Looking back several years, being so excited to be a fifth
grader seems kind of silly. I don't know what grade starts middle school where
you live, but around here fifth grade was the last year of elementary school.
You got to be the top dogs, and the younger kids looked up to you. The school I
was going to at the time was a small, private one owned by a church. Though I
never told my parents what it was, there was something that terrified me so bad
I started to cry at the thought of going back there. I never told them. It was
too scary. But I'm more mature now, and perhaps a warning to you all would be
good.
A few of us children would always be waiting later in the
day for our parents, who took about an hour and a half extra to get to the
school to pick us up. Out in front of the elementary school was an older school
house. It looked like one of those smaller, country churches, but without the
cross at the top or bells. It had bricks that looked like they needed painting.
None of us had gotten close enough to see inside, the steps leading up to the
only door were very steep and almost entirely blocked off by two large bushes.
This particular day, Gwen, Lisa, Mark, and myself were the
only fifth graders out there. One of the little second graders, a new kid, came
up to us and asked about the building.
"We don't know about it," Mark answered.
"We've never been in there." The topic of the old building had drawn
a small crowd of children, mostly ones new to the school, but a few fourth
graders who had been there long enough to have started to wonder about the old
building. "Why?" Asked one of the kids. "Is it locked?"
We looked between ourselves. We didn't know. This didn't sit
well with us. We were the big kids, we were supposed to be in charge and know
stuff, right?
"Let's find out," Mark decided. "One of us
will go in the building if it's unlocked!" Gwen glared at him. "I'm
not going in there! It's probably all dusty and full of bugs!" There was
only a brief moment of silence. "Fine. I'll go," Mark finally gave
in. I had a feeling he didn't want to go in, either, but wasn't about to be
called chicken by some first graders who had been watching him.
Lisa and myself, much more interested in this building than
Gwen, followed Mark to the bottom of the stairs. He went up. Much to his
surprise, the door was unlocked. I suppose it made sense, it was an old
building that we never saw anyone go into. So no one probably felt it needed a
lock or protection. Mark stepped in, shutting the door behind him.
We all waited a short time, but eventually most everyone
moved on to do their own thing. Nothing was happening, and we were kids. We got
bored. Lisa, Gwen, and I were playing tag when I started to get worried.
"Hey, guys? Mark's been in there a really long time."
Gwen nodded. "Yeah, I hope he's alright."
A few of the kids playing with us nodded in agreement.
"Maybe someone should go in and make sure he didn't fall or
something," Lisa suggested.
"I'll do it," I volunteered after a moment's
hesitation. Whatever secrets that building might hold had been bugging me ever
since Mark went in. I wanted to know. However, when going up the stairs, I got
terrified. What if something like a skunk was in there? But there were little
kids watching me, and I had to be the brave big kid who could do stuff they
couldn't. So I went on in, shutting the door behind me. I wish I left it open.
There was only the light through some dusty windows to see
by, so it wasn't that good. It was a simple one-room school house. I took a
look around from where I stood at the back of the ancient classroom. There were
only a few desks left, probably too rickety to be used. The teacher's desk at
the front, through, was still in tact, and in fact looked in decent condition.
I saw no one in there. I started to wonder if maybe Mark had sneaked out and
hidden around the back of the building in order to get us worried and scare us.
I turned around to leave the school house, when I heard a voice.
"Let's play school," It said.
I whipped around on impulse. Now standing beside the desk
was what looked like the corpse of a young girl, no older than I was, but it
hadn't finished decomposing. Parts of it, her, like one eye, some patches on
her face and arm, were decomposed, huge gaping holes showing right through to
the bone or simply darkness. She donned a tarnished school dress like one might
have worn in the 1950's.
"Let's see, here," She went on. The girl pulled
out a skeleton, in a tattering, dusty, long dress. "She's the
teacher," The corpse explained, sitting the skeleton in the chair at the
desk. I was too terrified to move.
The girl moved around to the chair to manipulate the
skeleton like a normal girl would have done with a doll. "Catherine!"
She voiced the skeleton, having it say her name. "You've been such an
awful girl" Then, dropping the faked, lower voice she used for her
teacher, she turned to me. "She was such a mean teacher. I strangled her,
and now no one else has to put up with her!"
Then Catherine pulled out a few other skeletons, explaining
they were her parents and brother from a parent teacher conference that from
the looks of it, had gone horribly wrong. I was shaking, scared frozen.
"And this is a boy who just came in here. A school
needs kids, so I got him all fixed up for school!" She pulled out a
corpse, not yet decayed. Mark, with his eyes missing. I can only guess that she
strangled him, there seemed to be no sharp objects to impale anyone with.
Catherine paused in thought, then grinned a wicked grin.
"I know! You and him can be boyfriend and girlfriend, and kiss!" The
girl sat him down gingerly in one of the rickety desks, and then looked at me,
undoing a blood covered ribbon that was holding her hair back in a ponytail.
That's when I finally snapped out of it and darted out of
that building before she could grab me.
No one went in after that. I barely took two steps before
throwing up from the terror and disgust at the corpse of my friend and
Catherine. When my parents got there shortly after, I was shaking, refusing to
tell anyone what I'd seen in there. I was too scared to even go back into the
normal school building, my parents had to pull me out and place me in a
different school. Once away from the building, things got back on track, for
awhile.
Then one day about six years later, in order to try and
overcome my fear before we moved to Florida, I decided to go over to the church
that owned the school for a service. Being on the grounds without flipping out
would make me feel a lot better. However, due to the school and the church
sharing a parking lot, I did have to walk past that building.
I couldn't get to the service. I saw Mark in the window,
waving at me energetically like a long lost friend. Even though I couldn't hear
her, the sight made me freeze in my tracks. I saw her mouth the words
"Time for school!
I high tailed it out of there, and haven't even gone back to
the town since.
