Book of Horrors (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  Wet and freezing, she was just about to give up and turn back when she saw the huge gray-white shape of a bus, hazy through the sleet, making its way slowly up the highway toward campus. The bus from Baracca?

  She’d wait and see. If it wasn’t the right one, if it didn’t turn in at campus, if a tall, thin, blonde girl in a purple raincoat didn’t get off, she was going back to her room and go to bed, and Karen Overmeyer would just have to call her in the morning.

  The bus did turn in at the entrance to campus, just as the sleet turned to a pelting sheet of heavy rain. Reed could see nothing more than its headlights, higher than the headlights of a car would have been.

  It stopped just beyond the entrance, a good distance away from Reed. She’d never be able to see who got off from this far away. But Karen would head for the library. If Reed stayed where she was, they’d meet.

  The rain, slanting sideways, acted as a screen, making it impossible for Reed to see clearly.

  But she could make out two, or was it three, figures climbing down off the bus.

  They hurried across the road to the sidewalk … a man, carrying a briefcase; a tall, broad student, judging by the bulge of a backpack on his shoulders.

  Only two passengers.

  Neither of them was a girl.

  The two had already disappeared inside one of the campus buildings when the bus door swung open again and a third passenger stepped down.

  Reed peered through the sheet of rain. A girl? Tall, thin, couldn’t see the hair, it was covered by some kind of rain hat. But it had to be Karen Overmeyer.

  The third figure was exactly halfway between the bus and the sidewalk when headlights suddenly came out of nowhere, appearing behind her, spotlighting her through the rain and the darkness.

  The girl looked up, startled by the sudden onslaught of light.

  The headlights began moving … fast … faster … racing toward her.

  Reed opened her mouth to scream even as she realized that it wouldn’t do any good. She was too far away. The engine of the idling bus and the torrential rain slapping against the sidewalk were too loud.

  She screamed. The sound disappeared into the night.

  Perhaps the girl screamed, too. Reed would never know.

  She watched helplessly as the girl turned clumsily, slipping on the ice. It was hopeless. She couldn’t escape. No time to jump out of the way, no time to throw herself out of the path of the onrushing car.

  Reed was too far away to hear the sickening thunk as the body of steel collided with flesh, but she imagined it, and a soft moan of horror escaped from between her lips.

  The purple raincoat flew up into the air, somersaulted, and landed … softly, it seemed to Reed … on the cold, wet grass marching along beside the sidewalk, and lay, deathly still, in the merciless rain.

  Chapter 18

  THE CAR BRAKED, ROARED backward, then spun around, and was gone.

  Slipping and skidding on the slick sidewalk, Reed ran as fast as she could to the limp, still figure lying on the sodden grass. The bus driver remained in the bus, the door closed, but she could see him, standing near the wheel, talking into something … a mouthpiece? Calling an ambulance?

  She hoped so. She fell to her knees by the motionless girl.

  Everything after that was surreal, as if in slow motion. The bus driver ran over to where Reed knelt beside Karen. He took off his jacket and laid it over her. The ambulance arrived, its wailing siren bringing a curious crowd to the scene in spite of the rain. The attendants asked Reed the girl’s name, and she told them she thought it was Karen Overmeyer, that she had a sister on campus. They asked her to go tell the sister, send her to the Twin Falls hospital. They couldn’t wait for her.

  Reed didn’t know where Lindsey Overmeyer lived. A dorm? Sorority house?

  She couldn’t remember who Lindsey’s friends were. Milo … Milo Keith, at Nightingale Hall … he knew her, didn’t he?

  She ran into Lester and used the phone in the lobby. Milo had been asleep, but he woke up quickly when she gasped out what had happened.

  “Devereaux,” he said quickly, “Lindsey lives at Devereaux. Do you want me to call her?”

  “Later,” Reed said. “But I should tell her something like this in person.”

  She slammed down the phone and ran back out into the night.

  I don’t want to do this, she thought miserably as her eyes raced across the page of the student directory in Devereaux’s lobby. Overmeyer, Lindsey, room 566. Fifth floor.

  She flicked her I.D. card at the girl behind the desk and scribbled her name on the sign-in sheet.

  Then she ran to the elevator. So slow … hurry, don’t hurry, I don’t want to have to tell Lindsey that her sister has been hit by a car and might be dying … dead … dying … I don’t want to.

  But she did. And was forced to stand there in the doorway and watch as Lindsey’s face collapsed, listen as Lindsey cried out, “Oh, no, no! I knew something like this was going to happen, I knew it!”

  Lindsey drove to the hospital. Reed went, too, because it seemed wrong not to. She didn’t know Karen, but she was the reason Karen had been on that bus. And by the time they reached the hospital in town, she knew at least part of the reason for the trip. Lindsey, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her arms shook, talked all the way there. Her words spilled out of her rapid-fire, in spite of her tears.

  “She loved her job at first,” she said, straining to see through the sheen of rain on her windshield. “Always liked McCoy’s books, a real fan, Karen was. I saw that house once, went with her to work, just to see what kind of house a famous author would live in. Hated it. Couldn’t believe Karen was going there every day. So creepy, so depressing. Karen wasn’t the happiest person in the world to begin with … moody, sometimes depressed … I didn’t think working there was good for her.”

  Quiet tears slid down her cheeks as she talked. “After the first week or so, Karen got real edgy. Jumped at the tiniest sound. Lost her appetite. I asked her what was wrong, and she kept saying nothing. I knew it was that job. Tried to talk her into quitting. But she was so fascinated with McCoy. Wanted to know more about what she called ‘the writer’s mind.’ ”

  Like me, Reed thought. I’ve thought about quitting, too, but something keeps me there.

  “Even when she found out that McCoy had been at Brooklawn, she still refused to quit. It scared me, but Karen said McCoy just had a very sensitive mind.”

  Reed frowned. A sensitive mind? “She had the flu or something … exhaustion, Rain said.”

  Lindsey glanced sideways. “Reed, Brooklawn is a psychiatric facility. McCoy had a nervous breakdown. Didn’t you know?”

  Reed sank back against the seat. Nervous breakdown? Why hadn’t she guessed? All of the clues were there, and how many medical hospitals had a name like Brooklawn? That was a name given to places where you went for a peaceful, restful recovery. And sometimes you stayed a long time.

  Ignoring Reed’s obvious shock, Lindsey said bitterly, “You know how I found out that McCoy had accused my sister of stealing? Karen had a nightmare. She came and stayed overnight in my room one night. She said she just felt like it, but she was pale and shaky. I knew she was really there because she was afraid to sleep alone. And then she had this terrible dream … I woke up because she was shouting, ‘I didn’t take it, I swear I didn’t take it! I didn’t take anything!’

  “I woke her up and made her tell me the truth. She said McCoy was missing some things and she’d accused Karen of taking them.

  “My sister would never steal anything. She doesn’t even like to borrow from people. I asked her what she thought had happened to the stuff that was missing, and she clammed up. She knew something, I was sure of it. As for me, I knew the woman was deliberately lying about Karen, but I couldn’t figure out why. And then someone told me that she was nutty as a fruitcake, so I figured that was it.”

  The rumors. The rumors that Rain and his mother ignored. But
other people didn’t ignore them.

  Lindsey blinked as the headlights of a truck going in the other direction slapped her in the face. “Karen said she’d been accused of snooping, too. Well, that was just ridiculous. She’s the most private person I know, and she respects other people’s privacy, too. She wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  Reed flushed. Karen Overmeyer was nicer than she was.

  “I asked her why she didn’t quit, and she surprised me. She said, very quietly, ‘I’ll quit when I get ready to quit, and not a minute before.’ Well, I wanted her to leave that house, but I was kind of proud of her, too, know what I mean? She wasn’t usually so assertive.”

  “But she did quit,” Reed said quietly. “And quit school, too.”

  Lindsey nodded as she pulled into the hospital’s parking lot. “I know. They scared her out of that job. Scared her away from here. It must have taken a lot of courage for her to come back here tonight. And look where it got her!”

  “They? Who are they?”

  “I don’t know.” Lindsey turned off the ignition. “Someone. She started getting phone calls, even when she was in my room. She’d answer, and she’d look like someone had just punched her in the stomach, and then she’d slam the phone down. I think she was being threatened. I’d never seen her so scared. I tried to get her to talk about it, but I think she thought that would put me in danger, too. She wouldn’t go to the police, either. The next thing I knew, she was leaving campus. I couldn’t talk her out of it. She was too scared. She never told me why.”

  They got out of the car. “She was going to tell me,” Reed said. “I’m sure that’s why she came all the way here tonight. She was going to tell me what scared her.” And if I’d answered her phone calls, she thought guiltily, she wouldn’t have made that trip tonight, and she wouldn’t have been hit by a car when she got off the bus.

  No … that wasn’t true. Whoever had hit Karen had been lying in wait for her, had known that she was coming to campus, and had been determined to kill her. If it hadn’t happened tonight, on campus, it would have happened somewhere else, some other time. Someone wanted her dead.

  But she wasn’t dead. She was in serious condition, they were told when they went inside. Broken leg, skull fracture, facial abrasions and contusions, but she would probably be all right.

  Lindsey sobbed quietly with relief.

  Two police officers arrived to ask questions. Reed felt useless. She hadn’t even really seen the car, only the headlights.

  They were disappointed, but they didn’t seem to blame her. They were kind enough to blame it on the weather.

  When they had gone, and the Overmeyer parents had been notified, Lindsey asked to see her sister. She was told that wouldn’t be possible until at least the next day. Lindsey refused to leave. Reed talked her into going to the hospital cafeteria for coffee. They could talk there. She had so many questions …

  “Who knew Karen was coming here tonight?” she asked when they were seated.

  “I didn’t even know she was coming,” Lindsey answered. She picked up her coffee cup, but didn’t drink. She fixed her eyes on Reed. “You were the only one who knew.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t run her down!” Reed said hotly, stung. “I was right there … I saw the whole thing.” She shuddered. “I saw it.”

  “I didn’t mean you’d done it. I just meant, since you were the only person who knew she was coming, maybe you’d told someone. Not knowing you shouldn’t,” Lindsey added hastily.

  “But I didn’t! I didn’t tell anyone. I got home and there was a message from her …”

  “Who took the message?”

  “Tisha. My roommate. Tisha Blackwell.”

  Lindsey put down her coffee cup. “Well, maybe your roommate, Tisha Blackwell, knows someone who knows someone who hates my sister, and Tisha happened to mention that Karen was coming to campus tonight on the bus from Baracca.”

  Reed didn’t want Tisha to know someone who knew someone who would run someone down with a car and leave them for dead.

  Lindsey would not leave the hospital, and insisted that Reed drive her car back to campus. “You can come and pick me up here tomorrow if I’m ready to leave. Call me.”

  Reed had no choice. It was too late for the shuttle. She took Lindsey’s car.

  What had Karen been so afraid of? Was it something at the McCoy house, as Lindsey thought? Or was it something that had nothing to do with the writer? That was possible, too.

  Reed slept very little that night. The rain continued to slap at the windows and the sound reminded her of the way it had been slamming against the pavement when that car came out of nowhere …

  If only she could have seen the car better.

  It was nearly dawn when she finally closed her eyes.

  But she had no Saturday morning classes, and slept until nearly noon. It was still pouring when she awoke.

  The pounding rain reminded her of what had happened last night, and she moaned and buried her face in the pillow. Then she quickly roused herself to call the hospital.

  Karen Overmeyer was “holding her own, no change.”

  Well, at least she hadn’t taken a turn for the worse.

  Karen “knew something,” Lindsey had said. What did Karen know? And why hadn’t she told anyone?

  Because she was too frightened. Someone had scared her into silence. Scared her off campus, away from the life she knew. Sent her back home.

  It had to have something to do with McCoy, Reed realized unhappily as she dressed. If it didn’t have anything to do with McCoy, Karen wouldn’t have called me, wouldn’t have come all this way to see me. She knows I work there.

  Reed deliberately set aside the black slacks and sweater and chose instead jeans and a bright blue, red, and yellow patchwork blouse. Not black. Not today. Not now.

  Tisha came in carrying an armload of books and her green jacket. Her face and her hair were dripping. “It is coming down in buckets out there! I heard it’s supposed to change to snow. That’ll be a lovely mess! Fortunately, I just had my last Saturday class. So I’m sacking out right here all afternoon with a good book. Not,” she added as she whipped off her sodden jacket, “one of your beloved McCoy’s. Something romantic.”

  “Tisha,” Reed asked in spite of the large knot of dread in her stomach, “did you tell anyone that Karen Overmeyer was coming to see me last night?”

  “Oh, gosh, I heard! It’s horrible, isn’t it? There are cops all over campus this morning. Asking questions about the hit-and-run, and they’re also asking a lot of questions about Carl. You know they found his car in the river?”

  “Yes. Did you?”

  “Did I what?” Tisha disappeared inside the bathroom.

  Reed sighed impatiently. “Did you tell anyone about Karen?” she called.

  “Only Link,” came the reply.

  Link?

  “He was in the caf when I went down for coffee. Said he’d been looking for you and did I know where you were or who you were with?”

  He wanted to know if I was still with Rain, Reed thought. “Was Lilith with him?” She was instantly ashamed of herself. What difference did it make if Lilith was with Link? That wasn’t what she needed to know right now.

  “No, he was alone. It was late, around ten-thirty, I think. Where were you, anyway, if you weren’t with Link?” Tisha poked her head out of the bathroom and said impishly, “Trouble in paradise, Reed?”

  Almost ten-thirty … Reed flushed. She had been with Rain then.

  “You didn’t tell anyone else that Karen was coming here? No one?”

  Toothpaste suds in her teeth, Tisha peered out again. “Uh-uh. I don’t think so. Although the place was crowded. I think I saw some people from your fan club there. Debrah wasn’t there, but I think Jude and Ray and Tom Sweeney were. Bad weather Friday night, Reed, so more people were in the building than usual. Anyone could have overheard me telling Link you were meeting Karen.”

  Yes, but only one pers
on had driven that car. Only one.

  Who was it?

  Reed sat down on her bed. Sunny Bigelow … McCoy’s assistant. … drowned? Maybe. Dead. Very dead. Carl Nordstrum … also McCoy’s assistant … missing, his car in the river … Karen Overmeyer … McCoy’s assistant … the victim of a deliberate hit and run.

  Reed Monroe … McCoy’s assistant … ?

  She would have to be insane to return to that house.

  Well … she’d have to return just once … to give her notice, pick up anything she might have left there …

  But that was all. Her fascination with the writer hadn’t ended. She would still read every book McCoy wrote. And she would still head the fan club. But she wasn’t adding her name to the list of former assistants who had met with disaster.

  I don’t know what’s going on, she thought, standing up. Somebody else will have to find out what it is. But I do know my days as Victoria McCoy’s assistant are coming to an end … before I do.

  Feeling a little better now that she had made her decision, Reed slipped into her raincoat.

  Tisha came out of the bathroom. “You’re going out in that? You’ll be sorry. Where are you going?”

  ‘To McCoy’s. I’m quitting.”

  “Smart move. And it’ll make Debrah really happy.”

  Already on her way to the door, Reed stopped. “Debrah?”

  “Yeah. She’s been driving me nuts. Asking me every time I see her if I think you’re ready to quit yet. And if I think you are, would I please, please call her immediately. So should I call her?”

  Reed thought for a minute. Then, “No,” she said quietly. “No, I don’t think you should call her. I’ll tell her myself.”

  Chapter 19

  REED WENT FIRST TO Debrah’s room.

  No answer when she knocked. Where was Debrah? Out running around in the pine grove dressed in Jude’s raincoat? Debrah had a car. She didn’t drive it very often. It was old and unreliable, and she didn’t like to drive it unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Would keeping Karen Overmeyer from telling Reed something important … something that could incriminate Debrah … qualify as “absolutely necessary”?