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The Perfect Plot
By Stuart Martinson(Note: This story was written back when bringing guns to school could still be milked for laughter. Remember, guns should never be brought to school for any reason- they are for hostage situations only.)
It all started out on the first official day of Grade 8. I had just met some new friends, and just come out of Elementary school where I was used to being the big fish. Ah, that fateful first day. I remember it well. It's burned into my brain like a brand into a cow's ... Well, you know what I mean.
Anyway, I was exploring my new school, O'Grady Catholic High (oh, the irony), with my new friends. After much deliberation and quite a bit of nay-saying, we worked our way over into the science wing, a place I had never yet been. Many Grade 8's avoided it, and rightly so, because it was the domain of the dreaded Penszienski, the black-hearted science teacher (who knew four hundred ways to kill a man using only a photocopy of the periodic table). But right now he was on his lunch break, and I was compelled to see just what lay beyond the threshold, as it were.
The first place I saw was the library. Damn that House of Hell! How could such a place of foulness exist in a holy place such as this?! Sometimes I could swear that I felt an evil presence in there... a dark, malevolent shadow waiting to suffocate its victims and suck them into the Dark Abyss known to some as Hades.
But I did not know the truth yet. I crept into the library with my new friends, whispering quietly with them.
All my instincts told me that this whole excursion was a bad idea, but I told them to shut up and stop complaining. As I walked by his desk, the librarian turned his unnaturally-shaped head towards me and gave me a flat stare that said more than a thousand dirty insults.
He looked at me as if he knew what was to come, though we had never met. My whispering halted. Never before in my young life had I ever received such a dirty look.
I was caught there, woven in a mental spider web created by that master of evil. For at that moment, I knew that the son of Satan, the Beast himself walked the earth... and that he walked amongst humans, in the body of a man. More specifically, the body of a man named Brother Charlie Hancock, the supposedly innocent librarian. And when I was trapped in the vein of ice that was his cold, hard gaze, I could see the evil intensity in his eyes. Those eyes... black pits with the red glare of torment beneath, told me all I needed to know.
I wanted to scream "Anti-Christ! Son of Beelzebub! Away, away from this place of decency! Back to the Pits of the Underdark from whence you came!" But I could not, I was struck dumb.
When he looked at me, it was as if he wanted me to know the truth... daring me to try and stop him in his preparations to ready the world for the arrival of his dark father. With a gesture of his taloned hand, I was released from his grip, and I fell to the ground whimpering like a puppy lost in the winter snow. What a fool I was. I should have run from the room, before I could be engulfed in his dark presence. But sadly, I had not.
I had just humiliated myself in front of my new-found friends, who'd scattered for their lives. I was also alienated from my old friends, who'd gone on to public school. Yes, I was alone in the world. Alone, with a mission. I had to stop this man before he could summon his dark father, for they could together claim the human race as their own.
During my planning period there were several incidences where I had to go to the library to research, finding out new and amazing ways to rid the earth of this son of a jackal. And invariably I was ejected for reasons real or imagined, by that fiend, that fiend in human form!
On one of these occasions, I was reading and taking notes in a small room connected to the library, the room frequented only by the holy and the very bored..."The Chapel". This room was occasionally used for mass, but it was really quite useless on the whole. By way of two doors, it connected both with the library, and with a hallway quite distanced from the aforementioned library. I felt more comfortable here, though separated from the spawn of Belial by nothing, save for a weak press-board door. For some enigmatic reason, I could not feel that dark presence that I could feel every other place in Prince George, this accursed little cesspool of a town.
I sat on the floor in this Chapel beside the forgotten piano, studying the many different ways to rid the world of blemishes like Brother Hancock (and various other scum, namely rednecks). I found nothing useful, but then, one fateful day, just by chance, it all became very clear...
There came a knock on the door leading to the hallway. This door was usually locked, but I had never been able to figure out why. Apparently the Beast had a reason. I think now that he wanted people to avoid that place of sanctuary.
Me, being the one chosen to combat the force of Hell on Earth, was compelled to keep the image of God nice and shiny. Therefore, I decided to be the good Samaritan and let this person in.
I had just opened the door, but before I could see who it was, the door behind me slammed open and there stood the Beast himself, ranting incomprehensibly in the ancient tongue used only for his dark ceremonies (usually known as gibberese, or more commonly gibberish). I started to explain that I meant no harm, but that seemed to only anger him more.
And then I noticed. The room! It was the source of his discomfort and irritability! It must have been consecrated at one time. I saw him glance at the altar in the corner and then at the crucifix and he visibly winced. I knew that I was safe in this room. Safe from evil of all sorts, i.e. rednecks, jocks, gym teachers, and of course HIM.
Years passed. It was now Grade 12. I knew that I was graduating in the year 2000. I took as a kind of a sign. I knew that Armageddon was to come soon... Hancock's preparations must have been near completion.
I had been kicked out of the library more often than usual, so I knew the time had come. I had woven my ceremonial robes myself. I had got my uncle, a welder/fabricator by trade, to craft the tools of Brother Hancock's demise for a "school project".
The implements were made of pure iron, soaked and covered with salt, as warlocks loathe both materials. I had everything planned out.
I was going to hide in the library after hours. The Beast would be locking up, and suddenly he would hear "Jingle Cats" music emanating from one corner of the library. If that didn't throw him off, nothing would.
He would investigate the sound, and he would find an abandoned tape player. And then, ha ha! And then, he would exist no more. I would shoot him in the back of the head six times (seems appropriate, don't you think?). That would hopefully slow him down.
After the initial gunnings-down, I would wrap a crucifix necklace around his neck. Then, while he struggled to rid himself of this decency and goodness, I would apply the bonding device.
The bonding devices were nothing but two hollow iron cylinders connected by a seven-inch chain, large enough to accommodate a thumb or big toe comfortably. Both cylinders had two opposing holes, grooved to allow the sticking of the screws. Yes, the screws, which would be driven through the holes in the cylinder (and the selected digit of Brother Hancock). Then, after that, I would screw on the iron face mask. After that, you'd have one disabled Anti-Christ.
I'd thought through the plan perfectly. And now, the time had come.
I hid behind a row of healthy-living books (untouched since their 1925 publishing date) and waited for many hours, watching through the cracks for the Son of Stench. He just sat there, at the library's front desk. Why didn't he move?! Didn't he have goats to sacrifice or something?! I was getting impatient, but I knew that impatience was the fuel for disaster.
Suddenly, footsteps! Brother Hancock had temporarily retreated into his office! I moved stealthily towards the corner of the library and dropped the tape player there. I was barely able to find the play button through the murky darkness, but somehow I managed it. The incessant, but delightfully novel, mewing started, and I heard footsteps as I crawled away.
The footsteps stopped, and I sneaked a peek at the corner. Hancock was standing there with his back to me, just staring down at the tape player. I made my move.
I stepped out of concealment and said one thing. "Eat this, Prince of Lies!"
I was grateful for my silencer as I pumped those six rounds into the back of his head. There were a lot of staff members working late tonight. Staff members who may or may not have been involved in Satan's resurrection (as I suspected, but never confirmed).
As the final shell casing hit the floor, I sensed an air of uncertainty. But I admonished myself. What could go wrong? What could go wrong, indeed!
I hovered over the prone body, ready to administer the restrainers. As I turned it over, my head was a turmoil of thoughts. When I looked closer, they all crashed. It was Mr. Peterson, the art teacher! He must have been a co-conspirator to the Devil! What a naughty man.
I heard a snarl from behind the healthy-living section. So, it was Cat & Mouse he wanted to play, eh? Well, that suited me just fine, I thought, fingering the trigger of the pistol.
I threw several books through to the other side of the shelf, but saw nothing. Where was he? He'd just disappeared? Oh, those arch-viles, they had a few tricks up their sleeves.
Then I heard the creaking of the shelf wobbling. I looked up at the bookshelf, but again I saw nothing. Then I saw something move, just behind the row of books I'd cleared! I leaned forward to get a better look, but that's when the icy hand wrapped around my neck.
As the world began to spin away from me, I somehow found the effort to raise my pistol and fire off one wavering shot into that square of darkness. The figure hissed with the pain, and I fell back as I was sprayed with the demon's melancholic blood. The cold hand released me.
I was amazed that I'd hit him in the first place, and when the shape dropped to the ground, I counted my lucky stars. I pulled out the restrainers and made my way to the next aisle.
"Oh, splendid," I whispered when I saw that Hancock had escaped, again. I was still coming back to Earth from my little trip, and thought it all amazingly funny.
I laid down on the stained carpet and had a refreshingly maniacal laugh. "Hey, hold on here! The carpet, it's stained!" I said when I realised the carpet was stained. I laughed for another long while and then decided to follow the trail of black slime.
I followed it right out the library, and into the washroom (the boys' washroom, I noted suspiciously). The slime led into a stall, up the wall, and into an asbestos roof panel. There was no visibility up there, but that seemed to be just the way he liked it.
I hefted myself up into the forbidden land of the air ducts, gun at the ready. "Now, how am I going to pull this off?" I asked myself. The ever-prepared Stuart had forgotten to bring a flashlight. But I suspected the grunting I was hearing from the corner was a good start.
I casually reloaded the pistol and fired ten rounds in that general direction. I heard, judging by the screams, six of them (at least) hit pay-dirt. The shape collapsed backwards and fell through one of the ceiling tiles into a stall in the girls' washroom. There were several hisses and grunts of pain, and then silence. I climbed down after him, noticing that in his fall, he'd busted one of the toilets. The water was flooding the area, mingling with the black blood of the Beast. His life on Earth was near over, I was sure of it.
Then I saw his body, huddled in a foetal position in the corner. I reloaded the pistol, and emptied the entire clip on him. And then, when I was done, I threw the gun at him, hitting him in the forehead and ending his hissing and grunting. Silence.
I walked toward him and stretched out the body. It was him alright. Man, he was mangled, courtesy of Stuart Martinson, the daemon hunter extraordinaire. But something was amiss. The master of evil couldn't just die, unless...
"Oh no," I said. "This can't be! I was so sure!" I ran from the scene in a panic. I had failed! I buried the weapon and equipment out in the woods nearby, then went home to pray for forgiveness.
I didn't want to go to school the next day. I felt sick. But I knew that my cover would be blown if I didn't show up. When I arrived, I was surprised by the absence of police cars and that nifty yellow tape. I went inside the building, noticing people talking in hushed tones about some trivial thing or other. I asked Graeme, one of the few in the school who didn't think I was a total nut case, what the excitement was all about.
"Someone vandalised the bathroom. They really trashed it, from what I hear," he said.
"That's it?" I asked. "Nothing more?"
He gave me a funny look and said "No".
I dragged myself reluctantly to homeroom, and noticed that Miss Grimes appeared to be acting stranger than normal. Something was up, I knew for certain.
When we started the morning prayers, she had an announcement to make.
"I have an announcement to make," she said, right on cue. "Brother Hancock left us last night." And took his henchman Peterson with him, I thought bitterly.
"Sorry to interrupt," I began, "But where did he go?" I was afraid I already knew the answer.
"Well, Graeme," she began.
Curses, I thought. Will she ever get that right?
"He left only a note," continued Miss Grimes. "He said he had some urgent business with his father."
