I finally left my bedroom, crept down the basement stairs, and headed to the back corner that harbored the tools I needed. I had originally thought I’d have to do this with my mother home. But with her gone, it would be much easier. Back upstairs I stopped in the hallway. To my left was my open bedroom door; to my right was the spot where my father had pulled my mother over the dining room table earlier in the evening. I walked past the table, to the bottom of the stairs where my mother’s body had lain when the ambulance arrived. I took the stairs one at a time. They creaked softly under my fourteen-year-old frame, but I was suddenly unafraid. A sense of purpose filled me as I carried the thick rope in my gloved hands. I felt a resolve telling me that even if my father woke, I would be able to carry things out as planned. There was nothing that could stop me.
When I pushed open the bedroom door, the light from the hallway slanted across his sleeping body. He was snoring the way he always did after he’d been drinking. He was on his back, and I wasted no time. I carefully laid the rope across his neck. He swallowed when I did this, and his snoring momentarily stopped. I stood still until it started again, then I slithered under the bed. It was dark without the light from the hallway to guide me. I felt for the ends of the rope and pulled them down so they hung by my ears. Then I carefully wrapped each length around my hands. I was wearing garden gloves from the basement to prevent rope burns. I slid my knees upward so they were against my chest. It was a tight squeeze, and in order to gain the leverage I needed I had to lift the mattress slightly. When I did, it caused my father to stir. I feared he was about to wake. There was no time to position myself.
I pulled down on each end of the rope. At the same time, I leaned backward into the floorboards while my knees pressed firmly against the mattress above me. I closed my eyes when I heard him cough and felt him squirm. I wanted to cover my ears, but I needed to hear him die. I had to be sure. The mattress bucked wildly as he thrashed above me. I held on with all my strength. Five straight minutes. Until the muscles in my arms cramped, and my back burned. Until my legs went numb, and until my father finally stopped moving. I forced myself to hold the rope tightly for five minutes longer.
When I finally released my grip, my muscles refused to relax. They stayed taut and contracted, and a searing pain coursed through my knees when I straightened them. I waited a few more minutes, but the only noise I heard was my breathing. I slid from under the bed and looked briefly at my father. I knew he was dead. I didn’t need to check. Instead, I tied the ends of the rope to the top of the headboard and pushed his lifeless body until it hung from the edge of the bed. I made sure there was nothing in the room that would give away my presence there that night. Then I headed back down to the basement and dropped the garden gloves in the corner where I found them, climbed the stairs to my room, and closed the door. I stared through the keyhole all night long, until the dark shadows were replaced by dawn. My father never appeared in the keyhole again. It was a new day.
I pulled the tassel and laid it between the pages as I shut my journal.
“I was too young at the time to understand the way I felt about myself, but our sessions have clarified things for me. The feeling was disgust. Since that day, I’ve realized that the weak have no place on this earth and that those who prey on them are equally worthy of extinction.”
We stared at each other the way we usually did after I finished reading from my journal.
“Do you disagree?” I finally asked.
She shook her head. “Not at all.”
“Good. Then I want to tell you about what I have planned here on campus. It will take care of both the pathetically fragile and the bullies who take advantage of them. You’re the only one who would understand, and since you’re not able to tell anyone what we discuss during our sessions, I know you’ll keep my secret.”
CHAPTER 37
IN WESTMONT PREP’S LONG HISTORY, NO STUDENT HAD EVER BEEN EXPELLED. Once Westmont accepted the individual, the institution accepted the challenge of guiding them, reshaping them, and turning their lives around. They did it with discipline, structure, and counseling. Lots and lots of counseling.
Christian Casper held a medical degree in psychiatry and had completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Along with Gabriella Hanover, Dr. Casper was the codirector of counseling at Westmont Prep. Drs. Casper and Hanover oversaw the caseworkers who did their best to guide the teenagers who spent their formative years at the school. Most teenagers who passed through the gates of Westmont Prep left the institution better human beings and more able to face the challenges of life than before they arrived.
Like much of Westmont Prep faculty, Dr. Casper had a residence on campus. In addition to his role as a therapist, he taught an AP U.S. History course, a full-time position to which he had dedicated the past decade of his life. He lived in the number eighteen duplex on Teacher’s Row, which doubled as his office. Gwen Montgomery sat across from him now, their session coming to an end.
“You haven’t brought your journal to our sessions lately,” Dr. Casper said. “Have you been journaling?”
“Not as much as usual.”
Dr. Casper did not respond, which Gwen knew from years of sessions with him meant that he was not satisfied with her answer.
“I haven’t really been thinking about that stuff lately. Like, me stuff. I’ve been distracted all week.”
“By what?”
Gwen shrugged. “Just getting used to being a junior and everything that goes along with it.”
“What’s so different about junior year?” Dr. Casper asked.
“Upperclassman stuff.”
“Let me guess, you started going out to the abandoned boarding house.”
Gwen looked away, and Dr. Casper laughed.
“It’s the worst-kept secret at Westmont Prep. The old house in the woods where upperclassmen drink beer and do other stupid things? It’s been going on long before you arrived here and will go on long after. Or at least until they tear that wretched thing down. Next year, when you’re a senior, you’ll be doing the same thing to unsuspecting juniors.”
“Doing what?” Gwen asked.
Dr. Casper pulled up his laptop. “Giving them a hard time. It’s tradition for the seniors to razz the juniors.”
Gwen wondered if Dr. Casper’s definition of “razzing” included being blindfolded and lined up on train tracks. And even if Dr. Casper knew about the gathering at the abandoned boarding house, Gwen was sure he knew nothing about the details of what went on there. She was just learning them herself.
“Put it in your journal,” Dr. Casper said. “Write down your experiences, and what it is about those experiences that bothers you. We’ll talk about them next time. Deal?”
Gwen nodded.
Dr. Casper tapped his keyboard. “Do you need refills on your prescription?”
Gwen was silent.
Dr. Casper looked up at her. Gwen nodded.
“Yeah. I need more.”
“I’ll send it in now and you can pick it up at the nurse’s office tomorrow.”
Gwen was silent until Dr. Casper stopped tapping on his computer and looked back up at her.
“It’s summertime,” he said. “I expect you to break a few rules. I’d be worried if you didn’t. Just don’t get carried away.”
CHAPTER 38
THE FIRST WEEK OF THE SUMMER SESSION WAS UNDERWAY, AND AFTER only a single day of classes it was proving to be as awful as predicted. The students stared through classroom windows daydreaming of being anywhere else, romanticizing the summer they were missing and imagining their liberated classmates soaking up the sun during beach parties on long summer days and laughing around bonfires at night. The only positive was that the curriculum was light, with each pupil required to take only two courses. Gavin and Gwen had strategically planned the same schedule—Mr. Gorman’s Chemistry class and Dr. Casper’s APUSH course.
Mr. Gorman’s class came with the added burden of a three-hour
lab on Tuesdays and Thursdays to go along with the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classroom time. Getting it out of the way while dealing with only one other course was a begrudgingly legitimate excuse for being trapped at Westmont during the summer, as Gavin’s aunt had mentioned in the letter Gwen had read.
Gwen and Gavin stood next to each other in the lab, safety goggles protecting their eyes and test tubes and beakers in front of them. Across from them were Theo and Danielle, and at the neighboring lab table were Tanner Landing and Bridget Matthews, who had been partnered with Andrew Gross and another senior. Mr. Gorman droned in the background about the chemical reaction that was about to take place.
“You guys interested in heading up to Chicago one weekend this summer to catch a Cubs game?” Andrew asked.
Tanner nearly salivated at the invitation. He nodded. “For sure!”
“Good,” Andrew said, a smile forming on his face. “I hear there’s a train that runs right up to Wrigley Field. I’ll see if I can get you a seat on it.”
The other seniors laughed from the table next to them.
“But this time I’ll get you a seat that doesn’t splinter so badly.”
Tanner smiled because he didn’t know what else to do. His cheeks reddened.
Mr. Gorman came over to Gwen’s lab table. “Miss Montgomery will demonstrate for us the chemical reaction first and then you will repeat the process at your own stations. Gather around.”
There were just twelve students in the lab, three groups of four, and they all converged around Gwen’s table as she poured pink liquid from a beaker into a Florence flask, which Gavin held with a clamp secured around the neck and with the bottom over the flame of a Bunsen burner. Inside the flask, crystals starting gyrating as the liquid boiled from the heat. Gwen held a pipette over the flask. When she titrated a single drop into the pink boiling liquid, it created a loud popping noise before a thick white gaseous fog formed inside the flask, which grew in intensity until the gas spilled over the edge and streamed down the side of the beaker.
“Mr. Landing, can you explain why the vapor is moving down the exterior of the flask rather than floating into the air?”
“Because it’s got that pink stuff in it?”
Mr. Gorman looked around the lab. “Miss Montgomery?”
“Because the iodine vapor has a higher density than air. Basically, it’s heavy and so it sinks.”
“Correct. Mr. Landing, let’s try again. Tell me about the reaction that is taking place between the ammonia and the iodine. What is the snapping noise we are hearing?”
Tanner looked at the pink bubbling fluid as it fizzled and spit off more vapor.
“Um, it’s explosive?”
“Very cute. Can you tell us what’s happening with the chemistry?”
“Um, some sort of reaction that’s pretty sweet.”
“Miss Montgomery?”
“Nitrogen triiodide is unstable,” Gwen said, “because the nitrogen and iodine atoms are different sizes. The bonds connecting the nuclei are breaking, which causes the popping noise. When the ionic bonds break, they release the fog or vapor.”
“Excellent, Miss Montgomery. Maybe you could show Mr. Landing where that information is in the textbook he clearly hasn’t yet opened. Now let’s add the other substance to the smoking flask.”
Gwen titrated a few drops from a second pipette into the flask Gavin was holding. As soon as the substance met the fluid inside the flask, the fog dissipated.
“Buzzkill,” Tanner said, offering a stupid smile. “I wonder what would happen if you swallowed that stuff.”
This got a few chuckles from the seniors.
“You’d lose more brain cells than you have left to offer, Mr. Landing.”
Mr. Gorman’s comeback caused the entire class to burst into laughter. Gavin laughed so hard he had to steady the flask with both hands to prevent spillage.
“Settle down,” Mr. Gorman said. “Everyone break into your groups and run the experiment yourselves. Discard everything into the sinks under the hood. The write-up summary will be due at the end of the period.”
Mr. Gorman went to the front of the lab and sat at his desk to riffle through papers.
“Tonight,” Andrew said while he was standing around Gwen’s lab table. “Thirteen-three-five. Eleven o’clock.”
Gwen and Gavin looked at each other and then to the others.
“It’s a weekday,” Gwen said. “Curfew is nine.”
Andrew smiled. “Then don’t get caught.”
CHAPTER 39
THE DRIVE TO PEPPERMILL FROM SOUTH BEND WAS JUST UNDER AN hour. Marc McEvoy made the trip after a busy morning at the office. He left under the ruse of a lunch meeting with a client. Really, though, today was for reconnaissance. He took Indiana Route 2 west out of South Bend. It was a straight shot to Peppermill, and after an hour he pulled into the parking lot of the Metra station. From his parked car, he waited five minutes for the train to arrive, then watched as commuters stepped onto the platform and dispersed.
Next, he drove to the Motel 6 on Grand Avenue, clocking the distance on his odometer at 0.6 miles from the train station. An easy walk. Then, he drove north until he reached Route 77. That was another mile, also easily tackled when necessary. Finally, he drove Route 77 until he saw mile marker thirteen, after which he slowed to twenty miles an hour as he studied the foliage off to the right. He located the spot in the forest where he would enter. From there, he knew it would be another half a mile to his destination.
All told, from the train station, he’d have to cover about two and a half miles on foot the night of the Man in the Mirror. No problem.
To make sure he knew the route without question, Marc pulled a U-turn and headed back to the Motel 6 to rehearse the route one more time. When the night came, he wanted no surprises.
CHAPTER 40
THE GROUP MADE IT TO THE OF THE FOREST BY TEN O’CLOCK on Tuesday night, having followed the same 13:3:5 route they had taken on Saturday. The PRIVATE PROPERTY sign hung from the drooping chain with the boarding house in front of them. Interior lights attempted to penetrate the painted windows and resulted in a blunted glow that evaporated into the ink-black night.
Andrew Gross walked out of the front door and stood on the landing.
“All six of you came back.” He shrugged. “I’m shocked the train didn’t even get one of you to quit. Don’t worry. We’ve got the whole summer.”
Andrew disappeared back through the front door. Gwen and her friends waited for a moment before they headed toward the house. Walking up the stairs felt mythical. They had heard of the place for so long that walking inside felt like a dream. Although live with electricity, the ceiling bulbs had long since burned out and were too high to safely replace. Their absence cast the staircase and tall foyer ceilings in darkness. Construction-style orange-boxed spotlights stood on a tripod and illuminated the large front room off the foyer. The corners of the room were heavy with empty beer bottles, discarded bottles of Tito’s Vodka, and crushed cans of mixers.
Andrew stood in front of the group of seniors who waited in the front room. The two groups—seniors on one side, juniors on the other—faced each other.
“Within the walls of Westmont Prep, a private group exists. Many have heard about this group, but few know anything about it. The faculty denies that it exists, and outsiders have been trying to penetrate its secrets for years. You are now looking at the senior members. Freshmen and sophomores are not worthy enough to be included, and only select juniors are considered for initiation. The six of you are the only ones to earn an invitation.
“But acceptance into the elite ranks of our society requires that you pass a series of challenges. Failure to complete a challenge results in expulsion from the group. The challenges culminate on the night you surely have all heard about—the night new initiates face the Man in the Mirror. This happens on the longest day of the summer—June twenty-first. The summer solstice tradition reaches back to the inaugural year w
hen Westmont opened its doors in 1937. The things that take place at this abandoned boarding house are for society members only and can’t be discussed with any nonmembers. Secrecy is one of our greatest oaths.
“Each year, the society chooses a teacher for new initiates to target. Last summer, it was Mrs. Rasmussen. As juniors, we were tasked with certain challenges geared around her. You all remember the smoke bomb that went off during her commencement speech? The dead raccoon in her desk drawer? The day she got locked in the bathroom until the fire department rescued her? The day her residence on Teacher’s Row was breached and lightly vandalized? Police were called and students were questioned.” Andrew opened his arms to indicate the group of seniors behind him. “None of us were implicated in any of the incidents. That’s because of our oath of secrecy.
“You will be required to complete similar challenges this summer. Your subject should never see the strike coming. He should never know who delivered it. We work in the shadows, and although much of the student body will know the society was behind a particular prank, no one should be able to identify any members of our group. If you are caught during one of the challenges, the secrecy of our organization demands that you shoulder the blame yourself.”
Andrew took a couple of steps toward them.
“Are all of these rules understood?”
Gwen and her friends nodded, none fully comprehending what they were agreeing to, still confused by the reality of standing inside the infamous boarding house.
The Suicide House Page 13