Post by Admin on Jul 21, 2014 18:28:04 GMT
After another long wait, I give you:
But I could still hear things from the outside. In here, I was ‘safe.’ Sort of. Out there, the panic continued on and on. There were sounds that no kid my age should hear. People out there that couldn’t hide or run from this confusing nightmare cried out, died, were eaten. There were sounds in the dark with me too. Heavy breathing and possibly even crying. There definitely was more people in here than Lily and me, but none of us dared speak a word. We could not risk them hearing us. The banging on the door began to slow. Then unexpectedly, it stopped all together.
Had my pursuer been drawn away by a survivor of the lockdown (more like a massacre at this point)? Was it waiting for us to come out?
And above all those questions, the ultimate puzzle was why we had been spared while others succumbed to the evil. Why did some catch this deadly cough and turn into maniacs, and some didn’t?
As the minutes went, so did the sounds of the people. Soon, the noises of struggle grew distant and less frequent. Moments after that, only the occasional scream, footsteps, or doors slamming could be heard. Then just as I thought it would be over, a new roar would reach my ears. Or more cries. The disaster just couldn’t die out or quiet. The only noise I wanted to hear was those all too familiar, friendly police sirens. Oh, how that sound would’ve lifted all of my fears away. Solved everything.
But that particular noise never happened.
For, I’m estimating, at least half an hour passed before I heard anything in the room with me. Then, someone spoke through the dark and the silence that had lasted a particularly long time. I recognized the voice, Ben Breer, as he whispered, “Guys, we have to get out of here.”
His sudden, urgent voice startled me pretty bad; he was right next to me!
“Is it silent out there yet?” Lily asked, hushed, in response. To that, everyone in the room of janitorial equipment listened. There was just silence outside. Ominous to say the least.
“I…I think the one that was banging on the door is gone,” someone else’s voice (Myer Anne?) said cautiously. “Can we turn on the lights?”
“Okay, it’s safe now,” Lily confirmed slowly. More convincing herself than anyone else I think.
There was some fumbling in the darkness followed by a click. A nearly blinding light ensued. After a second or two, I saw Ben standing by the light switch by the door, looking more disheveled than ever. Lily was getting up from her spot and covering her eyes, probably because of the light, to my left.
There was a few brooms, shelves, and cleaning things around this large closet. And two others sat in a far corner. Myer Anne and Jody, looking quite scared together. They were best friends, before the lockdown as well as now.
“Okay, the police haven’t gotten here, yet,” Ben said.
“Yet?? Are they ever going to come? What if the reason they’re not here already is because there’s something wrong for miles around?!” Myer Anne practically exclaimed. “Is this happening everywhere?”
“Shhh,” I hushed Myer Anne. Don’t want to be loud…
“But what if it is happening everywhere?” Myer rushed on, a bit quieter. “We need to get out now and find our families. We need to get home!”
“Myer, let’s think about this,” Jody tried to calm her friend in a soft voice.
“Think about this?” a wild Myer repeated hoarsely. She was obviously not all right; I had a feeling she had been the one who I’d heard crying earlier in the dark. “Sydney McDougal, Dillon, Avery, Samuel…Sebastian are all dead. All dead, and we need to THINK?!”
She sort of imploded, falling back to the floor, temporarily spent. There was another brief quiet after that that I used to listen intently for anything outside. Nothing could be heard…
Lily decided to break the silence, “Well…if we are going to get out of here, we need to stick together and get some things to protect ourselves. Put the...deaths behind us for a while. Then, when we're safe, we can mourn.”
An unspoken thought of sadness and fear rippled through us all. No one answered or spoke up against Lily Mold’s words. And the full realization of those words set in. We were going back out there. Us. A bunch of 8th graders about to enter the tomb of a school- again.
“So, what can we use to, you know, defend with?” I asked.
“Defend? We don’t even know who we’re ‘defending’ from,” Jody said.
“We’re going to have to avoid, or even potentially fight, anyone that has the epidemic symptoms. The disease that people have been getting for the past day or two is definitely tied with what’s happening right now,” Ben summed. “Those sick people are rabid carriers of it.”
“How is this happening?” Myer Anne asks rhetorically. “How can this really be going on?”
“Nobody knows how,” Ben breathes out a deep sigh. “And we also don’t know how the epidemic is effecting us. We may not be entirely immune. It may still be contaminating us.”
“We have no choice then,” Lily said as she strolled over to the broomstick beside me. Picking it up, she examined it for a second and held it parallel to the ground. Suddenly, she brought down the long handle onto her knee and it split in two. There was a quick crack sound and then she was holding two almost equally long broom handles. Both ends sharp and splintery. She dropped one and kept the other in her hand. We listened for a few more seconds to hear if anything outside heard the crack, but it sounded silent…still silent.
“What’s that for?” Jody asked slowly.
“What do you think? We need to get out of here, alive, and no one is coming to help us,” Lily replied.
Ben shook his head in disbelief. “How did it come to this so quickly?”
“Everyone, get something to protect yourself with,” Lily said. She was stepping up fast. Was she the new leader?
I looked around quick for something useful. Anything. The thing I spotted was a metal pole about 5 feet long and blue. Whatever it was for was not what I was about to use it for at all.
Ben took the other end of the broomstick Lily dropped. Jody got a few smaller tools from a shelf for her and Myer Anne- wrenches or something. All of this seemed pretty useless. Paled in comparison with what we were planning on facing.
“I’ll unlock and open the door and Andrew can turn off the lights. Let’s go to the side entrance since its close and probably open,” Lily led. I stood by the switch. Everyone was almost ready to leave our small safety. Almost. And to think that all of us were fooling around and being kids earlier today.
But enough thinking. Lily unlocked the door.
“Ready?” I made sure.
Everyone nodded in turn. Just before I flipped off the switch, my gaze fell on Jody. Just a brief glance, but then her eyes met mine. Then I turned out the light. Darkness again.
The pitch black was quick since as soon as the switch clicked, the thick door to the hall and the silence outside swung out.
But I could still hear things from the outside. In here, I was ‘safe.’ Sort of. Out there, the panic continued on and on. There were sounds that no kid my age should hear. People out there that couldn’t hide or run from this confusing nightmare cried out, died, were eaten. There were sounds in the dark with me too. Heavy breathing and possibly even crying. There definitely was more people in here than Lily and me, but none of us dared speak a word. We could not risk them hearing us. The banging on the door began to slow. Then unexpectedly, it stopped all together.
Had my pursuer been drawn away by a survivor of the lockdown (more like a massacre at this point)? Was it waiting for us to come out?
And above all those questions, the ultimate puzzle was why we had been spared while others succumbed to the evil. Why did some catch this deadly cough and turn into maniacs, and some didn’t?
As the minutes went, so did the sounds of the people. Soon, the noises of struggle grew distant and less frequent. Moments after that, only the occasional scream, footsteps, or doors slamming could be heard. Then just as I thought it would be over, a new roar would reach my ears. Or more cries. The disaster just couldn’t die out or quiet. The only noise I wanted to hear was those all too familiar, friendly police sirens. Oh, how that sound would’ve lifted all of my fears away. Solved everything.
But that particular noise never happened.
For, I’m estimating, at least half an hour passed before I heard anything in the room with me. Then, someone spoke through the dark and the silence that had lasted a particularly long time. I recognized the voice, Ben Breer, as he whispered, “Guys, we have to get out of here.”
His sudden, urgent voice startled me pretty bad; he was right next to me!
“Is it silent out there yet?” Lily asked, hushed, in response. To that, everyone in the room of janitorial equipment listened. There was just silence outside. Ominous to say the least.
“I…I think the one that was banging on the door is gone,” someone else’s voice (Myer Anne?) said cautiously. “Can we turn on the lights?”
“Okay, it’s safe now,” Lily confirmed slowly. More convincing herself than anyone else I think.
There was some fumbling in the darkness followed by a click. A nearly blinding light ensued. After a second or two, I saw Ben standing by the light switch by the door, looking more disheveled than ever. Lily was getting up from her spot and covering her eyes, probably because of the light, to my left.
There was a few brooms, shelves, and cleaning things around this large closet. And two others sat in a far corner. Myer Anne and Jody, looking quite scared together. They were best friends, before the lockdown as well as now.
“Okay, the police haven’t gotten here, yet,” Ben said.
“Yet?? Are they ever going to come? What if the reason they’re not here already is because there’s something wrong for miles around?!” Myer Anne practically exclaimed. “Is this happening everywhere?”
“Shhh,” I hushed Myer Anne. Don’t want to be loud…
“But what if it is happening everywhere?” Myer rushed on, a bit quieter. “We need to get out now and find our families. We need to get home!”
“Myer, let’s think about this,” Jody tried to calm her friend in a soft voice.
“Think about this?” a wild Myer repeated hoarsely. She was obviously not all right; I had a feeling she had been the one who I’d heard crying earlier in the dark. “Sydney McDougal, Dillon, Avery, Samuel…Sebastian are all dead. All dead, and we need to THINK?!”
She sort of imploded, falling back to the floor, temporarily spent. There was another brief quiet after that that I used to listen intently for anything outside. Nothing could be heard…
Lily decided to break the silence, “Well…if we are going to get out of here, we need to stick together and get some things to protect ourselves. Put the...deaths behind us for a while. Then, when we're safe, we can mourn.”
An unspoken thought of sadness and fear rippled through us all. No one answered or spoke up against Lily Mold’s words. And the full realization of those words set in. We were going back out there. Us. A bunch of 8th graders about to enter the tomb of a school- again.
“So, what can we use to, you know, defend with?” I asked.
“Defend? We don’t even know who we’re ‘defending’ from,” Jody said.
“We’re going to have to avoid, or even potentially fight, anyone that has the epidemic symptoms. The disease that people have been getting for the past day or two is definitely tied with what’s happening right now,” Ben summed. “Those sick people are rabid carriers of it.”
“How is this happening?” Myer Anne asks rhetorically. “How can this really be going on?”
“Nobody knows how,” Ben breathes out a deep sigh. “And we also don’t know how the epidemic is effecting us. We may not be entirely immune. It may still be contaminating us.”
“We have no choice then,” Lily said as she strolled over to the broomstick beside me. Picking it up, she examined it for a second and held it parallel to the ground. Suddenly, she brought down the long handle onto her knee and it split in two. There was a quick crack sound and then she was holding two almost equally long broom handles. Both ends sharp and splintery. She dropped one and kept the other in her hand. We listened for a few more seconds to hear if anything outside heard the crack, but it sounded silent…still silent.
“What’s that for?” Jody asked slowly.
“What do you think? We need to get out of here, alive, and no one is coming to help us,” Lily replied.
Ben shook his head in disbelief. “How did it come to this so quickly?”
“Everyone, get something to protect yourself with,” Lily said. She was stepping up fast. Was she the new leader?
I looked around quick for something useful. Anything. The thing I spotted was a metal pole about 5 feet long and blue. Whatever it was for was not what I was about to use it for at all.
Ben took the other end of the broomstick Lily dropped. Jody got a few smaller tools from a shelf for her and Myer Anne- wrenches or something. All of this seemed pretty useless. Paled in comparison with what we were planning on facing.
“I’ll unlock and open the door and Andrew can turn off the lights. Let’s go to the side entrance since its close and probably open,” Lily led. I stood by the switch. Everyone was almost ready to leave our small safety. Almost. And to think that all of us were fooling around and being kids earlier today.
But enough thinking. Lily unlocked the door.
“Ready?” I made sure.
Everyone nodded in turn. Just before I flipped off the switch, my gaze fell on Jody. Just a brief glance, but then her eyes met mine. Then I turned out the light. Darkness again.
The pitch black was quick since as soon as the switch clicked, the thick door to the hall and the silence outside swung out.