Chapter 18: Keep it Locked Down

Chapter 18: Keep it Locked Down

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Chapter 18, Keep it Locked Down

                "Attention students and faculty, the school is being placed on lockdown at this time."

                The PA was piercingly loud, it jerked Harold up and out of his slumber.

                His neck was tense and sore- napping hunched over his desk was a less-than-ergonomic sleep position. He stretched, and yawned.

                "Again, the school is being placed on lockdown at this time."

                His ears perked up, and he glanced around the room. Hanlon was gone, he was alone...

                "Faculty in classrooms in Section A or Section B, close and lock your door immediately, conduct attendance, and report discrepancies to the main office."

                He lurched out of his chair and stumbled to the door of the detention room. He tore the door open, and yelled into the hall, "Hanlon! Were in lockdown where are you!?"

                No answer, except the pulsing alarm bells, and the over-loud voice of the PA system.

                "Faculty in Sections C and D, clear the halls immediately and then lock your doors and report attendance to the main office."

                He stuck his head into the hall, and winced- there was blood. Lots of it.

                His mouth fell open, and he shook his head. He saw a security guard, mangled and torn.

                "Attention students and faculty, if you are currently in the halls, evacuate immediately. If you are in section A or B, make your way to the nearest safe room and report your attendance. If you are in section C or D make your way to the nearest class room, and report to the supervising faculty member. If you are in the halls, make your way to the nearest classroom."

                Harold shuddered and almost fell back into the hall. He slammed the door shut, and latched it.

                His fingers felt numb, he groped for the classroom phone and hit the red button for the main line to the office.

                The secretary's voice was brisk, she spoke quickly. But Harold could hear the fear in the cracks and knew she was only barely holding it all together, "Main office, report your attendance."

                He swallowed, and spoke, but his voice was hoarse, "It's just me."

                "I'm sorry? Follow the format, report your room number and attendance discrepancies please."

                Harold coughed. "I mean it's just me, Harold Maria. I'm in ISS, and Mr. Hanlon was supposed to be watching me. But he went to the bathroom before the lockdown and he's not back."

                "You're a student?"

                "Yeah. I'm alone here." The words felt stale and wrong in his mouth.

                "What room are you in Harold?"

                "I'm in A-27."

                Her voice took a frantic edge, and it scared him to his core, "Section A?! Stay in the room, lock your door immediately!"

                "What about the people in the hall? I saw somebody I think it was security. I don't know if he was alive. It looked like he-"

                "Lock the door and stay there!" He could hear the strain of tears forcing their way out. "Harold, do you need me to stay on the line with you?"

                It wasn't until that moment, that Harold became aware of the background noises in the main office. He heard phones ringing. He heard a flurry of voices asking, 'what room,' and, 'main office, please report your location and attendance,' and, 'wait for further instruction.'

                He swallowed, and tried his best to sound calm. "No, I locked the door, and I know you've got to take more calls. I guess I'm just reporting my location and that... Mr. Hanlon is missing."

                "It'll be ok Harold. Stay away from the windows, and wait for the authorities to clear the school."

                The call ended with a click.

                Emily!

                He raced back to his desk, and picked up his phone. His heart sank into the pit of his bowels when he saw he had a missed call from her.

                The alarm bell pulsed in the halls, his blood pulsed in his ears. But it was all to a different beat, he felt dizzy. He thumbed his cell, and dialed her number.

                It rang, and rang, and rang.

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                "911, please state your location and the nature of your emergency."

                Emily wanted to wipe her tears off her face, but her fingers were too bloody. "A-A-Asbury High School. My name is Emily Green, I'm locked in the ladies restroom in Section A, and..."

                "We have a rapid response team entering your school, and they'll be there to help you any moment. Are you injured?"

                "No. No, but my teacher is."

                "We're dispatching a medical team to your location, please confirm the lady's restroom in section A."

                "Yes, that's it. Oh god!"

                "It'll be okay, help is on it's way. Stay on the line with me, okay?"

                Emily whimpered, at first all she could do was nod. But then words came out along with a flood of tears. "I tried to- stop- the- bleeding..."

                "Can you tell me what happened?"

                "I was, um, hiding in the bathroom. I heard something in the hall, I thought it was a fight or a terrorist attack or something. So I locked the door at first. But then I thought somebody in the hall might need my help. I opened the door and- I looked- and I saw- some kind of animal! It was attacking one of the security guards. I saw it had also mauled my teacher and I managed to pull him into the bathroom before locking the door again... I... tried to stop the bleeding, but- his eyes are shut! And he's not moving."

                Emily could hear voices in the hall, strong and bold- "Blue team move, Red team move! Push towards section B, clear rooms as you go! Red team with, we're on detail. Shit- get the med teams here now, we've got eyes on 1 wounded male, and a confirmed location of one of the calls to dispatch!"

                "I hear people!" She told the dispatcher, "I hear them in the hall!"

                "That's the rapid response team, they're here to help. Emily, I need you to unlock the door and let them in, and then I need you to stand aside so the med team can do their work."

                A radio buzzed outside the door, "Student in lockdown in the restroom, she's reported a badly wounded male, who is no unresponsive. High priority med team!"

                She leapt to her feet, and shouted, "I'm in here! I'm in here!"

                She twisted the lock and opened the door, "Help! My teacher is badly wounded."

                Her world was a daze.

                A team of EMTs rushed in with a gurney. She saw one of them place a plastic mask on Hanlon's face, and then start breathing into it, while another worked to stop the bleeding, which by now was sluggish and weak.

                She watched, blankly, as a third laid down the gurney, and a bunch of digital equipment.

                A uniformed officer, ushered her attention away from the scene, and asked if she was hurt.

                She couldn't understand the question. She knew what the words meant, but she just couldn't make sense of it. Couldn't make sense of any of it.

                "Are you injured?" The officer said more firmly.

                "She shook her head. "No." Then she looked at her hands. "No, This isn't my blood."

                He passed her off to another officer, "Barkley, get her out of her, get her cleaned up."

                She lapsed back into a daze, and shot one more look over her shoulder. Hanlon was on the gurney, which they were raising up. He was hooked up to an oxygen tank, his eyes were bloodshot and vacant.

                Then she was in the hall. She tried not to look, tried her very hardest not to notice, a second team zipping away the bodily mess that was the security guard.

                And she was crying. She wasn't sure if she had been all along, or if she had only just now started.

                She betrayed herself and looked again, at the body shaped bag.

                The officer ushered her away from the carnage, guiding her feet around the messy red puddles.

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                Harold slammed his phone down. "Dammit!"

                It had gone to voice mail.

                "Emily! My god, where are you?"

                Then he heard voices in the hall, ""Blue team move, Red team move! Push towards section B, clear rooms as you go! Red team with, we're on detail. Shit- get the med teams here now, we've got eyes on 1 wounded male, and a confirmed location of one of the calls to dispatch!"

                He crept to the door, and peered through the window. He saw what might have been a swat team, officers in armor. They were moving through the hall, aiming their guns wherever they looked. One of them came to his door, he backed away in instant fear. The officer lowered the muzzle.

                "Are you ok?" his voice was muffled, but clear enough to hear through the door.

                Harold nodded.

                "Anybody in the room injured?"

                He shook his head, and yelled back, "It's just me. I'm not injured."

                The officer nodded. "Stay put!" Then he moved on down the hall.

                His head swam. Harold though he heard a girl screaming but it was an eternity's distance away and he could not tell what she was saying. Then her voice again, very muffled, "Help! My teacher is wounded!"

                Harold ran back to the door, and pressed his face against the window, to look.

                He heard the muffled fragments of a conversation, and saw shadows moving, but couldn't make them out.

                Could it be Emily?

                He thought about unlocking the door, but hesitated.

                What was he supposed to do?

                What the fuck had even happened?

                The swat guy had told him to stay put. Was it dangerous to fling the door open and figure out who was out there?

                What was he supposed to do?

                He slumped to his knees and laid his head in his hands with his ear against the door.

                Was Hanlon dead?

                An image flashed before his fractured mind, the security guard with pieces missing. Blood spattered across the walls and pooling on the floor.

                "Emily..." Was she ok?

                He trembled, and crawled back to his desk.

                How long was he supposed to stay here? Would they forget he was here?

                The officer had told him to stay put. The PA had told him to stay locked down. The secretary in the office had told him to stay in the room with the door locked.

                What the hell had happened?

                He sat at his desk and tried to reason it out.

                A shooter?

                There were pieces missing from that security guard. Bullets wouldn't do that, would they? It couldn't be a shooting, he'd have heard the gunfire. He was tired, but he couldn't have slept through that.

                He thought about Joe, and shuddered. Had Joe looked like that? Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it for what it was. An animal attack.

                An attack from a savage beast.

                He grimaced, and tasted bile.

                The motherfucker that he and Joe hadn't succeeded in trapping. The motherfucker that he and his dad hadn't succeeded in shooting.

                In the school?!

                His blood felt hot, and he wanted to break something.

                Where was Emily?!

                If she was harmed...

                He imagined the motherfucker: on it's back, it's legs tied at opposite angles, parallel to the earth, it's joints overextended, strained at the shoulder and hip. He imagined it's tongue lolling in helpless agony.

                It's tail curled up. He wanted to make it afraid before it died.

                He imagined it straining, and failing, to bite him as he hammered a wedge through it's chest.

                He imagined it shuddering, gasping, shaking.

                He imagined it struggling as he placed the tip of the spear against the motherfucker's muzzle and drove it's brain into the dirt.

                His rage knew no bounds.

                Harold wanted that animal to suffer.

                And he wanted it to suffer at his hands.

                His arms were tense and sweaty. He gulped and wiped away the tears that had trickled down his cheeks.

                "Emily better be ok." But his words fell on an empty classroom, and he knew exactly how powerless he was.

                His ears became attuned to the grave silence, and he heard the detached ticking of the clock.  

                He checked his phone. Nothing.

                Harold groaned. He needed something- anything- to take him out of the moment.

                The assignments. He groped for the folder which he'd been sleeping on, and tore it open.

                His fingers were cramped, so was his mind. He was in an utter anguish of discomfort.

                After today, classes would probably be canceled. For a while at least.

                The assignments would probably be forgiven, at this point he didn't care about his grades anyway, but he just needed something to take him away from the doom of the present.

                But it sure as fuck wasn't gonna be math. He threw those worksheets on the floor, and thumbed through the rest of his classes for something interesting-

                His eyes fell on a note from one of the classes he'd missed yesterday. There was bold, blue ink, and written- a message from Miss Day, the art teacher- 'Harold, remember you aren't alone. Reach out if you need to talk. This is the in class assignment. It's not going to factor into your overall grade, consider it extra credit- you don't even have to do it, unless you want to. Given the circumstances. Feel free to use this if you need a distraction, otherwise I'll see you in class when you're ready. Sincerely, Miss Day.'

                He felt a glimpse of peace, and sent her whatever good vibes he had to send.

                Harold read the print out for the original assignment. 'First you drew something from memory. Then you drew that something from a model. Your third and final assignment on this theme is to draw that something one more time: from your imagination. Draw that something in a different scene, with a different structure or purpose, draw it in use, or draw it in whatever context you'd like to imagine.

                He leaned over the paper and fueled the pencil with all his fears, his anxieties, and his hate. He drew the skull. And he put it on a body. He gave it all the extensions of life. And he drew it to be full of the evil he feared from the coyote- or wolf or whatever it was- that had taken his friend, and now others.

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                And he hated the sight of it. The pencil scratched away, and he hated every second of it. He drew the motherfucker in a place- corrupting a place of safety. He drew the signs of it's rampage and it's violence. He darkened the scene and blurred the lines and added red:

                And his head was buzzing. He leaned back from the drawing, and felt a vague hint of truth in the dark pit of his brain.

                The thing that had killed Joe was not an animal at all. It was a demon.

                And it was linked to that skull.

                He thought back to the weird little basement man at the museum. He thought back to the demon wolf inscriptions, and his vague, desperate reaching for a solution. Hadn't he said something to his dad about putting the spear back in the skull?

                Maybe he hadn't said it, but hadn't the thought crossed his mind?

                "Why didn't we just try it?!"

                He knew it in his soul: they were cursed. They dug up something that was buried for a reason. They took the spear out of the skull, even though it was there for a reason. And now something worse than an animal was savaging the people in his town.

                Why hadn't it just killed him? He was the one who took the fucking spear.

                "Maybe it's afraid of me."

                Harold shook his head. That couldn't be it at all. How could a thing that vicious be afraid?

                But... Then again... it only attacked when he was asleep. Maybe it really was afraid of him!

                He unleashed the curse, maybe that meant he was the one who had the power to bind it once again.

                Then he slammed his fist on the desk. "This is all crazy talk!"

                How could it be a demon? Demon's weren't fucking real.

                But how could it be a real, flesh and blood animal? That was impossible too.

                "And why in the ever loving fuck does it only come when I'm... asleep!"

                When it dawned on him, he was struck dumb in mind and in speech.

                He looked at his hands, they trembled. Then they positively shook.

                Why was he naked the night Joe was... Why didn't his parents see him sleeping there- it was where he fell asleep, it was where he woke up!

                "The fucking bastard!"

                He leapt to his feet. Rage trickled through his veins. He picked up his desk and threw it hard onto to the floor- it cracked down the middle with a loud snap, and his pulse thickened.

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            CHAPTTER 19-22- THE CONCLUSION!!!