The Night of the Dance

So this story uses some of the supporting cast from Daciadesire's The Choices We Make, which Dacia has graciously let me use for this. This was originally conceived as a chapter for that, but as this is also inspired by Carrie, I thought it worked better in this collection of short stories.

Michael felt incredibly nervous; he had never been interviewed for anything before. It was a weird experience; they had applied makeup to him, done his hair, and made sure his clothing looked okay. For what he had been advised was going to be part of a series of candid interviews for a local network, it felt incredibly fake and manufactured at the same time.

The female interviewer who had Agatha was quite attractive. She was a tall redhead with curves in all of the right places. She kind of reminded him a little of Miss Woods. He wondered what his media studies teacher would have to say about him being interviewed; he wondered if he might become a subject in his own class. He realised how ridiculous that thought was. Agatha's assistant reached over to finish clipping on the microphone they were attaching to his chest.

“Can you explain your relationship with the deceased?” Agatha asked.

“The deceased? I thought she received some minor injuries and had been taken to Northridge General? “ Michael replied

Agatha looked over to one of her staff. “Has Chloe been drinking again? I asked her to double-check these notes before she passed them to me.”

“Let's start over. Please clarify your relationship with Rosalind Thomas?” Agatha asked.

“Relationship would be a really strong description. She started at Northridge a few months ago. Her parents were really conservative. I think she had been homeschooled, and I don't quite know the reasons but she joined the school a couple of months. We passed each other in the halls, maybe exchanged a few words now and then. She was friendly with Rebecca; I don't think they ever hung out, though.” Michael told her.

“Can you advise of the events that happened the night of the dance at Northridge High School? Agatha asked him.

“I went with my friends. I'm hesitant to say we arrived fashionably late as I'm not cool enough to get away with that description. We had been at my friend's house we had a few drinks. Am I guessing nobody really cares about underage drinking? Michael replied.

“That is not a focus of our interview, and I would imagine half of the student body attending the dance had probably had something to drink, especially Chris Lindeman and Alice Dubrowski.”

“Those two. Yeah. Anyway, the events of that night. As I said, I was there with friends. I was dancing with Kat, and she looked stunning in the black ensemble she had on. Even Carla slow danced with me, I think she was taking pity on both me and Lyndsay but I think, or at least I would like to think she enjoyed dancing with me.”

“Did you witness anything strange happening that evening?”

“Yeah, Carla being willing to dance with me.”

“But you didn't witness anything strange relating to Rosalind?”

“Lady, I'm an eighteen-year-old guy. I spend most of my media studies class trying to look up the dress of my teacher. I got to dance with one of the girls I consider to be one of the hottest girls in school. Did I notice anything strange relating to a girl who I've barely spoken to? I could barely take my eyes off my friend's chest, and you're expecting me to notice something else happening?”

“Can you advise what happened at the end of the dance?”

“I went to the lake with my friends?”

“Did you witness any psychic or other strange phenomena during the dance?

“What sort of question is that? Okay so my friend Lyndsay and lets maintain a healthy level of scepticism here that near the end of the dance after the prom queen was crowned there was some issues with the electrics and all of the lights exploded somehow.”

“And you believe that was the result of psychic activity?”

“I believe it was the result of the school's circuit breaker being overloaded. Lady, I'm at a public school in a county where there are budget cuts constantly. Unless you're on the football team, or one of the other academic programs, you aren't getting money thrown at you. Do I think it was a result of something weird happening? No, I think it was the school's wiring being poorly maintained, and the dance put a strain on the system, which led to the lights blowing.

“I believe that concludes our interview. Thank you, Michael; this has been very useful.” Agatha replied.

Michael could feel her rolling her eyes at him. He took the microphone off and left the interview room. He passed Kat on his way out, who was the next person to be summoned for an interview. Agatha's assistant pinned the microphone to the T-shirt Kat was wearing.

“Hi Kat, thank you for being available for an interview today.”

“I was happy to take part when you asked. Although I was not entirely sure what this was about.”

“I'll start the interview now. Can you advise of your relationship with Rosalind Thomas?”

“The new girl? She started at our school a few months ago. She was cute, friendly and completely nervous. She had been homeschooled, and I think apart from maybe going to a bible camp once, she had never even spoken to anyone outside of her family. She kept to herself, and I can't really blame her. It must be really overwhelming meeting that many new people at once.”

“Can you advise on Chris Lindeman and Alice Dubrowski's relationship with Rosalind?”

“Shitty? I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I can swear.”

“We can edit that out or censor it in post. Can you clarify that?”

“Every school has the alpha bitch, right? Alice is our school's alpha. She's pretty, popular, and dictates what she thinks that her friends should be wearing based on that season's trends. She's not in my circle of friends, let's say that.”

“And her relationship with Rosalind?”

“There was something in Alice's petty little brain that just made her dislike Rosalind. She like tried turning other girls against her but mostly everyone saw through Alice's petty shit. The only person falling for it was Chris, and that's because Alice was letting him stick it in her. Never underestimate the power pussy has over a teenage boy.”

“What happened during the night of the dance?”

“My would-be prospective boyfriend brought me, and I danced with him and my friends most of the night. He got the DJ to play one of my favourite songs. So I was pretty focused on one of the best nights of my life.”

“Did you notice anything strange happening?

“Michael staring at my tits? You said strange; that's most days, so I suppose the opposite of strange. There was something weird going on with heating towards the end, but it's Northridge; the heating barely works most of the time at our school.”

“What was the issue with the heating?

“I got really cold for some reason, like there was this sudden drop in temperature.”

“Was there any issue with the lighting?”

“Not that I noticed. I think they tried doing something with mood lighting and they didn't set it up properly. But at that point I was too busy staring into the eyes of the guy who requested they play one of my favourite songs.”

“What of the actions of Miss Dubrowski?”

“I only really heard a day or so after the dance. She had this really weird idea to cover Rosalind in the blood of some animal. Except, you know how many animals you would need to kill to get that. She asked at like two butchers' and at best had like a glass full. Her idea was dropping it on Rosalind near the end of the dance when they were announcing things. I think at worst Rosalind's dress got splashed a little and her date got a headache when they dropped it on the two of them.

“Did you witness any psychic phenomena at the dance?”

“What sort of interview is this? Psychic phenomena? A sixth sense that I'd been right about my date? I think you want something juicy, that Greg was going to wear a suit that he had borrowed from his dad and looked terrible.”

“Thank you for making yourself available for today's interview.”

They removed the microphone from Kat, and she left the room. She noticed there was only one person waiting on the chairs outside, some white guy with dreads she did not recognise. Did he even go to our school?

Agatha had them bring in the third interviewee. She had misgivings over this one, as she had not been able to confirm if he had been in attendance of the dance on the night in question. She had her assistant mic him up and would at least go through the motions. As they began recording, she noticed that his pupils were incredibly dilated.

“Can you identify yourself for the record?” Agatha asked.

“Randall Pearce”

“What can you tell us regarding the events at the dance at Northridge High, Randall?”

“Have you seen those colours? If I move my hands around like this, can you see the patterns they make?”

“Mr Pearce, I'm not sure that's relevant to our questions regarding the events at Northridge.”

Agatha drew one hand across her neck to indicate a cutting motion. Agatha's assistant stepped up and helped Randall out of the room.

She heard her assistant offering to get Mr Pearce a glass of water and offered to pay for a taxi to get him home. Agatha checked her call sheet; they had one last interview lined up, but the name appeared to be strange. She indicated for one of her runners to bring in the last person in. The runner took several minutes to track him down, and Agatha was quite surprised when they brought him in.

The previous interview subjects had all been teenagers. The last person, however, was clearly an older man. He was bald, covered in strange tattoos, had mismatched eyes and was wearing a tricorner hat with a badge on it. She indicated for him to have the mic placed on him. Her assistant struggled at first, as he was shirtless, she eventually pinned it to his hat.

“Sir, are you a student at Northridge? Agatha asked him.

He replied in a language that Agatha did not understand. She had a moment of inspiration and opened up a translation application on her phone. She indicated for the man to speak again. The application took a moment, and it eventually detected his language as some old Danish dialect. She hoped this was going to work.

“Can you introduce yourself, sir?”

“I am Thorvenhold, Son of Uthgerdt.” The strange man answered.

“Are you a student at Northridge?” Agatha asked him.

“I am not familiar with such a place. I believe it is a place of learning, yes?”

“Yes, it is a high school.”

Agatha let out an exasperated sigh.

“Can you advise why you agreed to take part in today's interview?”

“I believe my presence here is because the author of this story has not worked out any other conclusion and has decided that going very meta and breaking the fourth wall works instead. He did say to advise that new chapters of Pirate's Gold release on Wednesdays and Saturdays*.”

Agatha really wanted to win the Peabody Award this year and was now wondering if anything was even salvageable.

*They don't but I do try and write a couple of new chapters for that each week.