Bogleech.com's 2016 Horror Write-off:

The Frog

Submitted by Bloodworx

The Frog

 

As a child, you have less to be invested in, and as the result of that your acceptance and tolerance of ideas are pretty much limitless.


I remember I could be told the plot of movie that hasn't even come out yet, or what something I didn't understand in a scene was by a fellow student and I just filed it in my mind as a possibility, no matter how dumb or absurd it would sound to the average adult.


This case is especially heightened by parents, as a slight joke are sarcastic statement can be taken dead serious by a kid if they're innocent enough. You could just follow along with and believe for many years just by hearing it once until you're old enough to realize it was just a joke.

 


I was one of those kids.

 


Anything that flooded out of another kid in school, an adult, a stranger, or any other passerby would stick with me and my mind would play out the possibilities of what it meant. Any throwaway statement, joke, or any other comment just to satisfy stuck with me as a concept inside my mind while the person who said it probably forgot it the moment after they said it.

 


I remember though, when I first wondered in these situations: "could this be bullshit?"

 


It was the 6th grade, when everyone was about ready to enter into middle school. By spring everyone had stopped caring and no one really looked forward to anything later in the year besides summer, but that really didn't count didn't it?


I was tuning out what the teacher was saying and did what I always did, listen to others conversations for things to file.

I heard boring conversations about what kids were going to do that summer. Going to Hawaii, getting to stay in some vacation home with their relatives, you know the drill. One group of whispering kids caught my ears though as they kept mentioning "the frog."


I would have denoted this as some kids planning to visit some small pond behind one of their house if not how... strange they were acting about it.


They talked like they were planning to do a robbery or break into some ones house, like they were about to commit the biggest crime of the century.


I turned to them quietly and noticed who they were, Tyler and Ryan.


They were two peas in a pod, nobody was really friends with them outside of themselves. They weren't really outcasts or nerds, but just not that popular and kept to themselves.

So when I scooted up to talk to them I didn't really feel much pressure, and then I asked them "what are you guys talking about?"


They stopped talking suddenly and quickly turned their heads to mine. The look they had on their faces were as if I had insulted them or something.


"About what?" Ryan said.


"You know, the frog thing you guys are talking about, it sounded interesting."


"Shhh! don't say it out loud! Then others will want to see it also!" Tyler exclaimed.


Now, like before I said I would be pretty observant of what people said, and I had noticed that Tyler had said "it" instead of "them."


What did they mean? That there was only one frog? Not a pond of them or something? Why was IT so important?

"What is so important about it I can't say it out loud?"


"Shhh... We found... A special frog." Tyler whispered this time.


"What the hell are you guys talking about? A special frog? This is complete crap!"

 


"FINE! WE'LL SHOW YOU!"



Tyler shouted that loud enough for most of the class to hear, and we all started to go back to working on our papers after giving him a quick glance. We tried to continue the conversation but more quietly and to end it.


"Meet use at the vine parking lot at 6:00, well show you what we mean if you shut up about it and never tell anyone else." Ryan quietly whispered to me before acting like the conversation had never happened.

 


Now, the vine parking lot was something that every kid within the neighborhood knew about. It was an inside parking lot within an abandoned construction site for a mall that had never been finished.


It had been overgrown by invasive ivy and had been almost completely covered with green leaves from top to bottom. Everyone has been scared of going inside since the lights have never been lit up since the project ended, and the only kids that have been "in" there were just telling rather than showing.


So imagine how I felt about going to it with people who I didn't even know very well, and to add onto it for "a frog."


Oh well. I went at about 15 minutes after 6 but they were still there waiting for me to come outside of the parking lot. They saw me wheel in my bike and just told me to throw it into the ivy where no one would see it.


We began to walk into the parking lot. Tyler held a flashlight in his hand while Ryan directed us where to go. I started to think this would be pointless or stupid, like it would be some tiny puddle with a dead frog in it or some other thing like that. I started to ask them more questions.


"But really, what's so special about this frog?"


"It's a magic frog."


At this point I was starting to realize that kids just made up answers on the spot, and I had figured this out earlier than I was supposed to. But now they had my attention. Why say MAGIC as an excuse? They would know they were building up to disappointment more heavily with that wouldn't they?


 

We turned a few corners around some pavement walls and pillars. I didn't know where we were anymore.


Then suddenly we stopped.


Tyler completely shut off the flashlight. Even though it was pitch black I could feel Ryan and him turning to me to shush me. They slowly turned back around and pointed at the dark silhouette in front of them.


They turned on the flashlight.

 

 



In front of me, was a frog. It was laying on its back, and smelled like some corrosive metal that had been washed by acid. The skin, was a bright green. Not the subdued swampy green frogs usually had but, a neon, cartoonish green you would on some clip art drawing of a frog have. I saw its face. A throbbing, red tongue lolled outside its mouth. Its eyes, were endless white voids with flies constantly buzzing around them. It never blinked. Its hands and feet were pinned to the ground, with large pins that looked like huge versions of what you would see in the average elementary school science lab. The pins drew no blood at all though, and the abominations skin seemed to be as pliant as foam. It only let out the faintest wheezing noise I've ever heard.

 

 



It was the size of a large child.

 

 



I stood there and didn't move a muscle. I don't think I could have. My knees buckled up and my arms just shook. I wasn't sure if the fear or that awful corrosive stench was going to kill me first. In that moment, I didn't care where this had come from or what it was, I just wanted to run. But I just couldn't move.


Tyler and Ryan, who I completely forgot about in that split second I saw it, moved ahead of me in a very formal fashion. Before they had been so childish about things and relaxed, but now they acted like they were at a funeral.


 

Slowly, each of them reached their hands toward the mid-section of the frog's bloated chest. There was a perfectly clean straight cut along the frog's chest, no tears at all. Both lifted up the flaps like a carpet.


The frog's entire insides were pulsating and moving as if it was alive. I could see the frog's stomach acids bubble and moan, the blood running throughout the veins. The worst of all though was the heart and lungs. Unlike the frog's lifeless body, they were both thumping quickly over and over again like the creature was under immense stress.


Tyler and Ryan just stood there at the sides looking at each other with no expression. Just blank slit mouths and no glances at what was before them.

 


 

Then it stopped.

 

 


The blood, the acids, even the thumping.


All I could hear, was what sounded like some worm slithering its way through a slippery pipe. Then, I saw what it was.

Its large intestine had wiggled its way out of the frog's body in a snake-like fashion. Small intestine did likewise. They both wriggled and danced in the air like they were attached to wires and aimlessly but rapidly, turned to random directions.

Then, the large intestine, stopped moving, and twisted to Ryan's direction. It attached itself to his face through the gaping opening of the tube. The same thing happened to Tyler with the small intestine.

Neither of them said anything.

 

 


I couldn't handle it anymore

 

 


I forced myself with all my strength to run away. I couldn't see anything nor did I know the way out.

 I just wanted to get away from THAT. I was almost in blind panic in the darkness and all I could hear was one, loud shrill shriek that sounded like the most intense pain I've ever heard.

It took me longer than I had anticipated but I eventually found the exit, it was still day.

I swear to god, I must have spent thirty minutes looking in that ivy outside for my bike, but I never found it. I ran home and decided to myself that this never happened.

 

 



When school came the day after, I had blocked it out of my mind. I was worried that when I went back to school if Tyler and Ryan would try to talk to me about. But they never did.


I don't know what they meant by "magic" or what had happened. I just went back to how I normally dealt with things I didn't know.


I just took "magic" as an excuse for what had happened in there.

 



But one thing still bugs me.


 



That shriek I heard. It didn't sound like Ryan, and it didn't sound like Tyler.