Panic doesn’t creep through a crowd like the tide, it crashes. Like a wave. Drowning the victims in instant terror.

As if everyone’s heads were attached to a single puppet string, the whole class looks up in one broad sweep.

They find the bloody whiteboard framing the black box, then they look down at the floor, their faces going through the same exact steps Gessica’s did three seconds earlier.

One by one, their screams join in, horribly harmonizing like the screeching of broken violins. The wet splashes of vomit hitting the floor. Short staccato gasps of the hyperventilating. My blood's bass pumping. The occasional “Holy shit” and “Oh my god”. A raucous discordant orchestra.

It’s weird cause everyone’s definitely seen an outrageous number of gruesome death scenes through TV and movies. Yet, it never prepares them for the reality of blood.

I think it’s the smell. You can’t smell through a screen. And when that acrid metallic reek hits you, your brain reacts physically.

The heart hammers against the ribs, palms drip with sweat, breath grows short. But it isn’t fear coursing through my veins. It’s pure exhilaration.

After the initial shock, the first instinct is to run. But the growing pool of blood blocks the door. So the class ends up scrambling to the back near the windows.

My desk is already in the back corner, so I stay seated as everyone crowds around me, a little too closely.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“What happened?”

“Is he dead?”

“Call the police!”

“Did anyone see what happened?”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Oh god.”

“Shut up!” Everyone falls silent. Only whimpers trickle through the room.

Nick steps out from the group and faces the rest of us. “Everything’s going to be ok. I’m calling the police. Don’t worry. If you just listen to me, I’ll make sure everyone will be safe.”

People like him make me nauseous. With his parted hair and bloated self assurance squeezing out from his too tight pink polo. Ok, he might not have been wearing a pink polo, but he’s that kind of trust fund baby/lacrosse douche. He’s actually a wrestler, but you get what I mean.

“Shhhhh. It’s ringing.” They all stare expectantly at Nick, trusting him, trusting the police or some sort of adult authority will sort this all out. Through the walls behind my head, I hear more muffled screams.

“What did they say?”

“Are they coming?” Nick’s mouth hangs open.

“I’m on hold.”

“Bullshit. Give me that.” Someone snatches the phone from Nick’s hand and listens to the pre-recorded answering service.

“That’s impossible.”

“How can the police be busy?”

“He must’ve called the wrong number.” Hailey, not a goth girl but just likes black and darkness or so she says.

“Yea? He dialed 911 wrong?”

“Well, I mean, it’s absurd. They’re supposed to always be there.”

“He’s not wrong. I called, too. There’s no answer.” Mary cuts in timidly. I hate people like her. Yea I know, I hate a lot of people. Speak up or shut up. Who wears braided pigtails after third grade? She looks like she would melt if someone even raised their voice at her.

“Then shouldn’t we run?”

“Go ahead. Ladies first.”

“Aren’t the boys supposed to be the ones protecting the girls?”

“Oh sure. Now it’s chivalry. What ever happened to feminism?”

“Fuck this. I’m getting out of here.” Colin saunters towards the door, pauses in front of Mr. Turner’s body and steps gingerly over it. It. Not him. It. It’s not Mr. Turner anymore, it’s his body. That he left behind. Or something.

Colin rattles the doorknob. Let me guess, it’s locked.

“It’s locked.” Colin kicks at the door. It doesn’t budge. Still, I like people like Colin. He doesn’t take shit from no one, speaks his mind, maybe a little too much. Genuine. Maybe I’m just jealous.

“Here, I’ll help.” Nick comes over and together they ram the door together with their shoulders.

“One, two, three.” They slam into it again, but nothing. A few of the more rattled among us start to cry again now knowing they’re locked in and help isn’t on the way anytime soon.

It’s always the girls. I don’t want to be a sexist but the girls just cry easier. Sure there were a few tears here and there among the guys. But maybe because of the social pressure of being a man or all those violent video games, the guys are much more put together. Well, except for Jean Phillipe. He’s blubbering more than the girls.

“Don’t worry, guys. It’ll be fine. We’ll get out of here. Together.” Nick stands before us. Our great leader with his soothing words. It works though, the crybabies calm down a bit. Especially Jean. I think he’s in love with Nick.

Hannah, Nick’s girlfriend, joins him and holds his hand, her eyes staring up at him in reverence. A mousy, freckled girl who would be tasty bait for a cult if she wasn’t already the top follower in the cult of Nick. Jean's a close second.

“Someone! Help!” Colin pounds on the door, shouting through the embedded small window. “There’s a dead guy in here! Get us the fuck outta here!”

“Colin. Stop it. You’re scaring everyone.” Nick warns.

“Shut up. Don’t tell me what to do. Shit. I'm not just gonna sit here on my ass waiting. Try the window.” Mary complies and pulls on the handle.

“Move.” Colin pushes her aside and pulls, his knuckles straining white. “God fucking damn it.”

“There’s no need to panic. Someone’s coming for us. I know it.” Nick.

“No one’s coming. At least anytime soon. We’re not the only ones this is happening to.” Everyone’s heads whip around to look at Sal. So he noticed too. I wasn’t surprised as he was one of the few of us that had our shit together. Who isn’t stunned from the fear and shock.

“What do you mean?” Colin grabs ahold of Sal’s collar.

“Let go and I’ll tell you.”

“Calm down, Colin. We’re all in this together.” Nick pulls Colin away and Colin let’s him. Sal smooths out his short sleeve button down before talking.

“The same thing’s happening in the classes next door.”

“What?”

“What’re you saying?”

“How do you know?

“A few minutes ago, you could hear screams through the walls.”

“That might not mean anything.”

“At the exact same time as us?”

“All the teachers are dead?”

“The whole school’s stuck in their classrooms?”

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s highly likely. Do you see anyone else in the hallways?”

“So what do we do?”

Nick the choir boy steps in. He’s actually a preacher’s boy. “We wait. Somebody will realize what happened in an hour or two.”

“Someone will come for us.” Hannah agrees.

“Fuck that. Move aside.” Colin picks up a desk and heaves it at the window. Screams again. They’re on edge, you can’t blame them. With a clatter, the desk falls harmlessly. Not even a crack on the window.

“What is this?”

“What’s going on?”

"I don't know."

"This is getting a little scary."

"It wasn't scary when Mr. Turner died?"

“My dad will know what’s happening! He’s a cop!”

“I’ll call my mom.”

“I wanna call my mom, too.” You don't have to announce it to everyone.

Everyone’s phones are out now. It took them long enough. I don’t really have anyone to call. I don’t think my mom would bother answering anyways. She doesn’t look at me the same after the “accident.”

“It’s not working.”

“There’s no signal.”

“Me neither.”

“There’s no Wifi, either.”

“Nobody’s phone is working?”

“We just called the police a minute ago.”

“Electromagnetic signal jamming.” Sal muttered to himself. It's the box.

I had no evidence it cut off Mr. Turner’s head, but I had a feeling that all this was because of it. I peer at it closely, as closely as I can from across the room. I wasn’t about to go near it. When did the red light stop blinking? Now it was steady, unblinking, like it was recording us, watching us descend into madness.

“I’ll check the class phone.” Nick walks over, sticking close to the wall, staying as far away from the body as possible.

He picks up the phone. For the second time, he shakes his head in disbelief.

“Nothing. Not even a dial tone.”

“Check the computer! It’s probably on a LAN wired connection.”

A few minutes later, he walks back dejected. But when he sees the others looking at him, he perks up. A true politician.

“It’s ok. We’ll all be ok. We’ll all get out of here and go home to our families in no time. The important thing is we’re safe and no one’s hurt.”

“Except for Mr. Turner.”

“How the hell did he die anyways?”

“His head fell off.”

“Obviously, but how?”

“I didn’t see. Did you?”

“No, I just saw...after.”

“If the police come, what do we say?”

“When they come. Not if.”

“Yea, yea. Of course. When they come.”

Nick clears his throat. “Hey, guys. Let’s try to figure out what happened. I’m sure if we all work together we’ll be able to get a complete picture.”

“The picture’s right there. He was murdered.” Either Sal’s messing with Nick or he loves chaos. Well, there has to be an outsider to Nick’s insider.

A new round of murmurs. As if it’s a surprise.

“What did he say?”

“Someone murdered him?”

“Who?”

“Calm down. We don’t know that for a fact. Either way, I won’t let anyone else be hurt.” Nick tries to take control of the room again.

“People’s heads don’t just fall off.” Sal pushes the rim of his wire framed glasses up his nose before continuing. “There has to be a murderer and the most likely suspect is someone in this room.”

“One of us is the murderer?” The question lingers in the air, seeping into us, tainting our minds.

Subconsciously, we all start to back away from each other. Seems like our survival instinct is in full throttle now. Only needed a murdered teacher to kickstart it.

“It wasn’t me. I wasn’t anywhere near the front of the class.”

“Wasn’t me. I was talking with Andy.”

“Who was near the front?”

“Didn’t Gessica scream first?”

“Yea, she must’ve seen something.”

“Gess, who did this?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happened to Mr. Turner?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Fresh tears streak down her already tear stained face, her white shirt clinging to her body, wet with even more tears and sweat.

“What did you see?”

“You had to have saw something.”

“How could you not see what the hell happened?” One of the girls desperately shakes Gess by the shoulders.

“Tell us anything!”

“I-I just saw his head on the floor.”

“Was anyone with him?”

“No. There was no one.”

“What the fuck?”

“Stop lying.” Uh oh. It’s turning into a Lord of the Flies lynch mob now. The power of the herd. Groupthink.

“Come on. Just tell us the truth.” Another person taps her on the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Lay off of her.” Nick intervenes on her behalf.

“She says she didn’t see anything.” Hannah adds.

“She was sitting right there!”

“Yea, she’s the only one who knows what happened.” I could stop them. She just needs one person on her side. But why should I stick my neck out for her? They might all just turn on me. You can call me a pussy or piece of shit. See if I care.

“Maybe she’s the murderer.” Yes. It might sound ridiculous someone would even say that, but this is a group of dumb teens trapped inside a classroom with a beheaded body. They’re ready to believe anything.

“That’s why she’s not telling us anything.”

“That makes sense.” Oh my god. They’re so retarded. How is a little girl going to cut off a grown man’s head. I want to shout at them. Sal can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Even if she didn’t do it, maybe she’s involved with the real murderer.”

“An accomplice.” The whispers continue to circulate. Gess looks like she’s shrunken inside herself. Everyone takes a step back from her. Even Nick.

“Be careful, she might have a knife.”

“Don’t go near her.”

“Hey, Gess. Can you think of anything?” Nick asks with his sickly sweet sympathetic voice.

"Come on, Gess. We need to know."

“Stop fucking with us, Gess.” They aren't going to stop.

"Tell us the-"

“She didn’t see what happened.” Shit. What am I doing? I wasn’t going to say anything. She means nothing to me. “She only noticed after it all went down.” The rest of you were even slower.

“Wait, what?”

“After what went down?” The entire class now looks at me. Ugh. Why did I have to say something?

“Are you saying you saw everything, Mar?” Yea, my name is Mar. Short for Marley. Yea, I know. I hate it, too. Fuck you.

“Who murdered Mr. Turner?” Now, everyone stares at me hungrily, somewhere between starved hyenas eyeing a delicious steak and religious freaks waiting for the word of God. “Who did it?”

“No one.”

“What do you mean no one?”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying no one murdered him. His head fell off.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Yea, stop fucking lying.”

“I don’t give a shit whether you believe me. I’m just telling you what happened.”

“So some invisible guy cut his head off?” Yup. It was fucking ninjas.

“I can’t tell you how it happened, just what I saw.” I leave out the part where I’m pretty sure that the box did it. I have no evidence, just my gut which even I struggle with constantly. On the toilet. Just kidding. But yea, somehow I knew that thing is evil. Couldn’t everyone else see it, too? Blind motherfuckers.

“That’s not possible.”

“There has to be some explanation.”

“This isn’t real.”

Again, when faced with the unexplainable, we choose to ignore the truth. The fact that no one was probably coming for us. The fact that something really fucked up was going on. I mean, seriously, that window should’ve cracked.

But we all just passed it by as if it was some bulletproof shit. Then as a super observant, super realistic, super smart person, what did I think was going on? Aliens. Haha. Yea, I’m only half joking.

“This can’t be real.” Nervous chuckles.

“It’s a dream, right?” Yup, you’ve got it. We’re all in each other’s dreams. Synchro-dreams. Hey, I just invented something cool. Wait, isn’t that just Inception? Nevermind.

“Yea, this has to be a dream.”

“Or some kind of setup.”

“Maybe it’s a reality show?”

“Yea!”

“It’s a reality show!”

“There’s probably cameras in the room somewhere.”

“They’re probably watching us right now.”

“That makes so much sense.”

“Shit. For a second, I was getting really scared.”

“Yea, me too. I freaked out.”

“That’s probably just a fake body.” Denial and escapism. Well, it saved them from turning on each other.

“So now what?”

“I guess we wait and they’ll let us out eventually?”

“This is so illegal. My dad’s a lawyer and we’re so gonna sue. We’ll all be filthy rich.”

“I’m gonna beat the shit out of whoever did this. They’re all fucking dead.”

“I just want to see my mom.”

“I wanna see my brother. He’s in the army. He’d know what to do.”

“My dad works for the mayor. He’s not gonna let this go.”

“My dad’s a judge and he’ll make sure whoever’s behind this sick prank is going to jail.” Ugh. When did this turn into a dick measuring contest. At least it seems the initial period of shock is over. Even while surrounded by vomit and the “fake” body less than 30 feet away.

“What’re you doing?” Mohammed is crouched next to the body with his phone out.

“Snapchatting.”

“He has Wifi?”

“He’s probably just saving it for later.”

“What if the body’s real? Stop.” Nick reaches for Mo’s phone but Mo pushes Nick away, toppling him into the desks. Always poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. The good guys tend to do that.

“Get the fuck out of my face. Stop acting like you’re the fucking boss.”

“You’re a sick bastard.”

“Go dry hump your wrestling team.”

“Just stop. It’s disrespectful.”

“Come on, Mo. That’s not right.” Hannah chimes in.

“Just try and stop me.”

“You sure you want to start this? Because I sure as hell will finish this.” Nick steps up to Mo.

“Do you always spout cheesy lines from shitty teen movies or do you just want to suck Zack Effron’s dick, you fucking homo?” Mo tries to push him back again but Nick is a solid 200 which 92% is muscle. When he’s prepared, he doesn’t budge an ounce of that.

But Mo gives no shits about that. He doesn’t give Nick a second before swinging at his face.

I’ve seen Mo take down bigger and better. He’s always been quick to anger and even quicker to fight, never turning down an opportunity to trade fists.

But this isn’t boxing, this is brawling and if you watch any UFC, you know that wrestling beats boxing. And Nick knows it, too.

Immediately, he ducks and grabs Mo by the waist. Mo starts pounding Nick’s head, trying to make him let go.

“Are you guys serious?”

“You're fucking idiots.”

“Neanderthals.” Courtesy of Sal, of course, as he shakes his head in disgust.

“Worldstar!” Julian’s recording the fight. For posterity.

"Someone should stop them."

Nick lifts Mo's feet off the ground and takes him to the ground, crashing into the desks.

“What a racket," booms a voice everyone in the room recognizes. "Can’t a guy just take a nap?”

Nick and Mo freeze. The collective gasps are collectively caught mid throat.

It’s Mr. Turner. Our dead teacher. Or not so dead.