Beasts

Walking into class Monday morning felt like any other day. Mr. Seamus up at his desk grading overdue papers, students running amuck, and Mattie sitting terrified in her desk. The old room never seemed to change, no matter how many times I entered it.

I rolled my eyes at Mattie, but she didn’t see me. I came up behind her and dropped my heavily stuffed bag onto her desk with a large ‘thump,’ causing her to jump. Her eyes leaped from the mass of chaos in front of her to me, and I saw recognition in them as she closed them in relief.

“I hate it when you do that,” she murmured quietly, her small voice barely audible over the uproar of the other kids. You’d think a bunch of eighth graders would learn not to be so rambunctious. I mean, we were almost freshmen in high school.

Boy that was a terrifying thought. I couldn’t bear to leave my beloved middle school, not so soon. Not when there was so much to be done, so much to protect.

“Yeah I know,” I said, followed by a brief chuckle.

I slid my bag onto the floor and dragged it over to my seat, which just so happened to be next to Mattie’s.

If you haven’t already guessed, Mattie is my best friend. It’s been that way since first grade, when we found out that we both preferred Batman to Spider-man. Which remains true to this day.

The third member of their trio was missing. Logan is Mattie’s twin brother, and my other best friend. My best guy friend, if you want to be specific. As is with other twins, the two were hardly alike other than sharing a last name and parents.

“So where’s Logan?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. His desk, on the other side of Mattie, was empty. “Did the coppers finally get a hold of him?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, scratching her nose. “He’s sick today. Woke up with a fever.”

“Ah, poor kid,” I said sadly, shaking my head. “Must’ve caught that bug that’s been going around.”

“There’s been a bug going around?” she asked, sounding surprised. Her semi-transparent blue eyes looked at me with concern.

“Yeah you know, the one I had just a week ago,” I reminded her, pulling a pencil out of my bag. “The one that your mom had two days ago, and the one that took out half the class…”

“Oh,” Mattie mumbled bashfully. “I guess I haven’t been all that observant as of late.”

“Ehn, I don’t blame ya,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “We’ve been busy. They’ve been busy.”

“Shh!” she yelled at me, looking around wildly. As if any of these hooligans would hear me. “Don’t say that! What if somebody heard you?”

“I was being very vague.”

She opened her mouth to respond when the bell rang for homeroom, signaling Mr. Seamus’ time to take over. All the students took their seats, but a murmur of discussion could still be heard.

Mr. Seamus took the pile of papers he was grading and organized them so that they were all perfectly straight. He stood up, and began passing them out.

“These are your papers that you turned in to me last Friday,” he began, dropping Mattie’s on her desk followed by my paper on my desk. “Most of them were actually quite good. I applaud the effort.”

But Mattie and I stopped listening to him as soon as we saw our grades. We both had big, red ‘F’s’ at the top right-hand corners of our papers. We looked at each other, and then up at Mr. Seamus, who did not return the gaze.

“Is Mr. Andrews truly ill, Ms. Andrews,” he began, sitting down at his desk, but still not looking at us. “Or did he just decide not to go to school today?”

“He’s sick, sir,” Mattie told him. “Our mother called him-”

“Did I ask for an explanation?” he snapped at her, taking the entire class by surprise. Mattie closed her mouth, eyes wide. “I did not think so. And I suggest that you refrain from talking with your friend for the rest of the class period, considering how both of you received identical failing grades on your essays.”

“About that, Mr. S.” I stood up, and held the paper up by my face. “This can’t be right. We don’t get failing grades.”

“Well today you did, Ms. Moran,” he returned, folding his arms. He was glaring at us now, through his square, rimless glasses.

Mattie suddenly did something unexpected. She stood up with a look of determination, walked straight up to Mr. Seamus, and stared at him for half a second. Her eyes were examining him, starting with his feet and trailing up to the top of his head. Mr. Seamus stared back, staring her down. Then, she punched him in the jaw. Mr. Seamus toppled to the floor and the class burst out with screams and cheers.

“Mattie!” I screamed at her, making my way across the room. “What the hell? I know he was being a jerk and all but was that necessary?”

She didn’t look at me. She stared at the floor, and then told me in a serious tone, “That’s not Mr. Seamus.”

I looked down at the floor and saw Seamus’ body beginning to morph. He kept switching from normal, human body, to a much larger, hideous body. The body of a monster.

“Alright!” I cheered, thrusting my fist into the air. “I’ve been waiting for some action around here.”

“But what about Mr. Seamus?” Mattie cried out, already running for the closet. “And Logan?”

“We’ll find Mr. S later,” I told her, cracking my knuckles. “And Logan’s not any help to us. He’s sick at home. We’re ready and able.”

Mattie opened the supply closet and flipped the hidden switch. She closed the door, and disappeared into another world. A world where monsters roamed freely. A world that monsters hated, so they tried to sneak into ours. It was our job, Mattie, Logan, and mine, to bring them back.

“Everyone, please evacuate through the only available door, in the back, towards your right,” I began instructing the class just as the monster began to stand up. Of course, they all stared at the monster, terrified. I rolled my eyes. “Get out of here!”

Slowly, the all ran to the exit. I turned around and took a good look at the ugly brute. He had orangey-brown skin, with tiny yellow spots all over him. He had long, spiky shoulders, topped with a rather small head. He had normal hands and legs, but each were three times the size of any human’s. He could barely fit in the room when he was full sized.

“Bring it, big guy,” I told him, motioning to him with my hands. I had to distract him until Mattie came back with weapons.

He tilted his head at me, and then reached out with one of his big hands to swat me. The good thing about big guys like this was that they were slow. I ducked underneath a desk just as his hand collided with the linoleum floors. The tune of “Another One Bites the Dust” began flowing through my head. Whenever I fought, I always imagined a song playing in the background just to make it seem more epic. I sometimes thought about how in movies there was always a song playing along in the background, but when the actors were doing those scenes, there is no music playing at all. How boring.

“Anna?” Mattie called out.

“Under the desk!” I shouted, poking my head out.

A sword came sliding up to my feet, and I grabbed it, ready to taking on the monster for real now.

“I called Logan as well,” she told me, a bow and arrow in her hands.

“Damn it Mattie, I told you not to!” I growled, taking a swing at the beast. Struck his left shoulder, but not even a scratch. “He’s sick, and he’s probably going to come and help anyways, isn’t he?”

“I just wanted to let him know,” she mumbled quietly, dodging the monster’s meaty hand.

I cursed again under my breath, and went in for the stab. The sword became embedded into his stomach.

“Well shiz in my pants,” I exclaimed, now standing weaponless. “Did you bring anything else?”

“Weapon wise?” I nodded my head. “Just Logan’s sword, but it’s not fitted for you.”

“I suck with a sword anyways,” I told her, running to the closet, jumping over the monster’s hand, which had recently struck the ground, narrowly missing Mattie.

I found the sword next to the closet and picked it up, not expecting it to be so heavy. I always thought that Logan was a weakling, but apparently not. Mr. Seamus must have trained him well.

“Sword’s no good,” I shouted, watching Mattie firing arrows like crazy, not even making a dent with the beast.

“Go look for Mr. Seamus then!” she told me. “I can take care of him…for now.”

It smacked her across the room. Before I could come to help her, she stood up, holding her side.

“Get going! I’ll be fine.”

“Ok,” I mumbled to myself, not fully believing her. But what choice did I have?

‘Now, if I were a monster, where would I hide a captive?’ I thought to myself, and my head immediately went to the closet.

“Uh, Mads?” I shouted, staring worriedly at the door. “Did you check to see if there was anything suspicious inside the closet before going to the monster’s home world?”

“Uh…” Was all I heard, followed by a groan, and I took that as a no.

“So there’s a slight probability that,” I paused, swallowing the very small amount of saliva in my mouth. “That Mr. Seamus is tied up in a world full of hostile monsters. Great.”

“So what are you, AH!” Mattie screamed, and my head shot in her direction. The monster had her pinned down with one hand and the other was making its way on top of her head. His back was facing me.

I jumped on top of a desk and ran across the row of them, eventually making my way up the monster’s back. I put my legs around his neck and began pounding away onto his head. He immediately released Mattie, and she crawled away.

The monster roared with fury, and tried to grab me, but his hands were so big that every time he reached for his neck, he would be stabbed by one of the spikes on his shoulders. I hoped I was strong enough for this.

“Go to the other world and find Mr. Seamus,” I screeched to Mattie, smacking the monster in the nose. “I’ll keep it distracted.”

She nodded her head and ran to the closet, closing the door behind her. In a few seconds, she would be in the monster world, and I would be all alone with the monster.

“Alright buddy,” I told him, knowing that he wouldn’t understand a word I was saying. “You’re really beginning to piss me off.”

I pulled him backwards with all my might and he came crashing to the ground, with me still behind his head. I rib cracked in my stomach, and I cried out in pain. The beast’s skull must be extremely hard.

I crawled out while I had the chance, gripping my ribcage, when I heard the door open. At first, I thought it was Mattie back with our teacher, but it was not the closet door that opened. It was the room door, and Logan was standing in the entrance. His black hair was disheveled, and his face looked flushed. His cheeks were red with fever.

“You’re sick!” I managed to yell at him. It hurt to talk.

“Perhaps sneezing on it’ll make it melt,” he said, walking to the front of the monster just as it began to stand up. Why was he trying to be funny at a time like this? “Where’s Mattie?”

“In the other world, trying to locate, ah!” I tried to finish my sentence, but the monster had taken a step back, right onto my left leg, snapping the bone. Tears rushed to my eyes just as the pain rushed to my leg. “Mr. Seamus. I’ll explain later. Sword. By closet.”

Logan started to come to me, worry in his eyes, but I pointed towards his sword, and he reluctantly went to go get it.

The monster went to take a swing at Logan while his back was turned.

“Look out!”I screamed, and Logan somersaulted to the side, narrowly missing the beast’s punch.

He grabbed his sword and turned around. My sword was still in his stomach, and Logan immediately knew not to repeat my mistake. He went for the legs instead, and he managed to draw blood.

I mentally cheered for him, and dragged myself to the corner in my room so I would not be any more trouble. Man, I was completely useless. I had a busted up leg and my sword was MIA. I needed to help him, but how?

“Logan!” Mattie screamed from the closet, Mr. Seamus close behind, sword in hand.

Mattie went to aid Logan, and Mr. Seamus, the real Mr. Seamus, made his way towards me.

“Now are you alright?” he asked, feeling my leg. He found the broken part and I cursed. “No need for that language, Anna.”

“Hard to keep…profanity down at a time, a time like this,” I told him, smiling slightly. “What can…I…do?”

“The way you can help all of us is by staying put. None of us want you to get hurt any further.” He glanced behind him. “Well, except perhaps the monster.”

I rolled my eyes and bit my lip, trying not to get too upset. I wasn’t one to show emotion.

“There has to be something,” I begged with him. “I could…I could…”

“I suppose there is something…” he began mumbling to himself and grew thoughtful. His head snapped back to me. “Can you get to the closet?”

“It will take some time, but yeah I think so.”

“Good, we’ll keep him busy. Go to the closet, but not to the other realm,” he instructed. “Hidden behind the supplies box is a button. Press the button, and something will appear. I don’t know if you will be able to use it, but it’s the only chance we’ve got.”

“What is it?” I inquired, but Mr. Seamus had already stood up and began fighting. “Great. Better not be another sword. I hate them.”

Slowly, I made my way over to the closet, and watched with guilt as the monster was injuring my friends. I was so angry with myself for getting hurt.

Finally, I reached my destination, and pulled the door open. I hoisted myself to a standing position using the shelves, and found the supply box. I pushed it off and saw the button, with the same paint as the wall. I pressed it, and something hit the ground. I looked around, and on the ground was a small, slender stick. I slipped down to the ground, and picked it up.

“This?” I asked no one in particular. “This is what’s supposed to help us? Well this is just great!”

I waved the stick in the air, and the light bulb above shattered into a million pieces.

“What the…?” I looked down at the stick, even though it was dark and I couldn’t see it, and waved it again. This time, all of the objects on the shelves fell down. “No way.”

I know knew what the stick was. It was a wand.