Slow Dance in Purgatory

18

“WHO’S SORRY NOW?”

Connie Francis - 1958





“The next thing I knew, the table was shaking and lunch trays were falling, and milk cartons were exploding – I kid you not! I literally got thrown right off the bench. There has been some really strange stuff going on around this school. Remember that day in the hallway? The lockers just started swinging, man. Crap was flying everywhere. Trevor even got a bloody nose. And we weren’t the only ones who saw it! You can ask Jacob and Tasha and Jordan. We were all there. Then, just before Christmas break, Dara was locking up the dance room, and the lights flickered off and on, and the radio turned on by itself and started flipping through different channels. She thought I was doing it. She tried to get out of the room and the door wouldn’t open. She was pissed, man! But I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

Derek was holding court again, something he always seemed to be doing. A bunch of his friends were gathered around his gym locker in different states of undress, changing their clothes for P.E. Shad was on the outside looking in, of course. He had P.E. with a bunch of the members of the football team and a few members of the basketball team. He had been thrilled about it at the beginning of the year, thinking he could make inroads with the guys, show them he was a gamer, and show them his skills. He became less and less thrilled as the year went on. He was always one of the last to be picked for teams, he and a few other freshmen were treated to almost weekly swirlies – being dunked head first in to a toilet while it’s being flushed, and getting thwacked with wet towels was a daily occurrence.

Shad tried to stay out of Derek’s line of sight and still listen in on the conversation. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but Derek was definitely riled up. Shad pulled his shirt over his head and caught his reflection in one of the locker room mirrors. He sucked in his belly and flexed his arms as hard as he could. Depressing. When was he gonna grow?

“….Maggie chick has been there every single time or involved in some way. Dara says the radio kept flipping over some Rod Stewart song with her name in it. Something is definitely off with that girl. I don’t care how fine she is. Dara says the whole dance team thinks she’s really weird.”

Shad jerked his head up when he heard Maggie’s name. In the process, he dropped his shirt on the wet floor and slammed his locker on his fingers.

“Ouch, man! Sheeeeiiit!” He pressed his hand to his mouth and grabbed up his shirt with his other. Somehow Maggie had gotten drug into Derek’s story, and it didn’t sound good. He pulled his shirt over his head, wincing at the big wet spot that stuck to his back, and walked around the row of lockers to where Derek and his friends were just getting ready to head out to the gym.

“So I’m thinking maybe this girl is into some scary stuff, like the cult, you know?”

“Yo, Derek,” Shad called, trying to be cool, “Maggie’s the nicest girl in the world. She’s not into anything strange, man!”

Derek smirked and slammed his gym locker, closing in on Shad with a few of his friends trailing behind him.

“Hey, guys! It’s crazy Maggie’s little friend. I think little Shad here needs a swirly, whaddayou guys think? Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him.”

Shad danced out of reach, his brain scrambling for a way to distract the conversation from Maggie and swirlies. He snatched up the first thing he could think of.

“You think she’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s freakin’ crazy. My grandpa says fifty years ago there was, like, a murder here inside our school. Two brothers died.” Derek and his friends stopped advancing. Shad continued, encouraged. He was so brilliant!

“One brother shot the other brother, and they fell over the balcony up on the third floor and landed right in the middle of the rotunda.” Shad noticed the guys were actually listening to him. They gathered around him, and he quickly warmed to the story.

“So the police come, and they see the one brother lying dead on the floor. My grandpa said his neck was broken. But the other brother….” Shad let his words hang in the air for maximum suspense. “The other brother was nowhere to be found.” The guys ooh’d and aah’d a little and leaned in.

“And get this. There was this pool of blood on the floor that the police were sure belonged to the 2 brother. There was a witness, see, and he swears both brothers fell over the balcony and were lying unconscious when he went for help. When he gets back with the police, the older brother is gone. So they searched the school up and down, and they couldn’t find anything. It was like he just vanished. My grandpa says a few days later the kid’s name was written on every chalkboard, like he was trying to tell them something.”

“Whatever, Jasper. Nice try.” Derek was waving him off, dismissing him as he walked toward the door connecting the gym to the men’s locker room. A few of the other guys moved to follow him. Shad tried again, eager to keep the attention he’d held just a second before.

“I’m dead serious, man! My grandpa has seen this guy….more than once! Here in the school…and he never ages. He always looks exactly the same – that’s how my grandpa knew he was a ghost. And he’s not the only one who’s seen him…. there are other people that have, too.” There was no way that Shad was going to tell them Maggie was one of those people, but Derek was listening again.

“This school has a ghost. That story I told you? 100 percent true! And all that strange stuff you’re talking about? It’s probably him.” Shad mentally high-fived himself on that bit of sheer genius. It had just popped right into his head. He continued. “I work here after school, you know. I’ve seen my share of scary shit, man.” Shad threw in the cuss word for good measure, knowing it made him sound more mature.

A shrill whistle blew, and Coach Tenney bellowed through the door. “Let’s go ladies! You’re all late! Get your pink panties out here now!”

Everybody headed for the door, all conversation ended for the time being.

“So, Shad. You’re on our team today.” Derek slung a heavy arm over his shoulders, wedging Shad up between him and Trevor as they walked. “You can tell me a little more about this ghost we got here at Honeyville High, right?”


Shad stuck the key in the side door and tried not to let the guys see that his hands were shaking. It took him two attempts, but they didn’t seem to notice. They were too busy laughing and flirting with the girls they had brought along. They had picked Shad up about twenty minutes before and made him sit behind the back seat in Derek’s mom’s suburban. The rest of the seats were crowded with several members of the football team and a few of their girlfriends. One of the girls had researched séances on line and had picked up a bunch of candles and other strange stuff for the big event. It was all stuffed in the back with Shad.

Shad had been excited just to come along. He knew he had been included because he had access to a key, but he ignored that small detail. The guys had been cool to him all week, ever since he’d told them about Johnny Kinross. He had even squeezed some more info out of his grandpa, and he’d exaggerated a little, too, making it possible for him to get a few more days mileage out of it. What good storyteller doesn’t?

In P.E. that morning, Trevor had pulled him aside and sworn him to secrecy. Then he had asked him, all serious and hush hush, if Shad could get them into the school that night for an exclusive ghost buster’s bash. Derek, Trevor, and a few of the guys had come up with a plan to call the ghosts of the dead boys and have a little fun in the process. Shad’s immediate reaction had been stone cold horror. There was no way he wanted to be in the school, at night, playing Ouija board games and contacting ghosts. What if they pissed Johnny Kinross off? Shad knew he existed, even if they didn’t. He had seen that message appear right before his eyes, and he wouldn’t soon forget it. But there was no way he could let Trevor know he was afraid. So he smiled, slapping Trevor’s hand, and told him he could absolutely get them into the school. He wasn’t going to let them down.

Gus thought he’d been invited to a party at Derek’s house, at least that’s what Shad told him. Grandpa Gus didn’t know Derek or the others very well, and it was easy to fudge on the details. His grandpa had fallen asleep in his big chair while watching something extremely boring on public television, and it had been a piece of cake to take his work keys from the rack by the door. He would return them later tonight when he got home, and Gus would be none the wiser. When they had honked for him at nine o’clock, he’d left right through the front door, as natural as you please. Grandpa Gus hadn’t even stirred

So now here he was, key in hand, opening the doors for ten of the most popular kids in school, hanging out with them, and scared to death. As soon as the door swung open, Derek was there, shoving past him, leading the way through the dim hallways and into the dark belly of the school. They didn’t turn on any lights; Shad was pretty sure it was to keep the girls a little scared, because the ladies were clutching the arms of the boys who had invited them, and the boys seemed to be enjoying every minute of it. Just wait until Johnny Kinross started messing with them. These guys wouldn’t last ten seconds. Shad longed for the lights. He was at the back of the pack, and he kept sending furtive glances over his shoulder.

He reminded himself again that he was making progress with the football team – and maybe, just maybe, tonight they would actually work some hocus pocus that rid the school and Shad of Johnny Kinross forever. Maggie would thank him later. Plus, since he’d told the guys the story of the ghost, nobody had said a thing about Maggie being strange. He didn’t want anybody giving her any trouble, even if he was so disgusted with her right now he almost wished he hadn’t saved her neck. It would serve her right if she was labeled a witch. Because she was definitely consorting with ghosts.

“So where are we gonna do this, Derek?” Trevor’s girlfriend giggled nervously, clutching Trevor’s hand as he stopped walking and turned to the ring-leader of the group, waiting for a response.

“We should do it in the rotunda. That’s where it happened right? I mean, what better place to summon the spirits of the dead than in the place they died?” Derek grabbed Dara and cackled maniacally, and a couple of the girls and even a few of the guys twittered nervously.

“Knock it off, Derek!” Dara wasn’t amused. She hadn’t forgotten how it felt to be locked in the dance room in the dark, unable to get out with eerie messages echoing around the room. She couldn’t believe she had agreed to come. Derek was way too devious and sneaky. She wouldn’t put it past him to stage something just to freak everyone out.

The rotunda was almost completely floor to ceiling in glass along the curved front side, and Shad spoke up from the back of the pack.

“You don’t want to do it in the rotunda, man. If anyone drives by the school they’ll see your candles flickering, and we’ll be busted that quick.”

“Hmmm, not a bad point, Shadrach.” Derek stroked his chin thoughtfully, the green of the exit sign leading to the third floor stairs flickering ghoulishly over his face.

“By the way, Shad….what are you still doin’ here? This is an adults only event. It’ll be way too scary for the kiddies, don’t you think? Come on guys. Let’s put the baby in his room.”

Before Shad knew what was happening, three of the guys had surrounded him, pinning his arms and legs and lifting him like they were going to use him as a battering ram.

“Whoa….? Hey, hey, guys!...Stop!... What the heck?...I got you in here! You can’t do this!” Shad sputtered, kicking and arching, trying to get free of three pairs of powerful arms. They moved quickly up the stairs and down the hall, Shad held securely between them.

“Where is the baby’s room?” Derek shouted gleefully. “Oh look, there it is!”

The senior lockers lined two of the third floor halls, and one of the boys who wasn’t carrying Shad smacked a locker dead center with his big fist. It swung open immediately.

“Works every time!” the kid crowed happily. Shad screeched and began begging in earnest.

“You can’t put me in there! It’s dark up here! I’ll suffocate! I’ll go crazy! What if I have to pee?” He thrashed desperately. His pleas went unheeded.

“Here you go, baby Shad! Nighty night!” Trevor shoved Shad’s upper body into the locker roughly as someone else bent his legs into the long narrow opening. For a moment, Shad thought he would be able to prevent them from shutting the door, and he scrambled desperately, trying to push his way back out. He almost wiggled free, but at the last second, Derek punched him hard in the stomach, and Shad collapsed, cradling his belly with his arms, gasping for air. Trevor wrenched Gus’s ring of keys from his front pocket, and with another heavy shove, Shad was forced back in to the locker. The door was slammed shut, closing over his horrified face.

“That’ll keep the little shit for a while. We’ll come back and get him when we’re done,” Derek chortled, slapping a few of the guys across the back. “What’d he think we were gonna do - let him hang with us indefinitely?”

One of the girls protested, “Get him out, guys. You’re so mean! We can’t just leave him up here all alone!” Shad could hear her faintly as the footfalls grew farther away. She must have been overruled or reassured, because no one came back and let him out. He yelled after them, begging them to change their minds, promising them that they would be sorry, but silence was his only response. Shad breathed slowly, trying to keep the hysteria from overpowering him. There were slats in the door. At least he wouldn’t die for lack of oxygen, which provided some small comfort, but it was very small comfort indeed.

The locker smelled like sweaty socks and beef jerky. The sneaker on his right foot was wedged at an odd angle, tweaking his ankle which was already throbbing like a bad tooth. He tried to pull his foot free, but didn’t have enough room to even scratch his butt. He wiggled his other foot until it rested on the bottom of the locker. Pressing down, he released his weight from the foot that was torqued and managed to relieve the pressure by several degrees. That was better. He tried butting his head into the locker door, thinking maybe he could pop it back open. It didn’t work, and before long he was seeing stars, and his head hurt almost as badly as his ankle.

“I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy..” Shad’s ring tone jangled merrily from his back pocket. His heart leaped joyfully in his chest. His phone was still in his pocket! He wiggled and shimmied violently, trying to work at least one of his arms down and around his body. His phone stopped ringing. He kept squirming and was just about there when his phone, loosened by his writhing and wiggling, dropped from his pocket and hit his left shoe with a dull thud. Shad felt the tears welling up in his eyes and clogging his throat.

“Super strength, super flexibility, super skills,” he repeated to himself, pushing the tears away. The phone started ringing again. There was no way he could squat down enough now to grab it. There wasn’t enough clearance for his knees to bend. He was going to have to work a miracle with his big feet. He put pressure back on his wedged foot and pulled the other foot back, pressing his heel into the side of the locker, wincing in pain he tried to peel his foot out of his shoe. Little by little he pulled his foot free.


Tasha placed the candles in a large circle, and she and the other girls lit them, one by one, until they reflected a burnished glow off the highly waxed stage. The boys sat in the center of the circle, ringed by the candles. They had decided on the auditorium because it was fairly close to the back entrance in case they had to make a speedy getaway, and there were no windows to reveal their clandestine activities to someone passing by, as Shad had so wisely pointed out before they had turned on him.

The boys had pulled out a Ouija board and were avoiding it studiously, waiting for the girls to finish setting the stage. Everyone was feeling a little spooked. The candlelight created flickering shadows and unsettling illusions dancing over the black curtains circling the stage. They huddled together uncomfortably, wondering what to do next, most of them wishing the whole thing was behind them. Derek had disappeared a few minutes earlier, and no one really wanted to take the initiative to start without him.

They all jumped, and one girl screamed when the big double doors swung open, and Derek trundled down the center aisle pulling a cooler of beer and some harder stuff that he’d stashed outside the service entrance earlier that evening. Everyone cheered at the sight of the booze, and the mood was immediately elevated. Cracking the tabs, the ten teenagers took long sips of liquid courage, and the amateur séance began.

They started asking simple yes and no questions. Are you a spirit? Did you die here? Are you haunting the school? Derek tried to control the responses, pushing and pulling the dial when he wanted a certain answer. Dara accused him of doing just that and slapped him, knocking his drink out of his hands. He had only drunk half of it, and it splashed over the stage in a wide arc, liberally dousing the curtains behind them. He just laughed and popped the tab on another. Dara stomped off to the corner and threatened to leave. However, she didn’t have her own wheels, and nobody was in the mood for her attitude. Plus, everyone had loosened up considerably, and they were all starting to enjoy themselves. They just ignored Dara, but made sure Derek wasn’t holding the board any longer.

“Are you Johnny Kinross?” Tasha asked, taking the lead in the questioning. The dial slowly spelled out ‘no.’

“Who are you?” Trevor piped in, sipping the foam off his third beer. Tasha repeated the question to the board. There was no movement on the board.

“Maybe we can only ask it yes and no questions,” Tasha wrinkled her nose doubtfully. None of them had ever played with a Ouija board before.

“What was the other guy’s name? The younger brother?”

“Billy, right?” Trevor offered.

“Are you Billy Kinross?”

The board spelled out N-O.

“Is your name Casper?” Someone asked sarcastically, laughing uproariously at their own joke.

The board didn’t respond.

“This is boring,” Derek burped. “That Shad kid is full of shit. I’ll bet he was pulling our chains all along.” He stood and approached his sulking girlfriend. He offered her a wine cooler, gallantly opening it for her and taking the first sip. After a few minutes they were giggling and kissing, all contention dissolved in cheap liquor and teenage lust.

After a few minutes, Tasha and Trevor had paired off, along with the other couple who had come. The Ouija board was forgotten for the moment as the party took a different turn. It wasn’t until a half hour or more had gone by, and the group was well on its way to being extremely drunk, that one of the football players, bored and girlfriend-less, decided to ask his own questions.

He giggled to himself as he asked a couple of lewd questions and got appropriately lewd responses. He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, using one of the low burning candles, rationalizing that if anyone smelled smoke in the big auditorium on Monday, they would never know who to blame. He took a deep drag and blew it out happily.

“Why didn’t anybody bring food, man? I’m starving,” he grumbled, leaning back over the Ouija board and trying to think of something else to ask. Maybe he would try to get a name out of the ghost. He wasn’t convinced there wasn’t one. Maybe Tasha just didn’t have the touch.

“Who are you?” He asked, tapping his ashes on the slippery floor. The dial started to slowly respond.

“Hey guys, I think it’s gonna give us a name!” he called out. But no one seemed especially interested in the ghost anymore. One of the football players was snoring loudly from the carpeted steps rimming the stage. The lone player finished his cigarette as the letters slowly spelled out….”

“We got a R, then an O. Hmmm. R-O-G…..” He tossed the butt aside, his eyes fixed on the board in front of him. Two more letters and the dial slid to a stop.

“Who the hell is Roger?” he puzzled, raising his voice in question.

The curtains behind him whooshed suddenly, making the sound a low flying plane makes as it passes overhead. A column of fire engulfed the alcohol soaked fabric and greedily lapped up the trail of harder liquor spilled across the stage. The curtains were old and dry, providing ideal fodder for the hungry flames. Another section of curtain ignited, and the inebriated students ran screaming and stumbling for the exit doors. Derek tripped over his sleeping teammate and slapped him awake, pulling Dara out behind him. With a quick glance around he assured himself that everyone was out.


Shad eventually managed to wedge his stocking clad foot in between the lid and the base of his phone, opening it and sending a ray of blue light gleaming up at him from the bottom of the locker.

“Hallelujah, and praise the Lord,” he celebrated briefly. He was sweating profusely, and he wiped his face against his tee-shirt clad shoulder that was smashed in to the back of the locker. Now came the really tough part. Maggie was on speed dial. If he could use a fine enough touch with his big toe he might be able to ring her up. Of course, he would have to press the speaker button too if she had any chance of hearing him.

Grunting and holding his breath, he punched at the keypad awkwardly. If only he could get his sock off! It created a floppy mess at his toes, making dialing impossible. Sliding his left foot to his right foot, he bore down on the floppy end of the sock and pulled. Little by little, wedging the excess sock under his other foot, and pulling in inch long increments, he was finally able to pull his bare foot free.

“You are Mr. Elastic Shadrach,” he told himself exuberantly. ‘Now we dial…” He stabbed at the buttons with his toes, managing to shut the phone three times and having to maneuver it back open each time. He managed to depress the speaker button, and then with another little stab, not too hard, not too soft, he got an audible ringing. From what he could see of the little display, the phone was calling Maggie.

“Please answer, please answer, please answer,” Shad begged. She didn’t answer. Groaning in frustration, his muscles shaking with exertion, he punched at the redial button with his cramping big toe.

Calling Maggie…..Calling Maggie…..Calling Maggie…..

“Hello?” Maggie’s voice had never sounded so good. No voice had ever sounded so good.

“Maggie!” Shad screamed. “Can you hear me?”

“Uh, yeah, Shad. Take me off speaker! You sound like you’re in a tin can!”

Shad burst into hysterical laughter. “You have no idea how close that is to the truth. Maggie! You have to come to the school, ASAP! You gotta get me out of here– “

Shad’s phone sounded that series of cascading tones that lets the owner know the battery is almost dead.

“Shad! I didn’t catch the last part. Did you say you’re at the school?” Maggie pressed her own phone to her head, trying to hear Shad through the waterfall of tones beeping in her ear.

Shad shouted down at his phone, his muscles quaking, and his voice cracking.

“Yes! I’m at the school. They stuffed me in a locker! You gotta get me out of here!” He shifted ever so slightly, attempting to alleviate the screaming pain in his weight bearing leg. Just a tiny adjustment and his foot snapped down on the lid, shutting the phone once more, denying him Maggie’s response.

“ARGHHHH!” Shad moaned in defeat. His phone was almost dead, and Shad was dead tired. Hopefully, Maggie heard enough information and would be coming soon. His phone started ringing almost immediately, but the phone was pushed too far back beneath the heel of his bottom foot now, and he couldn’t do anything but listen helplessly as it rang and rang. He wished futilely for smaller feet and giant miracles. He was going to need one or the other to get himself out of this mess, because he hadn’t told Maggie which locker he was in – or even which hallway.

He exhaled slowly, then inhaled deeply and repeated the process several more times. He just had to stay calm until Maggie came. He breathed in again and then stopped, sniffing the air in confusion. Was that smoke?