Mr. N

Note: all characters and the school mentioned are entirely fictional. They are not based on anything, and if they are, then it is entirely coincidental.

I closed my door, sat down at my desk, then realized that I left my history textbook at school. I sighed. I suppose that I COULD go in the next day and tell the teacher that I had left my book at school, but seeing as I was a senior and I was already halfway done with it, doing that was not a very good idea. Whatever, it was only six and there was a lacrosse game or something tonight so I should have been able to go back up to the school and grab my book no problem.

Most of the teachers didn’t care about late homework anymore, but Mr. N, the new history teacher was not like the other teachers. He expected the students to always have their work done on time with no exceptions. Once when I had a 105* temperature, he got mad at me that I didn’t finish the latest chapter. I really, really didn’t like him. No one did. It didn’t help that he was incredibly creepy. It didn’t help that his name was virtually impossible to pronounce, so he just encouraged us all to call him Mr. N. His classroom was on the lowest level of the school in the corner of the hall farthest from everything. He also had a lot of those traditional “teacher posters”, with things on them that somehow related to the curriculum, but the darkness of his room always seemed to darken and distort them. Half the kids in my grade were concerned that he was legitimately a serial killer. I didn’t, but I could tell that he was weird. Besides, there was some rumor floating around about how at his old school, some student went missing and all that was ever found were the eyeballs dangling from a tree branch in the woods. A quick google search revealed nothing; all anyone knew was that a sophomore on the football team came to school one day and was never seen again. Then Mr. N left at the end of the year, because he was “offered a better job at another school.”

Anyway, I parked my car crookedly in the space because I would be in and out. When I walked up to the door and tried to open it, I found that it was locked. I thought that maybe I could just borrow the book from one of my friends tonight, but then I heard a click. I tried the door handle again and the green metal door opened easily. I scratched my head but didn’t question it; someone in the main office had probably recognized me and unlocked the door for me.

When I closed the door behind me, it suddenly hit me: other than my car, the parking lot was totally empty. Maybe the door was automated? No, our school’s too poor and it doesn’t know how to manage money. Whatever. Since I was alone, I sprinted across the darkened school to reach my locker. My feet pounded on the tiled floor until I fell down the stairs. It was dark and I couldn’t see anything. I figured that I would hit something eventually, but suddenly the floor fell away and I regretted everything. I wouldn’t even consider these stairs to be a staircase, since there were only three of them. Still, it hurt to fall down them.

After that, I picked myself up and walked to my locker. Then I remembered that I had my phone in my pocket and my phone has a built-in flashlight. I really, really wanted to punch myself. I turned the flashlight on and made my way to my locker. Once I had opened my locker and grabbed my book, I thought that I heard footsteps. I quietly closed my locker and shut my flashlight off. Then I darted across the hall and hid in an alcove in the wall. Sure enough, I heard footsteps growing louder and louder.

“Is anyone there?” a voice called out. I immediately recognized as belonging to Mr. N. I didn’t respond, but that didn’t stop him from walking down the hall to check. I tried to keep deathly still, but the fear and terror of being caught started to increase. As soon as that happened, I felt my mind go numb and I knew that I was no longer thinking rationally. I shuddered right as he passed me. He turned around and peered into the darkness behind him. He didn’t have a flashlight. He somehow didn’t see me and decided to turn around and leave. Once I no longer heard his footsteps, I let out a sigh of relief. I kept my phone in my pocket, gripped my textbook tightly, and silently crept back the way I had come.

When I passed the staircase that led downstairs, I heard a voice. “Funny trick you pulled on me by slamming the lockers shut, brother.” It sounded like Mr. N again but that made no sense. I tried to shrug it off, but the awkward feeling of fear persisted like my clingy ex-girlfriend. I wanted to investigate further, but I had seen enough horror movies to know that doing that only invited disaster. So I casually walked back outside, got in my car, and drove home.

As Mr. N was collecting homework the next day, he muttered, “Don’t forget your book,” as he grabbed mine. The cool shock spread throughout my body as I awkwardly sat there. Did he know? He had to or else he wouldn’t have said anything. But why didn’t he say anything last night?

At lunch, I told my two friends, Steve and Drake, about it. Steve thought I was just being paranoid, but Drake was a bit more curious. Drake wanted me to hide in the bathroom with him after school until everyone was gone, then the two of us would investigate Mr. N’s room. Steve dismissed us as idiots and reminded us what always happened in movies. Drake then dismissed Steve as worrying over fictional events as opposed to real life. That was enough to convince me to stick around.

Once the evening rolled around, we came out of the bathroom. I had made some excuse to my parents that I was going over to a friend’s house to study and Drake made a similar excuse. Quietly, we made our way to Mr. N’s room. He wasn’t in there, but that didn’t stop Drake and me from rummaging through his stuff. The light was off, but that was nothing new, so it was possible that he was still in the building. Drake said that I should stand by the door and keep watch while he rummaged through the papers. I obliged, but the fear of being caught was ever-present in my mind. At one point I thought that I heard footsteps, but when I no longer heard them, I dismissed it as an overactive imagination.

Then a voice began to whisper in my ear, “What are you doing here, child?”, and my body went cold. I bolted. Without another word I sprinted out of the school, got in my car, and never looked back.

The next day, Drake didn’t show up to school. When I tried to text him, I never got a response. I checked the news, but there was nothing about a kid being caught sneaking around his school. No matter where I looked, it seemed as if Drake had just disappeared. Then at the end of the year, Mr. N left because he “was offered a better job”. But that didn’t impact me; I was going off to college and I had forgotten about Drake long ago.