The night before my graduation, I wanted to right a wrong. There was this kid who had tormented me since kindergarten, Chad Barker. I hated him so much. In grade school he’d pants me and take my lunch money and even shoved me into a locker.

He had continued this torment through Middle School and High School, and no one had done anything to stop him. I had told teachers, and they talked to him and believed only what he had said, including the principles. What he said went, so he always had the power.

The problem was I was bigger than him by the start of our Freshman year. I had started working out and all he did was track and baseball, so he was always scrawny, just he was more aggressive than me.

So, Chad did whatever he wanted and since I didn’t believe in violence, I did nothing.

Until tonight.

Tonight I would get back at him.

He went to my elementary school, so he lived in my general area. Because of friends I had known where he lived for a while, so I was going to head over there and beat him up. In school I would have gotten suspended or a detention, but in this world, outside the walls of hell, you needed proof to get someone in trouble. School all you needed was an accusation and someone of authority to believe you, and you were set.

I dressed in all black, but refused to cover my face. I wanted the bastard to see my face when I broke his everything, and know for the rest of his life that picking on me was the worst thing he could have possibly have done.

And who knows, maybe by beating him up I could ruin his possible baseball career.

I got on my bike, my getaway ride, and rode past my elementary school, Schoolcraft Elementary, and to his house on Airport Rd.

There was a light on in his house, but no car in the driveway. I saw Chad walk by the window and turn the lamp that was on, off. He had a small house, which needed another coat of paint. His driveway was all screwed up, cracks everywhere, and weeds growing out of them. This place was very run down.

If that was the reason why he spent his life being a dick, it was still not an excuse. Just because your life sucks economically doesn’t mean you can make someone else’s life suck emotionally.

I was getting even madder as I look at his lair. I laid my bike in the grass across the street and walked over to his house. I jumped over the fence and strolled around to his back door. It was locked. I looked for a window, and saw one half open. I propped it upward and slipped myself in.

I got half of my body inward, and the rest of me came tumbling down, making a loud crash.

“Dammit,” I whispered under my breath, and that’s when Chad ran out of what I believed to be his room.

“What are you doing in my house!?” he yelled, and I couldn’t tell if he could recognize me at that moment, but I knew if I didn’t do something quickly I would have been totally screwed. I expected to sneak in and beat him up and get out of there, but not have him on my case within a few seconds of entering his house.

A book hit my face as I stood up. It got me right in my nose, so I started to bleed. I was pissed off right then, so I got up and ran into Chad’s room, where he had taken cover. I was going to beat him up anyway, at least commence with some part of my plan.

He flung another book at me, and that’s when I punched him right in the face, sending him back into his wall and to the floor. Now he was bleeding from his face.

“What is your problem, Kyle?” he asked me as I grabbed his shirt collar and hoisted him up to eye level with me, his back caressing his wall.

“My problem is you,” I said, before I spun and threw him across his room. He didn’t fall, he just slammed into the opposite wall, and grabbed his door knob to run for his life. While his hand was gripping the knob I kicked it, he screamed and the door knob broke off.

I saw one of his baseball bats and grabbed it. He was still holding his hurting hand, screaming. I smacked him over the head and he fell silent, his skull caved in and his blood spattered across his wall.

I didn’t realized that I had killed him unto I checked his pulse. It was still, not a single beat.

I didn’t mean to kill him, just my plot went haywire when I fell into his house.

Now I felt bad. Really bad. I had to do something to clean up this scene before anyone came home.

I grabbed his bed sheet and wrapped his body in it and carried him outside.

I didn’t know what to do, all I had was a bike. I just laid him in the ditch across from his house, got on my bike and road away to my house, where I grabbed my car, a cinderblock, and some rope.

I put the body in the trunk along with the rope and cinderblock, and I drove to Pontiac Lake, where I tied his feet with the rope and then tied the cinderblock so him and it were connected.

I hung him out over the bridge, and lifted the cinderblock over and dropped it. Knew this area was of the lake was very deep, so I didn’t worry too much about him being found soon. He splashed, and was out of my life. I was soaked in my nervous sweat, and drove home.

I was never caught, and after a while I had forgotten about what I had done, until one day about twelve years later I was walking with my son, who was four, along one of Pontiac Lake’s beaches, when I saw a body wrapped in a blue bed sheet, just like his, with the blood stains in all the right places.

It had washed up ashore, and my son just stared at it with a very curious and ignorant stare.

“What is that, daddy?” he asked me.

I could see that Chad’s feet were gone, which is how he disconnected from the cinderblock. It had either rotted off or he had been fish food for the last dozen years. Memories flooded back, and I felt ill.

I threw up, and the fear rushed back sevenfold.