PROLOGUE
The Sun was beating on their faces. It was a scorching July afternoon and there was a happiness about the air. North Dakota had always been a nice place to raise a family, although very lonely and vacant at times. I guess most people would never expect a horrible and unexplainable incident to occur there, but most people can be wrong.
The story really begins fifty years prior when there was a time of innocence….
“Julia! Julia! Time to come in honey, lunch is ready!” Mother called.
“Ok! I’m coming! I’m coming!”
The Barons were a fairly normal family compared to most. Samuel Baron, the father worked as a public relations officer, but rarely ever did any for famous people. Ruth Baron, the mother, was a stay at home mom. Mason and Caroline were the son and daughter. Mason was not athletic and not very social either. He spent most days drawing in the den. Caroline was very outgoing and most of Harper, North Dakota knew her for her great personality. The Barons were very well known for taking long expensive trips across the country and coming back very late in the year. Unfortunately, Mason and Caroline had become ill the week before the trip.
At first, the illness seemed minor. Then Mason started spitting up blood and Caroline followed suite. They went to the doctors and received a check up and analysis. The doctors told them that there was no tearing of the stomach lining, no lung malfunctions, it was quite trivial indeed. After a while, the problems went away and everything went back to normal, for good, the parents thought.
All seemed well until the following Christmas. The reappearance of the illness came. This time it was much worse. Mason had become very pale and non-responsive to his parents or to anyone. Caroline complained about her seeing everything in a dark shade of red and voices laughing at her. The next day, the Baron parents rushed the children to the emergency room. They stayed over night and just like that, everything was back to relative normalcy.
The Baron parents became worried. The doctors as well as themselves had never seen anything like this. However, the illness did recede after one day. It couldn’t be that serious could it? Weeks turned into months and no sign of the mysterious ailment. Until one night……
The Baron parents were getting ready for bed. They discussed what may have been the problems. Maybe the water? Food poisoning? They hadn’t the slightest clue. So they climbed into bed and drifted off into slumber. A few hours later the door creaked open. The father woke up and saw Mason walking slowly towards the bed.
“Mason? Are you alright son?”
There was no reply. He could not see his son’s face only his silhouette. Quickly, Mr. Baron turned on his desk lamp. Mason was gone!
“How can this happen?!” Mr. Baron thought.
He jumped from his bed and woke Mrs. Baron, but she did not wake. He tried and tried again, still, she did not respond. In a panic, he turned around and ran towards the door. He ran downstairs to use the phone. He turned on all the lights. As he neared the kitchen, he remembered little Caroline.
“Dammit!” he thought.
He wanted to run back to her room, but he felt that there was no time.
Mr. Baron picked up the phone and dialed 911. There was no answer. He tried again, as before, no answer. He began to cry and he put his face on the floor.
He layed there for a while just crying, but then he felt a smooth hand across his back and voice saying,
“It’s ok daddy, I’m here.”
“Caroline?” he thought.
He put his head up and there was Caroline. Her face was expressionless and her eyes were closed. He stroked her cheek and felt something wet on it. He put his hand near his face, it was blood! He was in shock. As he gazed at this sight, Mason appeared from the shadows. Like Caroline’s face, his was also blank and his eyes were also shut.
“What the hell is wrong with you children? Open your eyes and talk to me!” Mr. Baron screamed.
The children stood at his feet. A grin shot upon their faces and they opened their eyes. Mr. Baron screamed.
“No! No! No! AHHH!”
There was silence…..
Fifty years later……………..
Chapter 1
“Hey Lisa! Get the cooler and the snacks. It’s gonna be a long trip and we need to get to your mom’s house by tonight. We can’t stop and eat, there’s no time.”
Lisa Pendleton was a bright young highschool sophomore. She wasn’t stunningly beautiful or notoriously smart, but she planned for it someday. In the middle of August, Lisa and a couple of friends planned a road trip that ended at a friend’s mom’s house.
“Ok! Hey do you know where we are? I can’t understand this damn map key!” Karen replied.
Karen Klebold was a very oblivious person. She was a bit of a drinker and she hardly ever went to school. She befriended Lisa in the 4th grade and stayed close to each other since then. She was also the one helping Lisa get this road trip together.
“Hey, I think we should get going Lisa. It’s already 4:30.”
Lisa nodded her head and they climbed into their Toyota Corolla and took off.
TWO HOURS LATER……….
“Hey where are we?” Lisa asked.
"We are in the middle of Minnesota, almost to North Dakota.*
Lisa sighed.
“Ok, well I am going to sleep, wake me up when we get into Dakota.”
Karen nodded and kept driving.
Lisa felt herself beginning to dream. She had been having these dreams since she got those calls from her mother in August. She thought they might be insomnia related, but she had other thoughts too.
She saw a girl standing a corridor, her face expressionless and her eyes shut. She could hear a voice, but couldn’t understand the words. As she came closer and closer to the girl she saw that her face was twitching. She reached out her hands and called to the girl. The girl looked up, eyes still shut. She touched the girl on the shoulder and her eyes opened.
Lisa woke up. Her heart was pounding and she was sweating profusely. She opened the door and climbed out of her seat. The car had stopped and Karen was not in the drivers side.
She walked to the side of the car and looked around for Karen. She didn’t see her. Over to the right she saw a sign. It was old and dilapidated. She walked over to the sign. There appeared to be letters under all the brush and weeds. She scraped away the debris and the sign read:
“Welcome to Harper, North Dakota!”
There were faint red stains all over the sign.
“Is this blood?” Lisa asked herself.
Lisa turned around and headed to the car. She hopped into the passenger side and waited for Karen to return from where ever she had gone. Lisa turned on the radio and a loud hissing sound came. She shot the car a funny look. Then the car burst into flames. That was the last time anyone saw or heard from Lisa Pendleton and Karen Klebold.
Chapter 2
It was a chilly December in Bates, Oregon. The snow covered the streets and buildings. Schools were out and laughing children were playing outside, ecstatic about the white miracle they were beholding. A UPS delivery truck approached the town and drove down a row of houses and stopped at a brown brick house. The man stepped out and stretched his arms. He walked around to the back of his truck and pulled out a enormous blue package. He painstakingly delivered the package to the front porch of the house. He stopped at his truck door, wiped the sweat from his forehead and climbed into his truck and drove away.
4 hours later
A red suburban drove up to the brown brick house and parked in the driveway. A large muscular man stepped out of the car and onto the pavement. His name was Carl Leneaux, professional body builder. He was bald and had very rough features. His sideburns made him look older than he was, his hands were wide and his fingers were like little tree stumps attached to a thick slab of stone.
He yawned. He had a very long night. He trudged to his porch steps. Each step he took was with immense force, perhaps because of his weight. He pulled out his house keys as he eyed the large package. He opened the door with his large foot and picked up the package with his left hand and he walked inside.
Carl walked into his kitched and placed the package on the table. He grabbed a butcher knife from the drawer and sat down at the table and began hacking away at the package’s wrapping. When all the wrapping was cleared a large iron box appeared. Carl observed it with suspicious eyes. He looked on all sides and found a letter addressed to him on the hind quarter of the box. He opened the letter and looked over it.
“To Mr. Carl Leneaux,
Please deliver this package with haste to the given address.”
He read the entire letter and found no return address. He looked around and behind the letter and found no address. He became slightly irritated and put the iron box away.
“Who the hell sends a package they want returned with return address?” he said to himself.
Later that night when Carl was watching television, the phone rang. He lifted himself from the couch and walked over to the phone and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Carl?”
“Yea, who is this?”
“This is your boss.”
“Oh, sorry sir, what’s the occasion for you calling?”
“Did you by any chance get a large iron box today?”
“Yes I did and I got a letter too. It told me to mail the package to some address that it didn’t give me.”
“Oh, yes, well that was from the company. We need you to drive that package to a town out in North Dakota. Harper, I believe.”
“Ummm….ok. Sure. Why no address?”
“That was my mistake. Listen, this package is big, if you do this right, we might discuss a promotion next week.”
“Alright, sir, when do you want this package delivered?”
“Well, it would be great if you could get there by tomorrow morning.”
“You want me to leave now?”
“Yes, I have to go now, but good luck.”
“Alright, sir, bye now.”
His boss hung up. Carl seemed irritated and happy. Happy for his promotion and irritated that he had to leave at seven in the afternoon to deliver a package on time. However, it meant a promotion for him and he desperately needed the money. So he rustled up some clothes and some snacks and grabbed his keys. He walked out to his car, threw the clothes and snacks in the backseat. He started the car so it would defrost and he wouldn’t spend twenty minutes driving in a frozen car. He ran back inside and grabbed the enormous iron box and brought back to his car. He popped his trunk and carefully placed the box in there.
After waiting a good ten minutes the car was ready to drive. Carl squeezed his huge frame into the Suburban, backed out of his driveway and drove off.
2 hours later
Carl had reached the other side of Montana. He was at the border of Montana and North Dakota. He was right on schedule. He stopped off at a rest stop and bought himself some coffee. He asked the clerk where Harper, North Dakota was and the clerk handed him a map. He arduously searched for his target and found it. He was only, at most, ten minutes away from there! He paid for the coffee and thanked the clerk.
Before long, Carl had reached his destination. To say the least, Harper looked fairly welcoming, it could use some work, but it was alright. Carl drove up to an old creaky gate soiled with rust. He exited his car and opened up the gate much to his displeasure. He entered his car once again and drove down the unpaved road to finish his job. He passed many old houses and general stores. The town looked like it hadn’t been lived in for some time.
“Am I in the right place?” Carl asked himself.
Finally, he hit the end of the road. On the right side there were two houses and on the left side there was three. In front of him was a large romanesque church. The stain glass had been well preserved, for it hadn’t one crack in it. The large iron door was open and it was without rust. The church seemed like the only thing that hadn’t aged at all.
Carl shrugged his shoulders and hopped out of the car. He went around to the back and took the iron box from the trunk. He eyed the chuch one last time before marching to the steps. He put the box to the side and walked inside the church. It was very well lit, for what reason, Carl did not know.
“Hello, anyone here?” Carl called out.
There was no reply.
He walked past the large oaken pews and stroke his hands on the arm rests. He reached the altar and looked around. It looked as if he just missed morning service. He saw a little golden cup with some wine in it. He picked up, sniffed it, and drank it down. He took one last look and turned around to leave.
Only now, the large iron door was closed. He shot it a suspicious look and went over to open it. It didn’t budge. He became impatient and kicked the door in. It fell to the ground, but then there was a door behind that. He kicked that door in and kicked the door behind that one.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?” he yelled.
He punched the doors until his strength gave out. He sat down on a pew and wiped his forehead with his shirt. He put his head between his hands and then looked up at the ceiling. A look of shock came upon his face. Above the large cross there were four hanging bodies. They were lifeless and bleeding from the feet. He stood up from the pew, not taking his eyes of the sight.
He walked up the row of pews just looking with awe. He stepped back to where he could see all of them at once. He stroked one’s foot and as soon as he did that the bodies’ eyes shot open. Carl screamed and stepped back. The bodies did not take their eyes off him. Carl began to mouth some words, but the bodies let out a deafening screech. He covered his ears and began to cry. As he rolled on the floor in pain, he spotted their teeth. They were as sharp as knives and they were dripping with blood. One of the bodies hanging lifted the noose from it’s neck and casually walked to Carl’s body. The body grabbed Carl by the collar and they met eyes. The body’s red lifeless eyes against Carl’s green gems. Slowly, Carl began to slip away. His sight went red and he began to eject blood from his eyes. The body dropped his limp body to the floor.
That was the end of Carl Leneaux………
Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:11 am
