It was a
dull February morning. A dark grey sky hung above the small, fenced off and
gated car park as a small white Nissan pulled into a space, correcting itself
before the small engine chattered to a halt. Ms. Marshalls sighed as she got
out of her car and nervously walked towards the school, through the car park.
She’d been woken up late by a call for a substitute teaching job at a local High
School and it showed; her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight but slightly
clumsily put together bun, her blue jeans had one leg rolled up whilst the
other hung low to her brown loafers and her yellow turtleneck sweater seemed to
be un-ironed. A pair of rectangular
glasses sat high on her nose, covering her eyes in a thin glass pane. She
carried a bundle of folders and binders as she trotted hastily towards the
large, concrete block of a school that she’d been called to sub at. She passed
several other people dressed in similarly conservative attire, all moving at a
similar slow trudge and some casting the occasional glance of jealousy at her
un-fleeting youth or pity at the knowledge of what she was in for as a sub.
The only
one who seemed to show her anything other than pity or hostility was Juliette,
a security guard who got out of her black Ford pickup clad in a black
windbreaker and baggy combat trousers and boots with a black baseball cap
covering most of her red hair that came out the back in a ponytail. She smiled
happily at her, recognizing the nervous new arrival from a volunteer’s centre.
“You need
any help with those?” Juliette asked as she slowed down from the jog she’d been
at to catch up, holding the door open for Ms. Marshalls to enter the corridor
from the concrete outside of the school. “You don’t wanna dro-”
Just as the
guard began to speak again, Ms. Marshalls did just what she was warning her
about as a flurry of notes on Macbeth, Othello and Of Mice and Men went
tumbling to the ground before the exasperated teacher, littering the pale
yellow lino floor that screamed cheapness. Grey walls with the occasional
pin-board covered in motivational posters that only seemed to the opposite of
what they intended by reminding the viewer that they could be in so many nicer
places rather than under the dull Virginia sky.
“Oh… I
erm…” She stammered as she bent over to pick up the fallen binders only to find
the guard scooping them up and nodding at her to keep walking.
“It’s cool,
I got ‘em.” Juliette nodded with a playful smirk on her face, casting a small
glace at the denim clad rump of the sub as she rose up from her bending
position.
“I erm…
thank you!” She smiled nervously as the pair walked a few more meters to the
door marked “ENGLISH 2, CORRIDOR C”
and opened the glass-panelled door. The sub entered first and put down the pile
she’d been carrying before spinning around and taking the second pile from the
guard who then backed up to the doorway and leaned on the frame, arms folded.
“So… What
time to do you get off?” The guard asked casually, liking what she saw under
all that conservative clothing Marshalls was wearing.
Ms. Marshalls straightened up, a blush on her face as she
heard this, nearly dropping the stack of folders as she does. “I-I-I have a-a
boyfriend!” She quickly yammered out a lie to deflect the proposed date from
the good looking guard.
“Damn shame… Well, if you ever need another woman…” She
flicked a piece of paper over to the sub who barely catches it after fumbling
for a second or two, “Then call me!” Juliette smirked before strolling away,
her boots clicking on the hard, pasty yellow floors as she walked away, leaving
Ms. Marshalls to blush in piece as she waited for her class to arrive.
And so the day wore on. The poor Ms. Marshall endured
classes upon classes of bored teens who had better places to be and more
important things to do in their opinion, leaving them with the attention spans
of goldfish. Yet she soldiered on, trying to give life to the lines of the
centuries old texts and personalities to the un-relatable protagonists and villains
alike that usually seemed to be intent on saying as little as possible with as
many words as they could manage. Alas, she failed and spent her whole day
tiring herself out as she tried to be nice to the teens as they walked all over
her supposed “authority.” By the end of the day, she was slumped in her seat,
her hair even more of a mess and her sweater crumpled up around the torso from
all the bending over she did to look at her students work or, mainly, lack
thereof.
With a slow trudge she moved, only one or two books in her
arms this time as she’d just been told by the Head Teacher that she’d be needed
to come back tomorrow, to brave the grey-walled and yellow-floored jungle she’d
only just managed to leave. She didn’t really look at anything as she walked
the now empty corridor, her eyes glazed over the floor, walls and doors as she
makes her way on autopilot back to her car. She drove home with a tired look in
her eyes.
Turn the wheel.
Change the gear.
Change the gear.
Turn the wheel.
Apply the brakes.
The route seemed to carry on forever. Endless streets of
dull grey concrete seemed to drag on in a never-ending hell of urbanized simplicity.
Streetlights passed by in short bursts of light, followed by a few seconds of
darkness before the light returned and, just like the road, that pattern never
seemed to end. The sky above was void of light, the sun had set and the stars
were blotted out by light pollution, leaving only a vast inky black dome as far
as the eye could see.
Eventually, the perpetual suffering came to an end as the
wheels met the gravel of the driveway leading up to the front door of a stereotypical
suburban home. The white wooden panel walls, a red slate roof and a small porch
with a waist high fence around it. The kind of home that lacks a soul for weeks
after you move into it. One that reeks of industry and mass production,
designed to fuel a growing population. This population would then become what Ms. Marshalls hated the most;
boring, copied and pasted individuals, just like their houses. Maybe that’s
what Ms. Marshalls envied about Juliette; she was different. Special.
Ms. Marshalls leaned back in her seat and closed her tired
eyes for a second or two, feeling herself start to drift away as she did. “I
wish I was more interesting…” She mumbled to herself before she opened her car
door and slowly walked up to her front door, key in hand. She was totally
unaware of the large creature squatting in the nearby hedgerow that had heard
what she’d said and was almost too happy to oblige her wish…
Sitting down in her armchair, she switched on her TV and let
the glare wash over her in the darkened room as her eyelids started to feel heavier
and heavier, her blinking slowing down a little as it got harder to keep her
eyes open from all the tire and stress of the day started to lift from her
shoulders. Eventually she retreated to the nocturnal haven and was finally free
from the shackles of the day.
Unknowns to the sleeping teacher, a long claw slid through
the tiny gap in her kitchen window and started to lift it up, only pausing when
the window made a loud creak before starting to move again once the owner of
the claw sees that she’d barely even shifted in her chair from the noise. Once
the window was fully open, the claw retreats back into the darkness before
sliding back through with the rest of a large, bony hand with long and thin
fingers, each one ending with a large claw covered in strange engravings. A
second hand grips the other side of the frame and starts to pull a tall, thin
mass through the window. With surprising elegance, the hunched creature lands
on the kitchen floor and start to creep silently towards the sleeping woman, its
animalistic face with a pair of big, putrid green eyes contorted into a twisted
smile of malice. Slowly, it slides its foul-smelling clawed hand across her
body until it’s resting over her heart. The claws then seem to sink into her
chest with a small hiss, a bright white light shining from them as they do.
After a few seconds, the monster pulls its hand out of the now shaking but
still comatose woman’s chest, now clutching a white trail behind a spiritual
version of her head. It tosses the soul aside and shoves its clawed hand to her
mouth, starting a deranged laugh that finally wakes the now disembodied Ms.
Marshalls just in time for her to watch its body dematerialize and flow into
her old body as its back arches, mouth open wide. Soon, the possession is done
and her body settles back down until its eyes snap back open and the same smile
appears on her lips…
Ms. Marshall’s heeled foot swung out of the car in one,
swift movement. Attached to it was a long leg that was tightly wrapped in a
pair of black leggings suitable for yoga. This black-clad leg continued on as
she pulled herself from the car, placing a matching foot down with its twin.
Instead of the conservative turtle neck she wore before, her body was covered
far less by an olive green V-neck that was pulled over her body and in doing so
was showing plenty of curves, especially her breasts. Unlike the prior day, her
hair was curled slightly, giving it an elegant wave that bobbed as she turned
her bug-eye sunglasses covered eyes to look disapprovingly and purse her
slightly purple lips at the school she’d suffered at the day before.
This time unburdened by any heavy books or binders, she
powered through the carpark with a sultry mince, swaying her hips as she went. Once
again, eyes were locked on her but this time they were filled with lust and
envy. The older men’s eyes bored into her curves as they bounced with each
step, almost hypnotized by the youthful bouncing of her unbroken and unwrinkled
body. The women’s eyes stared with envy as she strutted before them, making
them look upon her like a diamond ring they could not afford or a mirror into a
far greater past that has long since eluded them but was now back to taunt them
and their weary bones one last time. Only one woman actually walked over to talk
to the eye-candy they all ogled. The security guard, Juliette.
“Hey, you didn’t call last night I was wo-” Juliette began
to speak as she caught up with the woman she thought she knew.
With a single heel turn, ‘Ms. Marshalls’ span around and
pulled the black-clad guard into a kiss, holding it for a few seconds before
pulling away, leaving behind a faint trace of purple on the stunned guard’s
lips.
“Oh hush… You’re far nicer to look at than hear, hon” Ms.
Marshalls smirked slightly as she pushed her sunglasses down her nose to look
the guard in the eyes briefly, shocking them further before she pulled them
back up and spun around once more to walk away, leaving only the clack of her
heels behind as she turned a corner and vanished from sight.
With a bored expression on her face, Ms. Marshalls strode
down the corridor with purpose and poise that screamed confidence and self-importance.
She arrived at her classroom and put down her purse and sunglasses before
leaving once again. The day began and students started to filter into the
school for registration before leaving to their first period. The same Grade 11
students she’d had last period the day before filtered into the class and
looked around for their teacher, one or two joking about being legally allowed
to leave if she doesn’t show in fifteen minutes, earning a few pity chuckles.
The Class, at first in anarchy, eventually settled down and about
fifteen minutes after the lesson began, Ms. Marshalls strolled into the room
with a hot cup of coffee in one hand and a vogue magazine in the other. She
slumped down into a chair at the back of the classroom and shoved a large film
role into a projector, not caring for the welfare of either. A film adaptation
of Macbeth began to play about half way through and all the eyes in the room
started to glaze over. Only one student looked back at the teacher, a little
suspicious as to her sudden change in attitude and apparel. Ms. Marshalls saw
this and looked over at them with a smirk as she licked her lips like a wolf
looking at its prey. Her eyes glowed a deep and putrid green, the color of algae,
making the curious student’s own eyes widen as their head quickly twisted back
around to face the flickering image on the screen before him, a hot blush
spreading over his face.
The new Ms. Marshalls was here to stay…
