Quilt: An Extreme Gory Horror Book for Adults

1

QUILT

One week after the boy stopped coming to school, the spiders sank their fangs into Annelise.

—1—

His classroom seat was empty again.

Shrieks of chalk against blackboard echoed down the long and dusty halls as Annelise drew out algebra equations to her ninth grade math class. She was almost done reviewing last week’s exam when the vacant chair at the back of the class claimed her attention.

Has anyone seen Jadyn?

Nobody answered. Amy Carter chewed a wad of gum, mouth open, gum stretching from lip to fingertip, her test face down on the desk to hide all the red marks. Kyle Dogan was asleep with his football jacket drawn over his shoulders. The other students didn’t know or didn’t care.

Kyle, she said.

The boy roused and jumped, aware they were all looking at him. Some of the kids laughed.

Annelise felt a little frustrated—the students believed they could overwhelm her through strength in numbers—but she allowed herself to smile at the boy, a blissful smile that exuded confidence and swayed the most jaded students.

That’s enough, Annelise said, though she’d already quieted them through positive assertiveness, a trick she’d mastered while student teaching in an inner-city school. Kyle, has Jadyn been to practice this week?

I don’t know.

You’re both on the junior varsity team.

I’m offensive line, Jadyn is d-back, the boy said, as if it were obvious offensive and defensive players rarely crossed paths.

The bell rang. Notebooks slapped shut and were hustled into backpacks as the students fled the classroom. When they were gone, Annelise fell heavily onto the chair and blew dark locks off her brow. She thumbed through a folder until she found Jadyn’s exam: an 82, a solid effort. Drumming her fingers on the desk, she looked toward the Jasmine Heights projects, the poisonous calamity across the river. The red brick buildings sulked over their deterioration, the flat roofs walled like turrets. Rain lashed the windows until the storm drew a blurry curtain across the glass and Jasmine vanished.

Then she was alone in the classroom. Her hand automatically traveled to her belly, as it was wont to do when her thoughts emptied. Matthew entered her thoughts, and she absently reminisced over a marriage that never was. A fairytale. She believed him ready to put a ring on her finger. Maybe he would have. Or maybe their relationship had been a fallacy. She rarely heard from Matthew anymore except when he checked to see if she was doing all right. Such conversations were always awkward and brief.

Easing herself out of the chair, she arranged her book bag, notes, and exams. Perfectly sorted. After locking her desk, she descended the staircase and walked to the main office.

Though Principal Tanner was chilly in public, he was reputedly vindictive behind the closed doors of his office. He was a small, corpulent man, a few oily hair strands combed across his head like frayed violin strings. He leaned forward, hands clasped before him on a spotless desk, gaze sharp.

His office offered a view of Jasmine Heights, and as Annelise shifted in her chair a black mass curled up from behind a high rise and blotted out the sky. Initially she thought the aberration smoke, but it was a murder of crows, black as midnight. Their claws tore open the sky’s belly and drew rain, which colored all that it touched with misery.

For argument’s sake, let’s suppose the boy is skipping school, he said, and Annelise pulled her eyes from the window. What would you have me do?

Wouldn’t this be a matter for the truant officer?

I’ll not ask nor require Mr. Boone to venture into Jasmine. What’s your fascination with this boy, Miss Riley?

Jadyn Werth shows promise. His test scores put him in the upper half of the class, he’s a member of the football and basketball teams, and the other teachers describe him as a hard worker when⁠—

When he bothers to show up, yes. Tanner swiveled his chair and gestured toward the projects. In my nearly ten years here, only four students from across the river have graduated. Just four, Annelise. May I call you Annelise?

Of course, Mr. Tanner. As though he cared for her opinion. Jadyn could be the fifth.

"Could, yes. They all could if they desired. Four years ago, the year before we hired you out of Oneonta, another promising student from Jasmine nearly broke the mold. Terrence Dawson was his name. Never flunked a class and carried a B average his sophomore year. We gave him the Panther’s Achievement Award in front of a packed house on assembly night. Oh, the doting liberals drank it up. I doubt there was a dry eye among them. There was talk of a scholarship. Then Terrence stopped coming to school. All efforts to contact the parents…or parent…failed to produce anything more than a terse and drunken expletive."

What became of the boy?

Tanner flashed a smile that was at-once ironic and triumphant.

A year later he went to jail for murdering one of the Black Thorns, a rival gang from Treman Mills. Three shots to the head, execution style. He made a gun symbol with his hand and blew on the barrel. I can see in your eyes that you believe you can reach this boy, this Jadyn Werth, that he understands you better than he does the other teachers.

As you may recall, Mr. Tanner, I spent my first two years teaching at South City.

And because of that you believe you relate to high-risk students better than the average teacher.

I never said⁠—

"Did you