The Outkast

Chapter 4

“Get your sorry ass over here,” Trevor growled at the boy.

Robert inched closer towards the principal, trembling.

Since his enrolment at the junior high, he had always been going through hell. His two arch-tormentors had been the principal, Trevor Carter and the acting vice principal, Donnie Murphy.

“What’ve you got today? Any of your trollish pictures lurking around? Those miserable, misshapen creatures that look just like you, can I see them?” Trevor laughed, a creepy sound issuing from a sadist of a man.

Ordinarily, Trevor’s eyes were a shade of blue, but whenever he was busy bullying Robert, the boy always saw eyes as pale green as a wolf’s, something downright scary.

“Talk to me,” Trevor insisted. “Can I see any of them? Do you have them here?”

Robert shook his head, his trembling intensifying.

Trevor grabbed the boy’s collar and dragged him closer. “So, tell me a secret, runty one. How many people does your mother plan killing this year? Has she adopted a new power to lure another man into her fatal net yet?”

Sliding towards the brink of a sob, Robert said, “My mom doesn’t kill. She doesn’t hurt anyone.”

“Oh, yes, she does,” said Trevor ecstatically, still grasping the boy by the collar of his shirt. He looked down into Robert’s bleary eyes, and said, “What did I tell you about talking back to me?”

“It’s… it’s… an abomination for a troll like me to talk back in the perfect world of Mr. Carter.”

“That’s right. And how many times have I told you that?”

Robert paused, trying to remember.

“You’re a lot of things-horrible things. And as we both know, smart isn’t one of them.” Trevor released his grip on Robert’s collar in exchange for the boy’s left ear, clasping it between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing and tugging as hard as he could. “I’ve told you times without number to never talk back to me.”

Robert burst into tears.

“I’ve also told you to stop looking at your stupid scary pictures while you’re within the school premises. You have the tendency to poison other kids’ minds with that garbage. When you get to your mother’s-”

“I wasn’t looking at my pictures today,” Robert protested feebly.

“Oh, there he goes again-talking back to me. What a pitifully forgetful soul.” Trevor dragged the boy all the way to the toilet with his ear, not giving a damn if he tore it off the tiny skull or not.

Robert, who had been whimpering as he struggled to repress his pain, couldn’t endure it any more. He exploded into a very loud cry.

Trevor closed the toilet door, and locked it. He put his mouth to the key-hole and shouted, “When you get to your mother’s enchanted cottage, you could look at the crazy pictures as much as you desire.”

Inside the toilet, Robert was crying and trying to explain that he wasn’t looking at any pictures. He hadn’t even brought any books to school in almost a month since Heather Collins, an eighth grader, had told Mr. Murphy about the comic adaptation of The Black Mirage. But Trevor was already gone. He had no interest whatsoever to listen to the runty troll, a phrase he had used so many times it had become overworked even to him.

Suddenly, a voice echoed in Robert’s head. A scream.

He was screaming.

Maybe he was scared of the space in which he had been locked up?

But that would be utterly ridiculous, because he was hardly afraid of anything like the boogeyman or any similar crap that kids within his age bracket considered creepy. Nothing frightened him-not even in the dark. Nothing, except the two bullies in his life.

Yet, he kept screaming.

And even about that same moment, he heard Trevor Carter scream, too. Apparently, he was poking fun at Robert’s predicament.

Robert collapsed on the floor amidst his screams.

And dozed off to a deep sleep that led him into the zone of another very horrible nightmare.