SANTA MARIA HIGH (COMPLETED)

🎃Part Three: 12🎃

The men brought the rest of the students out of the hole they said led to a wide network of tunnels. Paramedics were stationed nearby to wheel them to the school clinic. They were alive, thankfully.

There was never any experienced in Principal Charles life that had paralleled all that happened that night: from the repeat saga of missing students, to finding them all in an old underground charnel, thankfully, alive.

He had never had reason to doubt the soundness of Madam Rosalind's judgement. He had always respected her as a voice of sanity, but that night she was in she was in his office a bit disoriented, he thought she might have been drunk. She had aged years in hours, worry lines, crowfeet, sad swollen red eyes, hair a bit tousled. She didn't look like she could make it out of that seat.

He made the call however, and Mr John and his men arrived in no time. All she told the man was, "I think I know someplace we should search." The man simply nodded, helped her off the chair and the adventure began. "we begin in the Old chapel." She said.

The place was searched twice earlier. Mr John must have known that. Principal Charles knew that. But when no one objected, he didn't.

She stepped out of the car, and they followed. The old chapel was as expected devoid of anyone, dusty and festering with rats and bats. The woman opened the door at the right corner of the building, a few feet from what used to be a gleaming tiled dais, now littered with droppings.

Something about how she walked, her eyes were vacant, trance like, as she kept mumbling to herself. It was all unsettling. Principal Charles could only make out few words, "it was evening..." then she looked towards an empty place, "the piano was there," she looked towards the window, "the sun." it was evident she was trying to remember something. She turned towards the west side of the building towards a door that stood ajar.

The woman they followed wasn't the Madam Rosalind they all knew. They walked down a hallway, then the woman turned back. then she eventually opened another door that led to another empty room except for a broken chair and a spread out shaggy rug. She paused for a long while, Mr John was quiet, just shining his flash light around, he went with his men back to the hall way, trying every door, they came back to meet them.

"it has to be here." she had said, the disappointment was in her eyes. She looked at him, "I have to find them." her eyes were glazed with tears, her lips trembled. But just when the men walked in, something changed in her look which abruptly averted to a corner on the floor. "I need you to believe me. When I was a child, I used to run around this whole place. And there's one places no one has searched." she looked around and sighed. "father said it was forbidden."

"Below ground?" Principal Charles said, weirdly certain that he was right before she nodded. he knew few things about the history of the manor, he couldn't recall where he's read about an underground compartment, but he should have thought of it. The former owners were insanely rich people who can afford the best labour force and slaves of the day, they'd at least have had a wine cellar.

"roll the rug." Mr John ordered his men.

The rug had all this while been covering a trap door, leading to a dark compartment beneath, he called into the darkness and all he heard was the echo of this own voice, moving farther and farther away. Madam Rosalind robbed her forehead, "we can take it from here." Mr John offered to have a man drive her back to the manor after he called for backup. Madam Rosalind agreed, the tremor in her voice was evident. "tell me what you find," was her parting words.

                                                                                                    *******