The Message-Chp2

It was raining cats and dogs outside and not the bright sunshine Jackie expected as soon as they done taking their things out of the locker and made their way out of the school entrance. Becka, who had her mother chaperon her to and from school everyday, saw her in the family car down the parking lot waiting for her. She waved to her mother and bid goodbye to the others before making a dash under the rain towards her ride, never daring to look back.

As they watched Becka disappear into the rainy road, they gave each other a decided look not to touch the library topic as they don’t want to think they are going insane. Jackie remembered that she often kept a spare umbrella in her locker just in case it was a rainy day, so she doubled back to her locker to get it. When she took out her umbrella from her locker and opened it to test if it’s still OK, she got the shock of her life as all of a sudden, dozens and dozens of wriggly worms, fresh and red, poured down all over her from inside the umbrella when she opened it. The worms fell onto the floor nineteen to the dozen with a squelch and started to multiply. Within seconds, the whole classroom was filled with squidgy worms that began to team up to devour Jackie, starting from her feet. Jackie yelled and made a dash to the nearest classroom she could find and jumped up onto the lecturer’s table, yelling even more as she watched the icky worms followed after her and began to gnaw on the table legs.

Ameera and Shah heard her screams and rushed to the classroom she was in. They were also totally shocked at the number of creepy crawlies dominating the classroom and were surrounding the table Jackie was standing on, trying to gnaw their way to her legs that looked like prime ribs to them. Weirdly enough, the worms’ train of thought were all focused on Jackie and were not paying attention to either one of the couple who were standing right at the door like easy prey. Jackie yelled her head off, not in fear, but of disgust.

“Come on! Jump from table to table towards the door and we’ll catch you!” yelled Shah, holding out her hand and kept her feet well away from passing through the classroom door. As much as she wanted to use the worms’ obliviousness towards their existence, there was no way she would ever want to set foot on any one of those creepy crawlies. Jackie did as she was told. One by one, she jumped, getting nearer to the door. The worms were also following her like a fox chasing its prey. Ameera and Shah got hold of her hands and supported her down.

“Run! And don’t look back!” Ameera yelled, heading for the school entrance. Shah and Jackie followed suite. They did not stop until they were outside the school gates. In a panicked state, Jackie had almost forgotten to use the umbrella to cover them from the rain. As she shielded her and her friends from getting any wetter than they already have, they willed themselves to look back and felt the school looked a whole lot sinister and spooky than they had ever known.

“I always knew this school is ‘unclean’,” Jackie panted, gulping down her bottle of water.

“It always had been unclean throughout the years,” snorted Shah, panting like a runner who just finished running a marathon.

“Let’s go home. I don’t think I want to come to school tomorrow,” Ameera lamented, cowering away from the eerie building behind her lover.

So the girls walked until they reached a junction. Since Shah drove to school and Ameera’s flat was about 10 minutes walk from school and Jackie took the bus that situated outside Ameera’s housing area, Shah kissed her sweetheart goodbye and took the right to the parking lot while Ameera and Jackie took the left. They waved goodbye and went on their way under the increasing rain and loud bangs of thunder and flashes of lightning. Jackie couldn’t help feeling disgusted over the recent incident. Ameera tried to calm her down.

“Cool, man! It’s not so bad. You’ve finally got out of danger, haven’t you?”

“Well, I can’t help it! How would you feel if dozens of squiggly worms showered on you so suddenly? Now I know how my cousin Evita feels the last time she took worm-killing pills and crapped out her tapeworm.”

“It’ll be fine. Let’s just go back home, take a nice hot shower and everything will be fine. It’ll turn out alright in the end, you’ll see.”

“Hope you’re right.”

Just when they thought everything was back to normal, they were struck with another phenomenon. They had to take the overhead bridge to cross the road, and while nothing occurred when they went up and walked along the bridge, but when they went down the bridge at the opposite road, they found out that it dragged longer and longer. No matter how fast they went down, they were always a few meters away from solid ground.

“What’s this?” Ameera exclaimed astonishingly, “When are we going to get down? It’s not ending anywhere!”

“Here we go again!” Jackie groaned, walking even faster down the stairs but in vain. They were still nowhere nearer the ground.

“It’s scaring me, Jackie,” Ameera whined as she shook Jackie’s arm, “how are we gonna get down?”

“I think we better jump.”

“Jump?!”

“Do you want to keep walking down for the rest of your life?”

Ameera didn’t need to be asked twice. They both shut their eyes tight, counted till three together and jumped. Surprisingly it wasn’t a long drop and they were thankful after their feet finally touched the ground at the bottom of the stairs. Funny how it felt like eternity when they walked down the stairs but took seconds to jump down.

Ameera and Jackie stared at each other in silence. They shrugged and went again in their separate ways; Jackie to the bus stop and Ameera back to her flat. None of them said goodbye for fearing that it would be the last time they’ll ever meet.