All The Pretty Dead Girls

by John Manning

  If I wanted to, she thought giddily, I could just keep driving, see wherever the road leads, see parts of upstate New York I’ve never seen, head to the border and cross over into Canada. I can go wherever I want to whenever I want to.

  College was the first step to adulthood, and this was just a small taste of freedom. But the practical side of her mind soon stepped in.

  Don’t be silly, you can’t just keep driving on. You have responsibilities and dreams and ambitions—and college is the first step.

  Sue had a feeling she was destined for big things. She was smart—all her teachers at Stowe had told her so—and certainly her grandparents had raised her with the expectation that she would be special. They might have been strict—rarely letting her roam through the city with her girlfriends, never allowing her to bring a boyfriend home—but that was only because she was all they had. Manhattan was a dangerous place for a girl to grow up. Girls disappeared all the time—as Gran was always reminding her. “Always pay attention and keep your eyes open and be aware of your surroundings,” Gran had lectured.

  Last night, in their final heart-to-heart, Gran had delivered a new warning. “Remember, Susan, just because you’re going to college in a small town in the country doesn’t mean that you can let your guard down for a minute. You’re a pretty girl. Very pretty. Very special. And lots of people get very jealous of pretty, special girls.”

  Heading back along the highway, Sue couldn’t help but laugh out loud at her grandmother’s words. Both Gran and Granpa were very old school, so out of touch with modern life. Of course Sue loved them—they’d been the only parents she’d ever known—but it would sure be refreshing to see the world without the filters they imposed, to make her own decisions and follow her own rules. That is, as much as Wilbourne College would allow.

  She made sure she didn’t miss the southbound exit, coasting to a stop at the top of the ramp. A battered old Chevrolet pickup truck from sometime during the days of hippies passed by, the rusted-out back filled with crates of apples. Sure enough, there was a peace symbol on the bumper, as well as a sticker reading IMPEACH BUSH. Sue smiled, rolled her eyes, and turned left. In her mind she could hear her grandfather. “Hippies started the decline of this great country,” he’d say. “They were all nothing but Communists, and this country has never recovered from their foolishness.”

  Sue shook her head. In Granpa’s mind, anyone who disagreed with him on anything was a Communist—even though Communism in the way he’d always feared didn’t really exist anymore. More than once, Sue had considered pointing that fact out to him, but she always bit her tongue. It was better not to say anything than to argue with Granpa. He thought he was always right, and keeping peace in the house was the most important thing. His rages, though infrequent, could be terrible—and she and Gran had always done whatever they could to make sure he didn’t fly off into one of them. Nobody, nothing was safe when Granpa was angry.

  Sue shuddered, wondering why her thoughts had turned so dark all of a sudden. Why think of any of that now?

  According to the directions she’d gotten off the Internet, Lebanon was just about two miles from the highway. She’d been there once before, when she and her grandparents had come up in April to check the place out. Of course, Radcliffe had driven them then, and Sue had been forced to stick close to Gran’s side the whole time. Now she was looking forward to seeing what Wilbourne was like without her controlling chaperones.

  She sped up, ignoring the posted speed limit of fifty. The two-lane road was smooth and dark, as if it had been recently repaved. She drove past rows and rows of apple trees spreading out on either side of the road, the sweet smell of the ripening fruit heavy in the air. She wrinkled her nose. She’d never been a big fan of apples.

  When she saw the sign WELCOME TO LEBANON—HOME OF WILBOURNE COLLEGE, she slowed down to sixty. At almost the exact same moment, she saw the flashing red lights in her rearview mirror and heard the “whoop-whoop-whoop” of a police siren.

  “Aw, shit,” Sue grumbled, slowing down and coasting to a stop on the side of the road. Granpa’s going to kill me, getting a speeding ticket on the first day away from home. That’s a big lecture about responsibility and insurance rates just waiting to happen.

  In the armrest between the front seats was an envelope containing proof of insurance and registration papers. Before she’d left, her grandfather had shown them to her and given her a lecture about obeying the traffic laws. “I don’t want to get a call from the state police that you’ve flipped the car or something,” he said, shaking his finger at her. “A car is a big responsibility, young lady, and I want to know that you’re up to our trust and faith in you.”

  Sighing, Sue flipped the armrest up and retrieved the envelope. She was reaching for her purse when the cop tapped on her window.

  She rolled it down partway. That was something else her grandfather had impressed on her: If you’re in the car alone and you get pulled over, make sure you don’t put the window down all the way and don’t unlock the door. Be respectful, but always remember that cops aren’t all nice men either.

  “Yes, Officer?” Sue gave him what she hoped looked like a respectful smile.

  “License, registration, proof of insurance, ma’am.” His voice was deep but soft. He was wearing a brown uniform and sunglasses. She couldn’t tell how tall he was since he was having to bend down to talk through the crack in the window. His legs looked long, and his shirt seemed to hang on his upper torso. His bare forearms were cobwebbed with veins. He seemed young, barely old enough to be a police officer, barely older than Sue herself.

  Flirt with him. Becca Stansfield, one of Sue’s friends at the Stowe Academy for Girls on the Upper West Side, had sworn she’d never gotten a ticket despite her complete disregard for traffic laws. With her thick mane of red hair and huge breasts, flirting came easy to her when she was pulled over for speeding out on Long Island, where her family had a beach house. Sue’s grandparents disapproved of Becca—her mother was an actress notorious for her divorces and her many lovers. But Sue found Becca fascinating. Becca seemed to know everything there was to know about boys and sex, and she was losing her patience with Sue. “You’re missing out on so much,” she’d say with a flip of her hair. “Guys are a lot of fun, and pretty as you are, you could have them eating out of the palm of your hands. Live a little! Surely, you can break curfew once in a while or sneak out of that mausoleum.”

  “Ma’am? Did you hear me?” the cop called again through the window.

  “Oh, yes, of course, Officer. Just a moment.”

  She gave him a sunny smile as her eyes caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Pretty. That’s what Gran always said, and Becca seemed to agree, but Sue’s ash-blond hair wasn’t thick and didn’t bounce with as much verve as Becca’s did, no matter how much conditioner or treatments Sue gave it. Pretty? Sue was never really convinced. There was the matter of that small bump in the middle of her nose from the time she’d broken it at age twelve in gym class. She considered her face was too narrow for her wide mouth, and her left eye was slightly larger and set a little higher in her face than the right.

  But her eyes, a vibrant green with gold flecks, were her best feature. Of this much she was confident. She turned back to the window and gave the policeman a smile she hoped was seductive. “Was I speeding, Officer?” she asked, using just a pinch of her grandmother’s Southern accent.

  I’m so lame, she groaned inwardly. I don’t even know how to flirt. Still, she kept the smile pasted on her face and tried to think how Becca would act in the same situation.

  The officer examined Sue’s documents, then handed them back through the window. “Yes, ma’am, you were,” he said. “I clocked you at sixty-five in a fifty zone.” He took off his mirrored sunglasses, and his eyes were a chocolate brown. “That’s a pretty hefty fine, Miss Barlow.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lower lip. Granpa is going to kill me—he might even take the car away. A huge ticket on
the first day I have the car.

  “You haven’t been driving long, have you?” His teeth flashed in a smile. Sue shook her head no.

  He’s kind of cute, Sue thought. She didn’t have a lot of experience with guys. Not once since kindergarten had she ever gone to school with boys. While her classmates were always talking and giggling about boys, she’d always sat there clueless. Whenever she met her friends’ boyfriends, she found them immature and childish—no matter how cute they were. The occasional guy that Becca would fix her up with always turned out be dull and uninteresting. The one boy she’d liked—a guy named Tom Parker she’d met at one of Becca’s family bashes in the Hamptons—had been a studious, smart boy who told her he wanted to study astrophysics and understand the interaction between matter and radiation in outer space. Sue hadn’t known what the hell Tom was talking about, but his intensity had been sexy, and she wanted to see him again. But he never called. She suspected her grandfather had found about it and turned the boy away. What was the use anyway? Why would he want to go out with me when I have to be home by ten on a Saturday night?

  “You need to focus on your studies,” Granpa always argued. “Boys are a distraction.” Many times Sue had thought about protesting, holding out for even eleven o’clock as a curfew—but decided it wasn’t worth it. She’d be in college soon enough, she reasoned, and besides, she never knew what to say or how to act around most boys anyway. She certainly didn’t want her breasts pawed at the way Becca described. She didn’t like how Becca and the other girls acted around guys, turning into imbeciles and behaving like fools.

  She focused her attention on the eyes of the young man peering through the window at her.

  “No, sir,” she said, “I haven’t been driving long. I just got the car last night, in fact.”

  She kept her voice deferential and respectful. Another lesson from her grandfather: When dealing with the police, always be polite and show respect. They are doing their jobs. Be cooperative, but never give away any information that they don’t ask for. And if you think you could be in serious trouble, ask for a lawyer immediately. If there’s any question in your mind, ask for a lawyer. It’s your right.

  “I suppose I could just let you go with a warning.” The officer was still smiling. “Seems like a bad way to start your school year, with a ticket and all.”

  “That would be so great.” All the tension built up inside of her since she heard the siren was swept away and she gave him a real smile. “Wilbourne students are probably a real pain in the ass for you, huh?” she asked in a sympathetic tone.

  He shrugged. “Not really. There’s hardly ever any trouble up on the campus, and girls aren’t as big of troublemakers as boys, you know. This your first year then?”

  She nodded. “Freshman. Guilty as charged.”

  “You’ll like it here. It’ll take some getting used to after Manhattan, because it’s awful quiet around here.” He shook his head. “You’re probably going to miss your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  He took off his sunglasses and leaned on the door, bringing his face closer to hers. He was good-looking, Sue decided. He had big brown eyes with thick lashes, a strong nose, thick full lips over strong white teeth. He looked strong, but in a lean narrow-hipped kind of way rather than those thickly muscled jock idiots Becca Stansfield preferred. There was some stubble on his cheeks and chin.

  “My name’s Perry Holland,” the cop said.

  Taking a chance, Sue buzzed the window all the way down. “Sue Barlow.” She giggled. “But then you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  “Nice to meet you.” They shook hands through the window, and then fell silent for a few moments. Perry watched her face for a few moments more before standing back to his full height. “You’d best be getting on to school, Ms. Barlow.”

  “Sue.”

  “Sue.” Perry nodded. “Be seeing you around.”

  I hope so, she thought as she put her window back up. He winked at her before putting his sunglasses back on and walking back to his patrol car. Sue sat there, watching him in the rearview mirror as he made a U-turn and headed back down the shady lane in the direction of the highway.

  Sue giggled. Becca would be proud.

  The campus was on the other side of Lebanon, and she made sure she followed the speed limit as she drove through the center of town. There was a town square with a courthouse, and little businesses lined the streets that surrounded it. Church spires poked up through the trees. People milled about on the sidewalks, some of them still in their church clothes. Sue drove on, the businesses and houses growing farther and farther apart until she was out of the town and in the country again. Through the bushes on the side of the road, Sue soon became aware of a brown brick wall. It was high and imposing, and Sue realized she had reached the campus. The wall seemed so coldly impenetrable to her—keeping people out of Wilbourne, and keeping the girls in.

  After another mile, she saw the massive brick entryway into the campus. A huge wrought-iron arrangement of curlicues and flowers branched from one brick column to the other, and in Gothic letters was spelled out WILBOURNE COLLEGE. Driving through the gates, she followed the campus map the school had sent to her. She was looking for her dormitory, Bentley Hall. All around her, girls were meandering across the campus, some carrying books, most of them in little groups. A pang shot through Sue’s stomach. They all look like they know everybody already. I know no one.

  Up ahead, she saw the sign for Bentley Hall. The parking lot in front was already full, but Sue pulled up underneath a big oak tree and sat there for a moment.

  This is it, she thought, I’m finally here.

  Excitement and trepidation warred within her. She was thrilled to be on her own, but also suddenly frightened. She supposed the fear was normal. She’d grown up very protected, very sheltered. Now she was taking her first steps on her own.

  But there was something else, too.

  She glanced up at the windows of Bentley Hall. They seemed so dark. Almost as if the glass were painted black. They’re tinted for privacy, she supposed. But for some unknown reason, those black windows terrified her.

  Watching from inside her car, Sue felt as if she had entered another world. All noise from the outside world was cut off by the sturdy construction of the Lexus. As she watched the girls stroll past, their lips moving in conversation without making any sound, Sue shivered. Why was she suddenly so afraid?

  Get over this, she told herself. You’re here. Go for it!

  There were no signs prohibiting parking, so she figured she could leave the car here, at least for now, at least until she got her parking sticker and found her way around. Sue took a deep breath and got out of the car. She stood there for a moment and looked around. The grounds of the campus were immaculately kept. A huge fountain in the middle of a big expanse of lawn bubbled to her left. Bright yellow marigolds and sunny pink petunias bordered the paved pathways leading from Bentley Hall to the other buildings, most of which were red brick, with a few hewn out of brownstone.

  Sue’s heart was thudding in her ears as she removed her suitcase from the trunk. Everything else she’d shipped on ahead of time. Ahead of her, there was considerable activity in the dormitory parking lot. Several girls were dragging boxes and suitcases out across the pavement toward for the front door. Sue was glad that Gran had insisted on shipping everything. She pulled up the suitcase’s tow bar and started rolling it through the parking lot, and pulled it up over the curb.

  Bentley Hall was enormous. Four floors high, made of neat red bricks and those large dark windows heading off in either direction from the main entrance. A wrought-iron statue of a woman in nineteenth-century clothing stood right beside the entrance. Sue stood there for a moment, staring up at what would be her home for the next four years. Her eyes went from window to window, wondering which were hers, wishing she could see some light—some life—behind one of them. The packet from the school had indicated she woul
d be rooming on the second floor. She began moving her eyes across the line of second floor windows, when something just above—on the third floor—caught her eye.

  What was that?

  She stared back up at the window, but there was nothing there now.

  She shook her head.

  She could have sworn she’d seen a girl’s face there.

  And it looked as if the girl was screaming.

  5

  Sue made her way up to the second floor, wrestling her rolling suitcase into an elevator that was packed with other girls and boxes. The other girls all seemed to know each other, laughing and joking and teasing, and Sue felt very alone. She tried to smile at the other girls, nodding and saying hello. She told them her name when they asked for it. But mostly, she just went her own way, and the other girls let her. She knew she should make more of an effort to talk to them, to make new friends, but she couldn’t get what she’d seen—what she thought she’d seen—out of her mind.

  I must have imagined it, she told herself as she rolled her suitcase down the hallway on the second floor, looking for her room. My mind was playing tricks on me, that’s all that was. I’m more tired than I thought from getting up early and the long drive up here. It’s my first time away from home, and I’m nervous and a little jumpy.

  But still, she couldn’t get the image of that face out of her head.

  Ahead of her, to the left, was Room 227. The door was already open, and dance music was playing loudly. Sue walked in, and saw her boxes and luggage stacked in one corner, near a window. The room was larger than she expected, with two twin beds set out on opposite sides of the room. Each side of the room had bookshelves built into the walls, and there were matching closet doors on either side of the room. Another door on one side led into what she assumed was the bathroom. That had been a reassurance for her when she’d read the material sent by the college. All the rooms in Bentley Hall had their own bathrooms. She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get a room in Bentley—her grandfather’s influence most likely—but she wasn’t going to question her luck.