Story-a-day #1: Little devils

Little devils
by Saul Hudson

Going back to school (to work, nowadays she had to think of it as work) so early proved to be a mistake – a very bad mistake, actually – but Annette Knott didn’t like admitting to her mistakes.

            And I won’t be admitting to this one, she thought simply enough as she sat behind a small oak desk overlooking a modest class of errant eleven to twelve year olds.

            Joe Chamberlin, the principle of this delightful little hell-hole, had questioned her return with something akin to doubt. He had not been the only one unduly concerned, but his had been the only voice not to have been raised behind closed doors or muttered behind cupped hands. And she was thankful for that. Thankful he’d chosen to question her outright and not judge without first ever asking the questions she knew he must. Either way, they had a right to be concerned, she decided. Although in her humble opinion such concerns should never have lingered.

           

            Besides, hadn’t normal service finally been resumed?

    

    Yes, sir, indeed it had.

            

            No, they had nothing left to fear. Everything was just A okay.

            

            Anyway, it had been her idea to return back to the faces to have driven her so bat shit crazy in the first place – a and there were two reasons for this. The first, and perhaps the strongest motivation of all, was in feeling she felt as if she belonged that desk and still had a duty of care to the reckless rabble. But weren’t those reckless little wretches the reason you lost your mind the first time round, Annette? Oh, no, not at all, she would say, I just got a little confused that’s all. But I’m over it now, my doctor told me so, and I’m ready to get back into the saddle again.

          

           The second reason, and this was a far more personal, was that there was nowhere else she felt quite at home than behind the desk of class 4C. They had offered her another position with far more sedate children, but she had declined the shift and stated, simply, she still had things she wanted to see her old students first achieve. It was imperative, in fact. They could move her afterwards, if they so wished, but couldn’t they agree – just this once – to let her see the year out? Couldn’t they see there was nothing left to fear? She had been confused, nothing more or less, but she was back on track now; fighting fit and ready to go.

           
            Principle Joe Miller had smiled a lot at first and did his best to quell the idle chatter from the teachers’ lounge. He felt confident the bad dreams she said had plagued her in her dark days had finally ceased. But the smile hadn’t lingered long. He had seemed less convinced as time passed, less inclined to believe her reoccurring assurances. In her turn Annette did all she could to convince him of his foolishness. However, the more time that pass the more he became certain she was going just crazy just beneath the surface ... and, decided regrettably, it was only a matter of time until her madness boiled over.

            Yet ... and yet the only thing driving her crazy was Joe’s constant dissection of her. He watched her every minute of every day; peered around corners and through windows, and eavesdropped on conversations that were none of his business, half expecting to find her with a child in one hand and a butchers knife in the other. The idiot!

            He had never found her doing that though, but as the days turned to weeks and weeks into months he found certain things steadily beginning to change. The children, for example, seeming to sense her sensitivities, played on her partially haggled mind by twisting words into garbled and confusing sentences. Angelic faces transformed into something dark and ugly. Even whole conversations, held for the most part behind cupped hands, were vivaciously refuted and claimed as imaginary. And through it all there was one who made sure she suffered a little more than most; undoing her one moment at a time.

            “Is something wrong, Miss?” Brian the portly kid with the narrow eyes would ask while smiling a wide, toothy, smile that seemed to stretch from ear to ear. It was a shark’s smile, she decided, vicious and blood thirsty. “You look a little ... confused.”

            “Yes,” she said, although she wasn’t entirely sure everything was ok at all. “I guess I am a little tired. Maybe it would be a good idea if you all read the rest of your books for the remainder of class.”

            And in the cool gloom of that tiresome Monday afternoon in May, she was certain she had seen something change in their (his) face. Something had writhed just beneath the surface of their (his) skin until what she saw was a twisted and distorted vision of evil.

            There’s no guessing about it; I am tired.

            Except she hadn’t been tired at all – or confused. They – he, him, whatever he was – were playing games with her. Altering her perception of them somehow.

            She was acutely aware of the sedition simmering around her, the talk of insanity; the chatter of a muddled mind. There was laughter too, resonating softly from their vindictive little mouths. They played the part perfectly, of course, and teased the final threads of her ailing sanity with effortless ease.

            “Evil little bastards,” she was heard to mutter one bright and sunny afternoon. “And evil has to be put to rest. Has to be.”

            And so it was. Not just to rest, but also to pieces. She excused herself, briefly, walked into the school kitchen, offered a courteous “hello” to whomever spoke as she passed, and seized one of the largest knives she could find without anyone having see her do it, and returned to her classroom to butcher those she alleged had tortured and tormented her the most.

            Joe Chamberlin had been on one of his daily visits when he stumbled across the scene and stared with his mouth dumbly held open.

            “I’m very sorry,” she said, gathering up a string of intestines spread over her small desk and dropped it into a small wastebasket. “But they made me do it. They had it coming, you see.”

            That was the first time Joe Chamberlin had ever been lost for words in over thirty-five years. And, he presumed, as Annette lowered to her haunches to pluck the eyes from another lifeless child, nor would it be the last.

            Once Annette had been removed, screaming they had made her do it, Joe Chamberlin found a simple note scrawled on the blackboard. The note read: I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME TODAY.