“Glad to hear it,” replied Phil, not a little unconvincingly. He stood up, giving me a peek at that pasty underbelly as he stretched, and then he made an exaggerated motion to the clock on the wall. “Oh, boy. Gotta run, Stephen. Don't go burning the place down, ya hear?” he said with a wink. He logged out of the computer, slung his leather bag over his shoulder and slapped my arm with a bit too much gusto.
When he was gone, I locked the door behind him.
“Good riddance,” I mumbled, pacing round the desk and batting errant flakes off of the back of the task chair.
Punching in my password, I logged into the office PC and started raking through my email. Thankfully, there wasn't a whole lot for me to catch up on. A few messages from students who'd had questions about the reading; a generic email sent to all of the faculty listing different campus activities for the month; a message informing me of my eligibility to enter a raffle for an iPad. I answered the student queries quickly, tersely, and then turned my attention to the discussion boards.
The software used for the discussion boards was old and glitchy. It reminded me of the web forums I'd posted on as a teenager in the late 90's. The week's questions had been posted in a pinned thread near the top, and students were then required to start threads of their own to answer them. Often, the overachievers in the class would post their answers first, and then the rest of the students, like scavengers, would recycle those same answers, paraphrasing them in a hundred different ways. I skimmed thread after thread, making a few marks as I went, before totally tuning out.
They'd lucked out this week. A's for effort all around. I was too stressed out to care about their impressions of The Miller's Tale and gave them all credit for participating.
With that, I powered down the desktop and set my head down on the desk, sighing.
I had an hour before my first class of the day.
* * *
As expected, the lecture hall was half-full. Most of the students were seated in the back. I glanced up at the usual suspects. The guy who always wore a hooded sweatshirt and balanced his head on his chin, trying to make it look like he wasn't falling asleep; the studious-looking kid with the high voice who sat front and center; the redhead that wore a pair of bright orange headphones around her neck wherever she went.
Headphones.
While I set my briefcase down on the lectern and withdrew my papers, I recalled—for an instant—the dead kid's face, the way his headphones had still been blaring music after the accident, the way the cordage of those headphones had been knotted and dappled in blood. An instant's reminisce was all it took to tank my mood. I looked up at the class, gave a little nod, and then glanced at the clock. There were a few minutes before class officially started, but I didn't feel like waiting.
“What's wrong?” I asked, clapping my hands. “You all look like you were up all night. Was Chaucer really so interesting that you had to stay up and read the entire book in a single go?”
A few forced chuckles from the peanut gallery.
“The assigned reading this week was The Miller's Tale. The final is going to require a few essays on this particular story, so why don't we discuss it?” Leaning against the wooden lectern, I popped the top button of my dress shirt and shimmied out of my jacket. Giving my belt a tug, I waited for the kid in the front row to start up.
He did so right on cue.
“How long will the essays have to be?” he asked. I thought his name was Luke. Or, maybe it was Lucas. Logan? I knew it started with an “L”, but I was too damn lazy to look at my class list to make sure.
“A few paragraphs,” I replied. “So, did all of you do the reading?”
There were a couple of half-hearted nods throughout the classroom. That was code for, “No, professor, I was too busy getting wasted to bother reading 14th century literature.”
I started lecturing anyhow, pretending like they were all experts on the text. I read from my notes, elaborating on certain historical tidbits and fielding, on occasion, questions from the handful of students who still hoped to pass the final.
There was one student, the redhead in the back row, that kept looking at me as I paced behind the lectern. She was tall, perhaps an inch or two taller than me, even, and she always dressed in what I called 'slacker chic'. Jeans, with baggy T-shirts and sweatshirts. Her eyes were the kind that could get your attention from across a packed room, and though it was an obvious dye job, the color of her hair made her stand out further. She was more interested than usual, seldom taking her eyes off of me. I tried to ignore it, but her constant staring left me on edge. I glanced down at my class list, pretending I was referencing my notes, and tried to remember which name was hers.
Elizabeth Morrissey. A third year student, psychology major.
When I'd droned on for twenty minutes and the guy in the hoodie was starting to loll forward, I dropped my notes into my briefcase. “Spring break starts next week, yeah? You're all probably preoccupied with thoughts of that, aren't you?” I waved at them. “Go on, get. I'll see you all after the break. We'll have a lot of catching up to do.”
Like I'd just thrown a basket of poisonous snakes across the room, the students sprang out of their seats and made a beeline for the exit. A few stopped by the front to say goodbye as they left, and I turned to erase the handful of notes I'd made on the whiteboard.
Before long, it was just me in the lecture hall, stuffing paper back into my briefcase and fumbling over the latches.
Well, me and Elizabeth Morrissey, it seemed.
She'd come up to the lectern, had waited silently and patiently for me to finish erasing things, before clearing her throat. She had something in her hand, a small bundle of folded papers. “Excuse me, Professor Barlow?” she began.
I shot her a little smile from across the lectern. “Yes? How can I help you?”
She stepped forward, extended a hand to shake. I wasn't sure what to make of such a gesture, but I accepted it. “I'm Elizabeth Morrissey,” she began. “I've been in this class since the start of the semester, and I know we haven't really talked a lot. It's a great class,” she said.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. A great class? My lectures were hardly that. “Thanks,” I said, my voice probably conveying the fact that I didn't really believe her. “And what can I help you with in regards to this wonderful class?”
She blushed, cracking a sheepish smile. “W-Well, I have a favor to ask. You see, I...” She looked down at the bundle of papers in her grasp. “There's this thing... me and some friends want to start a campus organization, you know? But in order for us to do it, the administration requires us to get a faculty member on board.”
I chuckled and suddenly understood the nature of her favor.
And then I immediately began thinking of ways I could gently turn her down. I had enough on my plate; I didn't have the time or inclination to help her start a new campus club.
She pressed on. “I know that I'm asking a lot, but seeing as how we need an advisor, I was wondering if you might be willing to support us. You seem like a really cool guy, Professor Barlow, and I think you'd make a great fit for this. There's, uh... there's just a bit of paperwork involved if you're interested.” She held out the papers for me to look at.
I looked at them, all right, but I didn't reach out and take them. “I'm flattered,” I lied, “but I'm afraid I don't have time to head any... clubs or anything like that. Perhaps there's someone else you could ask?”
She bit her lip, gaze dropping to the floor. “Actually, I've asked all of the other professors I know,” she admitted. “None of them have time for something like this.”
I felt bad for her, but was eager to get out of the classroom as quickly as possible. “I'm sorry to hear that. What kind of club is it you're looking to start? Maybe I could refer you to someone else on campus who'd be willing to take the role of faculty advisor.” That line, I hoped, would keep her spirits from getting crushed while allowing me an out.
“It
's a paranormal society,” she replied, eyes lighting up. “Me and my friends, we're... we're into ghost hunting.”
I stifled a laugh—a condescending one—and wondered for an instant if she wasn't joking. The earnestness in her wide eyes told me she was serious, though. A ghost-hunting club? No wonder all of her other professors had passed on becoming an advisor. “That's... that's an interesting choice for a club, no doubt,” I said, trying to hide my amusement. “Perhaps someone in the sciences would be a better fit.”
She took a step forward, her strawberry-scented body spray coming in strong. “Look, I know how this sounds, OK? But it's really not that big a deal. You see, we need a staff member to sign off on this and agree to act as our advisor before we can make it a proper club, but you would only have to be present for one club meeting a month! That's it!”
I was about to interrupt her, but then she threw me for a loop.
“And if you're the advisor for our club till the end of the semester, the university will pay you!” she added.
That stopped me in my tracks. At those words, I thought I felt my wallet literally pulse in my back pocket. “Sorry, what?”
“They'll pay you,” she said, giving the papers in her hand a shake. “In the form of a small bonus at the end of the semester. It says so right here. I printed this off of the university's website, straight out of the handbook. It's a new policy meant to increase student and faculty participation in extracurricular activities. It's paid out of some alumni's memorial fund, I guess.” She smiled. “It... it isn't a ton of money, but it would be a bit of compensation, at least.”
Up until that minute I'd had zero interest in Elizabeth's ghost-hunting shenanigans. My only thought had been to leave campus as quickly as possible so that I might nurse a few fingers' worth of whiskey in a quiet bar and distract myself from memories of the accident downtown. But now she was talking about money, and my interest had been piqued. Under the circumstances, with a pretty anemic bank account and no guarantee that things were going to improve in the foreseeable future, there were a lot of things I might consider doing for a few extra bucks. I took the papers and began skimming them beside the lectern, setting down my briefcase. If the university was really willing to cross my palm with silver for merely acting as a chaperone to a couple of nerdy, ghost-hunting kids, then I wanted in.
“It wouldn't have to take up much of your time at all,” she continued enthusiastically. “We write up minutes and send them to you after our weekly meetings,” she explained.
“Uh-huh...” I half-listened to her while skimming the papers for mention of a cash bonus. On the bottom of the third page, I found it. I read it twice to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding and then tried to hide my excitement. At the end of the semester, for a club that met all the criteria put forth by the office of student affairs, the advisor was eligible to earn a sum of up to one-thousand dollars. “Excellent, OK. So, what do you need me to do?” I asked, rooting around in my breast pocket for a pen.
Thrilled at my about-face, she plucked the papers from my hand and set them down on the lectern. “I've already filled in the pertinent details, so I just need you to check this box,” she said, pointing to something on the last page, “and then sign and print here. I'll get this stuff turned in right away—as soon as I leave here.”
I paused for just an instant before signing, asking myself if getting involved in a university club was really a good idea.
And then I autographed that sheet of paper fast and hard, dreaming of what I'd do with an extra thousand bucks in my account.
“Excellent!” Elizabeth jumped up and gave me a hug, squeezing my torso with her thin arms and then reclaiming the forms. Sliding them into her backpack, she gave me a wide grin. “I can't wait! Thank you, Professor Barlow! I should have asked you from the very start. I knew you'd come through for me!” She assured me she'd be in touch soon through email and skipped out of the lecture hall.
When she was gone, I snapped my fingers and did a little skipping of my own.
This is going to be the easiest thousand bucks I've ever made!
3
The thing about teaching only a single class is that you tend to have more free time than you know what to do with.
Elizabeth Morrissey seemed to sense this in some way, and began bombarding me with emails the evening after she'd first approached me in the lecture hall, seeking help and advice with setting up her club. She was drafting a mission statement and wanted my feedback on it. She needed, also, to find sites that the club could explore, and asked me if I had any haunted locales in mind.
Nowhere in her numerous emails did she once ask whether I actually believed in the supernatural, though.
To make a long story short, I didn't believe. It wasn't my intent to lead her on on that particular front, but there didn't seem to be a good opening for me to gently inform her of my skepticism.
My parents, who I no longer kept in touch with, had been rather spiritual people. By that, I mean that, on occasions when the ol' existential dread reared its head, I'd get dragged to a different church for a couple of Sundays before they'd eventually lose interest and slip back into their usual lapsed Catholicism. In high school I'd read The God Delusion just like everyone else, and by the time I got to be in college the very idea of a ghost or monster outside of film was laughable to me.
I was the very image of a textbook skeptic, in other words. I believed in the things I could see, in the things that I could reason out. Nebulous concepts of spirituality, of the paranormal, didn't pass muster.
Though, for a cool thousand bucks, I was more than willing to pretend.
Elizabeth sent me her mission statement, and when I'd signed off on it, she forwarded it to the office of student affairs. It was a surprisingly good blurb for a club devoted to studying the bogus world of the supernatural—if only I could have gotten her to put this much effort into writing about Chaucer.
The purpose of the Moorlake Spiritual Society is to explore life's biggest questions. Using modern technology, members will investigate reputedly haunted locales in the city, bringing to light Moorlake's culture and history in the process. Our aim is to shed light on the spiritual realm, to determine the fate of the soul after death and to promote a healthy and productive discourse among the student body.
Pretty lofty goals, those.
A two-week long spring break was on its way. During that time, most students would either return to their hometowns to visit with their families, or else travel to warmer States for days of drunken partying. Having finished up my pre-break lectures, I was free to do whatever I pleased for the next two weeks, and had designs to catch up on my leisure reading. Elizabeth made it known that she had plans, too.
Plans that involved me.
In order to get the club rolling smoothly and to demonstrate to the office of student affairs that we were serious about moving forward, she insisted that we get together and proactively tackle a few simple tasks. She was in the process of creating fliers with which to attract new members, but wouldn't be allowed to post them on campus until she'd gotten the say-so from the administration—something, she claimed, that probably wouldn't happen until after the break was through. She wanted also to start scouting the city for potential locations, and to secure permissions in advance for club members to tour them. To this end, she wished to put a small ad in the Moorlake Register, the local paper, asking for tips about haunted sites. She planned to spread the word through social media as well, and would ask the only other current member of the club, her boyfriend, Jake, to do the same.
Out of principle, hanging out with students outside of class was not something I did a whole lot of. I'd known a professor or two who'd gotten into trouble by getting too chummy with his students in the past and was determined to tread lightly. When Elizabeth insisted we meet on Thursday afternoon, I agreed, stipulating that we meet in a public location.
She met me at 3PM in the student union cafeteria, with her boyfriend in tow.
With her red hair done up in long braids and a noticeable spring in her step, she waved at me from across the room and offered me a seat. She had her orange headphones hanging around her neck; I was beginning to think that she wore them everywhere just for show, as an accessory.
“Hey, professor!” she said, motioning to the empty seat across from her. “Thank you for coming!”
I smiled, nodded, sat down. “No problem.”
Her boyfriend, Jake Tamblyn, proved a big guy. Despite the cool weather that day, he wore a sleeveless t-shirt that showcased dense arms. From the very first, he was curt with me, tended to scowl, and he didn't seem too interested in what Elizabeth had gathered us to discuss. It became pretty clear from that moment that he wasn't a member of the club because he had some interest in ghosts. He was only tagging along because he wanted to make sure I didn't cross any lines with his girlfriend.
Jake had a square jaw, a fair, roman nose, but the freckles across his cheeks deducted a few years from his countenance and lent him something of boyishness. He appraised me with barely-veiled contempt, and when I extended a hand to shake, he made a show of squeezing it too tightly, trying to establish dominance. “So, you're the professor, huh?” he asked. His voice was surprisingly high for a kid as big and imposing as he was.
Not feeling like that question warranted a response, I sat back and crossed my legs. “All right, so what do we need to do to get things moving?”
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