You know I was going to write about a phantom grocery cart dumper that is terrorizing our neighborhood…..well, really, my front yard (twice hit), but I was just getting ticked off thinking about the entire thing so I changed course and decided to share a very short story. I wrote this –and many others — when it was my turn to take care of Mama. It wasn’t really a story to me when I jotted it down back then, but an idea I didn’t want to forget, an idea I could possibly develop into a future story.
My dad’s farm is isolated. Probably an exaggeration but the thing is, even with a spotlight high up on a telephone pole throwing out light, it is pitch black out there and kind of scary at night. The night sky is beautiful, the stars brilliant, but the darkness and the sounds only nighttime seems to conjure up spooked me so I never stayed outside for long. It was just me and Mama during the night, and Mama was frail and not in good health. They had satellite TV but I rarely watched it. I mostly read and wrote “stuff” in notebooks. I typed the story almost as is, so it’s rough.
Pass Me By, Stay With Me
by Gloria Esquerra
He said his name was Hunter.
“Hunter what?” one of the girls asked him.
“Just Hunter.”
We were six girls, all sixteen, all foolish and gullible, all ordinary looking. Six high school girls who only wanted what the popular girls had, six girls that went unnoticed by the masses. We were playing a silly game called “Pass me by, Stay with me” when Hunter walked into the classroom. It’s a game much like “Bloody Mary,” but a mirror is not involved and no one waits for an image to appear. No. We sit in a circle, clap our hands three times, pound the table twice with both fists, then reach out to once clap the hand of the girls sitting to our right and left, and say “pass me by” or “stay with me.” You have to make a choice on which phrase you speak for it’s against the rules to say both. Usually the game is played when a boy enters our space. The hope is that a handsome, popular boy would appear and would be irresistibly drawn to the one who whispers “stay with me.” Thing is, I found it odd that only one girl could whisper “stay with me” at any given time. But it was only a silly childhood game so I didn’t worry too much about that oddity.
That’s what were were playing when Hunter appeared. We all kind of gasped when we saw him. He was startling handsome, with the most mesmerizing blue eyes I’d ever seen, and the darkest hair that curled over his brow and around his ears and neck. He was new to the school. At least we had never seen him on campus before, and he was lost. He said he was looking for Mr. Wyman’s classroom, which is in Building B. We were in Building A. We gave him the directions to Mr. Wyman’s classroom.
Joni urgently whispered, “Game time.”
Another girl and I shook our heads no. I found the idea of playing the game while a hot guy was still in the room embarrassing. What if he knew about the game? And we were in high school now, for crying out loud, not elementary school.
Hunter started to leave when Joni and three other girls began clapping. He turned to see what was going on but did not interrupt the game to ask. He stayed to observed the four players, and heard Joni utter, “Stay with me.”
I watched him smile at Joni, causing her to blush furiously. “Will you show me where Mr. Wyman’s class is, please?” He spoke directly to Joni. “I’m already lost and I think I’ll be late if I try finding it on my own.”
Joni sprang up and Hunter took her hand in his like he had known her forever. Joni looked back at us in happy astonishment. The rest of us just sat there, stunned by what had just transpired.
“Was that for real?” “Am I hallucinating or did that actually just happen?” “Do you think the game really works or is Joni just playing one of her damn tricks on us?”
Questions like that shot around our little circle. I saw Joni later that day. She claimed it had not been a trick and that she and Hunter were now a couple in love. That was the last time I spoke to her, or saw her alive. The cops came, an investigation ensued, but it was over fairly quickly. The coroner ruled Joni died from natural causes.
I bumped into Hunter the day following Joni’s death. We were passing in the hallway. He looked curiously at me, and I at him. He asked, “Do you want to play ‘Pass me by, Stay with me?’ May I stay with you if you play?”
I stared in horror at him. His eyes, those mesmerizing blue eyes, shifted slightly, but the slight change was enough to reveal the terrifying truth. The startling handsome boy answers the requests of females who play the game. He will go or he will stay. He prefers you request him to stay, for he is death, a hunter of souls.
