Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

  “Poor Meredith,” said Euryda. “I hope they get Baby back to sleep while there’s still time for her to do some more dancing. She was really looking forward to it.”

  “Yeah,” said Sean. “Are you having a good time?”

  “Oh, yes!” she said. “I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun! Thank you so much for asking me.”

  “Not like you needed me to,” he muttered. “You could’ve gone with one of those other guys.”

  “Maybe, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as good a time.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Because I wouldn’t have had the novelty of seeing you actually enjoying yourself for a change,” she answered.

  He went red.

  “Who says I’m enjoying myself?”

  “You do,” she said. “It’s written all over your face.”

  He broke into a reluctant grin.

  “It’s really not fair that you get to see my face and I don’t get to see yours,” he said.

  “Life’s not fair,” she said. “I mean, if we learn one thing here, it’s that, right?”

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  They fell silent for a moment, watching the stars and the shaking and twitching of the Growth. Behind them the music had started up again and the dancing had resumed. Sean’s gaze drifted down to look at her, admiring the way the light from the ballroom fell on her dress and her skin and the scales of her writhing snakes.

  “What’re you thinking about?” she asked, still gazing at the sky.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “I was thinking,” he said, “that at a dance at any other school, this is probably where I’d try to kiss you.”

  She looked at him sharply. Her throat tightened, and her snakes became suddenly stiff as though they had caught the scent of a predator. It was hard to tell with her mask on, but he had the impression that he had said something wrong.

  He didn’t get a chance to find out.

  At that moment, there was a sudden, ear-rending scream, then another on top of it, and another. Sean and Euryda covered their ears and looked out into the courtyard.

  They saw the Growth, partially illuminated by the light from the ballroom, as shapeless mouths opened on all sides of it and screamed. A second later, eyes began to appear; wet, red, oblong eyes with black slits for pupils stuck at seemingly random points along its length. They rolled madly, then several of them fixed onto Sean and Euryda. Tendrils unwound themselves from the main barrel of its body, and the whole thing started tearing itself out of the ground as they watched.

  Sean swore, seized Euryda by the hand and pulled her back to the ballroom as the Growth’s tendrils lashed the sides of the veranda, wrapping around the columns that supported the roof.

  “Watch the skies!” they both screamed as they entered the ballroom. “Watch the skies!”

  In a place like the Van Helsing Academy, all kinds of strange things could happen; things that wouldn’t easily go into words but were no less deadly for the fact. Therefore the rule was that, if any danger threatened, “Watch the skies” was the universal warning sign. It meant that something terrible was happening, and everyone needed to pay attention.

  The screams of the Growth had already brought the music and dancing to a halt, and all eyes were on the door to the courtyard as Sean and Euryda came flying through, shouting the alarm. The staff leapt into action at once. Some of them began herding students back in the direction of the other doors at the head of the room, while others moved forward to meet the new threat, drawing weapons.

  The Growth squeezed its shapeless bulk through the doors, screeching with all its many mouths at once, its eyes roaming across the room. It was pulsating like an exposed vein and appeared to be growing bigger before their very eyes. Certainly its tendrils were thicker than they had been.

  Professors Van Helsing and Von Frankenstein moved forward, large pistols at the ready. The ballroom rang with the roar of gunfire as they poured silver bullets into the growth, but this only seemed to make it twitch and pulsate even more.

  “Get back with the others!” Von Frankenstein roared at Sean and Euryda as he reloaded with superhuman speed.

  Sean looked back at the Growth. It wasn’t stopping. In fact, he had the repulsive impression that it was in an ecstasy of sensual pleasure under the gunfire. Something about the way those many eyes were rolling over…

  Many eyes…

  He still held Euryda’s hand in his. Now he pulled her suddenly close and lifted her bodily off the ground.

  “What are you doing?!” she shrieked. Several of her snakes tried to bite him, but couldn’t get through his scales. He ignored them.

  “Stand back and shield your eyes!” Sean shouted to the staff members as he carried Euryda in front of their ranks. He had no time to explain, no time to check that all was safe. The Growth was surging toward them.

  “Keep looking at it!” he ordered Euryda as he set her down and, with a single swift motion, tore the mask from her face.

  She screamed, and so did the Growth. It reared up, its many eyes fixing on her. Then in the space of a moment, beginning at the eyes, it turned grey and hard and froze in place with a loud cracking sound.

  For a long minute, the ballroom was silent, stunned. In the pause, Sean’s eyes drifted to the mirror on the wall to his right. In it, he saw Euryda’s pale, horrified face.

  He saw it only for a moment, for as soon as she regained mastery of herself she seized the mask from his hand, pulled it back on, then turned and ran out of the room.

  “All things considered,” said Hugo the next morning. “That went about as well as could have been expected. A few minor injuries, no one died, took us almost a whole hour to run out of food, and, as a bonus, the ballroom ended up with a nice new abstract modern sculpture. Did Euryda have a good time?”

  “Don’t know,” Sean growled. “I haven’t seen her since she ran off. Went looking, but didn’t find her. Dr. Lyle said she went back to her room.”

  “That’s too bad. You missed the whole second half, when Matt had a panic attack, climbed the wall, and ended up getting tangled in one of the banners. They had to take him off to a dark room to calm down, I gather. Not to mention the Professor’s impromptu lecture on how the Growth must’ve been a kinda thing that feeds on strong emotions and that’s why it woke up during the dance.”

  “Can’t catch a break around this school, can we?” Sean muttered.

  “Most folks seemed to have a good time regardless,” said Hugo. “I call that getting a break. We didn’t end till about three in the morning.”

  Sean only response to this was to growl. He felt rotten. He knew he had done the right thing; Professor Van Helsing himself had commended him for his quick thinking. But he also knew that, somehow, he had hurt Euryda very badly by doing it. Not to mention the fact that the last thing he’d really said was that he’d wanted to kiss her, which she had reacted strangely to.

  They really needed to talk.

  It was Saturday, and students were given free time in the morning. Most of them would be sleeping off the party, but it was just possible that Euryda would be at breakfast. As soon as Sean was dressed, he headed down to the dining room, but she wasn’t there. Not wanting to have to wait until tomorrow or even Monday, he wandered about the halls a little in the hopes of finding her, taking care not to get lost. He was just considering applying to Dr. Lyle for help when he found her sitting outside the library, her usual mask back on. Her clothes were rather more subdued today, showing almost no skin. It was as though, for once, she didn’t want to be noticed. But she still wore her hair down, and the snakes all lifted their hoods as they caught sight of him.

  “Hey,” he called on seeing her.

  “Hi,” she answered without enthusiasm.

  “So…about last night…” he began.

  “Never touch my mask again,” she snapped at once. “I don’t care if the devil himse
lf is coming up through a portal to Hell, with Dracula and all the vampires with him, don’t ever, ever touch it!”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It just came to me, and there wasn’t time to discuss it.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you…”

  “Well, you did.”

  He felt sorry, but also annoyed.

  “It was kind of an emergency, in case you didn’t notice,” he said. “I didn’t really have time to worry about embarrassment, or…”

  “You don’t get it!” she snapped, standing up suddenly and glaring at him while her snakes hissed furiously. “Last night, I felt…I felt normal for the first time since it happened. I felt pretty, I felt appreciated, I…I was myself again. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world! Then you had to go and rip my mask off and make me turn that thing to stone, and just like that I was back to being a monster.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That thing was about to start killing people, and they weren’t stopping it…”

  “I know, I know, I know!” she shouted, gripping her head. “That’s the worst of it. I know I shouldn’t be mad at you, since you did the right thing and really were very dashing and heroic. But I can’t help it! And, because of that, I also get to feel guilty about being so selfish!”

  He stared at her a moment, then nodded.

  “I get it,” he said.

  “Not to mention,” she went on. “That before all that craziness happened, you had to go and tell me that you would have…would have if it weren’t for…” she swallowed and seemed unable to get the words out. “I guess you were trying to be nice and all that, but it hurt. It hurt a lot.”

  Sean frowned at her. She was right. He’d messed up the whole thing from beginning to end; made her forget her curse only to remind her of it once more by bringing up something she couldn’t do. He remembered the expression on her face reflected in the mirror, shocked, terrified…

  Achingly beautiful.

  Suddenly, he seized her by the hand.

  “Come on.”

  “What? What’re you doing?”

  “Just come with me,” he snapped. “By hell, I’ll make up for it!”

  “That’s ever so slightly alarming,” she said, trotting after him as he kept a firm grip on her wrist. Her snakes hissed angrily at him, but he ignored them. He dragged her along until he found what he was looking for; that room full of disused furniture where he’d spoken with Von Frankenstein. He practically threw her inside and ripped the curtains open to let in the sunlight, then yanked the dust cover off of a big full-length mirror.

  “I caught a glimpse of your face last night,” he said. “And I want to see it again.”

  “No,” she said. “Absolutely not!”

  “It won’t hurt me if I see it in the mirror.”

  “What if someone walks in on us?”

  In answer, Sean grabbed a chair and shoved it under the doorknob.

  “What if…what if something goes wrong?”

  “I’ll take the risk,” he said. “Now stand over here.”

  He positioned her before the mirror, resting his claws on her shoulders. They looked a fairly ridiculous pair, he thought; he with his scales covering most of his body like a suit of armor, she with her halo of snakes around her mask.

  “I won’t take it off,” he told her. “But I’m not leaving until you do.”

  “You think this’ll make me feel any different?”

  “I think it’ll show you that you don’t have to hide your face your whole life, whatever your curse. Right now, you’re just a pretty girl showing off.”

  She hesitated a long while, then reached up and took hold of her mask. Another second’s hesitation to make sure he was really behind her, and she took it off.

  Sean gazed at the pale, nervous face blinking into the mirror under its halo of snakes.

  “You were right,” he said. “That’d be worth dying for.”

  A smile twitched at her mouth.

  “I’m going to shut my eyes now,” he said. “And then I am going to kiss you. And I don’t care how many bites I get.”

  He shut his eyes tight, then turned her around, placed a claw on either side of her face, and kissed her deeply. The snakes didn’t try to stop him. Instead, he thought they were nuzzling him affectionately, though he wasn’t in a noticing mood right then.

  After what seemed a long, wonderful time, they broke apart. He could feel her hot breath on his face and feel her trembling under his claws.

  “Wow,” she whispered, “I never thought I’d get to do that.” Then she kissed him again. A moment later, her felt her gently remove his claws from her face and after another second’s pause, she told him he could look. He opened his eyes and found that her mask was firmly back in place.

  “You know,” she said. “When I woke up this morning, I didn’t think anything could do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Cheer me up.”

  They walked out of the room together, hand in hand. They hadn’t taken more than a few steps into the hallway when…

  “Mr. Paulson. Miss Drakos.”

  Sean and Euryda jumped. Professor Von Frankenstein was waiting for them.

  “How the heck did you know where we were?!” Sean blurted out.

  Von Frankenstein ignored that.

  “What were you two doing in there?” he asked.

  “We…we were…” Sean stammered.

  “He was kissing the devil out of me, sir,” Euryda said matter-of-factly.

  Von Frankenstein’s heavy brow raised a little.

  “I hope,” he said. “I don’t have to remind you…”

  “What, of the dangers of being turned to stone?” Sean interrupted. “Forget it. We’re dealing with it and the less it’s mentioned the better.”

  “I was going to say of the school policy against improper fraternization,” said Von Frankenstein. “Though that would also be a concern.”

  “We’re being careful,” said Euryda. “I mean, in both senses.” She swallowed hard and seemed on the verge of a giggling fit.

  “See that you are. It might be best if Dr. Lyle were consulted any time you wished to…repeat this experiment. She will be able to ensure you don’t make any mistakes.”

  Sean didn’t like that idea at all. But, as always with Von Frankenstein, he was too intimidated to really argue.

  “It’s okay, sir,” he said. “She tells me she’s not that kind of girl.”

  Euryda’s giggling fit broke loose. Sean found himself grinning broadly, something that certainly hadn’t happened often in the presence of the Frankenstein Monster. Then a thought occurred to him.

  “Sir,” he said as Von Frankenstein started to turn away. “I think I know why you wanted to have the dance.”

  “Yes?”

  “It was for this sort of thing, wasn’t it? I mean,” he added hastily, seeing Von Frankenstein’s brow lifting again. “You wanted us to not think of ourselves as monsters, at least for one night. You wanted us to see each other as normal kids, worry about normal things, and feel…well, normal for a change. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  A smile twisted the Frankenstein Monster’s ghastly mouth.

  “I am impressed, Mr. Paulson.”

  With that, he inclined his head and walked off.

  “Nice guy, really,” said Euryda.

  “If you say so,” Sean muttered. Then he looked sideways at her. “So…about this ‘illicit fraternization…’”

  “Watch yourself, lizard boy.”

  “Rather watch you, snake girl.”

  “Oh, you had better,” she said as they set off hand-in-hand back to the dining hall. “Remember, lots of guys asked me out before you did. Some of them really good looking, too. I’m not letting you forget that any time soon.”

  “You monster!”

  By an unfortunate mishap, David Breitenbeck was born several centuries later than intended. While this has been in
convenient for all concerned in many ways, it has given him the opportunity to become exposed to many, many glorious fictional worlds and to start to produce some of his own. He has worked as a professional freelance writer for several years, peddling essays and articles and the occasional self-published book, including the mystery The Ten Commandments of Murder and the non-fiction The Wisdom of Walt Disney.

  A Word from Chris Nuttall

  If we shadows have offended ...

  First, I hope you enjoyed this anthology. If you did, please review it. Now, onto more serious matters .

  The purposes of anthologies such as this one, and its predecessor, are two-fold. First, to tell stories that might or might not fit into a mainstream book - Gennady’s Tale, Nanette’s Tale - and, second, to give aspiring authors their first real exposure. The former stories are often side-tales, or too short to make novels of their own; the latter are sometimes crude and unpolished, but showing hints of the maturity their writer will - hopefully - one day develop.

  A writer cannot live on exposure alone, as many people have pointed out over the years. Free content may or may not be worth what you pay for it, and the writer obviously gets nothing out of it, but it does put the writer’s name in front of a larger audience. By associating newer writers with older ones, anthologies hope to ‘pass it along’ by encouraging readers to take a look at the stories written by unknown authors. There is, of course, no guarantee that the readers will like the stories - each and every book, novella and short story has one reader who thinks it's absolutely brilliant and another who wouldn’t lower himself to use the story for toilet paper - and no guarantee of future success, but there will be a chance.

  We are hoping to produce more Fantastic School anthologies in the future and are opening slots to the new and unpublished as well as well-known authors. If you’re interested in submitting a story idea for consideration, or doing a piece of artwork for the cover (we intend to showcase a different artist for each book), visit the link below, read the rules and email us.

  https://www.superversivesf.com/fantasticschools/fantastic-schools-anthology-2/