“Isaac?”

  He continues past us, unseeing. It’s not until Nico stands up and grabs his arm that he seems to shake out of his fog. His smile is slow but honest, and he looks up at the taller boy with wide eyes. “Hey, Nico. I didn’t see you.”

  Nico frowns. “We were calling to you.”

  The words don’t seem to faze him. It’s quick, the way that the recognition on his face slips away and the zombified look returns.

  “Hey! Isaac!” Nico snaps his fingers, and Isaac’s smile and clarity return.

  “Hey, Nico. I didn’t see you.”

  Nico’s frown grows deeper and he glances at me. “What do we do?”

  “Is everything okay, Isaac?” I ask, stepping up next to the two of them.

  “Everything’s fine. There’s just a lot going on.”

  Is there? Isaac is one of those people who always seems like he has endless energy. He always has a smile for me, always eager to talk. He knew we were friends before I did. The fact that… something has happened to him bothers me, like something under my skin that I can’t quite work out. If there were a splinter or something I could dig out, that would be easier, but this is just an idea, and those are always harder to extract.

  “You’re doing really well,” I try, and the words feel honest but also false. Insincere. “You don’t need to feel pressured.”

  “Of course I do,” Isaac says glumly, and some of the animation dissolves. “If I fail out of college, what will I do? Where will I go? My parents—“

  His voice cuts off abruptly, but it also trails off like a song where the last note is done but the echoes of it are still spreading in the nearby air.

  Winter is standing next to me, and she slips her hand in mine. It’s cool against my skin, and I realize how warm it is inside the dining hall. Or maybe I’m just hot because what’s happening to Isaac makes me mad.

  All of this occurs, and it takes me through a range of small moments until I realize that I am angry. That Isaac is just a pawn. That everyone is a pawn. If this really is Freddie, then we need to find him.

  “Anyone know when Freddie’s office hours are?”

  I take my eyes off of Isaac and he wanders off. Nico gives me a questioning look and I shake my head. His eyes drop to Winter’s arm on mine and his expression grows flinty for a moment before it smooths away into ambivalence.

  “Let’s start with his office.”

  ***

  In the movies, there’s a moment when the heroes raid the serial killer’s den, and it’s filled with all sorts of evidence of their crimes.

  They got the idea from Freddie’s office.

  Maybe it was the office of a teacher’s assistant once, but now it’s something a bit more… untethered. Arguably a closet in the most generous sense of the word, the room is small and cramped, but any form of functionality has long-since been abandoned.

  Three filing cabinets line the left wall, but the cabinets themselves have been removed, and into the empty interior a papier-maché tantrum has been unleashed. Rejection letters addressed to Frederick Kaye are pasted over academic catalogs and brochures from Miskatonic University, the graduate program at the University of Maine - Dunwich School of Oceanography, and the Arkham Institute for the Especially Sane.

  “Someone’s obsessed,” Winter says, peering down at the art project. “I’m surprised he got into Hollow Hills.”

  “We don’t really reject people,” I reply absently. Everyone knows that if you’re not actually college material, you’ll Darwin yourself out of your program one way or another. Visions of the students who break down after attending Screamers 151 each semester passes quickly through my memory. How many of those students were like Freddie: hungry for knowledge they couldn’t handle, overestimating their own abilities and being slapped down by what they found?

  “Hey, look at this,” Nico says, and he points to where the desk used to be.

  What used to be a desk now looked more like a nest, and the space underneath has been cleared out and covered with wrinkled blankets. “He’s sleeping here?”

  Nico nods. He picks up and then immediately drops, several loose sheets of paper and makes a face of disgust. I cross the small room, stepping around Winter, and see what caused that reaction. There are crude drawings of decapitated students with Xs in place of their eyes, and pools of blood spilled underneath them. Each one is helpfully labeled THEO KING. And scrawled so hard across the bottom of one page that it tears through the paper is the phrase He is NOT a MORECROFT.

  “I thought your last name was Morecroft?” Nico asks quietly.

  I shake my head. “Everyone does for some reason. I think because I take care of Morecroft Manor. They don’t know how to think about me otherwise.”

  “It really seems to piss him off.”

  That makes two of us. Who knew that Freddie and I had something in common. Though I guess it bothers him more than me. The Morecroft name has opened doors for me ever since I signed up for the university at Wrath’s encouragement. Up until that point in my life, no one in Hollow Hills wanted anything to do with me. Suddenly, now that I was an adult, they all not only knew who I was but wanted to do things ‘for the family.’

  Not that they all weren’t still terrified of me. Still are, in fact.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Sometimes fear works better than faith, Wrath’s words circle back around.

  Freddie hates me because he thinks I’m capitalizing on the Morecroft name. And it’s probably giving me access to all the things he’s been striving for, and keeps getting denied. But that’s not my fault, and you’d think he’d realize that by now. He insists on calling me Theo Morecroft even though he knows that’s not my name. Even though I’ve told him what my name is.

  He’s just as culpable as the rest.

  “Do you see anything about the zombies?” I ask the two of them. Both shake their heads.

  That’s the part that doesn’t make sense. If Freddie was indeed responsible for the zombies, then what was the point. They’d sacrificed Severn on the first day, but then he came back. Was that happening to the rest of them?

  Did that happen to Isaac?

  The thought that surges up from inside of me is slow in rising. Things buried down that deep always are. It rises like a serpent through tunnels and caves buried so deep that they haven’t been used for thousands of years. It crawls up underneath my skin, circling and gaining speed like the tunnels have been especially greased to make the travel faster. It rises and rises, and as it does, the friction begins to burn the inside of my chest.

  “Theo…” a voice whispers warningly.

  The room grows unbearably cold. No wait, that’s not right. It’s like I’m the thing that grows cold. The barest brush of air against my skin is oddly humid and warm. There’s a frost in my veins that comes from the fathomless depths and it’s pleasant and comforting like air conditioning on a summer day.

  “Theo—“ Now I recognize Wrath’s voice, but there’s a surging chemical storm rising up from beneath me, and I want so desperately for it to arrive and to unleash it upon the world. How pleasant would that be? How torturous.

  “Mister Morecroft!”

  I look up and the spell is broken. The Dean stands in the doorway of Freddie’s office, but he doesn’t look upset. If anything, he looks blandly polite, a man speaking with a donor at a public function.

  “Sir,” I say in response, feeling the thing inside of me slithering back down below me.

  He indicates the hallway with a small gesture and I leave, with Winter and Nico following closely behind me. Once the three of us are there, the Dean reaches over and promptly closes the door to Freddie’s office with an audible click.

  He’s a middle aged man that I would never look twice at. I wonder if anyone else would. It’s odd that he’s here though. Unless maybe he’s been looking into Freddie as well.

  “There’s a rumor you’ve asked for special circumstances for your friends,” the Dean begins.

  “They’re not special circumstances.” I don’t know where the forceful tone of voice comes from, but I roll with it. Maybe it’s the stirring anger at Isaac being turned into a zombie. Or at Freddie. Or even at the school for letting any of this happen. “It’s necessary.”

  “So you say,” the man says, and his lips press down until they disappear entirely against his skin.

  It occurs to me that I don’t like him, whoever this Dean really is. But I don’t actually know if he matters to me or not. There are dozens of deans - one for each of the programs at HHU - and there’s only one who truly matters to me: the one in charge of my program.

  A program that no one really talks about and never mentions in polite company.

  I narrow my eyes and look at him. If he’s my Dean, then he’s a lot more normal than I expected. Normal numbers of arms and legs, which was definitely a missed assumption on my part. Able to stand in direct sunlight, another assumption foiled. Corporeal.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “I don’t think you understand—“ the Dean cuts off suddenly, looking at something over my shoulder. I glance behind me, but don’t see anything out of place. Wrath is in my backpack as usual, facing over my shoulder, but he certainly wouldn’t be looking at the Dean. Or appearing in person - Wrath hated doing that around other people. He’d make some aggrieved comment about “dirty mortals” and hide away until they left.

  Nico and Winter look at me and shrug. They didn’t see anything either.

  “I just want to make sure everyone has access to the special collection if they need it. And any other support systems that are in place for… let’s say students like us.” Let him tell us what exists. No one likes to give me information when I need it, so maybe if I start assuming I deserve it, things will begin to change.

  “Support systems.”

  “Are you telling me that a school like Miskatonic has support systems in place to support their student body but we don’t?”

  It’s a bit of a low blow, as I know all the faculty at HHU compares themselves undeservedly to the more infamous college far up the coast. But what are you supposed to do when you’re considered the “low-budget” option? The Dean stiffens, his mouth opening and closing, and his eyes even grow increasingly black until it swallows up all the white. Then his eyes clear and go back to normal, and his expression calms.

  “As I’m sure you’re effortlessly aware, Mister Morecroft, Hollow Hills University is a premiere educational refuge that doesn’t need to discriminate to tell themselves that they have the brightest and most deserving minds. Some might say that such an elitist attitude is best left back with those families who practiced inbreeding and self-flagellation.”

  “So you’re saying that the school is in full support,” I press.

  “I’m agreeing that our resources are at your disposal.” It’s said through almost bared teeth, but it is said.

  I smile happily, and then flinch and fluster when Nico claps a hand on my shoulder. And leaves it there. I pointedly don’t look at it, but inside I’m combusting. Winter glances at my face and then begins to laugh softly, though I don’t have the slightest idea what she’s thinking. She drops her hand that’s entwined with mine, and the three of us shift ourselves in the hall for some reason. I’m somehow pulled closer to Nico and further away from Winter, and I’m not entirely sure how that happens.

  “I should add,” the Dean continues, “that they will be your responsibility, Mister Morecroft. Anything that happens to any of them while under your jurisdiction will ultimately fall on you and not the university.”

  I look at the two of them, who both smile encouragingly at me. The bottom of my stomach drops out briefly as the Dean’s words hang in my ear. They’re my responsibility? I’ve never been responsible for another person before.

  “Everything is fine,” Wrath whispers carefully in my ear. “You’re okay. You’ve got this.”

  What if I screw it up I want to ask. What if they get hurt because of me. Is this the right thing to do?

  Nico squeezes the hand on my shoulder again and the panic subsides. The only thing that’s left is the facade I’ve played through in this entire conversation, but that’s more than enough. “Of course,” I manage, summoning up the confidence of a few minutes ago. “Then please process the paperwork.”

  “It’s already started,” the Dean explains with a sigh. “I expected you would feel this way.”

  “Do you have any idea what Freddie is up to?” Nico asks, keeping us on target.

  The Dean seems to formalize again, remembering that he’s the head of a department and that this is not just a social call. “The university certainly does not condone any activities that place our students in unanticipated dangers. Though I would imagine that Mister Kaye’s plans, much like his dissertation, are not fully formed and prone to self-indulgent wandering.”

  “So you have no idea what he’s doing?” Winter asks with a challenge in her voice.

  “We have no idea what he’s doing,” the Dean agrees. “Normally if one were to invoke a zombie apocalypse there would be quite a bit more death and dismemberment. This result seems a bit more… mediocre, don’t you agree?”

  Even the Dean of his program thinks he’s a putz. It’s almost enough to make me smile, but there’s still the image of Isaac digging in with spines against my thoughts.

  “We need to find him,” I say and the Dean nods, as if it’s the first sensible thing he’s heard all morning.

  “Thank you, Mister Morecroft. Might I suggest a place where the man might feel a bit more in control? His office was a good first attempt, but you’ve seen for yourself what kind of esteem he’s held in within this department. One doesn’t get a mop closet converted into an office because one is well regarded.”

  Somewhere that Freddie feels more in control. I sigh, looking to the others. “Come on. Of course that’s where he is…”