Shane

You remember how there was always this weird kid in school who was never really up-to-speed in the social skills department? The kid who hardly talked, and when they did talk, usually said something that would offend people or scare them off? The kid who was universally bullied by the other kids, who then tried to justify it by saying they "deserved" it? My senior class had Shane, who was definitely one of those kids.

Shane was pretty much a poster child for the goth scene - always dressed in black, always listening to various kinds of metal music, and completely obsessed with bizarre, "occult" stuff. We always figured he kept drawing those pentagrams and runes and goat faces on all of his stuff just to disturb the teachers and get attention from us. That's why none of us were afraid to mess with him.

At worst, kids would shove him around, steal his books, and, at one point, set one of his sketchbooks on fire. At best, they - the kids who didn't want to be targeted themselves, anyway, including myself - simply ignored what was going on and said he was a "freak". Since my school was quite small, this included pretty much all the seniors. Poor Shane never stood a chance.

A few weeks before graduation, a group of us had begun to hassle Shane about his sketches again. However, instead of glaring or shouting, he began to laugh. Then, he grabbed the collar of his shirt and stretched it down, revealing a large, circular symbol carved into his chest. The carvings themselves had scabbed over, but small splotches of red remained where the blood had stained his pale white skin. Later, my girlfriend at the time would tell me that she had seen similar markings on his arms that day.

"I'm going to Hell soon," I remember him saying to us, "I'll see all of you there."

No one bothered him after that, and I assume that one of us told the principal about it, because the next day he was taken to an institution and placed on suicide watch. A week later, a letter was sent to all of our parents saying that Shane had died in the facility. Throughout the next few days, all of the teachers were tight-lipped about the nature of his death. But those of us who saw our principal puking in a trash can after talking to police knew it hadn't been pleasant.

After we all graduated, Shane was pretty much forgotten. I stayed in touch with some of my fellow classmates and lost contact with others. Once Facebook became popular, I would reunite with quite a few Class of 2000 alumni, and that was when I learned that seven of them had already died. I then watched as, one by one, all the students from that single class died over the course of a decade. Some were listed as accidents; others went missing. Some, however, had been violently decapitated, their heads not so much as cut off than devoured.

The murders unsurprisingly left our entire hometown devastated and fearful. In the end, only three of us were left, and we all agreed to meet back home and ask the police to protect us and our families.

When I arrived at the meeting spot, the other two never showed up.

Now, when I go to sleep at night, I keep a gun under my pillow and a rosary in my hand, begging God to protect me and begging Shane to forgive me. I'm so sorry, Shane. We all are.