The Pledge
The pledge
Arnie walked back to the frat house with the girl he’d met at the bar. She was unsure and tipsy, hugging her arms against the brisk fall air. The leaves and acorns crunched under their shoes as he said again “Just a little further.”
He couldn’t remember if her name was was Kristie or Christine. It had been loud in the bar: raised voices and a shitty cover band had fought for auditory dominance. “There’s a party tonight,” Arnie had told her trying not to sound like the overeager freshman he was. “Better music, free beer and shots, whaddya say?” Kristie (or Christine?) doe-eyed and apologetic told him she was still waiting for her friends, who were super late. It took begging on his part to convince her. “I’m actually not part of the frat yet. I’m a pledge. If I don’t bring at least one beautiful girl to this party (that got a smirk out of her) then I won’t be considered for the house. You only have to stay for one drink. Please?”
They rounded the block and could hear male rabble, some nu metal blasting out of a top floor window. Arnie got to the front door emblazoned with Greek letters and she paused. “I don’t know,” she muttered.
“One drink,” Arnie said. “You’d be doing me such a solid. Please?” She hugged her arms to herself, looked down the wraparound porch.
“I pledge I won’t hurt you. Please come inside?” She looked in his eyes, set her jaw, licked her lips and exhaled. “Ok, lead the way.”
Arnie grinned wide but he felt a little like a sleazy lawyer. He pledged he wouldn’t hurt her but the seniors were expecting a little more than one drink. Especially since said drink had a little something added to it. Most of the seniors were in med school and had access to what they called “accelerators” which made a female agreeable and then unconscious and then forgetful. Kristie (steen?) was basically an offering.
Arnie was surprised there were no other girls there yet. The first one to bring a girl back would mean a pledge bonus and he’d have first dibs to opt out of one week of hazing. She was introduced to a flurry of the upper classmen in their lettered sweaters and they got her a cup of punch and watched her sip it over the edges of their own cups, leering like foxes.
A couple guys went to show her the trophy cases and Arnie was led away with congratulatory back slaps and headlocks. “I’ve gotta hit the head,” he said as he pushed his way to the bathroom and locked the door behind him. A turd spun a lazy circle on toilet paper bedding as the last flush failed to drop its contents into its sewer pipe purgatory. Arnie felt like that turd. The girl trusted him. He led her to certain unpleasantness. He thought about what his mother and aunts and grandmother and elementary school teachers and girl cousins would think of what he did. This was wrong. He felt sick. He wanted to rush out and take her back to the bar.
The noise outside was getting more rambunctious. The music got louder. Arnie thought he heard someone shout about dancing on the pool table and cheers went up all about the room. Hoots and animalistic bellows. Shouting. Screaming. Broken glass. Something thrown against the bathroom door. The music stopping suddenly. Silence.
Arnie slowly pushed the bathroom door open and saw there was a dead upper classman there, backwards baseball cap still on, throat torn out like an exploded pumpkin. All around the room, bodies. Blood pooling. The underside of the pool table lamp was dripping red. He saw the girl hunched down in the corner. He stepped over lifeless limbs and broken glass and she spun at the sound. The trophy room guy was also in the corner and his throat was torn out. Her mouth was smeared with gore, her eyes bleach white with a pinprick of pupil. In the gore he saw thin jagged teeth like sewing needles. She smiled, then leapt weightlessly across the room and pinned his arms to the floor.
“Thank you for inviting me in,” she hissed.
Though Arnie had pledged not to hurt her, she hurt him, at least those few seconds he was still alive.