Red Hair

Red Hair is a scary story written by bensbuddy123 (AKA cforcatherinej) in collaboration with ScaryForKids. It’s about a group of students who bully one of the girls in their class until she can’t stand it any longer. The illustration below is an oil painting by Gregory Gobla titled “Girl With Red Hair”.

My name is Elizabeth and I’m sitting in a prison cell, waiting for my trial to begin. I am here today because I was a bully. I am here today because of Isabella. I suppose I should tell you my story…

A few weeks ago, I was happy and carefree. There was a group of kids I hung around with at school. We thought we were the coolest students in the class and we used to have a lot of fun pushing people around. There was one girl in particular who we bullied mercilessly. Her name was Isabella and she had red hair.

Every day, we followed her as she walked down the school corridors, bumping into her and trying to trip her. We knocked her books out of her hands and spat in her face. We made her life a living nightmare. At the time it seemed like fun.

But one day, Kylie, Jordan, Jess and myself took it too far. Isabella came to school in a new dress and she looked so proud and smug that we just couldn’t resist. Jordan took a garbage can and dumped it over her head. I stole her books and tossed them out the window. Jess filled a bottle of water and threw it all over her, drenching her clothes. We were heartless, but what Kylie did was the worst thing of all.

She collected some dog poop from the school yard and brought it into the classroom in a plastic bag. Then, we all held Isabella down and Kylie smushed the dog poop into her hair. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Tears were streaming down the poor girl’s face as she tried to clean off the poop, but it was no use. By the time Kylie was finished, it was all over Isabella’s face and matted into her red curls.

The last thing we saw as she walked home, was her dog poop-covered red hair blowing in the breeze. We thought nothing of it and we were just laughing as we walked away. Now, I wish it had never happened.

The next day, when we came to school and heard the horrible news, we were dumbstruck. At first I didn’t want to believe it. The night before, Isabella had walked all the way home with the dog poop in her hair. She went up to her bedroom and locked the door behind her. When Isabella’s mother called her to come down for dinner, there was no answer. Her mother went upstairs and when she found the door was locked, she began to panic.

Isabella had wrapped a bed sheet around her neck and hung herself from the wardrobe. Her face was turning purple. Her mother managed to cut her down and, miraculously, she was still alive. They rushed her to hospital and the doctors were able to save her life. However, she was left in a coma.

Jordan, Jess and I were freaking out, Kylie told us to calm down and act natural.

“Nobody else knows what we did,” she said. “As long as Isabella is in a coma, our secret is safe.”

However, a few weeks later, we heard that Isabella was showing signs of recovery. The doctors expected her to wake up soon. When Kylie found out, she flew into a panic. She took us to her tree house and said that she had a plan.

“Okay,” she began, “If Isabella starts talking, we’ll be in a world of trouble. They’ll put us in prison for this. I’m not kidding, it has happened before. We’re not going to let that happen, so here’s what we’re going to do. We have to sneak into the hospital and have a little talk with her. Make her understand that she better keep her dumb mouth shut if she knows what’s good for her. She can’t tell on us. It will ruin our lives. I won’t let that happen.”

The next day, we all skipped school. Kylie gave me a ride in her car and we met Jess and Jordan at the hospital. Kylie told me to find out which room Isabella was in. I went up and asked the receptionist. When she told me she could only give out that information to family members, I lied and said I was Isabella’s sister.

We went upstairs and looked for the room. Most of the doctors and nurses were too busy to pay any attention to us. An orderly noticed us and asked what we were doing there. I smiled sweetly at him and told him we were waiting for our mother who was visiting someone. He believed me.

Eventually, we found the correct room. I opened the door and we went inside. Isabella was lying there in a cold hospital bed. She was still unconscious and there was a tube going up her nose. We gathered around the bed and stared down at her. She looked so peaceful.

Suddenly, Kylie and Jess pulled sharp carving knives out of their pockets. Before I knew what was happening, they were viciously stabbing Isabella in the chest. I wanted to scream, but I just covered my mouth and stared in horror at the disgusting scene.

When they were finished, the bed sheets were soaked in blood. The two teenage killers turned to me. They had a crazy look in their eyes. For a moment, I thought they planned to murder me as well. Instead, they handed me the bloody knives.

“Quick, hide these!” hissed Kylie.

I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. My hands were shaking and I felt like I was going to throw up. I grabbed a small towel and wrapped it around the murder weapons. Then, I stuffed the bundle up my shirt.

“Just act natural,” ordered Kylie. “Nobody will suspect a thing.”

We made our way out of the hospital and when we reached the car park, Kylie grabbed my arm and held me back.

“Time to get rid of the evidence,” she said, pointing to a drain nearby.

I knelt down beside the drain and slipped the bloody knives through the grate. They fell to the bottom with a splash. Then, I stuffed the bloody towel down the drain too. Kylie drove me home and when she dropped me off outside my house, she warned me not to tell another living soul about what I had witnessed.

When I went into my house, I just ran upstairs, lay down on my bed and cried my eyes out. I was horrified by what the others had done and I felt so guilty that I had played a part in it. I helped them get into the hospital. I helped them find her room. I had no idea what they were really planning, but I did nothing to stop it. I even helped them hide the evidence. I couldn’t live with myself.

There and then, I picked up the phone, called the police and confessed everything. I felt somewhat relieved to just get it off my chest. They arrived at my house and arrested me in front of my shocked parents. I was brought down to the station, interrogated and locked in a prison cell.

That night, I cried myself to sleep.

In the morning, I awoke to find the policemen standing outside my cell. They told me Kylie had been murdered during the night. She was found dead in her bed and a knife was sticking out of her chest. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but it was about to get much worse.

Later that day, I heard reports from the other jailers that each of my friends had been killed in the same way. I was extremely scared.

That night, I had a horrible nightmare. I heard a girl’s voice singing softly in my ear.

“You helped them take my life, so now you’re going to feel the knife”

The first thing I saw was her bright red hair. It was Isabella! She was in my cell and that was scary enough but the thing that frightened me most was the glint of the burning red dagger she held in her hand. I dropped to my knees on the spot and begged for mercy.

“I’m sorry!” I repeated over and over again, “I’m so sorry!”

She grabbed me by the hair and threw me down on the cell floor.

“Sorry,” I whimpered “I’m really sorry!”

Isabella looked me in the eye and said, “Sorry’s not good enough. Is sorry going to bring me back to life? Are you going to rewind time and pull the knife out of my heart!?”

I was petrified, I shook my head.

“I was a monster,” I whispered, hanging my head in shame. “I hate myself. I hate the way I acted. It was inhuman. Even animals don’t treat each other like that. I should have been your friend. Instead of being a bully, I should have stood up for you. I should have protected you from the bullies. If I could do it all over again, things would be different. You didn’t deserve what we did to you… You didn’t deserve to be treated like that… Nobody deserves to be treated like that…”

“I know,” Isabella said as she slowly faded away and disappeared.

I awoke in a cold sweat. My arm hurt terribly. I looked down and saw that I was bleeding profusely. There were deep gashes in my arm. Someone had carved a single word into my flesh.

It read: “Forgiven”.

Next to me, lay a single red hair.