CHAPTER 4—MICHAEL CLARK
Friday
If I didn’t already have a significant list of things that bothered me about Greg, his snoring would definitely be at the top of my list. The sweet sounds of deforestation wake me up a whole half hour before my alarm is set to go off. When I turn over, he greets with the sight of him lying there in his boxers, having tossed his blankets on the floor in the middle of the night, as usual. He looks so peaceful, lying there with his mouth hanging open; makes me want to strangle him.
Instead, it seems like a better idea to just get breakfast and an early start on the day. Maybe even go to the gym. Yeah, right.
Breakfast on campus is served all-you-can-eat in the Bartholomew Lewiston Cafeteria (we call it “Bart’s,” for short). Without fail, there’s a tour group inside the lobby.
“Bart’s is a state-of-the-art dining facility,” the guide says. The eyes of the prospective students fill with wonder. Enjoy it while it lasts.
With finals around the corner, the dining areas are pretty packed. People who normally wouldn’t be up before noon are getting in an entire semester’s worth of studying done in a single morning. That said, despite being pretty crowded, the whole place is eerily quiet. I spend a five whole minutes attempting to find a table in the main eating area. If there’s someone here that I know, it’s impossible to tell since no one is making eye contact with anything but their textbooks—or the insides of their eyelids for what I assume is pre-exam meditation. While looking for a table, I nearly trip over a large gym bag that’s protruding precariously into the aisle. There’s no point in trying to stare down the guy who owns it, a rather large black guy, since he too seems to be engaged in some serious breakfast-study-time.
As a philosophy major, the secrets to passing my exams lie not in textbooks, but instead in the ethereal dimensions of the universe, where juicy secrets await discovery by a bright, eager mind such as mine. At least, that’s what I tell people when they ask if I want to go study. Sure, I could always write a paper or something, but it seems so much more philosophical to muse on paper topics as much as possible, even up to the hour before they’re due. Studying with people is also fairly off-putting, especially on the rare occasion I need to get something done. I can just barely hear the brains inside the skulls nearby; some are buzzing productively, some whirring and sputtering hopelessly, and others just seem to be rattling around in their skulls like a maraca that’s missing a few beans. It’s distracting.
I pull out a small blue case, flip open the “F” capsule, and dump a few pills of various sizes and colors into my mouth, washing them down will cold coffee. Halfway through the cold, chewy eggs, my appetite is lost and as usual breakfast consists of mostly carbs and not much protein. That’s college for you. I doubt anyone actually eats the way they should here. Except that guy, maybe. My eyes wander across the room to the guy with the gym bag, shoveling down forkfuls of eggs and bacon while his eyes furiously scan his texts. He eats well.
I do like this view, though, I admit to myself. The sun comes in this room head-on as it rises over campus, silhouetting the buildings in a postcard kind of way. In fact, the view is on most of the postcards you can buy on campus. Go figure.
Looking out into the distance, the people around me seem to fade away. My body gets left behind as the Spring breeze seems to flow through the room, through me, and carries me away. As I float along over the buildings and into the sunrise, I become vulnerable to my own thoughts. I wonder about life and what it’s all about. Is this as good as it gets? Maybe. If it is, why bother? Why keep fighting? Why struggle? Why do any of this? What’s the point? Darkness surrounds my unguarded mind and I manage to catch myself before it’s too late. My psychiatrist tells me that it’s not rational thinking, or something.
The hardened mass of egg substitute stares up haplessly from my plate and my stomach turns a little. Time to go. I leave in a daze, hardly noticing the brunette that bounces by on my way out. I almost want to turn around and look as most guys might, but I find myself to not be in much of a sight-seeing mood.
The fresh air and distance from the din of the studying masses help to brighten my mood somewhat, though I can’t help but feel somewhat caught in a cycle, a feeling that reminds me somewhat of the feeling of being watched. Goosebumps creep down my arms and I fumble for the earbuds jammed in my pocket, hoping the feeling can be forgotten as quickly as it came over me. Each strand of wire seems to disappear impossibly into the next as they loop endlessly around each other in a way that seems to defy the very laws of nature. I couldn’t recreate this knot if I tried. As soon as the thought registers, I become aware of a presence approaching quickly. There’s barely enough time to look up and register danger much less move out of the way of the asshole that’s sprinting down the sidewalk. He charges, his eyes glazed and wide with terror. His shoulder makes contact with mine and he stumbles for just a step before finding his stride and disappearing down the sidewalk. I’m knocked nearly off balance but manage to keep my footing. My mouth opens as if to shout something at him, but sound doesn’t come out. The eyes of bystanders shift from me, to the sidewalk, and back to me. A girl in a hoodie smirks at me and the guy walking with her shrugs sympathetically. They both watch for a moment while I rub the ache out of my shoulder. My face becomes red as I catch a few more pairs of eyes and my fingers resume the earbud puzzle as a distraction, though the event replays several more times in my head. What the hell was that guy’s problem? How could anybody be so incon-fucking-siderate? Seriously. I mean, what the hell was he doing anyway? Forgot his homework or something? Jesus.
I only think about the whole thing for another full second, maybe. The next, I don’t even remember it. Chaos erupts in the plaza only a few paces down the sidewalk from me. In the center, the crowd swells and sways all at once as if pushed by some invisible wave. What once was the backs of innumerable heads becomes a sea of terrified faces. Like the way thunder follows lightning, the sound of high-pitched screaming seems to reach me after a long delay of tense silence, like a slow-motion sequence going into overdrive. It’s at this point do I realize that myself and those around me have been frozen in place, unable to think or breathe, much less move.
Move, Mike, says a voice in my head, very clearly and calmly.
How? replies a tiny voice somewhere else.
The screaming grows louder and closer, a contagious reaction throughout the crowd.
Mass hysteria.
Somehow the image of hundreds of people sprinting in all directions, jumping and climbing over each other, trampling any in their way, reminds me of a stampede of gazelles. In my head, a giant, ferocious lion escaped the circus and has found his way to campus. The lion’s eyes glow red like coals, the sight and smells of campus reigniting its wild instincts. All it sees is prey. The chase is on.
Through the gaps in the frightened people, there’s no lion. Those who aren’t running are straining to see over the people, to try and figure out exactly what’s going on. As the plaza’s frightened throng thins out, the only thing that looks out of place is just another person—a portly gentleman—sprinting at top speed. His skin is beat red, his too-small t-shirt has large, dark sweat rings around his armpits and neck, his pained wheezing nearly audible over the rest of the commotion.
What’s so scary about him?
Move, Mike! the voice says again, an urgency growing. My heart’s pounding but I don’t know why. I can’t take my eyes off the fat man. That’s when it happens.
The fat man risks a glance over his shoulder. In that instant, he falls. It’s hard to tell if he trips or if the person—no, people—chasing him actually manages to run him down. A million thoughts whiz through my head as I try to put an explanation on the event, but it all goes out the window as soon as one of his attackers starts tearing meaty, red chunks out of the his torso. A second person leans down to rip a long strip of muscle from his arm, blood splatters him. In another second, the fat man can no longer be seen, only heard. His screams of agony drown out all others and soon, the entire crowd has stopped moving and is watching him being torn apart.
“What the fuck,” someone says next to me.
MOVE, MIKE!
One of the attackers on the fringes, one who can’t quite get a good spot on the meal, snaps back up to his feet. He looks around quickly and his eyes fall on a girl only a few feet away. He opens his mouth and an unholy sort of shout comes out, causing the girl to faint. He pounces on her and begins his work, her blood beginning to run down the sidewalk.
It takes ten of them only a minute to nearly devour the fat man to little more than skin and bones. The terrified shouts of those around me sound muted and distant as I stand there with my mouth open, frozen, witnessing the cannibalistic madness. What do you do when you see something like that? Yell? Scream? “Hey stop eating that guy!” one might say. My thoughts are not with my body. The attackers spring back to action, sprinting towards the crowd, blood dripping from their outstretched hands. I make eye contact with one of them and for several long seconds I can almost feel him next to me. Icy fingers crawl over my skin and down my spine. I feel, for the first time in my life, real fear.
RUN!
I rush back into my body and am aware of how heavy I am but have forgotten how to move. I look helplessly at my feet which remain planted to the ground, and back to the wave of people rushing away from the danger. Someone runs into me and I find myself moving along with them. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the girl who fainted is up and moving, her clothes torn and soaked with blood; she’s sprinting after someone else now.
Finding my way in the middle of the terrified mob feels like being carried out to sea in a riptide. All around, people are shouting, pushing, punching, and tripping over people. It’s impossible to tell if we’re running on solid ground or stampeding over people. I don’t look down for fear of losing my own balance if I’m not watching where I’m going. The only way to keep panic at bay is to formulate a plan. Safety. It’s the only word I can find in my busy consciousness. Making my way towards the edge is frustrating to the point of anger and next thing I know, I’m shoving people out of the way. A smaller man gets a face full of my palm and loses his balance. He disappears into the crowd. For a moment, as pangs of guilt start to supersede the anger and fear, I try to spot him. It occurs to me in that instant, though, that while I can’t find the man I accidentally pushed, I can’t even find the people we’re running from, which scares the guilt away. Remembering my word and the reason that I was running, I take off again, pushing my way back through the crowd. When I make it out, I find myself a stone’s throw from my dorm, as if my focus on safety carried me there. I don’t think of the man or anyone else in that crowd after that.
I barge in, sweating and out of breath, but uneaten. There are a few people in the common area studying, completely oblivious, and looking at me funny.
“I… I…” Trying to put the words together for my dorm-mates, it dawns on me that I haven’t had time to put the words together for myself. Turning around, I notice that almost none of the event can be seen from here, leading me to start to believe it didn’t actually happen.
My door is locked. Greg’s not here. Fumbling for the keys, trying to aim for the keyhole, I realize how much my hands are shaking. I throw open the door, slam it shut, and collapse on the floor. I take a moment to replay it all in my head. How did it start? A flash of a guy running into me. Another of a fat man running after a crowd. Another of him being… attacked. In these seconds, I’m able to force my brain to rationalize the entire situation. It couldn’t have been what it looked like. The only reasonable explanation is a prank that went too far. It’ll be on YouTube in a couple of hours and in a few days we’ll forget it ever happened. It’s a calming thought until I peer through the blinds and see a girl being chased by a mostly-naked man with one arm. After considering various scenarios, there was only one that made sense.
Crack-cocaine. It’s gone viral and everyone is super high and homicidal. Yup. That has to be it.
