Monday, October 7th
"Mr Madsen!" Logan Robertson called out as he spotted the chief of security on his morning patrol on campus. "Mr Madsen, over here!"
David sighed. Would that day ever end? Since this morning it had been nothing but a series of unexpected events and setbacks. First there had been a power shortage in his neighborhood in the morning, meaning he'd had to contend with biscuits for breakfast instead of his wife's delicious bacon omelette, and that alone was enough to make him grumpy for the day. Not to mention he'd had to wait till he'd arrived at work to have his first coffee, and it was a wonder the black juice dispensed by the vending machines at Blackwell could legally be called coffee. Then all day long, he'd had to deal with the phone and wi-fi networks messing up, causing all sorts of problems, intermittent power shortages, and students being unusually nervous and aggressive.
Must be the weather, he thought. It's been strangely, uncomfortably warm and wet all day long, like in a tropical forest, I'm sweating like butter in the sun, and I guess this is getting on everyone else's nerves too. Thanks, global warming!
And all of that was delaying the important work he had set out to do today, that is, pursue his investigation on the drug ring he suspected existed among the students. He wanted to tighten his surveillance on his principal suspect, Kate Marsh. The girl had been acting really strange these past few days. Withdrawn, anxious, as if she had something to hide. Of course he knew of her reputation as a devout Christian, widely considered as Blackwell's resident "Goody Two-Shoes", but he wouldn't have it. After all, it's always those you suspect the least, isn't it? Yes, he knew he was close to something with her… if only events hadn't conspired to keep him busy with petty stuff all day!
He couldn't wait to finally get to bed and pray tomorrow would be a better day, but at the same time, he dreaded coming home tonight. Surely he'd be tired and cranky, his ungrateful stepdaughter would be even more ill-tempered than usual, and they'd get into yet another pointless fight over, say, how to properly set the table (knife to the right and fork to the left, come on Chloe, it's not that hard!) or how she should start looking for a job… God he was so tired of this! Deep inside, he'd grown fond of the little punk, but he couldn't wait for her to grow the hell up!
And now Mr Robertson, one of those dumb entitled jocks, was calling after him, looking anxious. Great. Just great! No doubt the idiot had hit someone again with his goddamn ball and David was due to escort a nosebleeding student to the infirmary while having to put up with Logan's half-assed apologies and "you're not gonna tell Wells, are you?" all the way. Exactly what he needed to make that perfect day even better.
"What is it, Logan?" he asked as he walked to the jock and his friends.
"Mr Madsen, there's some freak stuff happening at the dorm!"
The kids looked properly spooked. Okay, so this wasn't a football accident.
"Define 'freak stuff', please."
Logan and Zach and the other boys started speaking all at once in agitation, and David had to make an effort to calm them down and make sense of their words, but apparently they'd spotted a "huge-ass" bird, like an emu, running off the lawn in front of the dorms and into the building, and then the sprinklers had come to life all of a sudden. David frowned at their story, then dismissed the boys, telling them he'd check that out, and took out his walkie-talkie:
"Mackenzie, do you copy?" he asked one of his subordinates.
"Loud and clear, David. What's up?"
"There's been sightings of a wild animal by the dorm building, I'm gonna check that out."
"Sorry David, can you repeat? A wild animal?"
"You heard that right. A big bird, as they said. Probably nothing, dumb kids smoked too much weed again, but it seems there's also a sprinkler malfunction, so I have to check anyway."
"Roger that, I'm ready to call Wildlife if you need backup!"
David chortled: "I don't think that will be necessary, I'm sure we can handle a chicken without dart guns. Over and out."
He put his radio back on his belt and walked to the Prescott Dormitory, muttering to himself: "And here I am on a literal wild goose chase! If this is their idea of a joke, I swear I…"
He froze as he arrived in front of the building.
What the hell?
The building looked pretty much intact, if only very wet due to the sprinklers working at full power, there was a door on the far left that looked like it had been smashed off its hinges with a battering ram. That was the entrance to the maintenance area. The former Marine suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of dread, a long-asleep soldier instinct that was suddenly waking up to tell him that something really bizarre and potentially dangerous was going on. He spotted Samuel, the janitor, standing on the path leading to the building, looking at the broken door with dismayed eyes.
"Samuel!" he called. "Did you see or hear anything?"
"Yes," the janitor replied in his usual soft-spoken tone, "she is hiding in there. We are intruders in her world and she's frightened, she doesn't know who or what we are."
"Who is she?" he asked, puzzled. Samuel was a very nice and sweet man, but his tendency to speak in riddles was irritating.
"She who was there a long time ago," Samuel said.
David nodded. Alright. He wouldn't get anywhere with Samuel, better cut it short: "Fine. I'm gonna check it out, once I've secured the place, you think you can fix the sprinklers?"
Samuel shrugged sadly and slowly walked away without another word. What a strange, strange man, David thought.
Approaching the door only reinforced his suspicions that something unusual was happening. Whatever had come through, it was something incredibly strong, way stronger (and bigger) than a simple bird. What had Logan and the boys said? Like an emu? David was no zoologist, but his common sense could hardly conceive that an emu was capable of smashing through a steel door this way. No, this was the work of a larger, heavier animal…
He entered cautiously. Inside was a small, square concrete room, loaded with ladders, brooms, and various kinds of tools. On his left, a bunch of pipes ran up along the wall, passing through a metal box containing the sprinkler controls. And in front of him, another door led to the boiler room, in the basement.
There would be danger, he was sure of it now: the ladders and brooms were scattered about, and the basement door had been smashed just the same way as the other door. Whatever had come in here, it had gone through and was now lurking down below. Cautiously, he grabbed his Maglite and lit the dark basement entrance. He couldn't hear or see anything. Still ever so cautiously, all his soldier instincts now reactivated, he crouched to grab the combat knife he kept safely hidden in one of his boots.
Now that wasn't part of his regular equipment. He knew he wasn't even allowed to carry that thing on campus. It wasn't like he'd ever thought of using it on the job, anyway. But David was a superstitious man, and since a knife had often saved his ass in combat, he always kept one on himself, as a lucky charm. And who knows? Maybe he'd need it someday, if Blackwell was attacked by a terrorist, or… a freak, giant bird?
He cast a quick glance at the sprinkler control box to his left, and understood in a second why the sprinklers had gone crazy: the box had been torn open, its buttons and lever ripped off and its circuitry laid bare.
What kind of bird does that? It looks like it's been bitten by a tiger!
"Mackenzie?" he muttered into his walkie-talkie. "I think we're gonna need to call Wildlife after all."
"Seriously?" his subordinate shouted in surprise.
"You heard me right. Whatever it is, it's big, big enough to ram through doors and tear metal like paper!"
"Jesus Christ… okay, I'll call asap!"
The chief of security stood waiting for an anguishing minute, when Mackenzie's voice returned:
"David, we've got a problem."
"What is it?"
"Phone lines are busted."
"Shit, again? Use your cell!"
"Can't. No service. I asked Williamson and Estevez, same thing, it's like the whole county's network is down!"
"Did you call 9-1-1?"
"Same thing, David, I told you: there's no phone anymore, no wi-fi, nothing! We're cut off!"
David took a deep breath to calm himself down. That was a real, real shit day.
"Okay," he said, "just calm down, I'm going to check it out. Hold the fort in the meantime, okay? When I come back we'll try to figure out what's going on."
"Roger. And be careful."
Swallowing hard, he moved on toward the basement, knees bent, arms raised in front of him, one hand holding the light, the other the knife, both hands ready to strike. The metal stairway leading down was dark, and quiet. He tried to turn on the lights. No response. Great. Slowly, he stepped down. He was aware of his trembling feet, of the cold sweat on his back, but mustered all his courage and kept going down.
The dark hallway was silent like a tomb, and his flashlight illuminated nothing but empty concrete.
"Is there anyone in there?" he called. "Blackwell security, identify yourself!"
He instantly felt incredibly stupid, saying that. It's an animal, moron, what do you think it's gonna say?
But at this moment, his heart skipped a beat and he tensed, all his senses on alert. He had an answer. It was a low, deep rumble, like a snarl. And then, rhythmic clatter drawing slowly closer. He realized in horror that this clatter was none other than the sound of talons against the concrete. Talons belonging to very heavy feet.
The thing's ugly figure eventually appeared in the halo of his Maglite, and David's jaw dropped in awe.
Holy mother of God, what is that?
The first image that came to his mind was that of an emu on steroids. The thing was about six feet tall, standing on two large and muscular bird legs with long, thick talons. Its body was sturdy and covered with a thick layer of brownish feathers, except for its long neck that sported a mane of iridescent rainbow feathers. It had two short wings, or rather winged arms, that ended in clawed hands. And its head… no, its head didn't look like a bird at all. It had a long and slender maw, like a lizard, with rows of long, dagger teeth.
As David remained frozen in absolute terror, the thing gazed at him with its yellow eyes and opened its mouth wide, awfully wide, and let out a sharp, menacing hiss. The chief of security snapped back to reality upon hearing this sound, and slowly began to walk back toward the stairs.
The monster attacked! Caught unaware by this sudden action, David failed to dodge its charge and felt the full blow of its reptile head ramming into his gut and propelling him three feet back, where he fell heavily on the concrete, his lungs emptied by the shock, his knife flying from his hand to land on the staircase, out of his reach. As he struggled to recover his breath, the thing jumped onto him and, with another dreadful hiss, lowered its maw at his face.
As a life-saving reflex, the former Marine grabbed his Maglite and jammed it into the monster's open mouth. Then, as it wiggled its head with loud outraged shrieks to free itself from the strange object stuck in its mouth, David promptly got up and ran for the stairs, picked up his knife, raced up and out into the daylight, and kept running across the lawn. He had to warn the others, he had to warn Wells, he had to lock all these kids indoors to keep them safe from this-
Another shriek echoed behind him and the next thing he knew, he was violently pushed down on the lawn from behind.
Goddammit, that bastard's fast!
He groaned and rolled on his back, ready to fight, but before he could do another move, the monster had grabbed one of his legs in its maw and lifted him up. David roared in pain as he felt the excruciating torture of those sharp teeth digging into his flesh, with a pressure so intense he was sure it could break through the bone if he didn't free himself right now!
Think fast, Dave!
The thing's chest was within range. An opening! With all the energy he could muster in his desperate struggle to survive, he slashed at it with his knife. The thing yelped and released him. He fell heavily again, but this time with the satisfaction of seeing the monster's feathers soiled by its own blood.
So you can be killed, you goddamn chicken from Hell!
His killer instinct took over, and he didn't give his opponent any time to recover from his first attack: springing to his one good leg, he threw himself at the devil-bird, his blade forward, and stabbed it as hard as he could into its rainbow mane. The thing shrieked and jerked, trying to shake him loose, but he was holding on to a fistful of feathers with his other hand to keep it from doing just that, and he stabbed and stabbed again, ignoring the growing fatigue in his arm, ignoring the warm blood splashing all over him, ignoring the thing's vicious, desperate clawing of his back and shoulders.
Finally, the thing faltered, went limp, and fell on its side. David fell to his knees beside its head, panting in exhaustion.
Dammit, you were a tough one, you bastard! He thought after making sure his opponent was dead. Almost had me. Almost. Gonna need a medic pretty soon, though. Whatever the hell are you?
Now that he saw it laying still, in broad daylight, the chief of security could see a couple more details, like its long, feathered tail, or the way each of its feet sported one claw that was longer than the others, and curved like a sickle.
Now let me get this straight: you don't look like a bird. You don't look like a lizard either. You look like a mix of the two, like… no, it can't be. Seriously. But yeah, without those feathers you'd look just like…
A memory struck him, from his youth. He'd taken a date to the movies that day, and the two of them had been blown away by the movie's revolutionary, terrifyingly realistic effects. That was twenty years ago, in 1993. And the movie was Jurassic Park.
How is that even possible?
Then, as he sat here, catching his breath, meditating on this terrible and unexplained event, he noticed that the sprinklers had stopped working, and that all around him, everything was oddly, eerily quiet. He heard birds sing in the distance, but these were birds he'd never heard before. A creepy feeling made his skin crawl, he grabbed his radio. By some sort of miracle, it hadn't been broken in the ordeal. He turned it on to be greeted by a hiss of statics. He frowned. Odd, it was always tuned to the right frequency. He fumbled with the channel settings, calling Mackenzie every time he switched. Channel 2, more statics. Channel 3, more statics. Channel 4, more… wait, what was that? There was a voice, a female voice, barely audible behind the statics:
"Hear me… lighthouse… can. I repeat… emergency… lighthouse… soon as…"
What the hell is that?
"Hello?" he called. "This is David Madsen, chief of security at Blackwell Academy, who are you?"
There was no answer but the same barely audible words, over and over again. He switched to Channel 5, and to his relief, his subordinate answered:
"Mackenzie? You'll never believe what I just ran into…"
"David? Thank God you're here, David you need to come up front asap! Something wild happened in the art room!"
"Something worse than what I found here?"
"Just come, David. You'll never fucking believe it."
He sighed. Wouldn't that day ever end?
Chloe Price was pissed. Chloe Price was always pissed, but that Monday more than usual. It was a big day for her, she had important stuff to do, and she couldn't even get her morning eggs and bakey cause of that stupid power failure! Fuck! She'd spent her morning trying to score some weed, pretty grumpy, then she'd had a monster burger at Two Whales for lunch, which had slightly improved her mood. Slightly. Her 4 pm appointment remained as a dark cloud hanging over her day and, dude, what the fuck is that weather, she was sweating like a hog and felt like she was breathing through a damp sponge!
Then she'd spent her afternoon in the junkyard, using an old couch as a punching bag and mustering some Dutch courage. And now she was ready.
4 pm
The Blackwell girls' room on the first floor
Nathan Fucking Prescott
Just thinking about his name made her skin crawl. She'd thought of him as an okay guy, so far. Sure he was a bit creepy, and he had those mood swings, but he was good friends with Rachel and it was good enough for her. So she hadn't been particularly cautious when she spotted him in that bar, already pretty drunk, and thought she could wring free drinks and maybe some much-needed cash out of him. She hadn't been cautious and that asshole had roofied her! She'd woken up a moment later, tied up in his room at Blackwell, with that pervo taking pictures of her! Her wrath had been enough to shake her out of her drugged state, and she'd managed to escape, trashing his room in the process.
But no way she'd let that slide! Hell hath no fury like a pissed off Chloe Price! So she'd texted him, saying they needed to talk, and they'd arranged this appointment. She knew he was pushing drugs on campus, she knew what he'd tried to do to her. And she had debts to pay up. He wanted her to shut up about it? Fine, but it would cost him a shitload!
She parked her truck on the two disabled spaces without even thinking, then got out and stomped on campus, heading toward the main building, her fists and jaws clenched, seething with rage.
She didn't walk inside. As soon as she stepped on the stairs leading to the front door, she heard noises behind her, cries of surprise and warning.
"Watch out!"
"The fuck is that?"
"Coming straight at us!"
Instinctively, she froze on the stairs and turned to see what the fuss was all about. And in an instant, all her fury was forgotten, she couldn't even remember what she'd come here for. She was entirely focused on that thing, that huge, weird as hell thing up above that seemed to be falling toward her at a high speed.
"Holy mother of fucks!" she yelled in fear as the thing drew closer, and she fell on her side and raised her arms in protection, her head tucked in her shoulders, her eyes shut.
She felt no impact, but heard a loud crash, a deafening sound of broken glass, followed by shrieks of panic coming both from human beings and from the thing itself as it crash-landed into the art room.
"Alfred Hitchcock famously called film, 'little pieces of time' but he could be talking about photography, as he likely was."
Victoria Chase stifled a yawn. No matter how talented (and hot!) Mr Jefferson was, she had to admit he liked the sound of his own voice a little too much and had this tendency to get into long, drawn-out monologues like this one. Besides, she was tired. She'd spent most of her weekend partying with Nathan, Taylor and Courtney, and maybe doing shots on a Sunday evening was not the best idea she'd ever had. Plus, she was way too hot today. No, not like that, you perv! Well, yeah, of course she was hot and she knew it, but today she was literally too hot. Like, she'd put on a cashmere sweater because it was the perfect garment for an October in Oregon, and now it felt rather like August in Rio de Janeiro! Ugh! She couldn't wait for classes to finish so she could get back to her room and change. It didn't even occur to her that she could just take it off right now: she was wearing a yellow floral blouse underneath, and she was so hot she knew she had large halos of sweat under her arms, and no fucking way she'd let anyone see that! And especially not Mark Jefferson. She'd been working way too hard on him since the year began to lose all her chances because of a freak heat wave.
"These pieces of time can frame us in our glory and our sorrow; from light to shadow; from color to chiaroscuro…"
Taylor, sitting beside her, nudged her gently and winked when she turned to look at her, showing her a piece of scrap paper in her hand. It read:
Dear Kate,
We love your porn video
XOXO Blackwell Academy
Both girls stifled a giggle as Taylor then rolled the paper into a ball and threw it at Kate Marsh, across the room. By chance, Mr Jefferson was so engrossed in his own monologue that he didn't notice.
The ball bounced on Kate's head and fell to the ground. The girl didn't even react, lost as she was in sad contemplation. That made Victoria sigh. She'd been like that since the video was posted.
Katie Katie Katie… you're acting like it's the end of the world. Seriously? You thought Blackwell's resident nun could get shitfaced and make out with everyone in sight and get away with it? Sorry sweetie, that's not how it works. You drink too much, you do dumb shit, you get famous for that, that's how it works. My very first party, I puked vodka on my Givenchy blazer and there's still a couple unflattering photos of that floating around. Not as humiliating as your video, you say? Oh but you get special treatment for your annoying prude act since the year began. Not much of a saint now, are you Katie? Welcome to the real fucking world!
"Now, can you give me an example of a photographer who perfectly captured the human condition in black and white? Anybody? Bueller?"
Victoria swiftly raised her hand: he had just asked a question she knew the answer to (of course she knew) and she never missed a chance to score more points with him.
"Diane Arbus," she said.
"There you go, Victoria! Why Arbus?"
"Because of her images of hopeless faces. You feel like, totally haunted by the eyes of those sad mothers and children."
"She saw humanity as tortured, right? And frankly, it's bullshit. Shh, keep that to yourself. Seriously though, I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation. And any one of you could do that to me. Isn't that too easy? Too obvious? What if Arbus chose to capture people at the height of their beauty or innocence? She had a brilliant eye, so she could have taken another approach."
"I have to admit, I'm not a big fan of her work. I prefer... Robert Frank."
"Me too, Victoria. He captured the essence of post-war, beat America."
Victoria smiled to herself.
Another good point for Victoria Chase! Maybe you'll finally start paying more attention to me than to Max Fucking Retro Hipster Selfie, right Mark?
He stopped paying attention to her and went back to droning on about Kerouac and Cocteau, and at that moment Taylor nudged her and voiced silently:
"The fuck is wrong with Max?"
Victoria frowned and turned to look at her rival, Max Caulfield, who was sitting to her right, slightly behind her.
That skinny freckled hipster, who thinks she's so much cooler than me with her Polaroid and don't-give-a-fuck attitude! I hate her!
No, Vicky, you know you want to hate her but you can't. You're just jealous.
Oh, shut up, Inner Vicky! I thought I drank you dead last night!
She focused her attention on the girl. Taylor was right, what the fuck was wrong with her? Usually, Max was pretty silent and lonely in class, either listening attentively, completely enthralled by the teacher's speech-
Especially when the teacher is Mark. Gosh, you really think you stand a chance with him, Lamefield? He's a man of standards, he needs a woman with class, and attitude, not a tiny hoodie-clad doormat!
-or lost in her own little world. Except today. Today she was… gone… she was sitting still, her mouth agap, and her eyes were open, but glassy, vacant. The sight would have been comical and worthy of a picture if it wasn't for the thin but steady stream of blood that was pouring from her nose. When Victoria noticed this last detail, sudden, frightful realization set in:
She's having a stroke!
But the blond girl had no time to warn Mr Jefferson: as soon as she opened her mouth to speak up, the classroom descended in utter chaos. One of the windows exploded, raining glass shards on the hapless students, and something heavy landed on Kate's table, toppling it over and projecting Kate and Max to the ground.
With a yelp of fright, Victoria, Taylor, Hayden and Stella jumped up and ran to hug the opposite wall, while Alyssa, Daniel and Mr Jefferson went for cover against the blackboard, everybody ignoring the cuts the rain of broken glass had caused them, watching with terrified fascination the hell-beast that had just crashed into their classroom.
It was a giant, eight-feet wide bat. Wait, no, it wasn't a bat. It had the wings and body of a bat, but its head was that of a bird, with a long yellow beak and a bright blue crest on top of its narrow head. The rest of its body was covered with a fuzz of grey feathers. What kind of bird was that? Or was it even a bird? It was way too fucking huge to be a bird! The thing wiggled on the floor and flapped its wings uselessly, desperately trying to get up, and as it opened its beak to shriek in frustration, Victoria realized with horror that this beak, garnished with rows of pointed, sharp-looking teeth, was long enough to swallow a man's arm whole. And it was just a couple feet from her legs!
She suddenly felt a pat on her right shoulder, and turned to gaze at Taylor, who was holding an unconscious Max against her.
"Take care of her," she shouted as she dropped the young hipster's limp body in Victoria's arm. "I'll be back!"
Victoria had no time to ask her where she intended to go as Tay had already circled around the flailing monster and was now crouching, at a safe distance from its wing, reaching out with her hand…
What is she doing?
Then the rich girl realized that Kate wasn't against the wall with the others: when the winged horror had crashed through the window, she'd been thrown to the ground and pinned under its body, and she was still there, struggling desperately to free herself, her cries for help silenced by the thing's shrieks and the other students' cries of terror. But Taylor had spotted her, and like a real everyday hero, she'd rushed to the rescue. She had now managed to grab Kate's hand and was pulling as hard as she could to break the Christian girl loose while a large leathery wing flapped relentlessly at her head.
"Hold on, Kate!" she heard her shout. "Just hold on, I'm… someone help! I can't do this alone! Help!"
Victoria looked to her left with the intent of asking Hayden or Mr Jefferson for help, but she quickly saw that they had to pass between her and the thing's beak in order to reach Taylor, and they were too frightened to do that. She could help. She could put Max down and go help Taylor, but at that very thought, her legs started to wobble and threatened to give way. She came to an awful realization: for the first time in her life, Victoria Chase was confronted with a situation neither her money nor her sharp tongue could help her overcome. For the first time in her life, she was confronted with raw danger that demanded real, physical action. And she found out she couldn't do that. She found out she was not nearly as strong as she thought she was, and this feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her like a tidal wave of black tar, pinning her against the wall with barely enough strength to breathe. She started to cry.
I'm so sorry Tay… Kate… I can't…
Then, a shock, a deafening blow, as Alyssa lifted up a chair over her head and hammered it down on the beast's head. The monster jolted from the blow and Taylor fell backward on her butt as Kate, suddenly freed from under its body, was abruptly pulled toward her. The two girls wasted no time getting up and running out of the beast's reach while the chubby girl raised the chair and hammered it down again, and again, and again.
"Are you gonna fucking die already, you! Fucking! Mother! Fucker!" she roared as she hit the thing's head recklessly, over and over again, until she felt too tired to lift it up and dropped it and gazed, breathless, at her foe: the flying thing was laying still, its crested head mashed to a pulp.
Silence fell in the room as everyone gazed at this bloody mess, Alyssa being the only one to make any sound as she was loudly catching her breath.
"What?" she asked when she saw all those eyes fixed on her. "Something had to be done, right?"
Then relief came, and the students sighed deeply or bust in tears and hugged one another, shaking, except Mr Jefferson who remained against the blackboard, frozen, his face white. Victoria put Max down and rushed to Taylor who was still checking on Kate.
"Tay!" she yelped as she embraced her, totally oblivious to the Christian girl next to them. "Oh my God, Tay, you scared the shit out of me! What took you? Are you okay?"
She frantically checked on her friend: Taylor's bare legs were bloody with a number of cuts from the broken glass, and she also had cuts on her hands and a mean, deep one in her scalp, but altogether she looked quite okay.
"Don't worry, Vicky, I'm fine. Just glad everyone's okay."
"B-b-but why did you do that? It was so dangerous, you're crazy!"
"I don't know! I just saw Max and Kate needed help, and I was close so I… just felt like I had to do something. By the way, how's Max?"
The two girls turned to their unconscious classmate to find that Kate was now tending to her.
"She's breathing," the Christian girl said as she looked up at them. "And she doesn't look too hurt, but… she's out of it."
At that moment, Mackenzie, Estevez and Williamson, Blackwell's three security guards working under David's supervision, barged into the room and froze at the awe-inspiring sight of the dead creature. Mackenzie's radio pulled them out of their dumbstruck state:
"Mackenzie? You'll never believe what I just ran into…"
"David? Thank God you're here, David you need to come up front asap! Something wild happened in the art room!"
"Something worse than what I found here?"
"Just come, David. You'll never fucking believe it."
They approached the corpse slowly, as if afraid it would rise again and attack, and two of them kneeled next to it to examine it while the third one ran a quick check on the students, assessing their needs for first aid. A confused voice came to them from outside:
"Uh, hello there? What the actual fuck?"
They turned as one to face a very bewildered blue-haired girl staring at them through the broken window. Then David showed up next to her, out of breath from running, his uniform torn and smeared with blood.
"David!" Chloe shouted in surprise. "You look like shit! I mean, more than usual! What happened?"
"You wouldn't believe it," he gasped. "And you, what are you doing here?"
"I, uh… did you see that fucking beast in there?"
"I ran into another one, back at the dorms. Don't know what they are or where they come from…"
He climbed through the broken window into the classroom, and then turned around to offer Chloe a helping hand.
"I'm a big girl," she said as she climbed in without his help.
"What the hell is that?" David muttered in disbelief. "It looks like a… it sounds crazy but it looks like a dinosaur!"
"Is that Max?" Chloe yelped with a shrill voice as she spotted her childhood friend. The next second, she was kneeling in front of her. "Max, what the fuck happened to you? Are you hurt? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Answer me! Why is she not answering, why is she not opening her eyes?"
"Shhh," Kate whispered as she lay a gentle hand on the arm of this punk girl she didn't know but who seemed to care a lot about her friend. "It's gonna be alright, she's still alive and breathing."
"Who the fuck are you?" Chloe snapped back at her.
Kate recoiled in fright, wondering what she could have done to upset this girl so much. But then she saw her teary eyes and realized the girl was just very anxious about Max's health and was being aggressive to vent her anguish.
"I-I'm her friend," she stammered. "My… my name's Kate. You look like you care a lot about her, and so do I. What's your name?"
"Chloe," the girl let out, never taking her eyes off Max.
"Chloe, good. Now listen to me, Chloe." Kate was now using her softest voice as she uttered slowly: "We're both her friends, and we'll take good care of her, okay? She will be okay, she's still alive, and we'll take her to the hospital, does it sound good?"
Chloe nodded and sniffled, somewhat soothed. "Yeah, I guess… I guess…"
"Ms Mackenzie," Kate called the security guard. "Can you call 9-1-1?"
"Sorry, Kate," the woman said. "I tried already but the network's busted."
"Busted?" Victoria asked, frowning. "What do you mean, busted?"
"There's no service," Mackenzie said. "No phone and no Internet, we're cut off."
"Oh shit!" Chloe shouted, starting to panic. "What are we gonna do?"
"Hey, hey, don't worry," Kate said, again laying a hand on her arm, which the girl didn't push back this time. "The hospital isn't too far away is it? We can take her there ourselves."
"Guys!" Stella yelled suddenly, making everyone jump. "What is that?"
They all turned to her. She was pointing toward the broken window, and was slowly starting to walk toward it, her mouth agap in a mesmerized state. Everyone looked through the window. And everyone froze in awe.
No, it couldn't be.
It couldn't be!
Through the window, they saw the front yard, with the fountain and the statue of Jeremiah Blackwell, and beyond it, a road that should have separated the main campus from the fenced football field, and beyond the football field, the first buildings of the town of Arcadia Bay should have been visible.
Should have.
For beyond the road, there was no more fence, no more football field… and no more town. In its place grew a thick forest of luscious green, made of trees nobody could identify, trees that wouldn't have looked out of place in the depths of Brazil or Congo but that definitely didn't belong in the Pacific Northwest. It was a tropical jungle that now stood where Arcadia Bay should be. A jungle from another place.
Or from another time.
"Guys," Stella said. "I think we're not in Kansas anymore."