I developed a drug addiction in my teens. It tore me apart for a long time, but it was nothing compared to the events that sparked it.
I know. We’ve all struggled. Get over it. That’s what my dad would say, the son of a bitch. My mom would probably feign empathy, but fuck it up by trying a little too hard. Then she’d drink herself to sleep.
This isn’t a story about my dad and my mom though. This isn’t even a story about my addiction. This is a story about a monster, and the scars they left upon my life. It’s a story about the end of my world, and it might be a story about the end of yours too.
It began when I was eight.
Third grade, for me, was not a pleasant time. Sure, there are bright spots in the year. There always are. Overall though, I rate third grade a 1/10, and that’s probably being generous.
You may have surmised that my mother and father were not exactly great role models in my life. My dad was cold and, in retrospect, probably a sociopath, or at least a narcissist. He rarely spent time with me and when he did I could tell he regretted it. Usually he did his best to forget I existed.
My mother was kinder. Sometimes she’d help me with my homework, and she’d always drive me to school. When she dropped me off, she’d wave goodbye with a smile and as if reading from a script, tell me she loved me and hoped I had a good day. I liked my mom. Sometimes, I think I even loved her.
At least, when she wasn't drinking.
Her vice made sense in retrospect, given the man she decided to shore up with, but what didn’t make sense, especially to eight-year-old me, were the relentless insults she’d throw my way. “Lazy. Waste of space. Brat. Dumbass.” These were all mainstays of her vocabulary, and never far from her lips once they’d been soaked with wine.
My only reprieve from the depression of my home life was school. Growing up, I loved everything about it. I loved hanging out with my friends, I loved learning new subjects, and I especially loved the teachers who always had time for me, and never drank and always remembered my name.
One of those teachers was Mr Gilad. A boisterous, heavy-set man with bushy eyebrows and an uncanny ability to always brighten the room. He wasn’t my teacher, but he was my best friend Oscar’s, and because of that I often crossed paths with him.
He remembered my name the first time I ever told it to him. Every day after that, he’d greet me with his beaming smile and booming voice. “Walter! How was class today?”
I would always tell him exactly how it was. Usually it was good, but sometimes it was frustrating, or boring. No matter what though, Mr Gilad would always listen intently, his eyes focused on me and a grin on his face. He was the first man I met that inspired me to be better. He was the first man I met that made me believe I could be.
One day, I was feeling particularly low. In the middle of the previous night, my mother had woken me up. I smelled wine on her breath, and I asked her if she had been drinking again. She told me to shut up, that it was none of my business. Swaying on her feet, she stood over my bed, staring at me. I remember feeling really nervous, because there was this sense of hatred in her eyes, and the way she studied me almost seemed like she was making a decision.
“Mom?” I remember asking. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
She didn’t reply.
Instead, she left the room. I curled back into my covers, nervous and afraid, although what I was nervous and afraid about I couldn’t exactly say. It felt like an intuition. Something deep inside of me, something primal was screaming that the way my mother was looking at me was not okay.
A few moments later, I heard the creak of my door opening and then there she was again, this time with a half-drunk glass of wine in her grip.
“I wish I never met your father,” my mother said, staring at me with dead eyes. “That way you’d never have been born, and I’d have enough money to enjoy my life.”
She watched me until she finished her glass of wine, and then she left. I cried myself to sleep.
The next day I spent recess alone, at the far end of the field. I didn’t feel like I deserved friends. I didn’t feel like I deserved to have fun. I didn’t feel like I deserved anything. When the bell rang, I took my time getting back to class. As I entered the door’s of the school, I was greeted by an empty hallway. The rest of the students had already returned to class.
I swallowed, knowing I was in for a talking-to, and probably a detention once I got back. A voice called out, and I recognized it as Mr Gilad. “Walter!” he shouted.
Out of all the teachers I could have crossed paths with, somehow Mr Gilad felt like the worst. He was the one adult I really believed cared about me, and liked me for I was. For him to see me late like this, it probably destroyed whatever respect he had for me.
“Sorry, Mr Gilad,” I said, my eyes downcast.
He wasn’t angry. Instead, he knelt down in front of me. “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head, but for one reason or another, the floodgates opened. My face scrunched up in a grimace, and then I started to sob. Before I knew it, I was bawling my eyes out in the empty hallway.
He took me by the shoulder and ushered me into a classroom undergoing renovations. He closed the door and sat me down at the teacher’s desk. “What’s happened?” he asked me, his voice calm and kind.
I told him everything. I told him about my father’s cold indifference, my mom’s drinking, and how last night she had woken me up to tell me she wished I’d never been born. I worked all of it out between sobs, my nose runny with snot and my cheeks soaking wet with tears.
Mr Gilad pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Walter,” he said. At length, he let me go, and then sighed. “You know, it’s tough to talk about these things at times, but it’s important that we do. My parents weren’t especially kind to me either, you know.”
It seemed strange to me that somebody like Mr Gilad, the kindest man I knew, could have had parents who were anything less than saints. I didn’t know what to say, but thankfully I didn’t need to say anything, because he kept talking.
“Something important, that I think a lot of people learn far too late in life, is that none of us are defined by our parents or our upbringings. Our future is our own. We get to choose who we become.”
“We do?” I asked him, calming down. I sniffled and wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“That’s right, we do,” he said, his voice adopting a more serious tone. His eyes, usually so bright and full of cheer, now looked sullen and filled with sadness. He seemed somehow distant.
“It took me a long time to realize that, Walter. For a long time I felt like I needed to do what society wanted, or be the sort of person my parents wanted me to be. It was only recently that I realized that in doing so, I wasn’t actually living my life.”
Mr Gilad sighed, shaking his head and muttering something beneath his breath. “I never felt fulfilled, because each day I felt like I was a part of a play, or an act. I felt like I was fighting tooth and nail against my instincts, and it was only making me more desperate to see them through." He bit his lip. "I was never happy.”
It was a heavy conversation to have with an eight year-old, and while a lot of its nuance went over my head, I decided I got the gist of what he meant. “So no matter what anybody says, even my mom and dad, I should just keep being me?”
He smiled, and the sadness in his expression seemed to evaporate near-instantly. He was back to the beaming, joyous teacher I knew and loved. “Something like that,” he said, ruffling my hair. “Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t you join Oscar and the rest of my class tomorrow? We’re going to be doing a trivia competition in the morning. Oscar tells me you’re one of the smartest kids in the grade, and it’d be a shame if you missed out.”
I grinned, sniffling. “I don’t know if Mrs Applefig would allow it. Actually…” My eyes drifted up to the clock above the closed door. Its minute hand ticked forward to 10:32am. “I think I’m already gonna be in a lot of trouble for being so late.”
My mood plummeted all over again. Maybe my mother was right. I couldn’t seem to do anything right -- even get to class on time.
“Well, then how about this,” Mr Gilad said, standing up and opening up a drawer in the teacher’s desk. He pulled out a stack of sticky notes and a pen. “I’ll write you a note explaining your lateness, as well as giving you permission to attend tomorrow morning’s trivia competition. Sounds good?”
I nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, I’d love that!”
“Perfect,” he said. “So would I.”
He handed me two sticky notes. One excusing my late return following recess, and another requesting permission for me to attend trivia tomorrow morning.
By some miracle, I spent the rest of the afternoon smiling. Oscar and I walked home together after school, and the entire time we brainstormed team names. We eventually decided on “Brainiacs.”
“You better get us the win!” Oscar teased.
“Well duh,” I laughed. “One of us has to!”
The two of us joked around and goofed off all the way home. For such a bad start to the day, I can scarcely remember a day ending with me feeling happier, and more full of life. When Oscar and I finally split off, we swore that tomorrow we’d go home as the trivia champions.
As soon as I got home, I cheerily started on my homework. Mr Gilad had given me a practice trivia question: what temperature does nitrate burn at? If I got it right, we earned an extra point immediately in the trivia competition. I thought long and hard about it, and decided I really had no idea. To be honest, I’d never heard the word nitrate before in my life.
Which meant it was probably a trick question.
It sounded like something way beyond a third grader, so maybe Mr Gilad wasn’t expecting me to know the answer. He had forbidden us from using the internet, and I bet you that if I got the right answer for it, then he’d know I was cheating. Instead, I wrote ‘very hot’ with a confident flourish of my pencil.
A short while later, I heard the front door open and my mom came home. She paid me a hasty smile, before pulling off her jacket and opening the cupboard to start on supper. “Hey mom,” I said, beaming. “How was work?”
“Long, honey,” she said, her eyes bloodshot and jaw set. “How was school?”
“Great! I’m doing a trivia competition tomorrow with Mr Gilad’s class!”
She eyed me for a moment, and then smiled. “That’s lovely. I’m sure you’ll learn lots.”
“Me too.”
A half hour later my father came home. He threw his jacket over the kitchen chair and immediately asked where supper was. “I’ve been stressed all day, Sarah, and I come and you still haven’t started dinner?”
I shrank into my homework, doing my best to ignore my parents’ arguing.
“I have started supper,” my mother countered, “I just haven’t started cooking it yet. The ingredients are all ready to go--”
“Jesus fuck, Sarah!” my dad bellowed. “Can’t anybody in this house do anything right?”
---------------------------------------------
That night I woke up to the smell of alcohol. I lay on my side, curled in blankets, and heard the sound of breathing near my face.
“Worthless,” my mother’s voice whispered from behind me. I felt her hand wrap itself around my neck, and I didn’t move, I didn’t speak, I didn’t so much as breathe. My body was paralyzed with fear.
“You stole my life from me,” she hissed. “If only you would just go away.”
Her fingers squeezed, their nails biting into my flesh. My throat contracted. I gasped for air, whimpering in pain and terror and then almost as soon as she started, she stopped.
Her hand slipped away from my neck.
My back was to her, but I could tell from the shadow she cast on the wall that she was still there. Standing in the dark. Watching me. Drinking wine straight from the bottle.
A half an hour later, she finished and put the bottle down on my dresser. I watched her silhouette wipe her lips, and heard her mutter the word, “Tonight.”
She left my room.
I listened as her footsteps creaked their way down the stairs, and into the kitchen. A moment later came the sound of wood squealing against wood, like a drawer being opened, followed by the clatter of cutlery.
I stared at my wall, blinking back tears. Again, that primal sense of fear returned. That indescribable intuition that something was very wrong, and I needed to be far away from my bedroom, and far away from this house.
My heart thundered in my chest as I heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs. This time, coming up. The sounds grew louder, the higher and closer they got to my bedroom. Soon, the footsteps were in the hallway. I could hear my mom’s voice muttering, although I couldn’t make out any specific words.
Please, I thought to myself. Please walk by my door. Please don’t come inside.
The footsteps groaned on the floorboards as they approached. My mother left my bedroom door ajar when she left, and from its crack I saw a shadow in the hallway. I heard her voice.
“... Threw away my career for this. Threw away my entire life, and all so that you could take my money, take my time and destroy my marriage.”
The rusty hinges of my door whined, and the door swung open slowly. A shadow grew on my bedroom floor, and I recognized its shape as my mother in her nightgown. She held something in her right hand, but it wasn’t a wine bottle.
It was a knife.
I curled into a ball, every part of me screaming to do something. To run. To call for help. To throw something at her. My instincts told me I was going to die.
Instead, I lay there as still as a board, too paralyzed by fear to move or speak.
Who would I call out to, my father? He didn’t care about me. How was I supposed to run? My mother was blocking the doorway. What was I supposed to throw at her? The only thing I had nearby was my lamp, and I knew it wouldn’t hurt her enough to stop her from hurting me.
She walked toward my bed, standing beside it, knife in hand. I stared at her, hyperventilating with panic. She looked back into my eyes. She kept moving her lips, muttering words but not loud enough for me to hear. Her face was painted with revulsion and hatred, and every so often she would lift the knife up and threaten at stabbing it down toward me.
Then, she turned on her heel and left my room, closing the door behind her.
I lay there, sat-up in bed, my body too awash with adrenaline to even dream of sleeping or thinking or doing anything. I just waited, wired and awake.
I waited for her to come back and kill me.
She never did.
The sun rose, and with it came the sound of cars in the street and dogs barking in their yards. I nervously stepped out of bed. My feet were cold against the hardwood, but I barely noticed. All I could think about was my mother, and how she would react this morning. Usually she was full of smiles and affection after she’d slept off the booze, but after last night I wasn’t so sure. Something seemed to have changed in her.
When I made my way downstairs for breakfast, she wasn’t there. Normally she was eating her porridge and ready to grab my cereal of choice from the cupboard. This time it was just me. The house felt empty. Lonely.
I clambered onto the countertop and opened the cupboard, pulling out a box of Frosted Flakes. I did my best to remember what Mr Gilad had told me the day before. It doesn’t matter what my parents think of me, I thought to myself. I need to forge my own path and listen to my heart. I have to do what I think is right, and not let anybody, my parents or otherwise, get in the way of that.
I thought about his words over my bowl of cereal. Even if my dad didn’t love me, and even if my mom wished I’d never been born, I could still find my own path in life.
As I ate, I monitored the digital clock sitting on our kitchen counter. It was a habit I picked up because my mom was always very strict about ushering me into the car by 7:15am, so she could drop me off in time to get to work.
Right now it read 7:45am. She was nowhere in sight.
A minute later I heard the familiar creak of footsteps on the stairs, and my mood picked up. Even after everything that had happened last night, my mom hadn’t hurt me, and I still had my trivia competition with Mr Gilad and Oscar to look forward to. Maybe mom realized she loved me too much to hurt me.
The creaking stopped as the footsteps reached the landing, and my dad bustled around the corner, adjusting his tie. He paused, seeing me at the kitchen table. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for mom,” I said quietly.
“Excuse me?” he said, his voice rising.
I swallowed. My father always had a way of making me feel smaller than I already was. “Waiting for mom, dad.”
He stared at me with something between irritation and disbelief. “Your mom’s not home.”
“What?”
“I said she’s not home. Do you need a fucking hearing aid now too?”
I looked down, eating another spoonful of Frosted Flakes. Where did she go? I wondered. She was here last night.
My eyes drifted to the digital display. The clock now read 7:50am. Class was starting in ten minutes, and so was my trivia competition. It took at least ten minutes to drive to school.
“Dad?” I asked.
“Have you seen my briefcase?” he said, impatiently.
“No, sorry.”
“Fuck!” he snapped. “That stupid bitch probably took it!” He adjusted his collar and reached for the coffee pot, before realizing it was empty and then flung it across the room, where it shattered on the wall. “Everything I do!” he screamed. “Taken for granted!”
Mr Gilad’s words echoed in my head. To believe in myself. To trust in my instincts. To do what I felt I needed to. I cleared my throat. “Can you drive me to school, I have a trivia compet--”
“Do I look like your mother?” he said incredulously. I stared at him, feeling tears welling in my eyes. Eventually, I shook my head.
“I have a real job,” he said, grabbing his jacket from the wall and opening the front door. “I don’t have time to play at being a parent.” He muttered something about ingrates, and then disappeared through the doorway, shutting the door behind him.
I sat at the table for a few more minutes, too stunned to do anything. My mom was gone. My dad was gone. It was just me in the house now. My family didn’t care about me. Nobody gave a damn.
No, that wasn’t true.
Oscar cared. Mr Gilad cared.
I snatched my jacket from the coat rack beside the door and exited after my father. I used the key we hid under the rock in our garden to lock the house behind me, and I started jogging toward the school. Usually, when I walked home with Oscar it’d take us just over an hour. Unfortunately for me though, Hillcrest school lived up to its namesake.
My school sat perched atop a large hill, overlooking the rest of Plumberry township. At the top, it was really a spectacular view. To the north you could see most of the local streets, all the way up to the city hall, downtown. To the south, you could see far down the country road, all the way out to Lake Tyler and Gefferson forest beyond.
Still, it was uphill. Which meant it would be a longer walk to than from. I was determined though. Mr Gilad’s words recited themselves in my mind like a mantra, pushing me ever forward.
I kept my eye on the watch on my wrist, figuring if I could get there before 8:30, I’d be in the clear. In both third grade classes, we did a sharing period from 8 till 8:30, where we talked about our day or new things we found interesting.
My sneakers pounded along the sidewalk, my backpack bouncing up and down with my binder, pencils and markers. I made good time getting to the bottom of the hill, and at the distant top I could see the gates that marked the entrance to Hillcrest elementary.
I started my ascent.
It was slow going. As I went, I kept track of the watch on my wrist. 8:20am. I had ten minutes to reach the top, and I was barely a quarter of the way there. My breath was coming in big heaves and my legs, tired from jogging for so long, burned with soreness. I felt lightheaded and wobbly -- out of breath.
I continued to climb, more slowly now. I didn’t have a water bottle, and I was beginning to feel incredibly thirsty, but I knew I needed to get to the top before the trivia competition started.
Somehow, even after everything that had happened with my mom and dad, I felt like if I could just win that competition, then everything would be alright. My mom would come home, and she’d realize how smart I was and decide that drinking wasn’t worth it, and my dad would be so proud of me that he’d start taking an interest in my studies.
My eyes drifted back to the watch on my wrist, and my heart fell. 8:45am. How had I been walking up the hill for so long already? I stopped, catching my breath and realizing none of it mattered anymore.
I was way too late for trivia, and I was probably going to end up in detention besides that. There wasn’t any point in rushing now.
My day was already ruined.
I took the rest of the hill at a slower walk, and my legs thanked me for it. I hated my mom for leaving last night, and I hated my dad for not driving me to school. I hated both of them for making me miss out on trivia, and disappoint the one adult who seemed to care about me: Mr Gilad.
Tears tugged at the corners of my eyes as I considered how ashamed of me he probably was. He went through all the trouble of securing me permission to attend his class this morning, and I gave him my word I’d be there. Then I didn’t show up at all, and my dad didn’t so much as call the school and let them know I’d be late.
He probably thought I was just as much of a lost cause as my parents by now.
“There he is!” a shrill voice shrieked. “Oh my god, he’s here!”
I looked up as Mrs Applefig came stampeding toward me, her lined face filled with concern and her tone thick with relief. “Walter, are you okay?” she wrapped me into a tight hug. “Thank goodness. Thank goodness.”
I’d been so absorbed in my own thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed I’d crested the hill and come up in front of my school. Mrs Applefig smothered me with her hug, and all I could see was the blue fabric of her blouse. “I’m fine, Mrs Applefig,” I lied. “I’m sorry for being late.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay,” she said, pressing her face to mine. I felt something wet on her cheek.
“Gloria, is that Walter Thimby?” a man bellowed, and I recognized it as Principal Patel.
She wheeled around, nodding fiercely. “It is, Uday! It is!”
Freed from Mrs Applefig’s all-encompassing blouse, I became acutely aware of something very strange: my entire school was staring at me.
“Bring him over here,” Principal Patel called out. “Everybody triple check your students and make sure everybody’s accounted for!”
Mrs Applefig ushered me into a line with the rest of my classmates, and I plunked down on the grass beside Jessie Wilson, a blonde kid who held the record for most school suspensions in third grade. He leaned over and whispered into my ear.
“Whew,” he said. “Gotta say man, for a while there you had us worried.”
“Had you worried?” I said, feeling too depressed to chitchat.
“Yeah,” he said. He thumbed over his shoulder, back toward the school behind us. “We thought you were still inside.”
Still inside? I turned around, and gazed at the school with narrowed eyes. Beyond the belltower in the center, I saw a dark cloud billowing into the sky.
Smoke.
“The south wing caught fire early this morning,” Jessie explained. “We cleared out all the classrooms, but I guess we’re still missing some students. You were one of them.”
I swallowed. The smoke was pitch black, and heavy. It looked like it was growing thicker.
“Firefighters are on the other side,” Jessie continued. “They’ve been fighting the blaze for twenty minutes now, but it keeps getting bigger. They’re calling in fire trucks from the next town over.”
I stared, transfixed at the pillar of shadow rising from the school. Beneath it, faint in the brightness of the morning sun, I spotted the flicker of flames.
The school was burning.
Just then, a cacophony of sirens sounded in the distance. A handful of seconds later, and two fire trucks roared over the crest of the hill, through the school gates, and swung around the parking lot toward the south side. I gazed after them in awe. I’d never seen fire trucks in action before.
“Mister Thimbly,” Principal Patel said firmly. I blinked, returning my attention to the front of me. He crouched down, meeting me at eye level. “I need to know if you were with Mr Gilad’s class this morning.”
“Mr Gilad’s class?” I said, confused. “No, I was late. I was supposed to be but--”
“Jesus,” he muttered, shaking his head and standing up. “He wasn’t!” he shouted to somebody I didn’t recognize. They were in a suit and on a cellphone, and their lips were moving fast.
“That’s not good,” Jessie said beside me.
“What’s going on?” I asked, fear beginning to take seat in my chest.
“We’re missing twenty two kids still, and one teacher.”
I swallowed, a piece of me already knowing the answer to the question I was about to ask. “Who?”
“Mr Gilad,” Jessie said darkly. “Nobody knows where he is, or his class.”
“They’re two doors down from us,” I argued. “How can they not know where he is?”
Mrs Applefig appeared in front of us, her finger pursed to her lips. “Shh!” she hissed. “It’s important that we’re all quiet. This is a very serious situation and it’s crucial that Principal Patel is able to hear what’s going on.”
Jessie and I closed our mouths, nodding in acknowledgement. As soon as Mrs Applefig shuffled out of earshot though, he leaned over and resumed his whispering.
“That’s the thing, they cleared the entire school. The fire alarm went off as soon as the smoke detector caught whiff, and Patel himself made sure to double check every classroom to make sure they were clear. All of them were empty.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, defiance leaking into my voice. Oscar was in that class, there was no way Patel would miss Oscar. He was the loudest kid I’d ever met. “They had to have been there. We were doing a trivia competition today.”
Jessie shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you man, that’s just what I’ve heard.”
My mind raced. Where could they be? Mr Gilad had promised me there would be a trivia competition today. He hadn’t told me to meet the class anywhere special. They had to be here.
My eyes scanned the crowd of assembled students. Each class was separated into small ranks, with their teachers standing out front. I went over every single one of them twice, then once again to be certain. No Oscar. No Mr Gilad.
Once again I felt my emotions getting the better of me. Tears began welling in the corners of my eyes, but I took a deep breath. Maybe they had met up at the school, and then gone for a walk? I looked up at the near cloudless sky, and the warm sun. It was an uncharacteristically nice day for November. Maybe Mr Gilad took them outside for the trivia competition, so that they could enjoy the weather?
A crash sounded behind me, and myself, and every other students’ heads turned in near unison. I watched, transfixed in horror as the bell tower, now almost entirely enshrouded in thick black smoke, sagged, and then with a loud groan fell backwards, onto the blazing south wing. The resultant collision was deafening. The roof of the school caved in instantly, and in its wake exploded an inferno of fire and smoke.
Screams erupted from the students.
My jaw dropped. I was watching my school, the one place I truly felt at home, be destroyed in front of my very eyes. It felt surreal. Like I was dreaming, and couldn't wake up.
It was Mrs Applefig’s crying that brought me back to earth. She had a hand covering her mouth, and she kept muttering the words “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.”
A moment later a school bus arrived, and all of us whose parents hadn’t picked us up yet were loaded into it. I remember resisting at first, telling Mrs Applefig that I needed to wait for Oscar, but she kept crying and telling me I had to get onboard. “Please,” she said. “Please, Walter.”
I relented, and fifteen minutes later the bus dropped me off at home. I used the key in the garden to get back inside, and when I did, I called out for my mom. She didn’t answer, so I went into the kitchen and picked up my phone, calling Oscar’s house. Maybe he was home sick.
The ringer rang once, twice, three times and then a voice picked up. “Hello?” it said breathlessly. “Sarah? Matthew? Is Oscar at your house with Walter? Please we need to--”
“No,” I said. “This is Walter. Oscar’s not here.”
The line went quiet on the other end.
“Is he not at home?” I asked.
“No,” said his mother’s voice, though it was broken, and filled with sadness. I heard her stifle a sob. “I’m sorry, Walter. I have to go.”
“Okay, Miss Cortez.”
The line went dead, and I hung up the phone. I looked over to the clock. It read 10:54am. My dad wouldn’t be home for another six hours, so in the meantime I made my way to the living room and turned on the TV, hoping maybe there was something on the news.
I flicked through the channels until I spotted a newscaster in front of my school.
“-- Here in front of Hillcrest elementary, where a vicious fire has caused the bell tower to collapse upon the South Wing. The blaze has finally been out and overhauled by firefighters, and efforts to locate survivors, as well as fully assess the extent of the damage have begun.”
The woman speaking, dressed in a nice business suit, turned her attention to somebody off camera. They exchanged a few words with her microphone down and unable to pick up more than faint mumbles of sound. A moment later, she looked back at the camera and raised her microphone to her mouth.
“I’ve just received word from the fire department that several remains have been located within Hillcrest. These remains are suspected to belong to the missing third grade class, taught by Mr Heinrich Gilad.”
An emptiness stole through me. The news lady continued speaking, but her words washed over me like white noise. Several remains have been located within Hillcrest. The words haunted me, replaying over and over again in my head. It wasn’t until my father came home that I realized just how long I’d been sitting there.
“Walter?” he said, before rushing over to me. He pulled me into a tight hug. “Oh, god, Walter. I was so worried for you. I was in a meeting and I didn’t hear until twenty minutes ago, once I did I came right over--”
“It’s okay, dad,” I said, though my voice was void of emotion. It was such an odd sort of feeling. All of my life I had craved this sort of attention and affection from my father, and yet now that I was receiving it, it didn’t mean anything to me.
I felt empty inside.
My dad took me upstairs, ordered me my favorite pizza and rented the newest Harry Potter movie for me. He sat with me all night. Every so often he would ask me if I was okay, and apologize for yelling at me earlier, but I hardly registered it. My thoughts were consumed with thoughts of Oscar, and Mr Gilad.
They were gone.
The next morning school was predictably canceled. My father stayed home with me, and put on another rented movie in my room. This one was Monsters Inc. I only watched it for twenty minutes or so before I wandered downstairs. I found my dad on the couch in the living room, his back facing me, watching the news lady I’d watched yesterday.
She was in front of the scorched remains of the south wing of my school, and it looked like a windy day, because her blond hair was blowing all over the place.
“-- I'm again in front of the wreckage of Hillcrest Elementary’s South Wing, where twenty two children and one man are believed to have lost their lives early yesterday morning, in what can only be described as the greatest tragedy in Plumdale history...”
My dad reached for his mug on the coffee table and took a sip. It occurred to me that he must have taken the day off of work to stay home with me.
“...Yesterday morning a fire blazed, quickly spreading through the South Wing and eventually reaching the bell tower. An old school, built in the early 1900s, Hillcrest Elementary was built primarily of highly flammable lumber, and the bell tower was no exception. At 10:13am it fell backward, onto the South Wing, collapsing that section of the school and dooming the individuals trapped inside.”
She touched her ear, and her eyes looked sideways, as if somebody was speaking to her.
“I’m just receiving word that the investigation has determined some rather disturbing details. I… I should caution viewers at home that what I’m about to say is not for the faint of heart.”
The news lady cleared her throat, and I drew closer behind my father.
“Investigators have located two thick wooden doors in the wreckage. The deadbolts belonging to these doors were discovered in the outward, or locked position. According to blueprints, these doors lead into the basement of the school, where the Hillcrest archive was held.”
“Jesus…” I heard my father mutter, leaning forward and setting his mug back down on the table.
“The twenty two students and teacher, who we have now positively identified as one Mr Heinnrich Gilad via dental records, appear to have been locked inside the school’s basement at the time of the blaze. Details pertaining as to why are still unknown. The stunning ferocity of the blaze, according to investigators, is due to old film reels located in the school’s archive. These reels contained nitrate, a substance which burns hotter than gasoline...”
I swallowed.
“One aspect of the tragedy that school Principal Uday Patel is wrestling with, is that he never physically cleared any of the school’s basement areas.”
The camera cuts out, and I see my principal giving an interview on the school grounds, but in a different location during a different time of day.
“I checked everywhere,” he said, adjusting his glasses and keeping his voice level. “Every classroom was personally cleared by myself, as well as a team of three other faculty members. We ensured to check all of them. I double checked them personally, and suffered severe smoke exposure in the process. Of course, in the interest of protecting my students --”
“What about the basement?” the interviewer asked from off screen, and I recognized the voice as the news lady from earlier.
Principal Patel's voice cracked as he began his reply. “I saw no need to physically check the basements. It seemed a dangerous task, given the relative size of them, and the speed at which the blaze was spreading. As I walked by the basement areas in each wing, I called down and asked if anybody was down there and needed assistance. I heard no response, and so I continued on. There simply wasn’t any time.”
The screen cut back to the news lady, and a small icon in the corner reads LIVE.
“Strangely enough, despite Principal Patel’s calls, nobody answered. Given the amount of remains located within the school’s archive, it seems as though such screams would have been loud and plentiful. One theory as to why Patel didn’t hear any of the victims, was that they had already suffered from toxin inhalation due to the nitrate film off-gassing. It's highly likely they'd already passed out --- sorry?”
The news lady brought a hand to earpiece again. Seconds ticked by in silence, and I realized somebody must be speaking to her on the other end, because her expression slowly became more and more disturbed. Finally, she cleared her throat and brought the mic to her lips.
“For those watching at home, particularly family members of the suspected deceased, your viewer discretion is advised."
Her voice trembled and she readjusted her grip on the mic. She cleared her throat.
"I can hardly believe I’m about to say this in sleepy Plumdale, but investigators have just determined that, based on observed damage to a child's hyoid bone, their throat is presumed to have been slit."
The news lady closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "According to dental records, one Oscar Cortez appears to have died prior to the start of the blaze.”
I gazed, transfixed in horror at the television screen. My father was too stunned to notice me creeping ever closer, drawn toward the scenes on the display. “It is now being posited that perhaps this young man was killed in an attempt to scare the remaining twenty-one children into silence.”
“Oh my god,” my dad muttered. He ran a hand through his mess of hair, and I can tell by his sleeves that he’s wearing his housecoat. He didn't even bother getting dressed today.
I took another step closer and the floorboard croaked. My father turned around. “Walter?” he exclaimed. “Jesus, Walter! You shouldn’t be watching this!”
He rushed around the couch, and the news lady's words became muffled against his chest as he lifted me up and carried me back upstairs.
“You need to take it easy, alright?” he said, ferrying me through the hallway. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, and I know your worthless joke of a mother abandoned us, but the two of us gotta stick together, okay? And that means you gotta trust that I know what’s best for you. Now I don’t want to see you out of your room again today, alright?”
He gently lowered me onto my bed, and hit play on the Monsters Inc movie. “You need to take some time for yourself. Don’t worry about the news. This is all just conjecture right now anyway.”
He paid me a remorseful smile and closed my bedroom door behind him. I laid there, staring at my wall and oblivious to the sounds of Sully and Mike from the movie. All I could think about was Mr Gilad’s words, playing on repeat inside of my head.
"I never felt fulfilled, because each day I felt like I was a part of a play, or an act. I felt like I was fighting tooth and nail against my instincts, and it was only making me more desperate to see them through."
Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. Thanks to the news lady, I finally knew the answer to my trivia question.
Nitrate burned hotter than gasoline.
---
Credits: [x.x]
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