Read Online All The Pretty Dead Girls by John Manning - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Manning
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warm them up as she headed down the path to Bentley Hall.
She was lost in thoughts of her mother.
She’d always, always, felt something missing in her life. Her grandparents had loved her, but she’d never been able to feel close to them. Whenever she was at a friend’s home—even Becca Stansfield’s—she’d missed the camaraderie, the closeness she sensed between her friends and their mothers. Her friends might complain about busybody moms, they might fight with them, even call them monsters—but every time Sue listened to them complain, all she could think was, I’d give anything to have a fight with my mother.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she wiped them away.
Suddenly, she wished she’d asked Joyce Davenport in which dorm her mother had lived.
Stopping in front of Bentley Hall, however, Sue knew the answer to that question.
Her eyes flickered up to that third-floor window where she’d seen that face earlier. Where she’d thought she’d seen a face, that is—the face of a woman screaming.
That was my mother’s room.
How she knew that for certain, she couldn’t say. It was impossible to know such a thing, but she knew.
And the woman who screamed?
Had that been in her mother?
Had that been Mariclare?
The campus was suddenly very cold. Looking around her, at the deserted walkways and windows so black that seemed to blot out the light behind them, Sue felt as if she were the only one left alive at Wilbourne.
She pushed through the front door and headed for her room.
8
The town of Lebanon went dark no later than nine every night.
Every night of the week, with the exception of the Yellow Bird Café around the town square, the 7/11 near the high school, and Earl’s Tavern out on the county road, every business within the city limits was locked up and closed no later than nine. The streets fell silent, and the only signs of life to anyone driving through town would be the occasional light in the windows of a house. It made the sheriff’s life much easier, and the night shift for the deputies was generally slow and quiet, disrupted only by occasional acts of vandalism or a drunk driver every once in a while. Lebanon was a quiet town, and as the mayor, Robbie Kendall, was fond of saying whenever making a speech, “a fine place to raise a family.”
Unlike other small towns around the country, Lebanon wasn’t drying up and blowing away. Sure, every year after graduation, a high percentage of teenagers hit the road and never looked back—an interesting mix of the slackers and the top students. The top students went away for college, incurring years of debt in student loans, and the slackers headed for bigger cities—New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Albany. Some of the college-bound kids came back after graduation if there was a job to bring them back—working in the Walgreen’s pharmacy or teaching, for example. But the slacker kids didn’t come back, and outside of their families, no one really cared. Those kids were lazy, a bad element, and the ones the adults in town automatically thought of whenever drug use came up in conversation. The sooner they left town, the better.
Yet enough of their classmates stayed around and went to work after getting their diplomas, settling into life in Lebanon as adults. They married and had enough kids to keep the population steady each year as another group of kids left. The town folk worked hard. They paid their bills, and rarely complained. If there wasn’t a decent job in town, there were the paper mills and meatpacking plants forty minutes north on the highway in Senandaga, the county seat. The only people who didn’t work were just lazy or drunks.
So far, the scourge of drugs plaguing other small towns had stayed away from Lebanon. Sure, some of the kids smoked pot or drank, but it wasn’t a big problem and for the most part, other than an occasional car wreck, they didn’t bother anyone. Lebanon High School provided a decent education, and
She was lost in thoughts of her mother.
She’d always, always, felt something missing in her life. Her grandparents had loved her, but she’d never been able to feel close to them. Whenever she was at a friend’s home—even Becca Stansfield’s—she’d missed the camaraderie, the closeness she sensed between her friends and their mothers. Her friends might complain about busybody moms, they might fight with them, even call them monsters—but every time Sue listened to them complain, all she could think was, I’d give anything to have a fight with my mother.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she wiped them away.
Suddenly, she wished she’d asked Joyce Davenport in which dorm her mother had lived.
Stopping in front of Bentley Hall, however, Sue knew the answer to that question.
Her eyes flickered up to that third-floor window where she’d seen that face earlier. Where she’d thought she’d seen a face, that is—the face of a woman screaming.
That was my mother’s room.
How she knew that for certain, she couldn’t say. It was impossible to know such a thing, but she knew.
And the woman who screamed?
Had that been in her mother?
Had that been Mariclare?
The campus was suddenly very cold. Looking around her, at the deserted walkways and windows so black that seemed to blot out the light behind them, Sue felt as if she were the only one left alive at Wilbourne.
She pushed through the front door and headed for her room.
8
The town of Lebanon went dark no later than nine every night.
Every night of the week, with the exception of the Yellow Bird Café around the town square, the 7/11 near the high school, and Earl’s Tavern out on the county road, every business within the city limits was locked up and closed no later than nine. The streets fell silent, and the only signs of life to anyone driving through town would be the occasional light in the windows of a house. It made the sheriff’s life much easier, and the night shift for the deputies was generally slow and quiet, disrupted only by occasional acts of vandalism or a drunk driver every once in a while. Lebanon was a quiet town, and as the mayor, Robbie Kendall, was fond of saying whenever making a speech, “a fine place to raise a family.”
Unlike other small towns around the country, Lebanon wasn’t drying up and blowing away. Sure, every year after graduation, a high percentage of teenagers hit the road and never looked back—an interesting mix of the slackers and the top students. The top students went away for college, incurring years of debt in student loans, and the slackers headed for bigger cities—New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Albany. Some of the college-bound kids came back after graduation if there was a job to bring them back—working in the Walgreen’s pharmacy or teaching, for example. But the slacker kids didn’t come back, and outside of their families, no one really cared. Those kids were lazy, a bad element, and the ones the adults in town automatically thought of whenever drug use came up in conversation. The sooner they left town, the better.
Yet enough of their classmates stayed around and went to work after getting their diplomas, settling into life in Lebanon as adults. They married and had enough kids to keep the population steady each year as another group of kids left. The town folk worked hard. They paid their bills, and rarely complained. If there wasn’t a decent job in town, there were the paper mills and meatpacking plants forty minutes north on the highway in Senandaga, the county seat. The only people who didn’t work were just lazy or drunks.
So far, the scourge of drugs plaguing other small towns had stayed away from Lebanon. Sure, some of the kids smoked pot or drank, but it wasn’t a big problem and for the most part, other than an occasional car wreck, they didn’t bother anyone. Lebanon High School provided a decent education, and
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