(Start this story here. Read Journals 5-7 here.)
JOURNAL 8:
(Click image for full size.)
Outside the Principal’s office. Class pictures hang on the walls. Children in neat rows, bleachers, obviously the stage in the cafeteria.
Suddenly a white light filled the room from above. Skylight? No. Just an opening in the ceiling. (Of course, always the ceiling.) I saw the night sky, a single star. Its light intensified. Formed a beam. Moving back and forth. Wherever it traveled it left a faint image on the floor. Writing:
2022? This year? There’s no class this year.
I looked back at the pictures. The last one was labeled “Class of 2022” Was this there before?
The picture was empty but for a few children. One girl looked similar to a young Karin. The face of another, a boy, was unclear. But I know those clothes! It was my favorite T-shirt from a long-forgotten cartoon. Is that me . . . as a kid? Why?
The light was gone. Words disappeared. I stood alone in the dark . . . listening to the school whisper my name.
[Sketch of the class picture labeled “Class of 2022” with arrows pointing to Karin (?) and Me (?).]
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JOURNAL 9:
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Trapped! I can’t leave!
Part of me doesn’t want to.
Door locked. Tried others. All locked. Can’t leave.
Out the windows ghostly children play on the playground. More ghosts walk through the halls. I lock myself in my classroom, to escape. My safe haven.
Movement across the floor. Carcasses of millions of dead bugs jitter from the corners and crevices of the room. Gnats, beetles, roaches. Moved by some unseen hand they gather in the center. Forming words.
WE FEW
[Sketched as though written in bugs]
They shift. Reform into another palindromic phrase.
NOW WON
[Sketched as though written in bugs]
The school . . .
So empty . . .
So alone . . .
So sad.
It has lured me here!
Captured me!
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CONCLUSION:
From: HeadEye@woodvilleinvestigations.com
Subject: Karin
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I hope you receive this. I asked the school to let me send one last message from my phone. I have no way of knowing its answer. Hopefully, you are reading this.
I wanted to let you know that Karin is fine. She is at South Creek Elementary. However, she can’t come home. But please! DO NOT come here! It would not be wise. I will try to explain but I doubt you will understand.
The school has a spirit. Not one living in it, like a ghost, but its own, individual spirit. When the school was closed it longed for the life and laughter of the children who once walked its halls. As months turned to years it somehow grew lonely. It began changing. It used some power to decorate the rooms, just like the teachers and children did. It even turned the basement, a place the kids referred to as “the cave”, into an actual cave. But that wasn’t enough. It longed for the life of actual people.
Starting with the transients that would take refuge within its wall at night, the school would draw them in, enchant them. It reminded them of the carefree days of playing with friends and having all their needs taken care of for them. Before too long they wanted to stay and the building obliged, reverting them to their childhood forms and absorbing them.
Next came Douglas Millhouse, the developer who bought the school and the property. Have you ever wondered why he never developed the land? It’s because the school enticed him on one of his visits to examine his purchase. It compelled him to leave the corporate structure and stress and return to the more wistful time of childhood. Oh, he goes by “Dougie” now.
More recently your daughter Karin joined their class. Her elementary school years, the years before her father left, were her happiest, and here is where she spent most of that time. The chance to return was too tempting an offer. But I can assure you, she is happy and safe.
As for me, I can’t fully explain it myself, but I am ready to stay. I’ve seen the greedy sides of life. How people cheat, steal, and lie. I’ve worked hard for little, tired all the time. It may have been naivety, but life was simpler as a child. I want that again and I’ve found it here.
It’s time for me to go. The school is calling . . . pulling. Remember the good times with Karin. She loves you very much.
Bye.
BTW, I’m going to be the king in the class play.
(Read the prompts here.)
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Isaiah 8:19 (Relevance hint: NIV)
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