Gary took the beer from Spiderman and wandered off. I unbuttoned my coat and elbowed my way through the crush of mostly drunken revelers, retracing my steps back through the living room and into a different hallway. Must be the public part of the house, because there were restrooms labeled Men and Women, and of course a line was forming outside the Women’s. I spotted a closed door with flickering lights from a television flashing under the door, and an image of a woman in her mid-sixties with a calico cat sitting on her lap zipped through my mind. “House Mother,” I mumbled. I hugged the wall as I squeezed past the girls fidgeting uncomfortably as they waited for the restroom, and finally found the coat closet. Not a room turned into one, but an actual closet. Hangers were in short supply, so coats, jackets, sweaters and blazers were tossed in, one on top of the next. I sighed and shoved my coat in, too, and just hoped I’d be able to find it later.
The sooner I got to work and collected a few interviews, the sooner I could get out of here and back to the dorm before the storm got any worse. Now what was Del looking for when he took this story from Janet and gave it to me? It was going on the fashion page, so I guess that meant I needed to ask about costume choices. Boring. Just the thought of writing this article, let alone reading it, was putting me to sleep. I dutifully headed back to the living room full of Halloween partiers in all stages of inebriation.
“Jell-O shots?” a girl asked. She was dressed like a 1940s cocktail waitress, with the tray suspended around her neck on a strap, displaying her selection of colorful but deadly concoctions.
“No, thanks.” But hey, she looked kinda cute and her outfit seemed almost authentic, so I asked, “How did you come up with the idea for your costume?”
“Borrowed it from my aunt.”
Right then I could have used Annabeth’s help, because she was the skilled photographer, but I didn’t see her, so I snapped a photo with my phone. “Cute. And you are…?”
“…remaining anonymous,” the girl sniffed, and moved along, her tray swaying back and forth.
I blew out a puff of air and was scouting the room for more pliable interviewees when someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Who are you shupposhed to be?”
I turned to see an obviously over-served Beetlejuice weaving back and forth. Gary was right about Foster’s clever costume, but I didn’t have a chance to give it a close look. I had to step back to avoid his alcohol breath and flailing arms. “Hey, Foster,” I said as I waved away the stench.
“Hey, baby.” He leered at me, got in my face and made kissing noises.
I pushed him away, totally grossed out with both his obvious pass and his drunken state. Even if I was interested in jumping back into the dating pool, I’d rather stay single than date this jerk. But like a good reporter, I made note of his movie-inspired costume.
“Caryn!” Someone called out. I turned to see Sean waving from across the room.
Seeing a friendly face alleviated my anxiety somewhat. “Sean!” I motioned him over.
Sean, dressed in cowboy boots, tight jeans with a large belt buckle, and a Stetson, pushed his way over to me. “Where’s Gary? I saw you come in with him.”
I raised an eyebrow and gave his faux Texas costume a frown. As a native of the Lone Star State, I can say with authority that his costume was a worn-out cliché. “I didn’t come with him, we simply walked across campus at the same time. I’m here on assignment.”
Sean gave me a Yeah, right look and took a couple of Jell-O shots off the faux waitress’s tray as she sauntered back by. “So you decided to hang out with us Halloween revelers?” he asked as he swallowed them.
“Like I said, I’m working. And speaking of work, what have you done with my roommate?”
“Annabeth’s around here somewhere.” Sean was pretty tall, not as tall as Gary, but he was able to see over my head. “She’s over there, chatting up The Grim Reaper.”
I followed his gaze and sure enough, there was Little Red Riding Hood aka Annabeth Walton. “That’s Gary,” I told Sean. “He’s the Ghost of Christmas Future. You know. Christmas Carol?”
“Looks like the Grim Reaper to me.” Sean gave me the once-over. “Is that supposed to be a costume?”
I felt deflated. “How can you not get it?” I did a full three-sixty turn for him.
“I jusht ashked her that,” Foster slurred. He tried to drape an arm over my shoulder, missed, laughed and then fell on the floor.
Gross! “I’m Lois Lane, of course.” I readjusted my borrowed cloche hat and moved my shoulder bag around to free up my right arm so I could take notes. I needed Annabeth, but she was still absorbed in her conversation with Gary, and I didn’t even see her camera. My phone would have to do. I snapped a picture of Sean reaching down to help Foster back to his feet. I wondered who was helping whom as they both staggered a bit.
“This Daily Planet reporter just got her first scoop.”
Sean looked dubious. “Scoop?”
“Well, party-pic then.” And as interesting as it was catching the theatre department’s star scholarship student behaving badly, I moved on. There had to be better stories somewhere.
****
Gary was beginning to regret his choice of Halloween costume. Why had he listened to Caryn?
“The Grim Reaper?” Tricia Palmer lifted an eyebrow as she assessed his attire.
“I’m not…” Gary pulled his mask off in frustration. “It’s supposed to be that character from A Christmas Carol. You know, Ghost Number Three.”
“Huh,” Tricia said.
Gary blew out a frustrated puff of air. “I see you borrowed Elizabeth Bennet’s evening gown,” he said. “Not too original on your part either.”
Tricia smoothed her empire skirt down and dramatically tossed her hair back. “Good advertising.”
“Tricia,” said a Holly Golightly wannabe, “who’s your Grim friend?”
Gary turned to see a tall, slender girl who was the spitting image of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, puffing on an e-cig through a very long cigarette holder. He’d seen this girl at both the dorm and the bookstore and remembered thinking she was very attractive, not to mention height-appropriate. “Gary Riddell,” he said, offering his hand to shake. “Aren’t you—”
“Erica Stone,” she replied as she declined to shake hands. “Pre-med.”
“Gary’s a freshman drama major,” Tricia told her.
“Freshman, huh?” Erica wrinkled her nose, turned and left.
Puzzled, Gary watched her walk away. “What just happened?”
“Girl’s out of your league, Riddell. Seventeen year old upper-class genius.” Tricia scouted the room. “There’s someone more your type.” She pointed to a girl in 1940s cocktail waitress attire. “Third semester freshman, majoring in party.”
“You obviously don’t think too highly of me,” Gary said. “But hey, Foster Benning’s on the loose. Maybe he’s your type.”
Tricia snorted. “Not a chance. I’ve got my eye on him.” She pointed to an Asian guy who was helping himself to Jell-O shots.
Gary pulled his mask back into place and turned on his heel. Erica was the hottest girl he’d seen all night and he wasn’t giving up that easily. Even Caryn wasn’t as attractive, and anyway she was entirely too short for his liking.
A few couples were slow dancing in the middle of the living room floor, despite the loud, fast-paced rock music. Sean in his cowboy get-up and Annabeth in her very short skirt and red cape were dancing this close. Gary didn’t feel like pushing through the other dancers, loiterers and drunks to go join them, since he didn’t know what he’d do when he got there except interrupt a private moment. Then he spotted Erica in a dark corner of the room, cuddled up to one of the varsity football players. Gary took his mask off and approached her, hoping she’d give him another chance.
“Hey, Erica, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. I thought maybe—”
“Back off, buddy,” growled football guy. He put an arm around Erica
and balled up his fist like he was defending his territory.
Gary put his hands up in surrender and backed away. Anyway, his stomach suddenly growled long and loud. He vowed to try to talk to Erica Stone later, after she’d ditched her beefy athlete, and instead went in search of the kitchen.
After stepping into a couple of wrong rooms, Gary located the kitchen behind a set of saloon-style swinging double doors off the dining room. There Gary spotted Caryn taking cell phone pictures of Foster and Barry Lansing, who were drunkenly mugging for the camera. Foster was trying to get a Jell-O shot into his mouth, but he was staggering so badly that he missed and landed with a crash on a nearby empty service cart. Barry was a little less drunk, but not by much.
Gary moved the cart aside. “You guys are gonna so regret this in the morning.”
Barry shrugged. “Not like there was anything else to do.” He reached down to help Foster off the floor, but Foster was too bleary-eyed and disoriented to stand. “I’m gonna go find this guy a bed and toss him in,” Barry said. “Then I’m outta here.” Barry hoisted Foster with an arm around his waist and the two of them staggered out of the kitchen.
Caryn glanced up at Gary, lowered her phone and sighed. “I’m done. The newspaper can only print so many pictures of drunk students before the administration gets on our case.”
“I’m ready to bail, too,” Gary said. The idea of finding Erica and trying to strike up a conversation was still in the back of his mind, but he figured that was a lost cause. At least tonight. “Can I walk you home?”
“I’m not your date,” Caryn reminded him.
“Okay, fine. But the least I can do is leave you with Sean and Annabeth. They were dancing in the living room last I saw. After you.”
Gary followed Caryn through the dining room, occupied by a vampire and a witch making out, down a deserted corridor and back to the living room. To Gary’s surprise, the music was still playing loudly, but the crowd had disappeared. The only people left were Sean and Annabeth, and they’d moved to the sofa for some serious kissing.
“Weird,” Gary said to Caryn as he surveyed the room.
Caryn stopped moving and visibly shuddered. “Uh-oh. I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Gary asked.
Caryn shook her head. She hugged her arms tightly around herself as her eyes darted around the room.
“Seems kinda early for a Friday night holiday party to break up,” Gary said. “Must be the weather.”
“It’s not the weather,” Caryn insisted.
Gary studied her for a minute, but couldn’t figure out what was going on with her. He never could understand women anyway. “Sean, Annabeth!” Gary called to the two lovebirds. “Come on, let’s go. I guess the party’s over because of that freak snowstorm.”
Annabeth came up for air. “Killjoy!”
“I just told you, it has nothing to do with the weather!” Caryn stamped her foot, but then stopped and cocked her head to the side, listening to something only she could hear. She nodded and said, “Okay, it’s partly the weather. But I’m not getting the whole story yet.”
“About what?” Gary asked again.
Again she didn’t answer, just kept staring off into space. She reminded Gary of when he was talking to a ghost. It always looked really weird to outsiders.
“You’re both wrong,” Sean said with a goofy grin as he pointed outside. “Party’s not over. It’s just relocated!”
Gary stepped to the large bay window that was the room’s focal point, with Caryn right behind him. He peered out into the night and was astonished to see underdressed college students congregated on the cul-de-sac. “What’s going on?”
“Someone said something about a snowball fight,” Sean replied.
“Now we’ve got a story!” Caryn exclaimed. “Annabeth, got your camera?” Annabeth nodded and pulled it out from under her red cape. Caryn hooked her arm through Annabeth’s and pulled her outside, Sean and Gary following close behind.
The snow had stopped falling, the clouds had cleared and the full moon was shining brightly, illuminating the piles of slushy snow that covered everything. The four of them stopped when they heard yelling and screaming coming from the end of the block.
The cold was biting. Gary pulled his robe tighter around himself and then glanced over at Caryn. “You need to go back inside and get your coat.”
“No time. I don’t want to miss this!” Caryn and Annabeth took off running in the direction of the increasing crowd noise.
Gary and Sean hurried after them, dodging slush bullets kicked up by the stampede. The crowd was moving en masse from the edge of the fraternity row cul-de-sac toward campus, with kids laughing, screeching, and throwing snowballs at the nearest human target. Gary ducked when Tricia tossed a handful of loosely packed snow at him. Erica Stone picked up a handful of slush and lobbed it at a staggering Barry Lansing. To get Erica’s attention, Gary grabbed some snow, packed it down a little—enough to hold it together but not so tight it would hurt—and fired it straight at her.
“Hey!” she cried, turning around laughing. “You are so dead!” Erica was about to return his volley when she got hit again, this time by Spiderman. “And so are you!” She took off after him.
Gary groaned and watched his newfound crush chase off after another guy. He and Sean were still following the crowd, which was congregating on The Commons, when Kevin Michaels began pummeling Gary with loose snow. The guy can’t even form a snowball, Gary thought, and frowned again when he remembered how he’d lost the part of Mr. Darcy to this idiot.
Gary stepped back and surveyed the scene. It may have started as a fun snowball fight with a few students getting drenched in melted snow, but it had quickly evolved into a whole-campus brawl. Snowballs were flying in every direction, stirring up a cloud of dusty mist that looked like a scene from a Peanuts cartoon. Gary did a full turn until he spotted Caryn next to Annabeth, who was clicking one shot after another from every angle. However, Annabeth wasn’t the only one taking pictures, because cell phones were out everywhere, flashing like so many fireflies.
“Annabeth,” Caryn shouted over the din, “hurry up and post as many shots as you can, before some of these amateur pics end up on social media!”
Gary got hit in the back with a well-aimed shot thrown by Erica. He grinned, happy to see her back again, picked up a handful of snow and returned fire. To Gary’s chagrin, Sean jumped between them, scooping up ice and flinging it in her direction.
Erica threw up her hands and shouted, “I’m done!” She hugged her arms to her thinly-clad and now drenched body and ran off in the direction of the dorms as fast as her four-inch heels would carry her.
Gary sighed, but thought he might have made some headway with her.
At first the main snowball shooters were the fraternity guys still in Halloween costumes, but a few members of the basketball team had joined the fray and knew how to aim a shot, even if it was made of ice. Their main targets seemed to be a group of girls from one of the sororities. The girls fired back, giggling and squealing every time they got hit. Gary was one of the few students dressed for the cold, but with all the frenzied activity, he doubted anyone was noticing the frigid temperatures.
The full moon provided plenty of light and the snowball fight was escalating. Gary winced when Barry Lansing got smashed in the face with a zinger thrown by the softball team’s star pitcher and one of his Ghost Stalkers club members, petite Karla Hansen. For a girl who screamed at every shadow and couldn’t possibly be useful on a ghost hunt, her pitches packed a wallop.
“It’s on!” hollered one of the Sig Zeta guys from the far end of The Commons. They united with the basketball guys, grabbing what snow hadn’t already been tossed or melted, and drove the sorority girls back up against the wall of the administration building.
Soggy and exhausted students began yelling and egging on the combatants, anger replacing the fun. Caryn adroitly ducked when a snowball whizzed by her ear and then ran over to Anna
beth’s side, all the while dictating play-by-play commentary into her phone. Suddenly there were sirens and flashing lights moving toward them.
“Cops!” someone shouted. Students started running.
Sean and Gary came up behind Annabeth and Caryn. “Time to go,” Gary said. “I mean like now!”
“Come on, Annabeth, he’s right,” Caryn said. “We’ve got enough for a front-page story.”
Sean put his arm around Annabeth’s shoulder and pulled her away. Students who hadn’t already run for their dorms were backing away from the chaos as well, shaking snow out of their hair and dusting off their clothing. It looked like the impromptu fun was about to come to an end when Tricia Palmer screamed, long and loud. “Look! On the roof! A shooter!”
Caryn froze in place, staring at the spot where Tricia was pointing, which wasn’t actually the roof but the dorm’s twelfth floor open deck patio. “Ohmigod,” she whispered.
Gary followed Caryn’s gaze, but from where he stood he couldn’t tell who was out on the balcony. There were shouts of “Run!” or “This can’t be happening!” and “I’m too young to die!” Kids were covering their heads, running, screaming, and most of them getting nowhere due to the slippery mess all over the grass and sidewalks. The snowball fight that had started in fun quickly turned into mass panic. Everyone was pushing, shoving, and screaming, trying to get out of the way of the sniper on the balcony. The campus police—all five of them—were shouting through a bullhorn for everyone to get off The Commons.
The campus cops must have had the sense to call for backup, because seemingly out of nowhere the city’s police force appeared in full riot gear. Gary grabbed Caryn and pointed to his phone, which had pinged with a campus-wide text alert.
—Sniper on campus. Everyone take cover.—
Caryn nodded as she checked her own message. She looked up onto the balcony again where Tricia had claimed to see a shooter, but no one was up there now.
“Sean? Annabeth?” Caryn screamed, visually searching the area.
Teenage Psychic on Campus Page 10