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The voice on the other end was foreign to her, but nothing in it menacing. Abbie stared at the door for an elongated moment before the siren ended the drill they were experiencing. Behind her an eruption of sighs indicated the student's relief. What was beginning to seem more and more like a reality was really just a reenactment of something that might not ever come to be. The students got to their feet and filed one by one back to their appropriate desks.

Abbie couldn't gather up enough understanding to present movement so instead stood silently staring at the door in hopes it would just unlock itself.

"Here Miss Abbie." She heard Joseph say, and tugged on her arm, placing the lantern within her loose grasp. She looked down at it with it's light no longer piercing the darkness as the room was lit up by the over head lights. What had happened? From the weird phone call, the weird pounding on the buildings, nothing about this drill felt normal. If a drill concerning a potential shooting at a school could ever be considered normal.

The teacher crossed the room and unlocked the locks on the door and threw open the drapes. She stared hard at the art room with such scrutiny she thought the occupant might come out and ring her neck. Nothing about that drill made any lick of sense. 'Don't let him leave the room.' The voice kept replaying in the back of her head like a record player stuck on the same verse in a really annoying song. Even if it was a drill, how could the people in the office possibly know that she was about to release one of her students?

She looked about the classroom. There weren't any cameras to speak of, no one in the country could afford that kind of security. Especially not a meager elementary school in Conton, Oregon. Abbie played with the idea of calling down to the office and demanding an explanation for the haunting phone call before that horrifying drill they had just put her through. However, her hand never reached for the phone and she certainly welcomed the lack of courage.

The red-head rounded her desk and walked slowly passed the rest of the desks and straight to Hank. For a moment she had almost forgotten about his stomach ache. "Hank." She started in a shaky, uncertain voice. "Can you wait just a little bit longer until the next block? I promise I will walk you to the office personally.." She never spoke loud enough for the rest of the class to hear, she wanted to keep her distress levels as off radar as possible. Abbie was a mixture of spooked and extremely pissed off. Two things she had never been at the exact same time and she was certain it wasn't helping her already pale complexion. If that was all part of the drill, she would hand the principle her resignation right then and there with a few other badly chosen words unheard of from dear sweet Miss Abigail Marcus.

The class carried on as if nothing had happened. The students worked diligently on their packets while Abbie sat at her desk, periodically glancing at the phone. Despite trying to throw everything that happened out of her mind, it wasn't working. When the bell for the next block rang over head, Abbie almost cried out in gratitude. Saved by the bell.

The students began to file out of the class one by one, Abbie nodded to each of them as they said their good byes. Hank strolled on over last after the rest of his class mates and Abbie walked him outside and locked the door behind them. "Thank you for waiting Hank." She said before they walked down the ramp and crossed the court yard. Most of their walk was shrouded in silence. Abbie would glance at him out of the corner of her eye, for what she didn't know.

Before long they were at the Nurses's office and she was thankful for that. Seemed like the bell was tossing her more than few bones this day. "Alright Hank. I hope you feel better." She handed him the pass and patted him on the shoulder.

Abbie sat down in the desk afforded to her rather slowly. It's not as though Mrs. Davis was any sort of devil as most would think the principle of an elementary school might appear. Abbie would have guessed that to an eight year old she might have seemed like Satan himself at the right angle. She however, afforded the woman her respect for the time being, later however if she refused to address her concerns, the matter of respect might be far too late.

The cup was set in front of her and Abbie reached for it without question. She herself never really drank coffee, she was known as one of those health nuts that preferred natural caffeine rather than the normal in and out of morning ritual coffee. However, she didn't want to present herself as rude in any way and took a sip. It wasn't as bad as she thought it smelled, but she wasn't about to make a habit out of it. Abbie stared at Mrs. Davis when she spoke, making sure to never break eye contact. Something she some times had trouble with, but something about today seemed like the day to learn. "Hank's brother is missing?" The teacher asked, quietly and filled with astonishment.

Hank never said a word to her, or anyone for that matter. And as for the friends that would some how get his mind off of what was going on in home, Abbie doubted they were going to be any kind of distraction for a kid that Abbie thought of as rather clever. Suddenly everything about his demeanor made sense. He was rather nonchalant and unresponsive, a bit unusual for the first day back to school, even for a straight A student, regardless if that mattered at the elementary level.

Abbie looked down at the mug, the milk chocolate liquid therein circling around the rim as she moved the glass back and forth within her palms. It was hard finding words to say after such a hard hitting piece of information. The red-head looked up at the principle, sharing in the silence they were now keeping. Abbie remembered the phone call, her anger and contempt for the strange happenings they, including the woman sitting before her, had put her through.

"Speaking on the matters of me escorting my students to the nurses's office..." She took a sip of this dreadful disaster of a drink and set it back down on the desk. "If we were going to have something so important like a school shooting drill, why did you have a student answer my phone call and not an office admin?" Her hand began to shake, but she kept that hidden out of the principle's sight. The woman was being kind to her after all, but that still didn't negate what had happened earlier.

Abbie was caught off guard. Her mouth opened in slight but no words came out. Her eyes sunk low and darted back and forth as the thoughts came flooding back in. If the principle had no idea who picked up the phone when Abbie was calling in Hank's absence from her class, then who in the Sam Hell did? Most frightening of all, how did they know she was going to excuse him in the first place?

"I. How did you know about that?" Abbie shook her head as a headache started its way through. Problemsome headaches.... "Wait, there were two." She stopped to pinch the brow of her nose, squinting her eyes. "One on the other building and then mere seconds later one at my door." Abbie thought about her words again and decided that the more she spoke, the less sane she really sounded. A chuckle escaped her parted lips and she looked back up at the principle. "You know what, I bet it's nothing. Forget I said anything. Just back to school jitters."

Nodding her head, Abbie rubbed her eyes once more and slide the cup of coffee back towards Mrs. Davis. Slowly she got to her feet and gathered her sunny disposition. Abbie smiled at Mrs. Davis as kindly as she could muster. "I am sorry, like I said. Back to school jitters is all. Everything is fine. Nothing to report." She headed for the door of the office and took hold of the handle.

"Thank you for the information regarding Hank. I will make sure he stays the remainder of my class." She paused. "I feel really bad for his family. If you talk to them before I do, send them my condolences." And with that Abbie left the principle's office. Even if there were things going wrong in her home life, which there weren't, the last person she wanted to discuss them with is the woman who signs her pay check.

Abbie walked through the courtyard with her hands clutching her elbows, in a slow pace. She was still pondering things she had little to no answers for and wondered to herself why. Some kid played a prank on her. She was calling down to the office, there was a fifty percent chance she was sending a boy to the office. He could have just made a wild guess and actually spooked her without ever realizing he had done so. It was a brilliant way to make some one lose their ability to keep food down, and Abbie was seriously considering skipping lunch today.

Before she made it up the ramp back to her classroom she turned her attention back to the art room. It was the art teacher on the other side of the door she heard breathing. That got her to thinking, what got him so freaked out? Surely the walk from his class room to hers couldn't have been that long so that he would be out of breath. Besides that, he apologized. And for what? Too many questions. However, there was one question she could answer right then and there, and she rushed inside her classroom and closed the door behind her.

Quickly she set to work on her computer and used her common search browser to look up missing kids in her home town. Before she knew she was staring at the faces of missing children and she could not believe she did not know it sooner. Mrs. Davis was right. She continued to pound away at the keyboard, finding any piece of information she could on the Oleander kid and his case file. "Where are you..."

A small group of children ran passed her window. Abbie snapped her head in their direction and watched them run out of sight. The article was disturbing to say the least, especially with bodies coming up dead. She bit her lip. All of this was easily found on the internet and Hank was smart enough to use a computer. He knew all of this and all he wanted to do was to get out of this place and help his mom and dad with the search, she was sure of that. In the very least she felt sorry for him, but there was little she could do.

The electronic bell rang to let all the children and staff into lunch. Abbie looked down at her own lunch, a salad consisting of onions, tomatoes and cucumbers. But she was too disgusted to eat. Nothing made sense, everything was awkward and confusing and to top it all off there were murders happening to young adults and she had no idea it was going on. Abbie got to her feet to stretch out her legs. There was plenty of time left in her lunch period to at least answer some of the questions buzzing about in her head.

Out of the mobile room, Abbie rounded the perimeter and walked cautiously up the ramp to the art teacher's room. She had never met the guy, but she remembered what Mrs. Davis had called him and she quietly knocked on his door. The red-head wasn't the only one that was spooked by that drill. She heard that heavy breathing and sudden pound on her door. Maybe he too received a haunting phone call. Abbie knocked again. "Hello? Micheal?" She called out. "It's Abbie Marcus, can I talk to you for a second?"

Abbie wasted no time and walked into the room. Taking in the scent of craftsmanship. Which was, in her opinion, ten times better than the smell of death she had to endure just one room over. She had always wondered what it would be like to teach an art class, or an elective for that matter. Of course, she didn't know anything about teaching art or music. She did however, speak fluent French, but honestly, what kid at this age got enjoyment out of speaking another language while still learning to grasp the English language?

The red-head turned back towards the art teacher and held out her hand. There was a code of ethics around the teaching community and she figured before she bombarded him with estrange questions, she would introduce herself. "Abigail Marcus. They call me Abbie. Micheal I presume?"

Abbie took the hand that was given firmly within her own. They shook a few times before the connection was departed and Abbie took a seat at the table. She more or less enjoyed this set up. Tables rather than desks and in the back of her mind she made a mental note to ask Mr. Davis for some for her class room. Perhaps the kids would be more involved if they could all sit as a unit rather than an individual.

"Questions?" Abbie asked inquisitively. Did she have questions? Of course she did, but the question struck her as interesting. The teacher Mrs. Davis mentioned must have already called Michael and confronted him about the happenings that went on during the drill. Which kind of put a damper on her whole conversation. She wanted to get to him before anyone else had the chance, but she would take what she could get.

Abbie cleared her throat and rest her hands folded together on the table. "I don't want to be a bother, I am sure someone already talked your ear off about this morning. I really don't mean to do the same." She began, choosing her words wisely of course, which in turn made her sentences broken. He could tell she was searching for words and Abbie mentally slapped herself for seeming so vulnerable. "Look, I am going to just come out and say it because this has gone on long enough. I heard you through the door. Something spooked you, I know it did. And I want to know what it was. Did you get the phone call too?"