“Holy shit!” an unfamiliar voice called out. “Is that you?”
I had been so focused on my GPS that I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings - not the wisest choice at midnight in an unfamiliar town. I looked up and saw her walking towards me. As I met her gaze, she smiled and began walking faster. I said nothing as she embraced me on the sidewalk, holding me for what felt like ages.
When she finally let go, I mustered a quiet “hey!” with a degree of fake enthusiasm that felt appropriate. She laughed.
“How are you? I haven’t seen you in so long!” She spoke loudly, as if we weren’t just inches apart.
I paused as I studied her face, trying to remember how we knew each other. I’m usually pretty good with faces, and hers wasn’t one I could easily forget. Her jet-black hair, porcelain skin, and large brown eyes reflected the moonlight in a way that was eerily hypnotizing. She was roughly my age, if I had to guess, and absolutely gorgeous.
“I’ve been good,” I said, admittedly a little creeped out, but nevertheless entranced. “You know, same old, same old.”
She circled around behind me and placed herself to my right, locking her arm with mine. Without another word, we both started walking forward, synchronized in step. My heart pounded in my chest, due to an equal mix of unease and infatuation. She was petite, and seemingly harmless, so I silently steadied my breath. Just as I was preparing to apologize for my poor memory and ask her where we had met, I saw them.
On the other side of the street to my left were two young men, leaning against a wall. They were tall and fit, dressed in pastel polo shirts and khaki shorts. Their dirty blond hair and matching sharp jawlines suggested that they may have been brothers, but you could pluck any two jockish frat boys off the street in this town and they would probably look pretty similar. Their eyes darted around deliberately, trying and failing to hide the fact that they were watching her.
We continued walking forward, and in my periphery I noticed that the two men did as well. Their pace was just barely slower than ours. When they were finally out of earshot, she spoke again.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, practically whispering. “I know this is super weird. I just left a party and these guys have been following me for like two miles. I would have called someone, but I must have left my phone at the house.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “Have they said anything?”
“Oh yeah,” she chuckled. “All kinds of disgusting shit. They’ve made their intentions pretty clear.”
“Do you want me to call the cops?”
“Can I just walk with you?” she asked. I told her of course, and we carried on for a moment in silence.
“I’m Lily, by the way. Sorry if I creeped you out back there. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Tyler. And really, it’s no problem at all. I’m just sorry you had to deal with that.”
“You get used to it.” She laughed again, this time more forced than the last. “Nice to officially meet you, Tyler.”
A whistle sounded from behind us. I snapped my head to face our followers and shot them a dirty look in a feeble attempt to intimidate them. They could almost certainly see the panic in my face when I realized that they had crossed to our side of the street. The distance between us had become much shorter.
“So,” she began, her voice wavering as she attempted a playful tone. “Where are you headed on this fine Saturday night?”
“Well, it’s not exactly an exciting outing. My roommate accidentally used my toothbrush, so I was going to buy a new one from the corner store on Franklin.”
“And you need your GPS for that?” She smirked as she gestured to my phone.
I stifled a laugh, still weary of the assholes creeping along behind us. “I just transferred here for summer school. This town is kind of confusing, you have to admit.”
“I’m kidding. I’m just looking forward to being surrounded by people. Maybe I can hang out in the store and wait for these two to fuck off.” I admired her ability to seem so nonchalant. I was secretly terrified, and I could only imagine how she felt.
We rounded the corner to the shop. A knot formed in my stomach as I saw the dark storefront. A sign on the door read, “Due to short staffing, we will be closing nightly at 10pm. Sorry for the inconvinance.”
“Shit. It said online that they’re open all night,” I said. “I guess they couldn’t afford a spell-checker, either.”
Lily didn’t laugh. “Summer hours, I guess. This place is a ghost town right now.”
As we stood planted in front of the store, one of the men behind us clicked his tongue with sarcastic pity and spoke in a raspy voice. “You should go back where you came from, buddy.”
Lily squeezed my arm to preemptively silence me before I could speak. “Don’t,” she said. “They just want a reaction.”
The voice called out from behind us again. “She’ll make you think she wants you and then ruin your fucking night. She’ll get what’s coming to her.” The two of them had stopped as well, just a few yards down the sidewalk from us. Although it was the middle of the summer, the air felt cold.
“I know this is weird,” I whispered, “but you can come back to my dorm if you want. Just until it’s safe.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I trust you, I really do. It’s just… you said you have a roommate, and I think I’ve hit my quota for interacting with strangers tonight.”
I then offered to call an Uber, which she also refused. “I’m worried that they’ll get even more aggressive if we wait around.”
“Let me walk you back to your place then.”
She begrudgingly agreed, and we continued on our way. She apologized three more times for inconveniencing me, and reassured me that her dorm wasn’t far away. The frat boys followed quietly in tandem as we made our way across the campus.
When we arrived at the entrance to Carter Hall, Lily paused and glanced over her shoulder. I followed suit, and saw the two of them standing eerily still in the middle of the quad. They were much further away now, watching silently.
“You sure you don’t want me to call anyone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, biting her lower lip. “But would you come inside with me until they leave? I’m scared to be alone.” She reached out and stroked my arm. My heart raced once again. There was nothing I wanted more than to be alone in a dorm room with a girl like Lily, but I knew I couldn’t relax with these creeps lurking nearby.
“I’m gonna go talk to them.” As the words left my mouth, I thought I must have lost my mind.
“Please, don’t,” she said. “Best case scenario, they feed you a bunch of bullshit. Worst case scenario…” She trailed off, and I didn’t know how to respond. Deep down, I knew she was right. My mind considered all of the horrible things that might happen to me, but I couldn’t shake my desire to confront them. I spun around without another word and marched across the grass to meet them.
“Tyler!” Lily’s voice called out behind me. I wanted to turn back and spend the night with her, but my legs just kept carrying me forward. I was on autopilot. As I neared the two men, they remained completely still, staring straight through me.
“Hey!” I shouted, doing my best impression of a confident man who could hold his own in a fight. “You guys need to get the fuck out of here.” My voice cracked on the word fuck.
One of them was significantly taller than the other, but they both towered above me. Now that we were within spitting distance, I saw that both of their shirts were soaking wet.
The shorter of the two men turned his head ever so slightly to face me and opened his mouth. No words came out. Instead, he emitted a soft, unsettling gurgle. Then, the taller man spoke.
“You’re out of your element, man.”
“I’m going to call the fucking cops.”
“The cops can’t help you,” he continued. “She knows what you want.” The shorter man continued to gurgle.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. I was no longer trying to sound tough. I was afraid, and it showed in my voice.
“She flirted with us all night. Said she’d never been with two guys at once before. She told us to meet her in the basement.” He still stared beyond me, refusing to meet my gaze. “She had no right to do what she did. To leave us there, like that.”
“She doesn’t owe you anything,” I said.
“She owes us everything.”
I turned around and started back to the dorm entrance. The taller man called out to me once more. “If you go back to her, you’re fucking dead.”
“I’m not scared of you,” I lied.
As I made my way back to the door, I saw that Lily was nowhere to be found. I yanked on the door handle to no avail. Noticing the access card reader on the wall, I let out a sigh. I had missed my chance. I couldn’t blame her, of course. It was stupid of me to confront them. I should have gone inside and called the cops, but of course I had to play the hero card.
I glanced back to where they had been standing. The quad was empty, and dead silent.
I waited outside for a few minutes before shamefully making my way back to my own dorm. I’m embarrassed to admit that I faked a phone call the entire way, as an attempt to ensure my own safety. Fortunately for me, the douchebags were nowhere in sight. For the first time since I had met Lily, a wave of calm rushed over me as I entered the building and hurriedly shut the steel door behind me. Trudging up the stairs and down the hall to my cramped room, I made a last ditch effort to search for her on every social media app I could think to try. No luck. I didn’t even know her last name.
My head had barely touched my pillow when I drifted into a deep sleep, despite my crushing disappointment and my roommate’s deafening snores. In what felt like the blink of an eye, I awoke to my roommate standing over me and jostling my shoulder.
“Hey,” he said. His eyes were wide - his demeanor noticeably frantic. “Did you know them?”
He was shoving his phone in my face. Still half-asleep, I struggled to focus my eyes. He and I had barely spoken to each other all summer. What could be so important that he felt the need to wake me up so urgently on a Sunday morning?
“Know who? What are you talking about?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and sitting up on my elbows.
“Dylan Gregory and Max Humboldt. Here.” He shoved his phone even closer to my face. The picture on his phone screen became clear as I adjusted to the light pouring through our window. It was a photo of the creeps from last night, standing in a field. They were wearing lacrosse uniforms and smiling ear to ear, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Their jerseys were drenched in sweat.
I felt a lump in my throat. Had something happened to Lily? I knew I should have called the cops.
“Kind of, yeah. I mean… not really. I just met them.” I grabbed his phone from his hands to study the picture more carefully. “Why? What’s going on?”
“It’s been all over the news this morning. They were murdered this weekend at a house party - real gruesome shit. One of them had his throat slit.”
I know it’s callous, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for them after what I had witnessed. I mostly just felt relief that Lily was safe. “Good riddance,” I said. “I saw those guys last night. They were total assholes. Probably had it coming.”
“That’s fucked up,” he said with a laugh. “Nobody deserves that. Besides, it’s not the same guys.”
“How would you know?” I asked.
“This party was on Friday. Their frat brothers found them in the basement last night. First responders said they had been dead for over twenty-four hours.”
I stared at the picture again. A soft gurgling sound filled my ears, growing louder and louder. When my roommate spoke again, it sounded like he was underwater.
“Hey, I’m sorry again about the toothbrush. Did you get a new one?”