by Shawn Wall
They waited in line, holding hands, talking, and flirting. They were laughing when they sat at their usual table.
"What are you two laughing about?" Seth's friend Henry asked.
Seth and Suzanne looked at each other and smiled.
"Ah," Henry sighed. "Can you two go one day and keep your hands off one another?”
Seth laughed. "No."
Then, a boy Suzanne didn't know walked up to Seth. His right hand was wrapped in gauze.
"Hey dude, thanks again. I'm really lucky you are quick on your feet." The boy smiled.
"Oh, it was nothing. Glad I was there," Seth said.
He walked away, and Seth began eating his bacon without any explanation.
"What was that about?"
"Nothing really," he said without looking up from his tray.
"It didn't sound like nothing.” Just like before, he was trying to dismiss it.
"Hey, was that Josh? Did he have to get stitches?" Henry asked Seth.
Well, Henry knew what was going on, and she didn't. What in the round world was he hiding from her? He turned to Henry and nodded, and then looked at her.
"Suzanne, yesterday on the farm, I just helped Josh when he was hurt."
"Someone went to the hospital and you didn't tell me. What happened? Were you in danger?" Her voice was louder than usual. He knew he would have to explain now. He looked at her, hesitating.
"I was never in any danger. The lid to a silo fell, and I knocked Josh out of the way. If I hadn’t, it would have taken his whole hand off, and he still had to have sutures in two of his fingers. I just gave him a ride to the emergency room. It was really no big deal. End of story."
She could tell from the expression on his face that was the only explanation she would get for now. What would it matter if he helped someone? Did he really think she would freak out? That was not reason enough to avoid telling her. Did he think she was that stupid? This had gone on too long. It wasn't worth arguing about, but she would get her answer eventually.
They said their goodbye after breakfast because it was Tuesday. Being the spring semester now they only had Anatomy II together, and Suzanne had to work the evening shift. In fact, she absolutely hated these days, waiting till lunch to see him. Like always, she sat in the sunshine on a tree swing in the courtyard.
"Good afternoon, beautiful." He leaned down and kissed her.
"How has your day been so far?"
"Oh, crap, I forgot I need to go drop something off for Chemistry. You want to go with me?"
"Sure," she said. Then, she gathered her things.
Seth grabbed her backpack as usual. He would never let her carry anything.
He dropped his Chemistry paper at Professor Johnson's office, and then they walked back toward his dorm. Suzanne saw flyers being posted by campus security. A freshman's parents had reported their daughter missing. She had been gone for over three days. She gasped. "Seth, I've got to talk to you."
As she spoke, his face went pale, his eyes widened, and he was not paying attention to her. She didn’t think he even heard her, and now he was staring at the flyer.
"Seth." She spoke his name again, shaking his shoulder this time.
He snapped out of it and looked at her.
"Yes, we need to talk,” his said, his voice stern.
He grabbed her hand, walking at a fast pace toward his room. His legs were much longer than hers being that she was only five foot three and he was close to six foot. It felt like he was dragging her across the courtyard. When they reached to his room, she sat on the end of his bed. Then, he leaned against the counter by the sink and put his head in his hands.
"I don't know how to say this, Suzanne," he said with dread in his voice.
"What's wrong, Seth?" She was really worried now. He had never behaved in this way.
"You are going to think I'm crazy!" His voice was shaky.
"The flyer, this is about that girl. Do you think you know her?”
"No, Suzanne!"
He usually didn’t raise his voice at her. Something was terribly wrong. She’d known something was off because he had always had a mysterious nature to him. It made him all the more enticing, and she had feared to push all the strange events. For her, their relationship was inside a little glass house. A fear had always lulled in the back of her mind that, at any time, someone could shatter it. As she looked at him, the fear came whirling to the surface, choking her. It quickly brought her back into reality.
She was quiet, and he began to speak again.
"I had a vision of her. You might say a hallucination, and I saw something happen to her. The girl in my vision fits the description on the flyer, and I know it's the same girl.”
Her mouth fell open, but not for the reasons he thought.
"I'm scaring you. Don't freak out. I'm not crazy," he said. She sat still in shock, and she couldn't speak for a few moments.
"How?” She whispered.
"Since I was a boy, I've been this way. It’s not always visions. It’s mostly a sense. You always say I have a photographic memory. I guess you could say I sometimes know what's going to happen beforehand. My mother always said, even when I was a small child, she knew I was different. She said I did small things like catching an object that was falling almost immediately when it left the counter or her hands, not much, unless you’re two years old. It grew and grew from there. My great aunt has the same talent. She and my mother are the only ones who know.
After I was a teenager, I stopped telling my mom details. It made her worry too much. I've just accepted my lot in life and attuned this gift to help me. That's why I'm going to be a doctor. I want to help people. Of all the things I see that I can't fix, this extra sense of mine may help me heal.”
She was speechless. No, dumbfounded. She was in complete awe of him. All the questions and strange events finally made sense.
"Suzanne, say something. Are you scared of me? I won't hurt you.” He clutched her hand.
"I'm not scared of you, Seth."
There was a long pause as they looked into each other's eyes.
"Why didn't you trust me? This is how you helped Josh, isn't it? How you saved me that night at the haunted house. This is how you knew about the tornado. All of this time, from the suicide attempt to the fire. Who knows what has happened that I don’t even know about?”
She felt more betrayed than she could imagine.
"Oh, baby, I didn't keep this from you to hurt you. I love you. I do trust you.”
"Not enough." She spoke with tears in her eyes.
"You look at me with such admiration. I know you are proud of me. You constantly tell me I can do everything, and you really believe it’s true. I didn't want to do anything that would disappoint you, make you think less of me, make you not love me. I knew one day I would tell you, and you are the only other person I would ever trust to know. Don't be mad at me.”
She kept her head down. Then, he took his hands and cupped them around her cheeks, forcing her to look into his eyes.
"You are my life now. Everything that I am is wrapped up in you. I sense things all the time, but there is no warning for the visions, no rhyme or rhythm. I usually never have visions of someone close to me, typically strangers. Mostly, I'm just better at a certain things than other people, like in Chemistry. I already know how the experiment will turn out.”
"I can't stay mad at you." She smiled at him.
He wiped her tears away with his fingers.
"Don't cry, Suzanne. I can’t bear it.” Then, he brushed his lips across hers, dusting them lightly.
"The dreams, I saw her, too. I think it was the night she went missing, like the nightmares of my grandfather and Dwight. I saw a person take her. I didn't know if it was real, and I knew no one would believe me.”
"I would have believed you.” He cupped her checks in his hands again. "It was Sunday night, the night we went to the library, right?”
She only nodded her head.
“That's when I think it happened, too. These visions are different than any I’ve had before. It’s like my radar is off. Usually my visions are of the future, giving me plenty of clues. Now, I’m only seeing flashes in bits and pieces. It’s damn frustrating. I didn’t see the man's face. Could you?"
"No, he came out of bushes close to the library and snatched her. He was wearing a mask of some sort.”
"I think she is dead." He grimaced. "I saw her in a body of water, and I think he threw her in Lake Columbia."
"Seth, there's more. I wasn't the bystander, watching it. I saw it through her eyes, the victim’s. Monday night, I dreamed he held her captive. She was tied up, and I think he was raping her." She shivered as the memory flashed in her mind.
"Tell me everything you remember."
She explained her dream in detail, and he had her repeat it three times.
"We can't tell anyone. They will think we hurt her because of the details.”
"I know, Suzanne. We’ll have to make an anonymous tip.”
They drove to a payphone off campus. Seth wore his gloves, so there would be no fingerprints on the phone, and called the tip into the police hotline. There was nothing else they could have done, after all, the poor girl was already gone. If anything, maybe the authorities could find her and her parents would be at peace.
* * * *
She was so jumpy at work. She could see the girl’s face over and over in her mind, just thinking of her poor family and what they would be facing in the coming days. After gathering all the water pitchers from the patient rooms, she loaded them on a cart. The census was up with over twenty patients on the floor, and she wasn’t about to refill all of those one by one. So, she labeled each by room number with a permanent marker. The break room with the ice machine was at the opposite end of the hall. It was a little spooky. The lights were dimmer, and it was quiet, being so far from the nurses’ station. It didn’t help that everyone told stories about a patient who haunted this end of the hall. She didn’t really believe them, but with her dreams of late, it didn’t help but put her a little on edge.
Suzanne was almost finished filling the last pitcher when the door abruptly opened. It was the orderly Peter. He looked at her strangely and smiled. He didn’t say a word, but he just kept staring. He didn’t really do anything, but the fear that welled inside of her told her to get out of that room. She was terrified to be alone with him. She pushed the cart toward him, forcing him out of the way. Pulling the door open, she tried to get back into the hall within eyesight of another person, a witness. Tripping over her own foot, she hit one of the pitchers, sending water and ice all over the break room floor. In the exact moment, her right knee hit the edge of the cart, ripping her hose and scraping her right knee. She tumbled to the floor.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m such a klutz.”
He leaned down and took her hand, helping her stand. His touch sent cold shivers down her spine, and not in a good way. Then, she could tell he was trying to look under her skirt, which had flown almost up to her waist during the fall. His stare darted away when he saw she realized, and she pushed down her skirt as quickly as she could.
“I’m fine. If you’ll please let me by, I’ve got to clean this mess up.”
“I’ll get a housekeeper to clean up this mess. You just take care of that knee.” He darted out the door.
Even his voice was a little creepy. She quickly made it to the bathroom across the hall. There was certainly no sense in salvaging her hose because the blood streaks alone would scare the patients. Her bare legs would have to work for the remainder of her shift. When she made her way back to the break room, Peter was waiting. He had pulled her cart into the hall and refilled the last pitcher.
“Sit down and let me look at your knee. I brought back some supplies to dress it with.”
“That’s okay. I’ll just cover it with a Band-Aid.” She shrank back.
“Look, there is blood running down your leg again. Let’s just get it cleaned up, and you can get back to work.”
He was right. Three thick red lines had almost reached her ankle. The cart did a little more than scrape her knee.
She sat down hesitantly, and he immediately spread a dressing kit over the table.
“Has anyone ever told you how stubborn you are?” he said as he knelt down to examine her knee.
“Many people actually.”
“This is gonna sting a little.”
He cleaned her knee and the drainage left on her leg with peroxide.
“You don’t need stitches. It’s just a nasty scrape.”
“How would you know that?”
“My dad’s a doctor, and I’ve picked up a few things along the way.”
Her knee finally stopped bleeding, letting him apply antibiotic cream and a large Band-Aid.
“You’re all fixed up.”
“Thank you. I better get back to work now.”
She got out of there as quickly as possible. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as everyone made him out to be. He was obviously a pervert, looking under her dress. But there were a million guys who would have peaked with that opportunity. He had helped her, and when he dressed her knee would have been the opportune time for him to make a move. Besides the look, he had not been out of line. Even Betty had admitted it had not been physical with her, just the uneasy look. She’d still stay clear of him regardless. After her shift, Seth picked her up, having just finished his own shift at the farm. Some time ago, he had switched days so their work schedules would match.
“Where are you hose?” Seth cocked his head back, and his eyebrows furrowed.
“Drenched with blood because I had an accident, scraped my knee.”
“I like this look much better. It must be pretty bad from the size of that bandage.”
“It’s not that bad. That’s just the size Peter used.”
“Who is Peter?” His tone was deeper than usual.
“Oh, Seth, he is just an orderly that helped me.”
“Ah, stepping out on me at work. I’ll have to meet this guy and see what my competition is like.” He shot her his crooked grin.
“There is no competition. The guy is a creep.”
* * * *
The next morning the local news announced the missing girl had been found. She had been brutally raped and her body dumped in Lake Columbia. Suzanne rushed to the phone calling Seth, but he already knew. When they met in the lobby, he had insisted on walking her to class. There was huge crowd around two girls sitting in the common area. Only one of them was speaking, the other girl looked like she had been crying. Suzanne walked over, knowing the commotion must be about the missing girl.
“The police questioned us for at least two hours. They wanted to know every guy she had dated and everything she had been up to for the last few months,” the girl said.
She noticed someone she knew. Joanie from Anatomy was standing in the back.
“Hey, Joanie did you know her?”
“Not very well, did you know her room was on the first floor?”
“No, I never met her.”
She saw Seth waiting outside and went to meet him.
“Seth, the girl that was killed lived in Bussey Hall.”
"You will not be alone for one moment. If something happened to you, if you were…" He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. He pulled her to him, holding her so tight in his strong arms she could hardly breathe.
“Nothing is going to happen to me. From what I can gather, the police think it could be a boy she was dating.”
“Regardless, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
The local paper was full of the news. Security was beefed up on campus and had announced any girls out after dark could call for an escort to their dorms. A few weeks passed with no news of the police being closer to finding the culprit. He had vanished in thin air, leaving no clues, and they had no information that would help them. Seth had her explain the dream again and again,
probing for any clues. As time passed, everyone slowly began their normal routines. The brutal incident could have just been random, a jealous boyfriend, an ex-lover. Seth stuck to his word, and if Suzanne left her dorm, he was with her. He even walked her to the classes they didn't have together, often running back across campus, to reach his own. She told him she would be safe during the day, but he wouldn't hear of it.
"No, Suzanne, I won't budge on this.”
They had begun studying in the library on the second floor cubby holes, the most private place in the library. Seth liked it, and he would often lean in and give her quick kisses when no one was paying attention. It wasn't even late, and they had a huge quiz in Anatomy lab the next day. She was so tired, her head began to bob, and she tried tapping her foot to stay awake. It didn't help, and she dozed.
Suzanne dreamed of a red-haired girl standing under the bell tower. It wasn't very dark, only dusk. The girl was tall and thin, and she was wearing a pink jacket. A noise started her, and when she turned, a large figure was approaching. Using a cloth, he placed his large hands over her nose and mouth and dragged her to his car. The redhead fought more than the blonde, and she was able to scratch his arm. His forearm was left exposed. Caucasian. He was much stronger than her, and she was quickly subdued. Suzanne stood straight up when she woke.
"You saw her?"
She could only nod.
“Let’s go.”
They threw their books in backpacks and ran out of the library toward the courtyard. There wasn't a soul in sight, and nothing seemed suspicious. The night was clear, and the bell tower lighted the entire courtyard. Even the bushes couldn’t be used for hide and seek. On a night like tonight, how would the rapist have an element of surprise?
"We must have been too late.” Seth grimaced. "There is nothing we can do now. We will just have to wait."
She gasped. "Did you see where he brought her?"
"No, my guess it will be the lake again, but I can't be sure. When she is reported missing that will be the first place the police look."
"This is useless, a curse, to see these things but unable to stop them. There must be some clue we are missing." She spoke with tears in her eyes.