5

We crept down the stairs one at a time, holding our instrument cases aloft to avoid smacking them against the banister or walls. I was the last one, jamming my bass carry bag under my armpit like a majorette would a baton. The four of us then walked past the secretary's empty desk, into the foyer, posted ourselves in the four corners of the small entrance, and waited for a break in the storm.

The rain had intensified, no longer content to swirl like a shopping bag caught in an updraft. It was now intense, causing deep reverberations throughout the building, ping-pong balls against corrugated metal.

Steve slumped down to the floor, his back still against his corner. "A half an hour ago, if you were gonna ask me what could make today worse, I don't think I could dream up this answer."

Looking at his watch, Guy gasped. "Jesus. It's almost two."

"There goes class, I guess."

I shook my head. "No way the faculty would keep classes on schedule in this weather."

"You don't know some of the professors."

Matt leaned toward the window, getting a better angle to view the rest of the campus. "You know, I'm going to go out there."

The rest of us didn't answer him. He continued: "We got spooked, we came down here. OK, but--" he looked to me "--like I said before, we can't act like murders and storms are the only thing happening in the world."

"Murders in storms," I muttered.

But I thought about sticking with what I said. Why go to class? I mean, I would just wait for the storm to subside; maybe the power would come on by then. Then I could find an umbrella and stroll through what would probably be a fine drizzle, laughing at how tense we were and how serious were took all of this.

Rain continued to hurtle from the sky, continued to work over trees and shrubs, pelting roofs and sidewalks mercilessly. The wind moaned a lament over the torrents, changing pitch and tempo as it wished.

“You're going to have to run through this,” I noted. I watched as a small river formed in the center of the campus; it curved around rocks, enveloped the few hardy perennials, and joined smaller infantile streams as they raced toward a parking lot behind one of the faculty office buildings. “You could try swimming.” No one laughed.

"You?"

I looked at Steve. "I'm going to stay here."

Matt, his hand on the doorknob, glanced absently over his shoulder. "Well, your choice. Put our instruments somewhere safe, can you?" The other two guys joined him at the door and, without much fanfare, threw the door back and plunged into the vertical ocean.

I watched them run, first hopping the rail bracing the front of the music building, then veering away from each other, their clothes changing shade like a litmus test, Guy whipping the tail of his jacket over his head, the three spreading apart gradually, rain and gusts chiseling their run into a staggered sprint, and the lack of sunlight fading all of this away as the three put distance between themselves and their starting point, the still-open door swaying with each push and pull of the wind.

And in the distance, the yellow police tape still cried silent warnings and omens, broadcasting foreshadowing statements to a deaf audience.

Closing and backing away from the door, I broke my observation of the rest of the band and started moving our gear to one of the storage closets off of the secretary's office, stacking cases and bags into a peculiar lean-to. I shut the closet door, resting my back on it and gazed outside. The window didn't stop the storm from singing a song to me, calling me to do what my friends had, to brave the elements and rush headlong to who knows where. I didn't have any classes at all--Tuesday was the day I utilized my lack of classes to catch up on studying or practicing--but I still felt like I needed to go somewhere. Anywhere but here.

The student center, I decided, was the place to go. There would be people there, and I could formally register our band for the contest in a few weeks. And it was warm there, unlike the music building--I normally had to wear an extra layer when I came here for practices or classes. When the radiators were working, they trickled out heat in wheezing hisses and gasps. The student center also had a wood-burning fire place. Bingo. And I could see the student center in the distance, maybe a three-minute walk if the weather were more amiable.

The door swung shut after rebounding off of the wall, the frame rattling behind me as I vaulted over the railing. The rain was frigid, degrees from becoming a solid, a wet towel that wrapped around my chest and stole away my breath. My feet created miniature geysers along the way. Gravity pulled on my clothes, aided by the rain, swaying to their own beat as the student center bobbed up and down ahead of me. I only heard my forced inhalations alone; I was in an echo chamber that spread across the globe. A sound like hooves on cobblestone made me look down--my feet hit cement for the first time during my dash, waterlogged Sketchers flopping and stamping and flaying swollen shoe strings loosened through velocity. The doors were just there, there, ahead, closer.

The awning circling the student center cut the rain off mid-sentence, my hand freezing on the inset metal door handle. Despite the lack of power to the building, the warmth ushered me in as soon as I cracked the door, and I staggered toward the ascending steps with a liquid trail behind me.