The Boy Who Cried Shark

I had the luck of sitting next to the weird kid in my freshman year of high school.

Thaddeus had that look – pale and expressionless, the kind of kid people avoided without saying why. When I sat down next to him, he flashed an eerie grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You look like a serious girl,” he whispered, leaning over way too close. “Cheer up.”

I side-eyed him and leaned away slowly.

A week later, we went on a school trip to the lake, and we were put into our seating pairs for canoeing.

We paddled out in uncomfortable silence as I sat behind him, the water smooth and quiet.

Then he screamed.

It was sudden, raw and terrified. The canoe rocked violently as he grabbed at the sides, and he tumbled over the side, disappearing under the water.

My heart raced like it had never before, but I somehow managed to stay on as I looked for him, yelling his name over the open water. A minute later, he re-emerged suddenly, screaming and thrashing in the distance.

I saw it then – a dark red bloom spreading in the water around him.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” I started crying hysterically and dropped the paddle, my hands shaking. “Someone help him!”

Thaddeus thrashed harder, shouting, “Shark! It’s got me!”

I was sobbing uncontrollably now. A lifeguard rushed towards us in panic.

And then he stopped.

Just… stopped. The screaming cut off like someone had flipped a switch.

He looked at me, completely calm… and grinned. Then he held up a small packet.

“Food coloring.”

I blinked.

The lifeguard dragged him out and scolded him, telling him that was not funny at all, and disrespectful to the many real people that drown every year. He just sat there, dripping wet and grinning the entire time. The words went in one ear and out the other, like he was still a six year old.

That incident wasn’t a one off.

The craziest prank he pulled was making the janitor think he’d hanged himself in the supply room.

Every time after he almost scared someone to death he would flash that eerie grin, like he’d proven something. People were terrified at first, but eventually stopped reacting and just got frustrated – teachers, other students, and even his mother.

I remember feeling very sorry for her.

She came into school several times, apologizing for “another incident.”

The poor woman looked pale and visibly exhausted – the kind of tired that doesn’t go away.

Her hands shook when she scolded him, trying to make him realize how much he was scaring everyone. That some pranks just aren’t funny. When he just sat there smirking, she looked like she would burst into tears.

I just thought he was someone to keep my distance from, and eventually forgot about him after freshman year.

Until ten years later, when I showed up for my first day at work.

I recognized him immediately when I saw him again.

“Long time, serious girl,” Thaddeus said, as he sauntered towards my desk.

I froze, blinking like my eyes were playing a trick on me.

We’d both ended up working at the same company – I hadn’t known he worked there until I arrived. He was taller and broader now, but that same obnoxious ear to ear grin persisted.

He leaned against the printer, watching me.

“Miss me?”

“Hell no,” I muttered.

“Too bad. Someone has to warn you about the sharks.” He grinned even wider, amused at my exasperation. Then he leaned over and his voice turned sadistic. “Welcome to the big, bad corporate world.”

Over the next few weeks, he kept glancing over at my desk and smirking knowingly. Other than that he mostly kept to himself. He was always in the office before me, and usually stayed after everyone else had left, doing god knows what. I tried to keep our interactions to a minimum.

That was until the manager assigned us a project to work on… together.

I couldn’t believe my pot luck, but I said nothing. My stomach sank to the bottom of the pits of hell as I dragged an office chair towards his cubicle and glanced at the spreadsheet on his screen. He glanced at me over his shoulder and caught my expression.

“Looks like history repeats,” he smirked.

My eyes nearly rolled out of my skull.

We worked in silence for a while, broken only by him muttering numbers under his breath. I nodded along, half listening, more focused on how quickly I could escape to lunch.

Then I looked down – just one of those unconscious glances. My gaze landed on his blue duffel bag he carried to work, lying half open under his desk.

The contents inside caught my eye immediately. I blinked.

A bundle of tiny syringes.

A handful – clean, neatly packed, unmistakable.

I stared for a second too long before looking up again, my mouth suddenly dry. His eyes were on me as he tilted his head slightly.

I pretended nothing was wrong and looked back towards the screen.

The following Monday, I arrived and opened our spreadsheet, expecting to spend the morning finishing my half of the work.

Instead, I raised my eyebrows. It was all done.

Not just his half – mine too. Formulas cleaned up, formatting fixed, even the presentation notes filled in. I blinked, scrolling through it. When he finally strolled in, coffee in hand like nothing was out of the ordinary, I turned my chair toward him.

“Did you finish this?”

He didn’t even look at the screen.

“Nope. Got the woman I keep in my basement to do it. Subcontracting.”

Then he grinned that same grin and took a sip of his coffee, leaning back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.

“…Of course,” I exhaled.

He leaned over and clicked the ‘x’ button on my spreadsheet with a satisfied smirk. Then he promptly stood up and walked down the hallway into the manager’s office for his meeting.

For the next few minutes I heard muffled voices talking over each other from that room, sometimes raised and angry. Something about his salary. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he didn’t sound happy.

I was left alone sitting by his cubicle. That’s when I glanced down at his bag under the table again.

Just a quick look wouldn’t hurt, would it?

Before I could stop myself, I’d already peeled back the zipper. I leaned forward to look closer.

Inside, alongside the syringes, were a few small plastic bottles, unlabeled. No branding, no pharmacy stickers. Just plain white containers with pills inside. My eyes widened.

Footsteps.

I snapped the bag shut and sat back just as he returned. He didn’t say anything, but I felt his eyes on me for a second too long.

That evening as I took the bus, I sat near the front and watched absentmindedly through the window. Then I spotted his car a few vehicles ahead of us.

I leaned forward slightly, as I kept my eyes on it for a while.

He signaled and turned off the main road, down the route that led to the city general hospital. I frowned to myself, wondering what he was driving down there for in the evening.

Then I remembered the pills and syringes, and suddenly got an uneasy feeling.

The next couple of times we worked together, he looked pissed off, unlike his usual smug self. I could tell the frustration from whatever argument he’d had with the manager was still there, simmering just under the surface.

Then one day, I bent down to pick up a folder from under his desk… and that’s when I saw the knife.

It was just sitting inside the open zipper of his bag, above the pills and syringes, flashing under the office lights. I looked up again, and our eyes met.

For a moment, neither of us said anything. My pulse began to accelerate.

Then I cleared my throat.

“Thaddeus, is… everything alright?”

“No,” he said.

Silence.

I swallowed, my mind racing for a response. Then he leaned closer and lowered his voice.

“Just waiting for everyone to leave so I can murder the manager for being a miser.”

My blood ran cold.

“Told him I’m stretched so thin I had to start a dark web drug business to make ends meet,” he continued, “still won’t raise my salary. What else am I supposed to do?”

I stared at him.

Then that grin spread across his face.

“Gotcha.”

I exhaled slowly, a vein almost popping in my forehead. Of course. Another one of his insane tactless jokes. After all those years, I should have known he was just messing with me again.

…Wasn’t he?

So what was that stuff in his bag really for?

The question lingered in my mind, and I felt uneasy for the rest of the day.

By the time we left, the office was empty.

The parking lot outside was dark, quiet, the kind of silence that makes every small sound feel louder. We walked out and I gave him a polite nod, then turned toward the bus stop without a word.

“Hey.”

I paused.

He was standing by his car, keys in hand.

“You want a lift?” he asked. “It’s late.”

I immediately shook my head.

“I’m good.”

He studied me for a second, then started walking towards me, expressionless.

He reached into his jacket.

For a split second, panic came over me as I thought he was going to pull the knife out on me for rejecting his offer.

I looked around the empty parking lot. It was just the two of us standing in the dark. If he tried anything, no one would’ve heard me scream. I took a step back, fully ready to bolt in the opposite direction.

But he pulled out a bus ticket.

“Here,” he said, holding it out. “Got it the day my car broke down. Never used it.”

I stared at it, then looked up at him.

“Funny how these still look the same as when we were in high school,” he added.

I took it cautiously.

“…Thanks.”

He smiled slightly, not his usual unsettling grin, then turned and walked back towards his car.

I swallowed, my heart still racing like I’d just had a near death experience. I exhaled and shook my head, then walked towards the bus stop.

Later that night, I opened the work drive and decided to look over the spreadsheet again just to double check everything before the presentation tomorrow.

As it loaded, a cursor appeared – another user.

Thaddeus was also editing the sheet. I watched as a cell highlighted.

Then text started appearing.

you got home okay?

I blinked.

For a moment, I just stared at the screen.

Knowing him, this could be anything. Probably the setup for another joke to give me nightmares.

I typed beneath it cautiously.

yeah

The cell beneath mine highlighted as two characters appeared.

🙂

Then all three cells were highlighted before vanishing. Deleted. His cursor disappeared and he went offline.

I stared at the screen, then exhaled. The fact that didn’t somehow lead to a creepy message was odd in itself, but I didn’t think about it much that night.

The next day, Thaddeus didn’t show up to work, and I ended up doing the presentation alone.

I was pissed, standing there clicking through slides he’d practically built himself. It wasn’t like him to flake – if anything, he’d always been annoyingly on time. But of course the one time he does it’s on the day of our presentation. By the end of the day, I told myself he’d probably just overslept.

Then he didn’t show up the next day either. Or the day after that.

On the third day, the manager leaned back in his chair and scoffed when I asked.

“Probably quit,” he said. “Good riddance. One less attitude to deal with.”

I forced a nod, but something felt off.

That evening on my bus ride home, I looked down at my ticket, and an impromptu idea occurred to me. I decided to get off the bus one stop early.

City General Hospital.

I stood there for a second, watching people come and go, before turning down the same road I’d seen his car take a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t even know what I was looking for – probably a clue about where he was that I wasn’t going to find anyway.

The building loomed ahead, sterile and quiet as I stepped inside. Patients and their relatives wandered in and out. The fluorescent lights humming overhead as I wandered down the hallway.

This is stupid, I thought, walking past the reception. What am I even doing here?

Then I saw the café and shrugged to myself.

Might as well get a coffee.

I stepped inside and froze immediately when I spotted her.

She was sitting alone in the corner at a small table.

Even after all those years, I recognized her instantly. I’d recognize that pale, exhausted face anywhere – the face of a woman barely holding it together.

Thaddeus’s mother.

She looked older now – thinner and somehow even more fragile. Her posture had folded in on itself, and her hair had thinned to wisps around her face. A wheelchair sat beneath her, and her hands rested loosely in her lap.

I walked over slowly.

“Are you… Thaddeus’s mom?”

She looked up, surprised.

“Yes,” she said weakly. “Do I know you?”

“I’m his coworker. And… we went to high school together. That’s how I recognized you.”

Her expression softened.

“Well, fancy seeing you here,” she said, gesturing to the empty chair. Her hand trembled roughly as she lifted it. “Go on, sit.”

She let out a long sigh as I sat opposite her.

“Oh, Thaddy. That boy drives me crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sitting here with failing kidneys, and he’s paying off my bills like it’s nothing.”

My eyes widened.

“When I ask him where he’s been,” she continued, “he tells me he’s burying bodies. When I ask him where he gets the money, he tells me he’s out robbing people on the street. Thinks he’s hilarious.”

She gave a tired scoff.

“As if. He couldn’t even run fast enough to catch a bus, let alone someone to murder or rob. I haven’t a clue what he’s doing.”

She shakily adjusted the sleeve on her arm, then sighed again.

“I know where he gets that dark humor of his from,” she added after a moment. “Walked in on his grandad dead when he was seven. Burst varices… blood everywhere. Looked like he’d drowned in it.”

I blinked.

The lake prank.

The blood in the water.

“Then a few years later…” she paused, swallowing. “He found his father. In the closet hanging from a noose around his neck.”

My mind flashed.

The janitor’s supply room.

The rope. The grin.

I felt sick.

She looked down the hallway contemplatively. Then she reached into her bag, pulling out a syringe and a pill container.

“For my insulin,” she said absentmindedly.

I stared.

The same syringes and pills I’d seen in his bag.

I finally took a deep breath and cleared my throat.

“I’m actually not here by coincidence,” I said slowly. “I saw him come here before, so I thought… maybe he’d be here.”

I hesitated.

“He hasn’t shown up to work for three days.”

Her expression changed instantly as she looked up.

“That’s not like him,” she said sharply. “He never a day of missed school. He was never even late in the morning. Not once, not even when he was sick.”

A pause.

Then she reached into her bag again, this time with more urgency, pulling out a small key and biro, then scribbled an address onto her napkin, handing it to me. The writing was very shaky but just about legible.

“Could you do me a favor, dear?” she asked, her voice strained. “Go check on him.”

I nodded, a sinking feeling in my chest.

I left the hospital, looked up the location and took the bus to the nearest stop.

The house was quiet as I approached.

His car sat in the front yard. Maybe he was in the house, I thought. As I approached to take a closer look, I thought it was odd that the driver side window was left open.

Then I realized it wasn’t just open, it was shattered.

My steps slowed as I moved closer, my heart starting to pound. I peered into the gap as I stood, now almost next to the car.

Specks of dark red were splattered across the back of the seat. The bottom of the steering wheel. The inside of the door. My hands trembled as I leaned toward the broken window.

And then I saw him.

Slumped on the seat, half collapsed onto the ground.

Blood had poured from the side of his head, and now it was dry, dark and heavy against his skin. In one hand, he held the knife I’d seen in his bag at work.

His eyes were open. Not wide or panicked, just…

Sad.

I stumbled back, a hand over my mouth as I stifled a scream, and fumbled for my phone to call the police.

Turns out Thaddeus had maxed out every credit card he had trying to pay for his mom’s treatment years ago – every limit pushed, every line exhausted. Almost every cent he earned went straight to keeping her alive.

His mom had been living with poorly managed type one diabetes for decades. Multiple co-morbidities, every system in her body shutting down. Kidney failure was just the final step, the doctors had made that part clear – the end was coming for her. But he kept going anyway. Because he refused to face loss again.

Seeing them die like that still haunted him, no matter how many fake death pranks he pulled.

And when no bank would touch him anymore, he turned to people who would. He borrowed the rest off criminals – a couple of shady names only spoken among black market dealers and gangsters.

The kind who don’t ask questions, but always collect their debts. Dead or alive.

That night, I went back to my apartment and didn’t turn the lights on. I just sat there in the dark, my thumb tracing the edge of the bus ticket he’d handed me in the parking lot, now used and folded.

A while later, I opened my laptop and clicked on the spreadsheet. I navigated to the edit history, then began to scroll.

The last three edits sat at the very bottom. He’d deleted them from the sheet, but they remained in the history.

you got home okay?
yeah
🙂

That was the one day I worked late. He worked late every day. Not once did I ever ask about him.

That’s what I got wrong about Thaddeus.

He spent his whole life turning the worst things that ever happened to him into joke after joke, just so no one would ever ask the questions he didn’t know how to answer. So no one would ever worry about him, while he made sure everyone else was okay.

He didn’t just make sure no one would believe him. He made sure no one would ask, because he didn’t want anyone to help.

So when the real sharks came, no one did.