SENECA MOUNTAIN
Chapter One
The students chattered excitedly as they sat down to lunch in the cafeteria. The staff had carefully set up each of the self-service bars, where each boy and girl was required to prepare their own salad, wrap, stir-fry, or whatever else was available that they chose to eat.
Eight hundred and fifty-six students aged twelve to eighteen lived at Seneca Mountain Academy, near the border of Virginia and West Virginia. The school, whose curriculum emphasized classical education, had produced over the years some of the best-prepared college entrants the country had to offer. Many of them came from privileged backgrounds, but the schoolâs substantial endowment allowed for many grants and scholarships, which ensured a smattering of both racial and social diversity in the student body.
The scholarship students were an interesting lotâsome had particular academic gifts, others were standouts on the schoolâs athletic teams, and a few were promising musicians and artists. These students, most of whom had parents who could not otherwise afford a private school (let alone a boarding school), tended to gravitate towards each other based upon common backgrounds and interests.
Of course, there were a handful of kids at Seneca for whom the boarding school served as a sort of âlast resortâ. Exhausted parents for whom money was no object frequently viewed the remote Appalachian campus as a perfect setting for their unruly teenagerâs reform. Most of these kids were lucky not to be in jail. Fortunately, Seneca didnât have many of them.
One student sat by himself at a round table near the middle of the room. He ate his fettucine in silence, while classmates passed on either side, carrying on conversations about the geometry quiz they had just failed, Saturdayâs soccer game, and which boys liked which girls. On some of these topics, the young man had opinions. On others, he couldnât care less. But no one asked for his thoughts either way.
No one knew anything about him, apart from the fact that he had come from somewhere in North Carolina (though he had a surprising disinterest in basketball). He didnât fit in with the rich kids or the legacies. At best, he was an average student. He had no extraordinary abilities which marked him as a prodigy in arts or sports. In short, none of his peers was entirely sure how the hell he came to be there.
The freshman would have avoided notice entirely, had two of his straggling freshman classmates not had trouble finding places to sit. They chose seats at his table, and tried to strike up a conversation.
âHey, Owings,â said a redheaded boy with blue eyes. âYou ready to start vivisection today? I heard Mr. Simmons finally got the fluffies in.â
The other new arrival, a boy with dark brown hair and glasses, pumped his fists. âThank God. Iâve been waiting for this for weeks.â
News that the Biology teacherâs first shipment of lab fluffies had come in dead on arrival was cause for disappointment. Mere decades ago, students had learned about real, functioning organ systems by dissecting dead frogs. Fortunately for the amphibians, society deemed killing an animal just to poke at its liver and lungs to be inhumane. Fortunately for students, fluffy ponies emerged as a cheap, acceptable substitute.
The young man stopped twirling his pasta for a moment and stared off into the distance. The other boys waited for him to respond, but he apparently didnât share their enthusiasm. When he failed to answer, they looked at each other, shrugged, and started in on their own meals.
The redhead broke the silence moments later. âTell you what, OwingsâŚIâll trade this douche of a lab partner for your lab partner, and weâll call it even.â
âCome on, Josh. Maddie Cohen isnât that pretty.â
âMaybe not. But you canât deny,â redheaded Josh said, making squeezing gestures with both hands, âbiggest rack in our year. No question.â
sigh âOk, yeah. Iâd trade me, too.â Both boys laughed, while the third boy quietly finished his fettucine before dumping his tray and leaving the cafeteria.
If you had told Brandon Simmons when he graduated high school that he would still be in the classroom over a decade later, heâd probably have laughed you out of the room. Or punched you in the face.
Yet here he was, albeit on the other side of the lectern, waiting patiently as his Freshman Biology students filed in, taking their seats around the long lab tables. He knew that most of them were looking forward to todayâs exercise, though not as much as he himself was.
He glanced briefly at the open door to the lab storage room, from which he could hear a muffled cacophony of whining and sobbing, and then turned back to his class to start the lesson.
âOkay, everybody quiet down. Now, as you all know, weâre getting a late start on the vivisection project, so I want to push through it in two days instead of the normal five.â He sympathized with the groans of the class, but continued, âyeah, I know youâve all been looking forward to this, but I believe youâll be able to collect all the data you need in the next two periods. Mr. Craig, would you please give me a hand with the trays?â
DeShawn Craig, a lanky young man from East Tennessee, stood up from his seat. From day one, Mr. Simmons knew the boy had been brought in to play basketball. But to his surprise, he turned out to be a good student and a capable leader, standing head and shoulders above his classmates in more than one respect.
âMr. Craig and I will be carrying a tray past each of your tables. You and your partner must choose one fluffy pony which, together, you will examine. Just pick oneâit doesnât matter which one.â
As the teacher and his student assistant walked among the class, the former surveyed the looks on everyoneâs faces. Every year, he tried to gauge who would be the first to break. Vivisection, even when performed on shitrats, was not for the faint of heart. He saw two blonde girls on the other side of the room, cooing over a piss-yellow unicorn foalâhe could definitely picture them starting to cry as the colt screamed at the sight of its âtummeh skettiesâ. or sometimes, one of the boysâespecially the over eager ones like Josh Crowder and Ben Hessâwould retch into a trash can. Hell, he had overcompensated at that age, too. But when he saw the look on David Owingsâ face when Maddie Cohen pulled the brown pegasus out of DeShawnâs tray, he knew heâd found the one.
His wasnât quite an expression of horror or revulsion, and Brandon didnât think the boy looked nauseous. Usually, that feeling waited until at least the first incision had been made. No, this was something different. Heâd have to keep an eye on the kid.
âHewwo, nice mistahs!â
âNice wady be nyu mummah fo babbeh?â
âHuu huuâŚnu wan be on cowd fwoow!â
âNyu daddeh gif babbeh upsies?â
The joyful, high-pitched squeaking was more than he could bear. âEverybody got a fluffy? Good. Then letâs get started. The first thing each of you needs to do is to gently express your foal over the sink.â
Each long lab table was equipped with three large sinks. Students all over the room picked up their foals (with their gloves on, of course) and held them over the sink nearest them. Two sounds followed shortly thereafter: a long, loud [i]pblrrrrrrrrrrt[/i], and then the wails and sobs of every fluffy in the room. The latter was music to Brandonâs ears.
âHuuuuuâŚmummah gif tuu hawd huggies!â
âWai daddeh huwt babbeh? Am gud babbeh!â
âHuuhuuuuâŚnu gif huwtie-huggies, daddeh!â
gyack blaargh
âBabbeh sowwy fo bad poopies, mummah! Gif huggies?â
âMr. Craig, I think you pushed up more than you pushed downâŚtry again. Excellent job, Miss Cohenâpay attention, classâŚyou know youâve done it perfectly when the foal thinks that the expulsion of feces is its fault.â
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Hewsee haf wowsest huwties! Nu wan bad huggies! SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
Goddammit, Hess. Mr. Simmons looked over and saw the bespectacled freshman holding a brown earthie foal over his sink. The boy had squeezed the colt so hard it had shat out its intestines. Blood, shit, and piss streamed down its exposed colon, dripping into the basin.
âHess! The operative word was gently! And did you all really give your specimen a name? Did you even read the manual beforehand?â
The boys looked at each other sheepishly before apologizing profusely to their annoyed instructor. Simmons just shook his head.
âUgh, whatever. JustâŚchuck that thing in the trash before it gets everywhere, and then pick a replacement foal out of the tray on my desk. And thatâs a five point deduction for your inability to follow clear instructions.â
Hess dropped the injured pony into the nearest trash can, giving it âdawkiesâ and ânee upsiesâ to cry about, in addition to the plight it already suffered. His redheaded partner shuffled quickly to the teacherâs desk and grabbed a puke-green unicorn filly. He took the liberty of shitting the second foal over the sink.
âOk, next thing we need to do is examine the exterior of the fluffies. Youâve got a list of questions on page three of your manual that you need to answer before moving on to the internal portion of the exam.â
As the freshmen poked, prodded, and talked to their fluffy ponies, and jotted down notes in their workbooks, Brandonâs memory took him back to a London pub near the university campus where he spent his summer abroad. He remembered the empty feeling he had as BBC news coverage talked about an entire city in the Midwestern United States that had exploded and then been claimed by the Great Lakes. He remembered telling his roommate, Harry, who was sitting next to him at the time, that he had grown up in that city. And that all his friend could do was pat him on the back and say, âIâm sorry, mate.â
He was shaken back to reality when one of the foals screamedâapparently, one of the groups in the front had finished with the external exam and had rolled their pegasus foal over on its back to start the first incision. Itâs wing bent out at an awkward angle.
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEE!â
âDonât worry about that, Miller. The wings arenât really an important part of the study, anyway. Ok, is everybody ready to get down to the sticky part?â The class nodded. Brandon could still hear the foal with the prolapsed colon âhuu huuingâ in the trash can.
âOk, then. Everyone retrieve your scissors and scalpels from your kits, and be sure to follow the instructions on page four. The diagram is accurate. Cut too far down, and you could damage the genitals. Cut too far up, and you could damage the throat before you can thoroughly examine the digestive and respiratory systems.â
Aaaaaand three, two, oneâŚ
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
Mr. Simmons couldnât help but crack a smile. Ah, yes. Sweet music.
âM-munstah! Munstah!â
âNuuuuuu! Babbeh nu am nummies!â
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!â
âNuuuuuu, tummeh sketties! Gu back in babbeh! Nu spose be owt hewe!â
The teacher walked around the room, inspecting foals and students alike. None of his students had cracked yet, though the blonde girlsâ red faces proved they were on the verge of tears.
One student wore an expression that confused him: Owings seemed unmoved by his foalâs pleas and by its cut-open belly. He maintained the same resigned expression he had before.
âNow remember, donât cut anything out. Not yet. The point of vivisection is so you can see how the body systems function while they still work. Beats the heck out of the dead frogs we used when I was in school.â
He directed each group to pin back the folds of the skin, and watched with a sense of schadenfreude as the foalsâ legs wiggled hopelessly in the air, unable to bring their owners rightside-up. Then, he observed as the students identified the fat layers, livers, still-beating hearts, struggling lungs, and other organs, all the while the ponies begged and cried to be let go.
Sorry, shitrats. No dice. âOk, next thing youâll want to do is to carefully separate the digestive system from the rest of the organs, and tape both the stomach and about halfway down the intestines to your tray. By the way, Iâm impressed youâve all managed to keep your fluffies alive for this long. Usually, somebody has cut open a lung or pulled off the heart by now.â
The girls next to the window maintained their composure, even as their filly begged its intestines to fly back to it. Crowder and Hess giggled like preschoolers as their filly screamed. Even Owings seemed to calm down under Cohenâs direction.
âThree more steps to go, and weâll be observing the foals for the rest of the day. First, go ahead and remove the nutrient cube from your kits and feed it to the foal. Second, put five milliliters of water into your droppers, and give your foal a drink. Donât worry if you accidentally drown your foalâitâs bound to happen to someoneâtomorrowâs activities can all be performed with a dead fluffy. And if the fluffy refuses to eat or drink, then force it to do so. Like I said, no points off from here on if it dies.â
Each of the students followed the directions perfectly. Both Hess and Craig drowned their foals, which didnât bother Mr. Simmons in the least. He told them they were lucky that the creatures didnât drown at the sight of the dropper.
âOk, one more thing before we wrap up for the day: you examined your fluffyâs reproductive organs on the outside. Now, take a look at how they connect on the inside, and answer all the questions on page eight.â
âFun story, by the wayâŚwhen I was in college, I had a grad student friend in the Biology department who vivisected fluffy ponies almost daily. Now, you remember how we talked about the expansion capacity of a fluffy pony uterusâa fully grown mareâs uterus can expand to the size of a basketball. Well, on our department headâs birthday, my friend blew up fourteen fluffy mare uteri and painted the letters âHAPPY BIRTHDAY!â on them. Not kidding.â
After a collective âewwwwâ from the class, Mr. Simmons grinned. He chuckled at the thought of Denny Georgeâthe last heâd heard, the guy was making big bucks as a bioengineer for the company that reverse engineered fluffies and created sea-fluffies.
âDonât worry, he didnât blow them up with his mouth. At least, I donâtââ
âSCREEEEEEEE! Nu, daddeh! Nu touch speshuw pwace!â
Brandon whipped his head around, where he saw David Owings drop his tweezers with a clatter. The boyâs face blanched, and his eyes widened.
His lab partner, Maddie Cohen, stared. âI donât get it. David, whatâs wrong?â
The teenager looked down at his hands, and then lifted his head to meet his teacherâs confused gaze. Then, the boy bolted out of the room and down the hallway.
Every student in the class mumbled to each other, wondering what had happened. Mr. Simmons, not understanding more than his students did, followed Owings out the door.
âClass, use your last ten minutes to observe your fluffyâs digestion process. If your foal is dead, work ahead and begin with stomach dissection. When youâre done, store your foals on the rack, follow the cleaning protocols, and then youâre dismissed.â
David sat in the school office with his head in his hands, trying to focus on the sound of the blood pumping to his brainâthe only alternative was to let his memories flood back.
He had tried his best to avoid fluffy ponies for the past few monthsâeven managing to not eat any of the fluffy-based offerings in the school cafeteria. And though other students had reported seeing the biotoys roaming around the school grounds (where they were quickly dispatched by Mr. McClain, Senecaâs maintenance man, David hadnât seen any of them around. Of course, he tended to hide away in his dorm when he wasnât in class.
Oh, godâŚwhy did it have to be a pegasus? And why did it have to be a girl fluffy? He rubbed his eyes and convinced himself he would have been fine had it been an earthie colt, like what Josh Crowder and Ben Hess had gotten. After all, his world had crumbled because of a pink pegasus mare.
âPwease, daddeh Dafitânu touch speshuw pwaceâŚâ
The boy shuddered at the thought. In his mind, he was back in the trailer, in a room decorated with fake wood paneling, doing what any boy his age would do with no-strings-attached access to a laptop computer. He even still remembered the caption at the top of the video:
Wife with huge tits takes neighborâs monster cock
When the familyâs fluffy pony walked through the door and screamed, he had nearly fallen out of his chair. And he couldnât have a talking pet proclaiming to the world that he had been watching porn. His first thought was to break the fluffyâs neck, throw her out in the woods, and tell his sister and parents that she had run away. But curiosity got the best of him, one thing led to another, and thenââ
CREEEAK
âMan, I need to take some WD-40 to that door. Oh, hi David! I hope I havenât kept you waiting long.â
âNo, Dr. Latimer.â
âOk, come on in. You lookâŚconcerned. Whatâs the problem?â
Dr. William Latimer was the headmaster of Seneca Mountain Academy. He was also Davidâs uncle, and the reason such an average student with no discernable talents and non-wealthy parents could attend such a prestigious school.
âWe started vivisecting fluffies today.â
The middle aged administrator furrowed his brow. âI see. Tell me how it went.â
David told his uncle all about the vivisection process, and how his lab partner had chosen a pegasus, of all things. To make matters worse, she had chosen a filly.
âMmmhmmmâŚI assume that you and I are still the only ones who know about the incident with Valentine?â
âUhhhhhâŚyeah! Come on, Uncle Willâdo you think I came here just to be known as David the Fluffyraper again?!?â
The familyâs pink pegasus fluffy had run screaming into the piney woods after the incident, never to be seen again. Davidâs mother and sister had witnessed the end of the affair, and his father had found out a few hours later when he got home from work. Apart from taking (and thoroughly destroying) his laptop, his parents were too ashamed to speak of what had happened. And he sure as hell wouldnât have told anyone. Which meant that only his little shit of a sister could be responsible for the scandal becoming public.
Willa had been in her last semester of elementary school, and was a pretty good trumpet player. She was a shoo-in for the middle school marching band, but she knew that âband geekâ and âpopularâ didnât exactly go together. So she pulled out all the stops to make herself the most popular girl in the sixth grade from day one. Part of that was being interesting at all of her sleepovers, which meant having the juiciest gossip. And no one in her class could top having a brother who had done the nasty with a childrenâs toy.
David didnât know exactly when Willa had leaked the family secretânone of the kids in his eighth grade class had younger siblings in Willaâs class. But the word-of-mouth grapevine is a funny thing. By the end of March, he started to hear rumors at his school about hisâŚdallianceâŚwith a fluffy pony.
Soon, his friends started making plans without him, and werenât sitting with him at lunch anymore. The final insultâthe moment he realized that he was a full-blown pariahâwas when he tried to text his best friend, Danny Osborne, in the cafeteria. His now-former friend had changed Davidâs text alert to a fluffy pony stallion exclaiming, âGUUUUUD FEEEEEEEEEWS!â
His downward spiral continued through the spring. There were a couple times he contemplated suicide, even opening up a bottle of aspirin and preparing to swallow the lot. Fortunately, just as when the trouble started, his mom walked in. Instead of swallowing over a hundred of the pills, he took two and a drink of water to get his head to stop throbbing. That was when he poured out his feelings, and Pam Owings called her brother that night about sending her son to Seneca.
âNo, I canât imagine what that was like for you. Still, you canât change what happened, and you canât live your life consumed with guilt and shame for what you did. Donât you think running out on your class might make them a little suspicious?â
âYeah, maybe.â
âDavidâŚyou told me yourself it was a one-time thing, right? Your curiosity just got the best of you?â
The teenager nodded. âYeah. I couldnât do that again. Ever.â
Dr. Latimer looked at his nephew, who stared directly at the floor. He pondered what he could do to help the boy, but his mind kept drawing blanks. âDavid, look at me.â
David looked into his uncleâs kind green eyes. The older man smiled at him. He couldnât bring himself to smile back, but something told him that everything was going to be ok.
âLook, kid. My sister suggested I bring you up here to give you a fresh start, and thatâs how you need to look at it. From what Iâve observed, you sit by yourself in the cafeteria seven days a week. You attend chapel services every Sunday, but make a point to sit near the exit, apart from the other students. I donât know that Iâve ever seen you outside these walls apart from when youâre in PE class.â
His uncle wasnât wrong. He had left Charlotte, but everything he did was the same as he had done in his last few months at home.
âSo go. Get outside and get some fresh air, before we have ten feet of snow on the ground, and we all freeze our butts off. Go, put yourself out there and make some friends. Youâre a good kid, and people seem to like you, whether you notice it or not. As for chapelâŚwellâŚcan you sing?â
âUhhhhâŚno, not really.â
Dr. Latimer chuckled. âEh, well, go and âmake a joyful noiseâ anyway. Itâll at least make Reverend Mundy feel better about himself. What do you say, kid?â
David smiled, possibly for the first time in days. âOk. I think I can give it a try. No promises on the singing bit, though.â
Of course, friend-making opportunities that afternoon were few and far between. Dr. Latimer had given him a pass for World History (since he had spent half of the period in the school office), but then he had Latin and his art elective before classes were finished. He used the remainder of his World History class to go apologize to Mr. Simmons for the way he had made his escape.
âDonât worry about it, Mr. Owings. Just be thankful youâve got a solid lab partner who was able to cover for you at the end of class. Sheâs the one who deserves your apology.â
âIâll do that. Is there anything I need to do to catch up on the lab assignment?â
Mr. Simmons, who was checking over the splayed out foals from the previous period shook his head. âNo, you only missed the last ten minutes. But like I said, Miss Cohen handled everything that needed done to finish todayâs work. But seriously,â he said, pointing to the freshman, âapologize to her. Even if she tells you it was nothing, thatâll mean something.â
As David walked out of the Biology lab to go to his Latin class, he could have sworn he heard the young teacher singing something about âlivinâ in sin with a safety pin.â
Halfway through Latin class, the storm clouds that had gathered outside finally broke. So much for getting fresh air, David thought. And then, Mr. Pollackâwho was displeased with his studentsâ inability to progress beyond basic irregular verbsâannounced an impromptu test for the next day. As Latin was Owingsâ weakest subject, he knew heâd have to spend several hours studying in his room.
The cafeteria line was only open until 7:30âa fact that became all the more pertinent when the young man woke up, lifted his head from his Latin dictionary, and saw 7:04 on his digital clock. He rushed down the hall, across the quad, and into the dining hall with just enough time to make a humble salad.
Dinnertime was usually the easiest time to seek solitude in a crowd, as students made their way in and out at different times to study, play sports, and socialize. But when David saw a head with familiar red hair facing a boy with black hair and thick glasses, he walked straight to that table.
âHey, guys. Mind if I sit with you?â
Josh Crowder pushed a chair out with his foot. âHeeeeey, Owings! Go for it. By the wayâŚyou ok from earlier?â
âYeah, I think so. I may be put off of pasta for a while though.â
The two boys sitting at the table laughed. As David sat down, he was surprised to find that he was laughing, too.
ââŚferebarâŚferebarisâŚferebaturâŚfereâdammit!â
David struggled through his irregular verb set, but he couldnât afford to bomb the next dayâs test. He had studied for hours after he finished dinner, and the combination of long study, early sunset (it was now mid-October), and the weather outside made him drowsy.
Eventually, sleep won out, and the young man dreamed of being at home. All the trees around were Southern Pines, so the woods were still green, even as the grass on the ground turned brown and died. He could see his grandpaâs Old Holland tractor over in the shed, where it hadnât been used in fifteen years. The metal screen door scraped open, and David turned, expecting his mom to call him in for supper, or for Willa to come out with her trumpet and start playing the 1812 Overture.
But what he saw in the doorway instead was the pink rear end of a fluffy pony. Its wings spread out wide and the face of Valentine turned towards him with an unnaturally wide grin on her face.
âDaddeh DafitâŚwan gif speshuw-huggies? Vawentine gif âoo aww da speshuw-huggies âoo wan!â
The boy tried to scream, but instead woke up at his desk with a snort. His face was sore from being pressed against his notebook, and he could feel the impression the wire rings had left on his cheek. The clock said 11:43, though he was sure he had been asleep for longer.
He shrugged, adjusted his desk lamp, and got back to studying. âedebamâŚedebasâŚedebatâŚâ
crinkle**crinkle
David nearly jumped out of his skin. He knew that whatever had made the noise, it wasnât him.
crinkle**crinkle
Shit, Iâve got mice. Of course, it could have been a rat. He really hoped not, though. He had heard stories about the Norway rats that came up out of Charlotteâs sewers in construction zonesâthose things were supposed to be huge. And mean, too.
Quietly, David pulled the flashlight out of his desk. Even if it was a rat, he needed to know what to tell Mr. McClain.
He heard the crinkling sound again, and realized it came from behind his roommateâs desk. Eli was a junior, and the starting keeper on the school soccer team. He was with the team at a tournament this week, much to Davidâs relief. Something about the older boy frightened him.
He crept over to the other side of the room, determined to find the source of the noise. It continued to make the crinkling sound, leading the teenager to believe it couldnât be a mouse. Surely, a mouse would have heard him coming and scurried for cover by now.
The light from the flashlight illuminated the space between Eliâs desk and the wall, and the crinkling stopped. Back in the corner, David saw a discarded bag of Mister Bee Potato Chips, and a pair of eyes reflecting light back at him. He dimmed the light with a piece of paper, and saw that the eyes were dark green. The boy stared at them, and the two beady, green eyes stared right back. Then, he took a step forwardâŚ
âŚand the creature ran.
âSCREEEEEEEEEEEE! Wun, weggies! Wuuuuuun!â
âThe fuck?â David was perplexed. How the hell did a fluffy get in here?
Had he not been so confused and tired, he probably could have caught the beastieâlike most fluffies, it wasnât very fast. He was at least able to watch the creature escape the room, exiting through a tiny hole under his own desk. Since he now knew where it had come in, he could call Mr. McClain in the morning to have him check for an infestation, and to patch up the hole.
But now, it was time to sleep. Both Latin verbs and GMO pests are best managed with a good nightâs rest.