Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Crying Wolf Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

CRYING WOLF

A gentle golden glare seeped through the cracks around the frame and the even freckling of vent holes. It was a tight fit and it smelled of sweaty gym gear and wet sneakers, which made absolute sense since it was a locker.

An indeterminate amount of time had passed and Jordie’s ears suggested that maybe it was safe. Maybe there never was any real danger. They’d done a stupid thing, but possibly not a dangerously stupid thing.

“Or a janitor’s playing a trick,” Jordie whispered with a voice hardly more than a breath.

—

Only a few of them knew about the basement. Only a few of them knew about a classmate searching for Saku. Nobody really thought it was more than a tale big kids told little kids to give them shivers. That was until Oland went missing and left clues behind that suggested only one thing.

Neighbors saw Oland enter the school on a Saturday. It would be weird if it was anybody other than Oland, but Oland was a nerd and the teachers and janitors let him hang out in the library on weekends. Funding for the Whitewell town library had run dry and it had closed down just a year earlier. Oland lost his haunt and the heads of the school took pity on him.

The police investigation came up with nothing.

Jordie and his friends never liked Oland until he went missing. Suddenly it was as if someone stole a piece of their group when that boy who never really belonged disappeared.

—

Jordie put his ear to the cold steel door and pondered the likelihood of what he thought he heard and what he thought he saw from the corner of his eye before he kicked into gear and sought the shelter up the stairs, down a hall, into a change room, and behind a locker door.

Screaming. Growling. Wet snaps. Moans for help.

It was just a gag. It had to be a gag.

—

There were clues the adults ignored. Oland had three books on loan when he disappeared: Wolves in Canada, Truth Behind the Myths, and The History of Whitewell. Oland’s BB gun was gone and so was his lucky meteorite, according to his mother.

None of them, not Jordie, or Willy, or Jasmin, or Vanessa believed the stupid, shiny, magnetic rock was from space, not until he disappeared anyway. It was Josie who suggested space rocks were magnetic to metal and intangibles.

Ya know, like it can find stuff people can’t see.

They’d all nodded, knowing this was so. It was obvious then.

—

“Stupid,” Jordie whispered. It had been a real long time since he heard anything and with every dozen seconds, it became clearer that a janitor played a trick and scared everybody else away. Of course, there was no Saku the Wolf and if there was, Saku wasn’t living in the basement of the school. “Stupid,” he said a little louder and felt into the back of the handle mechanism that opened the locker door.

—

Willy was the troublemaker of the crew and he had detention Friday after school. He’d made a mess of ketchup and chalk. Although nobody saw him do it, everybody knew it was his handiwork. An outline like old cop movies, but huge, on the cafeteria floor. A ten-foot man-shape splayed out with a white outline while ketchup-blood smeared all over the chest and head.

The janitor made him get a brush and mop from the basement. That was where he found Oland’s rock.

The books, the BB gun, now the rock? Saku’s got him, probably ate him… We’ll be heroes when we kill that stupid dog.

—

Jordie was all for it, in theory. He didn’t really believe a mystical wolf somehow tracked down and followed one of the original settlers of Whitewell, not all the way from Finland. That was impossible. Dogs can’t swim across oceans, dogs can’t fly, and not even the most supernatural beast can teleport. He went along with the search for Oland because it was just something to do.

The locker door clicked and Jordie suddenly had second thoughts. He pulled it tight back and stared at the glow around the frame. What if there was a giant, kid-eating wolf out there and what if his friends were already dead?

“Just wait, probably nothing, just wait,” he moaned, his head leaned against the steel door.

—

They’d set out just after supper, wanted to be sure they’d get in and be alone, supposing the window Willy opened around the back of the school was still open at all. Jordie figured, or maybe hoped, it wouldn’t be.

It was and they entered. Willy had led the way to the basement. The stupid stone that may or may not have been Oland’s space rock leading him. To Jordie it was like the Ouija game and how you always knew somebody moved the plank of wood, not ghosts, not spirits.

There was a wooden crate that had no business in the school’s basement and Jordie suddenly felt a chill. He scoffed at the others checking out the box and meandered back toward the door and the stairs.

—

“Just some janitor playing a game,” Jordie said a little louder, puffing himself up. “Not no damned Saku.” The steel handle clicked and the door opened an inch. “Guys? Guys, you out there?”

—

There was the sound of rusty hinges and Jordie felt his heart drop. He’d stepped back to the staircase door and turned the knob. It was all crap. It had to be.

What’s that? Vanessa had asked and then Jasmin said, Like a statue or something.

Then Willy screamed and there was a wet snarl. The girls whined and Jordie peeked back, thought he saw blood and a long snout with bright white canine fangs.

—

“Just your imagination and a stupid, jerk-face janitor playing a trick,” Jordie said and pushed open the door to peer around the locker room.

—

The moans and snapping, lapping like a dog at a water dish, Jordie heard this from a distance as he ran. At the time, it was all so real and his only hope was to get away and hide from Saku. The Finnish hunter wolf existed and was in the school. Stupid Oland disturbed him and then stupid Willy made the whole crew disturb the thing as well.

Not me though, Jordie had whined, tears in the corners of his eyes when he first hid out.

—

“Not me though,” he said stretching his back. “Didn’t scare me though!” Heavy stomps, he crossed the locker room and swung open the change room door. “Didn’t scare me!” he shouted into the vacant hallway.

—

From inside the locker, he’d heard the clickity-clack of claws on the waxed stone floor. Those sounds drove icicles into his veins. The meat of his heart threatened to dance itself to death and his cheeks burned hotter than ever before.

—

Into the hallway, Jordie strode, slowing himself to prove his bravery. It wasn’t just the janitors. His friends were in on it too. They wanted to give him a scare because he was the youngest or maybe because he had red hair, who knows. It didn’t matter because he was onto them.

“Screw you guys!” he shouted, swinging open another heavy door.

Saku the stupid wolf. Dogs can’t swim across oceans. Can’t fly. Teleportation was TV crap.

“Stupid jerks,” he added gathering his bike from the wall at the south end of the school.

The other bikes remained and it was obvious the joke was still on. Jordie huffed and hopped on his Supercycle. See if he’d hang out with them again, yeah right. Their kind of friendship, he didn’t need that, no way.

Jordie lived only a block from the school and was home in just minutes. Closing in on twilight, Jordie slunk to his bedroom. His father was in the living room watching the game between the Eskimos and the Tiger-Cats. His mother was in the office on the computer, playing a game.

He switched on Facebook and instantly, a message popped up. It was from Willy’s mother, asking if Jordie had seen him.

“Pfft.”

They thought he was stupid. They didn’t fool him. It was surely Willy on his mother’s account.

Another message popped up, this time from Vanessa’s mother.

Hey Jordie, you see Ness?

Out the window, sirens roared. Cop cars zoomed up the street and stopped abruptly somewhere near the school.

“Nice try. You guys’ll get in real crap making phoney nine-one-one calls,” Jordie said.

Another message popped up, Willy’s mother again, Jordie, are you there? You weren’t at the school, right? Tell me you weren’t.

“You know I was, dick!” Jordie shouted as he typed.

The landline began to ring.

Something crazy going on! Corina Tanner posted alongside a picture of an ambulance and cop cars outside the school.

Corina Tanner was a high schooler that babysat Jordie sometimes. Not likely someone in on the joke.

“Jordie, Willy’s mom is on the phone! She wants to talk to you!”

“Okay, Mom!” Jordie scooped up the telephone next to his keyboard, knowing it was one of the girls pretending to be Willy’s mother.

“Tell me he isn’t at the school!” a loud, adult voice screeched into his ear.

Holy crap, this is nuts! Corina Tanner posted another picture from through her window of paramedics pushed away from the school by the police, gurney empty. One officer had the yellow tape roll in his hands, about to tie off the front entrance.

“Tell me!”

Jordie dropped the phone and rose from his computer desk.

“It’s impossible, dogs can’t swim ‘cross oceans…Saku couldn’t smell that far anyway…Saku’s not even real. No real wolf could hunt like that, no way.”

Behind him there was a rattle, clothes fell from hangers in his mostly empty closet, and a hockey trophy teetered and fell from his dresser. Faintly, Jordie heard a breathy growl.

It was just a game. A big hoax to really get him. Saku wasn’t real.

“Enough,” he tried to shout but hardly wheezed.

The growl grew louder and Jordie closed his eyes, ready to concede.

“Okay, okay, you got me!” he whined.

There was a wet slapping, chop licking.

“Saku isn’t real, nothing could track someone down over an ocean.” Jordie shook his head, unwilling to peer upon his bedroom or anything lurking therein.

The slopping sound drew closer and it hit him, the block from the school was a much shorter distance than crossing an ocean.

He opened his eyes and whimpered, “Saku, please, no.”

XX