Complex - Part 5
#5 of Complex
Complex - part: 5
The following is for mature audiences. Please note this has blood, gore, and portray disturbing images. If you are queasy and get sick by what's listed, do not continue reading
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I looked at my watch. 10:42 pm. I had been asleep longer than I thought. I made a failed attempt to get up from my position against the wood. I lifted my head off of my backpack that was making such a nice pillow. My hand shifting through the bag, I felt the chips and pulled them out to munch on. I pulled the bag apart using the little tabs on the back next to the health information and ingredients label.
I sat there recalling the dream I had while I was sleeping. My water bottle clutched in hand, half empty, I took a nice gulp.
The dream had left off where my last one ended. Alex was in the hall standing in front of me with his head down. "Alex, bro, what's wrong?" He started lifting his head slowly when a huge crowd of teenagers swarmed around us all busy getting to their classes. I lost visual of Alex and just like that, the crowd was gone, and so was he. It seemed like it had only been ten seconds from the point of when the bell rang to where I was alone in the hall. My next class was down the long isolated hallway behind me and for some reason unknown; not being late was my biggest concern. I pushed my feet off to the side as turned around to face the hallway. The lights ahead flickered on and off just adding to the creepiness factor. The hall seemed to extend forever. Lockers all lined up against the walls, rows of lights above and colored tiles below. It seemed as if there wasn't even an end to what I was looking at.
I took a glance around my shoulder to find that I was looking at the same thing. The hallway extended in both directions. I had no way of knowing where I was at the time. Was I facing north or south? Maybe I was facing east or west. For all I know, I could be upside down and not even realize it. The pattern was the same all down each hallway. On the sides there were repeating lockers then occasionally a door to a class. All were equally spaced. I walked slowly and a little sluggishly to one of the doors, the one that lead to Mrs. Jefferies room, actually. I turned the knob and opened the door. I was shocked to see that the room that used to be Mrs. Jefferies room was gone, replaced by just the face of a cliff. It was dark, windy and cloudy. One stupid step forward would have me plunging to my death. There didn't seem to be a bottom to that endless abyss I was looking down. It was like I was in a completely different world.
I shut the door in a panic and turned to run to the next door. Opening it I wasn't surprised to find the same thing. I had checked another two doors before I gave up. I was trapped in the hallway and the only way to go was forward. I began walking but before I could even get five steps ahead, the lights above me just shattered into pieces leaving the hallway completely black, shards of glass falling over me and shattering a second time on the floor. I felt my head to look for an injury like a scratch or cut from the glass and couldn't find anything. I just stood there in the dark not knowing what else to do for what seemed like hours. Being in straight darkness for that long had really done a number on my mind. I started hearing things, seeing things in the blackness, even feeling things touching me, warm breath on the back of my neck, a cold breeze coming from absolutely nowhere. Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore and was sure I was going to snap, the lights turned back on. A single bright orange luminescent light had spotlighted me. I was still alone. Everything that had happened in the past hours in the dark had just been my imagination. I heard dripping and swishing sounds. I looked down to find I was standing in some liquid that I could only guess was, again, blood.
Floating towards me as if pushed by some unseen force was my torch. I stuck my hand in the blood to grab the flashlight. The blood was warm and in a disturbing way felt good. Like some sort of hot, thick bath. I felt around for the button on the flashlight to turn it on and had found it not long after. Turning it on, I immediately shined it around me, getting more aware of my surroundings. I faced it to the wall that used to be lined with lockers. Instead of lockers, it was just pure stone and brick. It looked old and had strange markings all over its face. Words, sentences that didn't make sense and scratch marks covered the wall from head to toe, and all along its width as well. The adjacent wall had the same appearance.
The blood seemed to come up to my calf making it a struggle to walk. I had been walking down the hall pondering on my paranoid thoughts when my foot caught on something beneath the pool. I brought my foot up to find a chain twisted around my foot. I took the chain in hand, threading it through my palms, following it down the hall. It stopped, caught on something below the crimson water. I reached an arm down the chains length till I caught hold of something, something with a handle. The blood went up the full length of my arm. I clenched my fist around the handle; put my feet into a crouching position like a football quarterback waiting for the ball. With all my might I pulled. It was no use. It didn't budge. I pulled a second time just as hard as I did before and with a feeling of joy, felt it slip out a little bit. With that I pulled a third time, wiggling it side to side to ease the burden and just like that, it popped. Blood rushed through the hole I had left after grabbing what I could now see as some big stopper, like one you find in a sink. The "water" level was decreasing rapidly. One second it was at my calf, another it was to my ankle.
A true horror came upon me as I looked at what I couldn't see a minute ago with the pool of blood blocking the truth, bodies, and the bodies of students to be more precise, laying all around me, circling me, making sure my next step would be atop of flesh and bone.
The silence, in a way, was deafening. All I could do was stare in disbelief.
The silence broke, movement, all around me. Squishy, moist bodies dripping of blood, scuffling around me, were trying to get to their feet, repositioning themselves. Their mangled bodies standing upright, one by one, it wasn't long until each one had finished getting up. A strange occurrence appeared before me. They all started violently shaking. A loud but low hum spread across the room, each "person" making its own muffled grunting sound. It was like the choir from hell.
I stood silently, watching wide eyed at the event that was taking place. The floor still sopping wet, I took a single step, hoping they couldn't hear and I could make my way past them. I was wrong, dead wrong. As soon as I took that step on the wet floor, the slap of my shoe hitting the tile was the worst mistake I could have made. They stopped, all at once, in unison. The shaking and the grunting noises, just, stopped. They stood still in the silence. I didn't move. I could feel my heart beating in my chest like an Indian drum at a sacrificial ceremony of some sort. At the same time, each one turned its head and looked directly at me. They didn't have faces that I could see, just a blank canvas ready to be scorched. My heart was racing, beating faster and faster, the blank faces, in a way, staring at me. Then a mark showed up on an individuals face. A small slit where a mouth would be. Its jaw began to expand, the skin stretching over the mouth. It just kept stretching to no end until a vertical rip of the skin appeared and expanded. More rips across the mouth stretching like rubber bands. The creature had opened its jaw as much as it could, skin still stretched across its mouth, not fully developed. It let out a scream that was inhuman if I had ever heard one. Similar to the one I had heard in the boy's bathroom hours ago. It was loud and obnoxious to say the least.
As if it had let out some sort of call or signal, the rest of the "humanoids" around me started developing the same changes. In random sequence the cries were joined making my ears feel like they were bleeding on the inside. I put my palms over my ears but kept my eyes open, watching. Their heads were now doing complete three hundred and sixty degree spins. They weren't spinning like how an owl turns its head around their neck, but more like a ferris wheel. Their neck seemed to join to the back of their head allowing this to happen. It was a horrific sight.
That's what I remember of the dream. I didn't feel rested in the least bit. Thinking this over I realized that my bag of chips was gone and I was holding an empty water bottle. I zipped up my backpack and got up to my feet. Knowing the door that led outside from the bathroom where that creature lives is locked and the front door of the small school, was barricaded, I only had one other option, to check the ladies room. I walked up to the boys' bathroom that I had blocked with that piece of wood and put my ear against the door. Listening carefully I could still hear that thing walking around, bumping into the sinks and stalls. My heart seemed to skip a beat as I was reminded of the visual appearance of that, thing. The creepy way it walked pigeon toed, and the scream that I have now familiarized myself with.
Stepping back I pinned myself against the wall to the side of the door of the boys restroom. Across from me was the ladies room. After resting for a couple seconds and regaining my strength, I put my ear against the door to the ladies restroom. I couldn't seem to hear anything. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. My clammy hand grabbed the handle and pulled at the door. Unlike the boys' restroom, the tile was clean in here. It was dark but I can still figure that out. I reached in my pocket to pull out my flashlight, push the button and illuminate the restroom. It was as clean as it should be. I took a hesitant step inside and shined my light on every possible corner of the restroom. The only thing accounted for was a crowbar leaning up against the end stall. The stalls were open and in plain sight. Nothing interesting was in them, and the mirrors on the wall above the sinks were spotless as far as I could tell. Across the porcelain room was yet another door. This one I knew lead outside. I was free to leave this crazy place. I ran across the tile, took a firm grasp on the handle that I could tell just by touching it that it was open. I twisted the handle and pulled the door open to reveal something I had definitely not expected to see. "Im, so confused. How is this even possible? This doesn't make any sense." I could no longer tell myself I was sane. But maybe that's better, for it takes an insane person to understand his insane situation.
Behold, in front of me, was the entrance to the local supermarket. I was now facing the cash registers and aisle ways of a grocery store. Double checking I turned around and re-entered the ladies restroom. I walked through and out the ladies room door to find that small room intended for play by small innocents. I ran up to the barricaded door to check for a small opening I could see out of. I found one in the corner of a window allowing me to see across the street; at the supermarket I was just currently standing in. there was a big sign that read "Ned's Grocer". Even more surprising, was the fact that there were cars driving across the intersection as if nothing I have experienced in the past two days even happened. I knew it, I was going crazy. Without thinking I walked around the room trying to find something I could use to pry off that wood. I pushed the ladies restroom door with full force and grabbed that crowbar I had found just a little while ago. I walked over to the door that led to the market and forced it open as it moved with ease. The supermarket entrance was still there. I slammed the door shut and headed toward the front doors of the children's private school.
I forced my crowbar into the sides of a wooden bar; pushing and pulling as it easily unhinged and fell to the ground. I continued to pry the wood revealing the parking lot and beyond the street.
Just standing there, looking out the window, looking at the cars, looking at Ned's Grocer across the street. I felt a slight hesitation to pull open the glass doors that soon faded as I lunged at the handle. I pulled only to find it locked. I thought for a second about shattering the glass with my crowbar. What would people think if they saw me throw a crowbar through the glass door? They would probably freak out and call me a thief or something.
As if I had sent out a call, I saw a lady walking on the sidewalk on the other side of the door. She was so close to me. The only thing separating me from the real world was this stupid glass. I pounded on the door with my free hand, the other still grasping the crowbar and yelled at the top of my lungs. "Hey! Can you hear me! Open this door!" The lady on the other side stopped and looked at me with fear in her eyes. I must have looked crazy to her. My shoes covered in blood, I'm holding a crowbar in one hand and pounding on the door with the other yelling with obvious frustration.
I stopped and watched her as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed a simple three character number. My first guess had to have been 911. She was calling the cops. Normally I would be frightened by my circumstance and worried about being interrogated or something but I couldn't care less right now. I just wanted to get out of here. I would tell the cops to go into the boys' bathroom and get that creature to prove my story to them, then they would feel sympathy for my crazed reactions and hysteria, they would release me and take me home to my dad who would be worried sick about where I have been. Josh and Alex would be waiting at my house for my return and everything would be ok.
In my fantasy I hadn't noticed that there was a crowd growing outside, all watching me from the other side of this portal.
In minutes the cops showed up, their flashing cars escorting themselves to the front of the building. The car closest to the sidewalk was the first to respond. The door opened and an officer with his hat on and head down walked out. The car door shut and he walked up to the poor lady frightened to death on the sidewalk. By this time she was sitting on the ground weeping. He took out a note pad and began to take the information from her, and then put a hand on her shoulder reassuring her that everything was ok. He stood up and with his right hand, grabbed hold of the gun in his holster. He thought I was dangerous. He didn't pull it out, just grasped his hand around it, just in case. The girl on the ground put her face back in her palms and continued to cry. I couldn't see the cop's full face, just his chin. The hat was covering the rest. I crouched down trying to see his face, but the attempt failed. I still couldn't see anything.
I decided to react. I started to knock on the glass. "Hey, the door is locked; do you think you could get it open for me sir? I've been in here for what seems way too long." The cop didn't react. "Hey! Can you hear me?!" still no reaction from the cop. "Hey! I said can you" then my words came to a halt. The cop looked up. If only I could see my own face right now, the expression I was making. It had to be complete horror. The cops face, or might I say, lack there of was staring me down. "A blank canvas" I said to myself. No features whatsoever on this cops face. No mouth, no eyes, no nose, no ears. It was just blank, just like in my dream. I started a little cry in my head. I looked down at the lady who was still weeping, then at that moment, also looked up at me, faceless. Another blank canvas, I thought to myself. I looked out at the rest of the crowd, all the same thing. No faces, no features, nothing.
My hysteria turned into rage as I clutched my crowbar in my hand so tight that I felt blood run along my finger and drip to the floor. "What's going on!" I yelled as I chucked the crowbar at the glass door with as much strength as I could muster. The crowbar hit the glass with so much power, the glass shattered as easily as pushing a knife through hot butter. The crash was loud and hurt my ears. I stood there taking everything in for a moment.
I heard the crowbar on the other side of the door clink and clank as it hit the floor. The glass stopped making noise as it rested on the ground. I looked up, upset at what I saw. I looked out into the darkness that was grocery store.
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