Blood, Sex, and Booze, chapter 4

It sounded like a wail of an injured animal. It echoed down the long dorm corridor.

"Huh?" Melanie gasped.

I gripped the door, as Mary burst around the corner of the hall.

"Help!" She shrieked. "Oh, please somebody help!"

Melanie dove toward her. "Mary, what is it?"

"Murder!" Mary shrieked. "A boy! He's...he's been murdered!"

Doors flew open.

The hall filled with frightened cries. Confused voices.

"He's outside!" Mary wailed. "The boy! He's...he's been cut to pieces!"

Before I realized what was happening, I was running with everyone else. Running to the elevator. Running to the front doors of the boarding school.

All of us in our nightshirts and pyjamas and bathrobes. Our hair flying around our heads. Crying. Shouting.

I never heard a sound like it.

I never felt so excited and upset all at once.

We pushed out through the front doors. Into the crisp night. The ground hard. The grass shimmering under a silvery frost. A pale silver of a moon hanging low over the campus trees. The ivy up on the walls shimmering in the wind.

Bare feet thudding on the pavement.

Running around the side of the dorm.

Running to the row of bushes that lined up the side of the school.

And there he was, sprawled over a bush, on his stomach, arms out stretched as if hugging the bush.

There was the body.

Or what was left of it.

Cut up. All cut up. All slashed and torn and cut up.