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Two rows in front of me, Phys Ed’s head suddenly twitches violently backward. A short line of saliva flies off his fangs and swings upward, splatting across his face diagonally. He shakes his head.
“Pardon me,” he murmurs.
The Director stares at him, then proceeds. “Another aberration is their rather grotesque tendency to leak minuscule beads of salty water when they get hot or are under stress. Under these extreme conditions, they also emit large amounts of odour, especially from the underarm region, which itself, especially in male adults, contains a nest of body hair. It is common for them—”
Phys Ed’s head snaps back again. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, “didn’t mean to interrupt. But can no one else smell it? Heper odour?” He turns around, and for one awful moment, his eyes settle on mine. “Don’t you?”
“A little. Just a little,” I offer.
The Director’s eyes turn to me. A chill spreads down my body.
Controlled breathing; keep eyelids halfway down; don’t dart my eyes back and forth.
“It’s really thick, it’s getting into my nose, into my head, it’s hard to concentrate.” Phys Ed points to an open window. “Mind if we close the window? I can barely concentrate—”
Abs, sitting two seats away from him, suddenly jerks her head back, snaps it forward again. “Just now. I smelled it, too. Heper. Pretty strong odour. It must be wafting in from outside through the open windows. What is it, heper mating season?”
The Director heads over to the open window. His face is placid, unreadable, but he’s clearly thinking deeply. “I smell something as well. The breeze is bringing it in?” His voice rises indecisively at the end. “Here, let me close the window, see if that helps. The hepers must be really sweating it during the day. Wonder what they’re up to.”
The lecture continues, but barely anyone is listening anymore. Everyone is curious, sniffing the air. Far from cutting off the heper odour, closing the window has only intensified the odour. It’s me; the smell is emanating from me. How long before the others realise this? Their fidgeting and agitated head shakes grow more frequent and violent by the minute. I’m not helping matters – or myself – much: I’ve got to keep up the act, and my own head shakes and neck snaps are an exertion that in turn releases more odour.
Ashley June suddenly speaks up. “Maybe they’ve been sneaking in here during the day. Into this building. That’s why their odour is everywhere.”
We look to the podium to see what the Director will say. He’s gone. Uncannily. And in his place is Frilly Dress, who, as usual, has materialised out of nowhere. “Impossible,” she says, her voice shriller than usual. “There’s no way a heper would come in here, into the hornets’ nest. It’s certain death.”
“But the odour,” Ashley June says, her mouth watering. “It’s so strong.”
Suddenly her head snaps back, viciously. Slowly she turns around, her head lowering. She gazes at all of us, at me. “What if one of the hepers snuck in here last night? What if one of the hepers is still hiding in this building?”
And just like that, we are flying out of the doors, the escorts right next to us, at first trying to coax us back into the lecture hall, but then, as we spin around corners and leap down floors (“The odour’s getting stronger!” shouts Crimson Lips next to me), the escorts join in the frenzy, feed into it. Gnashing teeth, saliva trailing us, hands shaking in the air, nails grating against the walls.
It’s hard to separate myself from the group. That’s my plan: to peel away, steal back to the library, and hope no one thinks much of my absence. But every time I turn a corner to get away, they’re right there with me. It’s my odour. And with all this running around, it’s only getting worse. I was hoping they’d all sprint past me, giving me the opportunity to fly down the stairs and out of the door before they can double back. But they stay right with me. It’s terrifying, to be so close to their teeth and claws. They will not be unaware for much longer.
What causes the group to leave me is more by accident than design. I black out – probably for no more than a second or two. One moment I’m running, the next I’m flat on the ground, the group sweeping past me and disappearing around a corner. The lack of water. It’s parched my throat, dried my muscles, ossified my brain now. I’m past my breaking point.
When I come to – it’s really more a greyout than a blackout – I know I have to move. The group will double back when they lose the scent; they’ll follow the trail right back to me, lying weakened and prone on the floor, sweat on my forehead, the odour running off me in rivers. Move, I tell myself, move. But it’s tough even to prop myself up. I feel as dry as attic dust, yet as heavy as a waterlogged sack of flour.
There is silence in the hallways, then the sound of footsteps growing louder. They’re realising. They’re coming back now.
Fear jump-starts my body. I roll over, leap to my feet. Doors. I need to put as many doors between me and them. It’ll slow them down, cut off my scent even a bit. Every little bit counts.
I push doors out of my way; seconds later, I hear those same double doors slammed open, like shotguns popping. I’m not even racing down flights of stairs anymore; I’m leaping down them, one flight at a time. The pain ricochets up my legs, shoots up my back.
They’re catching up. No matter how fast I try to push myself, no matter how treacherously I bound down the stairs, the sound of the group behind me looms ever closer. Hard, scrabbling sounds, quick whispers of clothes being whisked this way and that. Only a matter of time now.
Unless . . .
“It’s this way!” I shout. “The scent is this way, it’s really strong now, I think I’m on to it!”
“How did he get so far ahead of us?” someone shouts, a floor above.
I slam through a set of doors, run halfway across the hallway, then plunge through another set of doors and start leaping up stairs, three at a time.
“Wait for us!” someone shouts right below me.
“No way! I’m virtually on top of it now.”
“How’s the slow kid beating us?” Gaining so fast, just a matter of seconds.
Through another set of doors, a mad sprint down the long hallway. I take a quick look backward: the horde is coming on me like a rabid wave, Gaunt Man leaping from floor to wall to ceiling, Phys Ed darting along the crease where wall meets ceiling, the others all apace, their faces stoic, their fangs bared. Three seconds.
I throw myself through the set of doors in front of me. They swing open with a weird touch of familiarity. I see why: I’m back in the lecture hall. I’ve made full circle. The hall is completely empty. Everyone has joined the chase.
Where do I want to die? I wonder. At the back? Standing dramatically on a desk? Near the lectern?
And that’s when I see the window.
Jump up, heave it open.
Not a millisecond later, the group flows in like a black wave. They’re so synchronised: on the walls, the floor, the ceiling, there’s no jostling for position, no elbowing. Just a coordinated rapid sweep into the lecture hall, eyes spinning, nostrils flaring.
“It jumped! It jumped outside!” I yell, perched in front of the open window, pointing out. Even before I finish yelling, four of them are up there on the perch, jostling for position, peering through the window with me, their heads disconcertingly close to mine. A strong breeze thankfully picks up, gusts through the window.
“I can smell it everywhere! It’s like it’s right here, hiding, where?”
“It’s gone—”
“We can chase it down, can’t have got far—”
“Maybe,” I say. “If we go quick, we should be able to get to it.”
They are bunching their legs, readying to leap out of the window, when a whisper freezes them in place.
“You’ve been had.” A wet, quiet, sinister whisper, seething with threat.
It is the Director.
He’s not looking at us, merely glancing at his nails, marvelling at their pastel gleam in the
moonlight. His voice is quiet, seemingly indifferent to whether anyone is listening.
