Fear Hall: The Beginning Read online

“Yes,” I said. “Can’t we get in major trouble for helping a murderer? For not telling the police what we know? Isn’t that a serious crime?”

  “We’ve got to talk to Hope,” Eden said firmly. “As soon as we get back to the room.”

  I glanced up. Across the restaurant, the three M’s were all staring hard at us. They had stopped talking. They were staring at us in silence.

  “Jasmine—?”

  Marty’s voice made me turn to the kitchen. I found him staring at me too. He had the oddest expression on his face.

  “Jasmine—are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Fine,” I called to him.

  I leaned across the table to my two friends. And I whispered, “You guys had better go. You’re going to make me lose my job.”

  I didn’t leave the restaurant until about seven-twenty. The dishwasher was broken. And Marty made me wash all the cups and glasses by hand.

  I didn’t really mind. He always paid me overtime when I worked late.

  But I couldn’t understand why he kept staring at me all afternoon. Studying me. Like I was a bug under a rock or something.

  A couple of times, I started to ask him what his problem was. But each time, I chickened out.

  Jasmine, don’t look for trouble.

  That’s what I told myself.

  I dried my hands and hung up the towel. Then I picked up my backpack from the supply closet and headed to the back door.

  Marty locks the front door at seven. So I always leave by the back.

  “Are you working tomorrow?” he asked as I stepped out into the alley.

  He knows the schedule. He knows that I work four afternoons a week. But he always has to ask if I’m working tomorrow.

  I nodded. “Yes. See you tomorrow.”

  “Going to meet friends?” he asked. Why was he staring at me like that?

  “I’m heading back to the dorm,” I told him. I turned and took a few steps into the narrow alley.

  When Marty closed the restaurant door, I was left in total darkness. There were no lights back there.

  The solid back walls of brick buildings on one side. A tall wooden fence on the other.

  A cold wind blew through the alley, ruffling my hair, pushing me back. I leaned into it and tried to walk.

  This alley always gives me the creeps. The other night, a huge rat jumped from a garbage Dumpster and scurried right over my shoes.

  I only have to walk half a block through the dark alley. Then it opens onto Pine Street, which leads to the dorm two blocks to the north.

  I was nearly to Pine Street when I heard the crash of a metal garbage can lid behind me.

  The sound startled me, making me jump.

  I didn’t turn back. I was sure the gusting wind had blown the lid off the can.

  I was sure—until I heard the thud of footsteps on the alley pavement.

  Then I knew that someone was running after me.

  I spun around and squinted into the blackness. “Marty—is that you?”

  Did I forget something in the restaurant? Was Marty bringing it to me?

  “Marty—?”

  My voice caught in my throat.

  If only I could see.

  “Marty?”

  The footsteps pounded the concrete alley floor. Then two hands grabbed me. Grabbed me hard around the shoulders.

  The hands slid down to my waist. Started to pull me against the building wall.

  And I opened my mouth to scream.

  chapter 9

  Before I could utter a sound, a hand clamped down hard over my mouth.

  I let out a terrified grunt. Tried to bite the hand. But it pressed tighter against my face.

  Choking me. Smothering me.

  I struggled to squirm away.

  But the other hand shoved me against the rough bricks of the wall.

  A face pressed up against mine.

  A young man.

  I smelled peppermint on his breath. I smelled sweat.

  And then I saw his face.

  Darryl.

  I raised both hands and shoved him back. An angry cry escaped my throat. “Darryl!” I gasped. “Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing?”

  A car rolled by up ahead of us on Pine Street. A pale glare of yellow from the headlights washed over the building, washed over us.

  Darryl’s blue eyes stared into mine. Beneath his leather jacket, his chest heaved up and down. He breathed noisily. His face so close to mine. I smelled the peppermint again.

  “Jasmine—” His voice escaped in a choked whisper. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “Huh? Me?” I cried. I swallowed hard. My waist ached from where he had grabbed me.

  “Are you?” he demanded. His face slid back into darkness. “Are you and your roommates going to tell the police?”

  I sucked in a deep breath. How should I answer?

  “No,” I told him. I lowered my gaze to the ground. “No. We’re not going to tell anyone.”

  His face moved in and out of the pale light from the street. He didn’t blink. His eyes were locked on mine. His upper lip twitched.

  Nothing else moved.

  Time didn’t move.

  “Really,” I insisted. “No lie. We’re not going to tell, Darryl.” If only my voice didn’t tremble like that.

  Did it sound to him as if I were lying?

  His face didn’t give him away. He still didn’t blink. His expression was a blank. As if he were no longer in there.

  His lip twitched again.

  “Okay,” he said finally. He sighed and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. “Okay.”

  “But you should get help,” I told him.

  I shut my eyes. Had I said the wrong thing? Was he going to explode now? Was he going to hurt me?

  He grunted. His body relaxed. He loosened his fists, let his hands drop to his sides.

  I took a breath. “You have to get your temper under control,” I said softly.

  Darryl nodded. He still hadn’t blinked. “I’m working on it,” he said.

  “Can I leave now?” I asked timidly.

  His pale eyes shimmered in the dim light. “Hey, Jasmine?”

  “What?” I asked impatiently.

  “I promise.”

  “Promise what?”

  “I promise I won’t kill again,” he told me.

  Then he gripped my wrist and squeezed it really hard. And whispered, “Unless I have to.”

  part three

  Eden

  chapter 10

  “Eden, what are you doing?” Hope called to me from across the dorm room.

  “Knitting a pair of socks. What does it look like I’m doing?” I replied sarcastically.

  She could see perfectly well what I was doing. I was hunched over my little desk, writing a letter to my mother.

  But Hope always has to poke her nose into everything.

  She crossed the room and stood over my shoulder, reading my letter. I covered it up with one hand.

  Hope laughed. A bitter laugh. “Eden, you’re such a good girl,” she said. “Writing home to Mom.”

  I didn’t say anything. I knew that Hope didn’t get along with her mother. She was always telling Angel,Jasmine, and me such terrible stories about her childhood.

  Behind me, Jasmine was sprawled on her bed, her face buried in a textbook, as usual. I didn’t know where Angel was. Probably out with some guy. It was a safe bet.

  Hope sighed. I started to write again, but she didn’t go away. “Do you know what my mom used to call me?” she asked. “Do you know what my nickname was back home?”

  “It couldn’t be worse than Fish,” Jasmine groaned. I turned and caught the bitter expression on Hope’s face. “She called me Buttertubs,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Excuse me?” I cried, dropping my felt tip pen. “Why Buttertubs?”

  Hope’s eyes watered up, as if she were about to cry. “Because I was fat,” she replied. “I wa
sn’t even fat. I was a little chubby. Like I am now.”

  “And your mother called you Buttertubs?” I cried. “All the time?”

  “Usually just when my friends were around,” Hope said. She turned her face away and wiped the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want me to see how much the memory upset her.

  In some ways, Hope is very private.

  Jasmine raised her head from her book. “She did that? Really? Your mom called you by that name in front of your friends?”

  Hope nodded. “She loved embarrassing me. It was her only hobby.”

  She sighed again, crossed her arms in front of her blue sweater, and began pacing our small room. I followed her with my eyes.

  Hope didn’t look well. She hadn’t brushed her hair. Her face, which normally had a rosy color, was kind of yellowy. And her eyes looked wet and sickly.

  She was really upset and worried about Darryl, I knew. I could always tell. Whenever Hope got worked up about Darryl, she started talking about her mother.

  Somehow the two were linked in her mind. Two bad news characters, I guess.

  Except I knew that Hope really cared about Darryl.

  “I don’t know what made me think of Mom’s nickname for me,” Hope said, pacing the room. “But that wasn’t the worst thing she did.”

  I realized Hope wasn’t talking to Jasmine and me. She was actually talking to herself.

  Jasmine lowered her head to her book. But I turned away from the desk to listen to Hope.

  “Mom was so obsessed by my weight,” Hope said, shaking her head. “She was as skinny as a rail. Really. She was as skinny as Angel. And I don’t know why it bothered her so much that she had a chubby daughter. Maybe I looked like my dad or something. I don’t know.”

  Jasmine raised her head again. “You don’t know what your dad looked like?”

  Hope shook her head. “I never met him. And Mom never kept any snapshots around.” She let out a bitter laugh and started pacing again.

  “One day I brought three kids home after school,” Hope continued. “I guess I was in fourth or fifth grade. I don’t remember.”

  She thought for a moment, then went on. “It was a hot day, and we were all hungry. So I took out a half-gallon box of ice cream from the freezer. And I dished out big bowls of chocolate ice cream for everyone.

  “Well, we were all sitting around the kitchen table. We had just started eating the ice cream when Mom popped in. She looked around the table at my friends. Then she had a total fit that I was eating ice cream.

  “She started screaming and carrying on, calling me Buttertubs in front of my friends. Then she grabbed up their ice cream bowls. Took the ice cream away from my friends and shoved all the bowls in front of me.

  “‘You like ice cream so much?’ Mom screamed. ‘Well, go ahead—eat them all.’

  “She stood over me and forced me to eat all four bowls of ice cream,” Hope continued, her mouth twisted angrily as she remembered the story.

  “My friends wanted to leave. I mean, my mother was scaring them! But she made them all stay at the kitchen table and watch me.

  “I started to cry. But Mom didn’t care. She made me eat while I was crying. She made me eat all four bowls of ice cream while my friends stared in shock.

  “Then, when I had choked down the last spoonful, Mom grabbed my head—and shoved my face into the ice cream carton. She pressed my head down and made me finish the carton. Made me lap it up—like a dog—until I’d finished it all.”

  I gasped. “You’re kidding!”

  But I could see by her expression that she wasn’t kidding. The horrible story was true.

  “Wow,” Jasmine muttered from her bed. “Wow.”

  Hope turned her back to us. Her shoulders were trembling. She swept both hands back through her unbrushed blond hair.

  “That’s why I don’t write home to Mom,” she said in a choked whisper.

  I gazed down at the letter I’d started.

  Dear Mom, it said. There’s been a little trouble here at school. A boy was murdered outside our dorm. But I don’t want you to worry. I think

  That’s as far as I’d gotten.

  “Hey—let’s go out,” Hope suggested. She forced a smile to her face. “Come on, guys. Some fresh air. Let’s go.”

  “I can’t,” Jasmine said. “I have to finish this chapter. Besides, it’s late.”

  Hope’s face fell in disappointment. She turned to me. “How about you, Eden?”

  I hesitated. I wanted to finish my letter and take a long, hot bath. But I decided that cheering up Hope was more important.

  “Okay,” I told her, jumping up. “I’ll get a sweat-shirt. Let’s go out.”

  That brought a smile to her face.

  I crossed the room to my dresser and pulled out a blue-and-gold Ivy State sweatshirt. “Hope—what do you want to do?” I asked.

  Her eyes flashed. “Get into trouble,” she replied.

  chapter 11

  We walked a couple of blocks to the Blue Tavern. It’s not really a tavern. It’s more like a pizza joint that serves beer. It’s one of the few places in town that stays open later than ten o’clock.

  Just about every table was filled with kids from the college. The room smelled of cigarette smoke, pizza sauce, and beer. Blue ceiling lights cast a dark glow over everyone.

  The restaurant has only blue lights. It’s always dark and kind of gloomy inside. No matter what time of day you visit the Blue Tavern, it always seems like midnight.

  Which, I guess, is why we like it.

  Hope and I stood at the bar for a while, waiting for a table to open up. We gazed around, peering through the smoky blue light, and didn’t say much.

  The waitresses, all dressed in short blue skirts and white blouses, scurried around. They carried pizzas and pitchers of beer on big metal trays, and struggled to squeeze through the crowded tables.

  After about twenty minutes or so, a table against the back wall opened up. Hope and I grabbed it. We ordered a pizza as soon as the waitress came around.

  “Hey—how’s it going?”

  Two guys at the next table grinned at us. I recognized one of them from my sociology class. He was kind of cute. He had very short, auburn hair and a little beard on his chin. And he had a nice smile.

  His friend looked a little like a pirate. He had a red bandanna tied around his forehead, under a pile of curly, black hair.

  “Hi,” I called back.

  Hope lowered her eyes to the table.

  “What’s up?” the cute one asked me.

  I shrugged. “Just the usual.”

  I turned back to Hope. She had hunched down low, a fretful expression on her face. She kept her eyes down.

  “What’s your problem?” I asked. “Your posture gets worse every day.”

  She didn’t smile at my joke. I suddenly realized that she never laughed or smiled at my jokes.

  I crack jokes all the time. I mean, all the time. It’s just the way I am. I think of myself as sort of sarcastic, sort of funny.

  You need a sense of humor—right? It’s my way of dealing with things. And people.

  But until that moment, I’d never realized that I could never get even a smile from Hope.

  What does she think of me? I suddenly wondered. Does she wish I’d stop making dumb jokes all the time?

  “Hey—what’s your name?” the bandanna guy called. He had to shout over the booming jukebox.

  “Eden,” I called back. “What’s yours?”

  “Gideon,” came the reply.

  He didn’t look like a Gideon. I suddenly wondered what a good nickname for Gideon would be. Gid? Giddy?

  Hope frowned and shook her head. “We’d better go,” she murmured.

  “Huh? Did you say go?” I leaned over the little table to hear her better.

  A few tables away, some guy spilled a glass of beer. The glass shattered loudly on the floor. The guys all around burst out in applause and wild laughter.

 
So many grinning blue faces. That eerie blue glow washing over everyone.

  “What’s wrong, Hope?” I asked. “We just sat down. Our pizza isn’t ready yet. Why do you want to leave?”

  She raised her eyes to the front of the restaurant, but didn’t reply.

  I felt a sudden chill.

  “Darryl?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Darryl is watching?” I asked. I turned and squinted through the smoky blue haze. I didn’t see him.

  “He’s watching,” Hope said softly. I saw her chin quiver. “I don’t want trouble, Eden.”

  “Hi.” I heard a voice. Close by. And felt a hand on my shoulder.

  I spun around to see the cute guy with the little beard grinning down at me. “You’re in my sociology class,” he said. “I’m Dave. He’s Gideon.” Gideon was also on his feet. Also grinning.

  “Can we join you?” Dave asked.

  “Well …” I hesitated. “I’m sorry, but my friend—”

  Dave’s smile faded. “What friend?” he asked.

  “Huh?” I turned back to the table.

  Hope had disappeared.

  chapter 12

  With a startled gasp, I jumped ta my feet, nearly knocking the table over.

  My eyes swept the restaurant. Squinting through the blue glare, I quickly searched for Hope.

  Had Darryl appeared and dragged her off?

  No. No way.

  I would have heard him. I would have seen him.

  Besides, Darryl would have no reason to be jealous. Unless …

  Unless he saw us and thought we were here with Dave and Gideon.

  Whoa. Slow down, I warned myself.

  Hope saw Darryl across the tavern, and she ran over to say hi to him. That’s all. That’s all there is to it.

  She isn’t in trouble. She isn’t in any danger.

  Then why didn’t she tell me she was leaving?

  My heart pounded. I suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

  I realized that the two guys were staring at me. “Are you okay?” Dave asked.

  “Yeah. Fine,” I replied. “My friend left, and I didn’t realize …” My voice trailed off.

  “Half plain, half pepperoni,” a voice announced.

  A blue-skirted waitress lowered a steaming-hot pizza to my table.