author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Notes from the author:

When I was a child, maybe six or eight years old, my cousins used to threaten me with Stephen King novels. They knew I couldn’t stand horror stories. So they’d actually bring a copy of Cujo to family gatherings precisely so they could whip it out and say, “Hey, you like having books read to you, right? I’ve got a good one right here...” At which point I’d run screaming from the room. This, every adult on hand would point out, made their bullying of me my fault. If I wouldn’t oblige them with the entertaining reaction they were looking for, obviously they’d stop. Because there’s nothing fucked up about being entertained by a small child’s distress, and nothing unreasonable about expecting a small child to exhibit infallible stoicism in the face of her tormentors, I guess. Even so, I did try not to react. They didn’t stop. They’d just start reading from Chapter 1, page 1, and keep going until I freaked out enough to satisfy them.

Despite all that, I did eventually become a Stephen King fan in high school. And now I write horror. But I’ve never read Cujo, and I probably never will, and that sucks.

There is no single approach guaranteed to stop one hundred percent of all bullies. Bullies choose to be bullies, and some adults choose to enable that. Sometimes there is nothing a victim can do but endure. But here’s what I wish I could tell every bullying victim out there, ever, from here to eternity, something no one ever told me: It’s not your fault.

It just about stopped Cheryl’s heart, that hollow look in Ronnie’s eyes. She recognized it immediately; she used to wear that look herself. Ronnie was eight years old and a devoted dinosaur enthusiast. He ought to have been giddy with the excitement of having stood in Sue’s shadow yesterday at the Field Museum. But the darkness in his normally bright eyes had nothing to do with the most famous Tyrannosaurus Rex in the USA.

He’d been listening to that damn ghost.

Cheryl had thought that ghost a family curse. It had haunted her mother before her, and her grandmother before that. And it refused to be left behind when Cheryl’s mother sold the big, rambling house their family had resided in for generations and took them to live in a tiny apartment in the city. The hope of ditching the ghost had been her only consolation for losing her spacious bedroom, her attic hideaways, and the neighborhood she knew so well. But the first time she tried to go to sleep in her new, cramped home, there he was, waiting in the dark.

I’ve got another story for you. What’s your problem? You said you liked stories.

So she’d concluded that the ghost was tied not to a house but to a family. Well and good; Cheryl would ensure the family line ended with her. It was a painful decision, since she’d always wanted children, but she couldn’t let her selfish desires be the reason for another child’s misery. And that was the turd icing on the shit cake of Ronnie’s haunting: to have her sacrifice revealed as worthless only now that it was too late to disown it. Cheryl was sixty-two. Short of a miracle like that granted to Abraham and Sarah, she would never have children of her own.

Ronnie had been like balm on Cheryl’s lifelong wound. She’d met him when she came to live here, in an even tinier apartment unit than the one she’d complained about in her teens. Ronnie’s parents each worked two jobs to make ends meet, and they were ecstatic at Cheryl’s willingness to watch their son while they were out. She became part of the family. The first time Ronnie called her Aunt Cheryl, he then had to ask her why she was crying. “These are happy tears,” she’d told him. Ronnie was in and out of her apartment freely; she left it unlocked for him. She watched over his playtime in the apartment courtyard. And she comforted him in the face of those mild troubles common to eight-year-olds, and she reminded him the world wasn’t ending.

Maybe that was why the ghost had latched onto him. Ronnie was the son Cheryl couldn’t have, and that made him fair game to receive the family curse. Which made it Cheryl’s responsibility to put things right—if only she could figure out how.

“Ronnie,” she said, “don’t you want to tell me about the museum?” Ronnie didn’t respond, just huddled next to her on the picnic bench. Cheryl was beginning to panic a little, looking at Ronnie’s shell-shocked face. She had looked up at her own mother with just that look, once upon a time, and her mother had worn it herself thirty years previous.

Yet when Cheryl had looked to her mother for comfort, all she got was a rebuke. Don’t talk to me about it. It’s up to you to make the ‘mean man’ go away. He only hangs around because you let him. Cheryl had wailed helplessly that she couldn’t make the mean man go away, she couldn’t even get him to shut up. Her mother had shrugged. I guess you must like having him around.

The betrayal had hurt but not surprised Cheryl. This wasn’t the first time she’d been bullied, or that her mother had blamed her for it. That vicious circle, at least, Cheryl could break. She nudged Ronnie. “How about you introduce me to your new friend?”

Ronnie held up his plush Plesiosaur. “My name is Nessie,” he said in a high, cartoonish voice.

“Well, hello, Nessie. Nice to meet you. My name is Cheryl.” She gravely shook the plushie’s front flipper. “Pardon my asking, but our mutual friend seems to be feeling low. Do you know why?”

“Ronnie didn’t sleep good last night,” Nessie squeaked. “The see-through man told him scary stories.”

“Oh, him,” Cheryl said, attempting to sound unconcerned. It was hard. Scary stories. That was a euphemism. No child, not even one with a strong stomach and a taste for horror movies, should have to hear those stories. “Do you know, he used to tell me scary stories too? They were horrible.”

Ronnie looked her full in the face with astonishment. In his own voice, and with a note of hope that threatened to break Cheryl’s heart, he said, “What did you do?”

Cheryl sighed. “I tried to remember that they were only stories. And then one day he just went away forever.” Ronnie deflated with disappointment. Cheryl put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “He’s just another bully, Ronnie. No different from the ones at school except that he’s see-through and in your house. And the only thing you can do about bullies is try to make it really boring for them to bully. And even that’s no guarantee he’ll stop.” She hated every word coming out of her mouth. Blaming Cheryl for being tormented by the ghost may have been cruel, but was it any less cruel to take away any hope Ronnie had for a solution? “It’s not your fault. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Ronnie mumbled. “Why’s he so mean? Grown-ups aren’t supposed to be mean.”

“Honey, grown-ups can be some of the meanest people out there. Who do you think teaches the mean kids how to do it?”

They sat in miserable silence for a while. Eventually Cheryl asked, “Which horrible story was it last night?” She quickly added, “You don’t have to go into details. Just—was it the one about the hunter and the rhinocerous? Or...”

“No, it was—” Ronnie stopped. Then he held up Nessie, continuing in the toy’s squeaky voice, “It was the one about the little girl and what the stranger did to her her when he caught her.”

Cheryl shuddered. That one. The ghost had told it to her with loving attention to detail, breaking his narrative now and again to ask her what she thought it would be like if he did those things to her. The next day, confused and scared and trying to get a handle on what she’d been told, she’d asked her favorite teacher what some of the words from the story meant. The shock on the kindly woman’s face was enough to end her inquiries. That night, her mother had slammed down the phone and harangued Cheryl up and down for the tense conversation she’d just endured.

“I have it under good authority,” Cheryl said slowly, “that the see-through man didn’t tell that story right at all.” With sudden inspiration, she launched into her own private rewrite, the one she’d used at the time to drive the horrible images out of her head. She told Ronnie how that brave young girl had first foiled the stranger with riddles then felled him with a swift kick to the teeth. “And then she grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him to the police office. ‘Officer, put this man in jail!’ So you can see why the see-through man prefers his version of the story. After all these years, he’s still humiliated at how that little girl handed him his butt.”

Ronnie was laughing now, his eyes bright and dancing with mischief. “My turn to tell a story,” he said. “This one’s about Nessie.”

Two days later, Ronnie came running up to her at the same picnic bench. “Aunt Cheryl, Aunt Cheryl! I made the see-through man go away.”

Cheryl stared at him in disbelief, hope, and, if she was being honest, a little envy. “You did? How did you manage it?”

“I pretended I wasn’t scared, just like you said. And then I told him, ‘You got that all wrong. I bet if I ask Aunt Cheryl, she’ll tell me how the story really goes.’ And I just kept saying that until he got mad and disappeared.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Cheryl said, but inside she was skeptical. It seemed too simple. “Do you think he’s gone for good?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’ll come back.” Ronnie shrugged. “If he does, I’ll just keep telling him, ‘You don’t know how to tell stories, Mister. My Aunt Cheryl is the story master.’”

“The story master, huh? I like the sound of that.” She hugged him tight. “Thanks, Ronnie.”

“Aunt Cheryl? Why are you crying?”

“Don’t worry, honey. These are happy tears.”

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