room?” Parker asks.
“Yeah, I think so,” I answer and make my way to the door. “We should probably hurry.” Both Parker and Phoebe nod.
I slowly open the door leading back into the classroom and all is silent. I can tell from looking out the windows that night has fallen. We’re probably the only ones left in the school, outside of a janitor or two and Unknown. I motion for Parker and Phoebe to run ahead of me to the entrance of the classroom.
Parker peers out the little window in the door. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s out there. Let’s go,” he states, turning the handle quietly. He leads the way to the double doors just to our left. Pushing on the door, he says, “Shit. It’s chained.”
“Chained? When do they ever chain the doors?” Phoebe asks, her voice shaking.
“Something tells me it wasn’t the janitor who did this.”
Parker pushes harder on the door, eating up all the slack in the chain until he’s able to get it open far enough for someone to slip through. “Hey, I should be able to get through this opening. Then when I’m outside, I’ll have better leverage to pull on the door from the other side so you two can get out after me,” he explains. Then he attempts to fit his built frame through the gap between the doors. When he reaches the outside, he jumps to his feet and turns to look at us through the window in the door.
My eyes fill with horror when I see someone in a red reaper hoodie come up behind him. Something in the person’s hand glimmers in the light shining from just above the door, and I realize it’s a weapon. Its curved blade resembles a scythe, the tool used by the Grim Reaper.
“Parker! Behind you!” I scream, followed by Phoebe.
I watch on as Unknown plunges the blade into Parker’s side before he can turn around. The look on Parker’s face as it presses up against the glass destroys me. I feel like I was just stabbed right in the heart.
“No!” I cry, touching the window where his face is.
Phoebe stands next to me, frantically banging on the door with tears in her eyes.
As blood dribbles from Parker’s mouth onto the glass, he falls to the ground. He’s replaced by Unknown waving the curved blade in our faces. He taps on the glass two times, slow and methodical, before disappearing from view.
Phoebe tries to push open the door to get to her stepbrother, but I have to pull her away. “We have to get out of here, Phoebe,” I tell her, shaking her firmly in order to snap her out of it.
“But my brother,” she cries, resting her head on my shoulder.
“I know it’s hard, but we have to go,” I say through the tears that flow from my eyes.
“I’m so scared, Dani,” she sobs.
“Me too.”
I take out the small POS flip phone my dad gave me and call him. Thankfully he answers almost immediately.
“Hello—”
“Dad! Come to the school, now! Unknown’s here, and Parker’s been stabbed! Just come—hurry, please!” I yell into the cell, and hang up before he has a chance to reply.
I grab Phoebe’s hand and run down the hall, turning the corner to head back toward Mr. Whitman’s office. We both scream when we skid to a halt as we’re confronted by Unknown, blocking our way into the next building. He brings the hand scythe up and shakes it back and forth menacingly.
Phoebe pulls my arm, dragging me back down the way we came. Instead of turning right, we take the left hallway this time. I hear the running footsteps of Unknown behind us as we hurry toward another set of double doors leading outside. We both shove into them full force, but they’re also locked with a chain.
When we hear the footsteps encroaching on us, I grab Phoebe and pull her into the classroom on our right. It’s the biology lab. I scramble over to the oversized metal cabinets near the back of the room and fling the farthest one open.
“Get in and be quiet, okay?”
She nods and steps in amongst the many jars of specimens on the shelves. I follow her in and ease the door closed behind me. Standing in the cabinet, we both try our hardest to suppress our labored breaths. When we hear the door to the classroom fly open and slam violently against the wall, I have to reach over and cover Phoebe’s mouth to stifle