"Asses on the bus! Asses on the bus!"
Coach Finstock's eyes followed the students as they hurriedly climbed on the school bus, one after the other. Once the last of them was in, the coach quickly followed after him. He stood near the driver's seat; his gaze skimmed the list of names on the clipboard he held. When he reached the bottom, he voiced the last three names, "Anderson is here, McKenly is here and finally... Greenberg is...,"
He paused for a moment, looking over the list one more time, before lifting his sight towards the students. He searched for a sign of Greenberg's face among the others, but found none, "Oh hell! Where is Greenberg?" he exclaimed in an outburst. Finstock waited for an answer that never came. Instead, the students, looked at each other, then back at him again, only to shake their heads from left to right in the end.
A voice eventually came from the rear of the bus, "Coach, last I saw him, he was in the locker room, he didn't look well. I think he's sick or something," said the student.
"And you didn't think to notify me of that?" the coach wore his heart on his sleeve, he wasn't the type to hide his thoughts, his emotions often manifested in a variety of energetic and comical motions.
He huffed and puffed, practically stomping his way out of the bus, back to the boys' Lockeroom, "Greenberg! It's always Greenberg. Why does it always have to be Greenberg?" he grumbled under his breath. He burst through the door, expecting to see Greenberg in there, but all he saw was... Nothing.
"Greenberg?" he called out for the young man. There was no response...
Finstock walked between the locker cabinets looking for his missing student. The silence in that place irked him, but he tried his best to keep his demeanor together. After about three minutes of pointless searching, he stopped, the back of his hands on his hips, he furrowed his eyebrows, "Where the hell is he?"
For a moment, the coach thought that the space around him was all wrong, like it was somehow quieter than it should have been. However, in the midst of those notions he heard what he first thought were screams.
He bolted out of there and ran through the empty hallways of Beacon Hills high. By the time he reached the bus again, silence had already reconquered its territory. Nobody was screaming; the cold air of the night brushed the coach's skin when he left the warmth of the building behind him. Moreover, nobody was moving; Finstock perked his head up to catch a glimpse of his students inside the vehicle but, it seemed like there was no one in there. That impression was confirmed once he stepped inside. There was no sign of the students, no sigh of the driver and... No sign of struggle. The bus looked as good as new.
"Henrick?" the coach called for the driver, who was nowhere to be seen. At that point, Finstock looked more annoyed than anything. He was well aware of the bizarreness Beacon Hills was dipped into, but for some reason, it didn't really faze him that much.
He exited the bus again, and went in a circle around the thing, looking for... Frankly, whatever he could find, "Goddamn it! Why does weird shit like this keep happening?" he muttered.
"You haven't changed a bit, Coach," she pressed on the letters when she uttered the word "Coach"
He flipped around to put a face on the voice that spoke to him. He didn't immediately recognize her when he first laid eyes on her, but the memories slowly came back to him in bits and pieces, "Jennifer Blake?" he asked.
"Ow, I am surprised you remember me," she said. Her focus was fully on something she held in her hand, like it was the most fascinating thing.
He would have loved to give her one of his classical retorts, but his confidence was dwindling by the second, the more he looked at her figure. He kept trying to see what she was holding as he took a few steps towards her, "Well, you seem to remember me too so..."
"Nonsense! Who could ever forget about you?" she said, finally peering at him.
He froze, not wanting to close the distance between them anymore, he looked at her like she was some sort of feral animal, "Aren't you supposed to be... Dead?" he asked, seemingly confused.
"Honestly, is there anything in this town that goes the way it's supposed to?" she moved towards him a little, lifting her hand up, parading what she had in her hand. It was a whistle, the kind he always had around his neck.
"Wh... Where are my students?"
"I am afraid I can't tell you that, but I wouldn't worry about them, they are in good hands, I assure you that,"
He wasn't convinced much by her words. He kept eying the area around them, he knew she wasn't quite a normal human, as she'd pointed out, normal doesn't really run miles in Beacon Hills, "What did you do?"
"Can't tell you that either. Just know that we needed them, we'll put them to good use," at that statement, he couldn't be anything but disgusted. The way she spoke about those kids, did more than irk him in many ways.
Although, he didn't get much time to ponder on things any further. He fell to the ground on his back, after feeling a cold object pierce through his abdomen area. He only felt the sharp pain of the carving knife lodged in his insides when his eyes fell down on the thing. A warm sensation crept and gradually spread around the wound, as what he came to understand was his own blood leaving his vessels.
It was funny to him, how he only realized that she'd stabbed him after feeling all of those things happening to his body, "Oh! Crap...," he managed to say, looking up at her where she towered over him.
"I would have apologized but, it would have been a lie. Though, I was honest when I said we needed them,"
"For what?" he struggled to speak as he tried to find any semblance of mercy in her cold, dead eyes.
"For fuel. They'll be the fuel for my fire," she stated like it was the most basic concept one could hear.