April 2001

We walked purposefully down the main corridor of the high school, my friend and I. In fact we weren't supposed to be here, and I felt nervously conspicuous. But we knew where we were going - we had to find the pool - and the risk was just an unavoidable part of that. Of course, the pool was closed for the season, so there was the additional risk of being caught in a quarantined part of the school.

We came to the first door, and I paused as wrapped my hand around its chrome latch. I felt eyes on the back of my neck and threw a look over my shoulder... There was a guard patrolling an adjacent hall, his back to us. He hadn't seen us. Quickly then, I thumbed the latch and pulled the door open. Inside it was dark, and I slapped at the cool tile wall for the light switch. The fluorescents flickered on with a faint buzz and our eyes adjusted to the rust colored tile of the restroom. We were marginally safer here, and my heart quickened with anticipation. We were on our way now, just as soon as we found the next entrance. Before us stretched a long mirror, and to either side was a pod of stalls. My partner proceeded to check the other end of the lavatory, to my right, but I found the next door - small, white, inconspicuous - on my side. I called for him, and kept my hand on the light switch as he inspected the door. I told him that we would cover our progress by turning the lights off as we progressed. He pushed through the doorway...

To the next lavatory. From here we followed the same procedure: Turn on restroom lights (aqua colored tile), search for exit, turn lights off. Turn on restroom lights (green colored tile), search for exit, turn lights off.

We did this a number of times until finally we came to a restroom with two doors. Our pace had escalated at the thought of being followed - it was a possibility - and we were manic. Which door to take? I knew we were close, so I chose one instinctively.

At last we'd come to the innermost lavatory. It was significantly larger than the previous ones, and the tile floor was wet and cool. A maze of imposing stalls stretched out before us into the darkness to either side, and we quickly set about looking for a way past them. I peered under one of the metal stall walls and saw on the floor within a dead body loosely wrapped in plastic. Indeed, all the stalls adjacent to this stall had bodies, in various stages of decomposition. I found this curious more than anything else, and I called my partner's attention to it. He peered at one of them impassively, but something he said made it seem like there was recognition. Did he know this person?

Just then there was a sound by the doorway behind us. It was a woman, slouching toward us, the plastic around her crackling with each ungainly step. The light fell on her as she approached, and I saw that she too was dead. On her pale face, trapped beneath the caul of plastic, was a look of hopelessness. But something drove her to continue - she had something to say; something to tell us. While her head moved back and forth, her jaw worked at the plastic. And as the membrane stretched, so too did the flesh of her face. When the plastic finally tore, her face had begun to lose cohesion, and I was finding it difficult to distinguish the loose plastic from her flesh. I couldn't make out what she was saying...

I felt strangely out of place, swimmy, floaty... as if everything around me were distorting. I felt a new presence now, something that was aware of me. As the light faded to blackness, arms came slowly around me from behind, gentle but firm. I felt the subject of someone's misguided mirth, and was angry at the thought of it. The arms encircled my midriff now, and, blind, I pushed at them; pushed until I pushed myself awake.