It Was Written In Pink

The whole town was dreary, all it had done since we got here last week was storm and then threaten to bucket down again. The buildings were all historical and heritage listed so you couldn’t knock them down. All of them were dark brick with small windows, even our old farm house.

The school wasn’t much better, my first impression was, that it was creepy. All brick and wrought iron. It was winter, and somebody had decided to plant deciduous trees everywhere, so everything looked dead. All of the school had an old fashion heating system with made it feel even colder than it already was, and don’t even get me started on the uniforms.

My first day was going great, or so I thought. I had picked up all my textbooks and worked out how to read my timetable, put my books away that I didn’t need and was heading to homeroom. But it wasn’t long until I noticed icy stares that I was getting, I could feel them behind me stabbing in to my back, making my hairs stand up on my neck. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and rushed for the nearest bathroom.

There was graffiti all over the walls, in pink bubbly ink, saying stuff like ‘Cath was here’ and ‘Cath + Alice +Faye + Hannah = BFF’s’. I could hear the halls grow quiet down outside. I decided to leave. I turned the door handle I heard a light floaty laugh. I was into the hall in a flash, but the laugh was still there, getting louder and louder as if it was right next to my ear, the closer I got to my homeroom the worse it got.

I burst through the door. Everybody stopped to stare at me. “I see you finally found us Miss. Mackenzie,” said the wiry teacher in the corner.   “It’s Grace actually Sir, and yes I got a little lost,” he gave me a bit of a glare, and motioned me to sit. So I did, I don’t understand why people in this town insist on calling everyone by their last name.

The next little part of the day went pretty well I went to my classes; English and Science, I was still getting stared at though. At recess I went and sat with my back to a tree. “You’re Grace Mackenzie, aren’t you?”

“Yes, who are you?”

“I’m Hannah Brown,” we stopped talking for a little while, sitting on the opposite side of the tree. She started up again, “Your new house belonged to a dead girl,”

“What?” I must have sounded surprised, because she looked at me worriedly, “Catherine Granger went missing when me and my friends; Alice and Faye and Cath of course were on a hike, then her body was found, dead, hanging from the gymnasium roof,” I could hear the floaty laugh again and my vision flashed back to the bathroom walls. ‘S**t,’ I said. Hannah looked a little alarmed, by my language. The bell rang and we headed off to class.

The storm came in suddenly. The natural light that had been miserably coming through the windows and the lights went out, along with the heating. Many of the girls were screaming, some of the boys too, but not very many as they were trying to appear as manly as possible.

I stared down at my textbook, trying to appear calm, just like, the teacher; Miss Charade wanted us to. I was going great at this whole being calm thing, up until, I saw writing started to appear all over the margins, in pink, bubbly scrawl. ‘My, death was no accident, but the killer walks free, you must find out who it is or you’ll bear the same fate as me,’ The message was being written over and over again, I quickly grabbed my pen and wrote ‘No,’ The writing vanished except for mine and so did the storm, the girls finally stopped screaming, everyone was calm.

The roof started creaking. I felt something fall into my hair, and it was plaster. More and more began to crack from the roof and the screaming started up again. Many students ran for the exit and I was going to do the same. Then the roof fell in…

I coughed up plaster dust, I couldn’t see much at all just shapes. The dust was too thick. ‘I wish, I could see,’ that was a bad thought, and I wished I hadn’t thought of it. Everything was suddenly clear to see as the orange flames lit up the room. The hole in the roof had a jagged edge, flames liked around it. The whole part of the roof that had caved in was a light.

Something was walking through the flames stepping closer. It emerged. A charcoal black skeleton. More shaped were coming through. I was becoming surrounded. The fire was also getting closer. I didn’t know what to be more worried about, the skeletons which now seemed to be glowing, or the fire which was turning blue with heat.

I stepped back the skeleton’s hands were reached out towards me. I tried to keep out of their reach. Something hot and hard struck the back of my foot, causing me to leap forward. I turned my head slightly, not wanting to take my eyes of the skeletons or the blue flames.  There was a piece of hot metal behind me. I needed to escape. I backed towards a near-by window maybe I could get out. But the glass was hot and I couldn’t open it.

I leaned on it, I could feel the heat burning into my skin, but it was the only thing stopping me from freezing in fear. The flames came closer their colour changing to bright blue. The skeletons came closer to; their bones were beginning to fall apart, their eyes sockets were glowing.

 

The glass went pop, and I fell backwards. I hadn’t noticed how hot it had been in there, I felt that it was positively freezing out here. A girl that was tinged blue seemed to be standing above me, ‘You will help me now won’t you or I’ll show you what death really looks like!’ Then she faded away. I heard many voices surround me then, and somebody said “ Call an ambulance,” I knew then that I was still alive and that this was just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come.