The Night Walker (Nightmare Hall) (2 page)

Suze, who was short, with a great deal of blonde, curly hair, nodded. “Really, Quinn, you’re not going to pine over Simon forever, are you?”

Quinn flushed. “I’ve got a handle on it,” she said coolly. Right. Like anyone in the room believed that for a second.

“Simon Kent is a jerk,” Ivy added emphatically.

“You could take
my
place at the dance,” Tobie said softly. “I think I feel a headache coming on.”

“Tobie!” Quinn sent her a stern glance. “Danny Collier’s a nice guy. You’ll have a great time.”

“I know, but … I just don’t feel like dancing.” The look in Tobie’s green eyes was one Quinn had seen before and couldn’t identify. Sadness? Fear? Simple homesickness?

“You will when you get there,” Ivy promised. “Now, let’s get this show on the road. See you later, Quinn. If you wait up, we’ll tell you all about it when we get home.”

“Oh, I won’t be up,” Quinn said, flopping down on her bed. “I’ll hit the books for a while, then it’s an early bedtime for me. Have fun, you three.”

She hated the look of pity in their eyes as they left the room.

She had only half-finished her paper when, although the night was warm, she was forced to get up and close the window to shut out the sounds of music coming from the dance.

She drew a stick figure, labeled it
Simon Kent,
stabbed it several dozen times with her pencil point and then, feeling better, threw the drawing away and finished her paper. Then she wrote briefly in her journal and went to bed, careful to remember her breathing exercises.

And she slept.

I
T WAS WARM IN
the ballroom of the Student Center. So many people gathered together in one space raised the temperature in spite of the big doors open on both sides. The floral decorations on the round tables were beginning to wilt like discarded lettuce leaves, and only a few black ties hadn’t been stuffed into back pockets of black trousers, only a few white shirt collars remained firmly fastened.

The music of the last dance was slow. Couples filled the dance floor, entwined, heads lying on shoulders.

Had they been asked, most would have agreed that the evening had been great, fun, a blast, super, even … yes, even perfect.

But then it began.

It began slowly, entering the room in a mere whiff of … something different … something that didn’t belong, that didn’t fit.

A few noses wrinkled delicately and tried to dismiss it, reluctant to spoil the “perfect” evening by something that didn’t fit.

But it wouldn’t be dismissed.

It gathered strength, burgeoning quickly from a mere whiff to a definite presence that couldn’t be ignored.

It began at a side wall, seeping out of a heat duct placed high above the floor. The people beneath the duct came to a sudden halt, as if stopped by a traffic cop. Coughing and choking broke out and eyes began to stream with tears as the foul odor enveloped them, wrapping them in its pungent fumes.

Leaving its mark on that group, it slithered further on into the room, dropping down to seize this couple, that couple, this group, that group, in its revolting grasp.

Shouts of “Oh, God, what
is
that?” sounded as feet stopped moving, eyes teared up, chests began to heave, hands flew to nostrils in an effort to escape the putrid smell.

Girls in brightly colored dresses stumbled backwards and guys in tuxedoes staggered helplessly as eyes were blinded by free-flowing tears from the sickening fumes. Bodies, spinning around in a frantic search for a way out, slammed into other bodies. Some fell to the worn wooden floor and were stepped on by other unseeing victims. Cries of pain echoed out into the huge room.

Members of the band, clutching their instruments, jumped down from the bandstand at the front of the room and raced for the open doors.

As the repugnant odor snaked its way into every corner of the room, the panic escalated into mayhem. Feet began running, pounding across the floorboards with urgency. Pushing and shoving were rampant. The smaller and weaker fell. Some were helped upright by others, some were not.

Jess and Ian stood in one corner and watched helplessly as the dance became a frenzied race for fresh, untainted air.

“It’s like the running of the bulls,” Jess said in disbelief, her own eyes beginning to tear as the foul odor reached their quiet little corner. “In Spain. When the bulls chase people down the street …”

Then they, too, were wrapped in the stinging, burning fumes, and were seized by the same need to escape them.

Halfway across the room, she fell, her arms instinctively reaching out to break her fall. As she landed, a heavy, racing foot came down hard on her left wrist. There was a sharp, snapping sound, like a twig being broken in half, and Jess screamed in pain. Ian bent to scoop her up off the floor and, scarcely breaking his stride, aimed for the door.

In the doorway jam, people were toppling like dominoes. Frightened voices cried out for help.

“Four at a time!” a voice shouted then, and a huge guy with blond hair appeared in the doorway, barring it, thick arms outstretched on each side of him. Danny Collier shouted commandingly, “You go out of here four at a time or you don’t go at all!”

The stern command broke the panic. Realizing that people were being hurt, the crowd obeyed.

Although it seemed to take forever, the ballroom cleared.

They all gathered outside, wiping their eyes with tissues or hands, staring back at the student center in horrified disbelief.

“W
HAT
WAS
IT?”
T
OBIE
whispered to Danny when her eyes had stopped streaming. “What was that horrible smell?”

“Didn’t you recognize it?” Ian asked, overhearing her. “From high school chem class? Sulfuric acid. Smells like rotten eggs, remember?” Having said that, he left to help a thoroughly shaken Jess to the infirmary. Other people with bumps and bruises or bloodied noses followed.

Ivy, wiping her face with a tissue, joined Tobie and Danny. Tim was right behind her, his tuxedo trousers torn at the pockets. “Our clothes are positively ruined!” Ivy cried with disgust. “Ruined! I paid two hundred dollars for this dress. Now I’m going to have to burn it. It smells like something in a landfill.”

Tobie knew she was right. In spite of the cool, fresh air, the vile stench still clung to their skin, their hair, their clothes. “Where could it have come from?”

Danny shrugged. “Who knows? But if Ian’s right about it being sulfuric acid, I think someone should call the police.”

“The police?” Suze and her date, a tall, thin boy named Leon, arrived, wiping their eyes. “You think we should call the police?”

“Well, it couldn’t have been an accident,” Danny said. “There’s no chem lab in the Student Center. So my guess is, some nasty little amateur chemist rigged up a stink bomb and deliberately set it off.”

Tobie and Ivy stared at him with reddened eyes. “What are you talking about?” Tobie said, a strained expression on her face. “You think someone ruined the dance on purpose?”

Danny’s mouth was grim. “Can’t be anything else. I’m calling the police.”

By the time the police had taken everyone’s dorm and room number and stopped asking questions, the desperate need for a hot, leisurely shower drew them all back to their rooms.

A small fortune in formal wear made its way to the incinerators that night.

When Quinn awoke the following morning, Tobie was already awake, sitting upright on her bed, arms wrapped around her chest.

The first thing Quinn noticed was how red and swollen her roommate’s eyes were.

Oh, no. Tobie hadn’t had a good time? She hadn’t really wanted to go. Had almost turned down Danny’s invitation. It was Quinn who had urged her to accept, saying that Tobie didn’t get out enough. Which was true.

But now she’d had a lousy time. So would she be mad at the person who had pushed her into going?

She didn’t look mad. She looked … upset.

“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked. “I thought you’d be sleeping late this morning.”

Her eyes focused on the floor. Tobie didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong, Tobie? Didn’t you have a good time?”

“It was okay,” Tobie said then, lifting her head. “Until the last dance.” And she told Quinn about the filthy, disgusting smell.

“I don’t get it,” Quinn said when Tobie had finished. “A smell? What kind of smell? Where did it come from?”

“It was that rotten egg smell. Sulfuric acid. Remember chem class in high school? You must have used it. We all did. Only this was horrible, so there must have been a lot of it. It was in our clothes, in our hair, on our skin. I showered for an hour when we got back.” Tobie sighed heavily. “And we all had to burn our clothes.”

Quinn was stunned. “Rotten eggs?” She had imagined them all having a wonderful time. She’d felt bad, even angry, that she wasn’t a part of it. “Where did it come from?”

“No one knows yet. People think it was a stink bomb. The police are going to look into it.”

The police? The police had been called to Salem’s Spring Fling dance?

“Listen,” Tobie said wearily, standing up, “I can still smell that awful stuff, even though I never brought my dress into this room and I showered before I came back. I guess I’ll just have to keep showering and shampooing until I can’t smell it anymore.” She picked up a robe lying on the foot of her bed. “You should be glad you weren’t there, Quinn. It really was horrible.”

Looking frail and wan to Quinn, Tobie headed down the hall to the bathroom.

Quinn stayed in bed, trying to digest what she’d been told.

A smell had ruined the dance? A foul stench that had caused people to panic and run and people had gotten hurt? “Like a stampede,” Tobie had said, “in some old western.”

Crazy. Totally crazy.

Where would a smell like that have come from?

Quinn got up and went to the window. The whole campus would be buzzing about the dance’s disaster. It was Sunday. No classes. A beautiful, sunny, spring day. People would be gossiping, all right, but they’d also be sunning, and jogging, and gathering on the Commons, a grassy green area in the middle of campus.

She was suddenly anxious to get outside and find out if anyone knew anything more about the disaster that had taken place at the dance.

Turning, she hurried to the closet and pulled the door open.

And recoiled in revulsion at the odor that slapped her in the face. It was overpowering. There was no mistaking what it was. The smell of rotten eggs.

Her eyes began to water.

But … Tobie had said she’d burned her dress. That she’d never brought it back into this room. And she had showered and shampooed for an hour before she came back here.

Maybe she’d hung her jacket from last night in the closet. Throwing away a jacket as well as a new dress might have been too much for her. Or maybe her purse was in there, or the shoes she’d worn.

Whatever it was, it had to be taken out of the closet, or everything in there would have to be burned.

Gathering her courage and placing a hand over her nose, Quinn moved on into the closet. And realized very quickly that the odor was coming from
her
side of the closet.

It had been late when Tobie came in, and dark. She must have mistakenly hung her jacket on Quinn’s side.

Then a small kernel of uneasiness began to stir within Quinn. Because the fact was, Tobie Thomason never hung
anything
in the closet when she came home from anywhere. She never hung up anything, period. She was a dropper. How likely was it that she’d suddenly reformed last night of all nights?

By checking each article, Quinn was able to single out one garment as being the sole source of the odor.

It was a bright red jacket.

But it wasn’t Tobie’s. It was
hers.

A favorite jacket, lightweight enough for warm fall days, but warm enough for cooler nights. She wore it often.

She hadn’t
gone
to that dance. So how could a jacket of hers possibly carry the disgusting odor of rotten eggs?

Impossible.

But this jacket had to have been at that dance, Quinn thought, yanking it off its hanger, holding it as far away from her as possible. Where else would it have been contaminated with that smell?

Still holding the jacket at arm’s length, she hurried to the door. Out in the quiet hall, she headed straight for the incinerator chute.

The jacket couldn’t have gone to the dance without her. She would have heard if someone had come into her room and taken it, wouldn’t she? Tobie had worn a pale pink dress, so she would never have borrowed a red jacket to wear. Her jacket, Quinn remembered, had been black.

Quinn opened the incinerator door and threw the red jacket down the chute. The stench wafted back up into her face, and her eyes teared anew.

She felt sick, but she wasn’t sure it was simply from the smell. Her favorite red jacket had left her room last night. And because she was Quinn Hadley, who had a sleeping disorder, she couldn’t be absolutely, positively certain that she hadn’t been
inside
that jacket when it left her room. And because she was Quinn Hadley-who-had-a-sleeping-disorder, she couldn’t be absolutely positive that she hadn’t
gone
to that dance.

What was worse was, if she
had
gone, she had no idea what she’d done when she got there.

W
HEN
T
OBIE CAME BACK
from the bathroom, Quinn was standing at the window again, looking down on the Commons. It was beginning to fill up with people. There were tennis matches scheduled for that afternoon between the Salem tennis teams and members of a group of visiting alumni. A picnic was to be held on the Commons, and for those who liked neither tennis nor picnics, boat rides were available on the Salem River, behind the University.

“It doesn’t look any different down there,” Quinn commented when she heard the bathroom door open. “You’d never guess the dance was ruined last night.”

“Well, you’d know it in
here,”
Tobie complained. “I can still smell that stuff. I don’t get it. I have scrubbed and scrubbed and shampooed every inch of my scalp. And I burned my dress. But it still stinks in this room.”