Alex Frost Meets The Killer
By Mortimer Jackson
Copyright 2011
The Morning Dread
www.themorningdread.weebly.com
Dedicated to Alex Frost, who started it all
My mother once told me that it is important never to judge a book by its cover. If you are holding this book in front of you (or reading it online as the case may be), then most likely you have already judged this book by its cover, and if you are now staring down the first page (which would be this, by the way), then you have already deemed it worthy of your attention. And while I am glad that you are reading this book, chances are you have already violated the ever-important rule of never judging a book by its cover. And for that my dear reader, I must say, for shame.
But fret not. For among you there are many who make blind assumptions. Not just of books, but of people too. You probably remember seeing your neighbors for the very first time, and thinking to yourself for no particular reason that they seemed like nice people. And when they decided to tie you up and loot your home, you probably came to realize that this judgment had failed you. Much in the same way as if man comes to your door telling you that he wants to be your friend, but later turns out to be a salesman, or a Russian spy. Or when you see a large grey fin sticking out from the water as you’re swimming on the beach, only to find that much to your disappointment, the fin doesn’t belong to a shark, but a man pulling a prank.
What you are about to read is a story about a very special young girl that everyone thought was just like them, but was in actuality, something else altogether. It is a story of friendship and that never-ending search for one’s own identity; finding out who we are beyond the covers that people judge us by. Hopefully by the end, you will have learned the values of seeing people for who they really are, come to cherish those who admire you in spite of your weaknesses, and tell your friends to buy a copy of this book.
Dear reader, it is with great pleasure that I present to you the tale of Alex Frost.
Chapter 1
And So The Story Begins
In the beginning (of this tale mind you, not the world, or the universe, or any such nebulous cosmic event) there lived a girl named Alexandra Frost, who was every bit as cold as her name would suggest. She was sixteen years old, and she lived in the large, wealthy town of Suburnia. Like all the girls of her neighborhood, she was smart, pretty, and most of all, wealthy. Elsinore Academy was her alma mater, and it was the alma mater of the financial elite. No family that made anything less than a few million dollars a year, or at the very least, no family that couldn’t afford caviar on a daily basis, was ever, ever considered for enrollment.
This being the situation, Alexandra and those that attended Elsinore Academy lived with parents and/or relatives that not only made at least a few handsome million dollars a year, but could also afford three square meals of caviar for an eternity. And as such, Alexandra was spoiled with things she could not possibly have needed or appreciated.
For instance, when she was six, her parents bought her a fountain pen made of gold, thinking that it would inspire her to become a writer. On her ninth birthday, she was given two different kinds of flutes, a saxophone, a tuba, and three varying brands of harmonicas. All from her parents in the hopes that on top of being a writer, she would become a talented musician as well. And when she was fifteen years old, one year before she was legally allowed to drive, her father bought her a brand new Mercedes-Benz because deep down inside, he really wanted it for himself.
This was a situation entirely familiar to all those that grew up in Suburnia. But despite how similar her background was with her fellow peers, or how similarly attractive she was to the other Elsinore girls, or even how uniform she looked in her school uniform, there was something very different about Alexandra Frost. Something that if anyone were to find out, would send chills down to every bone in their body, every vein in their muscle. If only people knew what lied inside the deepest realms of her heart, the shock of it all would most certainly leave them stunned.
But perhaps it was lucky for the boys and girls of Elsinore Academy, and the men and women of Suburnia, that they had no way of looking past her physical form and into her soul, because Alexandra simply hadn’t been born with one.
Growing up as a child, Alexandra Frost was a girl that lacked the ability to feel emotion. She didn’t cry when she fell off of swings, or when she got splinters on her fingers. She registered the pain just enough to know it was there, but not enough to understand the discomfort. She was distant, and held absolutely no interest with the other children her age. She couldn’t relate with people, didn’t understand what the point was of being around people. The other children always acted so strange and irrational, it was always a challenge to comprehend why they did what they did. She couldn’t quite grasp why children cried over toys and other such meaningless objects, or why their parents ever bought them such meaningless things in the first place. To her, nothing meant anything. She would never beg her parents for a Barbie doll, demand them to take her to whatever places she wanted to go, or insist to stay longer at the park when her parents said no. She was as obedient as she was without a soul. And though she thought this cooperation would satisfy both Mr. and Mrs. Frost, the truth turned out to be quite the opposite.
When the parents of Alexandra Frost took her to the zoo one day when she was six, they had worried over the fact that unlike the other girls her age, Alexandra never once flinched when she saw a snake or a dangerous spider. And unlike all Suburnia girls, she never cared one lick about what clothes she wore, and it had never once mattered to her what stuff she had in her own room.
As years went by, Alexandra’s lack of concern for conforming had set both her parents uneasy and on edge. In due time she came to sense the discomfort that hovered over them whenever they shared the same room. The truth was that neither of the Frost parents knew how to be around her. The other parents had children that when asked what they wanted to do, where they wanted to go, what they wanted to be, were all able to come up with interesting answers of their own (though some more creatively far-fetched than others). When the Frost parents asked their daughter what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go, and what she wanted to be, she always ended up telling them that she had no idea.
It was with this that the Frost parents decided to make the drastic decision to seek for their daughter the help of a psychiatrist.
Dr. Richard S. Murlot (known for both his talent with words, and his ability to plagiarize the works of other lesser-known doctors) had heeded the call of the Frost parents, and he more-than-willingly took her in to his prestigious medical facility, wherein patients were given daily servings of Earl Grey to go with their medication. It was there that the inexperienced psychiatrist sought to treat the young Alexandra Frost.
However, one problem that arose over this was the fact that not any amount of stealing of ideas would attain the results necessary to cure Alexandra Frost. This, because not a single psychiatrist in the world had ever seen anything quite like Alexandra Frost. Much like everybody else, Dr. Murlot remained absolutely oblivious to the answer of what exactly was wrong with the girl. But with large sums of money coming in from her parents each week, the not-so-well-intentioned doctor did not cease to find the answer.
Alexandra Frost did not particularly think very highly of being in a psychiatric facility, with Dr. Murlot constantly poking and prodding at her with his endless tests and questions. While she had not the capacity to find it annoying or unnerving, she did see it as an unproductive obstacle to her personal life.
In time it became apparent to Alexandra that what her parents wanted in a daughter wasn’t her, but rat
her a normal, emotional child. Thus began the road to recovery, so to speak. Alexandra learned that to be free of her captivity in Dr. Murlot’s hospital, she would have to be cured of what made her unique, and become just like everybody else. She realized then that she would have to conform to the expectations of being an everyday A+ student, aspiring writer, and musician. Alexandra would have to become a normal, emotional child.
But since she wasn’t one, all she could do was pretend. And so for no other reason than to be back at home, Alexandra wore a mask. A mask in which she was a social, fun-loving girl, ambitious, with no mental disorders, and a knack for being nice.
Not long after her unexpected spurt of humanity, and Mr. and Mrs. Frost, unbeknownst that it was all just a lie, no longer carried the luggage of discomfort that once occupied their minds. They took her back home, and told her repeatedly that they were proud of who she’d become, and hoped she would never change.
It was hard work being the girl that her parents wanted her to be. And at the age of sixteen, the charade would have to go on for many years to come. A second year student at the Elsinore Academy, and our own Alexandra Frost had many more years of expectations to fulfill. But so far she’d been doing far above average, meeting all her parents’ wishes and dreams one day at a time. She knew that as long as she kept up the act, she would survive the demands and wishes of her parents, and more importantly, those of society.
Dear reader, our tale begins in the middle of the fall semester of Elsinore Academy, as Alexandra began her new life as a normal human being, who made friends, enemies, and found herself scolded by the campus staff.
“Tuck in your shirt,” Principal McLeary scolded. “You, stop running in the halls. For the love of God, take off that earring. This is a school, not a nightclub.”
Principal McLeary was the headmaster of Elsinore Academy. A man with a long nose and an undeniably portly figure. If Principal McLeary could have been said to have any lifetime interests, it would have to be solely for doing things in an orderly fashion. His extra extra large pants fit so well around his waist that he needn’t a belt to hold himself together. But he wore one anyway, because it was proper to wear belts when a pant had belt loops, and in secret, he also wanted people to think that his extra extra large pants were somehow loose. Of course, not one person ever conceived of the idea that his pants could be in the slightest bit loose. But out of sheer diplomacy, nobody ever spoke a word of it (at least not to his face).
From the early morning hours of eight to three in the afternoon, everyone in Elsinore Academy (students and teachers alike) scurried on their merry little way around campus, hoping that if they ever ran into Principal McLeary, they were properly dressed so as to avoid any confrontation. For Principal McLeary was a strict man, whose standards for distinguished behavior were so high that the rest of Suburnia had yet to find a single person capable of qualifying all of his expectations.
“Alexandra, take off that bracelet,” he demanded, staring at our pale, slender-skinned girl with long black hair that touched her shoulders.
The girl, in return, ceased to move. She froze like a deer caught in the gazing eyes of a car’s headlights, dumbfounded over why Principal McLeary called her out, and unsure of what bracelet he could possibly have been referring to.
“What bracelet?” she inquired, stuttering as she did.
Principal McLeary’s eyelids came apart in such a drastic motion that crease lines formed around his forehead. His eyes were fixed on her so attentively that if Alexandra believed in such a thing, she would have sworn that the man was on the verge of shooting lasers out of his pupils.
“The one you’re wearing,” he replied, as if explaining to a dumb animal.
Alexandra moved her head and searched both her arms for any sign of a bracelet. Surely enough, there it was, attached to her left wrist. The material was light, and formed from a colorful green and blue embroidery floss, which in the context of her dull white and grey school uniform, appeared brighter than it actually was.
Principal McLeary opened his palm and shoved it right in front of her.
“Hand it over.”
Before she complied, Alexandra took one last look at the elegantly formed knot on her wrist. Amy, her social contact and classmate, had given it to her just three weeks ago. It was called a friendship bracelet. Amy had one of her own on her left wrist exactly like it. She said that it was meant to signify a bond of kinship, or something to that effect. Alexandra never quite understood the sentiment, and even now, as she was about to hand it over, the idea of something so weightless and cheap having emotional value was beyond her ability to comprehend.
“Here you go,” she said indifferently as she held the object by her thumb and index finger and let it fall into Principal McLeary’s palm.
The item disappeared behind his extra extra large pant pocket.
“Now off to class with you. And don’t let me catch you wearing anything but your school uniform. Understand?”
She bowed her head and did as was told. After that, she went into Mrs. Friedman’s English class, a large room that always smelled of dust and chalk whenever anyone came in. This was no doubt due to the door’s location relative to the chalkboard, but more so, it was due to there being a chalkboard in the first place.
Mrs. Friedman was an old woman of old taste. She liked to read and teach old books, and she liked to surround herself with nothing but old things. From her atlas of the world (which, unless they were living in the year 1772, was horribly out of date), to her collection of musty old books in the farthest cupboard in the classroom, to her chalkboard, which the other teachers had long ago replaced with whiteboards. In those rooms, the entryways smelled of ink.
Alexandra took her seat on a desk beside Amy. Class hadn’t yet begun, so the room was filled with boisterous conversations flying in the air. Mrs. Friedman didn’t mind this at all. She was at her desk on the left corner of the room reading another one of her old books. Age had rendered her hard of hearing, and so though the classroom was quite loud with the yells, shrills, and endless chatter of students, Mrs. Friedman heard absolutely nothing of it. Why, a plane could crash right behind her, and she wouldn’t have heard a thing.
The school bell rang alas, and though Mrs. Friedman didn’t hear it, she felt its distinct vibrations on her desk. One could say that though she lost her ability to hear, she had a heightened sense of feel.
“Okay children, quiet down,” though since she couldn’t quite hear the students anyway, she silently told herself that she should have said pay attention instead.
The air felt silent. This Mrs. Friedman knew, in part because she could sense it, and in part because every discernible lip before her had been squeezed shut.
“Now, who would like to remind the class what we were talking about yesterday?”
A boy raised his hand. “We were talking about Romeo and Juliet, and how love can become a force that throws people from their world, and ultimately, themselves.”
“No no no,” Mrs. Friedman shook her head disapprovingly. “We weren’t talking about that. For any of you that have been paying attention in class, we were talking about Romeo and Juliet, and how love can become a force that throws people from their world, and ultimately, themselves.”
“I said that.”
“You most certainly did not. Now pay attention. You’ll be tested on this next week.”
From the far end of the room, Alexandra felt a nudge on her elbow.
“Alex,” Amy whispered right beside her. “Where’s your bracelet?”
Though Alexandra’s legal name was indeed Alexandra Frost, her friends and classmates called her Alex, not only because it was shorter and thus easier to say, but it was also much more modern and in keeping with the times. And so because her friends call her Alex, I too, will from now on refer to Alexandra Frost simply as Alex, or Alex Frost, to avoid confusion.
Alex Frost leaned over to Amy and
told her, “Principal McLeary took it.”
“Oh,” Amy threw her head back. “I hope it didn’t get you into trouble.”
“It didn’t.”
“I’ll get you a new one. That is, if you still want one.”
Alex raised her eyes.
“Of course I want one,” lied the girl without a soul.
For those of us who have ever had friends, we know that with each friendship comes a unique set of expectations. I once made friends with a group of young, bald-headed individuals who enjoyed dressing up like ghosts every Sunday, and expressing their love for the color white. Since my favorite color was not indeed white, but yellow, it was fair to say that I failed to meet their expectations, and thus our friendship ended.
In a public gathering as large as a school, one can easily find a slew of different friendships available. Each one of these unions carries with them uniquely different agendas and social expectations. Some expected a shared love of music, of art, or films. Some a love for cuisine, clothing, or an adoration of Monty Python.
What Alex found appealing in her newfound connection with Amy Lawson, was that unlike the others, Amy had expected nothing more from her friendship with Alex than simple kindness. A standard she could live up to without breaking a sweat.
“Did you guys finish the math homework?”
This came from one prickly-haired boy who sat in front of Amy’s desk, leering at the two as though he had something important to say.
“Why am I asking? Of course you did. Can I get your answers at lunch?”
“No,” said Alex.
“Leave us alone Ben,” said Amy as Ben rebounded to her general direction.
Ben Lindsey was a sixteen year old boy with the height of a twelve year old, and an even younger sense of maturity.
“Please,” he cupped his hands together. “I’ll be your bestest friend ever.”
“We’re your only friends,” Amy said.
“Which makes me a valuable friend to have.”
“Actually you’re kind of annoying,” Alex said.
“Why do we still talk to him?” wondered Amy out loud.
“I don’t know. Pity, I suppose?”
“Pity for us.”
The girls sniggered.
“Very funny. So are you going to show me your answers after lunch?”
“Sure,” Alex agreed.
“Thanks.”
“Mr. Lindsey,” Mrs. Friedman cut from her lecture. “What topic could possibly be so important that it warrants the interruption of my class?”
“Ah, nothing ma’am,” Ben replied.
“Mr. Lindsay, I assure you that I am not your mom. And just for that, I will see you in detention.”
Ben relented, turned to Alex and gave off a sarcastic “Great.”