All right! The rewrites are almost done! And no, there won't be any more Marching Poodles fics. I'm sure you're disappointed, but that's the way it is. (Actually, I did start a fourth one, but I gave up on it.) Remember, I thrive on comments, criticism, email, new Harry Potter books, social hour (better known as band practice), whatever! ^-^
Acknowledgments: I'd like to thank...
* everybody who beta-ed. I know
you'll never read this, but thanks anyway, for taking time out of your busy
schedules (or classes like band and health) to read my stuff and tell me what's
wrong.
* everybody who reviewed. Reviews make my day! ^-^
* my fellow
insane band members, for inspiring 41 pages worth of fluff.
* anybody I
forgot. I'm sorry, but my mind is going. ^-^
Disclaimer: Err...I'm pretty sure I don't own anything. Or anybody.
"It's too hot to practice," Megan whined, dropping her backpack and collapsing on a chair.
"Quit whining, Megan," Christina said. "We aren't really practicing, anyway. We're just sitting around till they want the extra insane people on."
"All right, I'll rephrase it: it's too hot to do anything but sit somewhere air-conditioned and do nothing."
"That didn't make sense."
As the three freshmen sat down and started fanning themselves, Erica walked across the hall to an empty room, presumably to practice her lines.
For about an hour, all the extras sat peacefully out in the hall. Megan did her algebra homework (for once), Kristy studied for her Spanish quiz, Christina did some ag-related thing, Shadow and Melissa worked on German, Minh-Bao and Rosie finished up geometry, and Susan frantically attempted to put the finishing touches on her book report. Suddenly, they heard a loud scream coming from the room that Erica was in.
The entire cast rushed across the hall, but there was nothing to be found. The room was completely empty, except for the pool of blood on the floor and the trail leading to the open window. Everybody just stood around in shock for a few minutes.
"Maybe we should call the police," Lindsay finally said.
"But we don't have thirty-five cents for the phone," Susan pointed out.
"911 calls are free, though," Shelly told her.
"Oh."
"Hey, Adam?" Minh-Bao said to Adam, who just happened to be passing by.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"Would you mind calling 911 for us? Erica's missing, and there's a large amount of blood on the floor."
"Sure." Adam ran off in the general direction of the phone.
"Okay, everybody calm down!" Katy shouted. "I'm sure that there's a perfectly rational explanation for all of this, like Erica spilled the ketchup she was putting on her French fries, then fell out the window and went to get more French fries."
"Yeah, that's really rational," Megan muttered sarcastically.
"But what if that isn't it?" Lindsay asked, sounding slightly panicked. "What if there's a serial killer running around with a chainsaw, and he's going to kill all of us one by one?"
"And what if the serial killer turns out to be Kyle Largent?" somebody in the back (probably Kyle) asked.
"You know," Melissa said, "there's not really a serial killer till he's killed two or more people."
"What a comforting thought," said Christina. "There's just a murderer lurking around, not a serial killer."
Suddenly, the cast heard another scream; this one seemed to be upstairs. Katy, Lindsay, Jenny, Darrell, James, and Jacob ran to investigate, while the freshmen and sophomores followed at a slower pace, and the juniors just stood around doing nothing.
After they went up the (correct) staircase, they could see Breanna standing outside Mr. Lohman's room with a horrified look on her face. Sure enough, everybody's favorite freshman English teach was lying in another pool of blood. If that wasn't enough, somebody had written 'Beware the day after the ides of April!' on the dry erase board with dripping red liquid that wasn't paint.
"Poor Mr. Lohman!" Breanna sobbed. "He'll never get to read Julius Caesar or tell us to beware the ides of March again..."
"Now it's a serial killer," Melissa said. "Although we might need another corpse, just to make sure."
Megan glanced at her watch. "Err...I hate to interrupt everybody's grief, but we're going to be late for sectionals. Or, at least, the woodwinds are."
"I can't believe you!" Breanna exclaimed. "Someone's dead, and you're worried about going to band?"
"Well, I'd rather not have Mr. Mullins yell at us for being late. Besides, you and Shadow and Jacob and James and Kristy can stay here till the police come. Maybe Adam will come later, after he finishes calling 911."
Breanna almost smiled as Katy, Lindsay, Jenny, Darrell, Minh-Bao, Melissa, Rosie, Susan, Christina, and Megan started running down to the band room.
Five minutes later, they slipped into the air-conditioned room just as Amanda started to take attendance.
The woodwinds pretended to warm up (but were really talking) for about fifteen minutes. After that, a few people started to wonder just where Mr. Mullins was. He was usually late, but not this late.
Meanwhile, Kindra was trying to kill Susan (though nobody, including Susan, really knew why). Christina ran into Mr. Mullins's office, hoping to prevent the bloodshed.
The sight that greeted her was a definitely motionless band director, lying in one of those omnipresent pools of blood with two broken drumsticks brutally thrust through his ribcage.
"Umm...I don't think we'll be having sectionals tonight," Christina said, carefully closing the door.
"Now what happened?" Katy asked.
"I'd rather not say," Christina replied. "The carnage is just...indescribable."
"The serial killer strikes again!" Susan exclaimed. "Dun, dun, duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
"That's three in one hour," Darrell pointed out.
"Weird," Megan commented. "If serial killers always follow some sort of pattern, then what's this one doing? He's not making any sense whatsoever. First Erica, then Mr. Lohman, and then Mr. Mullins. There's absolutely nothing in common. I mean, they aren't even remotely related."
"Yeah," said Lindsay. "You can find similarities between two of them, but not all three. I wonder who's next?"
***