2003 was a year my school refused to talk about. Something had happened. Something that drove everyone to bury the past, to silence all inquisition. I never really thought much of it. My step sister was 15 years older than me (my dad likes cougars, what can I say? Anyway, not important). I happened to be attending the same high school she did all those years ago and I ask her what her experience was like.
“It was fine, I made friends, partied, and then there was-“ -She froze.
“Nat? What’s wrong?”
She stared off into space, like she saw something haunting in the distance.
“It’s nothing Thomas, I just blanked out for a second”
“So what were you going to say?”
“Don’t worry about it” she smiled but there was a look in her eyes that worried me. _____________________________
She went off to work the next day and I decided I was going to learn about her high school years. I snuck into her room and scanned her bookshelves. She was a sentimental person and had just about every yearbook you can collect over your education. I found her four high school yearbooks and pulled them down. Her third year immediately stuck out to me. It was so much thinner than the others. I flipped through the pictures of all the students and everything seemed normal, and it was amusing finding my sister in braces trying to pull pig off pig tails (She must have figured out bangs worked best for her later). The book became less amusing the further I looked into it. The homecoming dance, Sadie Hawkins, New Years resolutions, then…….nothing. It seemed around February that they just stopped recording the school year. They threw in some pictures of prom but no one seemed happy, they just seemed….present but nothing more. I flipped through her senior year and things seemed more or less normal. I put the books back and came up with a plan: I was going to discover what happened in that lost year.
I got up a couple hours early and got dressed for school. My sister was already awake and asked me what I was doing up so early.
“I’m meeting with some classmates to study for a test coming up.”
“Since when do you study for anything?”
“First times for everything right?”
She gave me a look like she thought I was up to something but shrugged me off.
I waved goodbye and took my bike to school and went straight to the library.
The school kept records of major events in and around the school. Lock downs, major sports victories, natural disasters and the like. The librarian was reshelving some books and I made a B-line for the historical records section. I ran my finger along the dusty jackets encompassing decades. 2000…..2001…..2002…..2004- No it had to be here. 2005….2006. I darted my eyes up and down the aisles. These aren’t books to check out, it can’t be missing. What could be so terrible they removed the book?
I was about to give up hope when I pulled 2002 from the shelf and noticed a notch on the roof of the shelf. I knelt down and peered upwards at a message scrawled with a blade etched into the wood: The truth can’t be erased: NF, Andre, TIB. I stared at the message for a bit before getting up. I figured non fiction was where they wanted me to go. I walked up the aisle to the A’s before finding a single book with Andre as an author. I flipped through the book chapter for any sign of the last clue before finding a chapter titled “Tales in Blue” I turned the pages found a small note hidden between the lines: 2008.
I quickly raced back to the records and pulled out the book for the year 2008 when I noticed the jacket was fake: I found 2003. I skimmed pages and stopped frozen, my breakfast nearly coming back to greet the air. The date was February 14th. Pictures in that book painted a gruesome picture. Bodies had been strewn across the floor. Blood painted the carpet and flesh and viscera were thrown together into a terrifying mosaic. They never found out what entered the school that day. There was a single picture. A beast whose most defining feature was a pair of piercing red eyes. Its neck was twisted at an inhuman angle. Its mouth seemed unhinged and hair was plastered around its face, stained red. Seventeen students died in the tragedy before one brave student drove a scalpel blade from the biology lab across it’s forehead and it took one last victim as it howled in pain and ran into the night.
I couldn’t bear to look at this any longer. I shut the book and tried to maintain calm as I went through the rest of my day. I biked home and those images swam in my vision as I tried to drown them out with a mind-numbing marathon of afternoon TV. My sister came home and I had to tell her what I knew so she wouldn’t feel so alone.
“Nat! Thank God you’re home I have so much to tell you.”
“Calm down kiddo, give me a chance to relax.”
She put her purse down and wiped the hair away from her face. A knot caught in my throat. I only saw it for a second, but it was clear as day. A thin long scar across her forehead, hidden beneath her bangs. I watched as she walked over to the couch, I replayed everything I saw and remembered the message: NF, Andre, TIB. They knew and they tried to warn someone, they spelled out Nat.
“So, Tom.” She smiled as she sat down. “What did you want to talk about?”