"Hello? 911? Send an ambulance to the Agnew Valley High School right away!" Simon Sijanowski frantically said through the phone in Mr. Frampton's office. After the paramedics came to take Mr. Frampton away to the hospital, Simon quickly changed his focus to trying to find out who shot the mammoth principal. He went to see if Mr. Frampton's secretary saw anything unusual, but she was absent from her space behind her desk. Attempting to find some clues, Simon went back into Mr. Frampton's office and tried to locate where the shot came from. Looking around, he spotted a loose ceiling tile above where he was sitting. Simon drew an imaginary line from where the bullet entered Mr. Frampton to where it whizzed past his ear, and when he followed it up at the same angle, it led right to the loose ceiling tile. "That's where the shot must have came from. The shooter must still be in the ceiling." Simon thought to himself. Simon grabbed the chair he was sitting in during the interview, and used it as a stepping stool to reach the ceiling. He removed the ceiling tile, and pulled himself up into the ceiling. Among the pipes and wires, Simon was in a world of complete darkness. He was lucky if he could see five feet in front of him. In the distance he could hear the scuttles of rats, and there definitely was something flying around up there. "This probably wasn't the best idea." Simon thought to himself as he glanced at the endless sea of darkness that surrounded him. As he started crawling his way back to the hole in the ceiling, Simon heard a sound in the distance. Stopping where he was, he tried to figure out what the sound could be. "Aha!" Simon thought out loud. "That was the sound of a gun cocking." BOOM!!!! A shot rang out as the dark world above the ceiling was lit up by the spark of a pistol. For the second time that day Simon cheated death as a bullet whizzed by his head, riquocheted off some pipes, and then went through a wall in the distance. Simon instinctively got flat on his stomach and tightly shut his eyes as a small army of rats scurried by him, and a squadron of bats flew over-head. When Simon finally got the courage to get back on his knees to brush himself off, the first sight he saw when he opened his eyes and looked up was the open end of a barrel of a gun. "Don't move scum bag." Instructed a mysterious husky voice of a women through the darkness. "Really? I kind of thought now would be a good time to start dancing the Macarena." Simon sarcastically responded. "Real funny wise guy. Now shut up or I'll blow your head into more pieces than a jigsaw puzzle." "Well what kind of jigsaw puzzle are you talking about? One of those five piece pre-schooler's puzzle of Barney? Because if so, that's not really that threatening." "Barney? Where have you been? Kids don't watch Barney anymore." "Really? Now that's just a shame. I always liked Barney, and his friend Baby Bop was the coolest." "I don't really care what you like, and for your information I was talking about one of those fifteen thousand piece puzzles of the Andes Mountains that take a whole team of senior citizens to put together." "Well in that case I better shut up." "Yeah, that's what I thought." "Wait a minute! I know who you are." "Stop bluffing, you can't see a thing in this darkness." "Well I can see your gray hair well enough. And the only person I know with gray hair like that is..." "Shut up!! You say one more word and I swear to God I will blow your head off." Said the gun-toting granny as she pulled the hammer back to cock the gun. "Now why would a sweet old high school secretary want to do something like that?" Replied Simon, going against his better judgment. "You don't know what it's like to work for Mr. Frampton. That man put me through hell, he deserved to die." "Well that doesn't explain why you want to kill me." "I guess some things you do just for the hell of it." BOOM!!!! For the third time in a short period of time, there was a gun shot. Simon tightly shut his eyes and clenched his fists, bracing himself for the worst. However, after he got over the initial shock of the gun shot, Simon realized that he was not dead, nor was he wounded. Yet it still took Simon a few moments before he could build up enough courage to open his eyes and see what happened. When he did, he saw the last person he would want to see at the present moment, directly in front of him, carrying a gun. "Hey how ya doing Simon, I saved your life!" Boomed the familiar voice of the man Simon knew as Anthony. "Yes, it looks like you have." Simon replied, looking at the body of Mr. Frampton's secretary lying in front of him. "I guess that's what friends are for." "Yeah right. What were you doing up here anyway, looking for your Trivial Pursuit game?" Simon said with a bite of sarcasm. "Geese, I save your life, and this is the treatment I get?" "Oh I'm sorry for being so rude. You're my freaking hero Anthony... Or is it Raul?" "Raul? Who told you about that?" "Principal Frampton. He told me everything. I bet you must have felt real big when you were beating on that poor defenseless horse." "That was the horse's fault, it was asking for it. I lost my life savings on that horse because it refused to run faster." "It was still a low thing to do" "I know that, and I've paid my price for that crime." "Then what's with the whole name changing thing? Or you stalking the old owners of my house?" "Do you know how hard it is to break into show-business with a Hispanic name? And I never stalked Frank and Suzy." "Well it's still all very strange, but we can't talk right now. I think we better take care of this body." "I thought I smelt something funky, but I didn't want to say anything because frankly I thought it was you." With that, Simon and Anthony carried the body of the old secretary down from the ceiling, out of the school, and then dumped it in the back seat of Simon's car. "Can you show me how to get to the nearest morgue? I'm still kind of new here." Simon asked Anthony. "That's no problem, it's right next to the police station." Replied an always helpful Anthony. "Damn, you must have some really tough cops here." "Well they're nice guys and all, just as long as you're not an immigrant." "Is that another reason why you changed your name?" "No! Just because I'm Hispanic doesn't mean I'm an immigrant. A lot of us were actually born here." "Sorry to offend you man." "Well it's a real touchy issue with me." "I understand, that's the last you'll hear from me about it." "Thanks, I'll really appreciate that." It was not long until the duo got to the Agnew Valley Morgue. There, they brought in the body, and met with the director of the morgue, Mr. Sidney Rosenthal. "What was the cause of death?" Asked the aging Mr. Rosenthal. "I shot her." Anthony bluntly responded. "Self defense I presume?" Inquired Mr. Rosenthal. "Well actually no. I wasn't defending myself, I was defending his self." Anthony explained, pointing to Simon. "Either way you're going to have to file a report with the police when you are done here." Instructed the morgue director. "Will do." Anthony replied. "So where did this little incident occur?" Mr. Rosenthal asked. "It was at the Agnew Valley High School." Simon broke his silence to add. "Wow! I guess they are really dropping like flies there today." Responded Rosenthal. "What do you mean by that?" Asked a puzzled a Simon. "The principal of the high school was carted here not to long ago." "Do you mean he's dead?!?" Simon asked in shock. "Well he ain't here playing horse shoes. Go see for yourself." Mr. Rosenthal said, pointing to a body covered in a white sheet. Simon approached the body, removed the sheet, and clearly saw the lifeless face of Principal Frampton. He was devastated. He liked Mr. Frampton, and now he is dead. "And what's going to happen with the job he offered me?" Simon selfishly thought to himself. When Simon looked at Mr. Frampton one last time before he covered him back up, he could have sworn he saw the corpse's eyes blink. He looked again in disbelief, and, low and behold, the eyes were still blinking. "This man isn't dead! HE'S ALIVE!!!!" Simon shouted in elation as Anthony and Mr. Rosenthal just stared at him like he was damn nut.
STAY
TUNED
FOR
CHAPTER 5
FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE