"Yes, Mrs. Page!" came all voices in a single voice. "Very good. You, Mr. Cary," she said to the gym teacher, "will guard the door."
"Yes, Mrs. Page," Mr. Cary said halfheartedly. I could almost feel her glare at him in the dark before he repeated, with much more enthusiasm, "Yes, Mrs. Page!"
"Good."
I heard the clop-clop of her making her way down the stairs.
There came a loud dull bang on the cellar door. "Mrs. Page?" Mr. Cary called out in the dark.
"Ignore it."
"Yes, Mrs. Page."
"The end is nigh!" came another voice in the dark. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord!"
"Margaret Gray," Mrs. Page said sternly, "be quiet."
"And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory!"
"Amen!" answered Priscilla Ralston's voice.
"Ms. Ralston! Ms. Gray!" Mrs. Page commanded.
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"And he cried mightily with a strong voice," Margaret Gray continued, "Babylon the great is fallen!"
"Mrs.
Carmody
," Mrs. Page ordered, "shut that woman up!"
I heard scuffling in the dark, and then Mrs.
Carmody's
voice cried out. Someone breathing hard pushed through the crowd, nearly knocked me down.
"Stop that woman!" Mrs. Page shouted.
At the top of stairs Mr. Cary gave a cry.
"Repent!" Margaret Gray shouted from the darkness at the top of the stairs. "Turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations!"
"Amen!" cried Priscilla Ralston.
Mr. Cary shouted again, and then I heard the bar scrape against the door, heard it drop in the dark.
"Stop her!" Mrs. Page shouted, adding to Mr. Cary's own protests.
The door flew in on its hinges, showing Margaret Gray, rail thin, standing tall.
"Enter, angels of the Lord!"
She stepped back, leaving the doorway filled with skeletons.
At once everyone began to scream.
Mr. Cary appeared in the doorway above, trying to block the entrance of the creatures. One of them held something aloft, a large piece of cut glass, it looked like, and slashed it down at him.
He cried out and fell.
Margaret Gray moved back down the stairs, pushed her way back through the crowd. Her face was radiant.
At the top of the stairs the skeletons hesitated.
There were four of them. One stepped in, tentatively, lowered its head to look down into the basement. Its movements were reptilian, almost.
It backed up, barked a laugh, said something to the others, and went away.
While the others blocked the entrance Mrs. Page once again bulled her way through the crowd of girls. She stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked up. Mr. Cary was halfway down, panting, holding his right side.
"Mr. Cary," Mrs. Page said, "you make your way back to Mrs.
Carmody
. She'll take care of you."
Before Mr. Cary could speak, Mrs. Page stood and climbed the rest of the steps. At the top she faced the skeletons squarely.
"You will leave immediately!" she shouted in her most commanding voice.
The creatures stepped back, then one of them leaped forward, brandishing a long sliver of broken glass.
Mrs. Page stared intently at the specter for a moment, then gasped. "Mr. Carlucci!"
`"That's right," the skeleton said. "Caretaker at Withers, 1904 to 1980."
"When you died . . ." Mrs. Page gasped.
"
Hahl
" the specter cried, and slashed Mrs. Page across the face.
Mrs. Page screamed, threw her hands to her face, and the other skeletons leaped upon her then, forcing her down onto the steps. I saw her legs kicking from beneath the pile. I heard her scream once, then say, "Girls!" before a second scream was followed by silence.
The room had compacted away from the stairway. Weeping girls were squeezed toward one corner.
Mr. Cary still lay panting at the bottom of the stairs. Now the skeletons were upon him. He shouted once, hoarsely, and was silent.
At the top of the steps the reptilian-looking skeleton who had left reappeared, carrying a large, dull red spouted can.
"Leave," he said, and the other skeletons abandoned Mr. Cary's bloodied body and remounted the stairs.
The one with the can twisted off the spout top and came halfway down the steps, pouring liquid out as he retreated to the top. He produced a box of matches, lit one, and dropped it onto the stairway.
"Have a hot time, ladies." He laughed, and the others laughed, backing away from the doorway. Above, out in the halls, there was still noise, the sound of breaking glass.
The entire top of the stairway roared up into flame. The cellar began to fill with dense smoke, and those girls not screaming began to cough.
"Repent!" Margaret Gray's voice came from the back of the room. "Repent!"
"Run with me, Claire," Mrs. Garr said, close by.
To my surprise she ran straight at the stairway, pulling me up after her.
As we reached the flames I felt her nearly lift me off my feet, cradling me against her. I felt the world go blindingly hot around me, felt flame against my armâand then we were out of the fire, tumbling to the floor in the hallway upstairs.
"Up, Claire, quickly," Mrs. Garr said.
She yanked me to my feet and shoved me into a nearby door with frosted glass set into the frame. It was the ladies' room. The lights were out in it. She closed the door and held me against the wall as a figure passed outside.
The pressure of her hands on me loosened, and I heard her gasp under her breath, "Oh, God, oh, God. . ."
Outside, down the steps, we heard the horrible keen of screaming. There was the roar of crackling fire, followed by a whump, and a larger scream.
Mrs. Garr held her shaking hands over my ears.
More figures passed by. One of them stopped in front of the frosted glass. I saw the shadow of a skeleton. The door opened inward.
Mrs. Garr drew me away from it, pressed me against the wall.
A skeletal head looked straight past us, into the room. This close, I saw a faint outline around the bones, could almost make out features. The skeletal hand reached for the light switch, inches from where Mrs. Garr and I stood.
Outside, another skeleton stopped, said, "Not in here!"
The skeleton with its hand on the light switch laughed, turned away, let the door close.
Smoke rolled in under the door.
I felt Mrs. Garr tense beside me.
Pressing me to stay where I was, she moved away from me into the darkness. She walked to the far side of the room, stopped in front of the long window there. Quietly, she raised it up a few inches.
I had pressed one of my own hands over one ear, my other ear against the wall, to block out the screaming that came from the cellar outside.
Another whump sounded, and most of the cries were silenced at once.
Across the room Mrs. Garr motioned for me to come to her.
I found that I couldn't move. I was rooted to my spot against the wall.
Mrs. Garr came to me, gently pulled me toward the window.
"We have to climb out," she whispered.
At this part of the building the ground below sloped down to the underground garages, putting us effectively two floors up.
"I'm going to lower you down," Mrs. Garr said.
I looked out into the night. There was a short stand of bushes seemingly a great distance below. To the right a pool of light illuminated the tarmac in front of the garage doors. There were cries off on the grounds, and now a pair of skeletal figures ran by in the short distance, toward the playing fields.
Mrs. Garr bent down and looked into my eyes. "You have to, Claire."
I hesitated, then nodded.
She helped me climb out on the sill, then lowered me over the side, holding me by my arms, then my hands.
I looked down; the bushes still looked very far away. Mrs. Garr let go of my hands.
I fell, closing my eyes, and landed in the midst of the bushes. I felt a burning tear up one side, but my legs hit firmly and I rolled down onto the ground, unhurt.
Above, Mrs. Garr was looking down at me, then out over the grounds. She made a quick motion and disappeared into the bathroom.
Three more figures appeared, closer, walking toward the garages. When they got into the pool of light, I could distinctly make out the smoky outlines that surrounded their skeletons. They were Mrs. Page, Mr. Cary, and the old caretaker, Mr. Carlucci.
They stopped under the light, talked. Mr. Cary laughed. He then pulled up one of the garage doors and the three of them entered.
Above, Mrs. Garr reappeared.
She climbed out over the edge of the bathroom window, lowered herself, and let go.
She landed beside me, hard. She rolled toward the building, pulling me with her into the bushes, as Mrs. Page reappeared at the garage door, looking around. She looked above us at the open window of the bathroom. I looked up, too. Flames were shooting out into the night.
Mrs. Page went back into the garage.
Mrs. Garr was rubbing her ankle, wincing. Carefully, she stretched her leg out, moved the ankle one way, then the other.
"Thank God, it's not broken," she whispered.
She held me close as another sound came from the garage.
In the pool of light appeared the back end of Mrs. Page's car, a big black sedan.
The car backed out, turned, and pulled away to the right.
Mrs. Garr was standing, helping me up, when Mrs. Page came out of the garage and saw us.
For a moment both Mrs. Page and Mrs. Garr stood frozen in spot. It was then that Mrs. Garr saw the shadowy outline around Mrs. Page's skeleton and said, "Mrs. Page?"
The specter ran at us, out of the garage light, and leaped at Mrs. Garr.
Mrs. Garr was thrown to the ground. Making a panting sound, the skeleton beat at her with its fists. Mrs. Garr threw it aside, tried to rise. Her ankle collapsed as Mrs. Page jumped onto her again. The skeleton held her down, reached for a nearby stone, and raised it to strike her.
There was another, larger rock, nearby. I picked it up, raised it with difficulty above my head, and brought it down on the skeleton's skull.
I saw a fissure of cracks in the skull break away from the point of impact, and Mrs. Page collapsed, then evaporated into a mass of powder.
Mrs. Garr rose. "We have to go, Claire," she said. "We'll go to my house, find my husband."
I followed her limping form toward the open garage.
Flames were licking from nearly every window of Withers by now. The screams had been silenced. Off away from the grounds sirens still wailed, and I heard the sound of distant honking horns and police sirens.
Mrs. Garr and I entered the garage.
It was empty.
"Oh, God," Mrs. Garr said. Then she turned to me. "We'll have to be very quiet, Claire, and get to my car. It's around front, in the main parking lot."
I nodded.
We set off, keeping close to the building.
As we rounded the far corner Mrs. Garr held back. I caught a glimpse. The grounds in that direction were covered with skeletons. I saw one specter help another from a broken cellar window. Both were charred, covered with soot. .
'The other way, Claire," Mrs. Garr said.
We walked back past the garage and circled around the far side of Withers. We kept as close as we could to the building. High above, fire had reached the top floor. There were crashes. The stone walls where we walked were warm to the touch.
We reached the front of the building, stopping once to hide from a single passing skeleton. I looked out across the open lawns to the parking lot, far in the distance.
"Can you run, Claire?"
I nodded, wondering if Mrs. Garr could run, with her ankle.
She could. The area before us looked deserted, and we set off briskly, Mrs. Garr hobbling slightly, holding my hand.
Out of breath, we made it to the parking lot. Mrs. Garr fitted her key to her car and I got into the front seat next to her.
We pulled out of the lot, heading down the long, tree-lined drive. Behind us, Withers burned mightily, fire pushing up at the sky. I noticed for the first time that it was a beautiful night, that the moon and stars were out.
As we approached the front entrance Mrs. Garr braked to a halt.
"Oh, my God."
The massive gates of Withers had been closed and locked. Completely blocking the road, even if the gate had been open, was the crashed remains of Mrs. Page's huge black sedan, still steaming.