Jackson
by Andrew
(Brentwood, Long Island)
I am 35 now. This story takes place about 20 years ago.
I grew up in North Brentwood on Long Island. There was a elementary school not too far away from where I lived that had woods on the side of it and a path that my neighbor and I used to ride bikes on.
One night we snuck out of our houses to hang out in "the woods" as we called it. It was late, had to be about midnight or so, and we were smoking cigarettes we had acquired and just being normal teenagers and telling dirty jokes and talking badly about people we went to school with.
It was a windy night and the trees were creaking and my friend suggested we cause some mischief and see if we could get into the school. Now looking back I realized we weren't sold on breaking into the school but getting out of those woods.
There was an eerie feeling there, sure it could have been the trees creaking, perhaps the hour at hand and the crisp November air could have aided to this feeling, but it was something else. But when your almost fifteen admitting that you're scared is like signing your own death warrant, but we both felt it believe me.
We managed to find a open window and started exploring the school, I had been a previous student there, he had went to a catholic school.
We were breaking stuff. I was looking at my old classrooms and messing around when we met someone--a man that causally walked in and appeared to be a janitor.
We stood there and stared at him baffled of the fact he didn't even appear to notice us at all. His shirt had the name Jackson on it.
He continued mopping or sweeping either way he did so with saw dust and whistled a tune. Finally he looked at us, "little early for school boys" he stated and laughed....
We ran out of there as quick as we could not sparing a second to look back. We laughed about it for weeks to come.
20 years later
I am now married and over my parents house for dinner. We were talking about old times and my mother was talking about how much trouble I got into at elementary school. She had told me about her teaching experiences in the Brentwood school district and said that right before I was born there was a janitor who was abducting students and torturing them.
He would take them by force and bring them to the woods next to the school and chop them up into little pieces and bury them there. He was tracked down by police finally and he was found in the school. He had hung himself in the gym.
"What was his name?" I asked. His name was Jackson she replied. True story.
-Andrew
