by H. T. Night
Of course, beneath the table I was already furiously searching my phone’s internet for the latest information. Not that I was trying to be sneaky, as I intended to share whatever I found out with him once it appeared on my handset’s screen.
“Tonight when you come by, I suggest you bring a change of clothes for tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve already got plans for dinner—something to make up for what happened the other night. Stephen will have already left for Nashville by the time you arrive around six. He’s getting an early start, since his parents are planning a huge bash tomorrow night for their anniversary.”
“So, you’ll have the entire townhouse to yourself?”
I gave him a flirtatious wink, fueled by the onset of arousal since breakfast. The sense of danger enhanced my need for assurance things would be okay—something I’d say every girl needs when life is uncertain. My life over the past forty-eight hours definitely qualified.
“Yes, I do,” he confirmed, straightening the collar on his blue polo shirt after he draped his jacket over the back of his chair. “This means we will have it to ourselves tonight!”
Those eyes again, boring into my soul while he casually flipped through the Biology 101 lab book to our assignment. Normally, two other students shared the table with us, but they had yet to arrive that morning and I already assumed they wouldn’t be coming. No one wants the condescending lecture Nancy Truitt always gives to her tardy students. Better to not show up at all, seriously.
As for Peter’s invitation that night…I welcomed the opportunity to get away from the dorm—especially after back-to-back vampire visitations. Peter and Stephen Tolliver hailed from wealthy families residing just south of Nashville, who were also powerful alumni of the University. So their kids got to stay wherever they wanted, and were exempt from the usual first year requirement to live on campus.
Some of my friends assumed Peter was a snob on account of his room accommodations and pedigree, not to mention his impeccable wardrobe. Even his jeans are designer and dry-clean pressed. None of that has ever mattered to me one way or another.
The townhouse he and Stephen rented was really nice; with nearly every amenity money can buy. Sort of like a mini-resort with a hot tub and small theater room, and great for parties. But the main thing I hoped for that night was for all the blood-suckers—good and evil—to respect our privacy and leave us the hell alone.
My internet search turned up only vague headlines like ‘Second victim found in Knoxville’ and “Security tightened after double murders at the University of Tennessee”. And each story gave so little information that I could’ve sworn they were published by the same source. Nothing as far as details, with ‘the police are still investigating the crime scene’ and ‘the female victim’s identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin’ as the only advisements given.
So, another female. Dead. Not much to go on, and yet my mind and my heart already told me that by the day’s end, the crimes would be officially connected. Armando’s words, ‘each victim will be taken closer to here’ was enough to support my hunch.
After our three hour lab session, we met up with Johnny and Tyreen again, this time at the Krystal’s near campus. An early lunch, a couple of tiny burgers sounded like a good idea—something light, since Peter slipped and told me we were having filet mignon tonight. If only Johnny hadn’t felt the need to fill us in with some gory details, courtesy of his campus security friend.
“Dude, this was way worse than the last one!” he said, mostly to Peter after he broached the subject first, asking Johnny if he had ‘gotten the inside scoop yet’. “The chick’s head was almost torn off and her legs and an arm are missing!”
He almost spilled his Coke onto his fries with his exaggerated hand gestures, the large cross on a gold chain he always wears swinging wildly for a moment.
“Do you really need to gloat about this shit?” asked Tyreen, obviously irritated with his exuberance, like he was happy the killer kept the party going. You should see her green eyes when she gets pissed, even as tired as she seemed that morning. They literally become narrow slits of emerald fire. “What if it had been Txema this time?”
I felt immediately chilled by her words Once again I thought of my midnight conversation With Garvan and Armando. Their comments about the ‘others’ taking body parts with them for later snacks reverberated throughout my tired mind. I pictured my left arm, severed, still wearing the silver bracelet given to me by my grandmother last Christmas attached to the wrist. A chupacabra’s fangs worked around the bracelet, carefully avoiding the silver to get to the meat in my hand and forearm.
“What?! Damn it Tyreen, just ‘cause the dead chicks look like Txema doesn’t mean this crazy asshole will be coming after her next!” he replied, indignant. He pulled on the sleeves of his Bengals sweatshirt, as if that would give him strength against his girl’s simmering anger. “It’s anyone with dark hair and green or hazel eyes—and that’s like a quarter of the girls attending school here!”
“Well, dumbass, don’t you think it implies that it’s even more important we make sure she’s not next?”
Too late. Tyreen was really pissed off, and there was no one to rescue Johnny from the doo-doo pile he just stepped in. Even Peter slid closer to me, and I damned sure wasn’t coming to Johnny’s defense.
“Yes, it is important to make sure Txema is safe,” he said quietly, glancing sullenly at a nearby table where an older man and woman looked on. They politely nodded and then looked away. “I’m sorry, babe…sorry to you too, Txema.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him, shooting a look that pled for mercy to my roommate who whirled around to face me. “Let’s just enjoy our lunch and make plans for the afternoon. I say we skip school and go see a movie.”
Normally, this would make Peter bristle, since he wasn’t willing to take any chances on a less than perfect GPA. He hopes to become a surgeon, and the best medical schools are hard as hell to get into—something money alone can’t buy. Even Tyreen was a stickler for great grades, since her goal of being an attorney someday depended on her keeping her grants and scholarships, and she would also need additional fellowship funds when her undergraduate education was completed.
But they both said they were game for a movie…until Johnny waved them off.
“Man, she can’t go anywhere—we can’t go anywhere!” he said, his expression a long way from the smug look he had just minutes earlier. “I heard it on the news, man, on the way here to meet ya’ll. Everybody living on campus will have to stay on campus, and if you live off campus like Peter here, you’ll have to show I.D. to go back and forth. They’re supposed to be setting up police roadblocks at every intersection to make sure nobody who doesn’t belong near here gets through. So, by the time we get to the theater, it’ll probably be too late. I’ll bet the place is closed.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you heard it all wrong,” said Tyreen, reaching for her Blackberry, intent on verifying this.
“Go ahead and check,” he said, pointing at her handset while scowling. “I think it was on the NBC affiliate out here—”
“He’s right,” Peter interrupted him, holding out his android device for Tyreen to see. The murder news story and curfew sidebar were prominently displayed on his phone’s screen. “So, that nixes the movie idea…but do we have to go to class?”
This time my head whirled around, surprised by his offer to play hooky without any real reason to do so. Impish excitement danced in his eyes, and I believe my heart skipped a beat. This was truly a side of him I hadn’t seen. Now…we just had to find something fitting for the four of us to do. How to kill time until tonight.
“So, what do you have in mind?” asked Tyreen, the tension in her face lessening at the prospect of something to take her mind off of all that had transpired the past two days, I’m sure.
“Well, there’s the theater room in my townhouse, that ya’ll really haven’t had the chance to check out yet, and a shitload of
Blurays. Johnny’s checked it out once, and Txema and I watched Avatar in 3D a couple of months ago,” he suggested, shrugging his shoulders with raised eyebrows when she didn’t respond right away. “And we can all climb in the hot tub for a while. Plus, there’s plenty of booze in the fridge!”
That got her. Or, it was more like it nailed Johnny’s interest and he practically begged her to forgive him and say ‘yes!’ to Peter’s offer, dropping to his knees next to her seat.
What could she honestly say without coming across as a royal queen bitch?
“Don’t you have a roommate that’s a little stuck up around people he doesn’t know?” she asked.
Maybe some would think it a petty thing to worry about, but I knew exactly what she was getting at, since Stephen is kind of a bigot. I mean, he barely approved of Peter’s interest in me, a girl with what some in the south would consider an ethnic background. Sorry, just one Arian candidate at this table, Stevie, and your childhood buddy, Peter, doesn’t even have the classic blond hair and blue eyes that you were born with.
“He sent me a text while you two were going at it, stating he’s getting an early start on his trip back to Nashville today,” Peter explained, smiling wryly. “That’s how I knew to look on the web and see what was up, since he mentioned the curfew restrictions would be in place before his original planned departure at six o’clock.”
“What do you say, baby? The hot tub could be a helluva good time, you know?” said Johnny, lowering his voice to just above a whisper, an obvious ploy to seductively coerce Tyreen into giving her consent. For a moment he looked like he might cry, his gray eyes misting. He must’ve needed a drink and a lay real bad.
“All right,” she agreed, glancing at all of us. “But if this shit gets any worse, then we immediately come back to the dorm. Okay?”
“Sure,” said Peter, looking over at me. “We won’t let anything happen to either of you—I promise!”
The two males shared mutual looks of relief, as if this had been their plan all along. Tyreen noticed it too, and we both shook our heads wearing the same smirk. As for me and my own fears, as long as the sun was shining I knew we’d be fine. With nearly five hours left before it got dark, we didn’t have anything to worry about…yet.
Chapter 7
“I think you waited too long to do this—really I do!”
Tyreen stepped in front of the door to our room as she said this, for the moment effectively blocking my escape from our dorm room. I had already showered and changed into my favorite jeans—torn on both knees—and bundled up in a warm knit sweater Peter bought me for my birthday. He had wanted to buy me something flashy and expensive, but it seemed too early in our relationship for that sort of extravagance. Besides, I have plenty of jewelry, and the sweater would serve me well on a night where the temperature was supposed to dip into the low teens.
“I’ll be careful—I promise,” I assured her, picking up my duffle packed with everything I’d need that night and in the morning. I grabbed my backpack and threw it over my shoulder. “Peter will meet me at the library and we’ll walk to his place together.”
I offered her a warm assuring smile to sell my confidence.
“All the way to Laurel Ave, huh? Are you both out of your frigging minds?” Her concern shifted easily to disgust. She looked so much like my mom right then, with her arms folded across her chest. “Peter should be picking you up right outside the dorm tonight in his car and not having you walk anywhere on campus to meet him!”
“He offered to at least meet me here, but I preferred he wait for me at the library,” I explained, seeking to avoid direct eye contact with her as I sought to move around her to reach the door handle. “The short walk alone will do me some good, I think. Besides, it’s still light out, and won’t be dark for at least the next half hour.”
“Have you looked outside, Txema?” she asked me, moving over to the window and pulling the drapes back. Only the last vestige of daylight was visible, and the sun had already set below the western horizon. “It’s gonna be dark in just a few minutes—you can’t go out there!”
I understood her worry—really I did. And she had tried in vain to get me to leave Peter’s townhouse with her just after three o’clock that afternoon. But everyone—her included—was having such a great time in the hot tub that I didn’t want to be the party-pooper. So, it wasn’t until almost 4:00 p.m. that we got out of there. Peter dropped us off at Massey Hall by four-fifteen and Tyreen and I raced to the fourth floor. You think she’d cut me a little slack since I let her win the foot race to our room.
“I can still see some sunlight beyond the tree line. Besides it’s less than two blocks from here,” I retorted, praying my smile seemed warm and unpretentious…and hard to detect my growing irritation. If we kept arguing, soon enough she’d be right and there wouldn’t be a way to beat the encroaching darkness. “I’ve still got some time before things get creepy outside.”
There, I said it. I’m sure this was what had her in a tizzy, and by then we had finally learned more about the previous night’s latest victim. The girl this time was slightly older than me and the other victim. A graduate student name Mary Pervalus. It took a little longer to identify her since there were less body parts to work with than the original victim. Not to mention her closest living family member lives in Reno, Nevada—more than two thousand miles away.
“The hell you say—”
“Just trust me, damn it!”
I believe that’s the only stare-down I’ve ever won with Tyreen. It gave me a brief upper hand, and I pushed past her to leave the room.
“Hey! You really shouldn’t do this—Txema, wait!” she called after me as I moved quickly to the elevator. I caught her running toward me, blocked momentarily by Jenny Faye carrying a load of clean laundry back to her room. I stepped inside the elevator and pushed the lobby button.
“I’ll be all right—I promise!” I called back to her. The door closed as she arrived. I heard her say ‘call me!’, but the elevator was already descending before I could respond. I whispered ‘I will’ as I considered her warning, along with the sparse facts surrounding the second confirmed ‘slasher-hacker’ murder. I also thought about the night of wanton fun I hoped to have with Peter. I needed it, and prayed he had already finished his physics homework to be ready to deliver later on.
On the way outside, I noticed a campus cop standing in the lobby with a Knoxville policeman. No doubt, this was the result of the recent curfew orders. Papa would be so happy…at least I could count on no boogey-men jumping out of the bushes on the way to the library, since there had to be other policemen patrolling our campus.
But I was wrong about that.
In the fading daylight, the brisk evening air chilled my face, forcing me to pull on my hood and fully zip up my parka to my neck. Tyreen was right…it was getting dark quick.
I walked fast…as fast as I could without running. Thankfully, the security lights were on throughout the area, and Hodges Library sat just a block away. If it had been any farther, I might not be writing this now.
As I reached the lawn in front of the Tyson Alumni Center I heard something. A growl, low and guttural. The hairs in the nape of my neck stood on end, and it sounded like it came from near the Alumni Center’s entrance. A pair of glowing eyes studied me from the shaded alcove…almost turquoise in color. Or, maybe it was just some weird lights and my heightened uneasiness made them look like something alive...dangerous.
But then the strange turquoise lights disappeared, and I saw a hulking form move out onto the lawn, hovering near the hedges by the center’s walkway, seemingly careful to avoid the bright security light high above it on the building’s exterior.
I was less than twenty yards away and starting to freak out a little. I couldn’t afford to keep guessing whether or not the thing was real or just some trick played by my imagination.
So I ran. Ran like hell. Ran like hell despite lingering stiffness from my September injury a
nd a muffled scream stuck in my throat. I may never know for sure if the thing pursued me, but I could’ve sworn I heard something scampering across the lawn, its clawed hands and feet tearing at the frost-covered grass already dead from the coming onset of winter.
I didn’t chance a look behind me as I sprinted across the street to the library. No cops—campus or Knoxville’s finest—in sight. And most everyone else had the good sense to not be outside. Just one dumbass…me.
Thankfully, Peter was there. At least his Camaro sat in the parking lot, the custom cherry-red paint and white racing stripes glistening under the streetlights. I started to slow down, but something else joined the chase from my other side.
I saw this one, at least peripherally. And this time I did scream. Something huge and hairless ran on all fours as it pursued me. Its eyes were yellow, like two offset burning fires, and long fangs protruded from the sides of its mouth—like a saber-tooth tiger, or some shit.
I thought it might veer toward me and try to cut me off, but the head-start I had proved enough. I raced up the stairs to the entrance, which unlike the Alumni Center was well lighted. Before I stepped through the front door, I looked back at the parking lot. It was deserted, and the reverberating nail clicks against the pavement had ceased. A cool breeze brushed against my face as I listened carefully. But I heard nothing…nothing beyond my labored breaths and thudding pulse.
I was still listening intently when someone grabbed my arm.
“Whoa! Hold on there, girl!”
Peter feigned injury when I punched his shoulder. I must’ve hit him pretty hard the second time, since he grimaced. It served him right for sneaking up on me.
“Hey, it wasn’t like that!” he replied, right after I accused him of trying to scare me. “I thought you were just standing out here while you waited for me to finish my physics research. I just now came downstairs, since everybody else has already left for the night.”