Because it’s been almost two weeks since the last thrill-packed episode, I’ve decided to toss in three (3) chapters of “The Last Bell” this time. I’ve received comments from literally ones and twos of people demanding that I post updates more regularly. Ashley and Josh, your prayers have been answered. Behold!
[Editor's Note: Due to the fact that I am a complete jackass, this installment is extremely late. Dirq was counting on me to post this almost a month ago, but my slacker nature prevented such an event. My sincere apologies to Dirq and our vast readership. I hereby promise to amend my ways and get you these promptly.-Clint]
An hour or so earlier, as the group was just beginning to head back toward the classroom after they saw what was left of the world outside, Rob Blankenship and Jess Raslowsky detached themselves from the main group and stepped into a side hallway.
“What are we doing?” Jess asked in a whisper.
Rob looked craftily at their disappearing classmates and smiled. “We’re just stepping aside for a second. They’re all going back to the classroom. They probably won’t notice that we’re gone for a while. Why don’t we take a look around the school before we go back?”
“Why?” Jess wanted to know.
“Because maybe there are some survivors elsewhere in the building! Imagine if we brought back some sophomore who was hiding in the basement, scared out of his wits! Imagine if we rescued someone who was pinned under some rubble or something! We would be the heroes of the class!”
Jess nodded slowly. “I guess so… but where should we start looking?”
“We’ll look in the most logical way… start at the top and work our way down. We’ll only to the B Wing for now… but later we can slip away again and search even more of the school.” Rob’s eyes were glittering with the possibilities of his idea. There had to be someone else in the building besides their class, Rob thought. Some kid taking a smoke in the bathroom… or taking something else in the bathroom, he thought after a few seconds… a janitor deep in some storage room… a teacher having a prep period! Yes, he thought, there must be someone else in this building.
The two students climbed the stairs of the knuckle to the top floor of the B Wing and stepped into the first classroom. It was deserted. A quick search in the closets and under the desks yielded nothing. They stepped out into the hallway, somewhat discouraged.
“Let’s check this room,” Rob suggested, pointing to the next room in line. This room, too, was empty. The two progressed slowly down one side of the hallway, checking every room thoroughly and even going through the bathrooms. There was no one to be found.
“Okay,” Rob said, getting tired of this methodical approach. “Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground that way. You start at the far end of the hallway. I’ll start at this end. We’ll work until we meet at the center.”
Jess nodded. “What do we do if one of us finds someone?”
“Just give a holler,” suggested Rob. “I’ll come as soon as you shout.”
Satisfied with this arrangement, Jess moved off toward the other end of the hallway. Rob turned and entered a new classroom. With Jess gone, he suddenly realized how lonely it was in the school. It seemed so empty. The slightest noise seemed to echo loudly in the crypt-like silence. Rob smiled and brushed away the morbid thoughts. What was there to be afraid of? He had been in this school hundreds of times. There was nothing to be scared of… Jess was right down the hall, all he had to do was yell and she would come. Rob marveled at how insecure humans could be in some situations.
A few moments later he stepped into a classroom that was very familiar indeed. For the entire year so far he had been entering it for his first period Trigonometry class with the venerable Mr. Johnson. Rob cringed, remembering many a torturous trip to the board to demonstrate a problem in that class.
He noticed his usual desk as he walked through the room. Rob walked over to it and looked around. The thought suddenly struck him that most of his fellow students were dead… probably most of the people in that Trigonometry class had been destroyed instantly by that nuclear explosion. Rob shook his head tragically and, for old time’s sake, took a seat in his desk.
“Would you care to demonstrate a problem for us at the board, Mr. Rooooob… Blankenship?”
The familiar tone and the familiar inflection caused Rob to sit bolt upright and turn around. Stepping out of a closet at the back of the room was Mr. Johnson himself.
Not quite himself, however. He looked strangely… dead. Rob jumped out of his seat and backed away. “Mr. Johnson!” he exclaimed. “What… what are you doing here?”
The teacher started to advance on him. “What’s the matter, Rob? Didn’t you do your homework?” Mr. Johnson shook his head slowly. “You can’t slow down at this point in the year, Rob. Get out your book and calculator.”
Horrified, Rob turned and bolted from the room. “Jess!” he screamed wildly. “Jess! Come quick!”
Down the hallway, Jess stepped out of a classroom and stared at him. “What’s the matter?” she demanded.
Rob dashed up to her and shook her forcefully. “Don’t you see him? Mr. Johnson? He’s right behind me! He came out of the closet and started to come after me! He’s alive, I tell you, he’s still alive!”
Jess frowned. “I don’t see anyone.”
Rob turned back, confused. The hallway behind him was empty. There was no one in sight, and not a sound of pursuit or movement from the classroom he had so hastily vacated. He wiped a hand across his forehead and breathed a sigh of relief. “Whew,” he said, smiling. “The stillness in there must have got to me. I must have been hallucinating or something. Let’s give up the search for now and head back to the classroom.”
He turned around to leave and bumped right into Mr. Johnson. Rob screamed. Jess screamed. They both turned to run, but suddenly Mr. Johnson’s hands were on Rob’s shoulders, lifting him into the air and hurling him into the side of the hall. Jess backed away, her face ashen with horror. Mr. Johnson ignored her and turned on Rob, who was just starting to climb to his feet. The trig teacher lifted Rob into the air once again, this time with one hand on Rob’s leg and the other on his back.
“I’ll do my homework!” Rob cried desperately. “Just put me down!”
Mr. Johnson did so, but not in the way Rob intended. Rob’s spine struck Mr. Johnson’s bony knee and bent around it. There was a snapping, a cracking and a popping. Rob could feel his spine snap cleanly in two, like a twig between the fingers of a little child. He lost all feeling in his legs. He screamed again as he felt Mr. Johnson lifting him into the air again, this time by his throat. A horrible pressure began to exert itself on his neck. His world went red from lack of oxygen. Rob clawed desperately at Mr. Johnson’s cadaverous hands, but to no avail. They seemed to be immune to pain.
Jess ran up behind the teacher and slammed her shoulder into his back, but Mr. Johnson swatted her aside like a fly.
“Wait your turn, Miss Raslowsky!” the teacher ordered. He kept one hand clamped onto Rob’s throat and with the other grabbed his face. Rob’s eyes bulged with horror as Mr. Johnson began to slowly twist his head to one side. In a few moments he could hear bones begin to pop in his neck. Tendons and muscles ripped as Mr. Johnson continued to twist his head at an unnatural angle.
Mercifully, Rob passed out from the pain. If he had remained conscious for a few more moments he would have been the first student at the Souderton High School to experience what it was like to have his head twisted off.
Lying on the floor, Jess began to scream. She didn’t even notice Mr. Johnson leaving with Rob’s body tucked under his arm like a briefcase. She didn’t even notice Kate and the others enter the hallway and find her cradling Rob’s head in her arms. She paid no attention when Mr. Johnson returned with a few friends, and she didn’t protest when they lifted her into the air and carried her off.
Dirk was thinking furiously about the ramifications of what had happened to them and to the world. Chances were that, if there had been a nuclear war, a large percentage of the world’s population had been destroyed. It depended upon how big the war had been, but if it was still going on millions of folks would be dying, and if enough bombs went off there would be a nuclear winter. That would mean an On The Beach-type scenario, with maybe a few refugees in Australia or something but very few left in the rest of the world.
Dirk wondered if they were really the last people alive. It was a strange thought… the people in this small room in this medium-sized high school could be (or soon would be) the only living human beings on the face of the Earth. Would it be up to them to repopulate the globe? Or would they die of starvation long before then?
Starvation… Dirk hoped it didn’t come to that. Before starvation would come cannibalism, and that was a messy thought. As a child, nothing had scared Dirk more than the stories of the Donner Party. The idea of people eating other people filled him with horror. It was disgusting.
But there would be food in the cafeteria… plenty of food, if they froze it. They should probably do that pretty quickly… but not right now. Dirk was just too tired.
If they were the only ones left, Dirk decided, what kind of government would they establish? Who would lead them? Mrs. Italiano, he assumed. She was the teacher after all, and the traditional leader of a classroom. She would probably lead them. But Dirk suddenly had an idea… if he was the leader of the only people left on Earth, wouldn’t that make him…
Ruler of the World.
Dirk scratched his head, thought on that for a few more moments, and then dismissed the idea. Mrs. Italiano was the leader, and that was that.
Dave Moyer walked by, glanced down at Dirk, nodded. “How’s it going?”
“Good, considering,” Dirk replied, gesturing at the blackened windows. “How’s it going with you?”
Dave shrugged and moved on. “Okay, I guess. Do you have any idea what happened to Rob?”
Dirk shook his head, no. “Not a clue. But I hope I don’t go that way when it’s my time to go.”
He sat back, allowed Dave to pass by, and sank into his thoughts. They were going to have to live with each other for quite a long time, at least until the radiation drifted away. How long would that be? Could they make it? Would any of them go insane? If what Alfred Hitchcock taught him was true, yes.
Some time later, Dirk glanced at his watch. It was nighttime – the world outside would be dark, although some of it would probably be glowing from the radiation. Jess had not returned. He looked around the class. Some students were already asleep. Some couldn’t find sleep no matter how hard they tried. Others had formed little groups and were discussing things in hushed, whispering voices. Dirk glanced at the door out into the hallway.
All the lights in the school were still on. That provided them with some feeling of security, at least. Mrs. Italiano had locked the door, too, so they should be safe from whatever was in the building with them. But still…
Was that a shadow he saw outside? Dirk frowned and stood up. Yes, there was definitely a shadow in the hallway outside the classroom.
“Dan,” Dirk whispered. Dan Nice looked up from his position on the floor. “Do you see anything out there?”
Dan peered out the classroom door and nodded. He saw the shadow, too. Dirk stepped toward the door slowly, not wanting anyone to see him and start to panic. Dan got up and walked behind him. They stopped about a foot from the door.
The shadow in the hallway was in the shape of a man. It was perfectly still, but they could see because of the hallway lights.
“Who could it be?” Dirk whispered.
“Do you think Jess came back?” Dan whispered back.
Dirk shook his head. “I don’t think so… it’s too big to be her. It looks like a man’s shadow.”
Just as he finished speaking, something bolted past the door. It moved too fast for either student to get a good look at it, but it had certainly looked human. Dirk and Dan flinched back from the door as whatever it was dashed by, and then the hallway was once again still and empty. Dirk looked up at Dan and saw the same mixture of fear and confusion that he knew must be on his own face.
“What was that?” he asked.
Dan shook his head. “I don’t know, Dirk. I don’t know.”
They had turned out the lights in the classroom so that everyone could fall asleep earlier. Nobody wanted to go down to the main office to turn off the hallway lights. In the darkness, Dirk sat with his eyes open. They were fixed on the hallway, watching intently. All around him he could hear the sounds of his classmates sleeping, or trying to sleep – deep, steady breathing, someone rolling over to get more comfortable, someone whispering in his sleep.
Dirk wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t. His eyes were locked on the door of the classroom. As time crept by, all of his senses seemed to train on that door – the sounds and smells and sights of the dark classroom were blocked out by the door. Dirk was certain that, sooner or later, something was going to happen.
He sat there for quite a long time – he couldn’t see the clock in the darkness, so he wasn’t sure exactly how long – and he was about to close his eyes and try to sleep when he saw something. It was no more than a flicker outside, but he saw it. Dirk sat bolt upright, and the sudden movement disturbed someone nearby.
Josh Yerk grunted and opened his eyes. “Dirk? What’s going on?”
Dirk held a finger up to his lips and pointed urgently toward the door. If there was something out there, he didn’t want some unnecessary jabber to scare it away. Josh got the picture and nodded his head.
A moment later, something appeared in the doorway. It was silhouetted by the lights so that all the two students could see was a black shape, but they were certain that it was a human head and shoulders. The head turned slowly this way and that, as if studying the sleeping classroom. Then it slowly withdrew from the door.
Dirk suddenly recognized that slightly stooped, elderly figure. He could see the outline of glasses. For a moment the hallway lights revealed a head of well-combed white hair with streaks of blonde on the top. As the figure turned away to retreat, Dirk was sure that he spotted a rather wimpy white mustache.
“Mr. Johnson,” Dirk whispered. “That was kindly old Mr. Johnson!”
Josh shook his head. “That’s impossible! How could he have survived when everyone else… we think… is dead?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure that was him.” Dirk nodded. “Yes, that was Mr. Johnson all right. What do you think he was doing? Why don’t you think he knocked on the door?”
Josh employed the section of his brain that he had devoted completely to tactics, strategies, and all things military. “Maybe because he doesn’t want us to know he’s alive.”
Dirk’s mind worked furiously. If Mr. Johnson didn’t want the class to know he was still alive, that could only mean that he had something to hide. If he was the only other living person in the building… could he have had anything to do with what happened to Rob? And Jess? Yes, Dirk could easily see kindly old Mr. Johnson going insane and launching a murderous rampage. He had long suspected that the kindly old math teacher had a few screws loose.
“Well, he can’t get in here,” Dirk said. “It’s safe to go to sleep, I think.”
Josh nodded and lied down. Dirk thought for a few more moments. Tomorrow, he decided, he would take a few people he could trust and search the school – all of it – from top to bottom. They would find kindly (and perhaps insane) old Mr. Johnson and find out what he was up to.
After all, Dirk thought, military heroes were often made leaders by a grateful public.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Jill Henning awoke and instantly remembered everything that had happened the previous day. Most of it made her want to curl up into a ball and die. Some if it made her want to cry. One thing, however, made her smile – that was kneeing Steve Beneke in the groin. She had been wanting to do that all year. It was a shame it took something like a nuclear holocaust to make it happen.
Jill sat up and stretched. All around her the class lay, still asleep – except for a few people, who were standing near the door. Dirk Linthicum, Dan Nice, Kate Rutt, Josh Yerk and Abigail Brice were huddled together in a close circle, talking in hushed voices. None of them had noticed her. Jill stood up and crept slowly closer to them, using the rows of desks as cover.
She heard Dirk whispering something, and paused to hear what it was.
“… swear it was Mr. Johnson. I distinctly saw those blonde streaks in that white hair. It was Mr. Johnson all right.”
“But going out there?” Kate whispered back. “I don’t think we should go alone…”
Dan Nice shook his head. “But we’re not alone, Kate. There’s five of us. That should be plenty to handle some bony old man.”
“Well once we find him,” Abby asked, “what are we going to do?”
“We could talk to him. Dan, you could do that,” Kate suggested. “You do well.”
Dirk shook his head furiously. “No, no, no. We don’t talk. We don’t negotiate. We destroy! Destroy, do you hear me?”
Jill had no idea what they were talking about, but she didn’t like being in the dark about a plan that involved any kind of destruction. She stood up and cleared her throat noisily. “Excuse me,” she said.
All five heads turned toward her, and all five bodies froze instantly. For a moment no one said anything, but then Dirk put on a nervous smile and said, “Oh… Jill! Up so early?”
“What’s all this about Mr. Johnson?” Jill demanded.
“What’s all what about Mr. Johnson?” Josh countered.
“All this… planning stuff,” Jill explained. “I heard what you were talking about. What are you guys up to?”
“We’re not up to anything,” Dan said. “What do you think we’re up to?”
Jill was fed up with this verbal parrying. “If you guys are doing something, I want to know what it is? Is Mr. Johnson still alive or something? Are you going out to look for him?”
Dirk nodded slowly. “All right, since you’re up we might as well bring you into our circle of confidence. This is what happened…”
Jill listened attentively to what Dirk was saying, nodding as he told her about the appearance of the Mr. Johnson-like figure at the door and the conclusions that he and Josh had reached after the figure had fled down the hallway. At first she thought that he was crazy, but then she, too, began to wonder. If Dirk was sane and telling the truth, why hadn’t Mr. Johnson made his presence known to the class?
“All right, so what’s the plan?” she asked.
“We go out there, find Mr. Johnson, and bring him in,” Dirk said decisively. The others nodded at the practical straightforwardness of his scheme. “Then we find out just what he’s up to, how he survived, and if there are any more people in this building we don’t know about.”
“Okay,” Jill whispered. “I’ve got it. Let’s go.”
Quietly Dirk unlocked the door (Mrs. Italiano, who was still asleep, had left the keys on her desk). Then he opened it and waved the others outside. Jill followed in the rear, taking a quick look behind her to make sure that no one was following. It looked as if everyone was still asleep, so she exited the room and waited for Dirk to close the door behind them.
“Come on,” Dirk said. “We’re going to start in the basement of the B Wing.”
The group of six students moved off through the deserted school, averting their eyes as they passed by that clear window that they all had looked out of the other day. None of them felt like seeing what was left of their world, or thinking about their plight, Jill realized. For right now, at least, her mind was centered on finding out if Mr. Johnson was alive or not.
Suddenly Jill paused. She had heard something behind her. “Wait a minute, you guys,” she said urgently. The others stopped and turned around. Jill was pointing back down the hallway. “I thought I heard something… like someone walking.”
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