Diane Hoh [Nightmare Hall 21] Student Body (epub)

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.”When I looked, I didn’t see how Eli could tell anything from where we stood.All I could see was someone of Hoop’s size and bulk lying in a bed.But since the other cubicles closest to us were empty, we all moved apprehensively toward the one Eli had pointed out.When we got there, we stood peering in through the glass at the figure in the bed.It didn’t look like Hoop.But then, it didn’t look like anyone.Completely swathed in white bandages, hooked up to tubes and wires and machines, it lay in the bed unmoving, like an electronic mummy.It didn’t look like a person.And it didn’t look alive.It certainly didn’t look like Hoop.We stood there, not speaking, just staring.“It’s just a body,” Nat whispered finally, her hands pressed against the glass.“That’s all it is.Just a body.” She turned away from the window.I had never seen such sadness on her face.“They said he was alive, but he’s not,” she added dully.“That’s not alive.” Then her face crumpled, and she cried softly, “What have we done?”Her words echoed inside my head, making me dizzy.Although Nat was the only one to say it, I knew we were all thinking the same thing.What had we done?Chapter 6“LOOK,” BAY SAID WHEN we got outside, “can we end the guilt trip right here, please? It was an accident.It’s not like we started that fire on purpose.I’m as sorry about Hoop as anyone, but it was just bad luck, that’s all.”Nat made a sound of disgust.“Bad luck? Bad luck! You’re calling what we just looked at upstairs, that … that thing … bad luck?”Bay spun on his heel and strode to the car, shaking his head.I ran to catch up with him.We stood beside the Bus.I touched his hand.“Nat’s upset.We all are.No one’s blaming you, Bay.We were all there, at the park.”“Yeah, but I was the one who insisted on the fire.”“We could have stopped you, and we didn’t.” I reached up and put my arms around his neck, hugged him.“We can’t make ourselves crazy over this.What good would it do Hoop?”Nat and Eli arrived.I waited for Nat to say something to Bay, smooth things over, but she didn’t.She just climbed into the backseat and huddled silently in a corner.“Bay’s right about one thing,” I said when we were on our way back to campus.It was very late.The fire’s distant glow had disappeared from the sky, and the streets of Twin Falls were empty.“We can’t walk around campus with our heads down and guilt written all over our faces.We’re going to be suspected as it is, just because we’re Hoop’s best friends and it’s likely we would have been with him.It’s okay to let people know we’re upset, because they’ll be expecting that.But if we so much as even hint that we were in the park tonight, we can kiss Salem University and our futures good-bye.”“I’m worried about Mindy,” Bay said as we left the heart of Twin Falls and headed for the open highway.“She’s going to be really shaky.She’s nuts about Hoop, we all know that.You add that to the guilt she’s going to feel when she finally does see him, and we’ve got trouble on our hands.What if she tells?”“If Mindy feels the need to confess,” Nat said dryly from the backseat, “we can just tell her to give her mother a call.A quick conversation with Mrs.I-Was-Miss-Cotton-Ball will remind Mindy that a beauty queen’s crown has never been plunked down upon the head of a convicted felon.” Nat laughed without humor.“As far as we know, anyway.”“I still think you should talk to Mindy,” Bay said to me.“Make her see what’s at stake here.And keep her away from Hoop if you can.Seeing what we saw tonight could totally unhinge her.Tell her he’s recovering nicely but that he’s not allowed visitors, and she’ll have to be patient.And in the meantime, we need to follow our regular schedules as much as possible.We can’t let this throw us.”I nodded.We were passing an off-campus dorm not far from school, an old, red brick house sitting high on a hill overlooking the highway.Nightingale Hall, an off-campus dorm.The kids at school called it Nightmare Hall because, according to the stories, some very weird things had happened there.I believed the stories.Nightmare Hall looked like the kind of place where very weird things might happen, especially this late on a moonless night.Tall, gnarled oak trees stood guard over the house, casting ominous shadows across the rolling lawn, and there were no lights on inside.Ian Banion, the campus radio announcer who had told us a body had been discovered in the fire, lived there.Maybe that’s why he’d been able to deliver that horrible news so matter-of-factly, so professionally.Maybe living at Nightmare Hall had taught him that horrible things do happen.Had it also taught him, I wondered as the house disappeared from sight, what to do when horrible things happened?“You should talk to Mindy first thing in the morning,” Bay urged.“Before she has a chance to go to the hospital.”I agreed.For the second time that night, none of us said good-bye when we separated at the car.I guess we were too lost in our own private misery.But it bothered me that we were all so anxious now to get away from each other.And I knew why.It’s not very comfortable being around people who know your worst secret.I didn’t sleep at all, and I know Nat didn’t, either.I heard her tossing and turning all night long.Saturday morning, I called Mindy first thing.If she saw with her own eyes that Hoop was now nothing more than a body shrouded in white, she’d freak.And if she freaked, anything could slip out of her mouth.If that happened, we were doomed.“No visitors,” I told her firmly when she answered the phone.“It’s for Hoop’s sake, Mindy.He’ll get better faster if we let the hospital staff take care of him and don’t get in their way.”“But I have to see him,” she protested.That’s because you don’t know what you’d be seeing, I thought.If you did … “We saw him,” I said.“And I can tell you that he’s being taken care of.” That was true enough.“We’d just get in the way if we hung around the hospital.I think you should just do what you always do on the weekend, as if none of this had ever happened.”“What I usually do on the weekend,” Mindy burst out, and I could hear tears in her voice, “is hang out with Hoop!”I swallowed hard.“Why don’t we go to the mall,” I suggested.I didn’t have anything to do, and I felt sorry for Mindy.Also, it seemed to me that anything would be better than being on campus.I didn’t feel like running into people who’d want to talk about what had happened to Hoop [ 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