Copyright 2000 by Eric J. Juneau.  All rights reserved.

This story is in no way intended to infringe on the established copyrights and trademarks of Monolith Productions, Inc.  It is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended for sale.  It may be freely distributed providing that no alterations to the story are made.

This story contains adult language and graphically violent content.  It is not intended for readers under the age of 13.  Reader discretion is advised.
  
The characters and incidents portrayed and the names in this story used herein are fictitious and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person, living, dead, or otherwise, is purely coincidental and unintentional.

Fool, you are already dead.

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Blood:
 
I Live Again

by Eric J. Juneau

Call me Caleb.
With a C.
I think it's with a C.
Not that I've seen it spelled any other way.  It's just hard to remember anything now.  Things aren't like they were before.  I'm not the same as I was in the beginning.  Something happened along the way, something changed.  And I ended up like this. 
Dead.

Let me start at the beginning.  I lived in Kilward, Texas, which wasn't exactly the best of neighborhoods.  I was eighteen years old and a senior in high school at the time of my untimely end.  Like a lot of overpopulated, underfunded high schools like mine, we were neatly divided into preps, punks, gangsters, nerds, and jocks.  And, lucky me, I didn't fit into any of those categories.  So I was sort of a loner, didn't talk a whole lot, didn't draw attention to myself, didn't hang out with a lot of people.  I was the guy in class you never saw.  Now that I think about it, I wish it had stayed that way.

Chapter 1

3:00.
Every other person in this school already got out of this prison half an hour ago.  Just because I missed Algebra a few times they put me in this goddamned remedial group.  When I was told I had to start attending this after-school class, it was pretty much the last thing I wanted.  But unless I did it, I wouldn't be able to graduate, which was the last thing I wanted… more so.
I tapped my pencil on the desk a few times, where I had seated myself in the back.  The rest of the kids were talking about drugs, parties, who they scored with last night, or some other topic that would have made them a candidate for a spot on Sally Jessy Raphael.  
Damn, where the hell is that teacher.  I want to get out of here.  If you're going to make me stay after school the least you can do is get here on time.  Once that final bell rings, that's when it's my time.  I could be at home, watching TV, playing video games, getting something to eat, instead of rotting like a corpse here.  I felt like banging my head against the desk just so I'd have something to do.
I pulled out my CD player to appease my boredom.  My Bush CD should still have been in there.  I pressed play, and found it was.  The lugubrious music of the heavy alt-rock settled my restlessness.  Thank god for the man who invented the Discman.  I don't know whether it was meant so other people couldn't hear you or you couldn't hear other people, but right now, I was enjoying was the latter reason.
3:03.  Damn, where is that guy.
The teacher walked in then, moving up the middle row of desks.  I turned off my CD player because I thought class was finally going to get started.  I thought we were going to get some blood-shot eyed, buzz-cut, military gym teacher.  Boy, was I wrong.  They stuck us with the gayest teacher I had ever seen.  He had sandy-brown hair in a little rat-tail.  His face held tiny round eyes, and he wore a disgustingly pink V-neck that looked like cotton candy.  Looking at him, I almost laughed out loud.  He was probably one of those guys who care more about feelings and self-esteem than doing good in school.  He looked completely disheveled, carrying a cluster of papers and trying to balance his briefcase.  He dropped his pile on his desk and looked up at his students.
	"Good afternoon class, my name is Mr. Bledbaum, and I am happy to be here." 
	Direct hit.  Love the way he said happy.
	"I apologize for my tardiness, I was helping a student with an assignment.  Now, I know you're all uneasy about your first day in this new class with new people so let's start with a little 'get-to-know-you' exercise," he said as he started rummaging through his folder.
Oh, god, what does this guy think, we're in kindergarten or something?  There are people in here that'd bust a cap in his ass if he looked at them wrong.  And I'm sure there's not a single person in this class who doesn't know someone else.
"First, I'd like to go over my class rules with you."
	Class rules?  He really did think we were in kindergarten.
	"Rule one, be respectful.  Respect yourself, respect others, and respect the rights of others.  Rule two, its all right to feel sad sometimes, but the best thing in life is to try and be happy.  Happiness is what makes life all worthwhile.  Rule three, no swearing.  Speaking negatively leads to thinking negatively."
	Oh, these get better and better.
	"Rule four, no 'can'ts' or 'don'ts'.  In our world, there should be no such ideas.  And finally, rule five, do your best.  The best is all we can ever do.

"Now, I want you to turn to the person next to you and have a five-minute conversation, interview the person like you were a newspaper reporter, ask them what they like to do and so forth.  I'll be watching you to make sure you're all talking, I don't want to see anybody alone.  OK?  Get started."
I hate these icebreaker activities.  They're like first-grade games or a motivational speaker retreat.  People were already talking, well, more like clumping into their little cliques of four or five and picking up where they left off before he walked in.  I had no doubt no one was doing what he said.  
And myself, all alone.  Big surprise to me.  
For the hell of it, I turned to the person next to me, just to see who it was.
And I saw Her.  She was beautiful: fine, short hair that just brushed the nape of her neck and could only be described in color as black cherry.  Hypnotic, seductive, luminant green eyes, trimmed with dark eye shadow.  Skin perfect and pale to compliment her black t-shirt.  She also had an anarchy symbol, drawn in marker on a white piece of cloth pinned over her heart, and loose dark blue pants that ended in combat boots.
"What?" she said.
I just smiled like an idiot.  I tried desperately to think of something to say back before she thought I was retarded.
"Hey, I like your shirt."  Oh, bravo.  Great opening line, dumbass.
She looked puzzled for a second and said, "Thanks."  I think she was confused that someone would compliment her.  "My name's Sophia."
"I'm Caleb."
	"What are you listening to?"
	I hadn't even taken my headphones out, I realized.  "Oh, my Bush CD," I said as I pulled out the sound plugs from my ears.
"The first album?"
	It wasn't, it was Razorblade Suitcase, but I still said "Mm-hm."  I don't know what possessed me to lie.
"Machinehead kicks ass, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, that's got a great rhythm on it."
"Have you listened to the new album?"
"Yeah, I liked that one too."  I was just Mr. Yes-man at this point, a quivering blob of jelly under her gaze.  It took all my strength to maintain my composure.
"They're one of the only groups worth my spit these days.  Now you have to deal with Celine Dion every second.  I hate these fuckin' divas who think they're making good music when it's just corny shit.  If I have to hear that Titanic song again, I'm going to find a gun and blow my head off… or her's."
I laughed with some slight anxiety.  "You think she's more annoying than Hanson?"
"Ugh," she groaned in disgust.  "You know what I'd like to do.  I want to put Hanson, the 
Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion, and anybody else who I hate into a pit, and let them sit there until they start killing each other."
"Interesting," I smiled, trying to hide my concern for the brutal nature of the conversation.  
"Who'd you put in there?" she asked. 
I stammered, "Shania Twain I'd probably drop in the mix.  That song makes me throw up every time I hear it."  It's not often I'm asked who I'd like to kill. 
"OK, class," the shrill voice of Bledbaum interrupted, "Now take out a piece of paper and a writing utensil.  The assignment is to write down some things that you desire the most in your life.  Stuff that you don't have, tangible or intangible."
No, goddammit, I'm still talking to her, go back to masturbating under the table or whatever you were doing before.
"You're going to share these with the class so be honest."
Stupid bitch, I thought as I took out a piece of paper and stared at its blue horizontal lines blankly.  What the hell is with this shit?  How does this help us learn Algebra?
"Number one, mmm…" Sophia muttered, "A passing grade so I wouldn't need to be in this bullshit class."
I smiled at her and went back to my white, lined paper, having no idea what to put down.  A bigger house would be nice.  I guess I could use a nicer car too.  A nice spacious pick-up so I can take Sophia to the park and…
No, no, don't start thinking that, too far, too fast.  
	Back to work.  What else is there in the world that I want?  Come on, there's got to be something.  This is why I hate writing assignments. 
"All right class, pass your papers up."
Oh, good.  And I had all of two things on there, I thought as I handed my paper up.  Why didn't he give this assignment when I had a little more time to think about it?
"Hey," Sophia whispered to me, "How many did you get?"
	"Two."
	"I only got three."
"You think he's going to be grading this?"
	"He better not." 
I looked to the teacher who was perusing the papers.  He began writing on the board: money, family, fame.  "These are the categories I'm seeing," he said.  He continued writing: basketball player, musician, movie star…
	"I see there's a lot of items like becoming a famous movie star, singer, sports star.  And earning varying amounts of money, a million dollars, a billion dollars," he continued as he dragged the chalk across the blackboard.
	"Hey, you forgot a hooker for Mitch," some kid from the back said.  The class laughed, Bledbaum ignored it.
"All right, why do we value some things more than others, anybody?"
Pause.
"They… cause they make us happy?" a student said.
"OK, that's good, that's good, they make us happy.  Every one of these items could make us feel good inside."
I was barely able to stop myself from laughing.  This was the stupidest shit I'd ever heard.
"Things like money are tangible things.  We depend on their presence for an emotional effect. This makes them bad at instigating good positive feeling.  Over a long term, they don't exactly give off much real emotion."
What?  The hell they don't.  Money can give emotion in dozens of ways.  There's envy, jealousy, pride, greed.  It changes the way people around you feel, how they act towards you.  This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
"Things like the items under family are good.  These are people-oriented things.  It's important for us to be around people.  That way we can develop ourselves properly and be a happier, healthy person."
Uh-huh, OK, sure, whatever.
	"Values are what leads us to the roads of our future.  An ever-twisting road filled with grooves and curves in the pavement.  Some of us get to where we're going and some of us have to stop somewhere along the way.  For what we value, life shows us the better way to go on the road of life.  It is… a compass to guide us on our journey to success…"
The guy talked for the next half-hour about how values make us what we are, or something.  I tuned most of it out.  My mind was busy with thoughts of Sophia and wishing Mr. Ambiguously Gay would shut up.
"What time is it?" he looked at his clock and then at his watch.  "Well, I guess we've covered enough today.  Tomorrow we'll start the basics of Algebra."
Covered what today?  I was just glad this class was over.  Now I could talk to Sophia again.  I turned to her and saw her hasten out the door quickly with bag in tow.  I wondered where she had to go in such a hurry.  Oh well, nothing to get worked up about.  At least I'll get to see her tomorrow.

Chapter 2

I got to Algebra class at the same time as yesterday.  Bledbaum was there bright and early this time though.  These new teachers never know what the hell they're doing.  I bet that "value" assignment was nothing more than an excuse for having no lesson plan.
"Hey."
I looked up.  Sophia.
"Hi," I think my voice cracked a little, I hoped she didn't notice.
"I am so pissed off.  I had to take the bus today."
"Oh, that's too bad."  Damn, I tried to think of something to say, something other than 'I like your shirt'.
	"My dad took my car away because I got too many speeding tickets.  Completely not my fault, the damn cops have nothing better to do than harass teenagers.  I don't know how I'm going to get home either, because of this stupid class.  I hate Algebra, I hate being here.  Why did we have to get stuck with this dickhead teacher?  He doesn't even teach anything.  We're probably going to have to sit around a campfire today."
"Yeah," I simply said.
The teacher stood up from his desk.  "All right, class.  Let's get started on the road to Algebra today," he said enthusiastically.
Damn, you pin-headed prick, sit back down, I want to talk to her some more.  
"Now Algebra is really just arithmetic with letters.  Some of the vocabulary may be confusing to you, but by the context of it you'll…"
I drowned out his squeaky voice with my own thoughts, like everybody else had done by then.  I glanced quickly at Sophia, just to remind myself of what she looked like, then turned back.  She was so beautiful.  I don't know what it was that made me so attracted to her.  Her rebellious nature, her raw beauty, maybe it was just the way she talked to me.  She truly had a unique look about her, not like I've seen on any other girl.  It was like there was this indescribable magic surrounding her that made me desire her.
About an hour later, Bledbaum dismissed us.  Sophia picked up her books angrily, "Now I have to wait until my dad gets home for him to come get me."  I just watched her pick up her books, kind of wishing that I could do something to help.  "Do you have a car?" she asked. 
"Yeah," I said.
"Would you mind taking me home?"
"Sure."
"It's no problem?"
"Nope."
"OK, let's go."
We exited the school and went out to the parking lot.  I was so glad I could help her with her problem and make her a little happier.  I unlocked the door of my truck and we both got in.  
"Where am I going?" I said.  
"Actually, we're going to a place to meet my friends."
"Oh, OK."  Strange that she'd change plans so suddenly, and I didn't see why she'd lie to me, but either way I didn't have a problem with it, I guess.  "Where is it?"
"We go to an abandoned church.  Do you know where the Dairy Queen is?"
"Yeah."
"It's just across from there, it looks like a temple."
"I know where that is."  I started the car and drove out onto the main road.  "Do you meet there everyday?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
As I drove, I thought over where I was going.  She's a goth girl and she's meeting friends in abandoned church – I hope they don't think they're vampires or some Satan-worshipping cult.  Some people think they're better than others by praying to the devil.  Mindless, little Marilyn Manson-wannabes.
It wasn't a long drive.  I went past the Dairy Queen and as I pulled up to the disintegrating church parking lot, I looked up.  This thing was like something out of the dark ages.  The sullen, morose building grew into tall spires pointing to the blue sky.  Its stained glass windows were broken.  The whole place was built with mortar and bricks lightly coated in grime.  It might as well have been holding together with spit and chewing gum.
"You can come in if you want," she said.
Oh, yes.  Tip of the hand to fate.  Of course, I said, "Sure."  Very good sign, including me in with her friends.
We walked in together.  There was a big "CONDEMNED BY ORDER OF BUILDING COMMISSION" sign on the front doors, but we went in anyway.  The sign's probably been there since she started coming here.  
The chapel was huge, as most chapels are.  And it was as dark inside as it was outside.  Light streamed down from the broken windows, but did little to lighten the atmosphere.  A mighty Jesus crucifixion cross was placed on the back wall, and almost all the benches were broken or flipped over.
"Hey, what the hell took you so damn long?" a voice from the back said.  
There was a guy coming toward us wearing a black Korn T-shirt and a hemp necklace.  He had spiked black hair and he looked pretty pissed off.
"And who the hell is this guy?" he continued.  "When did we start bringing anybody off the street?"
"Settle down, Jo!  This is Caleb – my friend from school."
"Uh-huh, so what's he doing here?"
"He drove me here, and he's going to be coming for at least a week because my dad took my car away, so get used to him."
"Uh, lemme think for a minute – NO!" he said acidly and rapidly.
"Well, you're going to have to get used to it."
"Why the hell should I trust him?  I should toss him out right now."
"And you know damn well what's going to happen to you if you try to do that," she threatened.
"No, you know damn well what's going to happen if any of this gets out.  That's why this is not open season here."
I was confused about why they wanted to keep it so secret.  I was getting a little suspicious, but I kept my mouth shut because it wasn't my fight.
"We don't need another person.  I know we can get it with just th-"
	"You know perfectly well that we do."
	"Yeah, the hell we do."
"Yeah, let's just see what Quentin thinks."
"All right, fine."  He went to the front pews to get Quentin.  
Sophia whispered to me, "That's Josiah, he's always like that.  But Quentin'll like you, don't worry."  We went to the front pews and I saw this guy dozing tranquilly, his face covered by a tan hat, a Dairy Queen blizzard was behind his head.
"Hey, Quentin.  Hey, wake up, dickhead!" Josiah kicked him in the leg and Quentin jumped with a start.
"What?  What, what?!" he looked around startled.  "Oh, sorry, I was having a dream I was playing Trivial Pursuit with Jesus.  He was winning."
Josiah rolled his eyes.  "Whatever, listen, do you think we need another one in…?"
Quentin raised his hat and took a look at me.  "Oh, is this the new guy?"
"This is Caleb, he drove Sophia here."
"Did he?"  The guy got up and shook my hand.  "Hi, Caleb.  My name's Quentin, but some people call me QT because of Quentin Tarantino.  You seen any of his movies?"
"Uh, I saw Pulp Fiction."
"That was a good movie.  Did you see From Dusk 'til Dawn?"
"Quentin, what the hell does this have to do with anything?" Jo asked.
"I was just wondering, since none of you likes Tarantino."
"Cause he's a hyperactive, living-with-his-mom-in-the-basement loser.  Kinda like you."
Quentin just ignored the insult.
"All right, so what do you think?" Sophia queried.
"I say we take a vote," Quentin remarked.
"This ain't no democracy, Quentin," Jo answered.
"It's not a dictatorship either, Jo," Sophia retorted.
"Well, I'm not letting him in just cause want him.  I don't even know the guy, neither does Quentin."
"He's got a point."
"Look," Sophia sighed, tired of this whole argument.  "It's not like he's in yet," she said quieter, "Let's just give him a trial run, all right?  Would that make you happy?  Then you can decide."
Jo approached me and looked me up and down.  "I don't know what she sees in you," he muttered.
"Maybe it's my cologne."
Quentin started giggling uncontrollably.  I don't know why, I didn't think it wasn't that funny.
"Shut up!" Jo yelled.  Quentin quieted down.
"All right, you just got until Sophia gets her car back.  Then I'll decide if you get to be let in.  And don't think I'll be easy on you either.  Understand?"
This was sounding less like a group of friends and more like a membership club, and a pretty exclusive one at that.  This guy already seems to want to see me dead, and he's known me for five minutes.  The other has a strange obsession over Quentin Tarantino and dreams about playing board games with religious figures.  Any other sane person would have left this church ten seconds after they saw it.
But Sophia was here – this was part of her life and I wanted to be a part of it too, even if it meant I had to deal with Psycho and his brother Sicko.
"Understood," I said.

Chapter 3

Dear Caleb,

I won't be home tonight, had to work late.  Love you.
	
Mom

	Big surprise there.  My mom's not going to be home tonight.  Like that was anything new to me – I haven't seen her in two weeks.  My mom works for a big corporation, I don't even know what it's called, I think it's a computer company.  But it takes up all of her time, she works 12 to 14 hour shifts almost every day.  They even have a little space for her to sleep when she works overnight, which is often.  Needless to say, she's not exactly a reliable parent.
I plopped down on my chair in the living room, like I do almost every day.  Nothing but the TV to keep me company.  I flicked the remote control in my wrist and started channel surfing.  Good thing I had cable or I'd get bored pretty damn fast.
Click, click, click.  I flipped through the channels at a rapid fire pace.  I can tell exactly if it's something interesting or not in one second of watching, maybe even less.  The problem is there are only about ten or so decent stations.  The rest are C-Span, cable access, or snow.
Click, click, click.  Nothing so far.
I found a TV movie that was just starting, and decided maybe I'd watch that.  I didn't know what it was about, but the mystery makes it kind of fun.  I ate some things I found in the back of the kitchen cabinet during the movie, which ended in time for Leno.  
After that I still didn't feel tired, so I watched Conan O'Brien, who I think is funnier than Leno or Letterman.  The monologues are terrible, nothing more than overused Clinton jokes, but the sketches are hilarious.  It's too bad they put him on so late at night.
That talk show finished up, it was really early in the morning and I still didn't feel like going to bed.  I had a feeling this was going to be one of those nights where I just won't feel tired and just stay up the whole night.  I can't get to sleep even if I try so what'd be the point of spending all night in bed when I might as well be up and do something.  I must say it's kind of strange to see a sunrise and a sunset consecutively.
When I get these sleepless nights I usually watch TV or something until dawn, but I've done that already, sick of TV for a while.  So I decided to go out and do something. 
I stepped out of my small house and locked the door, went into my pick-up truck and pulled out onto the road.  First, I went to the fast food 'plaza' in town and see if there was anything still open.  McDonald's closed already, so did Burger King, Arby's, and KFC.  White Castle was open all night, but I wasn't going there.  Even if every fast food place in the world were closed except White Castle I still wouldn't go there.
Taco Bell was still open though.  I pulled into their drive-thru lane and crept up to the menu.
"Welcome to Taco Bell.  Can I interest you in a combo meal tonight?"
"No, thank you.  Could I have a minute, please."
"Sure, just let me know when you're ready to order."
Damn pushy cashiers.  Guess it's not their fault though, they have to say that.  OK, what do I want?  I need enough food to get me through the night.  Money is no problem, my mom always leaves enough for me from day to day.
Let's see, I haven't had a Gordita in a while.  Or a double-decker, I like those, you get the best of both worlds.  Some regular tacos and a large Pepsi should do me tonight.
"I'm ready."
"All right, go ahead."
"Can I get three Fiesta Gorditas, four double-decker tacos, five hard shell tacos, five soft shell tacos, and a large Pepsi."
"Would you like any hot or mild sauce with that?"
"Could I get some mild, please."
"Your total is $16.82, please pull up to the window."
"Thank you."
I pulled up to the drive-thru window and I could see inside the vacant, but brightly lit environment one Mexican girl talking to two other adults, one holding a mop.  She turned to the window.  "$16.82, please."  I handed her a twenty-dollar bill, which she smilingly took and after a moment, handed me back the correct change.  "It'll just be a moment."
"OK," she seemed nice enough for someone working the graveyard shift. 
I watched the girl talk to her two late-night friends as I listened to a song on the radio.  I was a little concerned as to what they were doing, if they were getting my food at all, but it was 1:30 in the morning, I doubted that any food was ready.
About five minutes passed and she reopened the window, holding a bag out for me.
"There you go, have a good night."
"Thank you."
Nobody taught me much in the way of etiquette, but I think my skills surpass many others in being polite.  It's better that people forget you as the nice man than remember you as the rude man.  
I tossed the bag onto the passenger seat.  I know some people will pull ahead slightly and check to make sure they have everything.  I do that sometimes, to make sure I got everything I paid for.  But tonight it didn't really matter to me, I wasn't in the mood for making a big fuss over anything.  Besides, I had waited long enough for the food I got.
I got back on the main road through the commercial center, made a few turns, and pulled into the parking lot of a large charred building.  This was the former Kilward mall, until it burnt down some unknown time ago.  When it came to a decision to rebuild this one or construct a new mall, the people chose the new mall in a better location.  The old mall had yet to be torn down, perhaps it never would be, but that didn't matter as I jiggled the handle and let myself in.  
The merchandise of a civilization spread before me.  Technology, home comforts, clothes, and everything was mine.
I had found this place on another of my sleepless nights some time ago when I decided to just drive around town and explore.  Just another abandoned building, no one was around, so I figured what would it hurt to try and open it.  I had no idea a smorgasbord of products was awaiting me.  You'd think the franchise owners would have come back for their inventory, but I guess it was so badly burned they didn't think it would be worth it to salvage it and just looked to the new mall instead.  The building was heavily damaged, but there was still a roof and electricity still worked in some parts of the store.  Walking through debris was an obstacle though.
Anyway, once I got in, I walked through the empty halls to the main control room to activate the power.  There was a gaping hole in the floor in one corner that I stealthily avoided to get to the control panel and flip the switches I needed.  The hum of the electricity cruising through unseen lines reverberated through the area.  
I exited the power room and journeyed to a little section of the mall that I had cleaned out for myself in a furniture store, something called 'Sunsoft Furniture'.  At least that's what I assumed the sign once said.  Now the store was called 'S n of   urn  ur '.
Anyway, I had made a nice spot for myself.  Comfy couch, chair, bed, situated around a stereo, several radios, a police scanner, video game center for all the old systems, an old computer for typing up homework, paints for if I felt like being artistic (which wasn't often), and TV with VCR for movies.  I had a lot to keep myself occupied in my home away from home.
I threw the bag of food on the couch next to me and flipped on the radio with one of the universal remotes.  I had set it at a slow rock station and the melancholy tunes pumped through the heavy bass speakers as loud as I wanted.  I opened the bag and pulled out a Gordita.  Leaning back on the couch I looked around the room, the blackened emptiness spread before me, silent and still.  Nothing but a big empty void, like my life.
Sitting here, among the ruins of a once bustling social center, made one realize how insignificant you were among everything in the world.  If I died tomorrow, would anyone remember I existed?  If they did, how long until they forgot?  What was the point of living on Earth, what possible purpose could someone as worthless as me serve?  In this entire universe, what affects it by Caleb being here?  It makes me wish I felt nothing.  It might be easier to exist that way.  
It's not the easiest life I have, maybe not the hardest, but not the easiest either.  It's just the life of solitude I lead.  At times it almost seems like I'm being punished for something, and it must have been something bad.  No one should have to go through life all by yourself with no one there for you.  It's not that I mind being alone, I just hate being alone all the time.  I may have a car, enough money with no need for a job, I can go wherever I want, when I want.  No one holds me back.  But I could do without it for someone to hang out with, someone to talk to, someone to hold when I feel bad, someone to come to me with their problems, someone to talk on the phone with when I'm bored.  Just a friend to be with.
And now that Sophia's here, it's like I'm part of something now, part of a group.  I've never been part of a group.  I've always been my own self, an individual.  It's like there's something in my life that tells me I might not be doomed to this solitary existence for the rest of my days.  Something that makes it worth it to get up out of bed.  Something that would make my life worth staying alive for.    
I checked my watch.  It was 3:30, about three more hours to go until the world reawakened.  And until then, I would sit here, alone, in my little space.  Quiet, comfortable, but still alone.


	"Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning.  One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank.  In the process, he was stung.  He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell in. The monk saved the scorpion and was again stung.  The other monk asked him, 'Why do you continue to save the scorpion when you know it will sting you?'  The other monk replied 'Because to save it is my nature.'"
	Bledbaum paused momentarily to let the real meaning of the parable sink in.  He was sitting on a stool in front of the class holding the book of Zen Buddhist stories he was reading from.
	"Now," he continued, "Can anyone tell me what this story means to you?"
	I couldn't stand this.  My high school Algebra class has turned into storytime hour.  I wondered when naptime was going to start.  This was so fucking ridiculous.  If I had wanted to hear this kiddie-feelgood shit, I'd be watching PBS.
	"What this story symbolizes," Bledbaum lectured, having received no answers to his question, "It describes the inherent nature of all things to be the way they are.  When the Zen Buddhists wrote this story, they had reached the state of enlightenment where they knew full well of nature's way of things.  In every living being there is a certain path that they must follow no matter what, even if it is harmful to themselves or others.  Like they have an internal compass always pointing in one direction.  Especially in humans, they have the most inherent natural way of any living creature, like a personal duty.  Sociologists heavily debate whether it is possible for people to really change and if that change means denying their natural…"
	Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Was this guy gonna bark all day or was he gonna teach us math?  I was so ready to just walk out of this class and never return.  All I want to do is pass Algebra so I can graduate.  And I'm not going to do it by learning this Zen Buddhist bullshit.  Does he even realize that?  If I'm not learning what I need to know, how does he expect me to do well at all in his class.  He acts so surprised that we're doing so bad, maybe he should take a look at his own damn self.  I wish he would just disappear.  God, that would be nice.  I wish this whole class would just disappear so I could leave school at the regular time and just be with Sophia, and Jo, and Quentin, and just hang out at the church…
	"Caleb, what do you think?"
	Oh, shit.  Now would have been a good time for me to be paying attention.  I know everyone's glossed-over gaze was suddenly turned towards me.  Better think of something fast.
	"Well, I think… that… the story showed… that maybe… it's not so much an inherent nature as something like a destiny."  Whoo, pulled that one out of nowhere.
	Bledbaum gasped like I had just turned lead into gold right before his eyes.
	"Yes, Caleb!  That's an amazing revelation.  Perhaps nature's way is the destiny which so many believe is the uncontrollable path which we must walk.  Tell me, Caleb, are you a follower on the controversy over fate versus self-controlled lives?"
This guy had to be kidding.  "Do I look like I am?  I can't even follow your class."
	The rest of the class laughed at my little cynical comment.  I glanced at Sophia who was smiling at me in a 'good answer' kind of way.
	Bledbaum clasped his hands and held them to his face, in a thinking pose.  Unlike the rest of the class, he was not smiling.
	"I see, I see, I understand your point.  But remember my fourth rule about 'can'ts'.  Even great philosophers didn't excel in all areas.  Just because you're still in high school doesn't mean that you can't follow sociological debates."
	Maybe not, but why the fuck would I want to?  I had more important things to worry about, like not graduating.
	Bledbaum returned to his stool and picked the book back up.  "This next story involves power.  There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and his position in life…"
	Save me.


After that first day with Sophia's friends I began to become gradually accepted into the group, I guess.  Every day after Bledbaum's class, Sophia and I would drive over to the church and hang out with Quentin and Josiah.  Sometimes, Quentin would bring us all Blizzards or something from Dairy Queen.  He was an interesting guy, kind of eccentric, but still cool in my book.  He was the smartest one of us, but got the same grades as the rest of us.  The weird part was that he was almost an exact contrast to Jo.  Jo was always in a constant state of being pissed off, and he had a terrible temper.  He would take some little thing and start to argue over it just so he could argue.  For instance, after about two weeks, as Sophia and I walked into the church, Quentin asked me a strange question. 
"Caleb, do you think Peter Pan is gay?
I remember I kind of looked at him strangely and said "What the hell kind of question is that?"
"Yes or no, do you think he's gay?"
I had no idea.  "I don't know."
"Quentin, are you blind or what?  The guy's the president of Buttsex land," Jo interjected.
"No, he isn't."
"Look, first of all, he hangs out with little seven year-old boys all the time, hint hint.  Second, the only woman in Neverland is a six-inch tall fairy, that's another hint right there."
"Whoa, back up, A: that's why he got Wendy in the first place and B: Tinkerbell is not the only woman, there's Tiger Lily and the mermaids."
"Yeah, and that's it.  Tiger Lily doesn't talk and the mermaids aren't even the same species."
"And Tinkerbell's only eight inches tall, its not like she can give him good lovin'," Sophia jumped in.
"All right," Quentin said, ready to give his counter-argument, "Then why did Peter Pan want Wendy?"
"Obviously, he wanted a slave," Jo said.
"Oh, come on."
"He even says in the movie, he wanted her to come with him to tell him stories." Sophia responded.  "He ain't doing this for her benefit.  You see the way he disrespects her.  He doesn't give a shit when the mermaids are trying to drown her.  He's a pimp and Wendy's his bitch.  I bet he does this all the time with women."
"And he wears tights, that's a dead giveaway right there," Jo again added.
"Oh come on, Batman wears tights and he's not gay."
Josiah just said "Robin?"
Quentin just sighed.
"And another thing," Jo continued, "In plays he's played by a girl or a boy so he's at least bi."
"That doesn't mean anything.  In Shakespeare's plays – boys played the girl parts."
"I think you're losing this argument," I commented to Quentin.
"OK," he gathered himself, "Tiger Lily kissing him in that scene after he rescues her.  He can't be gay there."
"She just doesn't know about it, or she does and is denying it," Jo said.
"OK, how about when he saves Wendy and takes her back in the last part?"
"Just the usual forced happy Disney ending."
"No way, prove it." 
	"I don't need to prove it, little dumbass.  It's obvious Disney's an evil super-conglomeration.  They're brainwashing you with a false sense of hope, that everything has a happy ending.  But in the meantime they slip in these subtle little messages to warp you and turn you into a queer.  All the signs are there, and if you weren't such a retard, you'd realize that."
	"Well, sorry," Quentin said sarcastically.
See?  He was like a ball of fire trapped under an airtight container waiting to backdraft.  All it takes is a little thing to set him off.  It made our church gatherings pretty tense, but at least they were interesting.


The day after that we got our copy of the school paper.  It comes out every three weeks or so, not because we don't have the budget, but nothing interesting happens in this school to warrant anything less than three weeks.  And we only get them at the end of the day so I hadn't read it yet.  But now that I was in my tedious Algebra class, I could peruse the news at my own leisure.
Let's see here… Top story – school deals with budget cuts, cuts several classes… vandalism in the bathrooms… feature on school swim team.
I opened to the next page, which was the editorials.  The biggest, attention-grabbing one was an article on the goth style coming into society.  This interested me because Sophia was sort of goth.  I don't think the writer looked too favorably on the trend judging by the headline Goth Style Shows Degradation of School Image.  
"Hey," Sophia said casually as she came up behind me.  "I got my car back.  My dad says he gave it back to me because of 'good behavior'," she laughed, "So you don't need to drive me anymore."
"All right," was all I said, but inside, I was worried.  Did this mean I can still come with her or not.  Did she want me to come or did she just want my car?
"Did you read that?" she pointed to the large article in the paper.
"Not yet."
"That's the biggest load of shit I've ever seen."
"Really?" I said complacently. 
"The bitch who wrote that should die.  They talk all about how we're a bunch of depressed slackers and that we're just upset that we didn't get on the football team or cheerleading squad, so we're just dressing all in black to get attention.  It's so fucking ridiculous."
"Mm-hm," I said, just taking all this in.  "Then why do you dress the way you do?"  This was something I'd been wanting to ask for awhile, now the opportunity had come.
"I don't… it's… I don't know, it's just the way I dress."
"Well, what problem do you have with dressing in regular clothes."
"Cause I don't want to be mistaken for one of those braindead blonds who are more obsessed about getting asked to Homecoming than what they're gonna do with their lives."
"So you do it for the attention.  You want to stand out."
"No, it's more like…" she sat down, trying to think of what to say.  "A silent protest… against conformity."
"Then why does everyone protesting against conformity dress the same way?"
"We don't all dress the same way.  We wear a lot of different things."
"Yeah, but it's all the same style.  It's all black and metal, like Jo and Quentin wear."
"Jo and Quentin dress different from each other a lot.  Jo wears a lot of chains and heavy metal clothes.  Quentin just wears some dark-colored things, nothing elaborate."
"Still wouldn't you say they're both goth?"
"Maybe Jo is more goth than Quentin, but yeah."
"And wouldn't you say they both fit the stereotype of depressed angry slackers?"
"They… whatever," she finally shrugged.
I said nothing and turned back to the paper.  I guess that meant I won, but there was no reason to act that way about it.
"Well, why do you dress like you do?" she started again.
I didn't know what she meant.  I was wearing a gray shirt, dark blue jeans, and black tennis shoes.  I didn't have any piercings or make-up or black-dyed hair or chains on me.  "What's wrong with this?  I wear this cause I don't want to stand out."
"Well you do.  You're not wearing any Abercrombie & Fitch, no Tommy jeans."
"Yeah, well, I don't want to wear that.  This is what I like to wear."
"Well, OK, that's fine, and this is what I like to wear.  You got a problem with that?"
"No, I was just asking."
"Fine."
"All right," Bledbaum started, "Open up to section 3-2."
I opened my textbook up to section 3-2, except we were at section 2-3.  I didn't know what he was talking about, I assumed for some reason he wanted us to skip ahead.  Whispers began to circulate through the students, questioning this mistake.
"We're on section 2-3, Mr. Bledbaum," some kid piped up.
"Oh, yes, thank you, turn to section 2-3."
I turned back to section 2-3, now recognizing where we left off.
"OK, now," he drew a division equation on the board, "We're going to talk about dividing with square roots.  Now if you remember from section 2-1 we learned what a conjugate was..."
Conjugate?
"…And that we take the conjugate of the denominator and multiply it by both the numerator and denominator..."
Wait, why do you do that?
"…And then you just treat it like regular division and reduce the terms."
Stop, no, wait, go back to what a conjugate was.
"Does everybody get that?"
His answer was about thirty blank stares.
"What's a conjugate?"
"Yeah, what is that?"
"Yeah, nobody gets that," the students cried.
"Well," Bledbaum answered, "Weren't you paying attention yesterday?"
No one answered, obviously, but at Bledbaum's level of intelligence, I bet he was expecting a response.
"A conjugate is the inverse of the entire term," he continued.  "You change the sign of the root term."
"Why don't you change the sign of the first thing?"
"Well, I skipped that part because I assumed everyone already understood the rule of like signs."
Bledbaum went to a blank part of the blackboard, getting ready to re-explain what a conjugate was.
"All right, I'll do an example on the board, just to remind you.  Does anybody have a problem from the assignment they'd like done?"
"Number twelve," someone said.
"Number twelve, all right," he looked in his teacher's guide for said problem, murmuring the text to memorize it.  "Solve for x," he mumbled partially to himself, partially to the class.  He wrote down  Ö3 - Ö3x = 24.
             Ö12
Then he stood back from the problem for a moment, contemplating the problem.  "Well, first of all, we can simplify the bottom to two square root of four."  He wrote down the simplified version next to the original equation.  Again, he stood in deep thought trying to figure out the answer.  He leaned back to the Teacher's Edition, rechecking the answer.  "How do…"
I don't believe this.  This was too funny.  The teacher, our own teacher who's supposed to know everything about Algebra, does not even know how to do a simple problem from the homework.  And they put me in the remedial class.  
"Well," Bledbaum stalled, "I think… well, the answer is supposed to be x equals 3.  Hmm… Honestly, I'm not sure-"
"You can't even do the problem, you dumbass," a kid from the left declared as he laughed.
The students around us uproared in laughter.  I'm not sure, but I think Bledbaum was turning red with embarrassment.  If he was, he was controlling it well.
"Now, I don't think there's any need for that sort of statement."
"If you can't do the problem yourself, why the hell are you teaching us." 
"Yeah, you should be in this class with us."
He turned around and looked at us irately.  Then his expression softened.  "I suppose I'm going to have to repeat my class rules again."
Oh great, again.  Thanks a lot, kid.  This is the sixth time he's repeated these damn rules of his.  I don't know whether this is some kind of punishment or he's blaming this kid's misbehavior on himself for not being a better instructor.  But if I had to sit through another recitation of his holy creed again…
"Rule one, be respectful, you should always respect yourself first before anybody else, then respect others, and respect their rights as well.  Number two, be happy.  If you're happy, you're more relaxed and people like you better."
Jeez, can you believe this.  He's telling us how to feel.
"Number three, no swearing, this is just a personal rule, I don't like to hear those kind of words, and negative thinking brings negative results.  Rule number four, no 'can'ts' and 'don'ts'.  In my vocabulary there are no such words.  There is nothing you can't do."
Oh, you just said 'can't', I think it's in your vocabulary.
"You change those 'can'ts' into 'can's' and 'don'ts' into 'do's' and there's no limit to what you can do.  And rule number five, do your best.  If you aim for the moon and miss, you'll still be among the stars."
I think I'm going to be sick.  What a worthless teacher.
"All right, well, let's try another problem.  Let's take number eight," he said, looking in his textbook.  He erased the previous problem and scribbled down the new equation.  "All right, now, just like in regular multiplying of fractions you need a common denominator…"
As he droned on, I debated with myself whether I should keep going to the church or not, because I didn't need to drive Sophia anymore.  I remembered that Sophia had said that I would get until she got her car was fixed for Jo and Quentin to get used to me.  Would they remember that contract as well?  Probably not, and it seemed like they had gotten used to me, even friends with me.  Sophia was the biggest factor though.  She didn't seem to give any indication I wasn't welcome anymore, but she didn't say anything to the contrary either.  I didn't want to piss her off by going where I'm not welcome.  I did not want to lose this girl, not for anything.  That meant keeping her happy and in good with me.  She was a rare find, like a gem, something you would never let go.  Plus, she wouldn't have picked me to drive her in the first place if she didn't like me in some way.  
As soon as class ended, Sophia already had her stuff packed, while I was making some last minute notes.
"Are you coming or do you want to stay here?"
Yes, I exclaimed to myself, she still wants me to come with.  I packed up my stuff and headed out the door with her.
Once at the church, Sophia wasted no time in declaring her hatred for the goth editorial.
"Did you read…?" Sophia exclaimed as we entered the church.
"Oh yes, I read it, I read it quite well," Jo said.
"I will read it, as soon as Jo's finished," Quentin said, giving Jo a look.
"Here," Jo tossed the paper at Quentin who began reading as fast as he could so he could join in the discussion.
"I'm going to murder that would-be reporter," he continued.  
"Caleb was arguing with me about it.  He says it's right."
Jo looked up.  "What?  You dress the same as us, what are you argu-?"
"I don't dress like you at all.  All I'm wearing are jeans and a gray shirt and there's nothing on it.  No Korn or Pantera or anarchy symbols or pentagrams or anything.  I've got no earrings or body piercings, I've got no jewelry of any kind, no necklaces or keychains, I'm not trying not to stand out like you are."
"I don't know about the rest of you, but I dress this way because I'm a badass mother fucker who isn't a guy to mess with."
"On the contrary," Quentin said, still reading the paper, "You are apparently a pathetic loser who has no life so you think you're better than everybody else by dressing darkly.  You have ruined the music industry by making static musicians like Marilyn Manson and Prodigy popular."
"Oh now.  That's reason for death there.  Marilyn Manson kicks so much ass it's not even funny."
"Yeah, but they're right," Quentin said.  "Marilyn Manson is a pathetic loser.  He was Paul on The Wonder Years."
"Yeah, right," Jo said sarcastically.
"No, he's right," Sophia said.  "Marilyn Manson is the same guy as Paul."
"Who was Paul?"
"He was the Jewish nerdy guy, Fred Savage's friend."
"Well, that just goes to show.  A guy who was a skinny, clean-cut loser is now one of the most popular and feared bands in the country."
"Actually, " I interjected, "He's not."
"What?"
"He's not Paul from The Wonder Years.  Paul's name is Josh Saviano, Marilyn Manson's real name is Brian Warner."
"How do you know?"
"Article in Spin."
"So he changed his name," Quentin countered.
"No, he didn't.  And even if he did, Marilyn Manson was formed in 1989, Josh Saviano would have had to be about thirteen years old."
"Yeah, that's right I guess."
"Look, you guys," I continued.  "You're blowing this whole thing way out of proportion.  It's just a meaningless rant from a little kid in a school paper.  No one's going to care about it, nobody'll even remember it was there tomorrow.  They'll just crumple it up and use it for paper fights on the bus."
"Whatever," Sophia said detachedly.
"I guess so," Quentin added.  "But I swear he's Paul from The Wonder Years."
"I'm telling you he's not."
"Where did you hear that, Quentin?" Jo asked.
"Somebody."
"Uh-huh."

Chapter 4

                             1.   6 + Ö4                        2.   3 + Ö5                          3.   7 - 12Ö6
                                      Ö3                                    Ö6                                       Ö2
 
I quit.  I have no idea how to do this.  Nobody gets this.  Why are they making us do this.  I am never going to have to use this in life.  
I had spent about five minutes blankly staring at this test Bledbaum had suddenly sprung on us only two days beforehand, so there was virtually no opportunity to study, and the only time I've put pencil to paper so far is to write my name at the top. 
I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration.  What was I going to do?  I took a look at Sophia next to me.  She had just gotten problem 1: 8
                                          Ö3
I immediately put that down as my answer too.  He had said to show your work for this test, but I didn't care, he must give me at least some credit for the answer.
I tried as hard as I could to get the answers for the rest of the test, but as soon as Sophia got it I copied it onto my paper too, not knowing if it was right or not.  Just as long as I got something down I had a better chance than nothing.  From time to time I glanced up at Bledbaum to see if he was watching me.  Apparently, he was clueless, as always.
Sophia finished before me, and handed her test in.  I waited a while longer before I would do the same, so it wouldn't look so obvious that I copied.  I made it look like I was working diligently for all of five minutes, then put it in the pile on Bledbaum's table.  I went back to my desk to get out my Bush CD, the first album I had just bought, while I waited to be dismissed.  As the music began playing, I thought about Sophia, (like I had thought about anything else for the past three weeks).  All the time I'd spent with her since she had invited me to join their little group made me wonder why she had been so amiable toward me so quickly.  Did she like me as I liked her?  I wouldn't know why, I'm not the type girls go for, I'm too laid back.  They like the active, flamboyant types who can make them laugh.  I know I certainly liked her a lot.  More than just about… 
I saw Mr. Bledbaum standing over me, making the gesture to pull off my headphones, which I did.
"Caleb, can I talk to you for a second?" he whispered.
"Sure," I said nonchalantly.
"Out in the hall?"
"Sure."
I followed him outside the room.  He shut the door and showed me my test paper.
"Caleb, I saw you copying off Sophia's paper today."
Dammit, the son of a bitch did see me.  Oh well, no way out of this.
"Now, I know you're a good guy," he continued, "And you know that cheating is wrong.  So I'm going to let you do the test over again."
"Right now?"
"Yes, it wouldn't be fair to the others to make them wait for their results."
Damn, if I had to stay longer, Sophia wouldn't wait up for me.  But I had to get a good grade on this test too.  Maybe I could do some extra credit or something to make it up though.
"No, I don't want to."
"If you don't redo the test, I'll have to give you a zero because you cheated."
"I said I don't want to."  This was starting to get on my nerves and class was close to ending.
"Ah, I'm hearing those 'can'ts' and 'don'ts', Caleb.  You gotta change those to 'dos' and 'cans'."
"All right, I do want to get the hell out of here."
"Is that what you really feel, Caleb?"
God, I was getting sick of this.  "Who gives a shit?  I'm never going to use this in life."
"Well, I'll admit that you probably won't need to solve square root reductions in your future, but it helps with your 'problem-solving skills'."
"What?  What the hell are you talking about?"
"Please don't swear in my classroom."
"We aren't in your classroom."
"Negative thoughts bring negative results, remember." 
"Yeah, whatever.  I'm still not doing the test over again."  No matter how much liberal, new-age crap you unload on me.
"I'll also have to give Sophia a zero for helping you cheat."
Oh, hold on a minute here.  We ain't having none of that.  "What?  You can't do that!"
"I'm going to have to if you don't redo it."
I can't believe this mother fucker is going to give her a zero for nothing.  "If you do that, I'll kill you."
"Caleb, I know you don't mean that."
"You can give me all the zeros you want.  Fail me the entire year, I don't care.  But if you do anything to her you'll live to regret it."
"Are you sure that's what you want, Caleb?"
The bell rang and students began coming out of the room.  Class had ended.
"Just, whatever, I don't care."  I went into the room, grabbed my stuff and left.  As I passed by the teacher, I shot him a quick look that said 'don't do anything stupid'.  I could sense his tiny, disappointed eyes watching me hasten my feet down the hall to catch up with Sophia.
 

At the church, Quentin had gotten us all slushies from DQ, damn, did I need one.  I was so thankful something had gone my way today.  I think Quentin noticed I was kind of mad by the way that I snatched the cup from him.
"Jeez, don't rip my hand off too," he said.
"Oh, I'm hearing a 'don't', Quentin," I said with acidic sarcasm.
"What's wrong with you?"
"That stupid gay math teacher's giving me a zero cause I copied off Sophia." 
"You probably shouldn't have though," Sophia said, "I know I didn't get a lot right."
I looked at her.  "Did you know I was copying off you?"
"Yeah, I knew, I saw you looking at my paper.  Is that what he took you out in the hall for?"
"Oh yeah, the dipshit took me out into the hall to talk to me about it too.  He wanted me to stay after even longer to redo it."  I took a swig of my drink.  I contemplated telling Sophia that Bledbaum had threatened to give her a zero too.  I wanted to, but that would probably cause her a lot of stress and worry and I couldn't do that.  
"It's bad enough you guys have to stay after regular school.  This guy wants you to stay after-after school," Quentin said.
"Yeah," she took a sip of her purple slushie.  "Fuckin' teacher can kiss my ass.  He doesn't even teach, he wants us to be in touch with our 'feelings'."  She took another sip.  "But we've got more important things to worry about."
"Right, are we still on for tomorrow night?" Quentin asked.
"I'm ready," Sophia said.
"Me too, I even got someone," Jo said.
What?  What are they talking about now?
"And we have everything we need, right?"
"We've had everything we need for a long time.  It's just been sitting there."
	"Don't worry, I double-checked it," Quentin said.
	What?  Double-checked what?
	"All right, I don't want to have been waiting this long for nothing."  Jo looked at me and then at Sophia.  "You sure about this, Soph?"
	"Worry about yourself, Jo."
	I suddenly felt very out of the circle.  "OK, if you're talking about me, I'd like to know."
	"Never mind," Jo said.
Sophia looked at me.  "Be sure you're here tomorrow, Caleb."
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I figured I'd do just like we've been doing, then I'd figure it out.  I just hope they weren't talking about anything like murder or kidnapping, especially with this search to find someone.  

Chapter 5

He did it, he gave me a zero.  As soon as I got my test handed back to me, I saw the big red "0 / 35" at the top of the page.  I didn't care though, I was expecting it.  And besides, I was more concerned about whether Soph-
"What the fuck is this?"  Sophia loudly declared.  "What the hell is this zero doing on my paper.  I'm not that bad at math."
"I saw you giving Caleb the answers.  I was going to talk to you about it in the hallway, but class ended before I got the chance," he said coolly.
"You fucking cocksucker," she continued, "I didn't give him the answers, he just copied off me!"
"Uh, Sophia," I was going to say she wasn't helping her point by yelling and embarrassing me in the process.
"It doesn't matter, you were both party to it," said Bledbaum.
"So you're going to blame me for something I didn't do.  I don't think so, bitch."
"Sophia, remember rule number 3, no sw-"
"Aw, fuck your fuckin' rule number 3."
And with that she walked out of class.
"She didn't do anything," I exclaimed.
"I can't have cheating in my classroom, Caleb.  I had to fail both of you.  I told you I would."
"And I told you that if you did, you'd regret it."  I swept all the stuff on my desk into my bag.  "Don't be surprised if you never see either of us again."
"Good, I don't want people who don't want to learn in my class."
Ironically, all the other students heard this, picked up their bags, and started leaving.  And Bledbaum, with his over-the-top morality, had to stand by his statement and stupidly watched as they filed out one by one.  I laughed heartily from the irony.  His new-age, enlightened ways had blown up in his face.  I was the last to go, leaving Bledbaum standing alone without a student to his name.
Sophia had already left for the church when I got out into the parking lot and I figured I might as well follow her there.  She was already in the middle of a tirade when I entered.  I expected that.  
"…And he failed me too.  He gave me a zero cause he thought I was giving Caleb the answers."  She paused then looked straight into Josiah's eyes.  "Jo, I don't care who you had.  Tonight, we're doing Bledbaum."
"All right," Jo didn't have any complaints, because if he did Sophia would have ripped his face off.  "Certainly sounds more deserving than who I had."
"Who-" I started to ask what they meant by doing Bledbaum, but Quentin interrupted me.
"We should start setting up," Quentin said, getting up and walking to the front of the cathedral.
"Wha-" I started again.  
"Do you have a bonding icon?"
"HEY!" I yelled.  "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"
Josiah just sort of looked at me confused for a second and then angrily looked at Sophia.
"You mean you didn't tell him?!" Josiah yelled.
Sophia returned his look.  "I was going to tell him about it today, but with Bledbaum and everything…"
"You didn't tell him about the ritual or the book or the Chosen or anything?  Jesus H. Christ!"
"Well, sorry!"
"If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm gonna…" I said.
"Caleb," Josiah sighed as he rubbed his forehead and looked down.  "Christ, OK, here's the deal.  This is long and complicated… so Quentin's going to tell you."
"What?" Quentin piped up from the back.  "Why me?"
"Cause you're the smart one."
"When the hell did I get that honorary title bestowed on me?" he replied sarcastically.
"See, you just said two words I wouldn't be caught dead saying."
"Fine."  Quentin stood up.  "But you finish setting up."
"Fine."
Quentin and Jo switched places and QT came up to me.
"All right, let's see… where can I start.  About two years ago I saw this movie, The Craft, and it was about these four, totally fine women practicing witchcraft to get back at everybody who hurt them.  I liked the idea, so I went to the library and checked out some books, stole them really, about Satanism and rituals and cults and a whole bunch of other stuff.  I tried a few of them and they didn't… exactly work."
"Broccoli," Sophia muttered.
"Shut up, I heard that!" Quentin shouted.
"What?" I said.
"Never mind.  Anyway, there was one book called Cruento Pestis Mektaba that looked interesting.  It was used in rituals by a cult that existed like a hundred years ago.  They were dedicated to this dark god named Tchernobog who waits in the Hall of Epiphany to be reborn into the flesh.  He's supposed to encompass the dimensions of Earth to stop them from combining and destroying everything.  The cult is supposed to supply Tchernobog with the power he needs to control the dimensions so that-"
	"The point, please," I requested.
	"Sorry, after you've read the book six or seven times it kinda gets to you.  So anyway, after I read through the book I found this one vengeance ritual that looked worth a try so I got Sophia and Jo to try it out with me.  We've tried it a couple of times and so far, all we've been able to do is hospitalize the people, you know, bring them near death, not totally.  So we knew it worked, but the ritual calls for four people, the 'Chosen', so we figured we needed one more person before we could get it to work completely."
	"And that's where I come in," I stated.
	"Yep, pretty much."  He paused so I could absorb the slew of information he had just pummeled me with.
	"So are you in or out?" he finally asked.
	I looked behind him to Sophia.  She was helping to pull the last few items out of a box, and was arranging them on the floor.  Gazing at her, I knew there was only one thing I could say.
	"In."
	"Great.  You're going to like being one of the Chosen," he laughed.
We started walking back to the front of the church where Josiah and Sophia were sitting on the floor around some sort of a thick pan that looked heavy and metallic.  At its bottom was some kind of knife or dagger.  Four candlesticks were placed around us.
"All right, what do I need to do?"
"Just follow us and you'll understand," Quentin said.
"Come on, Caleb, sit down," Sophia said.  Jo, Quentin, and Sophia were now sitting around the cauldron on the floor, cross-legged, leaving a space for me to sit.  She looked at me affectionately.  "Just relax and do what we do."
I was still confused and in the dark about a lot, but I sat down between Quentin and Sophia.  What was going on?  What was I getting myself into?
"All right, let's get started," Sophia said.
What were we doing?  Why was I doing this?  What was going to happen?  
"Oh, wait," Quentin said, "The candles aren't lit."  He started patting his clothes.  "Jo, do you have your lighter?  I think I left mine at home."
Jo pulled out his little bic lighter, stood up, and tried flicking it six or seven times against the candle's wick.  
"Goddammit, light, you stupid piece of shit," he said in frustration as he cupped his hand around the candle.  "Damn, I think it's out of fluid."
"Here," I said as I stood up.  I pulled out my flip-top lighter from my pocket, cracked its top, flicked it, and the candle lit instantly.
"Hey, wait a minute," Jo exclaimed before I did anything else, "Let me see that."  I handed him the lighter.  "How old is this thing?" he said as he examined it.
"I dunno.  I just found it on the coffee table one day. "
"It just seems like it's from a hundred years ago."  I just shrugged.  He handed it back to me and I finished lighting the other candles, and then returned to my seat.  
"I've really got to get a better tape deck than this," Quentin said as he turned around and pressed play on a small tape player behind him.  An eerie, heavy metal music sound came out.  "All right, here we go."
"Awa ansila dedero kan cruento pestis ton shatruex mena ouacra domus," Jo said.  He took the dagger from the pan, held it up to his head, and sliced off a lock of his hair.  He handed the dagger to Quentin who did the same.  Quentin handed it to me and I looked at it before I did anything.  The long, thin, stiletto blade gleamed in the candlelight, the handle carved with grooves to provide traction.  It looked like it was specially intended for the ritual and I wondered where they got it.  Anyway, I didn't want to be accused of stalling, so I quickly clipped a small chunk of hair from the top of my head and tossed it in.  I could see there was some sort of design in the bottom of the pan, kind of like a round triangle with horns coming out.
I handed the knife to Sophia who took a part of her dark locks and contributed to the plate.  She handed it back to Jo who held it against his finger over the pan.
"Ton cruo infuscomus marana da caecux."
With a quick movement he sliced his fingertip and let four drops of blood fall into the pan.  The dagger rotated to Quentin who followed in suit and then to me.  Reluctantly, I wrapped my fingers around its shaft.  I've grown out of making a big deal over little flesh wounds, but self-mutilation is something different.  Sophia prodded me, telling me to hurry up.  I looked at her, and told myself I was doing this for her.  So I closed my eyes and flicked the edge of the blade against my finger.  It didn't hurt really.  I held my finger over the pan and counted as four drops of my life fluid dropped down.  Sophia took the blade from me and did the same.
"Paktah da ton invisuu ractama cruento pestis da domus lokemundux."
Now Sophia reached behind her and pulled out the test with the large, red "0" on it.  With a cold, cunning glare she placed it in the pot.
"Caleb," she whispered, "light it." 
I took out my lighter again and held it to the piece of paper, igniting it.  The intensely burning flames spread over the white sheet, leaving brown crumbling ash in its wake.
"Cruento pestis kessetoun, odiosux o rudscleratus, marana o caecux.  In pache requiesce fortunado."
"Odiosux o rudscleratus, marana o caecux.  In pache requiesce fortunado," Quentin repeated.
"Odiosux o rudscleratus, marana o caecux.  In pache requiesce fortunado," Sophia repeated.
The others looked at me, saying without words that I had to repeat that long phrase.
"Odiosux o rudscleratus, marana o caecux.  In pache requiesce fortunado," I managed as best I could.  Maybe I didn't say every single, little, tiny syllable, but basically I said them.  The fire continued to burn deep.  Sophia's test, our hair, and blood were now mixed into a fine, powdery ash, still burning.  As I watched the flames whip and wave I wondered what was going to happen now and what would the result of our little ritual be.


Dan Bledbaum leaned back in his swivel chair and looked over his desk.  His lesson plan was completed for a month in advance, his worksheets were all ready for printing, and all the day's assignments had been corrected.
Well, I'm very pleased with yourself, Dan, he thought.  You're well on your way to becoming the popular college professor you've always wanted to be.  That'll show my parents not to stomp on my dreams.
He stood and walked into the den's adjoining bathroom a few steps down the hallway.  A twist of the faucet and a refreshing current of cold water streamed down the drain.  He cupped his hands and splashed some on his face.  Drying off with a fluffy towel, he looked at himself in the mirror.
"You are an important person, Dan.  You are well-liked," he recited his affirmation.
Dan started to feel a hot flash.  The beginning of a thousand tiny sweat droplets protruded through his face.  He wiped his sticky brow, the surge of heat flared and became accompanied by a peculiar itch, like tingling spiders crawling up and down his body.  It grew in intensity until it felt like his skin was grating off his bones.  His eyes throbbed and pounded with agony, the tiled bathroom swayed back and forth, turning blurry and fuzzy. "Wha-… what's happening to me?" he said with alarm as he stumbled into the bathtub, grasping at air for balance.  Darkness surrounded him and the fervent heat blasted up on all sides.  The floor fell away and the pain of falling through fire swallowed him whole.  A scorching blackness enveloped him, the wind screaming past like a haunting death cry.  
He screamed as he plummeted through the void down into the abysmal chasm that awaited him.  The fall finally ceased on a cold, metal table.  He opened his eyes, which were watering from the blistering heat.  He was in a small contorted room that felt like being in a glowing red kiln.  Walls stretched to infinity, stocked with shelves filled with green bottles.  He could hear the voices of a thousand maniacs screaming, tortured to insanity, and the most horrid, vomit-inducing smell flowed through the room.
Dan tried to lift himself up, but the pain and intense smoldering heat limited his movements.
"Aaaaah, help!" he screamed.  He strained to get up, but to no avail, his body was chained down tightly.  His fingers touched something thick and slimy under his hand.  He lifted his head and saw a red liquid covering his fingers.
"Apippulai, pallex exim'ha." 
Dan's head darted back and forth trying to find the source of the foreign tongue.  An upside-down, hooded head appeared over him.
"Mococha domus-bhaava."
"Who are you?"
The man with the brown robe circled to the side of the table.  As he did, Dan could see a crowd of bodies behind him, just standing there, staring blankly ahead.  Their individual arms and legs were stitched together with different shades of skin, blood-dried on their faces, eyes glazed over.
"Oh my god!"
The man in the robe ducked down out of view for a moment and then resurfaced.
"Where am I?  What are those things?"
The robed man lifted his arm from under the table.  It was holding a red, rusty handsaw.
"Crudux cruo."

Chapter 6

"This promises to be fun," I said.
The sign read 'Fun Carnival', pretty generic name.  Jo and Quentin had suggested this as something to do to blow off stress during the weekend, as we probably wouldn't find out if the ritual had succeeded until Monday.  I guess they thought it had been very tense for me, but a carnival didn't exactly seem like my style.
"Remind me why we're here again," I said.
"Generally, to make fun of everybody and be undisciplined teenagers.  Sound good?" Jo answered.
"I can work with that."
We went under the sign arch and Quentin bought us our tickets.  He was wearing a backpack, presumably for taking home our winnings.  
"So what do you guys want to vandalize first?" Jo laughed.
The first thing we saw when we entered was a water roller coaster, shaped to resemble a log coming out of a lumberjack cabin.  Its title was 'The Log Flume' and it had a rather long line.  Observers and parents stood a safe distance away from the splash zone.  The ride operator was watching the log come down the shaft and soak the ride-goers with the murky gray water.  I saw Jo's face light up with an idea. 
"All right, Sophia, walk past that ride operator."
"What?  Why?" she said.
"I've got a great idea, just go."
Sophia sighed, resigned to Jo's obscurity, and walked in front of the ride operator's booth.  The teenage employee became distracted by her unconventional dark look in the lively, cheerful setting, giving Jo the opportunity to sneak up behind him and pull back a lever on the operating panel.
He came back and Sophia asked "OK, Jo, now what the hell did that do?"
"How should I know?"
"So you just went up there and pressed some random button.  Great trick, Jo."
"It must do something good."
"Well, what if that was the self-destruct button and all those people just blew up?" Quentin said.
"Ooh, even better."
"Jo-"
"Look," I remarked.  A surge of water gushed out of the ramp at a rapid speed.  The log coaster began to emerge from the fake wooden shack and shot down the track.  It impacted with the wave and water exploded outward beyond the splash zone, soaking all the people who thought they were safe at its edge.
Jo exploded with laughter, Quentin followed and Sophia giggled a little.  The sight of all the startled, dripping people couldn't help but grow a smile out of me.
"Oh, yes, that was sweet," Jo exclaimed.  "The fun's only begun."  Jo walked off into the carnival, leaving the soaked bystanders and confused ride operator behind.
We walked awhile into the heart of the park and entered the games area.  Toss-a-dime, knock down the bottles, guess-your-weight, that sort of thing.
"Damn, look over there."  Jo pointed to a shooting game.  One of the prizes resting in the booth was a boom box.  "That'd be sweet, get a free boom box.  Then we could have some quality sound during the ritual."
"Jo," Quentin said, "You have to get a perfect score to get that thing."
"I can do it," I said.
"What?"
"I could do it."
The others kept disbelieving in silence as I led them over.  "Step right up.  Step riiiight up.  Try your luck.  Loser pays, winner stays.  You there," he said, pointing at me, "I'd bet you'd like one of these fine prizes here."
I hate carnival vendors.  They're way too aggressive.  Nevertheless, I plunked down my money and he handed me the gun.  It was a target shooting game with different objects shifting back and forth on platforms.
"Here's a winner here, my good man.  Ducks worth 20 points, bottles 30, and targets 50."  He handed me my gun, attached to a rope in case I ran off with it, I guess.  I pulled it out to give it some slack and held it outward, ready to shoot.  And I waited...
Waited...
"You can shoot anytime now, son."
I'll shoot whenever I damn well please.  And don't call me son.
BLAM.  One target.  BLAM.  Two targets.  BLAM.  Three.  BLAM.  Four.  BLAM.  Five.  BLAM.  Six targets.  300 points – flawless victory.
"Holy balls!" the vendor said.  "I've never seen that happen before in my life."
I turned to my friends, their mouths were wide open.
"Damn, Caleb.  How'd you do that?!" Quentin exclaimed.
"I'll take that boom box now," I said to the carnival vendor.
"Tell you what son.  Double or nothing if you can do that again.  How 'bout it?"
"What would I need two-"
"Do it!  Do it, Caleb!" Jo implored.
I shrugged and gave him back the gun to reload as he replaced the targets.  As soon as I got it back I held it along my eyeline and waited.
BLAM.  Oh, jeez, I almost missed that one.  The targets were darting and jerking back and forth at random and much faster.  BLAM.  This asshole's screwing me up, must've fooled around with the targets' movement.  BLAM.  Got to concentrate.  BLAM.  BLAM.  BLAM.  
Yes, got them all.
"My god, I don't believe it.  Tell you what-"
"No, I'll tell you what.  I will take my two boom boxes now."
"I'm offering you-"
"Now," I stated.  Damn pushy vendors.  He sighed and pulled out two heavy cardboard boxes.  Quentin and I each took one and put them in his backpack, they weren't really that big.
"Caleb, domination!" Jo exclaimed and slapped me high five.
"Where to now?" 
"There's got to be some other game with a TV or something," Jo said.
"There's nothing here that has any good prizes.  They're all crappy huge teddy bears."  I'd rather people not see me carrying a huge pink teddy bear.
We started to wander out of the games area.  Out from behind a wall popped a mime: pasty white face, black and white horizontal striped sweater, topped off with a beret.  He began doing the invisible wall routine right in front of Jo's path.
"Dude, get the fuck out of my way."  Jo tried to sidestep him, but the mime matched his movements.  Jo looked up in exasperation and belted him in the stomach.  The wind rushed out of the mime's puckered up mouth like air out of a balloon.  He doubled over in pain and collapsed to his knees.
"A mime is a wonderful thing to waste," Jo said, still looking down at his asphyxiated victim.  
"Jeez, Jo, would you calm down," Sophia said.  
"C'mon, let's go," he said, leaving him behind. 
"Jo's really going ballistic today." Quentin muttered to me.
"No kidding.  What's with him?  He just wants to beat everything in sight."
"Hey," Jo called out, "Check this out."  He pointed to a sign on the side of the building.  I walked over to see what it was.  The sign said 'Freaks' and underneath 'Featuring: Jo-Jo, the idiot circus boy'.  
"We've got to see this."  Jo approached the doors and tugged at the handle.  It didn't budge.  "Thing's closed or something," he said.
"Think that's a hint?" I said.
"Don't worry," Quentin turned around and Jo delved into his backpack, pulling out a chisel.  "I come prepared for everything."  Jo inserted the chisel between the two doors and slammed it in with his fist.  The sound of the lock breaking apart followed.  
"Easy as pie."  Jo cracked the door open and slipped in, each of us followed.  It was pitch black except for the daylight coming in from the opened door.  Quentin started feeling the walls for a light switch.
"Caleb, got your lighter?"
Oh, I forgot.  I reached in my pocket and pulled out my lighter.  Upon igniting it, the room became a little easier to see.  We were in the opening hallway, on the right wall was the ticket window.
"Anybody home?" I said.
"Here."  Sophia found the light switch and we were welcomed by the dim glow of the ceiling gas lights.  I repocketed my lighter.
"Come on," Jo grabbed me and we took the lead.  Around the corner we could see the main hall with curtains on either side, closing off each of the displays.  There were posters put up next to their entrances, one said 'Sheila, the headless woman', another said 'Trina & Tasha, the tiny twins'.  I peeked behind one of the drapes, but there was only darkness.
"They're empty."
"They haven't moved them in yet.  That's why it's closed," Quentin answered.
"Quentin, spray can," Jo commented.  He complied, pulling off his pack and producing a can of spray paint for Jo, which he promptly took.  "This place is too plain, needs some color."  He rattled up the can and sprayed a series of words across the wall.  "I think I'll start off with a simple 'Jo was here'," he laughed as he wrote.  He stepped back to admire his work.  "Oooh, I know…."  He ran back to the ticket booth and sprayed 'monkey fucker' on the side of the window.  
"That's a good one," he complimented himself.  "All right, what's next?" he asked rhetorically.  He walked back down the corridor looking between walls and thinking of what other damage he could do.
"You could pull down the curtains," Sophia suggested.
Trying out the suggestion, Jo ripped down a curtain from its rings.  He looked at it for a moment.
"Nah, too easy," he discarded the curtain on the floor.  "It needs to be seen, it needs to say 'total vandalism'."
On the way down the corridor, Jo trailed his graffiti across the wall.  "Feel free to join in guys."
"Sorry, I left my sledgehammer at home," I muttered.  I didn't exactly feel like committing wanton violence today.
"Quentin, come on," he tossed him his spray can.  "Go wild, make your mark."
Quentin popped the top off the canister and made a little squiggle on the wall near him.
"No, no, no.  Think big."
Quentin thought for a second and then sprayed out a big 'QT'.
"That's the spirit.  Come on, you gotta spread it over a wide area to get the most effect.  That way, it takes them longer to clean up."  Jo reached the end of the hall and saw the door for the main attraction.
"Check it, it's the main feature room."  Jo grabbed back Quentin's can and grafittied the sign out of readability.  He holstered his 'weapon' and opened the door.  We followed him in and found ourselves in a small theater – a scant area with folding chairs opposite a stage with the curtain closed.
"Now we got something," Jo quickly took the opportunity and threw one of the chairs into the others, creating a domino effect and knocking most of them down.  He picked up another and threw it onto the stage.  He took back out his spray can and wrote a big 'fuck you' on the curtains and again on the stage.
"Jo-Jo's going to have a little surprise waiting for him," he snickered.
"Jo, I think we should get out of here now," Sophia said.
Jo sighed.  "You guys are no fun."  He put back his spray can.  "All right, I want to get an orange slushie and then we'll leave."  On the way out, Jo took his chisel and dragged it across the wall, marring the wallpaper.  Jo waited for us to catch up with him before he opened the door.
The mime and a security guard were standing there.
"Hold it right there, son," he said as he put a hand on our friend's shoulder.  Jo flinched as if he was going to run, but realized he wouldn't get far.
"Is this the one?" he asked the mime.  The pale-faced clown simply nodded.  "Son, did you assault this mime here?"
"No."
The mime shook his head vigorously and pantomimed delivering a hard blow to his own stomach and doubling over in pain.
"All right son, let's go."  The cop took Jo's arm and started to lead him out.  We begrudgingly followed him.
"That wasn't me, that was another kid."  
"Uh-huh, I'm going to have to ask you and your friends to leave the park."
"No, wait, I didn't do it."
The mime stepped in front of them and made a motion of his nose growing like Pinocchio.
"You know, us normal people talk once in a while, you faggot."
"All right, come on."  The guard took Jo and pushed him out of the fair entrance.  "Next time, be a little more courteous to the fair employees."
"Yeah, well, your employees can kiss my ass."
"Move along, son," he stood in front of the entrance and crossed his arms.
Jo started walking back to the parking lot.  We moved around the cop to join up with Jo, silently accepting our fate, unlike him.
"You fuckin' bastards, I'll burn this place to the ground.  I'll see you all burn in hell, you pin-headed pricks."
"C'mon, Jo," I said, walking towards the parking lot.
"I'll sue!"
"C'mon."
Jo gave one last exhibition of his hatred (the finger) and we started to walk back to our cars.  "Damn, I really wish I'd gotten that orange slushie."

Chapter 7

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.
The bell rang.  School had ended for the day.  Another day of torture completed, and another afternoon to go and hang with my friends.  I had heard over the day's announcements that teacher Daniel Bledbaum had died of a home accident.  It was a terrible tragedy, he was a terrific teacher, and he will be missed.  Or at least that's what they said.    
I went to my locker to get my jacket.  It was a long black leather trench coat that I found in the closet one day.  It wasn't an Abercrombie & Fitch deal, but I liked it so I started wearing it, end of story.  With my jacket on and my backpack in my locker, I was ready to go.  I closed the locker door.
Aaah!  Sophia!
Sophia was standing behind my locker door.  It was like she just appeared out of nowhere.  It scared the hell out of me.
"Hi," she said sweetly.  
"Hi, we don't have any Algebra class today."
"I know, isn't it cool?  They cancelled it until they can find another teacher.  I can't believe it worked.  All the teachers were acting so distraught.  I had to stop myself from laughing."
I didn't feel much like laughing.  Something about this was bothering me.
"Sophia, don't you think that… we're, like… doing something wrong."
"Something wrong?  Don't you think that Bledbaum deserved to die?"
"Well, yeah, maybe, he deserved… no, wait a minute."  This doesn't make any sense.  I wouldn't have minded seeing him dead, but now that he is and I know I'm responsible…  "He really didn't do anything wrong.  He was just a bad teacher."
"Yeah, but he opposed us," she reached up and straightened my jacket collar.  "Caleb, you're part of us now.  You're one of the Chosen.  Forget about all that moral bullshit.  It's past us.  We're better than that."
	"What makes us so great that we're beyond morals?  I mean, how do we know what we're doing is right?"
"Don't ask questions.  It's just something you have to believe to know." 
God, she looked so fine.  Especially when she was right up close to me like this.  
"Don't you ever feel guilty?"  I was starting to crumble under her allure.
"I don't think Jo can feel anything except anger.  And Quentin just cares about his own little world.  I don't think about it at all," she paused, "These guys are assholes – they should get much worse than what we're giving them.  We're doing the world a favor by wiping them off the face of the Earth.  We all don't have a problem with that because we all believe that."
I nodded reluctantly.  I guess I believed, because I wanted to believe.  I wanted to believe so I could be with her.
"Yeah, I guess s-"
OOOOOOFFF.  Someone pushed me from behind, I crashed into Sophia and we both went down to the floor.
"Get the fuck out of my way!"
I turned over.  There was this tall, built kid angrily turning the combo to his locker where we were formally standing.
"You fucker," Sophia said.  She tried to get up, but the stinging pain of being thrown across the hall hadn't faded yet.
"Shut up, bitch," he replied.
Wrong move.
"Hey, asswipe," I said as I stood.  "You're gonna apologize for that or I'll beat you like a bad stepchild."
He stopped fiddling with his combo and turned to me, surprised and pissed off.
"What'd you say, fool?"
I didn't respond.  It was time to let my fists talk for me.
"Caleb…" Sophia weakly protested.
He reared back with a clenched fist, "Fuck you, runt." 
I jabbed him quick to the stomach, then again with a right to the face.  He countered with a hook to my face.  Oooof, it felt like I went to sleep for a fraction of a second then woke up.  We locked like deer with horns entwined, punching each other's backs.  He shoved me and swung again, but missed.  I almost lost my balance, but recovered.  Now I could feel blood running down my face, but it didn't hurt that much.  He charged toward me with arms outstretched.  He tried to hook me, and I narrowly ducked, but he hit with the following punch to the side of my stomach.  Some wind was knocked out of me, but not enough to stop me.  He kicked me in the knee. 
BOOM.  Oh, shit, that was the pressure point.  Oh, shit.  Shit, shit, shit.  Holy crap, that was fucking hurting.  I went down to one knee and gasped in pain.  He got ready to kick me in the head by raising his leg.
Without warning, he fell forward.  Instinctively, I raised my elbow and rammed it with all my strength into his groin.  I think I almost heard cracking as I made the connection.
After two seconds he was down for the count.  Writhing in agony in a fetal position on the floor groaning, like a squalling baby.
"That'll teach ya," I said.
He crawled away on hands and knees into an adjacent hallway, hiding from our taunting eyes.
I looked up, and saw Sophia proudly standing where he was.  She had full-on shoulder-slammed him forward into me.
"You did that?" I said, still on my knee, breathing hard.  
"Yeah," she held onto me and hoisted me up.  I winced slightly.  "Come on," she said.  "I'll drive you to my house and get you cleaned up."
I certainly wasn't going to complain, I wasn't in any position to complain.  My face was covered in blood and I could barely walk.  Sophia was my crutch as I hobbled out to the school parking lot.
I'd never really seen her car before.  The first thing I noticed was that it smelled like a mixture of smoke and hand lotion.  It was sleek, contoured, but the dashboard had a wood finish, giving a nostalgic quality to it.  I figured her parents must have been rich or something.
"This is a nice car," I said. 
"It's my dad's company car.  I'm surprised he trusts me with it.  I've almost crashed it twice."
"Really," I laughed.  We pulled out of the parking lot.  
"Cars and I don't get along.  If there weren't so many damn idiots out there who don't know how to drive I wouldn't have so much trouble.  My philosophy on the road is 'cop didn't see it, I didn't do it'.  Right?"
"Of course," I said with humor in my tone.  We sat in silence for a while as we continued down the road to her house.  I'm not much for talking in the car.  There's something very tranquil about driving, something about the vibration of the car or the passing scenery.  I just stare blankly out the window and let my mind wander.
She pulled up to her driveway, the sun was just touching the horizon by this time, casting a bright orange light on the Earth.  I opened the door and limped out.  Sophia walked over to my side and helped me into her house.  It was extremely luxurious, I was sure her folks were rich now.  She helped me into the living room and sat me down on the plushy sofa.
"I'll get you a washcloth, I'll be right back."
She left the room, probably to the bathroom.
I took a look around her house.  In front of me was a fantastic entertainment center: stereo, 24-inch TV, satellite dish, CD player/tape deck – a multimedia heaven.  I looked into the adjacent dining room, it was sectioned off by an ornately decorated archway.  It had a diamond chandelier and places already set for twelve with folded napkins and three kinds of silver forks.
So, if she had all this, why would Sophia be hanging out with rejects like me, Jo, and Quentin?  Probably the old 'parents not there so rebel to get their attention' syndrome.
I saw a gray blanket folded on one armrest of the couch.  I picked it up and immediately noticed its silk softness and furry texture.  I whipped it out and covered myself up to my neck.  Yeah, I probably looked pretty gay, but by god, I was comfy.
"Oh, you look cute," Sophia remarked with a smile from the doorway, holding a washcloth and an ice pack.  I just smiled back at her.  "Here you go."  She handed the items to me.
I scrubbed the blood off my face, which had dried by now.  I slipped the ice pack under the blanket and put it on my knee, sucking wind through my teeth as the chill made contact with my swelling joint. 
"Feeling better?"
"Yeah."
She sat down next to me on the couch and propped her arm up on the backrest.
"You know, that guy could have killed you."
"He hurt you, I didn't much like that," I said simply.  "When I saw you struggling to get up that just… set me off."
I noticed a fly began buzzing around Sophia's head.
"I just don't understand why you did it."
"Just… no real reason, I guess."  I couldn't tell her why.  I couldn't tell her that I liked her, that I cared about her, that I would rather have myself killed than see her hurt.
"That look on his face was great though," she laughed.
"Yeah, that was worth getting smashed in the knee cap," I added.
"Did you know who he was?"
"No, did you?"
"No, just wondering.  Doesn't matter anyway, those empty-headed jocks have only one muscle to think with, and it isn't their brain."  She began swatting at the fly, "Goddammit, this fly has been in my house for two days and I can't kill it," she said angrily swiping the air.
"Do you have any hairspray?" I asked.
"What?  Yeah…" 
"Can you get some," I said, trying to keep an eye on the fly.
She got up and rushed back with a spray can.  I took it, shook it up, and held it ready.  My eyes flickered back and forth with the fly's movements, never missing a flutter.  With a sudden spritz, the fly went down like a rock, defeated.
"Wow," Sophia laughed.
I spun the can in my hand and thrust it down into my jacket pocket, playing like a wild west gunslinger.  "Fastest Revlon in the west."
Sophia laughed heartfully and sat back down.  "How did you get so good at sharpshooting?"
"I just practiced at home a lot, with water pistols and stuff… when I was little.  I've been alone a lot in my life, so I've had plenty of time on my hands.  My mom was always working.  My dad left when I was two.  No brothers or sisters.  So I've had to learn a lot of things about the world the hard way."
"My dad's rich," she said, gesturing to the entertainment center, "He's an investment banker or something, but he's never around, not when I need him."
Bingo.  Did I call that one or what.  "Are you an only child?"
"I have a brother.  Two and a half years older than me, going to college in the midwest, but we haven't heard from him a lot since he's been there.  He got a lot of the attention in the family because my dad said 'he was the only one that had a future'."
"He has more future than me, probably.  I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get out of high school.  My grades aren't high.  I don't do any sports or after-school stuff.  I don't do artsy stuff or play an instrument or anything.  I pretty much just hang out in my house all day.  It's weird when you think about stuff like that.  It feels like you're running and running, and you don't realize there's a cliff right in front of you and you're going to walk right off it."  Under my blanket I flipped over the ice pack.  A jolt of cold shocked me, but it died down.  "People like us are never going to become important members of society, just fodder for the rest of the world to stand on.  Especially people like Jo."
"Oh, Jo.  Jo's going to have a hell of a time in the real world, providing he isn't put in jail first."
"Has Jo always been like that, like at the carnival?"
"Yeah, ever since I've known him.  He's always been an angry little son-of-a-bitch.  Quentin and him have been friends since kindergarten.  Saw them in my classes a lot, Jo always dominated everybody and Quentin always followed him around like a puppy.  Then I started dating Jo in eighth grade."
"Wow?"  Now I'm surprised.  "You dated him?"
"Mm-hm, weirdest thing, never expected it, he just up and asked me out one day.  We just went out a couple of times before I broke it off, but we stayed friends.  He showed me the church and we started hanging out there after school.  Never did much, though."
"And then you found the ritual."
"Yep, we started that.  You took all that ritual stuff pretty well."
"It was just a little overwhelming at first, but Quentin explained it pretty well.  There is one thing I still don't get – what's this about being one of the Chosen?"
"That's just what it said in the book.  It said 'Only those with the souls of the Chosen ones will be able to perform these rituals'.  The Chosen are 'the elite servants of the dark god, the esteemed generals who were to stand by him and inherit the Earth under the Hall of Epiphany, released from the confines of mortal flesh and given the powers of bloodlust'.  It's not really significant.  I guess we just thought the term was cool so we started using it to describe our little group."  Sophia rested her head on my shoulder.  "Come on, just forget about it.  This is the last thing I want to talk about right now."
"All right, let's watch some TV."
"The remote's on that table over there," she pointed to the coffee table at the end of the sofa.  I stretched out as far as I could, using my fingers to pull it into my hand so as not to disturb her head.  It was a universal remote that had about a hundred buttons on it for everything in the room.  It reminded me of the cockpit of a jet plane.  Where the hell was the power button?  I pressed something that said (on).  
The CD player began blasting Garbage into our ears.  We both jumped at the loud fright.
"Oops," I tried the same button, but instead the lights turned off.  Sophia started laughing uncontrollably at my incompetence while I strained to even see the remote.  I tried another.  Now Garbage was being accompanied by some gritty industrial techno, and the next button I pressed turned on the ceiling fan at full speed, and the next turned on the mood lighting.  Sophia, in hysterics, finally couldn't take any more of my feeble attempts to set things right and snatched the remote away from me.  One by one she turned off the stereo, CD player, ceiling fan, and turned on the TV.  Then she handed the remote back to me, smiling.  I took it, set it beside me and leaned back into the couch.  Sophia nuzzled her head into my shoulder and pulled the blanket over both of us.
This was, undoubtedly, the most content I had ever been in my life.  My happiness was beyond any earthly comparison.  The girl I cared the most about was in my arms, under this unbelievably comfortable blanket, watching a big-screen TV, in the soft darkness.  I didn't want it to end, I tried to shut out thoughts of what would happen when it did.  Instead, I focused on the stillness, the serenity.  I just held Sophia closer and relaxed…
	And eventually, I fell asleep.

Chapter 8

"Caleb… Caleb, wake up."
Jolted out of the depths of peaceful sleep, I found my eyes open almost before I had fully awoke.  Sophia was standing beside me prodding my shoulder.
"Yeah," I murmured as I rubbed the side of my head.
"You fell asleep."
"Yeah, did you?"
"Yeah."
"What time is it?"
"We got plenty of time before school starts."
"OK."  I rubbed my eyes.  "You got any coffee?"
"Yeah, probably," she went through the dining room into the kitchen.
"Thanks," I said.
I took off the blanket, stood up, and stretched big.  I hate getting up in the mornings, I couldn't be any more of a night person.  As I relaxed my muscles, I heard Sophia yell "OH, SHIT!"
"What?"
Sophia came back running through the dining room.  "My dad's home, I saw his car drive up through the window," she grabbed my arm, "Come on, you gotta go!"
Being shoved out I blurted "But I don't have a car, you drove me.  Mine's still at school."
She didn't even pause to consider the situation.  "Then we get to school a little earlier than usual."
She almost threw me into the door trying to open it.  Hastily, we ran out to the car and Sophia pushed me against the side door as she ran around to the driver's side.  She floundered for her keys, turned the car on, and sped out.  I didn't even have time to think. 
"Whoa, Sophia, take it down a notch, how early do you want us to be?"
"Caleb, my dad will kill me if he saw any male in the house.  Even if I let the electrician in to check the meter he'd throw him into the furnace."  
"But he's never around," I added. "How does he know?"
"Oh god, whenever he is around he's all like 'where did you go today, who did you see' and I'm like 'Dad, I'm eighteen, let me live my own life' and then he gets pissed off at me and starts yelling 'I'm the father, I make the money here, I'm paying for these things.  I don't take this kind of yap from nobody' and then we insult each other back and forth until one of us leaves."
"I wish I knew what that's like.  I can go without seeing my mom for weeks sometimes.  She works almost the entire twenty-four hours of the day, sometimes longer."
"Isn't that illegal?"
"Guess not, least not in Texas."
There was a pause.
"We have so much time before we need to get to school.  What are we going to do?"
An idea hit me.  "Hey," I said softly. "Turn onto the highway."
"Why?"
"I've got something I want to show you."
"All right."  At the next turn she got on the highway, "Where am I going?"
"I'll tell you."  She drove for awhile, I told her only where to turn and such and she pulled into the parking lot of where I wanted be.
"The burned-down mall?  Why the hell are here?"
"I'll show you."  We walked up and I shook the handle to open the door.
"You can open that?"
"I used my mini-screwdriver on my key chain to open the padlock the first time."  The doors opened and the mall expanded before us.
"Oh my god, look at all this."
"Just about everything's still here, they didn't take it after the fire."
"This is amazing, you got the mother lode right here.  Everything in this mall is yours?"
"Pretty much.  The owners never came back here to claim their stuff."
"How come?"
	"I guess they didn't think it was profitable to come back for a lot of damaged and burnt merchandise."
We started walking down the halls.
"Is there still food here?"
"Some of the non-perishable stuff, but I usually bring my own food.  I can reactivate the power whenever I want to use the microwave or anything.  The first time I turned on the electricity the mall muzak kicked in, and I had to go though the building and disable each individual speaker cause I couldn't figure out how to turn it off."  
"You have to wade through a lot of crap on the floor too," she commented, looking down at the debris and rubble she was stepping on.
"Yeah, that's a problem, but you can live with it.  Over here, though, this is the little place I've made for myself."  I led her into the Sunsoft Furniture store, my personal area of solitude.
"You dragged all this stuff over here by yourself," she said in disbelief.
"Yeah, took a long time.  Especially the couch."  I sat down on my fire-scarred sofa and she followed.
"It's nice.  How often do you come here?"
"Just nights I can't sleep, I come here so I don't get bored.  It's my home away from home."
"Yeah, I guess," she said softly, "You know, you're really not like Quentin or Jo, you're a lot different.  Whenever we start to argue, you just sort of stay out of the way and watch us."
I paused.  "Well, I'm just not much for conflict."
"But you have no problem defending yourself when you have to."
"Yeah, I don't fight a lot, but when I do, I kick ass."
"Yeah, with a little help from me," she smiled.  "But, I mean, you're different from everybody else in the school too.  Everyone's the energetic, happy jock in their own little gangs and cliques and whatever.  You don't mind being a loner, you're not afraid of it."
I looked down.  "Not always.  Just because I'm fine being alone doesn't mean that I'm happy.  Never belonging to anything, spending all my time in my house, it feels like I'm in prison or something.  Sometimes it gets so bad that it actually physically hurts, like this sick pain in my stomach that just stays there always."
"It just stays there?"
"Yup."
"Always?"
"Always."
"Maybe this'll help."
She leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine.  I tensed at first, but let myself relax as I opened my mouth slightly and let the warmth of her embrace envelop me.  An incredible surge of contentment rose up from my soul and spread through my body.  All the feelings I've ever had for her finally were released and come to fulfillment as she kissed me.  
And we stayed there, on the couch, for what seemed like eternity.

Chapter 9

Things were getting much, much better.  Things were so good, I couldn't believe it.  It was like all my sad, lonely feelings were replaced in one huge burst.  Every time Sophia and I were together we stood intimately close, sometimes even holding hands.  At the church we always sat together now.  And the funny thing is, I don't think anybody noticed, I guess they were too preoccupied with their own lives and other things, like the problem Josiah brought to us about two weeks later. 
"Guys, we got a problem," he said as we walked in one day, "We can't meet here anymore."
"What?  Why not?" Sophia exclaimed.
"You know how my dad's a demolition foreman.  I overheard him say they were gonna start tearing this place down this weekend."
"That's not good," I said.
"Yeah, they're going to build a meat-packing plant for some company and they gotta clear the land."
"Well, where are we gonna meet now?" Sophia asked. 
"That's what we've gotta figure out."
"You know," Quentin declared from lying down on a bench, looking up at the ceiling, "I just realized we can't stop by Dairy Queen anymore."
"I could really care less if we meet near Dairy Queen anymore.  I'm more concerned about finding a place away from everybody where nobody'll bother us," Sophia said.
"Maybe we can meet at Dairy Queen"
"Shut up about the damn Dairy Queen, already.  Think seriously."
I sat down at the edge of the pulpit.  We stayed lost in thought for a long while.
"Man, I got no idea where we can go.  We need this place," Quentin said.
"It's not like we need to come to a church or anything, just somewhere where we can be alone," Sophia said.
"You know, I might know a place," I declared.  "My house has a big shed in the backyard we don't use."
"How far away is it from your house?" Jo asked.
"Well, we've got two acres of property, our house is at one end and the shed is at another."
"Sounds worth a look," Quentin said.
"All right, let's go check it out," Jo added.  "Is there anybody there now?"
"No, my mom will be at work for a long time yet.  We won't be bothered."
"All right, let's go."
We all walked out of the church.  Quentin looked longingly across the street.  "Can we stop at the Dairy Queen once before we go?"
"Shut up, Quentin," Josiah yelled. 
So, we all went to my house and parked our cars along the curb.  I knew the first thing they noticed was my house dwarfed by the immensity of the yard.  It looked very peculiar compared to the other large houses around.
"Dude, your house is really small," Quentin remarked, "But you got all this land."
"Yeah," I explained, "My mom told me my great-great-great-great-great grandfather had this land for farming 150 years ago, and we've been living here since."
"Your whole family, all the way down?  Interesting."
"I need to go into the house to get the key," I said.
"I gotta go to the bathroom anyway," Josiah added.  I unlocked the door to my house and entered, the others followed me. 
"The bathroom's on the right," I said.
Josiah headed to where I was pointing, the hallway leading to the bedrooms, bathroom and other rooms.  Sophia and Quentin began exploring my living room while they waited.  Sophia started looking at a sepia portrait on the wall of a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat standing in shadow.
"Who's this?" she asked.
"That's my grandfather I was talking about before.  I was named after him."
"Oh."
"He was the first owner of this land.  He had to defend it against the Mexicans and Indians and became a merciless gunfighter, very legendary."
	"He seems like a fighter."
	"Yeah, no one really knows how he died."
"Hey, Nintendo," Quentin suddenly exclaimed.  I turned around, he was bent under the TV, exploring my library of video games.
"Let's see here, Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo… wait a minute, these are all shooting games."
"Yeah, so?"
"So they're all boring."
"Oh, yeah?"  Oh, he thinks shooting games aren't good, huh?  I turned on the TV & Nintendo and the title screen for 'Showdown' flickered on.  I picked up the large orange pistol and shot the screen once.  The difficulty screen popped up, I selected super hard level and backed up as far as the cord would stretch.
"You're gonna shoot it from way back there?  On super hard?"
I smirked confidently as the screen flashed ready.  I shot once.
Cowboys and civilians began popping on the screen fast and furious.  The cowboys began falling as quickly as I could shoot, the screen flashing as I squeezed the trigger each time.  In two minutes the game stopped and my statistics came on:

Cowboys:  30
Townfolk:  0

Point Total:    500,000
Bonus Points: 100,000
Perfect Score!

Quentin whistled in awe.  "Impressive."
"I aim to please," I smiled, blowing imaginary smoke off my gun.
"Is that how you got so good at shooting?"
"Pretty much."
"How come you don't have N64 or Playstation?"
"No trigger games." 
"You'll only buy trigger games?" Sophia asked.
"They're the only ones I like, and they're cheaper."
I heard a flush and Josiah came out of the bathroom.
"Jo, check this out." Quentin exclaimed.  "30 cowboys, perfect score."   
Josiah looked at me holding the light gun.  "If all you can shoot is the TV, you ain't got nothing to brag about."
"I don't know," I said, "Flawless victory on super hard level from back here on a 13-inch TV seems pretty good to me."
"Yippee," he said venomously, "Do you have the key?" 
I didn't, I realized, I was distracted.  I ran into the kitchen to get the key.  While I was in there I heard Josiah say, "Idiot was playing Nintendo while I was in there instead of getting the key.  And this old P.O.S. Nintendo, no less."
"Leave him alone," Quentin said.
"Hey, I told you to shut up, Quentin."
Quentin didn't talk anymore, but Sophia came to his defense. 
"Stop telling him to shut up all the time."
"Don't tell me what to do, bitch."
"Fuck you, Jo."
"Fuck you too, bitch, stay out of my face."
"What the hell is your problem?"
"It's about to be your problem in about ten seconds."
"Not on your best day, insect."
"Oooh, I'm scared, what're you going to do to me?  Hurt my feelings?"
"How about we cast you out?"
"What?" he laughed.
	"You're already in the ritual, so that's what we'd have to do."
	"Bullshit, you all are too chicken shit to cast me out."
	"You wanna try me?"
Cast him out?
"I fuckin' made you all!"
"The hell you did, the hell you ever made anything!"
"I made you all and I'll break you all just the same!"
"Over my dead body," Sophia finished.
Jo just glowered evilly at Sophia.  He'd better not have been thinking what I thought he was thinking.
"I've got the key," I muttered from the doorway.
"Good, let's go," Josiah said angrily.  
We exited through my back door and walked for a while to the back of my property, leaves and grass crunched under our feet, thin sapling trees surrounded us, as they fought for light among their older rivals.  No one said a word.  I walked ahead of everybody, but I got the impression Sophia and Josiah were giving each other bad looks as they walked.  I half expected them to start brawling at any instant.  
Quentin, who had turned silent and sad, caught sight of the shed and his eyes widened.
	"Wow, that's a pretty huge shed.  What's in it?"
"I don't know, I haven't ever been in it."
I had some trouble fitting the key into the hole, but it went in after a little jostling.  The shed's thick layer of dirt and grime rubbed off on my hand as I opened the double doors.
A cold blast of dry wind swept over us.  Sunlight streamed through the shed displaying a swarm of floating dust.
And we gasped.
The floor was covered with straw.  Red straw.  Blood-stained straw.  In fact, the entire center of the floor was colored red.  A long trail of crimson fluid that led back to a foreboding altar, an iron-cast block where a leather-bound book rested, surrounded by four candles, one on each corner, each pre-burnt and thoroughly melted.  Two dark, abstract paintings were hung on the wall of the shed.  At each of the four corners stood a tall pillar, intricately engraved with all sorts of weird markings I couldn't figure out.
"Whoa," I said.
"Caleb, what the hell is this?" Sophia asked.
I didn't answer, I didn't know, I was too shocked.  What the hell happened in here?
I cautiously made my way into the room.  As I crept closer I could see much more.  The wooden walls were stained with splotches of dried blood.  It was like someone had thrown it on there like paint.  I saw a box near the far corner of the shed in front of a pillar.  I hoped to god that it didn't contain the owner of all this blood.
"Dude, this is pretty fucked up right here," Jo said.
Slowly, I approached the altar and opened the tome.  The pages revealed dense lines of text and graphic diagrams penned in red ink.  The words were in English letters but the language was completely indecipherable.
"What the hell does that say?" QT asked over my shoulder.
"I don't know, it looks like Latin or Japanese or something."
"Hey," Jo said from across the room.
I turned and saw Jo holding up a wooden staff.  Tied to the top of it was a large yellow human skull that had one eye still in the socket.  
"Ew, put that down," Quentin said.  
"Now is that fucked up or is that fucked up?" Jo said.
"Did anybody check that trunk over there yet?" I asked.
"Here's a better question, does anybody want to?" Sophia said
Not to my surprise, no one raised a hand.  And so, being the courageous (or foolhardy, take your pick) man I was, I approached the box.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Quentin asked.
"No, but I've got to find out what's in there."
Please no body, please no body, please…
I lifted the lid.
"Whoaaaa… now this…"
I reached in and pulled out some of its contents, one by one.
A sawed off shotgun. 
A flare pistol.
Another flare pistol.
A bundle of TNT sticks. 
A blue metal circular shield.
A can of gasoline.
"Now this is what I'd call fucked up."
It was an entire arsenal in the box.  With this load you could have defended the Alamo alone and won.
Jo dropped the skull-staff and took the shotgun from the floor.  "Hey, now we don't need the ritual, we can just take over the school."
We all laughed.  We could be able to do some serious damage with this shit, but we'd get annihilated like Waco.
"Better put this stuff away," I said.
"Now wait a minute," Jo said. "Let's keep it.  We could use-"
"Jo, you can't be serious," Sophia said.
"Hold on, hear me out.  We take these and go into the school, and while everyone's in class we go in and hold the administration hostage while someone barricades the doors." 
My god, he was serious!  This guy was seriously planning a hostile takeover right in front of us.
"Jo, are you crazy?  You can't take over the school, it'd be suicide," Sophia said.  I bent down stealthily and placed the can of gasoline on the floor.
"You can't keep all the students in the building, they'll get out through the fire exits," Quentin said.  Slowly, without anyone noticing, I picked up the closest weapon, a flare pistol, and tried to subtly hide it behind my leg as I stood up so he wouldn't notice. 
"And what sort of demands are you gonna make?" Sophia added.
"I don't know, two million dollars?"
"Jo, this is insane, give me back the gun," I said.
Jo pulled it away, protecting it, like it was his baby.
"Jo, give me back the gun," I repeated with more emphasis.
He didn't give me it back.  Now I was seriously worried and scared.  Was he going to go psycho on us?  Was he going to finally snap and turn us into chunky salsa?
It was a showdown.  Me and him staring at each other.  Unfortunately, he had a shotgun and I merely had a flare pistol, either of which may or may not even be loaded.  My finger twitched on the trigger.  If Jo looked like he was going to fire I might have had to plug him, but who would get the shot off faster?  
Jo stepped back, slowly bringing the shotgun across his chest, holding it there.  
Then he held it out for me.  "I was just kidding, Caleb," he said in a congenial voice.
I smiled, trying to act calm even though I was more scared of Jo now than ever.  I accepted the gun and put everything back in the box and shut it tight.
"You had me worried for a second, Jo," I joked.
"Nah, I was just fooling around."
"So," Quentin said, trying to ease tensions, "Are we going to use this place or what?"
"Looks good enough for me.  It certainly fits the ritual tone.  We aren't going to be bothered or anything, will we?" Jo asked.
"No, my mom is always at work.  Even if she isn't, she probably doesn't remember that this place is back here."
"Good, all right, we'll meet at your house and then use the shed for the ritual."
"Sounds good to me."

Chapter 10

There was a basketball hoop I had set up behind my garage a while ago, just if I ever felt like being outside.  Dribbling was impossible on the ground, but you could still shoot.  The four of us went back there once after we started meeting at my house and just shot idly while we talked. 
Actually, Jo was the only one shooting.  Sophia and I were sitting on a picnic table bench, because we thought it was too hot to do anything strenuous and Quentin was sitting on the table shuffling a pack of cards.  I looked over and saw they weren't playing cards.  "Quentin, what are those things?"
"God cards. You know what 'Gods of the Realm' is?"
"No, what are they?"
"Oh great, here we go," Jo said.
"It's a card game.  You take your deck and play it against another guy's deck, you have to build your decks so that you have enough belief points, followers, and shrines to win."
"What?"
"Those are your attacks, you need enough belief points so you can build up a good following so you can start building shrines and then you can attack the other gods and their followers."
"Wait a minute, what do you mean by building a deck?"
"You build a deck, you buy cards, you can trade them.  I got an elder god shrine for five dollars, that's pretty good."
"Wait a minute, you can buy your own cards?"
"Yeah, the good cards you can get for about thirty dollars, and you can trade them like baseball cards.  And you can get them in singles or in expansion packs and booster packs.  I usually get singles because then you always know what you're getting, you can't do that in packs.  And you shouldn't get expansion packs because you just get a bunch of useless cards."
"Expansion packs?"
"Yeah, every six months or so they make a revised edition and they revise the cards so that they're better, easier to read, and they add new cards and new rules."
"Is that allowed?"
"Of course it's allowed.  You see, at first they only had three packs: Olympia, Immortal, and The Almighty and those were pretty good.  If you find an unopened pack of any of those they'll probably be around seventy or eighty dollars.  And then came Apocalypse, Creation, Revelation, Divinity, and Divinity was terrible, no one liked Divinity because it had a lot of weak cards and nobody liked them, and Omniscience was bad too.  Then people stopped playing the game for a while, it lost popularity, but then they came out with Olympia Second Edition and everybody liked that and everybody started playing again and…"
"All right!  All right!  That's enough, shut up already!" I exclaimed.
"Boy, are you sorry you asked," Jo said.
"Well, I'm just trying to explain this so you'll understand," Quentin said.
"I don't care about the life history of your little cards, I just asked out of curiosity."
"Curiosity killed the cat," Jo added.
"Well, I just thought you might be interested.  But I guess you're not."
"Sorry, I've got better things to spend my money on."
"How much have you spent on those cards?" Jo prodded antagonistically.
"Well, I just bought a focus lightning card in the last month, and a pack of followers, and I just traded my Tranaryan priest for a sea wind and a quarry that was…"
"In the last month how much have you spent on God cards?" Jo demanded to know.
"About eighty dollars."
This was too silly.  "Let me get this straight," I said, "In the last month you have wasted eighty dollars on those little cards."
"I didn't waste it."
"Don't you think you should save some money for more important stuff?  If you spend eighty dollars a month on trading cards you aren't going to have a lot of money."
"I'll manage."
"Quentin, no offense, but you are not planning for your future."
"Ha, yeah, right," Josiah laughed, "Like any of us have got a future."
"What?" Quentin asked. 
"Come on, look at us, we're in all the slacker classes at school, if we even go to class.  You two," pointing at Sophia and me, "Even had to go to a remedial class with the ambiguously gay teacher."
"I think the fact that we went says something.  You never would have gone," Sophia argued.
"Right, I wouldn't have.  Doesn't matter anyway.  All the guys in the honors classes and math and debate teams are gonna have the great careers, all the football players and their cheerleaders are gonna have all the money, driving around in their BMWs while we're still riding the subway to our dead-end job at McDonald's.  We ain't got no future."
"Speak for yourself, I've got my future set," Quentin piped up.
"Yeah, right, what are you going to do?"
"I think I'm going to go into writing computer games."
"Computer games?!"  Josiah stopped in the middle of his shot with an incredulous look on his face.  "You can't write a computer game."
"Oh yeah?  What about Resident Evil 2, Final Fantasy VII, Legend of Zelda, those all have got huge plots – someone's writing them."
"And you're going to be the next guy to write them?"
"Yep."
"Quentin," Sophia interjected, "You haven't taken an English course yet that you haven't failed."
"I'm still hearing what the teacher says.  I just don't do the assignments cause they're lame.  You read a story and then it's like 'figure out the metaphorical significance of this lamp'.  When you write, you shouldn't worry about metaphors and stuff, just write whatever comes to mind and let it flow like water."
"Yeah, down the drain," Josiah laughed hard at his own joke.
"No," he said angrily.  "I once wrote a pretty good story about 'Gods of the Realm'.  It was real short, about eight pages.  And I've created lots of cards," he held up one of his cards, "See, they've got little stories and descriptions of their personality.  I've got a pile of them in my locker.  I'll bring 'em next time."
"If he can find them," Sophia interjected.  "I've seen his locker, we aren't going to see him until next year."
"It's all just tapes and CD's.  I bring a lot of ear candy to school."
"I bet all of his teachers have at least two of his Walkmans in their drawers."
"I hate it when teachers take stuff away from you," Quentin added.  "It's not theirs, they shouldn't take it.  I lost my Dr. Dre tape once because a teacher took it from me.  She took away my Walkman and the tape was in there and when I got it back it wasn't there."
"Did you say anything?" I asked.
"Yeah… well, probably not as strongly as I should have.  I just sort of asked loudly where it was."
"If it was me I would have bitch-slapped her until I got it back," Jo added.
"Dr. Dre was missing from the scene for a while," Sophia commented.  
"Yeah, she's probably still listening to it," Quentin said.
"No, she means the guy, dumbass," Jo exclaimed.
"Oh, never mind," he paused.  "Hey, did you ever realize that all the good rappers were really fat.  Dr. Dre, Heavy D, The Fat Boys, Notorious B.I.G."
"Notorious B.I.G.'s dead," Jo said, "And when was the last time you heard about The Fat Boys and Heavy D," he added.
"Point made, I guess," Quentin said.
"Of course," Jo finished, sinking a basket.
"Now all the rap songs sound the same, like copies of Puff Daddy… or songs that Puff Daddy copied," Sophia said.
"I hate Puff Daddy.  He totally ruined the rap industry with that stupid-ass remix of Missing You," Josiah said.  "Whenever he comes on the radio I switch it."
"I don't like him, but I'll listen to him.  It's not like I'm gonna go to his concerts or anything though," Quentin said. 
"That's another thing," Josiah continued, "He's got the whole rap music industry under his little finger, too.  He's got his own record empire, and he's making profits off a dead guy's songs just by remixing him in."
"Not like that's new, Natalie Cole did that," Quentin said.
"Who the hell is Natalie Cole?"
"She's Nat King Cole's daughter, they remixed her in with one of his songs so it sounded like she was doing a duet.  Don't you remember that song from the early '90's or something?"
"Never heard of her, never heard of either of them," Josiah said.
"Now it seems it's like everybody is ripping off everybody else.  All the ideas have been thought of," I said.
"Well, that's why I'm gonna write computer games.  I think I've got some original ideas," Quentin piped in.
"Yeah, if you pull them out of your ass, QT," Jo laughed.
"I'll be someone.  You'll see.  I've got a future."
"Sooner you realize we ain't got no future, the sooner you'll be happier."
Yeah, Jo, I thought, you look real happy to me.

Chapter 11

We were sitting in my living room.  We had just gotten back from the church after picking up the last of the ritual stuff and were now watching TV.  Jo was resting on the easy chair flipping through the channels, while Quentin was on the floor paging through the TV guide.  I was sitting on the couch with Sophia, just chilling.
"I'm going in for an interview tomorrow," Sophia said.
"Where?" I asked.
"It's the grocery store off Highway 95 – Gold's."
"You going to be a cashier?" Quentin asked.
"Yep."
"It should be easy to get into, they were desperate for work when I left."
"How come you quit?"
"Well… I didn't.  I got fired, written up too many times."
Jo chuckled to himself as he clicked the remote.
"How much did you get paid?"
"Well, I got $6.50, but the cashiers get $6.90."
"That's pretty good," I said.
"It wasn't for me, I was the cart pusher so I didn't have any time to flirt with the cute girls."
"Like you would've gone out with any of them," Jo said.
"I think there was one eyeing me when I left."
"What, you mean that fatass Rebecca?  Why the hell would you want to go out with her?"
"Sorry, Jo, people like me have got to take what they can get, I'm not a mac like you," he said slightly acidly.
"That's right," he responded, pleased.
I turned to Sophia.  "So do you think you're going to get it?"
"Oh, yeah, no problem.  When I walked in, the lines were backed up to five or six people.  They only had six cashiers on."
"Sounds like you got a chance."
"I've wanted to work there for a while, but I didn't have time to drive out and get an application.  I heard that if you work there long enough you get a 30% discount."
"Good deal."
"Hey," Quentin said, "When you go, find out if Sarah's still working there."
"Who's Sarah?"
"She was my best friend there, my only friend there.  She was really good to talk to, very flirty too."
"What's she look like?"
"Short blond hair, blue eyes, they all got name badges on, so…"
"Quentin, she's not going to ask if your little bitch is there."
"She's not a bitch."
"Anyway," Sophia interjected, "It's after school tomorrow so I probably won't be here."
"Aw, what a shame," Jo said.  "Well, I'm going to get this ritual stuff in the shed and go home, there's a South Park marathon coming on in a few hours.  Quentin, help me."
Quentin put down the TV guide and stood up
"You grab the box with the pan and stuff, I got the candlesticks," Jo said.
Quentin picked up the large, heavy box, shifting its position a couple times so he could see over it.  Jo picked up the four tall candlesticks.
"See ya," they said as they exited.
"See ya," we replied.
The door shut.
"Good, they're gone," Sophia sighed.
"Good?"
"Listen, Caleb, you haven't been around us that long so I'll let you in on something.  We are not the greatest friends in the world."
"Well, I could see that.  No friendship is perfect."
"No, I mean we really don't like each other that much."
I was rather puzzled.  "What kind of friendship is that where you don't even like each other?"
"Not a very good one.  We just stay together because of the ritual.  Now that we're all in it and we all know, if one leaves, the others would suspect him of telling and that wouldn't be good for his health.  If we hadn't started this we all would have been long gone.  I mean, you see how Quentin's only in his own pathetic little world with his God cards and whatever.  Actually, I feel sorry for him.  And Jo… Jo is just such a domineering angry bitch.  He treats Quentin like shit.  That's why Quentin does what he says all the time, because he's afraid of him.  I've been thinking that maybe we should cast him out."
"Cast him out?"  I had overheard Jo and Sophia's argument before about casting out and it sounded like a pretty severe thing.  "Isn't that sort of betraying?"
"He's too dangerous, he's like a walking time bomb.  You saw the first time we went in the shed.  He was this close to going out like David Koresh.  He almost went postal on us!"
She had a point, but then… "I don't know, it just wouldn't feel right.  We're not friends, maybe, but we are the Chosen, united under the Hall of Epiphany with the powers of bloodlust."
She looked at me funny.  "You've been reading that book, haven't you?"
"Quentin lent it to me after the ritual."
	"Yeah, you're starting to sound like him."
	"What would casting him out do?"
"I don't know, but I know part of what the ritual is.  It's not pretty."
"What do you do?"
"First you put him in the middle of a room in a circle of drawings and candles, and all the members of the cult surround him.  Then you take any bonding elements, like in the other ritual, and you burn them so that your ties to him are severed.  Then you tie ropes to his arms and legs and hang him above the circle.  Then you burn off his hair to the scalp, and you cut his forearms lengthwise," she ran her finger starting from her elbow to her wrist.  "That's supposed to be the loss of his vitality."
"That can't be good."
"Like I said, it's not pretty."
"I doubt Jo's going to stand still for that."
"I suppose we'll have to surprise him and tie him to a chair or something.  Maybe kidnap him while he's sleeping."
I really did not want to do this, "Well, we don't have to decide anything right away."
"I have a bad feeling it's going to come to casting him out pretty soon though."
"Are you going to tell Quentin?"
"Yeah, but I won't tell him until later.  He's not going to like it, he loves Jo.  It's like the guy who beats his wife to a bloody pulp, but she stays with him cause she 'loves' him."
"Well, we haven't decided anything.  We don't need to tell him right now."  I was doing everything to discourage her.  I really didn't want to expel anybody form our circle of friends.  A guy like Jo will take that and return the favor tenfold.  But there was that feeling that compelled me to follow her, to go with whatever she said, the same thing that took me into this mess in the first place.
"Yeah, let's just wait and then see what happens."
"All right, you should just concentrate on that interview tomorrow."
"Good idea."

Chapter 12

"Goddammit!" Sophia slammed my door.  "I didn't get the job."
"What?" I said.
"Those pricks didn't give me the job.  I was the best cashier they had and the boss comes down and says 'we don't want her kind working here'."
"What?  He said that to your face?  Just cause of the way you look?" I said.
"Yeah.  First they showed me some videos and then they gave me this workbook to drill on so I could get used to the register.  And I was flying, man, my fingers were flying across the scanner.  And on the keypad, even one of the guys came up and said 'wow, I've never seen anyone type that fast'."
"He might have been hitting on you," Quentin commented.
"Well, anyway, the boss walks by and he calls over my trainer and he's at the other end of the register, he thinks he's far enough away I can't hear him.  And he says 'is that the new girl?' and she says 'yes' and he says 'I don't want her working here.  She could give the store a bad image'."
"Oh, god, what an asshole."
"Was that Gary?" Quentin said.
"Yeah, that's what his nametag said."
"God, I'd thought he'd quit by now.  He's the asswipe who fired me."
"So then the trainer comes and says she's very sorry, but they've decided not to hire me because my 'workmanship quality' wasn't what they were looking for."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means they think I look like a Satanist, so they're not going to hire me."
"That'd be just like Gary.  He only cares about business, not the people who run it.  He won't even get a motorized cart pusher for us because he thinks we can do it just as good without spending profit.  He's got all these damn signs about how we can stop prices from going up – he calls it 'shrink'."
"Yeah, cause that's what happened to the size of his dick," Jo commented.
"I just want to kill that son of a bitch," Sophia continued.  "I was the best cashier and they fire me just because of the way I look."
"Hey," I suggested, "Why don't we make this guy our next…" sacrifice, victim, what word could I use without it sounding bad.  "…guy."
"Hey, that's good.  That's a good idea, Caleb."
"I'm in favor," Quentin remarked with conviction.
"All right, let's go in there tomorrow and get what we need," Jo said.
"We'll need to find a bonding icon," Sophia added.
"Eh, there's got to be something." 
"All right, let's all meet here first to plan it out, then we'll drive over to Gold's."
"Sounds good."
The next day, we headed out to the grocery store.  We all parked side by side, one after the other, like we were FBI agents or Mafia or something.  There was a big, yellow sign on top of the building that said 'Gold's' on it.  In the parking lot, the cart corrals were backed up to the point of streaming into the drive lanes.  Across the lot I could see one guy pushing a row of fifteen carts into the store.  He was sweating terribly, like he had been doing this for six hours straight.
We walked in past the sliding glass doors.  There was a grand total of ten carts for the customers to take.  Quentin laughed, probably because of the memories flooding back into his mind.
"Man, this takes me back."
"Quentin, you only left six months ago."
"That's a long time when you're seventeen."
Inside the store was a cyclone of chaos.  Yellow uniform-clad employees scurried desperately around, like ants in an anthill, and we were here to shine a magnifying glass on their queen.
"So what do we need?" I said.
"We," Jo side-stepped a rushing customer with a cart full of groceries, "We need something that bonds you and Gary, Sophia."
"Hmm, let me think for a minute…" Sophia pondered.  "This could be tough, I was only here for three hours."
Quentin walked over to the Customer Service Desk, a big counter for buying lottery tickets, cigarettes, and such.  Quentin's eyes widened and a smile crept over him when he saw a blonde-haired girl with blue eyes and a nametag that said 'Sarah' swiftly grabbing items for customers.  He began to approach the desk.
Sophia said, "Well, let's look around, maybe we can find something."
"All right," Jo replied and followed her into the store.  "Do you think if we bought a can or something, that'd work?" I heard him say as they wandered off.
I turned my attention back to Quentin.  He was leaning on the counter, while Sarah was busily hammering away at the line of customers.
After a while, the line dispersed and Sarah finally realized a former employee and friend was standing in front of her.
"Quentin?"
"Yep."
"Hey, it's good to see you.  Where have you been?"
"Eh, out wandering."
"Find another job yet?"
"Yeah, I've got a weekend job at Blockbuster."
"Mmm, how's that working out?"
"Pretty good, it gets me enough to get by."
"Hey guess what, I've got a boyfriend."
"Oh, really," I could hear a little cracking in his voice, "Who is he?"
"You remember Matt?"
"Matt?"
"Mm-hm, he got moved up to produce, too."
"Really?  That's great…  that's really great…  cause I remember how you were always telling me how much you wanted a boyfriend."
"Yeah, now that I got one, it's really great.  He's funny, and kind, and… and… he's just everything I wanted."
"Oh, great.  That's good.  Really, I'm happy for you."
"Thanks, oh, guess what, you forgot your last paycheck."
"Oh, I did?" Quentin said, a little happier.
Sarah stooped under the desk to get it, and Quentin turned around to me and mouthed 'she has a boyfriend?!'
Sarah emerged and handed QT a piece of paper.
"Wow, can't believe I forgot this," he laughed lightly.  "Well, I guess I'll let you get back to work."
"Yeah, I'll see ya around."
"Yeah, see ya."
QT turned and walked back to me standing by the rentable wet-vacs as Sarah again continued her never-ending work.
"She has a boyfriend," he whispered, "She has a goddamn boyfriend, for Christ's sake."
	"Why is that important?"
"Because I wanted to be her boyfriend.  She always talked to me about how she's never had a boyfriend, and how it was so hard to find a nice guy these days.  I was there, wasn't I?  And Matt – I never really liked Matt, I thought he was annoying.  He always called on the page phone with a real uppity voice."  
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Caleb, that… You just don't get it, do you.  I'm just not the kind of guy who can go up and talk to girls like that, all right?"  Actually, I had to kind of agree with him.  It wasn't much my style either.  If Sophia didn't keep taking steps, we'd still be only friends.  Quentin started flipping his paycheck against his hand.  "Well, at least I got something out of it though."
Jo and Sophia returned then.
"We're screwed, we have no idea what could possibly bond her and Gary."
"What's that?" Sophia asked.
"My last paycheck," Quentin replied.
"Hah," Jo retorted, "You dumbass, you never came back to pick it up."
"Hey," Sophia started getting excited, "Hey, hey, I got an idea.  That could be our bonding element."
"But it's Quentin's, not yours," I said.
"That doesn't matter, just as long as it's one of the Chosen's."
"And that'll work?  We use Quentin's paycheck as the bonding element between Sophia and Gary?"
"Yeah, just as long as it's linked to one of the Chosen, we're set."
"Kickass," I said.
"But… it's my paycheck, my last one," Quentin interjected.
"Oh, fuck your damn paycheck.  You lived six months before without it," Sophia said.
"Yeah, but I got some money now," Quentin whined.
"C'mon, let's get out of here and set up before we get run over."
I nodded and we started walking out of the store.
"Couldn't we just use the envelope?" he said as we exited.
We immediately drove back to my house and walked back to the shed.  The night fell quickly, like those who had opposed us.  And another would fall tonight – doomed because he had defied us, the Chosen.
Quentin and Sophia had arranged everything we needed, the candlesticks were lit, the iron pan and the dagger were in place on the floor, and the paycheck was ready to be sacrificed for our ritual. The new, closed-in environment of the shed made the whole experience much more disquieting and uneasy, especially with only the candles as our light source.  It was about 7:50, kind of late, but I don't think the time of day was a factor in the ritual.
"Dude, this hay is kind of itchy," Quentin commented.
"Deal with it," Jo retorted.
"Have we got everything ready?"
"Yep, I checked everything," Quentin answered.
"Let's get started," I said as I sat down cross-legged on the floor.  
"Awa ansila dedero kan cruento pestis ton shatruex mena ouacra domus," Jo chanted.
I thought I felt a cold chill flow over me, but it was probably nothing.  Jo cut off a piece of his hair, Quentin did the same, then I, and then Sophia.
"Ton cruo infuscomus marana da caecux."
Now I thought the room got hotter.  My sixth sense was kicking in, telling me something was screwed up here.  Quentin handed me the dagger after he was done with it.  I swiped the blade against the tip of my finger and held it over the pan.  I handed it to Sophia who pricked her finger and let four drops fall.
FOOM.  The pan erupted in fire, blazing like crazy.
"Whoa, shit," Sophia said.
"How'd that happen?" I said.
"MATALA DOMUS-BHAAVA, PESTIS CRUENTO TAKARA."
"Oh, fuck.  What was that!?"
"Oh, god, what's going on?"
I could see the shed walls around us start to twist and contort… and bleed.
"Whoa, look," Quentin said, "The walls are bleeding!"
"I can see the fuckin' walls are bleeding, dumbass!" Jo yelled.
"Let's get out of here," Sophia exclaimed.
Before we could do that, the walls fell away from us and spun out into a black void that suddenly surrounded us.  I looked down at the floor, the wood was starting to crack and split apart.
"Uh-oh," was all I could utter.
The floor shattered and broke apart and we fell into the spinning chasmic emptiness.  The last thing I saw was the three others being swallowed into the cold abyss, the true heart of darkness as void as a dead man's gaze.  The world we knew abandoned and the world to come uninvited.

Chapter 13

"Where the hell are we?" I heard Sophia ask fearfully.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.  My whole body throbbed with agonizing pain with every beat of my heart, like my consciousness was being turned inside out.  Every fiber of my cells screamed of fear and hate.
"Caleb, get up."  I felt someone's hand latch onto mine, I think it was Quentin's.  I grabbed it tightly and used all my strength to lift my body as he pulled me up.
"C'mon, Caleb," he said.
My eyes focused into view.
"My god," I said.
All around us was fire, bright and orange as the sun.  The skies writhed and seethed aflame like a great sea in the air, enveloping us with its choking heat.  Yet at the same time the chill of a lost wasteland iced my bones cold and hard as marble.  The friends in front of me rippled like they were submerged in water.  I could feel beads of sweat begin to form on my forehead.  The pungent odor of cheap plastic and dead flesh continually burned for centuries cleared my nostrils as I breathed it in.  Tortured screams and groans of a thousand souls sealed in an eternal nightmare echoed back and forth.  Explosions and thunder alternated between the screechings of death.  My ears filled with the sounds of unrivaled pain and though they felt like they might burst, I could not force myself to shield them.  
The rock on which we stood was made of the weakest stone.  With every shift of my feet I could hear fragments crumbling beneath me.
"Looks like we're not in Kansas anymore," I said.
"No shit!" Josiah added emphatically.
Sophia took a step forward and felt a large piece of scaffold fall away.
"Jesus!  We're just floating on this thing."
"Don't move, anybody!" Josiah said.
We all froze.  No one said anything.  We were too scared to move, too scared to speak.
"Are we in Hell?" Quentin asked.
"How did we get here?  We just did the same thing we did before," Sophia asked.
"Except that we did it in Caleb's shed," Jo pointed out.  Everybody looked straight at me.
"Don't look at me," I exclaimed.
"Did you know there was something up with that shed?" Sophia asked angrily.
"I've never even been in there before in my life.  You all saw the weird crap that was in there."
"Yeah, how do we know that?  How do we know that wasn't your shit?"
"How do we know this wasn't some voodoo curse or something," Quentin said.
"Enough, enough, we'll argue about whose fault it is later," I said.  "Let's just figure out how to get out of here."
"I'd be much obliged if you'd show me the way out, Caleb," Jo yelled sarcastically.
Suddenly, the vaporous form of a dark-eyed skeleton soared past me, screaming a wail that equaled the harshness of metal scraping against metal.
"There's something you don't see everyday," I muttered.
Another ghost skeleton rose from below the stone, arced over our heads, and dived back under us.  Soon many of these translucent, tortured souls began orbiting our rocky vessel. 
"What the hell?" Quentin said curiously.
"Get out!  Get the fuck away from us!"  Josiah began swatting at the ghosts, but his hand just passed through them, leaving a vapor trail behind.
I looked over the edge of the platform and saw that several of them were pressing against the rock.
"Hey, these things are pushing us," I exclaimed.
	"Pushing us where?" Sophia asked.
	"There," Quentin answered.
	I looked ahead to the front.  My eyes widened at the awesome sight of the great temple, almost six stories high, structured like a medieval cathedral.  Two grand pillars stood tall on each side of the entrance, holding up the sloping roof.  The opening archway was a consuming, black hole of darkness… beckoning to us, embracing us in its horror.
"Is that… the Hall of Epiphany?" Quentin asked.
"Guess so," I said.
	"Wow, isn't that the coolest thing you've ever seen in your life?"
	"Shut up, Quentin," Jo said.  I must admit I also could not share Quentin's morbid enthusiasm.
The souls drove us closer and closer to an outcropping of rock leading up to the temple.
"Hey, are we going to hit that?" Sophia asked.
"If we do, this thing is going to fall away," Quentin said.
At the speed we were going, I thought he was right.  Our rock was going to crash into the outcropping and shatter into a million pieces.
"OK, we're going to have to jump off," I said.  We neared the island, and I prayed its land was more stable.  "One, two… three!"
We all jumped onto the landing as the platform collided.  Cracks spread quickly through our rock vessel and it crumbled away into endless void.  The souls who served as our guide circled once more and drifted off.
We turned our attention back to the great building before us.  Its still, ominous form seemed out of place amid the fiery swelling maelstrom.  The screaming voices echoed through the temple as we approached the gaping archway ready to receive us.
Just as we neared the entrance, two blue, blazing eyes blinked open and stared straight into us with a threatening gaze.  The being stepped forward into the orange light, revealing a hideous, ten-foot tall, stone gargoyle monster.  Its body was a crack-ridden mass of muscle, no doubt capable of crushing anything effortlessly.  Its hands and feet ended in razor sharp talons.  Its stone wings stretched to the ends of the archway.  Its face was the most hideous, a callous, soulless expression pervaded its glare, nose upturned grotesquely.  Its mouth was a thresher of long sharp teeth dripping sticky saliva.
But its eyes kept staring.  Never blinked, never moved, never stopped looking.
It stood there, staring at us, perfectly still for about five minutes.  We knew it was alive because it breathed, but we and it just stood face to face.  Until finally Josiah stepped in and said "Are you gonna move or what?"
The gargoyle's lip curled into a sneer as it turned around and started walking into the hall.  We followed, though I'm not sure why.  We kept a good distance behind him.  
The click-clack of its claws against the floor made me twitch.  The hall was deep, pillars lined the walls which rose up to long balconies.  In between the columns stood statues of gargoyles in menacing poses, their eyes seemed to follow us.  Everything was silent and despite the heat, shivers ran through me.
The great door at the end of the hall opened as the gargoyle approached it.  Inside was a very small foyer with another large door.  The monster stepped in, but did not open the next passageway.  Instead, it turned around and stared at us again.
I didn't know about anyone else, but I sure didn't want to get tightly packed into that little room with that huge beast.  Neither did anyone else.  It just stood there, waiting…
waiting…
waiting…
"ENTER, FOOLS!" 
We all jumped at the sound of his voice.  It scared me to death, I mean it, I didn't think I was going to recover from that jolt.
Needless to say, we went in right away.  As soon as we entered, the gate behind us slammed shut.  So now the four of us were trapped in this very tiny room with this huge monster looking down at us.
He sneered.  "THE CHOSEN…" laughing to himself.
"What?" Josiah asked.
"YOU WEAK MORTALS.  YOU SUMMON THE ONE THAT BINDS, BUT COWER IN HIS PRESENCE.  YOU DO NOT DESERVE THE HONOR OF THEIR LEGACY." 
"Dude, what the hell are you talking about?"
"DO I NEED TO WRITE IT IN YOUR BLOOD?  THE HEIRS TO THE CHOSEN, YOU FOOL."
"The what?" Jo replied attitudinally.
"YOU DON''T KNOW!?  HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA," he roared uncontrollably.
"Don't know what?"
"Jo, shut up," Sophia hushed.
"YOU ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF THE CHOSEN ONES.  THE DARK ANGELS, THE GENERALS, THOSE WHO ARE TO STAND BY HIS SIDE AND INHERIT THE EARTH."
Oh god, all that stuff about the Chosen was true.
"Who's he?"
"THE ONE THAT BINDS, THE DREAMING GOD, THE DEVOURER OF SOULS.  HIS NAME IS SPOKEN IN WHISPERS, HIS PRESENCE IS FELT MORE THAN SEEN, HIS REIGN MEANS ALL WILL LEARN THE TRUE MEANING OF SUFFERING…"
"Yeah, but who is he?"
The gargoyle raised his hands and arced his fingers.
"TCHERNOBOG!"
The door behind him burst open.  A blazing rush of hot air hit us, almost knocking us over.
The gargoyle turned around, his wings brushed close enough to make us jump.  He began walking into the newly opened room.  We tip-toed in and were amazed at what we saw.  The walls stretched far into the blackness of eternity, fading to where we couldn't see anymore.  The walls were flooded with thousands of millions of bottles shelved on racks.  Each bottle held a green glowing orb that pulsed like a heart.  At the back of the room a hunched over man wearing a long, brown hooded robe was arranging a great structure that looked like a contorted fireplace shaped like a great grinning mouth.  In the fireplace was a wavering bright green firelight, the only light in the room.  
The gargoyle approached him.
"SOULKEEPER, IT IS TIME."
"Cheogh, mavano cheba?"
"AS MUCH AS THEY WILL BE."
"Cheogh, nou-shan domo mektet.  Tan ki bet Takara do gero dorra mektet ligounai." 
"YOU WILL RESURRECT THEM NOW."
"Ge nawa bhuuesco pallexen, do dorra cruentu praaNsilenux-"
"RESURRECTION! NOW!"
"…Ena, agamat," he sighed. 
WHOOSH.  BOOM.  Chains burst out at us.  Big, black, clanking chains with hooks.  It happened so fast.  Somehow I threw myself out of the way.  The chains hovered in the air, flailing and grasping for a body that wasn't to be found.  Sophia and Josiah also barely missed the chains.
But they hit Quentin.
His screams of agony echoed through the chamber.  The hooks dug into his flesh and tightened, pulling his skin out.  The other chains meant for us found Quentin and bored into his arms and legs.
"Get them off me, get 'em off me!" he wailed.  The irons wrapped around his body, pinning his bleeding arms.  His feet jerked together and he fell on his face.
The chains retracted, dragging Quentin screaming to the fireplace.  The last sign of his existence as he was pulled into the hellfire was his shrill cry, ringing in my ears.  And then silence.
"Noooo, you bastards!" Jo yelled.  He leapt forward and tackled down the monk.  Straddling the man, he began pounding away at his face.
"You fuckin' bastard, I'll fuckin' kill you."  He flailed away at him, repeatedly pummeling him with his fists.  But suddenly he jumped up and staggered back.  "Oh, shit!" 
I saw why Jo had retreated.  The monk's hood had been knocked back, revealing a grotesque, disfigured, bloody face.
"MARANA PALLEX!"
The gargoyle suddenly came to life and grabbed Jo.
"Aah, let go of me, bitch."  He slammed his fist into the monstrous stone hand, but only received a sharp pain for his effort.
Without a word, it grabbed Jo's torso with its other hand and ripped his body apart.  Blood poured from his newly separated halves, drizzling like red rain on our heads.
I grabbed Sophia's arm and ran back to the hall as fast as I could.  The immense doors that led to the foyer were open, but the ones leading to the hall were still closed.
Sophia and I pushed with all our might to open them.  I could hear her grunting and shrieking her strength out as fast as she could.  The doors started to give way and that was all we needed.  We formed a gap just big enough to squeeze through and I jumped in.  I turned around to pull Sophia with me.  She had her arm stretched out through the opening, grasping for me.  I yanked with all my might, praying I wasn't going to rip her arm off.
"Aaaah, there's something on my leg!" she screamed.
I kept pulling even harder and she fell through.  Holding onto her leg was a hand, just a hand, clutching the back of her leg.
"I'll swallow your soul, I'll swallow your soul."
"Aaaah, get it off me, get it off me!" she shrieked.
"I'll swallow your soul, I'll swallow your soul."
I grabbed it and flung it off.  It smacked against the wall, making a splatting sound.  It quickly recovered and stood up on its fingers, crawling like a spider towards us.
"I'll swallow your soul, I'll swallow your soul."
It drew closer, I raised my foot.
"I'll swallow-"
"Swallow this."
*squish*
"Go back to Uncle Fester."
Sophia struggled to her feet and slammed the second door.  "Let's get the hell out of here."
We found ourselves not in the same hall as the one we entered.  The wall on the right was made of rotting plaster, with twisted, macabre paintings staggered across.  On the left, pillars and stained glass windows alternated.  I could hear hushed, whispering voices, but as hard as I tried, I could not make out what they were saying, there were so many.
The eerieness impelled me to creep down the hall instead of run.  I just felt something was going to burst out and attack us any second.  Sophia clutched onto my arm for protection.  I wished I had an arm to hold on to.
Down we went, looking all around us, front, side, back, side, ready for anything.
Cautiously.
Cautiously.
I felt crumbs falling on my head.  I looked up and saw the ceiling was cracking and something was poking through.  I didn't know what it was, and I didn't want to know.  I grabbed Sophia and pulled her forward.
The ceiling burst open, the surprise tripped me, Sophia and I fell to the ground on our faces.  We turned our heads simultaneously to see what had broken through.
There was a giant spider climbing down the hole on a silken thread.  It landed and began crawling toward us, making the most piercing shrieks of horror.  
"Get up!  Get up!" I shouted.  My feet pedaled desperately to grab ground.  We ran for the door, but when we reached it, it wouldn't open.
"Come on, open you stupid door."
The spider came closer and closer, hissing as it crept toward us.
Sophia leaned into the wall to push it open, but slipped and fell on her stomach.  The spider grabbed the chance and sunk its pincers into Sophia's leg.
She cried in pain, "Aiiiiii!"
The spider began pulling its prey into its clutches.  Immediately I grabbed her outstretched arms and pulled as much as I could.  The spider wrenched back, at first I was winning, but the giant arachnid increased its strength and resisted.
"Aaaaaaah," Sophia yelled, "Let go of me, you're pulling me apart!"
The spider began retracting its silken cord into its spinneret, pulling itself up into the ceiling and taking Sophia with.
I held on, Sophia's cries of fear gave me strength as I heaved.  The spider climbed up into the hole.  Sophia was dangling upside down and I was pulling on her with all my body weight.  I could feel my hold start to slip down her arms.  This couldn't be happening, she can't leave me.
A mighty tug at the other end lifted her into the ceiling and out of my hands as I fell back to the floor with a cold thud.  I looked up and there was only the darkness of the jagged hole, and an echo of Sophia shrieking my name from far away.
Gone.  She was gone.  I couldn't believe it, why did I have to let her go, why couldn't I have just held on a little longer.  Now, I was all alone in this horrendous, forbidding place.  
Not knowing what else to do I stood up, and continued on to the door.  It creaked as I lifted the brass handle and opened it.  
The first thing I saw was a great throne, fashioned out of wrinkled, patched-up, rotted, bloody flesh.  As I moved in I saw the walls were made of stretched skin and hinged by the bones that once supported it, forming a gory circular arena.  The whole room seemed to pulsate and writhe rhythmically as if the tissue were still alive and breathing.  Strained whispers permeated through the dark haze around me.
I stepped in, only because there was nowhere else to go, and walked up to the front of the throne.  It was the only light in the entire room and it reflected back down to the area where I stood.
“Welcome... I have awaited you." 
I jumped from the booming sound.  "Who is that?" I was really sick and tired of surprises for one day.  "Show yourself, asshole!"
The throne breathed in and a form faded into the seat.  I could barely describe it.  It was like a giant meaty skeleton of a bull-man.  Bits of dry, red, bloody flesh hung from his yellow bones.  His long arms tapered down to skeletal talon fingers.  Twisted horns protruded from his head, curling around his skull like a ram.  His eyes gleamed yellow in a feverish incandescent glow, like the very heart of a fire, and blue tendrils of electricity danced over his body.
"Are you Tchernobog?"
“Yes.  I am the Dreaming God, the One that Binds, the Devourer of Souls.  I rule this world and I wait until the time comes." 
"The time for what?" 
“The time when you, the Chosen, would return to me and we would again be united."
Surprisingly, I wasn't as scared as I thought I would be if something like this happened (not like I thought anything like this would ever happen), maybe because of my confusion.
"Why do you call us the Chosen?"
“You are the last of the purest bloodline of those who were the dark angels by my side."
Oh, no… I just realized something.
"My grandfather?"
“He was my most esteemed general, the leader of the Cabal.  But much time ago, he and the others were disavowed to secure my reign on Earth by the powers of Bloodlust they would bring back with them.  Your ancestor was the only one to survive, but returned to avenge his damnation.  He succeeded, but disappeared to a place beyond my reach.  I have withdrawn here to shield myself as I restore my forces both here and on Earth."
"So why do you need us?"
“You, the descendants, have inherited the souls of the Chosen.  Without you, my strength remains incomplete."
"So you need our souls to max out your power."
“Correct."
"And for that… you need to kill us."
“You seem resistant to death.  You were the most bloodthirsty of all.  Hundreds of the Cabal were lost at your hands during your return."
"I've had a few generations to think about it."
“Your loyalty has earned you many rewards.  With you at my side, my power will encompass all dimensions of earth.  Come... let us unite once again, as we were destined to long ago."  
He held out his bony hand to me.  I stepped back.  "I'll die before I join you."
“Death has never died.  Come to me, my child.  Let us embrace."
I stepped back further.  "Go fuck yourself."
Tchernobog paused. “Pity... you are much like your ancestor.  But unfortunately, you have no choice."  He stood from his throne.  “You will join."
The god took another step down from his pedestal.  I immediately spun around and ran back to the door.  But when I reached the wall, I couldn't find where the door was anymore, it had molded into more flesh and bone wall now.  I looked back, Tchernobog was slowly approaching me, putting one foot down at a time.
Fuck!  I strafed across the room fast and ran back behind the throne in fear and confusion.  Fuck!  Fuck, fuck, fuck!  What am I going to do?  I've fallen down into Hell, I'm trapped in this room made out of human flesh.  There are stone gargoyles and severed hands walking around.  Huge giant demon that I've been sacrificing people to now wants my soul so he can take over Earth.  All my friends are now ripped apart, char-broiled, or being sucked on by a giant tarantula.
I'm not getting out of here alive.
I realized that.  There's no way I'm going to get out of this and still be alive.  I'm in Hell right now, I'm already dead for all I know.
“Join me..."
Urrrk.  His giant bone-hand grabbed me by my torso and lifted me up to his platform.
“Now we will be one."  He grabbed me with both hands, his yellow eyes staring into my soul.  I was trapped, I could feel my energy draining away from me.  I thrashed and clawed desperately with my pinned arms, but they were pressed tightly against my body.  
I felt something round and hard in my jacket pocket.  The spray can – Sophia's spray can!
I fumbled for it as best I could as the dark god leaned back, absorbing my life force.  Finally, I had the cold, metal cylinder in my hand.  I took out my lighter and held it on top of the can, igniting it like a Molotov cocktail.
Tchernobog jerked his head and looked down at my hand with the flaming aerosol can. 
"How 'bout a little fire, scarecrow?"
The last thing I saw was a giant ball of flame envelop me.

Epilogue
	
The portly man pulled back the curtain and looked out the window.  The sun shone brightly on the neatly cut lawn, birds flittered about between trees.  He turned around and came back to the reality of the funeral wake, people milling around the hall between the pews and the coffin, talking to each other about someone they didn't even know.
His daughter's funeral had already occurred yesterday, after he had done quite a bit of schedule rearranging and mixing.  It was there that he learned his daughter had been spending a lot of time with a young man named Caleb, the owner of the shed in which both of them, along with two other boys, were found. 
This man had come here today to find out about this boy, if he could have been responsible for his daughter's death.  He would have hired a private investigator, but they were so damn expensive these days.  The cops were already working on the case, but bureaucracy was the great Satan of efficiency.  It had been the downfall of many of his deals, certainly.
In any case, he was trying to find Caleb's mother or father, and for some unfathomable reason, neither of them had shown up yet.  What kind of parents wouldn't be here for their child's funeral?  He knew he'd have no problem spotting them, he had an eye for identifying people, it's what made him such a good businessman.  If he could talk to them, he could get a better idea of how Caleb was raised, find out what kind of person he was.
And then he spotted her, standing just inside the parlor.  She was being talked to by a teary-eyed woman who was speaking between sobs and wearing a classic black dress and black hat with a parted veil coming down over her face.  The bawling woman departed and he immediately approached her, hurrying before someone else got a chance to console her.
"Mrs…. Mrs…."  Oh, damn.  He had just made a major faux pas: he didn't know her name.  He quickly recovered.  "Are you Caleb's mother?"
She nodded. 
"My name is Geoffrey Price, I work at Gallivell & Associates Investment Banking."  Instinctively, he reached for one of his business cards and gave it to her.  She accepted it.
"I'm the father of Sophia, the girl who was found with him."
She nodded without expression.
"It was my understanding that your son spent a lot of time with my daughter…"
She didn't say anything.
"Do you know anything about that?"
"No."
Well, this was getting him nowhere fast.
"Well, if you do find out anything, or want to talk to me about it, just give me a call on that card there."
"Thank you, please take one of mine."
She went into her purse and retrieved a small card for him, then she entered the parlor to join with its grieving inhabitants.
How odd, what kind of mother gives you her business card at her son's funeral?  She was a strange one all right, but maybe her company needed some financial planning.  He turned over the card and read it.

Karen Sanguis
Technical Assistant
Cabalco, inc.



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