Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 14

The growl was loud, almost ground shaking; whatever was out there was angry… and dangerous. Layne whimpered and moved over to Ji-Yeong and I. He was shaking so much, I thought that he might keel over from a heart attack.

“Come here Layne,” I offered him my hand, which he immediately took. Each time the growl came, Layne squeezed my hand tightly, his eyes were shut tight.

“Are you guys sure that that isn’t you?” Poppy whimpered, “I really want that to be you…” She pleaded with us. She was truly desperate, and despite her usually being very courageous, right now this was the most scared I’d ever seen her.

Ji-Yeong shook his head at her question, opening his arms for her but letting go of my hand in the process. Poppy rushed over, into his arms, and hugged him tightly. I snapped my head away from their embracing, irritated that he was holding her, over me. It was kind of dumb, I knew that we’d only kissed, why was I getting jealous over something like that. He even TOLD me that he liked me. I was acting like some kind of petulant child.

The growling slowly subsided and I heard heavy footsteps thudding away from the door and down the hallway. I let out a sigh of relief, hearing Layne copy me.

“Should we go and check outside the door?” Ji-Yeong asked the group, which Poppy viciously shook her head too, but I decided that it would probably be a good idea to do so and make sure that the monster was completely gone.

I had barely taken two steps when Poppy yelled and grabbed me by the arm.

“Wait! Instead of looking outside of the door, why don’t we call Skye again and ask her what to do? She’s always looking up urban legends, I’m sure she’ll know how t handle this.” She reasoned, to which I appreciated. Even though I agreed with Ji-Yeong, I’d really rather not open the door and end up coming face to face with whatever had been out there. I turned around and joined them by the far away wall. Poppy had already grabbed her iPad and was trying to call Skye back.

~

It took a while, Poppy had to call her back multiple times, but finally, Skye accepted the video call.

“Why the hell are you calling me again?” She grumbled angrily like she was really pissed that we’d called her up. Poppy had probably interrupted her sleep. “It’s late, I was asleep-”

“Skye, I love you and all but shut up and listen. We really need you to tell us more about that shadow creature that is “supposedly” at our school,” Poppy demanded, cutting her friend off. Surprisingly, her voice was firm, commanding, when just a little while ago, it had been trembling with fear.

“Wait a minute…” Skye trailed off, her eyes narrowed, and she looked like she was trying to look past us. “Are you in the school right now?!” She sounded genuinely sounded worried for us. Maybe… What we thought had been an urban legend was actually her telling us a true story. I shook my head, not wanting to believe that, obviously it was just some i***t f*****g with us. “Guys get out of there now. You have to get out of there immediately.”

“What do you mean?” Ji-Yeong asked her.

“Ok, so you know how the school has a ban on anyone entering the school late at night?” Everyone except for Ji-Yeong nodded, “Well, before that there used to be a bunch of teachers and janitors who would stay late, and they’d end up either going missing or they were found torn apart!” She whisper-yelled at us. “I can’t believe you went in there, what the hell is the matter with you?” Skye was completely furious but seemed to mostly be directing her rage towards Poppy. I didn’t know if she was angry because she was worried or what.

“What are you talking about? I’ve never heard about anything like that happening in our school,” Layne spoke up for the first time in ages. I guess he’d finally found his voice now.

“The reason you haven’t heard about it is that the school’s kept it hushed. Who would want to go to a private school where people die or go missing? No one!” She was definitely right about that. If I had heard that about this school, I would have begged my parents not to send me here. “You guys really need to get out of there immediately.”

“Wait a minute.” Ji-Yeong said, drawing all of our attention to him, “If the school has been keeping everything hushed then… how the hell do you know about it?” He accused her. I turned back to the screen and saw that Skye was upset.

“How dare you-” Skye started, she was all hunched up like she was about to spring out of the screen and strangle him. Without realizing it, I stepped in front of Ji-Yeong, bringing her attention to me.

“Calm down everyone. She probably knows this because her dad’s the principal. Right Skye?” Poppy questioned her, cautiously. Skye sighed and nodded slowly.

“Yeah. My dad’s the principal. Recently, I think a month ago, a janitor stayed after and he went missing. My dad was freaking out about it and trying to keep it hidden, but I overheard it while he was on the phone with his lawyers.” She explained.

“And so, then you decided to research more about this school? And that’s where you found out about the urban legend?” Skye nodded as I came up with my theory of what happened next. “Now… How do you expect us to get out of here? This thing keeps chasing after us and Ji-Yeong can’t exactly run.” I asked. If she told us to just leave him behind I’d definitely fight her if we made it out of here.

“Well, when I first found the legend I tried to find some more stories on it. Unfortunately, the closest things that I could find on it were stories about shadowy ghosts and poltergeists.” We all went silent, trying to make sure we wouldn’t miss out on a single thing. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. “I’ve read that salt and iron can keep them back, by disrupting their energy. So hopefully it can work on whatever that thing is,” I nodded, I do hope that those solutions would work on whatever it was.

“Wait, but do we even have those things here? I’m pretty sure salt is out of the picture unless they have a hidden supply in the cafeteria. And do we even have anything made of iron that we can use?” Layne wondered aloud.

“Maybe they have some iron skillets in the cafeteria that we can use? I mean they do cook actual food here, unlike in public schools.” Poppy mentioned, getting up from her seat. I did a double take, when did she sit down? I had totally forgotten that our school cooked food instead of buying it like most schools did.

“So that might mean the school has salt!” Ji-Yeong brought up. He’s right. This could work.

“It really sounds like you guys are wanting to leave our very safe classroom and walk all the way down to the cafeteria… I really, really, don’t like that idea…” Layne muttered.

“It really isn’t a good idea but maybe if we classroom hop, it’ll be safer for us instead of just running straight for it,” I said, finally speaking up. I rested my chin on my fist as I thought, “If we do that every time we hear whatever’s coming for us, then we should be able to reach the cafeteria without it getting us.”

“That’s good and all but some of the classrooms are probably locked. What would we do about that? And what if we came across a hallway where every single classroom is locked? What then?” Poppy questioned me, “You were pretty lucky to find that room when you were with Ji-Yeong. But luck runs out.”

“She’s not wrong. We were pretty lucky.” Ji-Yeong agreed with her. Hey, we kissed Ji-Yeong, you should be on my side, not hers. I felt betrayed. I laughed at myself, what a dumb little jokey thought. Layne noticed my little laugh and glared at me like I’d gone crazy. He probably wasn’t wrong in that aspect, who wouldn’t go just a little bit crazy in a situation like this.

“Fine then. What do you think we should do then Poppy? Because I don’t hear any other ideas,” I demanded. I wasn’t pissed at her, just a little angry. There were no other ideas being presented, especially from her, and she just shut down mine.

She huffed and threw her hands in the air.

“I don’t f*****g know. I just would rather us not get caught by some psychopathic ghost thingy because we’re stuck outside of a locked classroom.”

“Y’all need to shut the hell up. I think I might have an idea.” Skye stated, cutting me off from arguing more with Poppy.