Chapter 21: Principal Ratchet
With the security card Mrs. C held in her tail, she inserted it inside a strange device that was the replacement for the doorknob, which made a beep before the clicking and opening for them in the security room. It was a room unlike anything they've ever seen with so many devices none of them could identify, which could only be known as what would not exist for another fifty years from now or so. Grace discovered these strange square boxes for what were identified as security cameras on screen, showing hidden cameras in every room, hallway, and corner. It took a few seconds for Grace and Calloway to identify each screen and recognize the library, cafeteria, front entrance, gymnasium, pool zone, chemistry lab, shop class, kindergarten, Home Economics, the basement, and the Detention Room that they were destined to enter and confront the boss of this level.
"I hope this is the right lever," Maggie said nervously, having read the small notice pointing to the device that controls the fans, secretly hoping it was not just taped there to trick them into pulling the wrong lever. She gave it a try and it let out a low rumbling echo, hearing other sounds out in the hallway and looked outside to see that the poison toxic gas fumes were being blown away, clearing the halls which the girls couldn't see or walk past before.
"Do you think it's safe to take these things off now?" Grace implied, referring to the gas mask.
"I wouldn't be so sure of it Grace," Mrs. Calloway answered briefly. "Suppose there might be a broken fan or a classroom with no fans, or a broken gas pipe that would set up by use of the flame thrower."
"Nah, I think it's safe to assume that we no longer need these," Maggie said, removing her gas mask and being the first to step out in the hall where the toxic gas fumes used to be. She sniffed the air and felt nothing unusual. "Yep, all clear now. So feel free to remove…"
"Wait…isn't that Maria there?" Grace broke off Maggie's words, having her attention focused on one screen where she had been taking notice of the same little girl on the tricycle moving through one hall.
And out of the blue, two enormous arms grabbed her, leaving the child screaming and kicking.
"Someone's taken her!" Grace shrieked, watching more of the screen to find out where this 'thing' was taking Maria. The more she and her friends watched closely, that's when they saw a dark man enter the detention room with a child in his arms, shutting the door behind.
"Maria, hang on!"
Without even thinking clearly, Grace burst out of the security room, determined to break into the detention room and save Maria.
"Grace, wait up!" Maggie shouted, running after her in hoping to stop her from doing anything crazy. "It might be another trap!"
Despite following the signs to the Detention Room, the girls had frozen in their tracks and discovered this part of the hallway was blocked by an iron barred gate.
Grace stared in disbelief. "No, NO, NNNNOOO!" Her eyes were wide now at the gravity of what was happening here. This couldn't be happening now, it couldn't be. Where was a key when you needed one? Unless…maybe the black key would open the gate.
Unfortunately…it didn't work. None of their keys worked. Grace couldn't contain herself from the overwhelming despair.
"No, MARIA!" She panicked, shaking the iron bars.
"Grace, get a hold of yourself please!" Maggie commanded, having no choice but to pull the hysterical blond cow away from the barred gate with Mrs. C's help. "Look, we all wanna help Maria but trust me, banging and hollering at every second won't get us in there. We need to find another key to open this up. We got two more rooms to explore."
"We never should have let her go off on her own!" Grace yelled.
"Listen! It's not too late to save Maria. The principal may be keeping her alive in there like all the others. But we got to pull ourselves together if we want to save her."
Grace slowly went limp and gave up her protest. Tears beginning to form in her eyes, unable to picture the kind of horrible form of torture Maria might be going through in there, with no key to open this gate in time. But she had to keep the faith that the child was alive.
"Ok…I'll take your word for it," she said as they let her stand back up.
"Hey, isn't that another note on the wall there?" Maggie pointed at something nailed to the wall close to the barred gate.
The girls took a quick look at what the note read:
I can hear them, the sound of evil laughter and screams coming from the basement. The door is solid and requires a black key, but Janitor Mason is the only one who can enter in there. I just know that he and the principal are behind the madness and disappearances of the children and the basement is one of those rooms where they attempt to burn or destroy any evidence.
This school holds more deadlier and sinister secrets than I thought it would, completely messed up and rotten to the core. I could have sworn I saw a mutated animal in one of the corridors. I couldn't even identify what type due to its quick speed.
It had a skeletal structure, red eyes, sharp long teeth, and razor like claws. Whether it is a mutated, deformed rabbit or rat, I could not tell. It had to be my imagination for such a thing couldn't possibly exist. If it does, what has the principal conjured up to cover her tracks?
I'm going to get to the bottom of this, even if it kills me.
"That's it!" Maggie exclaimed in excitement, now taking hold of the black key to inspect. "This is no gate key; it's the key to the basement. Come on, let's go!"
The girls quickly rushed out of the hallway and followed the signs pointing downstairs to the basement in two left corridors. It was down these long black stairs they stood before a black door with a paper sign written as Basement: Keep Out taped to it. Sure enough, the black key had worked.
Maggie moved aside from the entrance, "After you Calloway," She insisted, letting her friends go in before her.
Once they had wandered inside, it seemed that the basement was some kind of hallway, walls of stone with rusty ceiling lights, revealing piles of boxes, iron shelves, pipes in the walls and the ceiling, and another note attached to a box that Maggie read:
Covering our tracks from the police has been as easy as pie ever since Ratchet suggested that I take care of the toxic gas for the rest of the job.
But the sheriff is onto me, I know it. The next time he approaches my hideout all alone, I'll know what to do with him.
With him out of the way, there will be nobody to lead the cops onto our property for any further investigation or meddling in our plans with the children. Even if the parents notice them missing, they will never find them where Ratchet hides.
Now that the toxic waste gas has taken full effect, the school is now ancient history. Ratchet was right about those children all along. They are nothing but troublemaking, twisted, little twits who deserve every amount of extreme discipline that Ratchet can think of. No longer will I have to put up with their whining, crying, and nasty taunts against me. The little monsters brought this upon themselves and must pay the price for their bad behavior.
Maggie shook her head in disbelief, reading what she had guessed to be written by the janitor himself, gloating about his secret crimes with the principal and justifying his acts of evil. The children were indeed stolen and being held prisoner down where the principal hides and the girls were their only hope of salvation.
There was a locker in one corner with a silver key, which Maggie used and opened to find several sticks of dynamite, anti-poison meds, healing potions, and a new weapon called the flaming bow to add in the inventory.
"Ah, careful with that thing Maggie!" Mrs. Calloway shrieked cautiously, "That is not a toy to play around with!"
Maggie furrowed her brow, "I know that Calloway, I was just putting it away for later use." She put it aside. "What else did you two find?"
"Nothing more than a path that leads to another room," Grace answered, turning her head to the graffiti hall, lit by ceiling lightbulbs. "…and another note here." She read:
I tried to escape through the back doors, but they were chained up from outside, as if those working alongside Ratchet had prepared themselves well enough to prevent anyone of us from leaving and calling the police.
I'll find some other way to escape that doesn't require a door, even if I have to dig my way out. All forms of communication have been cut off, including the phone lines. I remember hiding in one of the closets and heard footsteps thundering down the halls like a stampede of rhinos. Even the rattle of keys jingles in my ears, which must be the keys to all classrooms.
With whatever light was still working, I thought that I saw the janitor through the hole. It looked like Mason, but there was something rather odd and different about him. His face seemed rotted and deformed like the walking undead.
I'm really scared. I must escape somehow before he and the principal find me.
Grace thought about it a little, remembering how unpredictable the booby trap was in the Shop Class which nearly became their death beds if Maria hadn't shown up, believing the rattle of keys to be none other than chains carried across the floors that the writer mistook them for. Steeling whatever courage she had within, she followed her friends into the next room, turning out larger than the other part with two flights of stairs.
"Is it me or does this basement seem as large as the school itself?" Maggie muttered, growing edgy and alert at the loud echoes of her feet on the stone floor.
"It's awfully quiet down here…too quiet if you ask me," Mrs. Calloway said, gazing down on the floor. "I'd say it's as silent as a lonely tomb."
Through the darkness, the walls were made of square stones, the same kind that surrounded a fireplace inside a home.
With the flashlight in her tail, Maggie looked up to her left when she heard a squeak, coming from a rat behind a box, cringing in disgust and pushed past some hooks that hung from the ceiling, careful not to cut herself and secretly prayed these sharp objects would not come to life like the chains did. That was the last thing they needed, another death trap Maria forgot to mention.
Right against the wall was a bookshelf that looked out of place, which Maggie peered at the titles, but soon regretted it when she turned her head away from one titled Cattle Mutilations. She'd rather not find out what other macabre interests the principal and janitor held within those other books.
To break the eerie silence, Maggie insisted, "Maybe there's someone up those stairs."
Maggie never told anyone there were times she was afraid of the dark, but more of what was hiding in the dark which could be anything her imagination could conjure up, many times it had already come true in their successful missions. Other than the rats, she wondered what else would be waiting for them in all this junk laying around.
With no handle on the door upstairs, Mrs. C pushed it open with a bit of force, and a loud crrreeeeekkk sound echoed throughout the basement, being the first to enter into the mysterious room with Maggie looking over her shoulder, paranoid that they were being watched, and followed her friends inside.
In this room was a grim site of six prison cells holding lifeless skeleton corpses rotting away, behind steel bars, half-crazed with hunger and fury in their eyeless sockets.
Grace shuddered in horror at the gruesome creatures, shamefully hiding behind Maggie and attempting to stay clear of their grasp in case they tried to pull them through the bars. All three of them were nearly too petrified with fear to say anything to each other, but knew when to cling together, later discovering a book on a pedestal. With only one single light bulb lighting the room above, Maggie had also discovered a letter on top of the first page:
This is Officer Jerold Attwood,
If anyone should find this note, it means I may never see my family again and never have a chance to say goodbye to them. Anyone who makes it out alive, I ask that they let them know how much I love them. I thought that I could get to the bottom of this mystery myself and find out what happened to the sheriff, which turns out he was killed in the shop class by the janitor who no longer appeared human. Once he saw me, I had no choice but to run now that I was a witness that he needed to stop. Everything in the school had taken a life of its own like some kind of demonic possession, leaving me to wonder of the possibility of a secret occult group.
Even the graffiti on the walls seem to be reading my mind and following my every move, with every hallway and corridor transformed into a maze, cutting off all phone lines and blocking all exits. They know when someone has trespassed and will never let anyone leave!
"It looks like the Sheriff might not be the only law abiding citizen to meet a grim demise," Maggie said, pushing the letter aside to see what else was in the book. "Wonder what other secrets they are hiding in here from the public eye." She flipped it open and inside there was page after page of strange symbols and macabre drawings, depicting skeletal figures, toxic waste, small animals, needles, mutated creatures with claws and sharp teeth. Maggie was fascinated and horrified at the same time.
"What could all of this mean?" Grace implied, wishing to be out of the basement sooner than later.
Maggie could only shrug in response, "I'm not quite sure. If the professor weren't still trapped in the chemistry lab, we could take this all back for translation. But I do recall one of the letters mentioning something about a deformed creature not identified in any zoology books. This might be it." Turning a few more pages, she found another letter:
Just as I suspected, there truly are mutated creatures lurking in the darkness of the school grounds. All answers to this point to the toxic waste that has been poisoning the halls. What else I found was a book down in the basement, revealing the spill was not only for tracks to be covered, but create abominations not of this world to hunt and kill all who trespass.
I saw him again, Mason the Janitor in cahoots with Principal Ratchet conspiring to turn the school into a torture chamber, throwing education out the window. I've been forced upstairs, discovering what was in the Principal's office.
I thought mutant transformations caused by toxic waste were only a silly urban legend, but I was wrong. Whatever animal comes into contact with the deadly gas fumes, breathing it in is no longer peaceful and harmless, but a monster.
But why do I even waste time writing these letters nobody might ever find? They know where I am at every turn, and there is nowhere safe to hide. But I will keep running. I pity the poor captives chained down in the basement, later to be eaten alive by the same mutated abominations.
Suddenly, the head of a hideous mutated giant rat burst from the dirt pile, green slime oozing down parts of its ugly face. The girls screamed in horror and dashed out of the room and down the stairs, scrambling back to where they had first entered, hearing the monster howl inhumanely at them in response, clawing its way up from the hole.
"Who disturbs my territory?" It snarled, stepping up onto the solid ground. "Is that fresh meat I smell?"
"Sorry, this ain't no super market you're in!" Maggie screamed out loud, "And just for the record, we don't eat meat, and neither should you! You're fat and ugly enough as it is!"
She pounded on the door, finding that it was shut and wouldn't open. While she was struggling to use the black key again, the other two looked back and saw the portly, bloated, fuzzy form of the mutated rat approached the two stairways slowly. Most of its grey fur was torn off, exposing its bare rotted skin and a bone structure revealed. The green stains on its fur could only be identified as the toxic waste, according to the book information, and its eyes were of an evil red glow. "Fresh meat, here I come!" It said in delight. "Come and get in my belly!"
"OPEN IT MAGGIE!" Mrs. Calloway begged, watching Maggie finally able to turn the key and open the door after so many struggles.
"GOT IT!" She cried, pushing her way out and letting her friends pass through.
They shut the door again and locked it, trapping the monster inside, banging the door violently.
Not wanting to waste time to find out if that thing would be strong enough to break free, the girls dashed away and back up the stairs, still hearing the bangs until it stopped once they were far away.
At last the girls stood before the doors to the Principal's office, unlocking it carefully and slowly should any other unidentified monsters appear with the last one down below nearly causing them to jump out of their skin. At first Grace suggested knocking, which she did and nobody answered or opened, otherwise there would be no need for the key to be in their possession.
If any child had been standing here instead, they would fear entering the dreaded room of the boss. But Pearl's girls were not children anymore. The enemies may have frightened them, but like it or not, they were going to get through this together. A lesson they learned from their last adventure and needed to stick by it.
Nobody said anything once Maggie took a deep breath and pushed the door with a low creak. At first sight, their eyes widened at what they discovered. Every corner, every surface was covered in filth. Vines grew into the room through an open window and twisted around the one and only large desk. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and cupboards. Photos of children were nailed to the walls, some with eyes cut out and darts stuck into a few, leaving large holes. In a corner was a stack of bones that looked like they had been chewed on, which the girls couldn't identify who or what they once belonged to, making their stomachs churn at the sight.
"This is where the Principal sits on her throne?" Grace whispered uncomfortably.
"I believe so," Mrs. Calloway responded quietly, taking a close look at the photos of the children, noticing some words labeled as missing. "And we have the evidence to answer what really happened to the children."
"If these are the missing children, that one looks like Maria," Grace gazed into one photo which indeed strongly resembled Maria, her last name being Swanson…Maria Swanson. Grace sighed sadly, "We're coming for you Maria. Hang in there."
As Grace kept looking at the photos, Maggie searched around the desk, opening drawers until she found an iron black key, and a note she pulled out and set on the desk to read what it said:
The truth finally comes out. Principal Ratchet has taken the children and hid them in a secret passage inside the Detention Room where their screams and cries echo in the night like lost souls. The crazy hermit, the missing children, stolen weapons, toxic waste spill, and mutated creatures all add up. Such evil will be punished as I see fit, even if it means me being captured down with the children which may be the only way to find out how she and the janitor have been doing it all this time without getting caught by the police. From what else I gathered, Ratchet had created a strict ban, forbidding any students, teachers, and staff from bringing in peanuts, and especially punished anyone severely if they snuck in peanut butter products for lunch or snacks. Anyone who questioned her reasons was locked in the basement for hours. I suspect she is hiding a certain rare weakness.
"A strict ban on peanut products?" Maggie's brow furrowed in confusion. "I suppose they'll be banning all us cattle to prevent the future demand for our milk." She shook her head in disbelief, learning of such outrageous bans happening.
"What did you find Maggie?" Grace murmured, glancing over her shoulder away from the photo walls.
"Does anyone have peanut butter on them?"
Mrs. Calloway turned her attention to Maggie. "Peanut butter?"
"Yeah, the note here tells that the principal tried to ban peanuts from the school. Can you believe it? She even punished whoever broke this outrageous rule. At least that's what it says, but it doesn't answer why she did do this, other than it having to do with a certain rare weakness."
"Then maybe we need to find if there are any peanuts hiding someplace," Grace suggested.
"And even if we do find any, how will it get us out of here?"
"We'll get out Maggie. We made it through five missions, so we'll show Willie that we're not bailing out on this one." Grace scanned the entire office to see if there was anything they missed, remembering what Willie said about breaking the rules, and found one on the wall titled No Peanut Products on School Grounds. "But not without breaking these things. Care to do the honor?" She tossed the sign on the floor and let Maggie give that board a good stomp, hoping it would do them good.
The glass lay there shattered to pieces, smoke rising, and a wardrobe in the left corner snapping open by itself by surprise. What the girls found in that wardrobe was no monster, deformed student, or janitor, but a jar of peanut butter sitting down below.
Maggie breathed a sigh of relief, "Well, that certainly did the trick."
"But why would the principal keep one in the closet if she hates that stuff?" Grace asked.
"We're taking it with us Grace. If the salt could defeat the mad scientist, we're about to find out what this baby can do to the principal."
"Then we better handle it with care," Mrs. Calloway murmured, helping to add the item into their inventory. "The key to defeating your enemies is to find their weakness."
By using the iron black key, the gates unlocked for the girls to make their way through and stand before the Detention room door to which Maggie had not forgotten that they had picked up the other key earlier and opened it. Inside were a dozen desks seated in four straight lines, walls decorated in graffiti, and the chalkboard entirely written with She Never Lets You Leave! The sentence was written for a hundred times, mixed together. The girls ignored the creepy message, and by remembering the professor's advice about the entrance, managed to move the chalkboard aside and found a large crack in the wall. Maggie placed her ear against the crack and heard what may have sounded like the cries of children from within.
"This is it girls," she said firmly, "The children are trapped in there alright. Quick, where is the smoke bomb the professor made for us?"
"Right here Maggie," Grace answered, holding it in her mouth to help place it against the severely cracked wall. "Now how do we light the tip?"
"Try it with the flamethrower, if there is any of that left," Maggie suggested.
Snatching the flamethrower from the inventory, Grace carefully aimed it away from Maggie to avoid burning her or Calloway as she focused her target and released the flame onto the tip, successfully sparkling.
Maggie let out a scream, "GET OUT, IT'S GONNA BLOW!"
With very little time, she pushed her two friends out the door of the Detention Room and ran several feet away from the entrance all the way to the Iron Gate to duck and cover each other.
BBBOOOOMMMM!
The Detention Room blew apart, scattering debris in and out, with smoke following the explosion.
"It worked, now let's go in and save Maria," Grace got up on her feet, but felt a tug on her tail from Maggie.
"Hold on a sec Grace," She said firmly, "The professor warned us that the explosion would be dangerous for us to inhale. We gotta wait for it to clear before we go in."
"But don't we still have our gas masks? Perhaps that might work for us to go through," Mrs. C prompted, taking out the gas mask. "We may be running out of time waiting here, never knowing if that smoke will take forever to clear."
"Good point Calloway," Maggie couldn't argue with that theory. "Alright, everyone put on your protection gear and get ready to head into that smoke hole. We got ourselves a monster to pounce on."
The smoke cleared the way for the girls once they found a big hole where the cracked wall used to be behind the chalkboard. The hole revealed a passageway, supported by large wooden rafters that stretched all the way up to the ceiling. The walls were covered in slime, and the floor equally as filthy. The cries of children were growing louder.
They were ready. And with the smoke now entirely clear, they didn't need their gas masks down there after all. In case any minor enemies jumped out, the girls readied themselves with whatever weapons they could carry, but all was silent in this part of the corridor. But the ruby necklace Grace still wore was now flashing, signaling not only the end of this level, but the quest item drawing near. They looked knowingly at one another and followed where they heard the cries of the children, slowly descending, not wanting to make too much noise themselves.
Soon their ears were filled with the familiar sounds of insane cries, screams, shouts, and laughter, and not the good kind of laughter when one finds a simple joke hilarious. The further they moved onward, the more another fearsome sight was drawing closer. This part of the corridor was lined with doors of barred windows, where Grace peered inside one of the cell doors and her eyes grew wide with shock at seeing a child sitting in the corner, knees held to her face, and pulling at her own hair in madness. Another cell contained a little boy with his back turned, facing the wall, pounding it violently with his fists which were now bleeding and left bloody hand prints. This was where the screams they heard had been coming from all this time. Each cell the girls peered through, the children were unresponsive to their questions, seemingly imprisoned in their own bodies, and changing their emotions every few seconds from crying to deranged chuckles. Being trapped in confinement had driven each of these poor children mad, especially from the medieval tortures inflicted upon whoever opposed the principal.
Grace searched the cells desperately for Maria, calling out her name, having no luck finding her in any of the cells; unable to help the other children who were calling for their parents and none of them could give the girls a straight answer on if they saw Maria being dragged down here. They may have found the missing children, but where could Maria be?
"You'll never find her in one of these cells."
Grace and her two companions heard a grown up manly voice in the very last cell on the left wall and peered through to find that there was a man in torn police clothes and a pale face, almost white as a ghost. By his appearance and badge, there was something familiar about him that the girls read about in one of the notes, about an officer who disappeared during an investigation.
"Who are you?" Grace asked, hoping her memories were true.
"I'm Officer Jerold Attwood," the man replied weakly, struggling to stand on his feet. "If you haven't known by now, I was the one who wrote most of those notes you found throughout the school."
"You wrote those notes?" Maggie cried, in bewilderment. "How did you know someone like us would find them?"
"I didn't know," Officer Jerold answered, and maintained. "All I knew was that something was up at this school that the rest of us police were not cracking down hard enough, and from what I discovered, I had this feeling deep down that if I did not make it back out alive, all I could do was hope that if someone else entered here, that they would find my notes and have the option to try and escape or come to our rescue if they were lucky to survive and evade capture."
"Wait a minute; you said something about us never going to find Maria in any of these cells didn't you?" Grace implied anxiously, "If she is not in any of them, do you know where she is? It's urgent that we save her. She helped us when we were in danger. Please, if you know where she is, tell us."
"She's right Officer, we can't wait another minute standing here," Mrs. Calloway acquiesced. "We're not leaving until we save the little girl taken by this…this monster of a man we saw on this…static box in the security room."
"That was Mason the janitor. I saw him come through here carrying the girl who was screaming in his arms and took her down to the end of the tunnel. That's where the principal holds all of her devices of pure torment, driving every one of the missing children mad until they can no longer communicate with one or the other. There's not much time to explain, so hurry if you're still insistent on saving that child before she ends up like the rest."
It was now or never for them. The only way to help these children was to confront the janitor and the principal and put an end to their evil ways before it was too late and before the clock strikes midnight on Halloween Night. Toward the end, there appeared a large enormous room of several torture devices from the iron maiden, pillories, stocks, chains, cages hanging, iron chair, and racks. A fireplace was burning brightly. Above the fireplace was a swinging cage, containing little Maria, all well and without harm.
"Maria!" Grace cried in triumph. "We'll get you out of there!"
The girls had considered breaking her out of there, key or no key, but decided otherwise when the room started shaking and a rumbling noise came from the fireplace.
One of the iron maidens opened up, with a dreaded figure stepping out all rotted and deformed, in torn overalls, boots, and rotted teeth. His face wore a diabolic expression that nearly sent the girls running, only to find that the entrance inside this large room had disappeared. They were trapped inside this fighting arena.
To add fuel to their horror, something else fell from the chimney and landed on the fireplace, extinguishing the fire and sending a cloud of black smoke in the air. The girls backed away as another monstrous creature of 170 cm in height and weighing 200 pounds, black hair, ghoulish green eyes, and bloated grey skin leapt out of the fireplace. It was a woman, yet more of an ogre, a devilish ogre woman dressed in a dark brown cotton smock which was pinched in around the waist with a wide leather belt, fastened in front with an enormous gold buckle. Her massive thighs bulged out from beneath the smock, arms and legs all muscular, giving the meaning that this was someone who could bend iron bars and tear objects from the walls with her own bare hands. Her ugly face had a cruel mouth, nose thin and crooked, eyes sunken in, and grinned evilly when she saw the girls, revealing yellow crooked teeth. Gunk, blood, and who knows what else were stuck in between them. She wore a long pair of black rubber boots with gold buckles that shook like chains.
It was the principal, Principal Ratchet. She appeared more as a cold blooded hungry hound than an actual member of any school district.
A broach was placed before her collar neck tie. That was their quest item needed to win.
"What vermin dares to trespass on my school!" the Principal Ratchet boomed in a deep and dangerous voice. "Aw, I thought I smelled fresh meat coming this way. If I had my favorite seasoning with me, you'd make a full delightful dish."
"Lady, that's disgusting!" Maggie scowled, backing away a little more. "Is that why you kidnapped those poor children and locked them away…just so you can eat them? That must make you a cannibal."
"Goodness gracious NO!" Ratchet snorted. "Those little worms called children broke one too many rules and left me no choice but to bring out all my devices to teach them the hardest lesson of a lifetime. All who oppose me and my ideals of running this school were to be broken the same way they broke my rules. That is how you show whose boss!"
"Even if it means keeping them locked away as prisoners against their will, never to see their parents again?" Mrs. Calloway cried, even though she was not physically frightened as she was angry at the idea of what the principal meant by breaking children in the most diabolical way. "That is not how you run a school, not by the actions of a cruel tyrant. It's one thing to scold the little ones for being disobedient once in a while, but…this is downright evil!"
"Evil indeed!" Ratchet boomed. "You'd be surprised by knowing what toxic waste clouds can leave behind, even by keeping those meddlesome cops from sticking their noses where it doesn't belong. That is how the sheriff ended up paying the price!"
The janitor Mason suddenly brought out a large nail gun, demonstrating how he used it to kill the sheriff by shooting nails at the ground near Maggie's hooves, causing her to jump back in a panic to avoid getting shot.
"So you finally figured out what's been happening in my school the whole time since it shut down," said Ratchet, unimpressed by being discovered. "For years I plotted to turn this place and add a few alterations in my secret lair. Eventually I managed to bring the teachers and staff down on their knees, using fear to keep them silent, with the help of science and witchcraft. It all comes in handy to prevent anyone that enters from ever telling my secrets and ruining everything I worked for. I was hoping those that did work for me would have stopped you heifers from following my trail. The Hornets gang and the cheerleaders failed me, but now that you're here, I'm afraid I'll have to dispose of you myself."
"What are you gonna do then?" Grace screamed fearfully. "Eat us alive?"
"All in good time my blond pretty," sneered Ratchet, turning her evil eyes to Mason. "But first let us see how you deal with the madness of a crazy lone hermit down in the basement. Take them down Mason!"
The janitor pulled out what looked like a large ax; big enough to take down a buffalo in one swing, and started to charge at lightning speed. The girls managed to leap sideways in opposite directions as Mason crashed into the wall, causing rock piles from above to fall on his head, stunning him which gave Maggie an idea.
"I got it! Get him to crash into the wall! He gets completely paralyzed."
By this, Maggie and the other two dove at him, careful not to touch the ax as they charged into Mason altogether, depleting most of his health, with no need to use weapons. Brawn was the way to go. Once Mason was back on his feet, the smart thing to do was to run away and avoid getting hit by that ax he swung above his head. But when Grace didn't look where she was going and tripped over an iron bar, landing hard on the floor where Mason noticed this and rushed over to throw his ax onto her body.
"Hey you, Butt Mambo!"
The Janitor let out a confused moan and turned down to his left seeing a bug spray can in his face, held by Maggie, releasing a chemical cloud in his face, causing him to cough violently and drop the ax, having not even seen Mrs. Calloway charge him from behind straight into the wall, paralyzed once more for the girls to pound on him.
"What are you doing Mason?" the Principal shouted furiously. "Get up and fight like a real beast!"
Recovering, Mason seized Grace by the neck firmly and lifted her off the ground, and tossed her across the room, shoving Maggie aside violently and had kicked Mrs. C into the ground, leaving her wincing in pain. Thinking he was no longer overpowered, Mason had kicked a nearby wardrobe open and pulled out a CHAINSAW!
Grace could feel her eyes widen in horror and her pulse quickening at the awful sight of that evil weapon and the dreadful sound it created. Having no knowledge of how to fight that thing, Grace could only dodge and roll aside when Mason brought it down to the ground and began to pursue her around the arena, slicing through any wooden objects his path. Grace kept running until she never noticed that her hoof pressed down on an iron lever, and finally looked back when she heard some kind of crash behind her. Somehow an iron ball of spikes fell and swung into Mason, severely impaling him into the wall, dropping the chainsaw.
The other two came to Grace's aid in hopes that chainsaw did not touch her, and found only a minor cut on the back of her neck from a splinter caused by the wood. They watched as Mason wriggled about for a few seconds, roaring in agony until he became slightly limp, dead as a doornail and vanished out of sight.
"CURSE YOU INTERFERRING HEIFERS!" Principal Ratchet hollered in fury, leaping from the fireplace and flying towards the girls, landing in front of them and taking out what looked like a large club. "It's time I break you the same way I broke the children!"
She instantly swung the large club against all three, hurling them across the floor which no ordinary human would have done to any large animal, leaving them wincing in total pain from the strong hit.
Ratchet had started advancing slow and soft-footed upon Maggie, in the manner of an enormous predator stalking their prey. While Maggie had become aware of the danger signals, she couldn't get up fast enough once Ratchet had now stationed herself directly in front of her, and suddenly extended a hand the size of a cannon ball and easily grabbed a good handful of Maggie's fat below her neck in a shirt grab position, lifting her off the ground in a firm grip with her muscular right arm.
Maggie winced from the pain of that club and was nearly horrified at being easily lifted by a being that possessed such strength than her. She could feel her back legs wriggling a bit, a few feet off the ground. Ratchet moved Maggie up close to her malicious grinning face.
"You should have known better than to think you could overthrow the great Ratchet!" Ratchet bellowed in Maggie's face. "However, there is one way I can spare you from becoming my next meal. All you have to do is accept defeat and that I have claimed victory! Hurry up or I'll never let you go! Go on; SAY IT OR I'LL EAT YOU WHOLE!"
At the last second, Mrs. Calloway's words caught her attention.
"I GOT A BETTER IDEA! TRY EATING THIS!"
To her right, a huge sticky glob of peanut butter was released from the jar, and managed to hit Ratchet right in the face. Once that had happened, she released her hold on Maggie, dropping her to the ground, looking at her suit and hands in complete horror. Something else was immediately triggered the moment her skin turned red with rashes with her face, arms, legs, and body swelling up like a giant balloon, creating slurring sounds from her mouth, lips now swollen horribly.
"Now's your chance girls!" Maria shouted, still caged up. "Push her into the fireplace!"
Altogether, the girls gathered enough determination and managed to use their heads to thrust the now swollen and defenseless Ratchet to where the fireplace was still burning. They hurried as quickly as they could before her swollen condition would wear off too soon.
With one final push, the girls moved back and shielded their eyes from the strong light and rushed over to Maria's side, unable to see that the principal had been consumed by fire, screaming in agony until she exploded like a piñata. In a flash of sparks and peanut butter that littered the floor, Grace unshielded her eyes and noticed that the same broach sat on the floor next to the rack device. But first they had to help Maria out of that cage.
There was a sudden series of locks clicking and doors opening from the outside of the arena and the girls watched as the other children, Officer Attwood included, rushed in and gathered around.
"Thank you girls," Attwood congratulated, "You were finally able to discover Ratchet's peanut allergy that answers why she was dead-set on banning all peanuts from the school grounds, so that no one would think of using it against her. But you saved us all which I failed to do myself. And now it is time that we depart from this world and reunite with our loved ones. Farewell!"
AN: Well that is the end of the school level, but there are four levels left to go so this eerie game is far from over. Yep, this whole time the principal had a peanut allergy as her main weakness, but being the tyrant she was, never wanted anyone to find out and use it against her which is why she created a strict ban. I also must apologize if this story had taken forever to finish, if only I didn't have writer's block or lost a bit of inspiration. But I'm having it all taken care of sooner than I thought, so stay tuned for the next chapter to see what the next level is.