Wednesday 25 April 2018

Halloween story: The Lab

Monday. 9:30 in the morning. We had Physics class and today we had to go to the laboratory. I had never really liked Physics, but I was a bit enthusiastic about this laboratory task. Before going there, we went to the bathroom as usual. While we were going up the stairs and everyone was talking about yesterday’s football game, someone suddenly stopped. We all stopped. There was blood everywhere, big spots of blood everywhere. We moved forward to the laboratory in a slow and frightened way. When we got to the laboratory we saw Isabel soaked with her own blood in the floor. But there was something weird: her head was missing.

Three days ago, no one would have imagined that horrible situation. Well, no one except me.

It was Friday and it was a sunny day. 4 pm; English class was about to finish. We were working on a Halloween story and I hadn't even started to write about it. Neither me or my friends believed that those stories would make anyone get scared, but we had to work hard in order to get a good mark.

Ten minutes later, the class had finished and we had to go to the laboratory, as we had a biology task. We took 5 minutes to get to the laboratory and we knew that Isabel was going to say we had arrived late, as it usually happened. However, when we entered and said Hello, she didn't answer back or even looked at us. It was as if she was sad, spiritless; depressed. We knew something was wrong with her as she always was quite active and friendly, but the class continued.

My biology group was about to finish the experiment when Isabel, who hadn’t changed her attitude during the whole period, went to the bathroom with an odd face.

Five minutes later the bell rang. Tomorrow was Saturday and everyone was obviously happy to leave school for a few days. Despite that, I was curious and a bit worried about Isabel, who hadn’t returned from the bathroom yet. I was the last one leaving the classroom as I had left my jacket on the other side of the class, but when I was about to leave the laboratory, something happened. Someone entered with blood stains all over her face and her T-shirt: it was Isabel.

“Isabel…? Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes… go with your friends before the bus leaves… “

“Ooookey… See you on Monday!

“Bye, hope to see you tool…”

During the next half an hour I couldn’t stop thinking about Isabel. What were those blood marks in her face? And what did she mean with the last words she had said? Was it a weird expression she used? Everything was too mysterious and terrifying, but it was Friday. Today I had a party and tomorrow my friend Ana was going to return from the USA, so I was really excited to see her. However, that wouldn’t be enough to forget what had happened today at school.

When the weekend was over I was really exhausted, but surprisingly I couldn’t sleep. I was still thinking about something no one else knew, something that scared and made me curious at the same time; Isabel’s situation. Next morning I couldn’t even open my eyes. I had only slept for 4 hours! Despite that, I had breakfast and went to school as usual.

And there we were, Monday morning, the whole biology group looking with pale faces at Isabel’s body; Isabel’s decapitated body. Suddenly, someone saw Isabel’s head at the other side of the class and yelled it out. Instinctively, we all entered the laboratory and as we did, the door closed with a slam that almost broke my eardrums. And then it happened. I saw a blood soaked knife hanging on the wall and everyone stopped breathing. For some, we all knew we were going to die. Here. Today. Suddenly, we heard slow steps outside that were getting close to us. The murderer was a few meters from us and was getting closer and closer. It was the end.

The door opened. A huge man entered and everyone started shouting. But there was something strange about him: he was a policeman. Had the murderer disguised as a police officer so as not to raise suspicion? But next to him, there was a woman. She looked familiar to me. She looked familiar to all of us. It was María José!

“What are you doing here guys? Why are you in the crime scene!? Shouldn’t this be  cordoned off?”

“Yes we were going to do it right now… we thought now one would come in these 10 minutes….”  said the policeman.

“Wait, wait, wait, can someone explain to me what’s happening here?” I said.

“It is a bit difficult to explain but what  basically happened is that Isabel drank some poison accidentally last Thursday... and she committed suicide,” María José said.

“But why? Why didn’t she go to the hospital and saved herself?” I asked.

“Because she couldn't. The poison is so strong that there’s no antidote yet. So instead of suffering, she decided to take her own life.”

“And… how can you explain the blood marks in her face? And her decapitation?” I cried.

“Well, the poison affects the lungs directly so she probably swallowed a big quantity of blood before she died. And, for your second question, well, it’s just a weird way of committing suicide, a really odd way actually….” the policeman said.

After what happened that week, most of the teachers resigned and Base school’s atmosphere was never what it used to be.

J. de la Torre and I. McCarthy

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