The Coffin (Nightmare Hall) (20 page)

“Where’s my roommate?” Rachel asked Joseph, although she already had a pretty good idea.

Joseph tilted his head in the direction of the door. “She left. With that Samms guy. The waiter? The one with the dark, brooding look. I heard the theater department is doing
Dracula
next year. They should speak to him about playing the lead.”

“Dracula isn’t dark and brooding,” Rachel disagreed. “He’s pale and vapid.”

“You’re personally acquainted with him?” Joseph snapped.

Rachel glanced at Paloma, who pointedly raised smoothly arched, heavily penciled dark brows, as if to say, See? What did I tell you? Hypersensitive! Next time, pay attention when I talk about artists.

The crowd had thinned, and Rachel could see through the glass door that darkness had fallen. She was reluctant to walk across campus alone, and was relieved when Aidan said, “Why don’t we all go over to Vinnie’s for pizza? Rachel? Come with us?”

She liked the way he said that. Casually. As if he didn’t know that he was rescuing her from a solitary walk back to the dorm. As if he really wanted her to come along if she had the time.

She had the time.

They were about to leave when a very pretty girl in jeans and a tank top approached, wrestling with a large, and clearly heavy, canvas.

Both Aidan and Joseph ran to help, taking her burden from her.

“Oh, thanks,” she gasped, laughing, “you guys are lifesavers. I’m taking this to my car … or was it taking me? I’m not sure. Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d really appreciate some help. My car’s right out front.”

They obliged, leading the way out of the building. The girl followed.

Paloma touched Rachel’s elbow, halting her. “That’s Samantha Widdoes,” she said in a low voice. “She’s one of
us.
She’s not very good, but she doesn’t seem to care. She says she loves painting and that’s all that counts. She’s rich, so I guess she can afford to think that way. The rest of us have to think about whether we’re going to earn a living or not.”

“Maybe she did the seascape,” Rachel said aloud. “You know, the one at the end of the far wall?”

“Oh, that thing. No, she doesn’t work much in oil. Tried it once, and made a terrible mess. She knows her limitations. Most of her work is with pastels. She does trees, bushes, sky, water, flowery kinds of things that the guys make fun of. They’d never sell, but I think they’re romantic.”

So Samantha Widdoes, Artist, was pretty and rich, but not terribly talented, and didn’t care all that much. She was, Rachel saw now, standing beside the car smiling up at Aidan, who looked interested. Very interested. But then, so did Joseph, who was also standing beside Samantha, glowering at Aidan.

“Guys,” Paloma said in disgust as they approached the car, “they’re all the same. All it takes is a pretty face, a great body, wealth, perfect teeth, and they’re falling all over themselves. So who needs talent?”

Rachel laughed. The comment was just what she needed to stifle her jealousy. And she was glad it had, because Samantha turned out to be nice. Very friendly, smiling and shaking hands when she was introduced to Rachel.

“How did you like the exhibit?” she asked pleasantly.

“Loved it. By the way,” Rachel said hurriedly, “do you by any chance know who painted the seascape?”

Joseph and Aidan groaned. “Not that again!” Joseph cried. “Do you often suffer from these morbid fixations?”

“Seascape?” Samantha asked, furrowing pale brows over deep brown eyes. “I don’t remember that one. Actually, I didn’t get much of a chance to view tonight. I was busy helping set things up, and then I got trapped in a corner with Dr. Lewis from art history. But,” she added thoughtfully, “I don’t remember anyone in class ever working on a seascape.” She looked at Rachel. “Why? Did you like the painting?”

“It’s not that Rachel liked it,” Joseph interjected dryly, “it’s just that she thinks she sees someone drowning in the painting. No one else sees it, of course, but that’s because it’s not there. It’s just a lot of blue and green vomit, that’s all. Can’t imagine why anyone would even have the gall to hang it.”

“Joseph,” Samantha scolded mildly, “you know better than to tell people how to interpret paintings.” To Rachel, she said, “Do you often see things in paintings that no one else sees? How fascinating.”

“No. I don’t. I guess it was an optical illusion or something.”

“Well, you might want to check the canvas again. Some artists put their initials on the back of the canvas, instead of the front,” Samantha explained. “You might check. Then you could always ask the artist.”

“Thanks,” Rachel said, nodding. “Maybe I will.”

“You’re not going to let go of this, are you?” Aidan asked as they climbed into the car.

“Maybe I will,” Rachel said lightly, “and maybe I won’t. I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, in the meantime,” Aidan said, smiling, “can we please go to Vinnie’s? I’m not ready to be a starving artist. Not just yet.”

“T
HE MASKS ARE FUN,”
Aidan said around a mouthful of pizza, “and they’re what I do best. I tried oils and watercolors and pastels, but then I came across the life masks and knew that was something I could really sink my teeth into. Three of mine are hanging in the lobby. Did you see them?”

Rachel shook her head. She’d been too fixated on the seascape. “I’ll look at them tomorrow. So, how do you make the masks?”

“It’s easy.”

Joseph hooted. “Oh, yeah, right, McKay. Easy for you.” To Rachel, he said, “I gave it up. Tried half a dozen times. Made such a mess, I almost got tossed out of class. Aidan’s being modest. Totally out of character for him, by the way. Must be trying to impress you.”

“I am,” Aidan said. “So don’t ruin it, okay? Anyway,” he hunched forward, elbows on the Formica table, his eyes bright, “say you were the subject—and I really hope you’ll let me do one of you—you’d lie on a table with a cardboard tray under your head to catch any spills, and I’d coat your face and hairline with grease so the mask wouldn’t stick. Then I’d mix up the plaster, put straws in your nose so you could breathe, you’d close your eyes, and I’d pour the plaster over your face.”

Rachel gasped. “Not my face, you wouldn’t! Are you serious? People let you do that to them?”

“Well, it’s not like they can’t breathe, Rachel.” Aidan looked disappointed at her reaction. “Don’t forget about the straws. And it doesn’t take long for the plaster to harden. When I pull it off, I have a perfect mask of that person’s face.”

“
You
do,” Joseph groused. “Not me. Mine never harden properly or they harden too fast, or the nose is sloppy. Once, I didn’t put enough petroleum jelly on a girl’s hairline before I poured the plaster. When I tried to take the mask off, her bangs were stuck. I had to cut them free with an X-Acto knife, or she’d have been walking around with a plaster mask on her face for the rest of her life. She was
not
a happy camper.”

Paloma laughed. “She had the weirdest-looking hair on campus for a couple of weeks.”

“Why would someone let you do that?” Rachel asked Aidan. “Cover their face with plaster? It sounds so horrible.”

Annoyance was very visible on Aidan’s face. “It’s
art,
Rachel. They do it for art.”

“And out of vanity,” Paloma said dryly. “You’d be surprised at how many people are willing, even eager, to be immortalized in plaster.”

“You
are
going to let me do a life mask of you, aren’t you, Rachel?” Aidan asked. “Those cheekbones deserve to be cast in plaster for all the world to see.”

“They can see them just fine, right here on my face,” Rachel. She didn’t want to make Aidan mad so soon in their relationship, if indeed he was interested in a relationship. But letting someone pour plaster over her face would take the kind of complete trust that Rachel wasn’t sure she was capable of.

Changing the subject, she said, “So anyway, where do you work? I know it’s in the Fine Arts building, but where?”

“On the tenth floor. It’s all studios. So are eight and nine. But I like the tenth. The light is better.”

“You lug bags of plaster up ten flights of stairs?” No wonder he looked like he worked out regularly.

Aidan shook his head. “There’s a dumbwaiter in the lobby. We just stick our stuff in there and haul it on upstairs with the pulley ropes.”

Rachel was relieved Aidan had stopped pressing her about modeling for one of his masks. But she knew he’d ask again. He seemed determined.

On their way out of Vinnie’s, they met Bibi, holding Rudy Sam’s hand and smiling. Unlike Rudy, who barely nodded as they passed in the entryway.

What a creepy guy, Rachel thought. I myself wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley.

Aidan walked her back to Lester. Before they parted she promised that she would return to the art exhibit the next day, Saturday, and view his life masks.

“See you there,” he said, and turned to leave. But as he walked away, he called over his shoulder, “Think about doing one, okay? I’m ready whenever you are.”

By that time, Rachel thought as she went inside, we’ll both be old and gray and any mask of me will be full of wrinkles.

It had been a good day, and she was tired. Knowing Bibi wouldn’t be home until late, Rachel showered and went to bed. She was asleep before she had time to do as Aidan had asked and think about the mask.

The young man in jeans and white T-shirt standing on the riverbank above the waterfall is tall and thin, with thick, windblown hair the color of carrots. His back and shoulders bend slightly over the fishing rod gripped firmly in his hands, and at his feet lies an open textbook. His eyes alternate between the textbook page and the fishing rod to see if he has a bite. He reads a little, then glances up to see if he’s got a bite, then reads a few more sentences before checking the rod again.

He is situated closer to the waterfall than he’s ever been. Dangerous, someone has warned him, but Ted Leonides seldom pays attention to warnings of that sort. They are so like the ones his mother had given him repeatedly when he was little: “Don’t climb that tree, you’ll fall and break your neck,” “Wear your raincoat or you’ll catch pneumonia in this weather,” “Stay away from that old abandoned house or you’ll fall through the floorboards and break a leg.” He has never fallen out of a tree, never caught pneumonia, never broken a leg. Now, when people warn him
a
way from things, he feels perversely drawn toward those things, trying to prove something. He isn’t sure to whom. His mother has been dead for eight years, so it couldn’t be her.

Himself, maybe. Maybe he’s trying to prove something to himself.

The forest surrounding this part of the riverbank is peaceful and quiet. No one ever comes up this far. The students at Salem University have been warned against the river in the spring and fall when seasonal rains transform the usually quiet, gentle waterfall into a thundering torrent lunging over the outcropping of rock into a raging whirlpool at the bottom.

The fisherman lifts his head from the textbook pages to stare across the wild river to the other side, where the riverbank rises up into a steep, heavily wooded hill. It looks pretty over there. Maybe, when he’s memorized the eighteenth chapter in his physics book in preparation for a quiz the following day, and given up trying to catch anything in this wild and muddy water, he’ll walk back to the old railroad bridge behind campus and trek across it to the other side, to do some exploring.

The bridge, too, is forbidden. Hasn’t been used in years. The metal supports are rusted and full of holes, the wooden cross ties rotting
a
s if giant insects have been chewing on them.

But he doesn’t weigh very much. Not going to bring down an entire bridge just walking across it. And it sure does look pretty on the other side of the river.

He glances up at the sky. Looks like rain. Good fishing weather, but if he hangs around and waits for the rain, he’ll never get across the bridge to take a look.

Deciding, he lays the fishing rod aside and bends to pick up his textbook.

He never sees the figure that darts out of the woods, and straight at him from behind. Its hands are raised high in the air and hold an object … long, wooden, with a smooth, rounded end
… a
baseball bat.

The figure, clothed in a long, black, flowing garment with a loose hood, swings the wooden object with both hands, connecting with the back of Ted Leonidas’s skull.

He doesn’t make a sound. His body flies up and out, seeming to hang suspended in the air over the swollen river for long minutes before descending rapidly, limp as a rag doll, into the muddy, rushing water.

When he surfaces again, he is conscious, revived perhaps by the cold water. His eyes are wide with fear. His arms flail helplessly against the powerful current. His mouth is
o
pen in a silent scream of terror.

That raw, open horror in his face is because Ted Leonides knows he is being swept straight toward the waterfall that plunges to the rocks below.

And he knows there is nothing he can do to stop his helpless rush toward certain death.

He is right.

It takes only minutes.

The figure in black on the riverbank, the bat dangling from its left hand, watches in satisfied silence as the young fisherman is swept away, arms still flailing, his mouth still open in a scream silenced by the muddy water pouring into it.

As he is ripped backward toward the waterfall, his attacker tosses the bloody bat into the water. Then he turns and hurries along the riverbank to watch. He arrives at Lookout Point, the top of the hill where visitors come to view the waterfall, at the precise moment when the now-unconscious body is swept over the crest of the falls, spiraling down, down, amid the roar and rumble of the water, into the raging whirlpool and the jagged rocks below.

This time, Ted Leonides doesn’t resurface.

He is gone.

The figure in black turns and hurries away,
d
isappearing into the woods like a black shadow erased by the sun.