The Bullies

A short story

Photo by Christian Keybets on Unsplash

“He wants his mommy,” William snickered. “Look, he’s crying for his mommy. Boo hoo, Bobby boy.”

William pinned him against the maple tree, then knelt to retrieve a fistful of dirt. He showered Bobby’s head with soil and debris, the drizzle of earth covering Bobby’s bald head and spilling onto his face. “Look, more tears,” he said. “He’s a big crybaby.”

Bobby’s tears turned the soil on his cheeks into mud.

Even at thirty-three years old, Bobby’s chest heaved like he was still a child. His knees trembled and it took all his willpower not to wet his pants.

“Mommy!” His voice was hoarse and shrill. Bobby summoned the image of his mom from the photo of her he carried in his wallet. He scrunched his eyes closed for a few beats to focus on her as intensely as he could in his mind’s eye.

The three bullies lured Bobby to this grove in the woods, fifteen minutes from the paper mill where they all worked. Steve, who feigned friendship, claimed he discovered a big box of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Nerds Clusters in the woods. No, he didn’t know how they got there, but it was like a Halloween haul; there was so much candy. Steve said that he and Bobby could split it.

Bobby had a reputation as a candy fiend, consuming a candy bar between every shift. Steve knew that Bobby would take the bait without any hesitation.

Nate and Steve, bullies-in-arms, flanked William. In unison, they jeered as they pumped their fists into the air: “Mommy, mommy, mommy.”

“I want my mommy.”

“He still wants his mommy,” Nate said.

“She’s dead, you know,” William added. “I think she died when Bobby was born and he never even met her, except maybe for a moment when he saw the fun part as he was exiting.” William curled his left hand’s fingers into a circle and slid the pointer finger of his right hand into the opening. “Probably the one and only time he’s been in one.”

Tears cascaded from Bobby’s eyes.

“Boo hoo, the big baby cries. Here, I’ll wipe those tears from your face.” William stooped to the forest floor and snatched a large, partially bug-eaten leaf. He stood a breath away from Bobby and roughly smudged his cheeks, not absorbing the tears, but spreading them all over Bobby’s face.

In middle and high school, they used toilet paper. It’s the same as always, only different.

Bobby wanted to get out of this town, run far, far away, but mommy said she needed to stay in Bangor.

Why?

Mommy has to, Bobby.

Tell me why. I hate this town. They bully me at school all the time, in between classes, after classes, even during classes when the teacher’s not looking. Make fun of me. Hurt me. They hurt me a lot, Mommy.

Once, they hurt me, too, son. Some people like us attract bullies.

Who hurt you? Bobby wanted to know.

Kids, later grown-ups. Other girls picked on me, played practical jokes that weren’t funny. Grown-ups at the dress factory. They bullied me every day, but one day I made them stop.

How did you make them stop?

I can’t explain that now. You’re too young and won’t understand.

Nate punched Bobby in his stomach.

Bobby winced, doubled over, and then fell to his knees.

“You didn’t need to sock him,” Steve said. “That’s not right because I wanted to hit him, ha ha ha.”

The sun dipped below the tree tops as if an unseen hand flipped a switch, shrouding Bobby and his three tormentors in a cloak of darkness while simultaneously extending their impossibly long shadows. As the sun continued its descent toward the horizon, Steve, Nate, and William taunted Bobby with more crude insults about his mother and his rotund body and his oily hair. Their shadows sharpened for a moment as if the sunlight had grown brighter, and then the shadows entirely disappeared.

The woods went silent. Birds, frogs, insects—it was as if they never existed. A total absence of wildlife in a place where animals roam with abandon. The silence persisted for a long minute, hollowing a void in nature.

William rubbed his arms, shivering. “Why is it so cold?”

A loud pop exploded from the adjacent woods.

They all jumped, except for Bobby.

William let loose a small shriek. “What was that?”

“Dunno. Maybe a chipmunk.”

Crack!

The trio swiveled their heads, attempting to locate the source. The crack like a big branch splitting apart came from somewhere behind the trees.

A gust of frostbitten air rushed from the grove, spiraling fallen leaves and whistling as it charged forward. The gust drove William, Steve, and Nate back several steps.

Steve tripped over a vine and then lifted himself.

Leaves crunched as something wended its way through the thicket.

“That’s too loud for chipmunks,” Nate said. “A wolf?”

“There are no wolves in Maine. But it could be a bear.”

“A bear—that’s not good.

William gasped.

A weathered and faded, navy-blue dress without a body inside drifted out from behind a tree. The bodiless sleeves and bottom fluttered and rustled as it advanced. A fetor of rot and decay choked the pine-scented air.

Nate, Steve, and William covered their mouths and noses.

As a body filled the dress, William’s jaw dropped, goosebumps popped up all over his neck and arms, and his scraggly blonde hair stood on end.

“Mom? Mom, how can you…?”

Nate pointed to the woman emerging from the grove. “No, that’s my mother, not yours.” He cocked his head to the left, squinted toward the woman, and sniffled. “But you died, Mom. You died when I was ten.”

“My mother is dead, too,” William added. “Mom, how is that you? I don’t understand.”

Steve shook his head. “No, no, no. I don’t know who you see, but that’s my mother, Florence. And she’s at home right now in a wheelchair, been in a wheelchair for five years. She can’t walk and she can’t be here. It’s not possible.” An eighty-year-old woman with gnarled hands, bowed legs, and skin gray and wrinkled like an elephant’s, hobbled toward Steve.

Steve pointed a shaking finger toward Bobby. “He did this. He poisoned us! Slipped us mushrooms somehow and we’re hallucinating, each seeing our own mother.” He slammed Bobby in the belly with his elbow; when he raised his arm to strike again, a pair of hands—his aged mother’s hands—tightened around his neck, squeezing hard and fast. He tried to wedge his fingers under those hands, but could not.

His eyes bulged. His lungs seized. He whimpered, “Mom, why?” and then collapsed lifelessly onto the forest floor.

“Mom, no!” Nate shouted to the woman who approached him with arms outstretched and locked in place. A tree thwarted his retreat. He tensed his legs against the tree, as if he could shove it backward, but both the tree and Nate remained rooted in place.

Mom hissed at Nate.

He eked out one more “Mom, no,” before his mother strangled him to death.

William willed his legs to move, to take him far away from this horror, but fear and confusion paralyzed him. All he could do was shake his head from side to side, mewling, “Mother.”

William’s mother clasped her hands on his head—a vise grip—twisted sharply to the left, and broke William’s neck with a loud snap.

Bobby’s heart quivered with the excitement of a little boy on Christmas morning. He raced to his mother. She was young and beautiful, with long black hair, a petite nose, and a face that hadn’t changed since Bobby saw her last, twenty years ago, before a car crash claimed her.

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight as she rubbed his back and said, “Mother is here to protect you.” She dropped an arm to her side and grasped Bobby’s hand.

He registered the warm, sticky bullies’ blood and smiled again.

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