Chapter II

Jenny

Manteach College

Sandy Spring, Maryland

9:45 AM

            By the time the ancient bus rumbled to a stop at Manteach College’s stop, the sun had long since risen. The chatter melded with the squeak-ridden thud of the doors creaking open, with a crescendo of backpacks being dragged out from under chairs and the thumping of many feet.  First one, then two or three at a time descended from the bus in huddled clusters either settling down at the stop, or slowly drifting off like wayward jellyfish to the college. In the midst of it all, Jenny was scrambling for her pack and trying not to shove her way through in panic. She was going to be late for class.

            She hastily waved goodbye to Jake as he slid through the crowds to his own class, and slowly wriggled her way through the writhing sea of students. Before long, she managed to edge her way to the outer limits of the crowd, before breaking into a sprint, her book-laden pack slamming against her thigh. As she ran, the rough asphalt gave way to cleanly-paved sidewalks and patches of grass, marking clearly the boundaries of the campus. Before her, in the central courtyard of the campus, stood three flagpoles; one bore the American flag, mildly weather-worn but rippling quietly; another bore the flag of Maryland, but that was tangled around the pole; the final bore the county’s flag, fluttering weakly in the breeze. She ignored them all, as she hurtled past them towards the hulking, boxy Humanities Building towards the back of the campus currently playing host to her first class of the day: Intro to European History.

            She thundered to a stop at the steps leading up to the steel-plated double-doors of the building, and looked down at her watch. 9:45. Good, she sighed in relief. Not too late, only 5 minutes until class. With a crunching thud, she smacked the wheelchair access button with her bag and stepped through the yawning doors with a slight swagger from the imbalanced bag.

            As the doors hissed shut behind her, she smiled wryly. Only 18 more months and then I’ll be out of here, she thought, as she walked down the echoing hallways. With a start, she noticed something particularly off: the entire building was quiet. Normally, at this hour, there would be students sitting around waiting for classes to start, or exiting class, chattering away. Instead, all she could hear was the distant murmur of the campus outside, and a faint whispering coming down the hallway, tantalizingly inviting.

            She looked down the hallway with a glint of curiosity crossing her face, and saw at the end of the hallway, like a gateway to opportunity and life, was the open doorway to her classroom, empty. The whispering didn’t come from the classroom, but further down the hall. Jenny looked yearningly at the open door, as she walked down the hall, but instead of filing into her empty classroom to wait out the remaining minutes before class, she turned left, down another hallway, towards the whispering. As she passed by door after door, she found that these too were empty. Strange, she thought.

            As she drew closer, the words became more distinct.

            “Master, no, please… not her.”

            A wheezing, grizzly voice responded, sending a chill down Jenny’s spine as she froze in place, listening carefully.

            “Child, it must be her. I have told you before why it must be her.”

            “But master, no… she’s my friend. She helped me. She cares…”

            The second voice laughed, if one could call it a laugh.

            “You have no friends. Nobody cares for you but me. I am your friend. That’s why you first called me, remember?”

            “You want me to hurt someone. Someone who didn’t do anything wrong to me,” the first voice whined, and Jen’s ears pricked as she recognized the first voice: it was Kat. The second voice grumbled, and momentarily Jen was overwhelmed with waves of fear. Something was direly wrong. He continued, soothingly.

            “You asked me to deal with your father. He hurt you in so many ways, over and over. So I hurt him. And now you’re free from him, yes?”

            “Y-yes,” Kat stammered, her voice quavering fearfully. Deep within Jenny’s heart, something went ping, as a side of Jenny arose that rarely saw the light of day: her courageous, bold, and intensely Scottish side. Whoever Kat was talking to, he was something extraordinarily evil. He was trying to bully Kat into doing something that she feared, something bad and wrong. He had to be stopped.

            “And this morning, those insolent children who attacked you, they stopped, yes?” Kat’s voice grew steadier, as she replied back with what sounded like an attempt at courage.

            “Yes,” she said carefully. “But only because that nice guy, the follower of Jesus-” Suddenly, the connecting hallway down the hall flashed with a blast of light and heat, and Jen was knocked to her knees with an immensely powerful tsunami of hatred, pain, and- fear. Before she could get back to her feet, she caught the latter half of his response.

            “-Dare you say His name to me. I am stronger than Him, understand? You will do what I say, or Danté will be very, very angry with you.” Jenny heard Kat whimper in fear as a form of response, and as suddenly as it came, the torrent of emotions stopped, and she could breathe freely again.

            Jen very cautiously got to her feet and padded down the hallway, turning the corner carefully. Before her, the scene seemed relatively normal, just the empty hallway, with more classroom doors innocently closed. All seemed normal, except that Kat was lying against the wall, breathing shallowly, with a dull glaze, surprisingly even more ashen than before, and there was a rapidly diminishing black spot in the tile before her, smoldering quietly. Jenny carefully crept forward and took her limp arm gingerly, checking her for a pulse. She felt a rapid fluttering at her wrist, slowly descending to a steady, slow beat.

            She smiled to herself, and silently thanked God for making sure she was trained in first aid in high school. Jenny looked back at Kat, to look for any further signs of any abnormality, to find Kat staring at her steadily, a glint of fear and suspicion in her eyes. Jenny squeezed her wrist reassuringly, but Kat pulled it from her grasp, cradling it against her body.

            “Did… Did you hear anything?” Kat asked carefully, keeping her eyes locked on Jenny’s. 

            “Not anything too strange,” Jenny replied innocently, trying to keep her expressions masked. Kat’s face scrunched up in a scowl, and she shoved Jenny away weakly, trying to stand to her feet, but Jenny kept her down, keeping a finger on Kat’s pulse.

            “You’ve been through something terrible. I get it. But you can’t deal with this alone, no matter how tough you think you are. Let me help.” Kat relaxed a bit, but still pushed her back, glaring up at her.

            “There’s nothing you can do, Christian. Danté will help me through… I’m sure of it,” she stammered, trying to rise again, and Jenny simply wrapped an arm around her to support her. Together, they stumbled slowly down the hallways, like a drunken crab, until they finally reached the front doors of the building, where Kat unlatched from Jenny’s side and stumbled out the door with a murmured “ th‘nks”. Jenny smiled in a satisfied manner, watching Kat go off, until she looked down at her watch unthinkingly, and a mask of horror slipped over her face. She was late for class.

            She thundered back down the hall, her bag thumping, hoping in vain that her watch was running fast. As she turned the corner in the twisting hallways of the History Department’s building, she could see the door at the end of the hallway, still open, but her professor was now at his desk, and most of the good seats already taken. Cursing silently under her breath, she slowed down and shouldered her pack nonchalantly, and sauntered into class. She caught a few askance glances from her classmates as she slipped in, and almost made it back to her seat when her professor, ancient, wrinkled like a crumpled-up newspaper, a beaky nose, weary silver eyes, with a balding crop of silver-white hair to match, looked up from his notes, and locked onto her. Silence fell, as she stared back at her shriveled professor, her eyes giving the only sign of her anxiety and fear.

            “Miss Pond,” he wheezed, standing up from his desk to his full height, which wasn’t that impressive, because at his full height his wobbly chin barely breached the desk’s scarred surface. “Have you come by way of Caledonia, by chance? Or was there a less-noble reason why you’re late for class?” Jenny winced, slid her pack under her seat, and stood her ground.

            “No, sir,” she started, “I was just helping someone out and lost track of time-”

            “If you focused more on helping your grade than helping each and every unstable child who walks into your path, then your college standing would be a bit better, Miss Pond,” he sneered, his chins trembling furiously. Jenny’s face flushed with repressed fury and embarrassment for being singled out in front of class, and slid her pack under a nearby desk, and coughed nervously.

            “Understood, sir. Sorry, sir.” The professor grunted and nodded acknowledgingly as he got back into his chair, and Jenny bit back a nasty remark before sinking to her desk, pulled out her notebook and pencil, and started taking notes, as the professor continued his lecture.

            “Now, after the Romans had left the British Isles, the scattered clans and peoples slowly reclaimed their lands, living in the desolated remains of Roman-built homes, and built a civilization anew. Eventually, as the remains of the Roman Empire re-formed into the Byzantine Empire…” As he droned on, Jenny kept writing columns of notes, until unexpectedly, a folded paper square flipped onto her desk, from behind her. She continued her note-taking, and once she finished off the line she was working on, and examined it cautiously, looking it over for any tell-tale markings before opening it up.

Hey Jenny,

Halloween shindig at the old Edson Manor on Eastwood and Tennant.

8:00

You in?

-Lexie

            Jenny cautiously turned around and searched through the varied bored, fazed-out faces of her classmates, until she finally spotted Lexie towards a back corner, smiling wryly. Alexis Smith was an interesting sort of person. While other girls her age wore designer sunglasses, she wore a pair of Shade 5 safety glasses perched in her frizzled, roughly-cut red hair. While others wore posh jackets from Paris and Ugg boots, Lexie tramped around wherever she went in a battered leather jacket and an old pair of work boots. While other girls came to class with a perfect manicure and their nails painted a different color every day, Lexie’s hands were often covered with splashes of motor oil and grease, coal dust under her fingernails, the occasional burn marks on her fingertips, and the scent of powdered steel following her wherever she went.

            Jenny didn’t know much about Lexie, other than that she worked out in her dad’s workshop when she wasn’t at school, had a witty sense of humor, and was very honor-bound in her work, whether it was school, engineering, or helping friends. Jenny nodded acknowledgingly at Lexie and gave a discreet thumbs-up, to a grin of satisfaction from Lexie. Jenny turned back to her note-taking, and smiled to herself. The party itself was alright, but the Edson Estate was renowned for its massive library, rumored to possess certain editions of books that had since vanished from the public domain. Besides, Jenny reasoned with herself, if Lex is nearby, things won’t get out of hand too quickly.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Manteach College

5:00 PM

            After her classes were over, Jenny bustled out of her class, and trundled off through the crowds back to the bus-stop. She waved goodbye to a few of her friends as she walked, and she flipped out her cell phone, dialing in her home number automatically. She waited for the dial tone to give way to the message machine, and started talking. Mom was probably busy teaching Rory or something, she thought.

            “Hey Mom,” she started, “Lex from class invited me to a Halloween party tonight, over at the old Edson Manor. It shouldn’t be too late, and-” The phone clicked as her mother picked up the line.

            “Lexie Smith?” her mother asked, and Jenny could just imagine the wry expression on her face. “Remember the last time she came, for the pastor’s White Elephant party? She gave him a Damascus-steel railroad spike cross and a Viking helmet she made herself from scrap car metal, and he dropped it on his foot and broke it.” Jenny grinned widely at this, and continued.

            “Mum, she wasn’t expecting him to do that, and besides, she managed to set it straight again before the paramedics came. She’s a good girl. A bit young and clumsy, but she’s got a good heart. Besides, there’s books there. If things start getting wild outside, I can just slip inside and wait it out until everything’s calmed down again.”

            Jenny could hear the hesitation in her mother’s tone as she replied.

            “Alright… But be back by 10, okay? And if you do go for a costume-”

            “No skanky ones, I know. I’m not like that, you know that. Besides, I’ll have Lexie there, and I’ll probably run into Jake there too. I’ll be safe, I promise.” Mrs. Pond hesitated further, before continuing.

            “At least stop by the house to pick up a few things from the locker to keep safe, okay?” Jenny smiled half-heartedly, thinking back to… no, not there. Too painful.

            “Very well, I’ll pick up one or two things. Just for your sake. And as I recall, you still owe me that story.” Mrs. Pond chuckled wryly, and Jenny started as well.

            “My little one, you are growing up to be quite the interesting young lady. Talk to you soon, hun.” Jenny said her goodbyes and hung up, her thoughts wandering. Maybe… Maybe I’ll see him again, she thought. Either way, tonight will be interesting…