Whatever Happened... to Robot Jones? Continued

Chapter 27: Exposed

A scream unlike any other sounded in the basement, louder than the music that had been playing before. Loud enough so that everybody in any part of the house could hear. At last there was not a soul in that basement who's attention wasn't already on the hostess.

And with a single five letter word for a reptile bouncing off the insulated walls, the cheerleading captain learned the true meaning of chaos. Clara was not the only one with a fear for snakes, and it didn't take seconds before the brainless, drunken partiers began panicking. Someone reached for the lights and yelled out that the bulb had been shattered. The girls who also feared snakes began jumping onto their boyfriends or various furniture to get away from the slithering threat. The young men with the same fear began grabbing random objects and smashing anything and everything that remotely looked like a snake-appliance cords were ripped out of the walls, streamers were torn down, skinny lamps were smashed. A couple of the larger boys began pushing back chairs and knocking over loaded book cases in order to find where the snake had disappeared to. Like a wildfire, the words "venomous" and "dangerous" began spreading beneath the screams by the few teens who were attempting to think rationally.

Like the diligent boyfriend he was, Timothy Morton pushed his way through the throng of partiers as one of the hunters. Though he wasn't the brightest kid academically, he was the only one to think to get on his hands and knees, which precisely resulted in him being the one to find the snake, curled in the corner of the dance floor, next to the back door. Trying to escape the chaos, the little snake had sought going outside, but the gap under the door was too small. Thus poor Smiley had nowhere to go. "I FOUND IT," he shouted. "Clara! I found it!"

"Hit it with something!" Clara shouted back, coming closer, but still keeping a distance. "Kill it!"

As the person to discover the snake and hold it in the corner, the rowdy partiers began cheering Socks on, one handing him a skinny, busted lamp, sharp on its ends. Socks eyed the lamp nervously as it occurred to him the great responsibility that was suddenly on his shoulders, and gulped as he looked down at the scaley creature. "Alright, here I go..."

"STOP!" came a voice from behind him. A hand landed on his shoulder, and another yanked the broken lamp from his hands. It was so sudden Socks didn't have time to react. "Don't kill it! It's not venomous, it can't hurt anyone!"

Low and behold, it was the masked Hockey Player in black. The screams died down as everyone watched the masked person stand in front of the balled up threat in the corner.

One of the high school boys chuckled. "Hey, it's Randy!"

"No it's not!" said another random highschooler, this one a girl. "It's obviously Mark Huberman!"

"I know that voice..." Robot started, startled to hear his companion from the rebooting port, A.K.A. the closet upstairs, speak.

Clara, on the other hand, knew exactly who the hockey player was from the moment she'd opened her mouth. "I know that voice, too. Hold her!"

By the time the hockey masked killer realized she had put herself in the corner trying to protect the snake, it was far too late. Clara shoved Socks away and yanked the mask off her face, snapping the string in the process. "Ow!" the brunette shouted, rubbing her neck.

"Shannon!" Socks exclaimed.

"Shannon?!" Robot uttered, slack jawed.

"That was a girl under there?" a random middle schooler asked.

At once, all of Clara's anger drained, and it was this sight that made her burst into hysterical laughter. "Well, well, well, looks like we found the real snake!"