Tell Me You Love Me

In my town, there is an old wive’s tale of a boy who fell in love with a girl. He could never get up the nerve to ask her out, he’d follow her, waiting for an opportunity to approach her and ask her out.

One day, he found out she was moving town due to problems with her parents and most likely never coming back. He decided he’d wait on the outskirts of town and surprise her.

While he was waiting, his head filled with all the possibilities that this event could lead to. He begin to get excited, keeping his wrists together and drumming his fingers together.

He saw her car leaving the town and heading down the only road out which he was waiting beside, hiding in the bushes. As this was a rural road, there were large bushes either side of the road and only one lane for the cars to drive on.

As the car drew nearer, the excitement overtook him and he leaped onto the center of the road, shocking the girl and not leaving enough breaking distance for her to stop.

The car swerved and hit the boy, launching him through the air and landing hard on the rough terrain of the rural road. The girl jumped from the car and approached his twitching body.

As the girl bends down to examine his injuries, she hears a faint gasp from his body. He utters a single sentence,

“Love me?” He asks with a grin, as blood trickles from his deathly grin.

“What?” She replies in her confused state, after presuming he had died.

“Do you love me?” He questions a sickly monotone voice.

“Em…yeah sure.” She answers after a moments silence.

“You’re lying.” He yells louder than he should be able to, considering his current state.

The girl apologizes, and begins to back away in fear of his screaming, a look of terror spread across her face.

With great difficulty, he attempts to stand, he groans accompanied by the cracking of his bones. He falls to the ground and lets out a cry of pain.

The girl approaches him again in pity, lifting his arm over her shoulder and helping him get to his feet. She walks him to her car and lays him in the back seat and he loses consciousness.

She climbs into the driver seat and continues the way she was headed, as there is no hospital in her town and she wasn’t eager on spending the night with her parents.

The drive to the next town is along a dark and lonely side road, nothing but empty fields on either side of it. She hears him shifting about in the back seat. She speeds up, eager to get to the hospital, where she can drop him off and continue with the rest of her long journey.

“Are you alright?” She asks, not even sure if he is awake but eager to fill the silence with something.

Keeping his eyes closed, he questions her again.

“Love me.” He mutters, as if the words pain him more than his wounds.

She stays silent, pretending not to hear him and turns on the radio to fill the awkward void the question has created.

“Why don’t you love me?” He questions, continuing his interrogation.

She sneaks a glance in the rear view mirror, and immediately wishes she hadn’t. The boy was now sitting up in the back seat, staring maniacally at the back of her head, an unsettling lifelessness in his empty eyes.

“You should lay down, rest, your wounds could get worse.” She suggests, hoping he’d stop his incessant glare burning deep into the back of her head.

“Tell me you love me.” He demands, raising his voice slightly louder than before.

“Lie down, we’ll be at the hospital soon, I think I see street lights ahead.” She replies, again avoiding his question.

“Why won’t you say you love me?” He screams piercingly, causing the girl to jump in her seat.

“Stop this!” She yells in response, trying to break through his screams of insanity.

“Love me!” He screams one last time, wrapping his hands around her face.

She yells out in agony as he claws at her upper face, gouging out her right eye. She screams continuously, the car swerving on the road as he grips her around the neck.

Her focus is torn from her driving, now being driven by her primal instinct to survive. The car swerves out of control and crashes into a telegraph pole.

The following morning, the car was discovered by local police officers and the woman’s body was examined by forensic experts who concluded that the woman didn’t die from the crash, but from strangulation as proven by the severe bruising around her neck in the clear form of someone’s hands. This is the part that confused the experts, as there was only one body discovered in the wreckage. Whoever else would have been in the car with her should have died from the crash itself.

The boy hasn’t been sited since that night,some say he has returned to the town and has fallen in love again.