Asylum (7 page)

            Twenty
minutes later, Chloe clicked the print icon with a sense of accomplishment. 
She looked over her paper one last time and then slid it into her psych
folder.  As she reached for her backpack, she noticed Sam’s paper lying on the
floor.  She picked it up carefully and read the sentence again.  She laid the
sheet down on Sam’s desk and stared at it, thinking.  Then she opened a new
window and began typing a second paper.  Before it was time for her last class
of the day, two completed papers were stashed carefully in her backpack.

*          *          *

            “Here’s
your lemon, Chloe,” said Sam, grinning wickedly as she handed her a sour,
dripping slice, “now here’s what you do.  Lick your hand-”  Sam demonstrated by
licking the back of her hand.  “Now take your sugar and-” Sam ripped open a
sugar packet, and sprinkled it liberally over the back of her newly-moistened
hand.  “Now… drink the shot, and real fast, bite the lemon and lick the sugar. 
That’s
a lemon drop.”

            Jen
and Melanie’s room was almost identical to Chloe and Sam’s.  Two plain beds,
two student desks, and a shared dresser were arranged around the walls, leaving
the center of the room open. Jen had brought a purple, oriental-patterned rug
from home and ten girls, sprawled in various positions, formed a rough sort of
circle upon it.  Sam had opted for one of the beds.  She sat raised above the
group of girls like a kindergarten teacher about to commence story time.

            Chloe
licked her hand as she had watched Sam do and tore open her sugar packet along
with the others.

            “Okay. 
Everybody ready?  Cheers!” sang out Sam, and threw her shot back with a
forceful flick of the wrist.

            Chloe
gagged as the liquor burned the back of her throat.  She could feel the vodka
warm a path all the way to her stomach.  Eyes watering, she bit her lemon and
licked the sugar from her hand.  Happily, she was not the only freshman having
her first taste of vodka.  A few of the other girls had taken only a sip and
were grimacing or complaining that it was too strong.

            “We
should play a drinking game!” suggested Jen.

            “I
know one, it’s called ‘I never’” suggested Melanie.

            “No
way, I always lose at that,” complained Sam.  A few of the girls giggled. 
Chloe smiled as though she understood the joke.

            “You
should get some more chairs,” complained a girl with brown hair, as she tried
to find a more comfortable position on the floor.

            “Actually,
Melanie’s boyfriend is, like, a builder or something, and he’s going to build
us loft beds.  Then we’re going to put a futon on that wall,” Jen indicated the
bed where Sam had stretched out, “and maybe my dad’s old lazy boy too.  So our
room can be, like, the gathering place for the floor.”

            Sam
shot Chloe a meaningful look, and raised her eyebrow.

            “How
much do you think he would charge to build one for us?” Sam asked.

            “Oh
I’m sure he’d do it cheap, but the thing is, the storage area in the basement
fills up quick every year, and you need somewhere to store your beds, and I
don’t know how soon he’d be able to build you one because he’s already got a
lot of orders,” Melanie explained.

            “Oh,
and speaking of the basement, have you been down there yet?” asked the girl
with the brown hair, “Wow…creepy!”

            “Well,
you know the dorm is haunted, don’t you?” asked Jen in matter-of-fact tones. 
Chloe fought the urge to stuff her fingers in her ears and yell “La-la-la”. 
Instead she took the vodka bottle and poured herself another shot.

            “Oh
yeah, sure!“ Sam waved her hand dismissively.

            “I’m
serious!” Jen insisted, “My brother lived here freshman year and he says-”

            “Let’s
do another shot!” Chloe cut in.

            “Settle
down there, Lindsey Lohan,” laughed Sam, “What did your brother say?”

            Chloe
tried to hide her embarrassment by sipping on her shot and glancing around the
room, pretending an interest in ‘college chic’ décor.

            “He
lived on the fourth floor freshman year, and sometimes at night when he was in
bed, he would hear the bell ringing, really soft up above him.”

            “Okay
so?  Sometimes the wind blew the bell,” countered Sam.

            “There
is no bell in the bell tower, and there never has been,” Jen’s eyes sparkled
with excitement. “And that’s not all!  One night he and a bunch of guys got
dared to spend the night in the bell tower, and while they were up there, they
heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and then they stopped, and it was totally
silent, and then they heard a scream!  It came from right beside him, my
brother said.”

            “Did
you know that this hall is the oldest building on campus?” added Melanie, “I
heard that it used to be an insane asylum.”

            “Pssssssshhht!”
hissed Sam, “Now I’ve heard everything.”

            “I
wouldn’t go up in the bell tower,” said Jen adamantly, “You couldn’t pay me
enough!”

            “I
would,” Sam said, as if issuing a challenge.

            The
room fell silent.  Chloe cringed in expectation.

            “Okay,
if you spend the night up there, I’ll-” began Jen.  Sam sat bolt upright on the
bed and shook her head.

            “Me
and Chloe, we’ll go up there at, let’s say eleven o’clock, and stay all night-”

            “We
have Psych tomorrow morning,” Chloe insisted.

            “We’ll
stay up there until four in the morning, so we can get a few hours of sleep
before class,” Sam amended, “but, if we do, we get your other bottle of vodka
and you guys have to swear that you’re not going to fuck around and come up
there and try to scare us or anything.”

            “And
if you get scared and come down before four?” asked Jen.

            “Then
Chloe and I will buy all your’s and Melanie’s drinks at the Eat Friday,” Sam
vowed.  Jen and Melanie exchanged a long, calculating glance.

            “Deal,”
agreed Jen.

            Around
the room, conversations resumed.  The subject turned back to drinking games. 
Sam leaned forward to take the vodka bottle from Chloe and shot her a quick
wink.  Chloe tried to smile back, but what came out was probably more of a
grimace.  Inside, her stomach began to twist itself into a small, defensive
ball.

CHAPTER FOUR

            “It’s
so c-c-cold up here,” Chloe said through chattering teeth. 

            Her
breath formed steamy clouds in the crisp night air.  They sat across from each
other in the open bell tower, on the cold, hard cement slab, each with their
back to a pillar.  Six carved pillars supported a tall, rounded cupola roofed
by dark slate tiles.  A two foot high wrought iron fence circled the entire
perimeter; it was obviously not part of the original design.  It didn’t make
Chloe feel any safer.

            “Stop
being so melodramatic,” laughed Sam, “it’s not
that
cold.”

            “How
cold is cold to you?  I can see my breath,” Chloe exhaled a long hot breath and
pointed at the cloud it formed.

            “Cold
is when it’s so far below zero that when you step outside you feel like your
eyeballs are freezing,” Sam said.

           
“Crazy Yooper,”
Chloe said half-admiringly.

            “Thin-blooded
troll,” Sam countered, “Here, take a blanket then.”  Sam threw a quilt she had
snatched off her bed at Chloe.  Chloe wrapped it tightly around herself, and
huddled down again, miserably against her post.

            “I
can’t believe we’re doing this,” she complained, “we have class tomorrow, we
should be in bed, and I’m sure this is against some sort of rules.  I mean, the
stairs had a chain over them and a sign.  You saw the sign, right?  The one
that said: maintenance only?”

            Sam
didn’t seem to be listening. In the middle of the cement floor was the trap
door they had come through earlier.  Sam had dropped her “supplies” next to it,
and now she stared at it thoughtfully.

            “You
don’t suppose it locked behind us, do you?” Sam wondered.  Chloe’s panic dug
spurs into her.  She lunged forward and grasped the metal ring, giving it a
hard pull.  The trapdoor screeched open, exposing the shadowy staircase
beneath.

            “No,”
she confirmed, lowering it down gently.

            Sam
giggled.  “Geez Chloe, freak out why don’t you?”

            Chloe
winced.  Looking around for some way to change the subject, her eyes fell on
the “supplies” Sam had gathered.  They consisted of a few blankets that the
girls’ had stripped off their beds, a mug and a pint glass with BHC logos on
them, four bags of snack-size chips (that Sam had gotten out of the lobby
vending machine) a flashlight, a two liter of Faygo Redpop, a Ouija board
(generously donated by Jen and Melanie) and the all important bottle of vodka,
which was their reward for the whole stupid undertaking.

            “You
ever done this Ouija board thing before?” Chloe asked.

            “Yeah,
sure, but it never actually works, somebody always pushes it,” Sam said.

            “You
don’t believe in like…ghosts or anything?” Chloe asked in her best off-hand
manner.

            “I
believe it’s time for a drink.”  Sam placed the mug and pint glass side by side
and twisted the top off the vodka.  “I’ve never had vodka with redpop before,
but that’s all I had to mix it with, and what I’m thinking is, vodka is really
good and redpop is really good, so vodka and redpop should be super good,
right?”

            “By
that logic, bacon-flavored ice cream should be a best seller,” Chloe snorted.

            Sam
passed her the mug. Chloe took a sip and grimaced.  Sam made it strong, it
tasted like it was half vodka.  The girls sat silently, sipping on their drinks. 
From far below, the streetlights over the parking lot gave off just enough
light for Chloe to discern the pensive look on Sam’s face.

            “So
why BHC?” Sam asked after what seemed like an hour.

            “What
do you mean?” Chloe replied dully.

            “I
mean, it’s like I said earlier, kids either end up here because their grades
sucked or because their parents can’t afford a better school.  It’s pretty
obvious that I’m here because I spent a lot more time partying than I did
studying, and well, my folks aren’t exactly oil barons or anything either.  Now
you, on the other hand, I would guess your grades were pretty good.”

            “What
makes you say that?”

            “Oh
I dunno…
we have class tomorrow, Sam.  You can’t turn this in to Willard,
Sam, it’s not eloquent enough
,” Sam mimicked in a high-pitched voice.

            “Shut-up,”
Chloe grinned.

            “So
your grades were probably pretty good,” Sam continued.

            “Decent,”
Chloe admitted.

            “So
what are you doing here?” Sam repeated.

            “Maybe
I’m the other type.  Maybe my parents are poor and I’m just going with what I
can afford.”

            “Maybe,”
Sam shrugged.

            The
uncomfortable silence returned.  Chloe took a nervous gulp from her mug, and
then tried to stifle her gag reflex.  It turned into a cough.

            “It’s
just that, BHC is a long way to go.  I’m sure there’s a lot of community
colleges and small schools below the bridge you could have gone to.  Why come
all this way?” Sam wondered aloud.

            Chloe
took another long sip instead of answering.  Her mind raced furiously to think
up a good explanation while she tried to appear calm.  Nothing, there was
nothing she could think of to say.  Her mug was already empty.

            “More?”
Sam asked lightly.

            Chloe
nodded and passed her the mug back.  She watched as Sam threw back the rest of
her drink and then set the cups side by side to pour again.  Sam’s face was a
study of complete unconcern.  She handed Chloe back a mug of fizzing red
liquid.

            “I
have a guess,” Sam offered.  When Chloe didn’t reply, Sam seemed to take it as
permission to continue.  “I think you had some kind of falling out with your
parents.”

            “Why?”
Chloe’s voice cracked.

            “Well,
it just seems funny that they didn’t drop you off and they haven’t even called
that I’ve noticed and you haven’t called them.  You’ve also never said anything
about them.  I think you had a fight with them, and you decided to go to school
as far away from home as you could, and still not have to pay out-of-state
tuition.  Am I close?” Sam prodded.