by Donna Cain
Hunter crawled forward, feeling first the shoe, then a leg. He made it to Eli’s shoulder and tried to shake him. “Eli, wake up! We have to get out of here!”
There was no response from his friend. Hunter could barely breathe. He was beginning to feel dizzy and disoriented, when out of the smoke came a voice.
CHAPTER 29
Darren
Darren couldn’t stop thinking about the Rock of Varuupi and the legend of the curse. He just couldn’t get his mind around it. He was trying to make himself believe that the curse had killed his father. Even after Shasta had left the night before, the possibility wouldn’t leave his mind. He had stayed up late into the night reading anything he could find online about the curse and the people of the Varuupian tribe. He had gotten very little sleep.
All day at school he had been in a fog. He had seen Eli and Hunter in the cafeteria at lunch and had wanted to talk to them, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say or ask.
Shasta had told him about the plan to take the rock to Mr. Just after school to see if it could be destroyed. For some reason that didn’t sit well with Darren. It seemed very risky. If something were that powerful, powerful enough to harm people without even touching it, what could it do to someone trying to destroy it? The idea bothered him. From what he had learned online last night, in ancient times with some tribes, if a curse did take hold, it was too powerful to be destroyed without some sort of ceremony or counter curse. Darren didn’t think Mr. Just had any knowledge of counter curses.
Shasta had to work at the Hot Dog Hut after school, so Darren went home to check on his mother. It seemed that she was coming to grips with the idea that her husband’s death was more supernatural than medical. For some reason she had an easier time accepting that.
Darren got a snack and watched television. Even while watching the sports network, he couldn’t help thinking of Eli and Hunter at the school with Mr. Just. He tried to push it out of his mind, but it kept creeping in. He wondered what was happening, and if Sheriff Buchanon knew about the rock yet.
Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He texted Shasta, “Going to check on things at school, call you later.” He told his mother that he was going to the school, and he’d be back soon. She just smiled and nodded her head.
On the drive over, his mind came up with different scenarios – some good, some not so good. When he pulled into the parking lot and saw Eli’s car, he felt a little twinge in his stomach. Darren had a bad feeling about this. He parked next to the Flaming Tomato and got out.
He smelled the smoke before he saw it. There it was, coming out of the windows of the science lab. The plumes were thick and white. Completely forgetting to call 911, he sprinted to the closest doors. Yanking them open, he was engulfed in smoke. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. There was a chemical smell to the smoke that burned his nostrils. Darren took off his tee shirt and wrapped it around his nose and mouth.
He dropped to his hands and knees along the right side of the corridor. The smoke was thinner down there; he could see a few feet ahead.
Darren knew the science lab was the third classroom on the right. If he crawled along the wall, he could count the doorways and know where he was. He started forward as quickly as possible, not knowing how long Hunter and Eli had already been inside.
His right hand came upon the first doorway quickly. Passing it, he tried to keep his eyes closed and feel his way. He would need as much eyesight as he could get when he found the lab. The second door was not much farther up. He passed it and went quickly on. The hard floor was tough on his knees, but the smoke was worse. Even with the cotton shirt filtering the worst of it, Darren was finding it hard to breathe.
Finally, his hand found the entry to the third classroom. For a second he questioned himself. Was the lab the third room or the fourth one down? He was beginning to get a little lightheaded when he heard a voice from inside the room. “Eli! Wake up!” It was Hunter. Darren heard coughing.
“Hunter!” Darren yelled through the entrance. “It’s Darren, can you hear me?” He broke off then as his throat constricted causing him to cough roughly.
Darren listened through the sounds of wood and paper crackling in the fire. There were loud pops now and then as something combustible in the lab exploded.
Then Hunter’s voice came out of the smoke, “Darren? Yeah, I hear you,” followed by more coughing spasms. Hunter sounded weak.
Darren shouted, “Can you crawl toward my voice?” It was so hard to communicate over the sounds of the fire. His throat felt raw.
“Yeah, I mean no! Eli’s passed out! I can’t drag him! Get help!” He stopped talking and coughed strongly.
“There’s no time,” Darren yelled. “Guide me to you!”
Darren started crawling once again as he recalled the layout of the room. The school desks were in the front of the room. Behind those, in the middle of the room, was Mr. Just’s main lab table with the rest of the lab tables in the back. His hand touched the first desk. He tried to open his eyes, but the smoke in there was worse. It was so dense Darren couldn’t make out shapes or light anywhere.
He heard Hunter’s voice coming from the smoke. “Here, this way!” Hunter guided him toward the back of the classroom.
Darren counted the desks as he progressed toward Hunter’s voice. Two, three, four. He prayed they could find their way out of the room.
“This way!” Hunter yelled again, and by the sound of his voice, Darren could tell that he was very close.
“I’m close, almost there! Hold out your arm!” Darren coughed. Seven, eight, there! He felt Hunter’s hand hit him in the head.
“I’m here, Hunter!” He reached out and found Hunter’s arm. Grabbing it, he yelled, “Where’s Eli?”
“I’m holding on to him,” Hunter sputtered. “Mr. Just is here, too, but I can’t find him.”
Darren wasted no time. “Pull Eli over to me, give me his hand!” Darren’s breath was coming harder now. He reached into the emptiness of the smoke and felt nothing. After a moment, he felt Hunter’s arm again. Hunter passed him another hand; this one was cold and dry. Grabbing it, Darren turned himself around and yelled to Hunter, “Follow me! Keep track of the desks. We’ll pass eight of them.” He broke off coughing and felt a tightening in his chest. He took a quick moment to recover then yelled back to Hunter, “Eight desks then the doorway! Stay to the left, three doorways down! Let’s go!”
Pulling Eli’s limp body behind, Darren started to crawl.
Shasta didn’t like the text from Darren. She didn’t want Darren anywhere near that lab. Who knows what the rock would do to him? It had killed his father with the curse.
Shasta took her apron off and handed it to her mother. “I’m sorry, Mom, I have to go. Darren needs me.”
Her mother looked surprised that she was leaving so quickly. “Is everything okay, Honey?”
“I’m sure it will be. I just need to go. I’ll call you in a little while.” She ran out the door of the Hut and hopped into her Ranger.
It took her no time at all to get to the school. She saw Darren’s car parked next to Eli’s and pulled up beside them. Her stomach rolled over as she noticed smoke billowing out of the door that had been propped open. She grabbed her bag and pulled out her phone.
Rachel answered on the first ring. “911, what’s your emergency?”
Shasta’s trembling voice answered, “There’s a fire at the high school! It’s coming from the science lab! The entrance by the student parking lot is the closest! Hurry!” She punched “end” on her phone, not waiting for any questions.
She jumped out of her car and ran to the entrance. The smoke had an awful smell to it. It was so thick. Shasta yelled, “Darren! Darren!” She listened for a response and heard none. She made up her mind then. She knew that help was on the way, but it could be too late already. She took the Hot Dog Hut bandana from around her neck and secured it over her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she plunged into the entranc
e.
She knew the science lab was one of the first few classrooms on the right. She would just crawl in that direction and call for Darren on the way. Dropping to all fours, she started out.
The first doorway was there in no time. She was sure this one wasn’t it, so she kept going. At the second doorway, she tried to peer in through the smoke. “Darren!” She coughed out. “Darren, are you in there?” She heard his voice, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. “I’m coming in!” She called and started to make her way forward. She could feel more heat now. It was getting a lot harder to breathe.
Once inside the room, she couldn’t figure out which way to go. She called out for Darren again and listened. She felt like she could hear him, but he sounded so far away. Shasta tried to yell again, but the smoke was restricting her throat. She moved in the direction she thought the voice was coming from. She had gone only a few feet when she felt very disoriented.
“Darren!” She tried to yell, but her voice was only a whisper. She heard Darren say, “Follow me,” but she couldn’t get a sense of where he was. She was getting really tired now. She crawled slowly on.
“Follow me!” Darren called back to Hunter. He was worried that he would be able to drag Eli out but lose Hunter on the way. “Two more doorways on the left and then we’re out!” He heard a faint cough and thought it was Hunter, but it seemed like it was coming from beside him, not behind. Maybe Hunter was closer than he thought. Darren couldn’t see anything of his surroundings. He was still dragging Eli with his right hand and hopping forward while feeling his way with his left. Passing the second doorway, he thought he heard something.
It was sirens. Someone must have called to report the fire. Hope spurred him on. “Come on, Hunter. We’re almost there now, push on buddy, push!”
The sirens were getting louder. Darren could tell that they were in the student parking lot just a few yards away. He felt the first classroom doorway on his left and pushed himself to the exit. Just as he made it to the door, it swung open revealing a yellow and red clad member of the Hallston Fire Department. The man looked down at him and yelled, “Got survivors,” to his counterparts who came running.
Strong hands grabbed him and carried him out of the school to a safe spot away from the smoke. He was coughing heartily now. He noticed Hunter being carried out and Eli as well. “Thank God.” He thought. Then he remembered Mr. Just. Grabbing the sleeve of the firefighter closest to him he said urgently, “There’s a teacher in the third classroom to the right along the hallway! He’s in the middle of the classroom!” He broke off coughing.
The firefighter ran to relay the information to the others. Darren looked over to where Hunter lay. He was lying on the ground fighting for breath. A firefighter was giving him oxygen. Darren looked at Eli. Paramedics were giving him CPR. Suddenly, Darren felt a plastic cup attach to his mouth and a rush of sweet, pure oxygen. He laid back and closed his eyes.
A few minutes later, one of the firefighters came to him and asked, “Do you know the girl who called 911? Is she here somewhere?”
Darren didn’t know who he was talking about. He had assumed it had been a passerby or a staff member who was still in the building. “No,” he replied. “I don’t know who it was.”
The firefighter then said, “Well, we have you three out and we’ve located the teacher now. They’re getting him out. So the three cars in the lot belong to you three?” He nodded towards Eli and Hunter.
Darren thought, “Three cars – no, just mine and Eli’s.” He craned his neck around the fire truck and saw the third. No! A girl called 911! Shasta! At once, Darren remembered the faint cough coming from the second classroom doorway. He had thought it was Hunter.
Darren was on his feet in a flash. Running toward the entrance of the school he yelled, “She’s in there! In the second classroom! Hurry! Hurry!”
A fireman grabbed him around the waist as he tried to reenter to school. “Hang on there, Son. Who’s left in there?”
Darren was breathless. “Shasta! Shasta Port! The second door on the right!” He slumped back to the ground in a coughing fit.
He watched the man relay the information to the team still inside the school. There were tears in his eyes. His heart was pounding out of his chest.
Hunter was at his side then, asking what was happening. “Shasta’s in there,” Darren said.
“Shasta? Where did she come from?” He asked through his coughs.
“I don’t know. I didn’t know she was here.” He put his head in his hands and tried to breathe.
Hunter was still using the oxygen mask, but he pulled it away to say, “Don’t worry, Darren. They’ll get her out. They’ll get her out the way you got Eli. He woke up, and he’s going to be fine. You’ll see. They’ll bring her out any minute.”
The next time the firefighters came out, it was with Mr. Just. The boys watched as they took the teacher over, put him on a gurney and loaded him into the ambulance. The emergency siren and lights roared to life as the vehicle sped away to Community Hospital.
Another ambulance sped into the parking lot and parked close to the entrance. They had obviously been called and given some information. One of the paramedics got out and opened the back to retrieve the gurney. Just as he finished, two men carried Shasta from the school and placed her immediately on the gurney. The paramedic jumped in the back with her and closed the door. The lights came on and it was speeding away before Darren even knew it was happening.
“Shasta!” He jumped to his feet and tried to run after the ambulance. The same, kind firefighter that had stopped him before stopped him this time. “Come on, Son. You need to get checked out at the hospital anyway. You can see her there.” He led Darren over to a deputy’s cruiser and asked that he be taken to Community. Darren got into the car and prayed.
As he was riding out of the parking lot, he noticed Hunter putting the backpack into the trunk of Eli’s car. It occurred to him only then that he hadn’t been affected by the rock at all. He was well within its range the whole time he had been guiding Hunter out of the school.
Fury built up inside of Darren as he thought of the curse, the rock. It had killed his father, now had it killed Shasta?
BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER 30
Bug & Mr. Hamilton
Everything was out of whack for Bug. Hearing about Professor Monroe had made her feel strange. She remembered the frail, white-haired man that she and Shasta had spent time with only yesterday morning. She could still see his peculiar stare. He was weak, yes, but Bug didn’t get the sense yesterday that he had been close to dying. Yet, he had; a mere hour or two after they had left – he had passed away.
Bug felt weird about his death. She was not a big fan of the man who had set this curse upon them over forty years ago, but she felt empathy. He had lived all of those years knowing that the Rock Of Varuupi could be discovered. Bug thought he must have been constantly afraid of that possibility, and now the possibility had been realized. She wondered if the knowledge that more people had died because of him was what ultimately had killed him. Bug was having trouble reconciling her anger with her pity for the man.
“Finish eating, Hon. We’ll leave right when you’re through,” Mr. Hamilton said to his daughter sitting across from him at the kitchen table.
It was Monday morning and Bug’s father had told her that he needed her to come to the office with him that day. She would miss a day of school, but this was more important. They had talked it over last night after he had broken the news to her about Professor Monroe. The plan was to do more research on the curse. More specifically, counter curses, breaking curses or anything else that they could find out about the rock.
Bug shoveled in the rest of her Wheat Squares and drank the cereal flavored milk from the bowl. Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, she said, “I’m ready. Just let me grab my bag.” She jumped from the table and ran to her room.
Mrs. Hamilton had already left for the hospital. She was on the earl
y shift that morning. Mark had woken her up the night before and told her everything. There were no secrets in the Hamilton household, and this was a biggie. Ann had taken the news well enough. Even as crazy a story as it was, she hadn’t questioned her husband. After almost twenty years of marriage, she knew that Mark was serious and reliable. Ann had been extremely worried about Bug, but Mark had reassured her that Bug would stay by his side until the mess was over. He had also asked her to keep her ears open at the hospital. If there were any other emergencies or unexplained deaths in town, he needed to know ASAP.
Bug was back in no time. The two hopped into Mark’s car and headed toward the offices of the Hallston Daily Journal.
“Are we still going to try to get Professor Monroe’s books?” Bug asked as they drove.
“I think that would be a good start. I plan to call his home when we get to the office. I’m thinking I can say that we want to do an article about him for the paper. Hopefully, whoever’s in charge of the estate will be flattered and cooperate. You said the only person you saw in the home was a nurse?” He took a right onto Main and headed east.
“Yep,” Bug replied. “She was very friendly, but her voice was super low, like a man almost. She was super nice to the professor, too.”
“Well, maybe she would be someone to interview about this. After caring for him for so long, she may know more than she thinks.”
They pulled into the parking lot and Mr. Hamilton parked in the space designated “Editor-In-Chief”. There were lots of people around, Bug noticed. When she and Shasta had been there it had been the weekend and only a few people were working. Today, however, the place was busy. People were running from one office to another, some were going up the stairs while others were in line for the elevator. Bug’s dad said hello to the lady at the desk as they made their way over to the stairs.