Witches of Rascar Pablo: Part I

By Kristopher Lawrence
Edited by Gao Rong

Prologue

Lucas frantically negotiated the narrow stone walkway leading up to the church. Signs indicative of an all-too-familiar happening were not lost him. Rabid mastiffs on his tail prevented him from turning back. Slowing his upward pace – even slightly – brought them lunging and snapping at his heel. Nor did the pink moon behind him cease to hurl its poisonous tantrum. He’d been here before. He approached the doorway and startled a ragged mare tethered to the levee. It whinnied in terror and the orgy of rats in his path evaporated. He entered. Rows of what looked like catatonics lined the pews, eyes glazed over, each held fast by the moon’s rays refracting chaotically off the shattered stained glass. With prayer-clasped hands they received their shackles along with the exaltation. They queued up. The cool smell of mildew thickened as they approached the knee bench. A lean priest with a cleft pallet placed wafers in mouths before the bas-relief crucifix – a rough and angular depiction that moaned in agony beneath the barbed crown – the words Adtendat Detrimentum engraved on the crossbeam.

Guards in off-white linen and leather tack, with whips and crazed hounds on leashes, led him and the others down the granite corridors into a series of gaping chasms, dimly lit by rows of low-hanging lanterns. Detachments of tortured souls in chains went as far as the eye could see, and the jarring clanks of a thousand hammers and chisels echoed throughout.

Lucas fell in line, worked the stone into piles that others loaded onto carts. Time passed into obscurity, its quickness accompanied by a kind of latent panic. How long had he been there? Days? Weeks? He turned to his neighbor, a long-haired fellow in a tattered shirt and corduroys. “What are we doing?”
The man looked at Lucas, his eyes empty, chin glossy with drool. He pointed toward the moon, mumbled something, went back to work. Lucas looked down. He was not shackled like the others. He never was! He took off running. The hounds were immediately aroused, chased him up through the maze of chambers, almost all the way back up to the granite corridors. One got ahold of his pant leg, tore his pants clean off, proceeded to rip them to shreds. A guard came out of the corridor – a fat, bearded fiend. He cracked his whip. Lucas backed himself up against the edge of the walkway. The ravenous hound lost interest in the denim article and came at him. He lost his balance and fell into the abyss. He fell for what seemed an eternity. A jerk shook his body and he awoke in a cold sweat to the steady hum of his bedside fan, and the gentle light of his lava-lamp. He looked at the digits on his alarm clock. They read 06:30 – he’d been asleep for about one minute. Another sleepless night. Only an hour before school started. Leaning over his bedside, he pulled his notebook from his backpack, turned to a fresh page, and began to draw.

Chapter 1: Sphex Lucae

4:51 pm Monday, May 15, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

“Here it is,” said Jon, brandishing the homemade grenade.

Jon was Chinese American, born and raised there, in Grants Pass, Oregon. He was thirteen, had squinty eyes, and a sincere fascination for fireworks. His real name was Zhang Tao, but almost everyone called him Jon; what began as the failed attempts of his classmates to pronounce his surname ‘Zhang’ ended up the only name by which anyone knew him.

“Whoa!” said Lucas. He fondled the contraption. “How’d you make it?”

Lucas Messner, also thirteen, was tall for his age, thin, and had brown wavy hair that hung halfway down his pale face.

“I emptied all the powder from my Whistling Pete fireworks into the CO2 cartridge from my paintball gun – I filled it all the way up,” said Jon.

The three friends stood around it, gawking.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” said Paul.

Paul Saviano was the biggest worrier of the three, and possibly their entire street. He was half Italian and half Jewish, fourteen years of age, had slick black hair and saw the world through the thick coke-bottle lenses of big black-framed bifocals. He and his parents had just moved there from Pittsburgh the previous year.

“What if we get hit by shrapnel?”

“Look,” said Jon, pointing out the exceedingly long wick hanging from the neck of the CO2 cartridge, “the fuse is plenty long, and after we light it, we can duck behind that.” He nodded toward a massive mound of earth about twenty feet away.

“What should we blow up?” said Lucas, scanning the area. The area was referred to by many locals as “the pit”. It was a small rocky, crater-shaped gorge surrounded on all sides by thick brush and evergreens. There were other such formations in Grants Pass, but this one, right off Demoray Drive, was frequented by the three friends since they all lived nearby.

The three of them began searching for something to blow up. Concentrating, Paul nibbled the nail of his index finger.

The pit was littered with all sorts of junk – everything from tires and rusted car scraps to shopping carts full of rubbish, and plenty of empty ammunition shells left by those who used the place, on account of its convenient trough-like shape, as a shooting range.

Lucas walked along an old green garden hose, kicking aside the empty beer cans that obstructed his path. He stopped suddenly at a grimy plastic mannequin with ball-and-socket joints sitting in one of the rusting shopping carts. “How about this?”

Within minutes the three friends had hollowed an anal cavity into the mannequin, positioned it doggy style, and lodged the makeshift grenade into it. Jon agreed to be the one to light the wick.
After doing so the three bolted toward a nearby mound of dirt for cover. As they dove over it, to their surprise, the other side dropped abruptly into a deep hole. They tumbled down it, gashing limbs and banging heads on jagged shale protruding from the moist earth, no less than fifteen feet to the bottom.
Paul bled from his forearm. Lucas banged his head hard enough to bring on some dizziness.

“Aaaargh,” Lucas groaned. “What the hell? When did this hole get here?”

“It wasn’t here before,” said Jon.

“Why would there be a pile of dirt without a hole?!” said Paul. “Great! My shirt’s torn and it has blood on it. My dad’s gonna kill me.”

They shook the dirt from their clothes and tried climbing out of the hole via the jutting shale and sandstone. Jon made it out in seconds, but Lucas and Paul were less coordinated, and could barely make it halfway up before losing their footing and falling back down the aperture. They didn’t make it out until Jon came with the old garden hose he’d found among the debris. It was Paul who first realized there hadn’t been any explosion.

“Nice going, Jon,” he said, cradling his gashed arm with the other. “Your bomb didn’t even work, and now the wick’s probably too short.”

“Maybe not,” said Lucas. “I’ll go look at it.”

“No,” said Jon. “Don’t. It might go off with you next to it.”

“We can’t just leave it here,” said Lucas.

“I’ll go,” said Jon. “I’m the one who made it.”

“Hey boys,” came a man’s voice.

The three friends started. It was Sheriff Wilson.

“You boys seen Orion lately?” asked the sheriff, referring to an autistic kid who attended their high school. “He’s been missin’ fer a few days now.”

“Haven’t seen him,” said Jon.

“No,” said Lucas.

Paul just shook his head nervously.

“What happened to yer arm?” asked the sheriff, eyeing Paul’s bloody gash.

“I fell,” said Paul.

The sheriff stood staring at the suspicious-looking trio. He looked around the pit. “Where’s your bikes?”

A sudden piercing scream came from the mannequin that sat about ten yards behind them. The sheriff raised an eyebrow as a bluish orange flame whistled out the mannequin’s rear end, and he jumped back when it exploded. All took cover as fragments of burning plastic rained down on them.

* * *

5:35 pm Monday, May 15, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

The Sheriff dropped Lucas off first.

Lucas and his sixteen-year-old, stouter-than-average brother Benny lived with their grandmother. Their mother passed away four years earlier, and their father had been committed to a mental hospital after falling victim to the strange new disease called “Samos” that left him, and many others in the area, unable to walk, speak, or communicate in any way.

“You go straight to your room, Lucas,” said his grandmother, “I don’t want you and Jon playing with firecrackers ever again, either.”

Lucas started toward his room when his brother Benny, followed by his friend Deezer, walked in and started rummaging through the refrigerator.

“Grandma,” said Benny, pulling out a carton of milk, “I might be back a little late tonight.”

“Oh no you won’t,” she said, “and Deezer can go home. I want you and Lucas here tonight.”

Benny stopped himself from belching and returned the carton of milk to the refrigerator.

“Did you know the Sheriff just found Lucas and Jon with that new kid at the pit, playing with a bomb?” she said.

“It was just firecrackers, Grandma. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“That’s not fine. And you haven’t been a very good example for him lately, getting suspended for fighting. You’re not going anywhere.”

* * *

5:47 pm Monday, May 15, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

Paul didn’t get off as easy as Lucas. His dad smacked him across the face the moment the Sheriff left their driveway.

“Go clean yourself up,” said Paul’s dad. “Then come down for dinner.”

Lately, dinner at home had been torture for Paul and his older sister Rachel. Tonight, after lecturing Paul on his rendezvous at the pit, their dad moved on to Rachel.

“And you need to improve your grades AND your tennis,” he said to Rachel. “It could be you scoring the wins for St. Anne’s. You should try to be more like your friend – what’s her name? Don’s daughter.”

“Jessica?” offered Rachel, staring at her mostly untouched dinner.

“Yeah. Her. Fredericks always plays her against the big names. Do you ever ask yourself why that is? You should learn from her.”

Other than coddling Paul a bit over his now blackening eye, their mother mostly sat in silence.

* * *

5:56 pm Monday, May 15, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

“Like I said, yer son admitted to bein’ the one who made the bomb,” said Sheriff Wilson to Jon’s dad. “’N’you… bein’ yer type, I’d have a serious talk with him about playing with explosives.”

“I see,” replied Jon’s dad sarcastically, and with a heavy Chinese accent. “Because I am my type, I should have a serious talk.”

Sheriff Wilson could see through the front doorway where Jon’s dad stood, one of his inventions leaned up against wall. “Is that a firearm?”

“No,” said Jon’s dad, without having to look, “it’s a nail gun.”

“Nail gun, huh?”

“You ought to…”

“Thank you, Officer, I’m going to shut this door now.”

“You’d better…”

The door slammed in the Sheriff’s face before he could get another word in.

“Zhang Tao” shouted Jon’s dad. “You again play with firecracks today! You are grounded for one week! Do your homework!”

* * *

7:22 am Tuesday, May 16, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

Benny and Lucas walked up Demoray toward the bus stop the next morning. Paul and Deezer were already there.

“What happened to your eye?” asked Lucas, stepping onto the curb.

“What happened to yours?” snapped Paul, defensively.

Lucas screwed up his face. “What do you mean?”

“You have bags under them. You look like you’re… back from the dead.”

“I couldn’t sleep again. So… what’s with your eye?”

Paul looked down toward his feet and shrugged. “What do you think?”

An awkward silence followed. Deezer and Benny had engineered an empty soda can they found lying on the street into a pipe, and smoked pot from it.

“Gross,” said Paul. “That soda can could have been anyone’s – it could have AIDS or something.”

Benny, Deezer and, to Paul’s dismay, even Lucas, laughed at the notion.

A tennis match between two teenage girls – one blonde and one brunette – raged in the courts adjacent to the bus stop. The short skirt uniforms placed them as students of St. Anne’s Catholic school.

“Hey baby, what’s yer name?” shouted Deezer at the blonde, interrupting the back-and-forth of the match.

“Fuck off, faggot!” she said, sharply.

Paul grew tense.

“Careful,” said Benny, sarcastically, “That’s Paul’s sister.”

“Really?” asked Deezer. “The blonde one?”

“No. The other one.”

The bus arrived and, just before getting on, for a few seconds, Benny’s eyes locked onto Rachel’s in a kind of semi-accidental, mutual display of interest.

At lunch time Lucas, Paul and Jon sat at their usual table in the commons talking about the Dungeons & Dragons campaign they played most Fridays. Lucas did most the talking. Jon listened while thumbing through a True Detective magazine, and Paul was engrossed in making an addition to his bug collection, mounting wasps to a strip of cardboard with pins and paperclips.

“Come on, man” said Lucas, conscious of the snickering onlookers to Paul’s geeky activity, “do you have to do that here?”

“Check it out,” said Paul, holding up the collection for them to see, “now I have every single known species of wasp in Southern Oregon, except for one.”

“Man,” Lucas complained, taking a sip of his orange juice, “you have to carry those with you everywhere, don’t you?”

“No,” said Paul, “I carry the pins and paperclips, though.”

“So… which one’s missing?” asked Jon, momentarily peeking from behind his magazine.

“The coolest one,” said Paul. “It’s called Sphex Lucae.”

“So what’s cool about it?” asked Lucas.

“Well,” said Paul, “when the female gets ready to lay her eggs, she finds a grasshopper, bites it, and secretes this weird enzyme into it, to make it become… like… agreeable, and then she controls it by its antennas.” Paul’s eyes widened as he got excited to what seemed twice their size due under the magnifying effect of his glasses. “Then she digs a hole next to it, climbs onto its back, and makes it crawl into the hole on its own by pulling on its antennas. Then she lays her eggs in its head and buries it alive.”

“Wow,” said Lucas, “seriously?”

“Yes,” said Paul. “Then, when the eggs hatch, the baby wasps eat the grasshopper from the inside out, while it’s still alive.”

“Whoa… cool,” said Jon.

“Yeah,” said Lucas, “That’s awesome. Maybe we should find one and… feed it a grasshopper, or something.”

“Yeah,” said Paul, “the only thing is, they’re… like… super rare and hard to find – but Mr. Burke, the zoology teacher, did say he saw one before in the woods behind the hospital.”

A few tables down from them sat a dozen or so special needs students. Many of them were newly disabled Samos victims.

“I guess they found Orion,” said Lucas. “Remember, the Sheriff said he was missing?”

The tan-skinned native American sophomore sat amidst the incoherent frenzy of special needs kids. He had long black hair that came down to his shoulders, and wore a faded red flannel buttoned all the way to the top. The three friends watched as he snapped his fingers around his head and rocked back and forth while making sound effects resembling laser cannons and machine guns – his signature activity.

“It’s like there’s a non-stop Star Wars movie playing out around his head,” said Paul.

“He actually does like Star Wars a lot,” said Jon.

“Yeah, that’s true, but look at Christopher,” said Lucas, referring to his former friend who now sat amidst the disabled. “He’s a zombie now. Isn’t it weird when you know someone and then they become some completely other different person, or something.”

“Doesn’t he have the same thing your dad has?” asked Paul, with a mouth full of ham sandwich. “Samos disease?”

Lucas remembered the days just before his father contracted the already infamous Samos. It was almost exactly one year ago, now that he thought about it. He remembered walking home from the bus stop after school the day before and, on reaching his driveway, being confronted by Lucy, the neighbor’s mean St. Bernard. How its eyes popped out of its skull when it growled its low threatening growl, and inched its way up to him. Held fast by fear, he was barely able to get himself to back away from the thing. He did so slowly, and with utmost reluctance. Yes. He could remember all too well that massive, earless ball of muscle and its folds of fur-covered fat. How its fangs protruded when it contracted its jowls, how they glistened with the saliva that ran in sloppy strands from its jaw. Then, out of nowhere, his father’s foot came smashing into the side the dog’s head. It yelped and whimpered and ran back across the street to its owner, who immediately fastened a leash to its collar.

“Sorry about that,” said their neighbor, Mr. Johnson, an old man who lived in the trailer on the adjacent three-acre plot.

“No problem,” said Lucas’s father. “Next time I’ll just shoot her!”

Mr. Johnson scowled and walked away with his pet. Lucas walked together with his father up the driveway that led home. He asked him, “Weren’t you afraid of that dog at all? Weren’t you afraid of getting bit?”

“Of course I was,” said his father. “If that dog wanted to, she could have torn me to shreds.”

“Then how can you do that?”

“Do what? Kick her?”

“Yeah.”

His father hesitated. “Sometimes it’s better not to let them know you’re afraid.”

The very next day, reaching his driveway on his way home from school, there was no Lucy. Nor was his dad in his usual place next to the mailbox sifting through mail. As he made his way closer to his house he made out the ambulance and police car. Two paramedics came out of his front door with a man in a wheelchair. The man was his father. Lucas, knowing something was very wrong, was frozen, unable to come any closer. His grandmother and Benny, and then a police officer, followed the paramedics out. Benny’s face and neck were badly bruised, and his grandmother had tears in her eyes.

“Lucas,” she said. “Come over here.”

He went to her. She explained to him that his father could no longer speak or walk. That he’d contracted Samos, and that he would need to be cared for in a hospital for an undetermined amount of time.

He watched as the paramedics lifted his father into the ambulance. “But Christopher got Samos, and he still lives at home,” he said. He looked at Benny. His left cheekbone was swollen, black and blue. Benny said nothing. His grandmother came and put her hand on Lucas’s shoulder.

“I know, Lucas,” said his grandmother. “But it’s different when grown-ups get it.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Sometimes when adults get it, before they lose their ability to speak, they can become violent, and hurt people.” She began to sob. “Even people they love. But it doesn’t mean they don’t love them.”

“Hello!” said Paul.

Lucas snapped back to reality. “Yes,” he said, answering Paul’s question. “Samos. My dad has that, just like Chris.”

“I heard my dad talking to some guy at the hardware store about him,” said Jon, with a nod toward Orion. “The guy was saying that he keeps running away and they always find him in the same place in the woods, digging holes, or something.”

“Digging holes?” Jon’s attention went to Paul’s black eye. “Wow! I didn’t notice that before! What happened to your eye?”

“My dad,” said Paul. His eyes moistened. He cleared his throat, looked down at his tray and began blinking rapidly. The silence endured until Jon noticed the unfinished drawing hanging out of Lucas’s trapper-keeper. He pulled it out. It was of a bare-breasted faun – a woman whose legs were the hind legs of a goat. “This is cool. What’s this a drawing of?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucas. “Some statue. I’ve seen that thing, like, in a nightmare.”

Paul and Jon stared at him.

“You know,” said Lucas, “when I realize I’m dreaming, it’s like I get stuck, and I can’t move, and I have to jerk myself out of it.”

Paul looked in awe at the highly detailed graphite drawing. “It’s amazing you can remember so many details about a statue from a dream.”

“I don’t know,” said Lucas. “I couldn’t remember all the details at first, but I kept having the same dream over and over. And then I started to remember.”

“I get what you mean,” said Jon. “I felt like I was stuck in a dream before too. It’s like you know you’re dreaming and you can’t wake up unless you shake yourself really hard.”

Paul unfolded a paperclip and began twirling with his fingers. “Did you know if you jam one of these into a payphone the right way you can make free calls?”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Man… not the paperclip-payphone thing again.”

The end of lunch bell rang.

“So… D&D at my place Friday?” said Lucas as the three friends dispersed into the rest of the classroom-bound traffic.

* * *

12:48 pm Tuesday, May 16, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

After lunch, Rachel and Jessica went to their usual spot behind the gym to smoke. It was fairly well-hidden since the ground there jutted up immediately to a plateau where the football field sat. They had just lit up when two freshmen came tumbling around the corner into their lair. The larger of the two had the other pinned down and was giving him a titty-twister. The smaller one screamed and his attacker took off running.

“Prick!” said the victim, cupping his nipple as he picked himself up.

“Hey!” said Jessica, in a harsh whisper. “Come over here.”

The kid went a little further into the passageway to where she and Rachel stood.

“That looked… painful,” said Jessica.

“Yeah,” said the kid, “it was. I hate that guy.”

“Next time you should give him a ball twister – you know what that is?”

“No.”

“You want to me to show you?” She slowly reached for his crotch and inadvertently blew smoke into his face as she spoke. “I mean… just for educational purposes?”

The kid coughed, took a step back.

“Jesus,” said Rachel, giggling, “you’re gonna traumatize him.”

Jessica laughed, took another drag.

“Don’t mind her,” said Rachel, “she’s off her meds today.”

“Fuck you, cunt!” snapped Jessica, giggling.

“Anyway, handsome,” said Rachel, enticingly, “do you think you can keep watch for us?”

The kid looked Rachel up and down. His attention went to the cigarette in her hand. He watched her take a drag and flip her raven hair over her shoulder.

“Hello, spaz?!” Jessica snapped her fingers in his face. “Do you think you can keep watch for us, spaz?”

The kid took off running.

“Little wuss,” said Jessica, rolling her eyes.

“Cute butt, though,” said Rachel, watching him round the corner.

“Oh my God!” Jessica took another drag. “Mr. Corey has the cutest butt!”

“Mr. Corey?” Rachel laughed.

“What? He does.”

“Do you ever notice when he sits on that stool in front of the class how his package bulges out of his jeans?”

“Umm… yeah… of course…” Jessica flipped her hair. “Okay, so which teacher do you think is the hottest?”

“The hottest?”

“Yeah… like… which teacher is the hottest in the school?”

Rachel pondered the question. “Fredericks?” She smiled slightly and blushed as she said it.

“Oh!” said Jessica, teasingly, “Mr. Fredericks! Can you come help me with my serve, Mr. Fredericks?”

* * *

1:03 pm Tuesday, May 16, 1984 (PDT)
Grants Pass, Oregon

Lucas had trigonometry after lunch. So did Orion. Normally, a special needs student would not have been allowed to take any class outside of the special needs program but, since he was exceptional at math, it was allowed. However, Mrs. Davis, their teacher, sometimes found Orion unbearable since whenever he got bored he reverted back to his finger snapping and sound effects.

When class started Mrs. Davis said. “Orion, would you like to show us how to do this one?”

Orion ceased rocking back and forth, got up and took the chalk from Mrs. Davis. He crossed out what she’d written and then produced a solution that was not only flawless, but that also revealed a mistake on her part. When her mistake became apparent, and the entire class began to whisper and snicker, she dismissed him. He handed her the piece of chalk and went back to his seat, right behind Lucas.

Mrs. Davis’s attempt to regain their attention was so awkward that Lucas felt embarrassed for her. To distract himself he went back to touching up his statue drawing. When Orion caught a glimpse of it, he tore it away from Lucas, and held it up to the light as if to get a better look at it. He spat out something incomprehensible at Lucas, and Lucas just stared at him, confused. Orion grabbed him by his hair and shook him violently, spewing more gibberish and saliva. The whole class erupted into excited chatter, and comments like “Yeah, get ‘im laser boy!” Mrs. Davis was forced to call in a neighboring teacher to restrain and remove the autistic youth. Lucas looked all around his desk for his drawing, but it was gone.

“Are you okay, Lucas?” asked Mrs. Davis.

“Yes,” said Lucas with a sigh.

Mrs. Davis resumed her lecture. Lucas sat in disbelief at how his drawing could have just vanished, still panning about for it every few minutes.

During the twenty-minute break between fourth and fifth period, the three sat at their usual table in the commons. Cheerleaders from Lincoln Savage middle school, in black and orange mini-skirts, were practicing a cheer in some adjacent space. Jon and Paul watched the twelve-year-olds as Lucas filled them in on Orion’s episode in trigonometry.

“Why are the middle school cheerleaders here?” asked Jon. “This is high school. Where are the high school cheerleaders?”

“Anyway, now my drawing is gone,” continued Lucas. “It’s been a really weird day.”

Michael Macaluso, another freshman, entered the commons. There was something different about him. He covered his ears as he walked past the cheerleaders as if irritated. His eyes were bloodshot and he squinted as if the light bothered him. As he neared the special needs tables, the disabled kids broke into a panicked frenzy. Some screamed, some just closed their eyes and rocked back and forth, violently. The special needs staff frantically tried to calm them, but to no avail. The spectacle now had the attention of the entire commons. One of the special needs kids chucked a food tray at Michael and it whacked him in the forehead. It didn’t seem to faze him. He glared strenuously and continued walking as if looking for something his life depended on. A garbage can obstructed his path – he lurched over it and vomited into it. When he rose and his glare fell onto Lucas, the expression on his face went from desperate to hopeful. He started toward the table where the three friends sat and, within seconds, had his hands locked onto Lucas’s throat, and he was beaming ecstatically.

Students began chanting, “Fight! Fight!”

Jon and Paul tried to pry Michael’s hands from Lucas’s neck, but failed. Blackness crept into Lucas’s vision. All he could see were the two black pinholes of his strangler’s bloodshot eyes, and he began kicking as his consciousness flew. Then Michael was gone and light came flooding back. His older brother Benny stood over him with Michael dangling by his collar from Benny’s left hand, coughing and swinging his fists.

“Benny!” came Principal Strode’s voice. “Put him down right now!”

“I didn’t do anything,” said Benny, “except pull this thing off my brother.”

Just as Lucas, with the help of Jon and Paul, managed to stand, a sonic boom blasted through the commons, shattering windows and fluorescent bulbs alike. Lucas collapsed and his eyes rolled back into his head. Paul caught him, saving him from banging his head on the adjacent table.

“Lucas!” Paul shook him.

Principal Strode pushed some students aside, shouting at them to clear out. Torn between Lucas and the commotion caused by the boom and all the broken glass, he knelt down to where Lucas lay. He brushed Paul aside and began to check Lucas’s vitals, but then suddenly launched himself toward a group of students who were sword fighting with some broken fluorescent bulbs.

“Lucas?” Paul gently slapped Lucas’s face. There was no response. He seemed unconscious. Jon splashed water in his face. His eye lids began to flutter, and he said, “I am me… I am me… soy yo… soy yo…”

“Are you okay?” asked Jon, “what is that?… Spanish?”

“What?” said Lucas, “What Spanish?”

“Yeah,” said Paul, “you were just speaking Spanish.”

“I’m fine,” said Lucas, patting himself off and adjusting his shirt. He looked around as Principal Strode and two other teachers tried to get the students to disperse. “What happened? Why’s there broken glass everywhere?”

“Don’t know. There was a loud bang, and a bunch of lights broke, and some windows too. It was weird.

Principal Strode returned with a concerned look. “Maybe you should go see the nurse,” he said.

“No,” said Lucas, “I’m fine.”

The bell rang.

“Everyone get to class,” said Principal Strode. Then he pointed at Benny and Michael. “Except for you two. You’re coming with me.”