Teacher's Pet

Teacher’s Pet

I hate Science class.

It’s not an opinion, as one might like to call it. It is a proven fact that out of all of my classes, Science sucks the most. My name is Mary Sulliven, and I’m your average high-school girl. I have a couple of really close friends, decent looks, and I get good grades. I don’t stand out much, but that’s just the way I like it at my school. Especially when it comes to Science.

Let me paint a picture of my class for you. My Science teacher, Dr. Kreeps, is super-weird. With his frizzy red hair that sticks out in all directions, his crazy glasses with lenses that make his eyes look like a bug’s eyes, and his off-white lab coat, which he never takes off, he’s a regular mad scientist. He’s always making us do lame experiments in class, and after school, he stays behind and does freaky things in the lab. We’re not sure what, but we see some strange blue lights coming from under the door whenever he’s alone in it, or he’s with one of his teacher’s pets.

The ‘teacher’s pets’ in question are just as weird as Dr. Kreeps is. No wonder why they like to hang out with him. They all have some kind of weird disease or something. Some kids are pale and never have to go outside for gym class; others are really hairy for normal human standards and are always out sick the days of and after a full moon; still others smell like they never shower and they eat really rare meat. In short: they’re a bunch of freaks. Some of my friends even call them the “Kreep Klan.”

It was a beautiful October day, and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in Science with the weirdest teacher on the planet and his favorites laughing and giggling in the back of the room. (Oh, did I mention that the Kreep Klan doesn’t have to do any work in Dr. Kreeps class? Ugh, I hate them so much.)

“Don’t forget that this Saturday is the HauntoberFest. It will be held in Buffy Park, so don’t be late,” Dr. Kreeps said in his wheezy, mad scientist voice, mainly to the kids in the back. I hated the HauntoberFest; it was just another reason for the ‘pets’ to get together and be even more special. You weren’t allowed in unless you had an invitation from one of the members of the Klan or Dr. Kreeps himself, so I don’t see why he had to address the whole class about it.

Finally, the bell rang, and I ran out of the door so fast, you’d think I was on fire. As I walked down the hallway, my best friend, Nicole, showed up behind me. “Geez! You could’ve waited for me,” she said, clearly a little peeved.

“Sorry,” I answered. “But you know how much I hate that class. I wanted out of there as soon as humanly possible. Dr. Kreeps and his little clique of freaky students creep me out.”

Nicole huffed. “Why can’t you just give him a chance, Mary? And by the way, I’m in that clique of ‘freaky’ students, remember?” She put the word ‘freaky’ in air quotes.

Yes, it’s true. My best friend is in the Kreep Klan. But we knew each other way before she joined up. Plus, she didn’t seem that different. The only physical changes I saw in her was that her nose was a bit longer and she liked wearing black now. (She used to be a bit of a prep beforehand; y’know, pink clothes, boy bands, et cetera, et cetera.) Also, she recently adopted a cute little black kitten, and she used to be more of a dog person. But that wasn’t weird; she was just growing out of old styles and into new ones.

“Right, sorry about that,” I apologized. “So, I guess that means you’re going to the HauntoberFest?”

Nicole looked down at the ground and mumbled a “Yeah.” I sighed. This was the first Halloween that we wouldn’t spend together. Since we were kids, we loved to go out in cheesy costumes and load up on a ton of free candy. Then we’d sit in my living room and pig out until morning. It just wouldn’t be the same without her.

Suddenly, Nicole lit up. “Hey! I’ve got an idea. If you’re not busy that night, then you should come with me to the HauntoberFest. It’ll be really fun, and I hear there are games and prizes and – “

I cut my friend off with my hand held up high. When she stopped talking, I said, “No way in hell. No offense, but that’s definitely not my scene. I don’t want to hang out with Dr. Kreeps or those kids all night. You can go, but I won’t.”

“Oh come on, Mary! I promise it’ll be fun!” Nicole pleaded, but I wouldn’t hear another word of it. There was no way I would be seen with those freaks. How would I be able to show my face in school if someone found out? I’d be a laughing stock.

As I turned my back on Nicole’s pleas, I heard her sigh behind me. “Fine; I’ll make a deal with you. If you go with me, and it really is lame, then we’ll turn back and head to your place and trick-or-treat, just like we always do.”

The familiar agenda softened me a little. Nicole knew that the main thing I didn’t like about her new ‘friends’ was that they stole her away from me to do freaky kid things. “You really mean that?” I said softly, turning back toward her.

“Of course I do,” she replied, placing her arm over my shoulder. “So does that mean you’ll go?”

I thought about if for a minute, then shrugged. “If I’m ever going to get you to hang with me again, then I guess I have no choice.”

Nicole squealed with glee and hugged me tightly. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise, Mary…you won’t be disappointed.”

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The week came and went, and not much happened, minus the fact that some of the teachers dressed in really lame costumes on Friday. It was now Saturday; A.K.A.: Halloween; A.K.A.: the day of the party that was going to ruin my social life forever.

Over the course of the week, Nicole and I worked on our costumes. She picked a little black witch costume, and I chose a princess. Just as I got the poofy pink dress over my head, Nicole came in, fully dressed and ready to go. I had to admit, with the long black cape, pointed black hat, and tall wooden broomstick, she looked like she could really fly away or cast a spell at any minute.

When she saw that I wasn’t ready yet, she nearly freaked. “Come on, Mary! I told you to be ready when I got here!”

“I know, I know,” I mumbled, the dress blocking my mouth so I sounded muffled. “Could you please help me with this thing?”

Nicole put her broom off to the side and helped me pull the dress down to fit over the rest of my body. I then grabbed the white gloves and slipped them on while Nicole grabbed my tiara. I walked into the low-heeled white shoes I'd picked out and placed the tiara on my head. I checked myself in the mirror, my makeup and hair already done prior to me dressing.

“Okay, let’s go,” I said, and we headed out into the night and to the party. I walked slowly behind Nicole, my feet barely used to the new shoes I had just placed on, when she suddenly turned left and started to walk through the woods. “Nicole, where the hell are you going?” I asked her.

Nicole looked back at me and scoffed. “You didn’t really think that the party was going to be at Buffy Park, did you? Dr. Kreeps just said that so the juvenile punks who try to wreck the party go to the wrong place. The real location is a secret only known to his favorite students,” she said matter-of-factly.

Now that she mentioned it, it did seem pretty stupid to basically put a big neon sign over a bunch of freaks on Halloween that said ‘PLEASE MAKE FUN OF ME.’ I had to admit, for a weirdo, Dr. Kreeps was really smart. Either that or he’s had that incident too many times to screw up again.

As we trudged on through the woods, I started to grow tired. It felt like we had been walking for hours, and the trees didn’t seem to let up anywhere. They only got closer and closer together. The brambles appeared to have never been disturbed before, and they were really starting to annoy me. I mean, it’s not so easy to move those things away from you with only one arm.

One arm?

I looked down at my left shoulder and nearly passed out. There was no arm; simply a bloody stump with a long, bleach-white bone sticking out of it. And the smell coming from the wound was unbearable.

“Nicole…wait,” I managed to whisper. She stopped from her distance a few feet ahead of me and looked back. She then noticed that I had stopped and walked back toward me.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as if she couldn’t see that I was missing an arm.

Deep in my subconscious I could hear something screaming that I should be in major pain right now, but for some reason, I remained totally calm as I said, “My arm fell off.”

Nicole paused, then uttered a short laugh. “No you didn’t, silly. Don’t you remember? You’re supposed to be a dead princess, and dead princesses sometimes lose their limbs.” She then turned a bit more sincere, leaned closer to me, and said quietly, “It’s just a part of your costume, remember?”

I concentrated really hard on what she said. A part of me yelled out that it wasn’t a prop; I was really hurt. But it was quickly silenced by a much calmer voice that reminded me that Nicole had helped me get ready by applying the fake blood on my shoulder to make it look like I was missing an arm. The thought was so clear, I didn’t give it a second thought.

“O-of course I remember! Yeah, how could I forget? You got the fake blood all over your costume.” I looked down and was relieved to see a mess of fake blood splattered all over the front of her black skirt.

“Yeah, and I’m still pretty pissed about that,” she said sourly, almost to herself.

I laughed and placed my remaining hand on her shoulder. “I still appreciate it. Hey! We’d better hurry or we’ll miss out on all of HauntoberFest!” I said cheerily.

Nicole was a bit off-put by my sudden change of mood. “Well, look at Miss ‘I-Don’t-Want-To-Hang-With-The-Freaky-Kids’ now! Why are you so happy about going all of a sudden?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I feel like with this costume, I sort of…belong, ya know?” Then, more like my usual self, I added, “I guess it’s because it looks so weird and smells so bad, huh?”

Nicole laughed a bit, despite my obvious slash at the Kreep Klan. “Yep, I guess so,” she replied. We then headed back on the path to the party, all thoughts about my ‘missing’ arm now behind us.

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We continued our walk through the woods, both of us eager to get to the party. Finally, we came to a clearing. Nicole led the way through the trees. “Well, here we are,” she said triumphantly.

I took one look around me and tried not to laugh out loud. If I thought that the Kreep Klan looked freaky before, it was nothing compared to how they looked now. Every creature under the sun (or should I say moon) was talking, laughing, eating, or dancing. As we walked through the crowd of monsters, some of them welcomed Nicole to the party, and a few kids even said hi to me, which was weird. I mean, I wasn’t exactly the Klan’s number one supporter, to say the least.

Nicole turned to me and asked, “So, what do you think?”

I looked at my surroundings and shrugged. “Eh, I guess it’s okay…It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought you’d all just sit around and talk about Klan things, like how tasty raw meat is.” At the mention of food, I realized that I was famished from all the walking that we had just done. “By the way, where is the food table?” I asked Nicole, peering over the small groups of kids for any sign of food.

“Oh, I believe it’s over there,” Nicole said, pointing to a large orange-and-black clad table. Quick as a flash, I was at the table, piling my plate with various kinds of meats. Chicken, beef, pork; anything I could get my hands (err, ‘hand’) on.

As I got my food, I noticed that my assumption was right: the freaks really did eat raw meat; or at least really rare meat. I glanced at a plate covered with some foreign kind of meat soaked in blood. At first I turned my nose on it, but then I detected a delicious smell wafting up to my nostrils. I soon realized that it was the very meat I had just passed up. Nearly drooling over the smell, I quickly grabbed up a large amount of the meat and headed back to where Nicole was sitting with two of her freaky friends.

Nicole took one look at my plate and gave me one of her ‘I-Told-You-Not-To-Judge-Them’ looks, but I ignored it. As I was scarfing down my food, Nicole tried to make conversation with the other two kids. “Mary, these are my two new friends from the class, Michael and David.” David was one of those really hairy kids I mentioned earlier, and Michael looked like he could really use a tan.

“Mmm,” I nearly moaned at them, barely interested in what Nicole was saying.

Nicole made a face and said, “Gross! You actually eat that rare meat, Mary?”

David glanced over at her. “So what if she does?” he asked. “That’s the only good way to eat meat anyway.”

Michael shook his head. “Nah, the meat doesn’t really matter; it’s the blood that’s got all of the nutrients. You should focus on getting that in your system.”

“Who asked you anyway?” David asked with a sneer.

Michael shrugged. “Just getting my two cents in, that’s all.”

Nicole placed a hand in between the two boys. “All right, calm down you two. You don’t want to make a scene.”

“Sorry Nicole,” they muttered together.

Nicole smiled at them, then turned her attention back to me. I had finished my plate and was now listening to their conversation intently, hoping to see some sort of nerd fight. So when Nicole broke it up, I was more than a little disappointed. “Aw, c’mon, Nicole! Just let them duke it out for a bit! It would be exciting!”

“Yeah, for you, maybe, but I was told to watch over these guys to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Nicole responded.

“Aw, you’re no fun,” I pouted.

Nicole giggled a bit at my attitude, and then said, “Hey! Let’s go dance!” She then pulled me from my seat and to the dance floor. I wasn’t much of a dancer, but I felt really good after eating that meal, so I started to dance with her a few of her friends. It was a little awkward at first, but before I knew it, they were treating me like we knew each other our entire lives.

After we danced for a while, I headed back to our seats to rest. As I sat down, a kid dressed as a corny-looking ghost walked up behind me and asked, “Hey, is this yours?”

I looked down into the palm of his hand and screamed. There, wriggling in his hand, was a human eyeball. At first I thought it was a stupid prank toy, but then it winked at me. Frantic, I slowly reached up and felt a large gaping hole where my eye once was. I screamed again.

Nicole came rushing up to us at that moment. “What happened?! What’s wrong?” she asked frantically. I could do nothing but point at the eye in the boy’s hand. Nicole sighed deeply, took the eye from the kid, thanked him, and then turned to me. “You’re being really forgetful tonight, aren’t you?”

“W-what?” I managed to whimper.

“You know that this is your fake eye for the costume. You popped it in over your real one, remember? It took us forever to make it look right, and now it’s just fallen out again!” Nicole gave me a reassuring grin, which I tried to return, but couldn’t. Something wasn’t right here. How could I have forgotten so much over such a short amount of time? About the arm, the eye, the fact that I actually like raw meat like the other kids…

As I was pondering what the hell was wrong with my short-term memory, the lights dimmed, and Dr. Kreeps walked out onto a darkened stage with a spotlight on him. His booming voice carried out over the children’s murmurs: “Welcome, boys and girls of the night! Welcome to the HauntoberFest! I am glad to see that you have all arrived safely…” He then turned attention to me. “…Especially our new recruit.” He said, smiling devilishly.

Frightened as I was, I found my voice. “Recruit? What do you mean?” I asked, my voice shaking with every word.

Dr. Kreeps smiled again, revealing his sharp, yellow teeth. “Why, you are our new member of our army, of course.”

“A-army? What the hell are you talking about?”

Dr. Kreeps gave a short laugh and started to explain. “You see, my dear, throughout my years of teaching, I have been building up a monster army under the noses of the entire school faculty. I plan to create a large enough army to rule the entire world someday. However, to avoid suspicion, I must only recruit a few members at a time. I do so during the HauntoberFest. Usually we have a bigger turnout of humans, but…” He paused and glanced around at the students. “I’m afraid that the members of my army have become outcasts in our modern-day society, so not many people want to join.” He turned and grinned at me again. “But once we have you on our side, everyone will want to come onto our side.”

I was dumbstruck. Dr. Kreeps really was a mad scientist! He was using his creepy experiments to transform these poor students into his mindless slaves, and I was going to become one of them! I had to do something. “I’ll never join your freaky army!” I yelled at him.

Dr. Kreeps sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He snapped his fingers, and two big, burly, hairy dudes rushed up and grabbed me by my arm and shoulder. I struggled against their grip, but couldn’t break free. Dr. Kreeps then reached into his bag that was set next to him and pulled out a weird-looking machine with various buttons and wires sticking out of it. It looked sort of like a giant ray gun.

I panicked when I saw the machine. He was going to kill me for my disobedience! I looked over my shoulder at Nicole. “Nicole! Please, do something!” I screamed at her.

But Nicole simply shook her head. “No, Mary; it’s for the best.”

Utterly defeated, I looked into the face of my demise, right when Dr. Kreeps said, “See you on the other side, Mary.”

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of blue light, but instead of feeling that strange weightless sensation you’re supposed to feel when you’re dead, my mind began to take in various bits of history and information about monsters in the olden days. I saw how witches were burned, werewolves were slaughtered, vampires were mutilated, and zombies were nuked. For some reason, the last one really stuck out to me. But what I really took in from it all was the fact that it always seemed that wherever I went in history, humans came second, but they still regained dominance over the creatures they fought. But why would humans do that to the creatures that rightfully lived there?

Then it hit me: Dr. Kreeps wasn’t taking over the world for himself, he was taking it back for the monsters that rightfully lived there.

I learned through my time travels that the humans started out on one part of the world, with the other creatures owning separate bits and pieces of land. However, the humans began to get greedy, and stole the land from the monsters that it belonged to. When I saw this, my blood began to boil with a rage I had never felt before. I knew what I had to do. At that moment, everything went black.

My eyes fluttered open, and I was lying on the ground with everyone – my brethren – overlooking me. I slowly sat up, looked at Dr. Kreeps, and said, “When do I start?”

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So, I guess that it’s not so bad being a member of the Kreep Klan. Yes, I still call them that, and no, I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing it. But still, it’s a pretty awesome life for me now. I know how I said I’d lost a limb and an eye. Yeah, that part of it sucked. As a matter of fact, I also lost a leg shortly after the party. Such is the life of a zombie girl. Go figure.

I try to blend into the normal human crowd as much as possible. You’d be surprised how a couple of prosthetic limbs and a glass eye can fool these kids. They have no idea that a war is on its way. It still won’t be for a long while; we’re trying to enhance our army some more before we take on the humans. But our numbers are growing rapidly, and they show no signs of stopping. Now my question for you is:

Whose side will you be on?