Darryl Crawford-The trouble of Carlos

*This story is underneath my folder titled “The trouble of Carlos”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33[2]”. Enjoy!*

The year was 2003. Darryl Crawford was thirteen years old. He had red lipstick going down the side of his mouth in an attempt to look like blood and he wore old, gray and black colored clothes from the deepest depths of his closet.

Last year was supposed to be the last time that he dressed up for Halloween and went Trick-or-Treating. His parents wanted him to stop celebrating Halloween the way he always did once he became a teenager, but Darryl couldn’t resist going out for candy in a costume. It was his favorite thing about Halloween and surely, his parents wouldn’t be too mad at him for Trick-or-Treating!

Darryl’s plastic shopping bag was overflowing with candy as he made it to his house. The autumn leaves twisted and swayed in the still, crisp wind, the pale moon shone softly in a black sky and his heart felt light. He could still hear the sound of other children laughing and talking amongst themselves as they Trick-or-Treated and though neither were his friends, he still felt connected to them, like they were all a community and that they were all in on it together.

Once he made it to his house, he took out his keys in his pocket and opened the door to Mom and Dad watching an overly gory horror movie. They wanted him to watch it with them, but Darryl opted to take a walk, so they let him go, unaware that he was going door to door for candy like the younger children.

“I’m home.” Darryl said.

Mom grabbed the remote on the coffee table and paused the movie, then asked:

“How was your walk?”

There it was, the moment of truth, creeping up in that instance.

“I actually didn’t go on a walk. I went Trick-or-Treating.”

“You did what?” Mom asked before she got up from the couch, Dad following after her.

“I went Trick-or-Treating! I know you guys said that I was too old for it but I wanted to participate and-“

“You are a teenager. You should be going out with friends on Halloween and watching scary movies, not Trick-or-Treating in a costume like a baby. This candy is going to the real children.” Dad said, reaching out for the bag.

Darryl jerked away, hurt but not surprised that he would say something like that and then he said:

“You can’t give it away, that’s not fair. Candy is for everyone, not just little kids. Can you guys please just let me have the candy?”

His parents looked like they were ready to yell at him, but they didn’t say anything. The both of them reached out for the plastic bag of candy like the animatronics in front of some of the houses with spindly claws. Darryl ran away with the bag, but not far off enough, because Mom snatched it from him and in that second, the doorbell rang.

Darryl watched as his parents gave away the candy that he spent all night hunting for, the candy he was anticipating to eat, the words “like a baby” a storm in his mind, tearing at his heart.

Did they really think that about him?

………………………………………………………………………………………

A year had passed since his parents gave away his Halloween candy. Darryl was not allowed to even DIY a costume, so he went outside for another “walk”.

He knew that his parents would give his candy away again, so that was why he hid behind a gigantic clawed pumpkin head animatronic, waiting for children to pass by so that he could jump out and scare them. Darryl had already scared a few children without getting noticed by the owners of the house, maybe he could scare some more.

If he couldn’t get any candy, he’d frighten others. It wasn’t like he had any friends to hang out with, anyway.

So, when he noticed a group of kids walk by, Darryl sprang out of his hiding place, screeching as he ran out, making sure that he was as loud as possible so that he could properly startle them.

The kids began to make a run for it, but Darryl continued to chase them, threads of laughter escaping his lips as they ran. Watching small children run in their outrageous costumes while holding bags of candy was so unfathomably hilarious that Darryl couldn’t help but cackle with joy as he ran behind them, making the most ear-piercing sounds that he could muster. He truly felt free, like there was nothing in the world that was binding him down, nobody around to stop him from just being.

Maybe he’d chase them all night! Wouldn’t that be something, to chase kids the whole night? He’d be just like the teenagers in the movies he watched, the characters he used to hate when he was younger, but who he had come to understand at the age of fourteen. The world just kept telling them no, kept expecting things of them, that they had to make all the little kids feel something close to what they felt, because it wasn’t fair that the kids were treated better just because they “looked cuter”. What did Kindergartners do to deserve special treatment, to-

His foot tripped over a wire before he could even stop himself. Something with many sharp and pointed ends fell on top of him and when Darryl tried to get up, he could not move.

The little kids had turned to look at him, their eyes wide with shock. What happened? Why couldn’t he move? What had fallen on top of him? His legs felt like they were growing numb, he was gripping onto the grass hard, and…and…

Was Darryl feeling blood spill out of his legs?

………………………………………………………………………………………

Darryl heard a beeping noise ring shrillly around him and his eyelids felt heavy as he opened them to obscenely bright white lights, a man in a white coat sitting in a chair next to him.

He could see that there was a blanket over him, but not much else. The rest of his vision was blurry for a bit, but after blinking his eyes for some time, he saw that the entire room was white and on a small white nightstand, there was a plastic bowl of gray-tinted yogurt and a plastic white spoon. The man was not the only other person in the room, for his parents were there, glaring at him just like they did the year before when he went Trick-or-Treating, as though they couldn’t believe the “ audacity” that he had, like they wanted to scold him for three whole years.

“You were out for a few hours, but it’s good that you’re awake now.” The man said, a smile on his face.

Darryl vaguely remembered chasing little kids and tripping over a wire, but not much else after that. What was the man talking about? Was everything okay? Was he going to be in the hospital for a while?

“What happened?” Darryl asked, slightly annoyed that his voice sounded drowsy and disembodied. Just how badly did he get hurt?

Mom sighed as she huffed:

“You tripped over a wire from someone’s demon tree Halloween decoration and now you can’t walk. Darryl, if only you paid attention to your surroundings and-“

“It’s not all his fault. For him to trip over a wire of what is supposed to be a very sturdy decoration means that it wasn’t assembled correctly.” The man-which Darryl took to be a doctor-said in defense.

As his parents and the doctor kept arguing, Darryl thought back to what Mom said about the decoration. She said that it was a “demon tree” decoration. Demon tree decorations were a new Halloween decoration, all of them being six foot tall trees with sharpened teeth on the many holes of the bark, teeth that were made of metal and thinly painted colors on it. The insides of the tree were metal and wires and if one didn’t assemble it correctly…

“Am I going to be able to walk again?” Darryl asked, not too eager to hear the answer. He had seen the teeth on the demon trees, he had heard of all the accidents and safety concerns with them. He didn’t think it would happen to him, he didn’t think that it would be possible and yet, he still tripped over a wire.

He could hear the heart monitor machine beeping loudly beside him as he thought of his legs all torn and bloody, just like in his parents’ favorite horror movie, just like-

“Of course! The surgery is only forty thousand dollars with health insurance and-“

“I’m sorry, forty thousand dollars?!” Mom asked incredulously, her eyes wide. Dad looked like he had a few choice words, Darryl’s heart beat faster. Yes, it was expensive, but surely, they wouldn’t mind paying for his surgery, right? They wanted him to be okay, right?

“But without health insurance, it’s fifty thousand! You have health insurance, don’t you? Forty thousand isn’t much for your son’s surgery compared to fifty thousand.” The man said.

Darryl’s heart sank as he looked at his parents’ frowning expressions. He already knew that they didn’t have health insurance and even if they did, he didn’t think they would pay. They never liked to pay too much for anything and even with his broken legs, he doubted they’d pay for him to get better.

“No, we don’t have health insurance. Are there any other alternatives?” Dad asked.

Whatever alternatives there were, it couldn’t have possibly been as good as the surgery, so Darryl lifted the blanket up tentatively just to see how bad it was, what the damage to his legs were and…and…

Both of his ankles were twisted as though they were nothing but rope. His skin clung onto the bones of his legs like a tattered zombie costume, his white bones slathered with dark red, almost rust-colored, blood. His knee bones looked like they were pushed backwards and yet, somehow, he was still alive.

He was still alive, but his legs were hardly there at all.

………………………………………………………………………………………

It was a year after the incident with the demon tree animatronic. Darryl scribbled drawings of twisted bone men with twisted bone trees, sitting in the farthest corner of the classroom. He didn’t need a wooden chair like everyone else, for his parents chose to get him a wheelchair. A rather cheap one hundred dollar wheelchair with wheels that creaked when he rolled by and a pleather seat that was already torn and ripped when bought.

People reacted differently upon seeing Darryl with a wheelchair. Some of them laughed at him because they thought that how he got injured was “funny”. If he pointed it out, they’d act like he was hearing things, but he knew. He heard them. Others would purposely go into the wheelchair accessible bathroom when he was around, then act like they did nothing wrong when he told them off.

But the worst thing that anybody did to him regarding the wheelchair was look at him with pity. As though his whole existence became something to feel sorry for, as if the fact that he survived such a stupid way to permanently lose the ability to walk was “inspirational”. They didn’t know that he would have preferred to die, so that he wouldn’t have to struggle with putting his own pants on over his gored legs every morning, so he wouldn’t have to hear about how he needed to “learn his lesson” by his parents, as though he wanted to lose his legs. All in one night, his life turned into Hell.

That was alright. He ran over the feet of anyone who treated him strangely with his wheelchair. Most of them wouldn’t have the heart to do anything to him and if they did, he would already be rolling away.

The bell rang, signaling the end of history class and the end of the school day. Darryl closed his journal and began rolling away. He didn’t actually take any notes, but it wasn’t like he cared anyway. What help would the notes do for him? It wasn’t like he’d use them again later in his life and besides, drawing was one of the things that made him happy. When he got home, he would-

“I like your hair.” A boy’s voice said behind him.

Darryl stopped. He was just leaving class when he heard the boy speak. He thought that he had heard the voice before, but could it really be that he was complimenting Darryl? The one person who didn’t treat him differently, who would probably understand his plight?

He turned around and found that yes, a boy with black hair trailing around his peach face and dim green eyes was smiling at him, his hands in his jeans pockets, his grin all genuine.

Though the boy looked just like any other boy Darryl passed, there seemed to be a hint of glowing gloom to his eyes, like he had deep, deep secrets that made him look at the world in an intricately woven spiderweb, ghostly-gauze hazy perspective: Magical and mortifying.

The boy was Carlos Bardot, who lost his parents and older sister to a car crash on Halloween night when he was twelve years old. He’s had to live with his grandparents ever since then. As if that wasn’t enough, his boyfriend, Beck, went missing on Halloween when he was thirteen years old and a year later, he got a girlfriend named Marilyn who also went missing on Halloween.

If anyone had bad luck, it was Carlos. If anyone could get him, he imagined that it would be Carlos.

“Thank you.” Darryl said, not trying to hide his smile. He dyed the tips of his hair bright blue because he wanted to express something more in himself and the fact that Carlos said something about it really, really made his day!

Carlos opened his mouth as if he were about to say something more, then he closed it. Only a few kids and adults were walking past them, Darryl could see that the sky had become a foggy white, a sign that it was the afternoon, so he was about to turn around and go home, but then-

“I see you drawing during class. I like them. I like them a lot. They remind me of the show Gaunt Ghouls. Have you ever seen it before? It’s an amazing show and not many people know about it! Beck and I used to watch it together before…”

Carlos trailed off, his lips curled into a frown. Darryl felt his heart pang with sorrow as he thought of Carlos watching the strange, slightly surreal nineties’ Halloween show Gaunt Ghouls with his boyfriend, not a care in the world, not a single worry in his mind. Darryl had watched a few episodes of the show. But those were only the free episodes and the rest of them were either lost media or cost too much money to pay for. He had an idea of what it was about and to have Carlos compare his art to the show? Why, that was one of the nicest things he ever heard in his life!

“Never mind that, though. I just thought you’d like this, since you seem to like creepy things. I hope you don’t think it’s too weird, I just found this at some thrift shop.” Carlos said, reaching into his jeans pocket for something.

Darryl watched, twirling a loose string on his right pant leg as he waited. The pants did a sort-of good job to cover up how damaged his legs truly were and for that, he was grateful, because while he imagined Carlos to be understanding, he still didn’t want Carlos to see his legs.

Nobody deserved to see the horribly mauled state of his legs. Not even the people who made fun of him and especially not Carlos.

After a few seconds, Carlos pulled out a necklace that appeared to be made of…human teeth?

“You found this at a thrift store?” Darryl asked, staring at the necklace. The teeth were a little bit yellow, but they were neatly packed on a thin white string, shining in the school’s fluorescent lights.

“Yes, I did. Quite an unusual find, isn’t it? Do you like it?” Carlos asked. His voice wavered as though he were afraid of what Darryl’s response would be, his green eyes held a bit of kindness mixed with fear.

It really was an odd gift, but no other kid at school really bothered to have a conversation with him and besides, the teeth necklace wasn’t terrible.

“It’s cute in a scary kind of way. My favorite kind of cute. Thanks.” Darryl beamed. Partly from it being the gift, partly from how excited Carlos looked to give it to him, to see that he actually loved it!

“You’re welcome. Keep drawing, your art could be in some nightmarish cartoon show one day.” Carlos said as he handed the tooth necklace to Darryl.

As Carlos walked away, Darryl ran a hand over the hard, pebble-like teeth necklace. He didn’t like seeing his own legs, but the teeth necklace looked small and dainty, delicate and sweet, like it didn’t come from bleeding, broken gore.

Darryl raised the necklace above his head and placed it around his neck, feeling somewhat special and wondering in the back of his mind if Carlos would ever try to talk to him again, or if it was just some fleeting thing that would only ever happen once.

He hoped they got to talk to one another soon.

………………………………………………………………………………………

Darryl and Carlos had first spoken to one another on September 15th, 2005. The both of them had talked more to each other after that, just like Darryl hoped. Carlos gave Darryl spindly dead flowers and soft, innocently curled up dead animals, both things that sparked electric-bright life into his heart. Sometimes, the dead animals would come with colorful ribbons attached to their necks.

Darryl knew that it was Carlos’ way of being kind and he appreciated every bit of it, for all the strange gifts were cherished in his junk drawer, because nobody but him would care to look there. Especially not his parents, who hated stepping foot into his room for anything.

They had developed a friendship with one another and then, as their connection became ever so more entangled, the friendship had melted into something romantic.

All of that had led to Carlos driving Darryl to his house in his car, past the sparkling orange LED lights, the scattered decaying leaves on the street, and the reprehensible demon tree animatronics.

Carlos had helped Darryl get into his car after school and folded the wheelchair into the trunk. Carlos didn’t make a big deal about it, he didn’t complain, he only smiled as he did so. It was such a minimal thing, but Darryl wished that people were as kind as him, as wonderful as him.

It was alright, though. Carlos was going to take Darryl to his house to watch Gaunt Ghouls with him and even though Darryl wouldn’t be out Trick-or-Treating in a costume, his Halloween would still be fun, it would still be special.

And he wouldn’t have to spend it alone.

………………………………………………………………………………………

“You know the thing about carrying the bride over the threshold? About how that’s supposed to be good luck?” Carlos asked once they stopped in front of his house. They had been sitting in silence for a bit, listening to the sounds of the leaves in the calm wind before Carlos had asked.

“Yes, I know. What about it?” Darryl asked, curious as to why Carlos would bring it up, but excited to see the sparkle in his eyes.

“What if I did that with you? Carried you over the threshold like a bride?” Carlos asked, the gleam in his eyes never faltering, never leaving.

Darryl’s heart raced as he thought of Carlos carrying him gently, just like a doll that would break at any second. While getting carried did sound nice, he couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy about it, because why couldn’t Carlos just give Darryl his wheelchair? It was probably out of love, but even then, it seemed like much.

“Why the bridal style? Couldn’t you use the wheelchair? Or carry me another way? Why the bridal style?” Darryl asked, playing with a loose string on his pants like he did before, when they first met.

“We don’t have any wheelchair accessible ramps in this house. Carrying you any other way wouldn’t be as romantic, now would it? You’re beautiful and enchanting, just like a real bride. Full of mystery and wonder, like a ghost bride. Now, isn’t that charming?” Carlos said with a smile, his eyes glittering like the yellow-tinted moon in the velvet black sky.

He leaned over for a kiss, Darryl did the same. Then, Carlos got out of the car and went over to Darryl’s side, unbuckling his seatbelt and carrying Darryl in his arms, just like he said he would.

“Are your grandparents home?” Darryl asked, for when Carlos stepped through the threshold, he could not believe how quiet it was, how peaceful it was. Surely they couldn’t be alone, right?

“They went out to see friends close by. It’s okay, they trust me to be alone.” Carlos said, gently lying Darryl down on the couch and turning on the TV.

Carlos then walked away, leaving Darryl in front of the TV that played an oddly familiar, dreamlike Halloween show…Gaunt Ghouls! Carlos had turned on Gaunt Ghouls for him!

The plaid couch covered in blankets felt so, so soft and the TV was muffled enough to sound like a lullaby, the voices of the characters like old friends. Darryl couldn’t wait for Carlos to join him, maybe with a bowl of candy corn to go with the spirit. If he didn’t have candy corn, then pumpkin spice cookies would suffice. Either way, Carlos would bring out the perfect snack, for the perfect night, with the perfect show and-

“What are you doing?! What’s happening?!” Darryl cried out, for all so suddenly, he was made to lie on his stomach and deep in his back, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain and two legs on either side of his hips keeping him in place. Could it really have been Carlos who was hurting him?

“This may hurt now, but it won’t later, because we’re going to be together forever and I’m finally going to be happy! I’ve eaten Beck, I’ve eaten Marilyn, and now, Darryl, I’m going to eat you. You’ll be perfect, though. You’ll help me feel better.”

Darryl tried to crawl away, to push Carlos off of him, but Carlos kept him in place and the pointed, jagged, blade-like feeling running along his back could have been nothing more than a knife, a knife that Carlos was using to kill him, to eat him, to finish him off.

“You liked Marilyn’s teeth, didn’t you? Well, her teeth wouldn’t be as pretty as yours!”

So that was what the teeth necklace was? The teeth of somebody he passed by in school? Tears burned in Darryl’s eyes as he mentally cursed himself for not realizing something was wrong with Carlos sooner, because why did he take Carlos to be a little eccentric? Why did he try to look at Carlos in a benign light? Life wasn’t like the movies, where surprises led to cheerful adventures that one would hold close to forever, where unhappy endings were impossible. No, Darryl was trapped, unable to run, just like when the demon tree fell on him, when he chased the kids, when he thought that he could have a joyful Halloween, just like he used to.

Soon enough, Darryl could feel Carlos’ teeth sinking into an open wound, could hear the feeble sputtering of blood come from the gored holes of his flesh, could see the TV screen grow foggy with his tired, weary eyes.

And amidst all the sadness, deep down, he felt fury blaze within him, for how dare Carlos rip him apart, how dare he leave him on the couch without a second thought, as if he were a rag doll destined to have shredded seams and plucked-out button eyes and…and if the afterlife were real, if there was some way that Darryl could make him pay, he’d do it in a heartbeat, faster than when Carlos suddenly jumped on him and stabbed him.

Tears spilled from Darryl’s eyes, but he didn’t have the strength to cry, for in seconds, he was going to die, all because he loved a lonely boy.