Rain drizzled in large drops from the overcast sky, splashing hard onto the courtyard. The snow was gone. It was no longer as cold. In fact, it was pleasantly warm. It seemed as if they had only gone through one side of the clock tower to the other, and as if their time spent within it had allowed for a weather change. They were in the same courtyard they had just left.

"Well, that was fun," Bishop said quietly behind Arelia, who was chewing irritably on her lower lip. She walked around to the center of the courtyard and crouched low, staring a strange symbol carved into the ground. It was unaffected by the rain. Bishop looked at it and said nothing for a long time.

"It's a symbol of witchcraft," he informed her after the pause. "Do you really intend on going inside?"

"Yes."

"I thought as much."

She dusted herself off and walked with Bishop to the double doors across from the clock tower, huddling with him under the awning for a while to dry off. She wiped the water off the gun and opened the door for him.

"Ladies first," he said with a nervous smile. When Arelia glared at him, he shrugged. "You're the one with the gun." She scowled and walked inside, and when she did not scream, Bishop followed. He held his bloodied riot baton close as the doors closed behind them and stepped onto rusted, ugly metal grating.

The school had significantly changed. It had become a twisted parody of a torture den, releasing the evil that it had been containing all along. You released the evil, Arelia thought. The realization twisted her stomach into brutal knots that any sailor would be proud of. Beside her, Bishop muttered a quick prayer to God to get them through it all.

Three zombie children assaulted them from the darkness; Arelia killed two with her gun and Bishop took out the third with his riot baton. They looked at each other over the bodies and found the same expression reflected in each other's faces. They were both scared to death.

Through the double doors across the hall, there was a huge spinning fan behind an iron-grate wall, its blades splattered with gore of body parts and thick, dried blood. Bishop seemed to lose his small-town-police-officer persona and morphed into a grim statue of a man, the spark in his gentle blue eyes fading to a pinprick pulsation of light.

"What happened here?" he wondered aloud as Arelia collected the bullets and first-aid kit lying on a bench.

"I have a feeling you don't really want to know," she answered quietly. "There's a Storage Room down the hall, according to the map. I think we should take a look around and see if we can find anything of use."

"I agree. And I want a gun."

The two proceeded to the Storage Room, where they found nothing of very much use at all. On a table toward the back, however, Arelia picked up a pink rubber ball. Bishop looked at her with one eyebrow raised.

"It's the only thing of genuine color and reality in this place," she said. "It must be worth something."

They headed left upon leaving the Storage Room, and Arelia led them to the door next to the double doors at the end of the hall. Upon entering, her radio went off, but a quick sweep of the room found nothing.

"What is that?" Bishop asked in relation to the radio static.

"I found it in the cafe. It emits static when monsters are nearby."

"Weird," he said.

"Effective," she corrected with a grin. Her grin faded when she stepped on something slick and gooey. She looked down to see her boot partially swallowed in the body of a giant cockroach, which was still squirming under her in an attempt to get away. Its green, slimy internal mush was what she had felt when she first stepped down.

Two more of the freakishly large roaches bolted from corners of the room, nipping at Arelia's ankles with sharp mandibles. She shot one and kicked it into the wall, trying to free herself from the mess of a roach beneath her. Bishop killed the other with his baton and helped her remove her boot from the screeching insect holding it captive in its own body. She shot it spitefully when free and held on to Bishop as she tried to removed the goo from the bottom of her boot.

"Bloody Hell," she spat.

"Yes, that's a fairly accurate description," he agreed. When she was done, he nodded to a door to the right of where they had come in. "I think that's the way out." She followed him through the door into a long, narrow hallway, slightly bothered by the harsh noises their footsteps made on the rusted grates. She did not, under any circumstances, look down. Arelia had no desire to know what was below her.

In the center of the hallway, their way was blocked by a fence of grating that stretched to the ceiling.

"Blast it," Bishop muttered, scowling. He kicked the fence several times, but it held fast. Arelia pointed to the classroom door to their left.

"Maybe we can get around it that way," she suggested with a look of hope. He nodded and winced at the string of curses she let out after entering.

"YOU STUPID-ASS SONS OF BITCHES!" Gunshots. Radio silence. Bishop looked around the door frame and saw Arelia standing over the corpses of two zombie children. She was furiously smoking on a new cigarette.

"Next time, you will be going in first." Bishop smiled gently and nodded.

"Deal," he said. She showed him to the door to the next room and he entered first. "Nothing here." Arelia stepped in, cursing her luck, and his. He picked up a picture card on a table and showed it to her. "What do you make of this?"

"Looks like a key to me," she said honestly. He looked at the picture of the key and frowned.

"Think we should keep it?"

"May as well."

Bishop slid the picture card into the pocket of his uniform pants before going through the next door, which took him out into the hall on the other side of the fence. He picked up the health drink on one of the benches and motioned to Arelia that it was safe to come out. Another fence blocked the stairwell, but he found it was still possible to get to the main hall. He had killed two zombie children wandering about the hallway when he realized Arelia was not with him.

He backtracked into the room where he had found the picture card, and saw her walking around the room touching the desks in silence. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms.

"Arelia?"

She continued walking around and briefly touching the desks. Bishop sighed worriedly and took a step forward, pausing as she began to speak.

"These used to be children's desks," she said. "They used to have children in them. Children like Derek, who were loved once. This used to be real." He walked over to her and tried to bring her into his arms, but she pushed him away. "Don't touch me."

He sadly watched her as she started destroying the desks, raising her leg and stomping on one hard, splintering wood, throwing them into one another and against walls, until all that was left was one single desk and a pile of fire wood.

"That one is Derek's," Arelia said quietly. Bishop got his arms around her that time, pulling her into his chest and holding her until she relaxed.

Blue and red blue and red blue and red...

"How long have you been awake?" he asked, holding her at his arms' length by the shoulders. She shrugged weakly.

"Hard to tell time around here. But I've gone days without sleep before."

"Must be a Marine thing."

"Ex-Marine."

"Right."

"Did you find how to get into the main hallway?"

"Yes. Do you plan on coming with me this time?"

Arelia did not say anything. The two finally made it into the main hallway together, and she took Bishop into the infirmary where they found two additional medicine bottles, both of which he took for storage. They also unlocked the doors to the courtyard and found the entry hallway.

The floor in the center of the room was gone, leaving a gaping black abyss. Above the hole, bodies were strung up on the ceiling, along with oddly placed cages. In a corner was a heaped, wrecked wheelchair. Arelia frowned at it. What's that doing here? Her radio went off. More zombie brats.

Once she and Bishop had dispatched them, she searched the wheelchair, curious as to what it was doing in an elementary school. She found no identification or answer to the question, but she did find a strange item Bishop recognized as an Ampoule.

Back in the main hall, the double doors to the next hallway were locked. Arelia suggested the same method as before, and they stepped into the Teacher's Lounge next to the locked exit. Bishop was surprised. Arelia wasn't.

It was the ugly picture from before. A large stone door with no handle or knob.

"Give me the picture card," she said, and Bishop handed it over. She slid the picture of the key into a slot in the door, opened it, and stepped into the hall.