Nightmares

“Tracy, do you know the answer…Tracy? Wake up and pay attention” Tracy lifts her head off her desk. She had not been asleep as the teacher had thought. She answers the question and opens her eyes quickly but shuts them again. Her hand floats up and covers her eyes.
“Are you feeling O.K.?”
“Migraine” she whispers, she lies.
“Would you like a pass to the nurse?” Tracy shakes her head.
“Well, you can keep your eyes closed, just keep your head up” Nod, the teacher continues to drone on for minutes more before Tracyopens her eyes again. It’s still there. Before she can close her eyes again it turns and looks at her. A smile splits across its face, opening it in a grimace, pale, emptied of color. No one else sees the apparition sitting across the room starting down Tracy. No one else sees the puddle of red gathering on the floor beneath its feet. Tracy can’t close her eyes now. It holds them open with nothing more than its gaze. It slowly lifts up its chin.
Tracy’s hands shake and spasm beneath her desk, wanting to tear her eyes out. The thing is wearing a hoodie and jeans, the hair falls midway down its back and is full of color. Not a ghost. The pale skin stands in sharp contrast to the very real colors of the thing’s clothes and blood.
It continues to move its head up till its neck is completely barred. The gash of red that is slashed against her neck opens even taller. It gushes forth a brilliant red, faceted liquid that catches the light of the sun coming through the window. It flows down her neck and soaks the hoodie to start a fast drip drip to the floor.
The split stretches and widens into a grin, curved around her neck. It opens and closes and words in a sibilant hiss echos forth.
“All your fault, All your fault” It starts to laugh spewing blood even farther across the room to splash on her face. The head swivels back down and faces Tracy, though the gash still mumbles beneath it. “All your fault, All your fault” The thing’s real mouth smiles as it’s second faux one continues to taunt. The real one opens and the voice Tracy dreads comes laughingly forth.
“It’s ok, I’m happy now”
“All your fault”
Both its mouths talk. Both are smiling. Both are accusing. One with hate, the other with thanks. The thing raises its arm till the fingers point out oat Tracy. She twitches her head away but her eyes are still locked. It raises its sleeves one by one and blood flows even harder joined by the riveres from both of its wrists. The red streams down, its hands covered in it as it splashes toward the ground.
The teacher rambles on oblivious of the blood around her practical brown shoes No one else notices the ocean of red that threatens to drown them all. The gash in the neck coughs again, splashing out more words.
“You could have stopped me, all your fault” The blood doesn’t stop, even though the floor is covered from corner to corner and is starting to trickle out the door.
“I’m happy now, there’s no more pain” its eyes, pale, clouded, accuse but the mouth smiles. A tear starts to track down Tracy’s face.
“Tracy, I am going to send you to the nurse if the headache is that bad.” The teacher eclipses Tracy’s view of the thing and she immediately closes her eyes, the spell is broken.
Tracy nods for the teachers benefit as she sloshes off, unaware, ankle deep. Laughter rasps forth from the thing’s second mouth.
“John can you take her to the nurse for me?” Tracy hears the pass ripping off the stack and John’s affirmative grunt. But the drip and splash of the blood is louder. John’s musky scent touches her nostrils. But the smell of hot iron and salt is stronger.
“Tracy?” John puts a hand on her elbow and Tracy shoots out of her chair and runs for the door. Her eyes open as she faces it, but she sees the reflection of the thing in the window. Both mouths grin as more blood streams around the room. John pushes her politely out the door and she escapes. She runs down the hallway leaving a confused John behind. She turns a corner, stops, and faces the tall windows that frame the end of the hallway, facing out to blue sky.
Her ankles itch and she looks down, her socks are red and the shoes are stained.
“Tracy the nurse is this way….” John trails off as he sees Tracy’s horrified expression directed at her spotless white socks.
She faces the window again. How high is it? It’s on the third floor…John puts his hand on her shoulder. She violently shrugs it off and starts to run.
“Hey!”
She can hear it shout “NO!” in harmony to itself screaming in joyous laughter as the window shatters.

John stands there staring, shocked, as the window shards tickly against the concrete below. He shivers. Did he hear a laugh?