The Burglars

Stephen stepped through the doorway into darkness. A feeling washed over him, like nothing he had ever felt. His face warmed and the sensation coursed down his neck. He felt like he was walking into a warm mist, but he wasn’t moving. The feeling settled over his wiry body, into his bones. Stephen was someplace he didn’t belong.

His friends were already beyond the next door. Though he could scarcely avoid the accusing reach of the security lamp outside, Stephen’s feet felt like lead.

He was in a classroom, his back to a metal door. Every classroom along the perimeter of the school had a door leading outside, and another leading farther in. He hid in the shadow of the outer door, feeling safer from the light shining through the bank of windows along the outer wall.

Stephen’s eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly. He wasn’t sure where his friends had gone and was angry with them. Why aren’t they afraid?

Although Stephen’s friends acted with rashness most of the time, this time was beyond their tendency. Still, Stephen knew that he was always the fearful one, a coward compared to their waywardness. Stephen did not want to find trouble; while his friends, it seemed, could not spend a day without seeking it out. But the notion that Stephen struggled so hard to deny, was that it was his idea to go there that night. Perhaps he wanted to show them that he too could be intrepid, that he was worthy of his place among them.

Cubby holes lined the wall under the windows, dark shapes secreted within. Stephen would have to cross through the beams of light passing through the glass to explore them properly.

So much for that.

A few of the windows were tilted in, admitting the sounds of crickets and the distant roar of air conditioning machinery. The opposite wall was covered by the black silhouette of a chalkboard. He knew that one would be there. He guessed that the dark shape could be nothing else. He couldn’t make out details of the wall to the rightmost side. It was too far off in the darkness, it’s shadows darkened even more by contrasting rhombuses of light cast on the floor from the lamp outside.

The door leading in was on a wall opposite the metal door. He mustered his mettle and waded toward it.

Tape recorders, staplers, and all manner of knick-knack typical to a classroom of that time occupied the long counter spanning the wall between the doors. The bright yellow color of its surface was one of the few hues that fought through the grays and blacks filling his vision. Small chairs lined the counter. They must sit here and work on stuff. Stephen pondered his own time spent in a similar classroom at his own school not far away. It all looked familiar and alien at the same time. He wondered what these kids might work on, what they might do with the tape recorders and other things stored in the cubbies.

Stephen took care not to touch anything. In his thirteen year old mind, every fingerprint would be discovered. Any bit of evidence he left would be stored forever in some file, awaiting his apprehension.

He looked back toward the outer door, longing to run back and crash through it. He need only dash through the expanse of light outside and disappear into the darkness. Even if someone saw him, they would never know which way he had run. He would speed down the hill on tireless legs and cross the shadowy outfield of the ball diamond that the lamp mostly served. He would leap down the next hill and hurtle the creek. One more field to cross and he would be far away. He would walk in shadows avoiding street lamps and crossing through parking lots, cutting yards that he knew by heart. No one would see him. He would be home in minutes.

That was what Stephen longed to do. But he could not. His friends were deeper inside, exploring the forbidden, dark halls of the school. Stephen could not leave without them. After all, it was he who brought them there.

He took in the light of the windows once more feeling the conflict between earning his place among his friends and the guilt of his own conscience. He turned back to find them.

“Hey, who turned out the lights,” brayed Clint’s voice. It had always been a little raspy. It was easy to recognize which might have been a good thing were it not too late, because in that moment, Clint was so bold as to flip the classroom lights on. They were only on for a moment, but that was enough.

Stephen stood blinded. He could see nothing but a blue field that slowly faded to black.

“What the hell are you doing?” protested Stephen. Clint only laughed. Stephen knew that for an instant the entire bank of windows was lit up. Anyone living in a nearby house might have noticed and would call the police. They had to leave.

“Where's Monte and Derrick?”

“I don’t know,” laughed Clint. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care.

“We ought to go. Somebody probably saw the lights.”

“Pshh, nobody saw that. C’mon.” Clint turned and darted back into the shadowy hallway. Whatever security the darkness of the classroom offered, real or perceived, Clint saw to it that it was gone. Stephen stepped into the hallway.

To the right, the hallway faded to black. He knew that it led to a gymnasium and the church. This was a Protestant school. Stephen and his friends attended a Catholic school. But a church of any faith held meaning to them. None of them, even the brash Clint, would press in that direction.

Stephen looked the other way and saw two silhouettes easily distinguishable by their outlines, Derrick’s brawny form and Monte’s frizzy orb of hair. Both were too tall to be Clint, of whose whereabouts Stephen wasn’t sure. They stood at the intersection of two halls, the one they all occupied and another that lead away toward another wing of the school. The building was more or less ‘T’ shaped, save the church and gym, and would not take shape much beyond the length of the second hallway. There might have been a cafeteria or something of note, but all that was occurring to Stephen at that moment was that they were not true burglars and that there was no reason for them to even be there— save the exhilaration of mischief.

He wanted to leave. Still, panicked about Clint’s trick with the light and his growing apprehension about trespassing, Stephen’s desire to impress his ill-behaved friends had long since eroded away.

Thoughts of racing down the hill and across the field returned. He savored the notion of jumping across the creek. Refuge lay beyond.

His reverie was shattered by Clint shouldering past him toward the others. Stephen followed like a pup.

Before he arrived at the intersection, the other boys had moved on toward a door that interested them, albeit a locked one. Stephen hoped they would be prudent enough not to destroy any property. He had been adamant about this rule. He clung to the idea that, should they be caught playing in there, doing no physical harm would save them from true punishment. After all, they gained entry only by trying door after door until they found one unlocked. Stephen had done this many times, never mustering the courage to enter. Of course he never alerted his retinue to his find either, until this night.

Stephen reached the intersection and slowed to look down the new hallway. He was taken aback by what he saw. Not just because of the sight itself, but because of his friend’s apparent apathy toward it. They must have seen it too.

He couldn’t judge the distance through the darkness, but he could see the outlines of the classroom doors. Stephen estimated that the distance was no more than six classrooms.

What he saw beyond was not the darkness of a school which closed hours ago, but an illuminated area. It was far off, but too close for Stephen’s comfort. And in it, darting wildly about were young people. They looked to be similar in age to Stephen and his friends. He guessed that there would be adults chaperoning whatever was happening down the hallway, out of sight but present nonetheless.

This was too much. Stephen only wanted to show his friends that he too was capable of stepping beyond the boundaries of the law, that he was also daring, that he wasn’t afraid. But he was afraid.

Though Derrick, Monte, and even Clint did their best to maintain their façades, they too showed signs of apprehension. They moved back without speaking, toward the classroom they had come through. None of the rooms were unlocked. They were only openable from the inside, as was the one they had come through; but they had propped the door open so they would not lose their egress. Stephen moved away from the intersection of hallways, relieved that his friends had explored this dark place enough, but at the same time still anxious. They would not be ready to call it a night. Stephen knew that much. Who knew what trouble they might find before disbursing for the evening.

Nonetheless, Stephen was pleased that they were making for the door. He took the lead back toward their point of entry, hoping that this would accelerate their retreat. Save a bit of hem hawing about, they made it to the classroom quickly.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Stephen whispered moving toward the outer door. He was looking back at Clint, hoping he would refrain from his previous antic of turning on the lights.

Instead he saw that Derrick was in the lead with the other two behind him. They were frozen in the doorway. In the darkness, Stephen could not read their faces. “C’mon,” he said turning toward the door.

The next instant revealed what had frozen his friends in place. The only portent to Stephen’s worst fear was the gyrating beams from flashlights dancing across the array of windows.
The sensation of the warm mist returned when the outer door burst open.

“Police! Don’t move!”

Ω