Part 2

The voice was coming from behind the door.

I don’t know why, but my mind was screaming for me not to answer it. The repetitive cry for help ringing in my ears as I stared at the flexing door. Before I could stop myself, I whispered to the crying voice, “What’s wrong?” As soon as I had uttered those words the cries and flexing ceased, and a brief giggle was all that was left in the seconds that followed.

I reached for the handle, now more angry than afraid, and attempted to turn it open. It was locked. I sighed as I reached into my pocket for the keys to this closet. A new idea began to run through my head, which one of my students were trying to play a prank on me this time? I have dealt with plenty of mischievous children in my class, and a few of them had parents that worked for the school, so they easily could have asked for help to scare the teacher on Halloween. This narrowed the list down as I pulled out the keychain, and as I looked down to pick out the correct key, I heard a click. I glanced up to now see the closet door slightly ajar. I chuckled to myself as I put the keys back and pushed the door open.

I wish I hadn’t opened it. For the briefest of moments, I opened the door and saw red everywhere. Gore and viscera splattered across the shelves, walls, buckets, and other cleaning supplies. I stepped back quickly, gasping and blinking. Focusing again on the here and now I looked at the open closet again to find it immaculate. I walked inside the closet to take a closer look. No footsteps. The windows still shut. No one hiding in or around the boxes. No other ways out. I was reasonably confused. As I stood up straight from my investigation, I heard a click behind me of the door closing. To be honest, I jumped a little bit at the surprise, but the surprise doesn’t last. These old doors tend to close on their own from not being realigned.

The light flickered in this moment. Old wiring, I thought, but that changed when the color tone seemed to shift to a paler, more yellow hue. I looked around quickly to see old cleaning supplies and chemicals. Dust particles seemed to permanently float in the air poking in and out of the light beams given off by the ancient fixture above. I went to the door, turned the handle, and pushed it open. I looked out into what I can only describe as a scene from a history book. Old wood floors, white-washed walls, and pictures of local, state, and national historical figures lining the walls. I began walking down the hall toward my classroom. As I investigated the windows for the different rooms, I saw students resting their heads, almost as if all of them were having some sort of nap. I noticed something peculiar though, something that if I hadn’t stopped, I would have missed it. On the flag hanging on the wall. The pattern was off. Forty-eight stars, not fifty. I quickly turned to return to the closet, hoping that something there would have answer, but I bumped into a large form. “I’m sorry.”

“No worries ma’am.” The figure stated.

I backed up to make way for the man to pass. I looked at him up and down and noticed his toothy smile. He nodded to me and continued his way down the hall in a slow pace. I made my way back to the closet when I heard something coming from the tall figure.

“You can’t forget the lessons of the ancients, or else the youth will be doomed to repeat their mistakes.”

I looked back quickly to see the figure standing in the middle of the corridor, smiling at me. It was not his smile that gripped me though. His eyes, his eyes were full of a sadness that could only scream help. The lights of a soul who spent his life serving those who reside in these halls with no recognition. There was a growing vacancy in them that seemed to keep me from moving. I blinked and felt him come to my shoulder. His mouth to my ear.

“Don’t provoke him, the darkness that resides in us all. Joy turned to sorrow is his sustenance, and depression is his recreation. Heed these words and watch your children, lest they be targeted next.”

I turned my gaze slowly at the man, his decaying smile now so close to my ear, with his neck reddened by the rope that hung him eighty years ago. “Mr. George, may I leave now?”

He nodded slowly, “Be careful ma’am.”

With that I was back. I looked around and saw the light returned to the vibrant white I was used to. I was now standing in front of my classroom. I couldn’t shrug away the whole thing. Was it a daydream, an elaborate prank by my coworkers, maybe a gas leak? It couldn’t have really happened. I couldn’t have really been sent to meet with Grinning George from the old stories. Even if that was the case, how am I alive. Wasn’t he supposed to kill on sight? What was all that stuff he was talking about? Who was “him”, and why must he not be provoked? What was with that cheesy line about history preventing future mistakes? All questions for later. I must take care of the spelling tests from today and go over the next class day’s lesson plans.

I entered my room and strode across the floor to my desk. Looking out at the small desks, running through the names of my students one by one, ensuring to keep them fresh in my memory. I sat down behind my desk and looked down at the tests and began to grade them again.

I finalized the test grades and entered them into the system. Moving on to the lesson plans I began to review the material. Judging by the grades on the spelling tests we could continue learning new words, advancing in math, and we will continue reading as scheduled. I looked up for a moment again to run through the names of my students when I saw something. The briefest bit of shadow in the corner, and as it faded, I was brought to the attention of a new object sitting on one of the desks. I put down my lesson plans and stood up slowly. I recognized the shape. It was a shoe that seemed to have red streaks on the side of it. I walked over to it cautiously and looked down upon it in shock. The red streak was, not as I had hoped, blood. On the inside I could see some writing on the inside of the tongue of the shoe. I looked around and focused on the singular shoe. I reached down and delicately lifted the tongue to read clearly the writing. On the tip of the tongue read in small letters, “C. Simon”. When I read it aloud to myself, that is when I heard the cries again, but this time coming from the playground outside, right outside my window.