"The Boy and His Jacket" (A horror story I wrote)

Here is a horror story I wrote when I was 15. Its not amazing, but oh well. I have written longer stories, but its annoying posting long stories on a forum, and even more annoying trying to read them. Still, If some of you like this one, I may post some of my others. Hope to see some constructive feedback. Enjoy!

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The Boy and his Jacket

Tom was a small boy. He went to a local primary school, in a class of six year olds, probably making him around that age. He was very...strange. He almost never spoke, and he had no friends. Also, there were never any parents to pick him up from school each afternoon. But he arrived and left school each day normally. He never appeared as though he was living on the streets or anything like that. But that wasn’t all. The weirdest thing about him was that jacket. Tom carried a yellow and green jacket around with him wherever he went. He never let go of it. Never hung it up on the coat pegs. It was always under his arm. No one knew when he'd got it. He'd had it for as long as anyone could remember. But how long was that? He never let any of the kids touch it, or even go near it. At playtime, he would wander slowly and aimlessly around the outskirts of the playground carrying it. When one child almost touched it, Tom backed away, and glared at the child in a disturbing way. What was his obsession with it? No one knew why he was so protective over it, and Tom never let on his little secret.

During one lunchtime, the sky was overcast, and there was a wind picking up that ruffled the kid’s hair. Even when the weather was bad, the children were allowed out. They were all running around the playground and squealing with happiness and excitement as they played their innocent games (mighty morphin’ power rangers, biker mice from mars, etc). There were a couple of kids going around the playground getting as many class mates as possible to have a game of "t-rex choo choo trains". But, as usual, Tom was not participating in any of the said games. He was performing his daily routine of shuffling at a snails pace. He carried on like this throughout most of lunch, completely expressionless...until a little boy made a mistake...a big mistake...

It was an accident. Sam didn’t mean to knock the jacket. He just tripped. He wasn’t badly hurt, so he got to his feet, and brushed himself down. And there in front of him stood Tom frowning in such a disturbing manner that Sam physically flinched. Tom was clutching his jacket very tightly now...Sam stuttered a quick apology, turned and walked away. He was unnerved. As he crossed the playground, the "choo choo train" came whizzing round the corner of the chalk railway track, with the "t-rex" in hot pursuit. But he wasn’t interested in it like he'd usually be. He felt weird...distant. He kept feeling worse and worse. Lunch ended. All the children assembled into their respective lines. They then filed noisily through the main door. The register was taken. One child, however, was not among them...Sam.

Sam was never ever seen again. He had just vanished with no clues left at all. School continued regardless. Life went on. After Sam had vanished, Tom became even more of a recluse, seemingly even more adamant that nobody was to come near him or his jacket. He'd do a slow circuit of the playground and then sit in the far corner, observing the other children in their mirth filled play. But his eyes seemed distant, like he was in a world of his own. As he sat there, if you listened carefully (and he'd done this for as long as anyone could remember as well) you could hear him humming a haunting deep melody. He also hummed it whilst walking around the playground. However, the sound that rose out of Tom’s throat was very quiet and weak, and if there were any words, they could not be made out. There was also another noise--its source being untraceable, and its sound being even more difficult to hear than the melody--especially with all the noise of the other kids. And so before and after Sam’s disappearance, Tom persisted with his strange habits. No one knew why. And no one cared.

After lunch, the kids all lined up. Tom still sat in the corner of the playground, picking at the tiny grey stones, lost in mysterious thoughts known only to him. The teacher called out to him. He appeared not to notice. She called a second time. Again, he didn’t respond. Half a minute later, he rose slowly from his sitting position and walked toward his own line. After such a fun lunch break, the kids were restless, pushing and shoving each other. Tom reached his line—and a child, who was in the process of being pushed to the back of the line inadvertently, was shoved into him—and his jacket. Tom glared at the kid, and backed away a couple of feet. The line with Tom in filed into the entrance. That afternoon, the school had one less pupil.

The school seemed to have a track record for missing pupils. Six years before Sam had vanished, three other peoples had also gone missing. The case was eventually closed. The children were presumed dead. But no bodies were ever found. Tom himself never spoke of Sam or the other child. Not that he really spoke anyway. Then, one day, apparently, he to went missing. But stories of this are confusing, and conflicting.

Whatever happened to Tom in the end? No one really knows. Some say he left the school one day and never came back. Some say he stayed in school and was murdered. Some say he died in the middle of the playground mysteriously and still haunts the school to this day. Some say he stayed in the school and never aged, and only appeared at playtimes. Some say he went to a different school, as well as his old one, and would go to different ones on different days, randomly walking around the playground. Most people don’t even remember him. Where did Tom come from? Was his name even really Tom? What was the deal with the Jacket? Only one thing is for certain. The school that Tom went to, and where the two children had vanished, was closed down. Nobody knows why it was closed down though…

Eyewitness accounts state that when walking past the forlorn deserted school, if you look over the gate, and into the empty playground, you can see a small boy. He’s carrying a yellow and green jacket under his arm, and a strange noise is emitting from it. Though it also sounds as though it is coming from far away. On closer listening, apparently, it sounds like voices--many voices, crying out, pleading, “Where am I?” “Let me out!” “Help me please!”



“Heeelllllp…”