It’s the night before Thanksgiving and I’m at the Meals-2-Go section in the
Western State University Center Café stuffing saran-wrapped turkey
sandwiches into my backpack while the cashier stares at her phone. I was
supposed to have driven back home to Colorado Springs that morning before
the storm but last night Chelsea stole a handle of Old Crow from the senior
suite and we stayed up drinking and watching clips from nineties dating
shows on YouTube and next thing I knew it was noon today and Chelsea was
shaking me awake to say that her car was here to take her to her flight
home to LA. By the time I got my shit together the roads were closed and
the snow was beginning to really fall. I lied and told my mom I had a
last-minute project that I had to work on for class because I figured it
was a better excuse than sleeping in. The truth is I don’t really care that
I’m missing Thanksgiving, I’m mostly bummed that Chelsea won’t be around to
drink and gossip and watch movies with for five whole days.

I pay for one sandwich and go back outside where ice crystals attack my
eyes. Squinting, I trudge on, thinking of the sandwich I’m about to eat and
the half-bottle of Old Crow waiting for me. I can just barely make out
the path to the dorms. Chelsea’s sleeping bag coat that she let me keep for
the break feels like a freaking t-shirt in this weather, and immediately my
nose begins to run and my snot to freeze. I take the long way to see if
Paul Brewer’s light is on. He’s a transfer student from some East Coast
liberal arts school and super-hot, and he told Chelsea he was staying on
campus over Thanksgiving. Maybe, I think, this is the weekend to make my
move, though I’ve hardly spoken two words to him and am an awkward mess
whenever he comes into our room to talk to Chelsea. She says he visits to
see me but I know that he’s definitely there for her. I see a light on and
call his name but the wind swallows it up. It’s cold and I feel like a
loser so I keep on walking.

***

Without Chelsea Hoage around this semester, I would have either dropped out
or offed myself. It’s happened a couple of times here already, during my
freshman year—students offing themselves. The weather is what does it, they
say. And the isolation. Chelsea thinks it runs a little deeper than that.
It has to do with the cruel, jagged mountains that loom over us like
they’re plotting something. The same angry spirits that terrorized the
settlers moving west and the prospectors hunting for gold. The spirits grab
on to you, she says, and they don’t let you go. She blames the lore. She’s
way superstitious and it’s been getting more intense lately—I came home the
other night and she had lit a bunch of sage leaves and was waving it around
the room. “To cleanse it,” she said. The room still smells like campfire.

One of her favorite bits of lore is the story about the Trapper. Every so
often there are sightings of someone dressed like a nineteenth-century
trapper slipping through the halls of the dorms. For whatever reason, maybe
because it’s balls-cold, he’s partial to the showers. There’ll be muddy
boot-prints on the bathroom tile, mirrors steamed up at odd hours of the
night. He always leaves something behind: a bloody rabbit foot in the sink;
a goose feather in the shower caddy.

He also takes someone with him: usually a girl. Chelsea says that in the
nineties this was happening a lot—the Trapper would be spotted slinking
around and in the morning some girl would be missing from her bed. She’d
come back a few days later, dazed, with no memory of what had happened to
her. Most would drop out soon after.

There were a group of guys that didn’t like the idea of this
whatever-it-was sneaking onto campus and taking their girls. Protecting the
school from creeps was their duty, after all. They stayed up nights, taking
turns patrolling the halls of every dorm. No luck. No Trapper. They got
frustrated, decided that maybe if they couldn’t get ahold of him
themselves, they’d trap the Trapper with a pretty sophomore: Kelly Jasper.

Of course, Kelly Jasper thought that she was just going to another party
with her friends. The boys plied her with alcohol and invited her along for
a beer run. She probably thought it was weird that they were taking the
long way to the parking lot—the path by the woods—but was too wasted to say
anything about it. She probably started screaming when they tied her to a
tree, and screamed louder when the boys ran and hid to wait for the
Trapper. She probably screamed a lot. She screamed until she wasn’t
screaming anymore, and the boys peeked out from behind their trees or
bushes or whatever, and she was gone.

When she didn’t show up to class the next couple of days, the
administration began to worry, and the police started combing the campus
and the town. The morbid whispered that she was probably another suicide. A
few days later three cops found her in this tiny cabin in the woods, maybe
a ten minute-walk from campus. Some say she was skinning a deer by a
roaring fire. Others say she was eating a deer, practically raw,
blood trickling down her chin. Everyone remembers what it was she said to
the cops when they found her, which was that the Trapper had taken her and
made her his mistress. The cops said There is no Trapper, you are clearly
here on your own. And she was like, Well where did all these pelts come
from? And she gestured to the animal skins that hung from the ceiling, the
bed, the wooden chair she sat on. And don’t talk like that or you’ll piss him off and the cops were like Okay, sure but your parents are
looking for you just please come with us, and being cops, they forced her
to.

Listen, she told them from the back of the cop car, he’s not just going to
go away. Those pelts are keeping him alive. You need to burn them, and the
cabin.

The cops told her they weren’t in the business of vandalizing private
property and asked her why she didn’t just walk back to campus, didn’t she
know that she had only been ten minutes away?

She claimed that she’d tried, but every time she thought she was getting
close there would just be more trees and then she’d pass out and find
herself back in the cabin.

The newspaper took a picture of her that night that Chelsea and I found
online. You can see the tear streaks through the dirt on her face. She has
this dazed look in her eyes, like something snapped. “The stare of a doomed
girl,” Chelsea said as she enlarged the picture on my laptop screen so that
Kelly Jasper’s eyes were gray clusters of pixels. Two weeks after the photo
was taken, she’d set fire to her room and died of smoke inhalation.

The kicker of this little bit of lore is that each one of those cops that
took her, they all had these terrible things happen to them—one of them
shot himself in the throat while cleaning his gun. Another one lost his
baby to this freak bacterial infection. And the third, well, he lost
everything during the recession. Now he stands outside the Walmart begging
most mornings.

The Trapper, though, he’s been spotted a few times around these parts since
then, stalking the halls, looking for a new Trapper wench. Chelsea says
he’s some sort of supernatural being, others think he’s one of those
back-to-nature Ted Kaczynski types who just wants his annual hot shower and
co-ed lay, and that all that tragedy with the cops is coincidence.

She’ll tell me these stories as we’re going to sleep, bits of hearsay from
other people on campus and things she’s read online. We strategize escape
plans in case the Trapper pays us a visit. I do this to humor her because
the lore is just lore, I tell myself. She’s given me some beads she got
from a meditation retreat last summer in Northern California that are
supposed to ward off evils. I put them on my keychain because you can never
be too sure.

***

I get back to my dorm just as George, one of our dorm security guards, is
zipping up his jacket.

“Still here?” he says.

“I couldn’t get out before the roads closed,” I say. “I’m stuck.”

His pudgy face crinkles into a look of concern as I stand there, dumbly,
half-expecting him to invite me home with him and his family where there
will probably be a turkey and green bean casserole and dressing and the
whole deal. But he just throws his bag over his shoulder. “I think there
are some seniors over in The Pinnacles who are celebrating,” he says, “they
do it every year. There’s a turkey and everything.”

“Thanks,” I say. I have absolutely no intention of going to The Pinnacles,
the campus apartments where the rich assholes Chelsea used to hang out with
lived.

“You can call the main office if you need anything,” he says.

“Have a good holiday,” I say, giving him a salute. I’m not sure what the
salute is for, it just seems like the proper thing to do.

“You too,” he says, and walks out into the weather.

***

Chelsea’s one of the few here who, like me, doesn’t ski. Skiing’s all
that’s done here at Western State University. Skiing when there’s snow,
which is practically year-round, and partying all the time, which is why
everyone calls it Wasted State. There’s not much else to do in Gunnison,
Colorado, unless you’re into studying. It makes the Springs look like
Manhattan or something. If I weren’t getting a free ride here then I’d
probably just forget college and move to Boulder and focus on my music.
Only assholes play music here. I thought I’d at least be able to join some
wannabe-Phish jam band but all I’ve seen is these idiot ski-jocks get
stoned and try to pick out “Stairway”.

Chelsea and I probably wouldn’t be friends if we weren’t roommates. She’s
from Los Angeles and is rich, I’m from Colorado Springs and not. She’s done
coke with James Franco, for example. She came to Wasted State because she
was super into skiing and her parents have a chalet up here that she used
to stay at with her old group of friends off-season but they had a falling
out and she started spending more time in the room, with me. Her old
friends, she says, were assholes and made her hate anything to do with
skiing. She says she’ll never ski again. Whenever I ask her why she changes
the subject.

***

Back in our room, I inhale a sandwich and wash it down with some Old Crow
mixed with flat Diet Coke from the mini-fridge while streaming Freaks & Geeks on my laptop in bed. I’m supposed to finish my
reading for my Lit Seminar, and I should have been slogging my way through Jane Eyre. I really want to finish it—the plot synopsis
on Wikipedia made it sound pretty cool with the crazy lady in the attic and
stuff but the language is so old-fashioned it just puts me to sleep. It’s a
holiday weekend and I deserve to relax. Jane Eyre can wait. My
phone buzzes with a text from Chelsea.

Are you losing it yet? Do you have enough food? Did you hook up with
Paul? Are you losing it?

No. Yes. No. No.
I reply. George tried to get me to go to a Pinnacles party.

There’s a pause, then a reply. You should go if you want.

She’s testing me, I know it.

No way I would hang out with those ski-tards
, I write back.

Miss you already,
She says. Gotta go out to dinner with the fam. Vom-fest.

Miss you too, bb. Will call later.

I watch a few more episodes and drink some more til I get bored and decide
that it’s a good time to give Chelsea a call but my phone is dead and I
realize that I lent Chelsea my charger and it’s in her purse which is with
her in Los Angeles.

“Noooo…” I say out loud, to no one. Maybe I am losing it. The
Victorian-looking woman on the cover of Jane Eyre on the floor
near my bed stares up at me, pleadingly. I’m not going to read it. I’m too
drunk anyway, and too sleepy.

Then there’s a gust of wind and the lights flicker out and there I am alone
in the room with no light except for my blue laptop screensaver, pulsing
like a breath.

The stories that Chelsea tells all start whirling through my mind and I
start to get a little jumpy and take another sip of my drink but it doesn’t
seem to help. If my phone had some juice at least I could text Chelsea,
tell her what was going on, and it would be like someone was there with me.
That’s when I remember Brewer’s window, how his light was on, and maybe he
has a backup battery or something, and how I’d rather be with
someone, anyone, right now than by myself.

I get out of bed and feel around on the floor for a pair of jeans and slide
them on. I run my hands through my hair. I briefly consider putting on some
eyeliner but decide that it’s better to show up makeup-less than with
makeup applied in the dark. And then I’m off, down the hall, imagining what
will happen when I knock on Paul Brewer’s door.

He’ll let me in, I decide, and we’ll sit in candlelight and play each other
songs on guitar. I’d been working on a cover of “Where is My Mind?” by the
Pixies that Chelsea said would snag any boy who was remotely indie. I’m
going over the chords in my head when I approach Brewer’s door. I turn my
hands to fists to keep them from shaking. I channel my inner Chelsea and
knock.

“Who is it?” he says.

“Lily.”

“Who?”

“Lily!” I say again, louder, “from down the hall.”

He cracks open the door.

“Oh,” he says, “Chelsea’s friend.”

He’s wearing a Western State t-shirt and basketball shorts. The smell of
weed wafts from the doorway.

“What’s up?” he says.

I haven’t rehearsed this part. What the hell was I supposed to say—that I
was afraid of the dark?

“Can I come in?” I say.

“Do you guys mind?” he asks to the concealed guests in his room.

“Whatever,” says a girl.

“Is she hot?” a boy says, followed by some giggling.

Brewer rolls his eyes at me. “You can come in if you don’t mind hanging out
with these idiots.”

Inside, Rob Briggs and Amanda Johnson are sitting on the floor. A camping
lantern burns in front of them, casting dramatic shadows on their faces. My
panic level is maxed out now. These are Chelsea’s old friends. The
ski-tards. The ones who snicker every time they see us like it’s fucking
eighth grade and call her The Hog behind her back (a variation on her last
name, which I guess they think is real clever).

“Guys, this is Lily,” Brewer says. He puts his hand on the small of my back
and gently guides me into the room. I’m tingling.

“Lily, these are Rob and Amanda.”

“Hey,” says Amanda.

“Sup,” says Rob, “cool hoodie.”

I’m wearing the Radiohead Amnesiac sweatshirt I’d found at a
thrift store on one of my daytrips to Boulder with Chelsea.

“Thanks,” I say. Brewer sits down next to Amanda.

“Sit down,” says Brewer, “have a beer, while they’re cold.”

“We’re trying to convince Brewer here to come out to the slopes with us,”
says Amanda.

“But he’s being gay about it,” says Rob, “aren’t you Brewer.”

I sit down next to Rob, who is leaning against Brewer’s bedframe. Amanda
smiles as she hands me a can of beer from the fridge.

“I’ve got a screwed up knee, I told you,” Brewer says.

“Riiight,” says Rob, then coughs out “pussy.”

Brewer turns to me. “What are you doing all the way over on this side of
the hall?” he says, his blue eyes dancing in the lantern light.

There’s a draft coming in from the window above Brewer’s desk, propped open
with a crushed beer can. A candle near his laptop sputters out. I take a
long sip of my beer. Rob packs a bowl.

“What kind of question is that?” says Rob. “The lady clearly wants to
partake in the inhalation of the dankest weed this shitty campus has to
offer.” He passes me the bowl. “Greens?

He asks me. I shrug and take a hit. It’s just okay.

“Thanks,” I say, exhaling and passing it to Amanda.

“So,” says Brewer, “did you see him, too?”

I have no idea what Brewer is talking about. “See who?” I say.

“The Trapper,” he says.

My stomach turns a little and I wonder if they’re playing some sort of
trick on me.

“Oh my god,” says Amanda, “stop.” She hugs her knees.

“You know who the Trapper is, right?” asks Brewer. “Apparently it’s a thing
here. But it sounds like bullshit to me.”

“Yeah,” I say, playing it cool, “I’ve heard of him.”

“Rob here claims to have seen him in the bathroom down the hall,” says
Brewer.

“I swear,” says Rob, slapping the floor to make his point, “he was taking a
shower. I saw his boots. I saw his pelts. You know that’s his M.O. before
he steals a chick.” I realize then, from the frown on his face, that this
is no joke, that Rob actually thinks he’s seen the Trapper.

“Why does it always have to be a chick?” says Amanda. “Maybe you’re next.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” snaps Rob, “the Trapper isn’t into dudes. The
whole reason he goes after chicks is because the guys he was with on his
prospecting expedition ate his wife or whatever. He wants to replace her.”

“Sounds like a romantic ghost,” says Brewer.

Amanda scoffs. “He’s not a ghost. He’s a zombie, or something.”

“Zombies eat brains, babe, they don’t steal women,” says Brewer.

“Ghosts can’t kidnap people,” says Amanda.

“Ghosts aren’t real, and neither are zombies, so it doesn’t really matter,”
says Brewer.

“Whatever, you guys,” says Rob, “I know what I saw.” He turns to me. “You
believe me, right?”

“I guess,” I say, using the same non-committal tone I use with Chelsea when
she tells me about this kind of stuff. I feel kind of bad for him, really.
Was he the one who started Chelsea’s Trapper obsession, or was it the other
way around?

“See?” He says, “She’s the only smart one here.” He slides his hand onto my
back and I get a chill.

“How much of that dank weed did you have before you came over here?” Brewer
says to Rob. Then his eyelids lower and his face softens as he takes a hit.

“Lay off him, Paul,” says Amanda, before nestling up against him.

So much for my chances with Brewer, I think, as I watch him give Amanda’s
shoulder a squeeze. I’d need to tell Chelsea that Amanda had basically
called dibs.

“Can I charge my phone?” I ask.

“Totally,” says Brewer. I hand it to him and he stands up and plugs it into
his laptop.

He sits back down and looks at me, grinning.

Rob notices. “Why are you looking at her like that?” he says.

“I was just thinking,” he says, “that maybe Lily can go with you and
confirm what it is you think you saw.”

“If you’re the one who doesn’t believe him, why don’t you go and see for
yourself,” I say to Brewer. I’m surprised at the harshness in my voice.

Brewer looks at Rob, who is making cartoon ghost “Oooo” noises with his
mouth and wiggling his fingers. For a moment I think that Brewer is going
to snap at me, kick me out of the room.

“Nah,” says Brewer.

“Too scared to ski, too scared to prove me wrong,” says Rob in a sing-song
voice. Brewer throws a balled up sock at him.

It goes on like this for a while. I relax a little, and realize that it’s
actually kind of nice to be around people. Brewer pulls out his guitar and
lets me play my Pixies cover and Amanda and Rob are super nice about it and
ask me to play them some old Sublime songs and I realize that I’m actually
having a good time. I start to think that I know nothing about the
ski-tards, that maybe Chelsea has the wrong idea.

While Brewer and Amanda play blackjack, Rob puts his arm around me, which I
think is a little weird but it’s been forever since I’ve been, well,
touched like that, so I kind of like it. He’s not Brewer but he’s got a
clean-cut rich-kid look going for him so why not. The WSU boys have never
paid me that much attention. I don’t rock a pushup bra and smoky eye makeup
like Amanda. She has clearly planned to look dressed up and dressed down at
the same time, since she’s wearing sweatpants and a tight pink sweatshirt
with all that makeup. Rob, with his arm around me, makes me feel a little
less jealous of Amanda, who is leaning closer and closer to Brewer with
each hand he deals. Rob starts asking me about my music then, which I have
only talked to Chelsea about, and about the shows I like to go to. He tells
me he has tickets to see his friend’s band at a club in Boulder next
weekend and that I should totally come and I say maybe because all I can
think about is what Chelsea would think.

“I’m glad you stopped by,” he says, hugging me tighter. His sweatshirt
smells like weed and incense. My phone begins to buzz on Brewer’s desk but
I just leave it. I must have flinched though, because he asks me what’s
wrong.

“Nothing,” I say.

“You can tell me,” he says, playing with a strand of my hair.

“Why did Chelsea stop hanging out with you guys?” I blurt out.

“Oh man,” he said. He puts his hands in his lap, shakes his head. “It’s a
long fucking story.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard. It’s chick drama,” he says, “but
basically Amanda and I used to date—we’re just friends now. Anyway, Chelsea
and I hooked up and Amanda got all pissy about it, and the two of them had
a falling out, and I was just stuck in the middle. I sided with Amanda,
because Chelsea was kind of a bitch about the whole thing, no offense.”

“A bitch how?” I say.

“She started spreading all these rumors. Just immature BS.”

“Chelsea did that?” I say. But part of me isn’t that surprised. She can be
vengeful when she wants to be.

“I can’t believe you didn’t hear,” he goes on. “It was like the biggest
drama a couple months ago.”

“What was she saying?” I ask.

“That I took advantage of her. Like I said, total BS, but we still had to
had to have a fucking campus judicial hearing about it.” I feel his body
tense up, like he’s annoyed just thinking about what Chelsea had done.

I think back to a couple of months ago and remember how all of a sudden at
the end of September, Chelsea started staying in at night, how she’d come
back to the room looking tired, how she’d hole up and watch Sex and the City and sometimes cry while I tried to focus on
studying. That was when we started talking.

“I remember now,” I say. He begins to squeeze my shoulder again.

“You’re a lot more down-to-earth than she is, I can tell.”

“Thanks,” I say, feeling uneasy all of a sudden. My leg has fallen asleep
and I stand up, take my phone from the desk, and sit on the bed, above Rob.

There are a string of texts from Chelsea, asking if I’m all right.

The power is out and I’m chilling with Rob and Paul and Amanda
. I write.

What???????????????????? Rob Briggs?????????

Yes.

I want you to be careful around him, seriously.

This is what I expected. She was so possessive sometimes. I decide to press
her a little bit.

He’s nice, I don’t know what the big deal is
.

Just trust me
.

Drama queen. I’m about to text it but know that it will just lead to her
blowing up at me.

Why can’t you just tell me?

“What’s going on up there?” says Rob, swiveling his head to look up at me.

“My mom’s texting,” I say, “she’s worried about the storm.”

“Tell her you’re with friends,” he says. Friends. I smile down at him.

There’s a long pause, as I watch the dots that signal Chelsea typing blink
on and off. Rob takes another hit from Brewer’s pipe.

I’ll tell you when I get back,
she writes, finally.

I look at the back of Rob’s head. My leg is in a position where if I pull
my knee up and slide my foot forward fast enough, I can give him a good
kick. Or I can slide down next to him and keep talking about bands. I set
the phone back on the desk and put my hands in my sweatshirt pocket, where
my keys are, and fiddle with the beads Chelsea gave me. It feels like a
million years since the first time we hung out, when she triumphantly burst
into the room with a box of wine and told me that I needed to help her
finish it if I didn’t want her to get alcohol poisoning, but really it had
only been a couple of months. Before that she’d been a stranger, spending
weekends and some weeknights at the chalet, leaving me alone in the dorm
with my books and my computer and my guitar and my stupid, stupid thoughts.
When she started talking to me, the weekends became something to look
forward to, instead of to dread. But still, there were some major question
marks about her. Like why is she just now telling me about Rob? What
happened with the ski-tards, really?

Rob pulls himself up on the bed next to me and leans into my shoulder. Just
then a crash from outside makes us both jump. Brewer and Amanda, who have
been making out by the closet, stop and look in the direction of the noise.

Brewer starts cracking up. “It’s the storm, you idiots,” he says, but he
takes Amanda and pulls her closer and they start kissing again.

Reaching around my back, Rob grabs the extinguished candle from the desk,
re-lights it, and puts it down next to my phone. “Now I can see you,” he
says. I stare at my sneakers as he leans in closer and whispers in my ear:
“I want to show you the Trapper. They’ll believe you.”

His breath on my earlobe makes my whole body vibrate. He begins massaging
my knee, moving his hand up my jeans. I push it away, smiling to show that
it’s fine but to maybe dial it down just a little bit, but he moves it
back.

“I don’t think so,” is all I can muster.

“Come on,” he says. He starts kissing my neck. I stiffen and he senses it,
because he stops and hisses, “You like to watch?” gesturing with his chin
at Amanda and Brewer on the floor. It takes me a second to realize what he
means and I’m glad that the lights are out because I can feel my cheeks
turning bright red.

“It’s cool,” he says, “I’m just going to go take a leak. Then we can pick
up where we left off.” He gives my knee a squeeze as he stands up.

Once he leaves and shuts the door behind him I stare at the writhing pile
of limbs on the floor and decide that maybe I should just make a run for
it, and wonder why I didn’t just ask Rob to walk me back to my room like a
normal sane human being but then I remember what Chelsea had said about Rob
and wonder again whether or not to believe her.

I step out into the hallway. With Brewer’s door closed, it’s almost
completely dark, but I can make out the source of the crash: a branch has
broken through the hall window and snow and wind are blowing in through the
hole in the glass. I realize I’ve left my phone on Brewer’s desk and knock
softly, but no one opens it. I try the handle but it’s locked.

I sit down on the floor.

What kind of shithead fuckup doesn’t go home for Thanksgiving? My mom and
dad and little sister are probably sitting down together in front of the
TV, watching Twilight Zone reruns which I used to think was so
dorky but right now I’d give anything to be there on our hideous tan sofa
with the cat purring on my lap.

I sit there for a little while and then I realize how cold I am and stand
up. I’m not going to let Rob or Amanda or Brewer see me have a breakdown in
the hallway. I’m better than that. I start back to my own room, one
footstep at a time. I make Wolverine claws with my keys like they’d taught
in self-defense class, thumb the smooth beads that Chelsea gave me, hope
they do their job. The wind howls through the broken window and I can hear
glass crunch under my feet. I stumble and fall into a wall. But it isn’t a
wall. It’s leather, and smells like tobacco and mud and whiskey and rot,
and it reaches out two arms and grabs my shoulders.

They say there are two sides to every story. But sometimes, there are two
stories. There’s the lore, and there’s the truth.

There’s the Trapper, draped in furs, smelling like death.

And then there’s Rob, sweatshirt hood draped over his head, smelling like
incense and weed.

There’s the Trapper’s icy calloused hand on my wrist.

Then there’s Rob’s warm, smooth one, shoving me into the wall.

There’s the Trapper’s tassels flapping as he grabs me by the waist.

There’s the clink of Rob’s belt unbuckling.

I can’t run, because moving would mean admitting to myself that this is
happening. I squeeze the keys in my hands tighter until the serrated edge
of the metal stings the skin between my fingers and I scream at myself in
my head and miraculously I spin around and I feel the keys make contact
with flesh and there’s that smell again and then the sound of fabric
falling and what I see is the Trapper getting smaller and smaller,
deflating almost, his clothes billowing around his shrinking body. Then my
feet are freezing all of a sudden and when I look down I see it’s because
I’m standing knee-deep in a pile of snow in the middle of the hallway, and
the Trapper is gone and then the snow disappears and I hear Rob slapping
his hand to his bloody cheek and shouting “You crazy fucking bitch!”

But I’ve forced my feet to move and I am down the hall by then, the key
finds the lock, the door opens, and I’m back in our room with the door shut
and locked behind me.

My laptop’s screensaver is on, its dim blue light makes our tiny dorm room
look like it’s underwater. Chelsea’s desk is an art installation, with
piles of books and tubes of lipstick and tiny balls of foil from the Dove
chocolates she allows herself to binge on while studying. I pick up the Old
Crow and take a swig. I drop the keys on my bed. My right hand throbs. It’s
wet with blood—not mine—gleaming black in the blue light of the screen.

I touch the windowpane. The wind is quieter now, and the snow has stopped
falling. The power is still out but there’s the moon and the campus looks
like a damn Christmas card, with globs of white all over the evergreens.
Ice crystals are beginning to form at the lip of the sill on the inside of
the room. Outside, a svelte and hooded shadow with his hand to his face
trudges across the snow, toward the Pinnacles. I think of Kelly Jasper,
wild-eyed in the firelight of the cabin in the woods, as I lick the blood
off my fingers.

Author photo by Ryan Spencer