The Neighbor in the Black Hood

It wasn’t the best day outdoors, but I was out anyway. It was unnaturally dark and dreary, but I had to practice for the upcoming championship of Boxpuck, a sport my friends and I made up two years ago when we were ten. It was a mix between hockey and boxing and the main goal is to score and knock as many people over as possible. I admit, it was a bit rowdy, but I didn’t much care seeing as I was a more heavyset kid, 120 pounds and 5’2.

Johnathan has been my best friend since we were both five. He had come over to play some Boxpuck, and make sure everything was set for the championship. We did everything together, because our parents were best friends, so if we weren’t friends, our lives would be miserable. His mom and dad were away on a business trip so he came over almost everyday because he hated being lonely.

John was getting pumped up and bracing himself, knowing that nearly no good could come from me being on the offensive side of the game. We even built a small stadium in the backyard. It was about ten feet wide and thirty-four feet long. My goal was to grasp the puck and throw it in the net- no matter the cost. It was showtime.

I ran to grab the hockey puck, knocking my friend Jonathan over while I was at it. I threw it into the small net and then laughed at my friend for being an utterly terrible player. I walked over to him and knelt down. He was on his side in an awkward position, with his head twisted awkwardly. It couldn’t have been comfortable so I turned him over and asked if he was okay. His eyes were closed and his mouth was shut. It was odd looking so I fixed him up. I figured I had knocked him out by making him hit his head somehow.

“John?” I asked, sort of worried.

No response was given.

“JOHN!” I shouted in his face, but once again I received no response from him.

I felt for his pulse in all spots, luckily I remembered them from health class the day before. In all four areas, I felt nothing. Now knowing he was dead, I started to cry. I was panicking but in so much shock at the same time to where I couldn’t even react. All of a sudden there was a blaring loud scream. I jumped back in surprise, now even more shaken up from fear. In the distance I heard a faint chuckle.

I looked down at my feet, seeing my friend Jonathan’s eyes half-open. Then I saw his mouth open and I heard great laughter. I started seeing tears slide down his cheeks as he rolled around on the narrow-built cardboard Boxpuck stadium. He grasped his stomach and howled with laughter. As I watched, every single ounce of fear in my body turned into pure rage.

“You immature idiot!” I screamed at him, annoyed and frustrated.

I swung my fist down and punched him straight in the stomach. It didn’t even stop him from laughing. He managed to stand up, but staggered several times before gripping balance and calming his laughter. He rubbed his blubbery fingers through his golden brown hair, sweat dripping down his forehead.

“How’d you manage to stop your pulse? I checked in every spot and there was nothing. Your eyes were shut, you were completely immobilized and freezing cold,” I asked.

“First of all, you weren’t checking my pulse, you were applying pressure to my Adam’s apple and palms!” He roared with laughter, then continued his sentence. “Then, I was faking, trying to freak you out- and you can’t say it wasn’t working because I saw you cry. Third, the only reason I was ice cold is because we’ve been out here in T-shirts for over two hours in thirty-four degree weather,” he finished.

He proceeded to cross his arms and wait for me to respond. Suddenly, I hear a door creak open. I looked across the fake stadium floor and saw our neighbor’s door wide open. In the set center of the doorway stood a large male, a few years older than me and John. He was maybe 5’5 and 160 pounds. He was a white kid with extremely dark hair. He wore a black hoodie and ragged, dirty jeans. He had his arms by his sides and his hands made into fists. He continually stared at us for minutes, and I stared back. I have to admit that it was weird, as I had never seen this teenage boy before. I turned to talk to Johnathan.

“Who’s that creep?” John asked.

“I have no idea, I’ve never seen him before in my life. Just look at the weirdo.”

I turned and looked to my right once more, but this time there was nothing there. The door was closed and the kid was gone. I quickly spun around to look at John, but he was also gone. I peered around the corner but I only caught a slight glimpse of what looked like two shadows walking around the side of the building. I walked back inside and made myself a sandwich, then went up to my room and went to bed.

The next morning when I finally awoke, I decided to call John over, because we had a few hours before we had to be at school. His house’s phone rang and rang, but nobody picked up. I tried his cell phone, and the same thing happened.

“Weird,” I mumbled to myself.

I went outside and sat on the porch, listening to my iPod and playing on my Nintendo DS. About two hours later, I texted John to see if he was okay. I received a text back that contained a picture and words. It read, “The Neighbor”. The image was of the teenage boy we had spotted the night before. He was most likely messing with me, so I sent him back a selfie with words ‘The Jason’.

It was cold at the bus stop that morning, most likely colder than the night before. It was eerie, though. I saw this creepy teenage boy appear and disappear out of thin air, but then Johnathan was gone as well. Then for him to send me a picture of the same guy? It didn’t make sense. All these conspiracy, scary, and demented thoughts ran through my head. What could be so bad, honestly though? I didn’t even know that neighbor guy.

The bus pulled up in front of me so three other kids and I got on the bus. The bus driver didn’t say anything to us, which was unusual, normally he would give us a greeting. I sat down and checked my surroundings. There was no one in front of me, to the left of me, but on my right hand side, I saw him.

The boy in the hoodie. The Neighbor. The same neighbor in the dark hoodie. The Neighbor in the black hood. This time he had a knife in his left hand. He raised his right arm and in his palm, was a picture of Johnathan. He took his knife, slashed the picture in half, and after a few seconds he disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. I curled up in one corner of my seat because I knew what he had done. I now realized that I would never see my best friend again.

I looked at the picture- then I saw it. The back of the picture he had slashed a note. The writing was barely legible to the point where reading it put my eyes at a struggle. It read, ‘Jason’s precious friend-death on 11/28/14’ Then the bus came to a sudden stop.November twenty-eighth was tomorrow. Today was Johanathan’s last day alive. Everyone was told to get off, we had arrived at school. Now there was no way I could focus, my friend would be dead tomorrow.

I went in and from then on it seemed normal, except for a couple of things. I walked to my locker and put my back pack and other objects in there. I went into math class and sat down. As the boring class continued, I started looking around the room randomly, and when I turned around and looked at the door, I saw something through the rectangular glass window. it was the same kid, the black hooded teen-my neighbor. I looked away as quickly as I looked at it, but it made no difference. As I snuck a peek again, I noticed two red eyes glowing intensely. As the red light came out of his eyes it shone on one of my other friends, Karen. I somehow concluded that it had targeted her.

The day continued until recess, when all the sixth graders go outside and hang out. I was looking, and in the distance, I saw a sad kid. It was nothing big, just a sad child sitting on a rock. I went over to him to get a closer look. He was all alone, sobbing for what seemed like no reason. I walked up to him and asked him what was wrong.

He responded with saying, “The Neighbor in the black hood”.

Freaked out, I left him and went away.

Towards the end of our class, I had finally started to calm down about the incident at recess, until I started realizing that Karen had not shown in a while, about the same time that recess had ended. Now panicking, I decided to fake sick and go home. I travelled to the nurse’s office, told her that I had been feeling feverish and that I needed to go home. She called my dad at work, but he didn’t answer.

My mom’s cell phone was finally picked up after five or so calls, and when the nurse gave the phone to me and I put it to my ear, all I heard was a few simple words being repeated. “Look who’s here, look who’s here, look who’s here.” Panicking, I called my uncle and asked him to pick me up. He did, and in less then ten minutes I was at my house.

My Uncle Rick had his gun and I brought my pocket knife. Whoever, or whatever, that thing was, it wouldn’t be around much longer. As I walked towards the door, I tripped over some rock or something and made a horrendous racket. I looked down to see what I had tripped on, and that’s when I realized that it hadn’t been a rock, but Karen’s shrivelled, eyeless, toothless, flexible, and lifeless dead body. Horrified at the sight, I turned and vomited on the cement next to me.

Reluctantly, I made my way further into the house, now knowing to expect even more gruesome things. I opened the door but saw nothing except blood and bodies. Tens, even hundreds of corpses were scattered around and stacked like crates on a cargo ship. If I were to explain their appearance, they would be just like Karen’s. They were all shrivelled and eyeless, but they were each equally terrifying.

We went to my Uncle’s House and moved in my belongings, hoping my life would now be more peaceful. I switched schools and decided to try and completely forget my experiences with who I called the Neighbor, but things were stil odd.

Over a year went by, and I never once saw the neighbor. Now, this is what I refer to him as. I was sitting in my room, drowning in my sadness. I gave up on my sport, Boxpuck. John was gone, my parents were dead, and the Neighbor kept popping up. None of these were in a visual form. I discovered that he was drawn to ancient artifacts, written about in history books, and many other things. After this, I started to do my research.

It turns out, he has been around as long as anything in existence. He is the ruler of all things evil, his name is The Borghein- or ‘ruler of death’. He always says “Look who’s here” before grabbing his victims and absorbing their souls. He can be wounded but not killed, as he is immortal. Depending on the time period, he wears different items. Mostly, his face is hidden by shadow, but if he shows his face, then it looks like whoever his last victim was.

Now, in present day America, I have not seen or heard from the Neighbor in over twenty years. I am thirty-six now. Although, it seems as if someone is knocking at my door. I hear something, too, faint and nearly inaudible words.

I looked through the peephole in my door, but nobody was there. I turned around and he was there–in front of me—for the first time in years…

“Look who’s here.