Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

She screamed with her entire being….

And exploded, shattering into a million pieces.

Then darkness and the iciest cold. Cast out…cast off…she had never felt so abandoned, so completely alone. Nothingness around her…howling wind…howling rage.

My body… where is my body?

Her discarnate being shuddered with a cry of fury ….

Robin’s eyes flew open at the sound of a gasp. She bolted up to a sitting position.

She was in the lounge. A few dying red coals in the hearth illuminated sleeping shapes crashed out on the floor. Robin remembered dragging the mattresses down from the boys’ floor, sweeping up the pieces of mirror as best they could, pushing the shards with the janitor’s broom into a corner far away from them.

She shuddered through her entire body. Cold. So cold . Her teeth began to chatter.

Something moved in the dark.

Robin twisted around in terror and saw that Patrick and Lisa were wide awake, sitting up beside her. Robin caught her breath, whispered into the shadows. “What is it?”

Patrick swallowed. “I heard… somethin’.” He looked as disoriented as she felt, uneasy, still surfacing from sleep.

Lisa’s teeth were chattering, too; her eyes were wide, glistening in the dark. “I felt something. On top of me. I’m scared. I mean…really scared.”

Robin could barely speak. She forced out, “I know,” and took in a shallow breath.

Then she stiffened, staring in front of her. Her breath was showing in the air, as if the room were freezing.

Patrick and Lisa were staring at the air in front of her, and she knew they saw it, too.

Lisa gasped out, “God… what’s going on?” Her words came in frosty puffs.

Robin reached out and clasped Lisa’s hand, felt her riveted with pure terror.

A soft banging started, like the wind slamming shutters. The three of them went rigid, listening through the shadows.

Suddenly, a shape rose up in the dark in front of them.

Robin flinched back; Patrick jumped.

Then Robin recognized the lean, tensile strength of the body, realized it was Cain, sitting up from his mattress, his hair mussed from sleep. She felt the others relax slightly as they identified him, too.

He lifted his eyes toward the soft banging, whispered into the dark, “It’s a window…I think.” He did not sound entirely convinced.

Patrick spoke through stiff lips. “Jesus…it’s freezing.” His eyes were glazed; he swallowed through a dry throat. Robin wanted to reach for his hand as she’d reached for Lisa’s, but she felt enveloped in a drowsy, almost drugged paralysis.

Lisa whispered, and her words made Robin’s blood run cold. “I think…I think there’s something here.” She was staring toward the fireplace, her eyes wide as saucers.

Robin turned her head reluctantly, not wanting to see, but compelled.

Above the glowing bed of coals, the smoke in the fireplace was curling strangely, more like the spiral patterns of cigarette smoke than wood smoke. Then as they all watched, mesmerized, something seemed to breathe through the smoke…long, deep breaths.

All four were frozen in terror in the murky darkness.

Patrick choked out a strangled sound. “I’m out of here.”

But he didn’t move. Can’t , Robin thought. None of us can .

And then she thought, Martin .

With great effort, she turned her head toward the last mattress—and gasped at the sight of Martin’s sleeping form.

The pieces of broken mirror stood on edge around Martin’s head, the shards arranged to point at him like a halo of daggers, as if the shattered pieces had assumed malevolent life and crept up on him, poised to kill.

Robin stared, numb. Martin opened his eyes. He seemed to sense her attention and started automatically to reach for his glasses.

Robin cried out, “ No! ”

The panic in her voice froze him. He stared up through the shadows.

Cain spoke forcefully, a command. “Don’t turn your head. Just sit straight up.”

Martin raised his head from the mattress stiffly, carefully, nearsighted eyes blinking.

Robin grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, away from the glass. Cain found his glasses on the carpet and put them in his hand. Martin fumbled the spectacles on and stared down at the glass spears in dazed incomprehension.

Cain twisted around to the others, his voice tight. “Joke’s over. This is bullshit.” He glared at Patrick. “Someone’s a sick fuck, and I think it’s you.”

“That’s it, asshole.” Patrick lunged at Cain, and suddenly they were grappling, throwing punches.

Lisa and Robin cried out, grabbed at Patrick and Cain, trying to pull them apart.

The rappings started again, as if titillated by the sudden violence. Clearly not a window this time, but a wave of sharp knocking, coming from the ceiling, from within the very walls.

Cain and Patrick froze mid-struggle, looking up and around them.

The pounding grew sharper, louder, a rising tide, building, thundering, shaking the walls. Someone started to scream; Robin thought it might have been her. She could barely hear herself think.

Cain suddenly lunged for the table, flung himself up on his knees, reaching for the board. Robin had no idea what he was doing, but beside her, Martin cried out, “No!

Cain twisted to the fire and threw the board on the glowing embers.

All around them, the rappings pounded in a frenzy. Now Lisa and Robin both were screaming.

On the coals, the board burst into flame.

And suddenly, everything stopped.

Dead silence.

The five of them sat frozen, staring into the fire as the yellow flames rolled, burning the board to black.

Hours of eternity later, the first streaks of gray dawn showed through the windows.

Robin, Martin, and Cain huddled in blankets. Unable to sleep, they had forayed, hands linked to belts as if on an Arctic expedition, to the closet the Hall residents called the downstairs kitchen to make coffee, stopping at the bathroom to use it one by one, door cracked open and the others on guard outside.

Now they sat with hands wrapped around mugs, drinking in silence, while Lisa and Patrick dozed beside them in the murky gray light.

Somewhere a door slammed and they all jumped. Lisa and Patrick bolted out of sleep, freaked.

They all huddled, frozen, listening. Robin’s blood turned to ice at a rattling, dragging sound in the hall.

Lisa whispered, terrified, “No…”

They all whirled at the sense of movement behind.

A stocking-capped stoner stood in the arched entrance of the lounge. Robin recognized him from the third-floor boys’ wing. Behind him, another stoner in striped jacket and comically identical stocking cap hauled a suitcase, its broken wheels rattling.

The stoners looked around the lounge, taking in the bedding, the overturned furniture, the five students, huddled in blankets, hollow-eyed and haunted, pale as ghosts.

One of the stoners laughed uneasily. “Whoa… musta been some party.”

Patrick managed a bleak smile. “Yeah. Some party.”

Robin, Cain, Patrick, Lisa, and Martin all started to collect their bedding.

They did it in silence, avoiding one another’s eyes.

And the rest of the weekend could not have been more ordinary. Residents began to trickle in early Sunday morning, becoming an unstoppable tide. There were midterms to study for, after all, and perhaps there were others who were glad enough to cut the family visit short.

By noon that cloudy day, doors were standing open all over the Hall, music blasting again, residents visiting, making sandwiches out of leftover turkey, passing around foil-wrapped care packages of pumpkin loaf and gingerbread cookies while they moaned about pounds gained, nursed hangovers, and visibly started to panic about term papers and exams.