She was cramming for midterms, sitting at her usual table at the diner with enormous headphones on and working on her third cup of coffee. Her eyes were burning in their sockets - wow, that whole forty minutes of sleep yesterday did wonders - and her brain felt like a wrung sponge, so it took awhile to notice there was someone watching her and awhile longer to bring him into focus.
He was sitting at the counter, a guy about her age, maybe a little bit older, with one leg propped high on the top rung of his stool and a smile that seemed more suited for a singles bar than an all-night diner. He made eye contact and the smile grew wider, but she immediately lowered her head back to her books. She felt him staring again after a few minutes and gave him a hard look in response, then went resolutely back to studying.
She had almost finished reviewing the chapter when a movement in her periphery caught her eye and she looked up to see the guy standing at the other side of the table, a much milder smile on his face. She took off the headphones and tried not to let her irritation show. "Can I help you?" she asked.
He made a placating gesture and said, "Sorry to bother you, I was just gonna buy you another coffee. You look like you need a little more fuel in the tank."
Gee, thanks? She shook her head. "I'm good, thanks."
He nodded, looking down at her books. "Anatomy and physiology," he read. "You're in pre-med?"
She nodded, biting back her annoyance.
He let out a low whistle. "Hell of a workload. I don't know how you guys deal with the pressure."
"Neither do we," she replied, moving to put her headphones back on and end the conversation.
"That girl that, uh," he gave an awkward half-shrug, "died last week, she was pre-med too, right?"
She wasn't just annoyed now, she was pissed. Kelly Ryland, one of hundreds of pre-med students at the university but the only one everyone in town knew by name, since she jumped off the roof of the dorm. Couldn't just "deal with the pressure," they said, like any of them really cared. She was just another part of the campus story. Hardly anybody gave a thought to Kelly herself, and the way they had already turned her into the latest chapter of an urban legend was sickening.
"Yeah, she was," she answered. "She also lived down the hall from me. She was a friend of mine, and none of you sickos would give a crap about her if it wasn't for that stupid ghost story-"
"Oh, hey, sorry," he said, backing off. "I meant no disrespect. It's just...it's a tragedy. A young girl loses her life and all anyone can talk about is some local legend."
She relaxed a bit, feeling too exhausted to keep arguing. He did look contrite and sympathetic...and he sure was a damn sight better looking than most guys on campus...
"I'm Dean," he said. "Are you sure I can't buy you that coffee?"
She thought it over and nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. That'd be great."
"That's a yes?"
"Yes. It is."
He looked surprised but pleased, walking back to the counter and returning to the table a few moments later with two cups. "Do you mind if I join you?"
She shook her head and shuffled textbooks and notes aside to clear off space at the table and he sat across from her, offering her one of the coffees. "I didn't catch your name," he said.
"Christine," she replied. "You don't go to school here, do you?"
"Nah," he said. "Just traveling with my dad. We got in town in time for Kelly to hit the news and it just hit close to home, you know? My little brother is at Stanford, and if he ever got too overwhelmed and did something like that, I-" he broke off and gave a tiny shake of his head. "I dunno what I'd do."
She nodded in understanding, not bothering to correct him - Kelly wasn't overwhelmed, not the way the staff was saying, but the students were just plain crazy because she wasn't killed by some curse on the dorm, either. Yeah, sure, there was a suicide in the building every year, but there were also car accidents and alcohol poisoning and overdoses. People die, sometimes horribly, and med school was as good a place as any to learn it.
"Traveling," she said, taking a sip of coffee and deciding to change the subject. "What brings you to our little town?"
He shrugged. "It was the next stop on the highway. And college towns have the best diners."
"Do they?"
"Oh, that's a fact."
"I've never heard it before."
"Well, come on, I'd say there's plenty of evidence right here."
Somewhere in her sleep-deprived, info-loaded brain, she felt a twinge of amusement. "What evidence, exactly?"
"Easy. The coffee's great, the pie was even better, I'm sitting here talking to a beautiful woman..."
"Dean," she said, "are you hitting on me when I'm trying to study?"
He paused, looking awkward and flustered. "Right," he said, "bad time. I should...probably let you get back to..." He gestured to the books scattered on the table.
"Thanks for the coffee," she said as he got to his feet. "And if you're...if you're going to be in town for awhile..." She scribbled her phone number on a sheet of notebook paper and handed it to him. "Feel free to give me a call, we can do some research on that diner theory of yours."
The smile was back and he took the paper with a nod. "I might take you up on that," he replied. "Try not to work too hard."
She waved it off with a shrug and returned the smile as she put her headphones back on and went back to her books...but not before watching him walk to the door and step out into the darkness.
##
Dean tucked the sheet of paper in his pocket, an extra spring in his step and another reason to smile at the day's work. He'd been on campus all day, listening to the gossip, gathering the stories, and trying to separate fact from legend - which was odd, considering the facts were that a ghost was haunting one of the dorms and causing weird deaths. After putting in all that work, he'd felt like a cup of coffee (and maybe some pie) was in order, and a pretty woman giving him her number was the cherry on top.
His dad was already at the motel, poring over copies of old newspapers and scratching at tired eyes. He looked up as Dean entered the room, tucking a few pages into his journal before closing the book. "What did you find?" he asked.
"There's at least one suicide in the dorm every year," Dean replied, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it onto one of the beds. "Always around exam time, most often involving some kind of fall, going back to 1957 when Ann Torrance threw herself down a flight of stairs and broke her neck. Next year, about the same time, Margaret Birch jumped out her bedroom window, and it keeps up every year without fail."
John nodded, taking in the information. "Is there a pattern?"
"Not sure about that, but I've got ideas about it. It turns out Ann was a scholarship student from a rough background and a full ride was her only way out of..." Dean paused, hesitant but ultimately continuing, "out of the family business."
A shadow passed over John's face and Dean knew he was thinking of Sam too.
"She kept her grades up really well," he went on, "flying colors, until she was expelled for cheating on her midterms. Few hours later, she commits suicide. And," he added, feeling very pleased with himself, "a few days after they found her, a classmate came forward and admitted to cheating on her exams and pinning it on Ann after Ann threatened to turn her in. Guess who the classmate was?"
John read his son's face and said, "Margaret Birch?"
Dean nodded. "Cheated on a test and set up her classmate, who kills herself, then one year later, she suddenly kills herself the same way and starts a whole chain of similar deaths around the same time every year, like clockwork."
"And your ideas?" John prompted.
"The story behind our cursed dorm is Ann Torrance, vengeful spirit, out to punish anybody making grades they don't earn. Talk about taking school seriously."
John nodded again. "What else did you find?"
"She was buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery and Crematorium and the school administrators were so worked up over the whole thing they insisted on setting up a memorial in Ann's dorm with - get this - Ann's marching band hat in a place of honor, where it sits as we speak."
Another nod, and a smile to go with it. "You kept yourself busy today."
Dean shrugged it off, though the praise had him echoing the smile. "So, cemetery first, or dorm memorial?"
"I'll head to the cemetery and salt and burn the bones while you go to the dorm and take care of the hat."
"C'mon, Dad, if you wanna split up, let me do the manual labor-"
"You're less likely to attract attention in a college dorm," John pointed out. "Your chances of getting in and getting the job done are better than mine."
Dean bowed his head in acquiescence. "Yes, sir."
"Stay on point and don't get caught."
"Yes, sir."
"And be careful."
Dean smiled. "Yeah, Dad."
##
Christine left the diner with the intention of getting some sleep before class in the morning, but she had yet to even blink. She just needed to squeeze in a few more chapters first.
She'd never cared much that her dorm was considered cursed, known across campus as the "death dorm," until Kelly jumped, friend and classmate and study partner. Now she'd only gone back when necessary, spending as little time in the building as possible. She had no choice right now, though. Her notes on her remaining chapters were somewhere in her room.
She walked past the glass case housing the memorial with the old band hat and headed upstairs to her room and where she'd left the notes on her nightstand. At least, she'd left them there when she first got out of class...a search of the room didn't make them turn up and with a sigh, she glanced at her roommate's bag. They had the same class, and Christine doubted she'd mind lending her notes out.
Christine riffled through the bag until she found the notes, then left the room.
It was chilly in the hallway. No, not chilly, it was cold. Sure, it was winter, but the building had central heating, for crying out loud. Christine shivered as she headed for the stairs, and halfway there she froze in her tracks.
There was a girl standing at the top of the stairs. Her clothes looked vintage, her hair done in an old-fashioned style, and... something about her looked washed out, from her vintage clothes to her old-fashioned hair, even her skin... Christine's heart missed a beat.
The girl's face was bruised and bloody, and her neck was bent at an angle Christine had never seen in any anatomy book.
She took a step away from the stairs toward Christine, and for a moment Christine was too paralyzed to move. The girl raised a hand in her direction and kept moving forward and Christine stumbled backward, retreating a few steps before tripping over her feet and falling to the floor with a short scream.
The girl was getting closer and the air was getting colder and Christine had the wild thought that the cold was because of the girl-
There was the sound of hurried footsteps up the stairs and something seemed to pass through the girl before she just - did she just evaporate?
Christine blinked several times as if that would make what she saw more reasonable. The pale girl was definitely gone, and in her place stood that guy Dean, holding a tire iron aloft as if prepared to swing it.
"Are you all right?" he asked her.
"Me?" she asked. "What - I don't -" She looked around wildly. "Where did she go?"
"I don't know," Dean replied, looking around, "but I think we're better off on the ground floor." He extended a hand to help her to her feet and she was shaking so much it took a moment for her to stand steady. "Are you cold?"
"Yeah. I mean, I was," she answered, her mind reeling, "but now it's-"
"Gone, yeah," Dean agreed.
"Who...who was that?"
"Ann Torrance."
"Ann - what? The girl the memorial is for?"
"'Fraid so, sweetheart." He gave her a shrewd, searching look. "Have you ever cheated on an exam?"
"What? What does that have to do with-"
"She's got it out for people who cheat in class, now be honest!"
"I-" Christine stared at him, bewildered. "I just borrowed my roommate's notes without asking, but..."
Dean heaved a sigh. "Son of a bitch." He grabbed her hand and steered her toward the stairs. "C'mon. We gotta torch that hat."
She followed without a word, mouth hanging open in stupefaction. He pulled her along behind him, one hand clutching the tire iron, the other keeping hold of hers. His grip felt a lot more reassuring than any stranger's had in her entire life, but she supposed being menaced by a girl who committed suicide fifty years prior had a way of making things like that a little less odd.
"Tell me if you feel cold again," he said, still looking around them.
"Now," she replied immediately; the air temperature seemed to drop as soon as they started down the stairs.
"What?"
"Now!"
He turned towards her and his eyes widened. "Holy sh-"
Christine screamed as something batted her sideways and pitched her over the stair railing. Dean dropped the tire iron and it clattered to the floor as he held on with both hands, his body slamming against the railing. "I've got you!" he called down to her. "I won't let go, I promise!"
"She's behind you!"
Dean glanced over his shoulder at the shadow figure that had appeared on the stairs. "Grab the rail," he said, and she wound her arms around the steel bars while he reached for the tire iron and swung again, and Ann vanished. He went back to the rail and reached out to her. "Give me your hand."
Christine latched onto him and he helped her back over the rail. She was shaking so much she had to lean against the railing to steady herself - then flung herself away again and smacked straight into Dean.
"Whoa, easy," he said, arm automatically going around her shoulders and bracing her against his body. "Easy, there. You okay?"
Okay? Not her first choice of words, but she wasn't spattered on the ground three floors down, so that was something. She leaned against him for a few moments, shocked at how calm he was and finding it comforting at the same time. She was scared out of her wits, but having him there helped. She nodded, briefly clutching the front of his jacket before pulling away. "Yeah. I'm okay."
"Good." He gave her a quick smile before taking her hand again and leading her down the stairs.
"Was she a...you know..." She couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.
"Do you really want to know?" he asked.
"No. I'd rather the exams were getting to me and that I've lost my marbles."
"Welcome to my world, Chris."
"Your world? This is normal for you?"
He gave her an ironic look and repeated, "Do you really want to know?"
She thought about an answer, but kept her mouth shut.
They reached the ground floor without seeing Ann again and Dean headed straight for the glass case. He looked around the hallway, for witnesses she supposed, then broke one of the side panes and reached into the case for the band hat.
"What are you doing?" Christine asked.
He glanced at her and replied, "Let's pretend Annie's spirit is tied to her earthly possessions, such as this, and that getting rid of it will cut her ties to this place. No more Ann, no more weird suicides, how does that sound?"
"Will it work?"
"Do you trust me?"
She shrugged. She might as well. She was in way over her head as it was.
He held the hat at arm's length and fished a Zippo out of his pocket, flipping it open and striking it. Christine's eyes were riveted on the flame as he held it to the hat and it caught, flaring brighter as it started to burn. This was by far the weirdest thing she'd ever done, but he didn't seem fazed at all. Just how often did he do stuff like this?
He dropped the hat to the tile floor and let it keep burning, offering her a smile. "Easy as pie," he said. "Don't have to worry about her anym-"
A blast of icy air pushed them back and knocked them both to the floor. They both looked up, Christine with disbelief and Dean with annoyance, to see Ann standing beside the memorial. She moved toward them past the remains of her hat, the air getting colder with every step.
"Old man should've let me dig," Dean muttered, standing and helping Christine to her feet. He grabbed the tire iron from where he'd set it before burning the hat and swung as Ann advanced, and she vanished.
"You said that would work," Christine said, looking left and right for the ghost to reappear.
"Yeah, well, my dad hasn't held up his end of the deal yet," he replied. "And now she's pissed."
Ann rushed them, still trying to get at Christine, and Dean swung again, still keeping her at bay. Christine tried to stay clear of the tire iron, clinging to his shoulders and sheltering behind his back while her eyes searched for Ann to vanish and rematerialize.
There was a surge of energy through the air and the tire iron flew from Dean's hand as if it was snatched away. He froze, stunned, and for the first time since he appeared in the dorm, he looked worried. "Crap," he said. "C'mon, we gotta get out of here." They ran for the exit, only to skid to a halt twenty feet from the door.
Ann stood in the way.
"What do we do?" Christine asked, fear paralyzing her vocal chords and only allowing a whisper of sound.
He didn't answer, keeping his eyes on the ghost.
"Dean?"
"I don't know," he said. "We're on the ground floor, so in theory we're good, but..."
"But?"
"I don't know, Chris. She looks pissed."
Ann lunged, hands outstretched, and another surge knocked Dean aside as she headed for Christine; cold fingers wrapped around Christine's throat and the floor fell away as she was lifted into the air, higher and higher and she knew Ann meant to drop her from the top floor-
"Hey, Annie, look what I got!"
Dean was on the ground standing over Christine's fallen book bag, waving the stolen notes like a flag in front of a bull. Ann's figure flickered, almost in confusion over which of them to target, and Dean offered up the notes again. "Catch me if you can, bitch!"
Ann hesitated, leaving Christine to dangle twenty feet off the tile floor, then she turned toward Dean, advancing swiftly-
An odd glow appeared at the edges of her shape like glowing embers, and before she could react her pale form lit up and burned away like paper held to a flame.
The grip on Christine's throat vanished and she fell through thin air. Dean threw the notes aside and dove underneath her to catch her, arriving just in time for her to drop into his arms and knock both of them flat to the ground.
"Jesus," he wheezed, trying to draw breath. "She's gone. You're safe. For real, I mean it-"
She moved quickly and pressed her mouth to his, fear and relief and a million other things crashing into pure adrenaline at the thrill of being alive. He froze in surprise for a second, then she felt him kiss her back, reaching up to tangle his hands in her hair and pull her closer, lips moving softly over hers. And once again, she thought it a little strange that he could be the most reassuring thing in the world when she'd only met him a few hours ago, but she couldn't care less.
They finally broke apart, still mostly where they'd landed, and she stared into his eyes, more than willing to get lost in their gorgeous green, before asking, "Do you think you can teach me that? How to get rid of them like that?"
"The flame-out thing?" he asked. "That wasn't me, that was my dad. As for how he did it...you might wanna stick with pre-med."
Fair enough. She leaned back into him for another kiss and he responded with enthusiasm before stopping her. "Do you hear that?"
She paused to listen and after a moment she heard it too, footsteps echoing through the building to the ground floor where they were making out a stone's throw from a vandalized memorial. "Let's go before someone sees..." She looked up at the smashed case and the ashes of the burned hat. "All of this..."
"I'm just surprised no one got curious about the noise already," he said as they got to their feet.
"Midterms," she explained. "If they're here, they're studying with headphones on and too zoned in to notice much else. Sort of the way you found me earlier."
He shrugged, then smiled at her. "I need to check in with my old man and let him know Ann is toast, then what do you say to a cup of coffee? I know of this diner where the cool kids hang out to study..."
"I don't know," she said. "I had a really weird night, lot of studying, a ghost tried to kill me, I think I might need to unwind..."
He gave her that singles-bar grin and took her hand, and she was growing to like that feeling. "The night's still young," he said. "Let's blow this joint."
##
John double-checked the trunk one more time before slamming it shut and glancing around the parking lot. He hadn't minded when Dean said he was going for a drink with that girl after finishing off the ghost that almost killed her, but if they were late getting on the road-
"Dad!"
Dean ambled into sight carrying coffee and donuts, an ear-to-ear grin visible from fifty yards. "I'm not late, am I?"
"Late enough," John replied, "but you saved us stopping for breakfast." He took the coffee Dean offered him and they got into the car. "How was your night?" he asked before starting the engine.
"Pretty good," Dean answered. "In fact, remind me to call her when we stop for the night."
"Got a lot of miles to cover before that happens..."
The grin never wavered. "That's all right, Dad. I can wait."
Thanks for reading! :)