Carmilla Read online

  LaFontaine puts a hand up to stop me. “You need to chill. They’re traumatized enough already and they don’t need you stirring up those feelings. You’re clearly on a mission.”

  I protest, “But, I need —”

  “Dial it down. You can be a little intense.”

  Then Carmilla arrives, chuckling like she’s in on some joke. “Intense is about right,” she says. Her tone is like fingernails on a blackboard.

  “You must be the new roommate. Welcome to our floor,” Perry greets the roomie from hell.

  LaFontaine nods kindly in her direction. Carmilla keeps walking toward the fridge. When she bends in, the girls disappear.

  I glance in Carmilla’s direction. “You won’t find your soy, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  She sees the box on my desk. She knows I know. “Lighten up. It was a prank.”

  “Blood in a milk carton isn’t a prank. It’s sick and twisted,” I tell her.

  She bursts out in a belly laugh. “You have no sense of humor. Please. It was food coloring and corn syrup.” She totally dismisses me. “Just testing you, Hollis. You failed.”

  “You’re a freak.”

  “Aw, you’re angry?” Her condescending tone causes a visceral reaction. I feel my face scrunch and tense up. Even my eyes shut.

  Carmilla torments me. “The bunched-up face you’ve got going on is hilarious, buttercup.”

  I hiss, “How hilarious do you think it will be when I get the dean of students involved to kick you out of here?”

  That stops her. “Wait a second, you’re going to bitch to the dean? I’d pay top dollar for that show. Be my guest.” The invisible wall between us is steel. The silence deafening. I welcome the interruption of two girls who show up in our room. Our door is never closed.

  The energetic blonde introduces herself. “I’m Sarah Jane and this is Natalie. Perry sent us down to talk to you. She thought you might have some questions we could help with.” These have to be the girls who disappeared. Both of them seem ready to talk.

  Carmilla just snorts.

  “Thanks for coming down,” I tell the girls. “I’m Laura. Ignore my sociopath roommate. So … you kinda disappeared at the beginning of the year?”

  “Quite the killer interrogation technique you’ve got going on,” Carmilla taunts me.

  I will myself to ignore her as Sarah Jane speaks up, explaining. “One minute I was at the swim team’s Under the Sea party, downing Fizzy Dagons, the next I was in my dorm room and people were yelling at me. They said I was missing for two days. I don’t remember anything. It’s like everything is blank.”

  “How is that possible?” I ask. Sarah Jane simply shrugs.

  I turn to Natalie, who’s a little skittish and a lot mousy. “What about you, Natalie?”

  She twists toward me. “I was at a wine-and-cheese party enjoying a nice rosé, then a day and a half later I was standing in a lecture hall listening to my professor drone on and on about the American Revolution. Like thirty-six hours flew by with nothing in between.”

  I’m incredulous. You don’t just lose days. “You can’t remember anything? Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  Both girls cock their heads, deep in thought. Natalie says, “Nada about the lost days, but you know, there’s a ton of Fireball in the Dagons.”

  Carmilla can’t resist commenting, “Now that’s the scoop of the century.”

  “Fuck off,” I snap before turning back to Natalie. I catch Carmilla grinning. I can’t believe I let her get to me. Crap.

  Natalie thinks for a moment. “You know, there is one thing. I had the same recurring dream a few days before I disappeared. It was really visual.”

  I encourage her. “Okay, that’s something …”

  “I was awake in the dark and there was a big black cat prowling under my bed.” She takes a step back. Her voice gets increasingly quavery. “Sometimes a shadowy figure in a white dress would appear. Standing over me. I don’t remember seeing a face. My throat started to close and I couldn’t breathe. It seemed so real.”

  Carmilla starts whistling the theme to The X-Files. Natalie is ruffled now. Her eyeballs start to twitch and so does she. Just when we were getting somewhere, Carmilla had to break the spell.

  “What is wrong with you?” I say.

  Carmilla shrugs. “I’m out of soy milk — that makes me testy.”

  Natalie starts fidgeting with her hair and freaks out. “I have to go. Now. I hope that thing doesn’t touch your face,” she says nervously. She races out the door and down the hall, making a humming sound.

  Sarah Jane moves toward the door, too. “Sorry. Nat is kinda PTSD about the dreams. I’m gonna need to go talk her down. That happens a lot since the whole vanishing thing. Humming is supposed to help. It doesn’t. See you later.”

  The whole encounter leaves me shell-shocked. So much to absorb. The dreams are really nightmares that must mean something. But what? Betty didn’t mention any dreams.

  Carmilla just skulks around the room like a lion stalking prey. She really hangs on to her anger. Munching on some of my cereal right from the box, she says, “Seriously, if someone’s going around kidnapping girls, I can see why they threw those two back.”

  “Oh my God, you are the devil. If you don’t stop acting like this, I’m going to punch you in the throat.”

  Carmilla sticks out her lip, “Oh, cupcake. So violent.”

  “That was a real person who had something traumatic happen to her. As a freshman, I see it as pretty much my worst nightmare. I can relate. If I disappeared, would anyone care that I was gone? Or even notice?” I’d really like to slap her but my better judgment takes over. I’m not an aggressive person. Yet.

  Carmilla keeps shoveling cereal from the box into her mouth.

  “Are you so damaged that you’re incapable of caring about anything or anyone?” I fire off.

  She gets inches away from my face, so close that I feel her warm breath as she spews bits of cereal at me. “Do you really think you’re doing anything to help that girl? Or Betty? Come on, Hollis, be honest here. Do you know anything that you didn’t know before she vanished?”

  I don’t have a comeback for that. She is 100 percent correct.

  “That’s what I thought.” She circles me like she’s about to devour me. “You’re a child. You understand nothing. Not about life, not about this place. Nothing. And certainly not about what it takes to survive in a world like Silas.” Carmilla grabs my shoulder, sending an electric shock through me. “Word of advice. The sooner you stop playing Lois Lane, the better off you’ll be. Trust me.” She throws herself on the bed, leaving me speechless. For just a moment.

  I take a deep breath. “No. No, I’m not going to stop. The eighteen-year-old who’s never been outside the city limits before she got here, who thought that university was gonna be some big adventure full of books to read and parties to dance at, I never thought anything bad could happen. Turns out this new world isn’t quite what I thought it was. My university is creepy. Idiots getting hammered. Girls going missing and no one cares. They reappear and no one questions what the hell happened. Maybe that’s the way it is but I don’t have to accept it. I deserve better. Betty deserves better. Even you deserve better.”

  She does the slow clap. “Bravo.”

  In that moment, I know what I need to do. I turn back to my computer and get to work.

  Carmilla moves up onto her elbow. From the bed, she asks, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m officially changing the core of my journalism project. I’m shifting the focus of my vlog to solicit the students of Silas to help me find Betty. Someone had to have seen something. If the student body pitches in, we can do this together.” I almost believe this. I almost believe I can solve this mystery all on my own.

  Carmilla purses her lips and blows out. “
That’s gonna piss the dean off.”

  “Then she can come talk to me.”

  Delight spreads across Carmilla’s face like a sunrise. “Oh, my money is on that happening. Sooner rather than later. You’re asking for trouble.”

  “I’m asking for answers,” I correct her.

  “You’re crazy.”

  I stroke a few keys. Voilà. “Hello, students of Silas University, my roommate vanished,” I say, firm but calm. “I need your help to find her. She isn’t the first to disappear either. No one else will help me, not even the dean of students. But I have faith in the human spirit. If you’ve seen anything out of the ordinary at a party, message me or leave a comment.”

  I rewatch it. A little rough but it gets the point across. I post it, then tweet out the link. I’m in business. I’m pretty pleased with myself, feeling borderline cocky. To celebrate, I open up a new bag of chocolate cookies. I’m just about to take a bite when a shrieking alarm sounds.

  “What is that?” I panic. A fire drill? A lockdown?

  Carmilla is positively giddy, clapping her hands. “Here we go. You’ve done it now.”

  Perry races in, full-on execution mode, shouting commands. “Let’s go! Town hall meeting! Everybody move now! Remember your training! Five-minute drill! East stairs! Proceed in an orderly fashion!” She gestures for us to go to the right, down the hall. She’s signaling like a traffic cop, arms waving. I jump up to follow the others. As I do, I turn around to see Carmilla snatch a cookie. My cookie.

  Then mug for the camera as she takes a bite.

  • FOUR •

  Rushing across campus to the town hall at dusk, with the alarm piercing my eardrums, I feel the pit in my stomach grow. The winding route to the center of campus takes us through some lush greenery and pooling water that drenches my kicks. Between Carmilla’s knowing smile and the hysteria of my floor mates, I’m on the edge of an invisible cliff. Students rush through the imposing double doors of a building that looks like a castle. Or maybe a fortress.

  “This was the first building on campus in the 1800s,” Carmilla says, seeing me stare at the stained-glass windows. There’s a turret at the top, housing a bell. “They used to ring the bell when a meeting was called. That was when it was a much smaller campus. Then they replaced it with the lovely siren, echoing for miles.” She sure is full of information all of a sudden.

  “What’s the town hall for?” I ask. What’s the emergency? Do I even want to know?

  “It’s never good. The dean is usually royally pissed off about something,” Carmilla says. “My money is on your silly post.”

  What? I just posted it. I have nothing to be ashamed of. “It’s the truth,” I say.

  “It criticizes the dean and administration. Not smart, cupcake.”

  Then we’re all packed in the hall like sardines, the entire student body shoulder to shoulder. The commanding presence of our dean freaks me out. I thought she’d be … I don’t know. Just not this. I mean, she’s like eight feet tall and imposing like a Glamazon. Wearing a tailored suit and a frown, she is all business, but her smoky black eyes are lasers of fury. She could legit be in a comic book.

  The dean’s tone is measured as she stares out into the audience of terrified students. “Silas has a zero-tolerance policy for posting inflammatory videos of any kind. Spreading rumors about missing students is not okay. If it continues, we will pursue this and the perpetrators will be dealt with.”

  I swallow hard but keep my eyes straight ahead, not flinching. No one knows what the video is about yet. LaFontaine showed me how to post anonymously. No one even knows it was me (except a few people … like my crazy roommate). Now I just need to keep that secret.

  The dean goes on: “I assure you that no one has gone missing from Silas. Rumors are just that.”

  Right when the dean looks ready to breathe fire, Danny stands tall and speaks. “Excuse me, they aren’t rumors, Dean. One of the new members of the Summer Society just went missing from a rush party.”

  The dean’s tone is frozen. “Until that is proven to be fact, it is indeed a rumor.”

  “Well, the fact is that Elsie went to a party and never came back. And other students have gone missing as well.” I know of four so far, I think. Sarah Jane, Natalie, Betty and Elsie.

  The dean edges to the end of the stage and burns Danny with a glare. “And your point is?”

  “It means women aren’t safe on this campus. That’s what it means,” Danny says. The girl does not back down.

  A dull roar emanates from the crowd. Everyone starts shuffling nervously. A guy in back yells out, “Is this true?”

  The dean raises her voice to speak above the noise. “Absolutely not. It’s nothing more than a manic student taking things a step too far. This university has a zero-tolerance policy for spreading malicious lies. No more videos, or else. Our administration has the utmost commitment to your safety.”

  “Asshole,” Danny grumbles.

  I lean toward her to say, “Wait a minute, no one cares about the missing girls. All they care about is a video exposing their inept response?”

  “Pretty much.”

  This place is like nothing I’ve ever read about, let alone experienced firsthand. I’m not sure what’s more terrifying — the fact that girls are disappearing, or that the dean doesn’t want anyone to talk about it. It’s like there isn’t a single person here who cares about the safety of the women of Silas University. Certainly not campus security who have been no help and now the dean and her administration.

  Then things take a surreal turn.

  One of the brothers of Zeta Omega Mu charges the stage and takes the microphone. “Yo, bros. It’s totally uncool to have the hotties of Silas feeling unsafe going to parties or doing the walk of shame at 4:00 A.M., so we will be designating a brother to protect any girl who’s a 7.5 or above.”

  So happy right now that I’m a lesbian.

  Danny tenses. “What a Neanderthal. So faux chivalrous. They’re oppressing the entire female student body.” I nod in agreement because she’s so passionate. And she’s even more beautiful when she’s fired up.

  She yells, “Ladies, we should institute our night marches!”

  I have no idea what these are. Marches at night? I’m guessing, but it doesn’t matter. I’m joining because I trust Danny.

  “Yes!” I yell.

  The Summer Society joins her, repeating the chant.

  “Night march!”

  “Night march!”

  “Night march!”

  I pump my fist in the air in solidarity. Danny winks at me.

  My heart swells.

  Then all hell breaks loose. A group of students from the Alchemy Department start to stir. One of them yells, “Night marches will ruin the mycological transition!”

  They are weird little creepers. I have no idea what mushroom spores have to do with anything, but they feel strongly about it. Tables start to get upended, the chaos continues.

  “Pizza or death!” the idiot Zetas start chanting. Or at least I think that’s what they’re saying. That’s my cue to escape this scene and flee the madness.

  Even the dean is dumbfounded when some lunatic throws salted herrings into the crowd. Danny grabs my hand and we hightail it back to my room, dodging chairs, smoke bombs and flying fish.

  Later, I lie on the floor, staring at the ceiling in disbelief over what just happened. I realize the dean never actually settled anything about the disappearing girls. All she did was threaten us — and it was all my fault.

  Danny comes out of the bathroom, towel-drying her gorgeous, flowing red hair. She smells like a garden, lavender and sunshine. My heart skips a beat.

  “Thanks for letting me shower here. They’re still working on ours.”

  In the midst of all the mayhem, Danny’s presence gives me butterflies. I can�
�t tell if she’s flirting with me or if I’m just having a flirt fest alone in my head. It wouldn’t be the first time. She is making my palms sweat. That has to mean something. Right?

  “You were so great at the town hall. Standing up to the dean,” I gush.

  Danny blushes. “It was nothing. It was impossible to just sit in silence while she spewed lies just to save her own ass.”

  “It was really brave.” I can’t help myself. “I’m already in trouble, so why not get back to the vlog. Let’s introduce you to Silas,” I say. Now she knows I’m the one behind the post.

  “You’re gutsy, Hollis,” Danny purrs. Her arm brushes mine, causing a fluttering that I haven’t felt in a long time. Not since my first kiss. That thought has my gaze fixed on Danny’s lips.

  Stop it, Laura. Stick to the plan. Find the missing Silas students.

  Danny plants herself next to me in front of the camera on my computer. I slide into the chair next to her, geeking out about being so close to all six feet of her beauty. “Ready?”

  “Let’s do it?” She grins. Gulp.

  I clear my throat and say, “Hello, Silas students. Meet my awesome TA, Danny. She’s also a member of the Summer Society, an athletic club here at Silas.” Lavender wafts my way as she scoots closer to me. Good thing I’m sitting down.

  She adds, “We need your help to find one of my sisters.” Her voice cracks and I start to reach for her to comfort her but pull back. That misstep would be awkward. And on camera.

  I pick up where she left off. “Elsie disappeared from a party and isn’t the first student to vanish. Any details you may have can help. Do you remember seeing her? Her picture is posted in the corner.”

  “Please help us,” Danny adds.

  “We’re counting on you. Any clue, no matter how insignificant you might think it is, might help us. Signing off for now.” I stop filming and post it, linking to all of my social media accounts again.

  From the corner of my eye, I catch Danny staring at me. She reaches over and I think she’s going to kiss me. I hope she’s going to kiss me. Instead, she picks a herring tail out of my hair. Really?