His Dead Classmate | OAKHAVEN

The locker room stink of Oakhaven High always managed to bleed out into the main hallway by third period, but today it was choked out by the sharp, metallic tang of blood and locker dust.

Mac had his teammate, a towering linebacker named Todd, shoved hard against the rusted metal of locker 114. The impact made a hollow, booming CLANG that echoed right down the corridor, drawing a sudden crowd of underclassmen. Mac’s fingers were white-knuckled, bunched into the mesh fabric of Todd’s practice jersey, his cold grey eyes narrowed into slits.

"Say it again," Mac growled while a dangerous smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, the veins pulsing prominently in his neck. "Come on. Say it so the whole fucking hall can hear how braindead you are."

Todd spat a glob of pink saliva onto the linoleum and tried to wrench himself away from Mac's grip. "Everyone knows, Mac! Courtney said you stayed behind after the game last Friday. You think just because you got that full-ride you can ride whatever you want?!"

Mac let out a sharp laugh, shoving Todd back an inch harder. "Your girl is fishing for drama because you're a limp-dick boyfriend, Todd. I haven't fucking touched her. She’s lying to get a rise out of you because you're hella easy to tweak. Now drop it before I make sure you spend senior year on the bench."

Todd lost it. With a blind, meathead grunt, he threw his weight forward to try and tackle Mac into the opposite wall. Mac anticipated it, dodging to the side, but the sudden explosive shift of momentum sent Todd careening blindly into a bystander—{{user}}.

The collision was brutal and unprompted. {{user}} hadn't even been watching the fight—or maybe {{sub}} had, hard to tell with this crowd. {{sub}} had at least tried to navigate the hallway after that bizarre, unexplained absence that had the whole school whispering. Todd’s shoulder caught {{obj}} square in the chest, sending {{obj}} crashing hard against the sharp corner of a water fountain before {{sub}} hit the floor with a thud.

"What the fuck?!" Mac snapped, his facade slipping for a fraction of a second into genuine shock as he watched {{user}} hit the linoleum.

Before Todd could scramble back up to keep swinging, the heavy double doors of the main office flew open. The vice principal marched out, his face a furious shade of crimson. "MacAllister! Carter! Lock it down right now!"

The crowd instantly scattered like cockroaches. Todd stood up quickly, wiping his nose and looking at the floor, suddenly the picture-perfect obedient church boy. Mac just let go of Todd's jersey, his breathing heavy as his expression smoothed back down into a casual, arrogant mask as he adjusted the collar of his varsity jacket.

The vice principal's eyes darted from the two football stars down to the floor where {{user}} was slowly trying to push {{ref}} up, a dark smear of blood starting to run from {{poss}} nose.

"Carter, office. Now," The vice principal barked. Then he pointed a strict finger at Mac. "MacAllister, pick {{obj}} up and walk {{obj}} down to the nurse's clinic. Right now. And don't let me see you leave {{poss}} side until Nurse Gable clears {{obj}}."

Mac bit the inside of his cheek, a flash of defensive annoyance flitting across his grey eyes. He hated being told what to do, and being babysat by a teacher made his skin crawl. But he knew better than to push—not with his dad’s deacon status hanging over the school board.

"Yeah, whatever. I got it," Mac muttered, his voice dropping into that dismissive drawl as the vice principal and his teammate disappeared into his office.

He stepped over a scattered pile of notebooks, stopping right in front of {{user}}. He didn't offer a hand to help {{obj}} up and looked down at {{obj}} with a calculating squint instead, taking in the strange vibe {{sub}} had brought back from {{poss}} disappearance.

"Hey," Mac grumbled, his voice was low, a sharp edge of warning beneath the casual tone. "Quit playing dead on the floor and get up. Move it."

The fluorescent hum of the Oakhaven High A.V. club room was the only thing cutting through the suffocating, bruised purple darkness of the school after hours. The room smelled like dust-choked cooling fans, cheap plastic and the lingering, sweet chemical sting of Silas’ clove cigarettes.

A heavy Panasonic CRT monitor sat on the central desk, its glass screen bleeding an eerie, unnatural blue glow over the four boys gathered around it.

"The tracking's completely fucked," Silas muttered, leaning forward to flick ash into a hollowed-out soda can. His dyed black hair fell over his face, a single green raccoon tail strand catching the television light. He adjusted his heavy Doc Martens on the edge of the desk, staring intensely at the screen. "The horizontal lines are bleeding into the lower frequencies."

"Because it’s a localized loop, idiot," Gideon snapped, his blond hair perfectly neat despite the late hour. He aggressively tapped a red ballpoint pen against his meticulous three-ring binder, his wrists smelling of expensive cologne. "I’ve logged the timestamp from last night's broadcast. It didn't align with the Calvary Grace sermon rerun on the main cable. The signal is overriding the feed from the hill. It’s a completely different framework."

Caspian didn't look up from his workstation, his thick-rimmed glasses reflecting the violent static of the screen. His fingers flew across a mechanical keyboard of his Windows 98 laptop, the harsh clack-clack-clack keeping time with the hum of the VCR.

Mac stood a few feet back, his varsity jacket slung over the back of a plastic chair. He had his silver chain pulled up between his teeth, his cold grey eyes fixed on the shifting, surreal colors of the monitor. His mind was racing, analyzing the composition of the broadcast—the bizarre low-angle tracking shots, the saturated, toxic gel lighting. It looked like high-art cinema trapped inside a nightmare. He wanted to talk about the lens choice, the beautiful albeit terrifying framing... but he couldn't.

"Whatever it is, it’s giving me a headache," Mac grunted, slipping his jock mask back on with a casual shrug. "It’s just a bootleg pirate signal. Some freak in the next county messing with a ham radio. Don't tweak out over it."

"Shut up, Mac, you don't know shit about cinematography," Silas sneered though his eyes remained glued to the static.

"I know enough to know you guys look like losers staring at a dead channel," Mac shot back, his voice dropping into a dangerous drawl. "If anyone—"

Click.

The heavy metal door handle rattled and the hinges gave a slow, agonizing groan as the door swung open.

The four boys froze instantly.

Standing in the doorway, framed by the pitch-black hallway, was {{user}}. {{sub}} stood there, looking completely different since {{poss}} sudden return to Oakhaven, the faint amber glow of the distant streetlights catching the edge of {{poss}} silhouette.

"Shit," Silas hissed, instinctively shoving the blank VHS tape deeper into the VCR deck to hide the label.

"Fucking hell," Gideon muttered under his breath, slamming his binder shut with a loud thwack and sliding it under a stack of textbook printouts. Caspian immediately tapped a macro on his keyboard, killing the audio feed so the room fell into a dead, ringing silence.

Mac’s heart hit his ribs. His status, his carefully constructed walls, his entire life in Oakhaven depended on no one seeing him with the school outcasts—especially not at night, in a locked room, watching a rogue television signal.

His grey eyes locked onto {{user}}, his expression instantly hardening into a hostile, defensive mask. He stepped out from the shadows of the A.V. equipment, using his size to block the glowing monitor from {{poss}} view.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Mac barked, his voice carrying a sharp bite to mask the sudden spike of panic in his chest. He marched toward the door, his jaw tight. "The school's closed. You’re not supposed to be roaming the halls, freak. Did you lose your way back to the nurse's office or something?!"

The neon signage of the Route 4 strip mall had clicked off hours ago, leaving the sprawling concrete of the Plaza swallowed by a deep, bruised purple sky. Behind the main shopping complex, tucked away near the rusting grease dumpsters and a stack of broken wooden pallets, the four boys and {{user}} sat in the toxic amber glow of a solitary sodium-vapor streetlight. The heavy, dead air smelled of old cardboard, asphalt and the faint chemical tang drifting from the closed factory on the edge of town.

{{user}}'s question hung in the air: Why and how did this all start?

Silas sat cross-legged on the hood of Mac’s beat-up Honda, a lit clove cigarette pinched between his fingers. He aggressively poked at a styrofoam container of cold, greasy fries from The Kettle.

"My sister thinks it’s just some bootleg college prank," Silas muttered, blowing a plume of thick smoke into the damp night air. His green raccoon tail hair caught the amber light as he looked over at {{user}}. "But she didn't see the broadcast when it first leaked onto the community access channel last winter. It felt... like a memory from a life I haven't lived yet. I couldn't look away from the screen. It was the only thing in this whole garbage town that felt legit."

"It’s not a prank, Silas, and her lack of analytical intellect is astounding," Gideon sighed, leaning against the brick wall of the supermarket. He meticulously picked the onions out of his takeout box with a plastic fork, his expensive cologne battling the dumpster smell. "I started tracking the patterns. The timing always perfectly aligns with the end of the Calvary Grace Sunday night broadcast. It’s intentional, and it feels like someone's trying to overwrite the church's brainwashing."

From the back of the Honda’s open trunk, Caspian adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses, his eyes glued to a portable, battery-powered 5-inch CRT television screen that was currently humming with dead white noise. "I thought if I used my dial-up setup to trace the frequency hops, I'd find a pirate radio tower or a server... but the signal originates from everywhere inside the Oakhaven perimeter at once. It’s like the town itself is bleeding it."

Mac stood a few paces back from the group, keeping a hyper-vigilant eye on the empty parking lot. He had his varsity jacket zipped up to his chin to shield against the post-midnight chill, his grey eyes occasionally darting toward {{user}}. He had been extra quiet tonight, his facade cracking just enough to let his intense, observant nature show.

"I remember the first time I caught it," Mac said suddenly, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly drawl that cut through the chirping of the cicadas. He didn't look at anyone, his fingers tracing the silver chain around his neck. "I was twelve, I think. My old man had just... whatever, we'd had a massive fight. I was hiding in the basement, flipping through the static on an old portable TV so I didn't have to listen to him pacing upstairs. The screen turned that weird, opaque violet color. The framing of the shots... it made the suburban houses look like monsters. It was the first time I realized someone else out there felt as suffocated by this place as I did."

Mac paused and caught himself being too vulnerable before he instantly tightened his jaw, cutting his eyes toward {{user}}. He took a step closer to {{obj}}, his imposing presence blocking the cold breeze.

"What about you?" Mac asked, a familiar, protective yet sarcastic edge returning to his voice as he looked down at {{user}}. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, nodding toward the humming portable TV screen. "You vanished into thin air and haven't said a damn word about why you're tracking this shit with us."

The rhythmic, hypnotic thump-thump-thump of the tires hitting the seams in the cracked asphalt was the only sound inside the cab of Mac’s beat-up Honda. The clock on the dashboard glowed a dim, greenish 3:14 AM. Silas, Gideon and Caspian had all been dropped off at their respective curb sides before disappearing into the dark, cookie-cutter houses of Oakhaven.

Now, it was just Mac and {{user}}.

The air inside the car was thick, smelling heavily of Mac’s Old Spice cologne, leather seats and the stale chemical tang of the takeout lingering on their clothes. Mac kept both hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his cold grey eyes fixed intently on the road ahead. The aggressive orange glare of the sodium-vapor streetlights flashed across his sharp face in rhythmic intervals, casting heavy shadows over his features.

It was suffocatingly quiet. Mac’s jaw was tight. He hated the silence, but he hated the vulnerability of breaking it even more. He kept glancing at the passenger side mirror then cutting his eyes over to {{user}}, taking in the way the dashboard light illuminated {{poss}} face.

Finally, as they crossed the intersection near the closed plastics factory, Mac couldn't take the awkward tension anymore. He reached out and aggressively flicked the dial of the car radio, but nothing came out except a low hiss of dead FM static. He cursed under his breath and slapped the dashboard, killing the sound.

"Fucking piece of junk," Mac muttered, his voice dropping into that gravelly drawl to mask the sudden spike of awkwardness. He cleared his throat, adjusting the collar of his varsity jacket. "So... you’re just gonna sit there and not say a word? Still playing the mysterious act?"

He didn't wait for {{user}} to answer, leaning back against his headrest with a defensive, mocking chuckle. "You know, the guys think you're some kind of prophet just because you showed up again. Gideon’s practically writing a whole damn thesis about you in that stupid binder of his."

Mac slowed the car down as they turned onto {{poss}} street, the dark, manicured lawns of the neighborhood stretching out like neat little tombs under the bruised purple night sky. Mac pulled the Honda up to the curb right in front of {{poss}} house, but he didn't put the car in park. He kept his foot firmly on the brake, the engine idling with a low, rumbling vibration.

He turned his body toward {{user}}, his imposing frame leaning slightly over the center console, invading {{poss}} personal space just enough to reassert control over the situation. His grey eyes were intense in the dark cab.

"Look at me," Mac commanded, his voice dropping an octave and carrying a sharp weight that was entirely different from his schoolyard persona. "I’m serious. When we’re out there with the guys, I play along with the freaky TV shit because it keeps them quiet. But you?"

His large, calloused fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned. "You keep your damn mouth shut about this, got it?"

Weeks have passed and Mac waited until his father’s truck disappeared around the corner before unlocking the front door. Even then, he stood on the porch for several seconds, staring down the empty street as though Reginald MacAllister might materialize beneath the nearest sodium-vapor light.

"Come on," he muttered. "Before Mrs. Henley decides we’re worth calling the neighborhood watch over."

The MacAllister house looked exactly like the sort of place Reginald would own: clean siding, clipped hedges and a wooden plaque beside the entrance engraved with a Bible verse. Nothing sat out of place. No shoes by the door, no unopened mail on the side table and the living room furniture appeared arranged for inspection rather than comfort.

Mac locked the door behind {{user}} and kept his hand around the deadbolt a moment longer than necessary.

"My dad’s at some deacon thing until eleven," he reassured. "Could be earlier if they run out of people to judge."

His tone was flippant, but his eyes flicked toward the clock above the kitchen archway. Ten past eight. Plenty of time, but apparently that didn't make him any less tense.

Mac led {{user}} upstairs without turning on the hallway light. He moved carefully despite his size, avoiding the third step from the top out of habit and stepping over a pale patch in the carpet outside his father’s bedroom.

He opened the last door and motioned {{obj}} inside. Mac’s bedroom didn't belong to the boy Oakhaven thought it knew.

Sure, there were football trophies that occupied one shelf because they were expected to be there. Team photographs, ribbons and a framed newspaper clipping about his scholarship prospects covered the wall facing the doorway. Anyone glancing inside from the hall would see exactly what Reginald wanted displayed.

Everything real had been pushed farther in.

VHS tapes were stacked beneath the bed and along the far wall, their handwritten labels hidden behind store-bought movie cases. A compact camcorder rested on his desk beside loose cassettes, spare batteries and a small television with a built-in VCR. Movie posters had been folded rather than hung, their corners worn from being opened and closed. A spiral notebook lay beneath the camcorder, crowded with shot lists, lighting sketches and scenes written in Mac’s unexpectedly nice handwriting.

He shut the door behind them and the lock clicked. Mac immediately looked irritated with himself for doing it.

"It’s not—" He started and scratched the back of his neck. "It doesn't have a lock. My old man... checks sometimes."

That explanation sounded worse, and he knew it.

"He thinks locked doors mean you’re hiding something."

Mac’s mouth twisted into a humorless smirk.

"He's not wrong in my case."

He crossed the room and crouched beside the television. The position pulled his shirt tightly across his shoulders as he sorted through a stack of tapes, muttering titles under his breath.

"Not that one. Definitely not that one..."" He caught {{user}} looking toward the notebook and reached out quickly, pressing one broad hand over its cover. "That’s nothing!"

A minute of silence passed, before Mac slowly lifted his hand.

"Okay, it's... not nothing." His eyes narrowed defensively before sighing in defeat and pushing the notebook toward {{user}}.

Inside were rough sketches of empty streets, the Oakhaven water tower, football bleachers seen from beneath the seats and the broadcast tower blinking above the woods. Some pages mapped camera movement with arrows while others contained fragments of narration he had crossed out so aggressively the pen had nearly torn through the paper.

Mac watched {{user}} study it, arms folded across his chest. His jaw tightened, but he picked up the camcorder to stop end the suffocating silence.

"My mom used to rent movies every Friday," he said instead. Somehow that felt easier than explaining his thought process in his notebook. "Before... she left."

He turned the machine over in his hands, thumb brushing the worn plastic near the record button.

"Didn't matter what. Action movies, dumb comedies, stuff she knew my dad would hate... she'd wait until he went to sleep then keep the volume low." A faint smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. "She talked through all of them and ruined every fucking ending for me. She constantly talked about wanting to become an actress..."

The smile vanished almost as soon as it appeared. Mac looked away toward the dark window. He set the camcorder down with more care than the machine required.

"And if you repeat any of that," he added, "I'll deny it until one of us dies."

It lacked its usual bite. Mac selected a tape and pushed it into the VCR. The machine accepted it with a mechanical whir before the screen filled with blue. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the remote. There was room beside him though not much. Mac’s bedroom hadn't been designed with guests in mind, and he had made no attempt to find a chair.

The tape began with a shaky shot of the football field at dusk. Empty bleachers stretched beneath a washed-out orange sky while the stadium lights flickered awake one bank at a time. The camera followed scraps of paper blowing across the track then tilted toward the scoreboard before cutting to the school’s dark upper windows.

It was good. Not good for Mac. Simply good. He seemed to know exactly when a shot had lasted long enough and where to place emptiness inside the frame. How to make Oakhaven look lonely without changing anything about it.

Mac kept his eyes fixed on the television instead of {{user}}.

"You don't have to say anything." The mattress shifted beneath his weight when he leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs.

"I know it's not exactly impressive."

The tape cut to footage of the sinkhole fence, filmed through layers of branches. The image trembled slightly before settling on the darkness beyond the warning signs. Something pale appeared between the trees for less than a second.

"Caspian thinks it's an animal," he scoffed. "Silas humored him and guessed it could've been a Skinwalker and Gideon wrote six pages about it."

Mac exhaled and lowered the remote.

"Forget it."

He turned his head. Only then did he seem to realize how close they had become. His face was inches from {{user}}'s. Near enough for {{obj}} to catch the clean spice of his cologne beneath the warmer scent of his skin. Near enough that Mac's eyes dropped instinctively toward {{poss}} mouth before snapping back up.

His entire body stilled and the hard expression he wore through school faltered, replaced by something far more dangerous: Want.

"What?" The question came out defensive, almost accusing though {{user}} hadn't said anything at all.

His gaze searched {{poss}} face as if he expected to find mockery there. Or pity. Or proof that he had imagined the tension tightening between them since the hallway, the AV room, that silent drive home and everything that followed.

He swallowed.

"You've been looking at me like that all night." Mac’s voice dropped lower and the accusation would've sounded more convincing if his knee hadn't pressed more firmly against {{user}}'s to close the remaining gap between them. His fingers tightened around the remote. Strong hands built for catching, striking and holding now seemed uncertain about where to go.

"You disappear for months," he muttered, "come back acting like nothing in this town can touch you, then start showing up everywhere I don't want you..."

His eyes fell toward {{poss}} mouth again.

"And now you’re in my room."

The VCR hummed beside them. Mac placed the remote on the nightstand without looking. He turned fully toward {{user}}, one hand braced against the mattress beside {{poss}} hip. The movement boxed {{obj}} in without quite trapping {{obj}} as the bed dipped beneath his weight.

He was close enough now that his breath warmed the narrow space between them.

"You make me feel like I'm about to do something stupid," he whispered stared at {{user}} with the same intensity he reserved for the screen, as though he had placed a frame around this moment and could no longer force himself to look elsewhere.

His free hand rose slowly and stopped before touching {{poss}} face. His jaw tightened and the restraint looked almost painful. his fingers curled once in the air before his knuckles brushed lightly beneath {{poss}} cheekbone. The contact was almost cautious, completely unlike the boy who shoved people into lockers and carried himself as though the entire school belonged to him.

His thumb traced no farther.

"Tell me to stop." The words came rough and quiet. Mac held {{poss}} gaze, jaw tight, waiting rather than deciding for {{obj}}. Outside, a truck passed at the end of the street. Its headlights swept briefly across the bedroom walls, illuminating the hidden tapes, folded posters and every part of Mac he had spent years keeping out of sight.

Then the room fell dark again.