Asylum (13 page)

            “The
dating
thing
?” Seth grinned wider.

            “A
date…thing, just uhhh,” she tried to clarify.

            “Well,
this has been…uncomfortable,” he laughed, “but I’m glad we cleared that up,
because at some point, I was kind of hoping that we could try that whole
kissing
thing
again…maybe.”

            Chloe
put her face in her hands and groaned.

            “I
am
so
embarrassed about that, you have no idea,” she laughed.

            “Probably
almost as embarrassed as I am, because I’ve never almost knocked a girl
unconscious with the goodnight kiss routine.  I felt about as smooth as
sandpaper, I guarantee you.”

            They
both laughed and looked up at the same time.  Chloe thought that if her chair
had been a little closer, if she rolled it a little bit towards him, with the
way he was leaning forward, toward her, then maybe…maybe he would try.  No! 
That could end way too badly.  With her luck, she would try to roll the chair
closer, snag it on the carpet, lurch forward and fall off the chair.  She gave
the chair the tiniest nudge.  It moved half an inch closer.

            “You
promise you’re going to warn me next time, right?” she asked.

            “Absolutely,
you’ll know it’s coming,” he nodded.

            With
the way he was leaning forward and looking at her, she was suddenly quite
certain it would be coming soon.  She grinned and nudged her chair a little
closer.

            “Won’t
that ruin the ummm…mood?” she asked.

            “I’m
sure it will,” he agreed, still smiling.

            “You’re
not worried that I only like you for your private bathroom?” she asked.

            “The
thought
had
occurred to me,” he admitted stoically.  With one hand he
reached out and grabbed the seat of her chair, yanking her with one pull, the
rest of the distance between them.

            “You
said you would warn me, right?” she asked, heart in her throat, leaning towards
him.

            “I’m
warning you,” he replied.  Chloe closed her eyes.  She could feel his nose
brush hers lightly.

            Out
in the hallway, a piercing scream broke the afternoon silence.

            “SAM!”
Chloe gasped.

CHAPTER SIX

.
          Chloe
was out of her chair and halfway to the door without being aware that she had
moved at all.  Yet somehow, Seth was already ahead of her.  He yanked open the
door with such force that she watched it arch back and smash into the wall,
registering the bang a few seconds later.

            Out
in the hallway, Sam was pressed against the wall…directly across from the open
door of their room.  As Chloe ran to her, Sam screamed again.  Doors were
opening up and down the hall.  Other students poked heads out, a few following
behind Chloe and Seth, slowly…curiously.

           
Something
in the room
, her quiet voice warned her,
it’s starting again!  Now
everyone will know, now you’ve made Sam sick too, now Seth won’t-

            Seth
was already in front of their door.  He had stopped on the threshold, his hand
against the doorframe.  Sam was hugging herself tightly.  She turned to look at
Chloe with huge, wild eyes.

           
I
don’t want to look, I don’t want to look, I don’t want to look,
Chloe
thought.

            Yet
she had to.  It was her room, hers and Sam’s.  All she had in the world was
contained within those four walls.  She crept up behind Seth, and with the
shield of his body in front of her, she summoned the will to peek around him. 
It took her breath away.

            When
she first saw the red, her mind, conditioned by years of television and movie
gore, thought blood.  It was not blood.  Every wall was covered in frantic,
barely legible handwriting.  HELP, HELP, HELP, TRAPPED, HELP, HELP, HELP, HELP…
The words ranged in size from less than an inch in height to letters large
enough to stretch across half the wall.  Some darkened in forceful block
lettering, some in a faint spidery hand.  All of them in red or black marker. 
The spent markers themselves lay conspicuously in the center of the bedroom
floor, caps missing.  They were Chloe’s, from her desk drawer, a drawer she
could see was still open.

            She
closed her eyes against the image, but the words were still there, etched
across the darkness behind her eyelids,
help
.  She could hear the
whispers.  Students pushing gently around her, craning necks, all wondering, all
murmuring.

           
What
is it?  What happened? What’s going on?
  She heard the questions asked in
whispers, no one seemed to have an answer.  Seth, with the bearing of one who
was used to taking charge, turned to face the slowly growing crowd, now
spreading down the hallway on either side.  He was still standing in the
doorway, using his body to block the scene behind him from the eyes of the
other students. Those closest to him were trying to see over or around him.

           
A
clot
, Chloe’s little voice rambled,
the hallways are the building’s
arteries, and we’ve made a clot.  It knows we’re here now.
  Chloe clenched
and unclenched her fists,
Stop it!
she thought back,
Stop, right now!

           
“Chloe did you
stop in at your room first?” he asked.

            Chloe
shook her head “no”.  Did he think she had done it?  Did he think she would do
that to Sam?

            “You
didn’t unlock the door or drop anything off?” he asked again.

            “No,”
she whispered.

            “And
neither of you have been back to the room since you left it this morning?”

            Sam
and Chloe both shook their heads.

            “And
you locked the door this morning?” Seth prodded.

            “No,”
Sam’s voice cracked. “No,” she repeated louder, “we ran out in a hurry, I
don’t…I don’t think we locked it.”  Sam looked to Chloe for agreement.

            “I
didn’t lock it,” Chloe offered.

            Seth
nodded his head as though to say “that’s-what-I-thought”.  He held up his hands
and clapped a few times to get everyone’s attention.

            “Alright
everybody, listen up!” he called.  “Floor meeting…TONIGHT!  It’s mandatory,
tell everyone.  I have a list of names, I will be checking them to make sure
that everyone on the floor is there.  Eight o’clock, downstairs in the Garner
Room.  It’s right next to the cafeteria.  Eight o’clock,
mandatory
!”

            Seth
swung the door shut and ordered everyone to clear out.  Some did.  Others
loitered around, making no attempt to conceal the fact that they were staring
at both Chloe and Sam. Seth put a hand on the small of Chloe’s back and steered
her away from the door.

           
“Sam!” he
called.

            Sam
jumped out from her frozen position against the wall and followed them.  Back
in his room, Seth grabbed a set of keys and pointed to the grubby recliner.

            “Sit
down.  Stay right here…both of you.  I’ll be back in a few minutes,” He shut
the door and was gone. 

            Sam
dropped into his chair, and stared off into space.  Chloe fought the urge to
pace, forcing herself to sit down on the rolling chair.  Her leg bounced
nervously, and she twisted her hands together in her lap.

            “He
thinks someone went into our room and did that…to scare us,” Sam mumbled.

            “That
would be the logical thing to assume,” Chloe said in an empty voice.

            “Is
that what you think?” Sam demanded.

            Chloe
tried to say ‘yes’.  She wanted to say ‘yes’, wanted to close the door against
what she already knew.  She wanted to warn Sam to stop talking about it, that
even thinking about it would make it worse.  She knew this.  She had been
through it before.  Instead she said nothing, not even daring to look at Sam.

            “You
know
it’s real,” Sam pushed.

            A
knock at the door made them both jump.

            “Do
we answer it?” Sam whispered.

            “It’s
probably someone for Seth,” Chloe whispered back, “I don’t know.  I’m not going
to get it.”

            Another
knock and the door opened a crack.

            “Guys?”
Jen stuck her head in the room, “You are here!  Someone said they saw you with
Seth.  Where’d he go?”

            “I
dunno,” Sam said, watching Jen warily as she walked in and closed the door.

            “So
what happened?  Nikki said someone broke into your room and wrote all over the
walls.”

            “Yeah,”
Chloe agreed quickly, cutting Sam off with a sharp look.

            “So
it doesn’t have anything to do with like, ghosts or anything?” Jen asked, her
eyes gleaming curiously.

            “Why
would you think that?” Sam asked.

            “Nikki,
that’s Melanie’s friend, she knows the guys that live next to you and they said
they heard you guys screaming in your room this morning, and I just thought
since you were up on the roof with the Ouija board, maybe it had something to
do with that.”

            “No,”
Chloe said confidently, “The ceiling light burned out and we scared ourselves.”

            “Uh-huh,
why does it say ‘help’ all over your walls?” Jen asked suspiciously.

            “We
don’t know, do we?” Chloe asked Sam.

            “Don’t
know,” Sam echoed.

            Jen
looked from one to the other. She waited a minute and when neither girl
volunteered anything more, she smirked and nodded her head.

            “Okay…alright,
whatever.  Look, if you guys are done with the Ouija board then can I get it
back? Because Mel and I were thinking about-”

            “Oh
crap! I forgot about that!” Sam said smacking her head, “I was going to try and
find it this morning and I just forgot.”

            “Try
and
find
it?” Jen asked.

            “Yeah,
up on the roof…the wind…it kind of blew it right off.  It blew off the side,”
Sam explained, “I’m sure it’s behind the building somewhere.”

            Jen’s
face wore an expression of understanding.  She smiled mysteriously.

            “You
know, somebody told me that if you don‘t put the board away when you’re done,
you leave a…a door or portal or something open to bad vibes.”  Her tone was
light but she was watching Sam as she spoke,

            Sam
and Chloe glanced at one another, a look Jen was quick to notice and
acknowledge with a nod.

            “We
should go find it,” Sam said, “Just so…so it doesn’t get ruined, or stolen or
something.”

            Sam
jumped out of her seat with Chloe and Jen at her heels.

            Out
in the hallway, most of the students were already gone.  A few open doors
flooded the hall with natural light and snippets of conversation.  Chloe didn’t
try to listen.  She felt sure they would all be talking about her and Sam, or
complaining about having to go to a floor meeting.  Sam was moving so fast she
was almost running.  Chloe tried to keep up.

            She
followed Sam down the stairs, through the cafeteria and out the back doors to
the square.

            The
square was a grassy space behind the dormitory, bordered on one side by the
tall glass windows of the cafeteria, and by the dormitory wings on the other
two sides.  The last side was framed by a sidewalk which ran between their hall
and Goodman-Harker Hall next door.  The square was sheltered from strong breezes
and shady.  A few picnic tables were spaced around for when the weather was
nice and students wanted to eat outside.  They were used in all weather by
students who smoked, and the ground around each was littered with cigarette
butts.  A few tall white pines grew close to the building on either side, each
encircled by its own carpet of orange pine needles.  A neatly trimmed row of
hedges grew at the base of the cafeteria windows.

            After
making a quick survey of the square, Sam began poking around in the hedge,
while Chloe walked tight against the building, looking carefully at the
ground.  Jen went down the other side of the building.

            Over
the past year, Chloe had done her best not to let herself think on anything for
very long.  It seemed to her that withdrawing into your own head and discussing
things with only yourself was highly dangerous.  You might lose your grip on
reality and not find your way back.