The Yellow Peril

Sean McNeer was a decent rat; he managed to shine his shoes good enough for his hatchet-faced corporal to see his reflection in them, and he had yet to be sent up to Old Barracks fifth stoop to talk to the angry fellas with scraper shoes. He thought this whole rat line business was pretty easy, but he absolutely hated guard duty, and to his disappointment, he was to be put on night sentinel duty the night a major blizzard was coming in. The already heavy snow during guard mount foretold nastier weather to come. McNeer was not pumped to fight Mother Nature for the right to live while on his guard shift. Like many other cadets, he thought the whole guard thing was stupid, but McNeer still showed up on time to his arch guard shift. After doing the 7:30 to 9:30 pm shift in Marshall Arch, walking the rectangle, the guard's corporal collected him and returned to his room. His roaming sentinel shift was not until 1:30 am, so he had some time to sleep. McNeer woke up at 1:20 am to his alarm going off but then noticed that there was no light coming from the fourth stoop. He thought, a drum out, but the timing did not make sense. Getting his uniform and extra warming layers on, he shuffled down to the guard room through a darkened barracks. Getting to the guard room, he is told by the corporal that all the barracks lost power and that he must remain vigilant for cadets in need. McNeer was handed a Maglite and told to carry out his duties. Silently cursing the corporal, the Institute, and himself for signing the matriculation book, McNeer began his patrol. Only a couple minutes passed before he decided he needed more layers to insulate him from the cold, so the rat went back to his room, 404 Old Barracks, to grab another sweat dyke. When he got into his room, he was half tempted to jump back into his rack and try to wake up in time for the shift change, but the punishment if he got caught convinced him otherwise. As he leaves his room, McNeer, on a whim, decides to shine his light around the barracks, not really sure what he is looking for. Just as he is about to turn it off, McNeer catches a shape sprawled down in the courtyard. Aiming his light directly at it, he sees a cadet face down in the show, red seeping into the snow all around them. In a panic, McNeer basically falls down the three flights of stairs to get down to the courtyard, but when he arrives, there is no body to be seen. Confused, he gazes upon the ruby-colored snow and notices footprints leading off towards Daniel's Arch. Hoping to find it just to be a first-class prank, he walks towards the arch, but instead of going to a room, the tracks lead down to Bear's Den. Not sure what that meant, he almost turned around, but before he could, he heard a moan of pain come from down there. Against his better judgment, he set down the stairs to Bear's' Den to look for an injured cadet. Having to take his time on the iced-over steps, he finally made it down to the den. There were no tracks for him to follow, so he started to shine the light up and down the hallway. Seeing no one at the Bear's Den entrance, he aimed the light down towards the entrance to the concourse. The light illuminated a cadet in parade dyke at the far end, just standing still. Once again confused, he began approaching the figure, calling out if they needed help, but he got no reply. Nearing the cadet, he started to notice something: the figure was not casting a shadow against the wall. As soon as he realized this, the thing turned around, and McNeer could make no sense of what he saw. The figure had opaque skin, hollow eye sockets, scars across its face, and a gaping maw that tried forming words through a broken jaw. McNeer's feet were backpedaling before he even realized it, and when he did, he turned and started running back toward the Bear's Den. Getting to the staircase, he attempted to climb it, but as he made his way up, he slips back down to the bottom. With his heart pounding and hair standing on end, he started up the staircase again, but again, he slipped back down. Crying out in fear and frustration, he tried again, this time with a feeling that something was right behind him. McNeer finally made it up the stairs and sprinted towards the guard room. For as much as he hated his corporal, he was the only other guy he knew who was still awake. But as he got to the guard room, he found it empty. There was no sign of anyone ever having been in the room. So he ran for the nearest first stoop room and found that empty. He ran for the next, only to find that empty, too. He checked every first stoop room around the Gold Coast staircase and found them all empty. He runs for Washington Arch and finds it locked, then sprints for Jackson Arch and finds that locked, too, which is not normal at all. McNeer then decides to go room to room, looking for anybody to help him figure out what the hell is happening. After going room to room and finding nobody, he goes back to his room as a last-ditch effort, but as he expected, he does not see his roommates. Dejected, he leaves 404 once more, confused and scared, without any idea of what is happening. Alone in the dark, he walks towards the front side of barracks, passing room 402. Thinking he saw some movement out of the corner of his eye, he stops and walks back to the door of 402. Looking inside, he sees what he thinks is a head move down behind a desk. On edge from what happened in Bear's den, his hand hesitated on the door handle, and he weighed his options. Either he finds another cadet in the room, or he sees no one in the room like he did for all the other rooms. Figuring that trying to find someone was worth the disappointment, he opens the door and walks inside to where he thought he saw the head. As he takes in his surroundings, he is hit with the overwhelming smell of must, blood, and human waste. This bombardment of his senses stuns him, as he begins to sort out the smells, he hears a creak from above. Looking up at the noise, a mass drops before him, knocking him back against a desk. It was a cadet hanging from a noose, jerking around in a perverted dance, with blood and waste dripping from their shoes. Building his confidence to look at the cadet's face, he notices that the uniform of the cadet is old, a uniform of a Corps from long ago. When he finally got to the face, McNeer made eye contact with the cadet. The eyes of the dead man pierced into the rat's soul and filled him with terror previously unknown. As McNeer's eyes go wide in fear, the hanging cadet screams, "DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR." The rat bolts out of the room, slips on the ice, and runs into the railing, nearly going over. Finally getting traction, he runs for the Gold Coast staircase. He falls to third stoop, but as soon as he makes it to the stoop, he sees the figure in parade dyke once more. Without his flashlight pointing directly at it, McNeer sees a yellow hue about the thing. Scrambling to his feet, he breaks for the stairs down to second stoop but trips in haste and slides down the stairs. He rolls a couple of feet onto the stoop before he can get to his feet again. The yellow figure sinks through third stoop and comes down to second right next to the staircase. Being so near the thing, McNeer's eyes roll in terror, and his only thought is to get away as quickly as possible. Logic goes out the window, and he jumps over the railing, praying the snow is thick enough to break his fall. There was plenty of snow, but not enough to cushion his poorly executed fall. When he made contact with the ground feet first, he felt his ankles roll and snap, and he fell onto his back. Screaming in pain, he rolls over to his stomach. He had only one thought: "Make it to the sentinel box." He starts crawling hand over hand towards the box. Turning his head to look back as he crawled, McNeer saw the yellow apparition start to move down the last set of stairs while looking at him with its empty eye sockets. McNeer scrambled as fast as he could across the courtyard, but the snow, which was not deep enough to cushion his landing, was deep enough to impede his movement. Panicking at the slowness of his progress, he flails his body around, just trying to make headway towards the box. His lungs are screaming from the exertion, and his extremities are growing numb from the snow, but he needs to push on more. Tears of fear roll off his face, freezing in the snow. He needs to make it. Refusing to look behind himself again, he tried to think only of getting to the box, but he could feel the presence of that thing through the numbing of the cold. McNeer could feel it coming closer; he needed to make it to the box. After what felt like lifetimes of living in hell, he was finally drawing near the box. He was so close to salvation. He only needed to make it a few yards before he was safe. McNeer could still feel the empty eyes gazing upon him. The constant dread threatened to overpower his will and convince him to give up and stop, but he could not give in. He refused to give out and possibly let himself be killed at VMI. McNeer made it inside, gasping from the pain and effort. He propped himself up against the side facing Jackson Arch and passed out from mental and physical exhaustion. There was no dreaming for him. His body completely shut down, and he just sat there. Until he was kicked awake by his very angry corporal, who started to yell at him for sleeping while on roaming sentinel duty but soon stopped when he noticed the gaunt look in McNeer's eyes and the funny angles his ankles were making. The corporal called for the other sentinel to come help carry McNeer to the guard room, where he soon tried but failed to recount his tale to the others in the room and, with what little he could translate into coherent words, was met with disbelief and accusations of making it up.