Counting down the days to Christmas. Damn. You know, that's the worst thing about living in a strictly Muslim country: other religions are just considered a waste of time. Imagine having less than a week of Christmas holidays.

-

9

The memory evaporated… and Pendanski was once more in the darkness in front of the hole that contained what Pendanski thought would never become real again.

But there he was, in front of a 5 foot deep, 5 foot wide hole with a dead little boy inside it.

"Please, no…" he repeated over and over again.

He peered over the hole to be greeted by the horrible vision that had haunted his dreams for many years. He whimpered to himself as he got up once again and jumped into the hole without realizing what he had done.

His shoes came down into the hole with a thick, yet slightly mute splash.

He picked up the flashlight that he had dropped earlier, rusted with blood, and he began to absentmindedly turn the switch on and off...

The strange feeling was almost gone now, and his thoughts fell numb. Dead.

As if in a dream, he felt himself climb out of the hole slowly, whilst reaching up with his stubby arms, and then walk slowly towards the Warden's cabin.

When he reached the camp, he heard a strong female voice announcing something in the Wreck room. That meant the Warden must have left her office and was now in talking to the boys.

Pendanski slowed his pace and walked up the steps leading to the Wreck Room.

From inside, he heard;

"Alright everybody just stop talking for a minute! You're giving me a migraine…"

That was definitely the Warden!

There came another voice, a younger boy's voice as Pendanski walked nearer to the Wreck Room;

"But someone died. How do you fucking expect us to stop talking about it?"

There was a slow clonking of boots upon the wooden flooring of the Wreck room, which might have been the Warden stepping forward to the direction of the defying boy…

"Excuse me? Did you just…." There was a clearing of the throat. "…swear at me?"

"N-no, ma'am. I'm just saying that we can't just sit here and do nothing. We have to find out why that pile of shit is out there!"

"Excuse me?"

Pendanski paused, unsure whether to step into the building or not. So he just stayed there, listening to the arguing voices.

"I-I mean…"

"If you swear in front of me one more time, you're gonna realize one morning that your nose isn't in the middle of your face anymore!"

Someone gulped loudly.

Then another boy's voice, this one was recognizable. Pendanski knew it very well;

"Why do you care more about swearing than another person's guts on the floor?"

The clonking of the Warden's boots against the wooden floor once again bit into the silence of the night.

"Well, X-Ray. Since you seem to know more than me about how to run this camp, why don't you go ahead and make the plans yourself?"

There was a silence.

"I didn't think so." The Warden said softly.

"Now, is anyone missing?"

Again, no one answered.

"No one?"

Pendanski was controlled by fear as his own feet 'walked' him into the scene against his own will.

The Warden turned around. Her face, being the only one that was smiling, greeted him coldly.

"Ah, Dr. Pendanski! Come inside."

Pendanski slowly walked into the Wreck room where all of the boys were either sprawled on a chair, or the sofa, or on the floor.

Mr. Sir was standing with his hands smugly behind his back beside the Warden.

No one moved.

The Warden stared at Pendanski expectedly.

"Well, aren't you going to tell us all what you saw?"

Pendanski just stared.

"I'M WAITING!"

Pendanski stared ahead with no emotion.

"John is dead."

The room was quiet.

The Warden's pleasant smile disappeared.

"E-excuse me?"

"John is dead…I found him in one of the holes a few meters off from your cabin…"

The Warden's lip twitched, and her freckles stood out amidst her now-pale face.

"Y-you're lying!" she screamed.

Pendanski shook his head in disbelief.

"What? …No…I'm not lying."

"Yes you are."

"Go and check yourself." Pendanski threw the flashlight at the Warden and she caught it swiftly with one hand.

"I'll just take your word for it." She said, changing her mind quite quickly.

Pendanski, along with Mr. Sir and the other boys just gazed in bewilderment at the crazed woman with the bloody flashlight.

"Wow, the Bitch has more problems than you, Zigzag…" came an audible whisper from the boys.

The Warden's head snapped around so quickly no one had time to blink.

"WHO SAID THAT?"

No one answered.

The Warden waved the red-smeared flashlight around the air like it was a flag.

"Do you see this?" She asked, swinging the flashlight from side to side from its cord.

"This is the result of violence, and…" She took her index finger and wiped some blood from the flashlight with her polished index finger and showed it to everyone.

"…and lack of character."

The Warden turned her head slowly to Pendanski. She stared tiredly, with a cold expression on her face.

"Walter, you look like a mess….Go clean yourself up." She pointed to the water spigot outside

Pendanski blinked in disbelief.

"W-what?"

"I said--"

"But, excuse me, Miss Walker., but I don't think this is the right time for—"

"Excuse me?"

"WE NEED TO GET REINFORCEMENTS FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE BESIDES THIS AREA!"

The Warden laughed nervously, yet confidently.

"Reinforcements?" She laughed again. "What makes you think the government will--"

"If you just let me explain, Louise--"

"THAT'S MISS. WALKER, TO YOU, IMPUDENT MAN!"

" I'm sure of that, but you have to know--"

"Excuse me?"

"Jerry is gone."

For once, the Warden did not argue back with the high-pitched fire she always had.

"Excuse me?"

"Jerry was the last one seen with John." Pendanski rubbed his eyes frustratingly. "I think Jerry is responsible for what happened to John."

The Warden looked at Pendanski dubiously.

"What does Scar have to do with this situation?"

A gust of biting wind interrupted Pendanski's answer.

Just then, as if the Devil had personally come to visit, a shadow loomed menacingly at the dory.

All eyes turned to the strange form of enigma as it rested in its place.

"Who's there?"

The gloomy silhouette stepped into the light of the Wreck room.

Everyone felt a wave of relief.

It was only one of the boys who Pendanski had seen that stepped out of the "meeting" of the Wreck room after asking to go to the bathroom.

The boy was known for his unkempt curls which stuck out in every direction. Now it was plastered onto his scalp by a tremendous amount of sweat. His orange jumpsuit was smudged with dust.

He didn't look as bad as Pendanski, but the sight of him would make anyone fear of a frightening foreshadowing.

The boy opened his mouth, and closed it again.

"Well…SPEAK, BOY!" The Warden spat.

The boy cleared his throat, and spoke.

"There's something wrong with Scar."

Scar, otherwise known as Jerry, was also no accounted for in the Wreck room.

The Warden turned to the boys of A-Tent andf glared at them..

"And no one decided to tell me that Scar is not with you?"

Then she looked at the D-Tent juveniles sitting quietly at the sofa.

"And YOU didn't bother to tell me about your John being missing?"

Neither of the groups of boys answered.

The Warden curved her attention back to the boy at the doorway.

"What do you mean there's something wrong with Scar?"

The boy wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

"He's in one of the bathroom stalls. He keeps crying and murmuring things……I told him to come out, but he doesn't want to open the door."

The Warden looked at Pendanski.

""So you think Jerry has something to do with your John?" She swiped her nails across the shirt and looked at them proudly.

"Well, now's your chance to find out."

--

THE STORY:

The boy who was standing at the doorway earlier led Pendanski to the stall of bathrooms .

"He's in the crapper," said the boy, as he turned his heels and went back to the Wreck room.

Pendanski was again by himself.

There were sobs and indistinct murmuring coming from behind one of the stalls.

"Jerry?" Pendanski asked quietly.

The sobbing stopped abruptly.

"Jerry, I know you're in there. I heard you."

"It's not Jerry, okay? It' s Scar."

"Well, Scaaar; would you like to tell me what you saw…or what you…did?"

Suddenly the stall door opened with a BANG and Scar stepped out.

It was night, but the distinguished scar was the only feature visible in the darkness. It even seemed to glow as the heat of his anguish burned it like a lit cigarette.

"I didn't kill the bastard, if that's what you mean."

"I didn't say you did."

"Actually--"

"Jerry, I'm going to ask you a question and you better answer it!"

Scar just glared.

"What. Happened?" Pendanski asked in exhaustion.

Scar looked down at his feet and scratched his scalp nervously.

"I-I don't know. I was just…"

Scar sniffled.

"You were what?" asked Pendanski.

"I-I ran after him…and--"

"I don't want you to EVER say shit like that again. You hear?"

John nodded.

"Whatever, Girliepants!" John giggled childishly and skipped out of the Wreck Room.

Scar swore and ran out of the cabin.

"…And I found him there, skipping around the place like he was some sort of psycho Little Red Riding Hood."

Scar paused again.

"..And?" Pendanski urged.

"Man, I wish I had a cigarette right now…" Scar said, and laughed at his own madness.

Pendanski reached into his pocket frantically and took out a small packet of Marlbro cigarettes. He opened it, took a cigarette out and lit it with his lighter.

"Here."

He handed it to Scar, who had an expression of amused surprise on his face.

"Holy shit, Doc! You smoke?"

" Just continue. What happened after that?"

Scar took the cigarette and took a long, luxurious drag out of it.

"I went over to him…and my hands were like, shaking, you know? I wanted so badly to beat the shit out of him."

"Hey, fucker." Scar said with a forced grin. "Come here. I want to talk to you."

John stopped skipping around the tents happily, and looked at Scar like he was a deer trapped in the blaring gaze of a car's headlights.

John ran.

"Come over here, Freak! I just want to talk to you!"

"Then I chased him around for a while, only for a few seconds, just to get the fear in his blood…"

Scar laughed again and brought the cigarette to his mouth.

John tripped over his own feet and he fell on his face onto the dust.

Scar caught up, bent over, and grabbed the collar of John's orange jumpsuit.

"I don't know how you know about me, but I'm gonna make sure you never say anything again."

Scar pulled his fist back and pushed it into John's face…

"I only got one punch in." he said. The cigarette was shaking in his trembling fingers.

Pendanski said nothing.

"Suddenly there was this bright light. It was the color of those cheap white fluorescent lights that people buy to 'conserve energy'. Except it was a lot brighter."

Pendanski took out a cigarette from the package and lit it for himself.

"…There were a lot of voices. There were so many of them I couldn't tell what any of them were saying. Some of them were screams. Some of them were sobbing, some of them were crying…."

Both of them took a drag at the same time and they both looked ahead into space as though they were both looking for something in their deep memory.

"…But there was this one voice that stood out on all the rest. It…it was a little girl's voice. She said--"

"Stop it! Stop it! He doesn't belong to you!"

Scar released his grasp of John's collar and let him drop onto the ground.

John bent over and clutched his stomach as though something was in there, ripping it from the inside.

Scar stared in disbelief as the strange voices, the white light, John's pain …was absorbed into his mind.

John began crying.

"He kept saying something was in his stomach…he kept saying that…"

"Please, someone help me…" John's eyes turned up to meet with Scar's.

"Please, Girlypants. Help me!"

Scar couldn't move.

"…And then it happened…"

There was a ripping BANG and the spraying of red dust in the air.

"It's not supposed to be like this..." a little girl's voice kept saying over and over again.

Scar looked down in horror as he saw John's body sprawled on the floor.

Blood was sprayed in droplets and small puddles all around and John's orange jumpsuit was now dappled in red.

The bright light disappeared and there was just the two of them again.

Scar just stared with his mouth unable to close... neither could his eyes.

He was afraid to look down, so he kept his gaze upwards, into the comforting stars...

"When I finally looked back down, the guy was already dead. His stomach was torn open…and…" Scar's voice began to quiver.

"And that's when I lost it…" Scar took one last drag of his cigarette. "I didn't want anyone o see me with the body so I…"

"--You dragged him into a hole."

"Well I didn't know what I was doing! My mind was thinking of these things that didn't make sense…so I did the stupidest thing possible."

Pendanski paused and reflected.

"You were only out there for a few seconds. Three minutes at most… How could all of this possibly have happened in that amount of time?"

"You have to believe me!"

Pendanski calmly dropped the cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with his boot.

"I believe you."


Selley W. : Please read a review from me to you. It's kind of confusing but, what the hell...at least I tried.If you review again, please say something about thethings i need to improve and not justthings you may think are mistakes.
ArwenEvenstar83: :( I'm sorry! Here, have some Eno.And I've always pitied Pendanski. He's just so...loser-ish. No offense, Dr. Pendanski.
Lilmizzrebel31: Awww! Don't cry! lol. And yes, he's really dead. But there's some kind of a weird twistypart later in the story, which many of you will say is (abnormally) weird, but it's just my style.
Squid Freak: Wow. Your review contrasts with the one from ilovecyberchase. She probably didn't bother to read the author's note thingy. Anyways, I'll make a note of that, and you never know, you might be dead. Lord knows if I'm alive or if I'm dreaming in death.
ilovecyberchase: sorry.
DisasterZone16: Actually I AM working on another story. (Shh!) Thanks for defending me and thanks for reviewing.
Nosilla: Sorry I didn't understand your question earlier. I hope things will uravel later throughout the story.
Thetwitchnwitch: The story is not really what you think it is. Please keep reading. Thnx for the review,