On Saturday everyone in town was attending the girls All-stars baseball match which ended in tragedy when Norma Watson was hit full force in the face by a stray ball. She died instantly. It was said that a baseball pitching machine malfunctioned during a training rehearsal. Regardless of this unfortunate turn of events everyone agreed that the game go on. At the day's end home team won by completing five innings.
This Sunday my family and I travelled to Andover in order to attend the funeral of my uncle Charlie. At the funeral reception I briefly conversed with Mr Knowles the director of the funeral whom I thought was well-meaning if a little bit creepy.
When we spoke he immediately addressed to me by my first name even before we were introduced. Naturally I thought that one of my many relatives in attendance might have pointed me out to him and said "that is Andy Hill" but that could never have been the case since he also knew that I possessed precognitive abilities, that I had just finished attending the senior prom and that there was supposed to have been a fire there that never happened.
He also knew about the death of Tommy Ross, Freddy DeLois and Norma Watson even though they were not a local event and were not reported in Andover's local papers. No one could have possibly told him of those things not even my family. Just before parting company he warned that death does not like being cheated and now has a new design in motion. The worst has yet to happen. If one were to try to intervene or alter it they would only serve to make death more angry.
Since the conclusion of prom night, the visions I had been having ceased and every day since then I had been thankful that I was alive. I found Mr Knowles's message as chilling as it was unpleasant, it seemed to be saying that it was unlawful for me to be alive when I am expected to be dead.
Monday June the 6 1979 was a day filled with dread and tension. Several of our schoolmates failed to show up amidst rumours that all of them had met a grisly death. However no announcement was made regarding these incidents by the school staff who would not be drawn into a conversation regarding these deaths.
Word in the hallways was that Josie Vreck and the entire Moonglows band along with Jessica Upshaw and Eleanor Richmond were electrocuted at their garage where they had been practising. Somehow the electrical equipment malfunctioned and blew up. In the case of Jessica and Eleanor they were presumably passing by and stopped by to spectate. It was said that that Jessica ended up with the top end of the guitar running right through her eye which I am sure you will agree sound quite unpleasant.
Two other students unaccounted for that day were Dale Noberts and Rhonda Simard. Since the last couple of weeks Dale had been doing work placement at the sawmill that his family owned with the possibility that he would be ready soon to play his part in running the business. He was said to have been bisected in half after a saw blade apparently broke off from its hinges while in motion and struck him without warning, yet another gruesome accident.
Finally Rhonda was at home conducting routine housekeeping. She had been tidying an antique fireplace when mysteriously without explanation there was a draft and she was consumed in flames. Her mother Cora found her and put her out but by the time she got there it was already too late.
On another front there was a bit of a surprise today, by the late afternoon the entire schools was talking about a special power that Carrie White possessed which I recognised as her telekinetic abilities which only I and members of my sceptical crew knew of. Carrie White now expected to resumed gym class apparently used her abilities to deflect a basketball rafter which mysteriously collapsed nearly crushing Miss Collins*1 and Sue Snell much to the astonishment of her classmates.
Throughout the rest of the week Carrie became the talk of the school, she had been -perhaps right since the first grade - maybe all the way since kindergarten the most loathed girl in town. Now a lot of her peers were beginning to fear her. She remained the target for verbal abuse as she always had been except the plum puddin and truck face was replace with freak and psycho - that's psycho with an 'i' by the way. Perhaps on the upside, a lot of the schoolmates started to give her a wide berth. My crew and I noticed that Sue Snell began taking Carrie under her wing providing her with a little encouragement and told her that the bullies will begin to leave her alone now and that students would then eventually come to respect her. At the days end there was only a few couple of months till graduation and after high school everything changes. Perhaps everything will eventually begin to get better for Carrie.
Also this evening the Wilson sisters had made a reservation to use the gymnasium for the evenings for a spot of ball practise. Their lifeless bodies were found crushed under a swing light.
By now the deaths were not starting to go unnoticed and with Carrie's telekinetic abilities now public knowledge, I decided to approach her personally and enquire about them. I hoped I could gain her trust and in turn confide about my own abilities and then maybe later we could work together in trying to figure out how to stop all these deaths that were happening. Sadly I only ending up upsetting her. As usual she thought it was a trick.
The following day we noticed that Carrie spent long hours in headmaster's office along with Miss Collins our gym teacher who had been kindly disposition-ed towards her. It was now common knowledge that Carrie White was telekinetic. Currently everyone knew that her mum was a religious nut and as such the potential that she could harm Carrie in some way was a very real possibility. Then it was also a very real possibility that Carrie could use her psi abilities to harm others.
My crew and I hung about for a while outside the principle's office too see if we could managed to get something. Listening though I managed to get wind of Miss Collins offering to help Carrie regarding her TK abilities, a place where they can get her help and something about her mom and social services. That is all I got before we were caught and shoo-d off by Mrs Lublin.
Everybody had stopped feeling sorry for Carrie a long time ago. Yet perhaps for the first time in Ewan's history my crew and I were a little bit worried about her – that maybe she was going to end up hurt because of that crazy mother of hers. Don't ask why - I don't know. Maybe they were others who felt the same - we may never find out. Perhaps by attending the prom and trying to get along with other people she had at the very least created an impact.
Whatever was to be done about Carrie would ultimately turn out to be irrelevant because by now there was silent killer stalking the school picking of the staff and students one by one. An assassin named death.
Over the course of the week the mysterious and macabre deaths continued unabated. Some appeared simple accidents, Katie O'Shea being hit by the 579 bus*2 at the Chamberlain bus terminus Billy Nolan while changing a tyre of his Chevelle getting his head crushed under the car when the jack broke in half.
Others appeared to be the most extraordinary coincidences such as the Shyres household burning down. Most of the family including the pets managed to get out but Mrs Shyres and Helen were not so lucky. Mary Lila Grace being struck by lightning on a dry day. Tim Winkless having this bizarre encounter which even I do not understand having his head severed off by a wire that mysteriously broke of a telegraph cable and whipping him. But the most bizarre was Miss Greer been hit and literally chopped in half by a meteorite later named CHMBM 05793216*3.
That weekend culminated with Tina Blake, The Thibodaux sisters and Chris Hargensen going to a Mall in a nearby city where the elevator inexplicably malfunctioned while they were inside, plummeting all four of them to a gruesome death. Considering that Hargensen was still suspended from school and there was a court case against her in progress. How did she and her friends managed to make time for a shopping trip experience? - Your guess is as good as mine.
Monday Morning began with tragedy and finished with horror. On that morning as we headed towards school, Miss Collin's Opel*4 was involved in a spectacular collision with another oncoming vehicle which resulted in her car literately being sliced in half with her still inside it. She was killed immediately on impact. The force of the collision was so strong that it caused a chain reaction resulting a dumpster to roll down the street gathering momentum before smacking into David Bracken who was also on his way to school killing him instantly. The car's front left wheel and part of the torn suspension were catapulted into the air and fell back striking a group of girls nearby.
Alice Borne and Ruth Gogan were on their way to school. Alice bore the brunt as the debris impaled her, killing her instantly much to her friend's horror. Ruth's hysterical scream could be heard from miles around. The driver of the other car astonishingly got out with minimal injuries.
The five of us were already on our way to school when we saw everything that happened. For a long time we just stood there to watch the emergency services arrive and cleared the carnage of what we had witnessed. Officer Plessey in attendance took our statements and generously had one of the squad cars drop us at school, upon arriving Mr Fromm after admonishing us for being late, directed us to attend assembly in the gym where an emergency session was being carried out to announce the tragedy that had just occurred with Miss Collins and the others.
As soon as everyone was accounted for, principal Morton took to the podium, mike in hand and began his speech. He barely had the time to start when suddenly without warning the sprinkler system suddenly came on showering everyone and everything. I was standing in the boys' row alongside my best friends Brian and Bernie, instinctively I turned my head towards Carrie White wondering for a moment if she was the one responsible. Within a few split seconds I realise it wasn't her as her face expressed the same shock and surprise as everyone.
We could only look on in horror as principal Morton was electrocuted in front of the whole school and the water continued to rain down. Springing into action Mr Fromm wisely knowing what to do, grabbed a wooden pole and shoved the electrical appliance with it away from principal Morton but by now it was already too late.
Suddenly I began to feel giddy and then had another vision. Once more it was that of a burning gymnasium - Ablaze, boiler exploding, fireballs coursing through the hall and people on fire running everywhere.
The second I came to, I grabbed Brian standing next to me and yelled as loud at the top of my lungs as I could.
" Everybody get out, get out of the gym, HURRY and get out of the gym!"
The water continue to rain down, I thought I heard a rumble the crowds made a run for the exits. It would seem that my warning did not fall on deaf ears. As I grabbed hold of Brian with Bernie and Alan behind me running for the nearest exit I saw Sue Snell, Squeezy Delgano and Carrie White in the lead. Tailing right behind Olivia Griffin I ran as fast as I could.
There was an almighty bang as I heard a huge explosion and a massive fireball erupted throughout the gym. The force threw me to the floor, I spotted Brian partially scorched thrown a few inches away from myself. Turning to look back, I witnessed the most ghastly scene I've ever witnessed in my whole life. Crowds of human torches running around in all directions like mad. This was worse than the vision I had of the burning prom.
As I sensed the fireball closing in my last thoughts were those of Mr Knowles's chilling warnings about death's intolerance of being cheated. I mused how clever death was, shepherding us back into the very hall where everyone was supposed to have met their demise.
1* In the 76 film Carrie kills Miss Collins with a falling basketball rafter but here in reversal she saves someone from being crushed.
2* In the novel the crucial events are taking place in May 1979 thus bus no 579
3* That would be CHaiMBerlaine Maine 0 for nothing 5 = May 79 = the year 1979 3 = C for Carrie 216 = BP for Brian Palma
4* According to imcdb .org (Internet Movie Car Database) there is an Opel Kadett in the parking area of the school, though not known if it is likely to be Miss Collins car.
The Chapter Title is from Richard II, act 3, sc. 2, l. 102-3.