Wallflower

The Ralley children never told anyone about the time they killed a kid.

The boy's name was Ketchum Parker and he was the most unpopular boy in school. He was a bit dim-witted but not enough to get any sympathy for it; just enough to be scorned by everyone including his teachers. He wore thick plastic glasses that gave him a goggle-eyed appearance and there was something off-balance about his face that let you know he was "funny" right off the bat.

The Ralley children were not popular either by any stretch of the imagination, but in their case it was because they were such terrible bullies; notorious for terrorizing the town's youth. James, the eldest at twelve, stocky and pale with a buzz cut shock of bright-red hair and heavily freckled face, was constantly beating kids up or shaking them down for their lunch money. He had already been in Juvenile Hall but caused so much trouble there they kicked him out. He had even molested a girl but had threatened to kill her so she'd keep quiet about it. The cops were just itching to put him in prison when he turned 18 or got caught doing something bad enough to be charged as an adult.

Mary, the second-eldest was ten and just as nasty in her own way and ruled over all the girls and weaker boys in school. She wasn't afraid to fight either, if anyone dared challenge her she'd get down in the dirt or yank somebody's hair out of their scalp without a second thought.

Matty, the youngest at eight, seemed the least horrible member of the family at a glance, but he was learning fast. He'd already set a few fires on the outskirts of town; one burning down a wheat field, largely ruining an old farmer's crop for the year. Everyone suspected it was Matty who was always playing with fire but they were never able to prove it. It was just a matter of time before he killed someone or burned a bunch of houses down.

So it was these mean children that Ketchum Parker stumbled upon while taking a shortcut home from school that fateful spring day in 1975.

The Ralley children were hanging out beside an old abandoned decaying homestead which was in the middle of a decades-old process of being reclaimed by the woods.

"Hey look", James said. He was leaning casually against the gray clapboards of the dilapidated house smoking a cigarette when his pale eyes flashed, spotting the boy coming through the woods, a smirk of a smile stretching his thin lips. "It's the retard!"

Matty ran out of the house and sprang up to Ketchum, laughing and yelling "It's Ketchup Ketchup Ketchup! Hiiiii, Ketchup!"

Ketchum stopped, looking around him terrified trying to figure a way out of this, knowing he was in for trouble. "H...Hi" he said in a low voice full of fear; eyes warry and desperate.

"Hi Ketchup-head" Matty yelled, jumping around him in erratic circles like a crazed cartoon character.

James sauntered up to him striking an air of mock-comradery, "Where you going Ketchum, old pal?"

"H...home" the boy mumbled, looking down at his feet.

"Home? No! I think you should stay and play with us. I think old Ketchum needs some friends for the day don't you?" he looked around at his siblings. Mary and Matty pressed close to Ketchum

"Ketchum, do you want to be our friend?" Mary asked, eyes narrowed insidiously .

"Sure." Ketchum said, eyes still on his feet.

"Hooray!" James said clapping. "We're going to play GAMES, Ketch!."

"No, I think I wanna go home!" Ketchum cried suddenly, trying to get away.

"Oh, no. You want to stay and play with us." James said in a threatening tone, roughly grabbing the boy's shirt collar, nearly ripping it.

"Okay." Ketchum said woefully, giving up. "What are we going to play?"

"Well, I don't know yet...but it's going to be fun. You like fun games, don't you Ketchum?"

"U-huh."

James laughed. "U-huh" he repeated in a mocking dimwitted voice. "Get in the house, retard."

They pushed Ketchum into the abandoned house, forcing him to smoke cigarettes until strings of spittle hung from his mouth from coughing and he began to cry pitifully. "You've got to keep the smoke down or you'll never quit coughing." James chided, forcing him to take another puff.

"Hey," Matty said, "remember that old well we was wondering what's at the bottom of?" James' face lit up. "That's right! The Well. Our good friend Ketchum can go down and see what's at the bottom of it."

"Wh..what well?" Ketchum said, alarmed.

"Oh, there's this old abandoned well deep in the woods and we've wanted to know what's at the bottom of it for the longest time. It could be treasure. Maybe people have been throwing money down there for a hundred years..."

"or maybe there's a dead body rotting down there." Matty said with glee. Ketchum whimpered. "Well, I'm not going down there! Why don't you do it?"

"I'm too heavy and Matty's too chicken." James said. "And Mary's just a girl." Matty said. Mary punched his shoulder hard making him cry out.

"Well, I'm too chicken too." Ketchum whined.

"Just do what I fuckin' say." James growled, grabbing him hard by the back of the neck, "or else."

They took Ketchum into the woods further than he'd ever gone before, making him wade across creeks in his school shoes and crawl through brambles. "My mom's gonna be mad" he cried.

"Awe, fuck yer Mama!" James said, disdainfully. "Fuck her" Matty repeated several times.

They came to the old well and James tried to get Ketchum to climb into the bucket but he refused, putting up a terrible fight. Finally James grabbed him, picked him up kicking and screaming and tried to shove him into the bucket by force but Ketchum just slid straight out, falling into the well screaming; landing with a thud and a splash. Then there was silence.

"He's dead." Mary cried. The Ralley children yelled to him for an hour but Ketchum never answered. They couldn't see anything down in that deep well shaft and it dawned on them that they had finally done something so horrible that it was really unforgivable and for the first time in their lives they were afraid. They ran home as fast as they could, returning with a flashlight just after sunset. Looking down into the shaft they saw the boy floating in blood-filled water, some of the brains exposed at the side of his head. They turned off the flashlight and walked home, never telling a soul.

The whole town mobilized to search for the boy. Ketchum's parents were inconsolable but no one ever found his body in its watery grave.

It was a few weeks later that Mary began to see Ketchum's ghost. It wasn't a scary thing to her, but it was nothing like the Ketchum she had known. Ketchum's ghost seemed very intelligent. He didn't wear the thick plastic glasses and had a slightly more attractive face. He did not appear to be angry or malicious toward her in the slightest but was rather quite friendly. She tried speaking to him several times and then one day he was able to answer back.

Killing the boy had changed the Ralley children. It traumatized them in a way that made them want to stop being so evil and try to get along with the world more. As for Mary, she spent hours talking with Ketchum's ghost every evening in her bedroom before falling asleep.

Ketchum began looking out for the Ralley children and could even tell them about things that hadn't happened yet. James and Matty couldn't see him at all and at first they didn't believe Mary was telling the truth, but were convinced when she was able to tell them of future events. There was the time the Baptist church burned down and Matty was going to be blamed. Well, the church did burn down but Matty made sure he was seen somewhere else and as a result was never even a suspect. Ketchum's ghost told them about Mr's Eller's impending death of the flu and he told them their stepfather was going to try to murder their mother. He even told them how to kill their stepfather and exactly where to hide the body so that it would never be found.

One night Mary asked Ketchum if he would ever get into heaven now and he said he didn't know.

"I'm sorry we killed you, Ketchum" she had sobbed that night.

"That's alright." he told her, a pale shadow against her bedroom wallpaper.

"I'm better off."