Welcome to Winterclear

The only way you can get to my new town is through the graveyard

The only way you can get to my new town is through the graveyard.

Well, let me backup. I am a teacher and it's probably no surprise that I've been in a state of constant growing burn out for several years. On a daily basis I had an inner struggle to keep from walking out of the classroom and never coming back. Then one day, out of the clear blue sky, I got this email.

It was from a school who saw my résumé on monster dot com. The weird thing is I didn't even know monster dot com still existed. It has had to have been 20 years since I put a résumé on monster dot com. I wasn't even a teacher back then. Situation made weirder because they wanted to interview me to be the principal at their school. That part really shocked me because I am not qualified to be a principal and I definitely wasn't 20 years ago when I put that résumé on monster dot com!

But as they pointed out, they were a private school which is not subject to the same licensure laws as public schools. Now, I'm not here to say that school administrators have an easy job or anything, but I was pretty primed to take an administrator job and leave teaching behind... with a quickness.

The whole hiring process took place through video calls which was weird also. But it was an extensive process. It seemed like they did background checks every other day for two weeks and I submitted to a total of nine interviews with people over Zoom. It was the school administrators and members of the school board who met with me and interviewed me. And boy what a quirky collection of people, let me tell you.

You had a full spectrum of folks from extremely uptight ladies with tight buns and horn rimmed glasses who looked like they were from the Victorian era, all the way down to big time hippies with wild dreadlocks that probably had 18 species of bugs in them just like Bob Marley. In each video meeting I was asked different questions and they were just the weirdest interviews I had ever been subjected to.

At first it was questions like, "do you prefer cats or dogs?" I guess that's not that weird of a question I personally don't really care for either. I'm super allergic.

The next weird question was when I go on vacation when do I pack for it. Little bit weirder. I was really kind of in the zone with these interviews and I just answered honestly and said I'm pretty spontaneous about traveling and I just throw everything in the bag the night before and head out in the morning.

In the very last Zoom meeting before they formally offered me the job, I was talking to the assistant principal, the person who would be my assistant, and he asked me to sing a song that describes me. For some reason this didn't even occur to me as weird by then, after all the weird people I had met from the school. Without even thinking, I sang Blackbird by the Beatles. I can't even sing and I don't for the life of me know why that song describes me. Luckily I was not asked to explain any further.

Instead, I received an email the following day from the superintendent offering me the job. The salary they offered me was borderline obscene, and the craziest part was that they provided housing. He even attached photos of my house and it was this perfect old house full of charm and character. I would also be working in a much smaller school where people paid big money to attend. It was just the polar opposite of anything I've ever done.

How could I say no?

After that there were a couple more Zoom meetings organizing my transition and familiarizing me with what to expect. The thing is they never mentioned the graveyard thing. It's not like they hid it from me because they provided me with the address of my new home. They just left out the graveyard part.

I would soon find out that was only a small part of the millions of crazy things they never told me.

At any rate, I worked out my notice at my school and got my affairs in order and my things packed and soon I hit the road to Winterclear, which was my new town. It was across the country from my old town. GPS was doing an excellent job getting me to where I needed to go until finally when I was within one minute of reaching my destination, I found myself in a cemetery.

I parked in front of a giant mausoleum. It was dark by then, and I had been on the road all day. I was so ready to be home. My new home that is. And I felt frustrated to be apparently lost so close. It was sort of like my least favorite kind of nightmare where I'm super close to home but still can't find it. I fiddled with my phone and the GPS trying to figure out where I had gone wrong or another route so that I could reroute. But the phone just kept insisting I was in the right place.

Then the craziest thing happened. The door to the mausoleum opened. I was outside my car leaning against the hood getting some fresh air when it happened. It freaked me out, so I scrambled to get back in my car.

But when a person stepped out, I recognized the assistant principal Mr. Carlyle, whom I had met over Zoom. My jaw dropped. He walked up to the car where I was rolling down my window and apologized for being late. I didn't even know what he meant by that, because we had not had plans to meet.

He then explained to me that Winterclear is somewhat of a "gated community," That's how he put it. You can access it through tunnels that go underground. I asked him how to get to the tunnels and he smiled broadly. He told me, "I'm glad you asked."

He took something out of his breast pocket that looked like a small remote and then pushed a button. To the right of the mausoleum was a gigantic fountain and when Mr. Carlyle pushed the button, the fountain began to move aside! I stared in awe as the huge construction moved and revealed the opening to a tunnel which led into the ground.

"Mind if I catch a ride the rest of the way back?" Mr. Carlyle asked. Still flabbergasted by the moving fountain and vast tunnel, I simply nodded. Mr. Carlyle got into my passenger seat, He directed me into the tunnel and the fountain slid back over us as I tentatively drove in. It was a lot like one of those big tunnels that goes through a mountain except in this case it was going underground.

It went for about a mile before it started ascending again and when we came out we were on the edge of a beautiful town that sprawled before us. Around the town was a gigantic wall that must've been 100 feet tall. It was such a weird mixture of emotion because living within a 100 foot wall can't be good, yet the town was so appealing looking, that it seemed like a little slice of heaven on earth. Mr. Carlyle directed me on a little drive around town showing me various landmarks like the grocery store and the auto shop and of course the school that I would be running come Monday.

Finally, he directed me to my house and I pulled into the driveway. It was late Saturday night by then and Mr. Carlyle reiterated my plans to start my job bright and early Monday morning. Then he got out of my car and sauntered off down the street. I watched him make his way down the sidewalk through the pools of light made by the beautiful ornate street lamps. Then he disappeared around the corner.

But let me just cut to the chase. I love everything about this town. My house is amazing. Everyone has been so nice to me so far and I knew as soon as I walked into the school that I had made the right choice.

But, here's the problem.

After lunch on my first day I was roaming the halls of the school building familiarizing myself with everything, and I peeked into a classroom just like principals are supposed to do. I happened to glance into the classroom of a young teacher just as a student who was for some reason standing in the middle of the classroom began to mutter something in a weird language I didn't recognize.

The young petite teacher walked up behind him and stabbed him through the head. A long spear thrust through his face before my very eyes, and a fountain of blood spurted out. His weird grumbling was cut short and he dropped to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

The teacher noticed me then and lifted her hand to smile and wave.