The Devil’s Apprentice

Author: Kenneth B. Andersen

Publication Date: October 8th 2018

Publisher: Indie

Chapter 1

Phillip heard him.  His steps sounded like whispers in the silent basement, his fingers cracking in anticipation.  Phillip even thought he heard the smile spreading across Sam’s lips.  Scrunching up behind the large metal cabinet where the janitor kept all his tolls, Phillip glanced cautiously around the corner.  His heart leaped into his throat when the shadow on the wall suddenly reared its head.  It seemed unnaturally huge.  Demon-like.  Maybe it was only the strange light playing tricks, but didn’t it seem as though the shadow had horns?

“Where are youuuuu?” crooned the shadow cheerfully.  “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Phillip made himself as small as possible.  He felt the sweat dribbling down his back.  It was hot as an oven in here.  Or perhaps it just felt that way because he was trapped in the school’s basement with Sam.

They called him Devil Sam.  You could write thick volumes about the cruel, spine-chilling things he’d done.  If the devil was a boy, he would be Sam.  His victims weren’t just random students he got hold of on the playground, or whom he’d met in the empty hallways whenever he skipped class, No, Devil Sam- a ninth grader, two classes ahead of Philip-was far more refined than that. 

Each week he chose a new victim, fresh meat, whom he terrorized until the final bell on Friday.  If you had the dubious distinction of being the condemned of the Week, then all you could do was try to blend into the wallpaper and hope that you survived.  Eventually Sam’s dragon eyes would turn toward some other kid, and you’d be okay.  For a while, anyway.

This week Philip had been the chosen one.  Up until now he’d gotten off relatively lightly.  Sam had forced him to eat a few mouthfuls of sand, he’d tied him to one of the showerheads in the girl’s locker room, and he’d forced him to go hungry for an entire day by stealing his lunch and snack money.  Oh, and Sam had also peed in his pencil case.  Twice.

Still, these were minor things compared to what Sam had done to some of the other kids.

But it wasn’t the weekend yet.  There was still an hour of Friday left, Philip was still the condemned of the week, and right now he sat scrunched up behind the cabinet in the basement staring at the enormous shadow on the wall.  It almost seemed as though the shadow had been painted on.  He could see it sniffing and listening like a wild animal on the prowl, and Philip thought that if the smell of his cold sweat didn’t give him away, then his thumping heart would.  It roared like a steam engine.

He should be sitting in math class right now, his hand raised, ready to tell Mr. Johnson, their math teacher, that he had already completed some exercises that hadn’t been assigned yet, and that he hoped that was okay.

So how did he wind up down here?  In the company of a boy who would have made even the lions in the old colosseum flee for their lives with a whimper?

It was Mike’s fault.

Mike had forgotten his gym clothes in the locker room, and he’d asked Mr. Johnson if he could go retrieve them.  And could Philip tag along with him?  It would only take a minute. 

At that point there had been a lot of confusion in the classroom, because a couple of the students had fought during recess, and one had gotten hurt; four complained that they’d forgotten to do their homework, which caused three others to bark that they had done theirs.  With an irritated wave of his hand, Mr. Johnson gave Mike and Philip permission to leave the classroom.

“Son of a…!” Mike shouted when they entered the boy’s locker room.  Someone had rummaged in his gym bag, and his clothes had been scattered across the floor.  “Why can’t people keep their hands to themselves?”

They gathered Mike’s clothes, but when Mike checked his things, he discovered that his towel was missing.

“Do you mind seeing if the idiots threw it down the stairwell?” he’d asked, pointing at the door beside the gym.  It led down to the boiler room, and it stood ajar.

Philip had gone ten steps down the stairwell when the door suddenly slammed shut.  The hollow thud was followed by the sound of a lock clicking.

“Mike?” Philip clutched the doorknob, but the door wouldn’t budge an inch.  “Mike, this isn’t funny!”

“I’m sorry, Philip.” Mike said. “But he told me to do it.  Otherwise it would be my turn next week.”  This was followed by the sound of footsteps quickly fading in the distance. 

“Mike! Mike, come back!”

His cries curled down the stairwell, like desperate prayers from another world.  Philip turned toward the grey shadows. 

The entrance to the schoolyard was all the way at the far end of the basement, but if he could find the courage to get moving instead of standing here like some wuss, he might be able to reach it before Sam found him.

He plunged down the long stairwell at a crazy pace and sped across the basement.  The entire time he expected Sam to come leaping out of the shadows, grinning his diabolic grin.  But nothing happened, and a little farther on he saw the exit.  He’d made it!

Almost…

Because when Philip tried to open the doors, they didn’t budge an inch, either.  Something was blocking them on the other side.  That left only the broad staircase, the one that led up to the ninth-grade classrooms.

Behind him-a creaking sound.  Followed by footfalls.  Then a familiar voice sang: “Where are youuuu? Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Now he sat here.  Trapped.  Boxed into a corner.  There was nothing for him to do but hope for the best.  Which-when Devil Sam was involved-was bad enough.

“You’re so quiet!” Sam chirped before shifting his voice into a darker growl: “I’ll see to that real fast.”

And suddenly, like a demon rising from the darkest depths of Hell, Sam stood before Philip.

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