One Must Hide

Home truths

The king-size Mars Bar dropped out of its rack and into the drawer of the vending machine with an unhealthy thud. Robin scooped it up and shoved it into the pocket of her coat, then resumed her listless mooch towards the porters' lodge.

As if to match her mood, the heavens had opened three days ago, depositing large quantities of freezing rain on York. The lake, already top-full from the autumn rains, had flooded at half a dozen places along its shores, including directly outside C-block. Robin's housemates had descended the stairs that first morning to find three inches of water swirling around the kitchen. They'd employed sandbags, earthworks, and a lot of bailing to rectify the situation, but the ground floor stank, the kitchen was completely unusable, and the power kept going off at random intervals while the university electricians tried to make the sodden circuits safe.

Under those circumstances, king-sized Mars Bars were just about as good as it got.

Robin hadn't mustered the effort to go to a lecture all week. She ventured out once a day to stock up on chocolate bars, then retreated back to her room, ostensibly to work on a course essay, but in reality to do nothing more than stare at the walls and sleep.

Wentworth College stank of new paint and disinfectant. Paint because it was one of the older colleges, the Sixties colleges, and undergoing a half-hearted refurbishment; disinfectant because it had a bar, and where students mixed with alcohol, vomit usually wasn't far away.

James College didn't have a bar, or a porters' lodge, so if Robin wanted tokens for the washing machines, or stamps, or a newspaper, or to pick up her letters, she had to go to Wentworth. She resented the dismal environs, even as she knew she took it all too personally, but the dirty washing was piling up, and she hadn't sunk so far into her own misery that she wanted to smell.

One of the porters – there were several, but Robin hadn't troubled to look at any of them hard enough to be able to tell one from another – lowered his copy of the Daily Mail to look at her.”I need some laundry tokens,” Robin said. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded flat and dull, and she could hardly blame the porter for the monosyllables with which he responded. She handed over money; he handed back tokens. Robin turned away before he even returned to his newspaper.

The mailboxes for all the Wentworth and James students were fixed to the wall beside the porters' lodge, next to a noticeboard bearing overlapping layers of posters promoting gigs and flyers advertising rooms for rent and pamphlets about giving blood. The S box was always full, and Robin had to use both hands to remove the thick sheaf of letters. Then it took a while to flip through them all, because no one ever sorted the post by surname, and there were just too many Smiths and Stewarts and Schofields, and even another Stephenson.

The first letter came in an internal envelope. Probably a departmental circular or something. Robin put it to one side, and kept flipping. There was a flyer for Cult SOC. Chris hadn't shown up for a lift or anything in the last three days – probably too scared by how she'd been acting – but she supposed she was on the mailing list, now.

The Bristol postmark on the last one would have betrayed its sender even if the tidily handwritten address had not. Robin looked blankly at the letter from her sister. What could Lauren want?

The thought of going back to her claustrophobic room to read it didn't appeal. Robin took her letters and went to Wentworth bar, dredging up enough small change to buy a Coke. Few people haunted the bar this early in the evening, and she had the place to herself, which suited her perfectly. She picked a table in an out-of-the-way corner and made herself comfortable.

Dear Robin

I meant to write sooner, but work's been a nightmare, and we've been having to go to Milton Keynes every weekend because Russell's grandmother hasn't been well. I know, Milton Keynes – of all the places to have to visit every weekend.

Russell probably liked Milton Keynes , Robin thought uncharitably. Given his nervous disposition, concrete cows were probably as much excitement as he could take.

Anyway, I didn't really want to crowd you in your first couple of months, but I haven't heard anything from you. Mum and Dad said they haven't, either. I hope that means you've made a lot of friends and you're working hard, but you really should give us a ring – you're a long way away. I know you like to feel independent, but you are still only 17.

Robin slapped the letter down on the table and glared into space. Classic Lauren, starting out all friendly and understanding, and then, bam – the bland accusations, the veiled threats, the sickly condescension. It had been that way between them ever since Lauren had left home, almost as if she felt she had to keep Robin stifled to maintain her own independence.

She retrieved the Mars Bar from her pocket, ripped off the wrapper and bit the end off the chocolate bar with more force than was really necessary.

So how's York ? Is it much colder up there? Hope your room's not cold, and that you've got enough money to get some winter clothes if you need them. Is your car running all right? (I think you're mad spending all your loan on it – what are you going to do when it claps out and needs fixing?) And is your course going ok? Spending a lot of time at the library? I never managed to catch up on my reading when I was at uni, but you read a lot faster than me. And I bet you're enjoying having a room to yourself!

Robin wondered how she'd reply to the barrage of questions – if she'd had any intention of replying, which she didn't. Cold? No, it's positively balmy, and my room's practically an oven. Money for winter clothes? Yes, and champagne and caviar every evening, too. Stupid, stupid questions. Stupid, stupid sister.

I know you'll be home for Christmas, so I'll see you then, but I wanted to say that I know Mum and Dad would really like you to be home for your birthday, and I'll be there for that, too. If petrol money's a problem, let me know and I'll sub you, but I know they really want to see you for your 18 th. So can you make plans to get home for then? I know you won't want to spend the whole weekend with us lot, but you can go out with your old mates from school or something.

The same old mates from school that Robin had intended to leave firmly behind when she went to university three hundred miles away.

Oh, do you remember how Russell and I were talking about getting a dog just before you went away? Well, we went to the rescue centre and got one! He's a collie cross called Midge, five years old and full of beans – drags me out of bed every morning for walkies – but he's good as gold during the day, the neighbours say they never hear a sound out of him. You'll meet him at Christmas, we'll bring him down then.

Lauren knew perfectly well that Robin didn't like dogs, so that was as much a threat as a promise.

Anyway, I'll let you get on. I'll see you at Christmas, but PHONE HOME before then, Mum's got four kids in at the moment but she still wants to hear from you!

Lots of love

Lauren

Robin folded the letter, slowly, neatly, and tucked it back into its envelope. Then she leaned her head back against the faded velour of the seat, staring grimly into space. Not that she'd expected her sister to project warmth or acceptance, or for news from home to cheer her – but perhaps she'd forgotten just how heavy-handed Lauren could be. Any pleasant anticipation she might have entertained about going home for Christmas had evaporated.

For want of a distraction, Robin opened the internal envelope that had been in her mailbox. The brief communication inside had been penned in the spidery hand of Cathy Jenks: professor, Dickens expert, and Robin's tutor – the member of the department supposedly responsible for Robin's “pastoral care”. It invited her to attend a tutorial with Cathy's other three students, but Robin could think of at least a hundred things she'd rather do.

She sipped her Coke and wondered why Lauren was being so insistent about her birthday. Neither of their birthdays had counted for much since they were in single figures. That wasn't to say that Mum and Dad were bad parents. Far from it, in fact, Robin thought loyally. Mum and Dad were so good at being parents that they'd fostered dozens of kids from difficult backgrounds – some for longer periods than others – and invariably made a good job of it. It just seemed odd that they should want to make a fuss over her birthday. Robin didn't remember anything special happening on Lauren's 18th.

Idly, she unfolded the Cult SOC leaflet.

And dropped it, with a start and a mouthed profanity, at the sight of the face that was not quite David's, staring malevolently out at her from the blurry page.

6pm , Friday 21 st November – The Lost Boys, AV room, Vanbrugh College .

They hadn't come for her since Monday night, the night before the rain, the night she'd run from them. They'd left no sign of their presence: not a boot-print in the mud, nor a cigarette end beneath her window. No unearthly winds blew in the night, and no snarling motorcycle engines broke the deep silence between dusk and dawn. The Lost Boys were gone, as wholly and completely as if they had never been.

Thank God for that, she'd told herself, and good riddance, and I had a lucky escape.

Robin tore her gaze away from the flyer, though she couldn't pretend that the wrenching sensation in her stomach eased as she did. She stared at the table for several moments, fighting with herself, before her eyes crept traitorously back.

Of course she was curious. Who wouldn't be? It had been years since she'd seen that movie, and her recollection of it was limited to a few vivid images. What harm could it do to go and see it?

She hated her own weakness even as she accepted the hasty reasoning.

Robin checked her watch. Half past five – plenty of time to make her way over the lake to Vanbrugh. Chris would no doubt be pleased to see her finally turn up to one of Cult SOC's events, even if she hadn't given him a lift anywhere in ages.

She finished her Mars Bar in two bites, downed her Coke in one long gulp, and rose from the corner table, stuffing her post into a pocket of her jacket. Without thinking about it, she traced with her fingertips the long rip in the sleeve of the tatty leather coat.

Then she set off for Vanbrugh, and if she chose not to take the direct route, and instead crossed through the James car park where motorcycle tyres had once left scars in the mud, then that was really no more than a coincidence.

Vanbrugh was the most central college, the hub of the campus: paths and cycle lanes radiated out from it like the spokes of a wheel. Students crowded its main approaches even on the quietest evenings of the week. Tonight, Friday night, Vanbrugh buzzed with the prologues of a hundred drunken nights out.

A scant few weeks ago, Robin would have been one of those seeking the cheapest drink and the swiftest inebriation York could offer. Now, she felt no kinship with the other students. She saw a few familiar faces, but if they recognised her, they didn't react. For that she was glad. She could muster no flicker of goodwill towards her fellows.

The AV room sounded grander than it actually was: no more than a seminar room with a big projection screen and surround-sound speakers. The Media Studies students made the most use of it, watching soap operas, or whatever it was Media Studies students did. Someone had stuck the movie poster Robin was beginning to hate on the door. She averted her gaze from it, half annoyed, and half embarrassed.

Robin had expected no more than a handful of people inside. The fact that thirty or more had already taken their seats startled her, and she stood for a moment in the doorway, rearranging her preconceptions. If a ten-year-old film was so popular that thirty students had given up their Friday evenings to see it, then how come…?

“Robin!” Chris jumped up from his seat, brandishing a clipboard.”I didn't think you'd come!”

“Uh…“ Robin looked at his narrow, beaming face. “Yeah. I said I would, didn't I?”

“Well, you didn't actually say you would, but…” Chris scrawled a big tick on his clipboard. “This is the best turnout we've had all term!”

Robin let him lead her to a decent seat near the front. Belatedly, she realised that everyone else in the row was wearing a Cult SOC t-shirt. “Hey, Jason,” Chris said to the fat guy sitting on the end of the row, “d'you know Robin? She's in my Anglo-Saxon tutorial group.”

“Sleep all day!” Jason exclaimed, thrusting a hand towards Robin. “Party all night! Never grow old! Never die! It's good to be a vampire!”

Robin looked at the hand, but didn't shake it. “Uh huh.”

Jason appeared to be too excited to notice her refusal of his hand. He withdrew it, and plunged it instead into a huge bag of crisps. “Have you seen this movie before?” he asked, then popped a fistful of Wotsits into his mouth.

“It's been a long time,” Robin said faintly.

Jason crunched down on his Wotsits with extra fervour. “What's your favourite bit? Mine's when the Twisted Sister guy bites the dust!”

Robin had no idea what he was talking about. “Yeah. Good.” She shot a look at Chris, whose face was a picture of mortification. Then she made for a seat a couple of rows back – far enough, she hoped, that Jason's snacks wouldn't complete inhibit her appreciation of the film.

“I'm really sorry about that,” Chris hissed in her ear. “Jason's just…it's his favourite movie. He's been really excited about this showing.”

“Evidently.” Robin settled into the endmost chair in the third row. The seats were York's standard hard wooden things, sufficiently uncomfortable to forestall any thought of falling asleep in a seminar. Or a movie, though Robin doubted that would happen.

A few more people turned up before someone at the back dimmed the lights, and the hum of conversation died away. Robin leaned forward despite herself as the studio credits appeared on the projection screen.

The camera soared down over a night-dark ocean, over oily waves rolling sinuously towards an invisible shore. An ominous score drew attention away from the soft laughter and low voices above and around and below, before it swelled with the camera's ascent to reveal the light and life of an amusement park, rising from the beach in stark defiance of the darkness.

With memories of the whispery voices of the Lost Boys in her ears, the night wind in her eyes, and David's supernatural grasp all that kept her from plummeting to the ground and her death, Robin let herself be transported.

She didn't stay for the end credits.

How she found the door in the dark, and half blind besides, Robin didn't know. She staggered out into the sterile electric light of Vanbrugh's corridors swallowing back the nausea that thickened her throat, and leaned against a wall to wipe vainly at the tears burning salty tracks down her face.

She gulped down great breaths of cool air to quell her roiling stomach and quiet the need to retch, but the images she had just beheld replayed over and over before her mind's eye.

Worse, almost, had been the reactions of the others in the room. They'd laughed while Robin had watched in horror, hooted while she struggled not to heave, cheered while she fought back the sobs that would betray her. She'd wanted to silence them all.

No one followed her as she stumbled unsteadily towards the exit. She stopped to fumble some coins into a vending machine for a bottle of water, then walked on, drinking half of it down in one draught.

Outside the rain slashed down, making Robin wonder why she'd bothered with the water. It sluiced off her jacket but soaked straight through everything else, and pooled so deep on the ground that she found herself sloshing through puddles with every step. The walkways offered little shelter from the deluge, so she cut across the waterlogged grass, squishing through mud and rain, taking the most direct route to the James College car park.

Robin threw herself into the driver's seat of her car, slammed the door, and sat there a moment while rainwater streamed off her face, her clothes, her hair. She couldn't remember the last time she'd got so wet, or cared so little. Her insides were still knotted with shock and revulsion. Slowly, she peeled off the wet coat and dropped it on the passenger seat. Then she put on her seatbelt and started the engine.

The condensation didn't clear even with the fan on full, blowing cold air at the screen. The windscreen wipers couldn't cope with the downpour, anyway, so it didn't make much difference. Robin pulled out anyway, flicking her headlamps to full beam. Maybe it wasn't sensible, but she wasn't feeling very sensible.

Marko thrashed in the dust, his cries drowned only by those of his killers…

Robin clenched her fingers on the wheel, trying to force the mental image away. She increased the pressure on the accelerator, and the old Ford answered sluggishly. The needle on the speedo crept up towards 50. Only twenty over the limit. Robin put her foot down a bit harder.

Paul screamed as the skin and flesh melted from his bones…

She felt her gorge rise again, and held her breath. The rain hammered down yet, deafening on the roof of the car. Water flooded the roads. She'd aquaplane if she wasn't careful.

Dwayne writhed in agony, pinned to the stereo by the arrow through his heart…

It was too early yet for the roads to be quiet, but some drivers had actually pulled over to wait out the squall. Water poured in a constant veil down Robin's windscreen, reducing the world to blurry shapes. Grimly, she drove on. She couldn't stand to stop.

David lay still, his face impossibly young, the antlers protruding from his chest slick with blood...

And that was all she could see. The Lost Boys, who'd woken her from the banal stupor that had been her life, and that would be her life again without them. The Lost Boys, who'd shown her a world so vastly larger than the one she knew they'd scared her with it. The Lost Boys, for whom she'd pined all week and feared she'd lost forever.

Robin was still scared. But those mental images of the Lost Boys dying, the Lost Boys dead, scared her more than anything they'd ever done to her, or had her do. So she drove too fast, in awful conditions, and tried not to wonder what she'd do if she arrived at the farmhouse and discovered that they really had left York , and her life, for good.

The rain had begun to slacken by the time she pulled into the courtyard. It hurt to prise her cold, stiff fingers off the wheel, and her clothes stuck to her, damp and clammy. But the prospect of going up to that door and finding the house empty was far worse.

Robin made herself get out of the car. Déjà vu struck her at the sight of the farmhouse, looming large against the ashen sky. Only four nights ago she had stood in exactly the same spot, fearing the unknown. She closed her hand around the plain steel key on her key ring.

She didn't need it.

The front door burst open. Amber light flooded out, warm and bright, and a figure in black stepped into the doorway.

Robin went to him.