This all happened a long time ago. Almost to long to even feel real. But the event that occurred at HillsMary preschool will haunt me to my grave.

It started when I first got a job as an assistant preschool teacher. I was starting up my company from my parents garage, and needed some money to get by. Luckily, my old preschool was willing to hire me.

I was assigned a class with mostly two to three year old kids. My first, and last class I would ever teach was in room B16, with twelve children.

For the first few months nothing remarkable happened. Quite frankly, at the time I wished something interesting would happen, besides an occasional kid choking on a coin, or a cute sibling would pick up the kids. But all that was soon about to change.

Tom, a three year old boy was also the oldest in the class. He didn’t talk with the other kids and spent most of his time sitting around, and doing nothing. I tried to play with him, but he would always politely walk away.

I didn’t have the heart or the patience to go running after him every time, so I just let him be. Until one day, something was not right.

The head teacher didn’t show up that day, so it was up to me to take care of everything. I counted eleven heads before nap time, but one wasn’t there. A blond little boy. Tom.

Annoyed, I put the others to bed and looked around the classroom. He wasn’t in the bathroom, lunch room, or in his bed.

At this point my bitterness faded away and worry came in. The room was not to big. It was about the size of an average school class plus a closet and bathrooms. Beside the big drawers and desk, there was nowhere to hid.

Except…the broom closet.

I inched closer and closer, and slowly opened the door. I recall a rush going down my spine, as if sand was going up and down.

When I opened the door, it was pitch black. Lila a void of pure nothing. Until I turned on the light, and Tom was sitting there, starring at a dimly lit corner. All alone.

Anger came back as I grabbed the boy by his shirt and dragged him out.

“What were you doing in there!” I whispered to him while escorting him to his bed.

“Talking to him” he whispered back, getting cozy in his bed.

I was not scared. Not calm. Just confused, and a little unsettled.

“Talking to whom?” I asked draping the blanket over his small pale body.

Before drifting asleep, he looked me dead in the eye, and mumbled “He says I can’t tell you.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. Thought’s filled my head about what happened that day. That was not normal. Yet I still didn’t say anything.

A few days passed and even more odd occurrences happened. Kids would sneak off to that corner, and talk to what seemed thin air. I locked the door but that didn’t stop it. Kids played and talked to someone, something, and looked startled when I caught them. And worst of all, the younger kids would scream in terror at nap time, every single night as if someone was there by their beds.

I told the head teacher about these occurrences, and she laughed, saying that I watched to much TV. I wish she would have believed me.

Weeks and weeks of the same things happened, only getting stranger and stranger. So one day, before Toms parents picked him up, I asked “Tom, who is your new friends you talk to.“

He looked behind him, to the left, and to the right, and whispered, “Eyes” and left running to his parents.

At this point I should have stopped. Just left the job and never looked back. But curiosity is one hard thing to overcome.

The only person I could think of to ask anything about was the janitor. She worked in the school since it first opened seventy years ago.

I nervously went up to her, but was calmed by her sweet smile. Since I was young, she was always my favorite staff member.

“Do you know someone named Eyes by any chance?”

Her reaction was not excepted. Her eyes softened as if she remembered something sad from many years ago. The creases under her eyes grew ever so deeper.

She took her glasses off and said, “I knew someone named Eyes. He was an odd, but sweet boy.”

She was about to turn on the vacuum, but I grabbed her hand, and asked if she could tell me more.

She sighed and continued to tell me the tragic story of Eyes.

“He was a young boy, no older that four” she whispered. “I would babysit for him when I was a teen. But one day, he died. His parents would never tell me how, but they were heart broken. The dad so much so, that he started this preschool and offered me a job. A janitor ain’t much, but it was better that my other options. Mr. HillsMary never became fully well, mentally I mean. He looked great on the outside, but he developed some odd obsession with this place and the children that went to school. No more that five year after opening he offed himself, and the county strayed running this place.”

I was scared. I was mad, at who knows what. And I wanted answers. But answers were the few thing I never get.

With a knot in my throat I asked if she had a picture.

She chuckled and took out her wallet with a black and white picture of her, Mr. and Mrs. HillsMary, and a boy.

A boy with pale skin and black hair. And deep dark eyes. A boy I knew.

I could vaguely remember my childhood best friends. A friend named Eyes, who always told me to never tell anyone about him because his parents would get mad. Eyes.

There is not a happy nor sad ending to the story. I quit my job, and my business kicked off. I almost forgot about those days, until now, that my grandkids go to the closet, and talk to something.

Eyes is back.