SHADOWS

 

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SHADOWS

by

R.M.Villoria

Copyright

R.M.Villoria

5/5/93

This story is the property of R.M.VILLORIA. No portions of this story may be performed, reproduced or added to by any means or disclosed to, quoted or published in any medium without the express written consent of R.M.VILLORIA

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Chapter One

As the crow flies, you can reach it in forty five minutes to an hour from Reno, but driving the winding mountain roads up to Glenridge Academy nestled high in the Sierras usually takes the better part of two hours. You know you’re there when you come around Spirit Rock. So named for the old Indian legend regarding the ancestors of the original native American dwellers that are buried around there. As you look down to your right about 600 feet below, you can see the little campus almost hidden amongst the pines. From here it still takes you a good fifteen minutes to descend down the narrow roadway and through the massive wrought iron gates to the main building. As you pull up in front you can’t help but stare for a moment at the enormity of this old brick structure. It was built back in the late 1800’s by a group of Virginia City silver miners as a vault of sorts because of it’s impenetrable walls.

Later abandoned, it and the grounds on which it stands were purchased by a wealthy Pennsylvania family with four daughters. Wanting only the best in education for his children, the patriarch of the family started an all girls academy and as it grew in size, it’s reputation did as well. Soon well-heeled families from all over the country were sending their daughters here to the mountains for their education. It began as simply an elementary school, but as his daughters grew so did the academy until it included high school and several more buildings. Dormitories were constructed to house the many out of the area students. For many years the Glenridge Academy came under pressure to become a co-ed institution, however the descendants of the original founder held fast to his desires that it remain an all girls’ school. Finally in 1978, the Board of Directors were forced to put the growing requests to a vote. Unanimously, Glenridge Academy became a co-educational institution and grew even greater in reputation and size. Every year or so it seemed that there was something new being added to the campus. Sports fields, new a building for laboratories and classrooms, tennis courts, the campus was a shining example of higher academe. And now in 1990, the main building, a rambling brick edifice over 100 years old was finally being restored to its original condition and listed among the states historical buildings. And with this milestone came a horrifying terror no one could have ever imagined…

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GLENRIDGE ACADEMY

Presents it’s

1990

SPRING FLING DANCE

Friday May 12th6-10 pm

Academy Auditorium

Brenda Cummings, the schools administrative secretary, stared at the announcement. She really wasn’t looking forward to chaperoning another one of these dance events again this year. Last years spring dance had been pretty trying for her dealing with a room full of rich kids with little respect and the alcohol…oh yes, she couldn’t forget the alcohol. Why did she always volunteer for these things anyway she thought? She was about to place the card back in the box with the rest of the announcement that were to be distributed later that day when suddenly the entire room shook with a tremendous jolt.

“What the heck was that!” she said as she jumped up from her chair. It seemed to her as though a medium sized tremor had hit the campus. Having moved here from southern California, she knew only to well what an earthquake was. Several of the plaques on the wall were knocked off onto the floor and dust and spackling from the ceiling had settled on to her desk. Mr. Thompson, the academy’s Chancellor, came out from his office. His six foot plus frame made a striking presence in the doorway. A direct descendant of the original founder, he took great pride in the academy. As Chancellor he oversaw every aspect of each days agenda as well as anything else that was going on around the campus. His pet project right now though was the work going on right outside his office window. “Are we under siege” he said jokingly as he and Brenda walked out into the hallway. They were met by two of the construction crew that was working on the restoration of the building.

“I apologize sir,” one of them said as they approached, “One of our men accidentally ran the back hoe into the side of the building. I hope we didn’t scare you too much”

“No, I just hope you didn’t do any real damage. That was a pretty good bump and this is a pretty old place” Thompson answered looking around the hallway and at the main entryway. It had taken six years of convincing and plenty of red tape, but finally the old structure was going to be restored back to its original condition. This was a project Jack Thompson had wanted to see accomplished before he retired and finally it was going to happen. That was

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of course, if these men working on it didn’t completely knock the old place down first.

“Just a few bricks knocked loose from up above sir, that’s all. I’m glad I had my hard hat on” the other worker added smiling.

The two men turned and walked back outside.

As Brenda and her boss turned to re-enter the office, Jack stopped and looked up the massive wooden staircase that led to the second story and the attic beyond. “Did you hear that?” he asked Brenda.

“What?, I didn’t hear anything” she replied.

Thompson shrugged his shoulders as though to discount the noise as nothing more than his imagination and walked back to his office.

Across campus, Suzy Jennings could have cared less about next months dance however. It was the event that would take place this Friday night that kept her anxiously counting the hours until the end of the week.

“You’re crazy” her girlfriend said from across the cafeteria table “What is this, the eighth or ninth guy you’ve gone to bed with this year? You almost got expelled the last time you got caught. For Suzy, it was a sport and the more guys she could seduce the better she felt about herself.

“Don’t worry, I won’t get caught. Besides, I have my reputation to live up to don’t I?” Suzy said sarcastically as she got up and walked out of the cafeteria.

Suzy’s reputation did in fact precede her. It was more of a challenge than anything to her. Since she had started here at Glenridge, she had been caught several times sneaking boys up to her dorm room or in other locations around campus where she would carry out her illicit trysts. She had been threatened with expulsion on several occasions and had even had her parents called by Mr. Thompson to put them on notice. Yet, she was still here, now in her senior year and carrying on right to the end.

As she stepped out into the sunlight from the main building where the cafeteria was located, she glanced over at the workers off to the side of the steps. Suzy always tried to dress as suggestively as possible, her theory being that she never knew when an opportunity might arise that would pay off for her. Now she saw that she had caught the eye of one of the young men working on the restoration project. With his shirt off and the sweat glistening on his muscles, she immediately knew what she wanted to do. She walked over to the railing and looked down as if surveying the work that he was doing.

“Hi” he said looking directly up at her. Suzy knew he could see right up her extremely short skirt; in fact she positioned herself above him deliberately so that he could.

“Hi yourself” she answered acting aloof as though she really wasn’t interested in him at all. But in fact, Suzy was quite interested. This was one fine

 

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specimen she thought as she watched the muscles in his arms ripple as he

lifted a bundle of reinforcement bars up onto his shoulder.

“Heading back to class?” he asked as he threw the bundle down several feet away.

“Maybe” she answered coyly, “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready to lay a foundation” he answered.

Suzy watched him as he gathered up another bundle and moved it. She squatted down at the edge of the landing still holding the railing above her. Her skirt rode up her thighs even further as she opened her legs a bit more and her halter top rose with her up stretched arms revealing her midriff and above.

“I’ll bet you’re real good at laying….(she paused)…foundations” she cooed with a smirk on her face.

The young man turned slowly and faced her. He walked over to the landing and lowered his eyes to where they were now level with her open legs. He paused for a moment then raising his eyes to meet hers he answered “I’m very good”

Suzy seemed to stare longingly into the young mans eyes and then suddenly stood up and spoke.

“Maybe one night when I go into town, we could get together and you could tell me all about laying foundations”.

“I’m sure I could explain it to you” he said with a smile.

“I’d have to be back in my dorm by midnight” she added

“That would be plenty of time” he answered. Clearly he understood her intentions.

“Next week okay?” Suzy asked.

“Sounds good” he answered.

Suzy turned and walked slowly down the steps of the main building. She knew his eyes were glued to her swaying hips squeezed into the material of her ever so tight skirt. There was only a moth and a half left before graduation and she wasn’t going to waste any of it.

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Chapter Two

As she lay there emerging from a deep sleep, she couldn’t be sure of what it was she was hearing. Then, Ms. Elsa Duncan realized that there was pounding at her door. She bolted from the bed and quickly slipping her robe on as she ran, made her way out of her bedroom. This was the only part of her job as the girls dorm mother here at Glenridge she didn’t particularly relish. She loved all the girls mind you, sometimes as if they were her own, but having to get up at all hours of the night often times proved to be a bit much. Everything from stubbed toes to broken hearts, lost room keys to bad dreams, she had comforted them all. As she approached her door however, something in the frantic tone of the girls voices outside her room told her that this was going to be something more than a stubbed toe. She glanced over at the wall clock. It read 1:30. She opened the door as three girls virtually tumbled into the room. They were all talking at once and she could sense real fear in their voices. She gathered the girls together and gestured for them to sit down on the couch.

“Okay now, one at a time” Elsa asked, “What did you see? Where?”

“At the end of the hall” one of the girls blurted out excitedly

“He was just waiting for us” another of the girls cried out.

“Whoa, whoa now, hold on here” Elsa asked as she tried to calm the girls down, “Just exactly what do you think you saw?”

As she caught her breath, one of the girls began “At the end of the hall, right by the bathroom, there was this guy just standing there” She looked around Elsa’s apartment as if to make sure the stranger wasn’t there with them now.

“Okay, come on now. Let’s go take a look shall we?” Elsa offered as she and the girls got up and proceeded out into the hallway. The girls fell back behind Elsa as the group made it’s way down the hallway. As they turned the corner towards the bathrooms and showers, Elsa turned and asked the girls “Do you know what he looked like? Did any of you recognize him? Was he young or older?”

“We really didn’t get to see his face” one of the girls answered.

“Yeah, he turned the corner and waited for us. All we saw was his shadow” another of the girls added.

“He was standing right there at the corner” one of the girls went on pointing her finger ahead of them. “Like he was just waiting for us to come by”

Elsa turned and continued walking towards the end of the hall. The girls stayed put and let Elsa go ahead. As she reached the end of the hall, Elsa hesitantly looked around the corner. There was nothing there. The emergency exit was closed tight and locked from the inside. No one could have come in or out this way without setting off the alarm. There was however a fairly strong pungent odor that made Elsa’s draw up her finger to block her nostrils a little.

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“Is anyone putting their trash out here in the hallway girls?” Elsa asked as she turned back towards the girls.

The girls were huddled together halfway back down the hallway. “No ma’am, nobody up here has been doing that” one of the girls answered.

“Well, your boogy man or whatever it was is gone now so you girls get back to your rooms and get some sleep. What were you all doing out here in the first place?” Elsa asked.

“We were just up talking and decided we had to go to the bathroom, so we all went together” came the reply from down the hall.

As Elsa passed them in the hallway headed back to her apartment, she added, “Let’s not have any more nonsense tonight okay girls? Goodnight.”

“Thank you Ms. Duncan” they all chimed in.

As Elsa reached her room and was about to open her door, a blood-curdling scream cut through the silence of the night. She froze in place as she felt the hair on the back of her neck go up. Elsa had never heard a scream so frightening. As she ran back towards the direction she believed the scream came from, other girls were now streaming out of their rooms.

“What’s the matter!” one girl called out

“What’s going on?” another cried.

“Just stay calm and stay by your rooms” Elsa ordered as she ran past them.

As she rounded the corner once again leading to the bathrooms and showers, there on the floor lay one of the three original girls who had come to Elsa earlier. ”Oh my God!” Elsa cried out as she ran towards the girl lying curled up on the hallway floor. The girl was unconscious when she knelt down beside her. Other girls were now gathering around the stricken figure on the floor. Elsa picked up her wrist and checked her pulse. It was erratic, but strong.

“Someone run and get the first aid kit out of the shower room” Elsa called out to the gathered crowd. Someone reached through the crowd and handed Elsa the first aid kit. She popped it open and pulled out some smelling salts. After breaking it open, she passed it back and forth under the girls nose. Momentarily the girl seemed to move and then shudder under the potent aroma of the salts. When she opened her eyes, she drew back as if frightened of something over everyone’s shoulders. The girls in the crowd looked all around them to see what it was she was frightened of but there was nothing there.

“What happened sweetheart, tell me” Elsa pleaded, but the girl didn’t speak. Instead she just lay there staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets, her entire body shaking uncontrollably.

“She’s going into shock” Elsa muttered. Turning towards the crowd of girls she ordered “Someone call 9-1-1, right now!”

After the paramedics had administered to the girl and were rolling her out to the ambulance on a gurney, Elsa asked the girls still gathered in the hallways if anyone knew if maybe the stricken girl was diabetic. No one seemed to have ever seen any indications that she might have been. “Besides” one girl

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asked “Why would she have screamed out so?”

No one knew or could even guess and so, Elsa hurried the rest of the girls back to their rooms and then walked back towards her own apartment. As she reached the end of that hall, she turned and looked back towards the other end where the girls had said they had seen someone…or something.

Elsa dressed and drove to the hospital to be with the girl. She had called Mr. Thompson’s number and left a message as to what had taken place.

If there were boys sneaking around the girl’s dorms trying to scare them, she knew Mr. Thompson would put an end to it right away.

In the morning they would call the girls parents and inform them of what had happened as well.

Suzy Jennings got back to her room with her roommate and they immediately crawled back into their respective beds and fell asleep immediately. All this excitement had tired them out. Something however woke Suzy and as she lay there staring at the ceiling for what now seemed an eternity, she thought did I really hear that? Or was I dreaming?

She looked over at the clock on her nightstand. 3:53. She could hear her roommate breathing as she slept across the room.

Why didn’t Carol hear that too? She wondered

There it was again. It began as a low crying type sound, almost like a cat in pain but eerier. Suzy jumped up out of her bed and stood motionless in the middle of the room. “Do you hear that!” she cried out reaching over and shaking her roommate.

Rubbing her eyes and slowly rolling over onto her side, Carol looked up at Suzy with a frustrated look on her face and asked “Suze, it’s the middle of the night. What do you want”

“Shhh…listen” Suzy whispered as she turned around in the room as if to see where the sound might be coming from.

Again it came, only this time it was louder sounding more like the painful cry of a human.

“It’s just coyote’s out in the woods” Carol said and turned to go back to sleep.

“That’s not coyote’s.” Suzy answered as she walked over to their second story window facing the forest beyond and peered cautiously out into the blackness. She could tell by the trees that no wind was blowing. Suddenly it began again, only this time it grew from a distant crying to an ungodly howling

that seemed to be moving towards them. The howling grew louder and louder as it seemed to race closer and closer to the dormitory. Suzy stood clutching the drapes at the window when suddenly the door to her room began to shake violently as though the hallway were a tunnel through which a hurricane force wind was passing through. With it swept a repulsive odor that permeated the room causing her nostrils to flare. Suzy felt faint as she held tightly to the curtains. Suddenly, everything went silent, completely silent. No

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sounds, save her roommates steady breathing as she slept. Suzy looked over at Carol with disbelief that she hadn’t seemed to hear a thing. “I must be dreaming” she whispered as she fell onto her bed. “This is unbelievable, I must be dreaming”

“She’s still sedated, hasn’t really spoken to anyone” Elsa reported as she entered Jack Thompson’s office. “I was over there again this morning on my way in. It’s really odd; she’s completely withdrawn, almost like a coma. Her doctor seems pretty concerned”

“What do you think happened Elsa?” Thompson asked as he stood behind his desk. Elsa moved across the room and stared out the window. She sighed and then said, “I just don’t know. I hadn’t left those girls for more than a few minutes”

“Have her parents been notified?” Thompson asked his secretary.

“Yes, last night” Brenda answered. “The father is flying back from a meeting out of town and her mother was at the hospital all night.

“What could she have seen?” Elsa asked herself out loud as she stared out the window.

“Well Elsa” Thompson began, “There’s no need making yourself crazy over this. It wasn’t your fault. For all we know it could have been one of the boys wearing a Halloween mask or something. Why don’t you go back over to the hospital this afternoon and see how she’s doing”

Thompson sat down at his desk and began reviewing some papers he had there. Elsa took his actions to signal that there was nothing further to discuss at this time so she turned and walked out of the office.

It was after 2 am Friday night when Suzy locked the door to her room behind her. Carol, being a local girl, always went home for the weekend thereby allowing Suzy to host whomever she wanted without worry of interruption.

“It sure took you long enough to get here” she scolded as she walked up behind Tim. Tim was her latest conquest. A jock she had been teasing for weeks who was eager to be with her given her reputation around campus.

“They made me do clean-ups after work tonight. He answered, “Where’s your roommate?”

“She goes home on the weekends. Why, were you hoping for a threesome?” Suzy laughed as she led Tim over to her bed. She immediately began unbuttoning his shirt. “Are we in a hurry?” Tim asked as he fell back on to the bed.

“I am” Suzy purred as she reached down and unbuckled Tim’s belt. For the better part of the next two hours Suzy enjoyed what had become a pastime of hers here at Glenridge. Whoever’s idea it was to turn the academy in to a co-ed institution years ago should be awarded she thought, It made the boys so much more accessible.

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“I’m gonna go rinse off” Suzy whispered as she slipped off the young mans sweating body. Tim watched her glide across the room. He had to admit, this was one night he wasn’t going to forget soon. Everything he had heard about Suzy from the other guys was true. She was one wild girl.

Suzy put on her robe and opened the door to her room. The dorm was quiet. The other girls were either gone for the weekend or were asleep. Suzy peeked out the door and then back at Tim. “I’ll be right back” she whispered. The door shut and she disappeared down the hall towards the showers. Tim figured this would be a good time to slip out himself. He’d had enough for one night.

Suzy reached inside the shower room for the light switch. When the lights went on she thought she noticed something move. She stood there for a moment thinking that maybe there was another girl in one of the other stalls taking a shower in the dark. But why no lights she thought. Then she smiled. Maybe she wasn’t alone?

“Hey, is anybody else in here?” she called out. There was no answer so she walked over by the lockers to see if maybe someone was hiding there so as not to be caught. She waited for a moment. When she was satisfied that she probably didn’t see anything at all, she walked in to the showers.

The hot water felt good on her skin. She closed her eyes and imagined what she and Tim had just been doing. It made her tingle a bit as she could still feel his hands on her. She looked around as though to be sure no one was watching as she continued lathering her body. As she did, the lights suddenly flickered off and on and then off again. Suzy looked around and then up at the darkened light. “Oh Shit!, just what I need” she muttered. She wasn’t looking forward to a power failure right in the middle of her shower. She turned and reached for her shampoo on the ledge of the shower stall. As she did she seemed to see an unmistakable shadow on the wall of the next shower over. At first she felt a little frightened as she called out “Who’s there?”

Then her fear melted away and a wry smile came across her face as she called out quietly, “Tim? Is that you? Come on in, the waters fine” She waited for a moment for him to respond. When he didn’t, she smiled and figured he probably wanted to slip in beside her after turning off the lights and surprise her.

“Come on over Tim, you and I can make this water even hotter eh?” she cooed. She looked up as the shadowy figure moved towards the front of the adjacent shower stall. Suzy felt a little shiver of excitement come over her, as she thought about the two of them in the shower together.

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Chapter Three

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Chapter Four

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Chapter Five

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Chapter Six

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Chapter Seven

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Chapter Eight

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Chapter Nine

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