Monster

by Barbara Steiner

  “Abby?” Stan spoke from behind, making her jump and almost drop a test tube.

  “Oh, you scared me, Stan. Don’t do that — don’t sneak up on me.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He ran his fingers through his kinky curls. “I — I just thought we might get to be friends. I mean, since we both seem to be in here so much.”

  Oh, lord, was that why Stan Hurley had been staring at her? He liked her. What could she say?

  “Well — I — I don’t have a lot of extra time, Stan. And I do have a boyfriend. But thanks, Stan. That was nice of you to offer.” Could she just say no to an offer of friendship? He hadn’t asked for a date.

  A little devil inside her almost made her giggle. She could see herself showing up at the Tower tonight with Stan Hurley. “Stan needs friends, you guys. He’s picked us. How about it?”

  Abby had hardly looked at Stan. Now she pretended to be really busy, keeping her eyes on her notebook and the red powder she was measuring and weighing.

  She felt his presence, heavy and dark. She felt his need, his longing. Don’t touch me, Stan. Please don’t touch me.

  Suddenly she felt his anger as he spun around and walked back to his table. Had she made a mistake? While she didn’t want Stan for a friend, she didn’t need him for an enemy, either.

  She dumped what she had started into the wastebasket. She wouldn’t work on her project after all. She needed to get out of the lab with its strange smells and dark corners.

  “Good night,” she said as she left, not even knowing why. The word wasn’t an apology, but some gesture seemed polite. Stan didn’t answer. She didn’t expect him to.

  Practically running down two flights of stairs, she pulled open the heavy front door, stepped out, leaned on it, and pulled in the fresh air. Why did she always feel she had escaped when she left this building?

  Going around and behind the pond, there was a shortcut to the Quad. Hesitating only a second, she took it. She could run if she needed to.

  She had walked only a couple of hundred feet when she heard footsteps behind her. The sky was fully dark now, and the path had only one light at the beginning and another at the end. She glanced back and quickened her pace.

  The footsteps quickened.

  “Who’s there?” She spun around to face whoever it was, fully expecting Stan Hurley to step out of the darkness.

  “Abby, is that you? I thought it was. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s me, Martin Beecher. You probably shouldn’t be on this path alone.”

  “Martin?” She gathered her wits. “Why are you out here alone?”

  “I followed you. Saw you come out of the chem building. Don’t you know it’s Friday night?”

  As attracted to him as she’d been in the library, she wasn’t sure now. Following her seemed a strange thing to do. She decided to take a light approach.

  “Sure I know what day it is. I was just hurrying back to my room to change clothes. Some of us are going to the Tower. We’re going to look through the telescopes for the monster.”

  He laughed. “Mind if I come along? If I saw it, maybe I could believe in it. Last year a rumor got started that there was a ghost haunting this pond. A lot of people claimed to have seen it. Turned out it was a barn owl. A couple of bird-watchers ID-ed it. They thought it might have been living in the attic of the gym. When the gym burned down it moved here.”

  Her mind leaped from showing up with Stan Hurley to showing up at the Tower with Martin Beecher. A little devil whispered that it would pay David back for flirting with Sissy.

  “Sure, join us. If you don’t mind waiting a minute for me to change. When I was cleaning up, I spilled that awful soup the Quad Caf was serving tonight — the soup no one ate — all down my shirt. I’m tired of smelling like split peas.”

  Martin laughed. “No problem.” He stepped up beside Abby on the path, and she decided she was glad for the company.

  The building everyone called the Tower was really the Wesley Worthington Memorial Tower, built in memory of some ancient founder of Salem University. It was tall and narrow, twenty stories high. One room at the top of the structure housed a carillon, which was often played on Sunday mornings and for special occasions.

  On the eighteenth floor were the offices for the campus radio station, WKSM. Other floors had more offices, a barbershop, bookshop, candy shop that made chocolate to die for, and a dry cleaners.

  Several floors, including the top, had observation decks equipped with telescopes. Astronomy students used them, but so did anyone else who wanted a great view of the campus or a closer look at the stars. Last semester a student had been badly injured falling from one of the decks. Abby shuddered at the idea.

  “They said they’d be on top.” Abby punched the buttons for the twentieth floor. “And, Martin,” Abby continued as the elevator closed and slid up quickly. “I’m sort of going steady with David Waters. You should know that.”

  “Sort of? That gives me a little hope, doesn’t it?” Martin’s blue eyes teased. “And I knew that. I see you around.”

  “You mean you’ve been watching me?”

  “I mean I can’t take my eyes off you. Does that feed your ego?”

  “Does it ever. Thanks. But you might like Sissy King, too. She’s a knockout. An actress, and really vivacious.”

  Martin laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll behave. You don’t have to set me up with someone else.”

  Jerry’s loud voice made Abby’s friends easy to find. Jerry was telling the plot of an old Abbot and Costello movie in which they meet Wolfman. She and Martin walked up and Jerry paused.

  “Hi, guys. This is Martin Beecher. I ran into him wandering the campus alone and asked him to join us.” Abby introduced her friends in turn. Only David acted as if Martin weren’t welcome.

  “Have you found the beast?” Martin asked.

  “Not a growl or a fuzzy shape on the campus tonight,” Jerry said. “We’ve found three couples making out in the bushes, a bunch of girls wading in the fountain, and the Omegas toilet papering Sigma Chi cars. Want to see? So far, they’ve wrapped four totally in paper. It’s great.” Jerry offered his telescope.

  Sissy, as Abby could have predicted, took Martin’s arm and led him to her telescope. David pulled Abby around the corner and into a dark recess of the balcony. Abby pressed her shoulders back into the building. She was afraid of heights. And startled by David’s roughness.

  “Where’d you pick up that guy, Abby?”

  “I didn’t pick him up. I ran into him the other night in the library. Literally. He picked up my books and we got talking. I think he’s lonely. Sissy will take care of that.”

  “Just so you don’t have to.”

  “Why, David, do I see you turning into a little green monster?” Abby put her arms around David’s waist and looked up at him. There was just enough light to see his frowning face.

  “Do I need to be jealous?”

  “I don’t know. If you have that need, I guess you can express it.” She wasn’t going to reassure him too much.

  “I’ve been afraid you’d meet someone you liked better than me ever since we came here, Abby. I don’t think you realize how attractive you are.” David smoothed the out-of-control curls of hair away from her eyes. Ran his fingers down her cheeks. His touch sent shivers all through her body.

  “Or how much of a grind? I’m sorry I’m so busy, David. Or so dumb I have to put in extra time studying. I hope you understand.”

  “I understand that I love you. And that I don’t want to lose you. I’d do anything to keep from losing you.”

  Anything? She wondered what he meant by that.

  He kissed her, but she held something back. His words should have made her feel wonderfull. Why didn’t they? Why did they make her feel a bit smothered? Trapped? Maybe she and David should date other people.

  Am I crazy? Abby wondered. One minute I’m jealous of David, of Sissy flirting with him and him flirting back.

  But
when he said he’d do anything to keep from losing her, she felt just an inkling of fear.

  Chapter 5

  Jerry couldn’t convince anyone to go to Vinnie’s with him, so after everyone else returned to their rooms, he went alone. He was starving, and he knew he couldn’t get to sleep without eating.

  On his way home afterward, cutting through the woods near Nightingale Hall, the off-campus residence everyone called Nightmare Hall, seemed like a shortcut. The place looked really creepy at night, though, sitting there on that hill, tilted slightly to one side. One light burned on the porch, revealing a broken shutter on the front window. And one light was on in the attic. Did someone have a room up there?

  Without meaning to, Jerry wondered what it would be like to die by hanging yourself — which was what a girl named Giselle McKendrick had supposedly done there. He also wondered what would make a person desperate enough to do such a thing. He was glad his parents had the money for a real dorm room. People still lived in the house since it was cheaper than the campus housing. He’d hate to live there. As much as he loved scary movies, watching them was one thing, living in one was another.

  To tell the truth, he was a ninety-pound weakling, and he didn’t care who knew it. Well, he weighed a hundred and twenty, but being only five foot four gave him an image he’d stopped trying to live down. After all, Dustin Hoffman was short. So were Michael J. Fox and Alan Ladd. He’d read that Alan Ladd had to stand on a box to kiss his leading lady. “Come back, Shane, come back,” he whispered and smiled. As old as it was, Shane had been his favorite movie when he was a kid. His dad had a videotape of it, and Jerry had watched it over and over.

  Although he’d never tell anyone, he missed his dad. They were both movie buffs. His dad liked scary flicks, too, and the old fifties science fiction films. Them. It Came From Outer Space. Forbidden Planet. He entertained himself by naming his favorites as he hurried through the woods. It was darker in here than he’d thought it would be.

  A shuffling noise came from behind him. A stab of fear clutched his middle. He glanced back, but saw nothing. Then it moved up beside him, and he could hear heavy breathing, panting actually, on his right.

  He was just about to run when it leaped out in front of him. In the darkness he could make out only a giant blob, smelling of old socks and garlic, of rotten eggs and … and …

  With a roar it attacked. He threw out both hands to stop it, but it was incredibly powerful. Remembering a movie he’d seen about a grizzly attack, he fell to the ground, scrunched up into a fetal position, covering his face and the back of his neck.

  The thing stopped for a few seconds, studying him, he guessed. Then it took hold of Jerry’s legs and began to drag him into the woods.

  During the initial shock, Jerry had blocked all emotion. Now he started to shake. His insides turned over and being dragged did nothing to settle his stomach. Where was it taking him?

  He wanted to cry but instead he shouted. “Let go of me! Get away, go away!” He tried to kick. For a second the beast lost its hold. He felt his foot connect with the big, hairy body. Twisting and turning, he tried to get up and run, but the beast grabbed him again, picked him up, and flung him to the ground. The impact knocked the breath from his chest, and he gasped. I’ll play dead, he thought. If it can’t hear my heart pounding against my ribs.

  He would later think that the light had saved him, that first light of dawn. The beast seemed to raise up and look around. It snorted and groaned. Then slowly it shuffled away.

  He lay still for what seemed like hours, but it was probably only five minutes. He wanted to be sure it was gone. It could be waiting for him to come back to life.

  Finally, feeling that every inch of his body was bruised and bleeding, he got to his feet, looked around, and seeing nothing, made his way back to Devereaux Hall to get help.

  As late as Abby came in, her roommate, Carrie Milholland, came in later. And as tired as Abby was — she had only slept a few hours at the most — she woke up when she heard Carrie crying.

  “Carrie?” Abby sat up, feeling as if a truck had hit her. Oh, no, it was light. That meant she’d have to get up. She had an early shift at the cafeteria.

  “Carrie, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  Abby’s eyes focused enough to see the bruise, red, but turning dark on Carrie’s face and around her eye. “Did someone hit you? What happened?”

  “Never mind, Abby. I’m sorry I woke you. I can’t talk about it. I — I — It’s too awful. I’ve done something awful. Leave me alone.” She buried her face in her pillow and started to really bawl.

  Abby moved over to sit on the bed beside her. She put her hand on Carrie’s back and patted her as you would a crying child. She didn’t know what else to do. Maybe Carrie had a fight with her boyfriend, but had he hit her? Or had she been raped? Maybe …

  “You want me to call the resident advisor, Carrie? Maybe you need to report this. I could even call the police.”

  “No, don’t! Please don’t call anyone, Abby. I’ll be fine. I promise you, I’ll be okay. Go on to classes and leave me alone.”

  Abby sat there a few minutes longer, but she followed Carrie’s wishes. She didn’t call anyone. She took a shower and dressed. She’d go to work, then come home and go back to bed. There was no way she was going to function on so little sleep.

  She was on her way out the door when the phone rang. She glanced at her bedside clock. Who could it be so early on a weekend morning? She lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Abby?” It was David.

  “David? What are you doing up? What’s wrong?” She knew David so well that just hearing how he said her name told her something was wrong.

  “Can you come over here right away? Jerry — Jerry’s hurt. He says he’s been attacked by a — the — the monster.”

  Chapter 6

  This was a joke. It had to be a joke. But David had sounded upset, and concerned. He wasn’t that good an actor. He could never pretend anything. He might be moody and possessive, but she always knew how he was feeling.

  Abby scooted out the door without saying anything to Carrie. Carrie had her own problems.

  There wasn’t time to go down to the Quad Caf to say she was going to be late, or not get there at all. She hoped they had enough help to cover for her. She’d explain later.

  Fortunately, no one was in the reception area to ask why she was running, or to stop her and ask what was wrong.

  She covered the grassy stretch between the Quad and Devereaux in record time. David and Jerry lived on the second floor, room 213. She had teased them that it was an unlucky choice, but they had refused to buy into that idea.

  David stood in the doorway waiting for her. She leaned into him and caught her breath. “This is a joke, isn’t it, David?” she finally said. “Jerry is making this up from all that movie lore he has stored up.”

  “See what you think.” David opened their door wider and she dashed to where Jerry lay on his bed. Gina sat beside him looking concerned.

  Monster or not, Jerry had tangled with something. One shoe and sock were gone and his leg was all scratched up. His clothing was torn and disheveled and covered with dirt, leaves, and twigs. He was curled into a fetal position, face away from Abby, towards the wall.

  “Jerry? Jerry, it’s Abby. What happened?”

  Abby and Gina took hold of him and tried to roll him over. He resisted, curling tighter. Abby began to think that maybe he wasn’t pretending. This wasn’t one of his many pranks. She looked at David, who shrugged and shook his head. He moved over and sat on the bed, too.

  “Jerry. You’re all right now. Turn over and talk to us. There’s no one here but David, Abby, and me. Do you want me to call the police?” Gina asked.

  Jerry groaned but rolled over. David had turned on the overhead light, since the day was gray and overcast and the room dim. Jerry squinted his eyes, trying to focus, but shut out the glare at the same time.

  David stepped over and
turned off the light. He snapped on the lamp beside Jerry’s bed. “That better?”

  Jerry nodded and tried to sit up. He moaned again and held his head.

  “Get him something to drink,” Abby suggested. “Something with sugar and caffeine. Do you have any Cokes or a Dr Pepper?”

  Jerry and David had a small refrigerator in their room for late night snacks, but mostly drinks. David rummaged through it until he found a Dr Pepper.

  “One left. His fav.” He popped the top with a fizzing sound, then handed the cold can to Gina. She held it to Jerry’s mouth until he’d sipped some and took the can himself.

  “I’m sorry, Jerry,” Abby apologized, thinking she could get him talking. “I was sure this was a prank you were playing on me, since I wouldn’t listen to your horror stories earlier.”

  “This was horror all right. But it was real, Abby. This thing, this beast, is real. I saw it.” Jerry was ready to talk.

  “You didn’t have too much pizza at Vinnie’s?” David asked.

  “Vinnie’s? When did you go to Vinnie’s?” Abby questioned.

  “Last night. I was hungry. I’ll never be hungry again.” Jerry grimaced. “Except that I threw up my pizza after that thing left me for dead. I think it was the light. The dawn saved me. I think it can’t stand the light.”

  “Jerry,” Abby suggested. “Start at the beginning. Why weren’t you with him, David? Why did you let him go to Vinnie’s in the middle of the night all alone?”

  David frowned. “I wasn’t hungry. I wanted to go to bed. Besides, I may be his roommate, but I’m not his mother.”

  Why was David so defensive and grouchy? Abby wondered.

  “There was still a crowd at Vinnie’s,” Jerry told them. “I joined them and ordered a pizza. By the time I got my order, it must have been, wow, it must have been two o’clock. Anyway, Vinnie wanted to close. We moved outside to finish eating. And talking. We got talking old movies and you know how —”