Chapter 1237: Story 1237: When the Bell Rang
They said no bell had rung in Halberd High since the outbreak.
Electricity was dead. Classes were gone. The building was condemned and avoided even by the infected. But tonight, as dusk cloaked the sky in bruised purple, the bell rang.
Once.
Twice.
Thirteen tis.
Each note hung in the air like a scream held too long. And with each clang, the dead inside began to stir.
Jace and Dana had been using the school as a temporary hideout, tucked into the old science lab. Concrete walls. Reinforced doors. It was supposed to be safe.
Until the bell.
Jace dropped the makeshift radio he was building. “That’s impossible.”
Dana was already at the window. “Did you hear that? That can’t be real. The whole system’s fried.”
As if in answer, the hallway lights flickered to life. Not a full glow—just the humming yellow of aged bulbs dying to rember their purpose.
Then the speakers crackled.
“Good evening, students,” a voice drawled, laced with static and sothing too gleeful. “Welco back to your final lesson. Please report to horoom.”
Dana backed away from the speaker. “Who the hell is that?”
“No one alive,” Jace whispered.
They stepped into the hall.
Lockers banged open in synchronized claps, like applause from the damned. Blackened handprints sared across the walls. The sll—sulfur and rot—rolled in thick.
And from the far end of the corridor ca a sound worse than the bell.
Children. Laughing. Hollow, empty laughter. No breath. Just echoes.
Then a figure turned the corner.
Not a child.
An adult.
Dressed in a shredded teacher’s uniform, skin peeled and hanging like old wallpaper, with eyes glowing dull red like coal left too long in the hearth. He held a clipboard in one hand and a twitching hall pass in the other.
“Na?” the figure croaked.
Dana raised her weapon. “Screw your attendance sheet.”
The clipboard burst into fla. And the hallway shook.
Doors banged open, and from each classroom, shadowy forms poured out—students without eyes, mouths sewn shut, dragging broken rulers and lted crayons shaped into blades.
Jace grabbed Dana. “Gym. Go!”
They ran. The bell tolled again—one last, drawn-out, final ring.
The classroom ghosts scread. The hallway warped, stretching and cracking, lockers splitting open to spit bones and shoes and half-eaten howork.
Dana burst through the gym doors, Jace close behind.
Silence.
No bell.
Just rows of desks placed in a perfect circle at center court. And a skeleton sitting at a teacher’s desk, scrawling endlessly on a scroll of human skin.
Then the speaker blared again.
“Attendance complete. Class dismissed.”
The floor opened beneath them.
Blackness.
And a falling sensation like dropping through a scream.
They awoke in the basent. Alone. The bell’s echo still ringing faintly in their ears. On the wall, written in chalk and blood:
“You’ll never skip again.”
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