Chương 16: Beer Can Thickness Guaranteed

The principal's office was a shrine to mediocrity. Its walls were adorned with cheap wood paneling from the 70s and were lined with corny motivational posters from the mid-90s. One had multiple fighter jets streaking chemtrails behind them with the words "Above & Beyond" in large text, and below that it read: "The Sky's The Limit With Teamwork." They were all equally cheesy, but I legitimately liked the one with a bunch of penguins on a beach that simply read "Walk The Talk."

Tre immediately got to work on the control panel mounted on the north wall, near the receptionist desk. He flipped through pages of an emergency protocols booklet tethered to the panel, looking for a way to open the doors. In addition to not knowing what he was doing, Tre's biggest problem was that the panel had been smashed. Undeterred by mechanical failure, Tre randomly smashed the few buttons still in place on the panel.

"Come on, you bastard," he muttered, trying again. The alarm continued to blare.

"It's obviously been sabotaged." Tre stepped back from the panel.

"We're locked out of the whole system." Isabel massaged her neck with both hands.

"We wasted time coming here?"

"Not entirely," Tre corrected.

"But I'll need a minute or two to figure out how to rewire this mess and turn off the alarm, which will hopefully also reopen the fire doors."

"I'm gonna snoop around." I jiggled the mouse attached to the principal's computer, waking it from sleep mode. It required a password.

"Anyone got thoughts on what the principal's password might be?" Isabel scratched her head.

"What're you trying to find?"

"I dunno." I shrugged. Tre twisted away from the panel to look back at me.

"Try the school's name, the town name, the principal's name… start with the basics." Basics I could handle. I typed in "12345," hoping to get it in one. I didn't get it. Moving on to Tre's suggestions next, I input all the variations and alternative spellings I could think of until a pop-up on the computer warned me I only had two attempts left.

"None of that worked," I said.

"And I'm gonna get locked out if I don't get it in the next two guesses." Isabel came around to join me behind the principal's desk.

"Why're you wasting time with this again?"

"A killer is running around out there, and the biggest beef in town is between Evan and Sameer. Are those things connected? Probably. Why else would the killer be in the school?" Plus, if Maltheris put a computer in here, it's probably for a specific reason, Tre said via Mindbleed. He was right about that, but I couldn't acknowledge it in front of Isabel. Not now. It was all too much to explain. I needed to steer the conversation back to guessing.

"What's the school mascot, Isabel?" I didn't remember seeing one on the football field, but to be fair, I was a little distracted by the masked terror eye-killing me from afar.

"Mervin the Marlin," she replied without a hint of irony.

"The Whisperwood Marlins? For real?" Tre turned around to face us again.

"Isn't this place supposed to be like… the Midwest?"

"Hell if I know, man," Isabel said.

"Guys, I've got two tries left. Should I try Mervin?" Isabel shook her head.

"Nobody likes the mascot. Or the football team for that matter."

"Forget the mascot then." I stared at the login screen, thinking about the kind of guy who'd hang a penguin poster in his office unironically.

"Try something basic," Tre said without turning around.

"Like a Boomer password."

"Like 'Password'?" Isabel offered. I cocked my head.

"Can't be that easy." Tre glanced up at the wall in front of him, then returned to the panel.

"Have you seen the décor in this place? I cannot imagine a more basic bitch than whoever hung that golf course poster up." There it was, mounted a foot or two away from the control panel. A manicured golf green, bathed in late afternoon light, the word SUCCESS in enormous text dominating the poster's lower half. Every other poster had a phrase. I scanned the walls, making sure there were no other posters I missed. There weren't. And the two I'd already clocked had taglines. Sky's The Limit. Walk the Talk.

But the golf poster had just a single word. The kind of person who'd hang these posters would also think swapping characters for symbols was clever.

"Got it," I announced, typing SUCCE$$ into the login box. The desktop opened.

"HA!"

"What was it?" Isabel asked.

"SUCCE$$. He used dollar signs for the S's."

"Classic basic bitch move," Tre said. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Isabel leaned over my shoulder, peering at the monitor.

"Now what?" I shrugged. I didn't know exactly what we were looking for. But I'd played enough games to know you check every computer you find. I mindlessly clicked through folders on the desktop: Budget spreadsheets, staff meeting agendas, and one with yearbook photos to approve. None of them contained anything that jumped out at me as important information. Then I found a folder labeled "Disciplinary Files," which was unfortunately password-protected.

I tried "SUCCE$$" "success," "$uccess," and "princip@l" for good measure. After the fourth failed attempt, I gave up, making a mental note to keep my eyes open for a password scribbled on a Post-it somewhere. Email was next. His inbox was worse than mine. Principal Hoffman had 1, 247 unread messages. He was apparently a busy guy who hadn't checked his email in years. Not that any of them were important.

Most of Hoffman's inbox was a graveyard of mundane school-related drama from parents losing their shit over dress codes to unopened emails about COVID-19 restrictions loosening. Oddly, the dress code argument was pretty evenly split; half the parents thought it was too strict, and the other half made it seem like the school was a nudist colony. There was also a dense-looking budget discussion with the superintendent, but I tapped out after the first paragraph. Below that was an email from Mrs.

Patel with the subject line: Sameer's Absences - Excuse Note. Which, okay, not my business. I clicked it anyway. Sameer's mom wrote in to excuse her son from three days of school the previous week, in that formal, slightly stiff way you write when you're trying very hard to seem like everything is fine. Except Sheriff Hardin was CC'd on it. Why would the Sheriff be copied on a high school attendance email? There was probably some boring explanation for that.

Maybe a small town at-risk student program that I didn't know about. Except… it didn't feel like that.

"Hey, Tre." The tools Tre had found when he'd first dug around the office clinked against the panel.

"Little busy."

"Never mind." I kept scrolling. Buried beneath the legitimate emails were a lot of spam. Like, so much spam. Educational software demos promising to "revolutionize classroom engagement." Multiple phishing attempts disguised as Amazon delivery notifications. There were several unread invitations to a leadership summit in Vegas. All normal stuff. Annoying but normal. Then it started getting weird.

"HOT SINGLES IN WHISPERWOOD WANT TO MEET YOU" I grimaced and kept scrolling.

"ADD GIRTH – BEER CAN THICKNESS GUARANTEED" Ew. What the fuck is wrong with this game? But the subject lines got worse. More personal.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE OF PROSTATE CANCER" Maltheris was trying to get under my skin, showing me what kind of reality I was trapped in. I scrolled faster. I was about to close the email client entirely when one subject line caught my eye, different from the rest: SUBJECT: Network Activity Alert - Flagged Search Terms FROM: IT Department ([email protected]) DATE: October 3, 4: 52 PM AUTOMATED ALERT: The following search activity has been flagged by content filtering software.

DATE: 10/03 TIME: 16: 47 LOCATION: Library, Station 7 USER: Not logged in (GUEST) Warning: Content filter bypass attempted. The following terms have been logged for review:"falsify toxicology reports""bleach destroy DNA evidence" ACTION REQUIRED: Please review and determine if disciplinary action is necessary. Someone had researched how to fake a toxicology report after school hours, on a guest account, in the school library.

The principal had seen the alert, asked IT to pull the security footage, and then apparently never followed up on it. Classic.

"Two weeks ago, someone used the school library to look up how to fake a tox report," I said.

"Principal Hoffman found out and asked for the security footage. No idea if he ever got it."

"Did they ever get the tapes?" Isabel asked.

"No reply." Isabel let it go and turned back to Tre to check his progress with shutting off the alarm. The LifeLine buzzed, and I checked the Journal. CLUE ADDED: SCHOOL COMPUTER USED TO RESEARCH FALSIFYING TOXICOLOGY REPORTS I stared at the newly updated clue.

"Got it!" Tre snatched his tiny hands back from the exposed wiring. After the alarm stopped, my ear kept ringing, filling the quiet with phantom shrieking.

"What about the fire doors?" Isabel asked urgently. Tre stared at the mess of wires.

"I... don't know. I killed the alarm, but the door controls might be controlled elsewhere. Or they might need to be released manually."

"Then we need to get back there." Isabel moved toward the exit.

"Wait, you need a—""Sameer and Austin are still trapped, Nora. We're not leaving them." She stopped at the door.

"We need tools. Follow me." The lack of alarm was worse than the constant noise, and I kept whipping around at the slightest sounds as we moved through the East Wing. Most of the time, I was hearing our own footsteps. The smoke had thinned, allowing me to see more than a foot in front of me, but my throat still stung like I'd eaten a nail file, and my eyes wouldn't stop watering. At the stairwell, we all crowded to one side and paused. Whispering.

"Shop class is on the second floor," Isabel said, close enough to feel the words against my neck.

"Third door on the left." I nodded and pushed the door open; its hinges squeaked, echoing up the concrete steps that vanished into a black tunnel with no ceiling. The emergency lighting cut out after the first landing, leaving everything above that in darkness.

"Stay close." My leather jacket creaked whenever I moved. Isabel's footsteps landed too heavily on the stairs. Even Tre's plastic shoes scraped the concrete stairs. I hated how human we sounded. Halfway up, I expected my legs to burn (years of being a shut-in caretaker catching up to me). But the Caretaker's Endurance buff was doing its job; I was fine, barely winded. We reached the second floor, and I closed the stairwell door behind us with a soft click.

Ahead, the hallway was institutional beige, washed red under emergency lighting. Smoke lingered in the air, but nothing like it was downstairs. Isabel nodded down the hall.

"Three doors down." Tre giggled and whisper-sang, "Will you still call me Superman?"

"This is why you shouldn't get high during a crisis." He waved me off in response.

"She said it." We moved, shoulder to shoulder. I didn't want to fall behind again. Social Studies was the first door we passed. It was locked, but a desk lamp glowed inside, probably left on by someone who thought they'd be coming back. The Computer Lab's door was wide open, but the room was trashed. Smashed monitors, overturned chairs, and all the keyboards looked like they had been demolished with hammers. We hurried past. Finally, we reached the Shop Class door. It was—"Locked," Isabel said, rattling the handle.

"There." Tre pointed up. I followed his finger to an air vent above the door.

"Good eye." I grabbed Tre around the waist and hoisted him up. His vinyl hands caught the vent's edge, and with a grunt, he hauled himself inside. The stairwell door flew open behind us with a loud bang. The masked killer took two deliberate strides from the doorway into the hall.

"Tre, hurry," I whisper-shouted, feeling a rush of terror as my Fear meter appeared: FEAR: 65% (Panicked) LUCIDITY: 35% (Slipping)