The mascot dragged on towards Jessie. It left a trail of bugs behind it as Jessie continued to scream. The rest of us remembered what the board said. Don’t scream.

“Jessie. Stop screaming,” I whispered.

I kept trying to reach her but she was lost in fear. The mascot reached the desk she was sitting at. Her screams intensified. The mascot split down the middle of its suit. It opened up like a chest cavity that had been cut by a scalpel. The inside of the suit was a pulsing fleshy blob. Bugs swarmed in and out of orifices. The mascot closed its suit on her, swallowing her screams along with her body. It made a mashing, slurping sound as it pulled her body from the desk. The chains broke as her entire body was sucked into the mascot. Its suit then closed entirely, forming back together as if it was a normal dirty mascot uniform again.

The mascot moved out of the classroom. It’s slow, deliberate pace making it seem like it wasn’t a threat. After what we had seen we knew better. The chains that were on us had disappeared. There was a new message on the chalk board. It had appeared at some point while we were busy watching one of our own get devoured.

“CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’RE STILL ALIVE! PLEASE PROCEED TO THE DINER! THEY HAVE THE BEST PIE IN TOWN!”

There was another map drawn under the message.

“We are just going to keep running into these things until we are all picked off. We might as well go find that mascot and let it eat all of us,” Henry said.

“They’re cocky. They think they are all powerful. But they aren’t. We can beat them. We’ve all beat them before,” I said.

Jenny was walking past us towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Henry asked.

“Diner. I’m hungry,” Jenny replied.

Jenny was out the door before we could say anything back to her. In fact, I was also hungry. It wasn’t the sort of thing you thought about when you were fighting for your life. I had lost track of time long ago. Two days? Three? I didn’t know how long it had been. The food shouldn’t be trusted but at this point what did it matter? If The Director wanted to kill us he could do it in more creative ways than food poisoning.

We ran and caught up with Jenny on the street. She was walking at a brisk pace and took a turn down another street. The lights of the diner were up ahead of is. It was the only lighted sign in the town. We observed the diner. It seemed normal. Nothing ominous like the school.

“It’s too inviting. It’s a trap,” Henry said.

“Well we have nowhere else to go.”

“There’s someone inside,” Jenny said.

As I looked closer I could see what she saw. Someone was sitting at the diner bar. We all walked towards the front door with me at the lead. I opened the door and walked inside. There was a man sitting at the bar. I instantly recognized his jacket. I thought that it had to be my eyes playing tricks on me. Or this place trying to get to me. It couldn’t be true. My father turned to us.

“Bryce.”

“Dad. How?”

“Your story isn’t going to end here, son. I’m going to make sure of that.”

My father reached out and put down a tape recorder. He pressed play, then disappeared.