Nancy Drew and The Hardys go to college

Recall of terror

Amanda POV
The shrill screams, the blood. The agony in his eyes when he looked directly at me.
Oh god...
His eyes longed for my help. At the same time, they were pleading me to escape before I meet his fate.
The splash of blood on the trees and the abrupt end to his screams.
He was gone. Just like that, his life was taken away from him.
The demons that ended him laughed maniacally.
I was horror stricken when they took a large cleaver out. I screamed when I realised what they were about to do to his corpse.
Their attention was brought to me. They finally realised that they were being watched.
Shoot!
They smiled in glee as they found their next victim. The one with the knife came slowly to me, the blade in his hand dripping with fresh blood.
I screamed till I was hoarse. I knew my end was near.
But to my surprise, someone started shaking me. My eyes shot open as I saw my mother in front of me. It took me a while to take in my surroundings and realise that I'm in the infirmary.
"Are you okay, baby?" Mom asked, concern in her eyes. "What happened?"
"I saw them," I said. "They're coming for me."
"Who?" Mom asked. "Who's coming for you?"
At that moment, Max walked in with a bunch of stuff and large bouquet of roses.
"Is something wrong, Amanda?" Max asked, putting the large bag of stuff down next to the bed. "I heard a scream. Was it you?"
"It was nothing," I quickly said. "I need to tell the police right now! That man deserves justice!"
"Who?" Mom asked, confused.
"The man they murdered," I said, remembering the agony and terror in his eyes. "I saw his life being taken away from him."
"Oh Amy..." Mom said, giving me a tight but warm hug. Usually I would pull away but now, I'm glad at the warmth she gave me.
My vision blurred as my eyes welled up with tears. I need to tell the police now.
"The police are on their way, don't worry," Mom said assuringly. "Max, you called them right?"
"Yeah," Max said. "They were here earlier but... you fell asleep."
"I won't this time," I said confidently. "Not after reliving it in the form of a nightmare."
Both of them still looked a little doubtful. I had an idea.
"Give me coffee," I said quickly. "It might help reverse the effects of this whatever drug."
"Let me go get some," Max said, hurrying out the room. "There's some in the vending machine."
He ran out and came with a paper cup of hot coffee. The smell itself actually did a lot to wake me up more. Max carefully handed it to me after warning me about how hot it was.
Mom handed me a handkerchief to wrap around the cup when she how I alternated the cup between fingers.
"Thanks," I said, taking the handkerchief and wrapping it around the cup.
The hot liquid felt good as took a sip of it. Max certainly knows how much I like a nice cup of latte. The warmth of it certainly comforted me and for a second, I forgot about the horror I saw last week. I don't really remember much in between, but I can't say I regret that.
The police soon arrived with the titian-haired girl who introduced herself as Ned's girlfriend. Two boys who were said to be brothers came too.
They spoke to the chief and he sat down next to me and put a voice recorder in front of me and held a clipboard and pen. He looked at me with a serious yet soft look.
"State your name," he prompted.
"Amanda Jones," I said.
"Your age?"
"Nineteen."
"What was the last thing you remember before being abducted?"
I swallowed a lump in my throat and ran my fingers through my disgustingly messy hair. I felt beads of perspiration trickle down my neck though the room was practically ice cold.
"I witnessed a murder," I managed to say. "I saw someone brutally get killed in the forest."
The officer's eyes widened but he continued.
"Did you recognise the victim?"
"No."
"Could you describe them?"
"Yes."
"Male or female?"
"Male."
"What did he look like?"
"He looked like he was in his mid thirties to early forties. He had... sandy blond hair, bloodshot pale blue eyes and... he was quite tall."
"Could you tell exactly how tall he was?"
"Not really," I said. "He was on the ground but he definitely had long legs and long arms."
Oh god... the picture of him struggling to free himself flashed through my mind. I felt my throat tightening as I remembered the sight.
"How many attackers were there?"
I pictured that gruesome scene again and roughly counted. Definitely more than three, less than ten. Maybe five or six?
"Five to seven," I said. "There were several, but not many. The man looked like he was hard to take down."
"Can you describe them?"
I didn't really get a good look at them. My focus was mostly on the poor guy who got murdered.
"No." I said regretfully.
"What were you doing in the forest?"
"I wanted to take a few pictures of the greenery while I was walking back to campus," I said, remembering the time before all this madness happened. "I took a few photos and heard a yell. I turned towards the sound and saw... it."
"Did you snap a photo of it?"
My eyes widened at the question. I did! I did take a photo! Where's my camera?
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "I did! You found my stuff right? Did you find my camera too?"
The titian haired girl shot a glance at the two boys, who slowly shook their heads.
"We didn't," the black-haired boy said. "All we found were her bag, her shoes, her glasses and other accessories. Not the camera."
Darn! They must've taken it. I bought that camera with my own money!
"So no evidence there," the chief said, jotting something down with a frown. "What happened after the murder?"
"They saw me, and came towards me with a knife," I said. "They injected me it's something that made me blackout in an instant. After that, I remember waking up a few times in some dark place, but I was never sober enough to realise where I was until the night I escaped."
"What did the place look like?"
"It looked like a cabin... in the forest," I said. "It's one of those typical wooden cabins built in forests. It had wobbly stairs as I ran down into the forest. I ran around, trying to find my way out, but the forest was too dense. By the time I found my way out, my feet were badly bruised and bleeding and I came to a road. I wandered around the lonely road and at last saw a car. It came dangerously close and I blacked out."
"And then you woke up here," the chief finished and I nodded in response. "This case seems more serious than I thought. We need to take a closer look at the evidence in the forest. My men collected a few blood samples from the forest that tested negative for yours. It might belong to either the victim or one of the killers."
The chief got up and straightened his blue uniform. He picked the voice recorder up and stopped recording.
"Please find them, chief," I said, looking at him with hopeful eyes. "That man deserves justice. He didn't deserve to get murdered like that. No one deserves to."
The chief's hard face broke into a smile. A smile that I never expected to see from such a stern man.
"We will, Miss Jones," the chief said. "We'll get to the bottom of this as soon as we can. Don't worry about it."
He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and acknowledged the others in the room before leaving the infirmary.
The titian-haired girl sat down next to me. The hot coffee, now a little cooler in my hands, radiated enough heat so that I don't freeze.
"You did great, Amanda," she said. "I'm sure the police will find them."
I nodded and took a sip from the coffee.
"You seem like a great person," I said, licking the dripping coffee off my chapped lips. "I never got your name."
"Oh it's Nancy," she said with a kind smile. "I'm Nancy Drew. These are the Hardy brothers. Frank and Joe."
Those names rang a bell. Wait...
"The famous detectives?!" I said, surprised.
The three of them gave me modest smiles.