Friday Fiction: Creeping Jesus
Education for all
Here is this week’s Friday Fiction post. As the About page explains, these may be short stories or longer works broken up: just something fun to read over the weekend.
Since it is the month of Samhain / Halloween, I’ve picked a spooky tale, one that has always been a fan favourite. It comes from They Move Below, in case you want to get your horror on.
I’ve made this available to everyone so you can see the kind of thing that would reach your inbox on a Friday if you threw in a few quid to support me. Since this post has been sponsored by the lovely paying subscribers, I’ve made a point of building their first names into the story near the start as thanks. I’d like to do more of this kind of thing!
Here’s some insider info. The story is set in Ceredigion Museum (Aberystwyth), and I wanted to capture the feel of the kind of creepy stories I read as a kid. Some people loved it so much they turned it into an audio version. I wrote about that here. At that time, the video had 38,000 views. I checked just now and it’s up to 194,000 views! Wow. Some of the Youtube comments are great, such as these ones:
“This creepypasta is awesome gave me severe seizures and bad convulsions. Please call an ambulance for me I’m having a seizure now.”
“This is what 'Night at the Museum' should have been like.”
“My computer suddenly turned off and restarted during this. It scared my heart into space.”
So do be careful if you read on …
Creeping Jesus
“Ah, this is borin’. Museums are rubbish.”
“Fabian James!” Mr Jenkins, the teacher, hissed through clenched teeth. “Will. You. Be. Quiet!” A phrase repeated for the third time that day, with more verbal punctuation added each time. “Please pay attention and stop ruining things for everyone else.”
Some of the other members of Fabian’s class giggled, looking forward to another amusing episode. Fabian looked down and kicked the toe of his shoe against the floor.
The curator showing them round continued.
“And this is the archaeology section, the Bowen Gallery, where we keep historical items that have been dug up. Stone samples, pottery, tools. They tell us a lot about the past.”
“Have you got any axes and spears?” Fabian asked, looking up.
“Well, no, but we do have –”
“Just so’s I can kill Taig with one,” Fabian interrupted.
“Fabian!” erupted Mr Jenkins. “I won’t have that kind of talk.”
“I’d kill you first,” muttered Taig, so only Fabian could hear.
“What we do have is something scary,” the curator continued, trying to get the class’s attention back. “A skeleton!”
Some of the class perked up at that.
“It was dug up in Aberystwyth Castle twenty years ago. We have assembled the pieces over here,” he said, gesturing towards the glass display case, causing the children to crowd round it, “and –”
Fabian laughed. “Skellingtons aren’t scary any more! They were only scary hundreds of years ago. Only aliens or zombies are scary now, or axe murderers. Skellingtons are just sad.”
“Right, that’s it!” snapped Mr Jenkins. “Fabian, if you speak again and interrupt the curator you are going to miss out on the school party next week. You will be banned from attending and I’ll write a letter to your parents explaining why. Your behaviour has been disgraceful today and I am very disappointed in you. It’s like you’ve been trying your best to ruin the day for everyone, despite us being shown around this lovely museum.”
“And he touched all the things in the bwthyn that said ‘Please do not touch’,” said Rex.
“He spilt juice on the carpet in the shop on purpose,” alleged Taig.
“He pulled my plait,” added Sahara.
“Fabian stole two of my sweeties and put ’em both in his mouth at once,” wailed Samantha.
“And he said a rude word when we went to the top balcony,” added little Dafydd Huws.
“So that’s your last warning,” shouted Mr Jenkins, red-faced with exasperation. “DON’T SPEAK AGAIN, FABIAN!”
Fabian knew Mr Jenkins was serious. So he shut up and let the curator talk about cannonballs and broken vases. Though he couldn’t resist sticking two fingers up at Taig when Mr Jenkins wasn’t looking.
His interest revived at the recreation of an iron-age hut. At one end a life-size creepy dummy of a girl held a stick and stared out. From the other end you could see another dummy squatting over a fake fire, eerily lit by the orange light that made it look like flames. The fake hut was lined with rags, and harboured deep black shadows.
The dummies looked as fake as lots of other stuff in the museum, but it wasn’t those that interested him. A devious expression crossed his angular features. He couldn’t speak, but he could still have fun. He hung around at the back of the group.
Mr Jenkins thanked the curator for being so helpful. He’d enjoyed the last half hour, looking at the items arranged around the top gallery. The children had all been quiet so he could ignore them and listen to the curator’s interesting comments. As the group moved back down to the shop, Mr Jenkins saw that many of the parents were already waiting to collect their precious offspring. Some children joined their families, others ran out of the museum cheering at the end of the school day, some wanted to go to the toilet first, and it was hard to keep track of who had been collected and who hadn’t in the chaos.
The museum was locked up for the night. All the staff had gone home. But the museum wasn’t empty.
Fabian crawled out from behind the big basket of wool in the iron-age hut exhibit. He was getting hungry but it was worth it, he thought spitefully – Mr Jenkins would be in so much trouble when Fabian’s parents found out he had been “abandoned” in the museum by a careless teacher. Mr Jenkins might even get the sack! That would be good, Fabian thought, grinning.
Of course, that wouldn’t happen for a while. Father would work late, and if Mother went to her aerobics class she wouldn’t notice that Fabian hadn’t walked home until tea-time (the meal no doubt delayed, as usual). Still, they would notice. Eventually.
It was dark in the archaeology room. The only illumination was the amber light from the fake fire in the hut, and a faint glow from the street lamp outside the museum. Enough to see by, though it looked eerie with deep shadows in the room that seemed to move when you weren’t looking at them, as if the whole room was a crackling fire.
He crawled out, under the wires meant to stop people from entering the exhibit, and tried the door that led out of the Bowen Gallery and into the main part of the museum. He was sure he would have fun running around and eating chocolate from the shop until a teacher (or his parents, or the police) came back to rescue him.
He turned the door handle and pulled – but the door wouldn’t budge. He tried again, and realised it must be locked. He had thought it was just the click of the door closing when a member of museum staff had put the main lights out and left, but he must have locked the door, not just closed it.
“Why lock an empty room?” Fabian murmured.
He jumped when he heard a muffled thump from somewhere behind him.
“Only something I disturbed,” he whispered, as if to convince himself. “I’ll just wait. Someone will come soon.”
He decided to look at the boring stones and bits of rubbish in the exhibits anyway. But as he turned away from the door he caught a glimpse of the strange iron-age girl dummy, the one stood behind him – and he felt that its eyes suddenly flicked forwards, as if they had been looking at him. His heart skipped a beat.
“Only a dummy,” he told himself nervously.
He knew he only had to prod the dummy with his finger to prove it was a lifeless piece of plastic … but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. In daylight her skin had seemed dry and plasticky; her hand fake and twisted wrongly; her hair artificial and straggly – but in the weird orange glow she
she?
looked a lot more … real. Her eyes glinted as if moist. Fabian couldn’t bring himself to move within reach of that hooked lower hand.
He moved away quickly.
“Trick of the light,” he muttered, like he’d heard in a film once. Though he didn’t like the sound of his voice in the otherwise silent room. It felt like it didn’t belong there.
He moved over to the cabinet which held clay smoking-pipes, and tried to be interested. He noticed that one pipe was red on the part that goes in your mouth. It reminded him of blood.
Then the hairs on the back of his neck rose. His eyes focussed differently, and he saw there was a reflection of the dummy in the glass panel over the pipes. And the head was slowly turning towards him!
He spun round, heart really racing now, and he noticed that the dummy – although deathly still again – was leaning right against the criss-crossed wires.
“It fell forward, it just fell forward …” he repeated, like a chant.
There was a click, and the orange light in the hut went out. Fabian knew the bulb could have blown, but it sounded more like it had been switched off, from within the display. The thought of the crouching dummy on the other side of the hut, next to where he had hidden, made him shudder. And now he could hardly see anything, despite the street light outside.
He kept his eyes on the dummy. It didn’t move. And a horrible memory surfaced in his mind – the game he had liked to play when Granny was alive. He used to sneak up on her when she wasn’t paying attention, freezing if she looked his way. She was so short-sighted she didn’t notice him if he wasn’t moving, until he was almost next to her. And so he would stealthily make his way over while she read, or watched TV, noisily sucking toffees. Then he would say something like, “Do you want a cup of tea, Granny?” in his most innocent voice. Granny would leap out of the chair in shock, hand clasped to her breast, and glare at him until she got her breath back enough to scold him. And he would sweetly claim he hadn’t snuck up on her, saying it wasn’t his fault she was half-blind, leaving her squinting at him with pursed lips, shaking with frustration and impotence.
So she had nicknamed Fabian “Creeping Jesus”, and always said it in a mean way. She called him that whenever Mother wasn’t around, right up until the day Granny had a heart attack and died, a year ago.
After that he had felt funny, and had bad dreams for a while in which Granny just pointed at him and ground her teeth together, but said nothing. But then Father had bought him a Nintendo DS and he forgot about Granny.
Until now.
Creeping Jesus.
Maybe they couldn’t move while he was looking?
He watched the dummy. It was still. Good. He could keep watching it, and –
The head of the dummy turned a little more, he could just make out the movement in the darkness, heard the strained creak of stiffness, and the clawed hand pulled at the wire while the other reached towards him.
He shrieked and backed away, told himself to be calm, he could run round and round the exhibit: if the dummy was stiff then it would move slowly. Perhaps smash the window and call for help once he’d outrun it, set off an alarm …
He heard the dummy fall with a crash. Yes! Then the head rose with a creak and the stiff arms and legs began to drag the body. Walking might be impossible with those limbs, but crawling was doable.
He’d seen enough and broke into a run. Past the window and round the corner. He was approaching the rear of the hut when a hard-skinned arm shot out and flailed for his ankle. He jerked back in panic, just in time, and the fingers snapped shut on air, clicking open and closed, arthritic and eager. It was the second dummy, the one crouched over the fake fire. He retreated from the creaking horror as it pulled itself out, a stiff spidery outline that clicked unnatural joints and scuttled under the wires. He was glad it was too dark to see much, because the way it moved was wrong, unnatural, and seeing it clearly would freeze him in panic.
He ran back, skidded round the corner, and saw the shadow of the first dummy. They were coming from both directions.
Nearby was a bench. He was temporarily out of sight. Maybe they couldn’t see well, eyes glazed like Granny’s? If he could just stay out of their sight …
He crawled under the bench and held his breath. He listened to the rustling and dragging noises getting closer. Scratchy clothes being pulled along the floor, the dummies not even trying to be stealthy. He had to breathe, took a gulp of air, and held it again. Bumps nearby, as things without proper joints knocked against cabinets clumsily.
He scrunched his eyes tightly closed, curled up in a ball, but in his mind he saw the dummies, and their creepy faces; something below the hardened shells animated them, moved limbs so they could drag themselves along the floor …
“Oh Mummy, oh Mummy,” he whispered as the two shapes pulled themselves nearer. Realised he was whimpering, tried to be quiet again but it was too late.
Cold, hard hands groped for him, succeeded in latching on to one of his ankles. A sudden tug of inhuman strength hauled him partway out from under the bench, and another hooked hand grabbed his wrist and pulled that hard too. He squirmed, heart beating fast, as stiff arms dragged him out.
“Please no please no please no,” he repeated, a pleading chant of protection, “I’ll be good.”
He screamed but it turned into a squeal as the heavy stones hammered against his body, knocking the air out of his lungs; the rocks fell again and again, sickening thuds on his flesh underscored by cracking femur, ribs, mandible, ulna; the dull blows crushed his skull, and from then on the only noise was the regular thumping sounds, gradually shattering and cracking the remaining bones.
Eventually the blows stopped, a respite while creaking and clacking sounds moved. Searched. Found what they needed. And finally the wet noises began; eager, like a boy slurping milkshake through a straw.
Half an hour passed.
In the darkness an impossibly limp shape was dragged into the iron-age exhibition; it was so floppy it fitted into the little gap under a floorboard in the fake hut; and the floorboard was covered by smelly rugs.
The curator made his report and put the phone down with a sigh. He was unhappy at having to come back to the museum at night, unlocking everything and looking around with his torch. Especially in some rooms and areas where the hairs on the back of his neck prickled for no apparent reason, such as near the stuffed animals, or in the Bowen Gallery. Silly to feel that way, but he couldn’t help it.
Anyway, he’d checked every room, shone his torch into every dusty corner, and all locked doors were still locked. There were no boys hidden anywhere. The brat must have got lost somewhere else, after he had left. Everything here was in its right place.
Well, almost.
It was weird that one of the skeleton bones had been left on the floor outside the glass case in the Bowen Gallery. The pipe cabinet was open too. Probably something to do with the horrible kid who’d been messing around and not showing the museum its proper respect.
The curator had put the small bone back in the glass case where it belonged.