Short summary:
One Saturday several of LH students plus Ms. Li get into trouble due to a weird gizmo of Ms. Li's. Can Daria, Jane, Mack and a bunch of maladroits save the day? Rated R for episodes of violence.
Daria (and associated characters and locations) is copyright © 1997-2000 MTV Networks.
This story is copyright © 2002 by Bacner (olgak531@rogers.com) and has been written for personal enjoyment. No infringement of the above rights is intended.
"Are you sure that it works as it supposed to?" Ms. Li sceptically asked her manufacturer.
The manufacturer, a small man, legally named Ernie but to his friends and contacts known as "Smurf" scowled furiously. "Now listen, Li! This is my property, one of my special creations, and as a result it works perfectly; perfectly I tell you! You wanted a device that controlled others' minds - you got it! So stop whining already and pay! I won't go lower than my original bid - you know that!"
Ms. Li scowled, but forked-over the wad of cash to "Smurf". "All right, but if I'm not satisfied, I'm going to demand my money back!"
"All right!"
...It was only later, much later, when Ernie had finally caught all of his much-needed Z's and looked around his workshop, did he realize that he gave Ms. Li the wrong device. But by then it may've been too late.
"Remind me again, Jane, why did I agree to spend my Saturday here with you?" Daria Morgendorffer asked.
Jane Lane rolled her eyes. "You had nothing better to do, except to listen to Jake's rants about his lousy father screwing-up his own parental potential, and Helen's monologues about how different you and Quinn must be from cousin Erin because unlike cousin Erin your grandmother doesn't cover your failures with cash." Jane paused. "Will I ever be able to meet that infamous cousin of yours or what?"
"Not if you keep dragging me off each Saturday morning to paint in peace in the school's art classroom," Daria dryly said. "Where's Ms. DeFoe, anyway?"
Jane shrugged. "Some big art teacher gig, in Spokane, I think. She's going to try to get the others riled-up on her idea of macramé plant holders."
"Hmm. Can I see one?"
"Sure, one is on the desk."
Daria looked. On Ms. DeFoe's desk stood some sort of a device, possessing as much colour and inanimate personality as consommé. "How much can one cost, anyways?" Daria mused outloud.
"Bugger me," Jane shrugged. "I never have seen one in stores yet."
And then it hit. What 'it' was remained unknown, but spots of colours seen only when looked at a rainbow after sniffing benzene fumes danced before Daria's eyes for a minute.
And then as suddenly as it started, the feeling stopped. Daria slowly picked herself up from the floor and looked around till she found Jane, who looked as if she had experienced it as well. "What was that?" the other girl said.
"I don't know. Almost like some sort of a sonic drill," Daria replied.
"A what?"
"Nevermind, I can't explain it; nor can I explain the fact that it went from there," Daria pointed in the vague direction of the detention room of LH, "to there." Daria pointed to the rearmost wall of their room. "Hey," Jane slowly said. "Lawndale cemetery lies there. Weird. And speaking of weird, that's how I feel."
Daria nodded. She felt weird too.
The sister (in private) and cousin (in public) of Daria Morgendorffer, Quinn, sat in the detention room of Lawndale High and was quietly working on her history homework, assigned by Mr. DeMartino, aka "the damn Marine". "Why couldn't he just left our FC meeting in peace?" Quinn muttered. "After all, his war experiences with his mate Donald Bradstreet and sergeant Elliot Cunningham aren't that exciting either. But - he's the damn teacher."
Several rows away from Quinn sat the other FC members. Closest to Quinn was Sandi Griffin, whose scowling looks could currently probably cause entire covens of witches to retire and take-on the Tooth Fairy gig. Next was Stacy Rowe, looking even more scared than usual of Sandi and Ms. Li who was taking-over detention for today; in fact, she looked so scared, that the sight of the same Tooth Fairy would probably make her faint. And last (and probably least) was Tiffany Blum-Deckler, showing as much emotion as a cardboard cut-out. Why would anyone care enough to put her in detention was beyond the comprehension of others, even other FC members. Nothing - absolutely nothing - could make an impact on Tiffany's non-existent personality and IQ.
Then again, Ms. Li didn't seem to be concerned about even trying to make an impact either. She was doodling on some small black box with dials and pedals, looking vaguely like some weird typist...
Suddenly, it hit. What 'it' was Quinn couldn't tell. Merely, for a very brief while (thank God) the world dissolved into a blend of such exotic colours that Quinn didn't know that they existed in nature.
And then it was over. Slowly, Quinn looked around and met with the gazes of the other girls - even Tiffany. "What was that?" Sandi wondered.
"Weird," Quinn agreed.
"So what's the question of the day, girls?" Brittany Taylor asked the rest of the cheerleading squad.
"What to do with the QB," Nikki Socorro replied. "Your boyfriend has been really getting on our nerves."
"Yeah," agreed Anne Fawell, another cheerleader. "He's been ogling the whole team again. Gods Britt - he's your boyfriend, can't you keep him in check?"
"Girls," Brittany said in a firm voice, "Ms. Li and Ms. Morris can't do it. Mack Daddy and coach Gibson can't do it. What makes you think I can do it?"
"Because he is heading this way," yet another cheerleader spoke-up. "Britt, get rid of him and fast. We'll be waiting for you at the mall."
The cheerleaders, minus Brittany, left the school ground, moments before it had struck.
"Whoa man, what has happened?" Kevin Thompson turned to his fellow football player, Jamey White.
"Don't know," Jamey shook his head. "May've been something left over from last night's football practice."
"Yeah, speaking of practice, I think someone was missing, right?"
Jamey sighed. He was a good friend of Kevin's, fair enough, but even he was ready to admit that Lawndale Lions QB was a little bit slow on the mental uptake, even if his physical performance was outstanding. And friendship did go a long way in high school. "Yes man, Jeffy and Joey. I told Tori and Brooke that Quinn flew-off to France to become a supermodel, and guess what? - They flew-off too."
"But Quinn isn't in France?"
"No, man! She's here, in the bloody detention room!"
"But didn't Tori and Brooke know about that?"
"No, man! Tori and Brooke don't care about truth, they just want to gossip! And Jeffy and Joey they don't know that it isn't truth, they just flew-off to France! Wicked, hah?"
"I don't get it," Kevin scratched his head.
There was a pause.
"Hey man, did you feel all weird for a moment or something?" Kevin spoke-up again.
"Yeah, I think so," Jamey said. "But it was moments before, and hey - there's your girlfriend, dude!"
"Hey Britt, wait for me!" Kevin yelled and ran-off. Shrugging (he didn't want to wait for Quinn alone), Jamey followed the other jock.
"You know, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning," Michael Jordan Mackenzie told his girlfriend, Jodie Landon, as they approached the school's swimming pool.
Jodie gave a delicate snort. "You're telling me? Good thing I told my dad that I'm presiding over an emergency meeting of the economics club."
"Did they buy?" LH's economic club was a purely paper entity, created by a bunch of students as a prank and as a cover to have more free time on their hands. In Jodie and Mack's case it was to wonder around on dates. Still, Mack thought, that Landons may were starting to catch-up on it.
"I think they decided to buy it, yes," Jodie nodded. "After all, we - the younger generation - aren't the only ones to realize the full potential of the fine Saturday morning, no?"
"Now there's a picture I did not want to imagine," Mack grimaced, as he speculatively eyed Jodie's body, now fully naked.
Grinning, the pair dived in the pool...
..."Did you sense something?" Jodie suddenly asked.
"Hmm? What?" Mack semi-sleepily asked. Both he and Jodie had just passed the climax, and now he was just a bit tired. "Jodie, we just did full submersion, you know?.."
"Sorry Mack. I just thought that something has passed over our heads."
"Who cares? If it isn't our parents with shotguns, then-"
"Mack, I think I hear somebody in the corridor. Let's dress-up and take look."
Mack shrugged, and decided to comply.
Back in the art room, Daria was pacing back and forth while Jane was back to working on her art canvas. "You know, you're starting to distract me from my muse," Jane said.
"You know, many people would think that your relationship with your muse is something a trifle disturbing," Daria slowly said. "And speaking of disturbing, I'm stuck."
"No, you're not. You're moving around freely through this room. And back to my muse-"
"No, I meant I was metaphorically stuck. You know, some of those magazines that dad reads has before and after split pictures, you know?"
"You mean - spot the difference?"
"Or dot or stripe or whatever. Well, I think that my psyche has been split by that... experience, but I can't point my finger on what has changed."
Jane shrugged. "Maybe we're just hungry?" she suggested. "Let's go out and eat!"
"Where?"
"Taco Bell?"
"After overhearing Ted DeWitt-Clinton saying that local Mexican food is baked in Hell's kitchen, I'm inclined to agree with him. Besides, you can't get good Mexican food in a New England town."
"McDonald's?"
"Remember last week's SSW episode with a McDonald special in UK?"
"Oh, right. Thanks for reminding me. How about just some good Italian food then?"
"Not lasagne, I hope?"
"Daria, it's pizza."
"You're on. Let's go."
Daria and Jane went towards the door, and then... they smelled something. "Dirt and grave mould?" Jane slowly said. "Daria, are we hallucinating again?"
"No," Daria said quietly, "I hear something."
So did Jane, in fact. Some weird clacking noise, like a goat that was walking through the school's corridor. As the noise approached, the smell sharpened too, and Jane could now distinguish several supposedly goats walking through the corridor. Only the sound was wrong. It sounded like a human walking - a human with hooves. And the smell grew worse too."
"Jane," Daria said, with a face as white as a cadaver's. "Creep to the keyhole and tell me what you see through it."
"Maybe you should do it," Jane suggested.
Daria didn't bulge, and the clacking sound grew louder. Jane gave-up, crept to the keyhole, and took a peep. What she saw through the peep literally took her breath away: at least half a dozen humanoid monsters were walking past their room!
"See anything, Jodie?" Mack called-out.
"Hey, Jo!"
"Yeah. Brittany Taylor. Brittany, what are you doing here?"
"Thinking of doing something about Kevin - he's such a-a infidel jerk!"
"I'm a what, babe? An intellectual jock? Cool!" Kevin said, as he and Jamey had finally caught-up with Brittany and now Jodie. "Hey Jodie, what are you doing here?"
"We're, ah, investigating," Jodie lamely said.
"Investigating what?" Jamey frowned. He too knew what sometimes happened in that pool, and it was not always PG-13 rated.
"Something weird is going-on in school," Jodie lamely said. "Right, Mack?" she called-out.
"Sure Jodie," Mack replied, opening an other door. Upon seeing who, or rather what, was on the other side, he immediately turned to closing it. But it saw him also.
SLAM!
"Mack?" the other four teens stopped their floundering discussion and turned around. "Mack, are you there?"
"Ayah!" yelled the brave football captain, as he raced towards them. "Watch out!"
The others yelled back, and for a good reason, for what was chasing Mack could be described as a Lovecraftian nightmare. It was a humanoid, covered with dirt and other, more sepulchral substances. It had hands like talons of a bird of prey, and goat-like feet. Its' head, however, was canine-lupine, with slavering fangs and a completely inhuman tongue. And it was gaining on Mack.
"Neagh!"
"Roar!"
The creature launched on Mack, who had slipped on the soap (taken to scrub Jodie's back) and the creature flew over him into the swimming pool. "Rah!" it yelled, only slightly disconcerted by water.
"Hey! Nobody messes with the Lawndale Lions!" Kevin suddenly yelled. Apparently, even a nightmarish monster wasn't enough to scare that oafish QB. He jumped up and tackled the monster in the pool. For a moment they rolled in the water, but the monster had a much greater physical advantage than Kevin. It held the QB under the water and began to choke it.
Suddenly, it made a screech and let go of the boy, as Jamey suddenly jumped onto its' back and began to choke it. Again, a football player's physical qualifications weren't enough, as the creature, though releasing Kevin, reached behind its' back and began to flail with its' talons. Things could've gone very poorly for Jamey indeed, if Mack didn't reach them in time and gave a hard slam in the monster's sacrum area (if it possessed a back bone). Jamey chose that moment to jump off the creature's back, and the sudden misbalance caused the monster to fall head-first into the pool's drainage hole. True, it wasn't very big and covered with bars, but the creature hit it so hard that it broke the bars and got stuck underwater.
"Hurry!" Mack and Jamey heard Brittany yell. They looked around and saw her and Jodie and Kevin pulling the lever that activated the drainage process.
The two boys made it out of the pool just in time, but the creature - between being stuck by its' head on one hand and being pressured by a lot of water on the other - never had the chance. The last the five teens saw of it, was its' broken and shattered body, going down the drain.
"That's the last of it," Kevin said smugly.
"Don't be too sure, there may be others," Jodie said.
"Well, what did you see?" Daria asked Jane.
"Demons. Real demons. Cloven-hoof feet, taloned hands, muzzle-like heads. Demons."
Daria shook her head. "Nah. Ghouls."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, I don't know what they call each other, but to humans - us, that is, they are ghouls."
"And you know that how?"
"There was a number of them living in Highland's sewers," Daria admitted. "They didn't bother people there, although there was this incident with the ostrich farm..."
"Look, there's no ostrich farm around here!" Jane said, barely controlling herself. "Who knows where they are headed, whom they'll eat?"
"Let's see," Daria sighed and went outside (the ghouls have passed their room long ago by now).
"See what?" Jane demanded. Daria wordlessly pointed towards the floor. There, rows of mucky cloven hoof-prints led towards...
"The detention room!" Daria gasped.
"That bad?"
"That bad. Ghoul eat human," Daria said, finally shocked in her life.
"Why not us? We were right next door to them!"
Daria paused, calming down. "Paint. Art supplies. Fumes covering our scent. No such thing in detention room."
"Aw nuts. Well, let's go and rescue them."
"Good. Jane, let's take paint!"
Quinn Morgendorffer, and the rest of the FC were not in a very good mood either. The detention's time seemed to be dragging on and on, and was seemingly planning to drag the whole morning into it. "If Cashman's is having a morning sale today, I'll kill Ms. Li," Sandi Griffin muttered next to her.
"Guys? Do you smell something reeking?" Stacy suddenly spoke up.
"Actually, yes," Sandi said, slowly. "Something smells dead. Dead and cold. And do you hear something?"
Back at her table, Ms. Li suddenly stiffened and jammed Ernie's device into a nearest table compartment, bearing the most peculiar facial expression ever seen on her face.
CRASH!
The detention room's door fell down its hinges, ripped apart. Through the gap, several inhuman creatures stepped-in.
"Eeek! Demons!" Stacy shrieked.
"Nah, they're just ghouls," Quinn said, pale but not panicking. "I thought that they didn't live here!" She paused, and then emitted some sort of a mewling sound that nobody expected her to make.
The ghouls paused. "How do you know our language?" one of them spoke in quite decent American English.
"Uh, I learned it in Highland, Texas," Quinn said, slowly getting on her feet. "Eh, why are you here?"
The ghouls smiled. Their teeth were actually canine-lupine fangs. "We were summoned here - to feed!"
"Yo dude! This is the detention room!" Kevin exclaimed.
"It is? We just followed the smell," Brittany said absent-mindedly.
"Yeah, we did," Jodie said semi-accusingly to Mack.
The four (Jamey agreed to be the cavalry) of them stood in the corridor that was located some distance away from the detention room which door has been ripped off its' hinges. Mack and others could see Quinn and the rest of FC talking to somebody who stood some distance to the side away from the doorway. And it was from there that now-familiar sepulchral smell came.
"Yo, Mack!" Kevin said. "And girls. Let's go and kick the other one's ass! Charge!"
"Kevin, wait!" Mack yelled in vain. "The smell's much stronger! There might be more than one!" He yelled that out, then followed Kevin in order to stop him from doing something stupid.
Back in the detention room, the ghouls have positioned themselves for better lunging: three smaller ones aimed for Ms. Li, the larger four singled out a FC member each.
"Sandi," Quinn said, paler than Andrea the Goth on a school photo day without make-up, "I think this is-"
Two of the ghouls lunged before Quinn could finish the sentence.
Suddenly, someone barrelled into them, flinging them into a wall.
"Hey, nasty!" Kevin Thompson appeared out of the corridor, shadowed by Michael Mackenzie. "Here's the QB!"
His answer was a polyphonic howl, raised by about half-a-dozen ghoulish throats.
"Everybody run!" yelled the much more practical Mack.
Several things happened. First, Stacy and Tiffany went-off like two race cars, almost overtaking Kevin and Mack. Two of the ghouls went after them, making close third place - too close for hope. Then, Quinn jumped over to Sandi and made a perfect blue chalk circle around their desks and two others. They were joined almost instantaneously by Ms. Li, who, leaving shreds of her suit and dignity in claws of three other ghouls, managed to secure some small black device from a table compartment. And finally, Daria and Jane, approaching from another corridor, saw Mack, Kevin, Jodie, Brittany, Stacy and Tiffany getting charged by two ghouls.
The two ghouls leapt. Kevin stumbled, taking Mack with him. Stacy and Tiffany fell over them. And so the ghouls knocked down Jodie and Brittany instead. One of them jerked the girls up, saliva dripping from its' muzzle-like mouth.
"Jane," Daria hissed.
"Paint! Cowabunga!" Jane yelled and splashed one of the pails full of paint over the nearest ghoul.
The ghoul roared, flinging the girls away in the direction of the detention room. Mack, Kevin, Stacy and Tiffany, not sticking around to learn why, raced down their corridor, where they were joined by Jamey. The ghouls let them go. They turned in the direction of Jane and Daria instead. The two girls didn't swing the pail releasing paint like they did the first time. They flung it at the ghouls instead, who chose that moment to lunge. Paint and pieces of pail covered them on impact, allowing Daria and Jane to flee...
...Quinn, Sandi, and Ms. Li were greatly surprised when Jodie and Brittany literally flew into the detention room. The remaining ghouls lunged at them, but the two girls have flown so fast, that if Ms. Li and the remaining FC members didn't catch them, their brains would've been scraped off the rearmost wall.
Moments later two ghouls that went chasing Kevin and Mack appeared. Only now they were covered in paint, especially on head and chest. They said something in their language to others; the ghoul leader growled, and the rest of ghouls left, leaving just him and another one in the room.
"How many humans are in your building?" he growled.
"How should we know?" Quinn replied smugly. "What are we look like - GAB, Ghoul Answering Bureau?"
"Silence!" the leader screeched.
"Make me!"
The other ghoul leapt. As soon as he contacted the airspace over Quinn's blue chalk circle, a red flash sent him reeling back with as much force as he lunged forth.
Sandi, upon seeing this, stuck-out her tongue.
"Laugh while you can," the ghoul leader growled. "But there are more of us in this building than you saw. We're going to catch all the humans in this building and eat them!"
"Quinn," Jodie spoke-up. "You have any other bright ideas?"
"Well, Daria's here."
"So?"
"Daria knows how to make the circle better than me, and she knows ghouls better than me too."
"You know them?"
"Yeah. They're ghouls. They lived - or live, whatever - in Highland's sewer system. Here too, I suppose. Only why are they on the surface during the day - I don't know."
"It's the machine," Ms. Li said semi-guilty. "It was supposed to catch radio transmissions over seas. Instead, it seemed to have emitted a high-frequency sound that drew Mr. Cadaver and his stinking little crew over here."
"Yes! And we won't leave till we ate you all!" the ghoul leader yelled.
"Ah, why?" Brittany meekly asked.
"'Cause that's what ghouls do?"
"How many of us humans are in the school today?" Sandi asked Jodie.
"I don't think I'm going to tell you that - I think those guys got great hearing," Jodie said worriedly.
The ghouls gnashed their teeth. "We'll still eat you!" the ghoul leader yelled.
"Great," Sandi sighed. "What fine way to spend a Saturday."
"Whew! We lost them!" Jane exhaled to Daria.
"No, we didn't lose them; they just didn't chase us," Daria sighed.
"Big difference."
"It is. Jane, I know ghouls - unfortunately - and I can tell you-"
"Stop," Jane said firmly. "I took a good look, remember. There are more than two of them around, yes."
"I just wanted to tell you that our actions merely pissed-off at least a couple of them, and they didn't look very happy to begin with."
"Oh." Jane felt silent. "Well, I just realized something. Why aren't we walking no more towards the front entrance?"
"Take a sniff."
"Oh. It's getting stronger, hmm?"
"Yeah. There's probably a couple of them guarding the front entrance by now, and we're out of ammo."
"Drat. What about windows?"
"Jane, have you forgotten? They're locked. Kevin wouldn't be able to open them."
"They why have we not yet chocked on that ghoulish stench?"
"Because of the air conditioning..." Daria's voice drawled-off.
Daria and Jane looked at each other triumphantly and said at the same time:
"The air vents!"
Mack and his group finally took a breather. "Jamey," Mack slowly said, realizing just who had been truly leading their little flight from the detention room. "Just where have you lead us?"
"I don't know man! When I saw you fleeing from those two I just ran with you! It's not my fault that I'm faster than you and so you appointed me leader!"
"I know where this is!" Kevin exclaimed. "This is the school's basement! Me and Britt made-out often here! I can lead you around here, no problem!" He paused and his face fell. "I just hope that Brittany's all right, those guys look nasty!"
"Don't worry," Stacy said, re-starting to walk. "I'm sure that all will be-"
"Stacy, wait!" Mack said, racing-up to her. Just in time too, 'cause behind the corner was one of the creatures. It lunged.
Mack grabbed Stacy by the arm and the two run, followed quickly by the ghoul, its' fangs stained red from Stacy's blood.
Mack and Stacy just ran. The ghoul was right behind them, Jamey and Tiffany way before them, and they couldn't even see Kevin. They passed one door, then another, and then-
-they entered the actual furnace room. Jamey and Tiffany were standing on two sides of a semi-closed furnace. Thinking quickly, Mack fell on the floor, taking Stacy with him, and the two teens rolled to the sides. And when the creature entered the room, it was tripped-up by Kevin Thompson, who was standing in "ambush" by the right side of doorway.
The creature went sprawling and skidding all the way to the furnace. Jamey quickly flung it over. Inside, flames "danced" merrily, keeping the school warm on the oddly cool spring day. Before the creature could come to its' senses, Mack, Kevin and Stacy semi-picked it up and pushed it into the furnace. Then they and Jamey slammed the door shut and turned-on the gas.
"Well! That was weird!" Tiffany spoke for the first time, still standing serenely in her corner.
"Jane! Hurry up! Something is happening!" Daria said through clenched teeth.
"What, what? You hear them coming again?"
"No, but it's getting warmer - I don't like it. The ghouls may not be smart, but they've got plenty of cunning!"
"Well, LH's temperature is nothing to be frisky about."
"All right, then how about: I think the smell is getting stronger again?"
"Now that is what I call motivation: the vent is open, Daria, do come in!"
"And in good time - now I do hear something..."
When another ghoul went down that corridor a few minutes later, he was too late - the girls have escaped.
Back in the detention room, four girls looked nervously at the ghouls, while Ms. Li just sat rigidly looking at them. The ghoul leader was ripping apart the teacher's desk, while the other one was watching the corridor outside. Suddenly, it mewled something in its' language.
"What does it say?" Brittany said.
"That it is getting warmer," Quinn said flatly. "Girls, these... whatever-they-are, they're not great conservationists."
"We figured that out," Jodie said with a wry smile. "So far all of their phrases were about eating us up. Why, though?"
"It's just like Kevin and football, I suppose," Quinn shrugged.
"Hey! Kevy's not like them!" Brittany got insulted.
"Hey, what fits, fits," Sandi philosophically said. She was uncharacteristically silent ever since Stacy and Tiffany got "exchanged" for Brittany and Jodie. That didn't escape unnoticed from Quinn.
"Is there a problem?" she asked her fellow FC member.
"No," Sandi said fakily, "all is fine. We're just a chalk-circle's width away from becoming meals to some ghoulish creatures who apparently didn't take a bath ever since the Devil got evicted from Heaven and all because Mr. DeMartino didn't appreciate his bloody Viet Kong stories! I hate this guy! Why couldn't he be here today! That may've shut him up for good!"
"You know," the ghoul leader suddenly turned to the humans with what probably passed for a sly smile amongst his kind, "there is an alternative."
"What, you'll just leave and leave us unharmed and alive?" Brittany said, winking in surprise.
"No, but you may join us," the leader continued to "smile". It was macabre, to say the least. "If you're bitten and not eaten, then you will become one of us. Unless, of course, you know a chant to take care of that too."
"I'm betting that Daria does," Jodie said quietly.
Quinn gave the older girl a shaky smile of her own. "You see? You are learning."
"What? No volunteers? Then I guess we'll just have to wait on," the ghoul leader said.
"Don't worry," Jodie said quietly. "I'm sure that Mack will find a way out. Daria too will realize that something is wrong. Come on girls, we cannot give up!"
And time went on.
"We cannot give up, man!" Jamey told Mack. "There are girls depending on us, including Jodie and Quinn!"
"Don't forget Brittany," Kevin called from his corner.
"Yeah, or Sandi," Stacy said absent-mindedly and reached-out to scratch her ear. Then she froze. "Uh-oh," she said then in a tiny voice.
"What's wrong?" even Tiffany felt that worry.
Stacy blinked a couple of times, took a deep breath and exclaimed: "I think I'm mutating into one of them."
"Yikes! And here we are, locked-in with you!" Kevin yelped.
"Kevin, shut-up," Mack said firmly. "Stacy, you feel any different about us? You want to kill us or eat us?"
"No."
"Then there's still hope. If we get out of here alive, Andrea, or Daria, or Jodie, or somebody will probably know a cure. Maybe even Quinn. Back in the detention room she sounded like she knew those creatures - in general terms - and maybe knows an antidote to them or something. Where were you bitten, anyway?"
"Right shoulder," Stacy sighed, "and it's just a small bite too, it is all healed-up..."
"Dudes!" Jamey exclaimed. "Let's stop discussing Stacy and think of how to get out of here! When Quinn was in her "deep chick" mode, I, trying to impress her, read about something called the build-up of gas: can it happen here? Besides, the rising heat makes me thirsty. And hungry."
"Yes, a build-up of gas," Mack said thoughtfully. "Kevin! Is an air vent located here?"
"Yeah! Right above me!" Kevin said from his nook. "Why do you ask?"
"We're going up, people, we're going up!"
"Well, it's official. We're lost. We had better chances avoiding ghouls down in the corridor," Jane crooned to anyone who could hear her, namely Daria and only Daria.
"Jane, shut up," Daria snapped. "I could kick myself for not accepting a cell phone as a gift from Tom."
"Tom offered you a cell phone as a gift?"
"Yeah, and to rile-up Quinn too," Daria nodded. "Think who nice it would be to phone LPD and tell them that the school is taken hostage by terrorists."
"And then the ghouls would be shot?"
"Actually... no. You can burn them and drown them, you can cut them up to pieces and blow them up, but they show amazing immunity to projectile missile weapons."
"In English please?"
"Guns against ghouls - bad."
"What other tidbit of ghoulish info can you share, o great guru of the-"
"If a person is unlucky enough to get bitten - only bitten once - then in less than day - six to twelve hours, depending on the body build - he or she will join the ranks of ghouls. Clear enough?"
Jane visibly shuddered. "You know what? I feel quite refreshed. Let's crawl on, D, and see if can't find an exit yet."
"That's what I thought."
"No, Brittany," Jodie said firmly. "A cheer isn't what we need."
"A cheer is always needed!" Brittany shook her head.
"Miss Taylor? If you do a cheer, you'll probably fall out of the circle, and those captors of ours are fast. What kind of an inscription you would like on your tombstone? 'Go Lions'?" Ms. Li suddenly said.
"Eeep!" Brittany replied and grew silent.
Meanwhile, the ghoul leader and his apparent number two re-started circling around the five humans, smiling as nicely as blood-crazed sharks.
"Oh dear," Jodie said, "I think they're about to do another round-"
It was when the rest of the ghouls barged into the room, looking depressed (though it was hard to tell). "What?" the ghoul leader asked.
One of the ghouls mewled something back in their own language. The ghoul leader's and number two's eyes grew round and glowed yellow, and then the leading ghoul yelled something back to his troop.
"What are they saying?" Sandi asked, coming out of her depression.
"I'm not sure," Quinn said, grimacing from concentration. "A couple of them are missing-"
"What are you talking about? They're all here."
"Apparently, they weren't all here in the beginning. A couple of them lagged behind or something, and now they can't be found."
"Yay! Humans rule! Ghouls drool!" Brittany yelled-out.
The ghoul leader snarled, roared, and bellowed orders in his language. Quickly, the ghouls left, leaving the leader alone this time.
"What he said now?" Sandi asked.
Before Quinn could answer, the ghoul leader whirled around. "I gave them order to rip this school apart but find-out who killed two of our kindred and eat them!!"
In the silence following the ghoul's bellow, Ms. Li's voice sounded like a box on the ear. "Oh great. Just what those beasts lacked before now: motivation!"
"How long we'll be crawling through these tunnels, Mack Daddy?" Kevin whined. "The walls and ceiling seem to be crowding in, and Stacy's breath is starting to smell funny!"
"Don't pick on me! I'm in trouble as it is!" Stacy whined.
"Shut up Stacy!" Jamey yelled, half-turning around. "Whoa! You now-"
"Quiet!" Mack bellowed almost as loudly as the leading ghoul. "Can you all just shut up?!" His reply was Stacy's almost coyote-like whine.
"Stacy," Mack began, but didn't finish. Something hot went past his left ear and shoulder, and suddenly Stacy's face was covered in something yellow-white and sticky!
"Got it!" a familiar voice spoke next.
"That's not it, that's Stacy!" Kevin said, surprised.
"Stacy? Daria, come over here?"
"It's you, Jane?"
"Whom did you expect?" Jane said a trifle smugly. "A super warrior from the planet-"
"Jane, what is it?" Daria said, appearing next to her friend. "Oh boy. What's that?"
"Stacy," Tiffany said blankly.
"Only she's been bitten," Kevin added. "And now turning-"
"Can you change her back?" Mack turned back to business.
"I think so," Daria nodded. "I never did before, but I can do it... hey, how did you know what to ask me?"
"It was a hunch. We overheard your sister saying she knows those creeps."
"They are ghouls," Jane interrupted. "Daria knows them from Highland."
"What are they doing here?" Kevin was confused.
"They're a different bunch," Daria said. "Basically, we need more space to change Stacy back, and not in an air vent, you know?"
"Speaking of air vents, what are you doing?" Mack said.
"Getting out for help and possible reinforcements."
"Ah - we are going to free the hostages."
"Good luck."
"Yeah! We already got two of them, and now that's Stacy that way, we're going to get them for sure!" Kevin said smugly.
"You got two of them? How?" Daria asked, curious beside herself.
"Sent first one down the drain. The second one went in smoke up the furnace," Jamey said.
"You five are lucky," Daria said. "Well, good luck. From what we've glimpsed, most of the ghouls remaining - six or seven - are out in the corridor, there's only the boss guarding the hostages. Get him, free the hostages, and the rest will flee."
"Well, good luck," Mack solemnly said.
"Good luck to you more," Daria replied, and the two groups went their ways.
"Well, that was semi-tragic," Jane said a while later.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. We could've told them where the vent over the detention room was, and that currently there is only the ghoul leader guarding the prisoners."
"Well, Jane, there's only one drawback - memory."
"Excuse me?"
"Can you remember what vent it was? I can't."
"Oh. Well, me neither - hey!"
Daria abruptly stopped. "What is it?" Jane continued to badger.
"Sunlight!"
In a few minutes the vent's grating was kicked out, and Daria and Jane jumped outside. "Now then," Daria began but Jane interrupted her:
"Daria, is it just me, or is it Trent? With the Tank?"
"Given today's events, I wouldn't be surprised. If the driver's asleep, then it is Trent."
"Well, let's go and see!"
The two girls approached and knocked on the window. After several minutes, Trent's ruffled-up head appeared and the window went down. "Hey Janey, Daria," the older Lane solemnly said. "Art work finished already?"
"Trent, I need to use the phone," Jane said. When Trent handed it over, Jane dialled 911 and began to bubble into it:
"Hello? LPD? LH has been overtaken by some really ugly terrorists... what do you mean, you don't take crank call? Now listen, you ugly son of a billy-goat, I'm-"
Daria quickly turned the thing off. "Trent, this better not be your phone," she said.
"Nah, it's Jesse's mom."
"Good. 'Cause there's nothing that brings a cop squad over when they are insulted in masse with something like this." She sighed. "Sadly, this doesn't help our predicament at all."
"Your predicament?"
"Yeah. Ghouls took Ms. Li and several students hostage, and that's just the very short version," Jane sighed.
"Oh. You won't be needing this Mexican food, will you?" Trent said.
Daria stiffened. "You said Mexican food, Trent? Real Mexican food?"
"Yeah, took it from the local Taco Bell. You remember, Janey? Some weird kid with glasses - sorry Daria - tasted it and began to curse the Gehenna..."
"Ted DeWitt-Clinton," Daria said with assurance. "Trent, let me see it."
Trent showed. What he showed exactly, isn't subjected to disclosure, so let's just skip it. Daria, however, as soon as she saw the take-out food in its' packages, had her eyes flash like two stars. "Trent, thank you a bunch!" she said brightly. "That almost repays you messing-up with our project." She gave him a big kiss on the cheek. Then she turned to Jane. "You still got your hot glue gun and your mom's tazer?"
"She does," Trent spoke, apparently unaffected by Daria's actions at all.
"Great, well Trent, park a bit away from school, okay? We'll hopefully be back, and not on the shield but with it!" Daria replied, and took the semi-dazed Jane back into LH's air vent system.
Mack and his team looked out of some opening in an air vent. "All's clear," he said to the rest of his team, and jumped down. The rest of the team followed him, except for Stacy, who took a bit of time for widening the opening for her.
"Now what, Mack Daddy?" Kevin said.
"Let's see," Mack thoughtfully said. "According to Daria and Jane, all the ghouls are racing through the school, searching for us. Thus, they're spread-out. Thus, we go straight to the detention room in one single group, take out the ghoul leader and only those who stand in our way, free the hostages, get outside, have Daria save Stacy, finish."
There was just silence in reply. "Any comments?" Mack said with a sinking heart.
"That was a long speech," Tiffany said.
"Kevin, Jamey, Stacy, what did I just say?"
"Get the boss, kick his butt, save Britt and others," Kevin said. "Simple."
"Can we kick other freaks' butts while we at it?" Jamey added.
"Yeah, and shouldn't we wait for Daria? I want to be me again, not some monster," Stacy added.
"No. First we save the hostages and school, and then we reap the fruits of our labours," Mack exclaimed. "And any of you wander off - Stacy'll eat you."
"That's so fattening," Tiffany said.
Mack held his temper rein in a bit. "Except for you, Tiffany," he said, his voice choked-up from restrained emotion. "You can wander off as much as you want."
Suddenly, the door was flung open, and in came a pair of ghouls. They stared at the quintet. Suddenly, one of them took-in Stacy and her state of being. With a guttural mewling, and his eyes glowing like yellow car lights, he charged after the mutating teen.
Stacy shrieked and jumped back into the vent. The ghoul followed her. That unfortunately, left one more. He shrieked and lunged. The teens shrieked and jumped under various desks. The ghoul flew over them, slamming into a school's window.
BUZZ! ZAP!
The ghoul was flung back into a wall, smoking and unconscious. "God save Ms. Li - it was her electrified windows that saved us now!" Jamey exclaimed.
"Yes, good," Mack nodded tersely "Now let's go."
"Stacy?" Tiffany blinked, confused.
"Don't worry, she'll take care of herself," Mack said uncomfortably, knowing that a long explanation would come forth otherwise. But to chase her in the vents - impossible and time consuming. "You three - follow me."
"You know, when you demanded that we backed-out, still carrying Mexican food, that seemed pretty weird. Especially to Trent, who hadn't left," Jane observed mildly.
Daria shrugged. "We needed a better operation base - a much better one than the air vents."
"And Ms DeFoe's art supply room is the one? What has it got that the vents didn't get?"
"You mean besides more horizontal and vertical space? An electric fan!"
"So?"
"So? So unload the ammo!"
"Which ammo?"
"The food!"
But as Jane began to unwrap the food, the door flew off its' hinges, and in came about three or four ghouls, their leader looked vaguely familiar.
"Stacy!" Daria exclaimed, then more quietly. "I'll talk to Mack about that."
She quickly stuck her leg out and mutated Stacy tripped up. The other ghouls raced over her. Before they noticed Jane or Daria however, the smell of Taco Bell take-out reached their nostrils. Mewling something now completely inarticulate, they pounced onto it...
..."You know, mom spoke about heartburn, but this was extreme!" Stacy said after all was over, and just three bundles of ash remained of her pursuers. "How did it happen, girls? Hey!"
"Not now," Daria muttered, as she and Jane prepared their plan-b weapons. "And don't ask any questions, unless you want to be stuck as a ghoulish freak for the rest of your unnaturally long life"
"Eeep! I won't!"
"Good. Now let's go. Mack and the others will need our help."
"Stick together, Mack? Oh good plan Mack, so that when the ghouls find us, they'll have us together in pieces!" Jamey yelled, as he and the other three kids were pursued by no less than three ghouls. And there were three more ghouls somewhere in the building, not to mention their leader, who sounded like a particularly nasty type of a creature, even for a ghoul.
Suddenly, the leading ghoul, whose mouth was open, ready for biting, and whose tongue was flapping in the air, received a face-full of hot glue. Emphasis on the hot. He gurgled, and suddenly-
ZZAP!
He fell, darkened and smoking, zapped by a tazer held by Daria. The second ghoul looked at the bespectacled girl, mewled, and chased-off after her, running on all fours. The last ghoul, smiling like a shark on crack, grasped Tiffany. "Food!" he yelled, when suddenly somebody barrelled into him - Stacy!
Daria fled down the corridor, not seeing Jane anywhere. Suddenly the ghoul lunged, almost faster than the human eye could see. Yet, in mid-leap, it bellowed, twitched and skidded on the corridor's stone floor. It gazed at Daria with yellow eyes glazed-over with pain... and Daria put the tazer's barrel to his left temple and squeezed the trigger.
ZZAP!
"What has happened?" Tiffany blankly asked.
"It's Stacy, she's kicking his butt," Jane replied, as she and Daria re-appeared behind the other four.
"Unlike Jane, who just shoots them full of hot glue," Daria said flatly. Suddenly there came a flushing sound from up ahead. "What's in that direction anyways?" she added, belatedly.
"The school's swimming pool," Kevin said knowingly. "I think-"
"I flushed him!" Stacy appeared, looking excited yet blustered. "I flushed him down-"
"We killed our first one that way too," Kevin said. "Me and Mack and Jamey and Brittany and Jodie. Yeah! Brittany and Jodie! Let's go rescue them!" He began to walk down the corridor, followed by Tiffany and Jamey.
Mack looked with pitiful eyes at Daria and Jane. "Don't worry, we won't hold the company you keep against you," the bespectacled girl said.
Back in the detention room, the ghoul leader was growing worried. "Not so calm now, are we?" Sandi sniped.
The ghoul suddenly roared something loudly. Very loudly.
"What he is saying?" Brittany asked Quinn.
"You know in comic books who there are words that showed by bunch of typographical signs?" Quinn replied.
"Aha? They stand for-"
"-what he was just saying right now," Jodie said, being faster on the uptake. "Oh, and Sandi - don't make his temper reach the mark of white heat? We're not rescued yet, you see."
Sandi looked at Jodie with a very flat and stony stare. "You expect to be rescued by a team that has Tiffany and Kevin in them?"
Jodie looked uncomfortable for a while, then she brightened up. "All the more reason to keep your tongue in cheek, I say!"
Sandi looked at her flatly. "Why? He can't touch us, can he? Quinn?"
Quinn looked worried. "I'm not sure. Daria talked something about a time limit..."
"What that Daria talked about, was the fact that when the sun sets, your protection circle will vanish!" the ghoul leader snarled. "And our strength will double!"
"So, we are doomed, whether we insult him or not," Sandi deadpanned.
"Sandi, leave sarcasm to Daria," Jodie said wearily. "The other ghouls haven't returned yet, maybe we're winning!"
"Or maybe your friends have been digested - or worse!" the ghoul leader chortled, sitting on all fours, preparing to spring. "You five are dead - totally dead!"
Back in the corridor, Daria turned to her and Mack's assembled team. "Okay people, time is off the essence. If we mess it up, the ghoul leader will kill some or all of the hostages, and Stacy will be stuck green and mean forever."
"Eeep!" Stacy paled.
"Given your previous experience with the ghouls, I'll say that our about-to-be opponent will be-"
"Let's get him!" Stacy charged forth, flanked by Kevin and Jamey. Tiffany too trudged along.
Mack and Jane looked at Daria. "I told you before, that to work magic, I need space," Daria replied, handing the tazer to Mack, and drawing a semi-circle, somehow cutting off the detention room and six feet of the corridor from the rest of the school. "Now you two - go!"
Back in the detention room, the battle started violently, as Stacy tackled the other ghoul. Together, they rolled around the floor, coloured red by the setting sun... First strike was won by Stacy, fair enough, as the other ghoul got barrelled into a locked window of LH, and electricity surged through him. But with a roar the ghoul burst free and flung Stacy away... right into the still-functioning circle. The almost-ghoul bounced into it and bounced right back...
BOOM!
Sadly, the other ghoul leapt away, and Stacy shattered both the window and the wall. "I win!" the ghoul leader whirled around right before he received a facefull of hot glue. He roared... and Jamey and Kevin grasped his taloned hands, securing him briefly in one place.
Two things happened simultaneously, at the same time: Mack's tazer send another electric shock up the ghoul's system... and Daria had completed her chant. Or whatever.
BOOM!
"Well, I must say it was mighty generous for Ms. Li to donate some of the money that she was saving-up for a satellite to have it distributed among us, share and share alike," Jane told Daria.
"Quiet you," Daria said flatly. "You're just upset that you got the smallest cut."
"Well, it does serve me right for failing to introduce Summer and her kids to the finer points of education in our fair town," Jane agreed. "But given your today's performance-"
"What are you talking about?"
"Trent."
"Oh him. When we checked him, he was safely asleep. Once again it proves that he and I never had anything between us."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Besides, nothing worked-out with that Mexican food."
"Come on, it got three of them!"
Daria shook her head. "Never mind. At least you didn't have to share yours with Quinn."
"True. Did she go out with Johnny, or whoever?"
"That's Jamey, but no. The FC decided to party together, after being through today. I suppose missing a Cashman's morning sale does amount to something..."
"Oh, hush up."
"Well girls, I think we should call it a night," Sandi said in her best FC-president tone. "I think today has taught us all the evils of education."
"Nah, it taught me to keep quiet in Mr. D's class," Quinn shook her head. "That bloody bulging-eye paranoiac-"
"Well, that was yesterday-today's lesson," Sandi decided, not willing to argue with Quinn over their history teacher. "This one is today-tomorrow's lesson instead."
"What's the difference?" Tiffany spoke-up.
"Just drink-up your diet milkshake," Stacy said quietly. "Today has taught me the necessity of looking good."
"Isn't it one of the first?" Tiffany spoke-up again.
"I know we'll all regret asking this, but the first of what?"
"First of our rules?"
"We're talking lessons, Tiffany not rules."
"Oh. It's okay then."
Sandi turned to Stacy with a nasty look. "Couldn't you forget her? Just once?"
"Nah," Stacy shook her head. "We just never had the chance."
"Oh well. To us girls?"
"To us!" echoed the other three.
"Hey mom, dad. What's with the look?"
"Young lady, where you and Michael been all day?"
"Walking around with some of our friends - just ask Kevin and Brittany."
"Young man, a person may say that the moon is made of green cheese, and the Thompson kid will buy it. As for the Taylor girl - she's about as good as your own personal dynamo," Andrew Landon spoke firmly.
"Look, we're sorry, it's just the principal Li sort of roped-us into helping with school today-"
"That's better," Michelle Landon said firmly. "Always tell the truth if it is better than lying. Otherwise - don't. As for Ms. Li will have a talk with her. Someday."
"This still doesn't explain the look," Jodie said firmly, seeing that her parents have stirred-off away from the red zone.
"Evan's no longer the baby of the family," Rachael Landon, Jodie's younger sister, spoke-up from her corner.
"Rachael!" both adult Landons exclaimed.
"What?" Jodie's eyes bulged.
Jamey White lay thoughtfully on his bed. All the trouble he went through today and still no Quinn. Great. What else could go wrong?
The phone rang. "Who is it?" he spoke.
"Yo, dude. It's Joey and Jeffy! You dead, dude!"
With groan, Jamey White hanged-up.
"Angela, listen-"
"Hello, Ernie. Looking for this."
"Mmm... it's a bit damaged, is it not?"
"After seeing what your fancy-shmancy machine did, on top of a school-wide bloody headache, I sort of broke it. Sorry."
"It's okay. It's my fault."
"See you later, Ernie."