Chapter 3 - An Imp At The Window

  "I'm getting fucked up at Pumpkin Fest, I've decided it," says Otto Finch as he sits in the dining room hall picking at his chicken and rice. Otto, like Lucy, is a freshman and has not adjusted to college life quite yet. For the past 90 days all he can eat is chicken and rice for every meal.

  It isn't unhealthy, but it is quite boring, Lucy thinks. She sits across from her friend like she does every day at every meal. Otto is her only friend and she is his only friend.

  He is not like the other boys at Robin State College. He wears thick wire framed glasses, almost exclusively green flannel shirts, and he paints his nails black. He doesn't play soccer or baseball – he bakes and birdwatches. His favorite bird is a Bicknell's Thrush, a small, subtly beautiful bird with a warm, olive-brown back and a slightly reddish-brown tail.

  "You are not getting fucked up," Lucy says sipping her glass of milk. She hates how her friend Otto is so desperate to hang out with the cool kids and drink themselves into oblivion. College kids are so quick to do that and Lucy thinks that it is bastardly boring.

  "I am."

  "Are not."

  "Wanna bet?" Otto says smiling.

  Lucy rolls her eyes and takes a bite of her chicken tenders. "I am not worried about Pumpkin Fest. I have bigger things to worry about."

  Otto laughs. "You are such a kiss ass. You just love Dr. Brighton soooo much! You have to find her rock."

  "It's not about that, I really think I can find it for her. And with your help, I bet you we could win the thousand dollars."

  Otto raises his eyebrows and puts down his fork. "One thousand dollars?"

  "Yes. Dr. Brighton is paying whoever helps solve the case one thousand dollars."

  "So all we have to do is help find some evidence?"

  Lucy nods. "She's even giving multiple prizes to people who help."

  "So if we find two pieces of evidence we could both win one thousand dollars?"

  Lucy nods.

  Otto, like Lucy, is from a small town in New Hampshire called Berlin. It is in the northern part of the state, secluded from most cities, highways, and stores. It is once a paper mill town that over the years begins to disintegrate. One thousand dollars in Berlin can pay your rent for half a year. Otto comes from a small family with humble beginnings, his mother is a post office carrier and his father is a firefighter. His parents moved up from Boston to Berlin in the early eighties to start a new life and a new future in New Hampshire. He grew up with just enough, but never too much.

  "I am so in," Otto says smiling.

  ~

  When Lucy hears the news that Hunter Tanner has been brutally murdered by Richie Dinklage her stomach drops. Hunter is in her history class and though he never speaks directly to her or looks her way or acknowledges her existence whatsoever, she is nevertheless alarmed.

  "Isn't it crazy?" says Jenny Lee. Jenny is Lucy's next door neighbor in the Merrill dormitory. They aren't not friends but they certainly aren't friends. Jenny likes to play her music loudly until three o'clock in the morning every morning. She says she needs it to “study.”

  Lucy never understands that because she is just as smart as Jenny and she doesn't need music to study at all. In fact, she prefers silence.

  "I saw him get dragged out in a body bag, you know! My boyfriend is in his fraternity and they say that there is blood everywhere. Like pools of blood. Like it is the Chainsaw Massacre or something."

  "Do they know who did it?" Lucy asks.

  Jenny nods. "You know Richie Dinklage?"

  "Like the Richie Dinklage? Of Dinklage Oil & Gas?"

  "Yup. He found out that Hunter is messing around with his girlfriend and he just beat him to a pulp. Like a wild animal he just unleashed. They said there is nothing left of his face and that he’s unrecognizable. He turned his face into beef stew. Isn't that dope?"

  Lucy narrows her eyes skeptically. "Um… I don't know. I am a little disturbed that we are living with a murderer on campus but that's just me."

  Jenny nods. "Totally. Well. He's in jail now. So we should all be safe."

  ~

  Murder. Lucy can't stop thinking about it. In her little life she has never known a murderer. Lucy wouldn't consider herself to be friends with Richie Dinklage, but he seemed nice enough. He was just your regular old jock – loud, arrogant, cocky. A lot of the girls in Lucy's dorm room were interested in dating Richie. Not because he was particularly charming or kind but because he drives a brand new Mercedes SUV that looks like it costs more than a house.

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  And while Lucy is concerned that she has been living around a cold blooded killer, Lucy also has other things to worry about. She has an adventure to embark on with her best friend and she can't wait.

  Lucy hurries back to her room, excited for the night to come. Her and Otto have a plan: stake out Smith Hall and see if they can find any evidence of the burglary from the night before: footprints, fingerprints – heck maybe the burglar dropped the stone outside in a hurry!

  Regardless, Lucy is excited for her adventure with her friend. She has the perfect outfit: an all-black, long sleeve shirt, black leggings and the perfect black beanie to fit over her red curly hair. She and Otto will go incognito: two superheroes working to take back what has been stolen. Growing up, Lucy always loved watching the Power Rangers and even as a grownup she loves the idea – friends working together for justice.

  As Lucy is getting ready, the telephone interrupts her thoughts. She walks over to the white phone sitting on her desk and she picks it up.

  "Hello?"

  It’s Otto. "Hey Lucy, I have some bad news."

  Lucy's face flushes red. No.

  He can't bail on her. Not now. She is already dressed!

  They have plans!

  They are going to get the stone and save the day for Dr. Brighton. She will be so proud and will make Lucy her favorite student. Won't she?

  "You know that boy I was talking to at the soccer game a few weeks ago?"

  "Yes."

  "Well he asked me to get burgers with him tonight and I think I want to go."

  Lucy's face is hot. "You can't. We have plans."

  "Come on Lucy, I really like him."

  "No. Otto. We have plans."

  "We can do it tomorrow, it's not like anyone cares about this stupid rock except for you!"

  "Fuck, Otto. Why can't you just be a good friend and say what you said you were going to do? Is that so fucking hard?" Lucy slams down the phone, hanging it up.

  And then she slams it down again. And again. And again until she realizes that her hand is bleeding.

  She’s broken the phone and the plastic has punctured her palm. Her hand is bleeding – pulverized.

  "FUCK." She picks up the broken phone and throws it across the room. She hates this place! She hates Robin! She hates Otto! She broke her phone. Her RA is going to be so mad! She wants to go home and leave this stupid shithole of a town!

  Lucy wants to jump into bed so badly and cry herself to sleep but when she turns around she notices something peculiar in the window.

  A patch of dew forms on the glass as if someone's hot breath is meeting the cold pane from outside.

  Lucy freezes. Her room is three stories up.

  The fog on the window expands, and within it, two pinpricks of yellow light appear – eyes, unblinking and fixated on her.

  They don't reflect light like a cat's or an owl's might; they emit it, casting sickly twin glows that illuminate her room.

  Lucy's throat becomes dry. She tries to scream but produces only a faint whimper.

  The dew spreads further, revealing more of what waits outside – a face pressed against her window, its skin the color of blood. Its elongated snout flares, nostrils expanding and contracting with each breath, drawing more fog across the glass.

  "What are you?" Lucy finally manages, her voice cracking. "Go away!"

  The thing responds by tilting its head at an impossible angle, nearly perpendicular to its shoulders. A smile splits its face, revealing row upon row of needle-like teeth that seem too numerous to fit inside its mouth.

  It raises one hand to the glass – long, fingers ending in curved talons Each nail is jagged and sharp, tapering to points that look capable of slicing through flesh.

  The creature drags one talon across the window, producing a sound like a dentist's drill directly against Lucy's eardrums. The pitch rises until her teeth ache and her vision blurs. Tap-tap.

  Her body responds before her mind can process what's happening. Her bleeding hand rises toward the window, blood dripping down her wrist and forearm.

  Tap. Tap.

  Her blood smears against the inside of the glass, directly opposite the creature's talons. Where her blood touches the window, the glass grows warm, then hot.

  The thing's smile widens. Its teeth click together rapidly in what Lucy realizes is excitement. Behind it, leathery wings unfold, blocking out the moonlight. They don't flap but pulse.

  It makes a fist and knocks on the glass. Knock. Knock.

  "Do you want to come in?" Lucy hears herself ask. Part of her mind screams in protest, but her mouth continues forming words against her will.

  The creature nods, its head bobbing too far forward and back.

  "I'm sorry but I don't think I can do that." Lucy fights to regain control of her voice, feeling as if she is no longer in charge of her own words.

  The creature's expression contorts into anger. It slams both palms against the glass. KNOCK. KNOCK. The window bows inward but doesn't break. A guttural growl comes from its throat.

  The blood on Lucy's palm begins to burn. She looks down to see the cut has formed a perfect circle in her flesh, pulsing with each beat of her heart.

  A knock sounds at her door – her real door, not her window.

  Lucy tears her gaze away from the creature. When she looks back, the thing is still there, but now it's smiling again. It raises one talon to its lips in a shushing gesture, then slowly backs away from the window, its eyes the last thing to disappear into the darkness.

  The blood on the window has vanished, but when Lucy looks down at her palm, the circular wound remains.

  "Come in," Lucy says, her voice trembling.

  The door opens to reveal her friend, Otto, who is standing in the hallway in an outfit identical to her own.

  "What are you doing here?" Lucy says, quickly hiding her marked palm behind her back.

  "I was kidding. The date is tomorrow night. I wouldn't bail on you," Otto says smiling.

  Lucy glances back at the window. Normal. Unmarked. But somehow that makes it worse – like the encounter has been erased from everything except her memory and the throbbing, circular wound on her palm.