Chapter Five

In the Dark they Lay Waiting

Back and forth Von was shaken roughly to consciousness by some unknown beast. He pulled the blanket tighter over him to hide but the creature was without mercy. “Von!” a voice yelled, jumping on the bed, knowing he was awake.

Now Von knew who it was and hit him away with a fist, wanting to kill him.

Must suppress homicidal urges. If he hadn’t been so angry, he might have laughed. Instead he said coldly, pulling the blanket off of his head, “What?”

Evan was jumping back and forth over him, his cheeks flushed pink with excitement, bundled in his heavy winter coat. “It snowed!”

“So?” The blond was making him nervous. He didn't want him to miss and hit his leg. And he hadn't bothered to take off his shoes. He was going to get the sheets dirty. Stupid Evan.

“So it’s only October! Come on, get up. I want to go play before class starts!”

Von yanked the blanket back over his head. “It’s just snow. And believe me, it’s not going anywhere. We won’t see the grass again till April.”

“Really?” The boy pulled the blanket off him again and tossed it to the floor, leaving Von to shiver against the sudden chill. “Where were you on Friday? I looked for you everywhere.”

“Well you must not have looked hard enough. Avalon managed to find me.”

“I really wanted my uncle to meet you. Well, come on. Get dressed. I'll wait for you.”

With a groan he rose and dressed hurriedly, barely having time to brush his teeth and tie his shoes before an impatient Evan roughly pushed him out the door, donning his hat and scarf as he headed down the hall.

Evan held the door open as the slipped his hands into his gloves and they entered into an incredible world of infinite white.

Evan broke into a run darting through the narrow paths between the dorms, the snow continuing to fall on them, Von following him as quick as he could. “You can't catch me!” he yelled back.

You know I can't.

Despite that he continued to run after him. Other students were milling about, looking over with disinterest as they ran past. He followed Evan's turn around one of the buildings and stopped. The boy was gone. His eyes followed the tracks in the snow. There had been far too many students trampling through the alley way to figure out which ones belonged to that idiot but he'd be a fool not to notice that Evan had led him into a trap. He took a step back.

Where was Evan hiding? Probably just around the corner. He continued to back up silently. Suddenly the blond appeared, pelting a snowball at him, watching as it hit his shoulder then running away in laughter.

It hadn't hurt but it was annoying just the same. Dropping to his knees he gathered the snow together packing it into a tight ball of ice. He sat himself against the wall of the building below a window, hugging his arms around his knees and waited with the snowball safely out of sight between him and the building. Evan would be back soon enough.

He didn't have to wait long. “Von?” he heard him say as he hurried toward him. “I'm sorry. I didn't think that would hurt you. I'm truly sorry.”

When Evan was close enough he grabbed the snowball and flung it at the blond's chest, smiling at the stunned expression on his face. He jumped to his feet and ran back the way they'd come, zig zagging through the city of buildings, hoping to lose his friend.

“You wank!” Evan screamed from behind. “Get back here.” Every few moments a snowball would fling past him or he'd feel it hit his back. When he came around a turn he'd make one and quickly toss it at the blond. It was sort of fun. Evan probably would've caught him by now if he didn't keep stopping to make snowballs.

He looked back to gage Evan's position when he felt himself crash into something very hard and very solid, a snowball just missing him as he fell, hitting the massive creature before him in the chest.

Von had run into one of a group of the older kids, seniors perhaps, the one he'd hit looked down on him with the bemused interest as though he were a mere insect that had landed on his hand. Evan skidded to a halt in the icy terrain, eyes wide.

The boy looked at Evan with a smirk before lowering his eyes to Von. “So you brats wanna play?” He was very tall and his shoulders were very broad. He could hurt things.

“Sixth graders,” one of his friends murmured.

The third of the trio hopped down from the air conditioning duct he'd been sitting on and started to scoop up some snow with gloved hands with an evil grin. “Yeah, let's play.”

Evan darted forward, grabbing Von's arm. “Get up!” he yelled, pulling him to his feet. Not letting go, he pulled Von along as the three boys started after them.

“Evan! I can't!” His leg was hurting again. The run before had strained it enough. He couldn't keep up with Evan's pace. The boys were hurling snowball after snowball at them with deadly accuracy and far more force than Evan had. Von was hit in the back of the head and he felt a wave of dizziness grip him, losing his balance and taking Evan with him to the ground.

Von pulled his arms over his head as they surrounded them and let loose with the balls of ice, trying not to make a sound as they hit. The close range made it feel as though his body were being his with a large, cold hammer.

“Leave us alone!” Evan yelled.

“We're just playing,” one of them said, laughing, smashing his last directly onto the blond's head. When they'd had their fun they sauntered away, remarking about the uselessness of the underclassmen.

“Nice job, Evan.”

He picked up a clump of snow and threw it in his face. “You started it.”

Von threw some back. “I started it. Who was it that threw one in the first place?”

“I can't hear you. You should speak up sometimes.”

He picked up another clump of snow, tossing it at him.

“Stop it!”

Von stood, standing shaky leaning on his left leg as he brushed off the snow from his clothes. The cold kind of numbed the pain in his hip. “I don't suppose we have time to go back to the dorms to change before class.”

Evan looked around, wiping the snow from his face. His eyes were red.

“You're not crying, are you?”

“No! One of the snowballs hit my nose. It hurts.”

“Doesn't look broken.”

“Let's just go.”

The mill of students seemed to have disappeared he noticed as he looked around. “Looks like we're late.” He glance sidelong at the blond. “Still like the snow, Evan?”

“Shut up.”

They scurried to their separate classes, arriving mere seconds after the bell's ring. Von spent the first class drying out.

With Parent's Weekend's passing the signs were quickly replaced with those advertising the different activities for Halloween, he saw as he walked passed after History. There was a dance being held that Thursday night, of which only those in ninth grade and above were permitted. The lower grades each had their individual activities. This year the sixth and seventh graders were having a small costume party in one of the dorm buildings. The eighth graders were going to camp out on campus.

Very intelligent; sleeping outside when it was freezing.

He sneezed.

“Bless you,” a boy said at his back.

Daniel.

“What do you want?”

“Are you going to the costume party?” the other boy asked. His hair was unbrushed per usual and his clothes rumpled. Von momentarily wondered if they did give demerits for that after all. They had said so at orientation. He could ask.

“Probably not.” He wouldn't ask.

“Oh. I'm not sure if I'm going, either.”

They continued to walk in silence. Half expecting Daniel to follow him in he entered his classroom without a word. He could feel the quiet boy staring after him.

This was another class he shared with Avalon. She was already seated at the table. “Hey,” she greeted.

“Hi.”

“Wasn't so bad Saturday, was it?”

He shrugged.

She opened her sketch book. Neither of then possessed a talent for art but her drawings were...interesting. Even if you couldn't tell what they were supposed to be.

“I tried to draw a fly on a leaf.”

“Why does it have eyebrows?” he asked.

“It looked weird without them,” she quipped. “Why is your hair wet?”

“Wanna read my English homework?”

xXxXx

Evan's roommate Ian Horne never said much to them when they studied in the dorm, usually quite absorbed in whatever game he was playing on his computer or his Gameboy. After a while he would join his friends, leaving them alone.

Evan had caught him after his last class. Kamryn had some kind of study group to attend so the blond had dragged him to his dorm so they could do their homework together. As Von checked over his homework for errors with the radio blasting Evan was rifling through his closet. “What should I dress up as, Von?” He glanced at Evan's for comparison. His antagonist had two of the answers wrong. He wouldn't tell him.

“An annoying British kid,” he suggested in a bored tone, flipping through the math booklet. This stuff was unbelievably easy. His father had taught him how to do the material even in the back of the book. Well, that guaranteed him an A for the year, didn't it?

“I am not annoying. I want to be something no one else will.”

“I doubt anyone else would be an annoying British kid. And even if they were, you'd be the most believable.”

“What are you going to be?”

“Maybe I'll be an annoying British kid. I'll walk up to people and tell them it's a jolly good party and that I have to use the lavatory.”

“Just tell me.”

“Nothing. I'm not going. I don't like parties. Why do you have so many clothes? We mainly wear our uniforms anyway.”

Continuing to pull the contents out of the closet he said, “I'm willing to bet that you've never been to a party in your life.”

“I don't want to go to that stupid party.”

“You're coming. We can dress alike. We could be—we could be Burke and Hare! The Body Snatchers! It would be incredibly appropriate since we're going to the cemetery afterwards.”

“And how does one dress up as a body snatcher?”

“We could wear black suits. And carry shovels. And rope. And no one will know who we are! It'll be wicked.”

The idea did intrigue him. “I'll think about it.”

“Oh, you're coming.”

xXxXx

Halloween night found him again in Evan's room, dressed in a borrowed jacket and dress shirt with a pair of black slacks. Evan was tying his tie for him.

“I'm surprised you don't know how to do this. With your father being who he is I would've imagined you'd have been to dozens of functions and the like.”

He pulled away at the mention of his father, tightening the tie. “My mother always did it for me,” he muttered. He disliked ties. They were nothing but a decorated noose around the throat.

Their weapons of choice, a couple shovels and a cluster of rope, had been taken from a gardening shed directly after class. No one had been using them.

He didn't feel well. Hadn't since the romp in the snow. He fell back on Ian's bed with his eyes closed as Evan finished dressing, wishing he could just return to his room and retire to an endless sleep. Eternal sleep in which you would never dream. The idea was beguiling.

Too soon Evan was ready and he hoisted himself to his feet. Why did he always give in to Evan?

When they arrived, Evan immediately spotted Kamryn sitting alone at the end of the couch in the corner of the common room watching some idiotic movie playing on the TV, dressed in an over-sized black shirt and black jeans, with a pointed had that indicated she was supposed to be a witch. He followed Evan as the blond went straight towards the object of his affection.

Noticing Evan, she gave a slight smile as they approached. Evan held his shovel aloft in a pose and with a grin asked, “Come on, Kami, who are we supposed to be?”

She shrugged.

He held the shovel high and menacing and poked Von to hold the rope up. “Come on. Any idea?”

She giggled. “Not a clue.”

“Burke and Hare,” he groaned.

“Oh. The Body Snatchers. Who's who?”

“I'm supposed to be Burke,” Von told her, dropping onto the other end of the couch. “Because he's the one who was caught and executed, I'm guessing” he said, giving Evan a look. He had taken the liberty of looking them up online after the suggestion. But Evan's eyes were glued to Kamryn.

Activities were going on around them including bobbing for apples and a makeshift haunted house going through the second floor hall. There was a line for it down the stairs

He noticed Avalon across the room, dressed in some kind of purple gypsy outfit. She caught his eye and skipped towards them.

“And who are you supposed to be?” she asked the two of them.

“You wouldn't appreciate it,” Evan told her stubbornly. “We're the Body Snatchers.”

“And just who's body are you trying to snatch?”

“Mine,” Kamryn said softly from the couch. “But they're very bad at it.” She looked at them seriously. “Carrying the shovels and rope isn't very subtle.”

Avalon smiled, leaning on the arm of the couch by Von. “I'm Avalon,” she introduced.

“Kamryn Synthell.”

“Avalon's in our English class,” Evan explained.

She poked the back of Von's head. “Come check out the haunted hallway with me.”

“You're not even asking me anymore.”

“Come on,” she whined, poking him again. “It'll be fun.”

Begrudgingly he followed her, watching Evan as he plopped down on the couch, much closer to Kamryn than where he'd been sitting.

“We'll be here,” Evan told him with a smirk.

“Is that his girlfriend?” Avalon asked as they waited in line. The ones in charge were letting only two people in at a time.

“He pretends she is.”

The hallway was disappointing. Not much more than strobe lights and sheets hung to give the illusion of a maze. They had a banquet whose dishes included boiled spaghetti as “worms” and peeled grapes as “eyes.” At a couple of turns one of their classmates would jump out and scare them. Avalon screamed every time.

They came back to the couple, Avalon laughing about how fake everything had been. Von wondered if he should remind her she'd been the one to scream. Evan said bye to Kamryn and excused them, taking Von's arm as he pulled him towards the door.

“You dragged me here and now you're dragging me out.”

“So,” Evan said with a smirk. “Are you ready? Or are you scared?”

“I thought you wanted to wait until midnight.”

Evan nodded, pulling on his coat, his blond hair reflecting the light eerily from the strobe lights placed over the door. “Well I was thinking that you're right. If we were to be caught we would only get ourselves into more trouble. But if we go now they can't say anything since it's before curfew, except that we're a little weird. Besides, it's dark already.”

“Then let's go,” Von told him, walking into the darkness.

There were few people mingling around in the hall and once out of the dorm he pulled out the flashlight he'd also taken from the shed. They dropped their borrowed weapons on the ground beside the dorm and continued into the night.

It was darker than Von thought it would be, the only light aside from the flashlight illuminating the ground before them coming from the distant bonfires of the eighth grade overnight camp; the only sound their steps making soft crunching noises in the hardened snow. The sky was cloudless. And also without a moon. There must've been a billion stars watching over them in the sky.

“It's cold,” Evan whined.

“You insisted.” Stumbling through the snow for five minutes was already making his leg ache and he knew he'd be up all night dealing with the pain, but the sight of his friend discomforted and out of his element would be worth it. A thousandfold over.

“When I made this suggestion I didn't think it would be this cold.”

They followed the snow covered path along the road in the direction of the cemetery.

“What if there are wolves?” Evan inquired worriedly.

“You don't have to worry about wolves here. Trigger happy hunters have all but wiped them out. I'd be more concerned with bears.” Von hid a grin with his hand at Evan's panicked expression.

“Maybe we should go back.”

“No!” he told him sternly. “You wanted to go to the stupid cemetery and tell stupid scary stories, so that's what we're going to do. Don't tell me you're chickening out now?”

“No!” he snapped. “I just think the smart thing would be to head back.”

“You're just scared,” he teased, flashing the light in Evan's eyes, causing the blond to squint. He flicked the light towards the gravestones. “We're here.”

“Why is there a cemetery on campus anyways?”

“This was a town before it was a school. People die in towns.

“You got comfortable here well quick.”

With no set destination Von marched into the graveyard with Evan at his back, choosing to stop before a white stone in the center. Together before the grave they knelt across from each other; Von leaned the flashlight upwards against the marker. “You go first.”

But Evan was staring at the grave. “Elizabeth Anne Jones,” he read. “Nineteen-sixty-two to 1979. She was only seventeen.”

“People die every day of every age. Should it surprise you so much?” He made himself sound nonchalant about it but his eyes were glued to the stone as well. “Go your turn.”

“I still have to go?” he whined.

“You said you'd scare me, so go ahead and try. I don't think you can.”

It was meant as a challenge and by the glare Evan cast at him it was clear he was taking it.

“This is a story my father told me when I was younger,” he began. “It was a Halloween night and a group of teenagers had gathered for a merry party. There was one girl amongst them and the boys had decided to toy with her for the night.

“There was a cemetery down the street and the leaders of the boys\ told her 'You should never stand on a grave after dark. The dead person inside would grab you and pull you down with them.' She didn't believe him and he bet her a dollar to do it.”

Evan pulled a blunt butter knife from the cafeteria from his coat pocket and pressed it into Von's gloved hand. It shone bright with the reflection of the flashlight. “Stick the knife in one of the graves and we'll know you've been there.”

Von stared at it for a moment. “Do you actually want me to stab the grave?”

“You're ruining the moment, Von.”

He took the knife from Evan's hand and plunged it into the dirt. “It's nothing but dirt.”

“Will you shut up and let me finish my story?” He cleared his throat, grasping Von's arm. “After she stabbed the grave she went to stand but found she was being held.” He pulled him forward. “She screamed and screamed for help but no help met her. She couldn't get away. Finally, after realizing she'd never come back, the boys who'd teased her went looking for her. And they found her crumpled up dead on the grave. She'd stabbed the knife through her own skirt, and it was only the knife that held her there. She'd died of nothing but fright.”

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”

Evan let go of his arm with an annoyed expression. “Well it scared me when my dad told it to me.”

“You're father is undoubtedly more skilled at telling stories then. She was an idiot. Why bother going to the cemetery in the first place? Obviously they didn't want her around if they were trying to send her away. She would've been better off hanging around some girls. And dying of fright? What a stupid way to die.”

“What would you have done?”

“I would've stopped to see what was holding me and figure out a way to get away from it, even if it were the hand of a corpse. She had the knife. She could've grabbed it and stabbed the thing. Even the dead can be startled enough for her to make her escape. Anyway, it's my turn now.” He pushed himself closer to Evan, switching off the flashlight and casting them in total darkness. He could barely see the other boy's face. Good. Everything was presentation, his father once told him. Presentation and perspective.

Evan looked unsettled by the sudden absence of light.

“There was a boy once,” he started. “Not much older than you and me. The only child of a small family that lived in a small house. It was an old house. The last of an old suburban track that was to be demolished and paved over with freeways and interstates. They weren't rich but they weren't starving either. And in their small backyard was a freezer. To be more precise it was a meat locker. The father was a butcher, you see.”

He had Evan's attention. And as he spoke, he never took his eyes off the blond. He kept his voice low, so Evan would have to lean close to listen.

“The mother had a dislike for the freezer. She hated the brutality of her husband, slaughtering once living and breathing creatures. Leaving them lumps of dead red matter to hang in the locker. She couldn't stomach it. So when it came time to cook she sent her only son to fetch the meat for dinner. They could never have a dinner without meat, for the father wouldn't allow it.

“He hated his daily chore. Leaving the door open wide, letting in the flies and beetles to freeze to death for once the door had shut, he would get it. Keeping his back to the wall, never believing the slabs of frozen beef were really and truly dead. Because he could feel their eyes, their millions of invisible eyes, watching his every move. He thought they were angry at the way they were cut up and hung, waiting to be devoured. And watching him. Always watching him. In the yard. In the house. Even in the bath. They were always with him. And on the inside of him, too, from when he had eaten them at dinner.

“And one day, he heard them calling for him. Or he thought he heard. Voices chiming and calling and screaming to set them free. But meat couldn't talk. And meat couldn't see. So he ran. Maybe, if he ran far enough, they would stop, and things would make sense again.

“Out the door he ran, into the street five miles long filled with nothing but the ruins of demolished buildings. He had nowhere to go, really. His mother would be getting dinner ready shortly. And she would send him to fetch the meat. There wasn't a thing in this world that could make him return to the locker. With an outer calm that didn't reflect his inner turmoil at coming any closer to the backyard he strode towards the only home he'd ever had. The house was still.

“His mother wasn't in the kitchen, though the potatoes and carrots had been set out, ready to be cut and join their brother, the meat, for consumption. It felt eerie, almost. He searched the house for her, trying to retain his calm disposition. By chance he passed a window that glimpsed upon the backyard and he stopped when he spied the open freezer door.

“Had his mother perhaps gone to fetch the meat herself? But that was unlikely being she abhorred it a much as he. Slowly he opened the door and stepped away from the house. The backyard was small and fenced in. An old chain link fence that had always felt like a cage. A prison. He stepped forward slowly, opening his mouth to call for her but he couldn't muster a sound. He cocked his head around the door to glimpse inside and almost couldn't register what he was seeing. It couldn't be! It just couldn't.

“His mother hung from a hook, the metal protruding from her forehead from where she had been staked upon it. The blood was caked and hardened. A fly rested upon her temple drinking up the sweet goodness of her liquidized life. Her eyes were open. And they were staring up in shocked surprise. And they would be always.

“A sound came into his throat then, something between a scream and cry. But he was in too much shock to notice. All he knew was he had to get away. He stepped backward. Then again, and searched frantically for a way out. The only exits to go back into the house or to jump the fence and flee into the trees. The sound of his father sharpening his knives filtering from the back of the locker drew him to a quick decision. The fence was closer. And the trees could hide him.

“In an instant he was over the fence and running through the brush, not even noticing as leaves and branches hit him, cutting his skin. And soon he was lost.

“His fathers voice called to him. Nearer than he should be. Had he noticed he was there? Had he followed? Too scared to think he ran with an animals instinct. But he could feel the eyes. They were on the trees. Everything was connected! They all worked together. The meat, the trees, and his father. They were all searching for him. And he'd never get away. His only hope was to run. To break free of this cage. 'Evan,' his father's voice rang again. Too close, too close.

“He wove around the trees, trying to remember when he'd been there before. He must get away, must get away. Everything was turning around him so fast. And then, he felt something cold and hard pierce his skin. His father stood, tall and mean, looking down with blank eyes. He lowered his gaze to his chest. It was bright red now. He'd impaled himself on his fathers blade. But before he died, his father smiled at him.”

Von smiled at the conclusion of his story and the blank look of horror on Evan's face.

“That was sick.”

“What's wrong? Are you scared?”

“This was a stupid idea. Let's go back.” He made a grab for the flashlight but Von beat him to it.

“I think you are scared. It's just a story,” he told him with false sweetness.

Evan stood. “We had our fun. Let's go now.”

Von turned on the flashlight and shone it in front of them as he came to his feet. “And you say I'm boring.”

Evan stopped suddenly, his eyes wide. “Von!” he cried softly. “Von, what is that?”

Von directed the light in the direction Evan was looking. “What?” The blond sounded terrified.

“Tell me this is a joke of yours!”

“I don't see anything!” he yelled, getting unnerved. It was dark. Bad things lingered in the dark.

Evan chuckled. “Did I scare you?” he asked with a grin. Von thought he looked quite evil.

He walked back a couple steps. “You want to be scared?” he asked angrily. He switched off the flashlight and bolted for the campus.

“Von!” Evan screamed behind him. “That's not fair! Come back here! VON!”

He ignored him. He remembered the route from before and didn't need the light. Oh his leg was going to kill him tomorrow! If Evan didn't first. Not soon enough did the dorms come into view. He dashed through the front door and fell against the wall, trying to catch his breath. He heard the flashlight fall to the floor. He felt as though he would pass out any moment.

“Von, are you alright?” a voice asked from the stairs.

Looking towards it's source he saw Nathan McKinley descending the stairs, his arm around a pretty brunette.

“Don't you's have a dance to be at?”

The girl laughed. “We already went to the dance.” She kissed Nathan deeply on the lips, Von even saw their tongues brush.

He looked away, red-faced with embarrassment for having seen such a thing.

“You're so cute,” she said to Von as she headed out the door. She even had the audacity to ruffle his hair. “Bye, Nathan.”

“Bye, Kelly.” The dark haired ninth-grader looked down at Von with a pitying smile. “You really look like crap, Von. What were you up to?”

“Nothing. What were you? Girls aren't allowed in your room.”

Nathan's smile deepened, his green eyes sparkling with excitement. “We were making out,” he boasted. “You know what that is?”

He shook his head.

“You wanna know? I'll tell you.”

He shook his head again. “I want to go to bed.”

“Where's your partner in crime?”

“We didn't do anything wrong,” he said quickly. Too quickly.

Nathan laughed. “Go to bed, then.”

He was thankful he was on the first floor and didn't have to climb any stairs. He finally managed to get to his room after limping through the hall. For a moment Nathan looked as though he were about to offer his help, but he must've thought better of it.

Closing the door behind him he stripped of his clothes. Not even bothering to change into his pajamas he swallowed his nightly medication without water and collapsed on the bed.

xXxXx

He was a dreaming a dream. It would be difficult to dream anything else. And Elizabeth Anne Jones sat before him drinking tea out of decorated teacup with painted pink flowers. Her hair was blond and her eyes a clear blue but she seemed desaturated somehow, almost like a photograph fading to sepia with age.

Elle.

xXxXx

He awoke in a sweat yet he was cold. He had never gotten under the blankets. Well, that was a first. Even in the middle of summer he always had to sleep with a blanket pulled over his head. He must've been completely exhausted. What had woken him?

He rolled over onto his back, his body crying out with protest for every muscle he moved. What had he dreamed about, anyway? L? The letter? No, Elle. Elizabeth Anne Jones.

The graveyard must've really freaked him out but he'd been too tired to notice. Why else would he be dreaming about someone he'd never known? A girl with blue eyes, no less.

The clock read 3:14. He grabbed his pain killers and chewed down another one. He needed sleep. They still had class the next day. He glanced back at the clock. Coincidence. Had to be.

Crawling under the covers he fell back to sleep. And if he dreamed, he didn't remember.

xXxXx

His body felt the nights adventure the next day and it was with a lot of effort he got ready for class. At least it was Friday, which meant he could sleep in a little later that night. Saturday classes were held at later times.

To his immense surprise Evan was waiting for him at the end of the hall. He was sure the blond would be mad at him.

“You're mean,” Evan said to him as he approached.

“And you're British. What of it?”

“I was well scared last night after you left. It took me at least an hour to get back to campus. You can at least say you're sorry.”

“I'm sorry you made me mad.”

“I guess that's good enough.” He fell into step beside him. He laughed. “I kept thinking about your stupid story last night. Why did you make the boys name Evan?”

“To bother you.”

“Worked like a charm, then. But I did manage to scare you. At least a little. Or else you wouldn't have run away. So I won the bet.”

“What bet?”

“That I couldn't scare you.”

“We didn't bet on that.”

“Yes we did, only we didn't use the actual word.”

“To make a bet you have to use the word bet. Or wager. Or something like that. I said I didn't think you can scare me.”

“Which is clearly a challenged. And one in which I rose to and succeeded. No, don't say another word. I won the bet and you're a sore loser. See you in class.”

He ran ahead of him, joining a group of boys their age that must've been friends of his.

The fact that Evan had other friends shouldn't surprise him because of Evan's popularity, but it did, seeing how steadfast Evan usually clung to him.

He can't hold a grudge. That was useful to know, at the least.

They met that day after classes outside the dorms and headed towards Brayton Hall in the snow as though yesterday had been but a dream. Now that it was cold Evan didn't insist on going the longest way possible. Von thought he should be suspect of a trap but really he didn't think Evan was plotting anything. If he was it would show all over his face. He was a terrible liar. He'd only been fooled the night before because Evan anger had made him believable.

Von sneezed. His cold was getting worse. He turned to look back.

“What?”

“Thought I heard something.”

“You sneezed. You made a sound. Bless you, by the way.”

“No, I--”

“Come on.” Evan grabbed him by the arm and hurried him along now that the building was in view. “Kami's probably already waiting for us.” Before the building Evan came to a halt. “Eh, Von, I just thought of something.”

“What?”

“That knife. We left it sticking out of her grave, didn't we?”

“Yeah, we did.” He'd forgotten about that

“We should probably go get it, shouldn't we. It's not like she died a hundred years ago. She probably still as family around. What if they came to visit her? What would they think if they saw that?”

“You go get it. It was your idea.” He started walking again. He didn't ever want to step even a toe in that place ever again.

“On the way back. Let's all go together. And we'll have Kami with us, too.”

It wasn't much warmer inside. If anything it was colder now in the absence of the sun's warmth. Kamryn was indeed waiting for them in the schola, bundled in a thick blue coat. “I'll never get used to these winters,” she told them rubbing her gloves against her face for warmth.

“You'll warm up after running around a bit,” Evan assured her. “Do you want to go first, Kami?”

“Sure.” She covered her eyes with tiny fingers and counted as they ran in separate directions from the schola.

Von tried never to hide in the same place twice. Today he headed for the second floor. Evan seemed to be remaining on the first. The stairs groaned as he hurried up them. From the cold most likely. It was a creepy sort of sound, echoing through the corridor of the abandoned building, like calling out to some unseen beast.

Today he hid in a closet that held old supplies made useless by time. He crawled into the small space amidst old and rotting textbooks, making himself comfortable using his hood as a pillow.

He wasn't there long when he heard an angry Evan yell. “What are you doing here?”

It was unusual for Evan to yell like that. He hurried out of the closet and down the steps, which again moaned under his weight. Evan and Kamryn stood before a startled copper haired girl standing in the middle of the lobby. Avalon.

“I just wanted to know where you guys went every day. You're never at Assembly.”

“So you followed us?” Evan asked menacingly.

“It's not like I'm going to tell on you,” she barked defensively. “I was just curious. And it's not like either of you would've told me if I asked.”

“So you spy on us?”

“I wasn't spying! Was I trying to hide that I followed you?”

“Leave her alone,” he told Evan from the stairs.

The blond didn't look happy but kept his mouth shut, casting an angry glare at Avalon.

“We play Hide and Seek,” Kamryn explained to her, stepping forward. “It's really a lot of fun because we have the whole building. You can play, too, if you want.”

“No,” Evan said. “Before we let you in you have to prove yourself trustworthy to us. A right of initiation, if you will.”

“What do I have to do, then?” She sat on the back of one of the lone chairs in the hall, leaning it forward with her weight, looking him in the eye. “Some kind of dare?”

Evan rubbed his chin thoughtfully, making a grand show of it. Then he smiled at Von.

What's he planning?

“Yes, a dare. You have to go to the cemetery.”

Von felt the corner of his mouth twitch threatening to become a grin. There was one answer to their problem.

“Okay. Big deal.” She stood.

“Not just that. There's a grave in the middle. One with a big white stone. It belongs to Elizabeth Anne Jones. There's a knife in front of the stone. Your job is to retrieve it.”

Kamryn looked at him with a funny expression as she twisted a short lock of her light brown hair. “Why is there a knife on a grave?”

“Were you two performing some kind of crazy Satanic ritual after you rushed off last night?” Avalon asked.

Von tried not to laugh. “We'll explain later. Go get the knife.”

“I'm not going to find some poor defenseless creature pinned to the grave as a sacrifice, am I?”

“Not unless it's a bug that got in the way.”

“I want an explanation,” Kamryn pressed Evan.

“Well, if Avalon will hurry and go when she comes back I'll tell everything.”

Taking that as a cue Avalon started towards the door eying them warily. “If this is some kind of joke I'm going to hurt you both.” She slammed the door behind her.

“Two birds with one stone,” Evan announced proudly.

“I would really like to know why you put a knife on a grave, Evan. That's sacrilege.”

“Oh, it wasn't me. Von did it.”

“Because of you.”

“Anyway, we have time to waste until Avalon comes back so let's go back to playing,” Evan went on. “Kamryn, go count again.”

She walked slowly back towards the schola. “I want an explanation, Evan.”

“Oh, you'll get it. Now go. Count.”

This time Von chose to hide on the first floor so he'd know exactly when Avalon returned. He hid in a wall cubby at the end of the hall covered by a grate that was easily lifted. It reminded him of the dumbwaiter back home. Perhaps this had been one once. After the first couple forays he'd spent the majority of their playtime exploring rather than hiding and now probably knew the place better than either of them, memorizing the existence of every closet and crawlspace. His maps were kept safely in between the pages of a huge dictionary in his room.

Pushing himself into the shadows he could still see out while it would be difficult for them to see him inside. Though he couldn't see the door he did have an excellent view of the stairs, and he would be able to hear Avalon open the door. Evan also stayed on the first floor he saw as the boy came from one of the rooms only to enter another.

“One hundred!” Kamryn cried from the schola, emerging seconds later. She went up the stairs first, probably since she'd seen him coming down them. They made a lot of noise.

After she'd disappeared up to the second floor Evan appeared exiting one of the rooms on that floor and darting into the old bathroom off to Von's right. Eventually Evan made his way up the stairs trying to be as quiet as possible and it wasn't long before he heard Kamryn call him dead. There was a soft thunk as Evan's body hit the floor. The floor boards creaked above him and he watched with dark eyes as dust and settlement descended from the wood as something passed over.

They didn't sound that close.

The door opened then, pulling his attention from the sound, and he watched Avalon enter the building, her coppery hair spilling out as she pulled back her hood. In her right hand she gripped the butter knife, now stained with graveyard dirt. “I'm back,” she called out, looking around uncertainly. Perhaps she thought they'd run off.

He felt the wall shake as something jumped onto the landing of the stairs. “I see Avalon,” Evan yelled. “You're dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes. Now die a glorious death! We all do it.”

For a moment she looked at him with a disbelieving expression, and then, with a steady hand she brought the dull side of the knife across her throat and fell down.

“Well done, Avalon. Now you can be privy to our meetings.”

Sitting up she twirled the knife unskillfully in a gloved hand. “Now tell me what this was doing stabbed into the dirt of a grave. It was kind of creepy.”

Von pulled himself unnoticed from his hiding place, appearing seemingly from nowhere, watching Evan as he descended the stairs. “We were telling scary stories last night in the cemetery. A girl stabbed a grave in one of them and I told Von to do it because I was trying to scare him. Didn't work too well.”

“You should never do that,” Kamryn said softly behind him. “Don't mess with the dead. You never know what you might wake up.”

“We're still alive aren't we. Nothing creepy or bad has happened to us since yesterday. Has it, Von?”

“No...” He thoughts drifted to his dream the night before. But dreams didn't mean anything.

“What?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Nothing's happened. I'm just tired from yesterday, is all.”

Avalon lifted the knife. “Do you want this back?”

“No,” Evan told her. “Keep it. My present to you. So let's play. It's simple. Someone is It. And that person counts to one-hundred in the schola and then comes looking. When they see someone they yell that they're dead and that person falls to the floor until everyone is found and dead. The last person becomes the next It. When you hide you can hide anywhere in this building and you can move around.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“It's Von's turn to be It.”

Without a word he turned into the schola and began to count.