Pa Jacob waited and supervised the team of students and Prefects he’s organized to dismantle some of the equipment and moved them to the store. By the time he left it with was 7:15pm. It was still a long time before he could have sent the students out and make sure the doors were locked, but Pa Jacob was tired of staying back home, feeling sorry for old age. He wanted to do something, so he decided to lock any of the classes where students were not found, besides it was the night of the musical, a Halloween night, students naturally would want to spend the night having fun other than sitting again to read.
He walked the lawn up the porch after parting ways with Andy—who said something about mixing fertilizers and irrigating the greenhouse—and decided to start with the laboratory and stores. Trash stationeries littered the atrium despite the half-filled trash cans accessible to everyone, a potted dumb cane was holding some crumpled torn wrongly disposed pages, Pa Jacob could imagine Andy the horticulturist and Madam Rosalind wondering when these kids will learn to value nature. But then, kids will always be kids.
He took a detour behind the main block and head straight for the laboratory complex, he’s most unlikely to run into students there. He went up one flight stairs, and began whistling when he got to levelled floor. Angel was behind, bounding after him, barking occasionally.
The dog had given a sharp bark back at the concert when it noticed Ada and Hope on the stage, Andy the gardener had laughed seated by him far to the back and a few curious eyes had turned to see him, he tried to apologize, but ruffled the fur of the small dog and whispered, “good dog.” The dog was quite obstinate when it comes to parting with it, he had to sometimes put it in and lock the door before leaving for his rounds to ensure that he wasn’t being followed. But that day he had taken the fall, it was Angel that alerted Andy and some of the staffs to his ordeal. So he had decided to give the dog a special treat to the concert. Stupid, it sounds, but Pa Jacob partly blamed it on an old man’s senility, and the other on sentiments.
Most of the doors were locked already, he observed. A few privileged students hold keys to some rooms, his rounds were only to ensure they hadn’t forgotten to lock the rooms which most often than not was the case.
The light flickered above in the long empty halls. That happens sometimes.
When the light flickered again, he figured there must be something wrong in the wiring. The light flickered again and an eerie cold wind that seem to swirl around the space stopped him. Pa Jacob resumed his walk, the light above dimmed then came on bright, the fluorescent light buzzed a higher pitch, the light dimmed again. He considered the alternative to the cause of the incessant flickering being problems with the wiring would be… well kids.
Angel barked, a real bark, loud and bold, unlike its juvenile yark. He looked back. The hair on the dog’s scruff stood, teeth barred in alien aggression, it barked again. “Stop it.” He shouted at it. The dog whimpered and dragged behind. Angel never acts that way.
The light dimmed again, so low, it was almost dark. When he heard a scream from the far end of the hall where the light had somehow darkened even more, he had suspected some student were taking their physics skills too far. Heaven knows how many times they burn equipment when no one is there to supervise. So he ran, more like hobbled, down the hall, towards where the scream and pounding was coming from. He didn’t notice Angel had stayed back, he only heard that her barks were louder and more persistent. He ran though, in his mind, he’d enter grab the main switch and turn it off. Then get to the root of the ruckus. A bit of library duties and detentions were in order for whoever it was, that’s if nothing pricy gets destroyed.
The sounds were more persistent, the scream louder. Then suddenly, it was as if the walls have become sound absorbent all of a sudden. There was pure complete silence.
The lights went off momentarily at first, then total darkness followed. He could still hear Angel barking in between whimpers as if calling him to come back. For a moment he was sure a part of him wanted to turn back, a brief déjà vu of the life of a soldier. He pressed on towards the darkness. He reached for his pocket and brought out his phone, the screen light came on, and with that he could see the door with the ‘physics lab’ plaque hanging on it.
The silence was deafening, pregnant it seemed, just like the darkness. He felt fear, cold, chilling fear. But he was a soldier, retired, but as the saying ‘old soldier never dies.’ Besides, some kids might have harmed themselves behind that door and be in need of rescuing.
Somehow, his mind went to the days during the civil war, he was in Calabar where they were mobilized to defend in the Operation Tiger Claw. What came to mind then was the silence when they finally repelled the opposition, the way the city stretched out like a ghost town as if holding its breath for the next wave.
Stop it! This time the thought was more for himself than the Samoyed who was frantically backing. Just get the door! on getting to the door he felt actual chill coming from the dark. He turned the knob and realized that the door was locked, He reached for his key chain, and brought it out. On looking up, however, a creak announced the opening of the door to the darkness inside.
He ran in, bent a little like he did during the war, using cars for cover and shooting back. It was dark, and there was something about the darkness that surround the little circumference of the beam of his phone screen light. It was as if it was shifting. Stop it! A moping stick was lying on the floor, then he saw two shirts around the stool. A pendulum was swinging, there was a notebook on the side, a textbook too, but not a soul. Only the clothings. When he finally did make out the bra straps, his first thought was lovemaking gone wrong, french letters, kids fishing from the devil’s nest…
There was no one, as far as he could see.
He heard the sound first, something moving, “who is there?” he called. The door closed behind with a dull clap, the light flickered. In the renewed night, his leg brushed something warm, furry, dark with eyes... He kicked forcefully at whatever it was. “what the hell!” he heard a meow.
It was as if kicking it flicked the switch, the light came on for a second or two. Then it darkened again.
Two new yellow light came on. He started back, but his back was leaning on something dark, something oleaginous, barely solid, he knew then what it was. He felt a paralyzing pang in his heart. He’s lived long enough to know the myths, like that of the mermaid in the lake which could not be proved. But here he was, staring at the solid form of a furry shadow with large yellow eyes.
He knew his legs had collided with Oscar, but the large furry thing that stared back at him was no Oscar, it wasn’t something natural, so was the darkness he was falling back on, it was a bit… solid. The crushing pain his chest made him gasp and keel over.
He fell to the floor, gasping, as the huge cat approached. He remembered Operation Tiger Claw, the colossus fight between the Nigerian and Biafran forces. He remembered feeling this way, he remembered thinking he would die. Now he knew he would. He remembered the informants that dug their graves before being shot into it. Pa Jacob knew what the man and his son tried to fight despite knowing: This is the end.
Razor sharp claws slashed across his face, he barely felt that, the most pain was from his chest radiating up his left arm. The last thing he heard wasn’t a meow of a kicked cat, it was more like the angry roar of a bear.
He thought of the things he told a certain little girl, who was curious about the myths and shadows in Santa Maria High. He told her to drop the whole issue because he himself didn’t believe or maybe didn’t want to. It was hard to deny what was staring him in the eye at the moment: A cat that was no longer a cat, shadows that moved, and seem to take familiar forms.
Before his eyes closed, he thought of her late wife. He saw Maria, sitting under a neem tree by the lake.
AN: Thanks for stopping by! School has been crazy demanding, but I'm just as committed to editing and posting the rest of this story as I was when I posted chapter one. Thanks.
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SANTA MARIA HIGH (COMPLETED)
Paranormal...are you afraid of the dark? When Hope Mark lost her foster mother to cancer and had to move to a new school, she never thought much of SANTA MARIA HIGH. Other than the fact that the fact that the school was in the most beautiful Manor, with tall...
