The Whisperer (Nightmare Hall) (10 page)

“They didn’t go, either?”

Coop shrugged. “I guess not. So, you up for it?”

Going to a movie was definitely better than sitting in her room fixating on what had just happened in the lounge. There wasn’t a single thing she could do about her jeopardized college career on a Sunday afternoon. All of the offices were closed. If she was going to go to the dean and confess, it would have to wait until Monday.

“Sure. Why not?” she said as she opened the door.

“Your enthusiasm is underwhelming,” Coop said, a slight edge to his voice. “If there’s something else you’d rather do, just say so.”

She looked up at him in surprise.

He flushed. “Sorry. This stupid competition thing for the A.B.S. lab job is getting to me. No one seems to be able to tell us when the word might come down. I need to know if I have to make other plans.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” she said staunchly, although she really had no idea which way the decision would go. She supposed that depended on who made it: Dr. Stark, or someone else.

Maybe she wouldn’t go to the dean. Maybe she’d go straight to Dr. Stark. Why not? What was the worst thing an invalid in a hospital bed could do to her?

Whatever happened, it would be a huge relief to get it off her chest, off her mind.

Making the decision to confess freed Shea’s mind to enjoy the movie, a comedy. She had forgotten how great it felt to laugh. The huge lump that she’d been carrying around in her chest began to dissolve.

I should have told the truth right away, she thought as they left the theater. Whatever had happened then couldn’t have been much worse than what the whisperer has done.

Cut Tandy’s beautiful hair? Never!

Shea was surprised to find Tandy and Paul, Sid and Dinah clustered together under the mall’s marquee, away from the rain, when Shea and Coop emerged. Sid didn’t look very pleased.

Oh, lighten up! Shea thought with disgust, you’re Dinah’s boyfriend, not her
warden.
She has a right to be with her friends.

Although Sid seemed reluctant when Coop suggested they all go to Vinnie’s, Dinah pleaded and Sid gave in. But he didn’t look happy about it.

The restaurant was crowded, the jukebox music loud, the smells of garlic and tomato sauce welcoming when they arrived.

“See?” Dinah said to Sid in a placating voice as they all slid into one of the larger booths. “Isn’t this a great place to be on a gloomy, rainy night?”

“Sure,” Sid responded crankily, “if you like being crammed into a booth like sardines in a can.”

Everyone ignored hm.

When they had ordered, Sid, Coop, and Paul went off to play pool and Tandy headed for the restroom.

“Her hair,” Dinah said knowingly, a broad grin on her face. “Hasn’t touched it in at least five minutes. Probably suffering withdrawal pangs.”

The mention of Tandy’s hair made Shea’s stomach feel queasy. “I thought you and Sid were meeting at the A.B.S. lab,” she said, to change the subject. “How did you end up at the mall?”

“The door was locked. Sid couldn’t believe it. They never locked it before. But I guess they’re not taking any chances any more.”

“Doesn’t Sid have a key?”

“If he did, he’s lost it. And he can’t very well get another one from Dr. Stark now. He’ll have to wait until he finds out who’s replacing her. Then I guess he’ll get one. Anyway, we decided to see a movie instead.”

“I’m glad you did.” Shea meant it. “I’ve hardly seen you all week.” Not that she hadn’t been preoccupied with problems of her own. Still … “Sid really doesn’t believe in sharing, does he? I can’t believe you put up with that.”

Dinah flushed. “Oh, Shea, don’t start. You just don’t understand. Besides, you haven’t exactly been beating a path to my door. I’ve called you a couple of times, and there wasn’t any answer.” She smiled. “I guess Coop’s been keeping you busy.”

Shea, tired of keeping her terrible burden to herself, might have spilled the whole story then, but the others returned and the moment was lost.

They were halfway through their meal when Milo Keith passed their booth, stopped, and turned around. “Hey, Coop!” he said, “what were you doing out our way Friday night?”

Coop lifted his head. “Out your way? You mean, at Nightmare Hall?” He frowned. “What would I be doing at Nightmare Hall?”

Milo laughed. He leaned his tall, bony frame against the side of the booth. “Well, I asked you first. I saw a light out my window, coming from the woods above the creek. Flashlight. Looked like you holding it. You lose something out there?”

“Wasn’t me,” Coop said, returning to his pizza.

Milo shrugged. “My mistake. Sure looked like you, though. Wearing a maroon jacket just like yours. High school football jacket with the gold hornet on the back. Not too many of those on campus, are there? See ya!”

Friday night, Shea thought, the night she’d gone to the creek to meet the whisperer. Milo had looked out his window and seen someone he thought was Coop. It hadn’t been
her.
She didn’t look anything like Coop, not even from a distance, not even in the dark. And she hadn’t been wearing a jacket with a hornet on the back.

Did that mean the whisperer was someone who looked like Coop? Tall, broad-shouldered, dark, curly hair?

She knew that jacket. Coop was from Avalon, a really small town several hours from Twin Falls. Her high school had played his in basketball and football. And though she’d never seen Coop in it, she’d seen that jacket on lots of other people.

Were there other people from Avalon at Salem? If there were, Coop hadn’t mentioned them, and he didn’t hang around with them.

It had stopped raining when they left Vinnie’s. Coop and Shea, who had arrived on the shuttle, decided to walk back to campus. The others drove back.

“I wonder who Milo saw at Nightmare Hall Friday night,” Shea said casually as they made their way along the puddle-spattered road.

“Beats me. Why? I mean, why are you wondering?”

Shea wanted to explain. But how could she say. “Because I was there that night and I want to know who was in those woods with me?”

Still, if Milo was right about the jacket, and the whisperer was someone from Coop’s hometown, it was probably someone Coop
knew.
How could she find that out without giving herself away?’

She couldn’t. “Just curious, I guess. I mean, don’t you think that roaming around those woods late at night is a pretty weird thing to do? And speaking of weird” … should she really ask this?… “have you heard if the police know anything about who attacked Dr. Stark?”

“Nope. Not a word. I don’t think they have anything to go on.”

They crossed the road to campus. The tall pole lights along the walkways dripped remnants of the recent rain, their yellowish glow turning the waterdrops into liquid gold. “Are there very many guys from your graduating class on campus?” Shea asked.

“Not that I know of. A few, maybe. I haven’t checked it out.” He gave her a curious glance.

“If it’s the jacket you’re wondering about, I don’t even know where it is. I think I left it at the A.B.S. lab a while ago.”

She could sense that he wasn’t interested in talking about it any further. He seemed preoccupied. But he’d already explained that. The job in the lab.

Look who’s talking! Shea reminded herself. As if you can concentrate on anything besides the whisperer.

Well, at least she’d finally done the right thing. She had refused to cut off Tandy’s beautiful hair. “

Now there would be no more phone calls or notes. Maybe this was the end of it.

And tomorrow, she’d go to Dr. Stark and confess everything. She’d take her medicine, whatever it was. It couldn’t be worse than dealing with the whisperer.

Shea was still thinking about the jacket Milo had seen at Nightmare Hall as she said goodbye to Coop and got in the elevator at Devereaux. Suddenly, without warning, the lights went off and the elevator vanished into abrupt, complete darkness … and jerked to an abrupt halt.

S
HEA STOOD VERY STILL
in the pitch-black elevator, listening to the sound of her own breathing.

She reached out for the control panel to her right. Since she couldn’t see to distinguish which button was the door opener, she pressed all of them, one at a time.

Nothing happened. The lights didn’t come back on, the elevator didn’t move, and the door didn’t open.

There had to be an emergency button, one that would set off an alarm and send rescuers rushing to free her from this dark, airless box.

Although she slapped her hand, hard, against every single button on the panel, no alarm sounded. Nothing happened. The elevator didn’t move, and it remained as dark as an underground cave.

“I don’t know what to do,” Shea said aloud, dropping her hand to her side again. The sound of her voice echoed hollowly in her ears. Finding the words oddly comforting, she repeated them, slowly and carefully. “I do not know what to do,” as if it were a chant designed to ward off danger.

When her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, she glanced around and, finding nothing that gave her any hope, looked up at the ceiling. Didn’t people in the movies sometimes exit a stalled elevator through a trapdoor in the ceiling?

It was there, all right. A small, square-lidded opening.

But in the movies, the trapped person was either one of those superathletic types, or he had someone else in the elevator whose shoulders he could stand on to reach the trapdoor.

She was no Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And there were no extra shoulders in this elevator.

Shea did the next best thing. She screamed.

She screamed loud and long, the sounds beginning deep in her belly and gathering volume as they made their way up through her chest, her throat, and out her mouth, where they bounced off the walls and slammed against her ears.

Wincing, she clapped her hands over her ears and continued to scream for help until her throat felt like it was bleeding.

But no one came to get her out. The door didn’t slide open, friendly faces didn’t smile in at her, saying, “Well, Shea, what are you doing in there?”

No one came.

Was the elevator soundproof?

She leaned against the wall, her arms wrapped around her chest, staring into the complete blackness. She waited. … It seemed like hours that she waited anxiously, chewing on her lower lip, nerves tingling, ears straining for any sign of approaching help.

None came.

When she finally realized that no one was coming to rescue her, panic took over. She threw herself at the door, her fists pounding against it. Hammering with all her might on the unyielding metal, kicking at it with her feet, she croaked in a hoarse, raw whisper, “Open, damn you, open!”

She was so lost in her fit of panic that when the lights suddenly came back on, she blinked, startled. The elevator lurched, jerked, and began moving slowly upward again. At first, Shea thought she was imagining the movement.

But she wasn’t. It
was
moving.

She fell against the wall and let out a deep, shaky sob of relief. When the elevator slid to a halt and the doors opened, she was greeted by a sea of anxious faces awaiting her in the hall.

Voices wanting to know if she was all right swam around her as she stumbled free.

“What happened?” she asked hoarsely, her vocal cords throbbing in pain, her knuckles scratched and raw.

“Electricity went off,” a tall boy in shorts told her. “Nobody knows why. Back on now, though,” he added unnecessarily.

“We heard you screaming,” a red-robed girl named Molly said. “But with the electricity off, there was nothing we could do. A couple of the maintenance men went downstairs to check it out. I guess they fixed whatever was wrong. You sure you’re okay?”

Anxious to get to her room and collapse on her bed, Shea assured everyone that she was fine except for a sore throat from screaming, and left the group, half leaning against the wall as she went.

As she went, Shea wondered if it had begun raining again. Thunder? Lightning? A lightning strike nearby might explain why the electricity had gone off.

She listened for thunder, and heard none. No deep, rumbling growls from overhead.

Then why had the electricity failed, trapping her in that elevator?

Shea heard doors slamming behind her as everyone returned to their rooms. Why did her own room suddenly seem so far away? Miles and miles away from her, down the long, long corridor. And she had to walk it on legs that felt boneless.

She hoped Tandy was home, and awake. The need to tell someone about her horrible imprisonment in the dark, airless cage was overwhelming. Talking about it seemed like the only way to get
rid
of it. She would let every frightening moment spill out of her mouth and, once it was out, she could push it away and forget about it.

Maybe.

Tandy was home, but she wasn’t awake. She was sprawled across her bed, still fully clothed, headphones on, Walkman lying beside her. She was sound asleep, her head half-covered by her pillow.

Shea sank down on her bed and curled up in a small ball. The window beside Tandy’s bed was open, filling the room with the fresh, cool smell of recent rain.

She envied Tandy, so soundly asleep.

Shea lay awake, staring at the ceiling. Their room was small … but so much larger than the elevator. She could breathe again.

What if the electricity hadn’t come back on? What if it had stayed off for an hour, or two, even three? What would she have done then?

Lost it totally, she admitted silently. No question. Another five minutes in that place and they’d have had to peel her off the ceiling when the elevator door finally opened.

Her eyes drifted over to the clock radio on her bedside table. It read nine fifty-three.

Except, of course, it couldn’t be nine fifty-three. Because the electricity had been off.

How long had the blackout lasted?

If she didn’t correct the time on her clock before she conked out for the night, they’d be late for class in the morning. She hated being late on Mondays. A terrible start to a new week.