No one seems to care anymore
Hiding away, shut behind a door
Never coming out to see the light of day
I don’t want to live my life that way.
Untitled
Written by Heather Wells
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me with this” I say disgustedly.
“Pledges,” Steve says, ignoring me, “now is the time when you will be given the opportunity to prove your dedication to the house of Tau Phi Epsilon.”
“Seriously,” I say. “This is freaking stupid.”
Steve finally looks over at me. “If you don’t shut up,” he says, “we’ll off your boyfriend first, then you.”
I blink at him. I want to be quiet. I really do. But…
“Gavin’s not my boyfriend,” I say. “And seriously. Don’t you think there’s been enough killing?”
“Um.” One of the pledges throws back his hood. I’m astonished to see Jeff Turner, Cheryl Haebig’s boyfriend, standing there. “Excuse me. What’s she doing here?”
“Shut up!” Steve whirls around to glare at Jeff. “No one gave you permission to speak!”
“But, dude,” Jeff says. “She’s the assistant director of the building. She’s gonna tell—”
“She isn’t going to tell,” Steve interrupts. “Because she’s going to be dead.”
This news appears to come as a shock to more than just Jeff. A few of the other pledges stir uneasily.
“Dude,” Jeff says, “is this some kind of joke?”
“SILENCE, PLEDGES!” Steve thunders. “If you want to be a Tau Phi, you must be prepared to make sacrifices for the cause!”
“Oh, right,” I say quickly, while I still have the pledges—or Jeff, at least—on my side. “Is that what Lindsay Combs was, Steve? A sacrifice? Is that why you killed her?”
More nervous movement from the pledges. Steve turns his head to glare at me.
“That bitch betrayed a member of our order,” he snaps. “She had to be punished!”
“Right,” I say. “By chopping off her head and grinding her body up in a garbage disposal?”
Jeff throws a shocked look in Steve’s direction. “Dude. That was you?”
“Oh, it was Steve, all right,” I say. “Just because Lindsay stole—”
“Something that didn’t rightfully belong to her,” Steve barks. “Something she wouldn’t give back—”
“She tried,” I insist. “She let your brother in here—”
“And it was gone!” Steve shouts over me. “She claims someone must have stolen it. Like we were supposed to believe that! She was a liar as well as a thief. She deserved to be put to death for her betrayal!”
“Dude.” There’s hurt as well as disbelief in Jeff’s face. “Lindsay was my girlfriend’s best friend.”
“Then you ought to be thanking me,” Steve says imperiously. “For if your girlfriend had continued to consort with the likes of that woman, she’d have eventually learned her ways and betrayed you, too, the way she betrayed one of our brothers.”
It seems to take a minute for this to sink in for Jeff. But when it finally does, he doesn’t hesitate a second longer.
“That’s it.” Jeff Turner shakes his head. “I’m out. I only joined this stupid frat ’cause my dad was in it. I did not sign on to go around killing people. You want to hit my butt with a paddle? Fine. You want to force me to chug a twenty-four-pack? No problem. But kill chicks? No way. You guys are fucking nuts—”
As he’s saying this, he’s reached down to pull off his robe. Steve, watching, shakes his head sadly. Then he nods at two of the robed figures in the circle around his altar, and they cross the room to deliver several blows to Jeff’s midriff—while he’s still floundering around in his robe, no less—until he finally falls to the ground, where they begin kicking him, heedless of his screams of pain. The other pledges, seeing this brutal treatment of one of their peers, stand frozen in place, watching.
They’re not the only ones who feel frozen. I cannot believe what I am seeing. Where are the cops? They couldn’t really have believed that idiot Curtiss, could they?
Knowing there’s only one person who’s going to be able to put a stop to this—or die trying, anyway—I say loudly to the other pledges, who are just standing there watching their friend get the snot kicked out of him, “Just so you guys know, the thing Lindsay stole? It was Doug Winer’s stash of coke.”
It’s impossible to tell what the boys’ reaction to this information is, since their faces are still hidden beneath their hoods. But I see them stir even more uneasily.
“Don’t listen to her,” Steve instructs them. “She’s lying. It’s what all of them do—try to demonize the order by spreading malicious lies about us.”
“Um, we don’t have to demonize you guys,” I say. “You do a good enough job of that on your own. Or are you saying your brother Doug didn’t strangle his girlfriend to death because she stole his nose candy?”
One of the people kicking Jeff Turner stops, and a second later Doug Winer is striding toward me, his hood down.
“You take that back!” he cries, eyes blazing. “I didn’t! I didn’t kill her!”
Steve reaches out to grab his little brother’s arm. “Doug—”
“I didn’t!” Doug cries. “You have no proof!” To Steve he says, “She has no proof!”
“Oh, we have plenty of proof,” I say. I’m stalling for time. Steve has to know that. But he seems to have forgotten about Gavin and using him as a means to keep me silent. And that’s all I want. “We found her body today, you know. What was left of it, anyway.”
The look Steve throws me is one of total incredulity. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The body. Lindsay’s body. See, the thing you didn’t take into account was the fact that disposals don’t grind up bones… or navel rings. We found Lindsay’s this morning.”
Doug makes the kind of noise girls sometimes make when I tell them they can’t have a single next year. It’s a sound between a sigh and a protest, and comes out like, “Nuh-uh!”
Steve’s grip on the knife tightens. The blade flashes in the candlelight. “She’s bluffing. And even if she’s not… so what? There couldn’t have been anything to lead them to us. Not after the way we cleaned up.”
“Yeah.” I’m sweating now, I’m so hot in my winter coat. Or maybe it isn’t heat. Maybe it’s nerves. My stomach is in knots. I probably shouldn’t have had that second Dove Bar. Jeff is lying totally still now. I don’t know if it’s because he’s unconscious, or just pretending to be so the kicking will stop. “You guys may be good at partying and putting on fancy initiation rites, but at cleaning, you really suck. They totally found hairs.”
Doug throws a startled look at his brother. “Steve!”
“Shut up, Doug,” Steve snaps. “She’s bluffing.”
“She’s not!” Doug has gone white as a ghost in his robe. “She knew! She knew about the stash!”
“Leaving the head was your first mistake,” I go on conversationally. “You might have gotten away with it, if you hadn’t left the head on the stove like that. They’d have noticed the bones and belly button ring and all, but chances are they wouldn’t have known what they were. It would have been like Lindsay had just disappeared. No one would have known you guys had been there, so no one would have wondered about how you got in. That was your second mistake, trying to off Manuel. He wouldn’t have told anybody about the key if you hadn’t scared him like that. And if he had, what difference would it have made? He’s just a janitor. Nobody listens to the janitor.” I shake my head. “But no. You had to get cocky.”
“Steve,” Doug whines. “You said no one would know it was us. You said no one would know! If Dad finds out what we did—”
“Shut up,” Steve yells. I jump a little at the volume of his tone. So do the guys who still have hold of my arms. “For once in your life, shut the fuck up, you little shit!”
But Doug’s not about to do as his brother says. “Christ, Stevie!” he cries, his voice breaking. “You told me Dad’d never know. You told me you’d take care of it!”
“I did take care of it, you little shit,” Steve snaps. “Just like I take care of all your stupid fuck-ups.”
“Don’t worry about it, you said. Leave everything to me, you said.” Doug’s practically crying. “You son of a bitch! You didn’t take care of shit! Now Lindsay’s dead, we’re gonna get busted—and I still don’t know what happened to my stash.”
Apparently oblivious to the fact that his sibling has just incriminated them all, Steve shouts, “Yeah, well, who’s the asshole who fucking killed the bitch in the first place? Did I tell you to kill her? Did I tell you to fucking kill her? No, I did not!”
“It wasn’t my fault she died!” Suddenly Doug is stumbling forward and, to my abject horror, clamps both his hands on the front of my coat. A second later, he’s sobbing into my face. “I didn’t mean to kill her, lady. Honest I didn’t. She just made me so goddamned mad, stealing my coke like that. And then she wouldn’t give it back! That whole thing, telling me someone musta stole it out of here—it was such bullshit. If she’d just given it back when I asked… but no. I thought Lindsay was different, you know. I thought Lindsay really liked me, not like those other girls, who only hang out with me because of my last name. I didn’t mean to choke her so hard—”
“Shut up, Doug.” Steve’s voice is hard again. “I mean it. Shut the fuck up.”
Doug lets go of me and spins around to appeal to his older brother, tears streaming down his face. “You told me you’d take care of it, Steve! You told me not to worry. Why’d you hafta do that with her head, huh? I told you not to—”
“Shut up!” Steve, I can tell from the way his hands are shaking, is losing it. The knife he’s holding points one minute at me, and the next at Doug. A detached part of my brain wonders if Steve Winer would really stab his own brother.
The same part kind of hopes he will.
“What did you expect me to do, huh, you little shit?” Steve is so mad, his voice is now no louder than a hiss. “You call me in the middle of the fucking night, crying like a baby, and say you killed your fucking girlfriend. I have to get up, come all the way over here, and clean it up for you. And you have the nerve to criticizeme? You have the goddamned audacity to questionmy methods?”
Doug gestures helplessly at me. “Jesus Christ, Steve! This fucking DORM MANAGER figured it out. How long do you think it’s gonna be before the police catch on?”
Steve blinks at me, then licks his lips nervously, his tongue darting out like a snake’s. “I know. That’s why we have to get rid of her.”
Which is when one of the red-robed figures beside me stirs and says, “Uh, dude. You said we were just gonna scare ’em, like we did the janitor guy—”
“Scare him? He nearly bled to death!” I cry.
“If you say one more word,” Steve says, pointing the knife blade at me, “I’ll kill you now, where you stand, instead of letting you out the easy way.” The tip of the knife travels away from me, and ends up pointing at the glass on the altar. It appears to be filled with water. “Drink that,” Steve commands.
I look at the glass. I have no idea what’s in it. But I can guess, judging by what happened to Jordan the other night. Rohypnol, otherwise known as roofies, a popular sedative on the college circuit. One dose, already dissolved in water, ought to make me much more malleable, when it comes time for cutting.
It’s right about then that I decide I’ve had about enough. I’m hot, my stomach hurts, and I’m pretty worried about Gavin and Jeff. I wish I had let Cooper kill Doug Winer when he’d had the chance. I wish I myself had taken one of Doug’s pillows and stuffed it over his head and held on until the kid stopped struggling.
No. That’s too kind. I wish I had wrapped my own hands around that thick neck and squeezed, squeezed the life out of him the way Doug had squeezed the life out of Lindsay… .
“Come on, Heather,” Steve says, beckoning impatiently with the knife. “We don’t have all night.”
“Uh, Steve,” the other guy next to me says. “Seriously, man. This is getting weird.”
“Shut up,” Steve says to his fellow Tau Phi. He grabs the glass, brings it over to me, and shoves it under my nose. “DRINK IT.”
I turn my face away. “No.”
Steve Winer gapes at me.“What?”
“No,” I say. I can feel that I have the support of the room. The Tau Phis are starting to realize their leader has lost it. They won’t let him hurt me. I’m pretty sure. “I am not going to drink it.”
“What do you mean, you aren’t going to drink it?” The shadow of a smile returns to Steve’s face. “Are you blind? I’m holding a knife to your throat.”
“So?” I shrug. “What’s the difference to me? I’m gonna get killed anyway.”
This is not what Steve wants to hear. The smile fades from his lips, and there isn’t a hint of humor in his face when he hands the glass to the guy on my right, turns around, walks over to Gavin, grabs him by the hair, yanks his head back, and raises the knife toward his exposed throat—
“Steve, man, don’t!” one of my guards yells, just as I say, “Whoa, I’ll drink it, I’ll drink it,” grab the glass, and down its contents.
“That’s it,” the guy who’d been holding the glass says. “I’m out of here. Jeff’s right, you guys are fucking crazy.”
And he begins striding from the cafeteria—along with several other Tau Phis—including all the pledges but Jeff Turner, who is still lying on the floor, still as death.
“Don’t let them go,” Steve barks at the Tau Phis who’d kicked Jeff into unconsciousness. But even they hesitate.
“Did you hear me?” Steve lets go of Gavin’s hair and stands there, staring confusedly as his frat brothers begin to leave him, one by one. “You guys. You can’t do this. You took a pledge. A pledge of total loyalty. Where are you… you can’t—”
Doug is starting to look scared. “Jesus, Steve,” he says. “Let’em go. Just—”
Doug breaks off mid-sentence, though. That’s because Steve has dropped the knife, and, from somewhere deep inside his robe, he’s managed to bring out a small handgun, which he is now holding level with his brother’s chest.
“Douglas,” Steve says. “I am getting fed up with you and your whining.”
“Jesus, Steve!” Doug cries again. But this time the fear and tears in his voice cause his fellow Tau Phis to turn around to look.
Which is when I do what I know I have to. After all, no one’s paying the least bit of attention to me. Everyone’s gaze is on Steve, whose back is to me.
Which is why, as soon as I see his index finger tighten on the trigger, I dive, my arms spread wide, at the floor. Because I know something about the floor of the caf of Fischer Hall that Steve Winer will never know: it is squeaky clean. Julio may not be in charge of the floors behind the steam tables, but he’s in charge of the cafeteria floor, and he’s waxed it until it’s slick as ice. Which means I slide across it like an Olympic skater doing a belly flop, until I’ve collided with the elder Winer’s legs, which I then throw my arms around, pulling him down.
Then I reach up, seize Steve’s wrist, and sink my teeth into it, forcing him to drop the gun. Also to scream and writhe in pain and terror.
Doug seems to get over his astonishment at what I’ve just done first—perhaps because he’s the only one who didn’t have the sense to duck when Steve was waving that gun around, and so is the only person in the room still standing. He stumbles forward until his hand closes over the butt of the gun his brother has dropped. His fingers trembling, he raises the pistol and aims it—
Well, at me.
“No,” cries Steve hoarsely. “Don’t shoot, you little fuck! You might hit me!”
“I want to hit you!” Doug screams. Really. He screams it. Tears are streaming down his face. “I am so sick of you always telling me what a fuckup I am! And okay, I may be a fuckup… but at least I’m not a freak! Yeah, I killed Lindsay—but I didn’t mean to. You’re the sick fuck who thought it would be a good idea to leave her head on the stove. Who even fucking does shit like that, Steve?Who? And then you made us stab that poor janitor… and now you want us to kill this lady here… and why? To make yourself look like a bad ass in front of your frat buddies. Because Dad was a bad ass when he was a Tau Phi.”
The mouth of the gun Doug is pointing at us keeps straying from me to Steve in a very unnerving manner. Steve, beneath me, is beginning to sweat. Copiously.
“Doug,” he says. “Dougie. Please. Give me the—”
“But Dad didn’t kill people, Steve!” Doug goes on, as if he hadn’t heard. “He didn’t cut people up! He was a bad ass without doing shit like that! Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see that no matter what you do,you’re never going to be like Dad?”
“Fine,” Steve says. “I’m never going to be like Dad. Now put the gun down—”
“No!” Doug screams. “Because I know what’s going to happen! You’re going to turn this all around and blame it on me somehow. Like you always do! Like you’ve always done! And I’m not putting up with it anymore! Not this time!”
Which is when he points the gun in the dead center of Steve’s forehead.
And also when a calm, slightly familiar voice says from the cafeteria’s doorway, “Drop it, son.”
Doug looks up, his expression one of mingled astonishment and indignation. I turn my head as well, and am quite confused to see Reggie—yes, drug dealer Reggie—leveling a very large and shiny Glock 9mm at Doug Winer’s chest.
“Drop the weapon,” Reggie says. Strangely, his Jamaican accent is completely gone. “I don’t want to have to hurt you, but if I have to, I will. I think we both know that.”
Steve, still pinned beneath my body, cries, “Oh, Officer, thank God you’re here! This guy went berserk and was trying to kill me!”
“Uh-huh,” Reggie says tonelessly. “Give me the gun, son.”
Doug glances down at his brother, who nods encouragingly beneath me. “Go on, Dougie. Give the gun to the nice policeman.”
By this time, Doug is crying too hard to shoot anyway. “You’re such a fuck, Steve,” he says, as he hands the gun to Reggie, who passes it to Detective Canavan, who is looming in the doorway behind him, his gun drawn as well.
“You may not know it, Officer, but you just saved all our lives,” blathers Steve Winer. “My brother was trying to kill me… .”
“Right,” Reggie says, reaching to his belt for his handcuffs. “Heather, please get off Mr. Winer.”
Obligingly, I roll off Steve Winer. As I do, I notice that the room kind of spins around. But in a pleasant manner.
“Reggie!” I cry, from where I’m splayed on the floor. “You’re an undercover cop? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because he’s a Fed.” Detective Canavan is standing over me, directing about twenty uniformed officers to handcuff everyone in a red robe. “With your usual aplomb, Wells, you managed to stumble into the middle of a sting operation the DEA’s been working on for months. Congratulations on that, by the way.”
“Detective!” I cry happily, staring up at Detective Canavan. “What took you so long?”
“We had a little trouble getting in,” he explains. “The security guard was being… resistant. And no one could find a key.” He rolls his eyes. “Typical of this place, by the way. Why are your pupils so big?”
“’Cause I’m so happy to see you!” I cry, sitting up to fling my arms around his neck as he leans down to help me to my feet. “I just love you so much!”
“Uh,” Detective Canavan says, as I cling to him—because the room is spinning around quite a bit by now. “Wells? Are you on something?”
“They made her drink something.” This comes from Gavin, who has been untied by the maid/undercover DEA agent, and whose facial gash is being examined by a pair of EMTs who’ve come in, apparently from nowhere. As I’d expected, the duct tape has left an angry red mark across his mouth, and taken away some of his soft, wispy mustache, making it even wispier-looking.
“Gavin!” I cry, letting go of Detective Canavan and throwing my arms instead around him—much to the annoyance of the paramedics trying to clean him up. “I love you, too! But only as a friend.”
Gavin doesn’t look as happy to hear this as I think he should be. “I think it’s roofies,” he says, attempting to extricate himself from my embrace. Which I find rude, to say the least.
“Okay,” Detective Canavan says, taking me by the arm. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” I want to know.
“Oh,” Detective Canavan says, “I think the hospital will be a good place to start. Get some fluids into you.”
“But I’m not a bit thirsty,” I assure him. “I could use some ice cream, though. Hey, want a Dove Bar? They’re right in the freezer over there. Hey, everyone should have a Dove Bar. Hey, everybody,” I turn to yell. “Have a Dove Bar! On me!”
“Come on, Wells,” Detective Canavan says, keeping a firm grip on my arm. “That’s enough.”
And then, as he’s leading me out of the cafeteria and into the lobby, I see a sight that makes me forget all about the Dove Bars. And it’s not Crusty Curtiss in handcuffs—although that’s very pleasant to see. And it’s not half the residents standing there, trying to see what’s going on, and Tom and the RAs, along with Sarah, trying to talk them into going about their Friday night business.
No. It’s my father.
“Dad!” I cry, breaking free from Detective Canavan’s grasp and throwing myself into my waiting father’s arms.
“Heather!” he says, seeming very surprised by my greeting, but not unhappy about it. “Thank God you’re all right!”
“I love you so much,” I tell him.
“She loves everyone quite a bit at the moment,” I hear Detective Canavan explain. “She’s on Rohypnol.”
“That’s not why I love you,” I assure my father, worried his feelings will be hurt otherwise. “And it’s not just because you called the cops and kept me from getting decapitated, either.”
“Well,” Dad says, with a chuckle, “that’s good to know. Her mouth is bloody. Why is her mouth bloody?”
And that’s when I notice Dad’s not standing there alone. Cooper is by his side! He’s reaching for one of his ubiquitous handkerchiefs. Handkerchiefs are apparently a very important tool in the private investigations field.
“Oh,” Detective Canavan says. “She bit a guy. That’s all.”
“Cooper!” I cry, throwing my arms around his neck next, as Cooper reaches to dab Steve Winer’s blood from my mouth. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“I can tell,” Cooper says. He’s laughing, for some reason. “Hold still, you’ve got some—”
“I love you so much,” I tell him. “Even though you told Gavin I’m still in love with your brother. Why did you do that, Cooper? I’m not in love with Jordan anymore. I’m not.”
“Okay,” Cooper says. “We’ll take your word for it. Here, hold still.”
“I’m not, though,” I assure him. “I don’t love Jordan. I love you. I really, really do.”
Then Reggie steps into my line of vision one more time, just as Cooper is finishing washing me up, and I shout, “Reggie! I love you! I love you so much! I want to come visit you on your banana plantation!”
“I don’t actually have a banana plantation, Heather,” Reggie says. He’s laughing, too. Why is everyone laughing? Seriously, maybe I should give up the songwriting thing and go into stand-up comedy, since I’m apparently so hilarious. “I’m from Iowa.”
“That’s okay,” I say, as some EMTs gently pry my arms from around Cooper’s neck. “I still love you anyway. I love all of you! You, Tom—and Sarah—and even Dr. Kilgore. Where is Dr. Kilgore, anyway?”
And then the room starts spinning fast—I mean,really fast—and my sleepiness becomes too much to resist anymore.
And I don’t remember anything more after that.