Mayna and the Monster

Mayna moved along the wall, pushing her back up against the door to Mr. Moore’s Chemistry classroom, trying not to let her sneakers squeak, going wide around the pool of blood that was blooming toward her feet. She was sweating cold, salty bullets.

She could smell the blood. It was all she could smell. She cupped one hand over her mouth and her nose to try and bury it beneath the stink of her grimy, sweaty fingers. But then the body laying six feet away in the middle of the hall twitched, and Mayna was glad she was already covering her mouth. An involuntary moan of horror slipped from her lips as Yuri spasmed again, a little red jet shooting from the tear in his neck. And just when Mayna thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse than it was, Yuri’s eyes shot open and found her, looked right at her.

Mayna froze.

Yuri coughed messily, sending foamy pink spittle across the surface of sticky crimson getting wider and wider around his body. He gurgled, another jet of red squirting into the air, coming down in droplets on his cheek. Then Yuri reached out to Mayna and Mayna tried not to scream.

She couldn’t afford to scream. The sound might bring him right to her…

“Ggg…gggepp… beee…” Yuri attempted. “Gggelpbbb… beeee…”

Mayna shook her head, fat tears welling at the black-streaked corners of her eyes, then tumbling down her face.

“Bbleees…” he choked, “gelb… bee…”

Mayna uncovered her mouth, held a shaking finger up to her lips, shaking her head No, pleading with her huge brown eyes Please. Please be quiet.

A deep rumble from somewhere down the hallway, a horrible throaty, growling sort of rumble. He was close…

“Bleees…” Yuri continued, “Gelpeee, Bayna… gelp…” But Mayna could not help him. Not without joining him. Mayna shot a glance down the hall toward where the horrible sound had come, then back toward the opposite direction where she had been headed before Yuri. She cleared Moore’s classroom door, carefully stepped over Yuri’s right leg—muddy Sorel boot still secured tightly to the foot—and continued on. She could not look back, would not, even as she heard Yuri continue to beg for help. Beg for gelp.

Further down the hall was Yuri’s other leg.

This one was missing it’s shoe.

* * *

The goal was to get the fuck outta there, but so far every exit Mayna had tried was locked from the outside. But he couldn’t have gotten to all of them, could he? Her second best option was the archery room, because it had the most security—the most locks. Couldn’t have a bunch of high schoolers with easy access to bows and arrows, right? But the archery room was right near the gym.

The gym, where it had all started. The attack.

That was twenty minutes ago. Twenty million minutes ago, minutes that slogged by like days at some moments, fell and ran like seconds other moments. Depended on whether you were in the middle of the chaos or in between the moments of chaos.

It also depended on whether you were stepping over body parts or getting yours ripped away from your torso.

Right now time seemed to be nonexistent for Mayna.

She came to an emergency exit door next to one of the janitor's closets. She reached for the push-bar but did not push just yet, she had noticed the little plastic sign above the handle: Emergency Exit. Alarm Will Sound.

Mayna considered her options. She was currently in the west wing of the school at the wall right against the outside basketball courts, which were right next to the front quad and wide field that lay right up on Bramble Ave. In other words, if she pushed this door open and the alarm sounded, she’d have a whole hell of a lot to run across before she got to the chain-link on Bramble, which would be bad if he heard her and came running.

She couldn’t outrun him. Outrun it. That thing he had become.

But if it didn’t sound, she just might make it. This was of course if he hadn’t already locked this particular emergency exit before starting his violent rampage. But you couldn’t lock an emergency exit, right? That was the whole point of an emergency exit.

He chained the gym doors shut, she remembered, He could’ve chained these shut too.

But she was on the other side of the whole school, opposite end of where the gym sat. Would he have come all this way? She looked out the tall and narrow window in the door, out into the deep navy night, frost like Victorian lace dancing across the concrete basketball courts. This was the official first day of night here in Linmar, Alaska. It would be dark for another month. The moon would be full for two of those days, starting today, evidently.

“Shit,” she hissed to herself. Arms out as if to push, but hesitating to do so, she looked like a mannequin standing there. There was a smear of blood on her sweater sleeve. How long had that been there? Whose blood was it? Was it her own?

Before she could decide what to do, a scream rippled from down the hallway to her left and she whirled. It was Victor Gupta, one of the school's three foreign exchange students. Mayna had third period Calculus with him. He was usually very cheery, but right now his brown skin looked milky and damp.

As she looked at him he shrieked again, a high, piercing screech that sounded more feminine than she’d expected. Mayna shushed him with her finger, waved her arms in a criss-cross way as if to say NO, GUPTA, NO, but Victor didn’t seem to give a shit because he just let out another wailer.

“Don’t hurt me!” he belted, falling against the door frame of Tim Jollie’s classroom, “Leave me alone!”

“Shut up!” Mayna hissed. She began her approach toward him, still waving her arms back and forth. “It’s me, Mayna, you know me. I’m not him.”

Victor Gupta fell to his knees and screamed again.

“NO!” His voice was cracking at the edges now, breaking into an animalistic sort of caw. “STOP!”

Mayna had to stop midstride. She threw her gaze over her shoulder. She’d heard something. She’d heard him… heard it.

Heavy footsteps from around the corner, coming their way. A shadow thrown onto the Emergency Exit door, a tall, crazed looking shadow. The shadow held something in its hand, something sharp and jagged looking. A huff of breath, then the shadow stopped…

Victor Gupta whinied like a horse. “Mayna?” he warbled, “Oh shit! Ohshitohshitohshit…”

Mayna couldn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on that thing’s shadow. She was petrified. Where could she run now? Gupta had fucked this whole thing up and no they were both gonna die. Paint the walls from here to the cafeteria with their insides.

The shadow ducked away and disappeared, and in its absence Mayne saw a small round face looking at her from down the hall.

Lorena Choe’s face.

Then Coach Trippy’s face appeared above hers.

Then Justin Willis’ face beneath them both, all poking from a doorway past the Emergency Exit, poking from 155A. Mayna could only stare. It was like a scene out of the Three Stooges. Except, of course, for the violent noise that echoed from behind her right at that second.

It was Victor Gupta being dragged away into Jollie’s classroom by his feet. His scream was abruptly cut off by a wet tearing sound followed by a comically thick wash of gore that erupted from the doorway as if from a hose.

Mayna turned heel and sprinted for the three familiar faces in the doorway. Halfway there she stumbled, fell onto her chin, busting it open, slicing off the tip of her tongue in the process. She had tripped on anything, it’s just her legs were shaking so badly. And now she was seeing stars. She tried to get up, but her knees were noodles and she only shook on all fours like a lunatic. All at once there were strong arms around her torso, then she was up, then she was moving again, then there was another terrible noise from behind her.

An ear splitting, banshee roar…

Then she was through the door of 155A and then the door was slammed shut behind her and then she was on the floor again and then she puked up her guts and blacked out.

***

The school's football team had landed two days earlier after totally dominating the season. It was the first time in 50 years the Linmar High Rams (that Alaska as a state in general) had come out on top, having just defeated California’s Mater Dei, the top school team in the country. It was a big fuckin’ deal and the school welcomed their team back like kings returning from war.

Linmar was going to start their month of darkness with a bright and shining party beginning with a pep rally in the school gym. The whole town was there—even the mayor, retired police captain Glenn Grady.

Also in attendance was Lucas Waylon. Which was odd, because Lucas never came to these sorts of things. Hated them, in actual fact. But there he was in his tall boots and long, dark, second-hand coat, positioned in the middle of the roaring crowd of frothing teens on the rickety indoor bleachers, right under one of the gym's skylights. Nobody had noticed him come in and sit down more than twenty minutes after the rally had begun. Nobody had paid attention to that thing he had posted to his Facebook page the day before, because, who looks at Facebook anymore, right? And even if they were on Facebook, they weren’t looking at Lucas’ page, they were posting about how wet they were for the Rams and how stoked they were for the pep rally. Nobody seemed to notice that Lucas wasn’t looking at the cheerleaders strutting out their routine, or the football stars making their speeches, or their teachers fawning over them all like dogs drooling over scraps. Nobody seemed to notice that Lucas was looking up, up at the skylight, up at the full moon.

Nobody really ever noticed Lucas Waylon. But they would remember him forever after that night.

The long, cold, Alaskan dark had begun.

Soon, too, would Lucas’ reign of terror.

***

Mayna awoke with a jolt, shot up as if launched by a piston. A strong hand covered her mouth, pressed tightly. Then the voice of Coach Trippy, rasping, “Shhh, it’s alright. You’re alright. Just keep quiet…”

Slowly, Trippy’s hand floated away from Mayna’s mouth and Mayna could suddenly taste the bitter-sick flavor of bile on her own tongue, coating her teeth and making her nose sting. She decided she would not try to look for where she had barfed. Things were bad enough as they were.

It was Lorena Choe who asked first.

“Was that… was that Sanjay?”

Mayna gathered her thoughts, realized that beneath the bitter tang of puke taste there was a sweet metallic taste. Blood.

She moved her mouth to speak but stopped when a white hot knife of pain stabbed through her tongue. Or, what was left of it.

“Nnnnnngh!” she groaned, and then began to cry. Lorena looked at Coach Trippy in a panic.

“What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

“Bit her tongue in half,” Sarah Trippy stated, “Tip’s lying in that splatter of honk by the door.”

“Jesus,” Justin Willis whispered.

Mayna covered her own mouth now, trying to press the loud pain back down into her throat where she could swallow it away. Now was not the time for pain. Once she reassured Trippy that Yes, she was okay, she uncovered her mouth, moved her tongue around, getting used to the sharp dagger feeling of it against her own teeth, then slowly said to Lorena, “No…”

Lorena looked confused. “No, what?”

“...not Sanjay…” but really it came out more like Nod Shanday. “...Victor.” Which came out Bikder, but Lorena figured as much, and her eyes fell and her face fell and her expression fell too, fell into one of emptiness. She’d been in the same Calculus with Mayna and Victor.

Justin clutched a claw hammer to his chest, fidgeted it around like he was anxious.

“So that was him out there just now? That… that killer?”

Mayna nodded. Shrugged. Then nodded again.

Coach Trippy moved to the classroom door, lifted the corner of the long piece of construction paper covering the little rectangular door window for when there’s an active shooter, and craned her thick neck at a weird angle to get a good view out into the hall. Then she ducked back down and moved right back to where she’d been.

“It’s quiet out there now.” she said. Neither she or Lorena had anything on them. No weapons. Evidently only Justin Willis had a weapon. A claw hammer he got from who knows where. Maybe that janitor's closet next to the Emergency Exit. “We gotta move. Soon, before we lose our chance.”

Mayna twisted her torso to the left, made an O with her mouth and spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor, wiped her face with her sweater sleeve (adding to the smears of mystery blood) then turned to the other three, looking at each of them with every syllable of “Who grabbed me?”

Justin looked down at the floor while Lorena pointed at Trippy. Trippy only looked at Mayna. It was only now that Mayna noticed the crimson stain blossoming from Trippy’s shirt collar, the top sliver of what looked like a mean gash poking up to say hey.

Mayna pointed, “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Everything happened so fast I didn’t notice it until I got in here with these two,” Trippy reassured, “I can’t even really feel it. Don’t worry.”

“Thank you,” Mayna said, “For saving me back there.”

“What the hell were you even doing?” Justin hissed.

Mayna leaned over and relieved her mouth from another spray of salty-sweet ruby, her tongue stinging like a sonuvabitch. “Trying to get out.” she grunted. Twyna gedowd.

“You almost brought him right to us.” Justin said.

Coach Trippy invited him to shut it with a flat hand shoved downward like pressing a big sound off button. “But she didn’t, did she?” Coach Trippy explained in a barely-there whisper. Then, turning to Mayna, added, “And you’re welcome.” She stood, held out her hand to Mayna, who took it and stood too. Coach went again to the door, placed her heel against the bottom of the door, just in case. “We gotta get outta here ASAP.”

Mayna’s face twisted into a question mark. “What about the windows? Let’s just open ‘em and book.”

“That’s what I thought, too.” Justin chimed in, still clutching that claw hammer.

“Can’t.” Trippy said. “Too risky.”

“What do you mean? Are there more of them out there?” Mayna asked, her voice beginning to rise a bit until Trippy and Justin and Lorena all made their own special little quiet down hand gestures at once.

Coach Trippy said, “She noticed them first,” jutting her chin over at Lorena.

“They’re boobie trapped.” Lorena whispered, then held out a solitary finger toward the glass. Mayna followed it, approaching the wall of windows carefully, watching her feet as she did, avoiding sneaky jutting chair legs and pesky pointy desk corners. And as she came upon it, the window, framing the blue icy flat beyond, she did notice something odd. Seemingly out of place.

A little electrical wire loop poking up from the outer sill. Leaning closer she could see there were electrical wires that snaked all around the outside of the window bottom, some branching off and up the metal frames and coming to a puttied end along the air-tight window seals. All the wires converged into a little white cube in the far corner, tucked away almost conspicuously. Almost.

There was a little red light blinking in the center of the little cube.

“What is that?” Mayna gasped.

“The fuck does it look like?” Justin huffed.

Lorena jutted in with, “I told them that my father is an engineer and I’m taking robotics and electrical science and that it looks like a detonator.”

“So…” Mayna tried but couldn’t. Coach Trippy finished for her.

“Yes.” Trippy said. “As far as we can tell, it’s a bomb.”