The Scream of the Interlopers: Chapter II

"And then, after they probed me in all sorts of horrible ways, the creatures who say 'Eaaaeeeaweah' turned me into a gekko!" I said, wrapping up my exagerated account of what had happened earlier that day in Mrs. Gorefinland's class to my lunch table comrades.

"All right, now we know you're lying," said the acrimonious Miller.

"Yeah, you don't look like a gekko--oh, perhaps I stand mistaken; you do have a certain amphibiousness about you," chided the flambouyant Gaeron.

"I thought them little gekkos were reptiles?" said Leroy the redneck.

"Well whatever they are, I got better," I said. "But the point is, you guys, that some kind of weird disease or something is changing people into emotionless shells!"

"That is proposterous. All is well here at SOK," said Jeromy from the far end of the table. He had been completely taciturn up until now; this was the first time he had said anything, and his voice was devoid of sentiment. He then eyed us with agonistic regard.

"Do you see what I mean?" I whispered to the confidantes closest at hand. "I think they've gotten Jeromy, too!"

"He's right, man," said Leroy. "I've seen some creepy shit going on. Like just the other day, my sister came home acting all queer--odd, you know--so I ruffed her up a bit--if you catch my drift. It didn't help, because the next morning, my whole farm community was all messed up! I've been hiding with the cows...mmm mmphh."

"My entire religion class except for one or two people has gone lifeless, and Dr. Fuach's become an oversensitive castrator!" I mouthed fervently, the fear and worry in my speech obvious.

"Oh stop it," said Gaeron. "You're just looking for attention."

"I don't have time for this," said Miller. "Who's walking up?"

Within mere seconds, my lunch table--then the whole cafeteria--had cleared out, leaving me alone to contemplate these eerie happenings. Looking out through the broad windows of the lunch room, I could see Gaeron, Miller, and Leroy walking away to their subsequent classes, laughing gaily as they went. Jeromy was no where in sight. Ever so slowly, I became cognizant of a hoarse, heavy breathing behind me. I turned around, my motion deliberate, to see Stephan Whory-whory-hosbin-cacka-mosis at the table juxtaposed to mine, his back to the bench so that he was facing me.

Suspicion ensnared me. Stephan--or 'Hosbin' as we sometimes called him--had a certain laconic, enigmatic peculiarness about him that fit the criteria for a victim of this new disease that left people so callous. But then again, wasn't that how he always acted? One thing that distinguished Stephan from anyone else was his off the wall sense of humor; that would be the key to unlocking whether he was one of them or not.

"So Hosbin," I said cautiously, making an effort to reveal his true nature. "Tell me something funny."

"Eaaaeeeaweah!!" he screamed.

"No!" I said, aghast. "Not you too!?"

"You asked me to say something funny, you freak," said Stephan.

I felt as if a vexatious burden had been lifted off my shoulders, so palpable was my relief. "It's good to see you being you, Hosbin," I said, patting him on the shoulder.

The next day, a Friday, I came to school with a pertinacious urge to get to the bottom of this puzzle. My first period science class was a particularly disturbing display of sobriety; every last person, including Mrs. Gorefinland, had fallen victim to the staid affliction. What should I call this strange ailment? I thought to myself, scrutinizing my vocabulary. I've got it: "the interlopers who scream 'Eaaaeeeaweah!'"

As for the daily lesson of the class itself, Mrs. Gorefinland, in a tone that lacked any heart, rambled ceaselessly about nothing. My intuition suggested that if I hadn't been there--as I wished more and more I wasn't--the class would have been doing something else entirely, something to further their enslaving plague. What do they want from me? I pondered, continuing my flustered introspection. Why do they keep me in the dark and not just pass their dirty disease on to me?

The answer to that question, which came eventually, would only leave my perplexed mind more befuddled.

* * *

Towards the end of that day, as I paced guardedly down the SOK campus sidewalk towards Dr. Fuach's class, I became aware of just how rapidly this calamity had spread. The entire student and faculty body of the school had fallen victim to the stoic abnormality--save a small handful of solicitous youths. Where ever one of these went--scurrying about like frightened rodents--a unit of interlopers, marching in tight packed formation, was soon to follow.

They're all a bunch of damn Nazis, I thought to myself, stressing my all ready exhausted rationale. The interlopers would take a glance at me, whiff the air as if to size me up by my scent, then saunter away in search of other prey.

Presently, Leroy ran up to me, his sun-browned, childish face clouded by an anemic paleness.

"Leroy, is it really you?" I asked with precaution.

"Hell yeah it's me," he said without stopping. "I'm going to my truck, Ol' Red, to get my shotgun and some other guns!"

"Why...?" I called after him. It didn't take me long to figure out his reasoning; I witnessed it for myself moments later. Ambling up the sidewalk in immaculate formation, Miller, Gaeron, Jeromy, Roderick, Faun the Muslim, and six or seven other SOK students brushed past me in pursuit of Leroy, their grave eyes fixed on the fleeing redneck.

The fine arts center seemed to be the center of activity, I determined as I strolled past its imposing bulk. The lifeless interlopers--eyes opaque to the light of any humor, sorror, or happiness--went in an out carrying concealed objects, repeating the cycle over and over again like busy littel bees collecting nectar.

Upon entering Pubert Hall, the building for religion classes among other, more meaningful subjects, I encountered Walden and his Indian companion, Sukatuppa Ta Ta. I was heading towards the stairs that led to Dr. Fuach's classroom while they drifted in the direction of another corridor, and our paths intersected in the small lobby of the SOK edifice. A quick glance at they way the two laughed and smiled told me that they were interloper-free.

"Where've you guys been?" I asked, pressing the two into a dark corner as Jothaniel and the mushroom-headed, fomerly hyperactive boy from my religion class passed by, stone- faced and impassive.

"Greetings comrade, cooo, cooo," swooned Walden.

"What's up man," said Sukatuppa. "We just got back from a two day BAMF conference. Lots of fun. What's new with you?"

"Shhh," I whispered. "You guys have got to be careful...strange things have been going down around here..."

"Yes yes yes," said Walden, dismissing me. "We most be going now--Mr. Graeny has sent for us."

"See ya' later man," said Sukatuppa.

"Yeah, have fun," I said continuing on my way. Setting foot on the first step of the Pubert Hall stairwell, I suddenly remembered the nefarious significance of the name Graeny.

"Come back!" I called, reeling around. "You're in great danger!" It was too late; Walden and Sukatuppa Ta Ta had already vanished down the the dark hallway that stretched in the opposite direction--towards Mr. Graeny's office.

Why aren't any classes going on? Aren't schools supposed to have classes during the school day? I pondered, transversing the lonely hall towards Dr. Fuach's classroom. Every door was locked and dark within, devoid of life.

--Click-click--

"Ah, the jiggle of a locked door," I said aloud, wrenching the door knob to Dr. Fuach's deserted classroom with more than a little frustration.

The sound of a man crying, not so far away, interrupted my fascination with the impervious door. Slumped down in a secluded corner several yards off to my left, Terwiledgar sat with his head between his upraised knees, weeping softly.

"What's the matter?" I asked, advancing slowly.

Terwiledgar looked up. His eyes were red and puffy and snot trailed from his nose to his chest in sporadic, slimy green ribbons. "I don't know what's going on." He said, choking on a sob. "There's so much freaking weird shit going on--I don't know what to do."

"I know what you mean," I agreed gently. "Lets go to Mrs. Bologna's room."

With Terwiledgar in tow, I retraced my steps down the hall, rounded a couple corners, and came to Mrs. Bologna's room. Within the small room, a light was on. Relieved, I stretched out my fist and rapped intenly on the door.

"Enter," a familiar woman's voice said from within. We did just that, closed the door behind us to ensure privacy, and took our seats across from Mrs. Bologna, the school's young, luscious guidance counsellor--who bore into us with unusually phlegmatcic eyes from her side of the large desk.

"Mrs. Bologna, I need to talk," began Terwiledgar. The counsellor stared blankly at him, but Terwiledgar proceeded with his narrative anyway. "Last night, I cam home," he continued, "and my brother was all weird. Then this morning, my whole family was acting strange and they...I don't know they tried to eat me or something so I came to school and here it's only worse!"

"Terwiledgar: you are experiencing a malfunction in reasoning capability," said Mrs. Bologna. I was too facinated with the sensuous movement of her lips to notice just how stale and impurturable her voice was. "Have your friend step outside for a moment and we will resolve the infirmity together."

"All right," I said, coming to my feet.

High in the sky above the Saint Oliver's Klaussauhff campus, a lazy cumulus cloud drifted indolently across the path of the sun's rays, causing a significant dimming of the earth's natural source of illumination. This obfuscation sharpened Mrs. Bologna's lamp's ability to create a well defined reflection on the window of the small guidance office.

"Terwiledgar!" I gasped, clutching him by the shoulder with one hand and pointing to the window with the other. Just two wide-eyed faces stared back at us in the reflection; a dark haze of non-light and crimson red eyes were the only indications of where Mrs. Bologna should have been. I looked from the window to the stoic guidance counsellor and back again, recalling the incident from my science class--which had also involved interlopers lacking mirror-simulacrums.

"What the..." said Terwiledgar.

"Eaaaeeeaweah!!" screamed Mrs. Bologna in a high pitched wail.

I sprang to flee the room, but an instant later, the door swung open from without and barring my escape was Mr. Graeny. Standing in the hall to either side of the rutheless SOK campus president, Walden and Sukatuppa Ta Ta eyed Terwiledgar and I with blank, callous expressions--or lack of expressions I should say. Mrs. Bologna came up behind Terwiledgar, put him in an unbreakable hold, and hauled him out into the hallway, completely apathetic to the boy's frenetic kicking and thrashing.

Mr. Graeny shut the door after the guidance counsellor, and through the thin sliver of the window in the postern, I could see Terwiledgar being tackled by Mrs. Bologna, Walden, and Sukatuppa in a jumbled heap of bodies. Graeny was quick to move over and conceal the window with his wrinkled old body. Terwiledgar screamed like a feral beast in a death-agony for several seconds, then abruptly went silent. Satisfied with the vacuous quiescence, Mr. Graeny turned his attention to me.

"Have a seat," he said, motioning to the chair I had bolted from only moments earlier. I did so reluctantly, too confused and apprehensive to do otherwise or offer a word of protest. "You and I aren't that different, you know," he continued in his excrutiatingly soft and controlled voice. "We are joined in a way that will ultimately result in our destruction--or our triumph if we can but learn to work together."

I stared up at him, comprehending nothing. "What just happened?" I finally asked. The SOK campus president was obviously connected to the interlopers, perhaps even their leader, but he didn't talk like them. However strange it may have seemed, I found a warm sense or reassurance in the old man's presence.

"I'm sure you must be full of questions," he said. "All the strange things that have happened over the past few days...it must feel like being sucked into a whirlpool of bafflement. But I can assure you this: it is all for the betterment of humanity."

When I gave no reply, he continued. "Some people may think that the belief in a master race and subjugation of another is a hateful tenet to be avoided, but I believe that it is an absolute necessity to the survival of this planet."

"Are you saying that all those emotionless people out there...all those interlopers--are a master race?" I asked, my trepidation revealing itself through cracks in my voice.

"Interlopers?" said Mr. Graeny, pausing a moment to mull over the term. "Yes, you might call us interlopers. But as I said before, it's all for the betterment of humanity. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until another time to hear the full story of our 'interloper' origins, as you must all ready be perplexed to the point of mental break down. So until you're geared for the entire tale, it's neccessary that you remain here in captivity." I started to protest, but he cut me off with a wave from one gnarled hand. "Remember: your cooperation in this will result in our un- conditional world dominacne--but any insubordination will result in my--I mean our--utter destruction."

Without further ado, Mr. Greany turned and exited through the door, locking it behind him. I was incarcerated in the guidance counsellor's office. The door was impregnable without sufficient lubrication for the lock--moisture I didn't have--and the window was far too narrow for me to extricate my body through. It crossed my mind to use Mrs. Bologna's phone or her computer, but the wires of either device had been ripped apart. It was then, in a moment of despair, that I saw the heating vent up on the wall.

Five minutes later, after a quick slithering through the boxy heating duct tunnels, I emerged in the lobby of Pubert Hall, covered in grime from head to foot. A quick glance over my shoulder disclosed that I was not being tracked. I pushed open the door to the building, stepped out onto the brick landing, and recoiled at the sight of Dr. Fuach and Mrs. Gorefinland approaching--goose-stepping abreast. The two teachers gave me a cold-hearted glower, then continued on their way into the building, leaving me unapposed. With a sigh of relief, I started away from Pubert Hall and kept running until I was off the SOK campus and on the highway, on my way home.

From a third story window in the massive fine arts building, Mr. Graeny watched me go, a wry smile creasing his worn face.

TO BE CONTINUED