Chapter I

All along the corridors the usual trimmings of the adolescent pallet adorned the otherwise bland blue walled building with its stainless floors, lovelorn couples kissed each other before parting for lessons, groups stood compacted together laughing loudly at the rest of the world; it was very much the image of the secondary school that you would expect in just about any corner of the western world. His footsteps making somewhat loud clumps along the emptying corridor as he walked away from his classroom, Logan headed toward the bathroom, frankly he didn’t even need to go, it was blatantly just an excuse to fritter away the last twenty minutes before 3:30; not too mention any time spent out of a politics lecture was good time.

            A flash. The light from the large windows of the main corridor neat the staircases hit him suddenly and had him rubbing his newly watered eyes. He recovered from the flash of light quickly enough to return a casual, but charming smile toward two attractive girls who had smiled broadly at him as they walked past. This, as much of a cliché as it was, bought a joyous smile that he tried to contain as he reflected, curiously, on the way the girls had appreciated his skinny 5ft 9 figure, complete with a face with a few too many freckles and ruffled blonde hair. Indeed, he didn’t get as many looks from the women since going down the straight and narrow, but the odd look was not unknown.

            A buzz. Logan jumped slightly, the text catching him off guard, he took out his phone; it was from Lexie

‘Hey you J staying out of trouble? : P Just to let u know that I’ll be at yours by 3:20, school finished early. Cya soon ly xxx’

He smiled, most communication with her made him do so, it was unusual not to see her so often due to college demands, considering they had been inseparable friends since childhood, it was always doubly nice to hear from her. With his brief walk concluded he reached the bathroom and took a swift glance out of the window. The sun was shining as brightly as it had in months, the trees outside, a mixture of vibrant green leaves and bright pink blossoms, swayed in a light breeze and the grass seemed to glow with brightness; he smiled inside and closed the door behind him.

            Emerging from the cubicle Logan walked over to the mirror, his blemishes mockingly apparent in the light of the bathroom. There was a quick buzz of noise as the light flickered dimly, a faint grating noise, like a rusty gate being opened could be heard lightly and then the lights went back to normal. How weird, what was that? Probably nothing. Logan checked his phone, 3:18, still another ten minutes of mind numbing political babble. It hit him all of a sudden, a small, niggling pain in the side of his head. Logan stretched his collar uncomfortably; a sharp heat had suddenly spread across his brow. He splashed cold water onto his face to relieve it, it marginally worked; he took a deep breath, reassuring himself that he was being silly to worry and made for the door.

            A click. The door was locked. Impossible, no way the janitors would lock the door so early in the day. He tried it again. Nothing still. “Hey! Open up!” Logan shouted, banging his fists against the door. He put his hand against his forehead, which was heating up, the niggling pain increased; a white panic began to seize him which had nothing to do with the locked door. A low eerie hum could be heard around the small bathroom. Was someone else in there with him? No, only he had come in. Then it became more apparent, this was no mere hum, it was a wailing, someone was moaning in torment and he could hear it loudly in his ears.

            “What the f**k!?” he yelled, clasping his hands over his ears. The pain in his head now throbbed in all sides of his mind and had him walking around, hands stretched over the back of his head, as he yelled in anger and pain. Now a loud, demented cackling joined the tortured moan in a noisy and terrifying exaltation. Logan was now in a cold sweat, what the hell was this? He stopped dead in his tracks and felt the panic turn into a morbid fear as he saw what was happening in the mirror.

            Amidst the howl of noise a single, throaty hiss of a voice, barely female, spoke “At last…the time is upon us…the devils in them will fall before the glorious decay, of the present into the past”. The mirror was beginning to warp its shape, Logan looked on in disbelief as the reflection of the bathroom in the mirror was twirling in a swirl of colour and shape. And then, the image changed appeared before him. His stomach inexplicably heaved and his mind became overwhelmed with nausea as he looked upon it. A single house at the end of a woodland path, surrounded by trees that had once been green and fruitful, but now were withered and possessing of blood red leaves and stalked branches, the house itself was covered in red weed and its paintwork was peeling and covered by a rotting ooze, not unlike the skin of a diseased man. The muddy ground before it was covered by two dead naked bodies of beautiful women; the sky was a dark grey with a strange crimson tint. Still those unbearable noises threw themselves at him. What was most horrifying was not just the chilling, evil edge to this scene, but the fact that he recognised, seen it somewhere that he couldn’t define; like an unbearable nightmare lurking on the edge of his consciousness.

            Logan had half forgotten the noises, but not quite, as he stood perfectly still, scared to the bone but unable to draw himself away from what he was seeing beyond the looking glass. A blink of his bewildered eyes was all it took, and the mirror’s image was suddenly twice as blood curdling. Standing over the two bodies a woman in a similar black dress that reached her ankles stared at him with wide, vengeful eyes. Her dress was tattered and worn; her skin was grey, wrinkled and stretched too thinly over her skeletal frame. While the woman below her were beautiful, she was hideous. Her eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears; her face was contorted with rage. She was staring directly at him, her face growing angrier the more she looked upon him. Her bony finger pointed at him and her thin mouth opened slowly to form the single word in a scream so hellish it could have turned his blood to stone “YYYOOOUUUUUU!!!” Logan screamed in horror and closed his eyes fighting against his terror and tearing himself away from the mirror. He collided with the cubicle behind him and fell to the floor.

            The throaty voice he had heard before now spoke “It was his kind that did it to us sire”, and a third deeper voice, this time male, joined them “Yes…a man should fear looking upon his past”

“Was it him sire?”

“Not him personally, but his kind, those who came before him…they ruined what we crated” the voice now possessed venom. Logan could feel himself blacking out. The voices were now becoming more incoherent as his vision faded away “Time! Time at last!” “After all…in the bone-yard…be restored” “…paradise lost”

 

XXXXX

 

With a throbbing head Logan struggled to his feet and groaned as the grogginess wore off. For a few seconds he stood there in a sleepy stupor. Then he remembered, he let out a cry and turned around quickly and stared at the mirror. Nothing, nothing was there, he looked into the glass and saw himself and the plain white bathroom looking back at him. “But…what the…” Logan listened carefully. Not a single sound other than his own breathing. No voices, no cackles or moans, only him in the room. He sighed a deep sigh of relief. Some nightmare that was, his spine chilled at the mere thought of it. Must have been something he’d watched recently or something, “Oh yeah” he took out his phone, 4: 21, “oh s**t” Making his way swiftly to the door, suddenly aware of his loss of time, he pushed it firmly. It opened perfectly normally.

            The sun was now very dim in the sky which was getting greyer. As he’d expected the corridors were eerily quiet, there was no laughter, couples kissing or talking. He hated the school’s silence after hours; for once he actually looked forward to talking to his politics teacher, even if it was to explain why he hadn’t gone back to class. Another text came through. Logan took out his phone; to his utter confusion he saw it

“Sweetheart, they have realised we are here, they hate us and want to kill us, they say it is our fault! I won’t leave your side though, no matter what they can conjure, we are in this together, our homes are here now, I love you”

Logan simply stared at his phone; his face lined with the bemusement he felt, the number was Lexie’s but the name of the sender merely read ‘The hunter’s wife, a villain’ Putting his phone away Logan walked toward his classroom, there was no time to figure out texts from random people. But why had the number been Lexie’s? Then he heard it. A loud bang and crash resounded form the corridor his classroom was in; like a heavy object being struck against a wall. Logan felt his heart race in his chest and he broke into a run.

            With an irritating creak the door of his classroom opened “Miss Fife I…” Logan stopped dead as took a step in the door. The room was destroyed, or as good as destroyed. The computers were lying in smashed up heaps on the ground, tables had been broken in half, the windows were smashed and pages from books lay strewn all over the room. To his anguish and shock, Mrs Fife was nowhere to be seen, neither was anyone for that matter. Curiously enough there were piles of clothes on the ground, crumpled and filled with dust. He picked up a white shirt which was soaked through by a dark moisture, not blood, or at least not any blood he could define. Near the back wall a skirt was lying in tatters, a dust coloured sinew staining it; the back wall itself had a huge gaping hole in it; could that have been the crashing sound he’d heard? Then he turned and faced the whiteboard and gasped.

            A dried, ugly smear of thick blood was spread across the whiteboard. The smell of copper was now rich and stung his nostrils. The sun reflected off of the remaining glass in the windows, but there was no light in this room, the brightness provided no comfort, it only made the sight clearer. Logan stood there alone, in more confusion than fear, was this linked with his nightmare? Again he shuddered at the mere thought of it. He could only continue to stand there in utter shock “Oh my God…” he muttered quietly “who could’ve…”