That One Night [3]

[...Posted by Ted H]

Notice we have a new author? Awww yeah! More awesomeness is on the way!

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[That One Night]

I walked up to the door and peered into the night. Nothing out of the ordinary. So far so good. The same concrete walkway ramp with some bushes to the side leading out to the sidewalk, all shrouded in darkness. The lights on campus were few and far between so seeing anything was damn near impossible. I looked out into campus and saw someone walking, but unless Marshall was a woman and walking in the opposite direction of this dorm, then it wasn’t him. I wasn’t about to go out and search if anyone else was around, seeing as the big ass quad dominated most of the immediate area outside the dorm, not far from the sidewalk, and even in complete darkness, I would still be able to see if anyone was coming this way. There was no one around. I was relieved that maybe all this was a dream until I saw someone jump from the bushes and run up to the door. It didn’t take much to figure out who that was.

-Greeeeeeeeat…That means his call was real…Which means the other call was real…Which means I‘m literally a dead man walking…Which means…

“Steve!” Marshall called as I depressed the handle bar and opened the door. He seemed so excited that he went to hug me, but for some reason froze in his tracks with his arms suspended around me, not touching. “What happened to you?” he asked as he dropped his arms to his sides. “Huh?” I uttered. This guy disappears for 12 years and then decided to question where I went?

“You have a strange aura about you. Something I didn’t detect when I called you.” Marshall just stared at me as if I would sprout wings or maybe dissolve right before him. To say I was uncomfortable at this point was an understatement, and I wasn’t too comfortable with him using terms like “strange“ and “aura“ so casually either, especially after what I just went through. “You died,” Marshall said after a moment with an odd calmness to his voice.

-Again saying shit like that’s so casual. What’s so damn casual about finding out I died? That’s some pretty fucked up shit to discover and be so casual about…
Up until now I was partially in denial about whether or not I actually died back in my doorway, but for some reason, since Marshall said it, that must mean I actually did die. Marshall shook his head. “…But, you’re not dead. This is odd. What happened?”

I shrugged “One second I’m on the phone, the next I’m on the ground…dying.” I decided not to tell Marshall who I was talking to, even though part of me felt he would probably know, I didn’t want to know. My chest still felt cold.

“Why are you here?” I asked as we walked down a hallway towards the staircase. Marshall ignored me though and was looking around nervously. “This is bad,” he said “He beat me here. This place isn’t safe.”

“Who?”

“We can’t stay here, Steve.”

“Marshall-”

“Where else can we go?”

“Marshall.”

“You have a car, right Steve?”

“Marshall!”

I found I was screaming at this point. Marshall was ignoring me, almost looking delusional. It crossed my mind that he might be strung out on some drug. “What are you on?” I demanded. Marshall looked at me like I had just smacked his mother. “You think I’m making this up?” he asked. “No!” I shouted again, I didn’t care “I don’t know what the fuck you’re spewing!”

A door behind me opened. Out stepped Abby from her room. Abby was one of those heavy religious people who not only believes every word of the bible, but could recite most of it on command. She was wearing a white nightgown that went down to her ankles and she looked dead tired and pissed. It was, after all, one in the morning, or at least it was the last time I checked, which was before I died.

“Do you know wha-” she started but her face seemed to freeze solid when she locked eyes with Marshall. “Abby?” I asked as she started to tremble. This wasn’t just a slight tremble either, she looked like she was convulsing as she also started to scream. She collapsed under her own weight and started crying.

Her screams became ear bleeding shrieks in no time as she literally pissed herself right in front of us. “What the hell?” I asked as I turned back to Marshall, who was shaking his head with wide eyes as he stared at Abby screaming on the ground, too afraid to do anything but hold her own arms and shake.

People started pouring out of their rooms to see what was the matter. “C’mon!” Marshall said as he grabbed my shoulder “We can’t stay here.” He pulled me into the stairwell and as soon as we were out of sight, Abby stopped screaming. “What was that about?” I asked as Marshall tried pulling me up the stairs by my arm. “He‘s coming here. I don’t wanna be anywhere near her when that happens.”

Marshall stopped pulling me as I said “What? How do you know?” Marshall bit his lip nervously “He knows I’m here. I felt His gaze fix on her. He’ll kill the girl then come for us.”

“Who is “He”?”

“I don’t have time to explain.”

“Well fucking make some.”

“Not here. Your room.”

I turned to go back to Abby. “Where are you going?” Marshall said as I opened the door. “Wait in my room,” I said as I tossed him my room key “The room number is-”

“-I already know.” he said in a very annoyed matter of fact tone. I didn’t know whether to question the sudden mood shift or how he already knew my room number.

-Wonder if he knows my shoe size too. How does he know what he knows?

I returned to the hallway where there was a crowd of people already leaving Abby’s room. I entered and found Abby balled up in her bed, covered entirely by her blanket as she sobbed. Sitting on the bed near her was one of her friends, Karen.

Karen was the unofficial babysitter of anyone who knew her. If you were over the top drunk, or strung out beyond recognition, chances were that Karen would make sure you won’t die before you sober up. She also made a good sympathetic shoulder to cry on for the girls, though she wasn’t without her faults. Mainly there was the fact that she was a complete and total bitch, or at least she always was to me.

Contributing to Karen’s bitchiness was that fact that she was also the last person you would ever want to see naked. Karen never believed in the usage of a bra until it was too late. You know how when women get old their breasts sag down to their knees because of a lifetime of gravity? Well thanks to Karen’s hippie-like views on bras, her breasts now were hanging like they were 72 and not like they were 22. Of coarse she wears a bra now to cover this up, but that only means that any unsuspecting male who ever undresses her will be in for the second most unpleasant surprise you can have when undressing a woman. There was also the fact that she rarely shaved or showered, but that matter was a completely different matter entirely, and seeing how talking about an undressed Karen is starting to make me feel ill, I’ll move on with this story.

“What. Did. You. Do.,” Karen demanded as soon as she saw me enter. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Who was with you?” she asked.

“Friend of mine…from out of town.”

“Why is he here?”

“That’s not important.” (A complete and total lie, I know). “And who the fuck made you in charge?”

“Abby’s scared out of her mind. She looks like she saw the devil himself.”

“That may not be entirely false.”

“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“I’m not sure,” I said as I turned to leave. “I just came down to make sure Abby was alright.”

“Well she’s not.”

Abby poked her head out from under the blanket, still crying, but no longer sobbing. “Abby, it’s going to be ok,” Karen said with a sympathetic tone. Abby then giggled, which unnerved both me and Karen. She ignored me as if I didn‘t exist and stared right at Karen. “You look like one of my dolls,” Abby said before she placed the blanket over her nose and mouth so it looked like she was peeking out from under the blanket. “Do you know what I did with my dolls when I was young? Mother never approved and took them away…” she then went completely under the blanket and began sobbing again.

“Abby, what happened to you?” Karen asked.

“Fuck…” I muttered as I opened the door to leave.

“Where are you going?” Karen called behind me.

“Getting some answers.”

“What does he have to do with all this?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” I screamed. Karen was taken aback by it while Abby stopped sobbing for a moment to giggle at me. “The second I figure some shit out I’ll be back.” I said, then stormed out.

As I left, I felt a weight in my stomach. Something told me that I shouldn’t abandon Karen and Abby like this. I didn’t think anything was going to come, still, part of me wanted to stay. Don’t get me wrong, Karen and Abby are bitches that I usually can’t stand to be around very long, but I felt I could do more good staying with them. Karen was also scared and confused, which made me uncomfortable about not knowing what the hell was happening either. The problem though was that I was the only one who could potentially get a strait answer from Marshall, and putting as much space between him and Abby was a good idea, so I had to abandon the girls. Coddling Abby was going to have to wait until I finished dealing with another babbling idiot.