Principal Tamashiro appeared on the far side of the field where Mr. Kiyabu and Ms. Nakashima were holding their only coed class on the tug of war.
The contest was between the boys and the girls, of course, it was all for fun, but it was also Mr. Kiyabu's way of being openly social with Ms. Nakashima. Denise Ramento was at the front of the line just a foot away from the giant knot which separated the opposite teams. On the other end, she found herself staring at Noka Aliviado who leaned forward, "Wanna hear something strange?" he asked her.
"Sure," she shrugged.
"The day we left Ms. Chun's class before she was found dead? I thought I saw Tama standing outside her door. He was there one second and the next second somebody walked past me and he was gone, weird huh?" Denise's face froze in fear, she nodded and walked right up to Noka and spoke to him in a voice beneath her breath. "I did too, from Mrs. Murakami's class, I saw him."
"Oh man," Noka felt relieved that he wasn't seeing things but at the same time he was covered with goosebumps and began to cry. "His ghost is haunting the school."
"Noka, do you think that Tama's ghost killed Ms. Chun?" Noka never got a chance to answer, there was a murmur going through both the girls and boys factions because of principal Tamashiro coming toward them from across the field. As he got closer, Mr. Kiyabu and Ms. Nakashima approached him in order to find out what he was there for. The principal walked right past them and made a beeline for Denise and Noka and grabbed them by the wrists. Ignoring both adults, principal Tamashiro began to march off with the two students in tow, Denise and Noka resisted but to no avail, Mr. Kiyabu and Ms. Nakashima also made an attempt to stop their boss and find out what the matter might be but they couldn't. Mr. Kiyabu grabbed the principal by his shirt and attempted to tear him away from the Denise and Noka, but it is only partially successful. The principal delivers a punch to the P.E. teachers liver and drops him on the grass; even before Ms. Nakashima can figure out what her move is, the principal snaps a reverse knife edge chop to the side of her neck and she too crumbles to the ground. That exchange forces the principal to release his grip on Denise Ramento and she takes full advantage of it and runs for her life, he takes off after her with Noka in his hands. The boy purposely digs his heels in but principal Tamashiro is too strong and drags him along the grass with no care as to whether he can get to his feet and keep up. The rest of the coed class watches in horror, not at all sure as to what they should do. Suddenly a loud sound cracks the air and everyone jumps and cringes, the principal stumbles backward and loses his grip on Noka. The boy looks up and sees a police officer walking toward him with his gun drawn, "move out of the way!" It's officer Sato who is badly bruised and bleeding from his nose. Denise is behind him sitting on the grass, horrified and crying.
Noka runs to her and holds her in his arms while Officer Sato yells at the rest of the class to get off the field and take cover all the while walking directly toward principal Tamashiro. He empties his entire clip into the head of the school until he finally goes down. He reloads the second clip until he's standing over Milton Tamashiro's body.
" You killed my partner," the final bullet was for Bellinger as it penetrated the principal's skull and ripped through his brain. Officer Sato holsters his weapon and tries to make sense of what just happened in Milton's office. All he knows is that the moment officer Bellinger showed George Luke the photo of his very own body in a mortuary in Foshan, George changed into a massive dog-like creature that tore Travis Bellinger to bits and disemboweled the principal in his own office. Sato could only manage to remove his weapon from his holster before the thing knocked him back up against the wall. In the haze of pain, he witnessed the creature standing over the mutilated body of Milton Tamashiro in one instance. In the next, it became Milton Tamashiro and let itself out of the office and took off. Sato managed to pull himself together and went after the creature.
...........
A YEAR LATER
After the war, a lot of people did not want to leave the internment camp because they knew that there would not be anything left of their former life in their old home towns. When Linda Murakami's family returned to Hawaii after leaving Manzanar, they were one of the lucky few who found jobs and schools without too much of a problem. Granted there were still lingering fears and prejudices but Hawaii was different from the mainland. While attending McKinley high school or what was known as Tokyo High back in the day, Linda had a tormentor who was relentless. His nickname was, 'Tensho.' Within the system of Goju-Ryu karate, Tensho was known as the revolving hands' technique, for Tensho himself it meant something else. Tensho was taller and more chubby than the other kids and his eyes were locked in a perpetual squint which might have accounted for his smile most of the time. He sported a rice bowl haircut and he was always clammy and covered in perspiration and no matter how nicely he dressed, his shirts were constantly soaked in sweat. Long before she married Garret Murakami, Linda was known as Linda Ishii back then. Tensho would always tease her by calling her, 'Linda Shishi.' He had a habit of pinching her between her butt cheeks when he wasn't verbally torturing her. One day, Linda had had enough and reported Tensho to her teacher who in turn reported him to the principal's office. During those times, teachers and principals were allowed to discipline their students and the former English day school was no different. Tensho got the paddle from the principal and rather than seek out Linda and increase her harassment tenfold, he did something unexpected. He committed suicide by cutting his wrists. When his body was found, there was a note attached to his shirt pocket which was written in Japanese but not in Kanji. It was westernized Japanese, "Linda Shishi no ayamachi" which meant, "Linda Shishi's fault."
~
One afternoon while a couple of her students were cleaning the chalkboards and pounding erasers outside the classroom, Linda excused herself to go to the soda and snack machine for a drink and a package of crackers. While inserting her change into the soda machine after getting her snacks, she dropped a quarter on the ground and knelt down to pick it up, but a hand retrieved it for her, "dropped your change Linda Shishi?"
Linda looked up and saw her classmate Tetsunori Tensho Tagawa standing above her, she bolted upright immediately and a raw fear began to radiate throughout her body. "Let me pinch the inside of your 'okole Linda Shishi so I can feel your seaweed," Tensho had two small beads of sweat in that space between his nose and his top lip. His eyes squinted and his teeth were colored a lot more yellow than she remembered, "I'm so sukebei Linda Shishi, my chin chin is swollen!"
Linda's screams could be heard all the way across campus that afternoon, her students came running down the hallway and even the office staff came running to see what was wrong. The custodial staff was not far behind, but to their surprise, they found Linda Murakami standing in front of the snack machines eating crackers and taking a sip of her soda.
"Is everything okay?" The office secretary asked. "We heard you screaming like somebody was killing you or something?'
"No, everything's fine. It was just a roach, they freak me out." She reassured everyone, but one of her students couldn't help but notice something.
"Mrs. Murakami, you're all covered in sweat,"
..........The End
Where are you getting this stuff from for crying out loud!
ReplyDeleteI've had an interesting life lol
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