Nights With Elmer 2: Wrathful Math

Nights With Elmer 2: Wrathful Math

St. Andrews High School, Edinburgh, 1993: Mr. Preach had engaged the 10^th graders for a slothfully timed Math class. “So, fellas! All you need to do in time, is 7 assignments, 3 tutorials and 100 of my best sums, oh yes! If you need to walk out of that gate with a merit in hand.”
The students were drowsy enough to make benches their last resort for a nap. The drizzling over the town consolidated their desire to do so.
“And Oh! The junked punk, Cedzie. Come up, come up. I request you, learned sir to tell the class about the latest increment in the number of asses admitted to this school. Using a graph.” The class burst out laughing and the poor chap, a phobic, surrendered to math again, in shame. His very living was made miserable by those numbers and his aims, rendered obfuscation by them.
He held serious despise for Mr. Preach, his formulae and their applications. After all who would afford to bear humiliation forever?
“This needs to be taken care of. That jerk will pay.” Cedzie was furiously determined.

Once, Cedzie was playing soccer with his friends. Mr. Preach sent Clara, his daughter to call the boy upstairs. “This is the right time, man” he said to himself. An old lady was seen passing by the school campus, shouting something. “All in the house of the Preach are cursed. All in their house are cursed.....The last heir of the Collins! The last man of the clan!”
Mr. Preach's body was found decaying in the toilets, with his eyes destroyed and tongue plucked. Clara cried her desolation out on her father's corpse. Everybody saw redness in her eyes, as if she'd swore something to herself. Cedzie was the clear center of doubt and was somehow proved guilty. He smelled the remand home until his adulthood rose, and was finally released five years after that. However, the boy was mysterious. He often wrote things on paper scrolls and stored them in his locker. Nobody ever cared to ransack that secret of the teenager.

. . .35, Louis Towers, Harper Street, Present Day: “Elmer, save my school. Mr. Preach never left it even after his death. Now his fierce soul targets one student every week, and......”
“Here, Mr. Roberts. Water. You need to relax a bit.” Elmer got more cozy in his chair, scrutinizing the newly handled case. “So you think Mr. Preach's ghost has something to do with that old lady.”
Roberts nodded in answer.
“Now, now. It's a double job. We have a pair to exorcise. A filthy old hag and a math scion” Elmer breathed out.

“Don't worry. You'll be paid handsomely. Just....”

The exorcist interrupted with a grin, “Mr. Roberts, I suppose you did hear I don't charge. You can do a thing for me, nevertheless. Ask your students to make merry at home for two days, none should come to school.”
“Done.” The worried principal left.

Over Whiskey, Elmer's mind clicked on to the old lady's words. “The last man of the Collins....hmmm.” He checked the note obtained from the dickey of Ellie's car. It was from 'The Dwell Of The Collins'.
“Good connection” he chuckled.

The clock told it was 7pm and in Elmer's language, it was 'time to smoke it'. He left for the school as the dusk grew dark. The watchman's sliced body lay in his way, as he entered the huge gate which led to darkness; The ferocious one. Trees shot chills of wind, with Elmer's every step in the soil. The scenario clearly meant that his arrival was awaited and his footsteps were heard...somewhere within.
The black blanket had taken over everything inside the campus. Fearing the frightening flames of the ghost, no one had switched on the lights, hence promoting the dark. Elmer checked the washrooms and the very next moment, blood gushed through his feet. He needed to uncover the source and stepped ahead into the toilets. “Hello! You've got blood reservoirs, right? Show yourself!”

There was a sudden halt in everything. The gushing of blood, creaking of branches, songs of the crickets and also the flow and presence of air. Within moments, Elmer fell down and fainted.
He opened his eyes in a classroom where the atmosphere was devilishly filled with the chortle of the spirit he was looking for.
“Crimson Cadaver! What!?...” Elmer's head perambulated around a hillock called confusion.

“Shocked to see me here? I have several reasons for a revenge, Elmer! Remember me? Caddie. Or Clara Preach. My father was killed and I shall revenge it!!! I've been hunting for you. I tried a lot to get to you and finish you, but you escaped. Remember the attacks on you at the Avramson's mansion? It was a trap to kill you! But you got saved. Now you are in my hands.” She slashed Elmer's body and he was thrown towards the wall.
“Revenge! Die!” She followed Elmer through dark porches as he fled the scene to reach the locker room. “Come on! Come on! Cedzie's locker...” He could lay his hands on one scroll which read'Sprinkle her blood,

On her own corpse.

It'll give you time to breathe,

before she again hops.

Learn a lesson, be wise.

Know it, evil never dies.'

- 'The Dwell Of The Collins'


Next day, at the Elmer's, Mr. Roberts didn't care about the sugar in his coffee. All he expected the man sitting before him to say, were few words of assurance. “Mr. Principal, I, in all my senses assure you that I have exorcised the evil, not from the world, but from the premises of your school at least. And in my guard, your school is safe. Now, a good cup of roasted coffee awaits your lips.”
“I hope your words come true. I wouldn't appreciate another murder at St. Andrews, you see” Roberts stared Elmer in the eye.

“They will sir. After all, the guarantors are the Collins.” Elmer grinned huge.

Sagher