Fraidy-Cat

J. Dean
Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009  J. Dean

Other titles by J. Dean at Smashwords.com:
The Summoning of Clade Josso

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**

The custodians had been gone for about five minutes.
A metal click, and the creak of a slow-opening door in the middle of the hallway broke the sea of silence which had descended upon the hallway.  Out popped a freckled face, which looked both ways.
“Okay.  It’s clear.”
He tread cautiously to the center of the hallway, dimly lit by red exit signs.  From behind him came three other figures-all female, two taller than the third one.  
“Where’s your locker, Carrie?”
One of the taller girls turned and pointed to a row of rust-cornered lockers on a nearby wall.  “I’ll go get the stuff.”  She murmured, trying to keep thick black hair away from her face-and failing at it.  “Gimme your flashlight, Brandon.”
Brandon handed her the small cylinder, no bigger than the palm of his hand.  The light flickered on, shining up to reveal a wicked, shadowed grin.  The short girl let out a yelp.
Brandon laughed at her. “What a fraidy-cat!”
“Shut up!” the short girl retorted, slapping him in the arm.  Her round face still held the look of a small child, even though eighth grade was just around the corner for her. 
Now it was Carrie’s turn to laugh.  “You just spook too easy, Izzy.”
Isabella jabbed a tongue through pouty lips at her, face wrinkling in disgust.  She didn’t like being called “Izzy.”
Carrie’s feet clopped through the hallway as Brandon looked at the other tall girl.  “Did you fix the lab door, Cheryl?”
The girl with a red-haired ponytail bobbed her head up and down.  “All set.  Made sure to do it earlier today when we left. I put the duct tape on the lock when Mr. Chambers wasn’t looking, and I volunteered to shut the door for him when we left the room.  I did another check of it just before you guys got here.  It’s still open.”
“Good.”
“But how will we leave after we’re done?”  Isabella asked with a plea.  Her voice was colored with a nervous inflection.
Brandon shrugged, “We’ll slip out the lab window.  It’s big enough for us.  When we get out, we’ll close it up as best we can.”
“Even if the custodians find it Monday, they’ll just think it was left open from earlier today.”  Cheryl added.  “No biggie, as long as we put everything back.”
A metallic sliding down came from Carrie’s direction, accompanied by lower sounds of things being shifted and bumping into the sides of the locker.
Cheryl looked down at the sandy-haired Isabella.  “So you’re sure you wanna do this?”
“Well, nooo…” Isabella answered in an almost whine. “I mean, you guys wanted me to go along with coming up here!”
“You’re the one who kept asking about it, Izzy!”  Brandon pointed an accusing finger at her. 
Stop calling me Izzy! “Well, yeah, but I didn’t think you’d be doing something like this!”
The locker door slammed shut, sending an echo down the hall.  “You agreed to it, didn’t you?” Cheryl asked.
Isabella let out a moan.  “But I thought you guys were kidding about this!”
“Got  it all right here.” Carrie said, rejoining the others, holding up a small, nylon satchel.  “You’re not getting cold feet, are you Izzy?”
Isabella let out a nervous, choked laugh.  Brandon patted her shoulder.  “Look, it’s going to be fun, okay?  Don’t get yourself all riled up.  You don’t even know what’s going to happen yet!”
“I know that I don’t like being in school at night after everybody’s gone!” Isabella whimpered.
In the glow of the flashlight, the other three looked at each other with slightly upturned corners on their mouths.  Isabella didn’t like that.  
“C’mon.”  Brandon jabbed a thumb in the direction of the lab.  “Let’s get set up.”

**

The set-up hadn’t taken long at all.  A dozen white candles of a dozen differing lengths had been set up on various spots in the lab, carefully placed so as not to set fire to anything in the immediate vicinity.  After this, a digital clock was placed on a nearby lab table, not far from one of three sinks embedded in the counter on the far side of the wall.  Cheryl fidgeted with it for a few moments, after which the flashing display of twelve o’ clock changed over to the correct time: ten-nineteen.  
All of this was being accomplished without the room lights being turned on.
Isabella watched the entire process, trying to keep an impassive look on her face.  She had kicked herself a thousand times for agreeing to do this; even now, a part of her badly wished she had agreed to go to the theater tonight with her other cheerleading friends-even if it was motivated in part by their desire to watch every move made by Barry Silvers.  They’d drooled over him while he was quarterbacking the team, and now that football season was over, they’d continue to leave a trail of saliva in their tracks, hoping he’d ditch that bimbo from the other school district that he started seeing.  Ditch her, choose one of us.  That was the plan.
But nooooo-couldn’t do that, could she?  She just had to stick her nose in where it didn’t belong on Monday.  Just had to hear the conversation between Brandon and Carrie about their little “game.”  Just had to make a snide remark about it, which started the conversation about Isabella’s reputation, that her own shadow could make her jump.  And Isabella just had to get defensive about it, and brag about not fearing anything at all, and she just had to agree to their dare to meet her at the school after dark, and sneak in just before the custodians locked the school up on a Friday night.
Later that week, when she had been invited to the movies by the other cheerleaders, she had to decline; in part, because Isabella kept her word, and also in part because Carrie happened to be nearby, suspiciously eyeing her, making sure she wouldn’t go back on her word to accept the challenge-or go back on her word that she was not to tell anybody else about it.
It forced her to lie to her parents about where she was going tonight.  She had told them that she was spending the night at Carrie’s place for a sleepover, which was technically true-Carrie and Cheryl did invite her for the sleepover, after this.  Still, her parents thought she was over there right now, not hiding out in a place that carried a far more sinister appearance after sundown than it did during the day.   A place lit by bland fluorescent bulbs during regular hours, and now nearly pitch black, only illuminated by a distant streetlamp that let in a shining strip of dead blue through the window and was reflected on the back wall
Right now, seeing a movie and stalking a quarterback sounded really good.

**
Cheryl had pulled out four more things from the satchel.  “Anybody hungry?”  She asked.  
Four candy bars were laid out on one of the lab tables.  Isabella reached out with small fingers, snatching up the one loaded with peanuts and nougat.  Crinkled noise cut through the air before giving way to silent chewing.
“So how long have you guys been doing this?” Isabella asked after a swallow.
“Since the summer.” Cheryl answered.  She had taken the bar of pure milk chocolate.  “We came up here after hearing the story about Cyrus Jones.”
“The farmer who died?  Wasn’t that like a hundred years ago or something?”
“Fifty-one years ago, Izzy.”  Brandon answered, licking a chocolate stain from his thumb.  He had made short work of the crispy bar which had been in his possession.
“So what?  Is he gonna pass by the window or something?”
Cheryl shook her head.  “We thought the same thing when we came up here.  But that’s not what happened.  We had…”  she stopped for a minute, exchanging another wry look with her two friends.  “We had something else happen.”
“Something better.”  Brandon nodded.
“What?  What happened?” Isabella asked. The idea of all this being a surprise didn’t suit her at all.  Already, even in the middle of this conversation, her imagination was playing tricks on her, shaping the wind-blown shadows of trees into gnarled fingers, and envisioning beady eyes looking out at her from the unseen corners of the room.
“Now where would the fun be if we just told you?”  Carrie asked playfully.  Her candy bar turned out to be a wide plank of cherry taffy, which had been giving her considerable grief, as she had already tried to speak a couple of times, but was stopped in mid-chew each time by the stubborn, thick candy.  Isabella would have laughed had she not been contending with her overactive imagination for attention.
“Oh c’mon guys!” Isabella pleaded.  “Tell me what happened!  Please!?”
Brandon raised a curious eyebrow.  “I thought you weren’t scared.”
“Yeah,”  Cheryl chimed in.  “You told us that your reputation as a fraidy-cat was just a line.”
“I’m not!  Really!  Well-I mean..”  Isabella’s stammer ended in a frustrated sigh.  Do I give in and tell them the truth? That I really do jump at the sight of my own shadow at times?
The answer was a pride-fueled negative.  “I just-look, we’re up here by ourselves, and you could, like, kill me and string me up or whatever, and nobody else would know.”
Carrie’s mouth dropped open in sticky, taffy-filled shock.  “Izzy!  That hurts!  That really hurts!”
Open mouth, insert foot. “I didn’t mean it to-“
“What do you take us for!?  This is a game, Izzy!”
Isabella tried to speak again, but Carrie let out a disgruntled breath of air through angry lips, arms folded.
“Hey now, Carrie!”  Brandon had stood up to check the placement of one of the candles.  “Go easy on her!”
“Whatever.”  Carrie snapped, taking another look at Isabella with rolling eyes.
Isabella looked at the other two.  “You have our word, Izzy.”  Cheryl answered, “We will not lay a hand on you during this.  At all. Okay?”
A swallow of spit went down Isabella’s throat.  “You know, maybe this was a bad idea.  I really don’t know if I want to be here or not.”
“It’s really alright, Izzy.”  Brandon answered, sitting back down.  “I don’t blame you for feeling creeped out a little bit.  Look, if you wanna leave, go ahead.  I’ll open the window right now, and we’ll all go.  Nothing will be said about it next week.  Not by any of us.  You want to do that?”
The three girls watched Brandon walk over to the window, putting his hand on the latch.  “You wanna go now?  Say the word.”
A tremendous relief washed over Isabella.  Freedom.  An exit.  She didn’t have to do this.  There was nothing to fear now; an out for all of this had been provided to her.  She and the others could just go home, with no gossip to follow.  And even if they did say something about it, a part of her didn’t care.  She would just be glad to be out of here.  It made her feel more secure with these relatively new friends.  Not that she hated them or anything; she just hadn’t talked much to them during the school day, little more than passing words said when among friends of friends.  Beyond that, nothing more.
That would have to change come Monday.
She started to rise from her chair when a second thought stopped her. 
Why not trust them?  
They had been willing to simply let it all go, no questions asked.  Certainly they didn’t intend to hurt her, did they?  After all, they could have done that just after the custodians had locked up and left. They could have done so against her will, too.  Three of them, relatively taller than Isabella, and probably stronger, too.  But none of them had attempted to pin her down, or tie her up, or hold her hostage with any sort of weapon.  
And she really did want to quit being so afraid.  She had been told once that confronting fear kills it, while running from fear only made it stronger.  Eventually she would have to stop jumping at every minor bump in the night, or stop avoiding every unlit area that filled the landscape when night fell.
The fear had to stop, had to be killed.
Tonight was the night to do it.
“No,”  she said with a somewhat forced smile.  “Let’s do this.”

**
The candles were lit, but did little to brighten the dark room, instead adding more gloom and shadow by their faint flickering.  Outside, the glow of the streetlamp continued to pour in, but it did little more than add to the haunted look of the lab.  The only other available light came from the feeble illumination given by the alarm clock, which now read ten-fifty eight.
Isabella sat at the center table, facing the row of windows that looked out toward the desolate courtyard.  Despite the distant presence of the corner lamp, all else was swallowed in darkness.  No cars would be passing by that intersection tonight.  The school was situated in a back corner of a subdivision, behind most of the houses, so the only reason for any car to come through this way would be for picking up or dropping off students.  Nobody was doing that tonight.  Not for Isabella.
Cheryl, Brandon, and Carrie stood in front of her, faces glowing from the light of the small flashlight.  They stared down at her with solemn determination, waiting in silence for Isabella to situate herself in the chair.
“So what happens now?” Isabella asked, “You guys gonna cast a spell on me or something?”
“Not at all.” Brandon answered in a calm, flat tone. “We do nothing else.  All you have to do is sit here, say nothing, and wait for eleven-thirty.”
Isabella leaned to her left, looking at the clock: one minute to eleven.  “Why?  What happens at eleven-thirty?”
“The game will be up.” Carrie’s voice had become as lifeless at Brandon’s.  Isabella didn’t like it.  
“So.. What?  The game’s starting now?”
“Close your eyes, Izzy.” Cheryl said with a slight bob of her head.
“Huh?”
“Do it.  Close your eyes.  We’ll tell you when to open them.”
Isabella’s lips parted in slight apprehension.  “Why do I-?”
“Close your eyes, Izzy.” Brandon said.  His voice remained unchanged.
“Okay, just-just don’t do anything, alright?”
“Close them, Izzy.” Carrie soothed.
Isabella did so.  The dim room gave way to black eyelids.
“Three….” Cheryl whispered-or was it Carrie?
“Guys, I-“
“Hush.  Two…”
Isabella let out a fearful moan.
“One…”
Her hands gripped the sides of the table.
“Open them, Izzy.”
With a sudden gulp of air, Isabella did so.
The other three were gone.
Isabella looked to the left and right, then spun around, checking the door behind her.  It  remained shut.  There had been no sound of it opening or closing; for that matter, there had been no sound of feet falling on floor, either.  The other three had just-vanished.  Just like that.
“Hey! Where did you go!”
“You must not talk, Izzy.”  The voice was Cheryl’s, and was as loud as if she had said it standing right next to Isabella, but there was nobody there.  “Sit, watch, and wait until eleven-thirty.”
Isabella ducked her head down to the floor, searching for huddled lumps that might have been the other three hiding out on the floor.  Nothing but the shadowy forms of chair legs and table bases stared back at her.  “Where did they go?” she whispered to herself.
Only the digital face of the alarm clock stared back at her, and the eleven-oh-one on the display wasn’t telling her anything, except that she had twenty-nine more minutes to wait.
**
Eleven-oh-five.
Isabella’s initial worry-that one of them, or even all three of them, were going to jump up and yell “Boo!”-began to subside.  Her back had built up a swarm of tingles and shudders in preparation for such a moment, but no such moment had come.  The little bit of cold perspiration which had tickled her seemed to be evaporating from her forehead.  She shifted in her seat, taking another look to the left and right.  The lab remained unchanged.  Nothing but dim light crowded in by deep, swaying shadows.  
Quiet.  Very quiet.  Too quiet.
She didn’t like quiet.
She didn’t like being called “Izzy,” either.
Crack!
The sound made Isabella jump, a startled yelp escaping her lips, her right hand slapping her on the chest.  Eyes darted this way and that around the room, half expecting something to emerge from the shadows and advance upon her with wicked intent.  Seeing nothing, Isabella focused on the spot where the sound had come from, or where it might have come from.
The wall-mounted cupboards to her left.  
She took in a couple of relieving breaths, trying to slow her heart down from its frantic cardiac race, watching the glass sliding door which covered the cupboards.  The lack of ample light prevented her from seeing anything inside, instead presenting her with an almost mirror-quality reflection of candles from the other side of the lab.  
Another moment passed: nothing.
She swallowed again, finding it difficult to do so; her mouth refused to produce saliva.
“I want a water.”  She whispered to herself.  The cupboard did not answer her, thankfully.
More moments crawled by.  Isabella blinked once, twice.  The cupboard remained quiet.
“Just something falling over.”  She said to herself.
Sure.  Something falling over.  A jar of something, or a piece of equipment: nothing else.  Probably just set up wrong from earlier in the day-no big deal. Things fall all the time out of the blue.  It happened at Isabella’s home once in a while.  A book not set right, or a dish put in the sink in an awkward position-they’d be fine, and then a little while later, when everybody was off doing their own thing, an unexpected clatter would come from the kitchen, or her bedroom, or wherever. Just from setting something down wrong, putting it away just out of proper place.
Explains it all, right?
Sure.  Keep telling yourself that.      
“Having fun yet?”
As soon as the whispered feminine voice hit her ears, she saw the figure out of the corner of her eye, silhouetted against the window in the far corner of the room.  A jerk of her head toward the image made it disappear.
“Wha..?”
Nobody there now.  Nothing but the deep black rectangle of glass looking out into the nothingness beyond.
“Cheryl?”  Isabella called out with feeble timidity.  Neither word nor image responded.  A trick of the mind.
No.  There was somebody there.
“Just my mind playing games on me.”  She murmured to herself.  “Or just them trying to freak me out.”
Her fingers drummed the tabletop for a moment.  Not gonna do it, she thought to herself, not gonna let them freak me out.  I’m killing this fear tonight.
She glanced at the alarm clock: Eight minutes after eleven.
Twenty-two more minutes, and the fear would be dead.
If I last that long…

**
Eleven-thirteen.
The incident of the real-or-imagined sounds had almost been forgotten about.  Almost.
Isabella rubbed her palms on the knees of her jeans.  The movement was more about relieving an urge to fidget nervously, rather than wiping the sweat away from her hands.  Calmness seemed to be one step away from her, eluding her attempts to achieve it.  The stretch of silent nothing was doing its job of helping to relax her guard, but she knew better than to put it completely down.  The moment she did, the other three would spring something on her. She just knew it.  Where they were right now, she didn’t know; Isabella was pretty sure they had slipped out of the room quietly when her eyes had been closed (How did they do that without making any noise?).  A glance back at the door window proved to be useless.  The hallway outside was pitch dark, even darker than the poorly lit exterior of the school.  They could have been right outside, taking turns and making faces at her, and she probably wouldn’t have been able to see them, not unless they pushed their faces directly against the glass pane.
What are you three up to?
Another noise in the lab answered her.
Drip.
It was subtle, barely noticeable.  Had Isabella been busy with something else, she might not have paid attention to it.  
Drip.
She furrowed her brow in confusion.  Had she just missed hearing it?  Did she have her mind wrapped up in so much imaginary terror that she had become oblivious to the sound.
Drip-drip.
No.  The sound was new, fresh.
Drip-drip-drip.
One of the lab faucets was letting out water.  
As Isabella turned her head to look, the drip increased to a trickle-a tickling sound of wetness splashing against stainless steel.  She could see it: a stream falling from the faucet furthest away from her, sparkling with the light from the nearest trio of candles.  Before she could decide whether or not to get up and investigate, the trickle gave way to a steady stream, then a hissing, furious roar of water.  
Isabella could feel her breathing beginning to speed up, could feel her skin beginning to mist over with sweat again.  Nobody was turning on the water.  For that matter, she couldn’t tell whether or not the valves were being turned at all.  
“Nice trick.”  She mumbled, although the assurance she was trying to give herself did not help.  Inside, her heart started to beat quickly again.  If Brandon, Carrie, and Cheryl were behind this, they would have to be applauded for how well they set this up.
Wait a minute.  What do you mean “if”?  Of course they’re behind this!  They have to be!  How else could this happen?
A dark corner of her mind volunteered to answer that question, but Isabella silenced it.  She wasn’t interested in hearing alternative explanations.
The faucet stream ended in an abrupt cutoff, and the shroud of still silence settled upon the room once again.  But there was something different now, something Isabella didn’t realize until just now.  The faucet had distracted her from another change, a more subtle one.  What was it?
She looked around, looking for the other change.  She found it.
The three candles in the corner of the room behind her and to her right were no longer burning.
Her heart began to knock on her chest, asking to come out.

**

Eleven-nineteen.
The silence.  
That was what Isabella hated.  The silence, the waiting.  The time between the strange occurrences in which nothing at all happened.  It built up within her a tense anticipation, almost begging for whatever was going to happen to just happen.  Get it out of the way, and let her scream.  Let her jump ten feet high in the air, let it happen now.  Not eleven-thirty, now.   For a brief, fleeting second, she wondered whether or not the other three were just going to let nothing at all happen at eleven-thirty, instead trying to get Isabella to just scare herself.  Maybe that had been their plan all along, so they could prove that Isabella was just a little fraidy-cat, like everybody at school thought.  
Well good luck on that… I’m not going to give them that satisfaction.  Right, Isabella?
She had almost convinced herself of it.
Another loss of light grabbed her attention.  Another set of candles going out?
No.  The nine remaining candles still burned.  It was a different light which was dying.
The streetlamp outside.
The glowing blue ball hanging from its post was fading, dimming down.  Now how did they do that? Isabella thought to herself.  No, she decided, that couldn’t be them.  Had to be coincidence.  They’re creative, clever, but even that was beyond them.  It had to be.
The lamp winked out.
Before Isabella, the windows transformed into panels of thick, impenetrable blackness.  No candlelight reflected on the glass panes.  Instead, the windows seemed to absorb the light into the solid tar on the other side.  The dark swallowed up any sense of depth or distance, instead pressing inward, cutting Isabella off from the rest of the world.  She was submerged in liquid night.
She would drown in it.  She was sure of it.
A fluttering orange trio was extinguished.  This time, it was the set of candles over by the sink, where the faucet had been running.  The already weak candlelight weakened even more.  Shadows boldly expanded and hovered; massive geometric holes that cut through the shine cast from the small flames.
Isabella took in a slow breath, realizing that her bottom lip quivered as she did so.  Wet blurriness rimmed her eyelids. 
I won’t start crying.  I won’t start crying….
She sniffed hard, wiping the back of her sweatshirt sleeve against her face.  Drying tears left cold streaks on her cheeks.  
The blue streetlamp exploded to life.
Isabella gasped, then took a calming exhale, then caught her breath before finishing it.
There was somebody outside, under the streetlamp.
Isabella leaned forward, squinting.  Somebody was there, standing still, arms at his-or her-sides.  The person was standing square to her, although she could not tell whether she was seeing the figure’s front side or back side.  All that could be made out was a dark silhouette, outlined in frozen blue light.
A silhouette without a head.
“No…” Isabella whispered.  “I’m looking at him wrong.”
But her eyes didn’t lie to her.  Where there should have been a rounded form between two shoulders, there was nothing.
Cyrus Jones.
The name came to her as soon as the realization of what she was seeing hit her.  The farmer who had been found in the middle of his own corn field, mysteriously decapitated.  The farmer who, according to local lore, stalks this area after dark, in search of his head.
The sound of loud panting hit Isabella’s ears.  She snapped to her right, expecting somebody there.  Nobody.  Her left now; still nobody.  
The panting was her own breathing: rushed, hurried, frightened.
She looked back at the unmoving figure, brain working overtime to bring logic into this situation, and also to shift her thoughts from adrenaline-pumping fright.
Brandon.  That’s gotta be Brandon out there.
Had to be.  He’s doing that.  The figure appeared to have a similar build to her tall male friend.  
Yeah.  That’s him.  All he has to do is lean his head forward far enough, and from here it looks as if he’s headless.
Sure, that made sense.  It had better make sense, or Isabella was going to scream and cry.
The streetlamp flickered, then went out again.  Before Isabella could react, the blue illumination reignited at full power.
The headless figure was no longer there.

**
Eleven twenty-nine.
Only three candles remained lit-those were in the front left corner of the lab, with little more than half an inch remaining on each wax cylinder.  The rest had made a clumpy mess of a frozen wax puddle on their resting places.  
Isabella had had enough.
“Ummm...” she started with a weak voice, “Guys…. I don’t wanna do this.”
No response.  No faucet turning on.  No headless figure outside.
“Guys!”  She called out. “Did you hear me?  I’m done!  C’mon out!”
Still nothing.
Alright, now what?  Were they even in the room?
Isabella bit her lip.  The dread coming upon her caused her head to feel light.  She turned around completely, expecting Brandon, Cheryl, and Carrie to be there, having possibly entered the room in stealth, maybe ready to slap their hands on her shoulders and scream in her ears as soon as the clock alarm went off.  
But nobody was there.
A gust of chilled wind hit Isabella in the face.  The unexpected sensation made her shiver, forcing her eyes to squint shut for a split second.
Open eyes revealed an almost pitch-dark room.
The final candles had burned out.
Isabella clenched her teeth, turning back toward the clock.  Still one minute left.
Be ready for it, Isabella.
Quick and shallow puffs of air entered and exited her nose and mouth.  A tear ran down the left cheek.
It’s gonna happen… They’re gonna do it, and I’m gonna cry.  No.  I WON’T cry!  I WON’T be scared!
But her body did not share that push of mental resolution.  The shakes started in her chest, queasiness in her stomach.
The clock still did not change.
Arms and fingers channeled the shuddering feeling.  Fear quaked her wrists, trembled her fingers.
“No…” she sobbed.
Eleven twenty-nine.
Now the tears flowed freely.  A piece of bravery washed away with each one.
The clock went blank.
Despite her sobs and terror, Isabella found this odd.  What happened? Did it become unplugged?  Did it just die on her own?
Did something pass in front of the face of the clock?
Eleven-thirty.  A pleasant chime sounded off.
Isabella let out a yelp, eyes darting this way and that, watching the deep shadows of the lab, looking for something or someone to jump out.
Nothing.
Eleven-thirty.
She slouched in her chair, taking in a deep, relieving breath that was interrupted by convulsing sobs.  She shut her eyes, pressing her lips together.  A joke… a big joke.  That’s all it was.
She smiled, letting out a laugh.  Another laugh.  Tension lifted from her body.
Isabella’s eyes opened in grateful satisfaction-
-and froze.
Her mouth opened the rest of the way and screamed.
In front of her were three faces, pale.  The middle face was that of a boy-Brandon.  Carrie and Cheryl, with their familiar hair.  Ruby red eyes devoid of pupils stared at her above noses that seemed to be flattened and turned up, bearing a vague resemblance to the snout of a pig.  Below each nose was an open-mouthed grin, the corners of the lips extending past the borders of each face, giving them a grotesque, surreal appearance.  Guarding the entrance to each black throat were two rows of crooked shards of teeth.
The faces floated toward her, accompanied by six gnarled, talon-tipped hands.
Isabella fell back in the chair, her head bumping against the floor.  Ignoring the shot of pain it sent through her skull, she rolled to the side, pushing herself up, lurching for the door.  Panicked fingers collided with the doorknob, failed to wrap around it the first time, then managed to cling to it and turn it, flinging the door outward into the dark unknown of the hallway.  She didn’t look back; she didn’t dare look back.  Tennis shoe-clad feet made a swift turn to the right, toward one of the dim red Exit signs.
She continued to scream, but the scream was distant in her ears, somebody else’s nightmare, from which she was trying to escape.  Her legs pumped as hard as they could, working against the weight of nighmarish fear that wanted to slow her down.  Shadows passed her: doors, lockers, walls, all blurring by in black and blacker forms.
She turned the corner.  Three glowing faces greeted her.
Isabella screamed again, piercing her own ears, hands flying into her face.
Two hands gripped her shoulders.
“Izzy!” a heavy voice called.
“Nooo!” She cried, bursting into another round of sobs.
“Izzy, what’s wrong?” came a feminine voice.
The hands were not digging into her, were not tearing her apart.
With a reluctant upturning of her head, away from her palms, Isabella looked through saltwater-drowned pupils at the faces.
Brandon.  Cheryl.  Carrie.  All normal.  All faces wearing concern instead of malevolence.
“Did the alarm already go off?”  Carrie asked.
Isabella could only sob in reply.
Cheryl looked at Brandon “I told you we took too long!”
The tall young man shrugged his shoulders. “Sor-ry!” he shot back in annoyance.  
Cheryl put her arm around Izzy’s shoulders.  “What happened, Izzy?”  she asked.
Isabella continued her sobs.  “That… wasn’t… funny.”  
“What?  Izzy, did something catch fire?”
“You know what you did!” Isabella snapped defiantly.  “And it wasn’t funny at all!”
Cheryl, Carrie, and Brandon exchanged looks with each other.  “Izzy, we were down by Mr. Evans’ room.”
“Yeah, right!” the short, terrified girl wiped her face away with the back of her sleeve.  “You know what?  This is garbage!  You hear me? Garbage!”
“He’s telling the truth!”  Carrie protested, “We were-“
“Shut up!”
The angry command carried with it an urgent sense of dread, so pained and agonized that the other three dared not argue with it.
 Isabella sniffed hard, glaring at them with malcious intensity. “Just shut up! I want to go home! Now!”
Cheryl removed her arm, stepping back.  “Alright.  Let’s go to the lab and-“
“No!  Not the lab!  Some other way out of here!”
“That’s the only way out, Izzy.”  Brandon replied, “Unless you intend to set off an alarm.”
Isabella pressed her lips together, mulling this over.  “Fine.”  She stammered.  “I’m going.”
Carrie jerked a thumb toward the dark hallway from which they had just come.  “Let me go get something out of my locker, and then we’ll go.”
“Forget it!” Isabella pulled away from the other three.  “You go get your stuff on your own!  I’m leaving without you!  Don’t leave for another five minutes, until I’m gone!”
“What about spending the night with us?”
“I’m going home!”
“Are you sure you want to-“
She turned her back on them. “I’ll walk it!”
**
Isabella entered the unlit lab again.  All quiet; no strange happenings or faces were there to greet her.  She was grateful for that, and didn’t intend to stay in there long enough to wait for any.  Whether real tricks played by the other three, or phantasms conjured up by her own untrustworthy imagination; she wanted no more of them.  The fright had been enough for one night.  Enough for several nights, in fact.
Her heart was just about to normal now, as was the rest of her body, almost completely free of the shakes by now.  Good for that.  Maybe she could call up one of her cheerleader friends and catch up with them. They might still be out on the town somewhere, chasing after Barry Silvers.  Why not join in the hunt?  A wry smile crossed her face at that thought.   
Yeah-let’s call them.  As soon as she leaves the building.  The fear factor aside, cellphones just didn’t work well in the school.
She popped open one of the sliding windows, inserting her leg into the gap.  One of the few times she was thankful for her petite body; it permitted her to make a job like this easy, whereas somebody Brandon’s size would have to wiggle and squirm his way out of here.  
Out she went, touching down on the ground.  A brief glance back into the room revealed it as still quiet.  The other three had not yet followed her.  Good.  The further away they were right now, the better.  Who cared whether or not they talked about her as being a fraidy-cat Monday?  For that matter, even explaining this whole mess to her parents wasn’t a worry for her to thnk about right now.  There was time to explain that later.  She just wanted to leave this place.
And leave it she would.
Her hand plunged into her pocket, pulling out the cellphone. Tara’s number was on speed dial, so getting a hold of her and hearing the comforting voice of a friend would be only a matter of seconds.
She had just pressed the dial button when the gnarled, talon-tipped hand came down on her shoulder.

**

Dear Reader,

I want to thank you for taking the time to enjoy my short story, and hope that you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.  This story will be included as part of a future short story collection, which will be distributed on digital text in the next few months.  If you liked this story, please feel free to let me know by leaving me a comment on  or personal Email at   .  I appreciate your feedback and also invite you to check out the first novel of my epic series, , also available on Smashwords.

Sincerely,
J. Dean

About the Author
J. Dean is the author of the Vein project, his first serious venture into the realm of professional writing. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he teaches foreign language in public school and also gives private tutoring sessions, but is hoping that the Vein project will serve as a springboard for becoming a full-time writer. Mr. Dean plays bass guitar and co-writes music for the progressive rock band Episodic, and enjoys other hobbies such as target shooting, martial arts, and cuisine experimentation in the kitchen. He and his wife have two children and live in Michigan.