Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28229401-20160421051427

( This is one of my longer pieces that I am currently working on. Here is what I have thus far. I know it's really long and I apologize for that. I recently posted this piece in two parts in the Sixpencee story forum. But I would really like to have some feedback and thought and things that I can improve on. Thank you so much in advance!)

It wasn’t something that was supposed to happen. I thought they were all whimsical stories, things of only science fiction and fantasy. This was never supposed to be a reality. Reality has taken some other form; it has been twisted and bent into ungodly construct that has sent this place and possible the world into lunacy.

Before, back when the world had a sense of normality, I was school teacher and moonlighted as an accountant. I taught pre-school and kindergarten. I thoroughly enjoyed my day job. Seeing the smiles on the little ones faces, teaching them new and exciting things to the little minds. Back then, they were bright, full of life and so much promise.

I am of the firm belief that each child is special. Each child has an unsurmountable wealth of potential. Their minds might be young and fragile but the concepts they could grasp and hold on to was immense. The mind of a young one has no room but upwards and outwards to grow. My colleagues however, don’t see their potential. They are of the belief that children should just be taught the standards set by politicians so that the school system can receive funding in order to have a decent quarterly bonus. The lack luster passion of my co-workers and my superiors was sickening.

My newest class of students started out just as any other on meet and greet day. Some of the children were nervous as they had never been either away from their parent’s side or left the side of a relative. There were some that were just excited to meet others and see different things. There was one little boy that sat to himself. I merely took him for being shy. A lot of children had an uneasy time  with a new environment. So he, like some of the other’s ,would need some special attention and coddling until he got used to things. The idea wasn’t new or strange, though with other teachers they would have found the idea to be a waste of time. Careless is what they were.

“Hello there, my name is Ms. Wagner and what is your name sweetie?” I asked the small boy as I sat next to him.



He looked up at me with pale blue eyes that was filled with sadness “No one is going to remember us when we die…”



The boy’s words took me by surprise. There wasn’t a way I could have contorted my face into something pleasant. “Excuse me? What do you mean?”



“I am so sorry.”  My concentration was briefly broken from the young boy. “His name is Jamison Creighton. We call him Jamie for short.”



“Oh you must be his mother?”   I brought my attention the nervous woman in front of me.

“No. His parents passed away some time ago. I’m his aunt Renee Creighton. “ she stretched out her hand for me to shake. “ I’m his legal guardian. He’s been having a hard time adjusting. He… He isn’t sick or anything if that is what you’re worried about. He’s just been having a lot of nightmares.”



I stared at the boy then back to his aunt. The child seemed absent and void. I didn’t want to pry into how Jamie’s parent died with him and the other children and parents present. “Has Jamie seen a counselor about what happened?”  I whispered.

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<p class="MsoNormal">She shook her head looking down ashamed of herself. “ N-No. Not yet. I just wanted to get him in to a better place before he saw any more doctors or the police.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">The Police…  Any More Doctors…  This had me overly concerned about what the child had seen and been through. I didn’t want to push the issue further to save the child and aunt from the gathering stares. Though we already beginning to gather some stares.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Alright, Mrs. Creighton-“

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh just call me Renee. Renee is just fine.”  She continued to smile albeit nervously.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Renee, I’ll make sure that Jamie gets all the positive reinforcements and care that he needs.”  I reassured her.

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<p class="MsoNormal">After the children along with their parents had left for the Monday Meet and Greet. I sat at my desk, thinking about what Renee had said. What he had said. My curiosity had gotten the better of me. I opened my laptop and began searching. After about thirty minutes, I finally lucked up on the name. There were several news articles on what happened. It happened just a town over. Double Suicide and Attempted Murder of Their Young Son, the article started off. “Christ.”  Was the only think I could muster before I continued to read the gruesome details of what had apparently or at least what the police have gathered what  happened in the Creighton home.

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<p class="MsoNormal">According to the article Molly and Nathaniel Creighton ran a generator in Jamison’s room. They locked his door from the outside. Jamison was strapped down to his bed while the generator ran out of gas. His parent were hoping to create the chain reaction of carbon monoxide poisoning. While the child was locked in his room, his parents had hung themselves in the living room. Though not before scribing on to the walls over and over again. “He is coming”   In the living room was found several occult like items that the detectives have yet to find a name to. Upon further investigation, the police believe the parents were apart of some sort of suicide cult. Three states over ten more families did the exact same thing. However there were no survivors. Jamison was lucky. The officers found the boy still strapped in his bed. His window had been left open just enough. The sounds of the generator are what tipped the neighbors off. They were the first one to find the grisly sight after two days of the constant sounds of the dry engine. In the article there was a picture of the small child clutching the officer’s hand that untied him with something else in his arms. The image was too blurred to make out. I remember just staring in shock of what this little boy had been through. My stomach churned from the gore and the thought of two parents attempting to kill their own flesh and blood. I grew even sicker at the thought of those ten other parents that were successful.

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<p class="MsoNormal">How could these people willingly harm themselves and their children? How could they take the precious little lives that they made the choice to bring into this world… and just carelessly take them out of it? What sick cult would instruct them to do such a thing? I sat there wondering what the hell kind of cult would scare you so badly that they would do such a thing. It wasn’t as massive as the Jonestown or Waco, Texas incident. As I continued to research I soon found out that it wasn’t as simple as those places. I wanted to stop looking at the imagines but I couldn’t. Somehow I felt as if it were drawing me in. I scarcely blinked, I was afraid that the information before me would be lost somehow. There were some families that left a grisly aftermath. There was one family that went to extremes. They boarded themselves up within their suburbia home. The atrocities were only found because the children’s school had notice they haven’t been in attendance for over six months. Six. Months. The family went unnoticed; the neighbors hadn’t even bothered to check in on them. Until their yard because unsightly with weeds and tall grass. Apparently one of the neighbors had enough of the jungle that was growing in the yard and went over to make a complaint. The irate man didn’t make it two feet in front of the door before the smell hit him. In the article, it was stated that the man’s stomach was instantly turned. He describe it as something close to road kill and battery acid. Most of the details of the police report was left out. What they found on the inside was nothing short of gruesome. The children or what was their remains were found in their rooms. There were three tubs found in their rooms each filled with what the police had described as a gelatinous fleshy substance. It was the children… a DNA test and toxicology report was ran on the fluid. Dear god the parent put their own children in a tub of acid. I could feel my lunch coming back up. I closed my laptop and shut my eyes wanting to un-see all the thing that I had just read. I couldn’t dare read about more to find out what happen to their parent.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I packed my laptop into my bag and left my desk. The only thing that I could possibly want right then was to be in the security of my own home and settle with a drink in my hands. It would be one week until day of class.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was the start of a new class. I had the week to plan a schedule for my students. For the first day I prepared little welcoming gifts; healthy snacks, colorful pencils, and little tins of playdoh. Things to help ease them into new surroundings and to show them that learning can be fun given the right tools. I told the guardians of my students that I would be more than happy to wait in the drop off area for all of the children so that I could guide them all to class. I believed in doing as much as possible to ease then into school. As per usual, my colleagues couldn’t give a damn whether the kids made it to their class or if they were having a hard time. I pitied them just as much as I felt sorry for those poor children.

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<p class="MsoNormal">If I had to say, most of the children that was dropped off for my class weren’t as nervous as I had expected. The meet and greet obviously did some good. The bell had rang; I counted my students. Fourteen. I was one short. It was normal for parents to be late; I wasn’t worried for the moment, so I escorted my group into my classroom and did a rollcall. It was then I started to worry. Jamison Creighton was the third on the list and he wasn’t here. It had been a week sense I tried to put those horrible scenes out of my mind but as soon as I came across his name it came flooding back to me like I had read it all over again.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Ms. Wagner?” a tiny voice tore me from my terrible recollections. “Are you okay? You look like my mommy when my dad says that he has to work late with the secretary.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“I am quite fine, sweetheart.” I lied to concerned child whose parents could possibly be going through a divorce in the future.

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<p class="MsoNormal">It wasn’t until I finished rollcall that the door to the class was slowly opened. Renee Creighton stood sheepishly in the doorway. I waited for a moment to see if she would enter fully, several awkward seconds passed and she didn’t. I excused myself from the students and told them to stay seated.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Before I could say anything she begun. “Ms. Wagner, I am so sorry we were late. It was an act of congress to get through traffic, and even harder to get Jamie out of bed” Bags were under her eyes and her hair in a messy bun. She shook a bit as she spoke. The woman before me was nothing short of a nervous wreck who was in near tears over a small transgression.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I looked down at Jamie then back to his aunt. Jamie was dazed and seemed to be lost in faraway dream watching silently. His eyes were pale and his cheeks paler. Knowing what he had recently been through it was an understatement to say that the child looked like death. Renee looked downwards, her eyes fixed on her feet as if she were a child herself that had been caught misbehaving and was getting scolded. Finding immediate words for this poor woman was harder than what one could expect. Gingerly, I took her hands and I found her gaze. God, she was in tears before I even said anything.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Renee, it’s okay. Traffic happens, oversleeping happens… Life happens, okay.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m so sorry I just wanted to make a nice impression. There’s so much stress and so many questions. I just wanted one thing to go right.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“I assure you everything is fine.” What else could I say to her? It was the truth after all but the woman before me was having a near full on panic attack over something that wasn’t a problem. “Let me take Jamie into class and you can take a breather. Go get some Starbucks and relax for the while he’s here.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">The woman nodded and thanked me before taking her leave. I was thankful that none of my busy body colleagues peeked their noses outside of their classrooms. The last thing this family needed was more fuel for gossip and if they had done as much research as I had then certainly the gossip mill was already ablaze.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Okay class, we have another student.” I walked Jamie over to his seat. The students were smiling and waving him in and even had pushed his treat bag towards him. “This is Jamie, he’s new to the school too and to the town. He’s a little sleepy but he’s here” The children were excited to have a new classmate. They didn’t care that his was as white as ghost. They didn’t see the dull lifelessness in his eyes that were from the trauma he had experienced. No, they only saw a new playmate and a new friend that they got to make.

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<p class="MsoNormal">If only the world we lived in had such joy and optimism. If it now only had life and not this broken and fragmented reality that my mind can still not wrap itself around. I hear them. I hear their laughter as if it were just moments ago. I don’t know if it is my mind haunting me or if is the denial that my senses are masking for me… I can see their faces; each one shining brightly in this polluted sky. The delight lingering in their smiles… is this my mind celebrating them in remembrance or is it the madness mocking me?

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<p class="MsoNormal">I can recall the first few days of the new school week flowing along smoothly. I haven’t dared to continue my research into what happened with the suicides and murders that surround Jamie Creighton. What I had read was more than I could handle. I had just accepted that the boy had suffered from a very tragic event and now was to be put behind him. I sat in the shade with a few of my colleagues who were already making disparaging remarks about their own students. For fuck’s sake, they were children.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“ The little dirty blonde with that off white shirt, and by off white I mean piss white, his mother didn’t even bother to tell me that the little bastard has bedwetting issues. So nap time comes and it’s like a goddamn water hose.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">I could still hear them snickering. “Well at least you don’t have a tiny child that smells like shit. Every time I walk by BOOM it’s like his parents rolled him around in dog shit then got him dressed.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Maybe you should talk to the parents instead of talking about the children?” I took a sip of my bottle of water ,staring at them. “It’s what I would do, it’s not that hard to stop talking shit about a child and bring it up with the parents, Glenda.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Well excuse me, little miss bleeding heart, it’s clear that the parents don’t give a shit about their own stinky pissy kids. Bringing it up isn’t going to change overnight.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“If you don’t say anything then the problem is going to keep happening.” I was determined not to spit water in her face and tell her how much of an ignorant sow she was. “Talking to the par-“ My thoughts were broken suddenly.

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<p class="MsoNormal">The children were gathered around pointing and laughing while one child ran up to me. “Ms. Wagner!” The child was out of breath and gasping between her words. “Jamie is shaking on the ground!”

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<p class="MsoNormal">Jumping from my chair, I ran over to where the children where. As I left I could hear the whispers of the two other teachers, who didn’t even move from their asses. I parted my way through the children. Telling them to get away from the fallen child. Jamie was having a seizure. God only knows how long it had been going on, because I was talking with the other teachers. The boy was in thralls and shakes; his back arching and folding in near unnatural positions. The only thing I knew to do was to keep him from hurting himself. I stilled him as much as I could. The way he shook was terrifying. It was only for a few moments but those moment felt like an eternity when you don’t know how to help an innocent child.

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<p class="MsoNormal">As quickly as the seizure began, it had stopped. Jamie’s eyes were wide open. He was unblinking and his mouth was agape. If it were not for the fact that I could feel his heartbeat pounding through his back, I would have assumed that he was dead.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Jamie?” I took the boy into my arms attempting to bring him back to a conscious state. I called his name again and yet no response. “Go and get one of the teachers to call an ambulance and his Aun-“

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<p class="MsoNormal">There was a dreadful shrill that came from Jamie’s seemingly absent gaze. That sound still echoes in my mind just as it did on the playground. It was like no sound that I had ever heard an animal make let alone a small child. I grabbed the boy’s faces in attempts to make him focus and calm him down but the nightmarish sound still came from the core of the boy’s body and out his throat. “Jamie!” I would scream his name over and over again until he finally stopped abruptly.

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<p class="MsoNormal">His pale arm raised pointing to the sky. Impossibly his eyes grew wider and filled with a terror that spread itself to everyone that looked into his face. “They. Are. Here.” Three words. Three simple words never had such a hold on me. I dared not to question him. I merely looked to the sky. There was nothing. It was clear not the doom that I imagined that was behind me or some gruesome truth that was lingering there above. Just an empty sky. I turned back to Jamie and he was passed out. I hadn’t been more thankful in all my life.

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<p class="MsoNormal">I had one of the student teachers take watch over my class while I waited for Jamie’s Aunt inside of the office where the nurse was. The Principle, in his infinite wisdom, had decided not to call an ambulance. He said he didn’t want to create further alarm. I begged for them to call one. The child need proper medical treatment. The staff not only didn’t care about the quality of education but didn’t care for the welfare of their students. Before I could threaten the man’s job and call the school board, Renee can into the office.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Renee was calm. She wasn’t the nervous and fidgety woman that I had seen this morning. She had bit of a glow about her. Though I was more than certain that the mood that she found herself in would soon be diminished. She was actually smiling. Her smile was wide and beautiful; it even appeared that she had even gotten her hair done while she was out.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Renee, I am so sorry.” I rushed to her immediately. “Did the secretary tell you what happened? We can call an ambulance right now, if you don’t feel comfortable taking him by yourself.”

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<p class="MsoNormal">“They did tell me.” She sighed a bit. “Don’t worry Ms. Wagner it’s perfectly okay.” She was the one calming me down much to my surprise. “It’ll all be just fine. Though, I didn’t think my sister was right. I wanted to just think it was all just stories.” Renee was looking at me still with that beautiful smile on her face; though it was like she was talking to herself more so than to me. “It’s all okay.” In one fluid motion, Renee had pulled out a revolver from her purse and placed it directly in front of her forehead. That smile. That beautiful smile was deranged and wide as tears fell from her eyes. “I won’t let them have me.” She whispered before pulling the trigger.

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<p class="MsoNormal">She shot rang out throughout the office. There were people screaming all around me. All I could see were the mouths moving and panicking because a woman just came into the school and blew out her brains. Her brain spewed over the nurse’s room. Once white walls now covered with chunks of red. The spray from the shot covered my face. I could feel it drip down my chin. I could only stand there as her lifeless body fell to the floor. That wretched smile was still there. That smile that now mocked me. It mocked us all in her death.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh my god, are you okay?” I heard someone ask. My mind couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. I didn’t look at the voice that spoke, but I did ask for one thing.

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<p class="MsoNormal">“Can you please call an ambulance now?” <ac_metadata title="Better to be the first ( Unreviewed, would appreciate all and any feedback)"> </ac_metadata>