When the Sky Goes Dark Read online

  When the Sky

  Goes dark

  Oliver C. Seneca

  Hellbender Books

  Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

  For my family.

  You’ve always been there for me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Scream

  Piercing shrieks shook the second floor of Lecture Hall. They echoed down the tiled floors and bounced off the white brick walls. A girl’s scream. Terrifying and as ear-shattering as an explosion.

  Jon had just been leaving his Psych 310: The Study of Sleep and Psychology class with his friend Trevor when the sound blew through them like a train. Some of the other exiting classmates put their hands over their ears to shield themselves from the noise coming down the hall.

  “What the hell was that?” a red-headed, freckle-faced girl asked through clenched teeth. Her painted nails cupped her lobes.

  Another student began quick stepping in the opposite direction. “Fuck that,” he said, and a few others followed as if they were convinced it was a school shooting. The thought of being in a college massacre made Jon’s heart pound even harder than it already was.

  The sight of two EMTs leading a stretcher from around the corner of the hallway, near where the bathrooms were located, relaxed his heart rate down a few beats. A girl, who Jon didn’t recognize, was lying with her eyes closed. She was strapped on a yellow stretcher with collapsible wheels, blonde hair going every which way. Beneath the harsh, fluorescent lights on the ceiling, she looked dead. Jon’s stomach tightened.

  “Damn,” Trevor said. His eyes were as wide as flying saucers. “What do you think happened?” he asked, turning toward Jon for a moment.

  Jon only shrugged. “You think she passed out from screaming so loud?”

  Trevor shook his head as his eyes traveled beyond the blonde-haired patient. “I don’t think she was the one who screamed.”

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOO! JESSIE! NOOOOO! WAKE UP, SWEETIE!” a girl’s voice shouted.

  The red-haired girl squinted. Now she put her fingers in her ears, nails and all.

  Behind the EMTs, the girl’s screaming reached a higher volume as her unconscious friend approached. The medical volunteers were trying to shoo her back and away from the scene, one of which spoke with the authority of a cop. “Miss, please step back. We are going get her taken care of, okay? She’s going to be ok. We’re taking her downstairs to the ambulance. We just need to you calm down for us, okay?”

  There were groups of lingering college students, standing and filling the hallway to get a glimpse at the cause of the horrific screams. Their bags and backpacks were blocking the way.

  “Please, make a path! We need to get her to a hospital. Please, move!” one of the EMTs said, waving his blue-gloved hand at the students. His voice was transitioning into a yell, clearing a pathway for the stretcher.

  The girl, whose voice filled the hall earlier, now had tears streaming down her cheeks and swollen eyes. Her black hair was coming undone from the back of her tied bun. Her skin was thin and pale. She had stopped her screaming but followed her friend around another corner, toward the elevators.

  Professor Hill stepped out from the classroom doorway. “What in God’s name happened down there?” She was adjusting her wired glasses and stepping on her tippy toes behind Jon and Trevor to see above the heads of the crowded corridor.

  Before either Jon or Trevor could respond, a girl named Samantha with a sleeve tattoo of vines and flowers up her left arm said, “Overdose. Gotta be an overdose.”

  “Really? You think so, Sam?” Professor Hill asked with an almost angered tone. Angered at drugs or Sam, no one knew.

  Yeah, really? Jon thought to himself. How would you know? Trevor had the same expression. Their eyebrows were both raised in morbid questioning.

  “I’ve heard Jess was a user. I mean, I’ve never seen her myself doing it, but word in the halls is that she’s on the H.” Sam’s hands were up as if she was making an educated guess.

  “My God, I hope she’s ok. That’s just unbelievable.” Professor Hill held her black binder up to her chest and shook her head both in sorrow and disappointment as if Sam’s overdose diagnosis was what had happened. “That’s just not right.”

  The ding of the elevator sounded. The metal doors slid open. Students were making their way towards Jessie as she was being loaded on.

  “Away, away!” the EMT blared.

  “I just hope they shoot her with the Narcan stuff to bring her back,” Sam said in monotone. She seemed unaffected by the whole thing.

  Heroin. Is it heroin? Jon didn’t know Jessie and thought perhaps Samantha was right. Maybe Samantha’s more familiar with the junkies. She does have tattoos. Tattoos and drugs go hand in hand, don’t they?

  Jon, although judgmental in the confines of his mind, is an innocent guy. No tattoos. He wouldn’t even know what to get. He was never one to try smoking or drugs. Never one to drink alcohol before he turned 21. Even now he rarely drank. The bite and bitterness of alcohol kept Jon away from indulging in the poison. Sacrilegious some would say. College was the time to try out different vices, to have experiences of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. From the looks of it, maybe Jessie did all three.

  Another ding. The elevator descended.

  “Shit, man. That’s some twisted stuff. You think that chick really OD’d?” Trevor asked as he rubbed the top of his nappy hair. He and Jon began to head down the hall where all the lingering groups merged into one before the elevators. Sam and Professor Hill were talking about heroin and the opioid epidemic in America. Their voices faded away as Jon and Trevor approached the anxious students.

  “Beats me,” Jon said.

  “Ay, Jordan!” Trevor shouted. Another Black student turned from the back of the group of the crowd. He squeezed through two girls’ backpacks and approached Trevor. He was tall and wearing a blue WHITE HAVEN ATHLETICS T-shirt. In his hand, he clutched an iPhone with a gold back.

  “Yo, this shit’s crazy,” Jordan said, punching his fist into his other palm. He was almost smiling.

  “What she do?” Trevor asked.

  “That girl was on the floor of the bathroom, in one of the stalls. My girl was in there, washing up.”

  “Natasha?”

  Jon wasn’t familiar with Jordan nor Natasha, so he just stood there awkwardly as he tried to listen through the sounds of the chattering witnesses.

  Heroin. Heroin. Heroin.

  “Yeah, she was in there when all a sudden that girl came in, starts screamin’ all loud after she bends down and looks under the stall. That girl, Jessie, was out and wasn’t talkin’, wasn’t breathin’.”

  “Damn, were there needles? A girl from our class says that Jessie’s on dope.”

  “Shit, man. I don’t know about all that.” Jordan turned back around. He was bouncing his phone back and forth between his hands. “I don’t know where Natasha went off to. She mighta went with Jessie.” He looked down at his phone, tapped the screen with his finger and then brought it up to his ear. “Tasha? Tasha, where you at?” Jordan turned back toward the group and began pushing people aside.

  Jon looked back at his friend. “Well, I guess we won’t find out what happened until all this dies down.”

  “Guess so,” Trevor replied. “Least she’ll get out of finals.”

  An untimely joke to make, Jon thought. But after he had seen the empty chairs in both in Professor Weiss’ and Professor Hill’s classes, something told Jon that a lot of students will be getting out of finals.

  Chapter TWO

  The End is Near

  It was that time of the year.

  The spring season was coming to an end as the warm summer air began to creep in, turning jeans a
nd jackets into shorts and short-sleeved shirts. Excitement and anxiousness filled the campus as students walked to their last classes for the semester, eager to find out what their final projects and exams would be for the following weeks that would unlock their freedom into summer vacation. Some will return for the fall semester while others will graduate and be thrown into the frightening and mysterious “real world.”

  If you weren’t paying attention while driving down College Hill Avenue, you might just miss it as the lush green trees that line the sides of the asphalt almost swallow the entrance sign that reads WHITE HAVEN COLLEGE. You’d have more luck getting into campus at night when the tall, black light poles with orange bulbs shined over the sign and pathway onto the school grounds.

  White Haven College was a comfortably sized school located in White Haven, Pennsylvania. With its size, you’d think it wouldn’t have dorms, a cafeteria, and sporting areas. But you’d be wrong. You’d also think that since this college is so hidden that no one would even know to apply here. You’d be wrong again. In fact, students come from all over Central Pennsylvania and beyond to go here because of the low tuition and easy access to the local bars. College students love to drink.

  The town itself, however, was out in plain sight. Restaurants and dive bars sprinkled the area with some mom and pop stores in the mix. If you traveled just a bit more down the road you’d find houses. Townhouses to be exact. Not the nice, newer built style, but the older and run-down kind that looked like they’ve been around since the college first came into existence. The paint chipped on the buildings. The roofs were torn up. This is where all the White Haven locals lived. With how much nicer the college looked, you’d think aliens brought it down and dropped over an unsuspecting, backwoodsy town. But it was a nice little town. A town that didn’t start and didn’t want any trouble.

  ***

  Jonathan Barnes looked like any other run of the mill college student, at least that’s what he thought of himself. But then again, Jon never really thought much of himself at all. Painfully average is how he felt. He had brown, messy hair. Hair that he often needed to swipe away so it wouldn’t go into his hazel eyes which sat behind his black, square-framed glasses. His skinny physique didn’t make him feel any better about himself either. The lack of any muscle tone or six-pack helped reinforce his mediocre self-esteem.

  The only thing he thought he had going for him was that he was smart and tall. At just 6'0, Jon would tell a woman that he was 6'1. They never questioned it, but they never had to since it was rare for Jon to have more than a five-minute conversation with a person of the opposite sex. Even if he did, it was most likely about homework. To Jon, it seemed that the only reason anyone would ever talk to him was to get help on an assignment or to proofread a paper. That was ok though. It gave Jon opportunities with girls over the years that, without his book smarts and ability to listen, probably would have never occurred. The girlfriends he had back in high school were all products of his patience and intellect.

  Perhaps it was his wardrobe filled with T-shirts of various pop culture references that was holding him back a bit. The girls he was into didn’t understand much of the designs and references on his shirts that displayed imagery from various movies, TV shows, and video games that Jon enjoyed. He’d sometimes wear a button-down shirt or polo, but he was usually decked out in his signature style of Vans sneakers, jeans, and a shirt with some character on it from God knows what. But it wasn’t Jon’s fault, it was hard to have a full, lavish set of outfits when you’re living in a tiny dorm room with a cabinet-sized closet squeezed into it.

  Jon didn’t want to go away to college, but his parents lived almost an hour away and they thought it would be a good idea for Jon to get out of the house and experience what life outside his room had to offer. He fought with his parents about it and, being the only child, he almost got his way until his father decided he was either living at college or not going college at all. Jon needed to learn what it was like to be off on his own. Alone. Get a taste of the real world. To be a man and find a nice girl to call his own.

  Lucky for Jon, there were many fish in the sea as his major, psychology was a popular major for girls at White Haven College. Girls of all shapes, sizes, and personalities filled the seats in each of his classes. Jon had choices. However, Jon had to act quick because time was running out. Not for Jon, but for a certain special someone. This wasn’t Jon’s last semester at White Haven College, but it was for Skylar Doyle. The apple of Jon’s eye. At least for now. Jon has had many apples in his eye, Skylar was just the current one.

  A beautiful curled, blonde-haired girl that always dressed nicely for class even though she didn’t have to. She could outshine anyone, anywhere. In the fall she would wear grey sweaters with blue jeans and nice brown boots. During the spring semesters, she would show a little more skin with flowing shirts and, if Jon was lucky, thigh-hugging short-shorts. But the truth was she would’ve looked good in anything, even in sneakers, raggedy jeans, and a Star Wars T-shirt like Jon wore.

  She was like an actress playing the lead role in the movie PSYCH 343: Control and Analysis of Human Behavior. A fascinating piece of cinema that captures the beauty of young love. Two classmates who find one another through the studies of their own behavior. Two strangers whose morning studies blossom into a passionate romance.

  In reality, it was just his morning class he had with Skylar. Three days a week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. 10:00 A.M. to 10:50 A.M. with Professor Weiss. This was the only time he got to see her unless you count the awkward times they’ve passed one another in the hallway where Jon doesn’t know if he should wave or say hello. He always ended up doing neither. Sometimes it made him feel better to think she at least recognized him from class.

  Skylar was a commuter student who drove almost thirty minutes from Evergreen Hills, a place Jon has never heard of, every day to go to her classes. She’s always well prepared and attentive in class even though she sat by her talkative best friend, Melissa Ricci. Melissa was another psychology major who was only as good looking as she was because she sat beside Skylar. Any chick within Skylar’s radius automatically made them a little hotter. Her long, black hair was always put together, and she seemed to have a modern sense of style. It was her attitude that kept her from being on Skylar’s level. Melissa always seemed to be stuck in the middle of the drama, whether it be with some guy she was with or another girl talking trash behind her back.

  Jon knew this because he would sometimes try to listen in on their conversations.

  He didn’t know all of the details for sure, but from what he could make out from eavesdropping this semester, it sounded like Skylar had a good job lined up after she graduates at a hospital near her town or something like that. He couldn’t remember and was too afraid to ask. How could he?

  “Hey Skylar, I was listening to you and Melissa talking the other day and I know we never met before but where are you going to be working again? I forgot. I’m Jon. I sit in the back of the class. I’m not a stalker or anything!”

  Jon still had one year left. He hoped to become a therapist spending his time listening to people, helping people. Jon liked to help people and not just with their assignments. Jon had spent a lot of his free time in high school listening to his classmates go on about their issues. Texts and phone calls from friends would light up his phone every night with tales of school stress and issues at home. Jon liked to listen to people. Jon also liked Skylar.

  Graduation was only three weeks away with one more week of classes, one week for studying, and one week for final exams. Skylar was about to be moving on from White Haven College. Jon had wasted the entire semester coming up with “what if” scenarios instead of trying to talk to her.

  What if we get assigned together for a group project?

  What if I asked for her number?

  What if she likes the movies and shows I like?

  What if we got married?

  What if she owns a cat?
r />   The scenarios went on and on. Jon daydreamed so much about how they could get to know each other that he failed to realize that all he had to do was say hello.

  “Hello, Skylar”

  “Hey, Skylar”

  “How’s it goin’, Skylar?”

  “Will you marry me, Skylar?”

  Jon is 21 years old and behaving like this.

  Chapter THREE

  PSYCH343: Control and Analysis of

  Human Behavior

  Professor Weiss came into class five minutes late as usual. The reason behind his constant tardiness could only be on thing: his weight. Weiss was a short, balding and gray-haired man whose stomach spilled over his belt as the poor leather clung on for dear life. He always shuffled into class huffing and puffing while gripping a plastic jumbo-sized cup of diet soda, which clearly wasn’t doing anything for him.

  Everybody in the class enjoyed having Weiss as their professor as he was a kind man who always had time to help his students. He’d often wait after class until he answered all the questions the students had for him. Most of the time, he would have some type of story to tell about when he was a college student. The typical “when I was your age” and “back in the dinosaur ages when I was in school” spiel.

  “Alright everyone,” Professor Weiss said as he entered the room, placing his bucket of diet soda on the computer podium that sat in the front-left of the class. A projector screen pulled down over the whiteboard behind him. He took a breath as he was tired from his walk up the steps. “How are we all doing this morning?”

  A sweaty eyebrow raised as he scanned the classroom, noticing the holes in the crowd. Students were absent. On the last day of class before the final, it surprised him to see so many people skipping.

  “Good, how are you doing professor?” one of the students sitting in the front replied.