Erich - Four

Erich

 

We ended up spending a good length of time in the dining hall that night, bantering back and forth about our approach and strategy. I seemed to be the only one who knew anything about pulling of something similar to a military attack, and I tried to be as much help as I could without thinking too much about how I had come to know it. It was past nine when the prefect, though not the west block one, thank God, told us we had to clear out.

By the time we got back to the dorm, the incident in the dining hall was forgotten and we were all laughing again. It was a strange experience, living with three other guys. Five days in and we had already come close to tearing each other’s heads off, but we could all put it from our minds within minutes. Not to sound stupid, but I actually kind of enjoyed it.

Back in the room, we decided it would be better to get out of our uniforms. They went for dark clothes, but the only black shirt I owned was one I didn’t want them to see.

It had the patch, the black, bent cross surrounded by red and white, the mark that proved who I was back in Germany, though I was pretty sure they already suspected me of it. I couldn’t let them see it, not after I’d promised not to cross them again, but I could hardly borrow one. I had more than a few inches on Gabe and Jim and I somehow doubted Hersch would want to share clothes with me any more than I wanted to share with him. So, when the rest of them were changing awkwardly in their corners, I tried to tear it off the sleeve.

It made and audible ripping noise and I knew I had been caught. All three of my roommates looked up at me curiously. “Oh… damn it…” I said, trying to sound angry about the torn shirt while my eyes darted around the room. I clutched the tattered patch in my fist and dropped in inconspicuously into my bag. “Piece of s**t tore out…” To my luck, they shrugged and went finished changing. I got dressed slowly, realizing too late that I had lost almost my entire sleeve. It dangled off my arm pathetically and the other guys snickered when I turned around.

“Smooth,” observed Jim.

“Hey, you shut up about it,” I warned.

“Come on guys, this isn’t the time,” Gabe hissed from his corner, looking up from his shirt buttons. “We’re together on this, remember? Now, Knight’s either taken whatever’s in his stash, meaning he’s already down for the night…”

“Or he’s out doing whatever the hell a headmaster does on Friday night,” Hersch finished for him.

“Right,” said Jim, “and either way we’ve got our best chance if we go now.”

“Exactly,” I smiled unintentionally as I said it, “Let’s do it.”

We crept along opposite sides of the dark hallway in pairs: Jim and Hersch, me and Gabe. ‘Lights out’ was supposed to be at nine o’ clock, and the dangling light bulb that lit our corridor had gone out, plunging the passage into darkness. Gabe gripped my shoulder and I couldn’t bring myself to bat him away.

            We slipped up the stairs as quietly as anything. I was starting to get the feeling that I wasn’t the only one accustomed to skulking around in the dark. Save for a curse from Jim (who was obviously the least stealthy), the whack to the head Hersch issued him, and the pressure of Gabe’s palm, I wouldn’t have known anyone else was there.

            We were on the second flight of stairs, just a few steps away from the top floor, when the lumbering footsteps came our way. I saw someone’s eyes glint from across the corridor. “Get down,” I hissed to Gabe, and we flattened ourselves against the floor just seconds before Knight came clumping down the stairs.

            No one breathed as he passed us by. We would have been done for if he’d had a lamp, but he didn’t. He trudged right on by us in a heavy half-sleep.

            We clambered up the stairs as soon as he was far enough away. “He’s probably just gone down to use the water closet,” Hersch breathed. “We don’t have long.”

            “Maybe we should go back,” Gabe said, trying, and failing, to hide the panic in his tone.

            “We can’t,” I said, squinting through the dark to look him in the eye.  “We’ll run into him again on the way back if we turn around.

“He’s right. We have to keep moving,” said Jim.

We nodded and walked faster, finding that, to our infinite luck, our taking that particular staircase to the third floor had led us to the staff dormitories.

            Upon reaching the end of the corridor, we found that Hersch had been right once again. The largest door at the end of the hall was marked with Knight’s initials. Our luck seemed to be running out, though, because when we tried the handle, it was locked. Hersch pulled a pin out of his pocket and worked it into the lock, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. The rest of us couldn’t do anything but wait. He seemed like the kind of guy who would usually be good at underhanded things like that, but it was taking too goddamn long.

            I knew what I could do, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. I had never thought a skill I learned in The Youth would help me in England, but it had come to that. “Move,” I shoved Hersch out of the way, no time to be civil, and threw my elbow against the bolted doorknob until I heard the lock bend. Then I backed up and gave it a good kick.

            The door swung open with hardly a sound. I didn’t have the time or the desire to look back at their wide eyes, so I just slunk into the room. “Spread out and look,” I ordered. Gabe followed me to the chest in the corner and Jim and Hersch headed to the dresser by the door. I got the chest open in a way similar to what I had done to the door, but it was too dark to see much inside. It was Gabe who found the sack. He pulled one of the bottles out and shook it happily in the general direction of Jim and Hersch. I clapped him on the shoulders and grinned, for once glad to have him around.

            I was so excited that I didn’t know anyone was coming until the heavy footsteps were right outside. Without warning, Gabe grabbed my hand and yanked me into the corner behind the chest. I couldn’t see where Hersch and Jim and gone, but a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway and I had the sudden sinking feeling that we were completely fucked.

            Knight sat sleepily on the bed, reaching for something on his nightstand. That was when I saw the two figures behind the door slowly slip out of the room, motioning for us to stay where we were. I realized we were trapped and wondered for a second if we could actually die in that corner of the headmaster’s room.

I turned to Gabe, who had ended up awkwardly crushed against me, and tried to mouth something that looked like ‘f**k.’ But he didn’t answer. He just looked up at me with his big, anxious eyes (had they always been so goddamn green?), with an expression that, for some reason, did not at all fit the situation.

            I didn’t have much time to wonder about that, though. Suddenly, something went flying past the open door and a crash came from out in the hall. Knight snapped out of his haze pretty quickly then and he sprang up to go investigate.

             Jim and Hersch sped back into the room once he was gone. We hopped up from our hiding place. “What the hell was that?” Gabe hissed at the exact same time as I said, “What did you do?”

            “Distraction,” smirked Jim. “No need to thank me.”

            “Yeah, well now what, genius?” Hersch growled. “We’re trapped in here!”

            “F**k!” The footsteps were coming back. We looked madly around for and escape and our eyes all fell on the open window at the same time.

            “Oh, no,” insisted Gabe, “Oh no, no, no, no. We’re not g…”

“Oh, yes we are!” Without thinking about it, I took a running start, tackling Gabe on my way and carrying him with me as we flew out the window.

Reviews

[Dakota]

Erich makes me laugh. He knows the reaction he's getting and he knows what the others know about him, but he's not willing to own it. Why? There's a lot of hiding and deflection from what's real by all of them and I'm still trying to figure out why. You're writing a hell of a book here!

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[Coyote Poetry]

I like the pace and the flow of this story. Erich new view of the situation and the team effort to get the mission done allow the boys to understand each other. I like the stress and the emotion of this chapter. A good ending to a excellent chapter.
Coyote