Cat and Robbie run all the way screaming to Hollywood Arts, hoping to find some of their friends there for help. Unfortunately, they left their cell phones back at the house, not thinking to grab them as they were fleeing for their lives. They burst through the front doors flailing their arms like whirling dervishes.

Once safely inside, they stop for a moment to catch their breath. Robbie is severely out of shape, as evidenced by his hacking and wheezing. Using her head for once, Cat grabs a conveniently positioned broom lying on the ground and locks the double doors by shoving it through the handles.

Robbie looks at Cat in amazement, unsure of how she learned how to do such a thing. It is a very rare, and un-Cat-like moment. Like seeing a black swan. She simply replies, "I saw it once in a movie." Well, that explains it then. "It was on the Three Little Pigs... the piglet brothers were running from the Big Bad Wolf." And we're back to ditzy Cat.

"We have to find Sikowitz!," Cat shouts too close to Robbie's face, tapping him on the shoulders.

"Yeah, but could you not say that into my ear next time," he comments dryly. "And why Sikowitz? He has never been the most responsible adult." Robbie takes off his glasses and runs his hands through his hair, trying to smooth it down after the wind has blown it all messy—even more messy than usual.

"Cause, he's the craziest guy we know and this is the craziest situation we know," Cat argues with fuzzy, heuristic logic.

Robbie puts his glasses back on his face, and answers her, "I can't argue with that." He follows up with a "why-not" shrug.

The two of them finally take the time to examine their surroundings and discover that there are other students standing around by their lockers. The only problem is that they are not moving. In fact, they are all perfectly still with slightly open mouths and limp arms.

Cat walks over to one of them and waves her hands in front of his face. He does not blink, flinch or move a muscle. His eyes are solid white. Their eyes are all solid white. She lefts out a soft yelp and jumps back to Robbie's side.

In an ominous tone, Robbie inquires of the red-head, "What's wrong with all of them?"

She simply responds, "It's like they all just... stopped." Cat bites her nails painted pick. It has become a recent habit of hers everyone has tried to put a stop to. Not only does she look like a chipmunk doing it, she does not know when to stop and ends up chewing them down to the nub.

"Quit it," Robbie commands her, and swats her hand from her teeth.

"Sorry," she whispers back, never like her to use hushed tones when she doesn't absolutely have to.

"Let's go find Sikowitz," he whispers back, afraid he will awaken the army of zombies ready to pounce all around them. Jade forced him to watch Dawn of the Dead after losing a bet, and he was frightened enough from seeing it on a two-dimensional screen. He did not need to live the 3-D experience.

The dynamic duo approach the corner, past Tori's locker. As soon they round the bend, a swarm of bats fly overhead. They duck to the ground, narrowly avoiding a face full of flying rat. Once they have gone past, Cat gets up and dusts herself off. She quips, "When did we get so many bats in the school?"

A little more cautiously and reserved, Robbie stands up and holds onto Cat as they walk further down the hall. The lights flicker in-and-out of place, and lightening mysterious crackles on the ceiling. "And lightening?" Cat gulps.

They look at each other and take off down the hall, sprinting as fast as they possible can, not wishing to be electrocuted today.

/

Cat and Robbie quickly close the door behind them as they skid into Sikowitz's classroom. They could not find him in his office, so they thought this would be the next best place to look for the bald hippie.

The room is pitch dark, with the lightening outside only periodically illuminating the way forward.

"Sikowitz?" Robbie calls out in a hushed, but vocative tone.

They slowly approach the stage. A lightening bolt reveals the outline of Sikowitz sitting on the stage. His hand is on his head in a Thinker-esque pose.

"Teacher?" our darling red-head coos, inching ever closer to the stage.

They see Sikowitz's body rocking back and forth, like a madman in a mental-ward. Slowly, he whispers, "The horror... oh the horror..." echoing Heart of Darkness. He follows it up with a silly, Newman-esque "Oh, the humanity! Ah...ha...ha." He doesn't even care that he is blending to divers pop-culture references at this point.

The lights flick on seemingly by themselves. Cat lets out a short shriek, but is contended that she can see two feet in front of her face again. Sikowitz holds up a remote control in his hand for Cat's benefit. She merely says, "Oh..." realizing that it wasn't magic.

"We have a problem, Sikowitz," Robbie wastes no time getting to the issue, not like him to be so blunt and and direct.

"It's Rex. He came at us with an axe!" Cat interjects with much plosive force. Her face is frazzled, and not cheerful any longer.

Sikowitz rises to his feet, and stops the schizophrenic behavior. He places a hand on Robbie's face. What is with all the weird touching? He has no concept of personal boundaries. Sometimes they think he does it just to purposefully mess with their boundaries and comfort zones. "I know," he counsels the Jewish boy, "I know."

"How do you..." Cat questions awfully confused from everything that has happened in the last half-hour. It is getting all too much for her brain to handle. She needs some sugary sweets to calm her down and refocus her attention.

"The voices inside my head child," and Sikowitz follows up with repetition for emphasis, "The voices in my head, child." He clutches his skull in violent seizure and cries, "And they won't stop. This is way worse than tinnitus. I hear her speaking to me." He collapses himself to his knees and whines.

Cat kneels compassionately beside him. She places her hand gently on his shoulder, calming his pain with her touch. She asks him what both her and Robbie are dying to know, "Who do you hear, teacher?"

Sikowitz turns dramatically to face Cat. "Jade..." he reverberates with great care. "I hear her voice whispering to me. And I cannot make it go away." He pauses and cries out suddenly, "Tori!" Sikowitz grabs Cat's shirt and curls it up around his fist, drawing her closer. "She's going after Tori. You have to stop her. She is pure evil. The prince of darkness. If we don't stop her, dear children, I don't know what will happen." After announcing this dire warning, his eyes gloss over into a meditative trance, becoming still as a statue, and taking up the Buddha position, like none of them were ever there. Whatever it takes to defend himself from the voices, they guess.

Cat shakes her acting teacher, but to no avail. She turns back to her friend, jumps to her feet and declares, "Come on, Robbie. You heard him. We have to go rescue Tori."

"We can't just leave Sikowitz like this," Robbie justifies, his lower-lip quivering. He takes a few steps back.

Sikowitz commands them again, "Go! Tori is in grave danger... hurry," with eyes still shut and all else perfectly composite.

Cat pulls at Robbie's hand, but he resists with all his might and tugs himself free. "No!" he shouts angrily at Cat. "I'm scared and I'm not going. We don't know what's out there. Rex could be waiting in the parking lot to chop us to pieces. For all we know Jade already has Tori, and there is nothing we can do. We're not strong enough to make a difference."

The red-head cannot believe the words that are coming out of his mouth. She thought he was better than this. He might not have been classically brave, but when the chips are down, she imagined she could always count on him to do the right thing. "I'm scared too," she informs him, "But Tori is our friend. We can't let anything happen to her." She stares at Robbie trying to make him feel guilty. "She'd come looking for you. When we were stuck in the giant cupcake, she was the one who went outside to save all of us."

Robbie drops his head in shame and meekly replies, "Remember that dream you had about the cannibal children?" He shrugs. "I just don't have it in me." Refusing to look up, he takes a seat on the hard wooden chair next to Sikowitz.

"Fine," Cat spits out. "Super-brave Cat will just have to handle this alone, since the so-called man is too much of a scaredy-cat to chaperon the little girl back in the stormy weather." Throughout all her anger, Cat cannot but help but giggle. She repeated, "Scared-y Cat... hehe..."

Her face returns to a scowl and she storms off, violently slamming the door behind her.