Terrorscape by Nenia Campbell

uncomfortable, but his eye
contact had always been unflinchingly prolonged.
    The phone rang. Val stared at it, as if it had
become a scorpion poised to sting her with its
phenom. She considered letting the call go to voice
mail. But what if it was important?
What if it was Lisa?
    One look at the caller ID told her it wasn't, but she
picked up anyway, averting her face so her shaky
breathing wouldn't be audible over the line. “Y-yes?”
“Hey. Is this Val?”
     
She forgot to turn away this time. “W-who is
this?”
     
“It's Jade. You know, the party—Mary's friend.”
    “Jade?” Her lips felt numb. She realized that she
had been compressing them, to keep from gasping in
anticipation of bad news. “Oh. Oh, thank God.”
“That's an unusual reaction.” His voice was light.
Deceptively so? Val didn't know him enough to tell.
    “No, I was just—um, yeah, yeah I guess it was.”
She forced a laugh. It sounded fake to her own ears.
Maybe he'd chalk it up to the connection. “Sorry.”
“It's cool. So anyway, I was gonna ask you if you
were still up for coffee. Maybe tomorrow?”
    “Coffee. Tomorrow.” Val closed her eyes and tried
to pull up a mental calendar. It turned up blank.
There was no room for coffee in her world. All she
could see were the eyes of those young girls. Of the
killers. “Okay.”
    “See you at six?”
“Okay,” she repeated.
“Are you feeling all right? You sound sick.”
“Fine. I'm fine. Allergies. You know.”
    Where were all these lies coming from? She had
never been a good liar. Even as a child, she had found
it easier to admit guilt and tell the truth.
This isn't me.
    Fear was transforming her, rewiring her. She was
metamorphosing into a version of herself she no
longer recognized, and that frightened her.
    She
didn't
think
Jade
would
buy
such
an
obviously contrived excuse—she wasn't even sniffling
—but he must have because he said, “See you
tomorrow then? At the Student Union?”
“Uh-huh.”
    Val waited until she heard him hang up. She
stared at the phone in her hand. The details of their
conversation
started
to
turn
hazy,
just
seconds
afterward. She felt as if her mind were floating and
her limbs were lead weights keeping it anchored
down. People were dying. People were dying because
of her . And she had a date.
    Reality chose that moment to hit her with all the
subtlety of a grand piano. She would never be able to
have a normal life; the past would catch up to her, no
matter what she did. And even if the past didn't,
Gavin would. The two were one and the same.
(I am her future—and she is simply that: mine.) Val pitched down the phone and sobbed.
     
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪
    The student cafeteria was a small, comfortable
place with paneled white walls and plastic tables.
Comfortable was not the word Val would use to
describe
her
current
state
of
mind.
Awkward,
nervous, paranoid—yes. Comfortable? Not so much.
    Serial killer facts and trivia floated in her head,
periodically bobbing to surface like monsters from the
deep. Their murders were often based on fantasy and
fetishism, paraphilias so terrible that no normal
person would ever act upon, let alone possess them.
    She couldn't stop wondering whether Gavin had
done
any
of
those
things
she'd
read
about.
Cannibalism. Necrophilia. The sick sorts of acts that
were universal in the repulsion they caused. She had
seen him drink blood, her blood, as if it gave him a
sort of erotic thrill. Vampirism. She shuddered.
    College was supposed to be her safe place. She
had dyed her hair, changed her name. Only her
parents
knew
her
address
and
phone
number,
although Lisa probably knew the latter too. Now .
    Poor Blake. Poor, poor Blake.
His only crime had been surviving.
    Val chose an empty table near the back of the
cafeteria. She tried not to fixate on the automated
doors. Snatches of conversation drifted towards her
but she couldn't make heads or tails of any of the
actual
words.
The
muffled
tones,
pitches,
and
inflections