Curse Of Darkness By Steven Gilby - Chapter Seven

I watched as Razz walked out the front door to look for Robert. I lowered my head and walked around until I found myself in the kitchen.
"Vincent! You got anything to drink?"
"Help yourself, my friend!"
I opened the fridge and found some orange juice, milk, a gallon of water, leftover food, and a bottle of tequila. Just my luck. Tequila or orange juice? I could make a tequila sunrise. But I don't like mixed drinks.
I reached in and grabbed the square glass bottle and spun off the cap and threw it in the trash. If I was drinking then I was finishing the bottle. It was already half gone anyway. I walked into the living room and sat on the couch and drank for maybe five minutes, almost finishing the bottle, before I decided I didn't want to stay here to wait for Razz.
I got up off the couch and looked around for Vincent. I heard from Magnus that he was in the basement cleaning up our mess.
When I got down there I saw him cleaning blood off the straps that had held me to that table.
"Hey, Vincent." I almost crept up. I don't know why.
"It's on the table. Razz is going to look for Robert at the High School. He's still alive remember. So is she. You on the other hand. You are dead and should not be seen at the school in your condition." He was saying all this without even looking at me. Just cleaning the straps and all. He had already picked up the tools Razz pushed onto the floor. I saw a couple of them in the trash. Oops. I guess we broke a couple. "Take the knife on the table. You'll need some kind of protection if worse comes to worse."
"Why this dinky little knife? I'd rather have my sword if it comes to that."
He stood up and stared at me then dropped the cloth onto the floor. As he walked over towards me I backed up just a little. He grabbed that dinky little knife and nearly slammed it into my chest. It was like I was being given an order. No sword, just the knife. Sir, yes, sir!, I thought to myself.
"A sword is too big to carry. This can be easily concealed in your pocket and, though it may not kill Robert if it comes to it, it can most definitely slow him down if you use it. Right in the heart. That'll slow him down considerably."
I stuffed the knife into the dirty jeans I was wearing and left. As I started walking down the street I suddenly remembered where I was. This place wasn't very far from the school. Not even a five minute walk. I picked up the pace and started jogging. I reached the school a minute or two later a little out of breath. I walked in through the front door and kept my head down. Classes were still in. I couldn't remember what time this particular class let out but I walked around the school until the bell rang. It wasn't the end of the day, just a switch in classes. Five minutes between classes to go to your locker, go to the bathroom, and get to your next class.
The school itself wasn't very big. It was almost like a square that branched off into different electives and classes. When you walk in you have the office in the front, of course. There was no carpet anywhere in the school anymore. They had taken it out last year. Only a few classrooms have carpet anymore.
If you keep going straight past the office you'll pass the doors to the gym. There were two sets, one near the office and the other near the new cafeteria that was finished last year. It took them forever, but student sure had a fun time making fun of it. They called it a half-eteria and a prison lunch room. That last one was very accurate to how it looked.
Past the doors were only a few classrooms. Spanish, history and another history class. Between the doors were lockers of a dark purple, one of the schools colors. Purple and yellow, but they call it gold. What do they know? They had painted them the year before also. They used to be orange.
There isn't much past the cafeteria. Only a couple bathrooms by the two pairs of double doors and outside was the student parking lot, the field house where they held Government and Economics classes(only two classrooms) and stuff for the jocks, and the football field.
If you turn right at the cafeteria you'll be going down a hall full of lockers and a trophy display case that was long and full of all the old trophies on the left. Hardly anything new from the sports teams but the NJROTC was bringing in a good bunch of awards. Just past all that were the boys and girls bathrooms that were built with the school.
Half way down the hall the English Hall was on the right and went in a straight line through the school near the office. You would get to it faster if you turned right at the office and went past the counselors' offices. It was right there. The English had between six and ten classrooms.
Continuing past the English Hall and trophies was the corner wing of the school. "Vocational" was the sign that hung at the entrance. Computer labs, computer science, art, criminal justice, shop, two geography classes, one American history class, cooking class, sewing. It was the hall for almost all the extra curricular classes. It went straight back to a set of doors that led outside to the front of the school near the teachers parking lot. There were two small branched halls from that. One of them was the Criminal Justice, Geography, and History classes and it was right at the beginning of the hall. It curved off to the left. Another hall was also to the left. NJROTC (Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps) was down a short hall and through a heave wooden door. They had a while wing to themselves.
Going to the right once more you will find the doors to the teacher parking lot, they're on the left. It's also where the students get dropped off and picked up everyday by the school buses, unless it's raining like someone placed a waterfall over the whole town.
On the right are the doors to the library. You can see it from the cafeteria. Glass windows surround it as walls from the halls. It goes down into the ground about seven feet. It's full of books that absolutely no one wants to read and one of the biggest.
Continuing on we have the math/science hall at the near end of this side of the square school. It was a straight hall like most the rest of the school but it had one hall that branched off of it to the right. Criminal Justice liked to use this hall for Building Search when they held their competition in the winter.
There were three science classes and three math classes all mixed together. There was a small extension to the hall that had a set of double doors that led into the teacher parking lot. It was a bright blue hall for Health Science, Special Education, a behavior unit for misbehaved students, and the class they use for ISS (In School Suspension).
Health Science had two rooms. One classroom and one with a hospital bed and all that kind of stuff, even a dummy, and I'm not talking about the student who volunteers.
Taking the last right and heading back to the office we have the storage rooms, one for books and one for teacher stuff. The other end of the English hall was just past those store rooms. Then the counselors' offices and back to the office.
I walked around the school and didn't see either Robert or Razz. I wonder where they went.
A bell rang and student burst from the classrooms like a broken dam that let out all its water. I couldn't let anyone see me, at least not anyone who remembered me. How many people is that, I wonder? Nevertheless I had to hide myself. The bathroom! I bolted into the bathroom and felt like if I slammed into it any harder I would have broken a bone in my arm.
When I ran in I looked around for a stall to go into. I ran in and locked the door and stood on the toilet so no one would see me.
As I stood there on the toilet I heard two guys walk in talking about death.
"Hey, you remember that kid who died a little while back?"
The other replied in question, "That Steven kid?"
"Who? I was talking about James. He was cool. Who the hell are you talking about?"
A toilet flushed and the other replied, "He was just some nerd kid who died in some kind of car accident or something."
"Whatever. Let's get to class before we get detention. I got football practice after school and Coach McGraw will be pissed if I don't show up."
The other toilet flushed and they walked out without any more words. Nice to know I'm remembered.
After they left and the bell for class to start rang I got out and started walking around some more. I walked all over the school, peering into classrooms through the tall narrow windows. Nothing. Robert wasn't anywhere to be seen or found.
I started making my way to the football field so I could sit in the stands. I saw a couple figures walking around the track. People walk and run that thing all the time. It's not just for school. I thought nothing of them and continued walking through the parking lot to sit in the bleachers. There were some birds in a small flock in one area of the parking lot but I didn't feel like bothering them. Cars and trucks of all sizes, shapes, makes and models were in this parking lot. I saw a dune buggy that a guy I knew drove to school. To bad I couldn't say "Hi" to old acquaintances. What would they think? Dude, I thought you were dead. What would I say to that? Oh, yeah, I was for a little while but I'm good now. I'm not technically dead anymore.
I swung the gate open and headed for the closest seat I could find. I always wondered why the fence to the stadium had barbed wire on it. Eh, who cares. It's just one of those things.
I sat down on the wooden seat in the stands and put my forearms on my thighs and help my hands together and looked at the ground. Every time I do this people thing I'm about to cry or something. It's just how I think. Now if I could only find something to think about. I never could find something to think about. Images popped into my head. None of them were true. Just pictures my mind made up. I thought about what would happen if Razz died. Her lying on the cold hard ground covered in blood, eyes still open, staring at me. It scared me so much I had to look up just to see daylight and the reality I'm in now where Razz is still alive. At the curved part of the track I noticed those two people out of the corner of my eyes. I looked over at them and it surprised me. Razz and Robert were walking around the track talking. I still had that knife that Vincent gave me. I could try to kill him right here right now. Oh was it tempting. Instead I put my head back down and watched them walk by. Razz had been walking on Robert's left so he was busy looking at her. She looked up in the bleachers and saw me. I waved my hands in that "I'm not here" motion. She ignored me and kept walking with him.
I stood up and got out the little knife I had been given and walked slowly and as quietly as I could behind them. I was contemplating on yelling his name so he turned around before I stabbed him. I was no coward. I would stab him in the front.
I backed off a little and when they were far enough away I started going a little faster than a jog but slower than a run. I yelled his name as I got close and he turned around and I swung my arm for his chest, I didn't care if I hit his heart or now, I just wanted to stab him, hurt him.
Razz moved in front of him and I tried to slow myself and stop but the knife went straight into the upper part of her back. Why? Why was she protecting him? It's his fault I am like I am now. I saw him at that house with that werewolf.
I stared at what I did. I couldn't believe it. I stabbed my best friend.
Blood wet her shirt and ran down her back and she fell over. A small puddle of red blood pooled and it started to soak into her sleeves and pants. All I could do was stare as Robert picked her up and started to jog away with her. I ran after him.
"Robert, this way. There's a safe haven less than five minutes that way."
He didn't know I was pointing at Vincent's house but he nodded and we ran with Razz in Robert's arms. I decided to kill him later.