On the Other Side of the Cave
She could hear the others close on her tail.
She pedaled harder and faster, trying to keep a good distance ahead of the four other children who were trying to chase her down. She panted for breathe, gripping the handlebars of her bike, glancing back only when she turned corners. She thanked her lucky stars for the second time that night that the usual snow-heavy weather of an Aiken October had not come, leaving the streets clear of ice and snowdrifts, and her free to speed on as fast as she possible could.
The catcalls reached her ears, urging her to keep going though it felt like her chest was going to burst if she didn't stop.
"Freaky clown! Freaky clown come and do some tricks for us!" It was Bobby, Bobby Trielle and his little gang of bullies; Monica, Jamie, and Kent. All heartless, all too willing to do something like throw stones at somebody they hated.
"I'm gonna kill you for that, clown!" Jamie shouted
"Nobody hits my friends and gets away with it!" Monica chimed in
"We're gonna catch you Elle, you can't run away!" Kent creamed at her back.
They always played to hurt. And right now they wanted to hurt Elle.
Elle Morgan was twelve years old and she liked Trick-or-Treating. But middle schoolers are much too old to trick-or-treating. In fact, Elle Morgan did a lot of things that middle schoolers didn't do. She still liked to read stories about magic and fantasy, and she didn't like unhappy endings. She had never seen a PG-13 movie before, and she still lowered her voice secretively and shamefully like a third-grader when she was forced to mention the word "s-e-x…" Elle Morgan was just about the babiest middle schooler Bobby Trielle and his gang had ever met. Bobby Trielle wanted nothing more then to be grown up and drive a car and make lots of money like his dad, Robert Trielle told him he someday soon would. He considered himself more grown-up than any of the kids in his gang and especially more so than Elle Morgan.
So when Elle Morgan had been invited to a special grown-up dinner with the mayor of Aiken as a reward for good grades, Bobby Trielle flipped his lid.
From then on, Elle was Bobby's sworn enemy. Hence the desperate chase taking place around the city streets of Aiken. Elle, once again unwittingly drew out the wrath of Bobby Trielle as she donned her red and blue jester costume on October 31 and prepared to trick-or-treat with the best.
Elle had worked for weeks on the costume. She had learned to sew from her grandmother and the jester costume was her finest piece of work yet. She had chose red and blue satiny material at the fabric store, found the perfect pattern, and even found small bells to attach to the typical jester's hat that she now clenched desperately in her hand as she tried to escape Bobby on her bike.
Catching Elle on a deserted street Bobby and his gang had jumped her with scissors, shredding the beautiful costume and laughing mercilessly. Elle squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands, crouching down against a brick wall. She tried to shut out the horrible ripping, tearing sounds and the cruel laughter as she knew her prize creation was being destroyed. As Bobby's gang backed up to admire their handiwork, Elle had time to assess the damage. The costume was irreparable. The tears could be sewn, but the costume would never again be the perfect creation that it had once been.
Elle lost it.
She had jumped up, her half-filled candy bag forgotten on the ground, and flung herself into the middle of the gang, her small fists whirling, striking at whatever she could. Blind luck (good or bad) was with her as one of her fists hit home, right across Jamie's nose. He screamed as the blood began flowing out from between his fingers as he covered his nose with his hands.
Elle had jumped on her bike and began fleeing. And they chased her.
Elle was beginning to get desperate. She needed to find a place to hide NOW or else she's get to weary that she's fall and then they'd have her. She looked side to side as she zoomed around a corner, trying to find a refuge. Luck again, (good or bad) was with her as the open gate of a cemetery presented itself and beckoned in the wind. Elle needed no further urging.
She raced in and slid to a stop, leaping behind a tombstone. For a few breathless moments she huddled there. Then she heard the others pass the gate on their bikes. Elle relaxed and forced herself to breathe. She sat down wearily and looked at her ruined costume. Tears stung her eyes as she drew a spool of red thread and a needle out of the jeans she was wearing under the costume. She began to slowly stitch up the gashes in the right pant leg of the suit.
"Silly clown." Elle froze. It was them. They had surrounded her. Elle looked up at them, terrified. Each held a good-sized rock.
"Stupid Stitches the Clown, you can't fix yourself." Monica smirked.
"Here's for Jamie's nose!" Bobby shouted as they all pulled back their arms ready to fire. Elle shut her eyes and waited, a small whimper escaping her mouth.
Suddenly, there was a sound behind Bobby's gang like the opening of the doors of Hell, a screeching, gravely, stone on metal sound.
Elle's eyes flew open and the stones dropped out of the other children's hands as they swung around toward the origin of the hellish sound. They all stared as the grave opposite them began to move.
It was configured to look like stone doors that lead to a storm cellar. There was a stone angel overlooking the doors reading a stone book which lay open in her arms. The doors below her feet were beginning to open.
The angel shook as the doors shuddered and was turned, so that she look as though she was joining the stunned children in awaiting what would come out of the doors.
Elle jumped as the doors were shoved roughly open by an unseen force, slamming against the neighboring tombstones with a sound like a hammer on an anvil. Then the graveyard stood silent.
The empty door way in to the ground was lit with an eerie reddish-orange glow. Then a shadowy silhouette rose from inside the gaping hole. Bobby and his gang stiffened in absolute terror. Elle just sat staring, her mouth hanging open. The figure stepped out one to stone ledge of the grave. In the icy- blue moonlight, they could all see the horrible criss-crossed stitches running the whole length of the figure's body, across its face, down its arms, running into the tousled reddish-brown hair atop its head.
The figure stared back at them. Bobby and his friends stood in abject fear, shaking in their shoes. The figure stood perched on the grave it had just left. Elle pushed her back up against the tombstone she had hid behind. For a few seconds, none of them moved. Silence reigned in the cemetery.
Then from across the small distance than separated them, Elle's eyes met with the shadowed pockets on the figures face were the eyes hid, and she was not afraid anymore. The figure seemed to ease a bit too, and broke the silence.
"Where-?" That was all it could get out before Bobby and his friends simultaneously screamed and turned to race out the cemetery gate, pushing and tripping each other to escape the horrible demon they had seen. They clambered aboard their bikes and sped off, leaving Elle alone to face the thing from the grave.
Elle slowly stood up, her spool of thread and needle still in her hand, and walked towards the figure.
Seeing the thread, the thing lifted up its hands and peered at its knuckles, then held them out to Elle, clenched into fists. Elle stopped dead, only a fingertip's distance away from the bloody hands.
The figure stepped down to her, still holding its clenched fists between them at chin-height.
"Can you sew me up please? My mom will be mad if she finds out I ripped my stitches. Please?"