Blood Games

    During the months following Orientation, Hardin had shown herself to be true to her words. She’d caught Vivian on the way to class wearing a tube top and mini-skirt, fixed her with an outraged glare, and demanded, ‘Just where do you think you’re going, young lady? I’ll tell you precisely where you’re going -back to your room where you’ll change out of that sluttish costume and put on proper attire.’ She’d once caught Helen chewing gum. ‘Swallow that immediately, young lady. You look like an empty-headed cow masticating its cud.’ And she’d once nabbed Abilene dressed in a sleeveless sweatshirt and cut-off jeans. ‘This is a university, not a slum.’ Abilene had politely explained that she was on her way to play basketball. ‘Did you hear me request an excuse? No, I hardly think so. There is no excuse for slovenly attire - nor for backtalk. Am I understood?’

    The woman was ridiculous. But a master of intimidation who seemed to revel in her talent for reducing girls to tears.

    She’d failed to win tears from Vivian or Abilene, but Helen had wept in humiliation over the bovine reference. And yesterday Hardin had driven Barbara Dixon into mindless, blubbering hysteria.

    Finley had found the girl in her room afterward, in such a state that she herself had tears in her eyes while she told the story to the others.

    Barbara had been alone at a table in the student union, pouring a dollop of rum into her Pepsi just as Hardin walked in and spotted her. Hardin took the flask. Sniffed it. Said, ‘Come with me.’

    In her office, she’d raged at Barbara for an hour. She’d called the girl a ‘drunken degenerate,’ a ‘social misfit,’ a ‘blight on Belmore University,’ a ‘filthy, booze-sucking slut.’ On and on. And worse. She’d phoned Barbara’s mother at home. She’d phoned Barbara’s father at work. She’d ranted at them and explained that their delinquent daughter would be placed on probation. Finally, she’d concluded her show by emptying the flask onto Barbara’s head.

    After hearing the story from Finley, the girls had tried to cheer Barbara up. Without success. Today, she’d rented a car, packed all her belongings, and headed for her home in Seattle.

    ‘What’ll we do to her?’ Abilene asked, sitting down on her bed between Finley and Vivian. ‘It’s gotta be something good.’

    ‘Get her drunk,’ Finley suggested. ‘Strip her naked and leave her tied to a tree in the quad.’

    ‘That’d be great,’ Cora said.

    Helen beamed.

    ‘I don’t think she’s worth a prison term,’ Vivian said.

    ‘Yeah,’ Abilene agreed. ‘We’ve gotta come up with something realistic.’

    ‘If it doesn’t at least include kidnapping, assault and battery, it’s too good for her,’ Cora said.

    Finley nodded. ‘She oughta be gang-banged by a slobbering crowd of escapees from an insane asylum.’

    ‘And that’d be too good for her,’ Cora said.

    ‘Yeah,’ Abilene said. ‘And it’d be cruel to the lunatics.’

    ‘Besides,’ Helen pointed out, ‘she might enjoy it.’

    ‘Let’s get real, gals,’ Vivian said. ‘Come on. There must be something we can do that’ll really nail her.’

    Abilene nodded. ‘Nothing we could go to jail for. Just something that’ll piss her off so bad she’ll go ape-shit.’

    ‘We can’t do that,’ Vivian said after they’d finally hit upon a plan.

    ‘I will,’ Abilene assured her.

    ‘I dare you.’

    ‘I dare you.’

    ‘Double dare you,’ Finley added.

    ‘Double dares go first,’ Vivian said.

    ‘You bet.’

    The five of them dared and double-dared for a while. Nobody backed out.

    ‘Then it’s settled,’ Cora finally said. ‘Tomorrow we go for it.’

    On the ground floor of the administration building that housed Meredith Hardin’s office was the campus bookstore, which closed each weekday afternoon at five.

***

    At ten minutes before five on Wednesday, the day after Barbara fled from the campus and her friends plotted conspiracy in Abilene’s room, Finley led the bookstore clerk away from the counter to help her locate a textbook. Abilene and Helen rushed behind the counter, ducked into the stockroom, and hid themselves in the maze of file cabinets, shelves and stacked boxes.

    A few minutes later, the clerk entered just long enough to turn off the stockroom’s lights.

    When she was gone, Helen nudged Abilene with her elbow and chuckled softly.

    They waited in the darkness. After a while, Abilene removed her flashlight from the sack of food she’d brought along. She crept to the door and eased it open. She glanced around the silent, deserted bookstore. Then she reached down to the outside knob. She tried to twist it. The clerk had left it locked.

    She shut the door and went back to Helen. ‘Just like I thought,’ she whispered. ‘They keep it locked. I bet the custodians don’t have a key, either. Not for the stockroom. Maybe not even for the bookstore.’

    ‘So we’re safe, right?’

    ‘I think so.’

    ‘Can we turn on the lights?’

    ‘That’d be pushing it.’

    Sitting cross-legged on the floor, they drank root beer by flashlight. They ate cheeseburgers and french fries. When they were done, they turned off their flashlights. They talked softly and waited.

    Waited for ten o’clock.