Seeking to Scare

Everything was ready for the Ritual.

Sarah’s fingers twiddled against the cold, grey chair that creaked at every movement. The sky, gloomy and brewing outside, looked in from the expansive windows at Wistmond High School. Janet and she had been planning this for months – their last year at school, their last Halloween hurrah. It would be extraordinary and Sarah was so, so ready.

Thus far, the day had felt long and silent sans their classmates lowered, hushed tones. Though Janet and Sarah were the only ones truly in on it, everyone in their grade seemed to know something was up. There was always something up with the two best friends on Halloween.

Just last year, Janet had covered white balloons with fake blood and they’d kindly deposited them in their principles office. Mr Blake sure got a nice surprise when he’d entered the office that morning. They could hear the shriek from across the school.

But it wasn’t enough. Sarah wanted more. She wanted the fear to cascade the school like a tsunami, all-consuming and awesome. This year will be different, she thought as a sinister smirk crept across her face, her legs just itching to get up and start.

The scratching of chalk on a blackboard pulled her from her stupor.

“I know it’s Halloween, but you still have homework.” Mr Arison droned, droned.

Sarah could feel the white chalk on her skin, though it was mere fantom. She shuddered as the bell – finally – rung loud and clear, and she leapt up from her chilling, uncomfortable seat with glee, barely hearing her English teacher call out after her.

“First draft is due Monday!”

She didn’t care. Couldn’t care. It was Halloween, the sky was dark and cold, and it was time.

-

Janet met up with her on the luscious, inviting green grass of the oval. They fist-pumped with knowing smirks and commenced what they had been calling the Ritual. It wasn’t really a ritual – the girls wouldn’t repeat it after tonight. They couldn’t. Just like they couldn’t hear the students put their things back into their lockers and hover about like flees but knew all the same that it would be over soon enough.

If you stood from the science labs on the 3^rd floor of Wistmond, you wouldn’t be able to see what Sarah had done at 5am that very morning.

But you would now. 

“How was English?” Janet asked sweetly as she slipped on a full-body hazmat suit in black. Janet had reiterated countless times that the suits had to be in black.

“As well as it could ever be. First draft of that stupid short story is due Monday. Pisses me off. I truly think that the only assessment in English should be a spelling test.”

“Yeah but some people can’t spell.”

“Who? Like you?” Sarah narrowed her eyes in mock criticism as she pulled gloves over her own suit.

“Ah fuck off, Sarah. I failed that Spelling Bee four years ago. Get over it.”

She giggled. “Never getting over Mr Blake’s face as you pissed yourself on stage just cos you didn’t know how to spell Velociraptor. Everybody was laughing.”

Janet managed a faux grin, lighting a match. “They won’t be laughing now.”

And as she dropped the match into the oil they had poured, poured over the field, Sarah smiled a satisfied smirk before the gas mask closed over her face.

So the two best friends ran from the towering flames that seemed to grow taller and taller, burn brighter at every second. And then…. Boom.

Fireworks. Screams. Cackles heard from every corner. A quiet, “So this was what they were planning.”

Sarah knew she shouldn’t feel so overjoyed, so invigorated at the destructions she was causing. But they were to graduate this year and they would never see this shit-hole again and somehow the fireworks crashing into the sky, the gas starting to spread, the flames hissing and howling – it was all worth it.

And then she saw Mr Amirson.

The gas wasn’t supposed to harm anyone. It really wasn’t. Janet had planned for it – sleeping gas, nothing serious. The students would see the fireworks and the flames and feel a little fucking terrified, then have that sleep they’d been trying to have in English class for the last five years.

But Mr Amirson’s shoulders were shaking and his eyes were bulged and wide like they were about to pop out – and the little corner he was shuddering into was doing nothing to stop the gas from spreading.

“Fuck. Janet.” She called out through the mask, suddenly scared as she saw her English teacher of four years frothing at the mouth. She bit her lip – Sarah wasn’t supposed to be scared today.

“Sarah?” Mr Amirson mumbled, recognising her voice as his eyes began to close tightly. Sarah bent down to examine him, but when she touched his clammy shoulders, then his clammy face. She knew her high school education couldn’t treat this.

She stifled a cry in her throat as her brain spun around and around and around, trying to make sense of what had happened – what could’ve happened – what she blatantly refused to think about.

“Janet? Janet?” She cried out, flinging back from the man’s body, and running through the corridors.

Everywhere, students were on the ground or dropping to the floors like flies. Some were shaking as Mr Amirson had, the mouths of others were fizzling like, like, mentos in coke, she thought with a grimace.

Not meant to happen, not meant to happen…

She felt sick to her stomach as she searched desperately for her friend. In the distance, sirens began to faintly whirl. Had Janet known? After what felt like hours of searching, hours of seeing her classmates lifeless, she finally saw Janet hovering there in the hallway.

Her black hazmat suit stood out against the foggy, smoky air. She looked like something out of a horror movie, a dark ghost or demon - a silhouette swathed in shadow. Sarah’s heart sunk as she looked at her.

“Janet?” She cried out, lip trembling.

Her best friend turned to face her, waving as a gesture to approach. Sarah did so with shaky legs.

Janet stood over Mr Blake. Her fists were gripped tightly in her gloves, and the way she leant over him mirrored a scythe over its victim. Terror seized Sarah. 

“He’s dead now.” Janet said firmly, almost carelessly.

Sarah didn’t even want to know… “Are they all?”

Janet nodded and Sarah gasped. The hallways spun around her head; the bodies burned into her brain.

“I – Janet. They are our friends!”

Fury soaked Janet’s eyes. “They were never our friends.” She stepped closer, fingers poking out at her, prodding into Sarah’s chest. Mr Blake lay discarded. “They laughed at me. They tormented me. He laughed at me.”

“You…” Sarah began, the puzzles fitting into place. “You did this because of the Spelling Bee?”

“No.” Janet hissed. “It wasn’t just the Spelling Bee. God! You don’t know what it’s like, do you? Reputation? How one whole event changes how everyone sees you!”

Nausea enveloped her. “We’ve been doing these Halloween pranks for years. Trying to scare people, give them a little taste of fear. But what, it’s always been you? Wanting to get back at everyone? Even if it means killing them. You’re sick, Janet. Sick.”

Janet looked enraged, finally stepping back from her. “You don’t understand.”

“No.” Sarah said conclusively. “I don’t. And I hope I never do.”

Sarah held her cold rage inside her, but Janet looked visibly steaming, and not just the white gas floating around her shadow. They held each other’s stares, like one of the games they’d played as kids. But it was different this time, no matter how much Sarah wished it wasn’t.

“Don’t act like you didn’t have any part of this. You wanted to scare people as much as me!” Janet snapped, fuming.

“I never wanted to kill people!” Sarah’s cold rage broke as the wail of sirens crept closer. She marched up to her best friend, got under her nose. “I never, never wanted to kill people. Not my English teacher, not my principal, and not my friends.” Her voice faltered on the last word, hot tears starting to stream down her face.

“Well you should’ve.” Janet hissed. Sarah pushed her into the lockers, rage and despair and shock controlling her every action. How could she?

And then Sarah did something she never thought she would ever do. She undid her friend’s gas mask and let it fall to the floor as Janet’s eyes widened in realisation, in shock, in sadness and some quieter form of relief.

“Now you’ll know.” Janet coughed out. Then she stared at Sarah’s eyes and breathed in deeply. A long, deep breath before she fell to the ground and Sarah felt the world collapse from underneath her.

As the realisation sunk in and the police officers called out, Sarah vomited inside her mask and willed the fear to end.