...

Ben stayed away only a few minutes before circling around the outside of the school. He approached from the back, hoping no one was watching that section of the parking lot. He found a dark stretch behind the dumpsters and experimentally poked at the shadows. He felt himself slipping in and he pulled back. It was exactly like back home, only he didn't need the suit here. Fascinated, he stepped into the darkness and melded with it.

Within, the shadows didn't feel the same. Similar but not the same. It was like deep sea diving without a wet suit. The darkness felt cold; alive. He didn't feel the surge of potency he normally got from the house. Here, he was riding the stream rather than controlling it. He tried feeling for Tate but again he could only sense a general impression of not being alone. He couldn't tell who or where or how many there were.

He emerged in a science classroom, rattling a life-sized human skeleton as he stepped out of the shadows. There was no one around. He tried again to orient on the sentient presences in the building. Still no luck. He was getting frustrated. He wanted to find Tate. He considered orienting on random people but he didn't want to risk running into Kyle so he rejected the thought.

He slipped back in the shadows and slid about the guts of the school, emerging here and there before sliding into the darkness again. He was getting nowhere fast.

He came out of the darkness into the cafeteria and cursed. He'd felt the wide open space and thought he was going to emerge in the library because he thought there was a good chance Tate had been taken there. He was about to jump back into the shadows when the PA system crackled.

"Hellooooo, Westfield!" Tate's voice came over the speaker in the wall, full of false cheer.

Throughout the school everyone stopped what they were doing and looked to the speaker nearest them.

"It's a great night in Wolverine country," Tate went on, just like he was reading morning announcements. The bright tone masked his tears. "The football team's reminded us with their latest score just why they're so popular." He didn't try to trim the sarcasm. "So they're not included in what I'm about to say."

He paused then said, "The rest of you: I'm sorry you died. I'm sorry I killed you. I know some of you want to know why I did it but, for most of you, there is no why. You were there. Here. I was batshit crazy, out of my mind and on drugs, too. You... You were a part of this place, this... thing. I didn't get it back then but I do now. It's this place, this school. It's the problem. It wasn't you. Except Jason and Luke. I'm glad I killed you, you fuckbags, for all the shit you put me through when I was alive. You guys can go to hell and suck Satan's double dick."

The speaker went silent for a moment while Tate calmed himself down. He wanted to sound like a radio guy, not a whiny kid. "Now pay attention, boys and girls," he said in that too-chipper voice. "It's test time! In about..." He paused to check the time. "Two minutes we're gonna have one hell of a Halloween party. I mean, it's gonna be a blast, guys. Really. So you better put those mad fire drill skillz to work unless you wanna be sent up to heaven in a giant fireball. Wolveriiiiiiiiiines!"

The PA went dead.

...

A mad scramble ensued. While the ghosts couldn't die, they could hurt. Most people who heard the announcement decided to take it seriously and left the school. Some, in life, had heard warnings and not heeded them in time and were now dead because of the choice. Andrew, a blind kid who just happened to go the wrong way during the shootings, had spent so many years in the school he was able to find his way out before anyone else did despite the fact that he still couldn't see.

Ben dove into the shadows and headed for the office. He knew where that was. But when he got there, it was empty. He wasn't sure where Tate might have gone. He was less sure whether he wanted to gamble on tracking him down. It sounded like he was going to blow the place up. The only area Ben could think of where there might be anything that could do that would be the cafeteria, where he'd just been. Either Tate was on his way there or he'd already been there. Or he was lying just to scare everyone. Ben couldn't rule that possibility out either.

"Tate!" Ben hollered. He sent a psychic urge with it, which would reach farther than he could yell. Regardless, there was no response.

He glanced at the clock on the wall above the main desk. He was running out of time.

"Violet!" he hollered next, sending out a similar urge to her. It occurred to him only after that if he couldn't find her in the school, she probably couldn't find him. He swore under his breath and left the office.

"Violet!" he bellowed down the halls. He could feel only a few souls within the school now. "Violet!"

"Dad!" She was behind him. She was visibly distraught. He hadn't seen her crying like that in years.

Ben turned and ran to her. He grabbed her in a hug and immediately started toward the exit, half carrying her.

"Dad, wait!" she sobbed. "We have to find Tate!"

He didn't wait. He went straight out the doors. "Tate will be fine," he said.

"No, he won't!" she insisted. "You don't know what they did to him!"

He let her go only once they were several steps away from the glass doors. "What? Who did what?"

There were a handful of teenagers in the parking lot clustered in a small group several yards from the school building. They were hugging themselves and looking scared. All of them had visible gunshot wounds. They were watching the school and the strangers with equal suspicion.

"Those jocks," Violet said. "Dad, we have to-"

That's when the school exploded.

It was a magnificent act of destruction. It started in the kitchen, where Tate had used a microwave and a couple of cans of oven cleaner to act as a detonator for the school's propane tank. The ensuing fireball blasted outward, taking out the cafeteria windows in a cacophonous shattering of glass. Metal framework bent and twisted outward and the whole building groaned like a living thing that just took a mortal wound.

The school shuddered and wrenched upward. Some witnesses would later say it had to be the force of a secondary explosion that caused the unusual motion but the investigators would find no sign of a second explosion later. There followed a deafening sound that vibrated through the ground like an earthquake as the building collapsed inward in a hail of rubble and dust.

The whole event took only a few seconds and knocked every nearby spirit off their feet with the strength of the physical and psychic blast. Dust clouded the air for several seconds then began to settle, replaced by a snow of thousands of sheets of paper that had been blown sky high. Ben helped Violet get to her feet. They and everyone else outside were covered head to toe in ash and soot.

The school burned brightly in the night, reduced to a flaming pile of rubble with foundation and support beams jutting up from the mess like shattered rib bones. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed.

...

In the parking lot, the students who'd made it out of the building before the explosion gathered together, coming around from the far side of the rubble to join the bigger group. Mr. Cannavo did a quick head count and found only three people missing: Andrew, Jason and Luke. The choir teacher and Jennifer went together to walk a circuit around the blazing wreckage to see if the missing teens were over on the other side. The remaining group watched the emergency crews tackle the fire.

"Holy shit," Stephanie murmured, wrapping her arms around her middle. "Holy shit."

"Holy shit's right," said Amir.

His voice hadn't been heard in over 24 years so when he spoke no one recognized his voice initially - not even him. They all looked at him and were stunned to see the last of his facial injuries knitting themselves up.

It was happening to all of them.

In just a few minutes they were all fully restored, if dirty. Whatever hold the school had on them had lifted with its destruction. And while they were all quite thrilled with their healed up states, there were other pressing concerns.

"Where are we going to go now?" Chloe asked, hugging herself.

Kyle was standing several feet away from her and he looked over at her. His impulse was to go and put his arm around her but thoughts of the therapist doing her changed his mind. He looked away to the burning school and shoved his thumbs in his pockets. Chloe noticed but didn't know how to take his odd behavior. She still didn't know he'd seen her with Ben.

"Where ever we want?" suggested Mark, the boy Tate had shot through a plate glass window.

"Can we do that?" Danielle, Tate's first victim, asked.

Kevin pulled his attention off the firemen and gave a small, hopeful smile. "G-guess we'll f-f-find out s-soon."

"Yeah," agreed Michael. He'd been sitting next to Danielle when she'd been shot. "Sun'll be coming up in a few hours."

"I don't wanna hang around here waiting for sunrise," said Mark. "I'm gonna go have some fun before the night's over. Who's with?"

"We should wait for Mr. Cannavo," said Danielle.

Mark made a derisive noise. "You wait for him. I'm gonna go to the movies."

Stephanie peered at him. "You're just going to leave?"

Mark shrugged. The chains on his motorcycle jacket jingled. "Why would I want to stay here? I've been stuck here for the past two decades. I'm gonna get my kicks while I can. You guys can stay here and roast marshmallows if you want."

The teen started to walk away then, toward the street.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away. Kevin looked from him to the group and back again. "Hey," he called to Mark. "I'm c-c-coming too!"

Kevin jogged to catch up with his fellow stoner then fell in step with him.

"I think I'm going to go too," said Amir. "I want to go eat. I haven't eaten in yeeeears. I think I'll start with steak. Then ice cream. Then iced tea. God, I've missed iced tea."

"I could go for some ice cream," Kelsey said. She was a freshman when she ran directly into Tate's line of fire. For the first time in years her side was whole and she felt like celebrating.

"You want to come with me?" invited Amir.

She smiled and he smiled back at her. It felt good to smile. Together they headed the same direction the other guys went.

"You're just going to leave?" exclaimed Stephanie. "You're just going to walk and let that bastard get away with this?"

A couple of the kids glanced back but none stopped walking. So she looked around what was left of the group. "We're not going to let him get away with this."

"Get away with what?" Kyle said, suddenly irritated.

Steph stared at him. "With what? How about THAT?!" She motioned grandly to the school fire that the authorities were still trying to put out.

The fire trucks had a good stream going. The water shorted some electrical lines, throwing sparks. Kyle looked at the work in progress and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his letterman jacket. Then he looked at the Goth girl.

"I think that's the best thing that's happened to me in nearly twenty-five years," he said grimly. Then he turned and headed the same way the other kids had gone.

"Kyle?" Chloe called after him. He didn't stop. He didn't even look back. He just kept walking.

Hurt and unsure what to do next, Chloe hugged herself tighter and looked around. She saw Mr. Cannavo coming back. He'd found the other boys. Andrew was blind; he'd been that way in life and it had been his downfall when he couldn't outrun Tate's gunfire. He'd gotten out of the school when the warning came over the PA but ended up on the far side of the school from the rest of the ghosts.

Jason and Luke followed close behind the teacher and blind kid. Jason was still smoking and Luke's letterman jacket was charred but neither was injured. Jason's head was whole again; he could see through both eyes for the first time in far too long. Even though he wanted to be outraged, he couldn't help feeling elated. He kept touching the side of his head and shoulder just because it felt so nice whole. Luke could walk without a limp and was already thinking about how he might put his rekindled athletic prowess to work for him in the near future.

Mr. Cannavo, also enjoying having a full-functioning head again, looked at the small group. "Where are the others?"

"They left," Steph grouched. "Going to the movies and bullshit like that."

Mr. Cannavo looked a little bewildered by that explanation. But he couldn't really fault the kids. October was the only time in the years past that they could roam freely. He wasn't sure they would have to return this year - he could no longer feel the school. The presence there that had been dictating their moves since before they died was no longer there. The explosion seemed to have abolished it. The thought of never seeing the kids again made Mr. Cannavo sad on one hand but on the other, he kind of hoped they would find something better; someplace nicer to haunt. A place of their choosing where they might find some peace and happiness.

"Maybe we should go too," he said after a bit.

"Go where?" Steph demanded.

The choir teacher gave her an encouraging look. "Anywhere we like. Where do you want to go?"

Stephanie frowned. She was discovering that she was fairly alone in her desire to keep the vendetta alive. "Home!" she said just because she knew she couldn't. "I want to go home! That was my home the last two fucking decades! I don't have another one!"

Mr. Cannavo moved closer to her. "Steph," he said. "I think it's time... to move on."

Danielle reached for Michael and he took her hand. He gave it a squeeze and their eyes met. She smiled at him. Tears in her eyes caught the firelight, making her eyes shine. Michael smiled back and leaned in to kiss her. It was their first kiss where Danielle's blood didn't get into the mix.

"I don't want to move on!" Stephanie raged. "He took everything from me!"

"I feel ya, girlfriend," said Jason. "I already kicked his ass once today. I could do it again."

"Nobody's kicking anyone's ass," Mr. Cannavo said firmly. "There's been enough... enough destruction for one night."

Jason shrugged. "We can wait till next year," he said. He glanced at Luke who shrugged and nodded.

"Next year?" said Steph incredulously. "And what do we do till then? Where. Do. We. Go?"

"We can go to my parents house," Michael told Danielle. "It's huge. They'll never even know we're there."

"What about the rest of us?" Steph wanted to know. "We don't have rich parents with huge houses. What, we're stuck haunting a fucking parking lot for all eternity? Coz you know they're not going to rebuild that shit-hole. Not after everything that's happened."

"You can go where you want," Mr. Cannavo said again. "The school's gone. You're free."

"But where?" the Goth girl wailed. She burst into tears. She hated to cry. She hadn't done it in years, not where anyone could see. But she was undone. Lost. Afraid. "I don't know where to go!"

Mr. Cannavo gathered her up in a hug then and let her cry on his chest. "We'll figure it out," he assured her.

"Yeah," said Josh. He hated to see a girl cry. "We'll figure it out. Maybe we could all move into one of those big houses that people abandoned when the economy crashed. Find one with a pool."

"Isn't that stealing?" Jennifer asked. She was a cute, athletic blond girl who looked a lot better without the gaping hole in her side.

"Nah," grinned Josh. "We're dead. We can't steal. We can only... borrow."

Luke laughed at that. "Borrow," he repeated, chuckling. "I like that. I want to borrow the biggest fucking mansion in Hollywood."

"Those ones got people in them," said Jason. Then he brightened. "Hey! We could move in with a famous football player or movie star! That would be the sweet life! Babes, beer, big screen TVs. Have you seen the size of the TVs they got now?"

"Why don't we go discuss it somewhere less hectic," Mr. Cannavo suggested. Stephanie had stopped crying but she was still clinging to him. "I wouldn't mind getting something to eat myself. Everything's tasted like gunpowder to me these past years."

"What about him?" Steph said into the man's coat lapel.

Mr. Cannavo did a quick glance around. "I don't even see him. He probably left. I... don't think we'll have to worry about him anymore." He was basing that assumption on what the teen had said over the PA.

The blonde girl pulled away from him so she could see his face, to see whether he believed that or was just saying it to placate her. He looked sincere. She looked around too but all she saw were emergency workers and the healed faces of the people she'd come to know as family. She looked back to the choir teacher and nodded.

Mr. Cannavo put an arm around her shoulders and started to walk the same direction the others had gone, toward the street. "It's not the end of the world," he told the kids as they drifted along with him. "This is just a new beginning."

...

Author's Note:

In Red Dawn, the kids who banded together to assault the invading army would shout "Wolveriiiiines" every time they made a hit on the enemy. AHS Season 1 used the Wolverine as the mascot of the school and even had similar school colors to the ones used in Red Dawn.

School's Out, a great song for this chapter, is a song by Alice Cooper, that includes the lyrics "School's been blown to pieces". Another good song for this segment is Mogwai's I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School.

I'd thought this particular portion of Tate's past would be all tied up with this multi-chapter scene but Jason and Luke seem to have other ideas. Hopefully they'll find something better to do than harass Tate, now that they're not tied to the school and can go out and do things.

Next chapter: Tate deals with the fallout of blowing up the school, including Constance's reaction.