The Risen: Dawning

by Marie F. Crow

  The school halls are silent and for once Ashley and Conroy are not rushing past me or avoiding being seen with me as is the normal reaction to mornings where I was unable to shower and change before being graced with the chore of bus duty. Each has a secure grasp of a hand walking slightly behind me, allowing me to turn the corners first. Their eyes dart around as if some unseen horror is lurking there. Nice to know in their minds I am bait, or worse, their protection.

  I hesitate at the double French style doors of the Office. My “bar uniform” is enough to earn glares from the females but add in the B horror movie makeover and I am sure the speculation will be super fun. The Hawthorn Angels are still in their pajamas and with none of their school materials, well that will just be the bright red cherry to my cupcake of failures that they will love to eat up. Bitter? Who, me? Like arsenic.

  There is no office staff today. The space is minus the glares. There are no gasps at my failures. No female perfected covered whispering at the situation before them. The silence is almost anti-climatic to the verbal build up I was preparing myself to receive. Why is it we always have the best one-liners for times when they are not needed but never for when they are?

  “Mrs. Schinder is always here.” Ashley’s voice is filling with the same confusion that Conroy’s face is wearing. “I mean, like, always here. I think she lives under the desk, for real. That’s why we call her The Office Troll. You know, because a troll lives under a bridge?”

  I glance over with one eyebrow of parental reprimand letting her know that I get it. At least I know I am not the only one not of the Schinder fan camp, but troll is not as descriptive as I mentally have worded her. I walk through the mini cages of small offices looking for someone as my new shadows keep their footing behind me. The security staff should have met us long ago with as much noise as my boots are making. This ignorance from a staff that almost tackled me for forgetting to stop by the main office on my way in one afternoon causes me to slow my step some. An over privileged private school does not allow this sort of freedom on normal days. One thing I am sure of, it has not been a normal day.

  “Hey Ash, when there is a big deal event where does the school take everyone?” I force my voice to sound only curious, not worried.

  “First, I am not burnt remains of something to be thrown away. It is Ash-LEY thank you.” She folds her arms, and I feel the over dramatic pout building. I did mention over privileged, right? “Second, it would be the gym. It holds the most capacity in the school as anyone should know.”

  There is that soundproof logic we have all come to adore. “Fine. Would you please do us the honor of leading us to the gym, Ash-LEY?”

  “We can’t go anywhere until we are signed in! It’s the rules.” She glares at my mocking of her sincere concerns over her name.

  “Do you see anyone here to sign you in?” I ask with a wide sweep of my hands to all the empty chairs and blank flashing computer screens.

  She answers me with a pivot of a socked foot, flip of blonde hair, and a push of the heavy metal doors. Conroy gives me a thumbs up and smirks at her disappointment of finally being proven wrong. With a gracious bow, I hold the door open for him and we follow a very dramatically pouting ten year old pretending not hear our muffled giggles through the overly peppy done hallways.

  I grow more curious with each empty classroom we pass in our progress to the gym. I scan for signs of some clues, but so far, nothing stands out to me. There are no signs of panic or disruptions. Small book bags line the classroom walls on color-coded hooks. Lunch boxes with their smiling cartoon faces stare at us with some secret joke they share between them as we pass. Lesson plans still outline a full day’s activities on white boards in various shades of script. I glance out windows to be sure I remember cars being here in this total lack of life that is surrounding us.

  The school slowly takes on a monstrous costume with its empty desks and my boots clicking, fighting against the silence. By now, this far in, we should have passed someone. My Angels must have been running the same thought patterns. Their steps slow and become less deliberate with each room. Conroy often glances up at me in a silent exchange of mixed questions. I know their thoughts are filtering around this morning’s events for the simple fact that this same eerie set up is causing mine to. All this time I have been expecting some giant blaring billboards of acknowledgement of those events, but maybe the biggest signs are the silent ones creeping up on me.

  I can see the double purple steel doors waiting ahead of us. This is the same set of doors that Conroy must have passed through a thousand times, but now they cause him to hide behind me, peaking around my legs with wide blue eyes. I feel his fear vibrate up my body and place my hand on his back, pulling him closer and trying to calm him. His head rests against the back of my thigh as I call out to Ashley, still staring at the clown-inspired “Adventure Land” décor style shades of the hallway.

  “Hey, wait up a minute.” I call out to her.

  It is shocking to see the Princess of Arguments not only stop but also actually walk back towards me the few steps that have lingered between us this whole path. The out of character response leads Conroy to cling tighter to me, reading his sister’s actions as not obedient, but her own form of fears.

  “Let me check it first.” I find myself impressed by my voice’s certainty of that decision even as I am being met with two sets of wide eyes of disbelief.

  “So you just want us to wait here in the hallway alone?” There are those crossed arms of Ashley’s again. “Did you think that through or just open your mouth and let the sounds rolls out like normal?”

  I admit it, I am having a few thoughts of volunteering her first through the door but she is right. Leaving them alone when I am not sure what is exactly going on is perhaps not the best plan of mine to date. Besides, everyone knows the one standing in the back of the group gets to say hello to the monster first. I pull Conroy into the space between us and smile into her glaring blue eyes that so remind me of our Father’s right now.

  “You two can wait inside this classroom. Just shut the door and wait for me.” I point to yet another pastel nightmare across from us. This one seems to be themed with Mary’s Little Lamb. It does nothing to inspire courage with my decisions. Nor do the many painted black eyes staring out at us bring comfort to Conroy as he cocks one eyebrow up at me with the disbelief of his own.

  I force a smile of encouragement and untangle him from my legs, passing the torch of comfort giving to our sister. Rolling her eyes, with the ability of a teen pro, she leads them both into the classroom, closing the door behind her. I motion with my hands through the door’s glass rectangle window to the two sets of eyes staring at me to turn the lock. I wait for the metallic click that signals that they are secure with Mary watching over them. The noise seems to echo louder than it should have the power to in this hallway. With no other delays I can find, I feel their eyes following me to the gym doors as we put my so well thought out plan into action. I hope those lambs in that room are the ones Mary kept as pets and not the ones led to slaughter because I am not sure on which side of the door which lambs are which at this moment.

  Chapter 6

  I am grateful that the narrow rectangle window only allows for a certain degree of a vantage point as I stand here before the double doors. I do not want them to see just how afraid I really am. The cold metal of the door handle drains me of all the false bravado I was presenting just moments ago to them as soon as my hand rests on it. My heart races from the silence that whispers from the other side. A school full of elementary aged kids should not be this silent. I am sure there are many teachers, on many days, in many schools, that wish it to be possible, but it just is not.

  Humans are not silent creatures as a rule. We are quiet, but we are not silent. We shuffle. We breathe. We fidget. In some small degree, being alive means sound. This is why pure silence is the very core of fear. This is why we
glance around subconsciously when we suddenly find ourselves alone in the thick of that silence. This is why our minds will seek to fill the void when silence tries to surround us with random thoughts and to-do lists yet to be done. So what option does that leave waiting for me on the other side of these doors? What shadow of a nightmare is lurking for me to sneak a peak? It feels as if the whole building just inhaled a deep breath, drawing in all the sounds and time itself as it waits. It is waiting to see what happens next. It and that damn sun with its ever cheerful singing birds.

  The disengaging noise of the door signaling that the handle has done its job makes my stomach clench. Any hopes of going unnoticed are dissolving with each metallic scraping taunting of my attempt to slowly open the door. My body clenches as I hold the door frozen in less than half swing. No boogieman reaches through the crack to grab me. No sudden screams of horror-filled panic reaches my ears. Whatever monstrous mystery I had allowed myself to mentally invent is not unfolding before me as I had feared. I allow myself a small self-mockery of a laugh in my relief.

  Glancing over my shoulder to double check Mary’s locked room, my smile fades. The monster is finally creeping out of the dark but it is not behind me. It is in front of me with boldness that only pure Evil can hold. That only true Fear can embrace. It is flirting with my senses. It dares me with the truths of its twins. It is waiting to share with me the secret joke I was only so curious about a few moments ago.

  It is the smells that hit me first. Smells that will forever haunt me now as smells often do. It surrounds me with its dare to “come look” like phantom fingers caressing my face.

  “Come look. You remember me.” It hisses in my mind’s ear, and I do. I hear my small escape of a whimper and I know now why the silence has been mocking us the whole time. Each unsaid word drawing us closer to this sick twisted truth. Evil’s cruel joke.

  We are here now. We are right where everything has been waiting for us to find it and I do not know if I have the strength to look even as my head spins around in defiance of my fear. A train wreck curiosity of morbid style causes me to inch the door wide enough to see the room before me. I will forever hate myself for doing it. The sight before me will stalk my dreams for years to come.

  The sounds bring back every shiver of fear I have felt today. Every brightly colored memory of this morning stares back at me with this new form. I can feel the sweat forming over my body as I awaken to the vision before me. That same wet, slick sound that I had only just worked so hard hours ago to refuse is now all around me again. Kneeling bodies are working in tandem, mocking the motions of a single fragment of my memory who wore a yellow nightgown. The fear this time is being escalated by the facts before me from which I cannot escape this time. These are children and I know what they are doing. God help me, I know what they are doing and I cannot look away.

  I stare in horror at the sights before me even as I desperately desire to look away. Candy apple red streaks line the mascot-covered walls of the room. Their angled arches are marred with random downward rivers of flowing red patterns. It is such a contrast from all of the children’s artwork I have passed and I lose myself for a moment staring in the disbelief of it. On the other hand, perhaps my mind is just attempting to hold out as long as possible from seeing what else is before me. It is a stubborn fit of refusal to store any more visual nightmarish scenes to chase away the safety of closing my eyes at night. For that is when the most monstrous mental ghosts come out to play with their evil intentions.

  The floor is a finger painting of red smears and mysterious pools of thicker fluids surrounded by random petite sized prints of shoes. There are thick pieces of red clumps with a slick gleaming shine in various spots. My brain tries to let me know what the objects are, but my mind slams that door shut with its refusal. Human limbs in different sizes with their slack fingers extending forward, begging for help that never came, lay about like life sized Lincoln Log toys. Each new discovery tugs at a cord to my stomach until I can taste every piece of content within it.

  I can feel my legs giving out even as my breath begins to quicken. Each intake of my breath is becoming more shallow than the last. I want to scream out at the impossible illusions before me. I want to force myself to wake up from this visual torment. Even as I sit here seeing it before me, none if it makes any sense. Even though I just escaped it, I cannot grasp the actuality of it.

  The most sacred of childhood places has become the source of macabre delights. Their tiny bodies fill the room with more ghoulish fright than my mind can contain from such defiled versions of innocence. My body slides to the floor, bracing against the door using it as a metallic shield of safety but no weight of material can protect me the from the horrors that continue to visually unfold before me.

  Small frames of bodies are scattering throughout the room. Some are standing in a frozen statue-like state. Some are slowly gliding across the rubber-covered floor in a slow action paced game of follow the leaders. They move dream like over torn limbs and the shredded flesh strewn about. Their faces are always staring straight ahead with a complete void of emotions at the objects of disgust surrounding them. Their brightly colored clothing is soaked with various shades and patterns of deep crimson. Their white tennis shoes are stained and tracking through the pools with complete oblivion to it. Swinging ponytails keep time with a metronome of dread from sparkling colored ribbons. Only the slight twitching of fingers or head separates them from being wind up dolls of inhuman puppets.

  There is no one over the age of eleven left in a life like state in the room, but the floor is a different story. It is littered with all ages upon it. No one was safe from the murderous mayhem that happened here. Nothing was kept sacred, as bodies lay torn and discarded about the room.

  My brain tries desperately to rationalize it all as surely some hidden shoebox of mentally discarded facts will hold the key. Conroy’s option from before is tapping me on the shoulder to be heard, but I just can’t do it. These are not rotting corpses shuffling before me. These are children with stains and slack faces. Children hunched over still bleeding bodies, feasting as if it was a Thanksgiving pudding. Children, with gore-encrusted hands, making irregular marks along walls that they aimlessly drag themselves past. The room is filled with many children wearing blank faces that are normally adorned with smiles and laughter like the heavy perfume of youth.

  Children, who should be running and playing with a freedom that only childhood can inspire, shamble around each other. These petite packages of our town’s perfection are now mindless murderers of their teachers and fellow classmates. Proof of their mindless cruelty and their brutal actions stare back at me from across the long room with their own blank stares. It is a sight to silence even the Angels of Heaven with the defining horror and sadness of it all.

  “Do you see?” the blank faces wordlessly whisper. “Do you understand yet?” I do, behind hot tears of revulsion and fear, but I so do not want to.

  Chapter 7

  “Helena?” It is a small voice that whispers from behind me. I am too lost in my own layers of this private hell to comfort another from this sight. All I can spare from my own strength is a hand held up for her to grab. It is an anchor of support to lean upon while we both stare out into a dark void of a hellish scenery. A forbidden territory of horror is spreading out before us. We are new explorers in this new untouched land and neither of us wishes to make any more discoveries beyond what is already gracing us with its presence.

  She begins to whisper names of the fallen adults like a priest at a war memorial. Softly at first, then only to emotionally choke at each new name said. I follow her finger as she acknowledges each of them out of respect for her bravery and their lost lives.

  Some I recognize from the shreds of personal items left behind. I knew her finger first landed on Miss Lacey by the spill of raven curls draping around her. The security guard, always a constant by the door, was the closest body to
us. The principal’s ruined shell was the center point of the destruction. The shading of colors around his form allows a clue to his death being the first of many. The rest of the order is anyone’s guess as so many lay broken and misshapen about.

  When her damning finger starts to fall upon the smaller victims is when I pull her down to me in a silent wording of enough. Their shapes I know will forever be burned into my mind. I do not need their names to haunt me also. I have a feeling I have already stored enough memories just waiting to stare back at me in my dreams with their grinning, pointed smiles and the sharp teeth of truths. I desire no additions.

  “What is going on?” Her voice is overflowing with the desperate need of understanding. I have none to offer her to slack the need.

  “I wish I knew. I really do Ashley.” The self-confidence is ripped from my voice as I stare into the gym. I have no understanding for what is before us or what it means for us.

  “What do we do now? Obviously we are not getting signed in.” Yes, let us cling to the small irrelevant facts here. The horrible bigger picture is so much less relevant that way.

  I stare at her with a look of mixed confusion at such a concern and disbelief that she muttered it as her eyes continue to take roll call of those before us. More so since The Office Troll is being made a snack out of by Charlotte. I always knew she ate meat. That whole week of vegan preaching about threw my patience out. Hypocrite.

  I am at a loss in comprehending how she is mentally registering the facts around us. If she is really this misguided or just using her ten year old sense of worth as a shield to help distance herself from the horror around us. Does she really think her classmates, on bad days, binge on office staff for comfort food, or is the truth of what is slowly surrounding us too much for her fragile shell of sheltered sanity? Did convincing herself of the short sightings of this girl help her excuse the girl’s current actions? The answers came with the rapid blinking of her eyes, the shrug of her shoulders, and her strong constant inhaling.