An Educaton

The riot reached the dorm rooms not long after sunset around 21.00. While it was warm out, there was still a noticeable chill in the air. Despite their combined intelligence the group of 25 students who had taken over the campus three days earlier crashed through the entrance doors, throwing a trash can through the outer glass doors without even slowing their momentum.

It had all began when the body of Rosalinda Bentley had been discovered in the football stadium, her throat had been snapped, her body drained of blood.

The campus police had alerted the local authorities who claimed that it matched the same m/o as a number of other cases they were working. A serial killer who somehow managed to drain the bodies of blood without ever spilling a drop, or leaving behind a clue other than two small puncture wounds in the neck.

The football team hadn't taken the news well, the head cheerleader murdered the night before the big game. They had taken matters into their own hands as a strange, hypnotic power took hold of them. They were driven forward by Boyd Henson. Boyd was new in school having transferred midway through the spring semester. He was quiet, but strong, his pale skin and dark eyes gave him a very romantic look and he was soon the focal point of female attention. People listened to him, and now they followed him, doing his bidding as he stood back, his arms crossed with a smile on his face.

They stormed the dorm room, heading straight for room 93C. Nobody had told them this, it had simply formed in their minds as a collective idea.

Boyd watched as they ascended the stairs, their bodies moving as one large mass, his own thoughts controlling each of their actions. Behind him the auditorium was ablaze, an orange inferno that had lit up the evening like an artificial sunrise. The dancing flames created long shadows of the figures rasied high and proud on the football pitch adjacent. Sturdy, yet roughly fashioned crossed made from the football posts, bleachers and all manner of school property had been erected and slowly filled by the mob, raising each new capture one at a time. Chanting in deep monotonic drones Nex Illis Quisnam Exspectata Is None of them knew what it meant, it had once again just come to them.

Harding Walliams, the unlucky occupant of 93C had heard the commotion, but remained focused on his studies, he was helpless to resist when they came flooding into his room like a Nazis raiding for Jews during the war. Now there he hung, his naked body exposed to the air, his genitals covered in blood from the cross that had been carved into his flesh just above them. His arms were stretched out and nailed into place, then bound at the wrist, his legs the same, nails driven through his shins just above the ankle and then bound just above this. It was cold, yet the inferno to his left battled hard to warm up the air. All around him fellow students screamed and moaned. He saw men and women, students and teachers all crucified alongside him, similarly naked, all the men similarly marked, while the women had a cross carved into each breast. Blood flowed freely, turning the football pitch into a muddy, shimmering sea of black, glistening in the night air. All 27 crosses had been arranged in a near perfect circle, and in the centre stood the group, minus Boyd Henson, who having had his fun yet again, had already left the scene. With his battered old leather case under his arm he left town immediately walking for a while, enjoyng the night air and the rejuvinated feeling of youth that was coursing through his long dead veins. The emergency services not even noticing him as he sped past on their way to reports of a fire on the university campus.