Chapter 11

The hours before ten o’clock Tuesday night seemed to number into the hundreds. They weighed on Abby like a ton of bricks instead of minutes and seconds.

She went to classes, studied, tried to study. Both Monday and Tuesday nights she went to the chem lab and worked on her extra-credit project.

Tuesday night Stan was in the chem lab before her, since she’d spent time in the library before going there.

He was no longer the least bit friendly, ignoring Abby while she got settled. Thank goodness her table was clear across the room from him. But then she could feel daggers of anger and hatred coming across the room into her back. Geez, she had just refused to go out with him. Was that such a crime? And he knew she was going out with David, so he shouldn’t have been surprised at her saying no.

The rotten egg smell from whatever he was stirring and heating floated across the room and mixed with the equally acrid smell from her experiment. Two mad scientists competing for worst mess of the year. That’s what hers looked like — a mess. She couldn’t see his mixture, but if the appearance matched the smell, it was probably gooey, green, and black, with just a touch of khaki brown.

Suddenly, before she was ready, it was quarter to ten. She had to stop if she was going to get to the pond at the same time as David and Sissy. She covered her mixture and placed it in one of the class freezers.

She turned to go and was surprised. When had Stan left? She must have really been concentrating if she hadn’t heard him. But then he had the ability to creep around like a hyena hunting.

Outside, a light spring drizzle had stopped and fog had formed. Thick fog. She could scarcely see ten feet ahead of her. The trees across from Griswold Hall loomed suddenly as she crossed the grass and neared the pond.

Keeping off the sidewalk, she walked in complete silence around the south end of the water. Twice she thought she heard someone behind her, just a slight scuffling in the grass, once a crunch of gravel, a whisper of weeds crushed.

She glanced around, but of course could see nothing in the thick, gray, cottony air. She might have arrived before David or Sissy. She needed to be careful not to stumble across either of them. That would certainly spoil her plan to hide and listen.

She needn’t have worried. Because what she spotted near the benches, just where they said they’d meet, was two bodies twined into one. Sissy and David. Kissing.

Abby bit her lip, holding back sudden tears and a sob. She should have been angry. All she felt was a huge ball of sadness pressing on her chest, her heart.

What should she do? Scream and rage at David and Sissy? Let them know she had seen them? Slip away, sneak into the bushes like a whipped dog? Pretend she didn’t know, and wait for David to confess? For him to say, what we had is over, Abby. I want to go out with Sissy. We’re tired of hiding.

She felt dizzy with confusion, disappointment. But then a muffled sound behind her snapped her back to the fact that she was alone in the woods with some beast on the loose.

She smelled the garlicky mustiness of the body, the furry body. It mingled with the wet fog to clog her nostrils and smother her. She swung around, fell to the ground as it roared and stomped.

Dimly, through the haze she had dropped into, she heard Sissy scream. David yell. She heard the scuffle, the fighting, the scrambling to try to escape.

When she came to, she realized she had fainted. Where were David and Sissy? Were they hurt? She got to her feet, bent double with a wave of nausea, breathed, breathed, stood straight again. She moved forward in slow motion, swimming through the suffocating fog, fighting to surface from it.

She found the park benches. Glanced around. Here! Here was a tuft of hair, some clumps of fur. What had happened to David and Sissy? Had the — monster — carried them off? She started to call out, then remembered they hadn’t known she was there. If she revealed herself, they’d know she was watching, spying on them. Did it matter now? One of them, both of them, might be lying someplace near here, badly hurt.

She searched but found no body, no bleeding Sissy on the ground. No David leaning over her. Or the opposite. Oh, please, don’t let David be hurt. She forgot the hurt he had caused her, the heartache.

Smells lingered on the air. But all sound was again muffled in the thick clouds surrounding her.

Quickly she made her way back to the sidewalk in front of the chem building. A small crowd had gathered.

She ran.

“David?” She recognized him standing just outside the circle around Sissy, pretending he wasn’t with her. Blood oozed from one long scratch on his face. “David, what happened? I — I was going home from working late in the lab when I heard this terrible noise. Sissy? Are you hurt, Sissy?”

Sissy was crying but she didn’t appear to be badly hurt. In fact, she appeared to be enjoying the audience around her.

“I — I was coming home from rehearsals — you know I got the lead in the spring play —”

“We know, Sissy. We know,” muttered Abby to herself.

“Well, I was walking along, in a hurry to get home, but not walking too fast because I couldn’t see, when this thing jumped out at me. I knew what it was immediately and I screamed and screamed. That was probably what saved me. It got scared and ran, ran into those woods, there. We probably should see if we can find it, but with this fog — Well, I was just lucky. I have a few scratches, but I’m really not hurt. Just scared. God, I was scared.” Sissy leaned on Gus McClain, a hefty handsome linebacker for the Salem football team. He grinned, glad to hold her up if she felt faint.

“David Waters happened to come along,” Sissy continued her drama. “He stopped and fought the thing off. He’s not hurt badly, but he may have saved my life.”

Abby’s eyes met David’s. Something passed between them. A realization, maybe not that Abby had seen David and Sissy together, but a realization that Sissy was lying. And a realization that something they had treasured for four years was gone. They still needed to talk. He had “forgotten” their date for Sunday night. But a discussion would be merely a formality. Abby saying, here’s your tennis sweater back. I hope it won’t be too, too big for Sissy. David might even say, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Abby. It just happened.

She spun around and walked smack into Stan Hurley.

“Can I walk you to the Quad, Abby? It’s not safe for you to be out here alone. I’m going that way anyway.”

Something told Abby that Stan had seen Sissy and David together. That he knew she and David were no longer going steady. But if he thought —

No, right now he was just being nice. Nice didn’t fit the image they had all formed of him, but that was all right.

She fingered the small fluffs of hair in her pocket. A scenario formed in her mind. Stan had waited outside Griswold Hall for her to come out. He’d followed her to the woods. He, too, had seen David and Sissy kissing.

Had Stan known that Abby was hurt by what she saw? Had his anger at someone hurting her made him shift to the beast and attack the couple? He had done this for her? Questions, too many questions buzzed around her head, making her feel dizzy again.

Why was she such a wimp? If she hadn’t passed out, she would have seen this thing. Would she have known it was Stan?

Jumbled thoughts whizzed through her mind. She felt more confused than ever. And she was tired.

“That would be nice, Stan. I’d like to go to my room.”

She fell into step beside him. He didn’t say a word the whole way to the Quad. But that didn’t matter. She was safely back to her dorm. Left with a lot of heartache and as big a puzzle as ever.

But safe. For now.