by Aiden James
“Well, at least the horny part would still be here!”
“Ha! You’re so terrible!”
Time was wasting. A glance at the clock on the vanity confirmed more than twenty minutes had passed since I asked him to text Tyreen.
Shit!
“Did Tyreen get your text?”
I hurried to finish getting ready. Deciding that wet hair would have to suffice, I moved on to a quick makeup job. Applying my lipstick as we scurried out the door, Peter acted as my mirror, to make sure it was straight with no smudges.
“Yes, she responded right away,” he said. “And, she just sent a message a moment ago, asking ‘where the hell are you?’” He snickered until he saw my frown. Not the time to be teasing his darling Txema. “Okay, I guess we should just hurry, huh?”
“Yes, we should,” I said tersely. “But you could do me a big favor and text her back that we’re on our way.”
I forced a superficially sweet smile and Peter pulled the keyboard out on his phone, ready to send a reply. But he also started slowing down, almost to a full stop.
“Never mind, I’m dialing her now,” I told him, shaking my head as I dialed her number from my handset.
She answered my call while Peter ran to catch up with me before the elevator door closed.
“Yeah, I know we’re running late, but we’ll be there in just a few minutes,” I told her.
“You’ll be lucky to be out of the building in a few minutes thanks to the security problem, but we’ll wait,” she said with a huff.
“What security problem?”
She hung up on me without answering.
Once we reached the main floor, I soon understood Tyreen’s comment. It seemed as if there were cops everywhere, making me wonder if the rest of campus looked like the main lobby of Massey Hall.
It took nearly fifteen more minutes to make it through the security checkpoint at the building’s main entrance. The female cop who finally let us through was none too happy about Peter’s presence in the building, especially after he readily admitted that he spent the night. The look of disappointment she gave me may as well have come from my mother.
“Damn, it took you two long enough, we’ve already finished eating!” said Johnny. He made room at the cafeteria table so Peter and I could sit down with our scrambled eggs and pancakes.
Tyreen sat across from us, shaking her head at either how late we were, or her man’s weak attempt at sounding pissed.
“I guess I’ll just have to grab another pumpkin muffin to tide me over for the day. You guys want anything else?” He said as he got up from the table.
“Bring me a cappuccino please, babe” Tyreen said to him.
She was wearing a purple wool pullover and matching tights. She looked rested, though the oppressive worry this week’s events had forced upon her remained thinly disguised beneath her lovely smile. It lurked in her eyes. I wanted to ask her how she was doing, but wasn’t sure what it would take for the delicate façade to crumble and send her stress level soaring. Instead, I focused on small talk, like what to make of the horde of police officers in the cafeteria and back at the dorm.
“Is this how it is everywhere?” I made sure I sounded light-hearted. It would be hard as hell to get any studying done at the library if this was the scene there, too. “I worry about who’s watching the usual villains ready to strike in Gotham City.”
She laughed for a moment, and the worry in her countenance briefly diminished. Even her gorgeous eyes twinkled a bit.
“You’ve got a way of cheering me up, sister,” she said, pausing for Johnny to set her cappuccino in front of her. The cup billowed steam and she blew on it for a moment. “This seems a helluva lot hotter than the last cup.”
“I had em’ heat it up just for you, sweetie!” said Johnny, with an impish smile. He was dressed in his preferred Vols football jersey and the three gold chains he most favored. It suddenly hit me that he and Tyreen must have had plans other than hanging around campus for the day.
“What are your Saturday plans?” I shifted my glance from one to the other. Peter looked up from the pancakes and bacon that had completely absorbed his attention since he sat down. “I take it that you won’t be spending much time at the library or in the dorms today, huh?”
“You obviously haven’t heard the latest news, have you?” said Tyreen, shooting an ‘I told you so’ look at Johnny.
“More shit’s happened?”
“Yes,” she said. Worry clouded her face again. “They found two of the girls who disappeared the other night… or what’s left of them.”
“Oh my God!”
I hoped I sounded alarmed enough for her. Yes, I was just as horrified at the thought of what was discovered. But with everything going on, the initial shock I felt when Irma Goizane was gruesomely killed had waned with each new victim. It was more like a heavy sadness that this tragedy hadn’t stopped. I also felt that no one on campus expected the four abductees to walk again amongst the living.
“The head from one girl and part of the shoulder and neck of another,” said Johnny.
He bit his lip to keep from saying more. Really, even these were pointless details since we already knew the killers were beyond normal viciousness.
“And that’s enough for me,” said Tyreen. “I’m outta here!”
I gasped. “So, you’re leaving? You’re just leaving campus and hanging around this area? You mentioned that chalet in Gatlinburg the other night.”
“No,” she said. “Johnny and I are heading down to Atlanta, to stay with my folks until this bullshit’s over and done with, and they catch the Ted Bundy wannabes who are killing people!” Her bottom lip quivered. Just like that, the fragile façade of peace and wellbeing was on the verge of going ‘poof!’
“Maybe we should go someplace, too,” said Peter. “We can head to Nashville this afternoon. My parents have an unused guesthouse where we can wait it out until they catch the guys doing this. I mean, they’ve already closed school through Monday. With just a little over a week before Thanksgiving break, I’m sure they’ll cancel classes. This place will be a ghost town before the weekend’s out.”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. This was the second recent request to get the hell out of town. I needed time to think about it, to consider the situation and all viable options.
“Yes, you do know,” pressed Tyreen. “Go with Peter to Nashville, and you should leave right now!”
“I’ll have to think about it,” I replied more firmly, raising my hand to stop her from pressing harder. “I promise to be smart with this decision, and I’ll make it before tonight. Just give me a little time to consider everything. Okay?”
“We’re leaving around three o’clock this afternoon. If you haven’t decided to go with Peter, then your ass is coming with us! You got that, girlfriend?” Anger simmered within Tyreen’s emerald irises. “Hell, you can bring Peter with you too, we’ve got plenty of room in Johnny’s Caddy. We always have a good time together anyway, so why don’t you both plan to go with us?”
“We’ll see,” I told her, despite Johnny and Peter’s enthusiastic support of her offer. “I’ll let you know in plenty of time before you leave this afternoon.”
Of course, Tyreen was right. I truly did need to leave. The real question was how safe would I be wherever I went? If what the vampires told me was correct, then it wouldn’t matter if I headed to Atlanta, Nashville, or anywhere else in the country. Whatever menace had traveled across the Atlantic surely wouldn’t be deterred from tracking me down in another city or, it was starting to seem, as long as I resided on planet earth.
The complicated decision of leaving with Tyreen, Peter, or with the vampire ‘emissaries’ I assumed were presently sleeping somewhere in the Smoky Mountains didn’t have an easy answer. I was searching for the right answer when my phone rang.
“Txema?”
The familiar voice sounded distant, as if the connection wasn’t so good.
“Momma?”
“How are you, honey?” My mother’s voice sounded clear then. “Papa and Grandma are worried sick about what’s going on out there. I am too.”
“I’m okay. I’m safe,” I told her, gazing out my dorm room window at the deserted courtyard below. “Don’t worry, Momma. I’ll be sure to stay inside my dorm, and the only time I’ll go out is during the daylight hours to eat at the cafeteria we visited when you, Papa, and Jon were here for orientation. Peter, my boyfriend, is staying here with me.”
“I’m sure your boyfriend would do everything he could to protect you,” she said, and then chuckled nervously. She grew silent on the other end of the line.
“Momma, are you still there?”
“Yes… Txema, your father has made the decision for you to come home,” she told me, her voice hushed. Apparently, this had been a decision reached with much discussion, not an easy compromise. “He has already arranged for a flight for you to Richmond, first thing tomorrow morning.”
I didn’t know what to say, even though leaving school was already a given. I considered myself very independent and having that decision made without my input by not one, or even two, but three different parties flew all over me like a shit storm on a plumber who just broke through a sewer line. That’s one of Papa’s favorite expressions, and it seemed very appropriate right then.
Taking it out on my mother wasn’t an option I’d consider. If anyone had tried to make sure I had a say in this decision, it would’ve been her or my grandmother. And deep down, I understood. The seriousness of what was happening here, and maybe one of Grandma’s intuitions that we all took very seriously overrode all else.
“Okay,” I replied, releasing a low sigh. I glanced over at Peter. He looked up from the John Grisham novel he’d been reading while lounging on Tyreen’s bunk bed. He nodded at me with a concerned expression on his face.
I was beaten.
“What time is the flight out of Knoxville?” I asked.
“7:45 tomorrow morning on Delta, Flight 1107,” she said, clearing her throat before going on. “I have emailed the confirmation to you, so you can print out the ticket and your boarding pass. Be sure to get there early. The news reports are saying a lot of students are leaving, since classes are canceled until December.”
News traveled fast, especially terrible news.
I sighed again. “Okay. I’ll be on board that flight.”
“Good,” she said and the heaviness lifted from her tone. “Your father will be greatly relieved. We’ll meet you at the airport.”
“I’m coming back here,” I blurted out, feeling desperate to claim some amount of control over the situation. “I still want to finish school at UT once this whole thing gets worked out.”
“Why, of course, Txema,” she said, chuckling again, though more from amusement this time. “But, this murder spree will have to be over and done with. Do you understand me?”
“Yes… yes, I do.”
“So, I won’t need to worry about you not making the flight. Right?”
“Yes, Momma, I promise to uphold the tenets of the Articles of Faith and be an obedient child.”
“Txema! This is not the time to get sassy with me!” Just like that, my smart mouth stripped away the thin veneer covering my mother’s worry. “We’ve already paid good money for the ticket, so please make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport on time. Okay?”
“All right, I will,” I told her, making sure my tone was respectful. “I’m sorry for giving you a hard time.”
“That’s okay. Just make sure you’re on the flight.”
“Yes, I’ll make sure I’m at the airport by six tomorrow morning.”
After we hung up, Peter closed the novel and came over to me. He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, as I stared absently out my window.
“So, it looks like you won’t be going to Atlanta after all, huh?” he said, blowing softly on the back of my ear. “I should head home to Nashville until this all gets sorted out, but let me take you to the airport in the morning.”
“Okay.”
I felt numb. Yes, I knew I’d have to go somewhere soon. But, now that the decision and destination had been made, the peace of mind I expected to experience wasn’t there. Something felt weird… out of sync.
Knowing that Tyreen and Johnny were planning to leave in the next hour or so, I went ahead and called her to tell her the news. Of course, she told me that it was okay with her, and she was glad I wouldn’t be staying on campus. Peter and I had already witnessed the growing exodus earlier that afternoon, and it seemed like a good seventy percent of the student body had already left. Massey Hall had probably lost closer to eighty percent. The mass departure really picked up right after we came back to the dorm after breakfast.
At the current rate, by nightfall there would only be a handful of girls on the floor with me. At least Peter’s presence would raise fewer eyebrows from the security detail downstairs, and the fourth floor stragglers might appreciate a friendly male presence once night returned.
The dwindling population escalated my roommate’s worry for my welfare, so she changed her departure plans to the next morning as well. I heard Johnny offer a hearty ‘Amen!’ in the background as I told Tyreen the plan and she echoed it to him. Tyreen told me that he was happy he could now watch the Vols’ football game that evening, instead of listening to the team’s final road game on the radio while they drove down to Georgia.
So, our travel plans were all set. I looked out the window at the courtyard one more time.
The last time, as it turned out.
I watched the diminishing stream of students and a few parents who had driven to campus to collect their most prized possessions. Very few, it seemed, were willing to leave their kids’ journeys home to chance, in light of the worst college killing spree in recent memory.
But, I knew it wouldn’t deter the killers. They would continue to hunt each night until they found their prize.
Until they found me.
ithin each of us is a voice, and not always one that speaks with reason.
I’m not talking about conscience, the thing that nags at us if we’ve done something we know is wrong. Rather, I’m referring to the thing in us that rarely eggs us on to do something against conscience, and it almost always supersedes reason.
Gut instinct.
It’s a wonderful thing when we listen to it and when we ignore it tragedy often follows. The very worst folly is when we rationalize ourselves out of following our instincts.
Welcome to my night of erroneous judgment.
“What do you mean you have to go to the library? Are you insane?” Tyreen was pissed.
I motioned at the detritus on the desk in front of her. Packets of aspirin. Some spare change. An empty Snicker’s wrapper. A romance novel.
“I have to go there! My license isn’t here. My school ID isn’t here!” My grandmother’s bracelet, I added to myself. That was the one that really hurt. “They must have fallen out when I grabbed my bag.”
“So get new ones when you get back!” She hissed at me.
“I can’t get back, if I can’t go!” I snapped right back at her.
She stopped.
“Yeah,” I continued, “I can’t fly without my license. They won’t let me through security.”
She blew out a large breath of air with a raspberry sound.
“You’ll just have to leave it, Txema. They’ll figure something out. TSA’ll have to let you on.”
I raised my eyebrow in response.
“Fine. Better yet, tell the security guards in the lobby downstairs that you left them there, and they can arrange to pick them up for you.”
Reasonable. She was right. It made sense to do just that. She and I, along with Johnny and Peter, could finish watching the Vols pummel Vandy. But, then the stubbornness I’m known for suddenly kicked in.
“It will be a lot easier just to do it myself!” I whis
pered harshly. Somehow our men didn’t hear our little argument outside the dorm room. I peered into the room, and both Peter and Johnny’s eyes were glued to the TV. The Vols were driving for another touchdown. Yay football.
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Oh, yeah? You must have a serious death wish, Txema!” she seethed, though thankfully she kept her voice to an irate hiss. “If you’re going, then I’m coming with you!”
I paused. Why should I endanger anyone else but myself? But then, would she be in any danger anyway? I was the prey.
It was one of those false assumptions based on reason, or at least reasonable facts as I understood them to be. The monsters responsible for all the death and mayhem going on were supposed to be after just me—not anyone else, and certainly not someone of heritage other than Basque. Besides, these primitive vampires seemed a bit skittish when other people were around me… or so I thought.
That was the first crack in my fragile theory. I assumed Peter had protected me in the Hodge Library parking lot on Thursday night, as my pursuers disappeared without a trace into the frigid night. I completely ignored the fact they likely were the same ones trying to attack us at Peter’s townhouse.
“Okay. Then grab your coat and let’s go,” I told Tyreen, hoping she’d hesitate and give me the few seconds I needed for a major head start to the elevator.
She quickly retrieved her coat and a scarf, stating very calmly to our engrossed boyfriends that we’d be right back. I heard a grunted ‘okay’ from Johnny that was echoed by Peter, confirming that neither one had any clue we were about to step outside, where the evening’s darkness had fully engulfed our campus for the past two hours.
All campus buildings would close by 7:00 p.m., and it was already pushing 6:30. Police patrols and campus security were still wandering the grounds and monitoring the dorms, all set to enforce an eight o’clock curfew.