Creepy Teacher: A Psychological Thriller (14 page)

He grabbed her hair this time and held on.

“Don’t go anywhere, my love!” he shouted with hateful bitterness. “You’re not the girl I thought you were!”

She screamed loudly, still on the gas, and the car crashed hard to a sudden, jarring stop against another parked vehicle.

“Let go of me!” Bailey shouted.

She turned and began clawing his arm. When he stuck his horrid, slobbering face into the window, she scratched at his eyes instead. He made a groaning sound, then lunged in further, grabbing for her neck. The shovel’s handle stopped him.

And then his face began drifting away.

It pulled back and back, until he was gone from the window.

Her car had died.

Outside, Tony Avery and Brad Townsend had dragged Mr. Renly out onto the gravel. They each had a leg, and the side of Mr. Renly’s face was being rasped as he struggled to keep it lifted off the ground. Once they had him good and clear of Bailey’s car, they released his legs.

He still grasped the shovel, Bailey saw.

He got to his hands and knees.

More students circled around.

Someone asked, “Mr. Renly, what are you doing?”

Bailey cranked her car’s ignition, desperately wanting it to start.

It didn’t.

It didn’t.

The rotary whirring began to slow as the battery drained.

Mr. Renly climbed to his feet, turned with the shovel toward Bailey, and Tony Avery rushed him and shoved him backward.

“Stay away from her car!” he shouted.

“You plan to get involved, Tony Avery?” Renly asked.

“Put the shovel down, Renly!” Brad Townsend shouted.

Bailey watched Mr. Renly step in front of her car, raise the shovel, and slam it down with incredible force directly on the hood. The bang reverberated, and the crowd of students sounded their gasp in unison.

“I’ll put it down!” Stuart Renly answered. “I’ll put it down on top of her lying head!” He lifted and slammed the shovel down again. “Get out of the car, Bailey! You’re not the lamb I thought you were!” Again he hammered the shovel down, pounding a dent in the hood of her car.

Bailey’s eyes were blind.

Her entire body was shaking.

She couldn’t even scream because her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth, and she breathed with quaky inhales and exhales, and her hand shook violently as she twisted the ignition key without any hope.

She could see the students peripherally, from the corner of her eye, watching her, and watching Renly, too, all of them standing on unsure legs in the gravel under the ominous glow of the farm’s yellow light.

“Last warning, Renly!” Tony Avery shouted.

She watched in horror as Mr. Renly approached the front of her car again, lifted his knee onto the hood, and smiled menacingly. He said, “Okay, Bailey, I’ll get you this way. I’ll come through the windshield.”

Her car started!

She dropped the transmission into drive!

She stomped the gas pedal to the floor!

Mr. Renly slipped from the hood as her car lurched forward. With shovel in hand, he immediately disappeared underneath and out of sight. The bump of his body knocked the suspension into the air, into the air and down. She felt the lump catch as the car plowed forward. Nothing but engine roaring and a dragging sound like wet meat over gravel, and a metal clunking against the bottom of her car that scraped as she drove forward.

“Bailey, stop!” someone shouted.

“Stop! Stop!” other voices called.

The dragging sound and tugging resistance under her car continued. Her head swam in a blur of darkness before the windshield, and only the vision of a blind escape mattered to her now. The farm’s entrance, a black void of distance ahead, came almost immediately, a dilation of time.

“Stop, Bailey!” a final shout lingered.

She stepped on the brakes, feeling the drag of resistance easing beneath the car. The meat grinding sound quit as the car slowed to a stop. In the rearview mirror, she saw Tony Avery, Brad Townsend, and several other students rushing toward her under the yellow light that illuminated the scene behind.

She saw no twisted body lying in the gravel.

“Put the car in park, Bailey,” someone said.

It was Brad Townsend, standing now beside her open driver’s window.

Bailey put the car in park.

Brad opened her door, and Tony Avery approached then, too, and together they guided Bailey out of the car.

“Look at his head and neck,” someone said from behind.

“My god!” another answered.

As Bailey moved around to see behind the car, Kylie Westin swept her up in an embrace and said, “Bailey, don’t look at it.”

Like everyone else, Bailey couldn’t help but look.

Mr. Renly’s head was nearly severed off. Blood still flowed from his neck. His mouth was open. His eyeballs were bulged. His legs had twisted beneath him, lifting his pelvis up. Both of his arms were mangled. The shovel’s blade was jammed in his throat.

“The shovel’s blade caught under his chin, I think,” Casey Crawford said.

Bailey put her cheek against Kylie’s.

Kylie squeezed her tightly.

Bailey’s body quavered while she cried.

O
nce the frantic,
desperate feeling subsided, Bailey Howard’s mind began playing back the sequence of events in reverse order. She quickly skipped over the gruesome image of Mr. Renly’s gnarled body on the ground behind her car. That image was horrible pollution to keep in her mind. Kylie held her tightly, letting her cry, while Bailey recalled the nightmare back to the point of Eric Cady being smacked in the head and going down.

Bailey separated herself from Kylie.

“Everything’s alright, Bailey,” Kylie said. “It’s over.”

“Eric is hurt,” Bailey told her. And when she glanced around, the other students were either staring at her or looking with disgusted faces at Mr. Renly’s body behind her car. “Eric Cady is hurt,” she repeated. “Somebody call 911.”

“We did,” Casey Crawford informed her.

Bailey skirted the front of her car, hurried toward the portable toilet, and approached a small group of students who were stooping over Eric Cady in the grass, having already found him. Nancy Spielman was one, the only female, and she was down on her hands and knees trying to revive him by patting his cheek.

Bailey slipped into the mix, kneeled opposite Nancy, and put her palm on Eric’s chest. It was lifting and falling.

“We found him like this,” Nancy said.

“Mr. Renly hit him with the shovel,” Bailey told her.

Bailey gently touched her fingers to the back of Eric’s head, not feeling an impact wound on the side nearest her.

“Is it cut?” someone asked over Nancy’s shoulder.

It was Brad Townsend, Bailey noticed glancing up. Then she reached across Eric’s face to gently feel the back of his head on the other side. The wound was there, a swollen spot just behind his right ear. She looked at her fingertips.

“No blood,” she said, “but there’s a lump.”

Nancy said to Brad Townsend, “Go shut that off,” meaning the movie playing in the barn. “We’re done with Freddy.”

Brad hollered to Casey, who was already running toward the barn, “Shut it all down, Casey!” Then he said, “Casey called 911. Someone should be here soon. What happened, Bailey?”

“She already told us,” someone answered. “Renly waylaid him with a shovel.”

“I heard that, dumbass,” Brad said. “But what the hell was Renly doing here?”

Bailey didn’t answer Brad.

Nancy was gently patting Eric’s cheek again.

“Stop,” Bailey told her.

“I’m trying to revive him,” Nancy said.

When Nancy began turning his chin from side to side, Bailey brushed her hand away, saying, “Stop touching his face. That won’t help. Get some water.”

Nancy said, “Brad, get some water.”

Brad told someone else. Bailey didn’t see whom.

“Brad, we need something for his feet,” Bailey said, “to prop them up. And find a blanket if you can, please.”

Brad said to the group, “Somebody find a blanket. Come on! Don’t just stand around!”

The group dispersed to find a blanket.

Bailey felt Eric’s forehead. It felt normal. She honestly had no idea what to do besides elevate his feet, keep him warm, and have water standing by in case he revived.

Looking at his face, he appeared to be sleeping. Tears began welling again in her eyes.
It might be a coma
, she thought.
Besides treating him for shock, what more can I do?

She ran her fingers through his hair.

While doing that, she heard the distant sound of sirens coming from the north. Freemont police, she knew. By the sound of it, two cars. That, or perhaps one car and an ambulance.

Brad returned with a duffel, dropped to his knees, and worked the bag under Eric’s feet. Someone tossed a folded blanket at Nancy. She opened it, and spread it over Eric.

Bailey continued to rake her fingers gently through Eric’s hair, thinking about what she would tell the police and the paramedics. It must be concise, she knew. He’d been hit with a shovel, she would say. Also, the body of Carla Cummings was in the shed, and Jackson Saxton’s was in the corn.

But she didn’t want to say that now.

Not to the others.

Not before the police arrived.

She feared the guys would go poking into the shed, and Carla Cummings didn’t need a group of students gawking at her dead body on the floor beside a tractor, Bailey decided.

Leave the girl alone.

No pictures.

She had no idea where Jackson was in the corn.

The siren sounds came closer, and now the flashing lights could be seen cutting reds and blues in the darkness on Hwy 8.

Bailey saw Eric’s eyes flutter beneath his lids and lashes.

His eyes were going to open, she realized.

“He’s waking,” she said.

“Eric,” Nancy said loudly, leaning in. “Eric, wake up.”

Bailey levered Nancy away. “Don’t shout in his face, Nancy. Give him room to breathe.” To Eric, she said, “We’re here, Eric. You’re alright.”

Eric opened his eyes, but barely.

He closed them again.

Nancy leaned in again and said, “Keep trying to open your eyes, Eric. It’s me, Nancy.”

Bailey wished Nancy would go away.

“The cops are here,” someone announced.

The police rolled in, shutting down the sirens, and several students went to meet them in the gravel under the pole light.

“The ambulance is here,” the same person added.

Eric slowly opened his eyes again, shifted his arms under the blanket, and groaned. While his eyes focused, he brought his right hand out from under the blanket and touched the back of his head. But he was weak, Bailey saw, and his arm dropped to the grass beside his ear.

“Eric, it’s Bailey,” she said. “You’re okay.”

Nancy picked up Eric’s hand, cradling it in her own.

Bailey took his hand from Nancy, brought it to the middle of his chest, and placed it there. She put her own hand on top.

Eric looked at Bailey and said, “Are you okay, Bailey? Where is Renly?”

“Yes, I’m okay,” Bailey told him. “Mr. Renly’s gone. You’re safe.”

“Are you safe, Bailey?” Eric asked.

He was dazed and confused, Bailey realized.

“Yes, I’m safe,” she told him, offering him a reassuring smile.

When he smiled back, Bailey lifted his hand and kissed it. He twisted his body toward her, touching his knuckles to her cheek. Then he drifted his fingers backward through her hair.

Bailey closed her eyes.

“Over here,” someone said, approaching.

The bright circular beam of a flashlight jounced through the grass toward them. When the officer reached them, he stooped over and asked, “What happened? Is he okay?”

“He’s been hit with a shovel,” Bailey answered. “He needs help.”

“I’m fine,” Eric murmured.

“He just came to,” Nancy added.

Without hesitation, Bailey told the officer, “A girl named Carla Cummings has been killed. She’s in that shed.” Bailey pointed. “A boy named Jackson Saxton is also dead. His body is in the corn. I don’t know where. Stuart Renly did it.”

Nancy said, “Bailey, what are you talking about?”

Several students leaned in closer to hear.

The officer asked Bailey, “Have you been drinking?”

Bailey shook her head. “No, sir. I haven’t.”

Eric Cady squeezed Bailey’s hand.

Bailey Howard squeezed his back.

The End

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