The moon sailed through drifting clouds. Wind billowed through trees, swirling leaves on the street outside the dark dorm.
In the black of her room, Robin slept fitfully in her blankets.
Something was moving in the room…sliding through the silence, a thick, animate presence. Its gaze searched the dark, finding and fixating on Robin.
It slithered toward the bed—
Robin woke from her dream with a gasp—and realized she was not dreaming. Something was on her, a foul dead weight, impossibly heavy, flattening her to the bed. Her whole being recoiled from the presence above her—malevolent, hungry, crushing her down.
She flailed out, thrashing against the weight, convulsing and contorting her body in an attempt to throw it off.
Through her terror, she was aware of a thud from somewhere in the room. There was a sharp slam, and a piercing scream.
Robin pushed upward with all her strength and threw the weight off her.
She gulped for air, able to breathe again, free—and then bolted up at a sudden banging crash.
Then there was total silence.
Robin’s heart was knocking at her ribs; her breath came in panicked gasps as she looked wildly around her in the dark.
The room was empty, the door to the hall wide open. Beside her bed the windows were open, too, the curtains billowing inward.
And then somewhere outside, the screaming started. Voices shouted frantically: “Oh my God.” “Call an ambulance!”
Robin threw back her blankets and jumped out of bed, ran to the window to look out.
Lights were going on all over the dorm; half-sleeping students appeared at windows.
A crowd was forming below, dazed students gathering, running out of the dorm, stopping in horror.
A broken body lay on the bricks in a pool of blood, blond hair spread around her head like a halo, sightless eyes staring up.
Robin pulled back in terror.
It was Waverly.
Robin burst out through the front door, hurried down the steps.
More and more students were gathering in the windy street, wearing nightclothes, in shock. The flashing red lights of electric security carts illuminated the plaza; sirens were screaming from somewhere, approaching. Someone in a uniform started yelling at the students to get back.
Robin scanned the onlookers. She saw Cain first, slim and still in the white lights; then all the rest of them were there, finding and fixing on one another, drifting together through the crowd as if magnetized—Martin, Patrick, Lisa. Robin eased her way up to them through a group of sobbing girls.
Patrick’s eyes were wide, glazed with shock. He stared toward Waverly’s body.
“What happened?” Robin asked numbly.
The four all looked at her strangely in the moonlit dark, lights from the security carts flashing on their faces.
Lisa was the first to speak, her voice low and harsh. “Don’t you know? She went out your window.”
Robin jolted. “What?”
Lisa looked upward, indicating the curtains billowing from Robin’s and Waverly’s open window.
Robin started to shiver. She had only pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt; the wind was icy and groping.
Cain spoke roughly beside her. “We better get our stories straight.” He was moving slightly, away from the crowd, so they couldn’t be heard. Everyone moved with him, subtly pulling away.
Robin glanced at Cain quickly, swallowed. “We have to tell the truth—”
Lisa interrupted, a vehement whisper. “What truth—we were doing a séance? And have these backwoods cops fry us for satanic murder?”
Robin looked at her, stricken.
Martin’s face was pale, oddly blank in the moonlight.
Cain turned on Patrick, his voice low and tight. “Where were you when she went out the window?”
Patrick looked at him without speaking. He seemed dazed, his eyes rimmed with tears.
Lisa flared up, protective. “What are you talking about?”
Cain jerked his head toward Patrick. “I want to know where he was when this happened.”
Lisa’s eyes blazed. “He was with me.”
Robin stared at her, stunned. Lisa and Patrick. Lisa looked away from her. “I was scared. I didn’t want to be alone.”
Cain was looking from Patrick to Lisa, his eyes narrowing. “Wait a second. The two of you—
Martin spoke over him, a hoarse rush of words. “We were in the attic. We were doing a psych interview for class. Word association. I say apple; you say orange. Wet, dry. Hot, cold. We heard screaming and we came down. We never saw the bitch.”
Robin looked at him, startled at the word—when Martin suddenly hissed, “Shut up and lie.”
Robin looked toward where he was staring. A couple of uniformed deputies—bulky farm boys with crew cuts, were pushing through the crowd, coming their way.
They bore down on Robin. One of them pointed an index finger at her. “You’re the roommate?”
Robin nodded, swallowing.
“Sheriff wants to talk to you.” The deputy spoke curtly.
Robin looked back at the others. They stood at the fringes of the crowd, staring after her under the moonlight as the deputies led her away.
The halls of the administration building were silent and empty, its long, polished floors gleaming in the dark.
Robin sat in the stark conference room under harsh fluorescents. A deputy watched from the doorway, standing guard as if to keep her from escaping—a physical impossibility, since she felt completely incapable of moving. Across the long table, a hard-eyed sheriff regarded her skeptically.
“You were in the attic? Working?”
In her panic, Robin had told the story Martin had fed the group, instinctively realizing that it was important to say they’d been in the attic, in case anyone had seen the lights or had seen them go up there.
She answered as calmly as she could manage. “It was quiet. We were running a test for psych. The TV’s always blasting in the lounge….” Too many details, she thought. Let him ask the questions.
The sheriff leaned forward. “I thought you were working on a term paper.”
Robin felt faint. She tried to control the trembling in her voice. “A term paper for psych. Based on…word-association tests.” The sheriff sat impassively, waiting. “We…heard screaming and came down. Everyone was gathering outside…and Waverly…she was dead.”
“So you weren’t in your room.” He stared into her face.
Robin faltered, didn’t answer.
“Because someone said they saw you come out of your room.”
Robin forced herself to raise her eyes. She looked at him without answering, her face pale under the sickly fluorescent lights.
The sheriff appraised her. “You and her get along?”
Robin lifted her chin. “No. She didn’t like me.”
“And why was that?”
She spoke with effort. “She’d been suspended from her sorority and, well, she didn’t like being here, I guess.”
“Tough to live with.” Sarcasm fairly dripped from his voice. “And did you like her?”
Robin took a shaky breath. “No.” Her voice was barely a whisper. The sheriff looked at her hard. Robin tried to hold his stare, but she couldn’t. She dropped her eyes.
The sheriff scraped back his chair, stood. His voice was heavy with irony. “Don’t go anywhere, Miz Stone.”
Robin pushed out through the heavy front doors, bursting from the building.
She stopped on the wide portico, staring out into the dark, her thoughts a black storm of noise.
They think I did it.
Did I?
When that thing was on my chest, and I pushed….
She shuddered, forced her mind away from the thought. Rain brushed her skin, a fine mist that haloed the streetlamps.
Robin froze, staring down at the lights.
At the foot of the wide, pale steps, a shadow stood under a lamppost, holding a duffel bag, waiting.
He looked up toward her; the light caught his face.
Cain.
Robin didn’t know what she felt, but it wasn’t surprise. She went down the steps, stopped in front of him. They looked at each other in the pale wash of lamplight.
“What happened?”
She glanced back up at the one light on in the building. “He didn’t believe me. He told me to stay in town.”
“They always say that.” Cain threw his cigarette away. It exploded in tiny sparks on the wet pavement.
Robin shivered violently. “I can’t go back there.”
Cain took her arm. “We’re not. We’re getting the hell out of here.”