Every so often, the noise in the room would dip in response to new arrivals or just as a result of the coincidental convergences of pauses in conversations. When the deputy finally made his appearance, not only did the conversation dip but for a tension-filled moment it stopped entirely. The reasons for this were simple: he was the most senior member of the school anyone really knew and it would be him who would oversee the proceedings of the day. As the man made his way up the centre of the room, the silence was broken by sharp whispers; eventually, even some of the apparently disinterested distinguished group of vampires turned their heads to see what was happening.
Without taking any notice of the crowd around him, the deputy strode up to the plain mahogany lectern and proceeded to remove two slim notebooks from the inside of his suit jacket. Only after spending a little time preparing himself at the lectern did the deputy look up to glance around at the still whispering gathering before him. It was only a glance, and one with a purpose: he was looking for Ms Halford. When his eyes finally found hers at the back of the room, he gave her an assertive nod to indicate it was time.
The ghost drifted through the back wall and disappeared just as Brenden and Amanda appeared at the hall’s entrance. The deputy, who still had his attention directed at the back of the hall, was the first to see the arrival of the two and he quickly responded by attempting to fix the boy with a smile. His aim was a noble one. Indeed, it was to try and relieve the boy of any anxiety that he might be feeling by greeting him with a friendly face. However, the main thing he managed to achieve was to alert the rest of the room – who until that point had still been mainly concerned with the deputy himself – to Brenden’s presence as they turned to discover what had led to the change in the countenance of the formally stony-faced deputy.
Brenden reacted to the sudden unwanted attention of the room by dropping his gaze to the floor and quickly trying to make his way to the nearest row of chairs. In his rush to escape the eyes of all before him, he not only left Amanda behind but acted in such a way as to intensify his feeling of embarrassment as he hurriedly pushed past a couple of seated zombies to reach the nearest empty chair, almost tripping himself up in the process. He did not look up to see if anyone was even still paying any attention to him, he just collapsed in on himself while flitting between thoughts of escape and how everyone must think him a fool. He remained in this state - unaware that almost everyone in the room had already turned their attention back to their conversations – until he felt the hand of Amanda come to rest on his shoulder.
“Is it okay if I sit next to you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” mumbled the boy, who was still feeling the sting of the internal battle between his desire to flee and his embarrassment.
Suddenly, the mood in the hall changed. A wave of whispers rolled across the gathered crowd as individuals, then groups, realised that the two defendants had finally made their appearance. Unlike all the others around him, Brenden did not turn around to inspect the accused couple; he just fixed his eyes on the back of the worn black corduroy jacket of the vampire in front of him. Indeed, he did not look at Mary or the man with her until they appeared in his peripheral vision, leading him to turn his head slightly so that he could see the back of the bald pate of his supposed attacker as it disappeared and reappeared between the heads of those sitting in the rows before him.
In the odd procession that made its way up to the front of the hall, Ms Halford led the way, with the two small figures of Mary and the attacker behind her. The two accused were also followed by two large zombies acting as guards, one of which Brenden recognised as Freddie, the zombie who had dug him out of the ground not so long ago. As the little party approached the two plastic chairs that had been placed just to the side of the deputy’s lectern, Brenden found his fears subside. Though he was still filled with foreboding about the possibility of the man locating him in the crowd and fixing him with the eyes that haunted him night and day, he nevertheless discovered that he could now look directly at the pair.
The visage of the man was not what Brenden expected. Despite what Brenden had seen of the man outside the deputy’s office a few days before, the boy had expected that his attacker would once again be the ferocious and unforgiving being that he still imagined him to be. However, there was no sign of the monster he had constructed in his mind before him, just a small, sad, pale and fearful man in an old brown suit. Despite the fact that the boy could plainly see that the body of the individual taking a seat at the front of the hall was his attacker’s, the extreme contrast between what he had seen on the night of his death and what was now before him led Brenden to question whether they really had the right man. If all the zombies, vampires and other creatures of the undead could exist, was it not possible that something else could too? Something that was capable of possessing the pathetic individual at the front
