Converging Shadows

All but Alexander Rygarden Donevich Strangelove III, the president of the school's supernatural investigations committee. An unofficial club at best, and often made fun of. But Alex took his job seriously. So seriously that he now hung upside down in the rafters above the gym, shuffling his deck of tarot cards and chanting.

Soon silence descended over the school like a funereal shroud. The security guard made his last round through the gym and turned off the lights. The door slammed shut behind him and Alex let go of the rafters, spinning around in mid-air as he fell to land deftly on his feet.

"Eye of the Tiger." he whispered and drew the top card of the deck. It was the Devil card, just as he had feared. Alex sprinted to the wall and raced up to plunge into the ventilation ducts. He shimmied through the ducts and dropped down through a grate into the darkened lunchroom. There was a dark mist swirling around the floor here - surely an ill omen. Alex leaped toward the refrigerator and acquired an ice-cold chocolate milk, which he proceeded to chug. The door behind him swung open and Alex nearly choked on his milk in his haste to find cover. He tripped over an electrical cord and crashed into a row of shelves, bringing them crashing to the floor with a deafening clatter.

"Are you okay?" came a female's voice. Alex removed a metal pot from his head to see Rami Gupta, the mysterious girl he always noticed running around.

"I'm fine!" Alex declared, jumping into a ninja stance. "What are you doing in the school during hunting hours? Don't you know this is when the Others come out?"

"Umm..." Rami said, regarding him critically. "I'm looking for my sister Amy. I haven't seen her in a while, and I'm starting to get worried."

"The Others must have taken her." Alex whispered. "But, you have to get out of here. Junzaburo the Ogre surely heard the clatter we made and is on his way. I'll hold him off while you make your escape."

"Junzaburo? Oh you mean John the security guard?"

"Precisely." Alex said with a hard-edged glint in his eyes.

Footsteps were coming down the corridor. "Get down!" Alex hissed, pushing Rami's head down under an overturned table. The door swung open and a dark shadow seemed to glide into the room. Alex gaped in disbelief. It was eight feet tall, composed of swirling darkness and mist. A stench of decay wafted in with it, as its two piercing red eyes scanned the kitchen methodically.

Alex ducked down under the table. He found he was shivering. Rami looked at him quizzically. She looked like she was about to whisper something, so he clamped his hand over her mouth.

He couldn't hear something other than the faintest rustling as the nightmarish shadow seemed to glide around the room, searching. Alex realized he had to do something. He drew in closer to Rami. She smelled of apple shampoo/conditioner compound. "When I jump out." he whispered. "You run for the door."

Rami nodded. There was fear in her eyes. Perhaps she smelled the thing too, now. Or maybe it was just him. Alex noticed he had that effect on people sometimes. "Now!!" he yelled, and jumped up from behind the table to face the shadow, which suddenly loomed in front of him, bigger and fouler and more terrifying then he could ever imagine.

"S-stay back!" he yelled, pulling out his tarot cards. "I am a great and fearsome wizard! By the power of the fourth world and the seal of Solomon, I banish you to the realm beyond perception! Hyah!"

The shadow's huge red eyes burned into his mind and suddenly he found he couldn't speak or breathe. Rami was standing behind him. "Wow." she said. The shadow's eyes darted to her.

"The girl." it hissed in a voice like a crypt door sliding open. "Give me the girl."

Alex found that he could move again. He glanced back at Rami to see that she was standing still, as if in a daze, her eyes focused on the shadow. "I remember..." she whispered. "I can't remember..."

"You stay away from her!" Alex said through gritted teeth.

The shadow barely seemed to move, and suddenly Alex was flying through the air to crash into the wall. Stumbling to his feet, he saw the shadow sliding forward to consume Rami, as she stood paralyzed. Thinking fast, Alex flipped the light switch next to him, flooding the kitchen in blinding fluorescent light.

"YYAAAAARGHH!!!" the shadow shrieked, suddenly melting away all at once, its cloak of darkness falling apart into countless plague-ridden rats and cockroaches, which swarmed away into the cracks and holes in the walls of the kitchen. A few remained nibbling at the dead body that lay at the center of the shadow... the dead body of John the security guard.

1. Meanwhile, back in the past...

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