“My turn to tell a scary story,” I said in a quiet voice, looking at each of my new classmates in turn.  “And this one really is a true story.  I know, ‘cause I was there.”

I let my wheelchair slip closer to the fire, watching their reactions surreptitiously.  A damp chill in the night air marked the end of Autumn and the moon glowed nearly full behind a vaporous cloud.  Our Seventh Grade class was small, but these were the six of the coolest.  Three boys, three girls … and me, the new kid in town, hoping to make it a gang of seven.

“It all started last year on Halloween night, around a campfire in the woods … kind of like us, here.”  I leaned closer to the fire to let the light play across my face.  Brandon, the biggest of the three boys, pushed a foot between one of my front wheels and the rocks circling the fire.  I pretended not to notice.

“Where I used to live, a bunch of us had a club … like that Midnight Society show on Nickelodeon.  We used to meet at night in the woods and build a fire, just like in the show, only we didn’t just tell stories.  We’d play Truth or Dare.”

Marcy giggled, making her short blond hair bounce, and hugged herself against the cold.  Janet rolled her eyes and grimaced at Marcy, then glanced at Jarred with a strange look on her face.  Jarred frowned at Janet and turned back to me.

“What kind of dare?”  Janet challenged, eyebrows raised, staring at me.  I saw myself reflected in her eyes:  a skinny girl with almost no hair, stuck in a wheelchair.  What kind of dare could a cripple take?  What kind of truth could I possibly have to hide?  Marcy stopped giggling and Nicole muttered a protest at Janet.

“Let Nelly tell the story, Janet.” Brandon said.  Jerrad and Trevor backed him up with “yeah’s” and “let her talk already.”

“I wasn’t in a wheelchair then,” I said, looking directly at Janet.  “Like I said, it was Halloween night and my turn on the hot seat.  Tommy came up with a question he knew I’d never answer.  He came up with the dare, too: go into the old house on Truman Street and get a human bone from the boarded up attic.  Club rules said I couldn’t talk to anyone in the club until I brought it back to prove I’d been there.”  I shuddered despite myself.

“No!” Marcy squealed.  “A real human bone?”

“Cool!” Jerrad and Trevor said in harmony.

“But what if there wasn’t one there?” asked Nicole.  “You’d be banished from the club.”

“Yeah,” said Janet.  “What made them think there were human bones in that attic?”

I shrugged, hoping to look nonchalant, and warmed my hands over the fire while Brandon discreetly hooked his boot more securely around my wheel.  “We all knew about that house.  Everyone in town said it was haunted, even though people still lived there.”

No one spoke, so I continued.

“Tommy knew I was scared.  I mean, it’s one thing to run up to a house and bang on the door.  It’s a whole other thing to actually go inside, up those creaky nasty stairs and …”  I sucked in a breath, pushing the memory flash aside. “… and go into that attic.”

Silence and wide eyes egged me on.

“Human bones.  Bones of kids who’d tried and failed.”

I let that soak in for a full minute.

“But Tommy was no way going to back down.” I continued.  “He grabbed Billy, who was Jimmy’s brother and only ten at the time, pushed him at me and said, ‘Even Billy’s gone into that old house.  Tell her, Billy!  It wasn’t so bad, was it?’

“Tommy had a nasty look on his face.  I knew he resented Billy hanging around our meetings, but Jimmy always defended Billy, so Tommy had to leave him alone.  Most times.  Anyway, Billy just looked at me with watery eyes, kind of shuddered and then he threw up right on my boots.  It was gross, but in a scary way.”

“Omigod!” Marcy groaned, covering her eyes.  “Tell me you didn’t go.”

The other five all shushed her.

“I wasn’t going to let Tommy push me out of the club that easy.  After all, even that kid Billy had the guts to go inside the house, how could I not go?

“So I accepted the challenge, spit and shook hands.  The  guys in the club are cool.  Once you’ve accepted a challenge, they won’t try to trip you up or get you caught by the cops or anything.” 

Six heads nodded in agreement.  That was the way things should be.  Maybe this town wouldn’t be so bad, I thought.

“I headed straight to Truman Street after we put out the fire.  It was pretty late already for Trick or Treaters, but the people who lived in that house were older.  I figured they would be at a party somewhere, especially Crazy Mother – their son.  He should be out breaking into a 7-11 or something on a night like that.  He was totally creepy.  Talk about your Bad Seed that never grew up.

“Crazy Mother wasn’t really his name, but that’s what everyone in town called him.  I think his name was John or something.”  I gritted my teeth, trying to hold my arms still.  Every muscle in my body was twitching with the memories of what followed.  No way was I going to let them see how much this still affected me.

“When I got to the edge of the woods behind the old house, I could see a light flickering through a ground floor window at the back of the house.  Either somebody was home or they’d left a fire burning.  I crouched down and made a dash for the house where the distance between shadows was the shortest.  By this time, I was cussing the brightness of the moon and the clouds that had already melted away.

“I pressed myself against the house in the shadows for a moment … to catch my breath and check for open windows.  The light was coming from the TV.  Some horror movie was on; I couldn’t tell which one it was, but there was a lot of screaming and weird music.  Someone was in the easy chair facing the TV; I could see the back of a head and one arm hanging over the arm of the chair with a bottle dangling from the hand.  I made a wish and cracked a wishbone in my head.  I won the break, so he should have been passed out cold.  He might have been, only just not cold enough.”

I stopped talking and stretched my hand out toward Brandon.  He immediately slapped a bottle of Dr. Pepper into it.  This guy was definitely clear of all boy fleas.  Never had them, never would.  Janet and Jerrad were holding hands with Janet’s purse hiding their gesture from view.  I wondered if it was really a secret or if they just didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to tease them.

“From the edge of the woods, not far from where I’d been moments ago, I heard branches snapping and brush being crushed under foot.  Then a big hulking shadow emerged from the woods and lumbered across the clearing.”  Yeah yeah yeah, big words for a kid, I thought.  Let’s hope these cool kids won’t think I’m a geek because my vocabulary isn’t limited to words of one syllable. 

Wide eyes and silence, once again, convinced me that these kids were into it.

“The thing was swinging an axe at its side and strange blubbering sounds came from his head.  As he came closer, he began to take shape.  At first I thought I was seeing Sashquatch, you know, the ape-man, only he was wearing baggy clothes and a big hat.  Then I saw it wasn’t a hat at all … that was his head … big and round.”

I raised my arms in the air, making a big circle around my head.  “And the head was pointy with hair sprouting from the top like an onion.  That’s when I knew what it was:  Onion Head!”

“Onion Head?”  Six voices gasped in unison.

“Onion Head,” I confirmed.  “I had always thought Onion Head was just a story made up to scare kids into staying in their safe little beds at night… until I saw him standing there.”

“What did you do?” Marcy asked, scooting closer to Nicole and shivering.

“What else could I do?  I held my breath and pressed tighter against the building.  But he wasn’t coming for me.  He walked straight up to the back door and hit it with a fist.  He was only twelve feet from me and I could hear him panting and whimpering, axe still dangling from his other hand.  Then he stepped back and swung the axe at the door.  It made a horrible noise.  Man, I thought this was the end of Crazy Mother.  Not that I cared, of course.”  I wiped my palms across my thighs.  Funny, I swear I felt the pressure of my hands against my thighs and in that moment I could believe the doctors were wrong about me never walking again.

“The door was splintered, but it still wouldn’t open when old Onion Head pulled on the knob.  He pressed his big ugly face against little window in the door, so I inched away from the wall and managed to get an angle to see the TV without stepping out of the shadow.  The head wasn’t in the chair any more.”

Nicole whimpered and Janet whispered, “Get out of there!” under her breath.

“Just as Onion Head was winding up for another swing of the axe, I heard the sound of shotgun shells slamming into their chambers.  Ch-chung.  Really loud, too, so it must have been close even though I couldn’t see anyone through the window.

“Onion Head heard that noise too.  He stopped dead still, holding that axe over his big onion head.”  I took a gulp of Dr. Pepper and flicked the bottle sweat from my fingers into the fire.  The flame snapped and sizzled.  Marcy jumped in her seat.

“I wish I could tell you the rest of what happened that night, but I decided then and there that dead girls don’t tell ghost stories and ran like hell for the woods.  I heard some noises behind me, but didn’t stop running until I got home, shimmied up the tree next to my bedroom window and launched myself into bed without a backward glance.  It didn’t occur to me that they might have seen me … until later.” 

I took another gulp of Dr. Pepper and chewed my lips, deciding whether to make them wait for another night to hear the rest of the story.  Marcy and Nicole giggled nervously.

“The next morning, it was all over town:  Crazy Mother’s mom and dad were dead.  Murder-suicide, they said.  Seems his mom took a shotgun blast to the head, then his dad planted a 45 against his own temple and pulled the trigger.  No one knows why.  Newspaper said Crazy Mother was passed out in the rec room when it happened, but he planned to continue living in the house.  No mention of Onion Head.  I didn’t go to school for the next couple days, caught the flu or something.  Couldn’t stop throwing up and thinking about Billy and Onion Head and Crazy Mother.  Anyway, no one in the club would talk to me until I brought back a human bone from the house.”

“And you went back there?”  Marcy asked.

“You never told anyone about Onion Head or Crazy Mother with the shotgun?”  Trevor smirked and nudged Brandon.  “Tough chick,” he said to Brandon and they nodded approval.  I knew I had to continue the story, but still wasn’t sure they’d still say that after hearing the rest.

“I went back and I never told anyone about that night until now.”

Jerrad jumped, pulling his hand away from Janet and rewarding her with a dirty look.  Trevor smirked at the two and whispered something to Nicole behind his hand. 

“You wish!”  Nicole snapped and gave Trevor a fake punch to the shoulder.

“Hey.  Knock it off so we can hear the rest of the story.”  Brandon said.

“What’s the matter,” Jerrad challenged, “afraid she’ll roll into the fire before we hear the end?”

The six were suddenly quiet and I couldn’t see the look Brandon directed at Jerrad, but the laughing stopped and all eyes returned to me.

“I love the fire, always have.  Besides, it’s not like I can feel anything with my legs.”  I pulled on one pant leg to slip my foot more securely in the footrest.  “I could get tattoos all the way up and down both legs and up my back and never feel a moment of pain.  Think about that when you go for the rest of your tattoo, Jerrad.”

Jerrad grinned.  “Cool.  Would you do that?  I mean, would you really go get tattoos even though you’re in a wheelchair?”

“Why not?  I could wear shorts or a mini to show them off.”

“Tell us the rest of the story!  What happened when you went back?  Is that how you … got to be like you are, in that chair?”  Brandon demanded.

“I waited a couple weeks before going back,” I continued, ignoring Brandon’s question.  “Maybe it was three weeks, I don’t remember.  It seemed like a long time because I couldn’t meet with the club until I’d done my dare and I really hated school by that time.  There was snow on the ground and it was getting really cold at night, but I was determined to get into that house and get the human bone for my dare.  I thought it might be a little easier now that it was just Crazy Mother living in the house and people said he was always getting drunk and passing out since his parents died, anyway.

“That night, I crossed the woods to the back of the house just like I’d done on Halloween, only this time I was listening for Onion Head.  I got to thinking how strange it was that he was there that night, the same night of the murder-suicide.  But they weren’t hacked up with an axe or anything, so it couldn’t have had anything to do with Onion Head.  By the time I got to the house, I’d convinced myself that Onion Head wasn’t really Onion Head, just some kid with a mask playing a Halloween prank.  That made it easier to slip up to the house a second time and peek into the ground floor window.

“Just like last time, there was Crazy Mother, passed out in front of the TV with a bottle ready to drop out of his hand.  It hit me real funny and I had to wait a few minutes to make sure I wouldn’t crack up laughing.  This time I didn’t bother with the wishbone, I just straight out crawled over to the back door and let myself in.

“The only light in the room came from the TV and from the moon shining through the windows, but it was enough for me to get to the stairs without tripping over boots and food cartons on the floor.  I almost slipped in something mushy, though.  Don’t know what that was.  What a pig!  My mom would slaughter me if I made a mess like that in my room.”

Marcy’s head nodded in agreement.  Moms were like that.  I continued without taking a breath.  The sound of my own voice carried me back to that dark night.

“I stopped at the top of the stairs, listening to make sure Crazy Mother hadn’t suddenly woken out of his stupor.  It was quiet except for the wind.  Sounded like the wind was coming clean through the walls.  And the smell!  From the stairs, I could see police tape still strung across the doorway like no one had crossed through it since the cops left.  It was a sure bet no one had cleaned it since the murders.  I thought I was going to puke, but was too afraid of waking Crazy Mother.

“I stepped into the hallway, looking for the stairs to the attic, when something brushed the top of my head.  I jumped back and looked up, expecting to see a bat or maybe a dead body hanging from the ceiling.  But it was a rope and it was attached to a ladder that lead up through a square hole in the ceiling.  They had one of those old pull-down ladders instead of a regular stairs.  I yanked on the rope and the ladder slid down, making almost no noise at all.  I jumped on it as soon as I could reach it and scrambled up into the attic.

“It was pitch black.  I sat on the floor at the top of the ladder for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust and brushing the dirt from the floor off my hands.  Soon I could make out a few shapes in the room, so I crawled over to what looked like a blanket chest or a window seat.  I patted the sides of the chest, feeling for the edge of the lid.  It was cold like metal and hummed.  I felt a latch and gave it a shove.

“The room flooded with light and the cold air burned my face.  I pushed myself away from the chest, closing my eyes against the blinding light, then slowly turned back to see what treasure I’d found.  It was a freezer, with a light bulb triggered by my opening the lid … but why would old bones be stored in a freezer?  I leaned into it and pulled at a piece of cloth that looked like a baby blanket.

“I was so intent on working the baby blanket loose, I had stopped listening for Crazy Mother.  Something moved in front of my face from the side and suddenly I was being dragged backwards.  A horrible smelling rag pressed against my face and I couldn’t breath.  I know I struggled, but I must have passed out.  The next thing I knew I was sobbing into a pillow and trying to roll over onto my side.”

I gulped a throatful of night air and chugged the rest of the Dr. Pepper while the kids sat dead still, waiting for me to continue.  The lump in my throat refused to go down.  I flipped the empty bottle at the trashcan and wondered if I should make up a lie to finish the tale quickly.  What good would it do to tell them everything anyway?  Things were going so well.  I caught the look on Brandon’s face and decided to tell the truth.  There was no pity there, just something else … could it be admiration?  Could there be admiration for a legless girl from the swim team captain?  I couldn’t be sure, but I knew I’d already gotten more pity than I could stomach at the old school.

“I didn’t open my eyes right away, but I knew from the smell that I was still in the attic.  The house was quiet again, the roar in my head nearly drowned out the hum of the freezer and the sighing of the wind through the boarded windows.  My ankles were tied together with a rough twine and my wrists were tied together and forced over my head.  I felt like a Christmas pig trussed up and ready for gutting.

“The ladder groaned.  Someone was coming up into the attic.  Maybe if I lie very still and breathe shallowly, I might convince him I was dead and then make my escape when he was gone again.  He was breathing hard, still standing at the top of the ladder.  I could feel his eyes on me.  The body smell was overwhelming even from this distance.  That made it easier to breath shallowly.  It was like fumes burning the lining of my nose and throat.  Our next-door neighbor was a boozer and he never smelled that bad.

“I followed his footsteps as he approached the bed where I lie with my eyes closed.  His breathing was even more strained and movement sounded clumsy and off-balance.  It wasn’t booze I smelled; it was something else.  The footsteps stopped short of the bed, moved away from me and towards my feet and beyond, then stopped again.  A rustling sound, the sound of chipped ice drew a new picture in my mind.  He was digging in the freezer and it wasn’t booze I smelled, it was that awful stuff from the rag that made me black out.  I recognized the odor from the Biology lab at school.  Formaldehyde.  That was the stuff in the jars with the pig fetuses floating around like sickly aliens.”

“Oh!” Marcy gasped.

“Gross!” Nicole and Janet chimed in unison.

“Cool!” from all three of the boys.

I nodded grimly and held my hand out to Brandon.  I was quickly rewarded with a fresh Dr. Pepper.

“What happened!” Trevor demanded.

“Yeah … didn’t you just mess your pants?”  Nicole exclaimed.

I grinned and took a couple gulps from the bottle, marveling at the wonders of soda and belching quietly.  Yeah.  These kids were okay.  Not like the prissy brats at my old school who took offense the first time I pitched a fit in my new wheelchair.

“Naw.  I was too scared to mess my pants.  So I’m lying there pretending to be dead as best I can and I hear the footsteps limping and stumbling over to the bed.  Then I feel this cold thing touch my face and it was just too much.  I couldn’t hold back.  I screamed so loud I thought I’d burst something in my throat.  Then I saw what was looking down at me and what it touched me with and screamed again.  It was horrible.  I darn near messed myself then.”

“What?  What?  What was it?” Marcy and Nicole chorused.

“Onion Head himself.”  My face scrunched up at the picture I couldn’t erase from my brain.  “And he was holding a dead hand with the skin peeling off it.  I tried to wipe my face where he’d touched me with the thing, but the twine around my wrists was tied to the bedpost.  I rubbed my shoulder across my face and Onion Head just stood there staring at me, drooling and waving the dead hand.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had dead skin hanging from my cheek.

“I heard the ladder groan again, like someone was charging up it to my rescue.  Crazy Mother hoisted himself up into the attic room, double-barreled shotgun in one hand and beer in the other.  He looked from Onion Head to me and back to Onion Head, then leaned the shotgun up against the wall and laughed a nasty laugh.  He looked more surprised to see me in his attic than to see Onion Head standing there holding a dead hand.

“ ‘Geez,’ Crazy Mother said to Onion Head, ignoring me and taking a swig from the bottle.  ‘Thought I was going to have to rescue you.  You got yourself a screamer, this time.’

“Onion Head bobbed his big onion head up and down, grunting like a pig.  He kept his eyes on the floor, like he wasn’t sure what Crazy Mother might do.  I was too stunned to say anything and too afraid to start screaming again.  He knew he had Onion Head living in his attic?  It was too much to believe.

“Crazy Mother looked at me with a drunken leer and said ‘Don’t mind ole Onion Head here, he’s not used to live playmates.  Mostly he only gets dead ones.’  He laughed and slapped Onion Head on the back.  ‘You all play nice now, ya hear?’ he said and thumped back down the ladder, leaving Onion Head and me alone in the attic.”

“Omigod!  Omigod!” Marcy whispered to herself, digging her pink fingernails into Nicole’s arm.  I don’t think even felt it through the sweatshirt, since she didn’t pull away.

“I can’t really say just exactly how the next part goes.  The doctors tell me that sometimes a head trauma will make a person forget all or part of what happened shortly before the head trauma and I guess that’s why.  I know I got lose from the twine, he’d probably never used it on a live kid before and didn’t know how weak it was … and I know I got the shotgun … and I can still see Onion Head’s face as he slammed back against the boarded-up window, big red spot growing across his chest, just before the boards gave out and he fell backwards through the window.”

I took another chug from the Dr. Pepper, spit it into the fire and watched the steam shoot into the air.

“I was still holding the shotgun when Crazy Mother came charging up the ladder a second time.  I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.  I suppose the first round is what took out Crazy Mother’s mom, so the shot I fired into Onion Head was already the second round. I remember glass breaking and Crazy Mother lunging at me and shouting something.  All I could think was how I didn’t want to wind up in that freezer for the next Midnight Club kid’s dare … and I jumped out the same window Onion Head just went through.”

The flames danced seductively at my feet, daring me to stretch out a leg and laughing at me, knowing I couldn’t take the dare.  I let my mind wander until Brandon cleared his throat.

“Is that how …?” Brandon asked, quietly urging me to the finish.

“Yeah.  The doctors said I landed on my back wrong and if I had landed a little closer to the house, Onion Head would have broken my fall … and maybe I wouldn’t be in this chair.”  My lower jaw pushed out defiantly.  “I pushed out too hard when I jumped.  Landed wrong.

“I didn’t remember anything when I woke up in the hospital.  The first thing they told me was that Onion Head saved my life by dragging my body to the end of the street and a police car drove us to the hospital.  When the police went back to the house and found the body parts in the attic freezer, they moved Onion Head into the hospital where they keep the criminally insane.  Cops found Crazy Mother passed out in the back yard and figured he had nothing to do with it.  But Crazy Mother did tell them that Onion Head was his little brother.”

I looked up from the fire to get the verdict from my new classmates.  Stunned eyes looked back.

“Wow.  And you never told anybody about the dares or about Crazy Mother?”  Trevor asked.

I shook my head slowly.  “Except you guys.”

THE END

But is it really the end? Of course not! There's a Christmas story you can access by returning to the main menu
Check HERE for a peek at Onion Head himself ... Sadly, the T-shirts are no longer available ... but you can still check in on his alter-ego HERE .