CASSIDY WAS PAINFULLY AWARE that everyone in the room already knew that she had recently shown up an hour late for a class. News like that traveled around campus faster than the common cold.
She drew herself up to her full five feet, two-and-a-half inches. “But I’m sure my invitation said the party was tonight,” she protested. Even as she said it, she could hear again her own voice saying, “But I’m sure my clock said eight, not nine.” Right.
But she was sure this time. Tonight’s date had been on the invitation, printed neatly in black ink. She remembered thinking that it was pretty short notice for a party. She wouldn’t have thought that if next Friday’s date had been on the purple card.
“Maybe Cath made a mistake and put down the wrong date,” Jess said in that same gentle voice. Her dark eyes were sympathetic.
She sounds like she’s talking to someone who is feebleminded, Cassidy thought with a flash of resentment. She was immediately ashamed. Jess was just trying to be kind.
“I didn’t make any mistakes,” Cath Devon said, getting to her feet to join Jess and Cassidy in the wide doorway. “I don’t make mistakes like that. You must have read it wrong, Cassidy.”
As any feebleminded person would, Cassidy heard. She felt suddenly dizzy. “But there are all those cars out there,” she said weakly, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole. By morning, everyone on campus would know that Cassidy Kirk had shown up for a party-that-wasn’t.
“We’re having a meeting,” Jess explained. “Student government.”
A meeting. The cars parked along the driveway were there for a meeting, not a party.
Cassidy took an awkward step backward, wanting desperately to escape. So many pairs of eyes looking straight at her, so many voices silenced by embarrassment…for her.
I should make a joke, she thought as she valiantly battled tears of humiliation. I should laugh and say something like, “Just wanted to check up on how our student government is doing, make sure you guys aren’t goofing off.”
But some inner instinct told her the joke would fall flat.
“I guess I must have read the invitation wrong, after all,” she squeezed out between clenched teeth. “Sorry I interrupted your meeting.” Then she turned and headed for the front door.
Cath followed. “You’ll come next week, though, right?”
Cassidy almost laughed aloud. She’s trusting me to get the time and date right? she thought bitterly.
“Sure!” she called over her shoulder as she yanked the front door open, hurried across the porch, and ran lightly down the steps, “I’ll be here. Count on it!”
If she hadn’t died of embarrassment by then.
She could feel Cath’s concerned eyes following her down the driveway. The back of her neck felt like it was on fire. Although her legs moved like wooden boards, she walked as fast as she could, thinking that the driveway had lengthened by miles since she first went into the house.
Unwilling to wait for a shuttle, Cassidy began walking rapidly up the road toward campus. There was almost no traffic. Normal people who got their dates and times right were inside somewhere having a grand time and wouldn’t be back on the road until it was time to go home. Only Cassidy Kirk, who seemed to be losing either her eyesight or her mind, was trudging along a cold, dark road all alone.
As she walked, huddled deep inside her leather jacket for protection against a sudden cold wind that swept out of the thick, black woods on her right, she remembered that Sawyer hadn’t actually said, “I can’t go to the party at Nightmare Hall tonight.” He had said only, “I can’t see you tonight.” And then she hadn’t mentioned the party because she didn’t want to make him feel any worse than he already did about having to study.
And Ann’s note, she remembered, hadn’t said, “See you later at the party.” Ann’s words had been, “We’ll catch up with you later.” She hadn’t said where.
But someone, sometime during the week, must have mentioned, what night the party was taking place.
Yes, she remembered, they had. But each time, the actual date hadn’t been mentioned, only the vague phrase, “Friday night.” No one had said, “next Friday night.” Just “Friday.”
Because, she thought, scuffing her foot angrily, everyone took it for granted that any idiot who could read an invitation knew the party wasn’t this week.
Cassidy had never walked up the road alone at night. She’d never had to. She decided she didn’t like it. The wind from the woods made a harsh, eerie, whispering sound, tugging at her clothes and hair, stinging her cheeks. Campus suddenly seemed much further away than she’d anticipated when she began walking.
Headlights from a lone oncoming car illuminated the road briefly, then swept on past Cassidy. She was once again alone on a dark, deserted road.
She had been so absolutely certain about the date on that invitation.
What was wrong with her? This was so terrifying, seeing things that weren’t there, getting things all wrong. Not like her at all.
She was so lost in misery that she never heard the car until it was right there beside her, a huge hunk of metal so black it was almost invisible in the darkness. As it slowly, quietly, pulled up beside her, the right sideview mirror gently nudged her left elbow.
Even before she turned her head to look, she knew it was the TransAm.
She stopped walking.
The car stopped, too, but its engine continued to murmur.
A scream welled up inside her throat, but she swallowed it. What good would that do? There was no one around to hear it.
What did he want with her? And how had he known she was out here?
Cassidy glanced uncertainly around her. The car was blocking access to the road. Not that it would do her any good to run in that direction, anyway. If there were cars, she’d run the risk of being splattered all over the blacktop, and if there weren’t cars, dashing out onto the road wouldn’t accomplish anything except making her a better target for the TransAm. And running into the woods would be stupid without a flashlight.
She was safer right where she was, on the berm of the road. If she had to, she could always dive into the ditch on her right, between the road and the woods. Half-filled with cold, muddy water from recent rains, it looked unappetizing. But the car couldn’t follow her into the ditch.
One thing she was very sure of. She was not retreating to Nightmare Hall. The way they’d all looked at her when they realized she was there for a party…no way was she going to go running back there to say that an eerie, creepy car was stalking her.
The black lump of metal sat beside her, humming.
Murmuring.
Waiting.
It hadn’t been a good day for Cassidy. First the surprise test, then the party mix-up, not a good day at all. I am not in the mood for any stupid auto-pedestrian games, Cassidy decided, and in a sudden burst of temper, kicked out viciously at the TransAm’s right front tire. Her foot connected with a loud thunk.
She wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
The car’s horn bleated angrily in response to the blow. The engine roared, the wheels spun, spraying Cassidy with a shower of gravel before veering sharply to the right as if the car intended to drive straight across the water-filled ditch and into the woods. When the TransAm was positioned sideways on the berm, directly in front of Cassidy, the passenger’s door suddenly swung open, slamming into her.
The suddenness of the maneuver caught Cassidy off guard. As the door flew open, she caught only a glimpse of the face hidden beneath a floppy, cream-colored hood before she was struck in her midsection. She let out a soft, startled cry of surprise as the blow knocked her off her feet. She flew backward, landing full force on her back in the grass beside the berm, the breath knocked out of her.
She was too stunned to move as the door slammed shut, the TransAm shot backward, spun around, and with a triumphant blast of its horn, roared away, up the road toward campus.