Chapter Text
Sam stepped up to the front of the big brick building, backpack slung over his shoulder and a small duffle bag clutched in his hand. It was bigger than he had imagined. Bigger and a whole lot scarier. He swallowed and stepped up to the big double doors. The words “Stanford University” were printed in red ink across a long white sheet which was slung like a victory banner across the front entryway.
Just to make the whole thing even more intimidating… he thought to himself. He must have been looking very lost standing in that hallway because a moment later, he felt a tap on his left shoulder. He turned around, brushing the hair out of his eyes so he could see the person standing there.
The girl in front of him was smiling brightly as if she had just received an invitation to go to Hawaii over winter break. She was wearing red thick-framed glasses and auburn hair fell in light waves across her shoulders.
“Hi!” she said, sticking out a hand. “I’m Charlie.”
Sam took it, returning the smile. “Sam.” He paused, trying to think of something to say. “Ah…I like your shirt.”
She looked down at her t-shirt and grinned. It portrayed a cat with circular glasses and a lightning scar and read “Harry Pawter.”
“Thanks!” she said and reached into her shoulder bag to grab a little slip of paper. “So, what are you taking, Sam?”
And that was the beginning of Sam’s first day at Stanford University.
~*~
One year later
“Charlie hurry up!” Sam yelled, tapping his foot impatiently against the wooden door of their apartment.
From somewhere far down the hall a muffled voice answered. “I know, I know, I just can’t remember where I put my calculator!”
Sam sighed, brushing back his hair before glancing at his watch for the tenth time that minute. “We’re going to be late for Dr. Turner’s class on the first day. That means extra credit work all semester!”
Charlie came puffing around the corner a moment later, glasses askew and hair rumpled, but with the calculator clutched triumphantly in her hand. “Okay let’s go!”
They ran out the door and tore across campus. By the time they arrived at Dr. Turner’s classroom, they were out of breath, sweating, and exhausted.
“Next time…I’m…not…going to wait…for you,” Sam panted as he bent over and rested the palms of his hands on his knees.
“You’d just abandon me?” Charlie threw back, but her insult didn’t sound very convincing when she could hardly draw breath to deliver it. “I think I need a nap.” She flopped down in one of the seats and set her bag on the floor beside her.
Sam settled more gracefully into the seat next to her and heaved a disapproving sigh. “And this is why we need to pack our bags the night before an 8am class.”
“Whatever Mr. overprepared,” Charlie shot back.
“Lazy.”
The two were interrupted from more mindless banter when a blonde girl a little taller than Charlie slid into the seat next to them.
Charlie stared at her with wide eyes. “How did you possibly manage to make it here after us, Jess?” she asked incredulously. “I lost my calculator again!”
The girl, Jess, smiled and started pulling books out of her backpack to stack on her desk. “I was trying to convince Dr. Malinski to loan me those papers.”
Charlie’s eyebrows rose an extra inch and her eyes widened slightly in surprise. “What, again?”
Jess sighed, looking defeated. “S’not like he’d give them to me anyway… I don’t understand why he’s being so cagey about it.”
“Maybe he thinks you’re trying to start a cult of dark magic,” Charlie suggested.
“Charlie!” Jess protested, and they both started laughing, only to be cut off by Sam’s shushing a moment later when the professor began to speak.
After class, the three of them headed over to The Claw Fountain that stood in one of the side courtyards of the school. Sam had never really liked the place. He knew it had been built in honour of two students who had died years ago, but something had never felt right about the place to him.
But the girls liked it, so they came there often, and Sam just pretended he enjoyed it too.
“So, maths project, due next week,” Jess said, looking crushed as she slumped down on the edge of the fountain.
“Tell me about it,” grumbled Sam. “I mean, it’s the first day of classes and Dr. Turner is still determined to out-due everyone else on assigned homework.” He sighed and leaned back, letting the late morning sun warm his face. But the strange thing was…it wasn’t warm. Not like September sun in California usually was. Something in his heart clenched and a shiver ran down his spine. It was probably just a cold spell, but he didn’t like the implications of cold air where it was supposed to be warm.
“Ah…guys?” he said, standing up and stooping to grab his fallen backpack from the foot of the tall fountain. “Can we go back inside?”
Charlie and Jess were in the middle of discussing a new dryer for their apartment and started at their friend’s sudden request.
“But…we just got here…” Charlie protested, looking confused and a little disappointed.
Sam just shook his head and started walking back towards the main campus building.
Charlie and Jess shared a concerned look before grabbing their stuff and jogging after him.
~*~
Sam felt guilty the rest of the day. It was probably nothing. There was no indication that it was actually a ghost. But in the very slim, highly improbable case that it had been a ghost haunting the fountain, Sam knew he was responsible for not dealing with it like any good hunter should have done.
No, I’m not a hunter anymore, he snapped to himself as he walked to his logic class with Jess and Charlie. I don’t have to deal with these sorts of things. It’s not my job. But that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty.
Sam was so engrossed in his feelings, he didn’t even notice when the two girls stopped abruptly in front of him. He stumbled into Charlie and was about to grumble about it when his eyes focussed on the sight his friends had been captivated by.
A man was lying on the hallway floor, clutching his head with both hands. Deep, crimson blood flowed between his pale fingers and dripped to the floor, coating the white marble with sickening red.
Jess took a step back, mumbling something that sounded like a name under her breath. And that’s when Sam recognised the man. It was their logic professor.
Students were milling around, looking scared and unsure of what to do. Snatches of conversation floated through the thick air and Sam felt an icy weight sink through his stomach.
“Did he fall?”
“No…It just appeared there!”
“What?”
“What do you mean?”
“I was here when it happened! He was just standing there and his head split open!”
“Dude, that’s impossible.”
Sam’s mind was racing. This sounded like a case. This was exactly what he had been trying to escape when he left for Stanford. But somehow it seemed to have followed him here.
Suddenly the yowl of sirens wailed through the building. The crowd was splitting apart—making room for the paramedics as they went to the injured man’s aid.
Sam felt himself being shoved aside by another ambulance worker and then he found himself outside the building with all of the other students that had been milling around.
They were told that the man had slipped on the step and hit his head on the edge of the stone wall. He was being taken back to the hospital for stiches, but he would be fine. Everyone still looked very scared, but since there was obviously going to be no logic class, the crowd quickly began to disperse.
“Wow…hope he’s okay,” Jess said as the three of them headed across campus to their apartment.
“Me too, he always let us have the rest of exam days off…” Charlie added.
Not wanting to stay around the school, they decided to go out for dinner. After all, it was their first day back, and one of the professors was already down from a head injury. Charlie drove them into town and they got fish and chips to eat by the beach.
Sam barely tasted the salty food he forced into his mouth. He didn’t feel very hungry. Not when there were now two signs that something supernatural was going on at Stanford.
Jess and Charlie didn’t seem concerned at all by the rather traumatic afternoon and insisted they go out for ice cream as well.
~*~
It was 12:40 am before Sam finally stumbled into his room and flopped into bed. He was too tired to shower or even take off his clothes, so he crawled under the covers in his jeans and flannel shirt and closed his eyes as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Sleep came immediately, but when he awoke the next morning, he felt unrested and shaken, like he had been woken by a bad dream. Nothing remained in his conscious mind of such an event, but shadows lurked just below the surface of his waking memory.
The day started out okay. Sam showered and dressed and went down to the kitchen; yawning and rubbing his puffy eyes. “Morning,” he called to Charlie, who was tapping away on her laptop and speaking animatedly to herself in the way she did when she was playing a video game.
She glanced up, opening her mouth to reply, when she let out a gasp of shock and fear. “Omg!” she cried, slamming her laptop closed and rushing around the table.
Sam turned around, frowning in confusion, and his own mouth dropped open in shock.
Jess was standing in the hallway to the kitchen, clutching a towel and holding a shaking hand over a gaping wound on her forehead.
“Omg, Jess!” he gasped, and was at her side in an instant.
Charlie was panicking, her eyes wide and startled. She had her phone out and was muttered to herself as she started dialling 911.
“Don’t,” Sam said, taking her phone in one fluid motion as he knelt next to the injured blonde. “Okay, here, keep pressure on it,” he instructed and handed Jess the towel that hung limply from her other hand.
Jess nodded, numb from shock and fear. She pressed the towel against her forehead and gritted her teeth
Sam slung one arm around her shoulders, rubbing comfortingly as he turned to speak quietly to Charlie. “I need my bag from the car—the one I keep in the back under the front seat.”
Charlie nodded numbly but got to her feet and ran for the door.
Once Charlie was gone, Sam turned his attention back to Jess. “Hey…Jess?” he prompted, smoothing one large hand across her back in an attempt to comfort the girl. He could tell she was going into shock, and even though he knew the wound wasn’t that bad, it would still be painful and probably needed a few stitches. He didn’t want to explain that he was afraid to take her to the hospital in case of supernatural causes. It sounded stupid, and petty, and downright selfish, but it had been a year since he had dealt with this sort of stuff and he didn’t want to have to explain that to Charlie. Or the doctors. Not when there was no explanation for the cut on Jess’ head and the exact same thing had happened to their professor not twelve hours beforehand.
Jess gave a soft whimper and pawed at Sam’s hand, trying to get his attention. “Um…Sam. I don’t know…what happened but…I think. I think there was something in my room!” she whispered. Her voice was scared and breathless and Sam felt his heart sink lower.
“It’s okay, you’re fine now,” he said, biting his lip through the words he knew were a lie.
At that moment, the door burst open and Charlie came racing in, her eyes blazing almost as brightly as her hair in the light from the streetlamp outside. “Here,” she said, shoving the small metal box into Sam’s outstretched hand.
“Okay, can you boil some water for me?” he asked, already fishing through the box for a needle and sutures. He didn’t want Charlie to be there when he stitched the wound. It would freak her out and right now he didn’t need to scare Jess anymore.
With Charlie again gone, Sam picked up a hypodermic needle and a small vile of lidocaine. He filled the syringe, careful to keep it out of sight, and slid the needle into Jess’ arm. She gave a small groan of displeasure, but that was the only response.
“Good job,” Sam whispered and grabbed a pack of alcohol wipes. Still murmuring encouragement to Jess, he started sterilising his hands and the needle.
That done, he opened a bottle of wound disinfectant and poured some onto a clean cloth.
“Okay, this is going to hurt, but I need you to stay still,” he instructed as gently as he could. Reaching forward, he removed the towel from Jess’ forehead and pressed the new cloth against the bleeding wound. He wiped it over a few times and then began to carefully stitch the flaps of skin together.
It only took three stitches, but by the time Charlie returned and Sam was setting down the needle, his hands were shaking and he felt a little sick.
“Where on earth did you learn how to do that?” she breathed, her own eyes wide, and bright against her unusually pale cheeks.
“My dad was in the military,” was Sam’s only answer. He grabbed another towel and started to wipe the blood from his hands, hoping Charlie didn’t see how much they were shaking.
“Um…I don’t think we should go to class today,” Jess said, her voice sounding weak and her eyes glowing with that glassy ‘out of it’ kind of look that accompanies shock.
“Me neither,” Charlie said and slumped to the floor. She looked from Jess to Sam, eyes fearful. “I don’t even want to leave the house.”