|
School Day Chapter 6
By aragorn_8
DAY 3
~ CHAPTER 6 ~
Disaster Strikes
At Mr. Johnson's house the next morning, the principal was getting ready for school. He was in a suit, and he had just straightened out his tie and combed his hair. The morning’s bright light was shining in through a window and a bird could be heard singing.
He was in the kitchen, finishing off a small bowl of cereal, and he stood up and looked at the clock and saw that it read ‘6:00.’
"Why are you up so early?" his wife asked, walking into the kitchen, her high heels clicking on the floor. "You usually don't go in till 7:00."
"I had a bad dream, that's all." He answered. Whenever he had something on his mind or he wanted to be alone for whatever reason, he always woke up early and went in for work early.
He went over by the door and grabbed his jacket.
“Oh honey, you might want a warmer jacket today.” his wife cautioned. “No matter how bright it is out there, it’s really cold.”
“Ok, thanks.” Mr. Johnson said as he took off his jacket and rummaged through the closet, finding a warmer one and putting it on.
Then at that moment, his two three year old kids ran up to him from the living room, still dressed in their pajamma’s. One was a male and the other was a female, but they were still twins.
"Daddy!" they both shouted. Mr. Johnson squatted down to hug them as they wattled over to hug him and kiss him good-bye before he left for the day.
"When well you be home?" the girl asked as her and her brother let go of their father and let him stand up..
"Later today. Right after that show that you guys watch come on." he started snapping his fingers trying to remember the name. He remembered that it was a strange Japanese name, but couldn’t remember it.
"You mean Pokemon?" The boy asked.
Mr. Johnson’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s the one.” he exclaimed.
Mr. Johnson said good_bye to his family, kissed his wife on the lips, which lasted a couple of minutes, causing the kids to smirk. Then when he pulled away, Mr. Johnson picked up his briefcase and walked out the door, closing it behind him. Little did he know, he was never going to see them again.
Mrs. Johnson walked back into the kitchen, and there was a black and white T.V. one the counter. It was tuned into a news channel, and there was a special on about school shootings.
“The majority of the time a student takes a gun to school to kill fellow students and teachers, it’s because he was an outcast and he was picked on a lot.” The person on the screen said. “This is why we encourage bullying to stop, because it triggers something in the mind of those being picked on, to go and do something like this....”
Mrs. Johnson reached over and turned the T.V. off and walked out of the kitchen.
Dirisha walked down the stairs of her house, still in a long shirt down to her knees and a pair of boxers.
Her father looked over at her, and lowered the newspaper. “Dirisha, why aren’t you ready for school yet? You have to leave soon.”
“I don’t feel good.” She moaned. She put on the best ‘fake sick’ face she could. Truth was, she had the scariest nightmare the day before, and she was scared to go to school. It was of her, Andrea, Jeff, and a bunch of people she didn’t know, being stalked and killed by someone dressed as Grim Reaper.
What scared her so much about it, was that it was so lifelike. She could smell the smells, feel the texture of things, feel heat and cold, and so on and so on. Because if it, she had a bad feeling about school, so she wanted to stay home for the day.
“Well you don’t have to go to school if you’re feeling sick. You can just go back up to your room and sleep.”
“Ok.” Dirisha turned and walked slowly up the steps. When she got back to her room, she closed and locked her door and quickly went to her phone. She had to warn her friends not to go to school. They’d probably think she was crazy, but she had to try.
The first number she tried was Jeff’s. As the first couple of seconds passed by, the ring tone sounding in the phone, Dirisha felt it was like eternity waiting for Jeff to pick up. She waited until it rang five times, and then finally slammed it down with a sigh. He must already be gone.
She thought for a minute, then picked up the phone to call Andrea.
Jeff was getting ready to leave, when he looked out the window and saw a clear day with the sun rising, light shining into his room.
"Some blizzard of the century!" He scoffed. As he went to the other side of his bed to pick up his bookbag, he heard his phone ring. Oh well. He thought. Who ever it is can call back after school. I’m already going to be late at picking Edward up.
And so Jeff ignored the ringing phone and rushed out of his room, getting ready to leave.
Back in his room, he forgot his T.V. was on, the volume turned down all the way. It was on The Weather Network, and on the screen was a satellite image showing a giant white and gray blob with moving swirls, heading closer and closer to Heartfield, almost upon the unsuspecting town.
At Edward's driveway, Edward was standing in the cold, waiting for Jeff to pick him up. His breath was seen in the air as he breathed out. He raised his joint back up and breathed in on it.
"Awwww. This feels sooo good. Too bad Jeff doesn't do this or we could have a lot more fun together."
Jeff was really strict about his best friend having joints. He didn’t mind if he smoked or drank, but he didn’t want him doing drugs. Edward was caught once by Jeff, and they had got into a huge fight, but it was solved within a couple of days and Edward agreed that he would never smoke a joint again.
Edward, though, lied, and had a joint every couple of days, whenever Jeff wasn’t around.
He looked at his watch and it read ‘7:03'.
Edward flicked the rest of the joint away, onto the ground, and putting his shoe on top of it, squishing it into nothing.
A couple minutes later, Jeff's car came in view, and drove down the street, stopping in front of Edward's driveway. Edward walked over and opened up the door on the passenger side and climbed in, shutting the door, finally heating up.
Inside Jeff's car, Jeff reached out with one hand as he drove and turned on the radio as they drove to school.
"You were late." Edward said, smiling.
"Yeah, sorry.” Jeff apologized. “I slept in. I had this real strange nightmare last night. All I can really remember about it now though, was seeing the grim reaper telling me to beware."
"That's weird." Edward remarked, truly mystified. "I also had this dream about the grim reaper. He chased me through the town."
"Impossible. How could we have dreamed about the same thing?" Jeff was at a loss for words after that. This truly was one of life’s mysteries that may never be explained. Though for these teens, it will be, all in good time.
"It happens." Edward informed him. "It's just really rare. You hear about it though on the Discovery Channel once in a while."
"Maybe our dreams are telling us something." Jeff suggested.
"No. They're just dreams. It's not like the grim reaper is really after us or anything!" they both started laughing as Jeff drove. Oh how little they really knew. The closer they got to their perfect school, the closer they got to their perfect death trap.
Then Jeff stopped laughing as he suddenly remembered something that happened the day before. Oh God, it was really starting to freak him out now. "Yesterday, when we were looking at the map, I saw someone dressed as the Grim Reaper."
"Are you sure your not on drugs?" Edward asked. Jeff glared back for a second, before looking back at the road. "Ok. Fine. Let’s just say, for arguments sake, that Grim Reaper was after us. Why would he pick our school, of all places?"
"I don't know."
"It was just someone playing a prank like Steven or Dillon. That’s also what gave you that nightmare, probably. I probably caught a glimpse of it too out of the corner of my eye or something and my unconsciousness made me have a nightmare about it to.”
As they drove, passing another car here and there, they saw Allison, Savanna, Leticia, and Candice walking down the street, their breaths being seen as they breath out.
"Wanna give them a ride?" Jeff asked Edward.
"Sure. Then you can start putting the moves on Allison!"
"Shut up."
As they get closer, they slowed down and came to a stop next to the four girls. Edward lowered his window. "Want a lift?" e asked. It was then that he noticed they were shivering due to the cold weather.
The girl's all looked at each other and smiled. They were driving down the road again minutes later, all four girls crammed into the backseat, where there was only enough room for three.
Allison, Savanna, and Leticia were on their way to school, when Candice ran up to them and apologized to Allison for the way she acted the day before. Allison, who still was mad at the events from the day before, was feeling a bit better, and accepted her apology. Then minutes later, Jeff had pulled over and him and Edward offered them a ride.
The car pulled up into the student parking lot, a few slots down from Edward’s wrecked car, which was still in the same spot.
"Thanks for the ride, Jeff." Allison said as she smiled. Out of all her fake smiles she ever gave people, this smile was authentic.
"No problem." Jeff answered back, putting on his sunglasses, shielding his eyes from the bright rays of the sun. He looked around and there were no other students outside. He was about to look at his watch to see if they were late for school, when Edward shouted.
"Damn!" Edward shouted as he got out of the car, closing the door behind him. "Five minutes till class starts. I don't even want to go to Mrs. Furankee's class this morning." The others all quickly agreed with him.
"I say we ditch her class!" Savanna suggested. The others agreed again. Well, except for Jeff, who had never skipped in his life. He was feeling uneasy about all this, but he knew that deep down inside, he would probably end up joining them anyway.
"We can go to the school's basement and have a small party!" Allison suggested happy with her idea. "I hear there’s a giant furnace down there, so it’ll be warm, and I heard that there’s a lot of space down there."
"Awesome!" Edward exclaimed. He couldn’t wait now. "I got some beer stashed in the trunk of my ruined car over there." He pointed. “I’ll go over and get it and we can sneak it in.”
Jeff said, uneasily. "I don't know about this guys. I think we should just go to class.” he was going to try his hardest to convince them to go, even if he had to yell at them to do it.
"Jeff," Allison pleaded. "Please come with us." she walked up and walked by him, dragging he hands over his shoulders as she did.
"Ok. I guess if you really want me to, then I will." Jeff gave in. Well it wasn’t quite the fight he had in mind, but it was all good in the end, even if he did give in.
Dillon and Steven were watching all of what happened from Dillon's jeep, not far away, hearing their entire conversation, and knowing about their plan to skip in the school basement and drink.
"Hurry, let's get them!" Dillon whispered hurriedly. They both got out of the dirty truck and walk quietly and stealthily walked over to the small group. As Steven and Dillon approached they all turned around and saw them.
"Can we help you?" Jeff asked, trying to be as polite as he could, but just came off as sarcastic.
"What the hell," Dillon asked with hatred. "Are you doing, driving my girl around?"
"What are you talking about?" Allison shouted. “I’m not your girl!” She could feel all the anger she felt the day before come back, plus more. If Dillon and Steven didn’t leave now, she was going to can them really soon.
"I don't have to listen to you." Jeff started standing up for himself, boldly. “I can drive my friend around whenever and wherever I want.”
"What did you just say to me?" Dillon asked. He couldn’t believe this kid. Was he standing up to him? Talking back?
Dillon swung his fist out and punched Jeff right in the face with a loud crack as the girls' watched in horror. Jeff stumbled back, holding his face.
Edward ran as fast as he could, going against the wind that was starting to rise, over to his wrecked car and to the back, popping the trunk. He started moving rags around and below a bunch of them was a couple cases of beer.
He took two of them and ran back over to the group, not bothering to even close his trunk or cover up the beer cases.
He snuck up behind Dillon and Steven, who were just about to rush Jeff again. Edward lifted the beer bottles high, the beer swishing around inside, and rammed them down, as hard as he could, over the head’s of the two bullies, smashing them, glass exploding all over the place, like an explosion, the beer in substitute for fire.
Both the boys fell down, knocked out and thudded on the ground.
"I can't believe you did that!" Jeff exclaimed, even though deep inside, he was really relieved and glad that Edward did what he did.
"Just be glad I saved us both from a beating."
"Just wait till they come to." Jeff said, suddenly realizing that now they were in even more trouble then they were before. "They're really gonna want to kill us."
"Let's get out of here." Leticia suggested. As they turned to walk away, leaving the two bodies on the ground, the bell rang.
"Damn." Jeff said quietly.
"Let's go. Hurry!" Edward urged them. They turned and ran back to his car, went to the trunk, grabbed the two cases of beer, and headed towards the school, hoping not to get caught. They’d have to be careful with this, but if done right, they could be down in the basement, getting drunk, in a matter of a few minutes.
They snuck around the halls, peeping around corners before walking around them, and moving quickly, but quietly among the empty halls. The beer cases were hidden in their bookbags, everything else that used to be in them were put in the trunk of Edward’s car.
They reached the elevator and pressed the button. A minute later, the doors dinged open, and Jeff winced. He never noticed how loud that ding was, until there was no other noise to be heard. They all walked onto the elevator and pressed the ‘B’ button. Another minute later, the doors dinged closed, closing slower then they opened and they felt their stomachs slide up to the top of their heads as the elevator headed down.
"This is gonna be so fun!" Candice exclaimed, excited.
"As long as Mr. Stuart or no other hall monitors are down there." Jeff mentioned. “I heard that Mr. Stuart comes down here a lot to finish unpacking some the school’s things.”
The elevator came to a stop they felt their stomachs go back to normal as the doors dinged opened, revealing the basement. It was really dark, as if there was some amount of night trapped down there without stars and moons.
"So which one of you," Savanna asked. "Is going to check to make sure the coast is clear?"
"Jeff will." Edward suggested. Jeff gave Edward a mean look and Edward smiled back. Edward thought this was a perfect opportunity for Jeff to prove how bold he was in front of Allison, though Jeff really didn’t care about that. He was scared of really dark places, and if there was a teacher down here someplace, he would be the first caught.
Jeff reluctantly stepped out of the elevator and started looking around. As he walked away from the elevator, a little bit of light shining on the floor from the elevator behind him, he looked around some more, not seeing anything but old pipes, a lot boxes, a couple of side rooms, a staircase, and the furnace. He quickly trained his eyes to pick up any movement, and after a couple of minutes of not seeing anything or anyone alive, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Coast is clear!" Jeff shouted back. The others soon came out of the elevator, cheering, and joined Jeff.
They took the beer out of their bookbags and laid the cases on the floor. Each person took one up, and popped theirs open and before long, they were all drinking.
Savanna had trouble getting hers open, so she went over to the closed elevator doors, and found the crevice, which she put the top of the bottle next to and twisted, the cap of the beer flying off.
Savanna smiled as she drank, going back to the rest. Soon after that, all of them were so drunk, they would never remember any of the events that happened while they were drunk.
Mr. Johnson sat in his desk in his office. He was on the phone with someone, his elbows on his desk as he talked. "So, Patricia, all the schools are going to be closed early?"
"Yes." The voice on the other end answered.
"I know you may be the super-intendant, but I think we should keep school open. It's only the second day of school. The kids don't need another break. I think the storm well miss us. We haven’t had a storm in 5 years."
"The Navel Air Base guaranteed us that the storm well hit. It's best to get the kids home as early as possible."
"Fine." Mr. Johnson sighed. He hung up. He knew Patricia was only trying to help the kids, but he knew the storm would miss, and the kids would just get another vacation over nothing. Oh well. If they missed enough school, they’d make it up over the summer.
He thought for a minute, and then picked up his phone again and called another number. “Hello?” his wife’s voice came from the other end.
"Hey honey. School's going to be closed soon, so expect the kids back from pre_school early."
"Ok, thanks." Mr. Johnson hung up and he was about to make another phone call when there was a knock on his door. He looked over.
“Come in.” he said. The door slowly opened with a creak and Mrs. Stuart walked in the office, her hair messed up. Her eyes sagging. It looked like she hadn’t gotten an ounce of sleep all night.
"Roy, I really need to talk to you." she said as she closed the door behind her.
"What is it?" He asked. He hoped it wasn’t anything serious, because he still had more calls to make before he dismissed the school.
"Frank never came home the other night and he's not anywhere in the school. I'm worried."
"Well I haven't seen him." Mr. Johnson said, not even sounding like he cared. Almost as if he had something else on his mind.
"I just thought that maybe he told you he was going somewhere or something."
"No. He never came to me about anything. He should have been working yesterday and today."
"Well this is weird. If he wanted to leave me, he could have told me. He didn't have to run off." She put her hands over her eyes as tears came and she started to cry. Mr. Johnson hated it when people cried, so now he tried to calm her down.
"Calm down. He'll probably show up in the next day or so. He probably just needed a breather. Now you should get back to work."
"Ok." Mrs. Stuart sniffled. She turned and left, closing the door behind her again. Mr. Johnson sighed as he turned back to the phone.
Later that morning, In the nurse's office, Steven and Dillon were sitting down, holding a bag of ice to the back of their heads. The school Nurse and Mr. Johnson were also in the room.
"You were lucky." The Nurse remarked. "We found you right before the snow started falling."
"What happened?" Mr. Johnson asked, looking at the two teens.
Steven started explaining. Of course he had to lie to make it look like they were the victims. "Edward and his crew don't like us. Him, Jeff, and Allison. So this morning, them and their friends attacked us with beer bottles. We were only trying to make friends with them and they jumped us. They told us they would never be friends with us if it was the end of the world.”
Dillon and Steven looked at each other and a smile formed on Dillon’s face.
"Do you know where they are now?" Mr. Johnson asked. “What class they’re in?”
"Yes.” Steven said. This time he had no need to lie. “They're suppose to be in Mrs. Furankee's class, but they're down in the basement, skipping school."
"How do you know this?" Mr. Johnson looked at him suspiciously.
"We overheard their conversation." Dillon spoke up. “When we approached them to talk to them, they had their backs turned, talking about skipping school down in the basement.”
"You guys stay here. This isn't over. Someone's going to be in big trouble." Mr. Johnson turned to leave, but the Nurse stopped him.
"Want me to watch them?" The Nurse asked.
"Yes. And don't let them leave. Even when the bell rings. We need to get to the bottom of this." The principal turned and left the room. Steven and Dillon looked at each other. They were supposed to be leaving by now, not having to go against Jeff and Edward. They may be in the school a lot longer then they expected. Little did they know, it was going to be even longer then that.
Mr. Johnson walked into the office and went over to the intercom, behind the main desk. He pressed a button and spoke. As he spoke, his voice sounded throughout the entire school for all to hear.
"Students and Staff, due to recent weather conditions, school well be closing early. The buses have already been called and are here to pick up those who take them, so you're all dismissed. Have fun and keep safe. School well start up again whenever weather is permitting. Good-day."
He reached over and pressed another button, causing the bell to ring. After keeping his finger on the button for a couple more seconds, he let go and walked out of the office.
In the basement, everyone was drunk. Really, really, drunk, and since there was no light, it was also really, really dark, but by now the student’s eyes had adjusted, so they could see.
Jeff and Allison were making out with each other next to a couple of unpacked boxes, Edward and Leticia were doing the same and Candice and Savanna were doing the same.
"I always thought you were cute!" Leticia said to Edward in between kisses. Everyone continued on with what they were doing, cheering here and there.
The hallway was full of kids rushing out of their classes and to their lockers, hurrying to get home before the storm got any worse.
Mr. Johnson pushed his way through the crowd, heading back to the Nurse's office. On his way, he looked out one of the windows in the hall and saw that the storm had started to get worse, a blanket of falling snow now starting to come down in fury.
He hurried on to the Nurse’s office.
Andrea had her bookbag and she was walking out the doors of the school and into the blizzard. She had to squint her eyes so the snow wouldn’t get in them, and she heard the wind howl as it blew the snow with a lot of force.
She had woken up in the morning to her phone ringing and when she answered it, it was Dirisha. She was hysterical, telling Andrea not to go to school because she had a bad dream or something. Andrea called her crazy and told her to get some rest, and then hung up.
It looked like Dirisha was going to be getting her wish. Andrea ran as fast as she could through the blinding snow, trying to get to her house before it got any worse outside.
Mr. Johnson entered the Nurse's office. The kids in the hall behind him were only visible for a second, and then he closed the door. Dillon and Steven, for that second, had seen the kids and wished they were out there with them, also getting ready to leave.
"Well you be needing me anymore?" the Nurse asked.
"No. you can leave. You better hurry though. The storm’s starting to get a lot worse."
"Thank_you." The Nurse quickly gathered up her purse and jacket, and left.
"Why can't we leave?" Steven asked.
"Because," Mr. Johnson answered. "We're all going to the basement to find your attackers. I want to get this resolved today, so I know if they should come back after the storm goes away, or get an extra few days ‘vacation’."
"They're probably gone by now!" Dillon sighed, throwing his hands in the air and bringing them back on his legs, making a smacking sound.
"There's no speakers in the basement." Mr. Johnson informed them. "If they really were in the basement, they'd still be there. They wouldn’t have heard my announcement." As Mr. Johnson head for the door, Steven and Dillon stood up, placing their ice packs on the table, and followed the principal out of the room and into the now empty halls, heading for the basement.
Angela and Ryan were heading towards the doors, at the end of the hall. They had hung out together all morning, and Ryan was going to give her a ride back to her house.
“Wait a minute, I have to use the bathroom.” Angela said, slowing down.
“I’m going to go out and turn my car on to heat it up.” Ryan explained. “Just come out when you’re done in the bathroom.”
“Ok.”
‘See you in a few.” Ryan continued on towards the doors, while Angela turned the corner, going into one of the bathrooms.
In the basement, at another end from the drunk students, Grim Reaper snuck down the stairs quietly, unnoticed by the drunk people who were starting to sober up. He walked over to one of the side rooms, his cloak scraping against the dusty floor, and went in.
Inside the room were both the back-up generator and the regular generator. Grim Reaper lifted his scythe and moved the blade back and forth, severing various wires, causing sparks to fly, lighting up the small side room with a fzzzt.
Mr. Johnson, Steven, and Dillon were in the elevator, and it had just started moving down to the basement, when suddenly, the lights flickered and went off, plunging them into darkness. But that’s not all. The elevator also came to a sudden stop, jerking the three people around a bit.
"Damn it!" Mr. Johnson shouted. “The storm must have knocked out the power.”
"This sucks!" Dillon punched the wall. He never admitted it to anyone before but he was really claustrophobic, and he really didn’t want to loose it in front of Steven and have him know. Little did Dillon know, Steven was thinking almost the exact same thing.
Ryan reached the doors, just as the lights went out, and he pulled on them, but they wouldn’t open.
“Damn!” He shouted. Maybe someone in the office knows of another way out of here. So he turned and walked back down the halls, heading for the office.
Angela was just in the middle of walking out from the bathroom when the power went out. Secretly, she was afraid of the dark, so she started running down the hall, reaching the doors, and trying to open them, meeting the same conclusion as Ryan: The doors were jammed shut.
She sighed and turned, walking down the halls, thinking Ryan was already out of the school and waiting for her. She had to find another way out.
In the basement, everyone was now more sober, and feeling like crap, and at a memory loss of what had happened.
"Why are the lights out?" Jeff asked, looking around. Suddenly the all heard a thump from off to the side and they all jumped, but no one screamed. “What was that? I heard something in the power room.”
"Go check it out." Allison urged him, as she held onto his shoulder, more so hiding behind him.
"I will, but I need a light. It's too dark to see anything." God, he had the worse headache ever and now this blonde chick, who he could barley even remember the name of, wants him to be super brave.
Edward reached into his pocket and pulled out a device. He handed it to Jeff and as Jeff felt it in his palm, he knew it was a lighter.
"Thanks." Jeff pressed the wheel, and at first nothing happened. He did it again, two more times, and after the third try, a light spurted forth as the fire was lit.
The light flickered as Jeff slowly walked towards the power room. As he got to the closed door, he put his ear up to the wooden door and listened, but didn’t hear anything. Wait. Was that a soft thump he had just heard?
"I thought I heard something." Jeff whispered, more to himself then to the others, but they still heard him. As he started to stand back up, the door unexpectedly flung open, hitting Jeff, sending him falling to the floor. Standing in the doorway, was Grim Reaper, holding the scythe in both hands, sideways, the blade pointed down.
Jeff quickly stood up, the door having knocked some sense into him, as well as his memory. He ran and slammed back into the door, causing it to slam shut just before Grim Reaper walked out of the room.
The others quickly rushed over and started pushing heavy box in front of the door. Once that obstacle was done, they all started pushing more lighter boxes in front and on top of the heavy box.
None of them had actually seen the figure clearly they had just seen a shape. Only Jeff saw it completely, as he was so close.
"Everyone," Jeff shouted. "Get out of here, quickly!"
"What was it?" Edward asked. “Who was that?”
"No time for talking." Jeff said. "I'll tell you later." He started walking fast across the basement, the others following, not really knowing what was going on.
As they walked, Allison stumbled on something on the floor, and if it wasn’t for Leticia catching her, she would have fallen. "It's too dark down here." Allison complained. "I'm scarred."
"We'll be out of here soon." Candice comforted her.
"Jeff," Savanna asked. "What's going on?"
Jeff stopped and turned around to face the others. He had a look of determination mixed with fear, but no one could actually pick out the features on his face. "Everyone listen to me carefully." he explained. "I saw someone dressed as the Grim Reaper in that room. I don't know if it's real or someone playing a joke like Dillon or Steven, but the scythe looked pretty real." Then he added more softly, "And I had a dream about him last night."
"So did I!" Allison shouted. She couldn’t believe this. She wasn’t going to tell anyone at first because she thought that they would think she was crazy, but now she can tell people because she wasn’t the only one who had one.
"And me!" Leticia announced.
Everyone else quickly agreed that they too, had a dream about the Grim Reaper the night before.
"What the hell does all this mean?" Edward asked, confused. Was the real Grim Reaper from Hell, for some reason after them?
"I don't know." Jeff admitted. "And at the moment, I don't really care. Let's just get the hell out of here and back to class. I’ve had enough skipping for one day."
"Yeah, we're safe there." Allison agreed. “No costume dressed people will get us there.”
"Told you guys this was a bad idea." Jeff mumbled as he turned and continued walking. They were all almost at the elevator, until Edward stopped in his tracks. The others saw this out of the corner of their eyes, and stopped, wondering what was wrong. They started walking away when Edward stopped and the others turned around to look at him, wondering what he was doing.
“Come on Edward, what are you stopping for?” Candice asked.
"What are we running from?” Edward asked. “How do we know there's really anything in there? We might just have seen things. We were drunk you know. I say we stay down here and stay away from getting in crap. If we leave and go back up, we’re sure to get in trouble. We’ll get a ton of demerits, a one week suspension, and our parents will find out."
"Edward," Jeff expressed. "I'm your best friend and you've got to listen to me. We have to get out of here. It’s not safe down here."
"Edward's right!" Leticia agreed. "We should stay down here. I know I don’t want to get in crap." She walked over to Edward leaned on him. She turned her head to face him and he turned his to face her. They leaned in and kissed. After a second, they pulled apart and looked at the rest.
"Any one else staying?" Edward asked.
Candice spoke up. "I'll do whatever Allison is doing."
"I'm going with Jeff." Allison said without even thinking twice.
"So am I." Savanna agreed. “It’s not safe down here.”
"Let's go." Jeff said, turning away. He turned his head back around. "Edward, I warned you." Jeff, Allison, Candice, and Savanna continued their little journey to the elevator and pressed the ‘up’ button. Nothing happened. After a couple seconds, they began to get worried.
"The power must be out." Savanna suggested. “Either that or the elevator is broken for some reason.”
"We'll take the stairs." Jeff announced.
"Where are they?" Candice asked. "It's too dark to see very much."
"We'll look for it." The group started feeling along the walls, looking for the staircase.
In the computer lab, Jesus was sitting alone by a computer. He was the only person there, and the room was in darkness. Like the halls, the only light came from the window, which didn’t cause very much due to the heavy snow falling.
He punched the table with his fist hard. "Damn power outage!" he shouted to no one. "I almost won the whole game! I guess I better leave now before the storm gets worse." he pushed his chair out and stood up. He pushed his chair back in and left the room, heading out to the halls to leave.
Brad was at his locker, putting books away so he wouldn’t have to carry them home through the raging snow.
Once he was done, he locked up his locker and started heading down the hall for the main doors, hoping it wasn’t as bad outside as it looked through the windows.
In the dark office, Mrs. Furankee, Mrs. Wolfington, Mr. Fink, and another teacher, Ms. Winegrad were trying to use the phone. Ms. Winegrad was a 25 year old teacher who had just got out of university and this was her first year teaching and she hated it. She liked teaching the younger grades, but her Grade 12 class, almost every male had hit on her, trying to ask her out for dinner some time. Her response had always been the same. ‘No.’ she had meant that through whatever way she had at wording it, different phrases at different times, some of which probably would have got her fired if Mr. Johnson had heard.
"It's dead." Mr. Fink informed the other teachers, putting the receiver of the phone back down. "The storm must have knocked it out with the power."
"Is there anybody else in the school?" Mrs. Furankee asked.
"I don't think so. If there were, they’d probably come here anyway, looking for more people. But I doubt it because most of the students couldn’t wait to leave when they were dismissed." After a minute, he thought of something. "Wait! Mrs. Stuart is still in the school someplace. I’ve seen her since the power’s gone out. We can just raise her on the walkie_talkie. She probably knows a way out of here."
Mrs. Wolfington took out a walkie_talkie from a desk drawer and handed it to Mr. Fink. He turned it on and started trying different channels, pressing the ‘talk’ button as he did so.
"Mrs. Stuart? Hello? Are you in the school? Hello? Answer me!" No answer, just static. He waited a couple minutes, until the static got unbearable. He turned off the device and slammed it down on the desk.
"Why can't we just leave?" Ms. Winegrad asked.
"Because," Mrs. Wolfington explained. "The power went out. The doors are locked tight until it comes back on."
"What about the back_up generator?"
"Something must have happened to it." Mr. Fink announced. "Or else the power wouldn't have gone out in the first place."
"So we're stuck in the school? We can't break a window or something?" Ms. Winegrad was hating this. When she heard that school was cancelled for the day, she couldn’t wait to get home. Now she was stuck in the school.
Mrs. Furankee explained this. "The windows are bullet proof. We don't have anything to get through them with in this school."
Ms. Winegrad sighed. This was going to be a long day.
Brad reached the main doors and tried pulling on them, but they wouldn't open. He couldn’t even budge them. He looked out the windows in the doors, and saw that the storm had got worse outside.
He tried pushing on the doors, but they still wouldn't open. He kicked them again and noticed a small amount of snow blowing in from cracks between the doors and walls. He felt a small breeze as well and it chilled him. Maybe it was better to wait the storm out inside the school. After all, it was warmer.
He suddenly heard footsteps someplace close by and whipped around, eyes darting wildly, trying to locate where they were coming from. The footsteps were getting closer. Closer. Closer. Closer.
Then Jesus walked around the corner. "Hey!" Jesus greeted with a smile
"Jeez, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" Brad yelled at the nerd.
"Sorry." Jesus said, apologetically.
"Don't bother trying to get the doors open. They’re jammed shut. We're locked in."
"No! I'm going to miss the early showing of Star Trek!"
"Come on." Brad urged. "Lets go see if anyone else is still in the school." They turned away from the doors and started walking down the dark and lonely hall again.
“Where are we going to look?” Jesus asked.
“I don’t know. We can start at the office.”
Inside the elevator, Mr. Johnson, Steven, and Dillon were still trapped.
"This sucks!" Dillon yelled.
"It could be worse." Mr. Johnson said, trying to look at it positively.
"Ah shut up!"
"Don't talk to me that way!" Mr. Johnson was starting to get irritated with this young man, and he didn’t blame the others for hitting him over the head with a beer bottle.
"Guys!" Steven called out. Dillon and Mr. Johnson looked around but couldn't find him. Where had he gone? Where was his voice coming from? Then they looked up and saw that Steven had removed a tile in the roof and was on top of the elevator, on the roof.
"Up here." Steven reached his hand down and helped the other two climb up onto the roof of the elevator. Dillon was easy enough, but it took both him and Dillon to get Mr. Johnson up, and even then they had trouble. A couple of times Steven had felt his arms strain and he thought the principal was going to fall back down, but at the last minute he came up.
They looked up above them, at the long elevator shaft.
"Now what do we do?" Dillon asked.
"We climb the cable." Steven said. “Ever see Die hard? Mission Impossible?”
"I'll go first." Mr. Johnson offered. He started climbing up the cable that was holding the elevator in place, putting one hand above the other, one at a time, sliding his folded legs up. follow him were first Steven, and then Dillon.
After a couple minutes, and after much struggle, and once their arms had gotten tired, they managed to get to the top.
"Now we're stuck!" Dillon shouted.
"No, we're not." Mr. Johnson said. He swung from the cable to a short ledge sticking out from the wall. There was a regular door there, that he pushed open.
"We had to have a regular door installed here for the janitor, incase something happened to the elevator." Mr. Johnson explained. Steven jumped next and landed on the platform, next to the principal. "Your turn, Dillon!"
Dillon didn’t think he could make it, because his arms were so tired from lifting Mr. Johnson up, and then all the climbing, but he had to try to jump anyway. He couldn’t let Steven know he was getting weak.
Dillon breathed in and swung and leaped, but let go of the cable at the wrong time and slipped. He grabbed the edge of the platform at the last second with one hand, and three fingers, and quickly swung his other hand up, just as his first slipped off. Then he swung that one back up again, and hoisted himself up with the help of Steven and Mr. Johnson.
They walked through the door and into the hall of the top floor.
"I want you boys to go to the roof." Mr. Johnson said as they walked into a hallway. "There'll be a fire escape ladder that you can use to get down. I'm going to stay and look to see if anyone else is still trapped in the school. Just find a staircase on this level that goes up and that'll bring you to the roof."
"Ok. Sure." Steven said. They turned and went they're separate ways, Mr. Johnson going one way and Steven and Dillon going the other.
Steven and Dillon were racing up a set of stairs soon afterwards. They had found the staircase leading to the roof, almost immediately after separating from Mr. Johnson and were now running up.
"Next time we see Edward, we're gonna kill him!" Steven said, anger in his voice. It was, after all, his fault that they had to get home through a blizzard.
The stairs ended and at the top was a door labelled 'Rooftop.' They pushed through it out onto the roof.
When they got to the roof, they saw how strong the storm really was. The cold had hit them right away, and so did the wind, blowing back their hair and jackets, making it hard to breath.
It was super hard to see due to the heavy snow, and it was hard to walk against the wind. It was also partly hailing as well, causing little bits of ice to hit off Dillon and Steven as they tried to jog across the snow covered roof, snow getting in their shoes as they ran.
They squinted their eyes, but could barley see anything still. They were afraid they wouldn’t see the edge of the roof and fall off.
"Screw this, man!" Dillon said. "I can't see jack!"
"And it's starting to hail!" Steven shouted above the howl of the wind. They turned and ran back inside, finding it easier to go with the wind then against it, and they reached the onside, intending to stay there to wait the storm out. They were going to go find Mr. Johnson and tell him about their failed progress to get out of the school.
6/13/2002 4:06:26 PM
Comment on this fan fiction!
|
|
|
