“Time’s up,” Mrs. Rider says. “Now, who would like to share with the class?” She scans the room, passing over Jerrod once. Twice. It makes him nervous, because he didn’t write about his evening. She passes over a third time, then says, “Mitch? How about you?”
Mitch Schroeder shakes his head. His eyes are wide.
“Yep, come on…up to the front of the class.”
“Mrs. Rider, I didn’t write anything,” Mitch says. He covers his paper with his arms.
“I know for a fact that you did, Mitch. Now, come on. Everyone has to share sooner or later. Might as well get it over with today.”
Mitch sighs. He gets up and drags his feet to the front of the class, shoelaces tapping all the way. Once there, he twists from side to side, holding his journal in front of his face so all Jerrod can see is a bushy tuft of red, curly hair blooming from the top of Mitch’s notebook. Mitch begins, reading each word as if it is its own sentence.
“The worst thing that happened last night was my dad got mad and yelled at my mom and left and my mom cried and yelled at my brother and me and we didn’t get dinner. The best thing was my mom took us out for ice cream later and I got to have a large peanut butter cup sundae to myself.”
He lowers his notebook, moves quickly to his seat. His face is red and when he sits down he puts it into the fold of his arms so that only the back of his head and neck are showing.
“That was very nice, Mitch,” Mrs. Rider says. She opens a drawer in her desk, shifts a few things around, and pulls out a pink sheet of paper. “I’m jealous of your peanut butter cup sundae. Was it good?”
Mitch nods, but doesn’t lift his head. Jerrod watches as Mrs. Rider writes on the pink paper. He is barely aware that his fingers are stroking his own paper, smudging the letters. Making them warm.
“Okay,” Mrs. Rider says, still finishing her writing. “I have to run to the office for a minute. Who’s our policeperson? Karli? Aren’t you in charge this week?”
Karli Millstein nods and lifts her paper badge into the air.
“Good. I’ll expect a full report when I return. Remember, class. It’s pizza week.” Her eyes linger on Nicki Waters, then she stands and leaves the classroom, the pink paper waffling in her right hand.
For a while, the class is quiet. Jerrod looks down at his paper, at the letters he has carved there with his mechanical pencil. The writing isn’t finished yet, but he has to wait. Write. Read. Write. Read. That’s the pattern. Write. Read. Write. Read. It’s what the Voices say.
Then Nicki is out of her desk, moving to the front of the room. “I’ll read,” she says, as if she’s doing the class a favor, and stands primly beside Mrs. Rider’s desk.
“The best thing that happened to me last night,” she says, “was when I got to go to my Nanna’s house and watch the Hannah Montana concert on cable.”
The class stirs, and the anticipation is thick in the air. Jerrod can feel their eyes on him. Watching. Waiting. Nicki glances at Jerrod. An evil grin spreads across her face.
“The worst thing that happened to me last night was when Jerrod Steihl farted and I smelled it all the way from my Nanna’s house.”
The children erupt in full-blown hilarity. Nicki doesn’t waiver, doesn’t move. She is glaring at Jerrod. Waiting for Jerrod to cry. For once, Nicki Waters will be a stupid jerk that doesn’t get what she wants.
The laughing continues. The jeers begin. Like Nicki, they are all leaning, watching, waiting, hoping for the moment in which Jerrod Steihl finally snaps. They do this in the way that Jerrod’s father once slowed while driving past a traffic accident, or the way that his mother used to cling to her cell phone when hearing a juicy bit of gossip about a neighbor or fellow church member.
He bends down and reaches into the large pocket of his backpack. The cover of the Book is made of smooth leather and feels nothing like the harsh, cold seats of the school bus. He tightens his grip and pulls it out, setting it on his desk beside the notebook. He flips pages until he finds the first of his two bookmarks: a Richie Sexson baseball card. Not the Seattle Mariner Richie Sexson, but the Milwaukee Brewer Richie Sexson. It’s the better Richie Sexson, so said Jerrod’s dad.
Here the writing is still in English, though it isn’t the English Jerrod has been learning these past few years. The English in this Book is different, full of strange words, like thou and thy, and larger ones that are too complicated for him to pronounce. He scans down the page. The jeers become crueler, angrier.
“Are you going to cry, Jar-head?” Jerrod hears one of them say. “Are you going to squirt some?” Jerrod’s eyes roll across the words until he finds the tiny note he left himself the night before. READ HERE–You have to do it three times, it says in his familiar chicken-scratch scrawl. He nods, as if it was the page telling him to do this rather than his own handwriting, and then begins to read.
He speaks quietly, barely able to hear himself over the ruckus around him. It doesn’t matter; the Voices didn’t say anything about the words being heard, just that they must be read aloud. He repeats this phrase twice more, closes the Book, and picks up his pencil. He has to work quickly if he is going to finish before Mrs. Rider comes back.
“Look at his tongue,” says Bennie Holliday. “It’s like he’s going to eat his own face.”
Jerrod realizes Bennie is right, feels the wetness of his tongue on his lips. He doesn’t withdraw it. He is focused and this is his focused face. Something has awakened within him. He writes as if he has known this language all his life. The tip of his pencil swoops and spins, etching the intricate new letters into the page.
When he finishes, he rips the paper from the notebook. Holds it in front of his face, staring in awe at the alien script. There’s an electric feeling in the air, shockwaves rippling up his arms and across his chest. It’s a feeling Jerrod has never experienced before, and now that he has it, Jerrod never wants to let it go.
“Oh man, he’s going to eat the paper,” someone says.
“Probably,” says another. “He eats anything.”
Everyone laughs.
Jerrod turns his head, stares at them, and the laughter quickly dies.
“I’m supposed to eat the paper,” he says quietly, and devours it, stuffing it into his mouth and tearing away large chunks. At first he has a hard time chewing. Then his saliva softens it into pulp, and the paper tastes good. It tastes oh, so good.
The students gape at Jerrod with wide, unbelieving eyes. One of them is able to mutter, “Geez…” And Karli Millstein, seeing as she is the policeperson, is brave enough to say, “That’s disgusting.” But as he thrusts the remaining bit of paper into his mouth, no one makes a single move.
Jerrod swallows and relishes the feeling as it slides down his gullet. The edges of the paper have made small cuts in the corners of his mouth, and he thinks he might be bleeding. But he doesn’t care. A warm sensation is growing in his chest, and, for the first time in his life, he is aware of his potential strength.
Almost, he thinks, and reaches again for the Book.
This time he opens it to the second bookmark, a third place ribbon he earned for one of his poems during last year’s county fair. He pushes the ribbon aside. Now you read this, his handwriting says in the margin of the page. But only once. DO NOT READ IT TWICE. Reading it twice would be bad for everyone–the school, the neighborhood, maybe even the entire town. Reading it once was only bad for Mrs. Rider’s classroom. Once is enough. For now.
The Voices grow louder, chanting Jerrod’s name from faraway places. Smokey places. Snowy places. These are the Voices that called Jerrod into the yellow-grassed fields nearly two years ago, the Voices that led him to the secret hiding place of the Book, buried there, deep down in the earth. Jerrod doesn’t know why they spoke to him then, or why they speak to him now. All he knows is that the Voices are sweet, pleasant, and he believes everything they say.
Leaving his belongings on his desk, he zips up the pockets of his backpack, puts it on. The
backpack isn’t necessary for the thing to work, but it is camouflage. He stops beside Mitch Schroeder’s desk.
“Hey, Mitch.”
Mitch doesn’t say anything. He keeps his head down. Jerrod can see a doodle on Mitch’s journal entry. It’s Spiderman, better than the window drawings, hanging from the corner of the page.
“I like Spiderman, too,” Jerrod says. “He always knows when it’s time to run away.” It’s the best he can do for the boy who was almost a friend. Then Jerrod is walking again, and the Voices chant on. They don’t want Jerrod thinking about Mitch Schroeder. Not with work to be done.
Jerrod doesn’t go all the way to the front of the room. He stops in the corner where Mrs. Rider keeps the overhead projector and the rolled up maps the class uses during their Geography period. Jerrod figures this spot is as good as any. Close enough to the door. Close enough to the middle of the room.
“What’s he doing?” Karli Millstein says. No one knows.
He raises his arms above his head and he can feel the bottom of his gray sweatshirt lift up, revealing his rotund, pale belly. Any other time on any other day, this would’ve left Jerrod wide open to verbal attack. This time, on this day, no one notices Jerrod’s exposed flesh, veined with purple stretch marks. They seem more concerned with the floor of the classroom. It’s starting to shake.
The warmth in Jerrod’s chest becomes hot. Sweat beads and drips from the corners of his brow. He closes his eyes. In his mind, he sees a small, black seed. The seed is smooth, perfectly round. He can feel it with his mind, the way he can taste a cheeseburger before he takes his first bite.
“Grow,” Jerrod says and scrunches his face in concentration. “Come on…grow.”
The seed in his mind begins to pulse, ripple like a pregnant belly. A tendril bursts from one side of the seed. A second explodes from the other. Then a third. Then a fourth. Jerrod hears something from the corner of the room. It’s Nicki. She isn’t crying yet, but her eyes are wide and her once mischievous face is vacant and pale. He watches. Waits. The floor splits and the Voices cry out. As Karli Millstein’s paper badge flutters away from her grasp, dancing through the air like a late-autumn leaf on a winter wind, an exhilarated and guttural cackle boils up from the depths of Jerrod’s core.
* * *
Belinda Rider feels the bone-on-bone grinding deep within her pelvis, shooting daggers of pain throughout her abdomen and down her left leg. Her hip is begging her to stop, but she won’t. She can’t. She needs to get back to her students.
She had already left the office when the building began to shake. At first she thought it nothing more than a small earthquake, which this area receives every so often. She could recall three distinct tremors during her tenure at the school, none of which resulted in any damage.
But a moment ago, as she walked past the gymnasium, the halogen lights began to quiver in their housing and she grew worried. By the time she reached the cafeteria, a fire extinguisher had fallen off the wall and the power had gone out, and she was afraid.
Now she is terrified, hobbling as fast as her body would allow in the worn support of her orthopedic shoes. She ignores the pain erupting in her hip. Barely notices the commotion of the classrooms to her right and left as colleagues instruct their students. Everything is a muted jumble of sights and sounds.
A screeching static bursts from the overhead speakers. Principal John Winter’s voice pours down from above. “Do not panic. This is not a drill. Please proceed with School Lockdown Procedure. I repeat…this is not a drill. Please proceed with School Lockdown Procedure.”
She hears, “Please get under your desks…” as she passes Mr. Thompson’s room; sees a child run out of Mrs. Harrington’s room, eyes wide, as Mrs. Harrington chases after; hears “…No, Brian, I don’t think this is a terrorist act. Now, plea…” as she passes Mrs. Bowe’s room. The entire building feels as if it is tearing in two.
Her right foot slides on the waxy surface of the floor and white pain explodes just below her waist. She cries out and almost collapses, catching herself on the cool porcelain of a nearby drinking fountain before falling to the floor. She lifts her eyes. She can see her classroom at the end of the hall. The door is open. Incandescent light is pulsing inside the room. And from within that light, obscene and writhing shadows spill out against the hallway walls.
She grits her teeth and starts moving again. She is close enough now to recognize the faces behind her student’s screams. She can hear Marissa Potts calling for her mother. The Farley twins sobbing in near unison. Sammie Hayes pleading for help. Just ahead, daytime janitor Terry Bahl emerges from the adjacent hallway. He stops when he sees her. He starts running toward her but she stops him. Shaking her head. Pointing to her classroom.
“The children,” she screams. “Terry, get to the children!”
He nods, his face simultaneously determined and heroic, and runs for the pulsing light. Much younger than she, he moves with such vigor that she almost feels relief, as if his youth alone is enough to end whatever harm is coming to her students. The building continues to shake; lockers have opened and their contents pour into the hallway. She sees a flash of orange plastic and recognizes it as Brenden Marshall’s water gun, the one she had ordered him to take home.
Up ahead, Terry reaches the open door and stops. He stands for a moment, his face a mixture of shock and something else she can’t identify–astonishment, maybe terror. Then he springs into motion, youthful limbs flailing wildly as he runs down the hall, escaping whatever horrors might be lurking inside her room.
“Terry! Terry!”
She starts forward and her right foot catches on some of the debris from the lockers. She goes down, crashing onto her left side amidst fluttering papers and scattered, brownbag lunches; there is a loud pop in her hip and the feeling of something foreign floating around in her pelvis. For a moment she is lost, her vision swamped with starry blackness, and she feels nothing but pain and the urge to vomit.
Her classroom is so very quiet.
Belinda moans and pulls herself down the hallway, dragging her legs behind her. She can vaguely make out the sounds from other classrooms, teachers consoling children who are both excited and scared. She can hear nothing from her own classroom. She is about to call to her students when Jerrod Steihl walks out into the hallway.
His shaggy, brown hair is dripping with sweat. His gray sweatshirt holds dark circles beneath each arm. Tiny trickles of blood ooze from the corners of his mouth and his face is blotchy and red. There is a wildness about him, some new and powerful thing lurking just beneath the surface. He is holding Karli Millstein’s paper police badge in his hand.
“Mrs. Rider,” he says. “I’d like to go home, now.”
“What’s happened, Jerrod?” She’s still crying and has to speak between sobs.
His tongue darts out between his lips, then he says, “Spiderman’s the best because he knows when the bad things are about to happen. It’s the Voices, that’s what I think. The Voices telling him to go home.” He shrugs, then winces. “My head really hurts. And my tummy doesn’t feel very good. I don’t care if it’s pizza week. I just want to go home. Can I please just go home?”
“Tell me what’s happened. Why aren’t they talking, Jerrod? What’s in there?”
Jerrod’s eyes narrow. “They’re done talking.” Then he turns and walks down the hallway.
“What’s in there?” she screams after him. He doesn’t stop. She watches the boy until the final strap of his camouflage backpack disappears through the heavy doors that lead outside. Then, pulling herself to the open door way, Belinda looks into her classroom.
Most of the desks have been turned on their sides and pushed into one corner of the room. The fissure in the floor is wide. The linoleum tiles are like broken teeth around the rim. Belinda blinks once. Twice. Unable to comprehend the giant tree that is occupying her room–the thick, organic trunk rising up from the fissure, the serpentine branches spreading out in every direction
. The thorns covering the branches are long and ugly, like claws–and hanging among them like bunches of overripe fruit are her students.
There is Marissa Potts dangling above Belinda’s desk, the blood seeping from a dozen puncture wounds in her chest and stomach. There is Brenden Marshall, propped up against the base of the tree, his head lulled to one side, bones bulging like a fist through the skin of his neck. Nicki Waters hangs near the ceiling, a particularly long thorn protruding from her gaping mouth. And there are more, so many more–her entire class, up in the branches, their blood raining down. No, not raining. Floating. Like the ash of a great fire. Like snow.
Belinda tries to back away from the door, screaming, snot and spittle and tears all mixing together in the lower half of her face. A small boy is lying face down just inside the door. His head is turned away, but the purple smudge is there, on the back of his neck. A branch is protruding from the middle of his back, as if it caught him trying to run away. As if he almost made it. Then the bruise moves and she has time to think, My God, he’s still alive, before her mind gives up and her eyes roll back in her head.
* * *
Outside, Jerrod Steihl walks across the frost-covered playground toward the yellow-grassed fields on Montgomery Street. He clutches the shoulder straps of his backpack and smiles. He doesn’t think about Mrs. Rider’s third grade class, nor his parents, in their house back on Brisbane, snowing down from a tree of their very own. Beneath the white starkness of the almost-winter sky, the distant mountains are jagged and snow-capped and wonderful. The Voices are still there, and they are calling to him.
It’s snowing, not enough to stick but just enough to notice. “I told you it might snow a shake,” he says to no one in particular, and his smile widens. He veers from the familiarity of Montgomery and starts across the fields. He is heading for the mountains and the pillar of smoke that maybe no one else can see.
He is going home.
Ian Withrow is the author of several short stories. He currently resides in western Montana, where he worships good music, great books, and sleeping with every limb tucked safely beneath the covers.
Horror Library, Volume 5 Page 3