Student Body (Nightmare Hall) (15 page)

“We have to find her,” Eli said minutes later as we stood on the hospital steps. “The doctor said she left before those car-crash victims came in, so she’s been gone a while. He could have taken her almost anywhere by now. Maybe back to campus.”

“We don’t have any idea where we should look for her,” I said bitterly,” and that’s the truth. We have to call the police this time. We
have
to.”

They knew I was right. It would be tricky, trying to dance around the reason someone would have kidnapped Mindy from the hospital, trying to explain why we were scared to death, but we had to try.

But first Bay thought we should check the hospital grounds, on foot. “He could be tricking us into thinking he’s taken her somewhere else. Won’t hurt to check.”

The building loomed above us, lights glowing in almost every window, as the staff worked to save lives. But they hadn’t been able to save Hoop’s. I would think of the hospital from now on as the place where Hoop had died.

No, that wasn’t right. Hoop had really died out there in the woods, in the park, in the middle of a roaring inferno. All they’d brought to this hospital in a screaming ambulance was a body, silent and unknowing. Not Hoop.

I couldn’t think about that now. We had to find Mindy, before she was gone, too. For good.

We split up into pairs, Eli and I taking one side of the hospital grounds, Nat and Bay the other, agreeing to meet back at our cars, which were parked near the construction for the hospital’s new wing.

There was no sign of Mindy on the hospital grounds. I hadn’t really thought there would be. Why would he hang around there, where people would certainly be hunting for her when they discovered she was missing. I wondered if he’d had to hurt her to get her to come with him. It seemed so unfair, that she had survived the electrical shock only to be dragged, probably still groggy and disoriented, out of the hospital and into the dark night. Had she even known what was happening to her?

Probably not.

But she would have if I’d warned her sooner. She would have recognized the bandaged figure immediately for what it was, and screamed for help, saved herself in some way.

We
had
to find her. Before it was too late. If it wasn’t already.

We met at the construction site. Bay and Nat were already there, sitting in the front seat of the Bus, but the engine wasn’t running. Bay’s head was bent over the wheel, the driver’s window was open and his arm was resting on the door. “Damn!” I heard him say, and I knew right away that something was wrong with his car. Most of the time, it ran okay for an old car, but every once in a while it got stubborn and refused to budge.

Oh, not
now
! I thought in disgust. There’s no time …

“Won’t it start?” Eli asked, going over to the door and leaning in Bay’s window.

And that was when I saw It. Just a blur of white, really, darting around the corner of a construction trailer off to my right. It caught my eye because it shouldn’t have been there. The site was deserted, all the workers had gone home, and there were no other cars parked there.

Keeping my eyes on the trailer, I moved toward it, away from the car. Eli was still talking to Bay and didn’t notice that I was no longer beside him.

The white thing moved again. I thought I saw a white leg, a white arm …

I don’t know why I didn’t just stand there and shout Mindy’s name. I don’t know why I didn’t call out to Eli and the others. Maybe I didn’t want to scare the figure away. Maybe I wasn’t sure of what I was seeing and wanted to check it out first. Whatever the reason, I just kept walking toward the trailer, never taking my eyes off it for fear I’d lose sight of the white thing.

It moved again. In the light shining from the hospital’s windows across the street and the walkway lampposts on the grounds, I saw the figure bend, saw a flicker of light … a match, a lighter? touching something on the ground. Then the figure straightened up and darted behind a tall stack of bricks.

I’d seen enough to know it was him … the one who was so angry with us, who had locked me in that tanning capsule, pushed Eli and I into the burrow, and tried to electrocute Mindy.

It had seen me. It knew we were all there.

So I turned around to shout to Eli and Bay and Nat to come.

And saw the long, long, trail of rags tied together in a dark rope almost invisible against the dirt of the site. It led from the ground near the trailer straight to Bay’s car.

The ragged trail was on fire, flames licking along the rope at a breakneck gallop.

I knew then why the figure in white had been bending, touching the ground, I knew what the flicker of light had been. He had been setting the long rope on fire. The smell of lighter fluid reached my nostrils. The rags must have been doused with it before he flicked that lighter.

My eyes moved from the rope stretching across the ground, to Bay’s gas tank.

Even from where I stood, some distance from the car, I could see that the rope led directly to the tank, dipped inside and disappeared, a treacherous snake whose poisonous bite would be fatal.

And the flames were racing, racing, straight toward the car where Bay and Nat sat in the front seat, their heads turned away from the gas tank side of the car to face Eli, who was still leaning into the window, talking earnestly. Nat and Bay were blocking his view of the flaming trail.

Fire … again … another burning. This time, there would be an explosion of rags and gasoline and metal and window glass and headlights and windshield wipers and doors and trunk and hood, all flying into the air in a shower of flames. And bodies … mustn’t forget the bodies, three of them, charred beyond recognition this time. There could be no hope for any of them.

I opened my mouth to scream,
Get out of the car, get out of the car!
but horror had stolen my voice.

The flames galloped along, swallowing the rags greedily, a foot, another foot.

Never mind warning them. It was more important to stop the fire.

There was really only one hope. I couldn’t stop the flames from devouring the rope of rags, but if I could race ahead of the fire, yank on the section of rags that hadn’t yet burned, rip it out of the gas tank, they’d all be safe. The rope would then burn itself out harmlessly on the hard, bare ground.

That was what I meant to do.

And I would have. I might even have made it in time.

If something hadn’t come up behind me just then and clamped a thickly bandaged hand over my mouth, an arm around my neck, and begun dragging me backward, away from the deadly rope of flames.

T
HE THICKLY BANDAGED HAND
over my mouth allowed no sound to escape. I bit down, hard, but got only a mouthful of gauze. And when I kicked out frantically, my feet thumped uselessly against another thick layer of bandage. He might as well have been wearing protective football gear.

I struggled wildly as he began to propel me away from the construction site. I couldn’t leave Eli and Bay and Nat there to die! If they didn’t see that flaming rope in time …

But it was no use. The grip around my neck was ironclad, the hand over my mouth clamped like a vise. I couldn’t get away, and although I was screaming in terror, no sound escaped from behind that thick, white hand.

He dragged me across the site and into a construction elevator, nothing more than a metal platform on steel cables, its sides and top open. When he pushed a button, we began ascending. Not far. Two or three floors, I thought, although there were no real floors yet, only steel beams crisscrossing each other to create the frame of a tall, narrow building.

My ears strained for an explosion below us. Please, Eli, I prayed,
please
see that rope in time!

But even if he did, could Nat and Bay jump out of the car in time? And then all three would have to race away from the car to reach a safe enough distance before The Bus was blown to kingdom come.

Was that even possible? I’d seen how fast those flames were gobbling up that rag-rope.

Still, if Eli realized that I wasn’t standing near the car and lifted his head to look for me, he’d see the light of the flames. Maybe he could yank the rag free fast enough …

The explosion, when it came, rocked our elevator, rocked the entire steel structure surrounding us. It slammed into the night air with the force of a dozen cannons all going off at once. I screamed, began fighting wildly again, clawing, kicking, screaming the whole time, even though my mouth was still thoroughly covered with white gauze.

A giant ball of flame shot up into the sky.

I fought to look down, but even if the grip against my mouth hadn’t held my head immobile, we were too far above Bay’s car by then to see much.

Beneath the hand that covered my mouth, I screamed and screamed for my lost friends. Using my hands and my feet, I fought wildly to get away, to go to them, but it was hopeless. My attacker was much stronger than I.

Even if I had been able to get free, where would I have gone? Jumping from the elevator at this height, with the hard ground below me, would have meant certain death.

“Don’t be so impatient,” my attacker whispered in my ear. “You’ll join your friends in a second.” He pushed my head down, my eyes aiming at the ground: Bay’s car was a ball of flame. I couldn’t tell if anyone had jumped free. We were too far up.

“See that Dumpster down there?” he whispered, not letting go of my neck.

I saw it then. Another fire, this one set in a huge old Dumpster directly below us.

“They’re burning trash,” he said. “They do it every night. It’s against the law, of course, but no one does anything about it. The crew dumps their trash into the old Dumpster, lights it, and then they leave for the day. Sometimes the fire burns for hours and hours.” He gave the back of my head a cruel shove. “You’re going to dive into that Dumpster. Like one of those stuntmen you see sometimes in the movies? You’ll be burned to a crisp.”

He lifted my head and pushed me against the elevator cables on one side. “Now stay there and don’t move. I want to show you something before you die.”

A siren sounded then. If I couldn’t help my friends, others could, and were on their way. The front door to the hospital opened and feet pounded across the parking lot toward what was left of Bay’s car. Maybe there was hope. Maybe …

But even if Eli had managed to jump free of the car, could Nat and Bay possibly have had time to escape?

I didn’t see how.

Was I fighting this battle totally alone now? Was I the only one left from that night in the park? God, that night seemed so long ago! It wasn’t. Only two nights ago. But a lifetime ago.

How much of
my
lifetime was left?

The glow from the burning car and the Dumpster below us lit up the rafters. I could see better up here than I’d been able to below.

I clung with both hands to the steel cables, watching as he began taking off his bandages, talking the whole time. “You thought I was punishing you, didn’t you? That’s what I wanted you to think.” First the feet and legs were free, revealing sneakers and jeans. “Your guilt led you to think that. It never occurred to any of you that there might be a different reason.” The torso and arms appeared, clothed in a navy blue sweatshirt. Then the chest and shoulders. The figure wasn’t as large as it had seemed when wrapped in bulky bandages.

“A different reason?” I asked, clutching the cables. I glanced around wildly, looking for a way out. The only escape was crossing those narrow steel beams, two floors up. Even if I could slip out of the elevator, I’d probably fall to my death. But maybe that would be better than burning to death in that Dumpster.

Unwrapping the neck now. “Yes, a different reason.”

The chin, the lips, full and pink, the cheekbones, high and slightly angled, and then, the dead giveaway, the beautiful, clear blue eyes. When she unwound the bandages from the top of her head, her hair wasn’t even flat.

The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi looked as beautiful as ever.

“Y
OU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND,”
Mindy said as I stared at her, openmouthed. “At first, I was only worried about you and Eli. I knew Nat and Bay wouldn’t talk. So it was you and Eli I had to silence.”

“You shut me in that tanning capsule? You were on that porch swing at Nightmare Hall? My radiator, the burrow, that was all you? To
silence
us?”

Mindy smiled at my question. “I decided that whatever I did should look like someone was trying to punish you for what happened to Hoop. A painful sunburn, even if it was a fake one, seemed appropriate. It’s funny how your guilt fed right into what I wanted. Even though what happened to Hoop wasn’t your fault.” Her smile disappeared. “It was mine. I can tell you that now, because you’re not going to leave here alive.”

I allowed myself a quick look downward. The scene below us was alive with activity. People racing back and forth, some with stretchers, a police car with its blue light whirling on the roof, an ambulance parked a safe distance from the still-burning car, and here came a fire truck, its siren shrieking. I could so easily scream for help. But even if they heard me over the uproar down there, one swift push from Mindy and any help for me would come too late.

“Yours? How was it your fault? We weren’t exactly falling over each other to go back and look for Hoop, Mindy.”

She shook her head. “I don’t mean then. I mean, before that. When we were running from the fire. He wasn’t behind me, at first. I was behind
him.
But I was so terrified that my face would be burned, maybe my hair. It wasn’t even knowing that I’d never win any beauty pageants. It was the thought of being scarred for life, and knowing that people wouldn’t be able to stand looking at me.” She touched a hand to one cheek. “I didn’t know until then how fast I could run. My mother never let me do sports, she was so afraid I’d get bruised or something. But when I panicked, I put on this sudden burst of speed, and I passed Hoop. Only, the thing was, when I passed him I sort of bumped into him and knocked him sideways. That path was so slippery. If I hadn’t pushed him and he hadn’t fallen, he would have been able to jump out of the way before that big, tree limb fell down on top of him.”