Aggressive

Getting up for school was always a pain in the ass, no matter what age you were.

But it seemed to be getting worse and worse for a poor seventeen year old Frank each and every school day. He waited and worked long and hard days every week for the blissful release of the weekends, getting to sleep in as much as he wanted (if that is, he doesn’t get woken up by one of his friends texting him, which unfortunately does usually happen), not really worry about homework and get to do well, whatever he wanted, really.

So that is why he felt so shitty right now. It was the end of the weekend, school was about to begin, and it was, of course, a Monday.

Rest in peace.

Rolling out of bed and lazily slapping his alarm clock to shut it up, the incessant beeping from the damn thing really getting on his nerves, he groaned at himself for staying up so late last night as he tiredly scratched at the blond sides of his crazier hair, shifting the black mohawk part of it out of his vision as he shifted across the house and into the bathroom, relishing in the fact that his parents were both off at work and he didn’t have any siblings, meaning that he was all alone. Good. He finally got some time to do some quality thinking, even if it was through a fuzzy, half-asleep brain.

Frank splashed water on his face in order to wake himself up further, wanting to make sure he wouldn’t fall asleep later in the shower. He had done that once. And, um, yeah, that obviously didn’t end well. Grabbing a towel out of the cabinet and turning the tap on and quickly ducking out of the way of the water cascading from the showerhead above, he shut the door to the bathroom and quickly jumped into the shower.

Washing his body down, squeezing out dollops of shampoo onto his hand and splashing those onto his hair and quickly rubbing it in. When he returned his hands in front of his face, he frowned when he saw splotches of both black and yellow on his fingers, and as he cast a look at the drawer in which the bottles of hair dye lay he knew he was going to have to use those again.

He finished up in the shower, taking a quick look at his hair to make sure it was fine (which it was), threw his clothes back on and quickly made something to eat. It was approaching time in which he had to travel to hel- he means school, and deal with the horrors and lay in store for him today.

Frank sighed as he dumped the dirty dishes into the sink and ran a hand through his still-wet hair, the sudden ringing of his phone bringing him back to attention as he ran towards his room where he last had it, sliding it open to see that Jamia was calling. That definitely put a smile on his face, even on a shitty day.

“Hey!” He said excitedly as he began to get his stuff together, grabbing his car keys off of the dresser and stuffing them into his pocket.

“Hello Frank!” Jamia said over the line, and Frank could hear her smile over the phone.

“Any reason you’re calling?” Jamia didn’t really call in the morning, as she was about as dead as Frank was, so it poked it Frank’s curiosity as he heard a sigh over the line.

“Well, not really much other than a couple of things.” Jamia said. “I know it was like, just last night and everything but damn that article. I know we need to do some serious thinking about it, as always, if we decide we want to try it out, but Pete called me earlier and said he got Patrick onto it, which I found hilarious.” Jamia said, and Frank laughed. His friend, Patrick, was very cautious when it came to these things, but with the right words from Pete - and strangely, only Pete - he would do it.

“We’ll all have a talk at lunch, Pete’ll probably convince everyone to do it as he is apparently really excited about it- which I’m not too surprised about. But again, there are so many things that could go wrong with this- I mean, what if we actually summon something? I know like the article is kinda sketchy and shit but man.” Gotta keep that skeptic attitude up, so he doesn’t look like an idiot to the reader. “We’ll show it to Bob, he’s the bullshit detector.”

“Agreed. Well, I gotta go, and I’m suspecting you do as well, so see ya at school!” Jamia said as a farewell, Frank saying a goodbye before they both hung up. Now feeling in a better mood than he had been earlier, he packed up the rest of his stuff and flicked off the lights, now walking outside in the bitter ‘Jersey air for his run down car parked in the driveway. Hey, it was no Rolls Royce or Mustang, but it was a good car anyways.

Hopping into the car and jamming the keys into the ignition, he turned up the radio to find that Longview by Green Day was playing over the speakers, and damn, he daresay that his Monday just got better.

~~~

The first four periods had gone without a hitch, thankfully, and as he grabbed his lunch out of his locker he actually felt good about himself on a Monday, which is notorious for being the worst day of the week. Heading down to the cafeteria, he kept an eye out for his friends. Besides Jamia, he hadn’t seen another one today, which was unfortunate. First four periods he didn’t have classes with any of them, lunch he had at the same time (where he met a lot of them), Jamia was in his 5th and 6th, as well as Ray, and Pete was in his 7th and 8th. So, at least he had that.

Sitting down at their usual table, which they all liked to call the ‘squad table’, Frank waited patiently for the others, digging into his lunch bag and pulling out random things to strew across their space.

“Hello!” Jamia said as she sat down next to Frank, computer in hand and opened up to her lockscreen. Frank waved to her and Ray followed, sitting down across from the two and saying his greeting as well.

“What is it Jamia? You’ve been bugging me about something you wouldn’t tell me about all last period!” Ray said, eyebrow raised at the woman as she let out a laugh.

“Oh, I’ll show you.” Jamia said, setting the computer down on the table as she quickly unlocked her computer and opened it up - to the article from last night.

Now, Ray wasn’t all too into the occult and witchcraft and all that. No, he was a sure skeptic, but still somehow managed to agree to do anything when Jamia persuaded him to do so. She was good with her words, Frank’ll tell you. Bob was the same.

“It’s a thing I found last night - I already told Frank over here about it, and we’re pretty interest-”

“Oh, what’s this?” The voice of Lindsey interrupted what Jamia had been saying, causing everyone to look up at the girl, Jamia with a glare, at her sudden arrival.

“As I was saying, it was a thing I found last night, and I thought it was pretty damn interesting.” Jamia said, finally turning her laptop around so the others could see.

Ray’s face went from slightly annoyed to very subtly curious as his chocolate eyes skimmed over the text in front of him, and Lindsey, as soon as she read the first paragraph she snatched the computer and read it for herself, making Ray let out a grumble of annoyance. Her face was excited as she held the laptop in front of her eyes, reading over every word with a gasp of surprise.

As soon as she was done she set the computer down, her hands shaking with excitement. “Oh my God we have to do this. This is so fucking cool!” She said loudly, Ray taking the computer for himself so he could read through the article in peace. Jamia nodded in agreement, smile on her own face as Frank leaned back in his seat.

“Ingredients are a little hard to get, guessing we’ll probably have to sneak into a church for some of them, but other than that we have the basement that Frank’s parents practically gifted to him as a space to do this, which makes our lives easier.” Jamia said, Lindsey jumping out of her seat as she gasped in even more excitement.

“Oh my God I have to get Pete! He’ll love this!” Lindsey said, pressing her hands to her cheeks.

“He already knows, he’s already excited, and he’s already got Patrick on it.” Jamia said, Lindsey letting out a laugh.

“Wow, already?” Lindsey said, both Frank and Jamia nodding. “Brilliant!”

“Okay, um, wow, I don’t know what to think.” Ray said finally, scooting the computer back over to Jamia, who took it back again. “It’s interesting, and hey, I might not need any persuasion if we were to do this.” Ray said, making Frank, Jamia, and Lindsey feel particularly good. Ray usually needed a lot of persuasion when it came to these things.

“Awesome!” Jamia said, clapping her hands together. It was at that moment that Pete and Bob decided to emerge from the masses of people in the cafeteria and set their things down on the table, Pete casting a questioning look at all of them.

“Sorry Patrick isn’t here, he got sick over the weekend, poor guy.” Pete explained, quickly digging into his lunch as Bob set his head down on the table. “So, about this article, I told Bob about it in 2nd period, he says he’s interested but obviously very skeptic about it. Show him.” Pete said, Jamia nodding before scooting the laptop over to Bob, Bob raising his eyebrow in curiosity as he grabbed the computer to read it further.

It took a bit before Bob responded again, Jamia and Lindsey waiting patiently while Pete and Ray just sat back and watched.

“Although this does sound cool and interesting, it has it’s faults.” Bob said, shaking his head. “Sorry to be a party pooper or party poison or whatever the fuck. First of all, are there any historical references to these dudes? I know it’s all good and fun but I’m the fact-checker.” Bob said. “And these stories of nightmarish occurrences? And doesn’t give any links to any? I don’t know guys.” Bob said, giving the group a sorry look as he pushed the laptop back over to Jamia.

“Bob goddammit… this is just for fun, this isn’t anything to nitpick at. No need to take it so seriously.” Lindsey said, Bob laughing.

“I know I know, it’s all fun and games, but I just can’t help myself you know?” Bob replied, setting his head down on the table once again. “I’ll do it, just I don’t expect much. And I’m guessing Ray isn’t either.” Bob said, throwing a glance at Ray who in turn, nodded.

“Oh, uh, okay…” Lindsey said, looking over at Frank, who had a silly smile on his face.

“Okay, perfect. Everyone’s on it then?” Frank asked, delighted to see that everybody nodded. “Great! My parents are gone this weekend, and the next, so maybe the 13th? We should have everything by then…” Pete got progressively more and more excited, Ray and Bob nodding as Lindsey refrained herself from squealing. “We have some of the materials here actually, I have Ms. Lecky next period after break so I can grab some chalk from her. We’re gonna need a lot of it, and some more harder to find stuff, so I suggest we head up to Vinnie’s to get the incense and shit…” Vinnie’s was the witchcraft shop downtown, and Frank and his gang visited it so often the old woman working there, Vinnie, knew them all by name. “And I’m just guessing we’re gonna need to steal the holy water from the church down the road. No way they’re letting us near that stuff.” Frank explained their game plan, the other agreeing as Lindsey finally let out a squawk, attracting some weirder looks from the other surrounding them.

“Awesome!” Jamia said, snapping her laptop shut. “We’ll meet up in the usual place after Frank’s work, and head down to Vinnie’s. Oh I’m excited!” Jamia said, both her and Lindsey doing that weird girl-thing where they hold each other’s shaking hands and squeal loudly, Ray letting out a laugh as Pete joined in.

This was going to be cool, but Frank, for some odd reason or another, had a swelling gut feeling that something bad was going to happen. He didn’t know why, he just suppressed it and ignored it, but it was prominent and still there no matter his efforts to quell his worries.

Notes

this is kinda rushed and really bad, but i needed to just get this chapter out of the way so i could get into the action.