The Fray

Chapter 8

The weather had taken a turn for the worst. Rain punched the wall-length windows of the tired cafeteria, making up for the lack of conversation.

Seven students are missing.

Their absence couldn't have possibly gone unnoticed and not just because they were well-known or quite simply loud thus making silence an unknown and foreign conception. It wasn't because they announced their lack of presence on a popular social networking site. It had nothing to do with their friends constantly whining about their sudden decline in companionship. Nor did it have anything to do with a dramatic loss in numbers; there were a total of one-thousand-two-hundred students in attendance.

Seven lockers are painted red. I suppose that painted isn't technically correct in this particular situation though.

Whoever done it, didn't use any paint.

The rusty, metallic fume that filled the hallways was impossible to ignore as was the dripping sound. They were still wet with a series of scarlet lines racing to the floor, having to jump the last three inches.

For the first time we weren't divided according to social status or even remotely aware of the hierarchy we had so long ago established. We were just people. We were people with something very great in common. I don't use 'great' here in the positive sense but rather scale wise. We each shared something indisputably immense.

A question.

Am I next?

As morose as it was, it brought equality, brotherhood and a silent understanding. A person from each year had been taken and then the seventh stolen from the first year again. Six was even, it made a point. Taking another was teasing. It was a cruel way of saying it wasn't over; it's merely round one of a very long game.

Game?  I'd hardly call us participants though for to be one you'd have to have some effect on the outcome. I doubt a single one of us did.

"I'm guessing your party tonight is cancelled then," Ian tried lightening the mood. He put as much effort in his phony, half-smile as he did with his attempt.

Doddy nodded slowly, not bothering to look up from her untouched slice of pizza.

"We should do something then instead. Just the six of us," he suggested.

I looked around our table of gloomy, downcast faces. Not a single one made any indication of replying and I couldn't blame them. It didn't feel right to want to do anything fun at a time like this, but rather the contrary.

"It's not like we knew them. We don't have to mourn a load of strangers just to be polite. It's a free country," Ian defended his idea with a shrug of his shoulders.

My head snapped up in disbelief. Did he really just say that? No, he couldn't have.

"There's detectives and police all over the place right now, just sniffing around. If we ditch, who could possibly catch us? Let's go drink back at mine."

"What are you talking about?" I questioned, beyond bewildered. Ian is never like this. He's the logical, calculating brain in our little group. It's his job to be freaking out right now and immediately suspecting that it wouldn't be long before new innocent faces are posted as missing around town.

Am I only aggravated because of Hon's stupid, implausible theory that has made me question every person I've been in contact with since the doc yanked me free and dangled my baby body. Since his gloved hand pat my back, a silent 'good luck' or maybe a 'you'll soon see there's a lot worse things than being reluctantly pushed out of a vagina'. Either one.