The Whisperer (Nightmare Hall) (6 page)

Coop smiled at her. “No kidding? You’re staying?”

Maybe not, she thought grimly. Maybe I won’t even be finishing the semester, if I don’t get my hands on that videotape.

She didn’t eat another bite. Her food untouched, she sat studying the faces of everyone who passed their booth, wondering if there was any way you could tell by looking at a person if they made a habit of whispering into telephones.

When they left, Shea and Coop both chose to walk back to campus. Dinah trailed along behind Sid, to his car, telling Shea she’d see her later.

“You okay?” Coop asked as they waited for a gap in the highway traffic so they could cross safely to campus. “You seem a little out of it.”

Oh, she
wished.
She wished she were out of it. Out of the whole disgusting mess. Her meeting with the whisperer was still long, nerve-wracking hours away. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just … just tired, I guess. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

“You’re not still worried about that bio exam, are you? I thought the T. A. would have handed it back by now. Since she hasn’t, the chances are that it won’t even be graded now. The T. A. will probably just make up an exam of her own.”

Shea stared up at him. The roar of the cars whizzing by forced her to raise her voice. “Why did you mention the exam?”

He bent his head closer. “What?”

“I said, why did you mention the exam? Why did you think I’d be worried about it?” Maybe he
did
know which office she’d been coming out of that day.

He shrugged, and as a space opened up on the highway, grabbed her hand and they hurried across to the green grass of campus. “Well, something’s been on your mind. You’re out in left field most of the time. I thought maybe it was that exam, that’s all.”

And she had been trying so hard to look normal. Whatever
that
was. Hard to remember.

“So, you really going to be here all summer?” he asked as they walked along the curving cement walkway, under huge old oaks and elms. It was dark now, the tall, old-fashioned lamps throughout campus glowing softly. It was a sweet, soft, romantic spring evening. And Coop hadn’t let go of her hand.

“I
think
I’ll be here,” she said cautiously. The way things were going, who knew? Maybe, by summer she’d already be back home, hiding in disgrace in her bedroom, while her humiliated parents, in hushed, embarrassed voices, told anyone who came asking for her that she wasn’t “feeling well.”

Coop glanced down at her. “Things will be a lot quieter around here during the summer months. We’ll have more time to spend together … if you’re interested.”

Was she interested? He was nice, and smart enough to be up for an important job in the A.B.S. lab and he was very, very cute.

“I’m interested,” she said softly, and was rewarded for her honesty with a long, slow kiss under a flowering crab apple tree.

Coop was smiling as they began walking again.

She wondered what he would say if she said, “Coop, how would you like to explore the woods behind Nightmare Hall with me at midnight?”

The note had said to come alone. But she didn’t even know
where
in the woods she was supposed to meet the whisperer. Those were thick, very dark woods. How would she ever find him in there?

That question was answered when, after Coop had walked her to her room and kissed her good night again, she opened the door to her room and her foot slid on a piece of yellow paper lying on the floor. Someone had slipped it underneath the door.

Like the first note, it had been folded once and her name was scrawled across it.

She stooped and picked it up with shaking hands.

She unfolded it and read:

Dere Shea,

Go up the drivway at

Nitemare Hall. Turn left

at the grag.

She frowned. Grag?

Oh. Garage. Turn left at the garage.

Thers a path. Tak the

path. Down the hill.

To the creke. Thers a

big rock ther. You wont

see me but I’ll be ther.

Sit on the rock and wate

for me.

Be ther or be sory.

It too, was unsigned.

“Love letter?” Tandy’s voice asked from behind Shea’s shoulder.

Shea whirled guiltily, crumpling the letter in one fist. “No, I …” she stammered, “Just a notice about some overdue library books.”

“Right.” Tandy tossed her long blonde hair and grinned.
“My
face certainly turns six different shades of red when I get an overdue notice. Well, who am I to pry? Anyway, I already know who it’s from. I saw you looking very cozy with Coop. He
is
cute. I went after him, but I guess he doesn’t go for blondes. Did you know he gets straight A’s in bio?” Tandy smiled slyly. “Maybe he could tutor you, Shea.”

Ignoring the remark, Shea thought, I don’t need a tutor now. What I need is a miracle.

She filled the remaining hours with as many activities as she could cram in, to keep her mind off what lay ahead. Washed her hair. Dried it. Tried to eat the popcorn Dinah and Sid brought over before they left for a late-night frat party. The few bites she managed to put in her mouth tasted like sawdust. Went with Tandy and Linda to a movie downstairs in the lounge. A comedy. She was the only person there who never once laughed.

She had to bite her tongue after the movie to keep herself from turning to Linda and saying, “Anyone at your dorm have a thing for speaking in whispers? Making weird phone calls? Writing strange, first-gradish notes?” Or, “Oh, by the way, Linda, I’m going to be out your way around midnight tonight, should I drop in and say hi?”

When Shea announced that she was going back upstairs, Linda said sweetly, “Shea, you’re awfully quiet tonight. Are you feeling okay?”

An opening … she could so easily have said then, “No, Linda, I’m not. I’m being tortured by someone who’s blackmailing me into meeting him in the woods behind your Nightmare Hall at midnight tonight. Care to help me out with this?”

But then, of course, Linda and Tandy would have said, “Well, Shea, exactly what is it that this person is blackmailing you
with?
What have you
done,
Shea?”

She answered instead, for what felt like the thousandth time, “I’m just tired, I guess. Sorry.”

When she left them in the lounge, Shea felt both relief and a sense of abandonment. It was so hard pretending she was okay when she really wasn’t. But she’d felt safer when she was flanked by two strong, athletic friends. Too bad they weren’t coming with her that night.

When she got back to her room, she yearned to crawl under the covers and hide, maybe forever.

But if she did, she was sure the videotape and the paperweight would go straight to the police in Twin Falls or to the campus security police. Or maybe the whisperer would first show the tape in bio class on Monday morning, as Dr. Stark had threatened. He might think that was a great idea. Hilarious.

The videotape was the real problem. If it weren’t for that, the police would never bother to check her fingerprints against the ones on the paperweight.

Depressed and frightened, she lay on her bed without music or a book or magazine, until it was time to leave.

Dressing in jeans, T-shirt, and lightweight windbreaker, and old sneakers in case the woods were muddy, she took a flashlight from her desk and left the room quietly.

No one was around. She could hear muted voices in several rooms, could hear faint music playing, but the hall was deserted.

She went on foot to Nightingale Hall. It wasn’t that far. And she argued with herself all the way up the highway. What she was doing was completely stupid. Movies and television shows about blackmail had always driven her nuts. She could never understand how the victims could trust a blackmailing criminal to keep his mouth shut, money or no money. The guy was a
criminal,
for pete’s sake? If he had ethics, he’d be in a different line of work.

But now she understood. She was walking in
their
shoes now, those victims, and she knew, finally, how they felt. You make a very big mistake, and then all you want to do is forget it, have it forgotten. And you’ll do almost anything to make that happen.

Including wandering around deep, dark woods at midnight. …

When she reached the driveway leading up to Nightingale Hall, she stopped.

At midnight, the house looked even more forbidding than it did in bright daylight. The downstairs was dark, the upper floors only dimly lit. The brick seemed the same color as the black night sky.

Shea fought the urge to turn and run back to the safety of campus.

Instead, she moved up the hill beside the woods, hunting for the path. She found it without any trouble.

As she pushed aside overgrown bushes and made her way between the tall, black trees whose limbs stretched toward the night sky, every muscle in her body tensed and her teeth clenched. I’m crazy, I’m crazy as a loon, she told herself angrily. I am too stupid to live.

But she kept going, stumbling along the path illuminated by her flashlight, down the hill, toward the creek. Even in the complete darkness unbroken by moonlight, she could see, in the distance, the crystal-clear, sparkling water below her.

And then she could see the boulder, the big rock mentioned in the note, perched at the edge of the creek.

Her steps faltered. This was it. The eight eternally long hours had passed, she had done what the note instructed, and now here she was, doing the dumbest thing she had ever done in her life.

There was no one at the creek. No one standing there beside the huge boulder, no one lounging on it, grinning at her, no one wading in the creek, enjoying himself while he waited for her.

She had made a big, big mistake. She shouldn’t have come. She should have done what she always shrieked at all those television victims to do, “Go to the police! Confess! Tell the truth and get it over with!”

She should have gone to the dean. Or to Dr. Stark. And told the truth.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe there was some way to prove that she hadn’t been in that office when Dr. Stark was attacked. Some way to save herself. …

She heard no footsteps, no sound at all. But suddenly, without knowing how, she
knew
someone was there.

She half-turned, waving the flashlight’s beam in front of her.

Nothing. There was nothing there to see. No one standing in front of her or beside her or, as she whirled in a complete circle, behind her.

But …

The voice, when it came, was horribly familiar, and no louder than it had been on the telephone.

“Hi, there, Shea. Have a seat on that nice, big rock. We’re going to be here a while.”

“W
HERE
ARE
YOU?”
S
HEA
cried, turning from side to side, her eyes straining to follow the path of her flashlight as she aimed it into the bushes and boulders along the creekbed. “Why are you hiding?”

“What you don’t see can’t hurt you,”
the voice said mockingly.
“Anyway, you don’t need to see me. All you need to do is listen, and listen carefully. I have the tape that could get you expelled. And I have the paperweight that could send you to prison. I’m prepared to give them to you, but first, you must pay the price. And remember, Shea, we get what we pay for. If you don’t do exactly as I say, you get nothing.”

“But I didn’t …”

“Shut up! Just shut up and listen.”

He couldn’t be that far away. He had to be close by, or the whisper would have been drowned out by the wind whistling through the treetops and by the rushing waters of the creek. She played her flashlight over the surrounding area. Nothing. She saw nothing but the woods and the boulders and the underbrush and the creek.

“Sit down on that boulder behind you,”
the voice ordered.
“Do it now!”

She sat, stiffly, every muscle in her body on alert. If he came up behind her, as he’d probably done with Dr. Stark, he was
not
going to take
her
by surprise. And she had the flashlight to use as a weapon. Lightweight plastic, but better than nothing.

“Here is what you’re going to do,”
the whisper commanded.
“Tomorrow night, about this same time, you’re going to go to the Animal Behavior Studies lab. The door will be unlocked. You’re going to go inside to the center table, to the glass box holding the snake they call Mariah. There’s a small tag on the front of the glass, with her name and species. So you’ll have no excuse for making a mistake and picking up the wrong snake.”

Picking up … a snake? He wanted her to capture a snake from the lab? She hated snakes. Slimy, slithery reptiles made her sick. Always had. At summer camp, she had invented some very creative excuses to avoid the nature hikes, convinced that the woods were crawling with rattlers and black-snakes.

“You’re crazy,” she said into the darkness. Where
was
he? Talking to someone who could see her but couldn’t
be
seen made her feel like a specimen under a microscope. He had to be watching her, waiting to see what she’d do, how she’d react.

“I’m afraid of snakes,” she added. “Terrified. What do you want a snake for, anyway?”

“You didn’t let me finish. That’s very rude, Shea. And I don’t care what you’re afraid of. Doesn’t make any difference. You aren’t being given a choice here, remember that. You are to pick up the snake using the noose that’s hanging beside the cage. The small black handle with the loop on one end. You’ll lift the cover of the cage and slip the loop over Mariah’s neck. Have a bag ready. The bags are lying on the shelf under the table. When you’re sure the noose is around the snake’s neck, tighten it just enough to pick her up. Then you’ll dump her into the bag and close the top. Quickly. That’s the first part of your payment. “