Shark Beast

by Russ Cooper

  It instantly lunged for Miss Babcock, but somehow, impossibly, it missed. Meanwhile, Miss Babcock, all 292 pounds of her, swivelled around on those pigeon toes of hers, and was mad-running down the cement walkway toward the still-open school front door. It was an impressively grotesque sight -- so much excess human flesh bobbling and wobbling -- she seemed almost like a pink-hued version of the goopy creature that was now slither-bobbing after her. Miss Babcock's mouth was open in the shape of a beyond-terrified scream, but no sound was coming out -- both the boys gaped through the smudge-glass, as if from the insides of their own personal overwhelmed Simpson's Treehouse of Terror--

  Then, a switch snapped in Derrik's brain.

  He pulled the door closed -- hard.

  "But Miss Babcock needs to get --" Ryan started, but was stopped silent as Miss Babcock hit against the door (as if she expected it to open inward), and the whole front of her body went flat against the glass with a sickening, fleshy SLAP.

  Ryan staggered back a half-step, mesmerized by the distorted, smudgy version of the school's front office secretary splatting against the door, her face and lips Silly-Puttying against the glass, as her drooling, muffled voice commanded, "LET ME IN YOU LITTLE RAT --"

  Whatever else she said flooded away in a whirlpool of a shriek.

  As gruesome as Gina's death was, it didn't compare to what happened next, close up, right against the glass, as suddenly the door looked like someone had dumped a barrel of Vaseline on it, all over and around Miss Babcock. Impossibly, she pressed herself even flatter against the smudge-glass, her teeth gritting, and muscles-out-of-nowhere tightening in her face and neck and... and then, she went slack. Just like that. Her body stayed pressed against the door, but no longer under her own power. The "Vaseline" around her thickened, and Ryan winced -- it looked like fifty kids had all sneezed against the window in gross unison -- and her body, still pressed against the glass, twitched slightly, to the left, to the right...

  (It's chewing her, he realized with stomach-hollowing resignation)

  And, simply put...

  Miss Babcock began to peel.

  ~~~

  When Miss Babcock was finally gone, every last ounce and scowl and wrinkle, the goopy creature slithered back from the window, spit out a pair of black trifocals, and then, casually, bobbled away from the door, paused, spit something else out, and, with a satisfied shimmer, wobbled out of the door's view.

  Derrik looked at Ryan.

  Ryan looked at Derrik.

  And, with a scream, they both went running down the front hallway.

  ~~~

  "Dude! What are you doing!"

  "The principal's not here," Ryan grunted, climbing over the counter into the front office. "Nobody's here. All the offices are gone-empty! Everything's locked!"

  "What? Where are they!" Derrik's jaw popped. "Did they... did that thing ... get them?"

  "No --" Ryan slipped and fell into the office with a clumsy CRASH. A few seconds later, he was on his feet at Miss Babcock's desk, heading for her multi-line phone. "The pep rally... the stupid pep rally... stupid Homecoming... they're all in the stupid gym ..."

  "No way, dude! No freakin' way!" Derrik slammed his fist down on the counter. "YOU want to go, fine. I'll buy flowers for your funeral. But no funk-a-freakin' WAY I'm STEPPING out of this building."

  Ryan threw him a sour look. "Man, I'm not saying we should leave. I'm in no hurry to get out there with that thing either. I'm just telling you where everybody's at and why they ain't here, okay, dude? Now stop the freak-out and let me see if I can get a hold of somebody..."

  "As long as we do it inside, that's fine!" Derrik, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable alone in the hall, starting climbing over the office counter.

  "That's what I'm sayin', idiot," Ryan muttered, taking in the phone system. "Let's get some help going here..."

  "Hey, dude!" Derrik awkwardly threw up his hands as he fell to the office floor. "I'm, like, all ears! Whatever!"

  "There's got to be a way to call over to the gym, warn them." He squinted at the badly-labeled buttons. "Damn Miss Babcock," he grunted, then dropped his head, feeling a flash of guilt. He blinked it away. "I assume one of these buttons gets us the gym," he said, not all that convincingly. He picked up the receiver, and began pushing random buttons. "Hello?... Hello?"

  "Push the 'gym' one," said Derrik, standing in a corner near the front, shooting nervous glances at the front door. "C'mon..." He crossed his arms over his chest, gripping his shoulders with shivery jerks. "Yo! Dude! C'mon!"

  "I can't even get a dial tone on this thing!" Ryan snapped. "And these labels, I can't read Babcock's handwriting! She scribbles like a serial killer!" His frustration overshadowed any residual guilt he might have felt smearing Miss Babcock's memory. He kept jabbing buttons. "Hello! Dammit -- hello-- anybody-- somebody --"

  "Call out! Call the cops!"

  "I did! It ain't working!"

  "Dude!"

  "Dude yourself! I'm doing my --"

  "I-saw-it-I-saw-it-I-saw-it-I-SAW-IT!" Derrik suddenly gasped. The white had returned to both his knuckles and his face. "The jelly-thing! It just passed by the front door!" He turned to Ryan, eyes popping. "It was... looking... inside..." His whole body shuddered, thumping him against the wall. "It's looking for us, maann --"

  "Screw it, screw it, screw this stupid phone!" Ryan bashed the receiver back onto the cradle, and kicked aside the chair on his way to the front counter.

  "Where- you- going- what- you- doing- where- what --"

  Ryan pushed aside some papers, stepping on them as they fluttered to the floor. He grabbed a hold of the announcement system microphone. He clicked some buttons, randomly.

  "Oh great," he snarled. "Now this piece of crap is going to give me crap..."

  He kept punching buttons until finally a wiry screech of feedback filled the halls.

  "Nooo!" Derrik wailed, pushing himself against the wall, bopping the back of his head loudly in the process.

  Ryan adjusted a few knobs, trying to get a grip on the growling waves of feedback. Finally, he just pressed the mike button, and in a electric-loud reverb-voice, boomed through the halls:

  "Anyone... in the halls... in the school, I mean..." He shook his head, then: "Look, anyone who can hear my voice. We need help, right here right now. Emergency help -- anyone who can hear this please -- PLEASE -- come to the front office. Especially any adults." He let loose the button, thought for a second, then: "And anyone, bring a cell phone. Hurry. Hurry, please!"

  He released the button; stared with limp resignation at the microphone. Then, with a shrug, he set it back on the counter.

  "Dude." Derrik's voice was flat as a slab. "That's the best you could do?"

  Ryan didn't respond. He kept staring at the microphone.

  Derrik turned his unblinking attention toward the glass door at the far end of the hall.

  And they waited.

  ~~~

  "Dude. Nobody's coming."

  Derrik voice was low; mournful; resigned.

  "Nobody's here but us. We're here, alone, in the school... by ourselves." His eyes turned pleading. "We're the only ones left."

  "That's stupid," Ryan insisted. "The whole school can't be at the pep rally."

  "Why not?" Derrik asked dully. "They're supposed to be. Right?"

  "Not everybody. There's got to be janitors... somebody. Hall monitors, something. Somebody to keep an eye on things. They wouldn't leave the whole place deserted."

  "Well... ain't nobody coming, far as I see. Unless they're, like, all ganged up just illin' and chillin' in the bathroom and didn't hear your little morning announcement."

  "But they can't all be --"

  "Dude, whatever," Derrik sighed, desolately. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about anything right now..."

  "But --"

  Ryan looked over at Derrik, who was no longer staring at the door at the end of the hall. His red
head was in his hands, and he was slumped lifeless over the counter.

  Great, Ryan thought. He's going to be even less help than usual now. He felt a surge of anger towards Derrik, an overwhelming urge to go over... and punch him in the face. Mannn ... Why can't he keep it together, for once? I'm scared, too, you know. I'm scared out of my mind, but at least I'm trying to --

  "... still there please --"

  Ryan blinked.

  That sound -- That voice --

  -- a girl's voice.

  Ryan leaned forward, as far as he could over the counter, and listened hard.

  For a long moment: nothing.

  Then:

  "... anybodeee still there... pleeeasee... oh pleeeaase..."

  "Where... where you goin'?" Derrik gasped, watching as Ryan began to climb, clumsily, up onto the counter.

  "Heard somebody," Ryan said, squinting with a distant intensity, as if searching the air for more sounds. "A girl. There's a girl somewhere in the--" Suddenly, he flipped his palm up sharply, demanding silence. He listened. "I think... she's in the library," he said, tasting the theory in his mind. He grew decisive: "Either the cafeteria or --"

  Again, the palm flipped.

  "... PLEEASE ooohhplease PLEEEASE ohIamSO aloneALONE alone --"

  Ryan snapped his fingers.

  "The library," he said simply, as he leapt over the counter into the hall, and headed around the corner.

  Derrik, suddenly alone, scowled deeply. "Mannn, sometimes... I really hate that dude."

  He stood up, desperately wanting to follow, desperately not wanting to be left behind...

  Wobbling, he took a step toward the counter, carefully -- delicately -- placed his palms on the counter, took a deep breath, then--

  Held it.

  His lips went white.

  Suddenly, Derrik heard a sound of his own.

  ~~~

  Ryan carefully stepped around the corner, and into the open doorway of the library.

  Everything seemed normal -- deserted, but normal.

  Cautiously, he stepped in. He was three steps in when something hissed, and he felt his heart lunge up his throat. He swivelled, almost ran into a bookshelf when, out of the corner of his eye:

  There was a girl -- he recognized her, Lina Lancy, Gina's younger-by-two-years little sister. She was sitting on a large dictionary that was sitting on a chair that was sitting on top of a table. She had her legs pretzeled compactly beneath her plaid skirt, her arms crossed tightly in front of her dark sweater. Her eyes were wide and pleading.

  Ryan cleared his throat gently, carefully whispered: "What are you doing up there, Lina?"

  She shook her head.

  "No?" he asked dumbly.

  She shook her head again.

  He didn't know what to do or say, other than to ask if she were alone -- but that thought sparked the image of her sister, floating inside that big jelly-thing...

  She doesn't know, he thought.

  Again, slowly: "Lina... why are you up there? You're going to fall if you don't --"

  She pointed to a spot over his shoulder.

  Behind him.

  ~~~

  Derrik felt bad about defiling the front office American flag, but that hadn't stopped him from standing on his tip-toes on top of the counter and ripping it down with a splintery crack so he'd have the jagged sharp end of the flag pole as a weapon.

  He saluted the remains of the flag, hopped off the counter, and slowly went down the hall.

  Turning the corner, he saw one of the classrooms was open -- the foreign language room -- and could see all the way to the back wall, which featured a thin, floor-to-ceiling set of windows. His grip tightened around the flag pole.

  Suddenly -- and he wasn't sure why -- he didn't want to go to the library.

  He looked down the hallway. A Hitchcock "Vertigo" wall of lockers stretched zoom-like in front of him. Slowly, his gaze lingered on the foreign language room windows.

  "Screw this," he said, finally, and deserted the hallway, into the foreign language room. Derrik tip-toed up to the window, and pressed his nose up against it.

  Unlike the front door, the foreign language window glass was fairly clean and clear.

  His eyes scanned left, scanned right.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but green grass. A tempting bit of teacher parking lot. A nice not-too-steep hill. A delectable bit of sidewalk.

  "Freedom," he sighed lingeringly. "Sweet, sweeeet freedom."

  He felt a flash of guilt, but it was so small it wasn't even worth acknowledging. It was Ryan's lame-ass idea to go to the library, not his. It was Ryan who was hearing lame-ass non-existent girls' voices, not him. It was --

  He pressed his nose harder against the window, his face filled with longing. Just open the window, run across the yard, the parking lot, up the hill, and ...

  "Freedom," he repeated softly.

  He gripped the jagged flag pole in one hand. Gently placed his other hand on the glass.

  The glass felt cool, invigorating.

  He traced his hand up the glass, and over to the latch, and --

  -- click.

  ~~~

  It happened with lightning speed -- a thick, smudgy, congealing flash -- and the window was covered with gross, slobbering jelly-pus --

  "Aiiyy NOnoNONO!" Derrik gaped as a twisty, licorice-like tendril oozed through the tiny gap that unlocking the window had presented. It grazed his hand before he could yank it back -- just grazed it -- and the slobbering gelatinous feel of it sent bile gorging through his throat. Every part of his body wanted to throw up, he flailed madly, poking at the air, the wall, and in incidental mad sweeps, the window, as he staggered backwards, hit his pelvis against a desk (pow! stars! it got me! he thought hysterically) -- and then he tumbled, painfully, to the floor, still slashing the air with the splintered flag pole as he went down.

  "NOnoNOnoNONONO--"

  Holding his forearm over his eyes, he swung the pole at -- wherever! whatever! just get away --

  Finally, despite every screaming voice in his alarm-throbbed brain warning him not to, he moved his forearm, and commanded himself to look at the window.

  "--nononono..." he continued, his screams dribbling to a trickle.

  The window was partially open. Some of the creature was flapping through the gap, creepy little tendrils and sickening jelly-fingers fap-fap-fapping against the glass... most of the horrible thing's mass was outside the glass, pressing against it... throbbing and pulsing and blobbing and looking like a huge snot-filled lava lamp churning and --

  It's trying to get in, Derrik realized with a jolt. But its huge jelly fat was pushing against the window at the same time those little ... jelly-probe-fingers ... or whatever they were, were trying to pry the window open...

  A thin crack spider-webbed across the top half of the glass.

  More jelly-snot managed its way past the window.

  That crack sobered Derrik like he'd never been sobered before.

  It's getting in ...

  "You... got to get out of here, right now, Big D.," he coolly informed himself, as another crack sheered across the top third of the window. A guillotine slice of glass tumbled forward, shattering into three even shards at Derrik's feet.

  He stared at the glass, drop-jawed, then forced his vision back to the window--

  The creature began oozing upwards, "feeling" its way toward the new opening.

  Fingernail-against-chalkboard sounds clawed their way into Derrik's ears, into the helpless meat of his brain.

  More spider-cracks began appearing.

  "This white boy has... got... to... go," he decided, and, still unable to tear his dry-eyed gaze away from the window, tossed aside the fractured flag pole, and began crabwalking backwards on the floor, toward the door.

  The creature pulsed, spattered, undulated, jelly-groped, glob-shimmered...

  And began to make more of its globular way past the ever-cracking, ever-sharding window glass into th
e foreign language classroom.

  ~~~

  "Do you have a cell-phone, Lina?" Derrik asked again, with a desperate delicacy, in a gotta-keep-trying whisper, glintily eyeing the tiny "Sugar Ponies" purse she was stone-clutching in her crossed arms.

  She answered as she had the several times before: folding her arms even tighter against her chest, and slowly, stone-firmly shaking her head.

  "Lina, please --"

  "It's trapped! I trapped it!" Derrik cried, waving a bright yellow yardstick over his head as he stumbled backwards from the hall into the library. "It's in Miss Pizo's Foreign language -- it came through the window -- tried to -- broke the window -- came for me -- but I made it out and I slammed the door and I pushed a desk in front of it and I-- I-- I-- and so now it's trapped and trapped and I totally trapped it --"

  His eyes were bright with accomplishment, but began to dim -- just a bit -- as he looked at Ryan and Lina in their chairs on top of the table.

  "I, uh... it can't get us, we're... we're okay now," he said, a small shadow of confusion greying his expression.

  Ryan carefully raised one finger of his right hand and placed it against his lips. Pointing with his left, he indicated a spot over near the front library desk.

  His confidence curdling, Derrik reluctantly looked over in that direction. All he saw was the door to the library office.

  It was open.

  There was jelly-slime dripping off it.

  "Ohhh, mmannn," he groaned, in a tone that sounded like he was being cheated at poker. "There's more than one?"

  "Don't freak, Derrik!" Ryan said quickly. "I've got it figured out -- those things, they only attack if you get scared. If you don't show fear, they don't even know you're there! Think about it -- Miss Babcock stood there and it didn't do nothing -- until she started to run and --"