Chloe glanced down the hallway in the direction she had come from. Which one was the door to the stairwell? They all looked the same. Tall, narrow, wooden, old…and the farther she walked, the more disoriented she felt. There should have been an exit sign…wasn’t that part of building code?
She grabbed the handle of the door nearest her and twisted. Locked. And the next…locked. And the next…locked. What if the door to the stairwell locked automatically behind her?
She should stay where she was. Seth was supposed to be right down. He wouldn’t be too long. Unless he forgot. Unless he had something else come up. He might be on his way and run into friends or something. He wouldn’t even have to forget, he’d just assume that she wouldn’t wait around for him, wouldn’t he?
The hallway seemed to constrict around her. Stop it! she ordered herself, but her legs wouldn’t obey. They walked faster, regardless, and when she realized that she was feeling the beginning pains of real panic, they broke into a run, stopping only long enough for her to grab each of the doorknobs as she flew by, trying to find one unlocked. If only there were a window! It was getting harder to breathe.
“STOP,” she told herself.
And she did. She froze in the middle of the hallway, breathing heavily.
Calm down, she advised herself. Calm down and think logically. You won’t be stuck down here forever, someone will realize you’re gone. Your roommate Sam, that guy, Seth, they both know you’re down here. If you don’t come back…someone will come looking for you.
She took a deep breath and blew out slowly, to steady herself. It was a technique she had learned recently. Feeling better, she kept still and listened. In a dormitory, full of hundreds of student bodies, she should hear something. Maybe people moving around above her. Maybe even feet coming down the stairs.
There was only the buzz of dreary florescent light bulbs close overhead. Nothing else, not even…but no she was wrong. There was something else. Something very faint. A breeze, a small stream of air, a breath, maybe…maybe a whisper.
Chloe balled her hands into fists and started to hum a made-up tune. It was air, or water moving through a pipe, or it was her imagination. Every nerve tensed in her frozen body. She could still hear it, even while humming. A whisper… a hiss.
‘Chloe,” it breathed.
“No,” Chloe said aloud, shaking her head. “Not real. You’re definitely imagining it. Not real at all”. This was a left-over from her old childhood strategies, be louder than it was. It couldn’t get you if you couldn’t hear it.
Above her, the florescent bulb buzzed steadily and then pinged and flickered. Chloe jumped. Walk, she decided, walk quickly, but not like you’re afraid. It doesn’t matter where. Walk away.
So she walked, but inside she knew she was doing it for show, pretending to appear unconcerned, pretending for someone. The whisper didn’t disappear. It was growing louder now, all around her.
Chloe, it called.
She had trained herself for this, to deal with these sorts of things. It didn’t sound like the old voice, the one she learned had always come from inside. She could have sworn this time that it came from outside--that anyone could hear it--but she was so easily fooled. Not this time, not on the first day of her new life. She wasn’t going back to all that.
“Chloe!” It said again, almost like a real voice.
Chloe walked faster, following the corridor around a bend. Ahead of her the hall dead-ended at a door, an open door. The only open one she had seen in the whole basement. It yawned wide, displaying nothing but a wall of black behind the threshold. Chloe paused uncertainly. She didn’t really want to find out why that door was open.
But that was fear talking, wasn’t it? And fear was irrational. She should only be afraid if she believed the voice was real, and she was mostly sure it wasn’t. Mostly. So the logical thing to do would be to keep going and see if the unlocked door was an exit.
Chloe stood still again, waiting to see if the voice would call her. It didn’t call, but it was there. It breathed. When she had counted a full sixty seconds of silence, she took another step towards the door. As she moved, it banged shut. A blast of hot air whooshed by her. Chloe screamed.
CHAPTER TWO
“Chloe!”
Chloe forced her way through the panic that kept her eyes clamped shut, to see Seth looking down at her. He held her firmly by both shoulders.
“What’s wrong with you? What happened?” He demanded.
She had been running then, running with her eyes closed and her arms out, and what had reached out and grabbed her hadn’t been some unknowable evil basement thing after all. It was just Seth. Seth, the R.A., who she had begun to think might actually like her. But nobody liked crazy. Chloe took a deep breath.
“I just…there was a noise, and then this door…slammed, right in my face. I guess I got…spooked.” she edited.
Seth dropped his hands. Her shoulders still felt hot where he had touched them.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“That‘s alright. It’s creepy down here, isn’t it?” his voice was calm and reassuring. “The truth is, it’s just air, and pressures and vacuums and stuff like that. Whenever you open one door another slams shut. I opened the door to storage and voila, another one slammed shut and scared you. It’s even worse in the winter when the heat kicks on.”
Seth put a hand between her shoulder blades and steered her back towards the stairs. It actually was marked ‘EXIT’, in large, red, hard-to-miss, letters.
“Old buildings like these…they just have floors that creak, and mice that live in the walls, and doors that won’t stay open. Then you add a couple of hundred kids and you get the inevitable freshman year ghost stories.”
“Ghost stories?” Chloe worried.
Seth rolled his eyes. Next to the stairwell door he had already stacked the pieces to Chloe’s bed. He handed her a bedrail and took the head and footboards himself.
“Sure, ghost stories. Tell one person you got scared down in the basement because a door slammed shut. Then come back next year and there’ll be a story about the freshman who went into the basement and just disappeared.”
Chloe trailed behind Seth as he began lugging the bed pieces up the stairs.
“If you go to any college campus, probably anywhere in the world, they all have the same ghost stories. There’s always one about a girl who kills herself because she finds out she’s pregnant, or because her boyfriend left her. If the college has a bell tower, then chances are there’s a story that someone hung themselves in the tower, or that someone jumped. It’s all a bunch of bullshit.”
Seth turned and caught the door at the top of the basement stairs with his foot, holding it open for her.
“You don’t believe in ghosts at all?” asked Chloe as they began climbing the main stair. A few girls wearing sympathetic smiles darted out of the way to give them room.
“God, I’m glad I didn’t get the fourth floor this year,” he muttered and then, “Ghosts? I don’t know. I never wasted any time thinking about it. I’ve never seen one, and even if I had…so what? What’s a ghost going to do? Sneak up behind you and shout ‘boo‘? That’s more annoying than scary. If you think about it, deer are scarier than ghosts.”
Chloe stopped on the second floor landing and turned around, not quite sure she heard him correctly.
“I’m sorry, did you say, deer?” she asked.
“Yea, deer. There are tons of white-tailed deer around here. You could be driving along, and one could run out in front of your car. You could hit it and smash up your car, or you could swerve, hit a tree, and die instantly. There’s a higher chance of that than there is of a ghost tripping you as you walk down the stairs, and yet none of the freshmen ever tell deer horror stories, or have nightmares about deer.”
“You’re joking?” Chloe guessed.
“I was making an attempt at being funny, yes,” he said with mock dejection.
Chloe smiled again.
/> Back in the room, Sam was still talking animatedly on the phone. Seth dropped his load on the ground, and Chloe leaned the rail against the wall.
“I’ll go back and get the slats and the other rail and get this together for you, alright?”
He winked at her before walking out. Chloe turned to see Sam watching with an evil grin. She pursed her lips and made mock kissing sounds. Chloe blushed and tried not to look pleased.
“Alright, Mom, alright…okay, yup. I gotta go. See you in a bit.” Sam hung up the phone and put her hands on her hips as she looked Chloe up and down.
“Well, someone seems to have made an impression with the R.A. He’s on the hockey team too you know…nice.”
“I don’t know,” Chloe tried to play it cool. Sam raised an eyebrow.
“You should ask him to go out with us tonight. We’re getting a bunch of people from the floor together and going to the Eat.”
“The Eat?” Chloe wondered.
“Yes, the Eat. You’re in the U.P. now Babe, da upper peninsula! Don’t look for Applebee’s or Chili’s here. The restaurants are all mom-and-pop type places. Most of them just have a sign up that says “Good Food” or “Eat” or my favorite, the old “Food Here”. The Eat is a campus institution round these parts.”
“Okay.” Chloe agreed.
“Not that we go there because the pasties are so good.” Sam added.
“The wha-”
“Pasties, never mind you’ll be sick of them in no time. We’re going to get wasted!” Sam exclaimed gleefully.
“Ummm,” was all Chloe could think to say.
“This is college! What were you planning on doing…studying?” Sam laughed.
“I’m barely 18,” Chloe admitted.
“No kidding. Again, this is the U.P., no one cares. That’s the beauty of it!” Sam put an arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “So…what took you so long…all alone in the basement down there with Seth the hottie R.A.?” she teased.
Chloe took a deep breath. Sam was so bright, so friendly, such a relief from everything she had been imagining for days on end. What had happened in the basement? Certainly she had felt the same old panic, the same struggle to force logic through her fear and determine if the voice really came from somewhere outside her own head. This time had been different. In the past, when she gave in to it, extreme measures had to be taken to bring her back…restraints…sedatives even. This time, Seth had waved it away with a calm voice and a lecture on the dangers of white-tailed deer. After all, there would be a long school year full of opportunities for her to risk alienating Sam with her problems.
“Nothing,” she said, “But I think…I think I like him.”
“Obviously,” agreed Sam. “Now the question is…what are we going to wear?”
Four hours, a few clothing changes, and a short drive later, Chloe and Sam found themselves crammed into a corner booth at the Eat with a large group of loud and excited freshmen.
The place seemed more like the type of restaurant that would draw weathered-looking, old farmers for morning coffee than a college hotspot. Dingy, chipped, linoleum countertops banded in chrome, and teal, vinyl seat cushions patched in places with duct tape, left no doubt that the restaurant hadn’t changed since it opened its doors. Even their waitress seemed to be vintage. She had big hair, a stained pink dress with a white apron, and a nametag which read: May.
“Uhhhhhh, whatcha got on tap tonight, May?” Sam smiled brightly. May made a face that suggested she might have been trying to use her tongue to pick something from between her teeth while staring over their heads. Chloe worried. To her it seemed May was deciding how best to throw all ten of them out the door after she asked for the I.D.’s that she knew none of them had.
“We got Bud or we got Bud Light,” May recited in a bored monotone.
“I don’t know, I just don’t know…Chloe? What do you think? I don’t suppose I could see the wine list, May?” Sam’s grin widened as May rolled her eyes and blew out an exasperated breath.
“B-bud, Budweiser for me, thank-you,” Chloe stuttered while giving Sam a sharp under-the-table jab with her elbow.
“A round on me, May,” Sam confirmed, “and start me a tab would you?”
May scribbled an angry flourish on her pad. “We don’t do tabs here,” she informed them before stomping away.
“What is wrong with you?” Chloe demanded in a whisper, “Are you trying to get us in trouble?”
Sam stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry. “Oh, screw May,” she said a little too loudly. “This whole town lives off the college and they act like we’re a damn plague or something. There’s nothing else here but a post office and a church. No factories, no farms, nothing. Maybe a few tourists in the summer and that’s it. I mean look at this place. The only thing keeping it open is good, old-fashioned, college binge-drinking. They know it. We know it. You’d think they’d want to try and cater to us just a little bit. Maybe have some microbrews on tap, or God forbid, liquor. But nooooo, I don’t think they’ve even updated the juke box in the last twenty years.”
As though to underscore her point, the jukebox suddenly sprang to life and the song, “Rock the Casbah” blared out of its crackly speakers.
“The Clash are timeless though,” Chloe observed with a smile.
“The who? The point is tha- Chloe! It’s Seth!”
Chloe’s head snapped in the direction of the door. Just as quickly, Sam reached out and yanked her chin to turn her face back. One of the girls in the booth giggled, and several of them made much less conspicuous glances towards the newcomers.
“Don’t look!” Sam hissed.
Seth walked by their booth with a group of boys who were all, quite obviously upperclassmen, and took a seat at a table against the far wall, his back to Chloe and Sam. It seemed to Chloe that her heart immediately began beating louder. She could hear it in her ears and feel her face warming. Sam did a quick once over of all the other faces at the table, making sure no one was watching, before leaning in to whisper in Chloe’s ear: “Wait at least ten minutes. Give him a chance to look for you first.”
Chloe nodded. Seeing Seth show up had proved Sam’s intuition was more trustworthy than her own. Hours earlier, Sam hadn’t actually invited Seth, but had made several marked references to their plans for the evening while he reassembled Chloe’s bed. She had assured Chloe after he left that he would be there, and then become a whirlwind of flying clothes and cosmetics as she chose and rejected outfits for them both to wear. She had settled on one of her own dresses, a short, black, exposed shoulder number for Chloe, and a sequined, lace-up-the-back top with black pants combo for herself. Sam had piled Chloe’s long, brown hair into a pinned-up arrangement, artfully contrived to appear messy and random. She had dusted Chloe’s pale, high cheek-boned face with mineral powder, and lined her already wide grey eyes in black Kohl. Glittery silver eye shadow, pencil-darkened brows, and a peach-tinted lip gloss completed the makeover. Leaving the dormitory, on Sam’s stiletto heels no less, Chloe had felt like she was wearing a disguise. Her make-up mask and tight clothing made her feel brave. She had laughed in the car, introduced herself without Sam’s assistance, and even smiled at one or two of the boys crammed into the booth with them.
Now, trying hard not to stare at Seth’s back, she worked at summoning back that initial bravery. Sam had very graciously told her over and over again how much she hated Chloe for looking so hot. But in the middle of The Eat, with its decaying teal upholstery, she felt ridiculous.
Minutes dragged by. May returned bearing a tray of foaming pints and distributed them around the table without a word. Sam gave May an especially evil smile and a twenty dollar bill.
“Now follow me,” she whispered in Chloe’s ear.
“Bathroom!” Sam announced to the table, giving the girl next to her a shove. Several of them had to scoot out for Sam and Chloe to get free. Chloe immediately saw what Sam was planning. To get to the bathroom, they would have to walk by Seth�
��s table.
She slid out and followed Sam, wondering what she should do with her hands, wishing she had brought a purse to clutch. She ended up clasping her hands behind her back and staring determinedly at Sam’s heels as they closed the gap to Seth’s table. Sam put a very slight sway in her hips when she walked. It was masterfully done. It was so barely there, it made you want to watch her walk just to be sure. Chloe made a mental note to figure out how it was done.
They walked past his table and into the ladies room.
Sam calmly set her purse on the counter and rooted around for her lip gloss.
“Now,” she began her lecture, “he’s seen us. When we walk out he’ll be facing us. You can let him know you see him when we come out, but just smile at him, don’t say anything. Let him say hello first. It gives him the opportunity to say something before you do. Men like to believe they’re the ones doing the pursuing.”
“What if he doesn’t say anything?”
“He will.” Sam pursed her lips and reapplied the glossy liquid.
“What if he doesn’t though?”
“Then keep walking. You never want to seem too eager.” Sam advised.
Chloe took a deep breath and tried to emulate Sam’s self assurance. She felt like a clod. She didn’t really need Sam to tell her not to say anything. If she tried to speak she might choke on her tongue. In fact, had Sam not forced a march to the bathroom, she would still be cowering in the booth, hoping that Seth would turn and notice her, hoping he might say hello.
Sam clicked her lip gloss shut and replaced it in her purse. Watching her reflection, she puckered her lips and turned first to one side and then the other. She took a step back from the sink and clasping her hands in front of her, stared off into space. Her lips moved, as though she were counting. It gave Chloe the same uncomfortable feeling as standing next to a stranger in an elevator.
“Okay, ready?” Sam asked, after whatever she had appointed as the right amount of time had passed.
Chloe nodded.
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