Chapter Eight

As I arrived at the library later that day, I realized that I was going to have to wait my turn to talk to Detective Evans. It had to be him surrounded by several different reporters, including a television crew, and he didn’t look impressed. He did notice my approach however and I waved, trying to let him know that it was me. That turned out to be a mistake.

Several heads turned my way and there was instantly a barrage of questions asking who I was. I prayed in vain that the Detective wouldn’t out me as a witness, but I suppose he didn’t see the point in saving me from the interrogation that he had already experienced. Several of them wandered over, trying not to look intimidating, while another came right for me with a determined look in her eye. I recognized her as a writer for our school paper, the St. Frances Citizen. It was a sad little rag filled with the articles of the dedicated and the desperate. I couldn’t remember her name, but I knew what was coming.

“I’m Michelle Hardy for the Citizen. Would you mind answering some questions?” She paused to presumably to give me a chance to actually reply, but it actually only gave her enough time to inhale before she spoke again. “You witnessed the aftermath of the assault in Gorski library, what is correct?”

“Uh, yeah.” I looked at the other reporters, as if they might help me, but they were already writing this down too.

“And your name?” She said, glancing up at me from her note pad. I could see her already scribbling down my features, my reply, and a few more questions to hit me with.

“Reagan Fischer.”

“What year and program are you in Reagan?” She said with a rehearsed smile.

“Second year, Engineering.”

“Great, so what time would you say you found the victim yesterday?” She said and I tried to figure out when exactly it had been. Trying to judge from various events in the evening, I calculated that it was about a little after eight that we’d found Jared in the storage closest. At least I’ll have my story straight by the time I have to talk to Detective Evans.

“And did they really cut off his ear?” Someone else interjected and Michelle clenched her teeth. I could tell that she thought this was her interview to run. She had seen me first.

“Yeah.”

“Which one?” Michelle asked and I blinked at her.

“Which one?” I repeated. How was I supposed to know? It had not been my first thought to figure out right or left.

“Yes. Van Gogh cut off his left. Do you know which one the victim’s missing?”

“I have no clue. I just know it’s an ear.”

“Great.” Another fake smile, this time less cleanly pasted on. I wasn’t proving to be as helpful as she’d hoped, apparently. Behind me, I felt someone approach and then reach around my shoulders to guide me away and I jumped. Looking up, I saw Detective Evans and was promptly grateful that he’d intervened.

“I’ve got to ask Reagan a few questions too.” He told the reporters gruffly and I let myself to be guided into the library as questions were thrown at our backs. Detective Evans ignored them easily, but I kept looking over my shoulder until we went inside.

“Detective, have you considered a connection to the recent –” A voice shouted behind us as the doors closed and blocked out the end of their sentence. I frowned, but the Detective didn’t raise an eyebrow.

“So, Reagan, you mentioned a photo on the phone?” He said and suddenly I realized why he had wheeled me away from the journalists. If there was one thing his investigation didn’t need, it was that picture on the front page or the story of how we’d gotten it.

“Yeah,” I said as I awkwardly twisted my backpack around to grab it. I held it out to him, still folded, and the detective eyed me for a moment before taking a look. I shifted in my seat as he stared at it unflinchingly. He’d probably seen worse, but his calm made my uncomfortable.

“It’s crazy. The ear thing.” I just spoke to be saying something, instead of just sitting there.

“Thank you for holding on to this for us.” Detective Evans said and tucked it away in his briefcase.

“Sure, no problem.” I said and did a double take as he began to stand. Was that it?

“I think we’ve got everything covered for now. I’m sure you have things you should be doing.” He shook my hand and gave me a nod of approval. “You and Carly did a great thing. You should be proud of yourselves.”

“It was Carly, really.”

“It takes two to tango.” He said and I nearly laughed, but thought better of it. That wasn’t what I was expected him to say, but it was true enough. Carly would have been hard pressed to make the 9-1-1 call while applying pressure, and hey, she had ruined a perfectly good sweater of mine. I wondered if I could get the university to replace it for being a good citizen on campus, but then dismissed the idea.

“Is there anything else you remember that might be of interest, Reagan?” He said and I paused for minute, trying to remember through the blur that the night had already become.

“Converse.” I said, the word sneaking out of my mouth before I really knew what it meant. “There was just one Converse shoe holding the door open when we found Jared.” It was the strangest detail to remember just in that moment, but thinking about it somehow made me shiver.

“And that wasn’t the kind of shoes that the victim was wearing.” Detective Evans said, mostly to himself, and I swallowed hard.

“You think who did it walked away with only one shoe?” I tried to laugh but it just came out awkwardly. “Hobbled out?”

“No,” he said gruffly. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

There was a pause where I tried not to realize the next most likely scenario: that it was someone else’s shoe. Neither Jared, not his attacker, but a third person. Someone who maybe wasn’t in a place to protest being short a shoe. I swore and Detective Evans didn’t say anything for a minute.

“I think it would be best if you kept the picture and the shoe to yourself for now.” He said and I nodded numbly. How had I stumbled into this? “Thanks for all your help. We’ll keep in touch.”

“Thanks.” I said and he left with a forced half-smile. I wandered down to the basement, partially in hopes of seeing Carly and largely simply because that was my default setting by now. Studying autopilot.

The image of the shoe was replacing the one of the severed in my head as the turning point. Detective Evans had been closed-mouthed about what anything meant, but that didn’t stop me from making my own conclusions. Conclusions that made me want to both go back home to hide in bed again, and go tell Carly about it. I settled for the second one.

Arriving at the last floor, I shuffled through the bookshelves looking for my favourite assistant librarian. She wasn’t at her desk and I didn’t for a moment consider that it might be her day off.

I found her standing completely still in one of the aisles and I opened my mouth to say hi, but she noticed me first and pressed her finger to her lips, suddenly embodying the stereotypical librarian. I would have laughed if the look on her face hadn’t changed in that moment.

Behind her, there was the sound of scratching metal on metal.

Note: Sorry I missed another week guys! I’ll do my best but I’m writing papers as well so it’s looking like it’ll be biweekly for a little. However, school’s almost over so I should have less intellectual distractions soon. I made it extra long as compensation.

ALSO, please leave comments for suggestions on the next chapter. I couldn’t think of any good poll answers for next actions!

2010
04/09
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS

Write comment

Chapter Seven

(Last Week’s Ending ….. Crawling under my sheets, I pulled them over my head and crushed my face into the pillow.

I had to try to convince myself that there was no one watching me in my bed, no one waiting for another ear, before I could begin to fall asleep…)

Going to school the next morning was a challenge.

First of all, it nearly didn’t happen. I spent the first fifteen minutes of consciousness lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if I was going to be watched by whoever was behind the ear incident; they clearly knew what we looked like. I nearly decided that it was safer just to stay in bed and sleep.

Second, getting up and brushing my teeth seemed so deceptively normal after my surreal evening the night before that I nearly thought that the entire thing was just a nightmare I’d had. That was until I nearly stepped on the ear photo as I came back from the shower. Severed ears are hardly a pretty sight, but seeing it first thing in the morning is doubly unpleasant and it nearly sent me back to bed.

Despite this, I hauled my sorry butt to class. Whatever the number of bizarre events in my life, I had a midterm the next day and the two the one after, as well as a paper the one after that. Basically, school had to own my soul for the next 72 hours.

Unfortunately, my main concern was currently what had happened to Jared, not whatever my professor was chatting about today. I liked Engineering, I really did, but the enormous lecture halls didn’t exactly encourage a close connection to your education or your professor. Dr. Cheng could not compete with blood and guts on a Tuesday morning.

Half way through the lecture, my phone went off in my pocket and I had to quickly reject the call as the students on either side of me looked my way. After class, I opened up my phone and didn’t recognize the number on the display of missed calls. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t even gotten Carly’s number the night before and I skipped over checking the voicemail message. Instead, I just dialed the phone number and listened to the ringing impatiently.

“Detective Evans,” said the voice on the other end, and I felt my heart sink as I heard the male voice. It occurred to me that of course Carly wouldn’t call; she hadn’t gotten my number either.

“Oh, uh, hi.” I stammered out as I backtracked and wished that I had listened to that voicemail. “You called?”

“Yes, are you Reagan Fischer?” Detective Evans sounded like he had seen all the right cop dramas. His voice was low and his tone was serious, but calm.

“Yeah, can I help you?” I said, feeling my heart rate speed up for no particular reason. I had done nothing wrong. Well, other than ignoring the message he’d left.

“You witnessed the aftermath of the assault yesterday at the St. Frances University Raymond Gorski library yesterday?” He said and I could hear the sound of paper flipping on the other end. I took a deep breath as I braced myself to tell my story.

“Yeah, me and Carly found him.”

“And afterwards you were taken to the Greenhill Hospital, is that correct?” He asked next and I wished he would just let me spill the whole thing at once. I didn’t need to recall it in stop-motion.

“Yeah, I hit my head when I passed out.” I lowered my voice as I said it. “I’m terrible with blood and stuff. I was fine though and Carly said that she talked to you guys, so we went back to SFU so that she could finish her shift at the library.”

“She did, but we’d like to get your statement as well. We wouldn’t want to miss anything.” He didn’t sound mad that I’d left without saying anything and I restrained my relieved sigh.

“Yeah, sure.” I was about to launch into my version of the events when I remembered the photo in my backpack. “Before I start, uh, we found this picture on Carly’s windshield last night when we left the hospital?”

The Detective was silent for a moment and I could hear the office sounds filtering in, other phones ringing, voices, and a door closing.

“What kind of picture?” He said and I felt myself squirm a little.

“I was going to bring it around to one of the police stations as soon as I could. It’s, well, it’s a photo of what looks like an ear.” I had yet to explain it to anyone and it was strange to say it out loud. “We think it’s Jared’s.”

“I see. Well, we’ll find out if that’s the case. I’m going to be on your campus later this afternoon. When would I be able to meet you to take the photograph as evidence?” His tone didn’t change and I wondered if he’d seen a severed ear before. Probably.

We arranged to meet quickly at 3:30 after my final class and I rattled off what had happened the previous night on my way to the next lecture. I told him that he would have to ask any further questions when he saw me later, but he assured me that I’d pretty much told him what he needed to know. As I stood outside the lecture hall, finishing up the conversation, I looked inside and scanned for Matt. I had doddled and he would already be in his seat.

“Thanks very much for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch soon. I’ll meet you at the Gorski library at 3:30.”

“Yeah, no problem.” I brushed it off and before I ducked into the class, I just had few quick questions of my own.

“Do you know who did this?” I said and I hear a small sigh on the other end.

“Not yet, but we’re working on it.” He didn’t sound like further questions would get him to elaborate, so I moved on.

“And about the picture? Should I be worried?” I tried not to sound concerned, playing it cool, with mixed success.

“Well, I don’t know if you should be worried, exactly, but we can all benefit from a few more safety precautions. I’d say avoid walking home alone at night, keep in lit areas, make sure your friends know where you are, things like that. We will investigate this photo and let you know what we find out when we can.” He said and I could tell that he was trying to keep me calm. What he was really saying was, “We don’t know enough yet to tell you for certain that you should be freaking out, but you should probably be a little worried.”

Great.

As soon as I’d hung up, I snuck inside the class and slid into the seat next to Matt. He was in the same program, but he never came to math. He’d taken enough upper level math courses throughout his life that there wouldn’t be new course material for him to learn until half-way through next year, or so he said. I figured that he just didn’t want to get up early.

“Hey.” He muttered as the professor started up the lecture and the projector, I nodded to him distractedly as I pulled out my notebook. The class had just barely started, but I wasn’t someone who liked to show up late so I hurried to arrange myself and get comfortable to listen for an hour.

“How was your night last night?” He said quietly and I looked up at him, considering. For a second, I thought about telling him the truth. Then that moment passed and I decided on the edited version.

“I met someone actually.”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows raised just a fraction and suggested that I elaborate.

“Yeah. It was a pretty memorable night.” Translating my crazy evening into casual, classmate conversation was a challenge but better than trying to explain everything to him in the middle of physics. We’d only started talking this year and while it was an awesome story, I wasn’t quite ready to talk about it. So, I’d mostly lied, but Matt didn’t need to know that.

“Sweet.” He started copying down the notes and I figured it was over, but after a moment he added, “Get a number?”

My sigh made it clear that I hadn’t.

2010
03/26
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS

1 comment

Re-Evaluation

So, it would appear that at least a few people want this blog to stick around. Thank you! Your support is much appreciated, but here’s the thing: I’m going to need motivation to keep me on time. I usually publish over the weekend, but it is already Wednesday and we’re missing a week. It’s going to be hard for the next few weeks with several papers due for me, but I don’t want to abandon you folks. So, I’m going to do my best, but the more people vote and comment and seem like they care, the more I will be held accountable. Basically? Put pressure on me. Even better? Tell your friends about the blog and get them to vote (maybe even for the same thing you did) and more people will shame me into posting on time.

It’s all part of the collaboration. I’ve been really interested in how things have played out so far. We’re reached the end of Reagan’s first day with us. We’ve learned a little about them, Carly and some about Mr. Jared Beamer (although mostly just that he got on the bad side of someone). I hope you’re being reasonably entertained and if not, let me know and what I can do to remedy this. I’m all ears. Well, ears and a pair of typing hands, apparently.

Anyway, I’m going to try to update and continue this blog. Poke at me if you want another chapter and I will do my best to comply. Keep (or start) voting and keep reading. It’s how this little show works. I just can’t do it alone.

Yours truly,

Megan

2010
03/25
CATEGORY
Non-story
Write comment

Assignment Ends

So, I started this blog for an English assignment and now that task is coming to a close. However, I’ve really enjoyed working on this, hearing feedback and making it a priority. I would like to continue, but I can only do that if I have support from an audience, or this whole thing falls flat on its face. So, I invite you to vote or otherwise let me know if you think that you’ll keep coming back if I do, OR if alternatively, you think we’ve all had enough fun.

Much thanks,
Megan

2010
03/16
CATEGORY
Non-story
1 comment

Chapter Six

When I arrived at my basement apartment, I fumbled with my door keys long enough for my roommate to notice me struggling. Ian got up from in front of the television to let me in and I gave him a thankful smile, but the expression lasted only seconds on my face. My priorities had become lying in my bed for the rest of my life; any other task was secondary, including politeness.

“What’d you do to your head?” He said, looking me up and down as I came inside. I brushed my hand over the gauze on my temple, suddenly self-conscious, and ducked my head a little.

“Don’t ask.”

“Already did.” He said and I stifled a sigh. Ian didn’t let things go. Social cues that would put off most others were no deterrent for my roommate, so my gruff tone of voice had done practically nothing to change the subject. “What happened to your head? Studying turn into a contact sport lately?”

I dropped my backpack down where I stood to buy myself some time to come up with a good explanation that wouldn’t require my reliving the evening. Crossing my arms, I surveyed Ian and took a guess at what story he might buy. I settled on the sure thing.

“Don’t ask, just… life’s dangerous. Let’s just put it like that.” I said, hoping to sound cryptic instead of just ridiculous, and I dragged my bag into my bedroom before he could pursue it further.

“Well, if you keep coming home with injuries, I’m not going to let you leave here without a helmet.” His voice followed me in until I shut the door and threw myself onto my bed.

Ian and I had ended up living together entirely by chance. His roommate had graduated last year and he needed someone to split the rent with. I answered his online ad and within one meeting I had a place to stay. Ian was pretty harmless for the most part, lanky and low key, despite his various annoying quirks. We’d gotten along alright through generally avoiding extended interactions.

However, after the evening I’d had, a close roommate might have been nice. At least then I wouldn’t have been lying alone in my bed, staring at my ceiling and reimagining the photo that was still in my back pocket. I’d have someone in close proximity to rant to. It occurred to me that Ian might be interested in my story based on the blood and gore factor alone, but oohs and ahs weren’t the kind of support I really wanted.

A small, insane part of my brain was still telling me that I should study, but that was definitely not going to happen. Looking at the clock, it wasn’t even eleven o’clock and my inclination to sleep, to put an end to the day, seemed silly. I hadn’t gone to bed before midnight since I had strep throat. I pulled out the picture instead and forced myself to look at it.

It was so surreal, like holding a prop from CSI: Miami. I wanted to rip it up or throw it away, but the Carly was right; the police would want it. Staring at it, I shivered. Was it a threat? Or just boasting? How did the assailant know which car windshield to put it on? Had he watched the entire thing?

Suddenly, I was beginning to understand the fear that Carly had clearly understood before I had. It wasn’t just the event that had shaken her up. Someone had marked her car. Someone had been there, someone knew that we had walked into that storage closet, and they had followed us to the hospital to leave us a message.

“Message received.” I muttered, and then a knock at the bedroom door sent a charge up my spine as I sat up straight in bed. I shoved the picture under my crumpled sheets and tried to calm my beating heart.

“Come in.” I said and Ian pushed open the door to lean against the doorframe. His long hair fell across his eyes and he looked through his bangs at me.

“I’m ordering pizza. You want in?”

“Uh, no. I’m good.” I couldn’t really imagine eating anything, although it had been hours since I’d grabbed a bag of chips and a coke – study food. Turning down an offer of a late night slice was probably a first, however.

“Wow, you must have hit your head good.” He said and turned to leave the room. I hopped out of bed, suddenly anxious for anyone’s presence, and followed him out. I didn’t want to be left alone with what I’d just realized.

“Nah. It looks worse than it is.” I brushed it off and sat down in front of the television as Ian dialed behind me in the kitchen. I let myself fall into the pattern of each thirty second commercial and settled into the secondhand armchair. The brain numbing quality was soothing and familiar, until the news announced its presence via its gaudy intro music and I felt it happen before the anchors even opened their mouths.

“… shocking reports are just coming in of a violent assault on the St. Frances University campus. Police have not released the identity of the victim, but they did say that he was a student there.” I got up out of my chair without a word and headed back to my room, trying to keep myself from running. I didn’t want to hear it. “He is currently in critical but stable condition, thanks to two bystanders who rushed to aid their classmate…”

I slammed the door shut and hurtled myself onto my bed. I heard the photo fold beneath my covers and I searched around for it. My fingers caught the edge and I threw it across the room, away from where I might see or touch it. Crawling under my sheets, I pulled them over my head and crushed my face into the pillow.

I had to try to convince myself that there was no one watching me in my bed, no one waiting for another ear, before I could begin to fall asleep.

2010
03/15
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS

Write comment

Chapter Five

(Cussing loudly, I threw it down and stepped away from it.

“What? What is it?” Carly demanded as I covered my mouth. I was trying to keep my food down. It was the perfect ending to the evening. I was done. I drew the line at pictures of severed ears.)

Carly picked it up carefully, like it might be toxic, and smoothed it out. Her jaw literally dropped, but she held the photo steady in her hands. Cursing, she shook her head and handed it back to me.

“The police will want to see that.” She said and I turned it over in my hands so that the picture faced the asphalt. Even without having to look at it, I felt it dirtying my hand. This wasn’t what I usually got mixed up in. Drunken vomit was as messy as my life got.

“I could have lived without seeing it, myself.”

“Well, I’ll leave that in your custody. I’ve got to get back to work.” She locked her car doors and started towards the library entrance as if nothing had happened.

“So that’s it?” I stood frozen beside her car door, watching her walk away and feeling the photo in my hand. “You’re just going to ditch this with me and wash your hands of it?”

She looked over her shoulder at me and when she saw the look on my face, she did me the decency of at least stopping and turning around.

“Well, Reagan, what’s your suggestion? Play detective? Nancy Drew it up with you?” She said and I could feel myself frowning at her, ignoring the twinge of my temple.

“You just saved a guy’s life. You can’t just go back into work after that.” I started walking towards her, my shock at her brushing the entire thing off slowly melting into frustration. She could not just leave and pretend none of it happened. It had happened to both of us; I needed my witness.

I also didn’t want to admit that her leaving it with me meant that I would have to deal with it, and I simply couldn’t handle anything else today.

“Why not? I think saving his life is about enough of a time investment, don’t you? The police get paid for exactly this kind of situation.” She said, crossing her arms. “It’s my tax dollars at work.”

“Aren’t you curious about why you had to do the saving?” I said and held up the picture, careful not to get a glimpse of it myself. “Or why this was on your window?”

“Yeah. I’ll read about in the paper.” She turned away again but this time I followed. I needed to go inside and grab my stuff anyway. We walked into the building and I kept pace easily with Carly as she headed down to the basement.

“I don’t believe you. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that you don’t care about this enough to do a little looking around.” I shook my head and she abruptly stopped on the staircase to turn to me.

“Do you know why? Because I have read Nancy Drew books, and it’s not all flowers and rainbows in the snooping business. Jared got his ear cut off. That sucks, but do you know what that tells me? Do you know what that photo tells me?”

“I can’t decide. Is that rhetorical?” I dead-panned and she looked like she might wrap her hands around my neck and strangle me right there. I waited.

“It says loud and clear that, whoever did this? Don’t mess with them. Don’t get curious. Not if you like your ears where they are.” She said and ignored the student coming up the stairs. The girl’s eyes got big as she passed and she took the steps a little more quickly. I calmly looked Carly in the eye.

“So you’re scared.”

“Yes. I’m scared.” She replied angrily and kept walking down the stairs. I followed as I breathed a sigh of relief. This was something that I could understand.

“That’s good.” It just popped out and she glared at me, but I clarified. “I mean, so am I. I have never been more scared in my entire life than in that little closet. Not of anything.”

There was a pause and then she let out a single giggle. The tension dropped out of sight.

“You looked like it. I wasn’t entirely surprised when you passed out. White as a sheet.” The teasing back into her tone was enough that I let the mocking slide.

“I definitely couldn’t have switched jobs with you.”

“I was keeping Jared alive. What was your job? Panicking?” She fought and lost against a smile and I could feel one of my own sliding into place.

“Hey, I called 9-1-1.”

“I forgot.” She said, and she genuinely seemed to be remembering that part of the event. “I guess I’m glad it wasn’t just me in there.” We’d reached her information desk and I leaned against it as she took her seat behind.

“No need to thank me, really.” I said with a wry smile and she raised her eyebrows just a bit. It seemed to be her thing.

“I needed to tell you to call 9-1-1, remember?” She said and I grimaced. “And you nearly left me.”

“Yeah, about that… How about we chalk it up to panic?” She just laughed at me.

I watched her sign into her account and then she paused, staring at the screen.

“Okay, how about I try to find that book? What was it again?”

“What –” It took me half a moment to remember how exactly we’d met and another second to recall the title we’d gone in search for. “Uh, the Devil’s Pact. How Our Forefather’s Knew to…”

“Warn Against Men Like Themselves.” She finished typing it into the search bar and pulled it back up on the screen. “Alright. So, how about I find that for you and you do some sleuthing of your own about the ear thing.”

The ear thing. That didn’t really seem to cover it, exactly.

“I really don’t know where to start.” I admitted and she just grinned up at me.

“Don’t worry. I’ll sign you out some Nancy Drews.”

2010
03/07
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS


Write comment

Chapter Four

(…  As she pulled away, I could see the some of the blood had been absorbed so that I could actually see the wound.

“Oh.” I gasped. Van Gogh would have been proud. I, on the other hand, felt myself slide down to the floor as my vision faded to black….)

Waking up to beeping means one of three things: you are next to an alarm, a bomb, or a heart monitor. Given my choice, I would have liked to have woken up in my own bed, even if that meant getting up and going to class. As I opened my eyes, however, it was quickly obvious which of the three options I was encountering.

I had never been to a hospital before, and despite watching several episodes of ER, I had always imagined that it was like a giant doctor’s office. The fact that I was lying beneath a kind of scratchy sheet instead of on a strip of paper was a bit of a surprise. I lifted myself up to get a better look around and felt my right temple twinge. Lifting my hand to hold my head, my fingers found the gauze and tape there.

“It’s actually nothing.” A voice beyond my peripheral vision assured me. Turning my head, I recognized the speaker as Carly. Her arms and legs were both crossed as she sat in the chair beside my bed with a book in her lap. “Hardly any blood at all, but the paramedics felt kinda bad that they didn’t see you go down. Sam could have caught you if he’d just turned around.”

“Sam?”

“One of the EMTs who showed up.” She said and stood. “Come on.”

“What, shouldn’t I wait for someone to tell me that I don’t have brain damage or something?” I said, but swung my legs off the side of the bed anyway. Frowning at her hurt my temple and so I stopped.

“You don’t have brain damage.” She said confidently, looking me straight in the eye. “Let’s go. I’m still supposed to be at work.”

I paused, glancing down the rumpled covers, and then looked back up at her raised, pierced eyebrow. I kind of liked this girl’s attitude. I slid off the bed, checked my pockets for my wallet and my phone, and then followed Carly out of the hospital. I wondered if I should have left the nurse a note.

“What happened the guy we found?” I said, breaking the silence between us. We were already in the parking lot by that time and I would have asked sooner, but her speed walking had kind of dissuaded me from starting conversation. Now that we were out, she had slowed down.

“Jared Beamer.” She said. “He’s down an ear, that’s for sure, but I think they’re going to save him. He lost a lot of blood, but he couldn’t have been there long before we got there. Someone stashed him and ran.”

My stomach lurched and I tried to change the image in my head from the remains of the man’s ear. Jared’s ear. Not surprisingly, the image had a some staying power. I had a feeling that I might not sleep so well that night.

“Do they know who?” I said to keep my mind moving forward.

“They won’t know anything really until they talk to Jared, probably. While you were napping, they asked me about it. I didn’t have a lot to contribute, but at least I was conscious, I guess.” She glanced at me with a bit of a smirk and I wasn’t entirely sure if she was being cheeky and making light of the scenario, or if she was simply making fun of me. I chose to believe the former.

“Did they tell you not to leave town?” I said teasingly and she gave a quiet, single laugh.

“I think they were waiting for me to start crying, actually.”

“Well, at least you’re not a suspect then.” I shrugged, and then realized that having been first on a scene for assault, it might have been wise to stick around long enough to give a statement of myself. Cutting out on the process did seem a little suspicious.

Then again, passing out at the sight of the victim’s wounds pretty much rules someone out.

Without a real discussion about whether she would drive me back to campus, we got into her car. I relaxed into the driver’s seat and tilted my head to stare into the side mirror. I looked ridiculous with the oversized bandage. I nearly pulled it off, but I didn’t know what the damage was.

“So, I’ve gotta ask.” Carly said as she pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah?”

“Do you spend a lot of time on the floor?” She said and I raised my eyebrows. She glanced at me and then looked back to the road. “I just mean that I saw you on the ground earlier today, in the library. I was walking back from shelving something. I was wondering if that was normal behavior for you.”

“Lately.” I admitted, slouching down in the chair and concentrating on my palms. So I had been seen. Great.

“What, were you meditating?” She sounded half scornful and half serious.

“More like… hyperventilating. Definitely trying to be more Zen though.” I figured I might as well confess at this point. I’d already fainted in her presence. There was no impressing her with how tough I was at this point.

“Midterms?”

“Yep.”

“Sucks.”

“Yep.” I stared out through the windshield and nodded my head. That’s all that needed to be said for a moment. Carly turned up the radio to listen to the news and I snuck a glance at her. Distracted by the road, she was unable to make me feel weird and drive at the same time. Without her attention on me, she looked far less intimidating. Her one hand tapped quietly on the wheel as we waited at a light, while her other tugged at a ponytail. She must have put it up while I was unconscious. Her gaze flitted over to me and I realized that I was obviously observing her so I stopped.

“So, what are you taking?” I asked, an attempt at being casual.

“Masters of Library and Information Sciences. First year grad student.” She said and I clenched my teeth at the obviousness of that answer.

“That makes sense then.”

“How about you?”

It was so surreal. We were having the same first conversation that every university student has upon meeting new people, the questions about majors and programs coming up instinctively. It would have been completely normal if we hadn’t just found Jared lying in a pool of his own blood in the library’s storage room. Making polite conversation with a girl with blood on her plaid shirt as she drove me home from the hospital was just about enough to short circuit my brain. However, even half-fried, I could answer her question.

“Engineering.”

“Oh, okay.” She said and I raised an eyebrow at her.

“What does that mean?”

“I did engineering first year.” She shrugged and I continued to look at her. I was a little impressed she’d done it at all. Just a little. It was unexpected.

“But you switched out. And now you’re going to be a librarian.” Just to be clear.

“Yeah,” she said and gave me a little bit of a warning glance, “because I realized that I didn’t want to be an engineer any more than I wanted to be anything else. So why bust my ass for something I was indifferent about?”

“That’s a good reason to switch.”

“I thought so. I took computer science instead.”

“Nice.”

It turned out that finding a bleeding body is a good way to make friends. Or at least decrease the inherent awkwardness of small talk. Maybe we weren’t comfortable, but something had changed since we had first met. It had to have. I was sitting in her car. She had waited for me at the hospital. It had actually taken me until that moment to realize that fact.

“You stayed.” The words popped out. “At hospital.” I added so that I made some sense.

“Yeah. You weren’t out long.” She shrugged, a strange motion with both her hands on the wheel in front of her.

“Thanks.” I said and I made sure to tell it to her face instead of the glove compartment. She just shrugged again, but she did look back at me.

“Well, I figured you’d need a ride and I wanted to make sure our guy was going to make it.”

“Yeah, our guy. Jared.” I shook my head as she parked the car and we stepped out. “I wonder what he did to deserve that.”

“Does anyone deserve to get their ear chopped off?” She said and I stopped to pull a piece of paper out from between her windshield wipers. I was surprised that I didn’t notice it earlier. It was a little crumpled, but as I flipped it over, I didn’t need to straighten it out to know what it was.

Cussing loudly, I threw it down and stepped away from it.

“What? What is it?” Carly demanded as I covered my mouth. I was trying to keep my food down. It was the perfect ending to the evening. I was done. I drew the line at pictures of severed ears.

I wanted to be back at home in my bed.

P.S. Sorry it’s so long! It won’t usually be, but I’m making up for lost time and I dipped into some exposition/character stuff. Boring. I know. :P

2010
02/26
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS

Write comment

Chapter Three

(… Next to our door was a second one titled storage. It was held slightly ajar with a sneaker. Carly paused and then yanked open the door. It was rather anticlimactic, revealing a room full of cleaning supplies, until I saw the person slumped over in the corner, just barely illuminated from the light of the hallway.

That’s when I noticed the blood.)

I double blinked, refusing to believe what I was seeing, but Carly was already taking a step towards the figure. My heart leaped and I grabbed her hand, pulling her back towards me.

“Uh, no, you don’t want to, um –” I was stammering. I knew I was stammering. “Don’t you think we should grab another librarian?”

Carly looked over her shoulder and me, her eyebrows raised, and for a moment I was paying attention to her expression instead of the bleeding man on the ground.

“What, so they can see if someone’s checked him out recently?” She pulled away from me and went to crouch beside the man, who was beginning to moan. “I’m pretty much the only one with first aid training on staff.”

She was leaning in towards the figure, trying to make eye contact, or survey the damage. The closer she got, the more the man shook and I could almost imagine him lunging at her. For a split second, I was sure that I was suddenly in a zombie flick and Carly was about to get her brains eaten. A zombie apocalypse seemed about as likely as finding a bleeding man in our library’s storage room.

“Carly –”

“Could you turn on the light?” She said and I felt around the walls for a light switch. Flicking it on, the bottom of my stomach dropped away. Carly was crouching in a pool of blood. It was everywhere. I looked down at my feet and stepped back, away from the red mess of the room. Carly let out a gasp, not at the blood on her shoes but at the man’s face and she covered her mouth.

“Call 9-1-1.” She ordered and I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket with shaking hands. What had happened to this guy? As I dialed, I realized that I’d known this number since I was seven but I’d never had to call it before.

“9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency?”

I looked down at Carly and the stranger, trying to describe what was going on without looking closely. Clearly this evening was not going as planned. For any of us.

When I hung up the phone, I swallowed hard and tried to take a step towards the two others, but I couldn’t make myself enter the bloody circle surrounding the man. Instead of looking at his head, which appeared to be where the blood was coming from, I examined his clothes. He was a student here, maybe a grad student or someone who dressed older than they were. His runners were red beyond washing, but had probably been brown earlier in his day. Nice sweater, dark jeans, and a large watch on one of his wrists. The attacker hadn’t been looking for cash it seemed. What could this man have done to deserve this?

“Okay, he needs the bleeding to stop now. We can’t wait.” Carly said and surveyed the room for anything to halt the blood flow. She was right; we couldn’t know how long he’d been in here, but he wouldn’t last much longer if something didn’t change. There was too much blood around us.

She grabbed paper towel from one of the shelves and began piling it on the side of his head where the blood matted his hair. However, this did little to stop anything. Within seconds, her hands were red and she was throwing the paper to the ground, cursing. My stomach rolled at the idea of blood on my hands, even as I pulled my hoodie over my head and handed it over.

“This has got to be better than that cheap stuff.” I muttered and she nodded as she pressed it against the wound. My St. Frances University sweater would do him more good than it would do me. As the giant block letters sopped up blood, I had to turn away, get out of the storage room. I was no doctor.

“Don’t you dare leave me with him.” Carly said, just the slightest tremor in her voice for the first time. “I don’t like blood either, okay?”

“Sorry,” I turned back, ashamed that I was letting her do all the work, and swallowing what was trying to work its way back up. “Is there anything I can do.”

“Just stand there.” She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the man’s face. “What’s your name again?”

“Reagan.”

“Right.” She nodded and glanced over to me. “Well, Reagan, you are white as a sheet.” Laughing a bit, she shifted her hold on the hoodie and the man moaned again. He was just barely conscious, hardly breathing it seemed, and couldn’t manage more than sounds of pain.

“Hey, dude, are you okay?” I tried to speak loudly and clearly, but the only response was a moan.

“He’s not okay.” Carly gave me a dirty look. “Look at him!”

“You know, maybe I should go see if they’re here. What if the EMTs can’t find us?”

“They’ll find us. You told them exactly where we are.”

“So I should just stand here and not talk?” I looked down at her with my arms crossed. I realized that she was under a lot of pressure. She was trying to stop a guy from bleeding out. However, I was here too – it was my hoodie she was using to stop the bleeding after all – and I was freaking out. I didn’t need her picking at me too.

“No.” She glanced up at me again and took at a deep breath. “Just don’t ask stupid questions.”

I frowned for a moment, but I couldn’t let the silence between us build. It only left room for the sounds of the man squirming and moaning.

“Have you seen him here before?” I nodded to the man and she shook her head.

“I’ve been working here for about a month. I’m a glorified page.”

“But a professional first-aider apparently.” I said and she looked down at her patient with a frown.

“I hope so.” She said and then leaned in closer to whisper, “you’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine.”

Once my attention was redrawn to the man, I couldn’t stop looking at the SFU sweater, slowly changing colours. Carly and I made small conversation, but I could hardly hear her. My lips and my hands were going numb. There was blood everywhere. I had never seen so much.

As the EMTs barged in, we both jumped and Carly moved the hoodie away as she handed it to one of the newcomers. As she pulled away, I could see that some of the blood had been absorbed so I could actually see the wound.

“Oh.” I gasped. Van Gogh would have been proud. I, on the other hand, felt myself slide down to the floor as my vision faded to black.

2010
02/06
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS

2 comments

Checking In: Progress?

First of all, right now the poll for Reagan’s next action is all tied up (three ways!) so we need you guys to vote!

Also, let’s sum up.

So far, we have Reagan Fischer and he/she/they are trying to prepare for midterms from hell. However, several things are getting in the way of this.

One, panic attacks on a semi-regular basis. Not as fun as they sound.

Two, studying sucks.

Three, crazy/creepy vandalism is more interesting than textbooks and now Reagan’s on a mini-quest to find a mystery book called “The Devil’s Pact: How Our Forefathers Knew To Warn Us Against Men Like Themselves.”

Four, this quest has led to first Carly, student librarian, and

Five, a bleeding body in a closet.

Huh, so it’s all right so far.

So, Jonathan, I know you wanted me to kill someone, but the consensus is actually not letting me. I thought the person in the closet was dead, but AS IT TURNS OUT, it looks like he’s alive but injured. Sorry, dude. I have been overruled.

Keep reading, keep voting, and don’t forget to be awesome. If you have time.

Your friendly neighbourhood blogger/writer

2010
02/03
CATEGORY
Non-story
TAGS

1 comment

Chapter Two

(from previous entry:

….“What the…”

It took me a second to realize that this was just the call number for a book. Probably one in that library. The eyes were beautifully done however and it was more than a little tempting to procrastinate studying by doing a bit of sleuthing to understand what the vandal was referencing. On the other hand, I’d wasted enough time already and it was probably just the library copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook or something….”)

Nonetheless, it would still be better than studying and so I grabbed a pen to scribble down the string of numbers on my palm. Giving the giant eye a nervous glance, I stepped out of the pile of books and went in search of the nearest computer terminal.

The library basement was the perfect scene for a scary movie when it was empty and silent – which was almost always the case. I could almost imagine a figure hiding behind the towering book shelves, watching me try to solve my little mystery with my clue in hand. On hand. However, it was becoming a familiar scene to walk through the basement alone, my feet the only sounds other than the hum of florescent lighting, and some of the creep factor was leaving as I spent more time in its strange quiet. Still, the basement felt like it was outside of time. No phone reception, books and décor from the sixties, and no windows to let you know if you’d spent an entire day down in its depths. I needed to get out more.

Logging in, I signed onto Facebook and checked my email more out of habit than curiosity. I scanned the results of both sites as I brought up the library catalogue. No messages, a few notifications that several friends had tagged me in pictures, the usual. I typed in the number and letter combination, pushed enter, and deleted old emails as I waited for the results. Clicking back to the page, I raised my eyebrows at the title it had come up with.

“The Devil’s Pact: How Our Forefathers Knew To Warn Us Against Men Like Themselves.*” It was supposed to be somewhere on my level. “Alright.”

I slowly walked the aisles as I scanned the placards on each shelf for the one I was looking for. Finding books in a library didn’t exactly challenge my IQ, although I had been subjected to several sessions explaining to me how it was done. I reached the section it was supposed to be in and crouched to read the spines. Resting a hand carefully on a shelf, I made sure not to bring another one down. However, it reminded me of the eye. Looking under the shelf, there was no enormous image hiding where the book was supposed to be.

Disappointed, I returned to looking for the book, already losing interest in the novelty task, when I realized quickly that it wasn’t there. Instead, there were three books out of order. They were conspicuous in that they were much older than other books around them, probably long irrelevant to most papers. Picking one up, I flipped through the pages half-heartedly. It wasn’t anything worth looking into. As I was about to put it away, however, I noticed a marking in the space left by the book. Pulling away the other two revealed another staring eye, much smaller than the first but done by the same hand. The lashes were distinct, shorter than you might see elsewhere, and careful, long strokes scratched into metal.

Surprised, I stood up, but immediately kneeled down to pull the rest of the books off the shelf. There was nothing more to reveal, but with everything sprawled on the floor, the eye stood out more vividly.

“Okay, I’m a little creeped out now.” Which was stupid, because first of all, I shouldn’t talk to myself, but secondly it was just vandalism. Well done vandalism, but random graffiti nonetheless. I was sure that someone, somewhere had this drawing all over their notebooks. It was their thing. No big deal.

However, the fact that the book was missing from its place was a big enough deal that I wanted to find the librarian to ask them to help me locate it. Maybe it was reading the Davinci Code or the detective novels of my childhood, but I was pretty sure that a fictional character would follow up on this. Following in their footsteps didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

I put all the books back in the order they sort of went in and headed towards the stairs. As I approached the resource desk, I frowned at the tall, black chair turned away from me.

“Hi, sorry, but –” I started, but as I got closer, it became clearer that there was no one in the chair. Was I really completely alone in this basement then? I stood staring at the empty chair for a moment, dreading going back to studying.

“So, was that you over there with the shelf?” A woman’s voice behind me demanded and I jolted as I spun around to face her.

“What? Oh, no.” I said, but then paused. “Or, uh, well I did make it fall, by accident, but I didn’t do the eye thing.”

“Uh huh.” She said, crossing her arms in the general manner of, “I call bullshit.”

“No, I just found it like that. I leaned on it and then I saw the eye and the number and I was actually wondering about that book. I wanted to find it. You’re the librarian, right?”

“Student librarian.” She said, which helped me make sense of her. There were few other librarians with a pierced lip and eye brow, and along with her plaid button-down, she didn’t quite scream professional. “Did you look it up?”

“Yeah, and it’s not in its section.”

“Well, it’d figure the kid who carved up the shelf stole the book or something.” She moved behind the desk and jiggled the mouse to wake her dark screen. I held up my hand to show her the number but she was already pulling a small square of paper out of her back pocket and typing the call number into the search bar.

I watched her eyes scan the pages as she clicked through them. Her eyebrow piercing moved at even the slightest change in expression, bringing attention to how animated her face was.

“It’s not reported as lost.” She said and I leaned onto the desk to try to get a peek at the screen. She backed away a bit and turned it so that I could see for myself. “I’d kind of like to see what this book is myself. We can check the put-aways if you want.”

“Sure.” I nodded and she circled the desk to lead me upstairs. Catching up, I matched her quick, small strides with my longer ones. “I’m Reagan, by the way.”

“Carly.”

“Cool.” I looked away from her and as we reached the higher floors, I welcomed the sight of other students and windows. The sun was nearly used up for the day.

“Yeah.” She did not think I was cool. She knew that anyone she was assisting in the basement was not someone with an active social life.

When we reached the room, which I recognized vaguely from library orientations, Carly fished a key ring out of her pocket, but stopped short. Next to our door was a second one titled storage. It was held slightly ajar with a sneaker. Carly paused and then yanked open the door.

It was rather anticlimactic, revealing a room full of cleaning supplies, until I saw the person slumped over in the corner, just barely illuminated from the light of the hallway.

That’s when I noticed the blood.

~~~~~

* means that you can submit a different name for this book title.

Please comment and vote and tell me what you think. Jonathan suggested more blood, a death, and to make it exciting. It’s on it’s way. If you have something you’d like to see, comment!

P.S. Also, please note, this was done with very little sleep.

2010
01/31
CATEGORY
The Story
TAGS

Write comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.