Dr. Kline

Dr. Kline

I noticed my foot-tapping through the vibrations in my desk and looked up at the clock. It was 2:58. Those last few minutes of class always took so long. The room was so loud with all the talk about the upcoming Halloween weekend. I couldn’t stop thinking about the weekend either, but for now, I just wanted to go home.
I had the timing down to a science, so a few seconds before the bell rang I got out of my seat and walked towards the door. I found the floor instead, and my books followed close behind. Gotta love good old “nice” Nick’s size 13 tennis shoes.
Nick leaned down to help me pick up my books and spoke loud enough to be sure our teacher heard, “Oh I’m so sorry Paul.” The bell rang and the room around us was dormant no longer and he whispered, “Maybe if you weren’t such a faggot that wouldn’t have happened.”
Completely humiliated, slightly pissed off and yet still wondering what sexuality really could possibly have to do with tripping, I scraped my books up and left the classroom. The hall was alive with the buzz of the upcoming festivities. I hoped to slip through the halls, to my locker, and out of school unnoticed, but my hopes were crushed when I heard an all too familiar voice over the hum of the halls.
“Yo Paul? Where’s yer skinny ass tryin’ to run off too?”
“Oh, Hey Aaron, n-no where,” I said, obviously lying, “I was just about to come looking for you.”
“Bullshit, but whatever. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to meet up with us tonight aren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah I think so.” I said.
“You better be there dude, or you could just be a pussy, whatever you want is fine, and by the way, I guess there was a break out in West Virginia. Bet you can’t guess who it was.”
I was starting to get a little bit fed up with the whole pussy theme and the break out crap was a little bit ridiculous too. I decided I was done being such a pushover.
“Good one.” I said, “Yeah I’ll be there, Kline Farm at 11:00 right?”
“Yep.” Answered Aaron as he jogged off to meet up with one of his buddies.
I took my time at my locker preparing for home after already having the confrontation I worked so hard to avoid. I couldn’t believe those guys were really inviting me to go out with them. To be honest it was probably too good to be true, but I had nothing better to do so there wasn’t much of an excuse for me to not go.
As I walked home I tried to remember the whole story about Dr. Kline. I’d heard so many stories I wasn’t sure which version was actually true. Everyone at school said that Dr. Kline had gone insane and was supposed to be at some big time insane asylum over in West Virginia.
Word on the street was that Dr. Kline went psycho after his wife committed suicide. They said that the note she had written accused Dr. Kline for her actions. They said he started to kill men that fit the same profile as himself. He was taking out middle aged doctors left and right. The court of law said it was a coping mechanism and brought out a load of psycho babble. The part they were after could be a complete lie, but they wanted to know if the rumor was true. Supposedly he killed more people than he was ever charged for and it was local legend that in the old Kline Farm house there was a secret storage area where he stored the bodies. They said that it shouldn’t be hard to find if you knew what you were looking for, which of course Aaron claimed he knew just that. And for some reason they decided to invite me.

* * * *

“Haha! Hell yeah! Looks like we got ourselves a winner!” said Aaron as he reached his buddy.
“I take it he took the bait.”
“Hell yeah!” Aaron said as he giggled. “He is definitely comin’. He has no idea what the hell is going on.”
“Nice work,” he said as he chuckled to himself. “So we’re meetin up there at 10 right? You think that’s early enough?”
Aaron replied with a conceited smirk, “Yeah, that should give us plenty of time. I mean, we’ll be in place and waiting by 10:30 at the latest then, and I doubt he’d show up any more than 30 minutes early. He isn’t stupid, but he IS still a pussy.
“Alright well good enough for me.”

* * * *

It was a bit before 10 when Aaron walked towards Kline farm. They had picked a place to park about a half mile down the road. There was a small break in the road where you could pull into the field. There was a dirt lane into the cornfield. They parked at the end of this lane in order to best conceal their cars from being seen.
It was a chilly night and the wind whistled through the night. In the distance he could here the lone howl of a coyote, and then the answering cry from a group. Train tracks ran parallel to the road a third of a mile away. He could hear the horn blaring on the train, coming this way from town. The night was so cold. The type of cold that seeps into your bones and you can’t seem to get it out.
When he arrived at Kline farm, he was happy to see that his two buddies were already there.
“Hey fuckers, you ready to get Paul or what?”
Looking relieved to see Aaron, they both turned towards him. “Yeah man, you ready to set up?”
“Yup, you brought the video cam?”
Pulling it from inside his coat, Aaron’s buddy said, “Yeah dude, its right here.”
“K, good. I brought one too. I’ll keep mine with me though. Let’s go get yours set up.”
The doors were locked. Typical, everyone talks about how they had been inside before, yet the doors were still locked tight. Aaron pried open the door to the partially dilapidated Kline house with a crowbar. It opened and swung inward with a pop.
“Someone must have switched the locks.” Aaron said, not being able to believe that nobody had really ever broken in yet.
A strange heavy feeling came over Aaron as he walked over the threshold. He stopped for a moment, but when he realized that he must seem scared, he pushed onward. He swung his flashlight left and right throughout the house and settled upon a door. He walked towards it and opened it. Only a closet.
“Dude, I thought you knew your way around this place.”
“I fuckin do man. I just never saw what was in this closet and I wanted to see.” Hoping to God there really was a basement, Aaron pushed on, deeper into the house. He found the kitchen and another door. He walked around the island towards a door and tripped on a pan. The noise sent him into the air and put his hair on end.
He could feel his anger rising. He was supposed to know his way around here, supposed to feel comfortable. He didn’t. He reached the door in two more strides and pulled it open right away.
Thank the fucking lord. There was a staircase leading towards the basement.
“You fuckers ready?” he asked, ever the hard ass.
“Yeah, lets go.”
They reached the bottom of the staircase and as Aaron swung the light across the basement. He covered his face when his nostrils found an overbearingly sweet fragrance. The light bounced off of the shards of glass and tools that were lying everywhere and played tricks with their eyes. It was an aged work shop down there. There were tables and tables of tools. Old rusty saws mounted on the walls. An axe, a sledgehammer and finally his light found a resting place on the source of the smell. Old bottles of self-jarred fruit were on shelves across the room. One of the shelves had fallen and all of the bottles were crushed on the basement floor.
“Alright, see those shelves.” Aaron said as he pointed at the fruit, “set your camera up there. It should give us a good enough view of that corner.” he said while he then pointed to his left. As he pointed he saw a door immediately to his left. He opened it and was once again disgusted by a horrible stench. It was a tiny bathroom, not even big enough to fit a sink. “Looks like this is where you’ll be waiting.” He said to one of his buddies.
“Dude that fuckin smells like ass.”
“Guess you’re gonna have to get over it. When you hear me cough, that’s when you come out, got it?”
“Got it.”
After they set up the camera and threw a piece of electrical tape over the power light, Aaron and his other friend went back upstairs to wait on Paul.

* * * *

I pulled up to Kline farm and I was literally shaking in my boots. I was worried that they were going to stand me up. There was nobody around and so I waited.
I was seriously thinking about leaving when suddenly there was a thud on the top of my car. I let out a yelp and threw my locks down as something or someone else rammed against my door with a crazy old man mask. My fright ended as suddenly as it started as the person in the old man mask doubled over laughing. He pulled the mask off and I saw Aaron. I could hear his muffled voice through my door.
“You should have seen your face!”
I got out of my car.
“Dude you have no idea! That was priceless. We were going to wait on you to go inside and get you good, but then we figured that you were probably too much a pussy to come alone. Whatever though, let’s go inside!”
Aaron’s buddy hopped off the top of my car and we strolled towards the back of the house. The house had already been broken into, so we were good to go. I was trembling but trying not to show it. I could see the light from my flashlight shaking. I hoped they didn’t see it as well. The house was not vacant at all, it was in fact utterly cluttered. There were stacks of old water stained newspapers everywhere. National geographics from the 50’s all the way up to the 90’s. You could smell the rotting water damaged wood and thick scent of wet paper.
We moved to the kitchen, not worrying about the rest of the upstairs, Aaron knew the way. We moved across the kitchen, I stumbled and a pan rattled across the floor. I thought I had gone into cardiac arrest.
Aaron turned around and looked utterly pissed. “Wanna keep it down jackass? You’re liable to give us all a heart attack if you keep doing shit like that.”
At least I wasn’t the only one that was nervous.
Aaron opened the door to the basement and pointed his flashlight down the stairs. “Alright guys, lets go see this shit.”
We walked down the stairs and I could hear each step creak, then echo, creak, then echo. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, an overpowering and disgustingly sweet smell overtook my senses.
Aaron pointed his flashlight left and said, “If I remember right I’m pretty sure its this way.” We all crept our way to the corner and upon reaching it we found nothing but work benches.
“I think its behind one of these benches. Gimme a hand would ya?”
I stepped over to help him and he leaned over to cough. Out of nowhere I hear an earsplitting crack and a door between us and the stairway came crashing open. Someone in overalls and a Carhart Jacket had his face covered by a ski mask and grabbed Aaron’s friend from behind and started to choke him.
“Get the FUCK out of my house!”
I was frozen to my spot, unsure if this was a charade or not. I reached out and grabbed whatever was closest on the tool bench behind me. It was only a screwdriver, but it would have to suffice. I looked at Aaron and he was frozen in place, and looked as shocked as I felt.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
The man swung hard and hit him at the base of the neck. Aaron’s buddy crumpled to the floor with his arms at unnatural angles about him. Time slowed as the limp body hit the floor with an empty thud. A miniature mushroom cloud of dust blew into the air.
The man turned and for the first time stared straight at me. Through his mask I could only see his eyes. His eyes were full of blood rage and were more intense than any I had ever seen before.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on.” He said. “ You’re trespassing on my property and I’m going to kill every one of you bastards.”
And just like that he was charging me. He was a behemoth and he was coming fast. Just as he got to me I pulled screwdriver from behind my back and swung upwards towards the soft of his belly. I felt it go in all the way to the handle where it finally came to a stop and I twisted with all of my strength. His huge calloused hands still found my neck, but they went completely limp.
I looked into his eyes and they morphed from anger to confusion. He slumped to his knees and I felt the warmth of his blood running down my hand onto my wrist.
Aaron screamed and all was chaos. Aaron’s friend was standing now behind the massive man and sliding off the mask. As he fell to the ground I looked into “nice” Nick’s eyes for the last time.