The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

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In appearance the size of the Alliance School was deceptive. With its broad vaulted entrance and the four columns, which supported it one would think it was a massive brick structure upon first seeing it from the highway. But it wasn't a large school at all. It was only two stories high and held only seven classrooms, an auditorium and various other auxiliary rooms.

Long leaf pines, very tall and majestic stood about the large campus of the school in no specific arrangement. There were others that lined the entrance and pushed on from the intersection with the road. They circled the driveway up to the walkway.

The walkway led to twelve steep steps that mounted up to the broad portico of the school and in turn led to the wide green double-doors of the institution. The walkway was a considerable expanse of cement whose gray appearance contrasted dramatically with the black top of the driveway. Crape myrtles and azaleas marched along on either side of the walkway and when in season was a spectacular vision of orange, red, pink, and white.

Other shrubs stood around the school and hugged up to the brick walls of the building rising up to the windows of each room on the first floor. The blacktop continued on past the parking lot and then circled on pushing to the rear of the school on the eastern portions of the campus. Three small storage buildings, wooden and gleaming white when the day was bright upon them stood on its eastern perimeter stretching to the forest behind them. The small facilities stood at exact intervals of each other looking almost like barrack buildings on some military installation.

Beyond them sitting south of their location its facade facing west and double the interval of their space in relation to each other was the cafeteria where the children who attended this school daily ate their lunch. There was a covered walkway some thirty yards in length from the front of the cafeteria to the rear of the school there to protect the children from stormy weather.

The blacktop itself continued on to a dead end, which met the southern forest behind the school and was rather dark as it moved on to the river. The forest floor was thick with undergrowth and continued on sloping precipitously as it neared the river until it gave way to the orange clay of the river's bank. The school had stood at this location for fifty years.

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When it was first suggested for construction at this location there was some reluctance. Many felt locating a school so near the river was courting tragedy. The fear was that some curious child might wander into the woods and make their way to the river where they might possibly get drowned. But the land was available and cheap in that long ago time and so it was purchased and the school was built there. And fortune had smiled upon the community for the worse had not happened, that is not until nearly two weeks ago.

It was a Tuesday bright and sunny, just the kind of day that would lure two bored boys down to the river's edge. Two seventh graders had slipped off of the campus and made their way to a nearby pier, entered one of the boats always docked there and subsequently tipped it over and were regrettably drowned.

The tragedy caused a great scandalous commotion to arise in the county leading to the school's closure. It was to remain closed for a time until the school board decided what should be done to alleviate the problem. They could not afford to close the school permanently. Eventually they had reached the decision to construct a long fence with posted notices on the southern perimeter of the school before the woods and the river beyond. It was now just a matter of contracting the work.

Across the blacktop opposite the storage facilities stood the boiler room of the school located separate from the main building. Pipes beneath the ground connected the two and dispensed the steam that heated the school. This was the province of the aged black custodian who maintained the boiler. This man was also Maxwell Lewis's uncle on his mother's side.