The Archivist

Midnight Murders

If Life was a horror movie Olivia would not be the 'Last Girl'.

She might not even be one of the main girls at all. She wasn't good with kids so she was never a babysitter. She didn't answer the phone to numbers that she didn't recognize whether they were coming from inside the house or not. She'd never stolen a ton of money, skipped town, and hid out in a motel with a weirdly well dressed desk clerk.

No, Olivia Stirling would not be the 'Last Girl', and life was not a horror movie in any case.

So when the murders started on campus, she wasn't worried. Even when Mason and Addy, her best friend and beloved, started walking faster between their classes and driving places they normally would have walked, she stayed calm. She wasn't afraid, she wasn't worried. Even though there was nothing in common between the victims, boys and girls, tall and short, white, black, and Asian. They seemed random, and they were getting further apart as time went on.

That didn't change the air that hung heavy over the commons and the green. The hallways were quieter, and less people came to class.

While Olivia wasn't worried, her roommates were losing sleep over the mounting number of corpses.

By the time the kill count reached six and classes had yet to be cancelled Addy was even talking about dropping out.

"You've paid through the nose to get here," Mason argued when she first brought it up. They were gathered together in in the living room, in the little house the three of them shared just off campus. The academic district in the city was bordered by small houses and towering apartments, most of them fairly cheap and not all that great.

Addy sat on the couch between the two of them, picking at a loose thread at the edge of her sleeve. She was coiled tight, a ball of tension. Olivia glanced at Mason over her shoulder. His short hair was a mess, not as carefully cared for as usual. It was getting to both of them, and it had been almost two weeks since the last body was found, outside the science labs.

Students were pissed, cops were patrolling every night, and parents were coming and going with their offspring every day.

Even Olivia's dad had called her and offered to have her flown to wherever he was.

"If you drop out now, would you even be able to afford to come back later?" Mason went on, his brows furrowed with worry. It wasn't like he wasn't worried about her safety, but the fact of the matter was this was Addy's whole future they were talking about here.

Not that that would do her much good if she was dead, but she wasn't going to die.

Addy buried her face in her hand. Olivia touched her shoulder, frowning.

"Maybe, given the circumstances they'll refund you your tuition? Or let you come back after everything is over later on?" Olivia offered hopefully. "They have to catch this guy eventually!"

Addy only shook her head. "No way, Olive. If they haven't called off classes then there's no way they'll do that. I don't know why they haven't sent us all home."

"It's money," Mason said, voice laced with disgust. "They say it's to keep normalcy, but their funding will get cut from the government and private grants if they shut down for long."

Olivia shook her head. "That doesn't even make sense. https://miranda-mundt-art.tumblr.com/post/169182567773/its-done

"It's because of Mathews," Mason figured. "He's in charge of stuff like that."

"And the mathematics department. I don't know what he cares about more. Math or money."

"Why does the school even need more money?" Olivia snapped at no one. "Don't we pay enough?!"