The Speech

“What happened to Ben…?”

It had been a normal day. He had gone to school, talked smack with his friends, and come home. Nothing special. Well, not yet anyways. When he had let himself into the house, he had felt strange. Something had appeared in front of his eyes, then was whisked away by a cold wind. Ben had a chill go down his spine.

Hours later, when his mom came home, she found a gruesome scene before her eyes; her son, mangled in ways so horrible that when the chief of police saw it, he threw up, adding to the stink of the kitchen. Days later, everyone in the little town of Green Hills was asking Chrisse Jorda, “What happened to Ben?”

            The worst part was that she couldn’t answer that. At the funeral, she was constantly answering, “I don’t know, he was just mangled on the floor.” Everyone would shrug and give her sympathy, but Chrisse didn’t want sympathy. She wanted answers. It was during the funeral, when his best friend Alex Cardi gave his speech about Ben that some of her questions were answered.

“Ben was one of those kids that even though everybody was constantly annoyed by him, they loved him at the same time. He was my best friend, and the class clown. He could make even the toughest kids laugh. But he loved toying with death. One time, he climbed a tree that he knew had weak branches, and he fell from the fifth branch and broke his arm. Then he climbed on a rickety bridge over the river, and it broke. He had almost drowned. But the craziest thing Ben ever did was taunt this evil spirit he heard in the haunted house. Here’s how it happened,” Chrisse leaned forward in her seat as told the tale. Apparently, he and Ben had gone into the creepy house on the corner in the middle of the night. Ben had heard footsteps upstairs, but they were on the top floor.
“Ben had called out a taunt to the spirit, and we saw it. A black thing came down through the ceiling and looked at Ben with glittering black pearls for eyes. It stared at him for one second, two, then it moved. It floated towards Ben, and he flinched. But it didn’t stop in front of him. After it had gone through him, Ben went white. He told me later that in his mind it had said to him, ‘you will get your wish, but not today. I’ll show you someday what I can do,’” At that end, Alex grabbed his things and walked solemnly to his chair.

            Later that evening, Chrisse’s mind was reeling. No one had killed her son, she realized. Something had been lurking, waiting for the right moment to strike her son. And she could sleep a little lighter, knowing that it wasn’t a mystery anymore. She got up, ready to go to bed. Suddenly, there was a power surge. Chrisse froze.

            It is said that the scream resounded in people’s heart for years after.