Student Body (Nightmare Hall) (11 page)

We
did
have another problem. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to go over there. To the park. I have to look for that key chain. I think if it had been found and turned in already, the police would have been knocking on my door by now. There’s still a chance that I can find it. And I don’t want any of the others to know. They’ll panic if they know I left a calling card back there.”

He trusted only me? Any other time, I would have been pleased. Now, it just seemed like one more ten-ton boulder on the back of my neck. “Eli, that whole area of the park is sealed off. No one’s allowed in there. The fire is probably still smoldering.”

“Tory, you can’t seal off something as big as a state park. The entrance may be blocked, but we can go in the back way, by the river road. You have to help me. I can’t cover all that ground by myself.”

If there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was go back into that park. Not now, not yet. “Why don’t you ask Bay? Or Mindy or Nat? Why me?”

Eli sighed impatiently. “Bay is acting really weird, Mindy’s been doing nothing but crying her eyes out, and I had a fight with Nat at breakfast this morning. Bay had just told us that you’d gone to the hospital last night, and she made some crack about you turning us all in to the cops. I got mad, because I know you’d never do that, and we had a pretty fierce argument.”

He had defended me against Nat? That was nice. Had Bay done the same?

I didn’t think so. The impression Nat had given me was that she and Bay were suddenly on the same wavelength.

“Thanks, Eli,” I said sincerely. “Okay, I’ll help you look. But we’re going to have to really look casual when we head for the river road, as if we’re going bird-watching or canoeing or something. We don’t want anyone to guess that we’re headed for the park.”

“Maybe I’d better hold your hand,” he said lightly. “Then it’ll look like we’re going for a nice, romantic walk along the riverbank.”

I couldn’t help laughing, just a little. “Nice try, Eli.”

As we walked, I told him about the repulsive “mummy-thing” I’d thought I’d seen. I told him about both times, first at the tanning salon, and then again at Nightmare Hall. I didn’t know why I was telling him when I hadn’t told Bay or Nat. Maybe because I knew he wouldn’t laugh at me, and I also suspected he just might believe me. Eli never discounted things, no matter how bizarre, without considering them carefully first.

I ended by telling him I was sure I’d imagined the whole thing.

He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t tell me I must have been hallucinating. He took everything I told him very seriously. And he wasn’t so sure I’d imagined it.

“You’re not the daydreamer type, Tory. Maybe what you saw was real.”

I didn’t see how it could be. What’s more, I didn’t
want
it to be real.

But Eli was talking about it as if he were convinced it had been real. “Well, we know it couldn’t have been Hoop,” he said as we trekked along the river path. “It may have looked like him, but there’s no way he could get out of that bed. Sounds like it was someone trying to make you think it was Hoop. But what for?”

“All I know is,” I said, “that thing wasn’t coming down those steps to shake my hand. It meant to hurt me. If Jess and Ian hadn’t come outside just then, I don’t think I’d be around to tell you about it now.”

“What did Bay say about it?”

“I … I haven’t told Bay yet.”

“No?” Eli looked pleased. “You told me first?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on telling
you,
either. I’d already decided I’d imagined the whole nasty business. It just sort of spilled out of me.”

Eli said he didn’t see how we could go to the police just now, and I agreed. And then he said we would just have to keep our eyes open and stick together. I agreed with that, too, and wished it were all five of us sticking together, not just Eli and me. But at least I wasn’t completely alone.

“Could have been a joke,” Eli said halfheartedly. But I could tell that he didn’t believe that at all. He just didn’t know what else to say.

Then we were at that part of the path where a side lane veered off into the park. We stopped walking, and hesitated on the edge of the woods, not quite ready to face up to ugly reality.

If it had been summer, with all of the trees fully leafed out, we wouldn’t have been able to see any sign of the fire from our spot on the path. The trees along the path hadn’t been touched by the heat or flames, and had their branches been covered with leaves, they would have formed a thick, full barrier, protecting our eyes from the devastation.

But it was late March, and although some of the early-blooming trees had new, small leaves or blossoms, most of them were still only in bud and provided a clear view of the blackened acres.

It was horrible. Awful. We stood at the edge of the forest, Eli and I, staring at the result of our carelessness. I’d seen a picture of Mount Saint Helens once, after the volcano erupted. Nothing but gray ash for miles, and miles. The part of the park ravaged by fire looked like that picture. Barren, empty, with only jagged stumps of trees sticking up out of the ground and piles of blackened branches and burned leaves carpeting the ground.

“Oh, Eli,” I whispered. “It’s terrible!”

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and tugging. “We have to find that key chain. While we’re standing here feeling guilty, a cop guarding the park could be picking it up and slipping it into a plastic bag as evidence. Hurry up!” Then, when I held back, he turned and said, “Look, Tory, I’m really sorry I have to ask you to do this. It’s rotten, I know. I don’t want to go in there, either. But I can’t do it by myself.”

“I’m coming, Eli. I know you’d do the same for me.”

That was true. He would have. He’d defended me to Nat, hadn’t he? I owed him for that.

We left the river path and entered the woods.

When we reached the burned area, it felt like we had just stepped into a graveyard. There was nothing left alive where we were standing. I could remember clearly the tall pine trees, the thick bushes, the wildflowers just beginning to bloom. Gone now, all gone. Nothing but blackened stumps, and a thick dusting of water-soaked ash and soot underfoot.

I was so shocked by the devastation that when Eli said, “Tory?” and pointed, it took me a few seconds to realize what he was pointing at.

It was a long, wide white ribbon, trailing along the ground in a curving path, beginning a few yards away from where we were standing, and leading in the opposite direction.

I frowned down at it. What was that nice, clean white ribbon doing in the middle of all that soggy debris? “What’s that?” I asked.

Eli shook his head. “Beats me.” But he walked over to where the white ribbon began and bent to lift the end of it with one hand. He fingered it for a moment and then lifted his head to look at me with uncomprehending eyes. “It’s gauze.”

I stayed where I was. “Gauze? You mean, like bandages?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Like bandages.”

Every nerve in my body snapped to attention. Gauze? There was a roll of bandage trailing through the burned woods?

“Eli!” My voice echoed hollowly in the empty woods. “Can we please get out of here?
Now?
This is too weird. Eli, there’s something wrong. Come on!”

But Eli, inquisitive human being that he was, was already following the white gauze path and urging me to join him.

I didn’t know what to do. Every one of my senses warned me that the gauze path meant trouble. But I didn’t want to run back through the woods alone, and I didn’t want to abandon Eli, either. “Eli,
please
!” I called, glancing around nervously.
“Don’t
follow that path!”

But he was already almost out of sight, steadily marching along the curving white gauze trail.

Since my greater terror was of being left there alone, I ran after him, slipping and sliding on the wet ash beneath my feet.

I caught up with him in a small, dark clearing heavy with the smell of smoke and covered with a thick layer of soggy, semiburned twigs and leaves, in the middle of which the white gauze ended. I recognized the spot as being very close to where we’d had our campfire. I did
not
want to be there!

I had just reached out to tug at Eli’s sweatshirt sleeve, determined to make him turn around and go back, when he bent to pick up the trailing end of the gauze.

The minute he touched the ground, it disappeared beneath him. As I watched in horror, Eli tumbled, headfirst, in a shower of wet leaves, twigs and earth, into the hole that had opened up at his touch.

He was so startled, he never made a sound.

But I did. I screamed his name, a sound that echoed eerily in the smoky, soggy woods. Impulsively, as Eli disappeared from sight, I lunged forward, my arms reaching out in a desperate attempt to pull him back to safety.

Too late. I couldn’t reach him. He was gone.

I stepped back from the dangerous opening in the ground, my hands flying to my mouth, whispering Eli’s name.

And in the next second, although I had heard no sound behind me, heard no rustling of leaves or footsteps on the path, hadn’t once had that creepy feeling of being watched, there were suddenly rough hands on my shoulder, pushing, pushing hard.

Crying out, I fought to maintain my footing. If I fell into the hole, who would help Eli get out? I beat the air around me with my fists, hoping to land a blow somewhere on my attacker, but in vain. My feet slipped, slid on the treacherous carpet of wet leaves, and my legs betrayed me.

Screaming in fear, I plunged after Eli into the deep, dark hole.

I
LANDED ON MY
back on something cool and slippery. It took me a moment to realize what it was. The tarp. The tarp that Nat had folded up and flipped under her head the night of the fire. We’d brought it to sit under in case it rained, although there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky.

What was it doing down in this dark, narrow hole?

Beneath the tarp, I could feel that the earth was hard and dry. Water from the fire hoses hadn’t penetrated this far beneath the surface. My neck and back hurt from the fall.

Eli was already standing, which told me that he hadn’t been seriously injured by his fall. I was so glad that he wasn’t unconscious that I forgot I was angry with him for following the gauze trail when I’d begged him not to. I could barely see him. The mouth of the pit was so small that it allowed in very little light from above.

And very little air. This far beneath the surface, the smell of dank earth overpowered the fainter smell of smoke and burned wood. I immediately thought of a grave.

Eli reached down to help me up. “It was the tarp,” he said. “It was stretched across this hole and then covered with leaves. Someone set this up on purpose, Tory.” He pulled me to my feet. “You could have gotten me out of here. Why weren’t you more careful? Now we’re both stuck!”

“I didn’t
fall
in, Eli,” I hissed, standing up. “I was
pushed.
There’s someone up there.”

He tilted his head, straining to see above him. “Up there? Who is it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

The shaft was so narrow, there was barely enough room for the two of us to stand face-to-face. And I realized quickly that one person couldn’t possibly have dug the hole by himself, not quickly, anyway. Eli was six feet two inches tall, and there was probably another six inches of earth above his head. Too deep for one person to dig.

“He couldn’t have dug this pit all by himself,” I whispered to Eli. “Impossible.”

“It’s not freshly dug,” Eli said emphatically. “Must have already been here.” He was still struggling to see who, if anyone, was standing above us. “Maybe it’s an old well or the entrance to a cave or something. These woods are full of caves.”

“Tory,” a voice hissed into our pit, “so nice of you to drop by. And you brought a friend with you.”

Eli and I fell silent. We stood close together at the bottom of the pit, our heads upraised, listening.

“Can you see anything?” Eli whispered.

“No. Can you?”

He shook his head no.

“This lovely hole you’ve fallen into,” the voice said then, “would make a great barbecue pit, don’t you think?”

I gasped, and Eli grabbed my hand.

“Once upon a time, they roasted whole pigs in pits like this one.” Soft, evil laughter drifted down from above.

I was speechless with fear. Above us, footsteps slithered softly back and forth in the wet debris from the fire. We couldn’t tell what was going on up there.

Then, Eli and I both smelled something at the same time. I could tell by the way we simultaneously drew in our breath sharply as the odor hit our nostrils.

“Lighter fluid,” Eli said softly. “That’s lighter fluid.”

I refused to think about what that might mean. “But the woods have already burned,” I whispered. “There’s nothing left up there to set fire to.”

“No,” Eli whispered back, “but there is down here.
Us.
”

“Oh, Tory,” the voice singsonged, “aren’t you cold down there? I wouldn’t want my guests getting chilled. You could catch pneumonia.” The voice changed, became heavier, more ominous. “And
die.
”

There was a pause. “Maybe I can warm you up a little. It’s the least I can do for guests who drop in.”

I
was
cold now. Icy from head to toe. Still, I craned my neck, straining desperately to see straight up into the mouth of the hole, trying to catch a glimpse of our tormentor.

When I finally did, I wished I hadn’t.

Because all I saw was white. Strips of white, wound tightly around a pair of legs striding back and forth above us.

“It’s
him,
” I cried softly, sagging against the wall. “It’s that …
thing
from last night. All wrapped up like a mummy. Just like Hoop.”

“People do still die of pneumonia, you know,” the voice droned on, speaking softly, as if he were murmuring to himself. “Everyone thinks they don’t, in these days of modern medicine, but that’s not true. Burn victims, especially, often die of pneumonia.”

“Are you sure?” Eli asked, peering upward. “It’s the same thing you saw last night?”