Student Body (Nightmare Hall) (8 page)

But we could have voted Bay down, and we hadn’t.

“Then there’s Hoop,” Bay continued into my silence. “Everyone’s really bummed about Hoop. We had a good chance at taking the finals. But without him, we’re lost.”

Of course there would be no way Hoop could play. The game was Tuesday night. We didn’t even know if he would live until Tuesday night. And no one had to tell us that if he had a future at all, it wouldn’t be in sports. He’d be lucky if he ever walked again, never mind running up and down a basketball court.

“So everyone’s mad about that, too, although they don’t come right out and say so. They know that thinking about a trophy sounds pretty shallow when they should be thinking about Hoop. But you can see it in their eyes: kiss the championship good-bye.”

Everyone hated us. Only they didn’t
know
it was
us
they hated. They just hated whoever had been stupid and careless enough to start that fire.

I did, too.

Bay wanted me to meet him, just to talk for a little while.

I said no. I knew he wanted me to make him feel better. We’d sit on the Commons somewhere and tell each other that we hadn’t meant it, we’d blame the high wind and the dry winter, we’d say that it could have happened to anyone. And then maybe we’d hold each other and kiss and try to make it all disappear.

But it wouldn’t disappear.

Besides, I had something else I wanted to do, and I didn’t want Bay to know. He’d disapprove, and try to talk me out of it.

So I told him my burned skin hurt too much and I was going to go to bed.

And I did. Nat and I both did.

I waited for her to fall asleep. It took forever, and I almost dozed off myself.

As soon as I was positive that she was really out, I got up quietly, threw on a pair of jeans, sweater, sneakers and jacket, and left the room.

I
DROVE MYSELF TO
the hospital. The secondhand maroon Escort that my parents had given me as a reward for being accepted at Salem wasn’t as flashy or as new as Hoop’s Miata or as useful as Bay’s car, but I liked it. It got me where I wanted to go, although most of the time I took the shuttle because it was free.

But there would be people on the shuttle. They’d want to know why my face looked like someone had taken a torch to it, and they’d ask all kinds of questions about Hoop.

Who needed that?

Almost from the moment I slid behind the wheel, I had this weird, creepy sensation along the back of my neck. I had checked the backseat before I got in, as I always did, and there hadn’t been any maniacs in ski masks lying there, hiding under a blanket. So why the feeling, as I drove off campus, that someone’s eyes were boring a hole through the back of my head?

There
were
cars behind me as I pulled out onto the highway, but that didn’t mean someone was following me. It was Saturday evening. Everyone was going out. If it hadn’t been for last night, I’d be with them: Mindy and Hoop, Eli and Nat, Bay and I, would be headed downtown to Johnny’s or to a movie at the mall, or maybe to a party at Nightmare Hall. The place was creepy, but they threw great parties there.

Even on the open highway, the feeling of being watched didn’t fade. I kept glancing into my rearview mirror, but all I could see were headlights.

Quit being paranoid, I told myself, and concentrated on driving. In spite of the salve, my burned skin still felt parchment-dry, and I ached every time I turned the wheel.

When I reached the Medical Center, I went directly to ICU. Stepping out of the elevator, I found two people sitting in the tiny waiting area. A large, balding man was asleep in a chair, an open magazine in his lap. A small, gray-haired woman sipping coffee sat opposite him, her eyes staring at the white tiled floor. She’d been crying.

I knew who they were from Parents’ Day. Hoop’s folks. I clenched my teeth. I did
not
want to talk to them. Was I going to be able to slip by unseen? Mr. Sinclair was no problem, sitting there with his eyes closed, but what if Hoop’s mother looked up? She might remember me, and want to talk. I knew I wasn’t up to that.

I stepped back into the elevator, returned to the lobby, and took the fire stairs back up to ICU.

Halfway there, I thought I heard footsteps below me, but decided it was my imagination. And even if it wasn’t, why shouldn’t other people be using the stairs? I kept going.

I came out of the stairs at a safe distance from the waiting area and waited behind a tall, potted plant until Nurse Lovett left her post. Then I scurried into the ICU unit and went straight to Hoop’s window.

He wasn’t there.

The bed was empty.

They had said he might not make it through the first seventy-two hours. And his mother had been crying …

I almost lost it right then and there; until my brain said, Get a grip, Tory. Would Hoop’s father be taking a nice, restful snooze if his son had just died?

Of course not. What was wrong with me?

I went back out to the desk and waited for Nurse Lovett.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said sharply when she returned and saw me standing there. “Only immediate family. What happened to your face?”

“Where’s Hoop?” I demanded, ignoring her question about my face. None of her business. And I made no apology for the fact that I wasn’t related to Hoop. I still had a right to be there, whether she thought so or not.

She must have remembered me from the night before because she didn’t say, “Who? Oh, you mean the Sinclair boy, Michael.” Sitting down at her desk, she said instead, “He’s back now. He was down on the second floor. Consultation about his course of treatment.” She looked up at me. “It’s going to be very rough, you know. If he makes it at all, there will be times during his recovery when he’ll wish he hadn’t. Treatment for burns as serious as his is horribly painful. He’s going to need a lot of support. I hope you’ll continue to come and see him through the long haul. Most people can’t take it and give up after a while.”

Well, I thought but didn’t say, I’d like to be here for Hoop, but
he
may have something to say about that. Because when he is alert and recovering, he’s going to remember exactly what happened. And maybe he’ll hate the five people who were once his very best friends, because they didn’t come back and save him from that fire. So he probably won’t want to see our faces.

“Has he said anything yet?” I asked.

Nurse Lovett shook her head. “Oh, heavens no. He couldn’t possibly talk. His face … well, he hasn’t even been conscious yet. Be grateful for small favors. In fact, it’s really senseless for you to keep making these trips down here. It’s going to be a while before he’s physically able to talk, and even longer before he’ll feel like making the attempt. Just call. We’ll keep you updated on his condition.”

I knew she was right. It really
didn’t
make much sense to keep going to the medical center when Hoop was still in such bad shape.

But I wanted,
needed,
to see him one more time before I left. I waited until Nurse Lovett’s back was turned, and then did an end run around her. In the ICU unit, I went to Hoop’s window and stood looking in at him.

I don’t know what I’d been hoping for. A miracle, maybe. To see Hoop, unbandaged, sitting up in bed, watching a basketball game on television and scarfing down hospital food.

No such luck. There was no sign of life at all in the white-wrapped figure lying motionless in the white hospital bed with tubes running in and out of his body. That’s all it seemed to be from where I stood, a body. It could as easily have been a mannequin from one of the department stores in Twin Falls.

The sight sickened me. The Hoop I’d known and liked, even loved as a friend, had been replaced by this mannequinlike, lifeless figure.

At least, I tried to tell myself, he wasn’t screaming in agony.

“Excuse me,” a soft voice said from behind me, “but aren’t you Tory Alexander? One of Michael’s friends?”

I groaned silently. Hoop’s mother. I should have beat it out of there the minute I’d seen the empty bed.

I turned around. What else could I do?

“Hi, Mrs. Sinclair.” She looked terrible. Her blouse and skirt were wrinkled, there was a small coffee stain on one blouse pocket, and her gray hair needed combing. And I had never seen such sad eyes. “You really should be sleeping, like your husband.”

“Oh, I can’t sleep,” she said, taking my hand to lead me into the waiting room. The lights were brighter in there and when she turned to look at me, she looked confused. “Tory? Were you … you weren’t with Michael in that terrible fire, were you? I thought the rangers told us he was alone in the park. But your face …”

“Oh, this,” I said, waving a hand. “No, I screwed up at the tanning salon today.”

She looked even more confused. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking, My Michael is lying in a hospital bed in agony, teetering on the edge of death, and one of his best friends went to a tanning salon? I will never understand young people if I live to be a thousand.

I didn’t like what she was thinking, but it would have taken too long to explain. “I’m sorry about Hoop, Mrs. Sinclair. I know how worried you must be. But he’ll be fine,” I added lamely.

Her faded blue eyes clouded. “I keep thinking that any minute now, they’ll come out and tell us that it isn’t really Michael in there, that they’re terribly sorry, but they made a mistake. It’s some other unfortunate person lying in that bed all wrapped in bandages and hooked up to machines, and Michael is right this moment eating dinner at that lovely Chinese restaurant in town.”

“Hunan Manor,” I murmured absentmindedly. She wasn’t letting go of my hand.

“Yes, that’s the one. You know, it really doesn’t
look
like Michael in that bed, don’t you agree, Tory?”

I wasn’t cruel enough to say that it didn’t look like
anyone.
“I’m sure he’s going to be okay,” I mumbled again.

But we both knew he wasn’t. Not “okay” as in he’d be racing up and down a basketball court any day now, and not “okay” as in, he’d be dancing up a storm at Johnny’s by next Saturday night, and not “okay” as in, he would eventually be as handsome and unblemished as he once was. Michael “Hoop” Sinclair wasn’t ever going to be that kind of okay again, and his mother and I knew it.

Before she could ask the question I’d been dreading—“How did this happen to my son, Tory?”—I said for a third time that I was sure he’d be okay, muttered something about having to study for a test (on Saturday night? Mrs. Sinclair must have been thinking), and ran for the elevator.

And even though she was no longer looking at me when the doors closed, even though she’d returned to her husband’s side and was instead looking down at him as if she wished desperately that he’d wake up so she wouldn’t be alone, I could still feel the incredible sadness in her eyes, and knew that I would for a very long time.

But it wasn’t
her
eyes that troubled me as I hurried the two blocks to my car. Her eyes were sad and bleak and lonely. I still felt eyes on my back, and they felt …
angry.
An angry stare burned into the back of my neck. I knew I was being ridiculous … there was no one around. No sound of footsteps, either. But I could
feel
those eyes on me …

I tried to shake the feeling. At least half a dozen times on my way to the car I stopped, my heart woodpeckering away in my chest, and turned to peer into the darkness. And saw … nothing. Absolutely nothing but the brightly lit medical center, the trees and bushes surrounding it. No one was following me.

Still, I had never been so glad to unlock the door of the Escort and slip inside, quickly re-locking the door. I didn’t even take the time to check the backseat. But, remembering my mother’s repeated warnings, I did check before I left the parking lot. Nothing there but a pile of books and an old sweater that I’d always hated.

Wherever the watching “eyes” were coming from, it wasn’t the backseat of my car.

Still glancing repeatedly into my rearview mirror, I had just left the business district of Twin Falls, when a tiny red light suddenly began blinking at me from the dashboard.

I had no idea what it meant, but it had never been on before and I knew it wasn’t supposed to be on now.

All I wanted to do was get safely back to campus and run to my room. I kept going, hoping that the little red light didn’t mean anything important and thinking that even if it did, sheer force of will might keep the car going long enough to get me back to campus.

I was wrong, on both counts.

The light stopped blinking after a few minutes and became instead a steady, burning red glow, staring at me accusingly.

I kept going.

And then the car began chugging, something it had never done before.

A minute or two later, just as I was approaching gloomy old Nightmare Hall on my right, a terrifying sight met my eyes. There was a thin stream of smoke trailing out from under the hood of my car.

Then, just as quickly, it wasn’t a thin stream, but a wide plume, which in seconds became a thick, gray cloud pouring out into the dark night air.

I stared at it, transfixed.

My car was on fire.

I
F I HADN’T PANICKED,
I would never have been stupid enough to open the hood. But the highway was deserted, there was no one I could flag down to tell me what to do, that creepy old house on the hill was staring down at me, and I guess I went a little crazy with fear.

I turned off the ignition, jumped from the car and ran around to the front to yank the hood open. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe in my terror and temporary madness I thought opening the hood would keep the car from exploding into a huge ball of flame and smoke.

Or maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.

One second later, the air was filled with screams of agony. They were
my
screams, as hot steam scalded my already-seared face. Too late, my hands flew to cover my face and, screaming, I staggered backward to escape the heat.

The pain was excruciating. I couldn’t stop screaming, couldn’t stand in one place, kept running back and forth, back and forth, my hands over my face, my mouth letting go of one piercing scream after another.