Soulless Eyes

“Oh god, that guy’s there again.” I can’t remember who exactly it was that first pointed him out. Might’ve been Melanie, doesn’t really matter.

“What guy?” I asked. She grimaced at me and pointed over my shoulder.

“That one with the ugly jacket and the gross hair.” Morbid curiosity being the destructive force that it is I turned around to get a glimpse of this mysterious creature who’s defining features seemed to be greasy hair and a thrift shop jacket. My head barely moved however before I was snapped at and berated.

“Don’t look Lauren you idiot! Jesus.” For some reason I actually did as she said and continued to keep my eyes on my vapid social circle, all whilst they rolled their eyes at me for my apparent stupidity. The concept of needing to see to believe seemed to be a bit too high-reaching for them all. A new swathe of students came pouring out of the main building, each caught up in their own conversations that were doubtless as utterly lifeless and meaningless as ours was. A few of them came across us, lightly brushing past, followed by murmured half arsed apologies as the wind seemingly carried them and the dead leaves away.

“Well I don’t know who you’re on about, I’d like to actually get a look at him.” I said.

“He’s been here the past few days. He just stands there staring at us all, it’s creepy.” My eyebrow couldn’t help but rise quizzically at this statement.

“What do you mean just staring at us?”

“I mean he literally just leans against that wall, smoking his cancer-stick and staring at us all.” My eyebrow couldn’t have been raised any higher.

“What, like the whole school?”

“No, I mean… sort of. Like he’s more sort of just looking at us but… he could be like looking… behind us… I can’t.” All of sudden she brought her hand up to her face and shrunk back into herself. “Oh crap he’s looking this way again.” I couldn’t help but snigger at her reaction. The fact that she thought her hand would manage to hide her away from this nebulous onlooker was more than slightly amusing.

“Jesus is he a son of medusa or something?”

“What?” Again, I don’t remember who was dumbfounded by that reference. To be fair they were all dumbfounded, but I don’t remember who verbalised it. Might’ve been Andi, again though it doesn’t really matter.

 “Michael reckons he’s a drug dealer.” I think it was Karen who said that, or Katherine. At one point these people were the centre point of my life. They were my lynch pins, my rocks. Now they’re just a series of names I can’t put to faces.

“Oh yeah, he does look the type doesn’t he?” chirped another one of them.

“No he’s too handsome to be a drug dealer.”

“Yeah but look at how dirty and scruffy he is, and that jacket really is dire.”

“How come you’re allowed to look?” I asked the group in general.

“Shut up Lauren! God.” Getting immediately shut out of the conversation for asking a genuine question was hardly something that I was warm too, and it only served to further ignite my curiosity about this jacket wearing enigma.

“What kind of drugs does he sell?” I asked innocently.

“LAUREN!” The whole group spun around to face me whilst simultaneously recoiling from me, as if I’d been infected by merely mentioning the dreaded D R U G S.

“What? Calm down I’m not going to buy anything! I’m just wondering whether or not we should… you know…”

“Buy some together?” That was Sasha; I remember her.

“No you sponge! Call the police or something, or get a teacher.”

“Are you completely mad? What if he finds out that we tried to get him arrested?”

“So?”

“So what happens if he gets caught and gets out of prison? He’s going to try and get even with us.” I could feel my eyes try to retreat into the top of my skull to escape the stupidity of what just heard.

“Or worse, what happens if the police don’t get him? You know most drug dealers carry around a knife or a gun of some kind. He could take care of them and get even with us really quick.” Again, an uncontrollable snicker left my mouth.

“… and you called me the idiot.” I said in-between giggles. I got the expected response from such intellectual company.

“What!?”

I just shook my head and addressed them all.

“You guys are overthinking this way too much, we don’t even know if he is a drug-dealer or not.”

“Lauren of course he is. Look at him!” Given that it was seemingly an explicit instruction, as well as a way to finally satiate my curiosity, I turned around to look at him. I only got a glimpse of the fabled green jacket before somebody grabbed me by the shoulder and forcefully spun me back around.

“Lauren!”

“What?!” I yelled, my patience wearing thin and my temper starting to flare. “You told me to look at him!”

“Not like that!” Suddenly the whole group bar me adopted the flawless technique of covering their faces with their hands and pretending to look elsewhere by being as obvious as possible about it.” Oh god he’s seen us, he’s looking directly at us.”

“Oh god he’s smiling.”

“What if he heard us?”

“Oh god he’s so scary.”

“Just shut up, don’t… like… we should… no… just look… okay… we should…” I got sick of going nowhere fast in this regard, and finally left the group and started towards the man who’d gotten my friends so riled up by doing seemingly nothing. I remember them calling out to me, but there was no hand on my shoulder this time, which was appreciated.

Now that I could look at him without getting scolded, as well as the fact that I was drawing closer and closer to him, I could see that they were right; he was quite handsome, albeit a bit scruffy. Unkept hair and a roughly cut short beard did a decent enough job of hiding his sunken blue eyes and dirty face. If you’d walked past him in the street you probably wouldn’t have given him a second glance. But looking at him, really looking at him was quite an experience. As I drew closer towards him, his smile broadened, in a manner that suggested warmth, and was probably intended to convey such, but a cold chill ran up my spine at the sight of it regardless. Still, I pressed on until I was only a foot away from him. As I stopped, he took a long drag from his cigarette before flicking it away and exhaling.

 “…Lauren is it?” He asked me. His voice was not unlike his smile. Seemingly earnest, but with something more nefarious hiding in plain sight. It took me a second to gather myself and reply in as steady a voice as I could manage.

“It is. Do you mind not staring so much at us?” He tilted his head at me, his smile never wavering. “Me and my friends find it a little bit creepy.”

“Oh.” Although he was over a head taller than me, he still got on his tiptoes and craned his neck over me to look towards the group. I looked at them too and saw that they were even more tightly huddled together, still shielding their faces with their hands. “You know Lauren, you should tell your ditsy friends that their hands don’t serve as invisibility cloaks.” I took that as a slight. I spun back around to face him and just glowered at him, which he clearly found rather amusing. In hindsight, I find it funny too. They weren’t worth sticking up for, or defending.

“Also, this is technically school property.” I continued, making sure to make myself stand a little bit taller. “You’re not a student, a member of faculty, a parent or a guardian, ergo you’re trespassing and need to leave.” He just shrugged at that.

“Well, I could be somebody’s guardian.” It was my turn to tilt my head at him.

“Are you?”

“Oh fuck no, I hate kids.” Again, I stood up straight before addressing him, pushing out my chest a little to make myself seem bolder.

“Then you need to leave.”

“Need to?” He pushed himself off the wall, unfolded his arms and took a step towards me. I reflexively went to take a step back myself, but just about managed to stop myself. I didn’t want to back down. “What’re you going to do if I say no?”

I don’t know why I didn’t back down.

I don’t know whether I should’ve.

“I’ll tell the appropriate authorities and they’ll be the ones to deal with you.” I answered in a surprisingly even voice. He raised his hands in mock surrender and crouched down to eye-level with me.

“Oh no, not that, anything but the authorities. Especially the appropriate ones, they’re just the worst.”

“I suggest you leave now before they get here.”

“You contacted them already have you? Lit the bat-signal?”

“No, but I will do shortly.” I turned around and started back towards the school, but a rough hand seized hold of my shoulder and spun me around. As he turned me back around to face him, he grabbed a hold of both my arms. It happened in an instant. All of a sudden I was in his seemingly unshakable grip. My eyes darted around wildly, trying to take in everything that happened.

“Now hold on a minute there Lauren.” The full extent of what was happening to me began to sink in, and I thrashed and flailed as hard as I could to shake free of his grasp.

“Let go of me!” I yelled out in desperation.

“Why? I’m not hurting you.” I blindly tried to kick him, but as I did so, he turned around with me, still gripping my arms and pushed me against the wall, pressing his legs against mine so I couldn’t attempt to kick him any more. “Am I?” He brought my hands up above my head and again pinned me to the wall. His face was so close to my own. I could really see his eyes from there.

They were so blue.

I wanted to drown in them.

“Stop it you creep!” I tried to break free even harder, but it accomplished nothing other than making me panic more and more.

“I can’t do that Lauren.” With that, he pressed his whole body onto mine. My struggling stopped, and the smell of him immediately clouded my senses. He smelt of burnt and dead things. Bringing his head down towards my ear, his moist and hot breath brought stinging and terrified tears to my eye. “You haven’t asked for my name yet.” He lightly nibbled on my ear as fresh tears sprung to my eyes and I tried to turn away from him.

But I couldn’t.

“That’s a bit rude, don’t you think?” He immediately went back to nibbling on my ear. The feeling of it was unlike anything else. It felt as though he was burrowing under my skin, trying to devour me from the inside out. I writhed around uncontrollably, soft whimpers escaping my lips and tears streaming down my face.

“Let go, let me go…” I could barely speak. I wanted to, but he’d seemingly stolen my tongue from me. The weight and feel of him pushing against me like that. His rough hands, his singed smell, his damp breath. His grip on me relaxed ever so slightly, as he then brought his lips close to my own.

 “GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”

With one final monumental effort I managed to break free and found myself sprawled on the floor. I had landed hard and awkward. My ankle felt as though it was on fire, but I scrambled away from him and turned my back to him, but still, I never looked away from those deep blue eyes. He was massaging his jaw slightly, I must’ve hit him when I broke free. But he still had a smile on his face.

“Alright alright, you fucking prude.” His eyes scanned me up and down one more time before he turned away from me and began to walk away. But he stopped, and turned back around to me.

“It’s Fisher, by the way.”

Then he was gone.

Then I was alone.

Dead leaves and new tears my only companions.

I could still smell him.

I could still feel him.

Then all of a sudden I was surrounded by my friends. They were all coddling me. Stroking my hair, giving me hugs and wiping away my tears whilst twittering on and on.

“Oh my god Lauren, are you okay?”

“Jesus Lauren what the hell happened?”

“Did he hurt you?”

“What did you do?”

“I told you he was dangerous.”

“Should we go and tell a teacher?”

“Why…” I’d screamed at Fisher so loud I nearly tore my throat apart, my voice was barely audible over the inane chatter going on around me. They didn’t notice and kept going on and on. Touching me, babying me.

Their hands were soft.

They smelt of expensive perfumes.

Their breath was cool and minty.

I thrashed my arms around me to get them to retreat.

“Why didn’t you help?!” I yelled, screamed. “Why didn’t any of you fucking help?!”

They all just looked at one another, one after the other, searching for an answer; and then back to me.

“We…”

The sentence remained unfinished.

Their soulless eyes, watching me.