Seven hours earlier.
Nov. 7th, 2006 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historyThere was no one there when she arrived. Sara checked her watch, and saw that she was five minutes early. She hadn’t wanted to arrive too early, since it would only stress her out more to sit outside an empty room while she waited for judgment, so to speak. Still, she was a bit surprised that none of the panel was there, even if it was technically still early. Then again, the whole thing had been organized somewhat haphazardly as a result of all the last-minute changes that had had to be effected.
Perhaps she had the wrong room. She checked the printout of the email telling her the date and time of her defense, and double-checked it against the number on the door. No, she was definitely in the right place. She looked around, wondering if she ought to go to the department’s reception and ask if there had been a last-minute change in rooms, then decided she was being paranoid and sat down on the solitary chair that waited by the door. The chair wobbled on uneven legs, clicking loudly on the floor as she shifted her weight to accomodate its unexpected listing to one side. There was no note on the door telling her of a scheduling change, or a room change. If there was no sign, no note, then that must mean she was in the right place at the right time.
She stood up again and peeled off her jacket, hanging it on the back of the chair, which waggled back and forth under the weight of the jacket, producing a rhythmic tac-a-tac that echoed in the empty hallway. The third floor of the McGill Arts building was always nearly empty, since most of the English professors who had the misfortune of having their offices there spent as little time there as possible. If students were lucky, the professors might be found there during their office hours, but often they weren’t. Doing her best to ignore the fist clenched around her stomach, she left her bag and jacket and tried to pass the time by reading the same fading posters and notices that had been on the cork boards since the beginning of the semester, some of them older than that. She always had the impression that the third floor was considered by many to be best left forgotten. Classes were scheduled up here as a last resort, when there was nowhere else to hold them; professors actively resisted being banished to the roomy (if draughty) offices here; and no one ever relished the prospect of trudging up the steep marble stairs that thousands of pairs of feet had worn down over the years, so that identical depressions were quite visible on either side of each step and created something of a hazard for the tired or unwary students who didn’t watch their step.
She checked her watch, and as her entire panel was now ten minutes late, she concluded that she had the wrong room. They had changed the scheduling without notifying her, the bastards. What a way to end the beginning of her academic career: arriving late and out of breath and frazzled to an examination because no one had told her about the scheduling change. She cursed and grabbed her coat and bag and headed down the stairs toward the first floor, the heels of her boots thumping loudly on the beige marble.
She glanced around, but the place was empty. It was a little early in the day for the hallways to be completely deserted, but it wasn’t unheard-of, and she thought nothing of it. What struck her as odd was the fact that that the English office was deserted when she went in. Normally Linda and the other secretaries closed for lunch at noon and came back promptly at one. She’d never known Linda to be late coming back from lunch before. Perhaps Linda was out sick today, which would be a shame. She liked the senior secretary of the English department, and had made a point of cultivating the acquaintance of the woman who wielded a fair bit of administrative clout in the building. After several years of chatting and gossipping over the reception counter, Sara knew that Linda had a nine-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter, and they had just acquired a rambunctious and cute four-month-old golden lab for the little girl’s birthday.
Sara kicked the counter to vent her frustration, secure in the knowledge that there was no one around to see her. What the hell was she supposed to do now? She wanted to cry. More precisely, she wanted to scream and throw a tantrum like a small child. However, she was a grown-up now (as much as she wanted to pretend otherwise), and throwing a tantrum would only result in her giving herself a headache. All right. Think, Sara, she told herself sternly. Use that brain you’re paying an arm and a leg to fill with useless stuff on Anthropology. Well, to be fair and accurate, there was a nice government fellowship that was paying an arm and a leg to fill her brain with useless stuff on Anthropology. Okay, Sara, no digressions. Think.
There was no one around. No one in their offices, no one at reception, not even random students running to a class. Nary a soul. The only thing she could think to do was to go home and use the phone to leave as many messages in as many places as she could until someone got back to her. Misunderstanding happened all the time. Maybe Mercury was retrograde right now. Maybe the whole English department had been kidnapped by aliens. Okay, maybe not aliens. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation for all of this, though.
She exited the Arts building through the front door, trotting down the stone steps and going around the large monument centred at the top of the long stretch of path that led to Sherbrooke street. It had been designed and built when architects paid a great deal of attention to landscaping so that everything lined up nicely. None of the minimalist crap that came later: function didn’t outweigh form in what she semi-ironically referred to as the “good old days.”
She paused at the top of the slope, staring hard at what little she could see of Sherbrooke street ahead. The cars had come to a standstill in what looked to her like a hell of a traffic snarl. What on earth was going on? The seemingly interminable construction that had blocked off most of the street for two years had come to an end in August, so it couldn’t be that. Had there been an accident? She couldn’t hear sirens, but perhaps it had just taken place moments before. Spurred on by a sudden sense of urgency, her disastrous lack-of-thesis-defense completely forgotten in the face of something much worse, she headed toward the street. She hastened down the hill and past the football field that was quickly turning to churned-up mud with the rain and constant activity that took place there every fall. There were very likely people in need of help down there, and while she had only minimal first-aid skills, she might still be of some help in some way.
As she approached she began to hear the sounds of commotion: car horns were sounding loudly, people were shouting and even screaming every now and then. The smell of burnt rubber hung heavy in the air, overlying another scent that was familiar but which she couldn’t quite identify. There were people running toward her, now, or rather, away from the street, their faces betraying stark terror. She stopped as the first ran past her pell-mell, not slowing in the slightest. She tried to catch at a young woman near her age running by, asking what was going on, but the girl wrenched away violently and kept running. Finally a boy stopped long enough to cry:
“They’ve all gone crazy! Get away while you can!”
He tore off up the path toward the university, without looking back. She stared after him for a moment, then reluctantly turned back to the street. Part of her wanted to follow the boy back up the path to the safety of the sturdy stone building, but another part told her that if people were truly in distress, then she ought to at least try to help. She could see what was happening and maybe call for an ambulance, or the police, or, well, anyone who might be able to help. The sounds of shrieking were omnipresent, now, and she felt her heartbeat increase in a frantic pitter-patter in her chest as she hurried to the gates that opened onto the campus. She stopped behind one of the vast stone pillars that held the gates, and peered around the corner tremulously, like a small child peering at its parents around the bannister at the head of the stairs, and felt her blood run cold.
Several cars had crashed into each other at what must have been high velocity, for they were inextricably entwined in a tangled mess of mangled steel and polymer. A woman sat in the driver’s seat of one, clearly visible as the door to her car had been ripped clean off and lay in a crumpled heap several yards away, slumped forward against the dashboard. For a few moments Sara’s mind couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, couldn’t understand how the woman could be sitting so far forward, until she realized with mounting horror that the steering shaft had been driven through the wheel, into the woman’s chest. The force of the impact had been so strong that the shaft had literally pinned the woman in her seat. Sara caught her breath with a gasp: the woman was still alive! One of her arms was still moving, twitching feebly, the fingers grasping at the air, and a horrible moaning emanated from her lips.
She was about to run to the car to... well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but the sound of more moaning coming from several different directions made her pause, jerking her head up to see what was making the noise. There were people converging on the car wreck from all sides, but they were like nothing she’d ever seen before, with vacant stares and lurching, uneven gaits. The moaning sound was coming from them. She held her breath, more frightened than she had ever been in her life, unwilling to move or so much as expel her breath in case she drew their notice. Much of the screaming had stopped now, or rather she’d lost track of it as it had grown fainter. Now she was aware of people running away, already several blocks away from the site of the crash: the only ones who had stayed behind were the horrific, mindless, shambling individuals who now fell on the mangled wreckage like huge, warmblooded locusts. They ignored the woman impaled on her steering wheel, but Sara heard other screams from what she guessed were the occupants of the other cars: high, ululating cries of anguish that hardly seemed human themselves.
She didn’t wait to find out what would happen if the creatures turned on her. She leaped to her feet and sprinted as fast as she could away from the street, forcing herself not to throw panicked glances over her shoulder every few seconds. If she was lucky, she might be able to find sanctuary in the university.
If she was lucky.
Perhaps she had the wrong room. She checked the printout of the email telling her the date and time of her defense, and double-checked it against the number on the door. No, she was definitely in the right place. She looked around, wondering if she ought to go to the department’s reception and ask if there had been a last-minute change in rooms, then decided she was being paranoid and sat down on the solitary chair that waited by the door. The chair wobbled on uneven legs, clicking loudly on the floor as she shifted her weight to accomodate its unexpected listing to one side. There was no note on the door telling her of a scheduling change, or a room change. If there was no sign, no note, then that must mean she was in the right place at the right time.
She stood up again and peeled off her jacket, hanging it on the back of the chair, which waggled back and forth under the weight of the jacket, producing a rhythmic tac-a-tac that echoed in the empty hallway. The third floor of the McGill Arts building was always nearly empty, since most of the English professors who had the misfortune of having their offices there spent as little time there as possible. If students were lucky, the professors might be found there during their office hours, but often they weren’t. Doing her best to ignore the fist clenched around her stomach, she left her bag and jacket and tried to pass the time by reading the same fading posters and notices that had been on the cork boards since the beginning of the semester, some of them older than that. She always had the impression that the third floor was considered by many to be best left forgotten. Classes were scheduled up here as a last resort, when there was nowhere else to hold them; professors actively resisted being banished to the roomy (if draughty) offices here; and no one ever relished the prospect of trudging up the steep marble stairs that thousands of pairs of feet had worn down over the years, so that identical depressions were quite visible on either side of each step and created something of a hazard for the tired or unwary students who didn’t watch their step.
She checked her watch, and as her entire panel was now ten minutes late, she concluded that she had the wrong room. They had changed the scheduling without notifying her, the bastards. What a way to end the beginning of her academic career: arriving late and out of breath and frazzled to an examination because no one had told her about the scheduling change. She cursed and grabbed her coat and bag and headed down the stairs toward the first floor, the heels of her boots thumping loudly on the beige marble.
She glanced around, but the place was empty. It was a little early in the day for the hallways to be completely deserted, but it wasn’t unheard-of, and she thought nothing of it. What struck her as odd was the fact that that the English office was deserted when she went in. Normally Linda and the other secretaries closed for lunch at noon and came back promptly at one. She’d never known Linda to be late coming back from lunch before. Perhaps Linda was out sick today, which would be a shame. She liked the senior secretary of the English department, and had made a point of cultivating the acquaintance of the woman who wielded a fair bit of administrative clout in the building. After several years of chatting and gossipping over the reception counter, Sara knew that Linda had a nine-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter, and they had just acquired a rambunctious and cute four-month-old golden lab for the little girl’s birthday.
Sara kicked the counter to vent her frustration, secure in the knowledge that there was no one around to see her. What the hell was she supposed to do now? She wanted to cry. More precisely, she wanted to scream and throw a tantrum like a small child. However, she was a grown-up now (as much as she wanted to pretend otherwise), and throwing a tantrum would only result in her giving herself a headache. All right. Think, Sara, she told herself sternly. Use that brain you’re paying an arm and a leg to fill with useless stuff on Anthropology. Well, to be fair and accurate, there was a nice government fellowship that was paying an arm and a leg to fill her brain with useless stuff on Anthropology. Okay, Sara, no digressions. Think.
There was no one around. No one in their offices, no one at reception, not even random students running to a class. Nary a soul. The only thing she could think to do was to go home and use the phone to leave as many messages in as many places as she could until someone got back to her. Misunderstanding happened all the time. Maybe Mercury was retrograde right now. Maybe the whole English department had been kidnapped by aliens. Okay, maybe not aliens. There had to be a perfectly rational explanation for all of this, though.
She exited the Arts building through the front door, trotting down the stone steps and going around the large monument centred at the top of the long stretch of path that led to Sherbrooke street. It had been designed and built when architects paid a great deal of attention to landscaping so that everything lined up nicely. None of the minimalist crap that came later: function didn’t outweigh form in what she semi-ironically referred to as the “good old days.”
She paused at the top of the slope, staring hard at what little she could see of Sherbrooke street ahead. The cars had come to a standstill in what looked to her like a hell of a traffic snarl. What on earth was going on? The seemingly interminable construction that had blocked off most of the street for two years had come to an end in August, so it couldn’t be that. Had there been an accident? She couldn’t hear sirens, but perhaps it had just taken place moments before. Spurred on by a sudden sense of urgency, her disastrous lack-of-thesis-defense completely forgotten in the face of something much worse, she headed toward the street. She hastened down the hill and past the football field that was quickly turning to churned-up mud with the rain and constant activity that took place there every fall. There were very likely people in need of help down there, and while she had only minimal first-aid skills, she might still be of some help in some way.
As she approached she began to hear the sounds of commotion: car horns were sounding loudly, people were shouting and even screaming every now and then. The smell of burnt rubber hung heavy in the air, overlying another scent that was familiar but which she couldn’t quite identify. There were people running toward her, now, or rather, away from the street, their faces betraying stark terror. She stopped as the first ran past her pell-mell, not slowing in the slightest. She tried to catch at a young woman near her age running by, asking what was going on, but the girl wrenched away violently and kept running. Finally a boy stopped long enough to cry:
“They’ve all gone crazy! Get away while you can!”
He tore off up the path toward the university, without looking back. She stared after him for a moment, then reluctantly turned back to the street. Part of her wanted to follow the boy back up the path to the safety of the sturdy stone building, but another part told her that if people were truly in distress, then she ought to at least try to help. She could see what was happening and maybe call for an ambulance, or the police, or, well, anyone who might be able to help. The sounds of shrieking were omnipresent, now, and she felt her heartbeat increase in a frantic pitter-patter in her chest as she hurried to the gates that opened onto the campus. She stopped behind one of the vast stone pillars that held the gates, and peered around the corner tremulously, like a small child peering at its parents around the bannister at the head of the stairs, and felt her blood run cold.
Several cars had crashed into each other at what must have been high velocity, for they were inextricably entwined in a tangled mess of mangled steel and polymer. A woman sat in the driver’s seat of one, clearly visible as the door to her car had been ripped clean off and lay in a crumpled heap several yards away, slumped forward against the dashboard. For a few moments Sara’s mind couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, couldn’t understand how the woman could be sitting so far forward, until she realized with mounting horror that the steering shaft had been driven through the wheel, into the woman’s chest. The force of the impact had been so strong that the shaft had literally pinned the woman in her seat. Sara caught her breath with a gasp: the woman was still alive! One of her arms was still moving, twitching feebly, the fingers grasping at the air, and a horrible moaning emanated from her lips.
She was about to run to the car to... well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but the sound of more moaning coming from several different directions made her pause, jerking her head up to see what was making the noise. There were people converging on the car wreck from all sides, but they were like nothing she’d ever seen before, with vacant stares and lurching, uneven gaits. The moaning sound was coming from them. She held her breath, more frightened than she had ever been in her life, unwilling to move or so much as expel her breath in case she drew their notice. Much of the screaming had stopped now, or rather she’d lost track of it as it had grown fainter. Now she was aware of people running away, already several blocks away from the site of the crash: the only ones who had stayed behind were the horrific, mindless, shambling individuals who now fell on the mangled wreckage like huge, warmblooded locusts. They ignored the woman impaled on her steering wheel, but Sara heard other screams from what she guessed were the occupants of the other cars: high, ululating cries of anguish that hardly seemed human themselves.
She didn’t wait to find out what would happen if the creatures turned on her. She leaped to her feet and sprinted as fast as she could away from the street, forcing herself not to throw panicked glances over her shoulder every few seconds. If she was lucky, she might be able to find sanctuary in the university.
If she was lucky.
