The bell rang, followed by the shuffling of feet and papers.
As the class was dismissed, Natalie Odell shoved through the crowd towards the door and shrieked, "The vampire's out for my blood!"
Natalie's group of friends laughed. The rest murmured. Dahlia remained seated.
Crane watched.
A few minutes later, Dahlia gathered her things, slung her bag over her shoulder, and trudged down to the floor and towards the door. Dejectedly she asked, "Does it ever get easier?"
He couldn't tell if it was pity, but he certainly felt something when the broken thing said that sentence. Crane replied, "I'll address it."
As she trudged down the hall, Crane watched her. Shame for anyone to suffer such relentless harassment, to the degree of feeling confusion towards any semblance of amity with another person. These things could turn into life-long traumas, he knew.
He supposed he'd need to get the parents and the dean involved and stay out of their way. For now, he didn't pay it any mind.
Until the next day in class when he noticed Dahlia's usual spot in the classroom was empty. And not just that single day, but the next day as well. She wasn't the type to miss class often, and always seemed to be of fair enough health.
Crane decided to pass out an assignment himself, while announcing to the room his expectations for the day. As he passed the notorious clique, he overheard faint chatter among the girls. He finished a sentence, then with equal volume, addressed Natalie directly: "I suggest you focus on the task at hand before your assignment doubles in length."
The girl stared back, clearly offended, clearly not threatened. But with a quick raise of her eyebrows, she replied with emphasis, "Yes sir."
Every evening, that clique would loiter at the furthest end of the expansive GSU parking lot, sitting together in the bed of a pickup truck. Chatting, laughing, often times drinking, and occasionally snorting cocaine.
Among these youthful rebels were Natalie, plus Caitlin, Chris, and Tanner.
Chris was Natalie's jock boyfriend, and owner of the truck they often ran amok in. Caitlin and Tanner were their surface-level friends, and a couple themselves.
On this night, the four were sharing a case of beer with a few coke hits, and catching up on the latest school news.
After some time, Chris pulled himself into a standing position with the roof of the cabin. "Be back, gotta take a leak." The bed bounced slightly as he hopped off, making his way towards the nearest university building perhaps 100 feet away.
Chris wasn't sure which building he was near but he didn't care. He was too inebriated and energized to locate the nearest bathroom and decided to unzip outside an unoccupied wall.
He didn't hear the soft footsteps coming from behind.
After Chris finished and zipped up, he turned to meander back to his friends when a nearby figure startled him. A surprise at first, he quickly felt at ease when he realized it was a run-of-the-mill scarecrow. Guffawing, he stepped forward to investigate. "What the hell's this shit doing here?"
It was a slim character in a torn and dusty slate gray suit and a burlap sack over the head, with two tiny cut-outs for the eyes. Around the neck was a noose, and the mouth was made from a long and crooked slit held shut with twine switching. A home-made scarecrow.
"Oh man, they gotta see this ugly-ass thing-"
Wait, stop.
It moved!
In the blink of an eye, a pressured hissing sound emitted and Chris was engulfed in a plume of white smoke. He had no idea where it came from. The scarecrow? It had moved!
He fell to his knees coughing.
Drawn by the sound, Natalie, Caitlin, and Tanner all came jogging over. They were so preoccupied with checking on Chris that they failed to notice the Scarecrow raise a semi-automatic pistol and point it at Chris' head. His face blanched rapidly, and the others began to loudly chatter pleadingly for their lives.
What shocked all of them more than the firearm was Chris, who suddenly began to wail and shriek. It was a gut-wrenching cry of pure, raw, primal fear. No human should ever deserve to make such a sound.
Then the scarecrow spoke. Deep, ethereal, and booming.
"Get lost."
Tanner grabbed Chris around his chest and dragged him as they sprinted away. Natalie and Caitlin were soon to follow.
... Before Natalie lost her footing and fell to the asphalt, hard. Caitlin slowed and looked back. But when the scarecrow began to follow them at an unnervingly calm walking pace, she abandoned thoughts of loyalty and opted for self preservation, following the boys back to the truck and out of the area.
The blond was too terrified to get to her feet, and she betrayed everything in her ego that told her not to show frailty. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her bare legs were scraped and bleeding.
Flipping over onto her back in a submissive posture, she held out an arm towards the nearing scarecrow. "What do you want?!" She screamed at it.
Another hiss and another plume of white smoke. Natalie closed her eyes and tried to waft it away, but it was far too thick. It didn't seem natural.
She began to cough violently, rolling onto her side in attempt to nose out clean air.
The scarecrow boomed again:
"I want your obedience."
When Natalie looked towards it again, her sobbing became only more violent. "No, no ... NO! Get away!" She was screaming again and again, and jerked backwards so roughly that her palms began to rip open from the asphalt. Her panicked screams softened to manic whimpers and pleas. "You're not real, you're not real, you're not real ...
"You can't be real, you can't be real, you can't be real ..."
Lou knew that his daughter was braver and more capable of more than what she knew, but that didn't mean he stopped worrying about her at any given time. It was unlike her to miss more than a day of classes, and at the breakneck curriculum speed of the University, she couldn't afford to lose much more.
She lied to him about the misses, of course, figuring he wouldn't know if he wasn't even home. But he knew his daughter too well.
Ah well.
The mail room was in the secured lobby of their building. Lou made sure to check the mailbox on his way back out to work, but was confused to see that a newspaper had been delivered. They didn't have a subscription to the local post.
Even more suspicious, it was folded open to display a seemingly deliberate headline: "NIGHT ATTACK ON STUDENTS AT GSU".
The next day of class, Dahlia's spot was still empty.
The lecture continued.
After about ten minutes, Crane heard the classroom door open. When he looked over with intent to scold the late student ... it was Dahlia.
Panting and with a light sweat on her forehead, she hurried to her usual place. "I'm sorry, I woke up late."
Crane waited for her to take a seat and get her textbook open.
Then the lecture continued.