Night of the Living Bacteria

Chapter Fifteen

Jayden

At the end of the day, I headed back to my dorm instead of sticking around for sports like usual. Before dinner, the school let us hang out outside and play sports or go to our dorms for some time. They'd count us up when we came back in the door, and if someone was missing, they would send another staff member to look for them. Since the school was relatively small, it wasn't a tedious task. Usually, if anyone was missing, it would be some kid who took a little too long of a nap. That's what some ninth-grader said.

Today, I was that kid. I'd simply overslept. With all the weird discoveries Ashley, Olivia, and I had made, I was trying to catch a break the same as everyone else. I awoke to a staff member knocking on my door. Tiredly, I called out, "I'm in here!" Sitting up and shaking my head, I examined my surroundings. I was in my dorm. I put on my shoes and headed out the door, apologizing to the janitor who had come to pound on my door for a few minutes. On my way out of the dormitory, I noticed a pair of golden eyes to my left, in the small parking lot. It held a sign that I couldn't read; it was too far away and, as the sun was just beginning to dip below the surrounding trees, streaks of sunlight cast across the figure. It simply did not reflect the light at all, absorbing all of it into whatever the hell it was made of. My heart began to beat faster, and I quickly caught up to the janitor. When I glanced over my shoulder, the figure was ducking behind the dorm building. "I saw that thing out there," I said when I sat down at the table. Ashley and Olivia looked up. "Where?" Ashley asked, splitting a bread roll in half. "It was outside, standing in the parking lot. Then it walked behind the dorm building." "Jesus, what are we dealing with?" Olivia shuddered. "We need to find out what that thing is if we are going to keep investigating this." "I think our best bet is getting into those tunnels," Said Ashley, poking at her meatloaf. "I found the trapdoor in the library. It's real dark and musty down there, but there's ladders and stuff." "When I was looking at that map, I noticed that there's a trapdoor in one of the big vents. I don't know if that's helpful for anything," I said. "I saw something similar when I was looking through that scrapbook, there was a student conspiracy written that mentioned some kid finding that spell book in a gutter or vent near the dorms." Olivia explained. "I'd assume that's the easiest way in." Ashley frowned. "How would we get in, though? There's all those guards." "I don't know," I said, opening a can of iced tea. "Isn't there a minute or two where the day guards and night guards aren't in the dorms?" "I think so, but that might not be every day." Olivia pushed her glasses up. "Okay, so what about this." Ashley pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. "Say the vent is in the busiest part of the dormitory. Students aren't going to care what we are doing unless we make a scene of it. So," she drew a vent with a swinging door. "If we wait until the guards switch...after finding the vent, we all hurry to open it and climb inside. If we can't make it in time, we'll have to find something else to do so we don't look suspicious. "And, for getting back, I think-" Olivia's eyes lit up. "Wait a second! What if we just go in there after school, before dinner? That's the only time so far that there has only been one or two guards there anyways, and today there were none." And so, the three of us agreed that tomorrow after school...but before dinner, we'd break our way into the tunnels.