All The Pretty Dead Girls

by John Manning

  “I know,” Malika said. “I’ve read it. I had Dr. Marshall. She’s awesome,”

  Sue nodded. “Yes, I like her very much.”

  In fact, of all her teachers, Dr. Marshall was the warmest and most interesting. Dr. Lloyd was a dreary droner in English Comp, and Dr. Adamson in Biology was a spitter. She’d sat three rows back from the front and still she’d gotten sprayed. The rest were so dull that she hadn’t yet memorized their names.

  Malika’s phone twirped from inside her backpack. She groaned. “My parents have been calling every day,” she said, taking it out and switching the ringer to vibrate. “Ever since they heard about Bonnie. Just to make sure I’m okay.”

  Sue smiled. Her grandparents hadn’t called. She was surprised—and both relieved and disappointed at the same time. Disappointed because, after all, it would simply show that they cared—but maybe they hadn’t heard about it, as unlikely as that seemed. But relief was greater than disappointment, because Sue feared their reaction. They might make me come home, she thought.

  Maybe I ought to call and tell them, and assure them there’s no need to worry, Sue mused as she spooned some Cheerios into her mouth. No, why wake a sleeping dog?

  When she was about seven years old, her grandfather, the esteemed lawyer, had been involved in a case with a steel company battling its union. The union, her grandfather had said many times over dinner, was incredibly corrupt—so any notion that they were interested in the welfare of their members was ludicrous. Union leaders, he insisted, were only interested in money and power, and by God, he was going to break the stranglehold the union had over his client. As the battle went on, things kept getting uglier and uglier, until one day the FBI had shown up at her grandfather’s office.

  Her grandparents didn’t tell her anything at first, but she’d noticed the armed guards outside their apartment.

  “That horrible union boss has apparently threatened us,” her grandmother told her grimly one morning over breakfast. “That’s how these thugs operate. They can’t get what they want by civilized means, so they threaten with violence. So, I know it’s going to be rather, well, embarrassing for you, but your grandfather has hired a bodyguard to go with you everywhere—school, the park—anytime you leave this apartment, he’s going to go with you to make sure no one takes you from us.”

  At first, Sue had thought it was kind of cool to have a bodyguard, but as the weeks passed, it began to annoy her. None of the other girls had one, and while it seemed to mark her as special at first, soon it made her stand out. That big hulking guy—he was named Sam Puglisi—was always there, even during recess in the playground as they played kick-the-can or Red Rover. If she went off to the swings or monkey bars by herself, Sam always followed, watching her. One day, she heard one of the other girls—Melissa Hardwick—make a snide remark about “Susie and her trained monkey,” and the rest of the girls laughed. As soon as Sue got home that day, she’d asked her grandmother how much longer she had to keep Sam.

  “Oh, Susie.” Gran had sighed, a hand going to the rope of pearls at her neck. “Until this whole thing is over, I’m afraid. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but those horrible people specifically threatened you. You’re all we have, dear, and we have to keep you safe.”

  “But why can’t Granpa just give them what they want?”

  “Susan!” Gran’s face went white beneath her makeup. “You mustn’t think that way—ever. We cannot give in to this kind of behavior, ever. When monsters like this threaten you, you cannot back down—because then they will win, and these kinds of tactics are despicable. You’re very precious to us, darling, you know that, but if your grandfather backs down, if he gives in to this, he’d have to give up his practice. Because then bad people like this union boss would know all they had to do to beat him was threaten his family and he’d back down.” She forced a smile on her face. “Is Sam so awful that you don’t want him around you?”

  “No.” She did like Sam. He teased her and made her laugh, called her “his other little girl” because he had a daughter her age at home. “But the other kids—they make fun of me.”

  “The next time they do, you tell those nasty little girls that you have to have a bodyguard because your grandfather is doing important work.” She sniffed. “Much more important work than any of their fathers are doing.” Gran poured herself a glass of sherry with a shaking hand. “Now, run along and do your homework.”

  Melissa Hardwick is just mean, Sue thought as she went to her room. The next time I see her I am going to tell her so. Granpa is doing important work, and I have a bodyguard so he can keep doing his work—and if she keeps being mean to me, I’ll have to do something about it. Like pull her hair.

  But Melissa Hardwick wasn’t in school the next day, or the next. She was sick, their teacher said, and they all had to pray for her to get better. But Melissa never came back to school. She died—some weird childhood disease that just seemed to take her without hardly a warning. They didn’t explain it in school—and Sue’s grandparents had never discussed it.

  But her grandfather won the case, and one day the guards were gone.

  Sue looked around the caf and shivered.

  Why had she suddenly remembered both Lori Powers and Melissa Hardwick?

  They were dead girls. Just like Bonnie Warner.

  18

  All day long, Sue continued to feel uneasy. She took notes in her classes and did her best to pay attention to the lectures—it was easiest with Dr. Marshall, who made them laugh and told them stories about the days when the female divine was worshiped instead of denigrated—but Sue’s thoughts kept drifting back to Bonnie. And Lori. And Melissa.

  Dead girls.

  She knew there was no way she could avoid looking up at that window again when she returned to Bentley Hall.

  It was turning cool. Summer ended early up here, Sue discovered. The sun was low in the pink sky, drifting behind a cloud cover growing increasingly heavy. It might even rain. In the air hung the tart fragrance of the apple orchards nearby. Sue cast her eyes toward Bentley Hall in the distance.

  She’ll be there, she told herself.

  When she got close enough, she lifted her eyes to the window.

  The girl behind the glass was screaming again, her silent plea for help.

  Sue froze. This time she refused to look away. She stood her ground and overcame her fear and studied the face. It was a girl, all right, a young girl about her age, and her mouth was wide open, and screaming. This was no joke. She was terrified.

  Yet all around her on the sidewalk, girls passed Sue without noticing, talking and laughing among themselves.

  Can’t they see her? Am I crazy? What’s wrong with everyone? Can’t anyone hear her inside the dorm?

  In that one flicker of her eyes away from the window, the face disappeared.

  Sue took a deep breath. She counted the windows. One, two, three, four—fifth window from the left side of the building, on the third floor.

  She stood there for a moment, willing her heart to stop racing, taking deep breaths as she collected herself.

  I’m going up there, Sue decided, and get to the bottom of this.

  She hurried through the front doors, almost colliding with a squat brunette carrying an armload of books, bringing memories of Lori Powers back to her once again. Sue mumbled, “Excuse me,” and gave the girl a weak smile before heading for the elevator. She hopped inside and pressed 3. Her heart raced as the elevator made its creaky ascent. When the doors slid open, Sue looked around. It seemed the floor was deserted. With a deep breath, she stepped off the elevator.

  The third floor looked almost exactly like the second, an identical lounge across from the elevators. Except the lounge was deserted, as was the hallway in each direction. Never had Sue seen her own floor so still and quiet.

  An itchy little pulse of fear began to thread its way down Sue’s spine. The only sound on the floor was some distant music—so distant and so muted that Sue cou
ldn’t even make out what kind of music it was. With a heartbeat now so loud she could hear it in her ears, she made her way down the hall to the end of the building, then started counting doors. There. This had to be the one. Fifth from the end. Room 323.

  Why do I feel that this was my mother’s room?

  She stood in front of the door and listened for a moment. She heard nothing from inside. Hesitantly, she raised her hand and knocked.

  There was no answer.

  She knocked louder.

  Still nothing.

  She was readying herself to knock again when suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder. Sue gasped out loud.

  “Can I help you?” a voice asked from behind her.

  Sue spun around. A girl stood behind her—kind of a Goth-looking girl, with long black hair and heavy black mascara.

  “Oh, my God, I didn’t hear you come up behind me—” Sue stuttered, trying to calm her heartbeat.

  The Goth girl smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. Despite her severe look—she was dressed all in black, too—she seemed friendly, and gave Sue a big smile in apology. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Well,” Sue said, not sure how much she wanted to say, “I was wondering whose room this is.” Even as she said it, she felt stupid. What am I going to do, tell her I saw someone in the window screaming?

  The Goth girl looked at her. “Why?” she asked warily, her eyes narrowing.

  “Well, I was just—”

  The other girl shook her head. “Yeah, you and everybody else. It seems every girl on campus has come by that door sometime in the past three days.” She looked at Sue more closely. “Hey, I recognize you. You sat at our table in the caf this morning, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I was there…” She remembered there were other girls, but couldn’t place this girl’s face—a face she wasn’t likely to forget.

  “I’m Joelle Bartlett,” the girl said. “I’m a senior—you must be a freshman.” She stuck out her hand, and Sue shook it.

  “So, Joelle…tell me. This room…” Sue glanced back at the door over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. That was Bonnie Warner’s room.”

  Bonnie Warner. Sue felt so light-headed that it seemed she might faint.

  “You all right?” Joelle asked.

  “I’m—I’m—” Sue stuttered.

  “Come on into my room,” Joelle said. “I’m right across the hall.”

  Sue followed her inside, still feeling dizzy. Joelle gestured for her to sit on the futon propped against the wall. The room had the exact same setup as Sue’s own, but Joelle and her roommate had added a lot of small touches that made it seem more homey and lived-in. A poster of Johnny Depp in his costume from Pirates of the Caribbean had been framed and mounted on one wall. Next to it was a movie poster from Finding Neverland, and a model of Edward Scissorhands stood on one bureau. One of these girls quite obviously had a Johnny Depp fixation.

  A laptop computer was open on one of the desks, playing music Sue didn’t recognize. The bathroom door was open, and Sue could see several candles burning in there. The fragrance of sage met Sue’s nostrils. The room was neat and tidy, both beds made.

  “You want something to drink?” Joelle asked. “I have wine, soda, water…”

  “No, I’m good.” Sue sat down in a chair and looked around the room. “I guess I just got a little woozy.”

  “It’s okay. Everyone’s shaken up about Bonnie’s death.”

  Sue looked at her intently. “So you think she’s dead?”

  “Come on. You think she lost all that blood and is still alive?”

  Sue shuddered. “Then where’s her body?”

  “I think it was a ritual sacrifice.” Joelle seemed to know what she was talking about. “Some kind of witchcraft. They needed the body. The blood of a virgin.”

  “Oh, God,” Sue said, shivering again.

  “Sorry, I’m making things worse, aren’t I? Did you know her?”

  “Bonnie? No.”

  Joelle sat opposite her at the edge of her bed. “You’re rooming with Malika, right?” Joelle poured herself a glass of wine and grinned at her. “She’s very minimalist. Bare walls, everything in its place, deeply organized, right?”

  Sue managed a smile. “Yeah.”

  “That would drive me nuts. I do like Malika, though. Very smart. She’s going to go places.” She sipped her wine. “Now, why were you knocking at Bonnie’s door?”

  “I—” Sue hesitated. “I—I thought I saw someone in the window from outside.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why? Didn’t Bonnie have a roommate?”

  “No.”

  Sue found that odd. “Why not?”

  Joelle was studying her with her dark eyes through her heavy mascara. “What did this person at the window look like?”

  “It was a girl. I know that much.”

  “So there are lots of girls at windows in Bentley Hall. Why come up to this one?”

  Sue steeled herself. “Because she was screaming.” She paused. “I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

  To her surprise, Joelle didn’t laugh or seem surprised. She just nodded. “You know why Bonnie didn’t have a roommate?”

  Sue shook her head.

  Joelle took another sip of wine. “That room is supposed to be haunted. No one else would live there. Bonnie said she wasn’t afraid of ghosts.” She shrugged. “Maybe she was a little too brave for her own good.”

  “Haunted?” Sue looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “Okay, Joelle, I know I’m a freshman and all, but I’m not going to fall for that. You’re playing a trick on me.”

  “I didn’t say I believed it.” Joelle laughed. “But that’s the story. Every girl on the third floor hears it when she first moves in.”

  “How did the story start?”

  “Who knows? Wilbourne’s been around a long time. But I know it’s been a bad-luck room for lots of girls.”

  “How so?”

  “The girl who lived there when I was a freshman four years ago flunked out. Bright kid, straight A’s when she got here. But once she moved in there, she started having bad dreams. We’d hear her crying out in the night. She couldn’t concentrate and eventually flunked out.”

  “But that was four years ago. Girls have lived there since. And how have they turned out?”

  “Okay, I guess. But now there’s Bonnie.”

  Sue was sitting on the edge of the futon. “This is how legends get started…”

  “Well, there have been other things that I’ve heard. Bad stuff that went on in that room before I got to campus.” She sighed. “Of course, the worst story was the girl who got raped in there twenty years ago. Right here on the campus. You wonder why they’re so strict about curfews and not allowing guests? This girl was brutally raped. She never came back to school—and the story goes her roommate moved out of there pretty quickly after that, because she heard things….”

  “Is this documented? This rape? Or is it just another story that’s told?”

  Joelle waved her hand. “I work part-time in the administration office and I hear things. There are secretaries there who remember when it happened. Listen, I’m just telling you what’s been told to me. That room’s supposed to be haunted. The stories got so bad last year that every girl refused placement there, so Bonnie asked for it and Mrs. Oosterhouse let her move in.”

  “Mrs. Oosterhouse?”

  Joelle grinned. “Oh, that’s right, you’re new. You probably have met the dorm dragon yet.” She let out a laugh. “She’s the dorm supervisor. She has rooms down on the first floor. She can be a pain in the ass, but for the most part she’s okay. Just don’t cross her. Now where was I?” She refilled her glass.

  “Trying to scare me to death.”

  Joelle chuckled. “Oh, yes, the haunting of Room 323. Some of the other girls say they’ve heard moaning coming from there, and screams—kind of like the face you say you saw, right? But Bonnie alway
s said she never heard anything, and neither have I, and I’m just down the hall…and to be honest with you, the girls who say they’ve heard things, well…” Joelle put her thumb and index finger together and held them up to her lips, and made like she was inhaling. “Let’s just say they liked to smoke mind-altering substances, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well,” Sue told her, “I’ve seen that face now several times…”

  All at once, the door opened. A strawberry blonde burst into the room in a flutter of energy. “Oh, my God! Joelle, you have no idea what I have been through today!” She had a thick accent—it sounded as if she’d said, Oh mah gawwwwd, Jo-ail, yew have no EYE-de-ah what Ah have bin threw todayah.

  She stopped when she saw Sue. “Oh, hi,” she said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Sue, this is the now-notorious Tish Lewis, my roommate,” Joelle said, pouring another glass of wine and handing it to Tish. “She’s from Dallas, if you couldn’t tell the minute she opened her mouth.”

  “Fuck you, Joelle.” Tish reached out to shake Sue’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” She gulped down the wine in one quick drink. “Hit me again, darlin’.”

  Joelle complied, then looked over at Sue. “You sure you won’t have some? Don’t worry, we won’t tell. It’ll steady your nerves.”

  “No, thank you, I’ve got to get going—”

  Tish had plopped down on one of the beds. “Why did I ever agree to sign Bonnie in to the welcome ceremony? I will never do that again, ever, for anyone, under any circumstances. The way they treated me, you’d think I was a serial killer or something.”

  “I gather they didn’t expel you.” Joelle sat back down. “That’s good to know.”

  “No, but just barely. One more infraction and I am so out of here.” Tish shook her head. She blew out her breath with a whistle. “Which means I have to be really careful. I thought Oosterhouse’s head was going to explode off her shoulders. ‘I’ll be watching you like a hawk, Ms. Lewis.’” Tish shuddered. “I swear, she was worse than the dean.”

  Sue stared at her, fascinated. Tish was of about medium height, pretty, with blue eyes and a pert nose. She had a slender figure and highlights in her hair, which was cut to frame her face. On her long legs she wore a tight pair of low-rise jeans, complemented above by a blue and silver Dallas Cowboys T-shirt that kept riding up to reveal a pierced navel. Her breasts were as large as her waist was narrow.