S'wanee: A Paranoid Thriller (24 page)

But what about now? Did Sin, the most stable and balanced of their section, really go mad, so suddenly? Would she, or even Houston, have knowingly taken the same mushrooms that doomed the students decades ago? Bishop and Emerson, maybe. But Sin? No way. The strongest thing she took was coffee, and even that was decaf. Unless someone slipped it to her, against her knowledge or will.

“I mean, it’s
possible
,” Beth said skeptically, and Cody realized the whole thing was a stretch. Car wrecks happen, and people get killed, thousands every day. He could name at least five from his own high school. But Rebel’s Rest, which had only twenty-five to start, had already lost seven, to one thing or another, in the first three months. Were other sections or dorms also losing students that he didn’t know about?

“I haven’t heard of any,” Beth said. “And that kind of thing, you know, gets around.”

Two students came into the Observatory to look through the telescope, and Beth made her usual stealthy exit. “I’ll catch you later,” she whispered close in his ear, squeezing his hand. “That’s it? That’s all?” he asked. Someday, he hoped, she’d changed her skittish ways. Until then, he’d take what he could get.

Pearl hum-sang “Silver Bells” in her Christmas-plaid apron as she oversaw the decorating of the tree in the front living room. She passed peppermint hot cocoa and laid out big, grabbing bowls of a butter/garlicky, Chex-Cheerios-pretzel-peanut mix she called “nuts and bolts.” Rebel’s Rest balanced Christmas revelry with the frenzied final weeks of the semester before the break.

“Dude, can I borrow your civ notes from Thursday?” Huger asked the American waif from Germany, whose name Cody had forgotten. “I’m not a ‘dude,’” she dissed, “and you shouldn’t have skipped class.” Eventually, Cody would have to branch out and befriend this “second string” of Purple Hazers, since his initial batch of friends was so thinned out.

“We’re missing you at meals,” Pearl said to Cody as he rushed out before breakfast. “You already sick of my cooking?”

“I love your cooking, Pearl,” he assured her. “Just been too busy to get back here lately.” In truth, he’d been burning through Tiger Bucks on sandwiches at McClurg and Ramen noodles and Red Bull from the Klondyke for afternoon pick-me-ups, which he increasingly needed.

At least he’d stopped spending Tiger Bucks on cigarettes, which he no longer craved. Maybe he could convince his mother it was easy to quit.

“Banjo, did you take my navy sweater?” asked Cody, who was also missing a T-shirt and khakis from a laundry room mix-up. “Why ask the black dude?” Banjo yelled from his room. “I got my own clothes!”

“The van’s leaving in three, guys!” Ross called from the front on Sunday morning, for the Nashville field trip to see the Broadway tour of
Elf
. The school had upped its game with special events, either for Christmas cheer or to distract from the recent tragedy. It was the first time Cody had been off campus since he arrived.

“You guys go on without me,” Elliott said, increasingly withdrawn and spending more time alone in his room. “
Dood
,” bounce-back Banjo said, shaking his head. “What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s free!”

As the van passed the stone security kiosk, its barricade arm up and back down, Cody felt an instant pierce of headache pain, just a blip really, that reminded him of his bad spell months ago, but it was gone as soon as it came, and Banjo was passing out beers from a red cooler. “Roadies all around!” he ordered.

Why didn’t any information about the “S’wanee Massacre” show up on Google? Not the newspaper archives; Cody didn’t expect those from so long ago. But nothing at all? No alumni postings, no commemorations or remembrances, no trace of any kind. Like it had never happened.

“Tap the ceiling, fucker!” Banjo ordered as they passed the stone gates of the Domain. “Don’t forget to take your angel, dude,” Ross added.

But Yahoo had auto suggested “S’wanee Massacre”—a top hit—which meant lots of people must have been searching for it through the years. And, like Cody, finding no answers. Had the school quashed it from the web, or was it so obscure and forgotten that no one bothered to write about it anymore?

“You with us, Tiger? Cody?” Ross asked as the black van with tinted windows sped through town toward the interstate. The van was packed and talkative.

“Yeah dude, just thinking,” Cody said, scanning the roadside for any broken tree, any killer tree, any tree at all. The road was straight and wide and well paved and line painted, just as he remembered.

But the older woman on the plane next to him—long, long ago, it seemed—at least remembered
something
had happened there. Didn’t she say it gave her a chill, or something like that? And if a random woman on a plane had heard of it, then it must have been a big story at the time, probably even on television news, maybe on Oprah or Anderson Cooper, or whoever did the news way back then.

“You remember the Batman Building, Cody?” Ross asked, as the Nashville skyline came into view.

But even the
Nashville Banner
, the pit bull on the story, dropped it after three days. Unless, of course, there was more on the next microfilm reel, which Cody would have scrolled through if Ross hadn’t interrupted him to check out books for the very first time. He’d never even
seen
Ross in DuPont Library before.

“Are you boys in college?” an older man standing next to Cody in the bathroom at intermission asked.

“Yes, sir,” Cody replied.

“Which school?” the older man asked, and Cody said, “We’re visiting from—”

“
Vanderbilt
,” Banjo interrupted. “We go to Vanderbilt. Hurry up, Cody.”

“Dude, are you fucking nuts?” Banjo scolded on the way back to their seats. “A skeevy old man hitting you up at the urinal of a faggy
musical
? How clueless
are
you?”

Maybe there was nothing else to the story, no more news to break, which was why both the
Purple
and the
Banner
and every other newspaper dropped it so soon and suddenly. Maybe the kids just OD’d on drugs, which happens all the time at college and probably happened even more in the seventies. Maybe there was no “overzealous” student who poisoned them, no “crime” for that amateur-student-journalist Crownover to uncover, no villain at all.

“Don’t forget to give ‘er back, Tiger,” Ross said, tapping the ceiling with the others as they drove back through the Domain gates. He hadn’t, Cody felt, taken his eyes off him the entire trip. Come to think of it, Ross, the psychology major, hadn’t really taken his eyes off him since he picked him up at the airport on that very first day.

Cody was the last to tap the ceiling.

•   •   •

Can’t wait to see you, kiddo!
Marcie texted with a Santa smiley-wink.
Got an Xmas surprise for you!

The final two days of the semester were packed with tests, parties, and see-you-next-year goodbyes.

“Move along, please. You should know these parts cold by now,” their biology professor said, as the class filed past the cut-open baby pig full of ID pins for their last weekly quiz. “So sick of this smelly pig,” Banjo grumbled from the back, as they inched past the table where Vail and Bishop had once been lab partners. “I want a cat next time.”

Through the window into the lobby, Cody saw a rolling rack of glass panes with brain tissue that Ross and a research assistant were picking through. Squinting, he saw Ross sort through one labeled in large block print that read “hrothgar,” another, “fuzz.” Ross carefully put down “trixie” and picked up “nesta.”

“Move along, please,” the professor beckoned. “We have more to get through.”

“Elliott, you sick of my cooking too?” Pearl called up the stairs that night before muttering, “Good Lord, these boys need to eat.”

“Cody, I’ve been troubled.” Dean Apperson pulled him aside after the school’s Caroling-on-the-Quad. “I’ve been troubled by your weekly test scores since midterms. I do hope, Cody, you will hunker down for finals. Use the break to focus your mind, and…eliminate the distractions that are impeding your progress.” Under his smile was a pointed concern, bordering on disappointment. “Do it for yourself, Cody. But do it.”

“Merry Christmas,” Beth mouthed from across the Quad, in her furry earmuffs and tiny ornament earrings. She winked and air-kissed and disappeared with her friends.

“Guys, leave your iPads here. You can access your syllabus online with your laptops,” Ross told them. “Too many students lost their iPads on break last year.”

“Dude, come
on!
” Banjo yelled upstairs through Elliott’s open door. “It’s our last night, and you’re already packed! Come out with us! What’s your fucking problem?”

Elliott had withdrawn further over the past week, mostly shut in his room when not in class, skipping meals, skipping the caroling, skipping parties. He’d always been a bit uptight and on edge, but this was different. He hadn’t showered for days. Even his nervous tick-yawn was gone. More often than not, he was silent and still, almost zombielike.

“Come on, bud,” Cody encouraged him gently. “Come to the Lodge with us. Just one drink.”

The Kilts were rowdy, and most were chugging eggnog or throwing it back up, and it seemed the whole campus had descended to celebrate the end of classes. “Merry Fucking Christmas!” from the front, and “Happy Fucking Holidays!” from the back.

“Are you okay, man?” Cody asked when he found Elliott sitting alone on the back porch, in the cold, without his jacket. His eyes were red.

“It’s so fucked up here,” Elliott said. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“What’s wrong, bud? Is it class, or a chick, or…someone else?”

“It’s everything,” Elliott said, looking ahead, not at Cody.

“They didn’t tell us everything,” Elliott said. “They weren’t honest with us.”

“
Who
wasn’t honest with you?” Cody asked, but Elliot just said, “It’s so wrong.” And then he repeated it. “I would never have agreed to this.”

“It’ll be better after the break,” Cody said, and Elliott said, “No, it’ll be worse.” He seemed increasingly deranged.

“They can’t make us do this,” Elliott said, shaking his head.
“Ist da bern floomel reklagracken.”
Cody stared at him, and then Ross bounded out the back door. “What are you guys doing out here in the cold?”

“He’ll be okay,” Ross assured Cody as Elliott wandered off to finish packing for his flight out the next day. “Between you and me, his grades have gone south. Like call-the-parents south. I’m gonna tutor him over the phone and when he gets back. We’ll save his scholarship. I’ve been there.”

“When you two Nancy’s are done makin’ love”—Banjo stuck his head out the back door—“we got Christmas shots lined up…”

•   •   •

“Merry Christmas!” Pearl repeated as the Hazers took off after breakfast. “Have a safe, wonderful break!”

“Elliott, the van’s waiting downstairs,” Cody said, bursting into his room. The bed was made, his luggage packed and ready. The room smelled freshly cleaned and mopped.

“Banjo, where’s Elliott?” Cody asked in the hallway.

“He’s around,” Banjo, groggy and scratching, replied.

“The van’s leaving for the airport.”

“Well, the maggot better get on it.” Banjo yawned. “He sure as hell ain’t coming home with me.”

“There’s another van in fifteen,” the driver said, engine idling. “He can catch that one.”

“Elliott! Hurry up!” Cody yelled back up at Rebel’s Rest, to no avail. “I can’t miss my flight,” a girl in the back said impatiently, and a boy said, “Me neither.”

As they passed the tall stone gate, the students tapped the ceiling of the black van, and Cody did the same, to summon his S’wanee Angel to keep him safe until he returned to the Domain, where no one needed protection.

“O
ver here, kiddo!”

If it hadn’t been for her red Santa hat, Cody might not have spotted his mother in the Newark Airport curbside clusterfuck. Because she was yelling out of a shiny silver BMW.

“Oh my boy!” she squealed, reaching up to throw her arms around his neck. “You’ve grown taller! But so skinny! Are they not feeding you down there?”

“What?
What
?” Marcie challenged the parking monitor with her threatening ticket book. “We’re
loading
, missy! Bah-humbug!”

“That old car was costing too much for repairs,” she explained when Cody asked about the BMW, although he remembered the Camry being pretty dependable. “It’s a late-model. They all have deals this time of year, you know.” She cranked up the Sirius Christmas channel, weaving through afternoon turnpike traffic.

“Where are you going?” Cody asked as she turned off a different exit, and Marcie giggled. “I told you I had a surprise,” she said.

The house was two stories with yellow shingles and red shutters. The small front lawn was already hibernating in the frost and trimmed with low shrubs. There was a white picket fence.

“Your father,” Marcie said, pulling into the driveway, “was really not good for much, but he did, apparently, create a college account for you. I guess he considered it his buyout.” After Cody’s scholarship, she had parked the funds in the house, helped by low mortgage rates. “It’s safer than stocks,” she insisted and then laughed. “And someday it will all be yours!”

“My Cody!” His grandmother Svetla threw her arms around him at the front door. “My grown grandson!” She took his face in her hands and inspected him carefully and said simply, “He’s a man.”

“Surprise number two,” Marcie said, pouring a pinot grigio in the sparkling, marble-topped, professional cook’s kitchen as Maisy and Max pinged about Cody’s legs. “I brought her over for Christmas.” Then she emphasized, “
Just
Christmas.” She cuckoo-twirled her finger and rolled her eyes. “I saw that!” his grandmother barked.

Over vegan meals—a Bulgarian pre-Christmas tradition his grandmother insisted on—and tree-trimming, the henpeck questions came fast and full bore.

“Are American universities as wild as I’ve heard?” his grandmother asked, looking more hip and sophisticated than Cody remembered. Her black cashmere sweater had a Macy’s tag hanging from the bottom, and Cody realized Marcie had supplied her with a new, chicer wardrobe.
Just add it to the bill.