It’s surprising that Mr. Woe allows us to check out the books so easily, but apparently access to the library comes with a startling amount of privileges. The collection is so dangerous that not many students are allowed access and yet the ones who are allowed can take books out and bring them back at their discretion.

  “Please do not add any profanity to the books,” he says glumly. “Nor any drawings of crudely drawn genitals.”

  “What’s the opposite of crude? Would that be refined penises?” Wrath whispers to me.

  He’s vanished again, so I have nothing to glare at except the stuffed animal peaking out of my bag. Mr. Woe scans the books with a particularly futuristic wand that beeps before sliding them across the counter. One is a physical record of the volume that went missing, while the other is an academic research paper about the influence of The Lost Star on historical findings.

  When we step out of the library, we step not into the University-Under-The-World but into the regular University, well lit and carefully tended. It’s such a startling difference that when I turn back around to check the Library, I only see the normal school library, not the special one we just left.

  “Don’t think too much about it,” Wrath cautions. “It’ll make your head spin in the wrong direction.”

  We ride home in near silence, the two volumes shoved into the bag next to Wrath. There’s nothing to fear on the bike path through the woods - no zombies roaming the city, no strange TAs threatening my academic future, no strange neighbors across the street playing hard to get. Or whatever it was that Nico is doing.

  “Nico’s not the one with the problem,” Wrath mutters. “You’ll never get a boyfriend if you keep fretting about it.”

  That’s easier said than done. Fretting is the only thing that I’m really good at. Instead of responding, I pull myself up and start to pedal harder. The wind whips by me, taking my errant thoughts with it, and the faster I go the harder it is to think. Or maybe it’s that the thoughts fly by too quickly that they can’t get stuck in my head.

  It helps. It’s been awhile since I pushed myself on the bike, and the harder my muscles strain, the faster the bike cuts through the woods, and the clearer everything begins to feel.

  Clearly, Freddie is involved in whatever is going on with the book. I think back to the first day of class second day of class and the strange book that I assumed had come from the undercroft. Only now I know that the undercroft is actually the Library-Under-The-World, and Freddie didn’t have access. But that book clearly came from somewhere, and it definitely looks the part of a restricted volume treasonously freed from it’s cage by an unwitting idiot. And Freddie is certainly that idiot.

  So does the show exist because of Freddie, or did he somehow corrupt the show into becoming something else? And what’s the point?

  I realize the point more the next morning.

  ***

  It starts the moment that I step foot onto campus.

  “Oh no,” Wrath says.

  I see it too. Everywhere I look, students shuffle in a dead-eyed, finals-approaching necrosis towards an unknown destination. Dark circles are wrapped under every eye, and everything is sluggish and slow. It isn’t everyone, of course, but it’s the vast majority of the student body.

  It’s easy to see how we missed it the other day - there were so few of them, and there are always some students who are run down by the semester. But now the campus is outnumbered by collegiate zombies. Even the ones that are seated are slumped, ground down by something hard to see. You’d think that if that many students were wiped out by nights spent studying that they wouldn’t have all made it to campus the next day, and yet they’re all still out and most are shambling towards their next class. It may just take them a few weeks to get there.

  “This isn’t good,” Wrath adds unhelpfully.

  It’s easier to see the people who are walking around normally because in the slowed-down version of the university, they seem almost comically sped up. But even they don’t notice that anything’s wrong. Some huff and grumble when they get stuck behind a shambler, but they only last a moment or two before they cut around and continue on towards their destination.

  It’s how Nico finds us so easily. His eyes never stop roaming the campus as we meet up. He looks effortlessly casual as usual, broad shoulders defined by the colorful cotton candy pink polo and white linen shorts. His eyes are hidden by a pair of sunglasses that look surprisingly expensive, which must be a mistake. Someone with money would never move to Hollow Hills, and they certainly wouldn’t buy a run-down house on the edge of town.

  “Are you seeing this?” he asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. It’s impossible not to see, and yet we’re the only ones looking around campus and noticing that anything is off.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “This isn’t just the video from class yesterday, is it. Something else is going on.”

  “I think it’s more complicated than that.” I pull my phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to tell Winter to meet us in the food court. I should tell you guys about the library.”

  “Not Isaac?”

  I shake my head. “He doesn’t seem like he’s going to remember it. For some reason, it’s rolling right off of him. Remember the impromptu sleepover?”

  “It’s probably because he’s still normal,” Wrath says conversationally. “You boys both live in haunted houses, and Winter’s got her whole demonic pact thing going on.”

  I flinch a bit, then look over my shoulder at the stuffed animal Wrath. “That would have made a lot of sense if you’d mentioned it earlier,” I hiss.

  “Theo?” Nico asks.

  Of course. Of course I talk to Wrath in front of Nico. Again. Only this time it looks like I’m arguing with a stuffed animal. Boys don’t make passes at other boys who talk to dolls. It’s not a saying, but it should be. Maybe it will be by the time I graduate.

  If I even make it to graduation.

  “Can you text Winter and ask her to meet us? I… need to run to the bathroom really quick.”

  “Sure,” Nico says uncertainly, face knitted up in confusion.

  I hurry into the nearest building while Wrath yells, “Theo! Theo, no! I don’t want to see any humans defecting. Theo, that’s gross! No, Theo, stop!”

  I charge into the first men’s room I see and then look around to make sure it’s empty before I head into the furthest stall from the door.

  “What does that mean?” I demand, once the stall is latched.

  Wrath appears in his full demonic form, hands dramatically slapped across his eyes so he doesn’t see anything. “I do not consent to this!”

  “I will shove your face into the next crotch that walks in if you don’t tell me what you mean.”

  He looks offended. “Theo! Don’t be obscene!”

  “Wrath!”

  “What’s the big deal? You know the supernatural is real, and you know that most people in town ignore it. Well, it’s not that they ignore it consciously, it’s just that they’ve all made an unconscious agreement not to remember anything.”

  “What does that mean, Wrath?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything. Why are you getting so worked up? It means that most people won’t remember the odd things that happen after a few hours. Some may remember them, but they don’t think they’re particularly noteworthy. That’s why things like the blood rain are never that big of a deal. The people who do remember them just shrug it off as another oddity of living in Hollow Hills.”

  “So Nico living in the house across the street is enough for him to remember the Doom Clock and everything?”

  “Obviously?”

  “But we saw Freddie yelling at the Dean about the Library-Under-The-World and the zombies. And neither of them seemed to be shrugging it off.”

  “Yeah, that’s weird,” he agrees.

  I hiss out in frustration and squeeze my hands into fists. So if what Wrath was saying was correct, then people could become acclimated to the supernatural because of where they lived, or presumably because of their choices or circumstances. So people like Isaac could forget about it if they wanted, but the rest of us were just… our eyes are open and there’s nothing we can do about it.

  I say as much to him and he shakes his head.

  “Not quite, mortal. You could always choose to forget. Well, most people could. I don’t know if you could.”

  My parents met when they’re were both members of a cult, then took it over and stole a whole bunch of artifacts before they left me behind at Morecroft Manor. I’m probably more exposed to the supernatural than most people and I have been for most of my life. It’s more natural and less super for me.

  “So Freddie knows…” But I already suspect he’s got the stolen library book. And he knew about the Library-Under-The-World. Of course he had knowledge he shouldn’t have.

  I head back out of the stall and the bathroom, and I assume Wrath vanishes from his demonic form and retreats into his stuffed animal.

  Nico waits outside the bathroom, studying a nearby bulletin board. There’s a poster for the upcoming Secret Garden play, though the picture at the center looks more like an overgrown cemetery than a garden itself. He looks up when we come over and smiles, and it’s simple and sweet and my heart stutters out a series of stop and starts that sound suspiciously like an S-O-S.

  “Everything okay?”

  My reacting nod is slow in coming. Is everything okay? But I suppose it is, as well as it can be.

  We head for the dining hall, and find a table near the back. It’s early enough that it’s mostly empty, or the fact that most people are shuffling, dead-eyed zombies is keeping them away from the caffeine, but Nico disappears after we sit down and comes back a few minutes later with two steaming cups of coffee.

  “Winter should be here in a few minutes. She was getting dropped off.”

  On the far side of dining hall we can see out into the parking lot, and I see a long black hearse pull away. A moment later, Winter enters, her eyes curiously gazing around the few students milling around, shambling towards… something.

  “Did you arrive in a hearse?”

  She gives me a pleased smile. “It’s all about the aesthetic, darling.”

  Nico rises to get Winter some coffee as she settles down next to me. Today she’s wearing something like a sundress, though it’s black and studded and endless night. I take a sip of my coffee and it’s perfectly sweet, not too much and not too little. When did Nico learn my coffee order?

  Why does it feel warmer in here than it had a moment before.

  When he returns I spend the time explaining to the two of them what Wrath and I learned in the Library and after, and show them the two volumes that Mr. Woe allowed us to check out. Nico takes the book of provenance carefully, while Winter focuses in on the historical volume about The Lost Star.

  “So we think Freddie is involved?” Nico asks carefully.

  “I think that’s the only logical conclusion.” Winter pages very carefully through her volume, mainly pressing the pages carefully between her long fingernails, careful not to touch more of the book than she has to. I don’t blame her - even knowing about The Lost Star makes everything just a little bit creepier.

  “Should we go look for him?” It’s not a question I want to be asking, because I started all of this wanting to stay out of it. When the blood rain hit, I wanted to just look the other way. Nico was the one who wanted to know more. Who was so curious about the whole thing. Even Winter seems secretly thrilled about everything we’ve experienced so far. And Isaac, so quick to bring us all together and declare us friends.

  They were my friends, which was why it was such a shock a moment later to see a shuffling, dark-circles wearing Isaac move right past us without acknowledging us, another zombie…