The Therapist
The Prime Minister
Murder for Fun
Her Life with Brian.
It Moved In Next Door
Loyal To the End
St George’s Primary School Stanley Wilkin Sample Stormbooks.biz
This is a work of fiction. All names and characters aside from references to public
Figures, products or places are fictitious and are not intended to refer to any specific
persons save in an imaginary setting nor to disparage any company's products or
services
© 2011 All Rights reserved Stanley M. Wilkin
INTRODUCTION:
These stories were composed over a short period, covering different genres. They were written to be enjoyed, not to instruct. A few have already been published in magazines. The majority are unread by anyone but myself. Up to this point, hopefully. None are meant to be taken too seriously by the reader.
ST GEORGES
St Georges seemed haunted at night. Whenever the thousands of children were no longer there it became disquieting, a place of echoes. The lines of desks looked unnatural without children sitting at them scribbling away. The corridors seemed infinite without little children running through them. Even the caretaker hated to go in there at night.
But, it was considered one of the best schools in town, no matter its nightly strangeness. When the government, in its wisdom, decided to close the school down one year, things changed. The school became malevolent.
The school was left to gather weeds, moss and lichen climbed its walls, filled its offices and classrooms. The windows cracked. Glass covered the classrooms. The paint peeled off the walls and the doors swung aimlessly on rusting hinges.
Neither the government nor the local Education Authority accepted such a large building gathering dust. The land on which it stood was after all of immense value, and, could be utilised profitably for private housing or even a shopping mall. To that end, inspectors were sent in to estimate how much could be made from old school.
There was a party of five, of both sexes, and all distinguished in their fields. They arrived at the school at 10 am, loaded down with survey instruments and laptops. As they knew each other, conversation between them was instantaneous, devoted at first to wives, husbands, siblings and children. It was a small town. After drinking coffee they set off around the school.
Two of the surveyors had attended the school when nippers. They viewed the dilapidation with solemn, sentimental eyes. They strolled down the corridors with visions of their younger selves smiling, jumping, playing tag. Every so often, as they walked past, a classroom door swung open in the slowly gathering winds.
The school was gradually pulling together all the information that at passed through it for a hundred years. Endlessly repeated sums and alphabets. Its floor boards groaned: ‘one and one is two, two and two is four.’ The surveyors craned their ears to catch the ghostly creaking words. Looking at one another, they shook their shoulders and went about their business.
Looking into each room, noting the measurements and condition, they grew surprised at how many there appeared to be in that part of the building. As children they thought the school was enormous, but that was when they were tiny children. The corridor became apparently endless. The building seemed to be expanding. The two women looked at each other in bewilderment.
Either side of them the doors swung wide open exposing purplish darkness, which stretched out towards them. In seconds they were engulfed.
Although the old school adored human flesh, ripping it off them their eyes widening in horror, and enjoyed sucking the goodness from the bones, it was their brains it craved. It nibbled at them for several minutes, taking in every thought and experience.
The school did not always enjoy eating people as ingestion was slow. By then, it had eaten five people, the two middle-aged women, and three homeless men who came in out of the cold to sleep. Although it absorbed whatever knowledge the people had, their carcases were deposited in the boiler room. It had yet to find an alternative way of disposing of them.
The surveyors did not realise that they were missing two members until lunchtime. They spent the next hour searching everywhere for their colleagues. Now, the school rarely acquired proper sustenance. It was empty most of the time and had been for five years. The flood of thoughts it had long tapped into had dried up and all it was left with, in comparison, was a tiny raindrop or two. It was indeed slowly dying of thirst. Given its predicament, it began gobbling up the rest of the surveyors.
It was needless to say unusual for such a small town to have five people suddenly go missing. While one surveyor disappearing might have seemed acceptable, but five!
It took weeks before anyone thought of searching the school. It was pleased about that as it had still to fully digest its previous victims. The knowledge it acquired was coursing through its walls and floor boards even now. It was a truly wonderful feeling. It was almost as if the children were back.
A member of the local council entered the building with two young police officers a week later. They did not expect to find anything. It was the afternoon, and already hot. The school stank of rat dropping and rat urine. Buoyant dust gathered in clouds drifting above their heads. Each noticed how much larger the school looked inside.
The council member had never attended the school and so retained no feelings for the ruin he’d entered. He saw only a dangerous building that required knocking down. Regularly, he wafted the stench from his nose.
‘My God. Why wasn’t this place knocked down years ago. Its falling apart as it is.’ He could speak dismissively because he had gone to the better school on the other side of town. He had no sentimental connection here. He kicked at a discarded beer can. ‘Left here by an old student no doubt.’ He sneered.
The sound of the tin can bouncing over its floorboards put the school on edge. Besides which, it was hungry.
The council member laughed. With the policemen he began a slow search of the building. The policemen reluctantly tagged along, unlike the council member visualising their younger selves racing down the corridors. They were local boys and had been pupils of St. Georges. The school picked up the memories, delighting in the taste of eagerly remembered feelings of nostalgia and recoiling from the negative feelings of distain that emanated from one of them. It felt their tread as the men explored its empty rooms.
‘I’ve scheduled demolition for Tuesday. Not before time.’ The Council member said.
The two policemen sighed. Each cast a regretful eye upon the crumbling structure surrounding them.
‘Not before bloody time.’ He murmured. He particularly hated old Edwardian schools with their claustrophobic classrooms full of shadows and ghosts. He would be pleased to see its plaster gargoyles and grey walls pulled down.
They continued, searching every floor.
‘Nothing of course.’ He pointed downwards with his pen. ‘We’ll look around in the basement, although god knows what’s down there.’ He chuckled.
Searching around, he found the door to the boiler room. Unlike the other doors, it was locked. He kicked it and it opened. The smell was overwhelming.
The light was flicked on and the three men carefully navigated the uncertain steps. The boiler room was in shadows. The smell was worrying. Searching, they found nothing untoward until the ever vigilant council member saw a pile of assorted junk in a corner. In his usual assured manner he approached it. His face fell when before him he saw bones and ripped and discarded clothing.
‘Jesus’ said one of his companions, ‘there’s dozens of them. Dozens of bodies.’
The council member turned, shock etched into his pallid features. Within a moment, his mouth was jerked open in a scream as both his arms were ripped off. A policeman clutching his truncheon immediately lost his head. It twirled in the air, falling back face down. The second policeman had his heart ripped out. Blood shot into the schools many receptacles. Intestines were dragged out disappearing into the shadows.
After eating the council member’s brain the school felt nauseous. The man’s thoughts were of the school, cruel thoughts that filled it with fear. It shook. It felt its end. The brain carried memories of its end, even if the school didn’t fully understand what the word and idea meant. It had no concept of dying.