Jolt

The sign in front of the high school was so weathered she could no longer make out the words. Pipevine had reached up to cover it further. There was a large cougar in mid-jump emblazoned on one side, looking as if it were trying to escape the vine’s stranglehold. She looked up into the cougar’s enraged eyes as she crept past. Whatever this place had been called before, no one would remember it now.

It was dark out, as it always was nowadays. The moon was full, allowing her to navigate without risking a lighter or a flashlight. Her boots made soft sounds on the concrete walkway as she eased closer. Her eyes darted around the premises, looking for movement - or worse - light, but all was still.

The front doors of the school were ajar, creating a yawning void of darkness within. She reached into her backpack, the nylon making a rustling noise that seemed to reach every corner of the world, and retrieved a purple glow stick. Resting it against her belly, she bent over it as best she could to muffle noise and carefully pressed along its length with her fingertips. The dull cracking sounds did not echo, at least, and she released the breath she’d been holding.

A shiver shook her shoulders as she raised the now bright stick before her and moved into the darkness.

The glow stick did not illuminate much of the hallway, but it was enough for her to avoid tripping over anything. Loose pages, weathered by moisture and dirt, were scattered along the tan linoleum floor. It looked like someone had ripped up textbooks, dropping their pages at intervals like flower petals at a wedding. Waving the glow stick around, she spotted an old red and white jersey, a single dirty shoe, and several broken desks among the refuse. Nothing she needed. Nothing she wanted.

Choosing the right wall, she began to slowly make her way deeper into the building. It was likely this building had been raided a long time ago, but she had high hopes that something had been missed. Carefully maneuvering past increasingly dense amounts of trash and broken furniture, she took a right and finally found what she was searching for.

Lockers. Rows upon rows of deep blue lockers lined the hallway ahead. Most were open or ajar, but a handful still had their locks intact. Creeping closer to an unopened locker on the bottom row, she unhooked a large pair of bolt cutters from her tool belt and laid the glow stick down.

Inside could be any number of useless things, but maybe - just maybe - a student or two had stored something useful inside. A lighter, a flashlight, a pen light, a phone, a camcorder. At this point, she would take anything.

Maybe there would even be batteries, if she was extremely lucky.

She positioned the blades, excitement pulsing in her veins, then hesitated.

The school was eerily silent. There wasn’t even a breeze, just the maddening stillness of night. The purple glowstick - not green, never green - made the padlock and cutters shine. There hadn’t been a hint of light or noise the entire time she’d been here. There was no reason for her to believe she wasn’t alone.

That’s how it always seemed, though.

She cut the padlock before she could change her mind, catching it before it hit the ground. The metallic sound still echoed down the halls, loud enough to make panic shiver down her spine. Holding her breath, she listened for noise, head swiveling to monitor both ends of the hall.

Long minutes passed, but she did not hear or see anything.

Slowly, gently, she lifted the latch and pulled the locker open. It opened noiselessly, to her relief, but her heart plummeted when the interior revealed only a couple textbooks and a box of crayons. She snatched her glow stick and swiftly moved to the next locker, which held only a compact with a tiny mirror, a small purse, and a journal half filled with classroom notes. After a moment of consideration, she reached out and opened the purse. Inside were a few feminine hygiene items, which she slipped into her own backpack, a tube of lipstick, and a pretty, heart-shaped locket.

Curiously, she lifted the locket and brought it closer to the light. A tiny red stone was embedded in the upper left corner of the heart. Finding the clasp, she popped the locket open.

A tiny photo was pressed into the back side of the locket. It showed a brown haired, green eyed woman, perhaps mid-thirties, hugging a young girl with matching hair and eyes from behind. On the inside of the front half, a message was engraved in elegant script.

Evelyn,

I love you

to the

moon & back

Mom

She ran a finger over the engraving, struck by a sudden melancholy. She’d never known her own mother. She couldn’t imagine the value this locket must have held. Had Evelyn been upset to lose this? Were she and her mother even still alive?

Slowly, she closed the locket, the small click reverberating through her fingers. She had no right to take this, but… it felt wrong to leave it here, too. With a quick prayer for forgiveness and for Evelyn, she pushed the locket into her pocket and moved on to the next locker.

Four more lockers were opened with nothing of particular use inside. The locket was shaping up to be her most interesting find, but she would never forgive herself if she left now.

By the sixth locker, her hands were shaking so badly that she was rattling the padlocks as she tried to position the cutters properly. She had made an incredible amount of noise and needed to move on soon. Perhaps to the lockers in the gym?

She fumbled the fifth padlock and it clattered to the floor, the sound traveling down all nearby halls. Her vision blurred as panic overwhelmed her, and she immediately clambered into the nearest open classroom. Stuffing the glow stick into the pocket of her jacket, she pressed herself into the corner behind the door and tried to hear anything over the sound of her racing heart.

Five minutes ticked by, agonizingly slow, and then six. A gust of wind made the trees outside wave in the moonlight. The building settled, the thunderous pop coming so suddenly she gasped aloud. But there was nothing else.

Finally, jittery from nerves and fear, she eased back to the doorway, peering into the hall. There was no light that she could discern, and so she fished out her glowstick only to find it had grown too dim to use. Tossing it aside, she lifted another from her pack - yellow this time - and lit it in the same fashion as the first.

Crawling on all fours back to the last locker, she lifted the latch. The locker creaked slightly as it opened and a couple sheets of balled up paper fell out, startling her. Raising the glow stick, she investigated the rest of what turned out to be a very crowded locker.

Loose gel pens dotted the bottom half, along with a sweater, a crushed Valentine’s card, and several hair ties. The shelf above contained five different textbooks, miraculously intact, and a copious amount of empty candy wrappers. She was about to close the door and move on when she spotted a pair of tangled black earbuds. Following the ends to the sweater pocket, her fingers met something smooth and hard. She pulled it out and froze.

It was a CD Walkman.

Astonished by such a rare find, she ran her fingers over the rubber buttons. Pressing the one to open the device, she was disappointed to find the disc inside was blank. Closing the lid, she flipped the CD player over and thumbed the battery compartment.

Two black and green batteries were nestled inside. Her heart rate increased, elation temporarily overpowering fear. Rolling one of the batteries over, she found the word.

Rechargeable.

Hastily, she popped both batteries out, slipping them into the zipper pocket on her jeans rather than stowing them in her backpack. These could not be lost. She stuffed the CD player into her backpack, every movement sounding louder and louder. She needed to leave… now.

She hooked the cutters back on her belt and tightened the straps of her backpack. Two hallways met in front of her, the left one leading to the entrance. She had taken three steps forward when a sudden green glow illuminated the right hall.

Terror eclipsed her being. They had heard her.

The light began to grow brighter, and she heard the telltale scraping of what sounded like a claws clicking against the linoleum. Panting in fear, she turned and raced toward the opposite hall. Surely she could find a way to loop around. Surely there was another exit nearby.

Green light erupted from this hall as well, stopping her in her tracks.

Two. There were two of them.

She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her breathing and whirled, hurrying into the same classroom she’d hidden in minutes prior. She hid her light and pressed herself behind the door again, out of the necessary time to find a closet.

Green bled under the doorway, gleaming off her shoes as the second light passed the classroom. It dimmed only slightly, and then stilled. She waited, but the lights did not move. Her eyes roved over the windows in the classroom, but she could not locate a locking mechanism. She was trapped.

If only they would move back into the hallway the second one came from, she could make a break for the entrance. They followed sound, she knew, but what did she have to distract them with?

She had several glowsticks, but tossing one of them away would be foolish. The purse she’d picked up would be a good option, but she would have to dig into her backpack to retrieve it. The batteries were out of the question as well, being infinitely more valuable than anything she’d found in her lifetime.

Her fingers found her left pocket, tracing the small shape within.

The locket. She could throw the locket. It would make plenty of noise and draw them in.

Conscious of potential jangling, she pulled the locket out and rolled it up in her fist. Rising into a crouch, she crept to the doorway. Peeking around the frame, she caught her first glimpse of her pursuers.

Two antique lanterns floated seemingly on their own at the spot where the three halls joined. They bobbed slowly up and down, a green flame flickering within their glass walls. On their own, they might have been beautiful. But she knew there was more standing there than lanterns.

Blinking away the afterimage, she peered down the dark side of the hallway and tossed the locket.

It pinged off the lockers, landing noisily on the hard floor. She pressed herself against the wall as the lights quickly approached, the frantic clicking sounds making her hair stand on end.

As soon as they passed, she threw herself out of the classroom. The glow stick did not extend her field of vision enough to allow such a frantic pace, and she accidentally kicked an overturned chair. The sound was deafening. The entire hallway lit in ghostly green from behind. Her blood turned to ice.

She slipped on something as she rounded the last corner, moonlight taunting her from the open doors. She fell, rolling to a stop against the wall. Gasping, she registered the red and white jersey that tripped her. Two lanterns rose above her, bobbing gently.

From within the haze of vert, a tiny locket appeared, suspended on nothing at all.

It fell suddenly, popping open as it hit the floor before her nose. Evelyn and her mother looked out at her, smiling and smiling until the green covered all.