The Bereavement Infection
Introduction; Two blue eyes glanced at me, then away as I passed by him in the hallway. 7:28 is a little early for him to be here; when he didn’t stop I shrugged it off and continued down the long winding hallway that only led to one place, hell. I saw groups of people congregating around doors and stairways, some I knew, some I didn’t like. The old walls of the school were strong and imprisoning, the windows, a false hope of getting out, getting the hell out of there before 2:35. Not even first hour and I was already looking forward to going home. Then I saw her, my early morning companion, she was running a few minutes late I could tell, and there was a sense of franticness in her face. Acknowledging each other’s presence with a slight nod we began to walk towards her locker. She turned the dial, 7, 14, 7 and the door flung open; the locker was old and beat up, and badly in need of paint. The contents were jumbled into a heaping mass of junk, a few pieces of loose paper fell out onto the unswept floor. Finally I spoke to her, “What’s up?” I leaned on the off-white brick wall that stands flush against the lockers. So I could look down the half empty hall toward his locker.
She glanced up at me, thinking for a moment before shrugging her shoulders, there was nothing to say, nothing to do. It was May; the kind of day in May that is just space filler, in-between something of importance and nothing at all, perhaps the most damned of all days, it was a Thursday. We got our books and proceeded to the third floor, each of us slightly out of breath from the climb but not willing to admit it. We really needed to work out more; I mean more than never, that may help. We passed familiar faces and people who yelled, “Hello, what’s up?”
Not paying much attention to the commotion of this very routine day we sat in our normal places beside the door of a class that neither of us have. Habit brought us here each day and each day habit made us complain about how crappy that day would be, or how we couldn’t wait to get out and far away from East High.
“One more year,” we agreed, and said constantly, “One more year ‘til freedom and delicious college pleasures. Like men, instead of these immature high school boys.” It was our anthem, the loser anthem no; they didn’t like us either.
“Jenna, this day is going to be terrible.”
She nodded, it was really strange; she usually couldn’t shut up at this point. Her eyes averted and darted to Tom’s locker. He was there, that lucky bastard I used to obsess over, earlier in my stupidity. It’s crazy, sometimes I felt like I could still love him, the way he is when he isn’t talking. He tossed his angelic copper-toned hair out of his eyes with an abrupt movement of his head. After picking up his books he turned to see Jenna and me there, moved from our places on the floor, waiting to greet him in the usual smile, and ‘Hello,’ just before we turned around and walked away.
The bell rung, ‘One…Two…Three…’ and off to class we went, waving as we departed in opposite directions. I quickened my pace, had to make it on time, couldn’t be late! Passing others that were racing to get to their first hour classes I saw him again, reaching far into his locker, just beyond him was my class. At that point I could have done one of two things, stop and talk to him or make it to class on time. Then the first choice slammed his locker, turned on his heal and darted up the back stairwell.
Twenty-two seconds, I thought as I slid into my seat a little winded. After a few other students slunk into Mrs. Taylor’s first hour Advanced Literature class, the short, stout, widely disliked Mrs. Taylor took her position at the front of the class.
There was something strange about her, a greenness started to take over her features. No one else seemed to notice the change she began to undergo. Rapidly her features melted away until her face appeared skull-like and sunken in. By this point in time I examined my surroundings, expecting to find some sure sign I was asleep still. The class carried on with the lesson plan and began reading from, ‘The Scarlet Letter.’ Mrs. Taylor sat at her desk, hunched over, and stared out into the class. For a second her eyes locked with mine, I felt lightning in my spine, as her red eyes penetrated my thoughts, I stopped breathing altogether and even after her eyes left mine I felt them, staring deeply, deep into my very soul.
It was cold in the room, so very cold for a day in May. The sporadic turning of pages and scuffing of feet on the dirty floor was making me insane. My eyes fell on the words that were printed on the page but my mind was far away, wondering, wondering when I was going to wake up from this nightmare. Finally the bell sounded, ’One…Two…Three…’ and I sprinted out of that place, ignoring anything and everything in my path. I plowed through some sophomores that were standing outside the door. I couldn’t hear their yells, my head was spinning at the thought of what I had just encountered. I saw Jenna rushing up the stairs; I ran down to her and met her in the middle,
“We gatta talk, now.” she nodded and we stepped into a corner.
“What the…” she began and then stared behind me and covered her mouth in shock.
“Morning ladies,” cracked a familiar voice. I spun around to find myself face to face with another skeleton.
“Mr. …” I cleared my thought, “Mr. Morevec.” He watched us with his red eyes and a green rotting brown raised at us, “Are you girls in trouble or what? You seem to be nervous.”
We laughed apprehensively as he walked away, almost limping towards the faculty lounge. Giving a sigh of relief she went on, “Can you see it?” I could see the panic in her enflamed green eyes; they were burning to know if she was going crazy or if in fact, we were being invaded with these death-like ghouls.
In a hushed whisper I replied, “Only if you see it.”
She nodded and glanced at the clock, “We need to talk, but not now, Lunch?” I quickly told her that was fine and she had better get to class before she was late. “Be careful.”
I made my way up to the third floor, new wing. I wasn’t looking forward to what would await me behind the door numbered 321. When I walked in I was relieved to see that Mr. Miehe was not changed. After a quick examination of the History classroom I took my seat in the back in one of the old rickety desks. Randi turned to me and mouthed something to me that I didn’t catch. She slipped out of her desk and bent down beside mine. “Do you see it?” I nodded. She continued, “I’ve seen it since first hour, but I noticed some people that looked so scared in the halls, do you think people are catching on or have we all been able to see since this morning?”
“I can enlighten you,” said a raspy voice behind us. I knew her when I saw her, it was Teaya. Wondering what she was doing in this class I began to ask, she guessed what I was going to say, “I’m making up a test.” She made quotation marks with two fingers in the air then hunched down low in the chair.
“Come close, so you can hear,” she demanded, “I will tell you about what’s going on.” She signaled a girl in the front of the class, “She’s going to distract Mr. Miehe for a moment.” she explained. She waited until his attention was on the girl before she continued.
“There were seven that as of this morning could see the wraiths, they are slowly integrating into our world by overtaking the souls of mortals. The first to turn will be the teachers, they hold more influence in the school, next, it can touch anyone.” she stopped to clear her throat. “Then there are people who are going begin to realize what is going on and they will see them too. The seven originals are going to have to figure out how to battle the phantoms and, they must do so at a cost. Then there are seven, only seven,“ she glared at me, “seven who will never see. They will have some sort of relationship with one of the prophets.” She crouched down even lower and hissed, “There will be a sacrifice, one of the seven who will never see; and it is up to us, the foremost prophets to decide who will die to save the populace. We are three of the seven profits on whom the world depends!”
Chapter One; The Prophets Divulge Themselves.
During the class hour several students began to change into the ghosts that we had formally entitled simply the Wraiths of the Underworld, that being where they had diverged. They were soul-stealers who captured the souls of the dying and cast them into the black waters of the river that flows outside of the gates of Hades. The putrid liquid floats the souls of the damned deeper into the hell, deep in the center of the earth. No one knew how they had gotten into the world of the living but it was rumored that there was a rip in-between the two worlds and they slipped through in search of souls that were still being used. Teaya knew a lot about this, she had overheard her passing grandfather talking about it minutes before he died. He spoke of the death that would travel here to purge it of all the living. The doctors told his family that he was crazy but Teaya recounted his last words into her journal and in just seven days the events began to take place that her grandfather had prophesized a week beforehand.
There was Teaya, Randi, Jenna and I, the only known prophets, we were four, we needed to seek out the other three before we began work to stop the Wraiths. Second and third hour passed with no sign of the other three.
Finally in forth hour I came upon our fifth. It was a friend of mine, Shay Larsen. There were many whispers going around in the Spanish class. Mrs. Schaefer had changed and about a third of the class, including an old childhood friend of mine, Lisa Conkling; I recognized her only because she was sitting in the desk that she always had, she had become a frightening rotting being of bone with glowing ember eyes.
Shay was very pale and nervous looking, then she handed me the note that said, “Can you see it?” When I locked my eyes with hers I knew, she was a prophet. I saw those same blue eyes that looked right by me in the hallway that morning. I longed to look into them for the rest of this dream, deep inside the ocean that was his soul I found some solace and relief from the fright that gripped my heart tightly and had began to choke the life from it all day. I found my pace with the blinking of his lavish curvy lashes. His lips mouthed to me to ask if I was all right, I waited a moment before giving something close to a real smile as if to say, “I am now.”
Then I lost sight of his comforting eyes, in the midst of the decaying people that surrounded me I began to feel trapped. The blinds to the window were closed so not to let a drop of sweet golden sunlight in. I felt as gloomy and depressed as the room. Fourth hour passed slower than molasses, each minuet another person began to see or turn. The most frightening thing was not knowing who was next.
Shay and I walked down the hall, grateful to be out of the classroom when the bell sounded for fifth hour, ‘One…Two…Three… ’ The blue eyed boy ran to catch up with us. When he opened his mouth to speak I guessed that he couldn’t see it yet, I was right.
“People are acting very strangely,” he commented, “Mandi, you are so pale, are you feeling well?” He grabbed my hand from my side and held it; he was so soft, so warm. I stopped in the middle of the hall, “Wes, would you mind terribly if…if I asked you to hold me?” Not bothering with a reply he pulled me close and held me there in the safeness of his arms for a moment before releasing me back into the cold air. After one last look at me he headed down the stairs and left me there with the ever-changing people rushing around me.
Then I realized that I was late. ‘One…Two…Three…’ the bell rang in my ears and I walked the long walk to fifth hour Algebra 2 slowly and very much afraid of what I might find in the next class. Passing other tardy students in the hall I began to grow nervous of them, wondering if they could see, wondering if they would eventually turn.
I entered the class 107 very slowly and took a quick glance around the room; nearly half were changed. The Algebra teacher was replaced with another creature just like the others I had met throughout the day and I smelt her sick breath as she inquired why I had arrived belatedly to her class. A pointed bony finger pointed towards my seat, “Sit!” she hissed. Sliding quickly along the rows of desks I found my own and hopped into it, I was safe, for now. Mrs. Mowery was just as nasty to us as on any other day, but I must say her looks did improve some, or at least that is what I wrote in a short note to Jenna who sat only two desks away. She smiled at least for a second then scribbled something onto the paper. She handed it back to me hurriedly. The teacher almost saw me grab it out of her hand, she shot Jenna and I a dirty look then went on with her lesson. I read the contents of the page to myself, ‘Christina is one of us.’
I counted the people on my finger as I thought about each one of the profits; ‘Jenna Northey, Randi Pickard, Teaya Minks, Shay Larsen, Christina Carr, and me, Mandi Fauser. We are six of seven…’ my mind trailed off into a million different directions. At the sound of the lunch bell I jumped, I hurried out of the room and met Jenna and Christina in the hallway. We exchanged frightened looks and then began to walk in the direction of the cafeteria, each of us became ill at the thought of having lunch but I knew that, that might where the seventh might be, so we went reluctantly to the Commons where lunch was held. I saw his blue eyes again right then, but only in my mind. I missed their comfort that was something I desperately wanted and needed right then.
The white walls leading down into the overly-large cafeteria made the school feel like a hospital, and the dead decaying bodies that went in two straight rows, side by side made a haunting sound, “1...2...1...2...” a military cadence. Even I began to march along to the echoing rhythm that pounded in my mind. For the first time I wondered, if I was going to die. Leading the way to our normal table, I walked a little quicker than usual, nervous that someone might come up and try to speak to me. Christina sat down across from me and then Jenna sat to my left. I felt completely alone, even in the midst of my two best friends. I wondered what was going on in the outside world, was it all falling to pieces out there… why was this happening? I paid no attention the growling of my stomach, it was nothing compared to the trembling of my hands or the throbbing pain in my head.
We all seemed to speak at once, “What’s going on?” a small smile spread across Christina’s face then vanished. Jenna’s short painful laugh appeared just to disappear in a seconds time; and I, just looked out into the wave of fleshless ghosts that infiltrated our world, that terrified me and triggered my most horrific fantasies. Then a thought came to my head, “What about Sami?” she had been sick for days and I imagined what might be happening at her house, “what if she is the seventh?”
Jenna seemed to read my mind, “What do you think everybody else in the world is dealing with? All of the televisions have dead channels, and the radios are all playing static.”
Christina spoke softly, “Do you guys think this is the apocalypse?” Then we all fell silent again, I surely didn’t have a clue as to what this all meant. All I knew was that, I didn’t want to die like this, with so many experiences taken away from me. Why should the innocent die so young?
“Is this punishment, you think?” Timmy’s voice sounded from behind me. I spun around. “Timmy.”
“I know who is.” he whispered softly in my ear after he took the seat to the right of me, “It’s Joy.”
I was relived to know that the last prophet was a friend of mine but at the same time I was very worried; I hadn’t seen Joy at all that day. Timmy seemed to guess what I was thinking, “She has been hiding in the bathroom, she had seen them since just before first hour, she panicked, as was to be expected.”
I nodded, yes, it was very understandable. I asked Timmy how long he had seen the ghosts; his face told me even before he answered that he couldn’t see them yet. You see, there was something in the way a person looked into your eyes, with every seeing person I had encountered as of then, I found an urgent need, a searching when our eyes locked. The others, the ones who weren’t cursed with the sight of their damned faces or their evil eyes didn’t have that burning longing to know, am I alone?
We took advantage of the rest of the lunch hour to plan our next course of action. Timmy explained that Joy would be coming down right at the close of lunch to look for him. So we would wait for her and then find Teaya and Randi; then we would be seven.
“May I have your attention please,” boomed a voice from overhead, “I have a very important announcement. There is a terrible winter storm coming right for us, it has come on so suddenly that we have no time to get you all home safely, so this brings me to the news.” cried the sunken in skull. It leaned over the edge of the cafeteria wall and waited for a moment until every single person’s eyes were fixed on him. “We have to keep you all here tonight. If everyone would return to their fifth hours now, that would help us tremendously.”
The Skeletons marched up the stairs, and with each tap, tap, tap of the bone meeting the floor my heart sank a little more. We would have to stay there the whole night? The remaining mortals in the room went rigid and nervous with the news. At that point we were half taken over by the Wraiths of the Underworld.
It began to weigh heavily on my mind, a winter storm in May? Timmy found Joy and I found Teaya. When the seven were together at last Teaya filled us in on the freak ‘winter storm.’ It was actually a spell falling over the world, a cold threatening haze that blocked the sun. The windows of the school were covered by a darkness so no one would notice the change, to those who couldn’t see, it was just a normal day; they were blinded by their disbelief. The seven of us were together at last, but we were supposed to return to our fifth hours, we planned to meet later on, 3:00 in the old gym where no one would bother us and decide what we should do next.
Chapter Two; The Prowlers
In fifth hour again, damn. Jenna, Christina and I sat together in the back of the Algebra 2 classroom. The large windows were covered, as though with a blanket …