The Grad Night Party Killer

One of Us

The voice evilly cackles on the intercom.

"Okay," Derek says. "I have had enough of this." He runs out of the cafeteria. Bryan and I join him. I follow them to the min office. Derek opens the door and we enter the dark room. I flick on the light to reveal no one is in here. The desk behind the counter is empty. Take vault is closed. The three of us search for anything. I walk over to the microphone. I notice the button has tape on it. "This is probably what Jennifer must meant when she asked if this was a joke." Derek and Bryan look back at me. "The button for the microphone was taped down while a recording device was playing."

"If there was an audio recorder playing, where is it now," Derek asks.

"Jennifer has it," I reply.

"If she has it now," Bryan asks, "then how was the voice still speaking?"

"He must have been here live after Jennifer took the recorder away."

After our brief investigation, the three of us head back to the cafeteria. "What did you find," Courtney asks.

"Nothing," Derek replies.

"Almost nothing," I correct. "Jennifer, may I see the recorder." I walk over to her and she hands me the recorder.

"What are you doing," Jennifer asks.

"I'm going over what was recorded." I press the rewind button until it stops. I press the play button. For about a minute, nothing was said.

Terry walks into the room wearing different clothes and wet hair. He must have taken a shower. "Hey, why is no one in the gym," Terry asks. "The auction doesn't for about an hour." Everyone shushes Terry. "Oh, okay," he says outraged. He looks over at me. "What's that?"

I quickly inform him because I don't know when the voice will begin to speak. "Someone left this in the office to play on the loudspeaker to scare us."

"Hopefully that's all that they're trying to do," Amelia says.

For another few minutes, the recorder is silent. The voice finally begins to speak. It says the same thing as it said before. "Good evening, students of Mid Pen. I am happy to see that the seniors have graduated and decided to celebrate it where you have hung out with your friends most of your lives. But I'm sorry for most of you, your lives end tonight." The recorder ends.

"That's it," Terry says. "That's all that was said over the loud-speaker?"

"Not all," I say. "After Jennifer took the recorder, the person that was on this recorder, continued to speak over the intercom live."

"So, whoever did this," Jennifer said while gesturing to the mess around us in the cafeteria, "not only was the person on the speaker, but could also be one of us?"

"Exactly," I say.