The Campus Murders

14

He felt himself seized and he fought. But four naked young men smothered him by sheer volume.

“What do you want?” McCall heard his own voice thick with rage.

“Be a good square.”

“Nice daddy. Whoa, boy.”

A girl giggled.

He heaved and got an arm free and made a swipe at one of the masks. But the man retracted his head like a snake, and one of the others punched him in the abdomen.

“A real toughie, he is.”

“Sock it to him!” a girl’s voice yelled.

“Get him in the heap.”

He struggled again. But his captors had apparently been selected for their brawn. They had him effectively immobilized; he found no opening for a judo or karate maneuver.

“Walk over to that car,” somebody said. “Or we’ll throw you into it head first.”

“He’s cute,” a girl said. She ran close to him, breasts bobbing below the green monster mask; laughing in his face.

McCall took hold of himself. “Are you sure you people know what you’re doing?”

“We’re doing our thing, what else?”

“Do you know who I am?” They were hustling him over to the first car.

“The gov’s errand boy, aren’t you?”

“Open the door.”

“Somebody get in first.”

“I will,” the same girl said. “He’s cute.”

She piled into the car. He was shoved from behind and found himself half lying on the unclothed girl. Others leaped into the rear with them while the front seats filled. In a moment the car was packed.

“Get going.”

“How about the rest of the gang?”

Someone called from outside the car, “We’ll follow you. Step on it.”

The girl rubbed against him. “Sock it to me, grandpa.”

“Sack that,” a man said roughly. “Step on it, will you?”

The car lurched into motion.

“Do you know what the charge will be?” McCall said. “Kidnapping.”

A fist sank into his midriff again. McCall’s mouth opened and whoofed a burst of air. The pain was like a tidal wave. Even his jaws ached. They must be high on something. Nobody in normal command of himself would abduct the governor’s personal representative. He might be in considerable danger.

He inhaled and exhaled cautiously, mastering the pain, husbanding his strength. He might well need it later, all he could muster.

“It’s like we’re the fuzz and you’re the innocent public,” his assailant jeered. “Police brutality. How do you like it?”

“Cut it,” the one who seemed to be in charge said curtly.

“What’s the point of this?” McCall asked.

“You were warned to lay off. You didn’t.”

The car was speeding. He tried to see where they were going, watched for landmarks. But they were traveling dark streets in a residential area that meant nothing to him. The headlights of the other car held steady in the rear window.

“It’s hard for me to believe you’re college students,” McCall said. “You act more like a gang of hoods.”

“This cat is asking for it,” a man said. “I move we start the class.”

“Second the motion!” This from the one who had struck him in the abdomen. As the man spoke he swung again. McCall was ready for him. He twisted sharply on the seat. The big fist went whistling by, and McCall’s left came up in a short arc, with power. It smashed against the man’s jaw, and there was a cracking sound.

“Son of a bitch!” he screamed, and slid to the floor. The other two men in the rear seat fell on McCall. One of them kneed him, the other swung at his face. He crumpled and collapsed in a burst of fireworks.

The girl in the corner asked with a giggle, “Can I have grandpa now?”

“He’s all yours, doll.”

She twined her arms about his neck from behind like a snake, half gagging him. The man who had kneed him laughed. “Hold him that way, baby.” The other man laughed and hit him in the face again.

“That’s enough for now,” the authoritative one said. “Let’s save our strength.”

“Yeah, we’re going to need it.”

“He’s going to need it. But lay off his face.”

“Stop that, baby. You’ll get your kicks in the woods.”

Someone pulled the girl off him; she had been smothering his face with her body. McCall noticed now that they were out in the country; the streetlights were gone. The headlights of the second car gave him an occasional glimpse of the black countryside.

The car careened, and McCall knew that they had turned off the main road. From the bumpy ride, they were traveling on a dirt road now.

“How much longer?”

“We’re almost there.”

“Where we taking him?”

“Over by the shack.”

“You going to give it to him in the shack?”

“Hell, no, then we’d only have to clean it up. We need it in a couple of days for the bash.”

“What bash?”

“Tell you about it later.”

“Here we are.”

“Is this deep enough in the woods?”

“Whoever comes here except us?”

“You’re going to love this, Snoopy.”

The car screeched to a halt and the door flashed open and the men piled out. One reached back and grabbed McCall’s ankle, as if to drag him from the car.

He kicked. The man yelped, backing away.

“Well, looky, looky,” the girl in the rear seat said. “Look at all this room they left us. You want to make out, fuzz?” and she grabbed his hand and put it on her body. A fist struck him in the groin and strong hands clamped on his legs.

Struggling, trying to kick, he was hauled from the car. The second car had pulled up and emptied, and it seemed to McCall that the entire student body of Tisquanto State fell on him.

“Where’s the rope?”

“Who’s got the rope?”

“Here.”

Through the wall of flesh lying on him McCall caught glimpses of other naked bodies shifting about in the moonlight, breasts, buttocks, genitals; and where faces should have been the grotesque monster-masks. It was like some witches’ sabbath.

“Okay,” the leader’s voice said. “You men, hold on to him. You girls — strip him.”

McCall rocked suddenly to his knees and sprang toward one of the men. He failed to arrive. Three others tackled him and brought him down with a crash. They were young and powerful. He felt panic for the first time. Could they actually be going to kill him? Four held him down, two by his legs, two holding his arms over his head.

“Get his pants off,” the voice said. “You. You’ve had plenty of practice.”

One corner of McCall’s brain, the residence of the neutral observer, remarked that at no time had any of them used a name in talking to others. This had been well planned.

The rest of him squirmed. But they held him fast.

Small fingers worked on his belt, unzipped his fly. He wriggled and twisted and arched his back trying to escape the soft little hands, but he was like a big insect caught in a bigger spider web, he could only struggle in vain. He stopped fighting to conserve his strength for what lay ahead.

He felt his trousers stripped off.

“Jacket, shirt.”

He put up no resistance as two girls removed his jacket, his tie, his shirt, his T-shirt.

“His shorts.”

The girl-hands ripped his shorts off.

He was naked except for socks and shoes. McCall had the silliest thought: he wished they would take those off, too. To be left in the raw, all but your ankles and feet, was somehow too grotesque to bear.

“Wow,” said one of the girls. “Oh, wow! Look at the way grandpa’s hung. Bigger even than you, Bobby.”

McCall heard a smack and the girl’s yelp. “No names! Don’t skid again.”

They yanked him to his feet. McCall blinked. Oddly, he did not mind his nudity now. In the country of the altogether-naked, the man with shoes is king... he almost laughed at the conceit. They were in a clearing. The moon was almost directly overhead.

“I want a joint,” one of the girls said.

“There’s some in the car.”

“Where?”

“Glove compartment.”

The girl hurried off, everything bouncing in the moonlight. When she returned she was lighting a cigarette. From the acrid odor, it was marijuana. The headlights of the second car filled the clearing like a stage set.

“Tie him to that tree,” the leader ordered.

He was hustled over to a young maple. They began lashing his legs to the tree. He grabbed one of the men by the ear and twisted. The man fell back with a shriek and sat down hard. He got up slowly, picking gravel out of his rear end.

“That’ll cost you, Mr. McCall,” he said in a very quiet way.

“He’s so damned cute,” a girl with blonde hair curling from under the mask said.

They finished tying him to the maple.

The girls crowded around. The one with the marijuana cigarette came closest. She rubbed against him. “You’re sweet,” she said. “Too bad there has to be a time and a place for everything. Here, have a drag.”

McCall averted his face. She tried to jab the joint between his lips. Two of the other girls laughed and tackled him from the sides, working on his jaws to get his mouth open. He bit one of them.

“The hell with you, Fuzzy Wuzzy,” the girl with the joint said. “You won’t smoke it, it’s going to smoke you.”

She rammed the lighted end into his groin.

McCall strained against the ropes as if he were in the electric chair. The girl stepped back breathing hard and fast, eyes glowing.

“All right, all right,” one of the males said. “You’ve had your jollies. One side.”

Where the cigarette had touched his flesh McCall felt a flow of lava. He chewed the lining of his cheek, deliberately diverting the pain.

“Now,” the commanding voice said, “we all take our licks. One crack a piece, ladies and gentlemen. Line up.”

“Who’s first?”

“I am. Ready, Mr. McCall? Lesson number one—” McCall felt a jolt under his heart, a heavy, heavy blow. He raised and twisted his head, breathing in. If this is the worst I can take it. I’ve got to take it. Brace...

“Next? Not his face, gentlemen. Just his body. Where he won’t advertise.”

They struck him one by one. Once McCall heard himself grunt, and he shook his head. He found himself sagging against the lashings.

“I don’t hit hard enough,” the girl who had burned him was tittering. “So I’ll just tickle.”

She began at his ribs, working down, ruthless, a demon. McCall watched himself from a distance, writhing, shrinking, fighting hysteria. He had always been ticklish, and this witch in female skin seemed to know his most sensitive zones. Through his helplessness a sense of outrage began to take shape, an anger at the humiliations, a slaver of yearned-for revenge. He fought them down. That wasn’t the way. Somebody was talking to him... I had better listen.

“We don’t want to have to get tougher with you,” the commanding voice was saying coldly. So they were through with him, and this was the moral lesson, the sermon at the end of the black mass. “But don’t ever think we won’t if we have to. And what’s going to make us feel we have to is if you keep snooping around ’Squanto where you’re not wanted. We can settle our own problems, we don’t need any help from Governor Holland or his muscle-head. Dig?”

He found himself staring into the mask.

“It’s all fouled up on this campus, Mr. McCall, like on all the other campuses. We’re going to clean it up — straighten the Establishment out. We don’t want interference from upstate. We’ve got hangups enough without you. And if the governor calls out the National Guard there’ll be so much blood spilled in Tisquanto he’ll never hold another elective office.”

“Dig, brother?” somebody jeered.

“You can go back to your governor and tell him he’s the system, and you’re the system, and we don’t dig the system.” A hint of warmth had invaded the cold voice. “We want respect around here. We’re not sheep or kindergarten kids, we’re grownup people. We’re sick of being told what to study, where to go to bed, whether to smoke pot, how to arrange our lives. It’s public money that’s being spent in this institution, and we’re going to have a say in how it’s spent.”

“Is this a sample of how you’re going to run things?” McCall asked. He was astounded to hear his own voice. “The only difference I can see between you and the Klan crowd is you’ve exchanged white sheets for exhibitionism.”

“Everybody does his thing his own way,” the man-boy said. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, McCall. Report it. Maybe the freaky heads’ll wise up.”

“Did you and your friends beat up Laura Thornton? And kill Dean Gunther?”

An angry growl came from the crowd.

“Hold it!” the leader shouted; and the growl stopped.

“Did you?” McCall said.

“You’re the fuzz, you figure it out. Just remember, we could have killed you tonight.” The voice sounded bitter under the hideous mask. “Now you can rot here for all I care. When you work yourself loose you’d better take the advice I gave you and clear out of Tisquanto. All right, gang: Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Whooping, they ran to the two cars. The wild revving of the engines roared against the night. Headlights sliced trees. Then they were gone, and he was left in a silence.

He began to work on the ropes. The pain he had not been feeling began to invade his nervous system. He felt nausea...

Who had they been?

Katie Cohan... waiting for him...

The ropes bit into his flesh. He stopped, feeling exposed and violated in the darkness. After a while he resumed the straining and stretching. The rope around his chest began to loosen. He writhed and thrust against the bonds, finding new strength. He worked up and down, rubbing his flesh raw against the tree trunk. That girl who had pressed the cigarette butt against his groin... it burned like the hell it had come from.

His clothes... if he got free, could he find them?

He struggled in the tight embrace of the ropes, felt them loosening, redoubled his struggles.

After a while he stopped for a breather, peering around in the moonlight. To his right he saw a building, at the edge of the clearing. Their shack, he decided. Their playground off campus... get your hands free...

He worked his wrists against the tree. One wrist was freer than it had been. He strained, perspiring in the night air. Abruptly the hand tore loose.

Two minutes later he was free.

Three minutes later he was jogging back along the dirt road which he knew led to the highway to Tisquanto. He had found all his clothes except his tie and T-shirt. He had considered taking the ropes with him as evidence and decided against it. The cold-voiced young general wasn’t fool enough to use anything that could be traced back to him or his naked troops.

McCall reached the macadam road and turned toward town. He ran at a steady pace along the shoulder of the road, marveling at the response of his body after the punishment. His head felt light but the after-aches had not really yet begun and all in all he was in pretty fair shape.

He knew he was not very far from where he had been abducted.

When a car came along heading for town he ducked behind a tree until it passed. He was in no mood for explanations. Or lies, for that matter.

At last the streetlights began, strings of diamonds along the road.

It could have been a lot worse. They hadn’t hurt him badly. All but that damned cigarette-happy blonde.

McCall jogged on through the evening. After a while he slowed to a walk, breathing through his mouth.