At the Social, Zach sat at the back of the room while waiting for them to break into the sectionals to meet the new freshman. It was still twenty minutes into the meeting and it was all of the marching band including the new freshman sitting in the band room. The worriness was still lingering not of what happened the morning of the threat of taking away band. But it was the way Ms. Yuri was acting through out the whole thing. She seemed to be socialising less and less as the night went on. She stood at the podium and announced the different sections to let freshman find their soon to be crack head families. The only problem with the trombones was they only had three freshman and they didn't seem to be the social type. The two girls were huddling next to each other as if they were sewn together, the boy was quiet and usaully he stayed in the back and further away from the section. Then the OK was given to break into sectionals to meet the kiddos. The trombone section went into back hallway and began to introduce themselves. The two freshman girls began to slowly began to break the sewing of fear that bound them and became more comfortable. The boy, however, confessed that it will be awhile before he became comfortable because he has social anxiety. All fifteen trombones went down the line to say their names and something about them.
When it got to Zach's turn, he said the most unexpected thing. "I'm Zach, and I don't do drugs." It caught the Trombone section leader, Lindsey, off guard. But everyone else laughed so she went with it "well that's good!" said Ronnie, a senior who was a severe joker in the art of making people laugh in the section. 'it will be sad when he goes' Zach thought. Smiles went all around the circle. Something that night changed everything, it wasn't the new freshman, it had something to do with Ms. Yuri. When the social was over. Zach went to get his trombone from his cubby slot when he noticed that Ms.Yuri was sitting in the band office staring at the cross. That was on the wall in the band room. He thought it was rather peculiar and was letting it go, until she started to whisper words in another language. Zach shrugged it off again and blamed it on the tiredness of the day, and left for home. When he walked out of the school he noticed that the freshman boy sitting out in front by the flag pole. He was shaking in his boots, Zach approached him and asked if he could sit by him. The boy nodded and began to shake more and more.
"I never caught your name, it may have been that I wasn't paying attention." Zach said with a nervous smile. The boy laughed. "It's ok, my name is Danny." Zach smiled. "that is a terrific name I'm Zach." Danny pointed at Zach and smiled. "You are the boy that said you don't do drugs!" Zach laughed a little and replied. "You don't look like you do it either!" Danny laughed, and the shaking became less and less as they began to talk. It was then when Danny kept gripping the bottom of his sleeve and began to tug on it. "Can we please be friends Zach?" Danny asked. Zach looked over at him with a curious face. "Yeah, sure I will be your friend!" Danny's eyes lit up.
"You mean it?"
"Yes, of course I mean it."
"Wow! You took me literally thank you!"
"What do you mean by literally?"
Danny looked down at his feet and then made eye contact with Zach. "Most people don't take me seriously, they think I am joking when I'm telling the truth." Zach began to notice tiny details about Danny that he had never noticed before. One of them being that Zach could most likely be his only friend as of right now. He grabbed Danny's hand and looked at him. "But I will." He said to Danny. The brown haired boy smiled. But a sudden sound caused Danny to go completely timid once more. It was a loud popping sound, when Zach went to look to see what it was coming from he saw a truck pulling up to the side of the school. The truck was old and beat up, when the window rolled down a buffy man with brown hair and a brown yet turning gray beard. He stared directly at Danny. "Daniel get your ass in here!" He yelled. Danny quickly moved to the truck and opened the door. He looked back to see Zach. "See you later Zach!" He said, but when he said it he almost sounded scared.
When Danny got into the truck he didn't break eye contact with Zach. Unitl the truck rolled by and left with a puff of smoke following it. Zach's focus was now shifting from Ms. Yuri to Danny. 'Did he just cuss out his kid for no reason at all?' Zach thought. His train of thought was interupted by a car horn going off. A very distinct one at that, Zach recognized and walked towards the car to see his mother in the driver's seat. she rolled down the window. "Hi hun! how was the social" His mom asked while he was putting the trombone in the back seat. "It went pretty well." He said. "I met a new friend." Her eyes lit up "what's their name?" she asked eagerly. "Danny" He replied. His mother smiled.
"I'm guessing that this is a freshman."
"How did you know?"
"Well... It was rather quick and I saw the two of you talking and he looked rather new too."
"Yeah, He's a nice kid."
"It's also nice that you took him under your wing."
"what do you mean by that?"
"Well, he is new to being in high school and you are a veteran and you are helping him."
"I guess you could put it that way too."
Zach wanted the conversation to end so he could begin his train of thought on Ms.Yuri's behavior. He viewed it to be rather odd that she was acting this way. The car ride to his house was dead silent. The only thing that could be heard was the wind beating on the car as other cars drove by. Zach kept shifting from reality to fiction like a television switching channels. Then out of the blue his mother checks her phone while stopped at an intersection. "Oh my god!" She said as she looked over to the passenger side to view Zach, who had no idea what news was going to come to him. "Do you have Mrs.Rodway for Chemistry?" Zach nodded. "Yes I do why?" His mom handed him the phone so that she could start driving again. Now on the phone suprised Zach. It was a news webiste and at the top was a picture of Mrs.Rodway smiling with her husband. In bold letters, a seven letter word caught Zach's attention. "MISSING" The word stuck to Zach like a thumb tack on a cork board. He began to feel the worriness back into the pit of his stomach again.
As they pulled up to the house, Zach was the first to get out. He went into the back seat to grab his trombone. When he physically had gotten into the house it was eight o'clock at night. He walked passed the living where he had found his father passed out and snoring on the couch. Zach climbed up the stairs carefully and went into his room. When he had gotten to his room he opened the door put his trombone on the floor next to the shoe rack, closed the door and flopped onto his bed. He stared up at his ceiling waiting for sleep to come to him. But it didn't, so his only solution was taking a shower. He lifted his body off the bed to go to his dresser to grab clothes for his shower. A head ache started as soon as he left his bedroom as he went across the hallway to the bathroom.
When he got to the bathroom, he looked into the mirror. He began to notice how skinny he became. 'Maybe I should eat more' He thought to himself. When he undressed he noticed something odd while getting in the shower. There was a bruise on his left ankle. Though he had not noticed it before he thought that it must've been brand new. He went to turn on the shower as the cold drips hit him he began to shower like any normal being. After he got out is when he noticed the bruise started to hurt but he had no idea where it came from nor had any idea why it just started to hurt. Had he been that focus on Ms. Yuri that he never notice the pain? As he got dressed his phone started to ring, it was Ella. He began to grow nervous on why she was calling at this time of night. So the idiot he was he picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi Zach how are you?"
"I actually just got out of the shower you?"
"Just laying in bed"
"I actually have a question Ell"
"Ok shoot what is it?"
"Did Ms. Yuri seem to be acting wierd?"
There was a pause on the phone. "Yeah just a tiny bit she was barely talking to anyone at the social." He was clearly not looking for that answer. "Anything else?" He said as he walked out of the bathroom to his room. "Other than that no I was more worried about you." She said rather quickly. "Why me?" He replied.
"You were acting very strange when you walked into band class, you acted like you've just seen a ghost." He wished that he could tell her what he saw. But he thought it would only make him sound crazy. "I did? I mean I barely slept at all last night." He said with a chuckle. "Alright then, you should go to bed then it is rather late." Zach turned on his phone to see what time it was nine-thirty. He couldn't tell what made it felt that time went by so fast. "well damn then I didn't realize what time it was, well then good night Ella." She responded with a "good night" as well then she hung up the phone. As he did earlier he turned off his night stand light flopped onto the bed and fell asleep.
It is safe to say the Zach did dream but it was rather a frightning one that woke him up. In the dream Zach was in the band room getting his instrument when he noticed Ms. Yuri standing in the middle of the room. She didn't look herself, she took off her glasses and put them on the stand. Then something terrible happened, Ms. Yuri changed. She began to grow horns that were curved, A thick tail that was black and was sputtering with black smoke, and her legs became dog like with black fur covering it. The scary part of all was that Ms.Yuri's face had two purple stripes on both sides of her face, and the horrifying eyes he saw ealier looked over at him. Then woke up with sweat dripping down his face. "What the hell was that!" He whispered. He turned on his phone to see the time. ten o'clock is what it read. 'Wait I only slept for thirty minutes?' He thought, he laid back down and tried to fall asleep. When he did he dreamed of nothing.
The next time he got up is when his alarm went off. He was eager today for it was the last day of school. He got up rather quickly got dressed and grabbed his backpack and trombone and made his way down stairs. When he got to the last two steps he jumped off the stairs. "Zachary! Be more careful! You could hurt yourself you know!" His mother yelled from in the kitchen. "Sorry mom, i'm just excited." He said as he sat down at the counter. "What for?" His mother asked. Zach was stunned that she hadn't realized that the year had gone by faster than expected. "It's the last day of school. " He said as he was looking at his phone to make sure. His mother looked at him as she was pulling out fruit for Zach. "Oh! Really?! Had time fly by that quickly!?" She gasped. Zach looked at the time. "Oh shit." He said. "Language" His mother growled. "sorry it's passed six I gotta get to the bus." He said as he grabbed the apple that his mom left on the counter for her breakfast. He grabbed everything he needed and ran to the door. "Tell dad I said happy thursday meeting." Zach said while shutting the door.
Zach began to walk to the bus stop and when he got there. He was just in time for the bus, for it had just pulled up. As he gone on the bus he looked for an empty seat because of the trombone case. He thought that the bus rice would finally be better. But he was clearly wrong. There is a hate relationship between basketball players and marching band kids. Some believe it was started about twenty years ago, a basket ball player went into the band room and broke a sousaphone. When Zach asked Ms.Yuri about it she said that it was way before she started working there.
Without warning someone grabbed Zach by the collar. "Your in my seat!" The person hissed. Zach turned around to meet a tall boy with a jock jacket and a hat "I'm sorry Ethan." Zach said with fear. "Your damn right you should be sorry! do none of you dumbass band kids know how to do anything right!" He said with a fist raising. Out of the corner of Zach's eye a kid stood up. She looked very threatening to anyone in her path. "Ethan! Remember your place! There was a truce!" She said with her eyes piercing at him. Ethan looked back at Zach who was sweating beads. He let go of his grip and sat in the seat right beside him. Zach sat back down and in his seat he was trying to find his defender. But he couldn't find her, it was like she disappeared. When he returned to his resting position for the rest of the bus ride to school. He turned on his phone as it buzzed with a new text message. It was Ryan, the message had read 'are you ok? I heard what had happened by Jenny' Zach stood in shock. The battery percussionist that had never talked to anyone. Zach had never heard her talk, however she always did talk to Ryan. You could almost say they were dating.
Zach didn't know how to answer the text message, his head had been twisting the gears in the wrong direction. He somehow couldn't make sense of the words that his friend sent. When he read over and over again Ryan was already on the bus making his way to sit by Zach. "Whoa you actually are reading my text messages?" Ryan said jokingly. Zach looked up at the flute player. "What do you mean?" Zach laughed. "I always read them." His friend rolled his eyes. "yeah right! though are you excited we don't get to do anything for all of the classes." He said excitingly. Zach smiled and nodded. "I can finally do no work!" Zach said as he got off the bus.
When they got off the bus. Jenny stood by the flag pole waiting for the two of them to pass her so she could stay right beside Ryan. She leaned over to his ear as her red hair fell on his shoulder as she whispered softly in to his ear. Ryan grew pale as he looked at his girlfriend. "Really?" He said with a slight hint of concern in his voice. Jenny nodded then walked away to meet some of her other friends. Ryan looked over at Zach " You know about Mrs.Rodway going missing right?" Zach nodded as he thought back about yesterday night when his mom showed him the news article. "Well it turned into an investigation at the school now, so cops are now everywhere." Zach looked into the direction of the school doors. When they got to it a police man stopped them and checked their bags. However they didn't even check the instruments. When they were out of the police man's hearing, Zach stopped for a minute and looked at Ryan. "They didn't even check our cases." Ryan shrugged his shoulders "If they didn't that's ok they probably think we have nothing to hide at all." Ryan said way too calming for Zach's comfort. "You sound like you've gotten away with this before..." Zach said with a nerve twitching generously. Ryan laughed. "Did I pop one of your nerves chill out I haven't. I don't do that stuff." He said trying to comfort his friend. Zach looked over unamused at him. "But it's something you would do." Zach said sighing as he walked towards the band room. Ryan shook his head and giggled. "Me?Never!" Zach chuckled. Zach then opened the lever door and appeared into the band room. When he went to the back of the storage room to go put his instrument in the cubbyhole he was designated he heard a loud thud. He thought it was nothing . He thought it was just a kid that was in the band room and putting their stuff away. 'But at the same time wouldn't they have came into the storage room to put their stuff away?' He though to himself as he closed the door to the storage and stood there for awhile. When he turned around he thought that he was in the dream he had last night.