SCHOOLHOUSE
by Rick Hautala
This eBook edition published 2010 by Ghostwriter Publications, Dorchester, Dorset, England.
Smashwords Edition
www.thepennydreadfulcompany.com
© Rick Hautala 2010
Cover design by Neil Jackson
eBook created by Stephen James Price
From one of THE genuine Masters of Dark Fiction comes the story of Pete. (Petey) Garvey returns to his home town in Maine...and a visit to the Pingree School awakens thoughts...feelings...emotions that he thought were long buried.
He forgot that the feelings of guilt can hold you in its vice-like grip. And it’s on a visit to the empty halls of his old school that the voices from the past ask him one question. “Why didn’t you help?”
As soon as he saw the old Pingree School schoolhouse again, Pete Garvey knew that what had been bothering him all along had something to do with it.
No.
It had everything to do with it.
He'd come back home to Hilton, Maine, because his mother was in the hospital, following a major heart attack. Fearful that she might die soon (and at eighty-one years old, that fear seemed entirely reasonable), she had asked her son, Pete, to come home and settle her affairs before she passed on.
Pete had been living in San Diego for the past fifteen years. He made every effort not to come back to Maine more than once every two or three years. For the first time since he had moved away, he finally dared to direct his afternoon walk down Story Street, past the Pingree School—his old grammar school.
Ever since he could remember, he hadn't felt comfortable even going near the old building. Today, he realized he probably should face it and try to figure out why, throughout his entire adult life, he had been bothered by recurring nightmares about the place.
The two-story brick building look innocuous enough. It sat atop a low crested rise with a thick screen of oak and pine trees behind it, like a stage backdrop. Beside the school, at the far end of the wide playing field, was an abandoned playground with a rusted swing set, jungle gym, and weed-choked sandbox. Deep divots beneath each swing and at the bottom of the slide marked the passing of uncountable scuffing feet.
Ever since the town had built the new consolidated grammar school on Tarr's Lane, at the other end of town, the doors to the old Pingree School had been locked. The brick walls were bleached pink by the high summer sun. The pale yellow paint on the windowsills and door frames was cracked and powdery, like crumbling chalk. Several of the second story windows had fist-sized holes in them, where someone had thrown rocks; but even where they weren't broken, the windows seemed somehow spent—lifeless and dull, as though the glass no longer had the ability to reflect daylight. The only bright spots on the building were down around ground-level, where local kids had spray-painted their initials, various obscenities, and the logos of their favorite rock bands.
The August afternoon was heavy with humidity as Pete and Cindy, his wife, started across the well-worn playground, heading toward the gentle slope. Heat waves rippled like water in the air, making the schoolhouse look like ,a mirage, hovering in the distance.
When they were halfway across the playing field, Pete stumbled and stopped short in his tracks.
His body tensed as he stared up at the building, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching. His breath came in panting hitches which he knew weren't because of the extra weight of carrying two-year-old Ryan, who was riding high on his back in a Snugglie.
No, Pete knew all too well that the icy tension winding up inside him was something he had experienced before—dozens, maybe hundreds of times in his dreams.
No, not dreams ... nightmares!
"Shit," Pete whispered, shaking his head. He fought hard against the almost overpowering impression that the building was a dark, swelling wave about to crash over him and sweep him helplessly away.
"Huh? Is something the matter?" Cindy asked, looking at him with one dark eyebrow cocked.
Pete flicked a quick glance at her but immediately let his gaze shift back to the schoolhouse. He swallowed noisily. His right hand felt clammy as he ran it across his forehead, smearing the gathering sweat.
"I—uh ... No. It's just the...."
His voice faded away to nothing as he shook his head tightly and took a shuddering breath. One side of Cindy's mouth twitched into a crooked half-smile that instantly melted.
"Oh yeah—"
She nodded.
"This is the schoolhouse you're always dreaming about, right?"