The Phantom School

I walked around the vicinity of the hospital for hours, and I finally found my way home. It was night time when I have arrived home. If I had the chance, I would probably take an entire week off; but unfortunately for me, there was no time for that.

I spent rest of the night trying to clean up the mess I had done in my apartment. I fixed and locked the doors which were amateurly forced open by Cansu while she was trying to let the paramedics in. I had never got a good night"s sleep since weeks.

- - -

I woke up with my alarm going off. I reached for my phone and completely turned it off instead of trying to find the b.u.t.ton to shut the alarm off. I sat on my bed and yawned, but I didn"t open my eyes. Surrendering to the comfort of the bed, I put my head on my pillow again.

My alarm went off again.

I finally opened my eyes and got out of the bed.

"Didn"t I just turn this thing off?" I grumbled. "I don"t even remember setting an alarm in the first place."

I took my phone to silence the alarm. I saw the text on my phone just when I was about to push the b.u.t.ton.

"GOOD MORNING, TEACHER!"

"I should"ve guessed..." I said loudly. "What do you want at this hour in the morning? The sun is still way below the horizon!"

She obviously had to call me in order to talk to me. As usual, I answered the phone.

"No point in waiting for the rising sun. You were getting a bit too comfy there. Now wake up and go to school early. We have stuff to do!" she said. "Move!"

"At once, sir!" I replied with a sleepy voice, trying to shout. I quickly washed my face, changed my clothes and got to the kitchen. I was disappointed by what I saw.

"d.a.m.n it, I ran out of food already..." I sighed.

"Forget the food, just get to the school." Cansu said.

"What is the rush? I want to have a breakf-"

"Have a breakfast in h.e.l.l, just get moving!" she said. I didn"t argue.

"Okay, calm down, we are going." I said. I quickly grabbed my suitcase and the book before getting out of my apartment.

When I got closer to the school building, I noticed something unusual. There were colored lights flashing from the direction of the building. The trees were still blocking my view from that distance, so I couldn"t understand what was going on. Only when I approached the building and got clear of the woodland, I saw the scene. There were a couple of police vehicles and a single ambulance in front of the building"s main exit. I watched the scene from distance for a while. Defeated by my curiosity, I slowly approached the building. A police officer noticed me and came forward.

"I"m sorry, Mister; but the school is closed for today. I can not allow you to go inside." he said.

"I... I understand." I said. "Can I learn what happened here?"

Before replying to me, the officer turned around, whistled loudly and made a hand sign to another officer. The other officer nodded.

"A murder took place here." he said.

"A murder!?" I said in shock.

"I a.s.sume you are working here, at this school?" he asked.

"Y-yes." I said. While I was talking to him, a few other officers and a man in a black suit came by.

"May we have a moment?" the man said.

"Of-Of course." the police officer replied. The man turned to me.

"Please follow me." he said and began walking towards a police car. I silently followed him to the car, being closely watched by the police officers behind me. The man opened the car"s back door, expecting me to get inside. After I sat on the back seat, he sat by me and closed the door. There was no one else inside the police car, just the man and me.

"Are you hungry?" he asked me. I couldn"t answer this unexpected question. Instead, I simply stared at him, trying to understand what was going on. "I will take that as a no." he said. Even though I was in fact hungry, there was no way I could say that in this uncomfortable and awkward situation.

He grabbed a cookie from a pouch in the police car, and took a bite. I was silently watching him as it was happening.

"Are you sure you don"t want to eat some?" he asked with his mouth full.

"N-No, I am okay, thanks." I said, sweating.

"Fine." he said and took another bite. I couldn"t stand the awkwardness and began looking out of the mirror instead. A few seconds later, he touched my shoulder. I turned around.

"So..." he began talking as he was cleaning his lips with a handkerchief. "Where were you at the time of murder?"

"I swear I don"t know anything about the murder." I said. "When did it happen?"

"Yeah, of course you don"t." he said. At this point, I wasn"t sure if he was really trying to interrogate me or have fun with me. "Okay, so tell me... Why did you do it? I bet an intelligent man like you had a good reason."

"Wh I REALLY don"t know what you are talking about." I said.

"Do you know how to drive?" he asked. Another unexpected question...

"Y-Yeah, I have a licence but I haven"t driven a car since-"

"Jump to the seat." he said, pointing at the driver"s seat of the police car.

"Excuse me, I couldn"t hear-" I was not sure what to do.

"I don"t know how to drive." he said. "But I know a better private place to talk about business."

Every time he was looking at me, it was feeling like he was piercing into my soul. I anxiously sat on the driver"s seat, still sweating. He sat on the front pa.s.senger"s seat and fastened his seat belt. He stretched his arms and laid back on his seat.

"Punch it!" he said.

"Is it really-"

"Do you know how to drive or not?" he said. "Because if I"m the one who"s going to drive, then prepare yourself to die."

I hesitantly started the engine. All the police officers looked at the car.

"Now, don"t look at me, just go!" the man yelled. With no further hesitation, I began driving the police car away from the school. After all, he was probably a detective or a high-ranking police officer, and although he had some really unorthodox methods of interrogation, he probably had authorisation to use the police vehicles.

That"s what I was thinking. I was thinking that he knew what he was doing.

After we began moving, a few police officers began yelling and one of them began running behind the car. He pointed the gun at the car, but didn"t shoot. He couldn"t stop us now, we already had gained a lot of distance by the time he decided to aim.

"Pedal to the metal, dude; you are not driving a tortoise!" he yelled. I was still trying to get used to the handling of the police car, so I was hesitant to press the accelerator too much. As we got away from the school, we approached an intersection with the main road. Both of us saw the incoming traffic. I was preparing to brake.

"Cut across, cut across to the left lane!" the man yelled. Instead of pressing the brake, I pressed the accelerator all the way down and dived into the traffic, almost crashing into a bus. The man pushed a b.u.t.ton, and the car"s siren began wailing. The cars in front of us slowly began clearing a path for us to easily pa.s.s through.

"You are clear now, floor the gas pedal!" he yelled.

"Please let this be a weird dream!" I was repeating, trying to calm down. I was driving way above the legal speed limit. While I was paying attention to the road, the man took a piece of equipment off from the glove compartment and the radio kit hanging in between seats. He opened the window on his side and threw it all out of the window.

"What are you doing!? What are WE even doing!?" I began yelling. There was no way I could get away with stealing a police car. Who was this man, and what was he trying to do?

He pushed a b.u.t.ton again, and the sirens got silent.

"Without their cheap tracking equipment, we won"t be interrupted anymore." he calmly said. "Okay, there is a dirt road to the right after a couple of hundred meters. Turn that way." he said. "You will get bonus points for a cool drift!"

"This man really has mental problems." I said myself. I slowed down as we approached the dirt road, and left the main road. I began driving into the woods, where the dirt road was leading me.

"You know..." he said. "I could kill you right now, right here, and no one would notice." He was right, but was this really a warning for me, or was he just trying to have fun?

Just as I was preparing to stop the car and go back into the main road, the man interrupted me.

"Okay, this is far enough. Park near those trees."

I parked the police car in between a few long trees and stopped the engine. He opened the door and got out of the car. I got out of the car after him.

"Thanks for the ride." he said. "They didn"t even have the opportunity to begin chasing us."

"What do you want?" I asked him. "Why did you put me in this situation? I didn"t want to become a criminal!"

"Oh, but you already were a criminal." he said. "You should be thankful to me. Maybe you weren"t aware, but they were about to arrest your a.s.s back there."

"I swear I had nothing to do with that murder!" I yelled.

"But you were closest to Mr. Kenan, right?" he said. I froze for a moment. He knew about things I did not expect him to know.

"Is... Is Mr. Kenan-"

"Yes. He was found dead this morning by another teacher." he said. "You two were close, right?"

I had a moment to accept Mr. Kenan"s death. Even though he was being hostile to me, it was hard to accept his death.

"Our relation isn"t an evidence for anything! I didn"t know about the murder!" I kept yelling.

"But the children you butchered TOGETHER tell me otherwise." he said. My eyes opened wide, and I stepped away from the man instinctively. He knew a bit too much.

"How do you know about that!?" I asked.

"I know that there is a d.a.m.ned cemetery underground." he said. "The police would discover it if I didn"t intervene in time."

"Aren"t you a police officer yourself? I am not complaining... but why are you helping me? What is wrong with you!?" I asked him. "Something just... doesn"t add up. Why on earth would you do that?"

He looked at me, trying to pick one of the questions to answer.

"You are not a police..." I said. "Who are you?"

He didn"t reply.

"I guess I helped you a lot. I"m going to ask you for a favor in return." he said, and pulled a gun out. My reflexes kicked in and I jumped to hide myself behind the police car.

"Calm down, if I wanted to harm you, I would choose to see you rot in a maximum security prison instead." he said. I slowly revealed myself. The man came closer to me.

"Take it." he gave me the gun.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked him.

"Just wait for a moment." he said. He grabbed a cigarette from his pocket and began smoking, walking around in random circles. He quickly finished half of his cigarette, and threw away the rest of it. He kept walking around for a while without looking at me. He finally came to a stop with his back turned a me.

"Okay, I am not looking." he said. "Now... kill me."

"WHAT!?"

"Just get it over with." he said. " Shoot. Do me a favor. This is what I was going to ask for."

"I can"t." I said. "I won"t."

"Oh, you can, and you will." he said. "Do you want to live the rest of your life in a metal cage?"

"I can"t kill." I said. "I"m not a murderer."

"You can, you are." he replied. Without saying anything, I threw the gun away. He heard the sound and slowly turned around. He looked at the gun on the ground.

"Maybe that will motivate you..." he said. "If you don"t kill me, I will kill you."

I immediately ran and grabbed the gun back from the ground.

"That"s more like it." he said. "Feel the adrenaline, it will just happen in the heat of the moment! Go with the flow!"

"I still won"t kill you." I said.

He suddenly pulled a second gun out which he has been carrying. I had not antic.i.p.ated such an action. I instantly aimed at him and pulled the trigger before he could aim at me. Both guns fired simultaneously. He immediately dropped the the ground, with little blood coming out of his chest. I could not feel any pain myself. I looked at my own body to see if I was shot. Fortunately, he had missed me.

I looked at the man laying on the ground. I wanted to help him, but I didn"t knew how. I was a criminal now. If I called an ambulance, the police would definitely be informed. I would have to go and hide somewhere in order to avoid being arrested.

I began to consider calling the police and turning myself in. My conscience wouldn"t allow me to live like this.

Just when I was thinking, someone grabbed me from behind. The gun slipped off my hand. I was laid down on the ground.

A man approached me and looked into my eyes. I couldn"t believe my eyes... It was the same guy I had shot just a minute ago! His suit had no blood on it, and he was in perfect condition. He leaned down to show me something. It was the leather-covered book I had found in the library.

"Okay, after all the drama, I think it is time for the main event. Where did you find this?" he asked me. I didn"t reply.

"WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS!?" he yelled.

"Lib...rary!" I cried. "It was in the library!" He had a scary and angry expression.

"How many people saw this book?" he shouted.

"Just me!" I said.

"How many!?"

"Just me, I swear!" I cried.

"We are not done with you." he said. I was blindfolded, and someone covered my nose with a wet piece of cloth. I quickly fainted while being dragged on the ground.