"Mondays" - short story

“I remember the whole thing clearly, it was early Monday afternoon. God, do I hate Mondays. I had a hell of a time getting to class that day. I was scrambling to finish my assignment at the last minute, as usual, and failed to notice the weather in my haste. I slapped together the final few sentences of my short story and was on my way out the door even before I could zip up my backpack. At the bottom of my building, I was greeted by a face-full of rain as I opened the door. It was already one-fifty – though by the skies you might have thought it nighttime – and class started at two. It was too late to go back for an umbrella. I gritted my teeth and moved forward with my head down to avoid being pelted in the eyes. On every block I’d have about five men shoving umbrellas at me, murmuring ‘umbrello, umbrello’. It was late in the semester and I had made a habit of silently declining any strangers who approached me. About three blocks in, however, I realized that any relief from this torrential downpour would surely be worth a few Euros. I could even pay with coins, which never felt like I was spending that much money anyways. I grabbed the next umbrella that was offered to me, and spent the extra couple of Euros to get the better kind. You know, the ones with the thicker handle and pointed tip. In this storm, there was no way in hell that a crappy little umbrella would even survive my walk to class, and to be honest I had my doubts about the big one.

Surprisingly, the damned thing held its own against the wind and I made it class without getting too soaked. By the time I got there, it was ten after two, but I wasn’t the only late one. As you know, there were only four of us in that class, but that day I was the second to arrive. Cristina was there setting up the projector, and Sam was doing something on his iPad. I set my umbrella against the wall and mumbled greetings to them both as I sat down, more relieved to be out of the storm than anything. I remember Sam saying something to me as I retrieved my folder from my backpack, but to be honest I wasn’t really listening. As a general rule, whenever that kid opened his mouth I would smile, nod and hope to god he wasn’t looking for a response. It was nothing against him personally, I’m sure he was a great guy if you took the time to get to know him; I just wasn’t prepared to make that kind of chronological commitment. Plus, he was from South Dakota. Anything or anyone that can survive in a desolate environment is genetically wired to need very little stimulus. I, on the other hand, tend to surround myself with people who acknowledge that there’s more to life than corn fields and chewing tobacco, but I digress.

If you would’ve asked me who’d be the next to arrive, I’d have thrown down 50 Euros and dared you to bet on Andrew. That man, and I do use the term appropriately (he made it to the ripe age of 30, God rest his soul), missed the bus more than anyone I knew. Plus, the other person we were waiting on was Erin Montemurro. Erin was never late; in fact she’d have been in class most Sundays if the building were open. You can imagine my surprise, then, when into the classroom walks Andrew, only 15 minutes late, which for him was like being 15 minutes early. Despite our age difference, I actually really liked Andrew. He was a real down to earth guy, and had a strange curtain of mystery about him that made you want to get to know him better, unlike Sam.

After greeting Andrew, I asked Cristina what we were going to do in class that day. Before she could respond, Sam somewhat bitterly reminded me that he had just told me we were going to watch Hannibal. I was about to spew some poor excuse as to why I hadn’t heard him earlier when he spared me the trouble by getting up to close the window blinds. Over the course of the semester Sam had unofficially become our ‘window guy’ as he was unparalleled in his eagerness to do that thankless task. I don’t pretend to know why he was always so happy to do it, but I suspect it had something to do with that whole South Dakota lack of stimulus thing.

Sam returned to his seat, and I could hear the obnoxious squeaking of wet shoes rapidly approaching the classroom. The door swung open to reveal Erin, soaked to the bone, out of breath, and visibly anxious at having been so delayed by the storm. She shut the door and pivoted back around, gathering her breath presumably to apologize for her tardiness. Unbeknownst to all of us at the time, that breath would be Erin’s last. She attempted to continue her pivot into a step, but her slicked feet flew out from underneath her. A brief squeal escaped as her body came crashing down to the stone floor. Her neck swung back with tremendous momentum and propelled her skull straight into the ground. Blood immediately pooled around her lifeless body as we gasped in shock. Looking back, she should’ve taken the extra couple of seconds to wipe her feet on the mat upon entering the building. It proved to be a fatal slip-up on her part.

A second after the initial sock, panic began to set in. Sam, who confirmed the absence of a pulse, started sobbing and mumbling incoherently. It was as if Erin’s death was too much for his simple South Dakotan mind to comprehend. I didn’t catch a glimpse of what Andrew was doing at that moment, and I can’t say I had any idea what he was thinking, either. I simply sat in silent disbelief, thinking to myself. First, Andrew arrived before Erin, and now this. I wondered which was more improbable, but couldn’t reach a conclusion. Cristina, being the responsible adult, immediately took out her phone and dialed 113. She explained our situation in Italian that sounded even faster than normal, which I previously thought impossible. Her quick action settled us down a bit, allowing the reality of the situation to sink in.

The ever-widening pool of blood was making me queasy; I could feel my muscles weakening and my stomach churning. Andrew suggested that we move Erin’s body out of the way of the door so the EMTs could enter when the time came. This seemed to snap Sam back to normal, and he wiped his eyes, agreeing that this would be a smart move. The two of them awkwardly approached the body, clearly unsure of the proper way to respectfully move it while creating as little of a mess as possible. They decided the best course of action would be to grab her limbs and lift her a few feet to the side. As fate would have it, this was most definitely not the best course of action. With Sam at the feet and Andrew at the arms, they simultaneously hoisted Erin’s body upwards. At this moment, Andrew’s grip slipped from the bloody limb and her left arm swung down. I could only watch as he plunged forwards to catch the arm, which flopped directly into my umbrella, knocking it from the wall. The falling body pulled Andrew down, giving his lurch deadly momentum as his throat connected with the tip of the umbrella. It must have hit his aorta, because blood started spurting everywhere. As I mentioned earlier, Andrew was known for his poor timing, but for him to hit the umbrella like that was considerably unfortunate, even by his standards.

This time there were three thuds. First, Erin’s body reconnected with the cold ground, then Andrew’s followed suit. On the other side of the room, Cristina fainted at the sight of Andrew’s death and fell back, hitting her head on a desk. With surprising composure, Sam hurried to her side and read her pulse. She was most definitely alive, but the fall had knocked her unconscious. With this, I felt like we had finally caught a break, but just then a deafening clap of thunder sounded and the room went pitch black. It was as if the gods themselves were mocking our situation, showing us just how powerless we really were.

The darkness brought momentary peace to the classroom. The absence of sight allowed my brain to ignore the horrific scene that lay around me. For a brief second, I was even able to forget that I was still stuck with Sam. That moment quickly came to an end, however, when his dreadful voice pierced the silence. This time I was actually listening. In what must have been the most triumphant spark of brilliancy to ever illuminate his feeble mind, Sam suggested that I grab his iPad to shed some literal light on the situation. I should clarify that those puns are my words, not Sam’s, just so you don’t give the kid too much credit. Anyways, I reached down to grope for his backpack, and quickly found that brick of a tablet which most people refer to as an iPad. I brought it up onto the desk in an extraordinary feat of strength, only to be met with an even greater challenge. Sam’s iPad case might have been the only thing on this planet that was thicker than his freakishly large skull. In fact, those two objects were far more similar than most people think. First, they both protected machines with fairly weak processing power, and, second, both of them would be opened up in the next few seconds.

In a surprising turn of fortune, I was actually able to remove the cover from Sam’s case and expose the brightly lit screen. With Erin gone, his iPad was just about the only thing Sam had left in this world, and he asked me to pass it to him as soon as the case was off. I obliged, and tried to slide it across the dusty floor over towards his corner. At the time, I didn’t realize how large the ominous crimson pool had grown. Fortunately, Sam noticed his Ipad’s trajectory and made a quick move to snag it before it could meet the blood. Unfortunately, Sam tripped while attempting this daring save. Once more, blood sprayed the walls of our classroom. The hydroplaning iPad cracked to a halt against the wall, and so did Sam’s head against the floor. When the blood had settled, it became apparent that Sam was dead. I was surprisingly calm by this point. When I had found out we were going to watch Hannibal, I mentally prepared myself to see raw brains, so I maintained my composure at the sight of Sam’s. As his humble life faded into oblivion, the lights flickered back on to irradiate the scene. It was at this moment that the EMTs burst into the classroom, to their shock finding three more motionless bodies than they had been alerted to.

And that, officer, is the true story of what happened that day.” Upon finishing his frightening recollection, Jack leaned back in his chair, visibly exhausted. His eyes looked empty and emotionless; his hunched posture conveyed the same.

The mustachioed man in the Carabinieri uniform chuckled a little, shaking his head. “So you’re telling me that three people are dead, two of whom have blunt trauma wounds to the head and one impaled in the neck, not to mention the unconscious woman we found, and this all happened from people slipping!?”

Jack shot back up in the chair, “Do you think I could make something like that up?”

“Yes, because you just did,” the policeman said plainly, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good story, kid, but how do you explain the bloody baseball bat that we found in the closet with your fingerprints all over it?”

“Oops.” Jack admitted defeat, almost seeming relieved, “Well you can’t blame me for trying, officer”

“Actually I can, it’s called obstruction of justice. But you’ll already be locked up for life anyways, I suppose.” He paused for a second before continuing, “But tell me this, son, what drove you to do it? Those were your classmates and your friends!”

Without hesitation, Jack shrugged, “Like I said at the beginning, I really hate Mondays.”