. I gave up hoping that everything would be all right because I knew it wouldn't be all right. I lost all sound and my sight was slowly fading. Then I remembered the clown and that's when I blacked out completely.
The loud cheers from the spectators seemed to wake me up from my sleep and I was in the circus again, like my dream. I stared into the curtain avoiding the crowd. Sweat poured from my forehead. Through the curtain it crawled, a centipede. Long, nasty, and enormous, this centipede flew at me with great speed and bit my neck. I felt the venom flow through my blood stream and started to start feeling dizzy. I looked around the room, swaying and doing flips. When I looked back at the centipede it had a clown face and was spray-painting a sign. I couldn't really see what it said but I could make out the words "It NevEr ENds!" then I vaguely remembered the incident with the clown picture down in my basement which had erased from all of our memories ever since it had happened.