Have you ever been asked “What are you afraid of?”. Did you ever tell anyone? Or worst of all did someone find out and used it against you?…This is where the story starts.
Travis Savage was an odd little boy who was often ignored by everyone else in his school. Unless it was the other 12 year old boys who liked football and video games. Travis had a rather unusual obsession. He loved scary horror movies. Featuring monsters, ghouls, goblins and all the things that lived under the bed. He used to like sci fi films and films about space. But was always picked on by bullies who thought that space and him wasn’t cool.
Especially Dechlan. He was bigger, faster and stronger than Travis ever was. The head of the football boys who loved telling him that spaceships and aliens weren’t cool. He would even taunt Travis with his nickname for him: Martian boy. He was a bully and the one person that Travis was scared of the most. Travis tried constantly to get him to stop. Even telling the schools head master about Dechlan. But the head master would always brush it off as if it were 2 boys playing a silly game.
One night while Travis laid in bed, watching cartoons before he went to sleep, the cartoon channel suddenly changed, to show Travs his first ever scary movie. In the film he watched, bullies were eaten or picked off one by one a monster. After watching this Travis didn’t sleep. Not out of fear that he might have nightmares, but from excitement of what he saw. After his first viewing…Travis fell in love.
While his parents would go off to bed, Travis would wait for them to fall asleep and sneak downstairs into the living and watch scary movies on the big TV all night. From werewolves to zombies, vampires to ghosts, devils and demons witches and Travis’s personal favourite thing to watch in scary movies: seeing mean people being mean getting punished in a scary way.
It wasn’t long before Travis grew out of sci fi and space films and became a little scary movie obsessed 12 year old. No one else in his school liked scary movies as much as he did. In fact other kids found nothing to pick on him for. The students just thought it was too weird to like scary movies, and that suited Travis just fine.Dechlan couldn’t even call him martian boy anymore because even Travis wasn’t scared of Dechlan anymore.
Travis began to wish and day dream about wanting to be as scary and terrifying to those who bullied him and pestered him. His hope and dreams came true when he found out that Dechlan- his most troublesome and persistent bully, who ruined his day one after another – confessed to his friend in the bike sheds that he was afraid of spiders. “One crawled across my bed. It was so big. It was the same size of my head. I screamed so loud I woke my mum and dad up. They thought I was in danger” Dechlan confessed to his friend.
A secret that his friend swore to secrecy not to tell anyone. Little did he know that unchaining his bike from the far end of the bike shed, Travis stood menacingly before cycling home planning something – shocking.
The next day during lunch break, Travis was standing by himself. Watching Dechlan kick a barely inflated football against the wall of the school with his football playing friends. Since footballs have a mind of their own, one second the ball was kicked against the wall, the next it was over by Travis.
Dechlan groaned in annoyance knowing he would have to give Travis attention. “Hey freak. Kick my ball over” Dechlan ordered. But Travis just picked the ball up with both his hand and smiled. “I’m talking to you martian boy. Kick the ball over now!” Dechlan’s short patience is getting shorter and shorter. Travis begins to push his hands to meet in the middle of the barely inflated ball. “
Hey,hey stop that. If you squeeze the ball any harder it will-” Before Dechlan knew it, a loud bang was heard on the school playground. Everybody stopped and stared at Travis, who was standing with the burst ball, smiling as if it was his birthday. Dechlan stormed over to Travis in a rage only seen in rhinos in the desert. He grabs Travis by the collar of his blazer and held him up to his face.
“OK FREAKAZOID. YOU WANNA FIGHT?! I’M GONNA MAKE YOUR FACE LOOK LIKE MY BALL!”. Big mistake. Little did Dechlan know that the night before, Travis had prepared himself for his next day at school. He put cobwebs full of spiders into his sleeves of his blazer and captured a house spider in his mums empty jam jar that he found in his bath one night. The next day of school came and during school Travis waited and waited until lunchtime.
Then eventually… “I’M GONNA MAKE YOUR FACE LOOK LIKE MY BALL!” Dechlan screamed. Travis dropped the burst ball and put his hands on Dechlan’s shoulders. On cue, from out of the Travis’s sleeves came hundreds and thousands of spiders. Scuttling and crawling all over Travis’s hands and onto Dechlan’s shoulders. Dechlan dropped Travis in shock. Travis lands on his feet as Dechlan struggles to fight off all the spiders from crawling all over him. Sweat of fear pouring out of him. He looks to Travis, who opens his mouth and the house spider crawls out of Travis’s mouth and dangles of the web from Travis’s chin. “What’s the matter Dechlan?” Travis asks chuckling. He grabs the long webstrand with the house spider attached. “Are you scared of spiders?” Travis throws the spider by the strand of web landing on Dechlans face.
The house spider looking 10 times bigger than the other ones that were crawling over him. Dechlan begins to run around in horror and scream so loud that his throat begins to hurt for him to stop. Running past all the students and through the school gates. He runs out onto the road. And all that could be heard was the sound of screeching tires or a car breaking. In complete shock and awe the rest of the school ran out to the car that hit Dechlan. Everyone except little Travis Savage. Strangely enough it wasn’t the car that stopped Dechlan in his tracks. Instead they found Dechlan scared stiff on the road with his mouth stretched out in horror. As though he was scared to death. The students in the playground looked back to find Travis laughing uncontrollably. As if he heard the greatest joke in the world…That only he found funny.
Travis became the most feared boy in the school that day. Everyone including the teachers were scared to deal with him. Until the headmaster had to expel him from the school.
From behind his desk the headmaster raised his voice in fear and anger. “Now Travis. I know you and Dechlan Lawson was bothering you, but you didn’t have to get him scared to death. Now everyone in this school is afraid of you” Travis stood there laughing knowing everyone was afraid of him. Including his headmaster. It was like music to his ears.
“Enough is enough…You are hereby expelled from the school!” Travis stopped laughing almost suddenly. “What?” Travis asked. “You heard me young man. Now get out of my school!” the headmaster is now trembling and points his shaking hand towards the door. Travis smile fades into a frown. And then the frown turned into a menace. “Ok I’ll leave…But I’ll return” the clouds on the outside of the headmasters office grew grey and black. Thunder began to crack the sky. “No matter where I go, when someone says their fears out loud I will be there to show them the worst fear they have ever had”
Lightning struck down on the school ground. The headmaster in shock hid behind his desk. He lifted his head up when the sky cleared up and the sun appeared again. And as if by magic, he looked up and Travis wasn’t there anymore…But he was true to his word.
Soon after he left more and more school children were getting scared to death. A school girl found snakes in her hair and her bag and desk. She had learned about snakes 2 days before in learning about the amazon jungle. She said they were scary out loud. Another boy was found on top of his school roof. Too afraid to scream or shout for help or look down. Incase he would fall. He was the smallest boy in class and he was afraid to go any higher than his height.
Even though Travis was gone the school was still getting odd and scary sightings. Like the boy who was afraid and was found under a streetlamp. Too afraid to step out into the dark because heard noises waiting for him. Or the other little boy who was afraid of balloons, who was hiding in a corner of the school hall when the school disco was arranged and was completely covered in balloons. All of them bursting one by one, making him feel unsafe at any point.
All these kids had one thing in common. They were all found with their mouths stretched open in horror. As the years went on at the school, a new rule was enforced to stop more children getting scared to death. Which was not to say what scared you out loud. The rule stayed the same but the lesson was hard to teach. More and more kids were getting scared to death by the new school year. All because of the curse of Travis Savage.
On the first day of the new term, the headmaster was walking his way to school. When he crossed paths with a black cat. He got such a fright and let out a little scream. “You ok sir?” said a new student starting his first day at the new school. “Oh yeah child i’m fine. I’m just very superstitious.” “You better not say that out loud. You don’t want Travis Savage to hear that” says the student as he walks away into the school. Dread began to hit the headmaster as he realises what he has done.
While making his way to the toilet to wash his face from the sweat pouring from him, he thinks to himself he can’t come for me. I’m a teacher, he only gets students. He goes into the toilets and leans over the sink. He washes his face and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror in front of him. But then the mirror breaks and lands into shards on the floor, then the other mirror and the last mirror in the toilets. The headmaster frightened was backed into the corner of the room.
The mirror shards then met in the middle to make a massive broken mirror like a window or a door. A hand reaches out from the center of the mirror and grabs the edge. Another hand reaches out and grabs the other side. Pulling out of the mirror is a figure in a long dark black coat and a top hat. His face had his nose and chin meeting point to point like a half crescent moon. With teeth as sharp as broken glass and looks like his tooth brush hasn’t met his mouth in years. One black eye with a white ring in the center and one white eye with a black dot in the center. And long silver metallic hair from underneath the top hat.
“Hello headmaster” a raspy voice spoke grinning with menace. “Remember me?”. The headmaster quivered with fear “Travis…Is that you?” “Yes. I told you I’d return…As a matter of fact I never really left”. Travis began to walk towards the headmaster. Stepping on the mirror glass, breaking underneath his feet. The headmaster was pushing himself up against the wall with not knowing where to go. “Travis. I’m your headmaster now leave me alone!” The headmaster pleads for one more time. Travis puts his hand on the headmasters mouth and stares at him “You were my my headmaster” Travis whispers.
“And I was Travis Savage. But now: I am the story on the playground that your friend pretends to think its fake. I am the black cat of superstition that will leave you in tension after after I cross your path I am that uncertain feeling you have that someone is following you when you are walking alone I am that feeling that grabs you in your sleep and drops you to think you are falling I am the reason you won’t close your eyes in the dark unless you leave the light on I am the reason babies cry over nothing and dogs howl into darkness I am the innocence you lose, the killer of wonder, your first nightmare and the last thing you see when you wake up I am your worst fear and I have come for you…”
School finished early that day when a student found the headmaster in the toilets. Scared to death with his mouth stretched open in horror.
