The Devil

Fiona is a tightly wound perfectionist gliding her way through her last week of high school when suddenly it all comes to an anticlimactic end. Faced with living her life all over again what will she

The wheels of Fiona’s sedan politely pulled into the second spot to the left of Principal Singh’s parking spot at the exact time they did every day. Her car was one of the only cars in parking lot at 7:02am. As student body president it was her duty, and her duty alone, to prepare the morning announcements.
“Good morning Mrs. Green” she sung as she sat down behind the front desk. Mrs. Green offered a cold, “Morning Fiona” in return. That was the only interaction between the pair, as Fiona fished the loose papers from her mailbox before sitting down in a chair opposite Mrs. Green. She read the flyers closely before opening the events binder and studying it like she would be tested on the material.
With her head down, she began to write out the morning announcements in careful steady hand writing. She wrote them in tall strong font, exactly how she had done twice last night before bed. This time she marked down all the adjustments she had made in those moments between wake and sleep.
At 7:55 am, when all first period classes had been in session for 10 minutes already, Fiona clicked the small red button next to the little microphone that would project her voice for the whole school to hear.
“Good morning Meadow High, this is student body president Fiona Miller. It’s 7:55am on June 18nd and these are the morning announcements.” Her voice echoed throughout the school reminding everyone that there was one week left before summer vacation, and that meant only one week to pick up your year books. She announced to the seniors that their graduation robes will be in Mrs. Ferguson’s room on Thursday. She announced that the end of the year dance would be in the gym on Friday starting at 7:00pm.
She spoke each line without stutter or slobber leaving her perfectly poised lips. She recited every line without looking once down at her notes.
At lunch time she sat on the same bench she always did. On the first day of school last year, 3 sanguine faced freshmen boys had decided they wanted to claim that bench as their lunch time spot. It had thrown Fiona so off guard that she skipped lunch entirely that first day. Instead of eating her turkey sandwich on whole wheat she headed to the library and read chapter one of her advanced US history textbook. She had already read the chapter 3 nights prior.
The next day, when the 3 round faced teenagers came to claim their bench, they found Fiona sitting there eating a turkey sandwich and doing her calculous home work for the day. On the second day there she was again this time with a salad and reading Hamlet for her advanced literature class. On the fourth day the boys did not return. She hated to leave class early, but it had to be done. It was easy enough to convince her Spanish teacher Ms. Garcia, that she needed to be released everyday 5 minutes early to pick up trash before lunch time.
Today was a day not unlike that day. Today however, the students occupying her seat were seniors like herself. She recognized their faces, having spent the last couple of years of her life in school with them, but she did not know any of them personally. Their shirts were stained. Their pants had holes, some purposeful, some not. They laughed too loud, the raucous symphony echoing off the walls and lockers surrounding them. It hit Fiona’s ears like a dissonant drum beat.
She watched them safely from a distance, debating what her plan of action would be. Her knuckles began losing their color as she gripped tighter and tighter on to the black 3 ring binder in her hands. They looked like monkeys, grabbing each other, heads falling back in laughter. Their careless and frequent contact with each other made Fiona unnerved.
She could feel the anger well up inside of her, hot and bubbling. She began to count 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 254 508 1016 2032 4064 8128 and so on until her anger cooled. Cold anger is good, it can be molded and used like glass taken from the fire. Hot anger burns everything it touches.
She walked, with shoulder blades pinched, towards the mess of people in front of her. She couldn’t just squeeze herself between them and go about her business. No, that would incur ridicule like only teenagers know how to wield. She could walk away and forget about the bench, but that meant conceding defeat and that wasn’t an option for Fiona Miller. No, she had to hit them where it hurt. What do students like these fear the most? Looking like they care too much.
She was a student aid for 4th period physics and had graded some student’s tests today while Mr. DeWalt lectured. Dylan Moreno, one of the rebel rousers on her bench, happened to get a stunning A+ on this test, missing only half a point for incorrectly placing a decimal, yet still getting the correct answer for #7.
She strolled nonchalantly up to the bench that Dylan and his cronies were ensconced on. Her bench. They paid no mind as her foot falls fell ever closer to them. “Nice work on your physics test Dylan” she said in a glossy sweet tone. Heads turned in her direction like a squeaky door hinge. The blank silence let her know she was succeeding. She continued, “Mr. DeWalt actually thinks you should look into studying it in college since you’ve done so well this year.”
The friend closest to Dylan threw out a lazy punch to his side “fucken nerd right here” the others laughed.
If you need help with college preparation I’m seeing students in room 210 all week after school from 3:30-5, drop by!”
She watched in delight as the scene unfolded in front of her. Dylan’s friends began to taunt him and push him out of his seat. “Oooh Miss Harvard is gonna help Einstein here get a fancy degree” He grabbed his taunter, a particularly stocky fellow in a shirt with some band on it that Fiona had never heard of, and pulled him into a headlock. The rest of the group got up to watch the two barbarically struggle under each other’s grasp.
“I’m going to Brown, not Harvard” she said aloud to herself as she took her rightful seat on her bench. She took a bite of her turkey sandwich and let out an audible sigh of pleasure.
Fiona hated leaving during class. She only did it when she was being officially summoned by an adult or if she really, honestly, thought she was going to wet herself. Today it was the latter.
She raised her hand and Ms. Kay called upon her immediately as most teachers in this school do. Whether because of Fiona’s esteem as the student body president and class valedictorian, or if it was perhaps, because they assumed they must have misspoken, forgotten a step, left out important information that only Fiona would have missed. You couldn’t be sure.
A moment later she was walking the quiet empty hallways to the ladies room. This peaceful respite was broken by a booming alarm. It was a sound she recognized as the disaster warning drill. No, that wasn’t right. This was an intruder warning bell, except, no warning had been scheduled today. She knew the events calendar back and fourth and sideways.
The bell rang again but this time it was followed by the voice of Mrs. Green over the PA system. “The Raptor is in the building. I repeat, the Raptor is in the building.”
The raptor is the mascot for Meadow High's rival, Ford High School. This was the secret code that someone years ago had decided would be said over the PA to alert the school that there was a dangerous intruder on campus. As if said intruder would be unaware that the call was about him.
Right now teachers would be locking doors and students would be huddling under their desks. Fiona ran through the safety procedures in her mind like a movie she’d seen a hundred times or more, except this was a deleted scene she had yet to watch. She stood rooted to the spot completely at a loss for what to do.
After what felt like an hour she turned on her heel, deciding to head back to Mrs. Kay’s class. She saw his head first, or lack there of. He was looking down, head covered in a dark hood. She saw the gun next as it rose up level with her chest.
There was no light here. She felt nothing. She saw nothing. She was nothing. She could hear only her own thoughts. Images flashed in her mind. Countless hours of study. Countless hours of calculating. Countless hours wasted, she thought.
Not happy with the years you were given?
Are you kidding me? I put in all that work for nothing? To die before even graduating high school?
Would you have liked to do something different with your years?
Yes
What?
Anything! Anything else!
OK


Fiona’s phone woke her up. The mellifluous ringing grew louder and louder as she laid face down glued to her pillow. She reached out to her bedside table but found that her phone was not there. For a moment her mind was blank, confused. Behind her eyelids a scene played out in which she threw her phone at her bookshelf on the other side of the room.
She peeled herself from her sheets and thumped her feet onto the floor as if they had 10 pound dumbbells tied tightly around each ankle. With only one eye open she slid her way across the room to retrieve the cause of her rude awakening.
In the blur of her half vision she saw the name Carlo written on her screen. “Uagh” she groaned into the as a greeting to her friend on the other end of the line.
“Well, good morning sunshine!” came the booming voice of her friend. “Wake and bake. My house. 10 minutes.” He hung up the phone before she could exhale.
She grabbed a pair of black pants from the floor and jumped from one foot to the other until they were up onto her hips. She picked the rest of her clothing much in the same manner, grabbing whatever was closest. The last item being a grey pullover she had worn so many times that there was a hole in the right armpit. It was her friend Dylan’s.
She looked at herself in the reflection of the front window of Carlo’s house. She looked tired, the make up she had been piling on my face all weekend without washing off wasn’t helping. Her hair needed a good wash as well but she had been too hungover and too stoned all day yesterday to give it the attention it demanded. So instead it sat in a bun on top of her head, like a pile of snakes, getting more tangled by the minute.
Nick opened the door. She stood eye level to his belly button. He had more in common with a brick wall than the average human. He had about as much free will and conscious thought as one as well.
Carlo was in his room, as were Matt and Chrissy. Matt and Chrissy were laying on Carlos bed, inches away from having sex, a few layers of clothing being the only thing to hinder them. Carlo, sitting in his desk chair was as immune to the display behind him as if it were a TV channel playing quietly in the background.
Nick entered the room behind her and handed her the bong. She took a long deep breath as the sticky sweet perfume of cannabis filled her lungs. She held it in for a moment, eyes on the ceiling, trying not to cough, before releasing the plume of smoke. She blew it directly at the indiscernible moving creature that was Matt and Chrissy. If they had noticed, they gave her no sign of it.
“The f**k are you doing over there?” she asked Carlo, bent over his desk consumed in some sort of work.
“He’s studying astrophysics” Matt said, his head rising from the gaping mouth of his girlfriend. She slapped him with a look of mock anger.
“Astrophysics?” Fiona repeated. “Since when does Matt Hennley use the word ‘astrophysics’?” Fiona received a hit on her shoulder from Chrissy as well.
“I’m doing an in depth study on fungus” he turned around proudly displaying a twisted and shriveled mushroom. “We all are” he said as he grabbed his water bottle and took a long pull from it. The red liquid from inside lingered on his lips.
Carlo had been a highly functioning alcoholic for what felt like his entire life. Fiona had met Carlo in middle school and had had her first drink with him at age 12. No one asked many questions about the habit. He had no problem getting his hands on jug after jug of the stuff as he had two older brothers. Tony is only 20 but he had a fake ID and Giovanni is almost 23, well over the legal age.
Fiona took another hit from the bong when it came her way. Her head filled up with clouds. It felt like it was floating quickly up to the ceiling. She closed her eyes enjoying the familiar feeling.
She felt pressure between her legs. She had to pee, or at least, she thought she needed to pee.
She walked out of the room, feeling like her body was vibrating ever so quietly. Her hand brushed the wall feeling the delicate undulations in the wallpaper. Her leisurely stroll to the bathroom was interrupted by the creek of an opening door. The half naked form of Giovanni was poised in the now open dorm frame. She lingered with her eyes too long on the exposed bits of his flesh. His body was different than the boys at school, fuller, like a man’s. She flexed her jaw and crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest.
He sighed and rubbed his smooth stomach, forcing her eyes back to his skin, “how are we today, Fiona?” he asked through a yawn.
Today had barely begun. She had no idea how she was today. It was just another day. She stared at him blank faced, not breaking eye contact with him. She hadn’t spoken to Giovanni in months and she sure as hell wasn’t going to start today.
“Well, I need a shower, care to join?” he asked with a wink. He walked past her and down the hall to the bathroom she had been walking to moments prior. He opened the door but before stepping inside he gave her one last glance, “you coming?”
It took all her will to not run down the hall and shove him into the wall. His smug audacity dug deep into her skin and made it crawl, goosebumps popped up all along her arms. She kept her eyes on him as he walked inside and closed the door. She stood there, leaning against the peeling wallpaper until she heard the click of the lock. She returned to Carlo’s room with a full bladder.
Carlo doled out a carefully measured handful of mushrooms to each person in the room. In turn they chewed on the foul, tough fungi, gulping the bottle of red wine to mask the taste.
They walked to school, high off the mixture of the weed and cheap wine for the moment. It was too early for the shrooms to have kicked in. They had already missed their first 2 classes of the day but Matt assured them that nothing important was happening in the last week of school. Fiona thought of the past few months, how they had all been the same. They had all been like this since Dylan got sent away to juvi.
Dylan always made sure they at least got to school on time. He was smart. Fiona had always felt better when he was around.
She doubted Dylan would have been cool with them doing shrooms before noon on a Monday. She wrapped her arms around herself, thinking about when Dylan’s arms used to fill these sleeves. She thought about that night when she begged and screamed for Dylan to drive her home.
They had been at a house party thrown by one of Giovanni’s friends. Dylan was drunk and high. Dylan never drove drunk or high. Except this night.
She had just walked into a bedroom, thinking it was the bathroom, only to find Giovanni half naked on top of an equally half naked woman. She, screaming with betrayal, ran to the only person she knew would help her. She knew he would help her because for some reason he loved her. They never discussed it but she could see it in the reflection if his eyes. She could hear it between the empty spaces when he spoke to her. She felt it burn against her skin, painfully.
He took off his jacket and put it on her as they walked to the car. He drove her home. He waited with the car in park until she closed her front door, safely inside.
He crashed the car 5 minutes after dropping her off. With his priors and the drugs they found in the car, the police had more than enough evidence to finally put him in juvenile hall. Not a day goes by where she doesn’t want to punch Giovanni. She’d give anything to change that night.
“Have you ever looked at Mrs. Tulley, like really looked at her?” Carlo asked Fiona as he mindlessly folded the clay in front of him.
“Carlo, you’re on drugs” Nick said as he stabbed his slab of clay with his pointer finger.
“You are not incorrect there my friend” Carlo replied. “Still though, you have to admit that she’s got weird hair. We should call her Mrs. Turkey instead.” The two boys laughed into their amorphous balls of clay.
Fiona slipped out of her chair and out of the room without raising a hand, not because she wanted to sneak away, but because she knew no one would notice.
She walked the hallways, zig zaging as she went, sliding her feet on the smooth concrete like an ice skater. She stared at the magnificent posters hanging along the hallway as they twisted and turned creating new geometric shapes every second. She hummed a loose tune as she stared at her shoe laces. They danced to her song.
She looked up and saw a tree, one that she had seen many times before, but never really looked at. She stood poised in front of it like a patron at an esteemed art museum. Head tilted, she studied it. The leaves swayed and changed colors like seasons. The leaves grew and fell. They tree danced until she saw nothing else but the tree. It was performing for her.
She closed her eyes and a different performance began to play behind her eye lids. She saw herself, only much different. Her hair washed, her face clean. She saw Dylan in graduation robes. She was so lost in this other world that she didn’t even hear the alarms go off. She didn’t move when Mrs. Green’s voice boomed a grave warning over the PA system.
She walked with eyes closed down the hall. She walked almost in a trance, a sleep walk. She knew where she was going. She turned the corner and there he was, his hood was off and he smiled a saccharine smile as he aimed his gun.

Reviews

[A.C. Jones]

I like it... the story did well in describing the two lindsays. Not sure if the switch really made sense at first. Did she get a redo on her life and this was the result? Was her fate sealed no matter what?

[Jasmine Wolfe]

Hey, thanks for the review, I'll take the feedback into consideration. I'll try and make the middle transition more clear!