sometime in 1996 . . .
my friend Fred
I was in a school auditorium, and we were watching a movie of a school play.
some people in a row behind me were talking about how they were surprised they'd show this at school.
in the play, a girl at a podium was saying something, then pulled a lever and a cheerleader who was tied up behind her was pulled up very quickly into the rafters.
there was a thud and I knew that she was dead.
back in class, we were talking about the movie as the teacher walked in.
she checked my homework right away. it was a workbook, and I had simply filled in random answers in the blanks.
the teacher was very angry at this. a classmate named Fred didn't understand the work, and she was also angry at him.
in another scene, my dad was driving our family along a busy street.
my sister saw something she liked along the side of the road and argued about it for a few seconds until dad said OK, you can get out and pick it up.
just when she reached the median, the light turned green and we began moving.
she ran to catch up but couldn't, and we kept going.
my dad couldn't find a place to pull over, and we kept going faster.
soon she was out of sight behind us. an arrow painted on the street pointing to a driveway had stencilled on it the words, "last chance," as in last chance to pull over, but we passed it up.
she was very far behind us now. finally, dad decided to u-turn and go against oncoming traffic to pull off the road at the "last chance." we pulled over and got out of the car.
while we all stood there waiting for her to catch up, my dad said something like, "this helps us realize how much we care about each family member."
I walked toward my sister and the others followed me.
we reached a strange place, sort of like a large school. there were cylindrical stone pillars all over, and very large stone bulidings.
there seemed to be a party going on. my brothers played with some very large ants (about a foot long and almost as tall) on a dirt ramp.
my sister and and I walked into a large building set up like a cathedral.
the room was dark except for a yellow glow, and the ceiling was very high. there were rows of pews slanting up in various directions. there were people all over.
she seemed to know a group of people there, and went over to talk to them.
everyone looked pretty mean, except a guy in the back, whom I recognized as "Fred" from class.
he was listening to a big bulky cellular phone. it was quite loud, and I could hear what he was listening to:
a conversation from the far side of a large room I had seen on the way in.
it seemed the people were dealing in some kind of illegal merchandise, possibly drugs.
I somehow started talking to Fred, and he let me examine his phone.
someone I recognized from class walked up to us and started to say something. the whole crowd seemed to be gaining interest in something happening outside.
everyone moved toward an adjoining patio area, but I could not see past the crowd.
the guy who had recently joined us, who I could sense didn't like me at all, explained that they had "found a christian," and grinned.
as he talked, he circled me, trying to find an excuse to fight with me.
I saw a guy come up over a hill quoting something from the Bible, and the crowd around him was planning to kill him. the scene ended with that.
I was a few blocks away from the school, and happened to see a friend's house.
I had a few bags of candy with me that I didn't like which I had found at the party in the cathedral, and decided to give them to her instead of throwing them away.
when she came to the door, I could see lots of people inside. she seemed to be having a party.
I gave her the candy and left, as others inside were telling her to hurry up and come back inside.
back in the cathedral, I was still playing with Fred's phone.
suddenly, Fred's parents were a few pews ahead of us. they turned around and started talking very nicely to Fred, asking why he wasn't off talking in one of the groups.
a guy distracted them by saying he liked someone with the same name as me. it took me a few seconds to realize that he didn't mean me.
the parents seemed very pleased with his announcement. all the while I was trying to keep the phone silent, so they wouldn't see that I had it.
Fred's parents turned back to him and asked him where the phone was.
he knew I had it, but said he had lost it. they instantly became furious, and took him immediately home.
he told them he had lost it partly so they wouldn't know that he let someone else see it, and partly because he feared what would happen to me if they caught me with it.
Fred's house stood alone on a hill of green grass. it was huge and luxurious, made of white stone. Fred had to go to a room in a round tower. his parents were apparently going to make him stay there for a long time.
before they locked him in, they said, with their eyes blazing, "now if anyone comes here, you're going to tell them that you wish you could go to school."
they left him, and his father stormed outside. Fred's little sister was playing outside with a Barbie doll and eating a cupcake. her father grabbed her arm roughly and screamed, "you can't play on the Sabbath!" he took her barbie and her cupcake, tore off the doll's head and legs, and smashed the cupcake onto it.
just then, there was sone kind of flash. the father slowly turned his head around and saw that the entire house was in flames.
everything was in slow motion, and the sky seemed to have become dark pink.
the father ran up the huge stone stairway leading to the front door. as he grabbed the armrails to pull himself up faster, it looked as if his arm was stretching. I thought I heard it make a strange sound. then his arms really began to extend up the handrail, still in slow motion.
his face grew larger and turned blue, and his eyes disappeared as he yelled "no!"
skeletal wings burst out of his back.
seven other monsters that resembled his new form descended from the sky around him, and a narrator began talking about the seven monsters, then said that it "may be 1007, each consisting of four parts."
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