Student Body (Nightmare Hall) Read online

  Student Body

  Nightmare Hall

  Diane Hoh

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  A Biography of Diane Hoh

  Prologue

  WE WERE ALL SO very sorry.

  If only we could have changed what happened. In a second, in a minute, in a heartbeat, we’d go back to that blustery night in late March and correct our horrible mistake. Then everything would be the way it was before.

  Before the fire.

  Because afterward, nothing would ever be the same again.

  All it takes is one careless accident that sets the wheels in motion. In one fleeting moment everything is changed. Forever. And you don’t even know it’s happening. You’re laughing and talking and goofing around, and you don’t even realize until it’s too late.

  When you do see what’s happened, you wish and you hope and you pray to go back, just for that one moment, to do something differently, to erase the horror that came after. You actually kid yourself that it might be possible. But, of course, it isn’t.

  We thought we could learn to live with our mistake.

  How could we know that someone didn’t want us living with it?

  How could we know that someone didn’t want us living at all?

  Being sorry wasn’t enough.

  Someone wanted more, much more.

  Someone wanted us dead.

  Chapter 1

  IT WAS BAY’S IDEA to celebrate Salem University’s hard-won battle against State in the semifinals by going to the state park not far from campus. That’s my Bayard Shaw, tall, with short, butterscotch-colored hair, friendly blue eyes, and a lazy smile. Bay Shaw liked golden retrievers, seedless grapes, water sports, getting elected to things, and me, Victory Austin Alexander. That’s Victory, not Victoria, although teachers have been changing it for me my whole life, thinking, apparently, that I wasn’t capable of spelling my own name correctly. When I met Bay, early in our first semester at Salem and told him my name (because he asked), he laughed.

  I was used to that. And now that I was a college freshman, I’d decided to tell the truth about where my name came from. “My parents tried for twelve years to have a child. I’m their success story. Born, at long last, in Austin, Texas. Thus the name. I’m just glad they settled on Victory rather than Triumph or Hallelujah. Or worse.”

  Bay was a powerhouse on campus. He was very big in student government, unusual for a first-year student, and so popular, you only had to say his name and everyone knew who you meant. And that wasn’t because he was the only student named “Bay” on campus. It was because he was very good at meeting people, getting to know them, and making sure they knew him. Bay was headed for politics after graduation, and campus was his training ground.

  People listened when Bayard Shaw talked.

  I, on the other hand, was a lot less noticeable. Not very tall, for one thing, and I talked too quietly, or so my mother said. “You’d better learn to speak up, Tory,” she had said at least a thousand times, “or no one will notice you.”

  My response to that was always, “Thanks for sharing that, Mom.” But I knew she was right. I wasn’t beautiful, like Mindy Loomis, a cheerleader and Hoop Sinclair’s steady date. Mindy had skin as smooth as silk, and perfect blonde hair. I’d heard it said that Mindy had the brains of a beach umbrella, but that’s not true. It’s just that Mindy’s mother, one of those genteel southern ladies with tons of hair and perfectly applied makeup, taught Mindy never to argue with people because then they wouldn’t like her. So everyone thought Mindy had no opinions about anything. Not true. She just kept them to herself. Anyway, she cried at sad movies, so I liked her.

  And I’d never been the life of the party like Hoop, who attended every party held on campus even if it was on a weeknight when Coach wanted him in bed early. Hoop came to class most mornings with bags the size of small mountains under his eyes. For someone who was supposed to be a top athlete, he wasn’t taking very good care of himself. I kept expecting Coach to throw him off the team, but it didn’t happen. Hoop Sinclair was too valuable.

  I wasn’t tall, which would have got me attention, or model-thin like Natasha Moody, my roommate and best friend on campus. Nat’s waist was so small, she could belt her jeans and skirts with a rubber band. Nat would never do that, of course, because she was a fashion plate who put more thought into her accessories than many generals put into planning the most strategic battle of the war.

  So I wasn’t beautiful and I wasn’t the life of the party, and I wasn’t tall and skinny. I also didn’t have Eli Segal’s brains or creativity. Before we left campus for Christmas break, Eli, someone I’d always thought of as shy and quiet, dressed the statue of Salem’s founder that stands in the middle of the Commons in a Santa suit. The administration was not amused.

  But I was. And I viewed Eli with new respect after that.

  What my mother never understood when she was nagging me about “speaking up” was, I didn’t need a whole lot of attention. Not like Bay, and Mindy, and Hoop. And even Nat, otherwise why would she take such pains with her clothing and hair and makeup? Eli, too, or he wouldn’t have gone into the town of Twin Falls and rented that Santa suit. So, I guess, out of our group, I needed the least attention of all.

  Which made it really hard for me when the media latched onto our story like leeches in a swamp. None of us liked it. That’s not the kind of attention anyone wants. But I hated it most of all. And there was nothing I could do about it.

  I remember wishing a thousand times that I were stupid, so that I could have honestly said, when asked about that night in the park, “I didn’t know any better.” But just as I knew I wasn’t beautiful or terribly creative or charming or noticeable, I also knew I wasn’t stupid. So I had no excuse for my part in what happened.

  What we were celebrating that night in March was our school’s triumph over State University in the basketball semifinals. We’d be going on to the finals, thanks in part to Hoop’s genius on the court. He was still beaming when he met us outside the gym, and his wide, square face was still flushed, his thick blond hair damp from his shower and curling around his jumbo-sized ears.

  When Bay said, “I think we should grab some hot dogs and head for the state park to celebrate,” it was Eli who said, “No cooking at the park tonight, the wind’s too high. No burning allowed. There are posters all over campus.”

  I wish it had been me, Tory Alexander, who had said that. I’d love to claim that it was, sort of let myself off the hook a little, but I’d be lying. It was Eli. Only Eli, although all of us had seen the posters around campus warning us, in big, black letters, of the fire hazard in the area.

  Then I was glad I hadn’t said it, because Bay’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline and he said in that deceptively friendly voice that I’d heard before when he was annoyed with someone, “Appreciate the input, Segal. But all we’re going to do is fricassee a few hot dogs. How dangerous can that be? I’ve been doing it for years. Haven’t set a forest on fire once.”

  I myself would have preferred to go into town and do some dancing at Johnny’s or gone to Vinnie’s for pizza.
Half the school would be at Vinnie’s.

  So why didn’t I say so? Well, for one thing, I didn’t want Bay looking at me the way he was looking at Eli, and for another, I knew I was no match for Bay. He had this amazing talent for persuading people not only to do what he wanted, but to convince them that it was what they wanted, too. I was smart enough to see that, but not smart enough to figure out whether it was charm or manipulation. Whatever it was, it worked, and I was convinced that Bay would make a great politician some day.

  If Bay wanted to go to the park and cook hot dogs, that was what we’d do. We all knew that.

  So we were surprised when Eli didn’t give in right away. Eli was quiet, like me. I’d heard him argue before, but always about abstract things, like philosophy and psychology and politics. He could get very passionate about those things. But I’d never heard him disagree with anyone before on a personal matter.

  Eli said, “We can’t go to the park, Bay. It’ll be cold without a campfire, and no fun. But we can’t have one. The winter’s been too dry and the wind has been fierce for a week. It still is. Building a fire in the park is just too risky.”

  He was right about the wind. My hair, which according to my mother I wear “too long for such a small face,” was practically being yanked out of my scalp by the late-March, very brisk wind that Eli was talking about. Unlike Mindy’s hair, which still looked as smooth and perfect as it had when she’d run out onto the court in her cheerleading uniform three hours earlier. How was that possible? Maybe she sprayed it with shellac.

  “Eli,” Bay said smoothly, “if you’re worried about the fire getting out of hand, we’ll grab a couple of big bottles of water when we get the hot dogs, okay? We’ll keep an eagle eye on things and if so much as a spark gets away from us, I promise I’ll hunt it down myself and douse it. Don’t you trust me?”

  Eli hesitated. He did trust Bay. We all did. Bay had great ideas and great follow-through and never messed up. “If we get caught by the park rangers, Bay,” Eli pointed out, “we’re doomed.”

  Now it was Bay’s turn to hesitate. And I knew why. He’d once told me his college career was important not just educationally, but as a stepping-stone to politics. He’d said, very seriously, “If I screw up here, it won’t matter all that much now. But ten or twenty years down the road, when I run for public office, anything I did that I shouldn’t have will hit the papers, explode on television, and could blow me right out of the water.”

  Getting arrested for lighting a campfire when there was a burning ban would look bad on his record. And Bay knew that.

  But he wanted to go to the park and have a campfire more than he wanted to focus on ten or twenty years in the future. I could see it in his face. And the other thing I could see in his face was a refusal to back down now that he’d already dictated what his plans were for the celebration. “Never mind the rangers,” he said, and I knew he’d made up his mind. “There are only a few of them, and the park is very, very big. Acres and acres of forest primeval. We’ll just go deeper into the woods. By the time the rangers smell smoke, we’ll be long gone.”

  Mindy and Hoop whooped with delight, while Nat complained that she wasn’t dressed for the woods in her short skirt and sweater, but everyone was already headed for Bay’s battered old station wagon. He called it the Bus because it was always delivering people here or there on campus. He could afford a much nicer car, but joked that he wanted everyone to know he was “just one of the common people.” “Can’t win friends and influence people if you’re driving around in luxury while they’re pedalling across campus on their bikes in the rain,” he’d told me once.

  I was sandwiched in between Bay and Eli in the front seat. Although Bay seemed perfectly relaxed, driving with one hand so he could hold my hand, Eli felt stiff and tense beside me. I wanted to say something to him, but couldn’t think what. I thought he was right to be worried about the burning ban, but I also knew if I said that, Bay would be mad and our celebration would be ruined.

  Still, during the short drive along the highway with the grocery bags on my lap and Eli’s, each time a leaf or twig was flung against the windshield by the brisk wind that bent the saplings on the edge of the woods almost double, I stirred uneasily on the front seat, remembering the posters tacked all across campus.

  As if he’d read my mind, Bay said suddenly, “There’s never been a forest fire in the park.”

  Eli looked up with interest. He’d been silently studying the floorboards ever since we left the convenience store. The only conversation had been coming from the backseat where Hoop was giving Nat and Mindy a play-by-play description of the game. As Hoop continued talking, Eli leaned across me and said to Bay, “How do you know that? That there haven’t been any forest fires in the park?”

  “I asked. One of the rangers was tacking up a poster, and I asked him how long it had been since they’d had a fire, and he said they’d never had one. So you can quit worrying, Eli. I know that’s what you’re doing. I can feel it. You’re going to spoil our celebration and make me wish I’d left you back on campus.”

  Eli tried. I could almost feel him trying. He sank back against the seat and stretched out his long legs and whistled under his breath, as if he were the most relaxed person in the world.

  But a little pulse at his temple was throbbing and the high, perfectly sculpted cheekbones in his thin, narrow face were flushed with red.

  I found myself turning my head to glance at Bay, whose eyes were on the road ahead of him. It was so like Bay to insist on the park even though he’d actually talked to a ranger about the burning ban. That ranger had probably added a warning or two of his own. If that conversation had been with any of the rest of us, we would have changed our plans and gone to Johnny’s or Vinnie’s instead.

  Why hadn’t Bay? It wasn’t as if he was constantly looking for risky things to do. He’d meant what he said about not screwing up in college. Was it just his unwillingness to change his plans that kept him driving toward the park?

  “We could still go dancing,” I said quietly over the sound of Hoop’s triumphant voice from the backseat. “I mean, maybe the park’s closed. Wouldn’t they close it if there really was a fire hazard?”

  “No,” Eli said flatly before Bay could answer. “People do a lot of things in the park besides sit around a fire. They hike, they jog, they take the nature trails. Or they just hang out, because it’s a great place to do that. There’s no reason why the park shouldn’t be used as long as everyone obeys the burning ban.”

  “Well, thank you for that, Smokey the Bear,” Bay muttered, and expertly whipped the wheel around to take the sharp turn into the park.

  We were there.

  So why did I suddenly not feel like celebrating? And why did I suddenly wish fiercely that Bay had listened to Eli, turned the Bus around, and driven back to campus?

  More important, why didn’t I say something? Why didn’t I insist that we go back? Maybe that one time I could have spoken up in a loud, authoritative voice and people would have listened. Maybe it would have made a difference.

  Instead, I jumped out of the car with everyone else and carried my bag of groceries into the deepest part of the woods.

  And I helped gather wood for the fire.

  Then, for two hours we sat around the fire Bay and Hoop had built. I couldn’t help noticing that while they stacked the wood, Eli had busied himself selecting CDs for the portable player Bay had brought. I had to admire Eli’s stubbornness. He wasn’t making an issue of his disapproval. He just wasn’t participating in the building of the fire. I’ve wished many times since then that I’d done something, anything, to say I felt the same way.

  If I had, maybe I’d feel better about what happened later.

  Eli did join us around the fire though, and even said how good it felt. Late March in the northeast isn’t the tropics. And then there was the wind, whipping our hair around our faces and tugging nastily at our clothes. It was chilly out there in those deep, windb
lown woods.

  We all sat very close together and kept the fire small. True to his word, Bay chased after the tiniest of glowing embers swept up by the wind and tossed into the forest. We cooked our hot dogs, talked about the game, made s’mores with the graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars Eli had bought, and sang to the music on the portable CD player.

  And after a while all of us, even Eli, forgot about the posters on campus and the threat of detection and any possible punishment. I rested my head on Bay’s shoulder. Nat, wearing Eli’s denim jacket to protect her expensive hand-knit sweater, lay on the mossy ground, her head propped up on a folded tarp, her eyes closed, lazily snapping her fingers in time to the music playing. Mindy and Hoop were sitting so close together that, in the shadows created by the fire, their blond heads seemed to blend into one. Eli sat off to one side, his back against a tree, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His dark hair, longer than Bay’s, blew around his face, and his eyes were closed.

  Content in the triumph of the game, our hunger satisfied, and lulled by the music, the red-and-orange dancing flames, and the company of good friends, we all relaxed.

  That was our mistake.

  Because I was leaning against Bay’s chest, I couldn’t tell that he, like Eli, had closed his eyes. Nat was lying on her back, staring up at the sky, Mindy and Hoop were looking only at each other, and I’d closed my eyes, too.

  So no one saw the ember snatched up by the fierce wind and tossed recklessly into the woods, land in the very heart of a parched, dry pine tree. No one saw the second ember, or the third, or the fourth.

  But there had to have been at least that many, because when Eli suddenly cried out and we all looked to see why he’d yelled, we saw fire consuming not just the tall, skinny pine tree to our right, but two more blazes taking hold of a tree directly in front of us and swallowing up a crackling bush to our left.

  “The water!” Bay shouted, jumping to his feet, “grab the water bottles!”

  As if the bottled water could possibly douse the fire in that tall pine tree, already roaring with flames so high above our heads. We needed a faucet, and we needed a long hose, and we knew it.