Terrorscape (6 page)

.

Mary would think she was an even bigger freak if
she opened her mouth. All she had to do was
remember to act like a normal human being, and
since her conversational skills totaled zero she would
just have to do her damndest to keep her mouth shut.

“Goody,” she muttered.

“Did you say something?” Mary asked without
breaking stride.
“I said 'pretty,'” Val said, nodding at the building.

The DC was built rather like a solarium, with a
high glass ceiling to let in the light. The setting sun
gave
the
buttery
walls
a
warm
glow,
and
the
darkening
sky
provided
an
interesting
contrast
against the yellow wall lamps and the smell of hot,
cooking food.

“Yeah, I guess it is, huh. I never noticed.”

Val
could
see
why.
She
looked
around,
intimidated. Food was, quite literally,
everywhere
. It
was completely overwhelming.

There was a salad bar in the back with all the
fixings; a sandwich station with everything from
provolone and salami, to tuna fish and American
cheese; fresh-cooked pizza in three different varieties,
including Philly cheese-steak and a dessert pizza
made with sliced nectarines, berries, and cream
cheese; barbecue; hot-plots covered with ceramic pots
of soup; frozen yogurt machines; drinks—

“You can eat as much as you want,” Mary was
saying, handing the lady at the register her student ID
card so she could be swiped in. “You just can't leave
and come back, or leave and take food with you—
though that doesn't stop some people from trying.”

Val handed the sour-faced woman at the register
her own ID. “So it's like an all-you-can-eat buffet?”

Val had never liked buffets; she could never stand
to eat large helpings of food all at once, especially not
with people around watching. Then again, she had
never liked eating in public, period.

Or being in public, period.
“Exactly,” Mary said.
“This doesn't look too bad.”

“Well, they're
trying
now. It's the first week, so
they're showing off for the parents. Yup. You'd better
eat up,” she said. “The food will never be as good as it
is now.”

Val took one of the plastic trays and made herself
a Cobb salad, with cubes of ham instead of chicken.
Then she grabbed a slice each of the Philly cheese
steak pizza and dessert pizza, and an orange, before
setting
her
food
down
at
the
table
Mary
had
indicated.

The tap water smelled like the wet dogs she had
washed at the animal shelter, so Val dumped it out
and poured herself one of the watered-down sodas
instead. It didn't taste any better but at least it didn't
smell funky.

Her legs wobbled a bit as she headed back to the
table. The dining hall was so crowded. She felt as if
she were out on display, and that everyone could see
through her, past the carefully constructed veneer of
normality to her dark and secret twisted inner-self.

Freak
.

She had been called that, among other things.
Psycho
and
whore
had been other fall-backs, because
when there was no one to blame, people often turned
to the victims themselves for scapegoating.

Men called her up, asking her if she liked to fuck
the killers and then threatened to rape her. Women
asked her why she didn't do the right thing—the
christian thing—and kill herself. “Jesus may have
died for our sins,” one woman had said, “but you
deserve to die for yours.”

Anxiety dug its twisted talons into her heart and
made her palms sweat.
Nobody is thinking that. Nobody
here knows who you are
. She took a long swig of soda
and almost choked on its cloying sweetness.

God, where was Mary? She didn't want to be left
alone with her thoughts.

Val looked around but the black girl was nowhere
to be seen. She sat at the table staring at her mostly
untouched food and wondered if Mary had changed
her mind at the last minute. Maybe she secretly
resented being stuck with such a weird roommate,
and was having second thoughts about an invitation
only offered in sympathy.

Or maybe she was annoyed at Val for ducking out
of the residential meeting. Maybe she was like those
stupid RAs and thought that everyone in Otoño ought
to be having group hugs while saying their nightly
kumbayas. She
did
have a unicorn on her bed, after
all. She could have been one of the Old Navy Pod
People.

Maybe she had already filed for a room transfer.

Val poked at the salad with the prongs of her
fork. Her stomach cramped, and she sucked in her
gut to loosen the pressure of her jeans against her
belly. The antidepressants had made her gain weight,
and none of her clothes fit quite right anymore.

Just another thing to be bitter about. One of many.
“
There
you are.”

Mary had her lunch tray balanced on one arm.
The other was wrapped around the bulky forearm of
a tall, blonde boy who looked like a walking headline
for bad news. There was a shorter girl, too, with spiky
hair, and—Val blanched—the strange red-haired boy
from the residential meeting who had spoken to her,
bewilderingly, in Latin.

Jude
.
No, not Jude—Jade.

“This is Alex,” Mary said, stroking the blonde
boy's bicep. “We went to high school together.”
“H-hello.”

Alex gave her a measured look before offering his
hand. Reluctantly, she took it, noting as she did that
he had both a class ring and a tribal tattoo.

Marks of the douchebag
, she thought, uncharitably.

“This is Meredith,” Mary went on, pointing to the
short Asian girl with the lip piercing. “She was in my
orientation group.”

Meredith was on the phone but she nodded and
managed to give a semblance of a friendly smile. Her
tongue, as it turned out, was pierced, too.

Hipster, with punk influence. Probably a goth in
high school. One of those social trend-setter types.
Mary and Meredith
.

Val opened her mouth to point out this silly
coincidence with a short burst of childish delight, but
the moment had passed and she sank back against her
chair again as Mary continued, “And this is Jaden.”
Pointing at him, casually, as his blue eyes flared in
recognition. “Everyone—Valerie. Val. My roommate.
She's really shy and stuff, so don't scare her, okay?”

“I remember you,” Jade said. “You were at the
ice-breaker. Except I think I did scare you.”

She cringed, wondering if he was going to bring
up the incident at the resident check-in, but to her
relief he didn't. Maybe he'd forgotten.

Something like that? Doubtful
.
“Yeah,” Val said.
“Californ-ya-ya.”
“Please,” said Val. “Don't.”

James had loved that song. It played at one of his
games once, during half-time, at his request.

“You're from California? That's a way's away.”
She faced Jade, looking a little hurt for a moment.
“How did
you
manage to find that out?”

“Ice-breaker,” Jade said, blandly.

“
Oh
. That.” Mary rolled her eyes. “That was so
lame.” Dispelling Val's fears that she was going to
force her to participate in all the residential events.
“Val was smart, she ducked out early. I didn't even
notice her leaving—Sneaky Val.”

“I didn't duck out,” she said. “I was tired.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Alex
drawled, rapping his knuckles on the fake wood of
the table so that the ruby in his ring caught the light.
“Speaking of quotations—” Jade smiled at Val.
“Did you ever figure out what
ave atque vale
meant?”
“Oh. No, I didn't. I guess I forgot.”

 

When his face fell, she wished immediately that
she could reclaim the words.

 

“Jade,” Mary said, very severely, “don't bore us
with your silly Latin lessons.”

“Latin's not silly—it's what helped me rock the
SATs.” To Val he said, “If you were at all curious, it
means 'hail and farewell.'”

“Caesar?” Now that she suspected she had hurt
his feelings, it seemed twice as important to be civil.
Besides, she was pretty sure she was right. All
quotations
seemed
to
come
from
Caesar.
Or
Shakespeare. Or the bible. “Right?”

“No. It's from a poem by a dude called Catullus.”
“Ugh,
you're,
like,
already
talking
school?”
Meredith groaned. “Classes haven't even started yet.”
“The only Latin
I
know is 'I came, I saw, I
conquered.'” Mary laughed. “
That's
Caesar, right?”
“
Veni, vidi, vici
,” Jade corrected. “And yes.”
Alex laughed. Too loudly. People at the tables
around them were craning their necks to look. “Shit,
that was Caesar? Dude sounds like a total bro.”
“I can't believe you just called one of the greatest
minds in political history a bro.”

“It's a compliment. Wise words. Slap that shit on
a sticker, 'cause I'll make that my personal motto—
though not necessarily in that order,” he added with a
pointed leer at Mary, who blushed.

Val glared at her salad and said nothing. She
could tell she wouldn't like Alex. She hoped Mary
wasn't dating the jerk. She wasn't sure she would be
able to deal if his face was a fixture in their dorm.
Chapter Four

Lobelia

Lisa had been hit just as hard as Val, in her
opinion. Worse, even. After all, she hadn't been the
one
involved
with that psycho. She had
warned
Val
about him, but the stupid girl just hadn't listened.
Like a fly to light, Val attracted danger. Lisa blamed
Twilight
, and the preconceived notions about men
(especially dangerous men) that it tended to form in
the impressionable adolescent mind.

But no, Val thought she could
save
him.

 

Turned out she had been the one who needed
saving the whole time.
From
him.

And then—
then
that party had happened, and
Lisa no longer knew what to think about Val, the
world, or anything. Everything…well, everything just
felt
wrong
now. All the time.

Blake understood. Blake was the only one who
really understood, the only good to come out of this
nightmare. But Blake had gone away to college and
she was stuck here in this podunk town, trying to get
her unit count up so she could transfer out of
Derringer Community College. Out of this town.

Just out.

She wanted to go someplace where nobody had
ever heard of Valerian Kimble, or the press-christened
“Mecozzi Manor Slaughter.”

Europe, maybe. She'd always wanted to visit The
City of Lights. There was no better to forget one's
woes than a small Parisian cafe, Lisa thought.

She pulled on her size-XXL sleep shirt and
brushed her teeth. There were dark circles under her
eyes, visible now that she had washed off her makeup
for the night. She rubbed at them with a frown, then
remembered that frowning gave you wrinkles.

“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck this, fuck him, and
fuck her. Fuck everyone in this backwards town.”
It made her feel the teeniest bit better.

Only a little, though. It didn't solve anything, it
didn't erase her fears, it didn't stop the nightmares.

She had nightmares every night. Not that anyone
cared. Anyone besides Blake, that is. But he was just
as scarred as her, and just as ignored, and Lisa hated
adding to his own load of troubles. He sounded so
bleak and stressed out when he called to chat.

So tired.

What if Val
had
been taken?
Lisa often found
herself wondering.
What if Gavin had just taken Val, like
he'd wanted freshman year? Would none of this have
happened?

Val's parents would have been heartbroken. She
felt sorry thinking that for their sakes. It sucked when
parents lost a child. But they had still lost their
daughter, hadn't they? Just in a different way.

Nobody knew where Val had gone, though plenty
of them wanted to. She had just disappeared.
Spirited
away
, Lisa found herself thinking, and shivered
accordingly.

Stupid, dragging ghosts and the supernatural into
it. Val had just skipped town. Probably changed her
name, too, if she was smart. That's what
she
would
have done, if she were in Val's position. Changed her
name, changed her looks, gone to a plastic surgeon
then burned all traces of her identity to scatter the
ashes to the four winds.

Not that I would have gotten myself in that position in
the first place
. Lisa turned off the bathroom light and
got under her covers. Though the air was hot, she still
felt cold. She thought of Jason and shuddered.

That, too, had been Val's fault. Val, betraying her
to save her own skin—acting like butter wouldn't
melt in her mouth the whole time.

Just thinking about that made Lisa's blood boil.
Who would have thought that her ex-best friend, the
nicest girl in Derringer, could be such a callous snake?
Hell, she and Gavin
deserved
each other.

Maybe I should change my name. Who's to say the
psychopath won't come back looking for her? He did before.

These thoughts, like Blake's phone calls, were
another nightly ritual, albeit a much less comforting
one. So, too, were the nightmares. Her psychiatrist
had prescribed her Ambien to help her sleep. But
sleep wasn't the problem, dreaming was.

When she felt the pressure on the mattress, the
heavy body weighing down on hers, Lisa thought
that
she
was
dreaming.
One
of
those
terrible,
smothering dreams that had her gasping for a breath
far too slow to come. Panic attacks. Sleep apnea.
Either or both, paired with sleep paralysis.

But then she felt the cool metal against her
sweating skin. Felt the sharp sting as it drew blood,
felt the warm blood coursing down her throat to soak
into her pillowcase, and she realized the intrusion
wasn't imaginary at all, but real.