The sounds bring back every shiver of fear I have felt today. Every brightly colored memory of this morning stares back at me in a new form. I can feel the sweat forming over my body as I awaken to the vision before me. That same wet, slick sound that I had only just worked so hard hours ago to refuse is now all around me again. Kneeling bodies are working in tandem, mocking the motions of a single fragment of my memory wearing a yellow nightgown. The fear this time is being escalated by the facts before me from which I cannot escape. These are children and I know what they are doing. God help me, I know what they are doing, and I cannot look away.
I stare in horror at the sights before me even as I desperately desire to look away. Candy apple colored red streaks line the mas- cot-covered walls of the room. Their angled arches are marred with random downward rivers of flowing red patterns. It is such a contrast from all of the children’s artwork I have passed in the hall and I lose myself for a moment staring in the disbelief of it as my stomach fights to lose what meager food still left inside it. The floor is a finger painting of red smears and mysterious pools of thicker fluids surrounded by random petite sized prints of shoes. There are thick pieces of red clumps with a slick gleaming shine in various spots. My brain tries to let me know what the objects are, but my mind slams that door shut with its refusal. Human limbs in different sizes with slack fingers extending for- ward, begging for help that never came, lay about like life-sized Lincoln Log toys. Each new discovery tugs at a cord to my stomach until I can taste every piece of content within it.
I can feel my legs giving out even as my breath begins to quick- en. Each intake of my breath is becoming shallower than the last. I want to scream out at the impossible illusions before me. I want to force myself to wake up from this visual torment. Even as I sit here, seeing it all before me, none if it makes any sense to me. Even though I just escaped it, I cannot grasp the actuality of it.
The most sacred of childhood places has become the source of macabre delights. Their tiny bodies fill the room with more ghoulish fright than my mind can contain from such defiled versions of innocence. My body slides to the floor, bracing against the door using it as a metallic shield of safety, but no weight of material can protect me the from the horrors that continue to visually unfold before me.
Small frames of bodies are scattering throughout the room. Some are standing in a frozen statue-like state. Some are slowly gliding across the rubber-covered floor in a slow action paced game of “Follow the Leader.” They move dream-like over torn limbs and the shredded flesh strewn about. Their faces are always staring straight ahead with a complete void of emotions at the objects of disgust surrounding them. Their brightly colored clothing is soaked with various shades and patterns of deep crimson. Their tennis shoes are stained and tracking through the pools with complete oblivion to it. Swinging ponytails keep time with a metronome of dread from sparkling colored ribbons. Only the slight twitching of fingers or from a head separates them from being wind-up dolls of inhuman puppets.
There is no one over the age of eleven left in a life like state in the room, but the floor is a different story. It is littered with all ages upon it. No one was safe from the murderous mayhem that happened here. Nothing was kept sacred, as bodies lay torn and discarded about the room.
My brain tries desperately to rationalize it all as surely some hidden shoebox of mentally discarded facts will hold the key. Conroy’s option from before is tapping me on the shoulder to be heard, but I just can’t do it.
These are not rotting corpses shuffling before me. The room is filled with many children wearing blank faces that are normally adorned with smiles and laughter like the heavy perfume of youth. These are children with stains and slack faces. Children hunched over still bleeding bodies, feasting from them as if they were a Thanksgiving pudding. Children, with gore-encrusted hands, making irregular marks along walls that they aimlessly drag themselves past.
Children, who should be running and playing with a freedom that only childhood can inspire, shamble around each other. These petite packages of our town are now mindless murderers of their teachers and fellow classmates. The proof of their mindless cruelty and their brutal actions stare back at me from across the long room with their own blank stares. It is a sight to silence even the angels of heaven with the defining horror and sadness of it all. “Do you see?” the blank faces wordlessly whisper. “Do you understand yet?”
I do, behind hot tears of revulsion and fear, but I so do not want to.
Chapter 6
“Helena?” a small voice whispers from behind me.
I am too lost in my own layers of this private hell to comfort another from this sight. All I can spare from my own strength is a handheld up for her to grab. It is an anchor of support to lean upon while we both stare out into a dark void of hellish scenery. A forbidden territory of horror is spreading out before us. We are new explorers in this new untouched land and neither of us wishes to make any more discoveries beyond what is already gracing us with its presence.
She begins to whisper names of the fallen adults like a priest at a war memorial. Softly at first, then only to emotionally choke at each new name said. I follow her finger as she acknowledges each of them out of respect for their bravery and their lost lives but I really just wish she would let them be nameless victims, so they won’t haunt us both later.
Some I recognize from the shreds of personal items left behind. I knew her finger first landed on Miss Lacey by the spill of raven curls draping around her torn face. The security guard, always a constant by the door, is the closest body to the door. The principal’s ruined shell is in the center point of the destruction. The shading of colors around his body allows a clue to his death being the first of many. The rest of the order is anyone’s guess as so many lay broken and misshapen about the room.
When her damning finger starts to fall upon the smaller victims is when I pull her down to me in a silent gesture of enough. What is left of their shapes will forever be burned into my mind. I do not need their names also. I have a feeling I have already stored enough memories just waiting to stare back at me in my dreams with their grinning, pointed smiles and their sharp teeth. I desire no additions.
“What is going on?” she asks me. Her voice is overflowing with the desperate need of understanding. I have none to offer her to slacken it.
“I wish I knew. I really do Ashley.” The self-confidence is ripped from my voice as I stare into the gym. I have no understanding for what is before us or what it means for us.
“What do we do now? Obviously, we are not getting signed in,” she says.
Yes, let us cling to the small irrelevant facts here. I guess the horrible bigger picture is so much less relevant that way in her mind.
I stare at her with a look of mixed confusion at such a concern and disbelief that she muttered it as her eyes continue to silently take roll call of those before us.
She says, “More so since The Office Troll is being made a snack out of by Charlotte. I always knew she ate meat. That whole week of vegan preaching about threw my patience out. Hypocrite.”
I am at a loss in comprehending how she is mentally registering the facts around us. If she is really this misguided or if she is just using her ten-year-old sense of worth as a shield to help distance herself from what is around us. Does she really think her class- mates, on bad days, binge on office staff for comfort food, or is what is slowly surrounding us too much for her fragile shell of sheltered sanity? Did convincing herself of the short sightings of this girl help her excuse the girl’s current actions? The answers come with the rapid blinking of her eyes, the shrug of her shoulders and her strong constant inhaling.
I have never seen Ashley cry over someone else before. Plenty of times I have watched her at her best of tear-filled rages over things, but never others. There was never a person born of earth that disliked the word “no” more than she did. Nor were there ever a set of parents who hated saying the word “no” more than our
s. For that reason, I can’t really blame her for the over-inflated sense of self.
All of the Hawthorn Angels were handled like fine porcelain china sets. Each is envied for their rare blend of beauty and they are coveted for their shining star-like futures. They were each being groomed for the spotlight to shine upon them as they were always promised. Now the only thing shining upon her face is the light of death and destruction. The only stars to this play are the fragmented bodies of her former classmates and the school’s faculty. At twenty-three, I am at a loss for words for this situation myself. How do I expect a child to gauge the proper responses?
Stories that are only supposed to cause shivers of false fears are now demanding their due and they want their payments up close and personal. Today, they are wearing the costume of what is supposed to stay sacred. I glance one more time at the giant defilement of the thought.
I ease softly off the floor, helping Ashley to stand with me. Some deep unconscious memory of when humankind was prey holds our actions in sync. Every child is taught at a young age to never turn their backs on the monsters and that is evident now as we both ease backwards from the gym without a word passed between us. No one ever warns you of how the monsters can cheat though.
The horrible purple door refuses to close. Exchanging glances, we both stare at the gap between the metal frames, mentally willing it to fade even as it ignores us. Slowly, I reach out to coax the door closed by pulling gently on its handle. Every rustle of fabric seems to scream between the soundtracks of death playing in the gym. I clamp a small hand over my mouth for fear that even the sound of my breathing will attract their attention. The door does not move for us, but something else does.
Chapter 7
There comes a point in every horror movie where we begin to yell at the people on the screen before us. Sometimes it’s to warn them of the impending doom that they do not see waiting for them. Sometimes it’s to berate them for their choices to run up the stairs rather than out the door. Maybe it’s because of the overuse of the choice to hide under the bed or in a windowless bathroom. Whatever the reason might be, everyone is guilty of it at some point in our movie-watching history. I wish someone were here yelling at me right now.
I know I have to get this door to close, but now knowing what is on the other side of it I am a lot less brave than I was when I was opening it. My actions are weak and fear motivated movements. If I use too much force, like a betrayal of trust, it will make the metal tattle-telling sound letting them know we are here. If I use too little force, like a schoolyard bully, the door will stand here mocking my efforts. Sometimes you really are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Right now, I am knee deep in damnation and it’s creeping slowly higher.
Ashley is the first to notice the changes in the cherubs of death. I am focusing so hard on getting the door closed to hide us that I forget to keep an eye on them. Now their eyes are on us.
I cannot tell which cherub signaled the slow start of the stampede. For a heartbeat of time, we stand here both staring at each other, as if they are as shocked to discover us as we had been to discover them. Then all at once, they are moving. A single unit of death-minded dolls gaining speed and coordination with each determined step towards us. Their glazed eyes never once shift to look away.
“Run. Dear God, Ashley, run!” I scream at her, trying to keep my body as a shield between them and her with small backward steps, but she is not moving and we are losing ground. “Ash, go!” I scream again.
Conroy picks this moment to come out into the hallway to see why I am screaming at our sister further proving life’s cruel aspect of programing children with their timing skills. With his screams upon seeing what is flowing towards us, I have no choice but to run past her. I reach out to grab her as I pass, but she flinches, shrugging away from me. I spin around reaching again, but I still miss.
My heart beats like a drum but the tempo does not match the speed around me. I scream her name and it comes out slowed as my vision narrows down to only the sights in front of me. Superheroes do not wear masks to protect their identity. They wear masks to protect their sanity. When the shit hits the fan, and it is your job to run into it, sometimes you do not want to see what is waiting to surround you when you do.
Ashley stands with her back to me as I lose my footing in my backwards spin to grab her. I feel the floor as my left knee slams against it, rocking my body with the impact, and I fight to stand back up. My boots are slick against the tiled floor and the few missed steps seem to cost me everything.
I never take my eyes away from her. She turns her head back to me, seeing me through the waves of the perfect golden shades of her framing hair. Her blue eyes pierce me, but not with fear. They are swimming in pools of sorrow.
The first few tears hang from her chin until others gather to give them the weight to escape her fragile face. They are fleeing from what is about to happen. I know she is not running. I know she has made her choice to not move. Now, I know which side of the door these lambs are on and I led them to the slaughter.
The area becomes deafening with the music box pitches of grunts and growls. Wave after wave of gore drenched dolls pour from the open door, causing there to be an almost jam of tiny bodies in such a narrow force-filled space. They push through it and walk over any who block their passage with an outstretching of arms and extending fingers. Yet, Ashley still does not move as I am sliding backwards on my hands and feet unable to grasp the contact my boots need to fully support my weight. Conroy grabs me, giving my panic-filled motions the solid force, I need to stand and we are both sprinting backwards screaming for Ashley to come with us.
A tug of war begins between Conroy and myself. I keep pulling him forward towards Ashley and he keeps pulling me backwards from her to him. I can see his mouth moving, but all of my senses are locking only on the oval around the little girl staring back at me over her shoulder with the silence of sadness.
In a child-like game, Conroy and I swat at each other’s hands as I try to break away and he tries to keep me with him. He is desperately pulling at anything he can clutch onto with his small hands to keep me moving backwards with him. I know he is pleading with me with all of his voice and the weight of his body with each lunge, but it does not matter to me. I cannot hear him. I cannot feel his need. I only see her.
The little girl, who refused to eat her breakfast for the milk had made the cereal too “wet,” is standing before me in her soft pink pajamas and white socked feet with monsters rushing to her. All external sounds have fallen away from me. I only hear my heart beating as I struggle against a seven-year-old and his fear-filled strength. I know my last visions of Ashley will forever be held in a secret chamber of my most private nightmares. The ones let loose only by the darkest of nights when all hope has faded away, leaving my soul vulnerable to their haunting.
Her eyes never leave mine. Even when the first tiny fingers latch onto her shoulders, she stays staring at me. Those sharp, sea-colored blue eyes hold no fear, no remorse and no blame. There is only the sharp sadness of acceptance inside of them on a tear-lined hidden face of youth who has given up.
I feel my scream of her name when they take her rather than hear it. It rips through my heart, not my mouth, as her blonde hair floats away from my sight. I continue to scream her name as they tear into her, pulling her down to the ground before covering her completely with their madness. She never reaches out to me for help. She never returns my screams. She is just gone. A pile of murdering, tainted and frenzied bodies, the same size as her own, replaces her in my sight.
I know later I will be thankful they overtook her in such a quick level of mayhem. Their cruelty saves me from having to watch what I know is happening below that withering mass of shapes. It saves me from having to keep a vision of her like the bodies in the gym.
Her broken body will not torment me like Lilly’s will. She is not broken and left exposed as proof that nightmares now walk among us. She is just gone like a dream at
dawn, and I am down to my last Angel.
Chapter 8
How long have I been standing here in my dazed state of disbelief, I don’t know. I know my arms are sore from the strain of being pulled on repeatedly. I know sounds are slowly re- turning to me and the colors of the clown’s prison seem to slowly become brighter as time regains its speed. I know that Conroy is pleading with his tear-streaked red face for us to move. I know the very things I have been trying to keep us from are now only a few feet away. I do not want to know what the sounds that drift up from their pile are or to what the colors contrasting with the pastels belong.
Awareness comes back to me as a limb returns from the loss of feeling. Pain and short, sharp stabs attack my chest and head. Panic begins to refill my urge to live as I slip from my sleep- walking state. One small step at a time, I am coaxed away from Ashley’s gravesite until I gain enough speed and turn around, to run with the only Angel left in my care. As I spin, my eyes scan the sight one last time. Mary seems to glare back at me from her wall where she has kept her lambs safe until now. Their fleece is now as red as blood.
We run blindly down empty halls with only our grief giving us speed. Neither of us carry any conversation or plan any form of escape. We just keep moving with each twist and turn of the building like some demented never-ending hedge maze. Each hall is a brighter shade of pastel mockery to our pain than the last.
Colors start to overlap, and I know we are now lost in an ex- aggerated rectangle with Conroy only using the fact that he has to keep moving to shelter his soul from grieving. He is like an infant refusing sleep. If they stop moving, they have to give in to their body's needs. He is not ready to give in. He does not know how. Perhaps I am just over thinking the whole situation in my own refusal to my body and he is just completely lost to his panic.
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