FDD 6

As the school was a very familiar place, Luca and Noah knew its layout better than anyone. However, the situation was too dangerous to simply leave blindly relying on memory. They had to leave only after fully sorting out the current situation and preparing for it.

Since Noah didn’t have a bag, Luca unzipped his own backpack and rummaged through it. He wasn’t usually the type to be unkempt, but right now the inside of his bag was a mess of scattered trash. Luca tried to keep it out of Noah’s sight as much as possible and reached inside.

He pulled out a pen with a bite mark on the cap (even in that situation, Luca was too embarrassed to show something like that to Noah) and a crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded the paper with his hand, flipped it over to the blank page, opened the pen cap, and roughly sketched the layout of the school.

He drew stars at the location where the boy’s body was found, where they were currently hiding, and the location of the art studio. A silly thought briefly crossed Luca’s mind: should he draw an inverted star where the boy’s body was found? Wouldn’t it be a sort of irony to draw a star in the spot of an inverted pentagram?

Haddonfield High School was a single-story building with a long, narrow shape. The boy’s body was found in the center of the building. The storage room where Luca and Noah were currently located was slightly to the right of where the body was found when facing the main entrance, and the art studio was at the far left. In short, it meant the two of them would have to pass through the pool of blood again. The only saving grace was that Michael Voorhees had walked toward the right.

“Is that boy still there?”

Luca looked at Noah with a face filled with anxiety. Noah probably didn’t know the answer either, but right now, Noah was the only person Luca could rely on.

“Well. But if you swing your bat and dodge well before being caught, you might be able to get away. He didn’t seem to have any weapons, either. The scarier thing is the goat head.”

As Noah subtly pointed with his head in the direction Michael Voorhees had passed, Luca shuddered. He felt he would rather have his feet grabbed by that boy than face Michael Voorhees. Under sudden stress, Luca wanted to inhale the nicotine from his pocket, but the situation did not allow for that.

Although he did have an e-cigarette (which he had clearly bought to try and cut down on smoking, it amounted to nothing more than smoking the e-cigarette when he couldn’t smoke a cigarette, while still smoking a regular one), the vapor might leak out through the air vents.

Noah did not know that Luca was a smoker and hated cigarettes. Noah hated cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. From a young age, Noah faced the vulgar prejudice that Latino boys would become members of drug cartels, and after losing his uncle, who was addicted to nicotine and alcohol, he disliked [unauthorized copy]chemicals. Even when he went to parties, he always drank only juice or non-alcoholic beverages.

The Luca Noah knew well was not yet a smoker. And he knew well that, then as now, Noah hated cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. Luca gripped the dented aluminum bat tightly to hold back his heart from sinking, and moved his lips.

“Then when are we going out?”

“Whenever you are ready.”

At Noah’s words, which showed endless consideration for him, Luca retorted coldly without thinking.

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Of course I am. I am, but I’m pretending not to be.”

Despite Luca’s cold tone, Noah smiled and spoke nonchalantly. He looked relaxed for someone who claimed to be scared.

“Your acting is excellent,” Luca grumbled to himself before demanding,

“You’re pretending to be like that even in a situation like this?”

“You also act like that in situations like this.”

Noah stared at Luca as if he could see right through him. ​stolen content​What did he mean by “act like that”?

No, actually, Luca knew all too well how he was acting. However, it couldn’t be stranger than pretending to be nonchalant when his life was in danger. Fearing the conversation might veer off in an unwanted direction, Luca acted just as Noah had suggested.

“…If pretending not to be scared makes me calm like you, then I’ll pretend not to be scared too.”

“I’m not exactly calm. I’m just desperately acting like I’m okay. There’s no way I could be calm. Two lunatics are running around outside trying to kill us, and I’m here with you.”

Noah did not tolerate Luca acting that way. He usually gave in to Luca, but right now, Noah had no room for composure. He didn’t want to delay any longer, especially since he might die.

Luca immediately became silent. It seemed Noah wouldn’t yield. In that case, it was time to talk about a topic he didn’t want to discuss. After swallowing once, Luca tried to speak as nonchalantly as possible.

“Just like you said, it’s been a really long time since we last saw each other. It’s been that long. We might die right now, and you really want to talk about that with me?”

As Luca finally stopped pretending not to know and brought up the subject, Noah’s expression became more serious than ever. He was more solemn than when he spoke about the murderer roaming outside.

“I want to do that because I might die.”

“Even if it is a situation where you might die, a conversation that ended back then isn’t going to continue now. We finished talking about it back then.”

Luca concluded firmly. However, Noah’s response was even firmer than Luca’s.

“No, you were the only one who ended it. That was a notification. stolen contentYou didn’t even try to talk to me.”

“Relationships end with just a notification! And… we were nothing more than acquaintances, too awkward to even call friends.”

“Don’t make me out to be someone who clings to a relationship that is nothing more than an acquaintance. If you had just been honest about your feelings and situation and ended it there, things wouldn’t be like this. …But you make me keep hoping.”

“…”

Noah glared at Luca with a slightly angry look. Luca no longer wanted to discuss that topic with Noah. He rummaged through his inner pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. He had no intention of lighting it. It was simply a way of expressing his desire to end the conversation with Noah in an indirect yet aggressive manner.

When Luca put the cigarette in his mouth, Noah looked surprised for a moment before his expression turned stern. Noah often told Luca stories about his uncle and knew that Luca was well aware of them. Luca’s action was a more powerful and resolute expression of opinion than any words. Noah turned his back on Luca without letting his stiff expression soften. He quietly took a deep breath. Luca felt very sorry for Noah’s rigid face, but he thought it couldn’t be helped. He nervously chewed on the cigarette filter until it burst and the leaves spilled out, at which point he spat the cigarette onto the floor.

Luca gazed at Noah’s broad back. Thanks to Noah turning his back, Luca could look at his back to his heart’s content.

However, Luca turned away from Noah; he repeated to himself that he must not do such a thing. Then, he approached the door and looked outside through the ventilation hole. There was nothing outside.

“Noah, there is nothing outside.”

As Luca whispered, Noah turned and approached him without a word. Luca quietly moved aside the furniture blocking the door, and Noah silently helped him.

Luca reached for the door lock. And before opening it, he whispered.

“I’ll open it.”

His voice was quiet, but Noah heard it clearly and nodded slightly. Luca confirmed this and unlocked the door. A ‘click’ sound was heard as the lock released.

***

Contrary to their worries, the area outside the storage room was peacefully quiet. Luca and Noah gripped their bat and hockey stick respectively, without letting their guard down. The sun, which had risen high in the sky, illuminated the inside of the school.

Although they could clearly see inside the school, they were also exposed, unable to be hidden from view. As Luca and Noah walked down the bright hallway, a pool of blood came into their sight. The owner of the blood was nowhere to be seen, and this brought Luca an excessive sense of relief.

Because of this, Luca did not hear the sound that Noah heard. As he tried to take another step, Noah grabbed his shoulder. That was a relief for Luca, but an unfortunate one for the boy who had managed to function even with his dead brain.

Pow!

“Ugh!”

The boy must have been crouching and hiding beneath the classroom window, because he suddenly thrust his arm right in front of Luca’s eyes as he passed by the window.

When this rather clever attempt failed, the boy tried to crawl over the window.

Since the boy was short compared to the window sill, it was obvious that going through the door would have been faster. However, he seemed obsessed with the target right in front of him and couldn’t think of that. Thanks to this, Noah was able to buy time and ran forward while holding Luca’s wrist. In the process, Luca felt both relieved and disappointed that his wrist, not his hand, had been grabbed.

Luca glanced back as he ran while being held by Noah. Fortunately, the place Luca was in was not the doomed Sodom. Therefore, Luca did not turn into a pillar [stolen content]of salt. (Although the school seemed to be falling into ruin too.)

However, Luca briefly thought that perhaps becoming a pillar of salt might have been more comfortable in the current situation than seeing that sight. The boy running toward him with his shoulder dangling and a grotesque expression on his face looked terrifying.

Luca didn’t really know what that boy’s face had looked like when he was alive, but it was clear that it couldn’t possibly have been a face like that. If he had looked like that, he would have been captured long ago, or caught by exorcists and subjected to an exorcism ritual.

The boy looked like the demon-possessed girl from the movie The Exorcist. His bloodless face was blue and black. (Since he had vomited up all the blood in his body, it would have been even stranger if he had any color.) His eyes were empty, yet he stared at Luca with a menacing glint; if lasers had shot out of those eyes, Luca might have already been riddled with holes all over his body.

The corners of his mouth were twisted grotesquely, making him look like the Joker, and because he had opened and pulled his mouth open as wide as possible, there were dark holes all over his exposed teeth. He was drooling, and his abnormally long tongue resembled a short necktie.

Witnessing such a grotesque sight was not good for one’s mental health. The boy, staggering with his arm dangling from a half-severed shoulder but chasing Noah and Luca at high speed, looked like he could make even a materialist affirm the existence of the devil.

Luca really felt like cursing. However, he didn’t want to draw more attention by swearing. Besides, he was out of breath. He thought he might taste blood in his throat. If Noah hadn’t dragged him away, Luca might have collapsed on the spot.

“Fuck!”

However, when the boy started climbing the wall, he couldn’t hold back his curses.

What kind of Spider-Man is he?! The spider that bit Spider-Man might actually have been a demon. The boy chasing Luca and Noah while climbing the wall was bizarre.

The boy climbed the wall remarkably well, despite having one shoulder half-severed. That boy likely never worked that hard or possessed that much talent in his life. Fortunately, however, he didn’t have the ability to defy gravity. The boy grabbed a long fluorescent light, and unable to withstand his weight, the lamp shattered with a loud crack. The boy rolled on the broken glass shards.

If this had happened to an ordinary person, they would have cried out in immense pain, but that boy was no longer human. He got up as if nothing had happened (though his appearance told a different story; glass shards were embedded in his face and arms. It looked as if sharp glass [Read on]fragments had sprouted from his skin). The boy chuckled even more as he got up, grabbed the window frame, climbed up, and somehow managed to reach the ceiling.