The Night Walker (Nightmare Hall) (3 page)

Quinn, her back still to Tobie, flushed guiltily. The red jacket. Although it was gone now, it had been in the closet, probably for hours. No wonder the smell lingered.

“It’s warm enough to open the windows,” she said as she turned around. Avoiding Tobie’s eyes, she went directly to the closet and began yanking clothes off hangers. “Everything in this closet smells. If we open the windows wide and scatter our clothes around the room, maybe the fresh air will help.”

“Well,” Tobie grumbled, “I don’t understand why our closet smells. I didn’t hang anything in there last night.” But when she got close enough to the hanging clothing, she gasped. “Whew! You’re right.” She sighed. “I guess it’s just the kind of smell that gets into everything.”

When they had scattered their clothing around the room, Tobie shrugged. “At least now it’s not just my side of the room that looks bad. If anyone walked in here now, they’d think we were
both
slobs.”

Quinn waited nervously for Tobie to ask why the closet stank.

But Tobie, anxious to leave the room and get outside, continued to dress without asking any more questions.

She thinks it’s
her,
Quinn realized. Tobie’s convinced that because I wasn’t at the dance,
she’s
the one who brought the odor home with her.

I should tell her, Quinn thought.

But she didn’t.

Because before she could explain it to Tobie, she had to be able to explain it to
herself.
And she couldn’t. Not yet. She had no idea how the red jacket had picked up the smell of rotten eggs from a dance she hadn’t attended.

She
hadn’t,
had she?

Quinn tied the laces on her sneakers and thrust her straight, dark hair up into a bouncy ponytail. She never remembered her sleepwalking episodes. Someone always had to tell her about them. First, her parents and her younger sister, Sophie, and now, Tobie. “You were sleepwalking last night, Quinn.” She always had the same reaction: disbelief, and then dismay that she’d done something she couldn’t remember.

She did remember two episodes, because they’d ended badly. The first happened when she was fourteen and Sophie was twelve. They’d had a fight earlier in the day and hadn’t made it up. They’d gone to bed angry. Sometime in the middle of the night, Quinn had been jerked rudely awake by her parents pulling her away from Sophie’s bed where, they told her in shocked voices, she’d been pummeling her younger sister, using her fists.

The incident had terrified Quinn. She had never deliberately hurt anyone in her life, and she hated violence of any kind. She didn’t want to believe it was true. But the looks on her parents’ faces and the fear in Sophie’s eyes didn’t lie.

The second incident had happened two years later, at a summer camp where Quinn was a counselor. She had lost a tennis match to a girl she couldn’t stand, an arrogant, unpleasant fellow counselor. The girl had been insufferable in her win, laughing at Quinn and taking as an added trophy the boy Quinn had had her eyes on since they’d arrived.

A senior counselor had found her that time. According to him, Quinn had been crouched behind the girl’s cabin in the dark at two in the morning. Using a rock as a hammer, she was deliberately, methodically, destroying the very expensive tennis racket that had been left outside.

Although Quinn, abruptly awakened, hadn’t remembered why she was at the cabin or what she’d been doing, she had been sent home. That was when her mother had taken her to the psychiatrist. He had explained to Quinn then exactly what had happened, and suggested that she was simply acting out in her sleep anger that she was too timid to express openly when she was awake.

That was probably true. The Hadley household frowned on any kind of openly expressed disagreement. “Least said, soonest mended” was her family’s credo. She had learned it early.

Last night, hadn’t she been angry that Simon hadn’t asked her to the Spring Fling dance? Hadn’t she been angry that she’d missed one of the biggest formal dances at Salem?

How
angry?

Quinn fastened tiny pale pink rose earrings in her lobes. Angry enough to leave her room in the middle of the night, wearing the red jacket? Angry enough to make her way across campus to the student center and …

And do
what
?

Rotten eggs … sulfuric acid …

She had been very good in chem in high school. She had especially liked the experiments. Combining one chemical with another and watching the resulting reaction had been fun. She hadn’t found the symbols or the equations confusing like a lot of kids had.

Yes, she had been very good in chemistry.

“We’ll have to do a load of laundry when we come back,” Tobie said as they left the clothes-cluttered room. “I used the last towel. Seems like we just washed towels, but there aren’t any more clean ones in the closet. I think we’re missing a couple. You haven’t left any in someone else’s room, have you?”

“No.” But … she had been wondering why, if she actually
had
gone to the dance in her sleep, her hair and her skin didn’t smell, as Tobie said hers had. The missing towels could explain that. Maybe she’d come home and showered and shampooed before going back to bed. And then maybe she had burned the towels in the same incinerator that had swallowed up the red jacket.

This is crazy, Quinn scolded herself as they stepped into the elevator. It smelled faintly of rotten eggs. What am I
doing
? I’m making myself nuts here, writing a whole scenario that probably never even happened. I’d remember walking across campus to that dance. I
would.

But she hadn’t remembered punching Sophie.

Or wrecking the tennis racket.

Although there seemed to be food everywhere on campus, tables of it on the Commons, at the tennis matches, more tables down by the boat dock along the river, Quinn had no appetite. She ate nothing.

Simon and Danny Collier won the canoe race. Quinn stood off to one side, watching as Jessica Vogt and Ian Banion handed Simon his small brass trophy. Jess’s left wrist was in a white cast to her elbow.

Quinn found that frightening. People had
really
been hurt at that dance. Small wonder everyone was talking about it. And she had felt the gloom of it all day. Although the weather was warm and sunny, people seemed to be trying too hard to enjoy it. Smiles looked forced, and what laughter there was sounded artificial.

She wondered if Simon had gone to the dance. She hadn’t worked up the nerve yet to ask anyone. It would have seemed petty and self-centered to ask such a question following Tobie’s incredible story. It wasn’t important. What difference did it make if Simon had gone to the dance? He hadn’t gone with
her
and wasn’t that all she needed to know?

Still, if he
had
gone, she would be interested in his take on what had happened. Simon was incredibly smart, very aware. That’s what had drawn her to him in the first place. He had been in town at Vinnie’s one night, eating pizza with a group of friends. She’d passed by his booth just as he was giving his opinion of athletes using steroids and she’d been impressed by what he said. It wasn’t just that he was against it, as she was. It was the clear, objective, intelligent way he presented his arguments. He’d even managed to get a laugh or two.

She liked the way he looked, too. He was too thin, maybe because he was so tall, and his posture was terrible. But he had clear gray eyes, sun-streaked sandy hair needing a trim, and a strong chin. When he got the laughs he wanted, she had watched from across the room as his mouth curved into a satisfied grin.

She had introduced herself to him an hour later, when they’d both finished eating and he was standing at the jukebox alone.

It was stupid to keep avoiding him now. Or was it the other way around? Was
he
avoiding
her
?

Whatever. So they weren’t going out anymore. So she had no idea why. Did that mean they couldn’t even be friends? Simon was smart and funny and he’d been sympathetic about the sleepwalking when she’d told him. It had seemed wrong to keep something that important in her life from Simon.

She missed him.

Taking a deep breath, she strode over to the edge of the dock and, lifting her chin, said heartily, “Congratulations, Simon. Great race!” Ivy, standing nearby, smiled approval. Her dark eyes signaled, “It’s about time you took the initiative.”

Simon looked surprised. His face and arms were sunburned, so she couldn’t tell if he was flushing. But at least he didn’t run away. “Thanks. Danny’s dynamite with a paddle.”

“Don’t be so modest. You won the race together. That
is
a trophy you’re holding, right?”

Simon laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Ivy led Tim, Danny, Tobie, and Suze away, leaving Simon and Quinn alone together.

“Not very subtle, are they?” Quinn remarked. “So, did you go to the dance last night?” That
was
why she’d come over here to talk to him, wasn’t it?

“No!” He frowned at her. “Of course not.”

Of course not? What did
that
mean? Of course not as in, Not without
you,
I didn’t?

You
wish,
she told herself.

“Did you?” he asked.

The crowd began to disperse. They were standing alone on the dock, the sun beginning to slip toward the horizon. The day was almost over.

“No.” At least, she added mentally, I don’t
think
I did. “I thought if you were there, maybe you could tell me what happened. I mean,
how
you think it happened, and maybe why. It sounded horrible.”

Simon shook his head. “Beats me. I heard the police found a stink bomb with a timing device. Which means the person who set it off could have been anywhere when it happened — even out there dancing like everyone else.”

They began walking along the river path. “So it wasn’t accidental,” Quinn commented.

“Accidental? There’s no chem lab in the Student Center. How could it have been accidental?”

Well, he didn’t need to bite her head off. What was rattling his cage, anyway?

“Who would do something so nasty?” she wondered aloud.

Simon said he had no idea who might have done it. Nor did he have any idea
why
someone would do something so nasty.

When he’d said quickly, “See you later,” and hurried off, Quinn stood beside the river, watching him go. She felt very lonely suddenly, and very uneasy.

Because
she
knew a reason why someone might do something so nasty.

Someone might do something so nasty because they were very, very angry about not attending the dance.

They might not want to, and they might not mean to, but maybe they hadn’t known exactly what they were doing. Maybe they hadn’t had any control over it, like someone who was compulsive, psychotic, someone who couldn’t help him or herself. Or someone who did things in her sleep that she couldn’t remember later.

F
OR THE NEXT THREE
nights, Quinn took the precaution of wearing clean white socks to bed. She would check each morning to see if they were dirty. If they were, that would be a clear sign that she’d been wandering around the dorm during the night.

All three mornings, the socks were as clean as when she’d slipped them on.

Her relief was overwhelming.

On campus, the talk centered around Spring Fling, specifically the dance. The police had indeed found a giant stink bomb with a timing device, but no one seemed to have any idea who the guilty party might be. The investigation was ongoing.

“Suze thinks it was a bad joke, but I don’t,” Tobie told Quinn on Wednesday. They were at the library, seated in a quiet corner by a window. “I think someone deliberately ruined the dance because they were mad that they didn’t get to go.”

This struck so close to Quinn’s deepest fear that she snapped, “That’s ridiculous. Anyone who wanted to go to that dance could have gone.” She gave her roommate a sharp glance, wondering if Tobie had been hinting at something.

How could she have been? She didn’t know about the red jacket.

Later, they wandered over to the baseball diamond to watch practice. They weren’t the only ones who saw the bleachers as a great place to relax and catch some sun. Ivy and Suze were there, surrounded by several boys, as always. And Quinn spotted Simon, sitting at the very top of the stands.

He wasn’t alone. There was a girl with him, a tall, very pretty blonde in a cheerleader’s uniform. Her name, Quinn thought, was Delle.

Pain stabbed her at the sight of Simon with another girl. She quickly turned her attention to Tobie. “So,” she said casually as she opened a math notebook, “how are things with you and Danny?”

Tobie shrugged, her eyes aimed straight ahead of her, toward the field below. “He’s okay. Danny’s great, but I’m not interested. Guys are a waste of time.”

It was the most cynical thing Quinn had ever heard her say. She didn’t know how to respond. “Tobie? What’s wrong?”

Tobie ran a hand through her short red hair and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, glancing sideways at Quinn. “Sorry.” Then she looked back at the field again.

But not before Quinn saw the shiny glint of tears in Tobie’s green eyes.

“Ivy and Suze have the right idea,” Tobie went on. “Ivy doesn’t just date Tim Lobo, even though he’s nuts about her. She’s not about to tie herself down to one guy. And Suze plays the field, too. Safer that way.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “But Danny’s nice, and fun. Like I said, he’s okay.”

Quinn glanced down at the field. Danny looked up just then, saw them, and waved.

“He likes you, Tobie. It’s obvious.”

Tobie smiled and returned the wave. “I was in love once,” she said quietly. “I thought it was forever. You know how you are in high school. You think everything’s forever. Only it isn’t.”

She was dumped, Quinn thought. And it hurt a lot. That’s why she’s moody, that’s why she’s so quiet, why she hardly ever dates. I wonder what she was like before it happened?