The Night Walker (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  The scene behind Lester was chaotic. A crowd had already gathered, and people were still arriving. Two police cars, their rooftop lights still revolving, sat off to one side, casting an eerie blue glow over the scene. Several officers were trying in vain to disperse the onlookers. If the storm hadn’t passed, the crowd might have been smaller, but the skies had cleared and a full moon shone down upon the rain-slicked scene.

  The car in question, she saw as she moved closer to the scene, was not one she recognized. Although there seemed to be a sea of glass on the ground surrounding the car, the spider-webbed windows were still intact. Quinn could see two people sitting very close together in the front seat.

  The glass on the ground had to have come from the windshield, now dotted with small holes with nasty-looking jagged edges. Both doors had caved inward under what must have been repeated blows with a heavy object.

  There was hardly a square inch of space on the roof that hadn’t been pocked with dents, like a golf ball.

  “They’re still in there,” Suze said as Quinn arrived to join the group that included Ivy, Tim, and Danny. They all looked as stunned as Quinn felt. “The doors won’t open,” Suze continued. “The fire department is bringing the Jaws of Life. It’s like a giant can opener. They’ll have to cut the doors away.”

  The thought of people actually being inside that car while someone hammered blows down upon them sickened Quinn. How terrified they must have been!

  “Whose car is that?” Quinn asked. “Who’s in there?”

  “Reed Combs and Jake Briggs. It’s his car. They’re both still in there.”

  “Oh, no,” Quinn breathed. Reed and Jake. Another inseparable happy couple.

  Chapter 11

  WHILE THE FIRE FIGHTERS worked at removing the occupants of the car, the police officers examined the car and the area around it, looking for clues.

  Quinn had never seen anyone look as bewildered as Reed when she was finally helped from the battered car. She was shaking so severely, she could hardly stand. A thin stream of red ran down one side of her face and the skin underneath it was ashen. Jake wasn’t in much better shape. His eyes were dulled with shock as he surveyed the horrendous damage to his car.

  Neither was able to hear normally, an aftereffect of the repeated clang of metal upon metal. Miraculously, they seemed to have only minor cuts and scratches. Nevertheless, they were quickly taken to the infirmary.

  Simon showed up then. “Whoa,” he said when he saw the car, “Jake didn’t make his car payment?” Then, seeing the look on Quinn’s face, he said hastily, “Sorry. Bad joke. Anyone hurt?”

  “Not physically,” Suze said. “I guess they were really lucky.”

  “Obviously not an accident,” Simon said. “Anyone know who did it?”

  “No one on campus would have done this,” Danny said firmly as the crowd began to disperse. “Had to be someone from off-campus.”

  “Off-campus?” Ivy said, her face very pale. “Danny, you’re scaring me. Are you saying there’s a stranger … a crazed one, at that … running around campus? Maybe armed with a sledgehammer or an ax?”

  Danny shrugged. “Who knows? Doesn’t do any good to panic, though. The police will handle it. They won’t leave something like this in the hands of the security guards. They’ll probably have the nut in custody by morning.”

  “Morning isn’t that far away,” Quinn pointed out wearily. “It took so long to get them out of that car.” It was starting to rain again and now that the initial shock was over, Quinn realized how cold she was in her T-shirt.

  “Here, take this,” Simon said, removing his sweatshirt and handing it to her.

  Quinn accepted gratefully and when she had slipped the sweatshirt over her head, turned to face Simon. “Where were you? I thought you’d be out here with everyone else.”

  “Asleep,” he answered. “No one woke me up. I’d still be pounding my pillow if it hadn’t been for those sirens.”

  “Why are we hanging around here?” Ivy asked impatiently. Her sleek, dark hair was beginning to curl heavily from the dampness. “I hear my nice, cozy, warm bed calling to me. You guys coming?”

  Quinn didn’t want to leave. She wanted some answers about how and why this terrible thing had happened. But the police, the fire truck, and the crowd were leaving. There would be no answers tonight. It was time to leave.

  With one last, worried look over her shoulder at the ruined car, she went with Ivy and Suze back to Devereaux.

  Sleep was impossible. The sixth floor was alive with nervous activity. No one wanted to be alone to deal with their feelings or their fear. People gathered in friends’ rooms to discuss what had happened, and then ran to other rooms to share theories about why it had happened. Doors slammed, feet pounded along the hall, and room 602 seemed to be one of the more popular places to gather.”

  As if I have the answer, Quinn thought, exhausted, as four more girls came into the room and joined the half dozen already sprawled on the floor. I was asleep when it happened. I don’t know anything.

  But she knew, too, that as tired as she was, sleeping now, when she was so upset, would be a major mistake. It could set off those hidden sensors that sent her wandering off into the night, unaware. That could not happen, not tonight with so many other people wandering the halls. Someone would see her, and then everyone on campus would be talking about Quinn Hadley. Only she wouldn’t be plain old Quinn Hadley anymore, she’d be Quinn Hadley-the-Sleepwalker.

  She wouldn’t be able to stand that. That was why she’d sworn both Tobie and Simon to secrecy.

  She settled back on her bed, leaning against the wall, listening to the theories.

  The consensus, in spite of what Danny had said, seemed to be that the guilty party was someone on campus. The thought of a stranger among them, especially a criminally crazy stranger, was apparently a far more frightening idea.

  “There’s this geek in English class,” Suze offered, “Joey-something. He’s always had his eye on Reed. He’s one of those quiet, broody types. Maybe he finally snapped.”

  A redhead named Chelsea from across the hall said, “Oh, Suze, Joey Bass wouldn’t hurt a fly. I, personally, think it was someone from orchestra. Reed plays first violin. I play the viola and I can tell you, violinists are really jealous of each other. If Reed’s hands had been cut by flying glass and she couldn’t play, someone else would get her chair. That could be a really strong motive.”

  Quinn hadn’t decided which was worse, thinking that one of their fellow students had suddenly flipped out and done all that damage, or thinking that some crazy stranger was roaming around loose on campus, armed with a hammer.

  Looking thoroughly depressed, Ivy and Suze returned to their own room, and the gathering began to break up.

  Suddenly,, someone asked, “Geez, Quinn, you’re not going to sleep in those, are you?”

  Startled, Quinn looked at the speaker. It was Meg Pekoe, their RA, who had come to the door earlier to tell them to get back to bed, and then had changed her mind and stayed. Now, she was staring at Quinn’s feet.

  “What?” Quinn looked down. “Sleep in what?”

  Meg wrinkled her nose. “Those socks! They’re filthy! Looks like you were running around outside in the rain in them. Didn’t you take the time to stick a pair of shoes on your feet?”

  “I had shoes on.” She clearly remembered, when the commotion began out in the hall, slipping loafers on over her socks before she left the room, the same loafers that were now under her bed drying out. She also clearly remembered donning a fresh pair of clean white socks before she’d gone to bed. Her socks couldn’t be dirty.

  Everyone was staring at her feet.

  Quinn bent her leg so she could study the bottoms of her white socks.

  They were filthy. Black and gritty, as if she’d slogged through a coal mine without shoes.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  No one heard her.

  “Oh, mine look like that all the time,�
�� Chelsea said. “I never wear shoes in the dorm, not even when I go down to do the laundry. What’s the big deal?”

  The big deal, Quinn thought, feeling nauseated, was that she had gone to bed wearing snowy white socks. When she’d left her bed during the uproar, she had immediately covered those socks with shoes. She had walked nowhere in her stocking feet. They couldn’t possibly be dirty. But they were.

  “Chelsea,” Meg said, “you never got your socks that dirty walking around Devereaux. The floors aren’t that disgusting. Quinn’s socks look like she was running around outside.”

  “Meg,” Quinn said, her voice cool, “Quit making such a fuss. You’re embarrassing me.” She was proud that her voice sounded so calm.

  Dropping the subject, Meg went to the phone to call the infirmary and inquire about Reed and Jake.

  She was smiling when she turned around. “They’re both going to be okay,” she said. “They’re being released tomorrow morning.” She glanced at her watch. “I mean, this morning. Listen, now that we know they’re going to be okay, I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m out of here.”

  When she had gone and the others had followed, Quinn thought bleakly, The one thing I don’t need is sleep. I can’t risk it. At least I had a nap earlier. That’ll have to hold me until morning.

  She threw the ruined socks into the bathroom wastebasket and slipped on a clean pair. Then she went to the window and sat on the windowseat looking out until a gray, rainy dawn began to wash across campus.

  Although she tipped her head back against the windowframe and closed her eyes, she willed herself not to fall asleep.

  Why were her socks so dirty? Had she been out of bed before Jake’s car had been discovered? Had she been out of bed … in her sleep? If she had, where had she gone?

  Quinn put her head in her hands. Why couldn’t she remember? That was the worst part, not remembering. Sometimes she remembered bits and pieces … little things like the teddy bears on Sophie’s shelves, staring at her with blank, glassy eyes as she bent over Sophie’s bed. And the feel of branches brushing her cheek as she made her way through the woods to the cabin of her tennis rival. But she only remembered those things later, when someone had explained to her that she’d been walking in her sleep.

  She hadn’t left the dorm earlier, had she? Wouldn’t she at least remember the rain on her face?

  It was still raining when she decided to dress and go for a walk to clear her head. Tobie should be home soon. She had probably already heard about Reed and Jake. She’d have all kinds of questions.

  But Quinn had no answers.

  She dressed quickly and went to the closet for her yellow slicker and matching yellow rain hat. When she was a kid, she’d had a fit every time she’d had to wear an outfit exactly like it. Her mother had laughed when Quinn had come home from shopping for college and unearthed from a shopping bag the yellow rain gear. “Now you decide it’s okay to wear,” she’d said, “after all those arguments we had on rainy days!”

  Quinn liked the brightness of the yellow and the slick, rubbery feel … exactly the same things she’d hated as a kid.

  Well, she thought as she shrugged into the coat, that’s what growing up is, I guess. Changing.

  Slapping the hat on her head, she left the room.

  The building was very quiet. Given the rainy, dreary weather and what had happened the night before, it seemed most people were sleeping in.

  When the door to Devereaux had swung shut behind her, Quinn tilted her face upward, toward the rain, and slid her hands into the raincoat pockets.

  And yelped softly, as something sharp sliced into a finger.

  Quinn yanked her injured hand from the pocket. The ring finger on her left hand was bright red. A long, deep slice zigzagged its way up to the second knuckle.

  What had she left in her pocket that was so sharp?

  Pulling a tissue from her jeans pocket, she wrapped it around the bleeding finger and, using her other hand, hesitantly probed the depths of the left raincoat pocket.

  Her fingers touched not one, but several sharp, jagged points.

  Quinn stood perfectly still as her hand left that pocket and moved to the right one. Carefully, gingerly, her fingers tiptoed downward, until they touched …

  Glass. Small pieces of sharp, jagged glass.

  Her pockets were filled with broken glass.

  Chapter 12

  QUINN STOOD IN THE rain in front of Devereaux, one hand in a pocket of the yellow slicker.

  Why would there be broken glass in her raincoat pockets? How was that possible?

  It wasn’t.

  But when she looked down at her left hand, the finger was still bleeding. Vivid red splotched the soggy tissue wrapped around it, as if to say to her, “It most certainly is possible, and here’s the proof!”

  Because she didn’t know what else to do, she began walking. A few feet away from the door, she almost walked straight into a large trash container. She stopped, looking at it as if she’d never seen one before. Then her eyes cleared, and slowly, carefully, she began emptying her pockets, dropping each new shard of glass into the container as she unearthed it.

  There wasn’t that much of it. Half a dozen pieces, like sand in the pockets of her shorts after she’d been to the beach.

  She saved one thick, uneven splinter. Removing the bloody tissue from her wounded finger, she wrapped it instead around the piece of glass and carefully slipped it back inside the raincoat pocket.

  Turning around, she headed for Lester.

  Except for a few umbrella-sheltered teachers, briefcases in hand; dashing across campus, she had the early morning to herself. There was some comfort in that. She didn’t want to run into anyone she knew, not now. She didn’t trust herself to keep from blurting out, “I don’t know where I was or what I did last night when I was supposed to be sleeping!”

  When she reached Lester, she hesitated. She couldn’t do it. Deliberately going back to take another look at that battered car was crazy. If she had been anywhere near the scene of the attack, she didn’t want to know it. She didn’t! What good would it do her? It would just make things worse than they already were.

  But … hiding from the truth wouldn’t do her any good, either, would it? If she had left the room last night, shouldn’t she know it? If her nocturnal walks were becoming more frequent, she had to do something to stop them. There had to be some way. Counseling or medication … tying herself to her bed, if necessary, anything to stop this feeling of having no control over her own life after she fell asleep.

  Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Quinn rounded a corner of the building. Maybe the police had already removed the car, taking it away as evidence.

  They hadn’t. It was still there, sitting beside the building like a broken toy.

  And someone was standing beside it. But it wasn’t a policeman.

  Involuntarily, Quinn took a step backward, into a narrow doorway. She didn’t want to be seen approaching the car. Didn’t the police always say a criminal was likely to return to “the scene of the crime”? If someone saw her there, they might think she’d had something to do with the attack.

  Of course, she hadn’t. She was just there to … to check something out, that was all.

  But the same suspicion could apply to the person at the car now, couldn’t it? What was he doing there, standing by the driver’s side and reaching in through the yawning gap where the driver’s door had been?

  The rain came down harder, until she could barely see. But she didn’t dare get any closer.

  The figure, in jeans and a blue hooded jacket, withdrew its arm. It was holding something in one hand. Then it straightened up and began to move away from the car.. Walking quickly, shoulders hunched against the pelting rain, it hurried in Quinn’s direction.

  She did not want to be seen here.

  Reaching behind her, she grabbed the doorknob and twisted. The door opened, and she darted inside, closing it quickly behind her.


  But she stayed where she was, watching through the door’s glass window. It seemed very important that she get a look at the person who had returned to the scene of the attack.

  The window wasn’t very clean. And the curtain of rain pulled a protective cloak around the tall figure, walking with its head down as it passed Lester.

  But Quinn managed to get a good look as it passed only inches from where she stood.

  Suze. The hood slid backward as she passed and Quinn could see her face clearly.

  What was Suze doing at Jake’s car?

  If Quinn had had any doubt, the last of it disappeared as the figure reached the corner, and lifted its head before deciding which way to go. Quinn ducked further back into her hiding place, but that was Suze’s face, all right.

  When she was sure Suze was gone, Quinn darted back out into the rain and ran over to the car. The sea of broken glass surrounding the wreck was still there.

  She carefully removed the large shard of tissue-wrapped glass from her raincoat pocket and, bending, picked up one of the larger pieces on the ground.

  The two chunks of glass were exactly the same thickness.

  They were exactly the same texture, fairly new, glossy-smooth.

  They were exactly the same noncolor. No greenish tinge to one or pinkish tinge to another to differentiate them.

  The two pieces of glass certainly looked identical.

  Quinn stood up, feeling sick again. She dropped the telltale piece of glass on the ground, and hurried away from the car.

  All thoughts of fresh air and exercise banished from her mind, she almost ran back to Devereaux.

  When Quinn entered 602, Tobie’s tote bag was lying on her bed. Good. Tobie had returned, but she was probably in the bathroom. There was time to do something about the raincoat. No one had seen her in it. If it had somehow been at the scene of the attack last night, she didn’t want anyone knowing it was hers until she figured out exactly how it got there.

  But putting it down the incinerator chute seemed like a bad idea. Suppose it had been seen behind Lester last night? If the police came around hunting for a yellow slicker and hat, she’d better be able to produce hers. A lot of people knew she owned a rain set like that. If she no longer had it, wouldn’t the police wonder why?