I’m in a classroom trailer off the edge of campus, deep in the woods. It’s an ugly white trailer with two large windows, metal stairs, and about twenty desks inside. The room is packed with students, some even standing in the back of the room. The class is full because it’s a review for our test on Monday. We’re listening to a teaching assistant named Trish. Trish is a fun, bubbly girl, with long blond hair, who entertains the hell out of me whenever she reviews depression.
As everyone’s listening, I’m skimming through past notes about the Night Stalker and John Wayne Gacy for my criminology class. I’m multitasking—I have a test in that class next week too, along with a dreaded statistics exam.
Gacy was a real sick fuck who used to work as Pogo the clown while moonlighting as a murderer of little children. I have to remember the word “coulrophobia.” That’s the fear of clowns. The next page in my criminology class notes is Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. the Night Stalker. He used to run upstairs in the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles naked and covered in blood. Somehow, he wasn’t caught there. Too discreet, I suppose. He was satanic and tattooed a pentagram on his left palm. Sound familiar? Ah…love.
“Here is a list of the main categories of abnormal personalities,” says Trish, with a too-big smile, pointing to an image from her slide projector. “You’ll be tested on each one. Narcissistic personality is being in love with oneself. It comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, who rejected his love for the nymph Echo, preferring to love his own reflection. He committed suicide and hence the gods immortalized him by their creation of the daffodil. An interesting tale. The background of the word isn’t as important, just remember the personality. Next we have here…” I’m scribbling notes about daffodils while jotting down facts about killer clowns. “Schizotypal personality. These individuals act similar to people suffering from schizophrenia.”
As I turn the page back for a second to glance at my notes about Gacy, I jump in my chair. There’s a large red backward pentagram splashed over the page. The creepy thing is, I didn’t draw it. I don’t even have red ink.
I look around the room and everyone is still staring intently at Trish. And the girl sitting to my right apparently didn’t see the symbol or notice me flinching. She just leans her chin on her hand and watches our TA. The guy to my left is flipping through his notebook. Where did the symbol come from? Am I losing it after Winona’s haunt?
“Except these people don’t see or hear things,” says Trish. “You know, these people are loners engaged in magical thinking, superstitious beliefs, and paranoid thoughts. They often dress strangely.”
Sounds familiar. Except Alondra is not a loner. But I’ve been known to keep to myself. Maybe I fit this one. No, I’m not that much of a loner.
I hear laughter. At first I think it’s the student to my right, but she’s busy jotting down notes. The guy to my left is staring at Trish. Then I think it’s the TA, but she’s pointing at a slide.
My heart beats fast. I feel nauseous. Sick. I look down and my hand holding my pen is shaking.
I feel trapped.
They all know how tough the tests next week will be. I’ve been busy gallivanting in haunted houses with Allie so much that I’m going to fail. This is not a hard class, you know. Not even an uninteresting one. But, god, what about my statistics class?
I can’t breathe. I feel like I should get out into the fresh air.
Am I having a panic attack? I’ve never had one, but I think this is one. I’m ready to jump and bolt.
“Let the light of Venus be your shining light,” Trish says with a nod and her bubbly grin, looking at me. She’s smiley. Then she points at the projection of her diagram of personality disorders.
The room turns dark. I look at the windows and see dark clouds rushing across the sky between the trees, shadowing everything. It was clear skies before.
Enlighten. Morning. Venus. Abaddon.
I look up to the front of the classroom and Trish has disappeared. In her place are two children, Winona and Melanie, in their short white dresses and pigtails, facing each other. They’re playing patty-cake, but they’re not saying a word.
Shine bountiful beauty and bright. Lux alba. Lux tenebris.
It gets very dark. A pack of rats scurry under my feet between the desks. My feet lurch up and I hit the desk with my knees. I look to my right and left, but the students beside me are gone. All the seats are empty. No one’s in the room except for Winona and Melanie.
My knees slam against the desk again.
“Something the matter?” Trish is staring right at me. So is everyone in the room. The stormy dark clouds are gone. The classroom is full of students. The girl to my right has her pen down, squinting. Everyone in the room is staring.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“Oh, Liam,” Trish says with her sweet smile, shaking her head. It surprises me that she remembers my name. “Didn’t you learn in Sunday school that the number of the beast is six, six, six?”
Satanas. Satanas. Lucifer. Six, six, six.
The words are whispered by many voices surrounding me. There’s a loud crash, as if one of the desks was hurled across the room. Then the lights go out again.
Rain pours so hard that water’s thrown like buckets against the windows. Clouds race again between moving branches outside.
I turn back to the front of the class. Trish is gone. So are the girls. Replacing them is a lanky armless man as tall as the ceiling without a mouth or discernible face. His white eyes are staring at me.
I look around. All the desks are empty again. Except the one beside me. Melanie and Winona are sitting next to me.
“Touched by a witch,” say the children’s voices in laughter. “Six, six, six. Fucked by a witch. Six, six, six. Lucifer. Lucifer. Satanas.” Both girls cover their mouths, snickering.
Six, six, six. Fucked by a witch. Six, six, six.
The words are repeated over and over by many voices close to my ears.
“Liam, was it fun being fucked by her? By the devil?” asks Winona, touching my arm. Her voice sounds like Alondra’s.
“You’re a cunt-sucking sinner, Liam,” they say in unison, smiling and nodding. “Damned for all time. And guess what’s going to happen to you? You’re going to hell.”
Six, six, six. Fucked by a witch. Six, six, six.
There’s a large howl, as if all the voices surrounding me are crying out at the same time, so loudly that it hurts my ears.
“Why don’t you just shut up!”
I cover my eyes, shielding them from a sudden flood of light in the room. The girl sitting beside me gasps. Those were my words. The lights are on again, it’s clear outside, and Trish is standing by the slide projector staring at me like I’m nuts.
“What the hell?” someone asks.
“Talk about abnormal.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“Sorry,” I blurt out and quickly gather my books, jump up, and rush out of the classroom. I’m out of there. As I rush down the steps, the whole class bursts in laughter behind me.
I head back to my dorm. The sun’s out and it’s a beautiful day. And I’m spooked as hell. I don’t know what I just saw or what’s happening. Alondra will. That wasn’t a hallucination, that was magic.
I’ll call her.
I can’t call her. We’re in “radio silence.”
I have to try.