Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Thirty-Two

Oh! Do you like the new cover? This is how I procrastinate. 

R E C K L E S S . . .

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The moment Sam’s name flashed on my phone’s caller ID I knew that something was wrong.

Chris had told me to expect a surprise today, after all, and I knew he wasn’t one to back out of a promise.

I detached myself from George at his canteen table, saying a hasty “I’ll be right back.” At some point I’d become his girlfriend, and now I was stuck with sitting with him and his friends after school. I barely had to talk, though, which was a good thing since it gave me time to sort through everything that was happening at the moment.

I waited till I had walked a few paces away from George and his friends before I held the phone up to my ear and pressed accept. “Sam, what’s wrong?” I demanded.

I’d barely finished speaking before I heard Sam’s heavy breathing.

“There’s a… a…” she stammered, sounding on the verge of tears. “Our room… get here now… oh shit. Anne please just come.”

Without another thought I hung up the phone and sprinted through the corridors and up the flights of stairs that led to the dorm. I didn’t even pause to say goodbye to George. Let him guess, I thought. He’ll hardly notice I’m gone, anyway. As I ran I wondered what terrors awaited me in the dorm that I had up to now thought safe from Chris.

I guess nothing is safe from Chris if he really puts his mind to it. What’s a flimsy door to him? It was ridiculous to think that it would stop him.

The moment I opened the door the smell hit me. The smell of decomposing flesh.

Sam and Claire were perched on the sofa hugging each other, but as soon as I swung the door open they rushed to me. Both had been crying; I could see the tears in their eyes and the ones that glistened their downcast faces.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking around the room for the source of the smell but not finding anything amiss. I was tense, expecting something terrible to happen at any moment. “What happened?”

With a shaking finger Claire pointed towards the bedroom. Her face told me that I wasn’t going to like this one bit.

I inched the door open with my foot and the smell grew stronger. I took a deep, steadying breath, though had to snap my mouth closed again as I inhaled the disgusting smell, and pushed it the whole way open.

I couldn’t help it. Nothing could have prepared me for what was in the room. I screamed.

Then my instincts kicked in and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. If Sam and Claire had only told me and not the police or the teachers about this, then there must be a good reason to cover it up.

Of course, the reason was me. What would the police do if they saw this in my room, especially after Sam’s attack and Mrs Court’s death?

A dead body wasn’t the most commendable thing to be lying in my room.

“Who is it?” I whispered hoarsely, not wanting to step further into the room. The body was lying face down on the floor, its identity obscured from us. “Who is it?” I repeated, a bit more loudly.

“I don’t… we don’t know,” Claire whimpered.

I tried to convince myself that it was a stranger lying on our floor, but as I slowly stepped towards it to get a close look I recognized it bit by bit. That ridiculously dull jacket with elbow pads, the short, chestnut coloured hair, the tanned skin of his neck, the small hole in his left ear where there had once been a piercing.