The Harrowing

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hours of eternity later, the first streaks of gray dawn showed through the windows.

Robin, Martin, and Cain huddled in blankets. Unable to sleep, they had forayed, hands linked to belts as if on an Arctic expedition, to the closet the Hall residents called the downstairs kitchen to make coffee, stopping at the bathroom to use it one by one, door cracked open and the others on guard outside.

Now they sat with hands wrapped around mugs, drinking in silence, while Lisa and Patrick dozed beside them in the murky gray light.

Somewhere a door slammed and they all jumped. Lisa and Patrick bolted out of sleep, freaked.

They all huddled, frozen, listening. Robin’s blood turned to ice at a rattling, dragging sound in the hall.

Lisa whispered, terrified, “No…”

They all whirled at the sense of movement behind.

A stocking-capped stoner stood in the arched entrance of the lounge. Robin recognized him from the third-floor boys’ wing. Behind him, another stoner in striped jacket and comically identical stocking cap hauled a suitcase, its broken wheels rattling.

The stoners looked around the lounge, taking in the bedding, the overturned furniture, the five students, huddled in blankets, hollow-eyed and haunted, pale as ghosts.

One of the stoners laughed uneasily. “Whoa… musta been some party.”

Patrick managed a bleak smile. “Yeah. Some party.”

Robin, Cain, Patrick, Lisa, and Martin all started to collect their bedding.

They did it in silence, avoiding one another’s eyes.