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So ould he kill Lindsay?

And what had that little brat called me? Desk jockey? I’m way more than just a desk jockey Fischer Hall would fall apart if it weren’t forso many questions about Lindsay, anyway? Because I care about that place, and the people who live in it If it weren’t for irls would have died last sein Fischer Hall then?

Fu, I leave the ladies’ room The hallway outside is dead silent That’s because, I realize, the girls have started their tribute to Lindsay back in the gym, and everyone has hurried back to their seats to watch it I can hear the faint strains of the school song, played real slow, just like they’d said they’d have the band do it I sort of want to be in there watching, too

But I haven’t gotten Tom’s nachos yet, or Pete’s soda Not to ood ti Lindsay’s sweater ascend to the rafters Maybe there won’t be a line at the concession stand

I turn the corner, hurrying past empty squash court after empty squash court--if Sarah ever took a serious look around the sports center, she’d come up with a lot y Department is treated There must be twenty or thirty million of the Winer fa alone It’s alates you have to pass through to get in Even the soda machines have built-in scanners so you can buy a can of Coke using your dining card…

Except, for such fancy, new-fangled sodaa funny noise Not the usual electronic--and, let’s ad--hum, but a sort of thud--thud--thud

But soda machines don’t thud

Then I see, suddenly, that I’m not the only person in the hallway When I come around the side of the bank of sodafro kitchen knife as it repeatedly strikes the ribs of a ainst the wall to one side of the sodahalf a basketball over his face, with small slits cut out in the rubber so that they can see

When all three men hear my scream--because if you coto scream--they turn their heads toward me--three half basketballs, with eye slits cut in theain Because, excuse me, but, creepy

Then one of the men pulls the knife out of thesound The blade that has just come out of the man is dark and slick with blood My stoht of it

It’s only when the man with the knife says, "Run," to his companions that I realize what I’ve just done--stumbled across the scene of a criaway fro of their sneaker soles on the polished floor is any indication as they flee