Deep in Blackthorn Wood, locals warn that something ancient and unnatural has made its home among the trees. Those who wander too far after dark often hear the sound of a baby crying, desperately calling out from the darkness.
Those who follow the sound… rarely come back the same.
Arnold had always hated school, even though he loved learning. He loved books. Reading. Mathematics and the sciences and the arts; music especially. All of it filled and interested and provoked a little spark of soul within his small and demure frame. He loved knowledge, its temple was his refuge.
But school. Walnutwood Highschool, in little hicksville Old Fair Oaks, that place was a temple of torment.
Pain.
Humiliation.
Constant. Angst.
He knew he was a weakling. He knew he was a coward. It was just another reason to hate his parents. The fucking retards couldn't even couple up with someone bigger or something. He'd started his freshman year an awkward and goofy but good natured quiet kid. By his senior year he was oftentimes reading about and oftentimes sympathizing with school shooters. It was relentless. All of them teased and kicked and prodded. Every last rat fucking one was cruel and sadistic in that special mentally addled way that especially belongs to teenagers and bigger children.
He'd contemplated suicide. But he knew he was too much of a coward to go through with it. There was no escape for him. Unless he made it out…
… just gotta finish out the year. Then I can join the army or somethin. Get the fuck away from this place.
He bit his tongue and clenched his fists and discovered the soothing numbing escape relief of his father's booze cabinet. He would sneak a few pulls late at night and the handful of times he was truant from class. The old man either didn't notice anything or didn't give enough of a fuck to say anything about it.
He had ways of getting by. Of coping with the fucking knuckle draggers. He took their shit and kept moving. He didn't engage or want anything to do with any of them. And after awhile they got the idea. And except for the occasional jab, his acne they particularly loved to make fun of, they left Arnold Voorhees alone. And he left them alone.
The balance of pariah and the populace was kept. There was some kind of desperate demented child rendition of peace.
Until that day in the cafeteria. The day that was to be the beginning of his reckoning. His final act.
Andrew Collins, one of the heavy metal toughs and bad boys all the dumb sluts liked pantsed him in front of nearly the entire upper class of the school. During lunch break for the 2nd period.
Everyone had gaped stunned and then howled with banshee laughter. Pointing. Hysterical bursting. Tears. Mad tears of jeering and joy. It was like an artillery bomb blast assault of laughter, a gale force of jeers and blasting voices on the little thin nerd known timidly as Arnold Voorhees.
The worst was his underwear. They were hella kiddie and he knew it. Whitey-tighties with Spider-Man and the Green Goblin and Doc Ock on em. He'd had em since he was twelve. His mother had insisted.
“Nice fuckin shorts, bitch-boy!"
“Yeah! What're you? Fuckin five years old!? You fuckin virgin!"
“Pussy!”
“Bitch-boy!”
“Pizza face! ya gotta great fuckin mug for your little baby underpants and your little fuckin slumber party! Don't forget crackers and juice, Pizza face!”
They all loved that one and they jumped on it. It became a chant. A war cry song from primitive teenage vocal chords and young belting animal child voice boxes. Pizza Face! pizza face! pizza face!
Pizza Face!
Pizza Face!
Pizza… ! Face… ! …!
PIZZA FACE ! …
PIIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAA….. !!
Arnold scrambled for his shorts and dropped his tray of lunch and fumbled his backpack and spilled more things; books, binders, pencils, comic books …
and this just brought down more harsh laughter from the children. They all howled mad hyena cackling.
Until it finally chased him from the cafeteria.
He ran all the way home down the street. Sobbing with humiliated childish abandon. Completely lost to it. He felt broken by it. Finally. Completely devastated. Broken over a great unyielding knee. Decimated.
No coming back… no recovery…
He was done.
Weeping with abandon into the hot moistening sanctuary of his pillowcase, Arnold got an idea.
An idea that would serve as his downfall. His humiliation was just the beginning.
…
It was the week just before Thanksgiving. The final Friday before a full week off. They were all of them expecting such a nice getaway. A pleasant retreat. He would rob it from them, rip it away from right out under their nose like a ghoul prowling and thieving into a midnight grave.
He stole his dad's pistol. A Glock. Had said it was gramp’s. It was easily wrapped up and hidden away in his backpack.
But nothing would go according to plan. It was only to end in grotesque misery.
And it all started with his own cowardice. His own spineless gutless self.
He should've known he wasn't gonna have the guts to go through with it. There he stood, in the spot he'd pre selected in the hall, next to the principal's office and cleaning supply closet. He'd been there. Standing. Sweating profusely. The rest of the student body and staff buzzing and blurring by. As usual.
And he just couldn't do it. He couldn't bring himself to free the machine. To wrap his finger around the trigger and let the lead fly and let fate decide and let God sort it out.
Because that wasn't him. He had the hate, the cold misanthropic ire that knew no bounds or relief. But he had no conviction.
None. He just felt light and lightheaded and like he was gonna throw up.
They don't even notice me… they're not even lookin… I'm standing here with doom in a cradle ready to be wielded and bring the end of everything for these pustule maggots… but they don't even register it. I'm not on anyone's radar. No one even notices…
… no one gives a fuck about me.
And on the heels of all of that he realized: I can't do this!
And so without thinking and without any mind paid his way as the students and staff made their way to their lockers and offices and extracurricular activities, Arnold Voorhees stole himself away into the cleaning closet. One of many on campus the janitor kept solvents and supplies for the upkeep and maintenance of the facility. He'd already left for the extended weekend. A favor from the principal, go ahead and get some livin done, buddy!
No one noticed him go in. No one saw or heard a thing. And Arnold didn't hear the lock snap click into place behind him. There was no keyhole on the inside. And the janitor had left the door slightly ajar so that the other staff could get in there, if needed.
Nobody remembered this. Not before they all left for the break. And not once during the entire Thanksgiving weekend.
Arnold knew very quickly something was wrong. After he'd cried himself hoarse. And thanked God and begged for forgiveness. He'd shuddered and shivered and danced a little in his own skin with gooseflesh as he shed off the last of his tears.
Then he'd thanked God one more time and tried the door.
And the door would not.
Not comprehending right away, he tried the handle again.
It didn't budge.
Not an inch.
Panicked he began throwing all of his limited weight and feeble strength into the effort to wrench the door handle to move, to give. He grew more desperate with each futile thrashing. He then began to holler. Like a madman facing the gallows death end sentencing.
He howled. Desperate. And frightened.
“Help! Help! Help! please! Please, someone I'm trapped in here! Help!"
He scrambled for his phone in his pocket. He freed it frantically. Hoping against what he already knew.
Dead. And his charger was at home.
Well yeah, numbfuck! You didn't exactly expect to be using it right now! Not after capping your classmates and teachers! Nope! hadn't expected!
Scared and bewildered he shouted, "Aagghhh! I wasn't expecting this!”
And in childish adolescent boy rage he threw the useless dead collection of plastic to the tile of the closet and it burst and it shattered. He knew it was really fucking stupid but it didn't matter. It made him feel a little better. Just a little.
… besides! you're already really racking up the stupid shit already, why not go for broke! More, numbfuck!? Shit-for-brains, dogcunt bastard! You stupid ! worthless ! … and his mind went on like that for over an hour.
Meanwhile the few students and teachers still left, not many, they were nearly all of them so excited to get away for awhile; dwindled and vacated the premises. Till all that was left was Arnold Voorhees in his little locked closet. No one heard his clamoring and caterwauled cries through the thick metal door that protected the cleaning supplies cabinet.
It was to be his own, new little home for the holiday.
…
He cried and begged and screamed. He pounded at the door fruitlessly. And then he screamed some more.
“HELP …! MEEEE ….! PLEASE … !!”
He begged God.
But no one answered. No one was coming. He was alone. And cold. And he was getting hungry.
His misery was growing and settling in like venomous weight. Pain. He thought he'd known pain before… but this had been a child's illusion. Now he was learning.
Outside after the first night he hadn't come home his mother and father had reported him missing. The police searched the town and talked to a few people, but it was tough. The kid didn't have any friends. No one knew what the fuck he'd be doing. The only clue was the kid's dad saying some shit like, “Well he's always moody and bitchy. He's probably just finally run away or somethin…”
Or somethin. Nice, thought the cops. And went back to work. Nice fuckin folks. Nice fuckin kid. Jesus…
No one thought to check the school.
Nobody.
…
After the third night Arnold Voorhees thought he might go fucking crazy. Ballistic. Had he thought he'd known pain before? Really? Had he been that deficient in his true understanding of agony and torment?
His shoulder and hands were bloody and blistered from further feeble efforts with the solid metal door. Efforts and throws and attempts that were growing weaker and more feeble and starved by the second. By the minute. The agonized and cruel hour. The sanity shattering crawling torment of the day, the night…! … but then again he'd lost track of time in there, in that small and cramped womb-space of metal and wood. Time had died. Time had been murdered by this place. By his stupidity-wait!
Stupid…. murder… murdering…
And then it came to him, the gun! the Glock!
I can shoot out the lock! like in the fuckin movies! like in the fuckin movies!
He began screaming it as he freed it from his backpack: “Like in the fuckin movies!!" over and over again.
He brought the gun to the door, checked the mag to make sure it was loaded and that the safety was off.
It was cool. Good. It was good to go.
A beat. …
… but was he?
Despite all his bluster and internal self boasting he'd never actually fired a gun before. Never even held it more than a couple times. And all those times had been in the reassuring adult company of his father or Uncle Justin.
But it's easy! Ya’ve seen it a million times in movies an TV an shit!
… yeah! ya just… point it at the lock… I guess… and pull the trigger.
Yeah…
His confidence was fading. Fear was filling in its diminishing retreating ranks.
But what the fuck else are ya gonna do!?
A beat.
Goddamn it! why am I such a pussy!?
A beat. He took a deep breath.
A beat.
Another.
Fuck it, he decided. No other choice.
He put the barrel of the gun up to the door. Nuzzling it into the place he suspected the lock to be. Just below the handle. He settled the wide open mouth bore to the place. And with one last deep breath he pulled the trigger.
And fired. Clumsily.
His limpwrist had gave at the last second as his little finger had struggled to actually squeeze the trigger.
When it went off it went at an angle. And instead of puncturing the metal of the door it ricocheted off the solid metal and around the room.
Arnold Voorhees screamed! Shrieked like he couldn't believe it! The bullet bounced around and hit one of the metal shelves and whined and careened with another ricochet howl, puncturing several large plastic industrial sized jugs of cleaning solvents. Some of them bleach. Some of them containing ammonia. They began to mix and become trench warfare vapor on the tile in poison puddles and pools.
Arnold ripped off his shirt and forced it to his mouth. But his head was already starting to get fatally whoozy. He started to swoon, his vision dancing as his swaying feet and knees went the other way.
He collapsed to his ass. And considered himself defeated. I'm gonna die of trench warfare poison in the janitor’s closet at Walnutwood… Jesus…
Goddamn it.
…
The poison was filling the small space with white vaporous death. A chemical phantom.
And still the animal need filled him. Hunger. Starving. He was so fucking hungry even the idea of lapping up the pool of cleaning chemicals chemically burning in a puddle before him crossed his battered tired mind as cruel time continued to die slowly slaughtered and drag on before him. His worn and weary brain… God… he'd eat anything right now…
Anything.
…
The idea came to him as his nostrils and vocal chords and throat and brains burned with white phosphorus chemical death. His thoughts danced with the toxic fumes in peculiar directions. He'd been thinking about his classmates. His peers. The ones he'd wanted to murder a century ago before he'd found himself trapped in the closet with trench warfare gas as his first hot and heavy date.
What did they call him? they called him so many things… but what was the last one again? The one he really hated. The one that really hurt, the one they really loved to lay on thick…
… pizza face.
That's right.
Pizza face.
And they were right weren't they? His face was a landscape ruin of pink and yellow and sacs of pus. And whenever he itched them, which was too often according to his father and the gym coach, they did give off this cheesy wafting stench. Like cheap cheese. String cheese. Gas station cheese that belonged on plastic wrapped sandwiches or came in a can or a wrapping of cellophane with some brine at the bottom.
Yeah…
He itched them now. The white death was a phantom of chemical cloud filling his head and the space. He smelled his fingers.
Yeah… cheesy. Hella cheesy.
A beat. He thought deeply. Smelling.
Kinda yummy even.
Without further thought he squeezed a ripe one, pinched between numbed fingers that felt fat and far away. It burst easily and filled his pinching fingers with wet green and yellow and blood.
He smelled them again before he sucked his fingers.
A beat.
then…
His face lit up.
Delicious.
Ambrosial.
A beat.
He popped another. Sucked his bloody pus dripping fingers again. Sucked…
His eyes grew even wider. Filled with tears.
I've never tasted anything like it…
…
He survived. Somehow. Trapped in the closet with the chemical white death phantom, sucking desperate air through his sogging shirt. Picking and eating and sucking animal desperate at his pus-bloody fingers. Sucking animal desperate like his grubby bloody digits were a natural treat. He survived somehow, as the week dragged on trapped with his own bloody discharge feast and chloramine phantom.
As he picked and dug at his own ruining face, digging into the developing craters like a tweaker with hunting-picking disease he found more substantial meat to seize and with which to feast. He dug and tore and the phantom of chemistry he was trapped with made the digging easier, it sloughed and came apart in strips and sheets of raw and pus and flesh and glistening stinging tissue strips. It came apart like pulled pork in his red and slickening hands as the rest of the town was enjoying their own respective holiday family feasts. He ate. He ate deeply of his own fleshen face and the chemical burn phantom aided him and he had courage now. Finally.
He had the courage. To do what was necessary. To survive.
Conviction.
Trapped in the temple of knowledge with the chloramine ghost during the pagan week had forced him to grow a spine.
Finally.
…
The janitor was the first to open the door. He thought it smelled a little funny. He was one of the first ones there that morning after the break along with a few teachers, the principal and a few bright and early students. The ones that couldn't wait to get away from the visiting relatives and the cooped up family dinners. Some of them wondered about Arnie, ol pizza face, the sad sack nerd, but not much. None of them were worried.
The moment he unlocked the door it flew open. As if with a blast, exploding back on its hinges the heavy metal door crashed against the wall and the janitor jumped back.
Arnold Voorhees lurched out like a vicious Igor thing, roaring. His face was raw and red and nothing else save for a few thin tendon strands and cheeky chunks of tissue and flesh, like a little bit of melted cheese stretched and pulled over the saucy face of an Italian pie. He was shirtless. It was wrapped in a fist bawled at his side, soaked with spittle and the chemical ether cloud that was pouring out like a ghost of phantasm mist from behind him. His tight blue jeans stank of sweat and old and fresh piss. His other hand was level and it held a gun. And he'd only used one shot.
He still had a handful to use now.
For the few that were gathered there for his rebirth transformation, the janitor in the lead, Arnold Voorhees leveled the gun of his father and roared and squeezed the trigger, making the gun roar with him. Louder. Much louder. Overtaking the decibel of his screaming voice, his chemically corroded and fried shrieking black metal voice. He squeezed the trigger, roaring with his new raw red face insane with murder and livid pain and the gun in his hand filled the hallway room world of the little school before him with violent cacophonous thunder.
The shots found marks. All of them.
…
The police were called. They arrived on the scene with the paramedics and took Arnold Voorhees into custody.
But the papers and the media blitz coverage had a different name for em. Somethin funny.
Somethin one of the kids said.
THE END