Magic Chalk

Chapter One

It was the summer of 2003, and 12 year old little Tommy was shooting hoops alone in the front driveway. He didn’t have any friends, and his dad was never really around, so unfortunately this was very common. He had gotten pretty good though, playing HORSE by himself.

After half an hour swooshing in the net, he was pretty hot. So he opened the garage door to grab something refreshing from the end of the room, with only a trail leading through the piles of stuff. His mom didn’t like to throw anything away. He rolled his eyes at the new arrivals.

“Hmm, popsicles or Capri Sun?…Capri Sun!”

He stuck the straw inside and sucked it dry. Even for a kid it was too sugary, but it hit the spot.

Clank!

“Ah!!”

A hammer had hit the ground off a long table covered in his dad’s tools.

“How did you get in here?”

The squirrel made squirrel sounds like it was looking for a mate in a place like this, flashing its tail like a peacock. He chased it away. He knelt down to pick up the hammer, and saw something neon pink in the far corner beneath a box angled against the wall. It was a really big piece of chalk.

“Huh.”

He ruffled through some junk to get to it and picked it up.

He could play ‘Around the World’ game with this, he thought.

He made his way out of the garage and went to draw the first circle. And when he completed the line, the center of it shined. It hurt his eyes. When he looked down at it, it looked like a big puddle of water casting his reflection.

“What the fuck???”

Now his mom would have told him to wash out his mouth with soap if she were here, but the curse was justifiable. I stared at it for a moment, bewildered. It wasn’t there a minute ago. And it hadn’t rained? He looked up at the sky, then back down. He went to put his finger in.

“What the FUCK!!”

He fell back on his back at seeing another finger come through the puddle. He very slowly and cautiously crawled on his hands and knees to take another look. Normal. Just his reflection. Then his reflection gave a disturbing devious smile. And Tommy definitely was not smiling.

Before he could scream, a hand whipped out and pulled his entire body through the opening. He was then a foot up in the air, and he landed on his butt when he landed.

“Ow!”

He looked back into the hole and saw that same evil looking grin. Then the other Tommy wiped his hand across the circle and the “water” was gone, replaced by a circle of smudged chalk.

“WHAT THE FUCK!!!”