The Only Thing We Have To Fear

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Surely the slime was happy to no longer be trapped in jars in Pierce Thavel's locker as it oozed down the walls. If it could feel or perceive, it would be anxious from the adrenaline rushing through its system having watched humans turn into spiders and spiders and humans slaughtering each other.

The green slime was a horrible concoction that was lucky enough to not be alive. Pierce was the kind of person who, upon bringing to life a Frankensteined creation, would push it to its limits in every conceivable way to the point where it would wish he'd pulled a Victor Frankenstein and left it for dead. He'd been a Boy Scout for years, but the only virtue he upheld was "be prepared." Instead of becoming a model citizen who could fend for himself if he were ever left in the wilderness, he became an unstoppable prankster with an aptitude for trouble and the unfortunate ability to always be prepared. The slime was his creation, and if it were alive, it would have horror stories about what a boy like Pierce does when left alone in the house. Luckily, it wasn't.

The slime happily gave in to gravity, seeping into the carpets and sliding down the walls. It curiously explored the space between the doorframes and the walls and made its way down the drains in the boys' locker room. 

The gelatinous stuff wasn't the malleable kind that trended on every social media site for far too long for such a trivial item to be trending; it was worse. It didn't smell of shaving cream but used tissues; it was far too runny to play with in class; and it couldn't be used as a cleaner, only as an agent of mess. It was a rancid clear green with coagulated chunks suspended randomly throughout it, and it appeared exactly as it did on TV. 

However, the stories it had to tell were crazier than anything currently on TV. Bits stuck to dull sweaters on dead bodies witnessed as Bill, with his forehead stuck to his crush's breasts, won her over in the inside of an industrial freezer. Pieces clinging to the ceiling watched their creator and a boy who they assumed to be his boyfriend hiding out in the SpEd room carefully tucked away from the mess. Chunks splattered across windows felt the predatory gaze as one Mr. Fish stalked the outside of the building.

They heard him muttering plans. "He's killed half of us. He needs to be taken out. What would I do if I were him? Go to the music room, camp out there?"

Mr. Fish wandered lazily around the building, considering where the kid he hated so much, Roman, could possibly be. He plotted his death, downfall, and demise in every devastating detail, yet he couldn't fathom which of the plans would come to fruition, and neither did Roman.

Meanwhile, Tristan set up what he called a "Rube Goldberg Machine" and what Pierce called a "trap" over the door while the latter of the two surveyed the dean's movements from the top of a desk.

"Hurry up. If there's one, there's more," Pierce called.

"I'm doing the best I can," Tristan growled.

Pierce had a mind for trouble, but Tristan had a mind for engineering. Using nothing but a rolling chair, some pencils, a yard of string, a couch, and an electric fan, he managed to fashion something that functioned as both a barricade and a trap around the door nearest the main entrance.

"You seriously don't know how to tie a better knot? I thought you were a boy scout. Isn't that one of the skills you learn?" Tristan complained.

Pierce clenched his jaw. Much to the dismay of his scoutmaster, he never took any of the stuff he was supposed to be learning seriously. In fact, his troupe very reluctantly let him graduate from cub scout to boy scout, but all the other boys were promoted to eagle scout two years ago, leaving him the oldest boy scout in his troupe. He was sure they'd made the extra effort so they didn't have to deal with him, but that seemed to go too far, and it still hurt.

"I purged that useless **** from my brain," he huffed.

Tristan sighed and carefully backed away from his creation so as to not set it off. "What about Bill? I thought we were gonna go back and get him."

Pierce lazily waved a hand. "Why would we do that?"

"Because he's our friend," Tristan offered.

Pierce didn't even bother considering the idea. "No. I think we both know he's the third wheel here."

Tristan opened his mouth to argue, but he had to admit, they never treated Bill like an equal. He was, in fact, the third wheel. Besides, it felt good to be essentially called Pierce's number one.

"So, we're leaving him to die?" Tristan tried one last time in an attempt to guilt trip Pierce.

Pierce didn't guilt trip easily. Though he took pause, he shrugged and said, "If he dies, he dies."

The sudden realization that one of his best friends might be dead brought him to the edge of tears, so he pretended to keep working on his finished machine, unaware that Pierce was equally on the brink of tears.