1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Sova Rev 1

Name: Jericho Sova

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Thriller

Title: The Lates Society

Percival Wolfsbane stepped out of Lates Hall for the first time in a month. He looked around, found a nice, shaded bench to sit on, and took a tattered, rolled up notebook out of his coat pocket.

"I don't know what happened," he heard another student say as he flipped the notebook to a math problem he'd been working on. "It's too early to tell if it was him." 

Having been gone so long, Percival didn’t know who they were talking about, and normally he wouldn't have cared anyway. Campus politics had never interested him, and local gossip was something he strictly ignored. But today there was a tone to the conversation that Percival didn't like. A certain kind of fear was behind that other student’s voice; a fear mixed with reverence. And looking around, Percival caught the same dreadful unease in other people as well. It was hiding in the way a woman was rushing to her car before the sun set, wearing itself on the faces of two professors standing in the courtyard, and flaring up in the cigarette of a man smoking in the library gazebo. The fear was everywhere, permeating the campus like a disease.

And yet, Percival tried to ignore it. He told himself it was just his nerves and a byproduct of dealing with his brother’s death. Since the accident, Percival had been ignoring a lot of things. He found it easier than dealing with the pain. That’s what the math problem was for. Math problems were a puzzle. They made you focus, and when Percival bit into one, he didn’t let go until it was done.

This one, however, was becoming a nightmare. He’d been working at it for three solid hours, and the only thing he had accomplished were a few smears, eraser marks, and one bat-winged smiley face with fangs drawn in the upper corner of the page. 

Now, he concentrated on the numbers and tried willing them to fall into place. His hope was that the fresh mountain air would help him concentrate. But the numbers were obstinate things and refused to listen. When he thought he made progress in one area of the equation, another one fell to pieces. When he believed he stumbled onto something rational, a different part became irrational. At one point, he put his pencil to paper, and with a spark of intuition, jotted down a series of numbers. It wasn’t until after he checked his work that he realized he had tried this same path twice before. 

Frustrated, Percival slammed the notebook closed and shoved it into his pocket. Then the clock tower boomed announcing the time as six o'clock. Percival’s stomach grumbled, and he started ambling his way toward the cafeteria. As he crossed the courtyard, a rush of cold air swept through the valley, tearing leaves off their branches. One leaf danced its way around his head and landed in his untamed black hair. He shook the leaf out and continued on, while somewhere in the distance police sirens screamed.

After the buzz going on outside, the Autumn U cafeteria had all the excitement of a well-kept mausoleum. The walls were a beaten dull gray. The floors were a coffin wood brown. The people shuffled from one food kiosk to the next like zombies while they waited for their share of sizzling mystery meats and blighted vegetables. 

Percival made himself a salad and found an isolated table in the back to sit at. While he ate, he refused to look at the math problem as a matter of principle. It had already given him enough trouble as it was and adding indigestion to the mix wasn’t going to help.

He had been content to eat alone, but when Benjamin’s tray clattered down on the table beside him, causing him to jump, he found he was glad to have some company. And Benjamin was good company. Sure, he was a bit odd, but he was a friendly face, and since the accident, those were scarce. 

"You scared the hell out of me," said Percival.

Benjamin sat down and started to examine a slice of pizza for defects. He was gangly and thin with unkempt straw-colored hair and thick framed glasses that glinted in the cafeteria lights. If he were a bit less animated, he might have made for a good-looking scarecrow. 

"Nice to see you too,” he said. “When did you get back?" 

"Yesterday."  

"And you didn't call? I'm hurt."  

"I don't even have a phone. Mine was on my brother’s account."

Benjamin’s smile faded. "I’m sorry. If there was anything I could have done."

Not wanting to talk about it, Percival waved the comment off. “It’s fine. Besides, what was it your favorite author once said? ‘So it goes.’”

“Too true. Now let me be the first to welcome you back to Autumn U, or as the shirts say Au, the gold standard.”

Percival took a bite of his salad. “It’s good to be back. But maybe you can tell me what I’ve been missing.” 

Benjamin tore a burnt section of his pizza off, flicked it away, and bit into the pizza’s other side. “What do you mean,” he said around a mouthful of cheese.

“I don’t know. It’s like everyone’s on edge or something.” 

“You mean you haven't heard? The Triangle Killer's come back." 

Percival nearly choked on a grape. He had heard about the killer. Everyone in Autumn had. It was the campus ghost story, the thing seniors told freshmen to keep them up at night. There were seven original victims, if he remembered correctly. Each one had their hands chopped off and their bodies carved up in some kind of ritualistic manner. Signs and symbols were cut into the flesh, and the victim's blood was used to write cryptic messages. No one ever figured out what the messages meant, and the killings stopped after a few weeks.  

"Are they sure it's the Triangle Killer," said Percival. "I mean that was what, twenty years ago?”

"Twenty-five,” said Benjamin. “And no, the police haven't confirmed anything yet. But I was talking to someone on the force, and she says it's definitely the killer.”

“How does she know?”

“Something to do with the symbols used. She was kind of cagey on the details.” Benjamin leaned in close. “And you want to know the best part? I think this might be supernatural.”

Percival rolled his eyes. Here it went again. Benjamin’s second greatest fault. His first was his fondness for breaking into places he shouldn’t be, but followed closely behind that was his desire to make everything paranormal. In his world, Occam’s razor could be summed up in three words. Ghosts or aliens. 

“You can't be serious,” said Percival. “Oh, God, you are."

"Look, twenty-five years is a long time to go between murders. And to come back without missing a beat seems supernatural to me."

"Twenty-five years is not that long," said Percival. "If the killer started when they were twenty, they'd only be forty-five now. It’s more likely the killer’s just… come back."

“Don’t you mean come back from the dead? There is no way you’re going to convince me this isn’t supernatural.”

“Nothing is ever supernatural. There’s just things we know, and things we haven’t figured out yet.”