Chapter 4: Drev
There they were, the four rebellious students, standing in my humble hideout. I watched them silently from my dark corner behind the stairs, wondering what their next move would be. They seemed harmless enough, and I even felt a kind of kinship with them, knowing that they, too, were being treated as outcasts of Stauros University. However, not having been around living souls for some time, I was still wary and kept my distance. I was certain they were likely to be more afraid of me than I was of them.
“I guess this is home now,” said Drev. He stretched out his arm so that the lantern lit up the far corners of the cellar. Its amber glow fluttered as it hung in the air. The other three watched, their eyes following the lantern, their dismal expressions revealing all that they weren’t saying.
“We all told each other our names when we were rounded up by the groundskeeper, but now that we’re roommates, we might as well introduce ourselves.” He looked around. “You all know that my name’s Drev—short for Andrev. No one besides my mom calls me Andrev, though. I arrived yesterday. Got in trouble. And now I’m here in the cellar with all of you today.”
The others nodded. There was an awkward pause. It seemed that no one knew what to do next. Drev turned to his right and stared at the young man with the sunglasses.
“Yeah, I’ll go next, why the hell not,” he said, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans that sagged crookedly on his hips. “You all know the name’s J.P. and don’t ask if the J stands for anything, as far as I know it doesn’t stand for shit. Neither does the P. Like everything else my parents did for me, they didn’t put much thought into my name and just grabbed two random letters. I guess they thought just naming me J was too boring so they added the P. That’s how I like to think of it. I got here two days ago—and it was batshit from the get-go—orientation, classes, speeches from the chancellor. I don’t know about you guys, but there’s something weird about this school, you know, it’s off.”
“Off?” asked the boy with the round spectacles. He pushed up his glasses higher on his nose with his index finger and leaned in closer like he hadn’t heard J.P. correctly.
“Yeah, off, like a twitch in my ass, that I just can’t reach,” J.P. said with a wide grin that stretched easily across his thin face. J.P. had not taken off his sunglasses despite the darkness, and I wondered if he could see at all. The others chuckled at his crude remark, and it softened the gloominess of the room.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said the boy with the matted hair, spiked and knotted in every direction. He grinned at the other three as he ran his hand through his hair, but his hand stuck. He struggled for a second to free his fingers from the tangles. “I mean when I came through the front gate at the stone wall, it didn’t feel like a school, more like Satan’s crypt. I actually turned around and wanted to leave with my parents, but my old man . . .”
He shook his head and sniggered.
“All I have to say is that I could kiss the chancellor’s feet for sending us to this cellar, and not kicking us out,” he said, his eyebrows arched. “If I got kicked out of here, my old man would kill me—KILL ME—we’re talking first-degree murder. The only way I can leave this place is with a degree in hand. Otherwise, I can’t go home.” He tried once again to run his fingers through his untamed mane. His nervous hand successfully pulled back the wayward chunks of hair. He then trotted over to the bottom bunk of one of the two bunk beds. He bounced down on to it and a billowing cloud of dust mushroomed into the air.
“Max!” protested the boy with the spectacles. “Don’t spread all this dust!” He coughed as Drev fanned away the dust with his hands and arms and J.P. took off his sunglasses to wipe them with his shirt. Although the dust settled down, the boy’s coughs became hoarser and at the end of one, he released a prolonged gag.
“Irving? Hey, you okay?” asked Drev, walking over toward him. Max got to his feet and gently patted Irving’s back as he was now bent over due to the severe heaving.
“Hey, man,” said J.P. bending down to get a better look at the choking boy. “Need some water or something?”
“I . . . I . . .” gasped Irving, barely lifting his reddened face. “My . . . inhaler . . .”
“Quick, where’s his backpack?” asked Drev.
“Here, I got it.” Max, grabbed a red canvas sack off the floor.
“Get out his inhaler,” ordered Drev, already reaching over and unzipping the front pocket. I watched as he pulled out an L-shaped contraption that was the size of his hand. He brought it over to Irving who was straining for air as he drowned in the dusty cloud that enveloped him. Drev shoved the bottom end of the L shaped object into Irving’s mouth. He then placed a finger on the top end and pressed down. I was in awe of what he was doing. I was sure he was trying to help Irving, but I didn’t understand how shoving an object into the mouth of a man gasping for air could help him. But it worked.
Irving, sat down as his breathing normalized. A long silence followed as the other roommates looked at one another, proud of their teamwork.
“Thanks, guys,” Irving said.
“Don’t mention it,” said Drev.
Irving gave his roommates a sheepish smile as he cleared his throat. “I’m glad to meet all of you. I was afraid I was going to be sent off alone. As bad as this place is, I agree with Max, it’s better than being kicked out—I can’t be kicked out. No way, no how. My grandma” . . . he paused. The way he said, “grandma,” with such a delicate, solemn tone, I expected him to cross himself in reverence. “My grandma . . . I’m all she’s got—and she worked hard, real hard to get me into this university. If I got kicked out, it would kill her.” He paused again, but this time to lift his round spectacles and dab at his eyes. The other three exchanged uncomfortable glances. Although not part of the group, I, too, felt a bit awkward with his dramatic display of affection. I was worried the others would chide Irving or worse, ridicule him if he carried on like this. I was relieved when he finally gathered himself together and continued talking.
“The fact is, I don’t even know what I did to break the rules. I was just about to flip through a big old red book that someone had left on the table in the library in Stauros Hall when the chancellor came up to me and demanded to know why I had taken it from his room. I told him I hadn’t taken it. He said I looked very eager to read what was in there. He acted like it was a crime. I told him I didn’t even know what the book was about, that I was just curious. I saw on the title page that it was dated in the early 1600s and the author’s name was funny—Hugh Fogg.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Irving had found my book in the library? Had it not disappeared with Anne-Marie? I was certain that Anne-Marie had been the last person I had handed it to. I wanted to hear the details and so I crept closer to the boys. I felt increasingly at ease as they continued to banter. Irving continued with his story.
“He started yelling at me, accusing me of stealing it from his office. He told me that the book was forbidden, that all the students who read it became victims of the Demon of Stauros. It was awful. He even threatened to call my grandma and tell her I was expelled. But luckily he only called Horace and told him to put me away.”
“The groundskeeper’s name is Horace?” asked Max.
“Yeah, Hulky Horace,” Irving chuckled.
My knees nearly buckled underneath me. Horace! He was still alive. I thought back to decades earlier when Horace had spread those awful rumors about me, convincing even me that I was the cause of Anne-Marie’s disappearance.
The world I had left behind me rushed back in. I felt myself being sucked into a vortex of sadness. I tried to fight it by gathering my thoughts and looking at the situation from another perspective. I had four new roommates now. Somehow fate had taken pity on me and sent me the company I so badly wanted but was afraid of seeking. I forced my attention back to them.
“I told Horace I had just started looking through the book,” Irving said. “I
hadn’t really read anything. I didn’t even get past the first page. But it wasn’t any use.”
Max put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Horace lives to see students punished,” he said. “And the chancellor lives to punish students. What can I say—they make an excellent couple.”
“So that’s how you ended up here,” said J.P. to Irving. “You picked up the wrong goddamn book.”
“Yes, that’s pretty much it,” said Irving. “How about you guys?”
“I refused to wear this ugly dress,” J.P. said. He held up the school uniform, a black hooded robe with the emblem of a silver shrike, the school’s mascot, on the back.
“Why?” asked Max.
“Because I didn’t work my ass off for the past thirteen years just so I could look like the grim reaper,” replied J.P. He bundled up the uniform and threw it down on the floor. He then lay down, using it as a pillow. “And you, Max?” he asked. “Whaddya do that would’ve pissed off your old man?”
Max grinned, “I’ll tell you guys later.”
“That bad, eh?”
“Well, there’s really not anything bad about it. I mean, it all depends on what you think is bad, actually. I mean, what is ‘bad?’ And what is ‘good?’ Obviously, here at this university, freedom to read what you want to read and wearing what you want to wear is considered ‘bad.’ But in my world, in a normal world, it isn’t.”
“I always wanted to have a goddamn philosopher for a roommate,” muttered J.P.
I laughed out loud at his comment, since Max looked like the furthest thing from a philosopher. But I stopped abruptly when Drev spoke.
“You guys hear that?” he asked, standing still. His eyes focused forward, staring at nothing in particular. He was concentrating on hearing what was around him. I was sure he couldn’t be referring to me. I looked at him and saw that his face stayed still while only his eyes carefully moved left to right and back again.
I moved backward, away from the four boys. Something about the way Drev stood alert made me feel like I had intruded on all of them. He continued to look toward me, making it seem as though my laugh had left a trail. I stepped behind the spiral staircase, and took two more steps until my back was against the wall. I moved to my left where I met another wall. I lodged myself securely in that corner.
All three of them looked at Drev, who continued to keep still.
“I don’t think we’re alone,” he said. To my amazement, his voice was steady, without an ounce of fear. Instead, I thought I heard a slight hint of excitement.
His gaze settled on my corner. He lifted the lamp high. Already cramped, I tried to tuck myself in further.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Irving, looking around frantically. “But now that you mention it, there is that legend of the Demon of Stauros.”
“Damn the Demon of Stauros,” said J.P.
“What’s his story?” asked Max.
“Well, my grandma told me . . .” Irving began, then stopped short as he saw eyebrows raise when he mentioned his grandmother, probably afraid he’d start tearing up again. “It’s an old rumor about an apprentice monk who used to live here when the school was still an abbey. The year was 1615 or something like that,” said Irving. “He tried to overthrow the head abbot and take over the island in a rebellion. They killed him, and ever since, he took out his anger on the students. That’s why it’s against the rules to go near Stauros Hall after midnight, because that’s where they say he’s hanging out, ready to sink his fangs into his next victim.”
Overthrow the head monk? Sink my fangs into my next victim? I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud at the ludicrous image. I had never been in a rebellion nor had I ever sprouted fangs like a vampire. The years I’d been hidden away had obviously done nothing to improve my reputation.
“Yeah, we’re definitely not alone here,” said Drev, scanning the room. “You guys didn’t hear that laugh either?”
“What laugh?” they asked.
I covered my mouth and looked at Drev anxiously. He had heard me! The idea was alarming for it meant that he could probably also see me. I looked up and saw that the rays of daylight were still shining through the cracks in the door. It was midafternoon at the latest. And only at night could the students see and hear the phantoms. What was going on?
“There was a laugh,” Drev said.
“A demonic one?” asked Irving.
“Yeah, like a Demon of Stauros one?” teased Max.
“No, it was almost like an echo,” said Drev, looking around.
I cowered to try to make myself smaller. But I felt I couldn’t escape his piercing gaze. He had an odd intensity about him that seemed to reverberate all around the room. I knew he was not going to give up until he found me.
I looked to my left and right, to see if I could sneak to the stairs without being seen. But there was no way. The light from the lantern reached the base of the staircase.
There was a long silence, and then Max turned to one of the beds in the bunk opposite from J.P. and began carefully brushing the dust off the mattress. I dropped my hands and relaxed a little bit—but it was too soon.
“Where you going, Drev?” asked Irving.
Drev had lifted the lantern and was now walking toward me, his eyes focused in my direction, although I knew it was still too dark in my corner for him to see anything there. I closed my eyes. I heard his footsteps coming closer. I tried to imagine that I was part of the wall, and that if I imagined hard enough it would become true.
The truth was I wasn’t so afraid of them finding and attacking me. That mattered little, because I was already dead. I was afraid of making any type of contact with them. If I made an attempt to speak with them, would they disappear like the others?
Perhaps I pushed against the wall too hard, and the pressure of my ghostly physique was too much for the decaying structure to handle, because to my despair, a stone from the wall tumbled to the ground. It might as well have been a bomb.
Drev stopped a few yards from me. The radius of the light of the lamp shone just centimeters from where I stood. The light swayed timidly as the lamp hung limply in his hand.
“Who’s there?” All four seemed to shout at once.
I raised my hands above my head as I had once seen in a movie that was shown at Stauros Hall. The policemen had cornered a villain, and just as it looked as though they were going to perforate his body with bullets, the villain raised his hands above his head and the policemen put their guns down. A powerful gesture, I thought at the time.
I waited, hands above my head, like a criminal waiting for his execution. But then a miracle happened.
“There isn’t a damn thing there,” said J.P., on his bed and rolling onto his side.
Irving went back to cleaning his bed. Max lifted an old broom that was hanging on a rusted nail and began sweeping the floor.
Of course. J.P. was right, there wasn’t a damn thing there. It was still day. The sunlight leaking through the cellar door overhead was getting weaker, but it was not yet night.
I saw Drev continue to take a few more cautious steps in my direction. I was not worried. I was certain he couldn’t see me. Furthermore, I was well camouflaged in the darkness that enshrouded the edges of the cellar. I continued to stand in the corner and watch him approach.
The radius of the light reached me. Despite the weak lighting in the room and the shadow cast by the lantern, I could see the color drain from Drev’s face—he could see me!
“Hey, guys . . .” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t turn his head or blink, but kept those dark pupils glued to my face.
I gripped the walls at my side. I was mortified. And I was certain that he was too! I didn’t want the others to know I was there—one was enough. With nowhere to run and no other recourse, I did the only thing I could do: I put a finger to my lips.
This gesture was another one I had learned from the movie, and I had always wanted to see if it would
work. For a brief instant, I thought it wouldn’t, for he just stood there with a blank expression. Then Drev turned his head slightly and squinted at me as though he had never seen such a gesture. The moments passed like hours as his scrutinizing squint bore through me, the look gradually giving way to a slightly softer, appraising stare. Finally, he gave a quick nod of his head. I loosened my grip on the wall, unsure of what would follow. We stared at one another, waiting for the other to lead. However, before either of us could take any action, Max’s voice cut through the air. “Hey, Drev, can you hold the dustpan while I sweep all this muck onto it? We got layers of dust here.”
There was a long pause before Drev answered. “Be right there, Max.”
He didn’t turn around right away. He lingered, and I could see that he was waiting for me to do something. I pulled my finger away from my lips, but couldn’t find any words to say. Not having chatted with anyone for what seemed like centuries, I just stood there, mute.
But without knowing it, I must’ve smiled, because a second later, he smiled at me. Or was it a smile? Perhaps it was more of a hesitant, crooked grimace. I would later learn that Drev rarely smiled. Or rather, it would take a very special person to inspire him to smile.