Everything fell quiet, and the air seemed to take on a sense of...smugness?
"FINALLY. A GOOD QUESTION."
"What's in store for me tonight," Tori asked quietly, her eyes fixed on a now shaking Allison.
"JUST WHAT YOU SAID. 'SOMETHING BAD AND UGLY AND CRIMINAL.' YOU WERE GOING TO GET DRAGGED OFF TO THAT FRAT PARTY, THE VERY IDEA OF WHICH YOU HATE WITH A PASSION I ADMIRE. YOU WOULD HAVE SULKED IN A CORNER UNTIL YOU WERE BADGERED INTO HAVING 'JUST ONE DRINK' THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN LACED WITH SOMETHING NASTY TO MAKE YOU MORE... COMPLIANT. "
Tori began to understand. "You... bitch."
"SHE HAD ARRANGED MATTERS WITH A FEW FRATERNITY BROTHERS WHO HATE YOU JUST AS MUCH AS ALLISON OVER THERE, BUT BOYS LIKE THAT SO RARELY LOVE A STRONG WOMAN, DON'T YOU THINK? IT WAS GOING TO BE THEIR PLEASURE TO GET YOU OFF IN A ROOM ALL TO THEMSELVES - "
"Stop it."
" - SHREDDING YOUR CLOTHES - "
"I get the picture."
"OH, BUT IT GETS BETTER. THEY WERE GOING TO VIDEOTAPE THE GOING-ONS, AND WITH THE DRUGS IN YOUR SYSTEM, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN PUTTING UP MUCH OF A RESISTANCE. NONE AT ALL, REALLY. ON FILM IT WOULDN'T LOOK LIKE RAPE. AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTED AROUND CAMPUS, SOLD TO WEBSITES, STILL SHOTS PUT UP ON EVERY CORK BOARD IN EVERY BUILDING...WELL, YOU GET THE IDEA."
"Tori, you're hurting my hand," April whimpered.
Tori didn't hear her. Tori could only hear the blood rushing in her ears. "You. Fucking. Bitch!"
"It's lying!" Allison shouted. "It even said it lies! I wouldn't do that."
Kelli raised her tear-stained face and glared hatefully at the pretty blond princess. "Yes, you would. You were going to do the same thing to me once, but I found out about it. You laughed it off and said I was paranoid. You're an evil bitch, Allison Smythe. And I hope something bad happens to you."
"OH YES. WE STILL NEED TO GET TO YOU, DON'T WE PRINCESS? NOW WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?"
"I-I don't have one."
"THEN I DON'T LEAVE."
"Ask a question, Allison," Tori said in a low, callous voice. "Go on."
"I-I don't know what - "
"Do what everyone else did, Allison. Ask about your future."
"I - "
"Just ask 'What does my future hold?'"
Allison quailed in her seat, then finally spat out "What does my future hold?"
And then, for a brief moment, they all saw it. They saw the specter they had called in all its otherworldly glory, saw what no human should ever have to see. April and Heather both fainted on either side of Tori while Kelli screamed until it seemed her lungs would burst from it. It grabbed Allison's shoulders in its cruel hands and brought its face close to hers, almost as if it was about to kiss her, and it spoke almost gently... if such a creature could.
"YOU HAVE NO FUTURE."
It disappeared with one last, cruel, triumphant laugh, the candle flames extinguishing with its exit. The oppressive weight disappeared from the room, and Tori pulled her hands from the unconscious girls, not giving them a glance as they toppled bonelessly to the floor. She looked across at Allison, who sat unmoving in her chair, eyes wide and unseeing.
"I-Is she all right?" Kelli asked, scrubbing at her cheeks. "She's not dead, is she?"
Tori got up and went around the table, looking close. "No, she's not dead. She'll probably snap out of it in a few minutes, then block out the entire thing as only a princess can do. Anything that doesn't mesh with her view of reality just doesn't exist, you know. It's amazing what bitches like her can be blind to."
Then Tori put a hand on Kelli's shoulder and looked close at her. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I guess." She laughed suddenly, and it was a hollow, hopeless sound. "You want to hear something funny?"
"What?"
"I actually did get offered a job at this real dive over on Conner Street. I was going to take it too. I mean, I need a job and no one seems to want to hire me... not even the fast food places. But I don't think I really need that job that bad anymore."
"No... you probably don't." Tori squeezed her shoulder and gave her a slight smile. "Help me clean this shit up, will you?"
They worked quietly, cleaning around the still stunned Allison and moving the other two into more comfortable positions. They were folding April's shawl when Allison suddenly gave a convulsive shudder and blinked.
"Wh-what happened?"
"It left. Way to go, Allison. You pissed off the spirits on your very first try."
She gave Tori a puzzled look, then laughed. It was like fingernails against a blackboard, but Allison's laugh always sounded like that. "Oh God, we really got carried away, huh? Damn! Now that was a spooky Halloween game!"
Tori and Kelli exchanged looks.
Amazing.
* * * * *
Allison had been very adamant about Tori going to the party, but after a screaming match and three vases flying at her head, she took the hint and left without her. Tori resumed her packing. Tonight she would stay in a friend's dorm room, and tomorrow she would talk to housing about temporary arrangements for the rest of the semester. Like hell she was going to stay one more night in this sorority house with that bitch.
And then the pressure in the room grew as the temperature dropped to a soul-freezing chilliness. She paused, then finished folding a pair of jeans.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING, LITTLE WITCH?"
"I'm not a witch," she growled, throwing another shirt into her suitcase. "And what are you still doing here? You said you would leave when all questions were answered."
"AH, BUT THEY WEREN'T. I SKIPPED ONE, NOTICE?"
Tori paused. Damn. They had bound him to the task of answering their questions, and April hadn't asked one. Therefore, the spirit didn't have to go anywhere.
"Stupid loophole. I didn't know they had lawyers on the astral plane."
"YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTION. RATHER RUDE, REALLY. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"
"Where do you think? Away from here." She straightened up and addressed the cold room, her hands on her hips. "You heard what she was going to do to me. You told me what she was going to do."
"AND YOU HEARD ME ANSWER HER QUESTION, TOO."
"Yeah? So?"
"SO IF THE RICH BITCH IS YOUR ONLY PROBLEM, WHY ARE YOU LEAVING?"
"Hey, I hate this whole sorority thing. I'm glad to have the excuse to leave. And if you don't think the others were at least a little involved, then you're not a very bright spirit."
The temperature dropped even lower, and Tori winced. Okay, not a good idea to diss the entity. "Sorry. I'm just very upset."
It warmed marginally. "FORGIVEN. WELL, THIS ISN'T A HEALTHY PLACE TO BE. VERY NEGATIVE. TOO MANY GIRLS SACRIFICING IDENTITY FOR GROUP ACCEPTANCE, AND ALL THAT SOUL ROT."
"Um..."
"YES?"
"What's going to happen to Allison?"
It was amused. "IS THAT CONCERN I DETECT?"
"Idle curiosity at best."
"WELL, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT, LITTLE WITCH." She felt a touch like ice water down her back. "I'VE ALREADY ANSWERED A QUESTION FOR YOU."
And so it wasn't until three in the morning, when the entire campus was woken by the sound of sirens, that Tori understood. But it wasn't until the next day's classes that she got all the details.
It seemed a few frat boys had given Allison Smythe a drink laced with Rohypnol, more commonly known as the "date rape drug". And Allison, it seemed, had a very bad reaction to it, falling into respiratory depression at first. The boys had been so terrified of getting caught that they left her in a bedroom and rejoined the party downstairs, leaving her to quietly asphyxiate. By the time a couple of horny revelers had stumbled across her in their search for privacy, it had already been too late. But the frat boys had been identified as last being seen with her and the story had come out that they were just mad because she hadn't followed through on an earlier promise.
Tori showed the appropriate horror at the death of her sorority sister, then promptly went back to getting housing arrangements made.
Shouldn't piss off entities from the astral plane with shitty seances then, huh bitch?
