Chapter 59 – The Instrument of Her Own Demise – Erica Henson

During lunchtime I was called to the office at an unusual time. My irregular shifts as an office assistant were somehow becoming regular. This time, the job I had been tasked with was something unusual even for an office assistant of this school. Jackie gave me the order to ‘escort’ Ms. Logan to the front office. In reality she wanted me to make sure that Ms. Logan didn’t try to bolt. Apparently she had weaseled her way out of their last appointment.

Ms. Logan was as twitchy as could be expected on our walk over to the main office. Jackie was increasingly on edge after the whole basement fiasco with Megan and Brittney. It was like she was expecting that she hadn’t heard the last of it. Although Megan’s video was taken off her blog Jackie’s mind couldn’t be soothed. What made the situation worse was that Zoe had pointed out a re-upload of the same video. Jackie was able to get that re-upload taken down with a DMCA notice with ‘help’ from Megan, but it was possible there were more re-uploads out there.

Now that Megan and Brittney were back from their one-week suspension rumors about their story was circulating around the school even more. No one knew the details of why they were suspended before. Now that Megan and Brittney were out telling their side of the story an entirely different picture was painted. The desperate attempts to hide information about this mysterious school basement only made the mystery that more alluring. Megan was the queen of the rumor mill and it was no surprise that whispers were beginning to take shape about why the basement was off-limits. No one was buying the ‘structurally unsound’ reason that was given. The entire school was structurally unsound.

The girls circulating these rumors weren’t the only ones curious. Zoe and I were curious as well. Zoe was more aggressive about her curiosity, however. She wanted me to push the question to Ms. Sampson directly and ask about the details. She tried to talk to Ms. Logan privately and came back with nothing about the basement other than Ms. Logan shouting to never mention it again. Ms. Logan was far too touchy to be talked to about the basement. In fact, she was far too touchy to be talked about with almost anything. That prompted my curiosity in the one person that could talk to her without setting her off. Holly Hayfield.

Holly wouldn’t tell me a single thing about the basement, even though she had been down there personally. Without her saying it aloud, I got the distinct feeling that she had been scared straight by Jackie. Holly and her friends weren’t going to talk to us openly about the basement. Zoe went to confront Naomi over it but as soon as she mentioned the basement she had Zoe tossed out of their hideout. If I wanted to learn more about the basement then convincing Holly Hayfield was the only viable option for me to turn to.

When Ms. Logan and I made it to the front office Jackie was waiting just outside her office for us. Ms. Logan froze up upon sight of her.

“Come inside my office,” Jackie demanded, “Not that I need to invite you, seeing as how you went in without my permission before.”

“I-it was supposed to be a one-time thing.” Ms. Logan said in her defense, “I… I was planning on returning the key, I swear!”

“Get inside here, right now.” Jackie said like a parent talking to a child.

Ms. Logan meekly obliged. She lowered her head like a scared animal as she walked by Jackie and into the office. Jackie looked at me.

“Stay by the front office door. If anyone comes by, tell them I’m busy.” She said.

“I will.” I said.

She turned to follow Ms. Logan into the office. When she closed the door I heard the lock click sharply behind me. Was she still expecting Ms. Logan to run? Part of me wanted to use the empty cup on the front desk to listen up against the door. There was no office assistant on duty since lunch was currently in session, but if someone coincidentally walked in I’d be busted. Instead, I sat on the front of the desk casually, but strained to listen in on their conversation.

The conversation started out soft, but the tone of their voices carried the weight of the conversation. Ms. Logan must’ve been sobbing, weeping as she tried to defend herself before an angry Jackie Sampson. Jackie’s voice wasn’t loud initially. Rather, her voice started out controlled, yet venomous. Over time the both of them gave into their raw emotions and they began to yell. I could make out a few words, mostly from Jackie.

“…Promise…!” Jackie shouted, “You Promised!”

I couldn’t hear the context of this promise, but I assumed it was about Ms. Logan promising to not go into the basement or something. However, Ms. Logan’s high pitched retort took me by surprise.

“What about your promise?” She screamed.

After that, communication between the two broke down. They started shouting at each other in such an incohesive manner that I couldn’t make out a single word. It was amazing to hear. I had never heard Jackie shout like that. I was beginning to understand why Jackie wanted me to act like a sentry. They were screaming like my parents used to back when they were considering a divorce. Was the situation with the basement that serious? What could cause them to scream at each other like this?

The situation came to an abrupt end when the door unlocked and Ms. Logan came running out. She ran passed me without any acknowledgement. Her face was filled with tears as she ran out. A flying coffee mug launched from Jackie’s office nearly hit Ms. Logan on the way out. The coffee mug slammed against the office wall and broke into many pieces.

In order to make myself useful while I was there I decided to clean up the mess. I grabbed the nearby trash bin and brought it over to the remnants of the broken coffee mug. I only managed to clean a little of it up before Jackie came over. At first I thought she would stop me. Instead, she got down on her knees and helped me pick up the mess. Her face was filled with emotion so I didn’t want to bug her with any of my obvious questions.

Together we cleaned up the mess in silence. When we were done she didn’t bother with an explanation about what had just happened. Instead, she nodded over to her desk.

“Come into my office. You can use the hand sanitizer on my desk.”

“Okay.” I said.

Inside her office she went over to her chair and sat down. She gestured towards the door as I walked in. I closed the door in the hopes that this finally meant I would get some answers. I used the hand sanitizer on her desk and sat down in the chair just in front of it. Jackie leaned back in her office chair, staring at the ceiling with an obvious look of aggravation. She was stroking her fingertips against her forehead like she was trying to suppress a migraine.

“It’s possible that more people went down into the basement before Megan’s video.” Jackie said. “Apparently Abby went down into the basement the week before we found out about Megan. She says she remembers locking the cellar door but I can’t believe a word she says anymore.”

“If someone did go down there before Megan…” I started to say.

“Then this could be much worse than I imagined. At least with Megan and Brittney I was able to handle them quickly. It’s possible someone saw Abby go into the basement and followed her in. Of course, Abby won’t admit to anything. If someone else went down there then we need to find out. Have you heard anything else about the basement? Anything I should know about…?”

“The whole school is talking about it.”

“What…?”

“I guess you wouldn’t hear much personally since you’re the vice principal. Ever since the two girls you suspended came back to school everyone has been in an uproar about it. The fact that Megan and Brittney were suspended over the basement has everyone curious about it. They want to know why.”

“It isn’t safe down there.”

“No one buys that. Everyone thinks it’s a cover-up answer for something bigger. People even mistakenly tried to ask Ms. Logan about it.”

“Which people…?”

“A lot of people,” I said, “Even Zoe tried to ask Ms. Logan about it. Everyone wants to know what’s down there.”

“There’s nothing down there… Not anymore…”

“That’s not what people are saying.”

“What are they saying?” She asked in a grim tone, almost like she didn’t want to know the answer.

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Just tell me,” She demanded.

“They’re saying that the reason students aren’t allowed down there is because that’s where the Killing Cat dwells.”

Jackie let out a sarcastic laugh.

“Like I said, you wouldn’t believe it.” I said.

“I can’t believe that dumb urban legend still…”

“That’s not all of it,” I said to cut her off. “The full narrative is that several times in the school’s history someone would discover the basement and wander into it. One-by-one girls would go missing beneath the school, acting as a sacrifice to the Killing Cat. That’s why they say no one has seen the true Killing Cat in years. So as long as the sacrifices are made in the basement then the evil spirit doesn’t come up.”

Jackie shook her head and smiled.

“This sounds like something out of ancient superstition. Who wastes their time coming up with this drivel? Please tell me high school girls don’t actually believe this nonsense.”

“I talked to three girls from my homeroom about it yesterday. I overheard them talking about it and they believe it with all their heart. That isn’t even the worst of it. Those three girls believed that there is a conspiracy within the teaching staff. Some people believe that you and several other teachers are involved in this.”

“Involved…? How…?”

“Zoe was the one that helped me figure that out for myself. Ever since she published that story about not going into the basement for you she’s been getting people writing back to her. One girl from the occult club has been emailing Zoe everyday about it.”

“Occult club…?”

“They’re a group of weirdoes that believe in witches, magic, and whatnot. It isn’t an official club, of course, but there are two girls in it. No one I know by name.”

“Continue…”

“They compiled a list of potential victims taken by the Killing Cat. One supposed victim was a girl from your senior year in high school. What was the name they said…? Mary…? Madeline…?”

“Malorie…” Jackie said in a whisper. “Her name was Malorie.”

“Did you know her?” I asked.

Jackie stood up and walked over to the window. She covered her face with her hand and sighed heavily. I couldn’t see her face from my perspective but I could feel just how tired she was. This entire situation had placed a serious toll on her well-being. She turned back to me with a heavy-hearted look.

“Are you going to the newspaper club this afternoon?”

“I usually do while I’m waiting on you to finish your appointments.”

“Good, tell Zoe to email me directly. I want to know who is in this so-called occult club. They’re spreading rumors that will damage the school’s reputation. This whole Killing Cat story needed to die long ago. I need their names.”

My conversation in Jackie’s office ended the moment the lunch bell rang. Since I missed out on lunch Jackie gave me money for the vending machine. She also wrote a notice so that I could be late to class. By the time I got a bottle of juice and some chips from the cafeteria vending machine the entire room had cleared out. I was the only one left alone. I was left with these things on my mind. With the way Jackie was acting towards the rumors it almost made me feel like the Killing Cat rumors were true.

Of course I didn’t believe in such superstitions, at least not to that degree. I never believed in monsters hiding in closets, and creatures hunting people out in the woods. What I did believe in, at least growing up, was haunting spirits. For a lot of my earlier life I lived with my grandmother while my parents were fighting. She was a rigid, miserable old bat. Every time I did something even slightly wrong she’d threaten me with the wrath of the gods. She was superstitious like no one else was in my family.

“If you don’t start behaving like a proper young girl then I’ll haunt you long after I’m gone!” She’d say to me.

She passed away while I was young and unfamiliar with the concept of death. For years I thought death was merely a natural metemorphisis from the corporeal to the ethereal. My relationship with my parents was strained and so I never learned from them. Years of seeing ghosts in media had me believing that life after death was more like an unchained spirit free to roam the earth. Only I felt that my grandmother was personally haunting me for being such a bad girl. Sometimes as a kid I’d misbehave just to talk to my grandmother’s spirit again. Naturally my elementary school teachers thought I was completely mad, watching me talk to ghosts in the detention room.

By the time I came to Meredith’s High School for troubled girls my superstitious phase had left me. When I first heard the story of Judith Meredith and the Killing Cat I thought it was nonsense. Yet the story was so popular that I’d often pretend to be interested just for the sake of fitting in. At one point I accompanied some friends on a quest to find the Killing Cat. We turned up with nothing, obviously, but the story felt more real to me after that. Now, after this basement fiasco, it felt even more possible.

I spent most of that afternoon fantasizing about evil spirits and poltergeists. In one way it was like returning to my childhood. Back then my fantasizing was born out of naivety and ignorance. Now my dreaming was the result of fear and mystery. There were multiple girls that went missing at our school across decades of time. Our school was known for its mythology. Maybe the ghosts weren’t real, but a mystery in the basement far beneath the school certainly was.

After school I was headed for Zoe’s newspaper club to relay the message from Jackie. On my way over I got a call.

“Come to the rooftop garden,” Holly said, “I’ll text you a picture of how to get here. Don’t keep me waiting because I can’t stay here long.”