(ominous music)
- [Narrator] I never got used to the missing posters.
Those photocopied faces staring back at me
as I locked up my classroom
and headed down the darkened school hallway
of the prestigious school of Avon Manor.
It was late, but extra work meant extra hours,
which meant extra money.
Teachers always needed that,
and lowly teacher's assistants like me,
we needed it even more.
I finished my grading and left the classroom,
walking the darkened hallways of the school.
Only the glow of the exit sign to lead my way.
It should have been scary, but I was too tired
to bother being spooked by the shadows
or the echo of my footsteps.
I passed the bulletin board where pictures
of the missing teachers adorned posters hung haphazardly.
I was used to seeing missing children
on milk cartons and news reports,
but normal, full-grown adults
who've just up and disappeared?
That was another feeling altogether.
There was one for Mr. Lescham,
the boisterous music teacher that I knew
liked to humiliate his students for menial errors.
And another for the missing gym teacher, Mr. Morrow,
a man that took sadistic pleasure in driving students
to total exhaustion for the fun of it.
Then a flash of movement startled me.
It was a student walking at the other end
of the hall with her back to me.
Hard to see in the dim light,
but I could have sworn she had something in her hand.
I called out to her, "excuse me, young lady,
"school's closed, you can't be here."
I hurried after her, reaching the corner,
but she had already made her way though a door
down to the basement under the school,
where holiday decorations and props
from old school plays were kept.
Annoyed, I walked after the student, calling out again,
"miss, stop what you're doing this instant!"
Even though I was just a TA,
I figured I had enough authority
to stop a kid from skulking around after-hours.
But still, no answer.
Now she had wounded my pride, so I stalked after her,
down into the basement, the walls wet with moisture
from the rusty pipes, and the old brick walls
from the original foundation.
That was a simpler time, I thought,
when children listened to their elders.
I stumbled past old decorations from school spirit week,
then past the old art supplies.
I could just see the shadows of the girl moving ahead.
If this was a prank, someone was going to get
in so much trouble, maybe even expelled.
Then, I saw them.
I dropped my cell phone, its light swirling madly
as it spun on the floor, my breath caught in my throat.
I had found the missing teachers.
Mr. Morrow, the boarish gym teacher,
swung from the pipes overhead,
choked by his own jump-ropes, hands and feet bound.
He'd been hog-tied and left to swing,
his face purple and bloated, tongue turning black
from the weeks spent rotting from a rope.
His lips had pulled back as he began to decay,
revealing rotten teeth clenched tight for eternity.
Next to him was the body of Mr. Lescham,
the music teacher who hated wrong notes so much
he'd rap the students with his conductor's baton.
I was horrified as I looked into his glassy eyes,
his body propped against the wall.
The baton had been jammed straight from one ear
to the other, dried blood crusted down the side of his head.
All I could think of as the bile rose in my throat
was the last thing he must have heard
was his own eardrums rupturing and the scraping of the wood
as it was driven into his brain.
Then I heard the whimper, an old, frail voice I recognized.
Mrs. Madison.
"Please, I didn't mean to be cruel, I...
"I just wanted to..."
But a wet squishing sound cut her off,
turning her voice into a pained squeal.
I crept forward, peering around the corner,
where I finally saw her, the body of Miss Madison,
with 100 pencils jammed into her,
her eyes, her mouth, her throat and lungs,
each one had sticky, blackened blood all around it.
Clearly someone had been at this for a while.
The dark figure I had followed down here
was standing over her, having come to finish
what it had started.
That was when I realized who I had been trailing.
I heard her before I saw her clearly,
that low wheezing sound, her breathing,
the "shhk-shhk" of her field hockey stick
dragging along the ground.
The dark figure raised a final pencil over its head,
then brought it right down between Mrs. Madison's eyes.
(screaming)
Finally killing her.
My stomach tightened.
I knew what would happen when the figure turned around.
I was dead.
My lips quivered, tears in my eyes
as the shadow slowly shifted to look at me.
I heard the swinging of the hockey stick,
the old wood slicing through the air
as it swung towards my jugular vein,
ready to hack my head from my body.
But then, no pain came.
No bloody, gruesome death.
I wasn't dead.
I could feel something hard pressed against my throat,
keeping me from begging for my life,
from crying, or from screaming.
I didn't want to open my eyes, but I knew I had to.
I could hear her, right in my ear,
wet and raspy breathing so close
I could smell that fetid breath, sticky-sweet like roadkill.
I opened my eyes, and there she was beside me,
hockey stick held against my throat: Shelly.
All she had to do was twist the handle
and she'd rip out my esophagus,
pull the air right out of me.
With any luck, she'd break my neck
and I wouldn't feel anything.
Shelly raised her hand, fingernails black and rotten,
skin pale as cream, veiny and thin.
With a twitching jerk, she pointed to the wall.
Terrified to twist my head for fear of losing it,
I struggled to see what was written
on the wall deep in the basement.
My eyes were losing focus, the oxygen escaping me
as the hockey stick pushed against my neck.
Finally, what was on the wall became clear in the darkness,
written in chalk and blood, smeared along old brick.
I saw what was written.
Then as quick as she came, Shelly was gone.
I fell to the ground, knees giving way.
As soon as I could stand, I ran from that basement,
never looking back.
She could have chased me,
I could feel her watching me as I left.
I have never told anyone this story.
I've kept Shelly's secret.
That's why she let me live, I think,
to keep her secret, and to remember.
I still teach these days, and have for many years.
Once Mrs. Madison was gone, I got the promotion
to full-time teacher I knew I deserved.
Same classroom, same course, same books and lessons.
But whenever I find myself angry at the students,
ready with a mean comment or a cruel punishment,
I remember what Shelly had written
on the wall of the basement all those years ago.
Teachers can be bullies, too.