Faces on a Chalkboard
The first time Crystal Frazier entered the abandoned Southwick School in the remote New England town of Bolingbroke was during the summer of 1993 when she was an impressionable adolescent. She and her friend, Doreen May, hiked up the mountain at the end of town by way of an old, neglected trail and discovered the building that had been closed since the late 1960s.
"I never knew there was a school up here," Crystal said as she stood on the blacktop of the unused playground, looking up at the imposing edifice of the three-story brick building.
Curious, the two girls approached the main entrance, but Crystal stopped when they reached the front doors.
"What's wrong?" Doreen asked. "Don't you want to go inside?"
"Do you?" Crystal countered, not anxious to be the first one to cross the threshold.
Doreen, the more daring of the pair, pulled on the handle of one of the doors.
"It's locked," she declared with disappointment.
In fact, not one of the four main doors would budge.
"Oh, well, that settles it," Crystal said, trying to hide the relief in her voice. "It looks like we can't go inside after all."
"Not so fast. There must be more than one entrance."
As they walked around the perimeter of the building, the girls learned that although the back and side doors were padlocked, a large window in what was once the principal's office had been shattered, leaving easy access to the interior of the school.
"Be careful," Crystal cautioned as Doreen climbed over the jagged window pane. "You don't want to cut yourself."
Only when her friend was safely inside did Crystal attempt to enter.
"Look," Doreen said, examining the long disused room, "they left all the furniture here."
She opened the desk drawers and found brittle, yellowed paper, broken pencils, dried-out pens, rusted paperclips, a stapler and a calendar from 1968.
"Maybe we should keep that calendar," Crystal said. "It might be worth something at the antique store."
"Who would want a twenty-five-year-old calendar?" Doreen replied and then bravely suggested, "Let's explore."
"Are you sure this building is safe?"
"Stop being such a chicken."
"I'm not a chicken!" Crystal exclaimed in her own defense. "I'm just not as reckless as you are."
Still, the cautious young girl followed her intrepid companion through the secretary's office and out into the long hallway. As they gradually made their way along the main corridor, they passed several classrooms furnished with old wooden desks and empty bookcases.
"They left the desks but took the books. Crazy, huh?" Doreen laughed.
There was no response from Crystal who had remained in the hall.
"Did you hear me? I said they took all the books but left the desks."
There was still no response from the other girl, whose attention was on Room 113 across the hall.
"What's so interesting in there?"
When Doreen peeked inside the room, her eyes, like those of her friend, were immediately drawn to the far wall.
Someone had drawn an incredibly detailed scene on the blackboard. The illustration featured eighteen students, who looked like they were in fourth or fifth grade, sitting at their desks with hands clasped, looking straight ahead, as though they were posing for a class photograph.
When Doreen went up to the chalkboard to examine it, her friend followed at her heels.
"It doesn't look like chalk," Crystal observed.
Doreen spit on her fingertip and tried to wipe away a small portion of the drawing. The saliva had no effect, however.
"Maybe it was painted on," she hypothesized.
Crystal tried to scratch off part of the mysterious drawing with her fingernail.
"No. Paint would come off, or at least it would form a slightly raised surface. This face looks like it's actually part of the chalkboard."
While Crystal was fascinated by the unusual drawing, Doreen was eager to leave the classroom and investigate the rest of the school.
"Come on," she urged her friend. "Let go see what else we can find."
* * *
It wasn't until two years later that the girls returned to Southwick. Doreen had gotten a camera for her birthday and wanted to take photographs of the abandoned school. In the intervening years, little had changed, except there was more graffiti spray-painted on the outer brick walls.
Doreen snapped a few pictures of the exterior and then headed toward the back of the building, in the direction of the principal's office.
"Damn it!" she swore when she saw that the broken window through which they had entered the building on their previous visit was now boarded up.
Crystal, who had brought her own camera to take a photo of the mural on the chalkboard, helped her friend search for another means of entry.
"Do you think we can fit through there?" she asked, pointing to a door that had been pried partially open.
"I think so."
The girls sucked in their breath, turned sideways and squeezed through the narrow opening.
After Doreen took several photographs of the offices, cafeteria and gym, the girls entered Room 113. Crystal immediately noticed that something was different. She stood in the doorway, examining the drawing for several minutes.
"What's wrong?" Doreen asked. "I thought you wanted to take some pictures?"
"It's different. There weren't as many students in the drawing when we first saw it."
"So? Someone probably comes up here from time to time and works on it."
While Doreen's explanation was credible, Crystal still found the changes to the drawing somehow disturbing. Perhaps if she knew the method the unknown artist had used to create the images of the students she would be more willing to accept the logic of her friend's conclusion.
Regardless of who painted the mural—or how, when or why it was created—Crystal was fascinated with the artwork. Not only did she take a wide-angle view of the entire chalkboard, but she also took close-up shots of all twenty-three of the students in the drawing.
"You've used up a whole roll of film on that blackboard," Doreen said.
"That's all right. It's the only thing I wanted to photograph up here."
The next day Crystal took the film cartridge to the drug store to have it developed. When she received her finished prints the following week, she showed them to no one, not even Doreen. Instead, she placed them in the back of her bottom desk drawer where they remained for the next three years.
* * *
Sixteen-year-old Crystal Frazier could barely contain her excitement. Seth Paulison, the good-looking boy who had moved into the house across the street from hers had asked for her help in studying for an upcoming history test.
Wearing her tightest jeans and most flattering blouse, Crystal spent extra time putting on her makeup and fixing her hair. After what seemed an eternity, she heard the doorbell ring.
"I'll get it!" she called to her mother and ran to the door to let Seth inside.
"Thanks for agreeing to help me," he said after Crystal took him to the family room where she had her textbook and class notes placed on top of the desk. "History has always been my worst subject. It's all those dates!"
For the next two hours, the two high school students discussed the ramifications of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott decision and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.
Seth finally begged for a break.
"Can we talk about something else for a few minutes? My brain needs a rest from the events leading to the Civil War."
As the two students nibbled on potato chips, Crystal asked her guest what he liked to do in his free time.
"I like to play video games, watch horror movies, play baseball ...."
"Baseball? Are you a Red Sox fan?"
"Of course."
"I have a baseball card autographed by Carlton Fisk."
"Pudge? No kidding!"
"I've got it right here."
Crystal opened the bottom desk drawer and began rummaging through its contents, in search of the laminated baseball card.
"What's this?" Seth asked, picking up one of the photographs of the chalkboard mural.
"Oh, that," Crystal replied unenthusiastically. "It's just a picture I took of an abandoned school."
"Is it anywhere near here?"
"It's in the mountains at the other end of town. My friend and I found it a few years ago when we were hiking up an old trail."
"I'd really like to see this. Would you show it to me sometime?"
Crystal was torn. On one hand, she would love to spend a few hours hiking in the mountains with her gorgeous neighbor. On the other, she dreaded going back to Southwick. After both her previous trips to the school, she had been plagued for weeks with nightmares.
"I'll spring for lunch if you agree to take me," Seth added, sweetening his proposal.
It was an offer that Crystal could not refuse.
* * *
At his first glimpse of Southwick, Seth was awed by the sheer size of the structure. He had never seen a school with more than two stories.
"It's so big!"
"That's because back then it was the only school in the area. Kids went here from kindergarten through high school."
"Where's that chalkboard?"
"In one of the first-floor classrooms."
"How do we get inside?"
"My friend Doreen and I went through a broken window in the principal's office the first time we came here, but then someone boarded it up. The second time we squeezed through a door that was only partially open. I don't think you and I could fit through it, though."
After a thorough examination of the building, Seth and Crystal found an entry point: a door at the top of a third floor fire escape that had been removed from its hinges.
"Be careful," Seth warned as they climbed up the stairs to the top landing. "This fire escape is old and rusty. If you cut yourself, you'll need to get a tetanus shot."
There was evidence of squatters inside the building: sleeping bags, kerosene heaters, flashlights, trash.
"Someone is living here," Crystal said. "Maybe we shouldn't ...."
She stopped speaking when Seth took her hand.
"There's no one here now. You'll be all right. I won't let anything happen to you."
Crystal's heart leapt, and an unexpected surge of courage raced through her veins.
"The mural is this way," she said, not letting go of his hand.
Seth was the first to cross the threshold of Room 113.
"This is apparently a work in progress," he said. "There are more students now than there were when you took that photograph."
"I noticed that the last time I was here."
"It's odd," he said as they made their way back down the mountain more than an hour later. "There's graffiti all over the building, inside and out, yet there's none on the mural."
"Maybe in some strange way the graffiti artists leave it alone because they respect the work."
"It's possible," he said without much conviction, "but I've known a lot of taggers. Most of them would have been tempted to spray-paint that mural."
The following week, Seth and Crystal returned to Southwick. Wanting to test a theory, Seth brought a small can of Krylon paint with him.
"Do you really think the picture is impervious to paint?" Crystal asked skeptically.
"I don't know, but I've got a hunch it is. Don't worry. I'm only going to spray a small amount, about the size of a quarter, and not where anyone will notice."
"Good because I'd hate to see the drawing defaced in any way."
After entering Room 113, Seth uncapped the can of paint and pressed the nozzle. There was no paint on the chalkboard. He shook the can and tried again.
"Nothing," he said.
"Maybe the can is empty or the nozzle is clogged," Crystal suggested.
"It doesn't feel empty. Besides, I just bought it yesterday."
He pointed the can at a nearby desk and sprayed. Immediately a wet red circle appeared.
"See?"
"It might be the angle at which you're holding the can," Crystal insisted.
Again, he pointed the aerosol can at the chalkboard and pressed the nozzle. He moved his wrist one way and another to change the angle of the spray. He then walked the length of the room, his finger never easing the pressure on the nozzle. While the surfaces to the right and left of the chalkboard were splotched with red paint, none had stuck to the mural.
"There is something definitely weird about this drawing!" he announced.
Crystal nodded her head in agreement but did not utter a word.
* * *
A series of severe winter storms kept the old hiking path covered with snow and prevented further excursions. Then spring brought with it the senior prom, final exams and graduation.
Crystal got a full-time job that kept her busy during the summer, and in the fall she left for college. It was not until she had finished four years at Boston University that she returned to Bolingbroke. She was surprised to see that Seth had also come home for a visit.
"Hey, there, stranger!" he called to her from his driveway one morning. "Long time no see. How was Boston U?"
"Great," she replied as the two walked toward each other and met on the sidewalk in front of Crystal's house. "How was Bowdoin?"
"I graduated cum laude. Thankfully, I'm better at economics than I am at history. Had any job offers yet?"
"Yes, I start working for The Bolingbroke Herald on Monday morning."
"You're out of school less than a week and already you have a job at a newspaper? You must know somebody," he teased.
"No, but I did intern at The Boston Globe for three summers. That might have had something to do with the editor's decision to hire me. What about you? Have you found something yet?"
"Only for the summer. I'm going back to school in September to earn my masters."
The two old friends talked for more than an hour before the subject of Southwick School came up.
"Did you ever go back there?" Crystal asked.
"No, but I always wanted to."
"I wonder if the unknown artist ever finished his drawing on the chalkboard."
"There's one way we can find out," Seth said, raising his eyebrows mischievously.
The next day the two recent college graduates headed up the old hiking path toward Southwick.
"It looks like it's finally finished," Seth said when he saw the chalkboard mural in Room 113. "Whatever sealant the artist used, it's kept the drawing in pristine condition."
Crystal laughed and meekly admitted, "You know I used to think this picture had supernatural properties."
"Me, too," her friend confessed. "When the spray paint wouldn't stick to it, I thought the chalkboard was possessed or something. Silly, huh?"
"You don't see me laughing, do you?"
* * *
Crystal had been working for the Herald for nearly three years when Sy Orton, the editor, called her into his office to discuss the upcoming Memorial Day issue of the paper.
"Olaf is writing an article on our local war heroes, and Marnie will cover the proposed plans for the annual parade up Main Street. I thought maybe you could write about what our town looked like back during World War II. We must have some old photographs of the town hall, the library, the hospital and the shopping district in our archives. If not, go down to the Historical Society and see if they have any."
Crystal was excited about the assignment and had a few ideas of her own to add.
"I'd like to include a photograph of the Southwick School. Maybe even some before-and-after shots."
"Southwick? Is that building still standing?" the editor asked with surprise.
"It was three years ago."
"No kidding? I thought they tore it down decades ago."
"Have you ever been there?"
"Hell, I attended classes there, up until third grade when they opened the new elementary school on First Street."
The editor was the only person Crystal had ever met that had actually been inside Southwick before it was abandoned.
"Was the mural started while the school was still open?" she asked.
"Mural? What mural?"
Crystal described the unusual drawing on the chalkboard of Room 113, and the following day she showed her boss the photographs she had taken on her trips to the school.
"This is incredible!" Sy exclaimed. "Never mind the town hall and the library. I want you to write your article about Southwick, but don't forget to include the usual private property, no trespassing disclaimer in boldface type."
"Do you think a disclaimer will discourage anyone from trying to get a look at the place?"
"No, but we have to cover our asses if some kid does go up there and gets hurt. Rule number one of being a good reporter: avoid lawsuits."
The day the article on Southwick appeared in the Herald, the young reporter received several phone calls. One was from Doreen May, who was now married and the mother of a two-year-old child. Another was from Seth Paulison, who read the article online while living in Maine. It was third call that was most interesting.
"I've seen that mural," the unidentified caller said.
"Do you know who the artist is that created it?" the reporter asked eagerly.
"No, but I've seen the original photograph it was copied from."
"What photograph is that?"
"It was a class picture taken back in 1968. It was Miss Coerte's fifth grade class."
"And how do you know that?"
"I was the photographer. I have the photograph in my files. I can make a copy and send it to you, if you'd like."
No sooner did Crystal end her call with the photographer than she headed toward her editor's office, asking if she could write a follow-up piece on the chalkboard at Southwick School.
* * *
Not only did the photographer send her a print of the picture, but he also provided her with a list of the names of the students in the class.
The note that accompanied the print and the list of names intrigued her: "Miss Amanda Coerte, the teacher, vanished without a trace in 1972. Perhaps, as a reporter, you have access to additional information on her disappearance."
After reading the handwritten note, Crystal logged on to the Herald's online archives. A search of Amanda Coerte's name yielded twenty-three articles. According to these accounts, the young teacher was last seen leaving her home one morning at her usual time, but she never reported to work. Her car was found in a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot two blocks away. Inside the vehicle were the test papers she had graded the previous evening and a packed lunch. Although police assumed she was abducted outside the busy donut shop, no witnesses came forward to confirm their theory.
"Do you know anything about the disappearance of Amanda Coerte?" she asked Sy.
"Amanda Coerte? Where do I know that name from?"
"She was their teacher," Crystal replied and put the class photo on his desk.
"This picture looks familiar."
"Most of it was recreated on a chalkboard in Southwick School."
"The teacher disappeared? When?"
"Back in 1972. Three years after this photograph was taken. I'm not suggesting there's a connection between her disappearance and the mural on the chalkboard ...."
"But it doesn't hurt to look into the matter," her editor concluded. "What assignment are you working on now?"
"The plans for building a Walmart on Route 15."
"Like the entire town doesn't already know it's coming. Put that article aside and see what you can find out about this teacher."
For the next several days, Crystal spoke with members of the police force and former faculty at the school, as well as neighbors, friends and family of the missing woman. No one had any clue as to what had happened to Amanda Coerte.
Just as Seth Paulison had once had a hunch that spray paint would not stick to the chalkboard mural, the reporter had a hunch that she would unearth a lead by speaking with the students in the fifth grade class photograph. A call to the local school board yielded the most recent addresses and telephone numbers of the children. Unfortunately, the information had not been updated in more than three decades. Optimistic by nature, she was hopeful that some of the parents still lived in the same houses.
The first two numbers were out of service. The person who answered the third number informed Crystal that he had only had that phone number for two years. Her luck changed with the fourth call.
"I'd like to speak to Mrs. Vintner," she said when a woman answered.
"This is Mrs. Vintner."
"Are you the mother of William Vintner, who attended fifth grade at Southwick School?"
"Who is this?" the woman demanded to know. "What do you want?"
"I'm trying to get in touch with William Vintner. It's about a former teacher of his, a Miss Amanda Coerte."
"How dare you call me?" Mrs. Vintner sobbed. "Have you no heart?"
"I didn't ...."
The reporter stopped speaking after hearing the receiver slam on the other end of the line.
Why was she so upset? Crystal wondered and turned her chair to face her computer.
She typed William's name in the search field and pressed ENTER. According to the two articles in the archives, William Vintner had been involved in a boating accident. While the body was never found, it was believed William had drowned.
"How's that story going?" Orton asked her at lunch that afternoon.
"I've spoken to five parents whose children were in Miss Coerte's class. All five students are believed to be dead."
"Believed?"
"Their bodies were never found."
"Five out of five? What about the rest of the students?"
"The parents no longer live at those addresses."
"Keep on this story. See if you can find out what happened to those kids and their teacher."
* * *
What was meant to be a simple story reminding the citizens of Bolingbroke of a missing person's case that occurred in their area more than thirty years earlier turned out to be a major investigative piece. Crystal spent three months talking to detectives from police stations across the country in an attempt to track down Miss Coerte and her fifth grade class. Of the thirty students on the list, twenty-nine of them were either listed as missing or had been declared legally dead.
When the reporter created a timeline of events, a chilling pattern began to surface.
"Sy, you've got to see this," she told her editor. "Look at this photograph I took in 1995."
"What precisely am I looking for?" Orton asked.
"How many students are there?"
The editor quickly counted and replied, "Twenty-three."
"Two years earlier, when I first saw the mural, there were only eighteen. When I went back in 1998, there were twenty-seven, and in 2002"—she placed another photograph on the editor's desk—"twenty-nine students were in the drawing."
"What's your point?"
"Look at this timeline. Eighteen of the students had disappeared by '93, five more by '95, four more by '98 and two more by the last time I went there."
"You think that whoever created the drawing on the chalkboard knew when each of these students disappeared?"
"If not, it's a hell of a coincidence."
"What about the thirtieth student?"
"Aaron Tilson. I haven't been able to find him yet."
Sy picked up a pencil and began doing the math on his desk blotter.
"In this picture the students would have been ten or eleven years old. The teacher went missing in 1972, four years after this picture was taken. Her students would have been fifteen or sixteen years old. The first student died or disappeared in 1976, when the students would have been nineteen or twenty."
"What are you getting at?" Crystal asked.
"Did it ever occur to you that the thirtieth student might be responsible for the disappearance of his teacher and classmates?"
* * *
Aaron Tilson.
Crystal stared at the name. It was the last one on the list, the only one she hadn't been able to trace.
Having exhausted all her usual sources, she was unsure how to proceed. Not even the newspaper's contact on the state police force could learn what had happened to the thirtieth student in Miss Coerte's 1968 class.
"Forget about the last kid," Orton advised. "We've got twenty-nine students and a teacher, all missing or believed dead and not a single body. There's your story."
"But you said he might be responsible for the disappearance of the others."
"Might. It's a theory with no facts to back it up. If we print that and one of Mr. Tilson's relatives reads it, we could get sued. Remember the rule."
Three days after the meeting with her editor, Crystal completed the draft of her article, but before submitting it to Sy, she wanted one last look at the chalkboard mural.
The following afternoon, she headed up the mountainous hiking trail to the abandoned school. As she carefully climbed the rickety, rusted fire escape, she remembered her first visit to Southwick. Why had she been so frightened of it at the time? It was nothing but a harmless old building. Crystal laughed at her own lack of courage as a child.
When she stepped over the threshold of Room 113 and saw a middle-aged man standing in front of the chalkboard, she lost her daring. Her initial instinct was to flee, but the man was already aware of her presence.
"Hello, Miss Frazier," he said.
"How do you know my name?" Crystal asked, her heart suddenly racing with fear.
"I was the one who sent you Miss Coerte's 1968 class picture."
"You're the photographer? But you don't look old enough to have taken that picture."
"I'm afraid I wasn't entirely honest with you. I wasn't the photographer, but I did have a copy of the picture, and I wanted you to see it."
"Why? Did you do this drawing?"
"No. I was hoping you would shed some light on the mystery surrounding it."
"What mystery?" the reporter asked, feigning ignorance.
"I sent you the list of students' names. You must have done your research and learned that the children have all gone missing."
"Do you know what happened to them?"
"No, that's why I sent you the photograph. I couldn't go to the police or come out and ask for your help because I was afraid no one would believe me."
"Why are you so interested in this drawing?"
The man pointed to an area between two faces on the blackboard.
"That's where Aaron Tilson belongs," he explained.
"He's the one student I know nothing about. His parents are both dead, and there's no record of him anywhere."
"That's because he has a new identity."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm Aaron, or I used to be."
"What is this all about?"
"I don't know. After my parents died in 1970, I was sent to live with an aunt in Connecticut. She was, to put it mildly, a bit strange. She believed in ghosts, ESP, astrology, guardian angels—you name it. When we learned Miss Coerte was missing, she insisted it was a supernatural force at work rather than some human predator. Frankly, I thought she was off her rocker, but then William Vintner allegedly drowned, and one by one the other students in the class began disappearing."
"But you didn't."
"My aunt took me to Florida and gave me a new name. She went to great lengths to keep me safe from the evil that took my former classmates."
"Evil? What evil?"
"My aunt was convinced an evil entity was systematically killing first the teacher and then the students in that photograph. She gave me this. It's meant to shield me from harm."
Aaron removed an amulet from around his neck and handed it to Crystal.
No sooner did the young man let go of the talisman than the temperature in the classroom dropped drastically.
"There you are!"
Crystal and Aaron turned to see a child, a girl of about ten or eleven years of age, standing in the doorway.
"I've been looking everywhere for you."
"Do you know her?" Crystal asked, her words leaving a frosty mist in the air.
Aaron pointed to the mural on the chalkboard.
"That's her in the first row, the third student from the left. Her name is Linda Druitt."
"It can't be!" the reporter argued. "She hasn't aged."
Linda laughed the high-pitched laughter of a little girl.
"According to police reports," Crystal continued, "you were the second one to disappear, just three months after William Vintner supposedly drowned."
"What better way to avoid suspicion than to be one of the earliest known victims?" Aaron reasoned.
"I'll bet not even your crazy aunt figured that out," Linda taunted him.
"What are you?" Crystal asked. "A ghost?"
"I have no name in your culture, so why don't you just call me Linda?"
"What did you do to Miss Coerte and to all those kids?" Aaron demanded to know.
"I consumed them."
"You ate them?" Crystal asked in horror.
"Not as you humans eat. I didn't chew them up and swallow them. I simply absorbed their life force into my own."
"What happened to their bodies?"
"They're right here."
It was Aaron who first turned in the direction of the mural.
"It's not a drawing," Aaron concluded. "It's not made of chalk or paint but of what's left of your victims."
"All except for the image of me," the creature said. "That's actually the remains of Miss Coerte. I admit none of this was necessary. I don't need a chalkboard drawing or even a connection between my victims, but I have always had a taste for the dramatic. It adds an element of fun to my existence. Like the time I carved Croatoan into a post in Roanoke."
Crystal gasped, realizing that she and Aaron were up against an ancient and formidable enemy.
"Now that I've found you, Aaron," the girl he knew as Linda Druitt continued, "the picture will be complete, and I can move on. I'm glad because this chalkboard scenario is beginning to bore me."
With incredible, inhuman speed the creature glided across the room as though on wheels. When she placed her hands on Aaron's face, her fingertips began to glow and throw off a magenta and purple light. Aaron's skin, hair and clothing seemed to lose color, fading away into a light gray scale image. Concurrently, the features of him as a little boy began to appear on the chalkboard.
"No!" Crystal shouted.
She could not stand by and watch as the poor man's life was literally sucked out of him. She ran forward and pulled on Linda's shoulders. When Aunt Sylvia's amulet, which was still in Crystal's hand, touched the evil being, the little girl screamed in agony. The creature let go of Aaron, and his color began to return.
"Quick," he said, slowly regaining his strength, "kill it before it has the chance to escape."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"Use the amulet."
Crystal grabbed Linda's wrist with her right hand, holding on for dear life as the creature frantically tried to escape her grasp. With her left hand, the reporter pressed the talisman into the little girl's forehead. The metal glowed red with heat, and Crystal drew her burned hand away.
Moments later the evil being burst into flames. The fire quickly spread to the chalkboard, and soon the entire wall was ablaze.
"Hurry! We've got to get out of here," Aaron shouted and tugged on Crystal's arm.
By the time they ran down the fire escape to the safety of the old playground, Southwick School was an inferno.
* * *
The following morning Crystal sat in Sy Orton's office with her burned hand in a bandage, listening to the editor praise her work.
"This is one of the best stories that has ever appeared in the Herald."
"Thanks."
"Can you work with your hand like that?"
"I suppose so. Why?"
"I received a call from my source at the Bolingbroke Police Department. After the flames were finally extinguished, the remains of twenty-eight children and one adult were found in the rubble."
"Miss Coerte and the students on the chalkboard!" Crystal cried excitedly.
"Now, remember," the editor cautioned, "you can't write about theories that have no concrete facts to back them up."
Crystal had not confided in her editor or mentioned in her article the fact that she had been at the school when the fire started. There was no reference to her meeting Aaron Tilson or her encounter with the centuries-old evil known as Linda Druitt. Like Aaron, she thought it best to remain silent, certain that few people would believe her strange account.
"I got it," she told her editor. "Just the facts."
As she walked across the parking lot to her car, she wondered how many bizarre stories had remained unwritten or unspoken over the centuries. How many evil beings like Linda Druitt were free to prey upon humanity because witnesses, for whatever reason, remained silent?
This story was inspired by a drawing that was on a blackboard in an abandoned school in Lambertville, New Jersey.
Looks like Salem left me another message on his chalkboard.
