William Harrison’s Preparatory School for Gifted Youngsters was a big school.
A very big school.
A very, very big and ginormous school.
Yeah…that sounds better…
If I had to compare it to something, it was basically like Hogwarts.
If Hogwarts, of course, were located in America and funded not by goblins but by the social elite who’d sold their souls to the devil.
That place really was the lovechild of Gothic and Neoclassical architecture, its four towers (like those of a mosque) reaching far up into the sky that loomed over it. The only other thing you could look at and get the same vibe would be a tsunami.
Excluding the main building, which had all of the things you’d expect from a school (cafeteria, gymnasium, classrooms, etc.) you also had several dormitories nearby (which were basically lowkey Highrise apartment complexes). Besides those, there were also several full-sized stadiums for various sports which, as far as I’m concerned, were more suited for Pro Athletes than a bunch of lazy high school ones.
Don’t even get me started on the horse stables.
With all that in mind, I’m sure you get the idea of just how fucking big of a place this was.
And one day, during my first Senior year, as I was eating my lunch alone as always, I remember wondering out loud (without having swallowed my sandwich mind you) “man…who in the fuck cleans this place up?”
I’d already been a student for roughly two years, and seen some shit that should’ve decommissioned the place for good, ranging from health hazards, deaths, to property damage that only dynamite should’ve caused (but I can assure you that whatever the hell destroyed the school Observatory sure as hell wasn’t dynamite), and yet the very next day after any incident (at most two for the really severe ones like the Observatory) students would be allowed to come back to school and everything would be just like it had been before.
Students who’d died (but not all unfortunately…) and buildings that had damn near evaporated would be back as if nothing had happened. Not to mention messes that would’ve given body cleaning experts nausea would be taken care of easy-peasy.
I asked one of my teachers once who was in charge of maintaining the school, assuming that the principal just had a shitload of contracts with cleaners and contractors, but that teacher, as well as every other person I asked, said that there was only one single individual who kept the school (the WHOLE school) clean and in tip top shape.
Mr. Enoch.
Now, obviously, I thought they were fucking with me because there was no way any one human could clean a place as massive as William Harrison’s Preparatory School for Gifted Youngsters consistently and (most of all) regularly.
But the more I thought about it, the less crazy it seemed.
With all the other things I’d seen over the years, could one guy cleaning a really damn big place really be that far-fetched?
After ghosts, literal demons, dimensional travel, serial killers, that one succubus, and everything else, would one guy cleaning a big place really be where I’d draw the line?
It was around March.
March 24th to be exact.
To say I had nothing better to do on that unassuming Wednesday would be an understatement.
With the map Mrs. Scout had given me back during Sophomore year, I had no trouble finding the “Janitor’s Closet”.
But I did frown when I saw that it was located at the very edge of the map.
At the very edge of the school grounds that is.
When lunch rolled around, I followed the map, making my way through the eerily empty grounds, until the small dot on the map that represented me reached the spot labeled “Janitor’s Closet”.
I looked around but saw nothing.
Even when gazing at the furthest ends of the threshold of the woods from left to right (my scar that I got during Junior year from those damn elves aching as I did so), I saw nothing.
The map showed that I was right above the “Janitor’s Closet” and I don’t know if it was intuition or experience (maybe both), but I looked down and stared real hard at the grass.
And that’s when I noticed it.
A hatch.
A metallic, rusty, and grass-covered hatch.
My next period after lunch was a free one, so I think you, dear reader, will have no trouble guessing what it was I did next.
Part of me felt relieved that I was so far away from the main building, as the moan that thing let out when I lifted it open could’ve burst eardrums unless you were out of sight.
The other part of me – the small rational and sane part that had somehow survived after so long and after everything – protested vehemently, but I still went down there anyway.
My phone’s flashlight revealed a long, long winding stairway that travelled deep below the earth (so deeply in fact that a dark fog that my light couldn’t quite vanquish hid the end).
The derelict stairway creaked every time I shifted my weight a step further down; the sound amplified by the stagnant silence that hung everywhere in the air around me.
I had no idea what to expect.
At one point, I checked my map and saw that the layout had changed.
The stained maroon interior had become a cool charcoal grey, but instead of showing the outlines of my school and all the other buildings, it showed me long and winding tunnels.
Think of a subway map covered by spilled noodles.
That’s, in effect, what I was seeing.
I continued on, and the staircase eventually devolved into a ladder.
Upon reaching the bottom, I was greeted by six lonely tunnels, each holding aloft signs written in a language that could never come naturally to any human.
Devil Runes as I’d unfortunately come to learn from Isaac’s writings.
Squinting at my map, I was barely able to make out my destination, but once I found “Janitor’s Room”, a faint path illuminated.
I followed it through one of the tunnels and made my way through the unwinding path; one infinitely more complex than any sewer system; a system that could’ve very easily belonged to Heyl’r (that underground part of the school dormitories which inspired Lovecraft’s City of R’lyeh).
And then, after a while, either due to good or poor luck – either likely and capable of being culpable just as much as the other, I happened upon the door I had been looking for all along.
It looked so out of place that it actually fit.
Plastered on that stained and weathered ancient concrete was a quaint and antiquated wooden door, baby blue when it came to color and decidedly Victorian when it came to style.
I could have done any number of things at that moment, but there was only one which came to mind and seemed appropriate given the circumstances.
I knocked thrice, and waited for the door to open.
A I heard a latch being unlocked, and the man I’d been searching for all this time peered out.
“H-hello?”
A raspy voice, almost throwing up dust, spoke out, and I was somewhat taken aback by the figure that soon revealed itself to me.
A tall, lanky, and fairly dishevelled old man stood beyond the threshold of the door, and looked at me without a shred of animosity or annoyance.
His eyes were weathered but kind, and the small badge that hung from his uniform read only his name:
Mr. Enoch
Of the two of us, I’m sure he was wearier of me than I was of him, but even so, the old janitor didn’t hesitate for a moment in letting me in when I expressed my desire to enter.
His room was – for lack of a better description – a windowless jail cell. The ceiling reached high up like we were at the bottom of a fat well, and although spacious, I was only greeted by a bed, a table, a sofa, and a coverless book written by none other than Professor Francis.
A single chair had been set up in front of the sofa, as though he’d been expecting me.
The old man wobbled towards said sofa, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
He looked like he’d have a hard time holding a mop, let alone using it, and even more so to clean a place like William Harrison’s Preparatory School for Gifted Youngsters.
After we’d seated ourselves, an uncomfortable silence took hold.
I had no idea where to start, and Mr. Enoch seemed to be going through the very same problem, and I myself became so focused on finding something to talk about that I was caught off when he said something.
“Are…are there any more trees left besides the ones here?”
I stared at him, confused by what he was trying to get out of me.
Thankfully, he understood my confusion and elaborated further.
“W-when I was younger, I read a Science Fiction story about how in the far future there would be no more trees. Only concrete and metal. I haven’t been out for a while so…has that happened yet?”
“No,” I’d told him quite bluntly, “at least not yet.”
His mild grimace softened into a smile at my wit.
After that, Mr. Enoch mostly asked questions about the outside world, and we had a nice enough chat. I feel somewhat guilty for not being able to precisely recall what it was we talked about at the time as I’m writing this now…
I do remember, however, that after some time had passed, Mr. Enoch suddenly lifted his sleeve and stared at the vintage wristwatch that barely clung to his waning wrist.
“I apologize,” he said quite suddenly,” but I’m afraid we must cut our conversation short.”
I looked at the time on my phone and saw that the school day was almost over.
Mr. Enoch was nice enough to show me out…and for once, I wish I could’ve stayed longer at school.
Talking to Mr. Enoch became a daily routine.
I like to think that it was…therapeutic…for both of us…
In our subsequent interactions, I’d mostly ask him about his past.
From what he told me, Mr. Enoch had been a Janitor for the school since the mid 1930’s, and he’d gotten the job to support his family during The Great Depression. The money he earned was the only thing that kept them afloat. Even after the depression passed, he continued to work at the school as its janitor, eventually moving in to live there. It was the only thing he was qualified to do, and the cash was better than almost any other job given what he had to do. He’d seen strange things, he told me, much like I had, and that there were other janitors who’d help him out, but after so long, he was the only one who’d stayed.
“Made it.” Was how he’d put it, and I couldn’t help but understand.
Anyhow, as he got older, he found it increasingly difficult to do his job – it also certainly didn’t help that he had to do everything alone by this point. He felt like Sisyphus, he told me, each day struggling and pushing against a boulder that put him at the threshold of his strength limit, only for it to roll back down.
When the 2008 Economic Crisis hit, he knew he’d be offed. For the first time, there were many people willing to take his job, and that coupled with him losing his house, made him terrified of ending up on the streets and in a world he hadn’t been in for decades.
In short, he was willing to do anything to keep his position.
“Anything?” the principal asked me.
“Anything?” I replied. And thanks to him, I’ll now have this job forever.
He wouldn’t elaborate any further than that.
By the end of April, I’d told him about all the things I’d experienced, and he seemed saddened by what he called my “Thousand-Yard Ramble” where I’d explain everything in great detail, but give the impression I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, like talking to a wall.
Never made much sense to me back then, but I went along with it.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Mr. Enoch once told me after finishing a long sip of tea, “You’d think you’d have this whole place figured out by now, after all that you’ve gone through, but there’s still so much more, ain’t there? You’ll be gone soon enough, and the next fresh fish, one with a heart like yours, will still be able to see this and much, much more?”
“That…honestly scares me more than anything else. If everything I’ve gone through is just a drop of water, then I don’t ever want to think what the ocean floor could possibly hold.”
These were the kinds of conversations we’d have.
They really lifted a weight off my shoulder, you know?
Made me feel…human and…understood.
Corny, I know, but what the hell, am I right?
But on some occasions, I’d find his presence unbearable.
I saw myself in him.
A self where I never left this place.
But then I’d wonder if that would be so bad.
Scouts, Wendys, Dereks, and others like me would always continue to come here, and with my experience, maybe I could save them…
But Mr. Enoch’s gaze would always curdle whenever I’d think like that, as if he knew what my mind was toiling at, before telling me not to think too much for fear of rotting my brain.
“Too much thinking is bad,” he’d always tell me, and maybe there was a benefit to being ignorant to it all.
Maybe if I had been ignorant, the past would never haunt me.
I think it was around late April when I decided to die.
I didn’t know how…just that it would happen before graduation…
Something would come my way…and I wouldn’t run like a coward.
That’s all I knew…
The next days really were a haze…
My exams were on the horizon, but like hell did I gave a damn.
The days started to compress together like pancakes, each night blurring into one.
Things had been peaceful.
My mind didn’t like peaceful.
As far as my mind was concerned, something was wrong.
In essence, I found myself trapped in the coils of a reality that I wanted to desperately escape from.
I wasn’t going to attempt to take my life.
I was merely waiting for it to end.
And just like all the other things in life, it came to me when I least expected it.
On one school day in particular, May the 9th, a Thursday when my mother would be working until early the next morning and I was supposed to return by bus, I dozed off after my last class, and by the time I woke up, only moonlight shone through the window.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been in the place at night – far from it – but this was the first time that I was so near to midnight, the monolithic saying inscribed last in Adam’s last testament I’d found with Mrs. Scout that time in Junior year reverberating in my skull as though I was just reading it for the first time all over again.
Abandon hope all ye who stay past middelniht.
And I felt that this was it.
It would be waiting outside the classroom.
The thing that would finally give me the peace I wanted.
The peace I deserved.
The light of the moon, oozing through the sealed windows, stretched my shadow thin like the sun.
My mind was counting each second, my ears ignorant to each step I took, even though I myself was not aware of it.
I walked down the long – everwinding and ever changing – hallways, led not by Mrs. Scout’s map, but my shadow – the Bowsprit that led me forward.
And eventually my shadow clashed against the shadow of something else, two ships colliding with each other.
I’d finally met them.
The one who I knew could give me the peace I wanted.
I looked up.
30 seconds till middelniht.
“W-what are you still doing here?”
I admit that despite him being that old, hearing Mr. Enoch’s voice tremble as much as it did was something that caught me off guard.
“You’re always alone,” I’d told him.
22 seconds till middelniht.
Even now I can feel them, like a metronome bashing the insides of my skull.
“It’s a terrible feeling…believe me…others have always come to my aid…and it’s about time I return the favor.”
12 seconds till middelniht.
“N-no-“ was all my friend could say before he collapsed on the ground.
10 seconds till middelniht.
Mr. Enoch writhed as though he was the rope in a tug of war between a seizure and an orgasm.
You don’t understand.
It’s not too late.
Get out of here.
I can’t hold it.
These and many others are the words I thought Mr. Enoch would’ve told him were he not in the middle of his nightly metamorphosis, the one I’d sensed.
With every tick, his bones cracked.
His flesh seared and squirmed.
His mind fragmented.
But not once between any of them did he let out a scream.
Middelniht finally fell like a curtain
One last tick, and it came.
Hundreds of leeches seemed to erupt out of the poor old Janitor, each the size of a horsefly, gushing forth towards me like a Yellowstone geyser.
Forty Yards became Thirty.
Thirty became Twenty.
Twenty became Ten.
The wave approached like a slithering snake, and one could outrun it if they were fast enough and if they’d started running before it picked up any steam.
But I stood still.
It was only when the wave was about to cross the five-yard threshold that someone tugged my arm with unprecedented might.
I found myself running, the avalanche behind me picking up pace like a snowball rolling down from Everest’s summit.
“Mrs. S-scout?”
I wasn’t being pulled.
Rather, I was chasing the past.
I could hear her steps, muffled as they were from the ear-caressing squelching sounds that followed me.
I lost track of her, but then I noticed a wave of ashen hair disappearing behind a corner, and I followed it.
I desperately wanted to catch up with Wendy, to apologize, but the more I ran, the more I felt like I was chasing darkness - something that I’d always carry in my shadow but never be able to reach.
I found myself surrounded by lockers.
The wave was approaching from both sides, and I knew that it wanted to sink its countless villi-like teeth into me and leave nothing behind.
I closed my eyes, and felt the strongest grip yet yank me to my feet and shove me in a locker. The door slammed, and through the small cracks, I saw Derek, his face contorted into one of rigid grimness.
“We’re fine with being stuck here,” he said, “but not with you joining us.”
He ran in the direction I had, and a large looming shadow left me in darkness.
The countless ever sprawling maggots didn’t dare invade the privacy of the locker.
They seemed to shriek, like a crowd jeering, because I had gotten away.
It was so dark.
I only remember waking up.
Mr. Enoch had opened the locker, and held me tightly, glad to see that I was alive.
“Ya see that,” he said, barely able to contain the first genuine emotions he’d felt in a long time, “you’re not alone…and you never will be. Not here, nor outside.”
I took a bus home, in awe and in shock, the whole ride just trying my best to focus my attention on the blooming sunrise.
I found my mother was asleep.
She’d collapsed on the couch the moment she’d returned, which I guess worked in my favor.
Not that long has passed since then…
The story is over.
I get that it’s odd, especially after my last one.
First comes the beginning.
Then I give you…an end (of sorts).
This isn’t like me…
I bet they’d be disappointed with the pessimistic tone I’ve written this in.
You don’t know anything, do you?
So many things I haven’t elaborated on (hell, things I haven’t even mentioned yet) but which I will.
The lid of Pandora’s box has finally been opened.
Thanks to you…Mr. Enoch…
I’ll tell someone else’s story next time.
Those who were consumed before they had the chance to do so themselves.
God knows that’s the only reason why I’m still alive and kicking shamelessly.
All thanks to you…