Chapter 13: How To Get Away With Murder

TRAVIS 

We heard a shout. 

In the middle of our—their singing, we heard a powerful shout. It was clear to me whose voice was that. I wanted to panic and quickly dash out of the music room to check for it. But I didn’t know how to panic. Panic wasn’t my word. 

As the strumming of guitars and the piano dynamics ceased to play, I remained on my seat to observe a little longer. The humming of different voices were silenced, and the sound of pounding heartbeats replaced the melody in the air. The Black Chain moved out of the drum set. The Star Harmony stood away from the speakers. The twins moved to each other—both were confused. Yuri, Rabiya, Cylvia, and the rest near the windows rendezvoused on the center of the carpet. Instead of looking for the origin of the scream, they feared the scream. 

A minute after that strong holler was delivered to us by the brush of wind, I was left as the only one sitting. I didn’t get the point of standing for nothing. 

Rabiya turned to me. She was the first person to notice my presence since Geodie left. “Was that her?!” she asked when she came within my reach. She looked me in the eyes, while I looked at her by the highlights of her hair.  “Geodie, right?” she added. 

I ignored her. I did nothing much more than a sigh and a little shrug. She ran closer to the door and swung it open to have a peak outside. It was dark. I bet she didn’t see anything other than the Stygian blackness of the hallways. 

“Who’s that?” Cylvia asked, her hands snaking around the right arm of Yuri. 

Yuri, meanwhile, snagged her comic book from the top of the speaker nearest to her and pretended like no one saw. She tucked it on the back of her skirt and covered it with her blouse. “That sounds like Geodie,” she denoted. 

Rabiya stepped away from the door and swiveled to face them. She stared at the guys, not the ones from the band, but those who were the likes of Vhynz, Andrei, Janvic, Philip, and Benedict, and transmitted to them a look of disgrace for being more nervous and paranoid than the girls. “What are you just standing there?” she taunted, “Find out what happened!”

 

In a single raise of voice, the trembling knees of the guys suddenly grew stalwart, and it sent them out of the room in no time. But before they could reach halfway, the shout repeated again. For the second time, it was louder, stronger, and continuous. 

It made not only the boys outside run, but also the rest from inside of the room—including me. Together, we made inroads into the ill-lit halls until a shimmer of light sparked from the end of the hallway. Between both sides where our lockers queued like they were part of the walls, we found Geodie terror-stricken on the floor, and spellbound while canopying her mouth with her blood-soaked hands. Her eyes were laid to the floor in front of her, where two little balls of white scared the wits out of her face.

 

As we rushed closer to Geodie, my foot slid into something sticky from the floor. I almost tumbled down but thankfully, I was able to make use of my quick reflexes and regain my balance. Feeling my heart raining heavy blows with my chest, I knelt down to the floor to feel the thing that I slipped into. I ran three fingers on the surface, and something sodden and gluey stuck into my hand. It was familiar but it didn’t smell nice. Somehow, it evoked images of my Dad’s flesh collection; a pig’s heart, a shredded skin of a criminal, a freshly picked fingernail, and other parts of human anatomy he stored inside a giant refrigerator up to our attic located at the highest floor of our house. 

Disgusted, I wiped my hands with my shirt and stood up to proceed to the lockers where everyone were already there. It only cost me a minute of careful treading before I finally reached the spot. 

“Where the fuck is the janitor?” Philip yelled, “It’s now eight yet the lights were still off!” he added as if it would help us at the moment. He was useless. He was nothing but a pure talker. A Leonardo Dicaprio of the star section but minus the common sense. 

Cylvia, Samantha, and Yuri dropped to the floor with Geodie. Meanwhile, those who played audience at the back voluntarily took out their phones and opened their lights. Good grief, they were not as useless as the man of only talks. 

 

As the combined lights shooed half of the darkness away, a lot of unexplainable things exposed themselves before our steadied eyes. There was blood all over Geodie’s uniform. There was blood all over my hands, too. There was blood even on everyone’s shoes, and pants, and on the edges of skirts. There was blood that streamed from the door of the music room all the way to the lockers. There was blood also on the lockers’ doors. There was blood everywhere. Literally everywhere. 

I just closed my eyes and thought to myself, I guessed it right. And then I smirked. I didn’t mean to. 

Voices began to scramble in the air; a mixture of cries, questions, barely finished sentences, and over-exaggerated reactions filled the atmosphere to the brim. 

Samantha, Cylvia, and Yuri checked on Geodie before she fully collapsed and lose her consciousness. They went down on their hands and knees, and comforted Geodie in all ways they possibly could. They hugged her despite of the soaking red liquids that turned her white blouse into a messy rufous. 

When Cylvia let go from the cuddle, she noticed the two little spheres beside Yuri’s left foot. “Oh, my God! What are these?” She pointed. Every pair of eyes followed the tip of her finger. They all fought for breath when Yuri accidentally hit one of the two balls, and it rolled to the left where almost half of our classmates were stranded. 

“Oh, fuck!” 

“Shit! Those are eyeballs!”

 Samantha took one of the two reddened eyeballs and had it a closer look. She gulped. Her face crumpled as if she was about to puke, but she was trying hard not to let it out. “Whose eyeballs are these?” she asked, holding it between her thumb and pointer finger. 

“I—I have no idea! I just—It’s inside my locker!” Geodie answered. Her face turned blue. The veins underneath her eyelids seemed to pop out.

Between the giant question marks floating in the air, and the exclamation points produced in every loud thudding of heartbeats, a clicking sound of metal followed by the creaking of a locker door averted the gaze of everybody and changed the direction of the torches of phones. 

A combination padlock fell to the floor. Two taps of shoes stepping backwards followed. A trembling voice said, “Guys... Ya’ll need to see thi—” One word. There was only one word left for Ashley to say, but she didn’t make it in time. She threw up. From that, three followed.

By the time I decided to excuse myself through my classmates who were barring the way to the lockers, the floor were already swamped with vomit and blood. It was so gross. Gross enough to make everyone forget that the thing inside Ashley’s locker which made her puke was twice grosser than what’s covering the floor. Inside the safe, between her fashion magazines and her make up set, a big, bulky, and hairy arm was inserted. It was folded in half, with a bone poking out of the shoulder, and wilted fingers like flowers in a graveyard facing out. 

Like the eyeballs, it reminded me of my Dad’s collection again. 

I took the entire arm out, and before I left, the thin, airy voice of Rabiya spoke behind me. “Is this another murder we have to solve?” she asked, looking up to me to avoid getting a glimpse of the arm. 

I paused. I threw the arm next to Geodie—which wasn’t  supposedly part of the plan—and answered in a dull monotone, “No, Rabiya. This time, this is a murder we have to get away with.” I performed a big leap over the pooling blood and vomit on the floor. I walked to the direction of the music room, and stopped when I found a limited clean space unoccupied by the gooey and gut-churning fluids. 

“What do you mean?” she followed up. Her entire body turned pale. 

I ignored Rabiya’s nonsense question and composed my self for one big announcement. I cleared my throat to call for everyone’s attention. “In case you’re all wondering why the lights are off, and the janitor is missing,” I said, calm but louder, in front of everyone, “It is because the janitor is dead,” I continued. “We are being framed up and linked to his murder, and now chances are— it’s either we throw ourselves into jail, or we work hand in hand to get away with this murder.” 

Philip raised his hand. He squeezed himself out between Benedict and Janvic and went saying, “What shit are you talking about? I—I don’t get what you mean.”

I had a playful smirk. “I know, Philip. Dumb people don’t understand what I mean.”

“Travis!” Samantha called from the floor. “Watch your mouth.” 

“Don’t you get the pattern? Are you not observing at all?” I walked back to the lockers and turned to the left where mine belonged. I fished my key out of my boxer briefs, and hook it through the keyhole. “If you open your locker, something from the body of the victim will be found inside,” I explained. I opened the door of my safe, and tangled intestines—both the large one and the small one—caught me off guard. I spiralled them on my arm and pulled them all out. “Like this one. If you think you have the guts, why don’t you give it a try?” I piled the lousy, elastic intestines on top of the arm beside Geodie who was still down on the floor together with the three other girls. 

 Philip followed what I said. He paddled through the vomit and blood without caring if they splash all over his pants, and just went on with opening his locker. After a few gasps of my classmates, he drew a heart out of the blue metal box. “You are—You’re right,” he said, his hand trembled as he dropped the heart off his palm. “But ha—how do you know?” 

“Because I’m no moron. I observe.” Simple answer. 

Rabiya covered her nose like what everyone did. “But who killed him?” 

“And why him?” Geodie chimed in, crying. 

I easily drain my energy every time I say too much, but I had no choice this time. I needed to explain things thoroughly to these people who couldn’t get even the most obvious logic in this whole frame up. “I’m only breaking it down once, so listen.” I wetted my lips. “Someone’s holding a grudge against us, the star section. He or she wanted to pull us all down, and the easiest and safest way to do that is to frame us with a murder.”

“How does the killer do that?” The ever handsome ‘Leonardo Dicaprio minus the common sense’ of Star Section raised his hand again. 

“Why do you have to be so moron all the time?” I asked him back. “Anyway, to respond to that question, let’s go back to the murder. First, he have to kill the janitor..."

“Wait. Why the janitor?!” 

Fuck. 

Before I could land a jab on his annoying face, Rabiya spoke up to save his ass from trouble. “Because the janitor is the only person in this University who had a duplicate copy of all the keys,” she explained, “ Including our lockers.” 

“Well said. And once the killer overcomes that phase, he or she will just have to wait for the perfect moment when everyone’s gone, the lights are out, and we’re all inside the music room, busy. If all of these happen at the same time, the operation finally begins; the killer will splatter the blood on the doorway, divide the body in many parts and distribute it in every locker, and finally, hide the murder weapon and flee.” All my life, it was the longest sentence I had ever spoken. 

While the silence brought by the terrors of twisted mysteries and a planted homicide wrapped the polluted air within the closed walls of the third floor, I looked at all the faces in front of me. Everyone had fear glowing in their eyes. Everyone had thoughts disturbing in their heads; Does this mean the killer succeeded? Will we get arrested for murder, something that we never did? How could we get out of this? Will there be any ways to get out of this?

 

Jieve, the pianist of The Black Chain, moved forward closer to me. His fists were balled tightly on his side. With the black eyeliners on his eyes emerging into his tears, he inquired, “You mentioned earlier that we can help each other hand in hand to get away with this murder, right?” 

I nodded without saying anything. 

“Then tell us, what should we do?”

I looked at him through narrowed eyes. I gave everyone the time to think, but it didn’t take them more than a minute to agree with Jieve. They nodded, hopeful that maybe—just maybe—my plan would bail us out of this mess. 

“I won’t guarantee this to be one hundred percent successful, but this is the only choice that I have for us.” I closed my eyes. I was deadpan on the outside, but deep within, I was jumping with glee. Another case. Another mystery. Another murder. Finally, a good dose of my own drugs.

Chuck walked behind his bandmate, Jieve. “Say it now, Travis,” he pleaded as he hanged his arm on his pal’s shoulder. 

I swallowed. “Okay. Here’s my three steps on how to get away with murder.” I turned around, followed with my eyes the tracks of blood that led back to the doorway of the music room.

“Step number one;  Clean the crime scene. Destroy all the present evidences.”

“Next?”

“Step number two; Dispose the body.” 

“That’s hard!”

“Step number three; fabricate a story and form your best alibi.” 

“That’s all?” 

“Yes, Chuck, that’s all.” I took my shirt off, and then my pants, and then untied the laces of my shoes. “But there’s one more thing we have to always keep in mind.”

“What is it?” Rabiya returned. 

“Whatever happens, DO NOT CALL THE POLICE!” 

After those words, a wailing siren played outside.