The Terrible Old Mr. Roogs: A Twisted Christmas Carol, part 1 of 2
by Paul D. Dail
Preface
In college, I had a writing professor who said that all authors are plagiarists to some extent. Not because of any mal-intent but simply because we have been influenced by other writers in the quest to become one ourselves. Maybe he was right. Maybe all the stories have already been told, but maybe it’s our personal spin on those timeless themes that keeps them alive.
And sometimes it’s just plain fun to pay a little homage to the classics by putting them in a modern setting. Such is the case with “The Terrible Old Mr. Roogs: A Twisted Carol,” originally published at www.pauldail.com- A horror writer’s not necessarily horrific blog.
My take on this classic Christmas ghost story comes from my previous life as a high school English teacher. I don’t think I would have ever become as cynical as Mr. Roogs, but perhaps it’s better that I took on a new career when I did.
The Independent was willing to experiment a little here. The first aspect of the experiment is the paper publishing a work of fiction, but perhaps more interesting to me as the author of said work of fiction is the fact that “The Terrible Old Mr. Roogs: A Twisted Carol” will be published here in two parts on two consecutive days. It is my hope that you enjoy the first part of my story enough that you will be waiting for the next installment on Saturday with proverbial bells on.
Jingle bells, that is.
So now without further ado…
The Terrible Old Mr. Roogs: A Twisted Carol
Benjamin Roogs sat at his desk grading final papers, still at school while the gales of wind blew around the first flakes of snow in the darkness outside his window. Given the weather and the fact that it was his last day of work before Christmas break, Mr. Roogs would’ve much rather been sitting in the quiet of his home with a hot cup of cider, spending the evening with the only woman in his life… Emily Dickinson.
All the other teachers had gone home hours ago. They claimed it was the blizzard coming in and told Benjamin that he should leave, too, but he just grumbled at them. Benjamin Roogs wasn’t about to take home these essays, not about to taint his time away from the parasitic teenagers he dealt with on a daily basis, even if it meant staying here until midnight.
“Twenty-five years,” he grumbled as he scribbled blood red ink across the pages of yet another inane student literary analysis, something about Edgar Allan Poe being the 19th Century’s version of the 21st Century Screamo music.
“What the hell is Screamo music, anyway?” he asked aloud to no one. Twenty-five years of teaching, and the students just got weirder every year. He just didn’t get the kids these days.
Deciding there couldn’t be much value in the rest of the essay, Mr. Roogs stopped reading and just started putting red “X’s” across large passages of text, and on the last page, he wrote a giant “F” that took up most of the page, retracing the letter a few times for emphasis. “Maybe you can scream-o about that,” he said and laughed.
He was leafing through the remainder of the essays, looking for another one that he knew would be completely asinine, when he heard something coming from out in the halls. He paused, and cocked an ear toward the door. Some sort of faint electronic chiming. It sounded like…
“A cellular phone,” Mr. Roogs said and grinned. Some kid had left their phone at school. “Aww, that’s too bad.”
Mr. Roogs hated cell phones. He rose from his desk and stepped out into the hall to find the phone. Maybe it belonged to Robby Thatcher, the poor sap.
The sophomore had stopped into Mr. Roogs’s classroom after school to supplicate like so many of the worms.
“Please, Mr. Roogs,” Robby had said, “I can’t get an ‘F’ in your class.”
“It’s too late,” Mr. Roogs said, trying to suppress a grin. It was one of his favorite sayings. “It’s too late.”
“I know I haven’t done everything you wanted us to do this semester,” Robby said. “I have my reasons, but I know you’ll just say they’re excuses. Have you at least read my essay yet? I worked really hard on it. I would hope it might at least get me to a passing grade.”
Now Mr. Roogs did smile. “It would have to be a pretty amazing essay, Mr. Thatcher, and to be honest with you, I just don’t think you’re capable.”
“But my parents said that they would take away Christmas if I failed your class.”
“Take away Christmas?” Mr. Roogs said. “Finally some parents with guts. If you would rather fail my class than put in the work, then they better do it. Probably be for the better, decrease the surplus consumerism. Now, good night, Mr. Thatcher.”
Robby’s shoulder’s dropped. “Well, I had to at least ask,” he said. “Thanks anyway, Mr. Roogs. Merry Christmas.”
Mr. Roogs just grumbled at him.
“Take away Christmas,” he said as he walked down the hallway in search of the phone. Benjamin Roogs highly doubted that. Robby probably just wouldn’t get the newest epod or msrp phone, or whatever the kids called the most recent electronic devices permanently attached to their bodies.
Benjamin walked down the dark hallways, the sounds of the phone echoing along the walls of lockers, but even with the tinny sound and reverberations down the hallways, he picked up the tune. It was a Christmas song. “Carol of the Bells.”
Benjamin followed the sound. Maybe he’d smash the phone when he found it. No one would ever know. But as he walked through the halls, the ringing sound never got any louder, almost as if…
“Is there somebody here?” Mr. Roogs shouted. “You’re going to be in a lot of trouble for being in the school after hours, my young friend.” He picked up his pace, his hard-soled shoes clapping down on the linoleum floor. He rounded two corners, past the science lab, then the library, but still the ringing eluded him.
Finally he came to the top of the long flight of stairs leading down to the gymnasium on the left and one of the exits out of the school on the right. He started slowly down. “Last chance to come out,” he shouted. At the bottom of the stairs, he looked over at the exit. Still chained.
The ringing chimed from behind the doors to the gymnasium, with the echoing magnified in the large open room. But there was something else. The ringing seemed to be getting louder as Benjamin stood just outside the doors, louder than any phone he had heard. He took a step back as the clamoring Christmas carol continued to escalate, and he saw flashing lights from under the door. Flashing red and green lights.
Suddenly Mr. Roogs didn’t like this so much. He patted his pockets, but he had left his keys to the exit on his desk. There was a phone in his room, too. Maybe he should call the police. He turned from the gymnasium, and crept quietly back up the flight of stairs and started back to his room.
As he came around the last corner, he noticed that his classroom was dark, but he couldn’t remember if he had turned off the lights when he left. He approached his classroom door and jumped back with a little yelp when he saw something floating in the air in the middle of his classroom.
At first it was just a darkened silhouette, but when a multitude of little blue and white squares lit up on the floating figure, illuminating the classroom, Mr. Roogs could make out a face.
“Mr. Lamrey?” he asked. But that couldn’t be right. The old principal had died more than ten years ago. Yet now here was, floating above the desks in a tangle of phone cords and cellular phones, his sallow and drawn face bathed in a ghostly pale glow. “Is that you?”
“It is what you will become if you don’t heed my words,” the apparition said. “You have to see. You have to know.”
Benjamin knew he must be dreaming. He had probably fallen asleep grading papers. This was all a dream, induced my end-of-semester stress, so he decided to play along. Besides, he had always liked Carl Lamrey, and even if just a dream, Benjamin was pleased to see him again, even in such awful condition. “What’s happened to you, Mr. Lamrey?” he asked. “You were the best principle ever.”
“I was the worst,” he said.
“What are you talking about? You ruled with an iron fist. Those kids feared you.”
“Compassion should’ve been my strength,” Mr. Lamrey said. “And now this is my penance.” He shook at the web of phones that hung from his shoulders. “This is what you too will become. You have to see. You have to know.”
Mr. Lamrey reached into the folds of cords with one withered hand and pulled out an apple. “Eat,” he said.
“Seriously?” Mr. Roogs asked. “An apple? Isn’t that a little cliché?”
All of the cell phones started flashing and ringing in loud, peeling sounds, and Mr. Lamrey cried out, “Benjamin Roogs!” with a voice so fearful, Mr. Roogs dropped to his knees, clutching his ears.
If this was a dream, Benjamin wanted to wake up. But he was starting to doubt that was the case.
“Okay, okay, I’ll eat it,” he said and the room went silent. He reached up and took the apple. He took a bite. It was mealy and sour, but he swallowed the piece. Just as he was about to take another bite, a black worm wriggled out of a hole in the space he had just bitten. He dropped the apple in disgust.
Mr. Lamrey laughed. “That should do it,” he said.
Mr. Roogs felt himself leaving the ground, floating up next to Mr. Lamrey, and he watched in amazement as the classroom changed…
End of Part 1
Part II: “The Terrible Old Mr. Roogs: A Twisted Carol.”
Paul D. Dail received his BFA in English with a Creative Writing emphasis from the University of Montana, Missoula. In addition to freelance journalism and web content creation, he also enjoys writing creative nonfiction and fiction (with a penchant for the darker side of the page). His collection of flash fiction, Free Five, has spent over a year and a half in the top 50 Kindle Horror Shorts Stories since its publication in 2012. Currently he lives on the outskirts of Kanarraville, surrounded by sagebrush and pinyon junipers with his wife and two children.
