Monsters in the Locker Room
"A Samuel Light Junior Story."
John Pirillo
Most people think monsters aren't real. They're wrong. They
do exist. Just read the newspapers, watch the TV, go to the movies, and you can
see monsters that exist here and now. My name is Samuel, I'm not a monster
hunter, and I'm mainly a healer and detective, with a few other things thrown
in between. Usually my spare time. Which I can count on one finger.
Jimbo, my best friend, he's a monster hunter. He thinks its
fun. Good exercise. Personally, I think he's nuts, but that's what you get when
you make a Texan wildcat your best friend.
We were at my high school, getting ready for the game later
on. I wasn't in it. I was offseason, but I liked to support our school, so I
would lug my old Polaroid with me and snap pictures to share with my friends on
the teams. Tonight was going to be no different. It was us versus the Outlaws,
a local team that some more of my friends were on the team of. So I was going
to document both sides of the game, which would have been too challenging, had
not my good bud, Jimbo, stepped in graciously, to snap pictures with his Kodak.
I accepted his offer happily, until I realized he was going
to be snapping more pictures of the cheer leaders than the baseball team Oh
well, that's Jimbo. Hero and playboy.
We had arrived about a half hour before the game to prep our
cameras and chat it up with our buddies, but found the locker room empty. The
Coach had called everyone out early for some warm ups. I had forgotten he did
that.
No big thing. Right?
Wrong.
Anything that could have possibly gone Murphy on us did.
Murphy's Law dictates that whatever can go wrong, usually will. Who paid him to
make our lives so negative?
We got into the locker room and settled into our backpacks
to load our cameras, thinking nothing of the silence there. It was empty. What
else could you expect?
"Man, I'm sure looking forward to taking
pictures." Jimbo told me, a smirk on his face.
I knew that smirk. I had seen it many times. Usually before
it got me in trouble, or him.
"Jimbo, you're just going to take pictures,
right?"
He looked at his camera, avoiding my eyes. "Why would I
do anything else?"
That's when we heard the sounds. In the hallway outside the
locker room.
I looked up. "Think they're coming back?"
"Before the game starts. Nah. Must be the Janitor or
something."
"Awfully loud for a janitor." I thought out loud.
We both got up and turned to look at the exit from the
locker room into the hallway. Two twisted shadows loomed there on the hallway
lockers, but didn't move.
"That's weird. They're not moving."
"They usually don't unless they're attached to a
body." Jimbo joked.
I gave him a sharp look. He didn't see everything I did.
Sometimes shadows did move without being attached to a body.
"I'm checking it out." I told Jimbo, who nodded
and returned to loading his camera.
I walked casually to the exit and peered out.
The shadows didn't move. And there was no one there.
It was not only getting strange, but downright scary.
Shadows don't exist without bodies, except when they're not shadows.
The Shadows moved then, almost as if sensing my thoughts.
I lifted my right hand and it began to glow like a beacon.
It did that under certain circumstances, when I was healing someone or when
there was danger. I wasn't healing anyone.
"Run, Jimbo!" I yelled.
I jammed back into the locker room and he leaped to his feet
and followed me, as we wove through the aisles of lockers, until we reached the
showers. Next to the showers was a metal door with exit only in case of emergencies
marked on it.
I didn't wait to find out if it was an emergency, I slammed
into the door and we both squeezed through and not a moment too soon. I shut
the door behind us, and the door was struck by something so hard it actually
bowed inwards towards us. I made sure to hold onto the door handle. It began to
turn. I didn't think I was strong enough to hold it for very long.
"It's trying to break in." I uttered to Jimbo, who
by now was standing beside me, his eyes wide as saucers.
"Ghosts can't do that."
"I know. Look for another way out."
He searched the small room we were in, but there were no
exits. It was a storage room. Tons of old baseball and football helmets, caps,
and jerseys were heaped in large cloth bins. Rows of old trophies lined metal
shelves against the walls, as well as beat up footballs and baseballs.
"It's like the museum of old and useless sports
relics." Jimbo muttered with distaste.
Then something slammed into the door again. Harder.
I let out a gasp as the air was knocked from me, but held
on. My forehead was beading with sweat from the effort of blocking the door.
"I don't think I can hold on much longer, Jimbo."
He ran up and put his shoulder to the door to add to the
resistance I was already giving it.
"If we don't make it outta here, Sammie."
"This is not the Okay Corral, Jimbo."
"The what?"
"Never mind. Look, whatever those things were, they
have to have some kind of physical focus. Even astral monsters have to have
some kind of physical touchdown to manifest."
"Astral monsters?" Jimbo sputtered. "You mean
we're being attacked by astral monsters?"
"They just look like that. They're people, young or
old, male or female, who are so lost to themselves that they have become
disfigured by their own anger, lust, greed and hatred."
The door banged again. Jimbo started to pull back, raising
his fists.
"Wait!" I cried out. "Hold the door. I'm
going to try something."
I shut my eyes and centered myself in the immediate darkness
inside my mind. It became darker for a moment, and then a point of light began
to grow. As it did I could see something quite clearly, but it was surrounded
by a red glow. I knew what they were after!
I opened my eyes and ran to the back of the room. "Got
it!"
"Got what?" Jimbo asked, and then grunted like a
pig when the door was struck again. He almost fell away, but at the last moment
was able to put his shoulder to it again with full force.
I ran up and showed him the year book. "It's stolen
from the other team."
"Dear God in heaven, Sammie, you're telling me those
monsters outside want an ordinary yearbook?"
"It's not ordinary. It's the last thing on earth
they're attached to."
He gave me a blank look.
I took the book and nodded at the door. "When I say go,
let the door go."
"Uh."
"Just trust me."
"I don't know, Sammie."
"Jimbo!"
"All right, but if I die tonight, I'm not going to
speak to you again."
"If we die tonight, we'll be speaking to each other a
lot. Now open that door!"
He flung it open and dodged away as I took the yearbook and
opened its pages and held it up before me. The pages flung back and forth and
finally stopped on one, just as the two shadows flung themselves inside.
The page lit up like a spot light and the two shadows were
clasped within the light and drawn into it. A moment later the pages of the
book snapped shut and the book fell from my hands to the floor, where it laid
smoking.
Jimbo came up and looked at it.
"What just happened?"
"They went back where they should be."
"Where's that?"
I looked at him and smiled. "You don't really want to
know."
"Hey!" The Coach's voice hollered from the hallway
and a moment later he rushed inside. "I thought you two were taking
pictures of the game."
We didn't say anything about what had happened that night in
the locker room, but we sure had a lot of phone snapping photos. Me of the
baseball team and Jimbo of the cheerleaders.
