WHEN SHE FINALLY made it to University Boulevard, the headlights of the cars came as a shock. It had to have been after 1:00 a.m., but there were still people on the road. And as she walked along the sidewalk toward campus, occasionally someone would roll down the window to heckle her. Two guys in a pickup truck slowed down to her pace and drove beside her for a minute or two. When Betsy declined their offer of a ride, she just shook her head. If she opened her mouth, she was afraid of what would come out.
“Nice night for a walk, you moron,” shouted the drunk from the passenger seat. Once she made it to the stadium, she decided to take a shortcut and make her way through the all but abandoned campus, down Stadium Way, past Weil Hall through the North Lawn, past McCarty Hall to 8th Street. The news crews that had been swarming the campus had retreated to the Residence Inn or the University Hilton for nachos and hot wings at the hotel bar and an early bedtime, counting the minutes before they caught the killer, if only so they could return to civilization. Without the beaming sunlight, students milling about, gaudily decked in orange and blue, there was no story. It was just another small town in Florida with derelicts hiding in the crawl space. Serial killers were good for ratings. Mix in college-age female victims in an “idyllic campus setting” no less, and you’ve got a solid national headline. Betsy thought of her friends hunkered down on Sorority Row nearby. “You think you’re safe there?” she muttered to herself, happy to be alone at last. “What would Ted Bundy have to say about that?”
The recent killing spree was like gory icing on the sketchy cake for Gainesville, a place that wasn’t as safe as the university claimed. She’d read an article in The Sun not long before that dubbed the town the shadiest in Florida, referring to the number of mature trees per square mile within city limits.
“You better believe it’s the shadiest,” said Melissa, scanning the paper someone had left on a table at Bagelville. “And it doesn’t have a thing to do with leafy glens.”
It’s like the Millhopper, Betsy thought, as she plodded along silently, eyes scanning the shadows for lurking things of any kind. Just below the surface, there’s the stuff that doesn’t belong, the bits of bones and teeth, the unusual things, completely out of place, that thrive under the cover of darkness and neglect. At first, she found that image comforting, that something could thrive below the surface, unnoticed, but now it felt threatening.
Even under normal circumstances a late-night, solo campus stroll was a terrible idea, and she blamed her rash decision on the drugs. What was I thinking, she wondered, picturing Anna and Channing back at the party, laughing at her. How could I have let my guard down so completely? She made it to Beatty Towers, a high-rise dorm made famous by Tom Petty when rumors about his song “American Girl” claimed that he was singing about a girl who threw herself off of her eighth-floor balcony, even though it wasn’t true. She spotted the crammed bike rack in front of the building and said a tiny prayer, out loud.
“If there’s just one unlocked bike somewhere in this rack, God, I swear to You that I will never steal another object, wheeled or otherwise, for the rest of my life.” She paused. “And I will resume believing in You.”
Betsy worked fast, trying to wrestle each front tire out of its place, sandwiched between the metal bars. A beat-up ten-speed with a wobbly front tire sprang free, she swung her leg around the back of it, and, just like that, she was out of sight.