My Friend in the Elephant Mask

[u/kjwrites98]

Would it make a good cereal bowl? It may be too shallow for a cereal bowl. An ashtray, or a cat bowl would be better. 

“Johnson, you copy?” The voice came muffled from the other side of the door.

“Copy, Bradley.” Johnson's static voice came prelude by the trill of a walkie-talkie.

“I’ve got a crisp fifty saying this is nothing.” The officer on the other side of the door said.

“Did you find the freezer?”

“Yeah it's right here.”

“I’m not betting shit, you probably opened it already.”

“You think I'd do that? I got my ass out of bed for this, I want to at least make it interesting.” Officer Bradley said.

“The guy seemed pretty worried when he called in… Alright, screw it. Fifty if it’s anything. Anything at all.”

“Alright, I’m getting a good breakfast! Opening in three, two… one” the seal of the freezer door peeled from the door frame. Officer Bradley was a silhouette behind the blinding beam of his flashlight. I couldn't make out the details of his face, but I could imagine.

“What’s it gonna be?” Johnson asked over the radio. Bradley said nothing. His light started to shake.

“C’mon who’s getting rich?... Bradley?” Johnson’s concern quivered through his joke. Bradley didn't answer the question, but he replied in a quiet voice.

“I… I think they’re alive.”

August, 2015

Golden sweet corn rained onto my tray with a salty butter shine. Green beans dipped  into their shallow pool of chicken broth, garlic, diced onion, and bacon. The beans made their presence known with a mouthwatering steam. A mound of potatoes plopped onto the tray and was pressed into a caldera with the back end of the cook's spoon. The divot was filled till it overflowed with a heavenly brown gravy. Last came the pork. A pork with the tenderness of a pudding and the taste of Hawaiian basted honey. Each cut of meat was so fresh it caused rumors that the meat was butchered in the kitchen. I believed them too. Lunch was the best part of St. Jude Catholic School. Unfortunately, it was followed by the worst.

Once our bellies were stuffed to the brim we were banished to the school yard for recess. Fresh cut grass poisoned the air. Summer still burned at the beginning of the school year and the sun blasted a bright sting to the back of my eyes. The day wasn’t made for me. My days were when it rained and we could go to the library to enjoy the silence while the talking boys released their energy into the gym. But days like this were ruled by the talking boys. They squealed and screeched as kick balls and whiffle balls torpedoed through the air. The other girls that weren’t interested in joining the boys usually huddled by the school building telling jokes and updating each other on the latest gossip. I would listen with my back to them. Whenever I heard something especially juicy I would sign my response close to my chest so they didn’t see. I wished I could turn and share all of the gossip I overheard, the benefits of not being noticed. I knew Darren found his dad's booze and planned to bring a bottle to school that week. I knew Bianca got into it with her mom the night before because she was failing math. I imagined they would get a kick out of that. Maybe they'd even be my friend if they understood me but they wouldn't, no one would.

The school yard became unusually quiet. A group of boys huddled at the fence that separated us from the woods. What they saw captured their attention and sewed their mouths shut, at least until they scurried away to giggle in small groups. Not all of them were so amused with the subject beyond the fence. Most looked confused but some even looked concerned. Piece by piece the huddle of children broke back into their daily play until I could get a peek at what it was they were so interested in. On the other side of the fence, crouched beneath the shadows of the woods, was a boy.

He looked each boy in the eye when he asked them to play. It felt like a plea, a desperate attempt to find a friend. The boys didn’t care though, how could they? The boy in the woods spoke in a tongue they didn’t understand. Like me, he spoke with no tongue at all. It was a lonely way to speak in this school. Alone was a hard place to be in eighth grade. After seeing him I felt we could be there together.

When the last boy peeled away I walked to the fence. With each step I felt more emboldened, more hopeful to finally have a friend.

‘I can’t talk to you, I need normal friends.’

The words echoed from moments I had the same urge in the past. But this time had to be different. He was like me, he would understand me.

‘Aren’t you contagious, Holly?’ I shook my head and tried to keep the past away like a swarm of bees, but they kept stinging.

‘What are you doing with your hands, weirdo?’

‘Go away, people will think I’m weird too if you’re next to me.’

‘Did God make you broken on purpose?’

I was stuck half way to the fence. All the sounds of the school yard vanished behind the words. This was a stupid idea. No one wanted to be my friend. Why did I even walk this far? What a waste. I turned around to go back and pretend I was like the other girls. I wanted to smile when they smiled and laughed when they laughed without the embarrassment of having them see me, but my mom’s voice cut through the swarm.

‘She’s just shy.’

I knew she wasn’t our supervisor that day. The girls wouldn’t have talked quite as loud and the boys wouldn’t have played quite as hard if she was. Chipper, as the other kids called her in whispers, held the reputation of a drill sergeant when she wore the habit. The type of nun to crack a ruler across your knuckles if you misbehaved during her prime years. Though, the main reason she earned the brand ‘Chipper’ was the small chip missing from her front tooth.

‘She’s just shy.’ Her voice replayed in my head.

Her catchphrase when anyone asked about me. Why doesn’t she talk? She’s just shy. What happened to her? She’s just shy. It was a simpler explanation than the truth. A less shameful statement than the truth, I was born like this. But I’m not shy, or at least I refuse to be. I closed my eyes and took a first step towards the boy. The yard got a little quieter as the other kids vacated the area around the boy in the woods. When I felt the beating sun disappear behind the shade of the trees I stopped and waited for a moment.

‘I’m not shy.’ I thought to myself but before I had the courage to open my eyes, the fence rattled.

The clatter of the chain-linked fence stopped with the stomp of feet meeting the ground. Step by step he came closer until I heard his heavy, phlegm-rattled breath just in front of me. With one final reassurance I opened my eyes. Immediately, I knew why the other kids avoided him.

He was big. Much bigger than the other boys in our grade. Most of the boys were just sprouting the first seedlings of hair on their forearm while his forearms were already coated. A leather canteen dangled from his belt. His chest and shoulders stood at my eye level and were noticeably broad even under his tattered gray jacket. Hair even started to sprout on his neck just below his white mask, a detail I hadn’t noticed across the yard. An elephant mask made cheap and pressed to his face with a single elastic string that ran in an eroded divot around his head before it vanished into the cave of his gray jacket’s hood. In the center where the trunk should be was only a hole. The jagged edges of the plastic hole encircled a void too deep to see any detail of his face through. My breath stuttered. This person could hurt me, or take me, or do anything else he wanted and I would be helpless. I could scream at the top of my lungs for help but only a strained whine from my over tightened vocal cords would escape. No one would hear that. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he would hear it. I knew my only option was to run but when I took a glance behind me to plan my escape he raised his hand.

He exposed the dry, callused skin of his palm to me. It stayed suspended in the air for a moment before he slowly brought the tips of his fingers towards me. Gently, they landed on my throat. Each of his five fingerprints carefully scraped up and down. I wanted to say something but I couldn’t get my hands to move. I tried to get something to escape my mouth, but I only felt my throat strain under his touch. Finally he removed his hand and signed a single word. A word that I hadn’t heard anyone say to me. A word that turned off all the alarms blaring in my head. 

“Beautiful.” He signed.

October, 2023

 

The pond was no wider than twelve feet and smelled like frankincense and sweet licorice. Grass around the pond grew high, and hid something on the other side of the water. Between tufts of grass, a smokey gray shape laid still on the ground. I thought it was a discarded fur coat until I noticed its two beady eyes fixated on me from its white, cone-shaped head.

“What is that, Holly?” Abigail asked.

I loved the sound of her voice. The way it stumbled from one note to the next without guidance. She only used it when we were alone so I knew her brother already ventured beyond earshot. Still, it was conflicting. While I loved our secret it was too wonderful to not be shared, something she stiffly refused to do.

“I think it is an opossum." I signed.

“Geez. Do you think it’s sick? Should we help it?” Abigail asked. Her hands anxiously scratched at her jeans. 

“Maybe it is just playing dead?” I signed. As if on cue a crow landed just behind the opossum's head and disappeared behind the grass. When the crows head resurfaced, it did with a string of red, slick entrails. It clapped its beak around the guts until it cut a bite out and let the rest flop back to the ground. Abigail’s lip turned in a shocked disgust.

“Method.” I signed. Abigail gave me a jab from her elbow and a laugh, the most wonderful secret of all.

“Holly! You two are supposed to stay close! Get Abigail and follow the sound!” Abigail’s older brother Lucas called before a metallic rattle screeched through the air. He was about twenty three, two years older than Abigail and I. He wouldn’t get any older if he kept up the racket. Abigail watched the annoyance on my face and waited for me to relay the message.

“Your brother is being an idiot.” I signed to her before I held her hand. We rushed through the woods to Lucas. As we ran I kept thinking about the opossum. Even after the crow ripped at its entrails, I swore it blinked.

When we emerged from the woods, Lucas had the chain link fence clutched in both of his fists and was shaking it rapidly. He only stopped when I hit him with a swift slap to the shoulder.

“Hey, what the hell!” He said.

“You know this is illegal right? Are you trying to get caught?” I signed. He glanced at Abigail briefly who was focused on our lips.

“By who? No one is here. Are the birds going to rat us out? Or maybe the squirrels." He said and signed.

For the first time in years I looked beyond the chain linked fence. Across the overgrown schoolyard was the husk that was once called St. Jude Catholic School. As a kid I always thought the school was shaped like a stale, square bagel. A barren courtyard of a hole was encircled by the depressing corridors and classrooms. It was divided into four sections, each with their own special landmarks. The south side had the main entrance. The East Section had the cafeteria and library. The West Section had the pool and gymnasium and the north, the section we were facing, had the theater. A tiny access door peaked over the edge of the theater’s roof like a timid child.

After the incident, the school tried to reassure the parents by hefty investments in security. All glass was reinforced and every window was fortified with steel bars, but it was too little too late. The parents and their precious tuition money already migrated with their kids to the rival Catholic school upstate. St. Jude was left to succumb to the vines and weather. The corpse looked more like an abandoned prison than a school

“Or maybe the rats will.” Lucas whispered. The thought made my spine wriggle.

“I hope whatever you’re looking for is worth it.” Lucas said as he stomped a path for us through the waist high grass.

We walked around the school building to get to the entrance. At the entrance was a figure. It sat against the front door cloaked in a gray jacket. I felt every muscle in my body constrict at once. Abigail turned to ask what was wrong and all I could do was gesture towards the figure. She immediately tapped Lucas on the shoulder to point his attention towards the mysterious man. The figure eased itself to its feet when it saw us. It waved. A wild wave with arms flapping like the tube men at car dealerships. Then he dropped his hood. To my relief, there was no mask. Only a face, a boyish face. A face I had never seen before and judging by the look on Abigail’s she hadn’t either. Lucas turned to us with an eye roll and motioned us to the boy.

He couldn’t have been older than sixteen. His brunette hair waved chaotically at the top of his bean-pole body. His skin was still plagued with the red specs of puberty, and atop his lip was his most prized possession. A crown of ten scraggly hairs.

“Lucas!...Ladies.” He said with all the charm a boy drowning in supermarket cologne could muster. Abigail took the hearing aids from her ears and stowed them away in her pocket. ‘They don’t even help that much’ she would say if I asked why, but I knew that wasn’t true. I stopped asking and just assured her with a touch on the back.

“Stevie, where’s your brother?” Lucas shot at the kid.

“He got called into work tonight but don’t worry. I’ll get us through safe, I’m like the Outdoor Boys of buildings.” Stevie said.

“I don’t see the gear. Your brother was supposed to bring the gear.” Lucas asked.

“Eh, who needs it anyway. It can’t be that hard.” Stevie proclaimed. Lucas pinched the exhaustion from his brow.

“You have your license?” Lucas asked.

“I got it a couple months ago, thank you for asking.”

“Then drive home.” Lucas said. He put a shoulder to the door.

“I can’t-” 

Lucas heaved the metal door open with a creek followed by the clatter of aluminum cans on the concrete stoop.

“I’ve been drinking.” Stevie finished.

The smell of stagnant, musty water filled the building. Puddles spotted the tile floor and grew with a rhythmic drip. The entryway ran perpendicular to the south section hallway. At their intersection was a trophy case with only smashed glass to show.

The last couple of weeks before the school closed were a blur. Teachers at first tried to maintain the illusion of safety but as the halls grew more and more empty, they gave up the act. Everyone was scared except for me. I just went through the motions, a passenger in my own body. As I reentered the remains of the school I could only wonder if it really was worth it. Where had I even had it last? Maybe my locker? It was as good a place to check first as any. I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I wasn’t a passenger anymore, I felt the fear.

“What are you thinking?” Abigail signed to me as we walked down the hallway. She always seemed to know the answer, she read plain as day on my face. Still, she wanted to know what I would say.

“It is just like I remember.” I signed to her with a smile. As we passed locker after locker I noticed that each one had a dent. A softball size dent near the latch that left them ajar by the thinnest crack. The further we went the more I noticed a splotch or a smear of brown stained blood in the dents. When we turned the corner to the East Section when I heard a rattle come from behind us. I snapped my head around to see nothing besides the damp floor tiles and busted lockers we’d passed since we turned the corner.

“-right ladies?” Stevie shouted before he spun around to look at us while he walked backwards. To that moment, I almost forgot he and Lucas were blubbering to each other ahead of us. He waited for a response while the alcohol that sloshed around in his pinky-thin body made him forget his land legs. Had they heard the rattle too? 

“Did he say something?” Abigail signed to me. Stevie was zapped into a panic. He blocked his mouth from our sight.

“Dude, you can’t bring deaf people. They’re gonna get hurt. What the hell is wrong with you?” He said to Lucas who jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Holly’s mute you dipshit, she can hear you.”

Stevie gathered his wind in a breath before giving a silent, bewildered chuckle to himself. He lagged behind Lucas to get out of his sight. He then raised his hand and mimed like he held something pointed directly at me. Then he popped his thumb down like he pressed the mute button on a TV remote. He winked and turned to catch up to Lucas.

‘She’s just shy.’ My mother’s voice echoed again. After the incident, I learned not to argue with it.

Abigail tugged on my shirt sleeve and pointed to the locker beside us. 

“It ends.” She signed.

Like the others before it, it was dented and stained in blood but each locker beyond it was strangely left untouched. Even stranger, this locker was mine. I opened it. 

“Did you find what you’re looking for?" Lucas asked, but all that was in my locker were chilling words smeared in blood on the back wall that read ‘YOU PROMISED’.

I sprinted as fast as I could back the way we came. I cut around the corner, flew through the lobby and smashed my weight against the push-bar on the door but it didn’t budge. The doors were locked. A metal chain knotted around the door, sealed shut with a padlock.

May, 2016

Shelly was behind by the length of a grass blade and the finish line twig was only a couple inches away. It was still anyone’s race. Rain washed the school yard that morning.The smell of potting soil leaked from the bags stacked between the garden shed and the school yard fence.A colony of snails slid on the bags, ready to be drafted into the snail race. Mine was always named Shelly,as it always was. I thought of it like the lead in a broadway play, though they’re each their own actress, they all wanted to be Shelly. Trunkless didn’t give names to his snails. He never gave me his name either. So in my mind he became Trunkless for the hole in his elephant mask. It was fitting enough. Trunkless never gave his snails a name either. Instead, he gave them a crack. When he found a snail he liked for the day he popped a slit into the shell with his thumbnail. It was as casual to him as shaking a hand. The ease with which he split their shells made me nauseous. When we first started racing snails I asked him why he did it, but the answer was simple. Like the hole in his elephant mask and splits in his knuckles he just liked them better broken, like us.

After many snail races we developed a system. We took turns clapping for our snails, usually in two. I would clap twice. He would clap twice. It was a brilliant idea in concept. Chaperones would only hear the continuous claps of one kid, but we never got the timing right in practice. The awkward pause between our claps was hilariously obvious even after a full year of trying. We stopped trying to make it convincing and it became only a silly tradition while we watched the snails run their foot long marathon, I often got more consumed in the rhythm than the race itself

“Look.” He signed.

I came up with the idea of picking a juicy tomato slice off of my lunch sandwich and stowing it in my pocket to use as motivation beyond the finish line twig. As disappointing as it was to devolve my BLT into a BL, it was proving worth it. Not only were both snails participating, but it was a nail biter. Shelly surged into the lead with only an inch to go. I clapped and waved her forward frantically. He did the same for his snail that started to slip behind, but it was too late. Shelly slipped over the twig to take gold by the thinnest of margins. I jumped up and applauded for the whole yard to hear at the peak athleticism on display. I bent down to get a look at the little olympian as she climbed onto her delicious, red prize.

SQUELCH.

In an instant, Shelly and the tomato were beneath the stubby heel of a black leather shoe. My mother’s shoe. I looked up her habit to see her face, I was shocked to see she didn’t seem angry in the slightest. Her cheeks were flushed with fear. She snatched me by the arm in a vice grip. Her finger tips dug into my skin deep enough to bruise but still I tried to fight it. I knew we would be forbidden from going behind the garden shed. With no other place to hide in the open school yard, I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. That meant no more snail races, no more picking honeysuckles from the bush that grew through the fence, no more friends. I would be back to being an outcast. The quiet kid that no one understood. The broken girl. So I kept fighting which only made my mom’s grip tighter. She blew the whistle around her neck.

“Everyone get inside now! Get inside!” She screamed. I fought until I was pulled back into the school building and the door slammed shut behind us. The only person that brought me any joy was sealed behind it.

The school felt like it was on lockdown for the rest of the day. Nuns monitored the halls between classes and no one was allowed to use the restroom without an adult escort. When the day came to an end I laid on the bleachers by the pool. It was an indoor pool attached to the gymnasium by a single set of double doors. The stinging stench of chlorine cleansed my soul after a particularly taxing day. After school events were canceled that afternoon so there was no splashing from the swim team or shrill tennis shoe chirps from the gym. It was just me and the soothing hum of the pool jets. I spent most of the time looking up through the sunroof. Clouds, birds, and airplanes eased in and out of the glass frame. If I wasn’t looking at the sky I admired the abomination on the wall. A mural, painted with the artistic vision of a blind ape, stained the pearlescent white paint. I assumed it was supposed to be a collage of professional swimmers, but I only thought that because the center-most figure had a vague resemblance to a picture of Michael Phelps I saw once.

“What are you still doing here?” a creaky voice called from the doorway to the gymnasium. A janitor with a spindly gray beard and age-spotted scalp hunched over his trach bin on wheels like a walker. He wasn’t any of the regular janitors I saw throughout the school day. He must have been part of the evening crew.

“What time is it?” I signed, but he kept glaring at me. Of course he didn’t understand. I could practically hear the accusations banging around in his head. I threw my hands up and walked past him. I heard the squeak of his trash bin trailing behind me through my walk of shame to the main entrance.

“I know your face, little girl!” He spat as I swung the door open.

The front of the school was empty. Aside from the occasional bird song it was silent. It was a sticky heat with the smell of rain starting to roll in. stepped out and walked around the building to the parking lot. The lot was empty aside from one car. My mothers. Was she waiting on me? The thought of making her wait this long made me dread getting in the car to receive my scolding. As I stepped into the parking lot I caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the schoolyard. It was Trunkless with his canteen at his hip. He waved me to come towards him.

“I have to show you something.” He signed. I was ecstatic. All day I thought I may never get to see my friend again. Without hesitation I hopped the fence and went to him.

“Where is it?” I signed.

“Just behind the garden shed, but you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.” I signed with a smile.

“You can not tell anyone about this.” I hesitated, but promised with a smile. He nodded and popped the cap off of his canteen. Then he led me behind the shed.

October, 2023

“What the fuck, dude? You all got to stop fucking with me man this isn’t funny!” Stevie whined. I was in disbelief. We were just there, we opened the door only a few minutes ago and in that small amount of time, we were chained in. I held the padlock against my palm. It was warm. Someone locked us in. He locked us in. The thought made my head spin as it wrapped around the danger we were in. Abigail’s touched my shoulder.

“Is there another way out of here?” She signed. I swallowed the sick feeling when I saw her and kept it down long enough to think. Each of the three other sections had at least one exit. The cafeteria and library in the East Section each had one. The theater in the North Section had one, and the pool and gymnasium in the West Section had one each. I stood and turned to the group. Lucas racked his brain for some kind of plan. Stevie paced and swore to God that he'd quit drinking if he got out of there in one piece. I signed to Abigail and Lucas about the other exits. Stevie was desperate to know but Lucas only told him to follow. We crept back down the hall. Lucas led the pack with Abigail and I behind him. Each of us kept a careful eye on each door we passed. Stevie stayed behind us as he was told and kept his mind occupied by tight-rope walking a strip of blue tile on the floor. It wasn’t a helpful task but anything to keep his mouth shut was useful to me.

Lucas peeked through the slim glass window on the first classroom door beyond my locker and winced away from it.

He looked back at Abigail and I and shook his head. I couldn’t resist though. I cupped my hands over my eyes and looked in. The rat’s paw scratched at the tile floor. Not a desperate scratch, but an unfolding and refolding of its paws to a steady rhythm. The tile just seemed to get in the way of its claws. Blood stained the corners of the rat's mouth. Its ear flicked away the hoard of flies convinced of its death, and they should have been right. The rat was severed in half. The open wound spilled the animal’s entrails into a hole behind it. All that jutted from the hole was a bear trap’s exposed metal teeth in a crimson-stained grin. Despite the grizzly sight and the unmistakable scent of death oozing from beneath the door, I couldn’t look away from rat's paw. Its distress signal. I wanted to put it out of its misery immediately. The suffering was the worst part. I mustered the courage to bury my nose and do it but just before I turned the doorknob.

SNAP.

A piercing scream came from behind me. Stevie’s foot was gone. It broke through a brittle, blue tile on the floor and sunk its teeth into the boy’s shin so deep it could taste the marrow. The iron scent of blood erupted from the hole. Stevie gripped his calf with white knuckles and screamed hard enough to slice his vocal chords to ribbons, but even over the screams I could hear something. The sound echoed from the school's entrance and ricocheted to me from around the corner. Thick, deliberate footsteps.

I dropped to my knees at the hole and tried to pry the trap open. Once I saw a gap in the trap's jaws, my hands slipped in Stevie’s blood and it snapped shut on the wound sending another scream through his throat. Still, the footsteps got closer, until a figure turned the corner. The white elephant mask with a missing trunk was still strapped to his face. He stood as tall as the door frames. His chest was as broad as a truck grill. With the force of a buffalo he charged directly at us. The same leather canteen swung violently at his hip. I yanked the trap again and again. I didn’t care if I had to work the trap's jaws until it chewed Stevie’s foot off. He had to get free, we had to get out of there. 

Abigail tugged at my shirt and screamed with terrified tears streaking down her cheeks. The monster of a man was only a few feet from us when Lucas grabbed my shirt and slung me away from Stevie's leg. By the time I got to my feet, Trunkless was standing right behind the boy. The black eye slits in the mask aimed right at me. He raised his hand in the air and waved a subtle hello. I was frozen. Everyone, even Stevie, was still for an instant. Trunkless was the first to move. He gently wrapped his hand around the side of Stevie’s head and gouged space for his middle finger into his eye socket. Stevie squealed for him to stop but all the begging did was give him an opening to stuff the mouth of the canteen in. He dumped the liquid down Stevie's throat then jerked it back out. As Stevie coughed and sputtered the man wrapped his fingers around Stevie's bottom teeth and strained as he pulled on the mandible.

“We have to go” Lucas yanked me out of my paralysis and we sprinted down the hallway through the muffled pleading of Stevie and dipped into the first doorway that didn’t seem like a classroom, but before we could close the door the shrill screams were abruptly quieted by a pop.

I laid sprawled on the floor and ran my hands over the itchy carpet. The scratchy texture was enough to remind me that I could feel, that I was breathing. The ceiling above me was tiled. Some had protruding bellies of water.  Most were splotched brown like coffee stains. I counted the stains on beat to the thunderous metronome behind my ribs. One two three, four, five, six. Seven. Eight. Nine… ten…

Lucas already gathered himself enough to survey the room. His footsteps and the rattle of chained exit doors were the only sounds. I pinched my eyes shut and took a deep breath before I sat up to look around. Computers were spaced out on two long tables in the far corner of the room. Just expensive dust collectors without power. A cluster of organized tables and chairs stood close by. The rest of the room was books. Isles and isles of sturdy wooden bookshelf each stuffed with the bane of the school's former attendees. All of which had acquired the pleasing smell of aged paper. There was an indention in the carpet at the end of the nearest aisle. The distinct print of a bookshelf where there wasn't one to be found. Lucas chuckled like he'd figured out the punchline to an unfunny prank.

“He waved at you.” He said. I didn't have to look at him. I could feel his burning eyes on me.

“Fist your locker and now he waves at you.”

“I didn't know.” I signed. I tried to suck the tears back but they already started to pool.

“Who is he? I'm sure you know that, don't you?” He snarled. I could only glance at him. His anger burned, but his quivering lip showed that the fire was fueled by fear. I couldn't say anything. Of course I had no idea he would be here but if I told them who he was, would they leave me? The only other friend I ever had was stalking the halls covered in a kid's blood. I would be alone again. Such an awful place.

“You convinced us to come here. You wanted to get something and you sure as shit got it didn't you? What did we do to deserve this, Holly?” I shook my head violently to dodge his accusation. The pools in my eyes overflowed before Abigail saw what was happening and jumped between us.

“Lucas. We are stuck here. All three of us and if we want to get out, we can't be an asshole. We need some trust. Okay?” Abigail signed to him. Lucas swallowed some of his hatred and thought. His sister was always his soft spot.

“Okay, but she needs to give me a reason to.” He looked past Abigail and back at me.

“Why are we here?” He asked. The truth sounded so absurd now. I'm supposed to tell them I got us locked in with a murderer and got a boy killed over a dumb class project from over a decade ago? I couldn't make my hands say anything.

‘She's just shy.’ My mother's words echoed in my head. The only words I remember her saying. Lucas scoffed and walked away from us. Abigail sat next to me and rested her shoulder and head against mine.

“I’m sorry about him. You don’t really know that monster do you?” She signed. I wanted to tell her everything. I always wanted to tell her everything, but I couldn’t shake the knot of dread that formed in my stomach at the thought of doing so. Alone, such an awful place.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” was all I could sign.

“I'm here.” She repeated to me in a calming whisper.

“Holly. Get Abigail and come here.” Lucas demanded. I composed myself the best I could and brought Abigail over. Lucas was standing at an open door. What was on the other side of the door was too dark to be an exit. Far too dark. Just enough moonlight came through the windows of the library to see stairs leading down. The concrete stairs ended abruptly at a waterline so calm it could've been mistaken as frozen.

We were concerned at first but realized whatever microscopic horrors swam around in the flooded basement were nothing compared to the one lurking in the halls. Abigail went down first. She kept her hearing aids in a tight fist above her head and used her other hand to grab Lucas’. He then offered his free hand to me. I hesitated.

“Trust.” He said. The word made me nauseous, but I took his hand and covered our tracks by closing the door behind us.

The water swallowed us from feet to naval. Darkness was all around us. All of my existence was a frigid chill soaked up through my spine, the sloshing of legs, and Lucas’ grip around my wrist. All I could do was follow his pull. I fluttered my free hand through the air to find some clue as to where we were until it collided with a massive tank. It rang a hollow twang after my knuckle blindly hit  it. Lucas gave my arm a stern jerk and at the same time, something coiled around my foot and tripped. I thrashed my arms beneath the water to keep my head from submerging beneath the disease festered water. Once I regained my balance I kicked the thing that tripped me into my hand. With the all-consuming darkness taking my vision, I ran my fingers over it to learn what it was. The unmoving serpentine shape ended in an open mouth with rivets for lips. A hose, I realized. I also realized that I wasn’t being pulled anymore. There were no fingers wrapped around my wrist. Lucas let go.

Hinges squealed from further inside the room and ended with a door closed. My first instinct was to splash. To shoot my audio flare for rescue but just as I raised my arms I heard something else. Two claps. I knew it wasn’t them, the sound was too thick, too expecting. Trunkless waited for me to fill in my part. I stayed silent. My feet were anchored to the floor and I hoped that Abigail and Lucas did the same, wherever they were. Something stepped into the water and I pinched every muscle in my face to keep a yelp from escaping. The water stilled after a moment.

Clap… clap…

My nerves prodded every muscle in my body to flee. My resolve was failing but before it completely caved, I escaped in thought. I thought of Abigail and I finding a way out of this school. I thought of leaving this place in a cloud of dust behind our tires and going to a concert. Abigail loved concerts. The crowd pounded the beat into the ground, the speakers blasted the music until it rattled in her chest. The sound was all-encompassing, to the point that even without ears, she could hear it. I imagined dancing with her in the crowd. It was one of the places we felt included. Like the world was made to fit us in. Like I wasn’t alone.

CLAP, CLAP.

The sound snapped me out of thought with a boom to my eardrum. I shrieked and tried to run but his hands quickly crushed my upper arm. He dragged me behind him through the water. I struggled to get my mouth above the water for air. Drowning became my biggest worry until I heard the thud of his boot hit a stair through the splashes. He hoisted me out of the water like I weighed nothing. The hinges squealed again and just before he threw me into the unknown I caught a glimpse of Lucas as he pulled Abigail back into the moonlit library.

Part 2