Page 78 of Death's Daughter
Grumbling and still half-asleep grad students grabbing a coffee and a bagel with cream cheese from the student union cafeteria before making their way to their offices to grade papers and labs, while squeezing in their own work.
So the first sign of trouble is the traffic jam on our way back from the hospital. Devon and I are caught in a backup at the east campus entrance, starting at the turn lane and spilling out onto Old Highway 114.
That never happens, except at the beginning of the year on freshman move-in day.
“What is going on?” I ask, sitting forward, the seat belt tugging at my neck.
“You want me to go around, try another way?” Devon asks, hand over the turn signal.
I pause. “No, I want to see what’s going on.”Wrong, wrong, wrong.The phrase is thrumming through me, over and over again, like a second heartbeat.
We inch forward, and the source of the traffic congestion becomes obvious when we reach the front of the line. A silver Mercedes blocks part of the turn lane, angled sharply. Directly in front of it is an SUV with its side caved in and an entire dorm room’s worth of stuff scattered on the asphalt—shampoo bottles oozing white glossy puddles, a laptop lying dented in a sea of safety glass, clothing still on white plastic hangers in twisted heaps, and a random assortment of shoes, including mismatched Birkenstocks and one proud pink Croc.
Devon edges around the damaged vehicles—the hood of the Mercedes is crumpled in folds, like a cartoon car—until we can join the stream of cars heading deeper into campus.
Hazard lights flash everywhere, and flatbed moving carts are abandoned in clumps of icy snow while students drag wheelie-suitcases and boxes out of the dorms.
This isworsethan freshman move-in day.
Most of the drivers have given up trying to get closer to the dorms and are now parked on the edge of Beecher Drive, waiting.
As we edge forward slowly, I spot a familiar face, long dark hair in a braided ponytail swinging between her shoulders. One of Chessa’s intramural soccer teammates is walking in the grass along the line of cars, an overloaded backpack over one shoulder while she carries an oversized fluffy reading pillow in front of her.
“Hang on, slow down,” I tell Devon.
I fumble for the button to put the window down.
“Kenzie,” I shout.
But she doesn’t hear me thanks to the blast of a horn, directly behind us.
When I lean around to look, a balding guy in the car following throws his hands up in aggravation, his mouth moving rapidly in words I can’t hear.
I give him the universal signal for “one minute!”—or maybe that’s a different finger—and try again. “Kenzie!”
This time, her head jerks up and she looks around until she spots me. She pauses, uncertainty written on her face. Then she approaches, cutting between bumpers of parked but running cars. “What do you want?” she calls.
“What is going on?” I ask.
“Where have you been, Trelane? People are dying all over campus,” she says, adjusting her load, trying to keep her backrest from slipping to the ground, its neon pink fur clenched between her fingers. “Thoughtyouwould have known about that.”
I try to ignore the emphasis that implies I’m somehow involved or connected. Clearlythatrumor is still spreading. “Besides the Foreign Language House?” I ask. “And the Deltas?”
Kenzie arches her eyebrows. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Yes, obviously.” I glare at her. I’ve never liked her smugness. “I just didn’t know if there was anything new.”
She hikes her backpack higher on her shoulder with a sigh. “They’re saying that that explosion last night was actually an earthquake, maybe part of a sinkhole by Greek Row. A bunch of kids are missing, I guess. People are freaking out, parents are pissed.”
“Who is ‘they’?” I ask, skeptical. Beecher is like the worst smalltown; there’s always a mysterious “they” who knows and shares everything except their identity and their sources.
“I don’t know.” Kenzie shrugs impatiently. “Everyone.Dr. No made Old Campus evacuate to Wibberley, but he won’t commit to going remote. So a bunch of us decided to leave anyway. Can’t have classes if there’s no one to go to them.” She gives me a grim look. “I’m not risking my life because of that asshole.”
Dr. Nokomis, known not affectionately as Dr. No both for the villain status and his predisposition for that response, is the university president. I’m betting he’s more worried about bad press and the parents. Can’t charge insane amounts of tuition when parents are afraid to send their kids here.
But if he’s willing to move students out of their housing, then there must be something to the sinkhole/earthquake rumors. I need to see for myself.
“I gotta go. My mom and my sister are waiting.” Kenzie turns and cuts her way through the cars back to the sodden and icy grass.
