Terrorscape (8 page)

Had somebody given it to her?
She tossed the can aside, cautionary tales about
date rape ringing in her ears, and heard it splash.
Someone cursed, and Val quickly made herself scarce.

Then she remembered that she had been on her
way to use the bathroom, but then she had found the
empty can in the sink and planned to dispose of it
when—when what? She couldn't remember.

God
, thought Val,
What's wrong with me?
A heartbeat later she smiled bitterly. What wasn't?

But sane people didn't stand off to one side of the
room, smiling to themselves after hurling half-empty
beer cans, and Val checked around to make sure
nobody was watching her.

I'm losing my mind.

The Otoño residents had outdone themselves on
such a minimal budget. Even Val had to admit this.
Each dorm room was a miniature party in and of
itself, with the exception of a few abstainers.

Val wasn't brave enough to venture into the
dorms down the hall where things sounded more
than a little noisy and wild, but somebody had set up
a strobe here, in her and Mary's common room. She
could see the shadowy figures bobbing in the light,
changing poses with the stupefyingly jerky motions
of a phantasmagoria.

All around her, music blared. Hard rock, dubstep, rap, and pop all came together to form a
discordant roar that soon had Val's ears ringing.

Beneath the dimmed lights she felt blind, deaf,
raw and exposed: a tenuously connected bundle of
nerve endings capable of flying apart at any moment.

The whole
scene
had a surreal nightmarish
quality. As she poured herself some punch from an
orange keg, she half-expected to see him standing
there, watching her from the shadows.

It was with a scream that she dropped her cup of
punch—at least, she hoped it was just punch—when
some drunken boy brushed past her on his way to the
bathroom, startling both of them and eliciting a curse.

“The fuck is your problem?” he muttered, already
in the process of unbuckling his pants as he slammed
the bathroom door behind him.

Val leaned against the wall to steady herself. The
lights blurred before her eyes. Her chest hurt. Her
head hurt. There was a ringing in her ears that
wouldn't go away.
You're acting crazy
.

Everyone seemed to be looking back at her,
watching her like some sort of communal Eye.
Nobody's watching you. It's all in your head
.
She had told herself the same thing at Gavin's
party—and look where that had gotten her.

How does that saying go? Insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting different results?
She let out her breath and stumbled to the buffet.
The food was about what she had expected on a
college salary. Chips and sodas of all brands and
varieties, store-bought cookies on clearance, cheap
pizza from a local greasy spoon. There was a cooler
she didn't recognize, which one of Mary's friends
must have brought, and when she opened the lid she
found it stuffed full of ice and beer. Val let the lid fall
closed just as a burly athlete shoved past her to grab
two Heinekens.
Val looked longingly at her bed. She could say she
drank too much and got tipsy—that was normal,
right? Needing to lie down after a long night?
Except it hasn't been a long night
.
It's not even 10
p.m.
And she was pretty sure Mary knew she didn't
drink because Mary had spent most of the night with
one eye fixed on her like a hawk.
Somebody tapped her on the shoulder. She spun
around to see a smiling red-haired guy looking down
at her. Mary's friend, James.
No, not James
.

The color drained from Val's face as the room
tilted and rocked in the unsteady light of the strobe,
and the ringing in her ears grew to a pulsing roar.
Oh James, oh God, oh God oh God oh God.

Jade—that was his name, not Jude or James or
any other derivation, but
Jade
like the stone—moved
his lips silently. It took her a moment to realize he was
speaking. Not that she could hear him over the
throbbing baseline of Mary's mix CD.

“What?”

He cupped his hand over his mouth like a
megaphone and presumably repeated whatever it
was that he had said before. Val shook her head and
watched, amused in spite of the grief threatening to
overtake her heart, as he pantomimed dancing with
one hand and made his other hand dance alongside it.

Jade bowed, with theatrical flair, and extended
one hand to her, palm upturned. The gesture made
her blood run cold because, well,
he
had also done
that.
He
had also had a penchant for the theater, he
had said so himself; he was a monster who played at
being human: an animal masquerading as a man.

Dancing sounded like a really bad idea. Val felt as
if she might faint at any moment.

On the other hand, dancing with Jade meant that
she wouldn't have to wear a mask of indifference as
she pretended she didn't care that nobody else was
coming up to talk to her.

After an awkward pause, Val took his hand.

The song playing was slow, with a slight swing to
it. Val couldn't place the name offhand. It was the
ballad of a hard rock band that had peaked in
popularity a few years before.

How things can change in just a few years….

Val closed her eyes and let her body sway to the
beat. This was…surprisingly nice. Normal. God, how
she missed being normal. Not being the girl everyone
stared at, whispered about, obsessed over.

He
had been the last man to hold her like this. It
had been right before he tried to kill her.

 

Don't think about that
.

Too late. Her limbs had stiffened as her body
recognized the vulnerability of the possession she was
currently in.

And there was that waltz in the dark
.

He had reigned in his strength, but had wielded it
like a whip; he had no compunctions about letting her
fall. No, he had made that quite clear.

Painfully so.

The slow rock song ended. Val pulled away as a
fast techno song came on, prompting the other
freshmen to swarm the dance floor for a rave. Jade's
mouth opened again and he tilted his head towards
the hall indicating that she should follow.

A feeling of apprehension bubbled up in her gut
like nausea. Why on earth did he want to get her
alone?

Hesitantly, she followed Jade into the hallway. It
was a lot quieter there—more so when he shut the
door behind them. The click of the latch mimicked her
skipping heartbeat. Through the ringing in her ears
she could still make out the loud music emanating
from the other rooms.

At least it wasn't as deafening as Alex's amp. She
cleared her throat nervously, smoothing down the
skirt of the dress that Mary had forced on her.

“What?”

 

“I was saying it didn't look like you were having
much fun.”

 

No wonder Mary had been staring at her.

She looked at the floor. “Parties really aren't my
thing.”
“Or ice-breakers?”

“Those, too.”

 

He smiled. “What is your thing, then?”

“Going for walks, reading, art, animals.” She
paused. “I really like working with animals. I worked
at a shelter once. Back home. I sort of have a way with
them, I guess.”

Then she froze, bracing herself for that inevitable
question.
Where's home?
But he surprised her.

“Are you feeling okay? I felt you stumble. You
know. Back there.” The tips of his ears turned a little
pink. “You looked like you were having a panic
attack.”

“I…just get a little dizzy sometimes.” She smiled,
weakly, and tried not to think about why.
“Can I get you something to drink? To eat?”

“A drink
would
be
nice.
Anything
without
alcohol.”

 

“Two bottled waters, then. Got it.”

 

Exhausted,
Val
sank
to
the
floor,
carefully
arranging her skirt so it demurely covered her thighs.
He's not coming back
.

Could she blame him? Frowning, she tugged at
the neckline of her dress—
Mary's
dress—wondering
how she had failed to notice just how much cleavage
it showed.

Damaged goods
.

“Here's your water.” Jade handed her one of the
bottles. “Sorry it took so long.”
She toyed with the cap. It was sealed, just as she
thought it would be. But she had to be sure.
“Thanks.”
“Cheers.”

They touched water bottles. The gesture was silly,
but it made her smile a little.

 

Maybe for tonight at least, I can pretend to be
somebody else.

 

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

Val's abrupt departure hadn't gotten noticed.
Mary seemed inordinately pleased about the whole
matter. “You and Jade looked so
cute
together,” she
kept saying the next morning, as they were picking
up soda and beer cans from the floor. Someone had
brought along a bottle of Grey Goose, and Val
wondered who
that
belonged to.

“We just had one dance,” she said, dropping the
liquor bottle into the plastic bag.

 

“But you left with him. I saw you.”

“Just into the hall. I got a little dizzy from all the
loud noises, I guess. We drank water and talked.”
“What did you two talk about? Did you kiss?”
“What? No! No—I just met him.”

“These things can happen pretty fast if you let
them. You're keeping those? Yuck.”

Val had picked up some plastic bracelets flung
from the ravers' flailing wrists the night before. The
kandi were handmade with brightly colored pony
beads and plastic charms. Val kind of liked them.
They
were too
pretty
to
throw her away, and
reminded her of the friendship bracelets she and her
friends had made back in grade school.

“I'll wash them off,” she said, shrugging. “And
anyway, I don't move fast.”
I made that mistake before.

“Okay, whatever,” Mary said. “But you're making
a big stink over something that was nothing.”
“So you were watching me?”

The garbage bag in Mary's hands dropped a few
inches as her shoulders sank. “Well, not, like, stalking
you or anything, but yeah, I was keeping an eye out.
Making sure you were okay. You seemed a little
depressed, is all.”

That word again. “I'm fine. I'm just surprised. I
didn't see you around much.”

“I was in and out. Alex wanted me to stop by his
dorm and, well—” she smiled as if to say,
you know
how these things go
. But she didn't. She'd never had the
chance “—at least you had fun, right?”

“I guess.”
Had
she had fun? It had been a long
while since she had attributed that word to herself.
She had enjoyed talking with Jade. He was so calm
and down to earth, and very grounding. “How well
do you know Jade?”

“A little, I guess. He's friends with Alex—sort of.
As friends as you can be with Alex. Don't pretend
otherwise,” she said, as Val adopted an innocent
expression. “I know he can be an ass. But he's not too
bad once you get to know him—anyway, yeah, Jade
was in my campus tour group, same as Meredith, and
I talked with him some at the ice-breaker.”

“Hmm,” said Val.
“He seems like a real nice guy.”
That was my impression, too.

Val's eyes landed on Mary's old alarm clock, then
skittered back in shock. “Oh shit, is that the right
time?”

“Pretty sure. Why?”

“Shit.” Val dropped her trash bag and tossed the
paper towel roll aside. “I have a class at three-fifteen.
I'm late.” She raced into the bathroom to brush the
scum from her teeth, then poked her head out again.
“I'm sorry. I'm not flaking. I'll clean as soon as I get
back, I—”

“Chill, Val. I'll probably be done by then.” She
smiled a little as if to soften her words and Val
wondered if Mary was as cool with this as she was
pretending to be. “If it's an issue, I'll call Alex to come
over and help. He owes me.”

Val shuddered internally, not wanting to think
about what sorts of activities the two of them might
get up to in her absence. She hoped Alex wasn't so
sleazy that he might consider having sex in
her
bed.

You've been reading too many roommate horror stories
on the internet
. Hopefully most of them were just that,
stories. Urban legends. Not, say, real.

“Sounds
like
a
plan,”
she
called
from
the
bathroom. Her face was pale, with a few splotches of
breakouts from too much makeup and too little sleep.
She touched up her eyebrows with the black pencil
and applied more mascara. Then she slid her contacts
back into place—did Mary notice?—and pulled on a
green Henley buttoned up to her throat and a pair of
jeans that had been worn clear through the knees.

She grabbed her black coat from the top of her
hamper and thrust her arms through the sleeves as
she walked back into the bedroom. As she did, she
noticed a slip of paper on their shoe mat with her
name on it.

“What's this?” she asked, puzzled.
“Hmm?”

It was a mail pick-up form. “Did somebody leave
something for me last night?”

“Must have come this morning, I guess.” Mary
frowned. “I think it's from the front desk in the main
office. Looks like somebody send you a care package
or something. Lucky you.”

Her parents?
They must have. Nobody else has my address.

The main office was on her walk to class and she
was
already
doomed
to
tardiness
anyway.
She
wondered what her parents had sent her, whether it
was
from her parents at all.

A cool autumnal breeze lifted her hair, tinged
with the smell of petrichor from the rain a few days
before. A feeling of déjà vu swamped her, nearly
sending Val reeling back from the sheer force of it.

I've been through this before. Exactly a year ago.
When I picked up that letter from the office of DHS.

 

The letter, which was from Gavin.