Obviously have given up on keeping up. Too bad!

“Yeah…Well, I really didn’t know about the whole thing until today, actually.”  He was really hoping to change the subject now.  “I was wondering, though, if there was any sort of newspaper or something you know of that would have covered it?”
“Huhhh… Well now, sir, I really dunno.  There’s no paper in Finbell Winters, that’s fer shore.  The school, I dunno if they’ve got themselves a paper or no.  They’ve only been around about ten years, you know.  Those buildings used to be a monastery, o’course.  Even if they did have a paper, though, I dunno if they cover events that take place outside of their school or not.  They like to keep to themselves, y’know.”
“Yeah…Well, thank you very much for the information.”  He gathered a handful of chips from the bowl.
“No problem at all, sonny!”  the man wheezed, clapping Adrian on the back.  Adrian fought sickness as the stench of mothballs overpowered him.  “I’m goin home now!  The missus, she’s gonna be right angry with me, yessir she is!  G’bye!”  He waved, grinning ecstatically as he walked out the door.  Adrian smiled as he watched him leave.
Maybe he could spend some time looking up what the papers had to say about the suicide of Jack Owens.  blood, it’s running down now.  down, down, trickling down, pooling now.
Adrian prevented himself from grimacing and ordered another beer.

Hours later, college football was definitely over, and Adrian had drained his fair share of beer bottles.  It must have been close to 2:00 in the morning, because everyone was leaving.  He supposed that it was time for him to leave as well.  He slid off of the bar stool and wrapped himself in his scarf and coat before leaving the bar.  It was even colder now than it had been on the walk over here.  He stumbled a bit over the curb and decided that he had definitely made the right choice by not driving to the bar.
It was time to go back home now, but this made him decidedly uncomfortable.  It had been bad enough for the thirty minutes he’d tried to last while sober, and he didn’t know if he could do it now in the dead of night.  He pondered his options, observing his breath briefly solidifying in the air before dissipating.  It was Saturday night.  Which meant that the cleaning crews had already been through the school for the weekend.  And that nobody was going to be in the classrooms on Sunday.  He crossed the street and started making his way to High Glen.

After making his way up the stairs (which seemed to have multiplied, much to his dismay) to his classroom, Adrian fumbled with his keys for a few minutes before at last walking into his room.  He decided that it would be a good idea to bring a sofa or chair to the room for a “reading corner.”  Unable to control the current seating options, he rolled up his coat and draped the scarf over it and set it on the ground.  After stretching out a bit, he laid down on the floor.  And after fidgeting and shifting to find the softest piece of tile, he finally drifted off to sleep, knowing that he was glad to be sleeping here instead of at home, but not remembering why.


Wind knocked out, can’t breathe, was I punched in the gut?  No, slapped?  No, pinned to the ground, I sink in defeat, gasping for air but being able only to exhale.
It’s hot and cold at the same time…Darkness spreading, making everything numb in its wake.  My skin is ice; my blood is hot, seeping, spreading.
I feel sick, the bile is rising up but I must fight it, contain it, keep it down, keep it down.
I’m bleeding black, out of my mouth, out of my eyes, out of my ears, on to the ground.  It’s pooling there, collecting oozing.
I’m bleeding and you’re still inside of me, making me sick—no.  I’m not going to lie down and take this, you sonofabitch.  You picked the wrong guy to fuck with…I’m not staying here and taking this, I will be the one to leave you behind.  I will leave your pathetic, prostrate form behind, because I am not helpless, I am not, I am strong, I can fight you, I can beat you, I can
It’s gone, I’m dispossessed, I try to stand and fall, try to get up, try to open my eyes, try to wake up, wake up, wake---
Anthony sat up in bed, breathing hard and becoming aware of the layer of sweat coating his body.  He had thought that over time, he would stop reliving what happened in the cemetery, what that was definitely not the case.  It was worse when he was asleep, because he was powerless to divert his attention elsewhere.
At least, at the end, he could throw it off.  No way he was going to get taken over by….whatever the hell that was.  He wondered with a surge of pride if Samantha or Perry or everyone else would have been able to throw it off like he had.  Mr. Rhodes’ ordeal had ended because the memory he was reliving involved death, and when the death happened, he snapped out of it.
And yet, Samantha had told him later that when she had touched his arm, that had been when he snapped out of it.  Was it her, or was it he himself who had brought himself out of the sinking, physical reality of the darkness?
He laid back down in his bed after leaning over and turning on his CD player.  Lately, he could only fall asleep whislt being serenaded by his favorite band.  He closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would take him, and that the remnants of shadows would leave him be for the rest of the night.