Chapter Five

For Daria Morgendorffer, this was the most disturbing day in recent memory.

First, Ms. Barch switched the seating again, putting her next to Kevin. Then she spent a miserable hour dodging lethal weapons in the form of red rubber balls during gym. Now Jane was going on about her Tom problems. Daria didn't care about Tom. She didn't want to know about Tom. He wasn't... so bad. But Jane acted like a completely different person around him.

"I'm telling you, Daria," said Jane, as they left their fourth period class. "Tom and I are so breaking up. That inconsiderate bastard has to be right about everything, and I can't take it anymore!"

"Told you."

"Shut up. I've reached my self-righteous limit for the week."

Once out the door, they literally ran into Brittany, who had been rushing down the hall.

"Daria!" she squeaked. "Omigod, it's terrible! Did you hear about Quinn?!"

"She came to school with her nails painted different shades of maroon?"

"Ewww! No! It's even worse!" Brittany twirled her hair frantically. "Quinn was in a car crash and questioned by the police!"

Daria's stomach dropped, but her expression remained unchanged. "When did this happen?"

"I don't know."

"Did you see any of it?" Jane asked.

"Uh no..." Brittany paused mid-twirl. "But I heard it from Brooke, who heard it from Jamie who heard it from Tiffany who heard it from Angie who heard it from Brittany --"

"Brittany..." Daria nodded toward her.

"Oh! Right."

"Stories through the grapevine tend to change a little over time," Jane told Brittany. She turned to Daria reassuringly. "My guess is that Quinn tripped in the parking lot and pricked her pinky finger."

"Film at eleven," quipped Daria, feeling a mite better.

"Yeah!" said Brittany. Then, forgetting the reason she'd come, she bounced away.

Jane and Daria turned the corner, passing rows of lockers. "It's weird, you know," Jane remarked. "You told me yesterday that Tom was a self-righteous bastard and I was better off without him, yet I really didn't see it until today."

"It's my gosh-darn power of persuasion."

"I've got you under my skin, Morgendorffer," said Jane with a smirk.

"Uck." Daria shuddered. "Save the sexual innuendo for your next boyfriend."

Suddenly, before them on the floor appeared a red-smudged shoe print. A few feet further lay another one. Then another one. Daria and Jane stopped and studied them. Daria's stomach tightened, as she noticed other students doing the same thing... gathering around blood-colored shoe prints that ran all the way down the hallway, around the corner.

"Someone must've stepped on a freshly-painted curb," Jane said weakly.

They continued on -- and then stopped, as sounds of crying reached their ears. Just ahead, a thick crowd gathered around the girls restroom. As she surveyed the scene, Daria felt her stomach trying to crawl up through her mouth. With effort, she held everything in, then moved closer. It was when she had reached the crowd that she saw the bodybag on a stretcher.

"Move away, kids! Nothing to see!" roared a paramedic, lifting one end of the stretcher. Beyond him, the bathroom door was partially ajar. The floor was soaked in blood, and waves of blood had splattered the stalls.

"Boy, whoever came in here must've cut all of her arteries at once," Jane murmured. She then caught a withering look from Daria. "I know what you're thinking, and it's not Quinn. If she was in a car accident, there's no way she would just come to school and bleed to death in--"

"Quinn! Oh Quinn!" sobbed an unfamiliar boy, who looked like one of the nerds from Quinn's math squad.

"We don't know if it's her, Daria," said Jane in a higher tone than normal. "It's just a body. Could be anyone's --"

"Ms. Morgendorffer."

Daria swung around and faced Quinn's math teacher, Mr. Phelps. His face was forlorn.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered sincerely. "I wish you hadn't seen that."

Daria swallowed back vomit. "See what?" she said softly. "That wasn't --"

"I didn't want to believe it," said Phelps. "It happened so suddenly, I'd hoped it was a mistake."

"That wasn't Quinn."

"Those were her shoes, Ms. Morgendorffer. Her heels were monogrammed."

Phelps pointed to one shoe print, and just faintly in the heel, Daria could see a Q and an M. Her head swimming, Daria felt herself lurch forward in a dry heave. Jane stood back, patting her shoulder, silent and reflective.

"It's not true," Daria said hoarsely.

"Come on," said Phelps, taking her hand kindly. "It's chaos here. Let me take you to the principal's office, and we'll call your parents, help you sort out all the details."

Daria swallowed, as a feeling of numbness crept over her. She felt like she should remain where she was, but grief overpowered logic. She went with Phelps.

Daria and Phelps made their way down the hall, with Jane trailing after them. Daria's eyes were cast down on the floor. She blinked hard to hold in tears, not always succeeding. At one point, a giant teardrop escaped her left eye and hit the floor with a dramatic splatter. Daria stared down at the small puddle it left, and stopped walking.

"Ms. Morgendorffer, are you all right?" Phelps said, his brow knitting with concern.

Daria didn't answer for a moment. Then, slowly, "Yes. I think I am."

"Here..." Phelps put an arm around her. "Let me take you --"

"Wait." Daria remained firmly in place. "I just noticed something. The heel marks on these shoe prints are placed so that the shoe is facing in the same direction as ours. If these are Quinn's shoes, that wasn't her body -- she was moving away from the bathroom."

"And pretty quickly, given the distance between shoe prints," Jane agreed, coming up behind her.

"Why yes," Phelps said with his brows raised and eyes widening. "Yes, you're quite right."

Daria took a deep, quenching breath of relief. "And the question is, if she was running away, who was she running from, and where did she go?"

"We should find out," Phelps said quickly, taking Daria's arm.

Daria shook it out of his grasp. "That's okay -- Jane and I can do it. No need to put you through any more angst. Thanks, though."

"Nonsense," said Phelps sternly. "If you find something disturbing, you'll need a sturdy adult by your side. Better tell your friend to run along."

"Daria's 'friend' is staying," Jane replied stubbornly, "as long as Daria needs her to."

"Now, Ms. Lane, let's not be hasty," said Phelps, gazing at her intently.

Jane stared at him, then looked away. She took a step backward. "You're right..." she said, a confused expression flashing across her face. "I really should get going. Bye, Daria."

"Jane?" Daria watched her go, bewildered. She then found herself alone in the hallway with Mr. Phelps.

"Come on, Ms. Morgendorffer," he said. Hanging behind a little, Daria followed.

Just as they neared the cafeteria, a chill ran through Daria. "This is wrong," she said.

"But you see where the shoe prints go," Phelps replied in a patient tone.

"Maybe so..." Daria's eyes darted about the intersecting hallways, absorbing their stillness. "But I don't think Quinn went in there."

"Where else could she have gone?"

"Not in the cafeteria, where she'd have a seated audience ready to mock her for running with bloody shoes," Daria replied matter-of-factly. "She went around the corner."

Daria pointed, and Phelps looked on, dubious. "Are you sure?"

"She'd rather go barefoot than walk around in damaged apparel."

Phelps weighed Daria's words, and agreed that they did make sense. Instead of heading through the doors to the cafeteria, he shifted right. Daria watched him walk off, then quietly crept away in the other direction.

"Ms. Morgendorffer, I'm not seeing anything to indicate that your sister would have chosen..." Phelps paused, noting the silence, then turned around to find the hallway behind him deserted.

Daria, meanwhile, had taken the opportunity to slip off in the other direction. She glanced around for places to hide, finally settling on a large vent that opened at the base of a wall, in the gap between rows of lockers. On Halloween, she and Jane had taken turns hiding in there, waiting for the football players to pass by so they could pretend to be the ghost of Tommy Sherman. It seemed silly to hide there now, but Daria somehow felt like she needed to. A few of the screws were still loose, and she had just managed to squeeze inside and replace the vent screen when the quick clip-clop of Phelps's shoes filled her ears.

Daria looked upward. It was dark and dirty, and even at five-two, she found the vent a tight squeeze. Still, she managed to pull herself up a little. If she kept pressing, she might just be able to push-pull herself all the way to the top, which ran through the ceiling. Phelps's shoes were clipping closer. Taking a deep breath, Daria squeezed herself upward, feeling the need to keep going. Slowly, slowly... she felt herself rising. Little by little... Phelps's shoes sounded incredibly loud. But she was getting closer.

Daria finally squeezed herself to the top and looked over. Her heart sank. Straight ahead was another vent screen, with screws tightly in place. She could never hold her position long enough to undo them, even if she had the right tools in hand. All Daria could do was remain where she was, and wait, and hope that the sharp clatter of Phelps's shoes grew fainter with distance.

After a long period of silence, Daria peered down, and lowered herself a little. Just then the bottom vent screen was torn away.

"Ms. Morgendorffer!"

Daria felt as though the entire vent were screaming her name, and quickly lost her grip. In an instant she felt herself hitting the dirty floor hard and being dragged out of the vent to face Mr. Phelps.

"Ms. Morgendorffer, I don't know what you were trying to pull," he said in a voice thick with menace, "but you're being a danger to yourself. I think you need to come with me."

His eyes were incredibly bright. Daria found it hard to look away. Still, she dug in her heels and tried to ease his tight grip, as he dragged her past the cafeteria, to a place unknown.

"Daria!"

Both Daria and Phelps turned around. Behind them, just outside of the swinging cafeteria door, stood Quinn and Mr. DeMartino. Quinn was wrapped in a dusty grey blanket that covered her from head to toe. Her cheeks and forehead were smudged with red. Seeing her alive, and obviously unharmed, Daria felt the tightness in her body ease. She felt the urge to hug her sister, but managed to hold back.

"Quinn!" she said, in a tone that could almost be construed as joy. "What happened to you??"

"Oh nothing!" Quinn replied with her usual breeziness. Even so, she betrayed a slight tension in her voice, and Daria noticed the paleness of her skin and a tightness in her jaw. Quinn looked at Phelps, then quickly looked away, focusing her attention on Daria. "I was just hanging with Mr. DeMartino, getting some tutoring..."

"Yeah, ah, and she got a little COLD." DeMartino smiled an awkward and completely unconvincing smile.

Daria turned to Phelps, who was gazing hard at DeMartino, his upper lip quivering with seeming anger. "Tutoring," he said in a low tone. "Is that right..."

"Tutoring in what? Animal castration?" Daria said, glancing at Quinn's shoes skeptically.

"Oh, that! You think that's blood?" Quinn laughed airily. "It's not at all. In fact it's a really funny story that I should tell you when we're alone --"

"Your shoes are red, too," said Phelps to DeMartino, pointing to the splatters on each loafer. "But where are your shoe prints?"

"I, er, CLEANED up before I came up here," said DeMartino quietly.

"Quinn, what's going on?" said Daria, not buying her act. "There was a body in the girls bathroom and your shoes--"

"I don't know anything about that!" Quinn trembled a little, but then managed to get herself under control. "Look, you want to know what really happened? I had an embarrassing woman's problem, all right? All over me, and Mr. DeMartino. It was really gross, and I wasn't gonna say anything until we were alone, but you forced me to, Daria--"

"For the last time. Trust me," Daria replied, repulsed.

"Er, yeah, Quinn got so UPSET about her little problem, she RAN off and I had to comfort her." DeMartino's skin glistened.

"And I'm not feeling real well, and I think you should take me home, Daria," said Quinn, trembling again.

"Can you walk?" asked Daria. She sensed that was not the real problem, but did not want to voice her suspicions.

"Sure! Let's go--"

"WAIT!" cried DeMartino. He eyed Quinn uneasily. "Daria needs to go to the NURSE and get a clearance. I'LL take Quinn and we'll wait for you OUTSIDE."

"I thought teachers could excuse students from school," said Daria, her eyes narrowing. "So why don't you just write us a note?"

"Because it MEANS more if you also have a nurse's CLEARANCE!" DeMartino said desperately through gritted teeth.

"I don't think I like the idea of you spending any more time alone with this girl," said Phelps darkly.

"FINE, then," said DeMartino. He wiped sweat from his brow. "QUINN can go to the nurse, and DARIA can wait--"

"Oh to hell with it." Daria reached forward and grabbed Quinn by the arm.

DeMartino's eyes bulged, and his lips were tight with fear. Phelps watched them with, at first, a darkly troubled expression. But then the trouble eased from his face, and was replaced by a look of wonder. Slowly, he removed his glasses. His eyes gleamed like crystals.

"So that's it," he murmured. "I've had a strong suspicion, but now I know where you've been hiding all this time."

Daria paused and stared at him. "Run!" Quinn whispered.

"Oh, don't try to run," said Phelps calmly. "Because I'll catch you. And you don't want to know what I'd do then."

The sisters remained frozen in place, drawn in by his incredibly cold stare. "So that's how Norlek managed to escape me for so long. Very clever, I must say. But you should have known it wouldn't last forever."

Phelps then looked at Quinn with an almost sorrowful expression. "Forgive me, Ms. Morgendorffer, for what I'm about to do. I had long hoped that my suspicions weren't true: that you weren't the one I was after."