jess manning

The best thing about drama class, Jess had deducted, was the unlimited range of freedom the students had during the period to do precisely anything they wanted as long as it didn’t draw too much attention to the fact that they weren’t actually doing anything to do with school work. It was the period of the afternoon in which she got most of her stuff for BAU sorted, she caught up on the group chat, handed out some tasks here and there, but otherwise, caught up on weird lesbian animes that had a cult following of like, four people or started Montage of Heck for like, the 50th time that year. Or sometimes she stalked Jay Adams online, or cropped ugly photos of her friends and sent it to them. The fact was, there was a whole plethora of stuff to do that wasn’t anything to do with actual academia until Gregson came snooping around to check. In which case, Jess whipped out whatever they were meant to be doing and made a whole lot of noise, just in hopes to startle or confuse the teacher until she rolled her eyes and walked off. 

Today wasn’t like that though, today was group work and Jess loved people, don’t get her wrong, she loved working in a team... but what she didn’t like was oversensitive dickweeds who had their own heads so far up their own buttholes, they made everybody else smell the shit for them. In this case, Anthony Mclaughlin, a ginger Brit who kind of looked like a broomstick if you looked at him right, was being the center of fucking attention in their assigned group and demanding they do some overly ordinary Shakespeare in the Park rendition — which — Jess probably wouldn’t have cared about doing if literally anybody else had maybe suggested it. You know... in a normal and nice way.

The more the kid threw a tantrum over being argued against by the others though, the more Jess pinched the bridge of her nose, trying not to jump into the leader pants herself. Not everybody could fit in there, she was aware, as much as it went against her instinct to let it all fly. Instead, she looked over at the slender blond beside her. If she’d liked Louisa, then Jess really liked Sofie too. They were the Yin to the apparent Yang of senior house captains, and if Jess had to pick a side to hang around, it was definitely going to be the girls. Forget their soft hair and cherry chapstick lips, they were nice people. Nicer than Greek Statue Damian Fitzgerald and actual Medusa Gwen Prescott, anyway. But then, she had her cryptoid theories about them too that nobody was interested in hearing anymore.

Sharing a look with Sofie as the kid went fully psycho over the drama assignment, Jess moved back to give herself space and also to take a seat next to Sofie. “Can you actually believe this twonk?” She gestured at Anthony, clearly over it. “I bet he even, like, organized his own exit from the womb. You know, a timer, red carpet, whole fucking orchestra ordeal. I mean, do we actually have to sit here and listen to that for the next two weeks? Like, really, or can we just split and do our own thing at this point since it’s clearly the Anthony show as usual?”

“Dude, what the shit! No–” The words leave him right before she crashes into him, slapping her body with his and taking some of the pig shit with her. Aw, no. Now, they’re both covered in crap. “Awwww, duuuuude.” Chris grimaces, face contorted in discomfort at the sight of her now. “That’s… that’s fucked, bro.” How eloquently put. Like he was pretty freaked for himself but seeing her now, Chris is like, kind of sad for her actually. On the bright side, it totally helps take his mind off of how dank things are getting smell-wise and how he can definitely feel wetness on his legs with how the shit’s soaked through his pants. Ugh, that’s fucking nasty.

“Yo, just– just don’t look at it or something.” As if that will help with the smell that’s assaulting their noses. “Just– uh, look at me,” he suggests in his panic, trying to get her from like upchucking because he swears he’s seen some shit like this on Jackass and he doesn’t want a repeat. He had a really good breakfast this morning and he kind of wants to keep it down. Plus, the pigs might get offended if he projectiles crispy strips of their like, cousins or whatever. He tries to direct her gaze upwards by waving toward himself, as if to go: look at me bro, look at me me instead. “Just… pretend it’s like Nutella. It’s just Nutella and definitely not baby pig shit. Because it’s not. At all. It’s just Nutella. With like… stuff in it.” Not that he cares to look down at his pants anymore but he’s sure he caught sight of like, some bits and shit. He’s not sure what the bits are, but there were bits or something in the pig crap.

“Yo,” Jess slung back at him, unintentionally harsh, squinting her eyes shut and bracing her hands out with no clue what to do with them, “What else am I supposed to look at?” The words burst out of her exasperatedly. God, for being a group leader, she wasn’t very good at leading herself sometimes.

Her eyes snapped open to look directly at Chris when the suggestion came up, expression contorting into something full of cringe and pretty juvenile for being a big ol’ senior. Alas, Jess wasn’t your average feminine school girl, in fact, if they allowed you to wear baseball jerseys, sports bras and distressed jeans for the daily uniform, that probably would have been her forever go-to. Not a cent of makeup could ever be found on her face, and messy buns got her out of trouble from the nuns, but otherwise, you wouldn’t catch her shaving her legs or armpits for anything. But that didn’t mean pig shit didn’t fully gross her out, like, right to the core.

“Noah fence, my dude, but-” Jess gulped, daring a look at her hands and regretting it, just about immediately, “Like... I don’t... it’s just, Nutella is hardcore... not this color, I don’t know if you’ve ever had Nutella before, or what, but,” She gasped down air through her mouth, not game enough to breathe through her nose just yet because it had almost made her throw up a second ago. “Mother trucker, why are we just standing around looking at it? Do they have like, animal showers? A hose? Or do you think I can fit in a sink? Or like, a vat of bleach, maybe, I don’t know.”

Being at the zoo is awesome. Sure, it’s a billion fucking degrees, but he’s slapped sunblock on his face and got a hat on (backwards) so basically nothing can stop him. He hits just about everywhere he could, excitedly going from one place to the next with whatever student he can get to tag along with him. Of course, that is until they get to the pot-bellied pigs. Like, it’s cute as shit and super awesome. Chris gets to say hi to all the little grunting porkies and even hang out with some of them, at least like the little baby ones. He’s got one little dude in his arms, and maybe he misgendered it or something because soon enough, the smelly fucker shits all over his lap.

“What the fuck--” He’s quick to lean away from the piglet, instantly overwhelmed by the growing mass of steaming ass sludge that shoots out of the once-adorable little fucker. He whips his head up, eyes bewildered at the zoo-keeper who stares at him just as wide-eyed and shocked about the matter. Louie, or so he was told before he took hold of the piglet, is taken away and Chris is ushered out of the pen and to the closest nun in charge. “What do I do?” He asks desperately, terribly grossed out by the state of his cream-colored joggers. “It stinks and it’s like, seeping through my pants and stuff!” His face is twisted into a look of utter disgust, chest puffing up and down rapidly in his panic before he results to whining childishly.

To his misfortune, the sister just does the sign of the cross hurriedly and tells him to stay put  while she figure this out and gets help. Help? He thought she was the help! He turns to the closest student. “Dude, what the fuck. You gotta help me,” he begs, unstable to stand the hot brown mush splattered all over his lap.

Jess was a summer baby, she’d been born in the viscous heat of August and summer was her favorite thing after skateboards and Feeder on repeat. But good God, this weekend was really punching to be unbearable, and Jess was just happy that at SWAT events, she didn’t have to wear long socks and blazers and overheat like she’d just been microwaved. Instead, she got to wear her baggy cut shorts and a shirt that looked like it came straight from Santa Monica circa. Dogtown era, sweat patches and all. 

The zoo was kind of a letdown, but if she was honest, she’d just wanted to get off campus and half-do something that wasn’t BAU related. She was hoping to talk to Sofie again, though, or even Louisa, just about the whole bone thing one more time in case she’d missed something about it. But as Jess attempted to start her mission in looking for the blond and redhead, something else crossed her path quickly, and she probably should have watched where she was going.

Jess wasn’t very squeemish, blood didn’t get to her and after she’d almost torn her whole knee apart when she was eleven, most things didn’t freak her out too much anymore. But as she went too steam-ahead and didn’t pump the breaks fast enough, she collided into Chris by accident and it was not a second later that the smell of shit cloaked over her without any warning. Stepping back, her hands raised to look down at herself. "Oh.... fffffffffuck,” The letter got caught between her teeth and lip, whole body rippling with the urge to vomit because whatever was all over him and now all over her was absolutely revolting in smell, color, and consistency. “Christ on a pitchfork,” She gagged, fists balling as she began to bend over, just in case she did have to throw up. “What is it? What is i- no, actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want,” Another gag, “I don’t wanna know, I’m gonna be friggin’ sick.”

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…. Just one more… Eight. He stopped scratching the back of his palm on the eighth count and took a deep breath in and exhaled. His eyes drifted back to the board and his hand found his pen. He began to scribble some notes, but his eye caught something in the corner. It looks almost like… Fur?

Norman placed his pen down a few inches next to his textbook and slowly pushed himself forward edging over his desk. The wood began to slowly fall towards him as his eyes peered over the edge. It couldn’t have been fur. There were no pets or animals in this classroom… No wa-THUD.

Norman hit the floor with a heavy thud and his chair screeched its way across the room as he fell. He rubbed his temple and looked around at those laughing at him. Ow, his head was killing. He banged it on the desk on the way down but all he could focus on right now were the laughs and sneers from his peers.

He slowly got up from the floor and straightened up his chair, muttering an apology to his Sister and then looked down at his notebook. He knew who had pulled his chair from under him, he knew Barnes was behind this.

“Psst… Potter.” He heard from behind him. He ignored it. “Potter!” Came the sneer again, this time a little louder.

Reluctantly, he turned his head and saw a typical bully, a larger boy in his class doing a horrid impression of him scratching his palm with his mouth wide open, mockingly. Norman turned back around and carefully began to scratch him palm again. One… two… three… four…

When the class finally finished, Norman pushed back his chair and ran from the class, the pupils and most importantly the bully. He finally stopped when his chest began to hurt, and the panting was too much. He lent against the wall catching his breath. He tried to focus on his counting and was doing well, until he saw a shadow covering the square tile of the floor. Norman looked up and bit his lip. “I-I’m s-sorry… I can m-move.” He gasped.

Jess was in no way any sort of ultimate carer like Louisa, her house captain, and fellow senior, but when she saw somebody who appeared to be suffering in some way, she was pretty good at wedging her foot in the door to help. Call her a fixer, but if she could lend a hand, she’d offer her whole arm. So when she heard the throng of someone’s spine against the hallway lockers, Jess was quick to glance over her shoulder to see what exactly had made the hard impact. Ouch, she thought, someone was having a bad day.

Stuffing her textbook into the locker, Jess peeled a note from inside the door and pocketed it. Then, she closed it tight and made her way towards the raven-haired boy.

“Hey now, it’s all good. That’s not my locker anyway, I think that's...” She looked at the locker for a second, the one he was pressed against like he was trying to become a part of it. “Actually, I have no idea whose it is.” Anyway...

Looking at the boy again, she gripped her hands together. “Everything okay? You look kinda sweaty.” She observed, then cleared her throat. “I mean, like... like you're going through something sweaty. Not just sweaty.”

JACE: Kit what dorms? I was about to check the school surveillance footage but laptop ran out of charge. If I somehow get it charged again and I don't have much time, I gotta know which dorm to check. I'm also looking for you rn.

JACE: I just know there's something going on. Overheard a few teachers talking about the backup generator but I didn't get to stick around. If there's one, why isn't it working? We need to check all of this out

KIT: aloysius dorms. our dorm. and i'm en route to the dining hall. are you already there?

KIT: the backup generator? fuck, how often do backup generators fail? this doesn't feel like a coincidence.

KIT: i hate to sound like fred jones but should we split up? half of us check out the generator and the other half check out the woods?

FLICK: so av got a choice of murder woods or creepy basement? righto lucky no horror movies are ever in the woods or a basement aye should be a proper laff

FLICK: fuck it, i'll go woods

JESS: thats really weird about the generator. look, i don't think we should split up. flick and i are already together so we'll get as close to the treeline as we can and meet you guys there? jace, you go with kit. i'll text emma and see if she can help you guys out. try not to bring attention to yourselves though, i just watched a teacher yell at a junior whos not feeling good, everybody seems really stressed.

Kit: it was floating. it didn’t walk. it floated.

Kit: as soon as i looked away it vanished

Kit: has anyone else seen it?

FLICK: Av a quick question before we go ed with this investigation...how much did you drink/smoke/snort/shelf at the party? I think it's important we do factor that in, yeah?

JESS: Seen it, what's it? What happened? Also, has anyone heard why the power went out yet? it feels like bedlam in here...

FLICK: Scroll up u donut...Kit's seen a ghoulie run into the woods

FLICK: float i mean? whatever ghoulies do he's seen it after the blackout

FLICK: an no av not heard anything proper about why the power went out but summat about a toastie maker??

JESS: okay ghouls and ghosts aren't the same thing.

Kit: it was floating. it didn’t walk. it floated.

Kit: as soon as i looked away it vanished

Kit: has anyone else seen it?

FLICK: Av a quick question before we go ed with this investigation...how much did you drink/smoke/snort/shelf at the party? I think it's important we do factor that in, yeah?

Thursday May 30th at 4:30pm 

kit’s face split into a grin. “laura richards? criminal psychologist?” he said, echoing the opening words of her tv series. “she’s, like, the leading expert on the psychology of violence in the uk. she’s incredible.” kit could go on about laura richards forever; her entire series was basically about how shitty, abusive men become killers, and how domestic violence is one of the greatest predictors of homicidal behavior. he tsked, “yeah, i know. but my lungs don’t give a shit about anything besides, like, pollen. if there’s pollen they go batshit.” also dust, and the cold, and cigarette smoke, and exercise. asthma really was a fucking bitch. 

he nodded, taking his foot off his lap and stretching that leg out in front of him. “i mean, yeah. ribs vary in size, y’know? some are really big and some are really small.” kit licked his lips, his mind finally realizing what, exactly, the implication of human remains were. “it’s… it could just be, like, regular remains, y’know? maybe they were buried, like, hundreds of years ago or something.” kit hoped. this whole conversation was suddenly feeling quite real, and he pulled his legs closer to himself, folding them, and crossing his arms in front of his body. 

“oh, of course,” kit insisted. “it’s- supernatural activity definitely impacts our senses. i mean, during demonic encounters, people say they smell sulfur, or when people walk through haunted houses they feel cold patches.” the spiritual realm and the physical realm were a lot more linked than most people thought. kit was pretty sure he’d seen in a documentary once about string theory, that explained that alternate universes were both infinitely far and mere millimeters away. that’s roughly how kit thought the spirit realm worked, except, sometimes, they could connect. he had to pull himself back to reality; he couldn’t think about that shit when he was high. 

kit followed her story with the rapt attention only someone who was completely baked could muster. she had a point; the bear was a totally implausible thing, though kit had been prepared to accept it as another bizarre harbinger. or perhaps the bear had even run away in fear of something. but, what else could it be? “whaddya think?” he prodded, leaning in towards her. at the mention of edith lynch, kit leaned in even closer, uncomfortable close, eyes wide and unblinking and fascinated, visibly on the edge of his seat. the theory was… bleak, definitely bleak, but kit couldn’t deny it. “i think you’re right. i think you’re exactly right. these,” he leaned back, gesticulating wildly with his hands. “these massive… spiritual… demonic activities require a lot of… of energy. maybe they can’t start it out of nowhere. maybe it… whatever it is… maybe it…” kit run a hand through his hair, tufts sticking up as he pulled it away, completing the crazy conspiracy theorist look. “maybe it’s like a tulpa. like, there’s this theory that the men in black aren’t people, or aliens, but tulpas that feed off of fear and paranoia. what if this… this demon or whatever, what if it gets energy the same way? what if it needs to feed off fear in order to get stronger. so it can do, like, little things in the physical realm,” kit held his hands about two inches apart, “and then harnesses those emotions until it can do bigger, and bigger, and bigger,” kit slowly expanded the space between his hands with each adjective, “things until…” he put his hands down, growing quiet. this was the end, wasn’t it? it was obvious. he glanced up at jess. “until there’s a new edith lynch.” 

If Jess’s head hadn’t been in a cloud of cotton balls, she might have remembered to note the name down and save it for later. Instead, she just grinned widely at Kit, inspired by his passion. “We’ll have to watch it sometime,” She told him, hoping he’d be the one to remember so she didn’t have to. Jess was less into murders and more into the Bigfoots of the world. Killing didn’t get her senses and curiosity going, unexplainable situations did. “I get that. Bodies suck big time.” She admitted, looking down at her jeans and the fraying holes in them, picking at some thread. Hell, if she could have had a different body with different organs, something flat and lean, she would have. But maybe that was a conversation for another time, not now while raccoon bones and dead nuns were floating around in her head.

“Maybe.” She agreed, “But don’t bones turn to dust eventually? I mean, if they don’t fossilize? I don’t know, how long can bones be buried for before they break down? Do they break down?” She wondered, no clue about bones after they hit the hundred-year mark. Nodding some more though, Jess stopped playing with her jeans and looked beside herself at the raven-haired boy. “I mean, it was no sulfur but that was my first thought... First thought after a dead body, anyway, which we found out it was so most of us were right in that aspect.” She commended the BAU team and their skepticism that never ruled out the bizarre and unusual. “I’m still trying to think of reasons for the scream, by the way.” She brought up. “It’s weird that nobody really talks about it anymore, but it was really freaky. I mean I didn’t hear it, which is just - you know, a killer.” Because how frustrating was it to investigate something she didn’t even experience but a lot of other girls in the dorms did, “But it happened. Too many people heard it for it to just be someone’s imagination. Or something made up.” She pressed, that little part of the entire mystery bugging her the most. She wanted to know what it was, why it happened, what it could have been. Woods don’t just scream at you in the dead of night for no reason. Was it just the wind? Who was to know?

She listened to Kit’s tulpa theory, nodding slowly but wondering if it was too outside the box. Jess didn’t believe things happened like they did in movies. If aliens existed, she wasn’t so sure they’d come down in big space ships with green faces and probing fingers either. She was probably the only person in the world who had enjoyed Bird Box though, so that spoke volumes on what her conceptual ideas looked like. “You might be right but I think if you were, more people would feel it, don’t you think?” She frowned, wondering what else laid in the history of the school that they didn’t know about. “I...” She began, looking out suddenly at the trees and feeling her skin prickle at the thought. Jess swallowed, looking into the darkness with wide eyes, fear in her gut although she sat with ease. “I feel like somethings out there. I told Jace, I don’t know what but I just feel like there’s something going on and the school is covering it up almost like they’ve done it before.” She looked at Kit then. “Don’t you think it’s weird how quick they sent us to Stowe? Almost like they have an emergency plan for when weird shit happens?”

Jace inhaled deeply, watching the other leave as his brain did the macarena in his cranium. His most important internal organ had a penchant for showing off in private and anywhere else that didn’t include situations where Jace attempted to prove to himself the great Homo Sapien was, indeed, an evolutionarily social mammal. His brain must not have gotten the memo. So he pursed his lips and glanced away now to see if there was any other corner he could hide in… Then he saw Jess scoot into his line of sight.

Suddenly Jace forgot what he’d been looking for. His brain did a short reboot and begun to engage in the internal war it always had in while in the other’s presense. A mixture of extreme comfort and happiness with someone he’d known since childhood and panicky guilt that he was keeping something immensely huge from them and still unsure how to go about addressing. It’d only been about a decade, what was another night more?

“You should have been more specific about what qualifies as ‘shady,’” Jace joked, though his expression was serious. “I just saw Jenny kissing this Track guy and I know she’s dating someone from her hometown.” He then cleared his throat. “Also, if Banshee’s were real, I think hospitals would be a lot louder and more chaotic than they already are. For now let’s keep that on the ‘maybe an actual legend’ pile.”

Although she tried to hide it, an enormous grin began to spread over her face at Jace’s reply. It couldn’t have been more in-character of him, and that just made Jess laugh. “Okay, uh — kids burying bodies, shady.” She noted. “Jenny kissing a guy that’s not her boyfriend? Ultimate shady. But it’s not your problem, Jace, finding out who wrote that weird graffiti is. We still need leads.” She explained, though was glad that Jace had at least agreed to come to the Barn party with her. She wasn’t much of a party animal herself, hell, she didn’t even drink. But the fact of the matter was, “Now, who’s lips are looser than an underage drinker, riddle me that.” She said, attempting to get Jace back on track of the whole reason they’d decided to come to the party in the first place. It wasn’t for them, it was for BAU.

“You know what? When you right, you right. But I still think we’re looking at some hefty wendigo shit here, okay? Think about it. One of the girls definitely said she heard that scream in the woods, something that sounded kind of like the one Maggie-Roe made when she found the rabbit, now what wails in woods, huh? Banshees. But what yells in the woods and sounds like somebody you know? Wendigos. Or - pissed off spirits, maybe, I’m still not ruling that one out either.” She pointed out in sing-song. “But I refuse to believe that a whole-ass group of kids are lying about some made up night terror, okay? Something lives in those woods. I don’t know what,” Her voice elevated before dropping again. “But a spooky ass something.” 

kit shot her an alarmed look, before he realized she was teasing. he chuckled in relief, “and if you ditch, i’ll doze.” that comeback made no sense, but it was the first thing that came to mind, and he needed to cover his genuine panic. this whole having-friends-you-can-rely-on thing was kind of new to him, though kit supposed that was his own fault. he never made himself the easiest person to approach, and whenever people did approach him, he tended to keep them at an arm’s length, never wanting to get too close for fear they would leave. do i have trust issues? kit frowned at himself. probably. 

he shot a grin her way at the thought. “if i actually met pete wentz, you wouldn’t have to take me to the hospital, because i’ll have already died and gone to heaven.” kit sat up, a thought striking him. “i did meet laura richards once, though. she gave a talk on criminal profiling at pennstate, and i got to meet her afterwards-.” he paused in his gushing, realizing, “actually, i might have had, not an asthma attack, more like an asthma assault, right after.” kit tapped his temple with a bony finger. “i’ve got a big brain, sometimes.” occasionally. very rarely. 

kit peeked over jess’s shoulder at her notes. “seven inches, that’s like…” he pulled his foot, clad in his dirty converse sneakers, onto his lap. his own sole was about twelve inches long, so he measured about half with his hands, and then held it to his ribcage, in a very rough approximation. “yeah, no,” he decided, “that could totally be a human rib.” he considered jess’s suggestion. “could be a fox, maybe. again, it’d be nice to know, like, the angle of the bone. the curve of it.” not like kit was an anatomy expert or anything, but he’d taken enough biology classes to at least recognize that some animals had, like, super curvy ribs. 

“weren’t the bodies of the people edith lynch murdered eventually recovered?” kit asked, because he couldn’t quite remember at the moment. he pulled his ankle closer to himself, rocking against it with both hands as he listened intently to jess. “that’s definitely, like, a possibility.“ and would be wicked (in both meanings of the word) if it were true. "but it could be a… a harbinger.” kit really didn’t believe in such a thing as coincidence, more prone to see causation as opposed to correlation. “because, like, edith lynch was possessed, right? then it follows that there is some demonic presence here. these major possession incidents are usually preceded by, like, warnings. the bear, and then the bone? even if it’s an animal bone, but certainly if it’s a human bone. those are some pretty serious signs.” 

She shook her head at him, though arguably agreeing with the fact that if she was to meet an idol, she too would probably combust on the spot. Hell, if she had to die to meet Janis Joplin, she probably would throw herself in front of a bus right now. “I don't know who that is but cool for you, nerd out.” She grinned dopily at the boy, no clue who Laura Richards was but also too high to properly care either. “Famous people are overrated.” She decided on a whim, looking out at the gravel area where most of the cars from students were clustered, readily abandoned for the night. “Sucks that your lungs don’t think so.” Her eyes drifted over to Kit then, her head still resting against the wooden wall behind her, chin raised.

Jess watched as he compared size to his shoe, cringing a little because it was hard to envision what human ribs looked like. She wasn’t really into biology, or anything to do with the body, in fact, she borderline hated it. “You think?” She swallowed, looking at her phone somewhat in disappointment. Not because she didn’t want to find comparative evidence that it might, in fact, be human remains, but because that changed the whole game if it really was.

“Yeah, all of them, from what I’ve heard and read, anyway.” Jess admitted, thinking about it for a moment. The fact of the matter was that even though Jess and her friends delved deep into the mystery of the Edith Lynch murders, all of it was hearsay and vague reports. There was no real evidence to her eyes that it was definitely a murder by her hands, not to mention it had happened over thirty years ago and that bugged Jess. “Yeah...” She trailed off, lost in thought. “I mean, yeah, they could be. If this place really is linked to some collision of the living and spiritual realm then it would make sense for this stuff to happen. I mean, I can’t remember where I saw or read it once and I’ve been looking at it for weeks but there’s something about other senses being toyed with when there’s supernatural activity. I thought maybe that might have explained the smell... then they found the bear.” She paused for a moment, “Or they said they found a bear, anyway.” The lilt in her voice made it sound as if Jess didn’t believe there really was a bear, but she wasn’t so sure. It was plausible, in a really, ultimately strange situation, it wouldn’t impossible it was just... highly improbable. How does a bear wander through campus and get into a basement? That meant getting inside a building, taking a stairwell and closing a door behind it to die without anybody batting an eye. Not impossible... But definitely improbable. “I think...” She felt crazy, so she hesitated, but who was Kit to judge her? He’d seen her crazy and met it at times. So she persisted. “I think something else happened. I don’t know what or who was involved but I think they’re still around.” She explained. “With the Edith story, nobody else was at the school except for the four which three ended up dead. After the break, there was all the writing on the walls which I know could just be some dumb prank but if we’re not ruling out signs...” Jess glanced around them, sure that nobody was listening but still. “I think someone wants us to figure it out.” There. Now he could call her crazy and maybe she’d stop feeling like a suspicious lunatic. “I don’t know why or who but I just get this weird feeling... everything is happening as a series of events. Like they’re clues and we’re supposed to put it together, but if we don’t, everything is just going to get worse. First, it was just writing, then a rabbit, and now a bear... Who’s...” She felt awful for saying it but... “Who’s to say it’s not going to be a student next?”

“I just ate the last of the, uh, the shortbread cookies with the strawberry cough,” Kit described, glad to have finally found his friend. His high had gone from slightly overwhelming to pleasant now that he was in good company. “And I just got a new batch of bubba kush chocolate chip, but that shit always puts me to sleep. Figured I didn’t want to doze off at a Barn Party.” The very thought sent shivers down his spine; Alex’s henchmen were already on his case, he didn’t need to give them the opportunity.

Honestly, Kit wished he could hotbox with Jess more, too. Jess was so fucking cool, it was kind of unbelievable she was even his friend. “I know, my stupid fucking lungs,” he cursed. “Swear to god, once my new inhalers mellow out, we’re doing that again.” Kit giggled to himself a little too long, just picturing Jess and Jace in her smoke-filled car, the former babbling expressively at eighty miles per hour, the latter diligently take notes. And then Jess losing her train of thought, expression steadily falling, and the pace of Jace’s notetaking following suit. When he could manage it, Kit said, “You should, like, record on your phone or something. Just, as soon as you light up, press record.” 

“Yeah!” Kit sat up, always read to talk shop, as it were. “I mean, if it is big, like… she’d have to say how big. Did she say how big? Because I Googled it and raccoon skeletons are like… spindly. Like even…” Kit trailed off, patting his hands up and down his body, trying to find the thinnest possible bone. His hands eventually settled on his ribs, though he still wasn’t sure if that was it. He brought both his hands up, swatting the thought away. “Whatever, but like even the smallest human bones are bigger than the biggest raccoon bones, is my point.” Kit shivered at the very thought of it being human remains. “I mean, it takes, like, ten years for a body to fully decompose into a skeleton, so it’s-… it’s not recent, I don’t think. Still, I’ve been wondering if it was, like, displaced or something? I mean, they just found a bone. A single bone. There has to be more.“

Jess pulled her lips together and wrinkled her nose, looking like a child ready to throw a tantrum because she hadn’t gotten to see what goodies he’d brought for himself this evening. No matter, though, it sounded good all the time. “If you doze, I’ll ditch.” She pointed a finger at him, mockingly warning him to stay awake or else. She didn’t have an or else, but all the same, it was starting to become somewhat of a ritual for the two Sober Sally’s at every party. They had to keep themselves entertained somehow, or else an early bedtime was definitely on the cards.

She laughed but shook her head. “The only way I’m ever taking you to the ER for suffocating is if you meet like... Patrick Stump or Pete Wentz in person or something. It better be a fanboy moment, not a medical moment.” Again, Jess accused him but all in jest because when push came to shove, she didn’t want to put anyone in danger. That wasn’t how she operated. The only person she ever was willing to put in danger was herself. “That’s actually a damn good idea.” She mused, thinking about it for a moment before grinning at Kit and reaching out to punch his arm lightly. “Knew I kept you around for a reason.”

“She did say how big. Uh...” Jess tried to remember, then her face lit up and she ripped her phone out of her jean pocket, stumbling to get to her note app and not open every other social media one by accident first just by clumsy fingers. “Seven inches,” She reported from what Sofie had said to her. “How big is seven inches?” Jess quickly followed up, frowning.

Jess listened, intrigued by his bone analytics. “Bigger than raccoon bones...” A pause. “Foxes?” She asked vaguely, unsure of what else roamed the woods of Nighmore aside from gross opossums and apparently bears that died in basements. “Ten years.” She repeated, “Edith went loco in the eighties, that’s plenty of time for a body to go to dust and... move... itself... around school grounds?” She trailed off with the last assumption, obviously knowing it was impossible for a skeleton to dig itself up and then sprinkle itself in random places. She cringed, “You don’t think it was a slice and dice job, do you? Ribs in the farm plot... a leg in the woods... an arm in the parking lot?”