The Spot - Short Fiction Story

Ellie sat on the sidewalk, her legs crisscrossed underneath her as she watched other kids laugh and play on the playground. She watched their almost careless smiles, noting how one would occasionally check different places where their skin was exposed to the air, before continuing to smile and laugh with their friends during their daily dose of recess.

“Elaine.” Mrs. Furlong cleared her throat from behind where Ellie sat. “Why aren’t you playing with your friends?” She held her hands behind her back and kept her spine straight as a shadow settled over the playground. Mrs. Furlong knew of the games that the kids played and she knew that sometimes there were those who would sit out of the fun and the cheering. Ellie assumed that she had to know about the spot too. How could she not?

Ellie stared at the woman’s worn brown leather shoes, considering what the teacher would say if she was honest. “I just wanted to sit for a while, Mrs. Furlong. My mom told me not to stain my shirt today. I don’t want to lose my allowance again.”

Mrs. Furlong glanced down at Ellie’s soft pink shirt with a kitten pictured on it before she shifted, retreating toward the other side of the playground where she would watch but not interact with the children unless necessary. Ellie watched Mrs. Furlong’s body tremble as a shiver overtook her. “Very well.”

Ellie let her eyes focus back on the playground as she rubbed her small fingers over the rough concrete, playing with a weed that had popped up from a crack. Its delicate life ending as she absentmindedly ripped its leaves from its stem. She could hear the other kids laughing and cheering as they climbed through the different obstacles. They had nothing but smiles anytime they caught her in the corner of their eyes. They started to cheer a little rhyme that had become popular on the playground:

First was Tommy, on a night that was stormy,

After a trip to the movies, they say.

She could clearly recall the story that the sixth graders told her about Tommy. He was the first one that anyone could remember having the spot. It was a couple years ago, before Ellie could even try to remember. No one knew what the spot meant then. None of them still had any real idea what it meant, why it happened, or where it came from. Ellie just knew that its presence meant something bad was going to happen.

Tommy was in third grade and had just gotten off the monkey bars when he noticed a quarter-sized spot on the back of his hand. It was colored black, darker than any mole that any of his classmates had ever seen. It was even darker than the one that Mrs. Furlong had at the base of her throat. Or so they said.

After recess, he rushed to the bathroom to try and wash it off. The other kids said that he could feel it under his skin and that Tommy said it didn’t feel right. They even said that it actually looked like it was forming underneath his skin. Tommy never told his teacher, even after he scrubbed his hand bloody in the bathroom. They say that he spent a whole class period washing. Ellie couldn’t remember if they said it was art or science though.

But after a few days, Tommy seemed to ignore it. He even started playing by himself off in the brush. His parents convinced him that it was just a mole, nothing to be worried about. They say that they told him that his body was just changing, that it was the first of many changes to come. Until a week after his spot arrived, his mom and dad decided to take him and his two brothers to the movies. It was a dark and stormy night with lightning and thunder rumbling through the sky. The older kids said that their car slid off the road. Tommy was the only one that didn’t make it. Nobody sees any of Tommy’s family around anymore. The sixth graders say that they all moved out of Miskaton, vowing never to return.

Ellie prodded an ant that began climbing her shoe. She flicked it away with her shoelace but the little warrior kept coming back for more. She smirked slightly before the next verse hit her ears.

Then was Sue, her dad grew blue,

And took them all away.

She remembered that Sue’s story happened during the same school year as Tommy’s and it was a bit more chilling. Sue had been a grade below Tommy. She got her spot on her elbow after a swing and jump off the swing set. Sue had tried to ignore the spot. They say that back then all someone had to do to get the other kids to forget about the spot was to wear long sleeve shirts. That’s what Sue did.

When Sue had the spot, it wasn’t a big deal. Her friends still played with her on the playground and they partnered up with her during group activities. They had forgotten about it in the same way that Sue pretended to forget about it.

They say that it only took four days for the spot to hit Sue. One day while her mom was at work, Sue’s dad got very sad. Or maybe he was just trying to make dinner. He turned the stove on until the fumes filled their house, until all of them were gone.

Some of the current sixth graders remember that they sent counselors to the school after that. They worried about how the kids would handle the situation. But nobody believed the story of the spot. They claimed that the kids were using an “urban legend” to “cope” with the loss of their classmates.

Ellie’s hands grew sweaty as she heard the next verse of the rhyme before the others began to sing it:

Next was Grace, that it did chase,

Much to her dismay.

Grace’s encounter with the spot happened the next school year, when Ellie was in third grade. This story was one that she remembered and it was one that she hated thinking about. Grace was in sixth grade and playing on the seesaw with her best friend, Riley, when the spot appeared. It formed on her neck, making the other sixth graders giggle as they teased her about having some sort of hickey. But then the students remembered what happened to Tommy, what happened to Sue, and they all became convinced that Grace was next. The story spread until no one, not even Riley, would play with Grace anymore.

Grace started to go off and play by herself, seeming almost unbothered until the other sixth graders developed a chant to taunt her during recess:

Swing along the swings now,

Rings and chains and curses,

Soon to death, Grace will bow,

From the spot of darkness!

The chant became so popular that it spread through the elementary school. Ellie remembered the first time that she heard it. She was in Mr. Willis’ third grade classroom. He immediately sent the boy to the office and grumbled about stupid urban legends as he shook his head in disgust. Grace died later that week. She did it herself.

Counselors were brought in again. This time they put together a whole presentation telling us to stay out of our parents’ medicine cabinets and to not take any pills without parental direction. The teachers also became a lot more aggressive any time the spot was mentioned in class. Mr. Willis even went on a rant about why urban legends weren’t real.

Ellie remembered that later that year her parents were talking about how Grace’s dad wanted to sue Springwood Elementary because he blamed them for is daughter’s death. But Ellie couldn’t remember ever hearing about it again.

Ellie wiped her sweaty palms on her pants, trying to hide her discomfort as Mrs. Furlong glanced over at her. She could still hear the ringing of the past verses pound through her ears as the other kids prepared for the next one.

She stared at the shadow of a bee as it bumbled by while the other kids sang:

Shem was quick and very sick,

Now he must decay.

Ellie closed her eyes at the mention of Shem. She remembered him more than any of the previous students. This happened during her fourth grade year and he was only a year above her. He was new to Miskaton. It was his third day of school when he got the spot. It was visible on his knee after he got off the jungle gym. He had no idea what it meant. No one got a chance to tell him about the spot yet and what it could do.

Shem had been cute and nice. His laugh gave Ellie butterflies and he smiled at her on the playground. But the other students told him about the spot quickly, backing away from him as they did. Almost as if they were afraid if they turned their backs to him, he would pounce, infecting them with whatever the spot was.

It was the first time that Ellie had seen the spot, and she was terrified of it. She had not thought that it could actually be real. As the details of each story changed slightly from telling to telling, she assumed that it was actually just an urban legend that the older kids told to freak out the younger kids. Ellie was ashamed, but she had stepped away from Shem too.

His new friends disappeared quicker than they arrived, treating him like the only oatmeal raisin cookie on a platter of chocolate chip cookies. Ellie didn’t mind an oatmeal raisin cookie, but she was too scared to approach him. So she watched him distance himself from the other kids more with every passing day. After a while, he didn’t seem to mind that the other kids avoided him. His shoulders didn’t slump as much and he stopped trying to play with the other kids at all, choosing to retreat behind one of the school sheds for recess and only returning after the bell rang.

It took nine days for the spot to take Shem. The papers said that there was lead paint in Shem’s room. Ava’s dad works on house renovations and she said that Shem’s room had more lead paint than her dad had seen in his entire career. She also said that her dad was really confused because he had been the one who inspected their house a month before.

Ellie couldn’t remember how long Shem was in the hospital before he passed away. The counselors came in again and she wondered if they were considering a permanent position at Springwood Elementary.

There was only one more story left so far and its tale filled Ellie’s mind as the group of kids sang the next verse of the song:

Last was Rex, with quite a hex,

In the water did they splay.

Rex was the cool guy of sixth grade so she didn’t know him well. Guys like that hardly ever bothered with fourth graders unless they were making fun of them in some way. Ellie hated to say that she wasn’t too shocked when he got the spot. She didn’t know why. It felt a little right for him.

Rex got the spot after kissing Amanda on the slide during winter recess. Amanda spotted it on his ankle in the hallway when he was taking off his snow pants. Everyone froze, staring at Rex as his face turned ashy.

Amanda gasped, stumbling away from him. She made it all the way to the nurse’s office before she projectile vomited all over the place. Luckily, that made it hard for the nurse to argue when Amanda demanded her parents be called to take her home. Amanda never came back.

It was later the same week that our class got the news. Mrs. Frey announced that Rex had been playing around on the pond behind his house when he fell in. His older sister, a high school student, saw the fall and tried to save him. Neither of them made it. Apparently the police had only just recovered the bodies.

The conversations at the lunch tables were interesting that day. Ellie could remember that Johnny, Rex’s neighbor, saw Rex playing with something on the surface of the pond. He claimed that he couldn’t see what exactly it was. He thought Rex had lost it, he thought that the spot was making him crazy. But the next thing he knew, Rex was falling through the ice and his sister was charging out of the house to dive in after him.

Johnny hadn’t called the police, or even any of their parents. He was frightened that the spot would pick him next if he interfered. The other people at the table shook their heads enthusiastically, agreeing with his reasoning completely.

Ellie’s mom had kept her out of school the following week, horrified by Rex’s death and the possibility that thin ice could capture her daughter as well. But over time, everyone seemed to move on. After all, it was an accident, just like all the others. The counselors took their leave and the other children continued to sing their song, adding Rex to their chant as he turned into just another piece of the spot legend instead of a real kid that they used to play with and share jokes with.

She had the final line of the rhyme memorized as well. Without hearing the voices of the other kids, Ellie mumbled, “But who is next, we are perplexed, still someone must fall prey.”

But that wasn’t the line that the other kids began to sing. Ellie watched as they held hands and began spinning themselves in a circle. The glee was obvious on their faces as they rehearsed their newly written verse.

Now there’s Ellie, we’re keeping tally,

So she’ll be cast away.

Ellie felt goosebumps form down her arms as the verse sent shivers through her back. Her eyes roamed to where Mrs. Furlong stood on the other side of the playground, refusing to stare directly at the singing children while also avoiding Ellie’s gaze. Ellie huffed, dropping the torn weeds from her hand as she pulled her palm up to stare at the quarter-sized black spot that tainted her skin.

The darkness seemed to roll underneath the spot, promising her a similar misfortune to the others. She ran her thumb over it as it throbbed below her skin. She could understand why Tommy would scrub his hand bloody trying to get rid of it. It didn’t feel natural. It didn’t feel right.

A gust of wind brushed through Ellie’s hair and she forced herself to break contact with the spot. Her eyes were drawn up, to the hedge that divided their school lot from the woods behind it. There was movement in the brush. Its form seemed to shift every time Ellie tried to focus on it until she spotted two dark holes of shadow. Its sharp teeth were exposed next as it spread them into a wide smile, stretching wider than she would have expected. A boney gray hand emerged from the hedge, waving slowly at where Ellie sat.

Fear boiled up through her chest and her heart fluttered, wanting to fly away. She pulled her feet underneath her, tensing her legs as she prepared to run. She could hear Mrs. Furlong off to her left, yelling at one of the other kids. Surely Ellie could reach her before anything happened. Surely Mrs. Furlong would save her from this creature.

But as she stared at the creature of shadow and as the spot swirled under her skin, the bubbles of fear began to pop. The hummingbird that was her heart returned to its nest. Her shoulders slumped, losing their tension as she tilted her head to scrutinize what she was seeing. She figured that she should still run, that Mrs. Furlong would still protect her from whatever it was that was grinning at her through the brush. She considered screaming, but the second the urge burst into her chest, it was smothered.

Her eyes watched those of the creature, its looming gaze boring into hers. Ellie found her mouth twitching, itching with the desire to smile back. She did. She raised her hand thoughtlessly, waving kindly at the hidden form in the same way it had waved to her.

The chanting started up again, echoing louder in Ellie’s ears this time as she kept her eyes locked on the hidden creature that lurked just out of reach. She kept waving, showing the form how friendly she could be. Her smile stayed, spreading across her cheeks as she hummed along with the forming song: