(For Talenwolf; the editor who shows that anger builds as well as destroys and has been an insane level of support with this story - and a few others)

(This is a VERY sex lite story. Other chapters will have more but this one is about introductions and conflict)

Why Am I Not Dead

To understand what happened with the Witches of Ravenrook I need to go back before the beginning; back to the Winter of 1778/9 when the American Revolution was raging in full force. Back then my family lived in the far western edge of the Crown Colony of New York, or for what had been the past two years, the Sovereign State of New York.

It was rebellion against the British Crown and a civil war that pitted frontiersmen vs. frontiersman and Iroquois vs. Iroquois. In late 1776, my ancestor with a party of his fellow farmers met with a group of Iroquois leaders and pledged an Oath. We agreed that no matter what our Great Leaders declared those in that one valley would not spill the blood of our neighbors. We swore on our oldest Bible, the souls of our children and by the sacred fires of our homes and lodges.

Until the spring of 1778, the pact held and both sides felt safe. In that spring the British and Colonials both sent out runners calling for men to fight. My ancestor called up a small militia and captained it; those who wouldn't fight for the Colonial cause stayed home to protect all the families, thus keeping the bonds of friendship with their fellows but also keeping their oaths to the Crown.

My ancestor met with the Iroquois chiefs. They would go north to fight along Lake Eerie beside their British allies while he would march east to fight with General Gates and his Colonials. That fall, the British lost in the North and General Burgoyne surrendered his British/loyalist forces to General Gate's Continental bluecoats in the East. As was the way of things; news traveled faster than the feet of soldiers.

When the loyalist and Iroquois learned of their twin defeats they became fearful of what my ancestor and his men would do upon their return. Fear led to betrayal as a small band of loyalists convinced the local indigenous people to rise up against the patriot families but, they were stymied by the Oath. A clever loyalist found a way around it. He and his companions went to the patriot households cloaked in friendship and seized the weapons then letting the Indians take the patriot families away.

They rounded up everyone in the settlement and herded them to a high cliff a few miles away. Until the first rush of Iroquois came at them, the patriot families had no idea they were all going to die. They were pushed off the cliff and fell to their deaths thus the Iroquois were able to stay true to the word of the Oath, if not the spirit, by not spilling patriot blood. Then they fired the village and farms as they left.

Their thinking seemed to have been that the patriots would bury their dead and, having nothing left, my ancestor and his men would return east to the Hudson River Valley and never come back. Nothing was left for patriots in the settlements and the Iroquois had kept to the Oath after all; only madmen would break it. None the less, few loyalists risked remaining; they moved their families to Canada in what they thought would be a temporary stay. When the British Crown finally prevailed they would return. Those were the ones escaped the hell that was to come.

When my ancestor's troops came home they were indeed gripped with a terrible fatalism but it wasn't one of surrender; it was a deathless rage. A small few who chose to grieve over, and bury the dead, turned away from vengeance. They stayed to bury all their dead including their leader's wife and infant son. What followed for the rest was not war and was barely vengeance – it was pure evil.

His men fell on the first few Seneca villages late at night, using only knives and tomahawks to avoid raising the alarm until it was too late. The Seneca warned them of the price of breaking the Oath then they pleaded for slavery (it meant something different to the tribes back then) and finally they pleaded for their families' lives. My ancestor killed the men by hacking them apart or tying them to poles and burning them alive.

They were the lucky ones; my ancestor became demonically creative with the women and children but his favorite thing was tying children to their mother and then tying heavy stones to their children's legs. Finally he forced the mothers to swim across rivers. They could save themselves if they untied themselves from their children. In the lore of the Seneca and Fox (the other tribe he waged his campaign on) no woman severed her bonds – they all were sucked under the icy flows, dragged down by the one's they truly loved more than life itself.

No good deed or great evil goes unpunished and eventually a small contingent of British irregulars, loyalists and Iroquois tribesmen ran my ancestor and his men to ground. To his credit, that man was not a coward. If anything he was insanely brave. Buying time for of few of his fittest men to escape – which is how I know this tale for one escaped then doubled back – he rushed his pursuers and killed so many that in the end what followed was inevitable.

They hated him; they hated him so much they attempted to repay him tenfold for the misery he had caused, for the Oath he had broken and for all their dead that would never find peace because of the way he knowingly killed them.. They fed him pieces of his own men, forcing the flesh down his throat with scalding water. They skinned him alive but his hate refused to let him pass out from the pain, which must have been beyond imagining.

In the end they shattered every bone in his body, starting with his toes and they uttered horrific curses upon his spirit that they would never cast upon a living man for they did not believe any descendant was still alive. When they crushed his skull, they knew they were damned forever but they also knew that the curses would die with them because the line of my ancestor died with the Bastard.

The problem was they did not know his wife, the ancestor of all the Vandemeyer that where to come. She knew she was going to die and she knew that even if she shielded her son from the fall with her body they would smother her infant when they heard his cries of cold and hunger. She tore open her blouse and shoved her tit into that little boy's mouth and when the press of bodies pushed her off the cliff (suicide was a terrible sin so she could not jump), she pressed the infant tight.

When the loyalists searched the bodies at the base of the cliff the child remained silent because he still fed from her corpse milk. The bodies the loyalist rolled onto him by accident kept him warm enough that he was found alive by the small band of patriots that had come down the cliff to bury their dead. They assumed initially that the others would return, their vengeance quenched but it was late winter before a pitiful few staggered back home. The one patriot who had stolen back and witnessed the infant's father's death told the others of the madness, savagery and final eradication.

That man took the boy to his Great Uncle who was childless and chose to raise the boy as his own. The boy grew up rich and strong and had a family of his own but he ended up brutally perishing to brigands in Ohio at the age of 43. His son died at 40 in the Civil War when a cannon ball tore off his leg. His last sights were of so many men of his regiment dead or dying around him. Even as he was dying, he ordered his men to take him, place him on a litter and together they took a place called the Bloody Angle at the Battle of Antietam.

The sons died and they died and they died; all between the ages of 39 and 45, all in violence and usually in anguish. It was the family curse. If there was an upside, the Vandemeyer's lived fully and richly in the short time allotted, they did notable things, gathered wealth, engaged in dangerous dalliances, feuds and were often heroic in their own way. Nothing – no act of contrition – would save them so they made the most of what they had.

I was told this story and the litany of my many mangled ancestors on my tenth birthday. We didn't believe in mystic curses, but like the first one to bear that foul taint, we grew fatalistic about the seemingly random chances that haunted us all and that gave me a fearlessness that my father carried and he told me his father carried as well in his time. There was going to be no Happy Endings for me, only a painful one; so why not live freely while I could?

What I didn't know was that a hundred dead Vandemeyer and several hundred dead Seneca and Fox Indians were all sitting around me, waiting for me to die without an heir because, I was the last of my line and none of them could cross over to whatever waited in the afterlife while I drew breath. Oh, those Indians were regretting curing the Bastard now because their curse had followed their sons as well. Even the Bastard was getting awful tired of waiting for Hell's flames. The edge of Oblivion, were all lost souls gather, had long lost its appeal.

The moral that came to me at the end was if you're going to put a Death Curse on somebody make damn sure every last one of the sons-of-bitches' relatives are dead. Your children will not forgive your sloppiness; believe me, I know. And the biggest bitch of a Death Curse; the dead can't do anything directly or indirectly, to end the curse.

They originally entered it willingly, by their actions, or by the crushing evil that led them to that end; so they actually had to help me stay alive. See, Lost Souls have power and while they would happily let me meet my preordained fate, they had to keep me alive until then. How wrong is that? In retrospect, Death Curses are stupid; just kill your enemy and walk away.

The Story Itself

My name is Richard Vandemeyer – a twenty year old not-quite-a-man who probably is the victim of too much snobbery inspired inbreeding and a Blue Blood's sense of social and civic responsibility. I base much of my actions and plans on what I think I'm obligated to do as opposed to what is in my own self-interest or something akin to common sense.

In other words, I don't keep my head down and I don't run away from trouble. My cultured veneer encased a rather savage primal core it seemed.

Ravenrook is an exclusive college situated on an isolated island off the coast of Maine. It was founded in 1890 as a school for concentrated study for Masters Programs for the leading universities at the time. The island was large, scenic, rocky, and tree covered but only had one small cove for egress and exit.

The rest surrounded by majestic cliffs. The ferry ride to the closest town took over two hours depending on the waves and the tides. In bad weather, we are alone and when you talk about the North Bank in the fall; you think of bad weather. If you don't believe me, they made a movie about it titled The Perfect Storm.

During my freshman year I had a ball, made great grades and a good many friends. Halfway through my sophomore year I scored a coveted internship with the School of Economics in England. When I returned for the start of my junior year I had high hopes of picking up where I left off. I was considered smarter than most, clouded with thoughts of bravery and honor, and had ego enough to consider myself handsome, tall and in good physical shape.

What matters to the story is that in that fall I returned to Ravenrook to start my junior year and how I met the witches, and the struggle, passion and betrayals that followed. I screwed up. It was revealed to me that my polite exterior was a sham; that I was as brutal, savage and ruthless as any of the monsters we faced. In some ways I was worse.

Arrival

I spent an extra day with some friends in New York then missed my flight to Bangor Maine so I was on the last ferry to the island before the first day of classes. I shared the voyage with three freshmen who were in a similar predicament. I regaled them with tales of my first year, clarified the maps of campus in their heads. I also enlightened them that there was no cell service on the island and that all internet service went through the campus servers.

We were generally subdued in our conversation as our luggage was loaded on the bus and during the ride from the small cove where the ferry docked on the north side of the island to Ravenrook which sat on the southern portion. Even though it was pictured in the brochures and on-line videography, the first time you gaze upon Ravenrook it really takes your breath away.

It had a Victorian-Gothic appeal to it, with the main structure rising up five stories and several of the towers rising up over eight stories and the spires higher than that. The windows were tall, tinted blue and narrow; the stone was black basalt with stonework ravens taking the place of gargoyles. It was frighteningly imposing but it was also a quiet, safe haven from the harried pace of the outside world.

The bus driver helped Bernadette, Jacob, Wallace and I unload our baggage on the gates to the central hall before making his clunky way back to the village. Being rich, pampered idiots we all had more luggage than we could carry to our rooms in one trip. There were other students close by but oddly none come to help us unlike the assistance I had received every other time I had arrived.

My Father didn't raise a bashful son so I immediately corralled three students I knew to be sophomores and one I assumed was a freshman and dragooned them to help me and my companions carry our stuff and directed them to our rooms. The reaction I was getting left me a bit peeved and confused by the fearful/resentful attitude I was getting. Unfortunately, I had to take the freshman with me because my group of freshmen needed the sophomores to guide them.

My freshmen did have one tidbit of knowledge to share. According to him, all incoming freshmen had to report to the main library before being escorted to their rooms. I thought it was an idiotic policy; it wasn't like strangers could sneak into a student body that barely numbered 400.

My roommate from last year, Daniel Taggert had already moved in but wasn't around to enlighten me. Daniel and I had shared a room since the beginning and I was sure I could rely on him for some information when the time came. I unpacked my stuff, checked my secret hiding place in the wall, storing some contraband (my radio and bottle of Jack Daniels) there and checked my other hidey hole in the ceiling (for my satellite phone).

I made my way to the main library because it sat across the hall from the main entry and was the main transit point for the rest of the building. See, Ravenrook was one massive building with all of its parts going off in different directions but joined by the area around the library. So if I wanted figure out what was going on, the library was the logical place to start.

What I learned did not make me a happy camper. Right off the bat I could tell the whole mood was subdued with the only serious activity centered about the periodicals section. I recognized a few of the men and women there so I approached. I noticed that my ex-girlfriend, Sally Fabian, was among them.

"Hey Sally," I called out. We hadn't parted on bad terms. I was going to London and we didn't feel it was right for her to 'wait' for me – or so I thought. She and several others in this group of about twenty students turned and looked my way and that's when I saw them. At the core of this group were three sets of twins. I had no clue who they were so they must have arrived in my absence.

The six girls, a pair of red-heads, blondes, and black haired ladies regarded me impassively which was a sight better than the hostility I was getting from the people I thought I knew.

"Sally, do you know this person?" one of the blondes addressed her. Not asking me came across as a bit rude.

"That's Richard Vandemeyer," Sally identified me snidely. "He is a junior but missed last semester." What? No mention of our relationship?

"Oh," was all the first blonde twin remarked.

"He's nobody," Sally added with a glance full of maliciousness. That seemed to be that as their little clique closed ranks and returned to whatever discussions they were having before I intruded.

I took my dismissal for what it was and settled down alone in the 'stacks' to prep for some of my upcoming classes. At dinner time I tried to catch up with Daniel but he was even less commutative than the others. It was with that chilly reception in my mind that I laid down to sleep that night.

The Girl's Bathroom After Midnight

An annoying fact about the boy's bathroom on my floor was that the pipes made a hellish rattling noise when you flushed. Since I wasn't a fan of leaving your business in the toilet for the next guy to deal with, I had been taught the polite practice by an upper classman my freshman year which was to use the girl's washroom on the next floor down after 'lights out'.

It is after one o'clock when the urge to urinate overcomes me. Daniel was sleeping away in his bed, not that I really cared at the moment. There was no helping it so I slipped out of my room and padded quietly downstairs to the girl's bathroom. Had I given it much thought I would have worn more than my pajama bottoms but I had every reason to believe that I would be alone.

The last thing I expected to hear as I approached the door was some guy's voice growling from inside saying 'Open your mouth you little bitch' followed by sobbing and muted laughter. This pretty much dictated what I was going to do. I threw the door open; quickly take in the scene and snarl out my response.

"What the fuck is going on in here?" I was not really ready for what I was seeing but frankly my anger bit down on any of my doubts about intervening. Closest to me are the red-haired twins who also happen to be the only ones fully dressed. The one to my left is holding up a camera phone and recording the other events of the room even as she looks over her shoulder at me. Her sister did likewise though I didn't see a phone.

Against the far wall, down the row of stalls, stands the source of my concern. Close to the back stall are two male students, one I know to be a senior named Bradley something-or-other, who was a total douche and now seem about ready to graduate to rape. I can't make out the guy behind him. There is a sophomore girl who I know from swimming laps in the pool named Janet Reynolds who is on the far side of Bradley, resting with her ass against the sinks.

The thing is, the unknown guy and Janet are holding Bernadette down on her knees while Bradley prepares to ram his cock down her throat.

"Get the fuck out of here you prick," Bradley mocks me. This seals all their fates because a red haze descends over me.

The red-haired twin on my left is still turning slowly toward me when my palm slams into her chest (and her small breasts), propelling her through the door of the closest stall. My hand feels like I've stuck it in a red ant hill. She squeals. I ignore the one on my left for the moment because Bradley is coming at me, his cock still hanging out. He draws back his fist but I hit him first and harder. I later recall hearing his jaw pop out of joint and him chocking on the three teeth I must have knocked loose.

Anyway, he is flying into the second guy causing them both to stumble. I think Janet is trying to maneuver clear of Bernadette when I my right had connect with her stomach followed by a left to her cheek. Her head bounces off marble counter top and she slumps to the ground. Brad is still trying to figure out why blood is flooding his mouth when I turn back on him.

I smash his cheek then his nose, knocking two more of his teeth right out of their settings. As his eyes roll back in his head it is the second guy's turn. His first blow pounds the left side of my ribcage, his second glances off my forearm; there is no third blow. The guy, I now recognize as Paul Bernstein, deflects my left to his chest but catches my right to his throat.

Belatedly he tries to cover up; I palm his face in my right hand and slam the back of his head against the bathroom wall three times. I might have splattered his brains out but Bernadette grabs my knee. She looks terrified and this desire to protect her brings me back to my normal self. This is when the pain sets in but I know I can't let it slow me down yet.

I spin around to see the red-hair twin I had ignored moving to the stall to help her sister that had been thrown in there less than 30 seconds ago. I stride over, grab that one by her elbow, my heart feels like it is gripped by a fist of ice and I have to fight through that to yank her aside. I grab the first one, getting reacquainted with those fire ants, fling her across the room then glare at the second one.

"Give me the damn phone," I snap.

"No," she says softly, devoid of any fear. "You need to sleep," she states clearly, "Go now."

At this moment a description of the six twins may be in order because they are eerily similar except for their hair color. They were around five-three or five-four, very slender with beautiful, if somewhat dispassionate, faces and long hair that reaches their asses – enough to throttle them with. I am much bigger than they are after all.

Anyway, I have no clue why this chick is saying something so patently stupid. If the other twin proves equally nutty I am going to slam their heads together before shaking them like a pair of maracas.

I pull Ms. Negativity into the recently vacated bathroom stall, grab her by the back of her head and despite some feeble resistance, shove her face into the commode down deep. Now she finally shows some emotion – mostly fear. Her sister comes over and is obviously trying to figure out her next move. On the plus side, I'm getting used to this near-crippling pain in both my arms.

Attacking me doesn't seem wise, I have demolished all her accomplices and Bernadette isn't likely to run and get help for her. I raise the one in the toilet up enough so she can gulp some air.

"Give me the damn phone," I repeat. She tries to say something but does manage to shake her head. Back down she goes. This time I hold her there for much longer.

"You are going to kill her," the other twin cautions me as the girl I am holding down begins to thrash around violently.

"Then I'll search her dead body," I snarled at the bitch. Apparently she believed me because she wedges in beside me and retrieves her twin's phone and presses it into my hand.

I let the drowning one up. She collapses onto her knees while her wobbly arms hold her head out of the water.

"Give me your phone too," I order the dry twin.

"I didn't do anything with it," she informs me but I clearly am not interested in what she has to say. She hands her phone over too.

I give one last hate-filled glare to them both then angle back to scoop up Bernadette. She is clearly still in shock but is cognizant enough to cling tightly to me as opposed to trying to push me away. As I pass the twins one last time I grab a towel off the rack and toss it to the drowned rat. "Bernadette, how did they jump you?" I ask once we were away. I know her dorm number because I heard her tell the student I'd gotten to help her move in.

"I...they didn't. They were in my room," Bernadette sobs. "Janet is my roommate. She told me this was some sort of initiation ritual but once I was in the bathroom...they were all there and wanted me to...then you showed up."

I have to come up with a plan quickly.

"Bernadette, we are going to go to your room quickly and let you gather some things before we go to see the Dean of Students and file charges," I explained. "Can you do that?"

"Okay...Richard, do you know why this happened to me?" Bernadette mumbles.

"No clue, but I'm going help you find out," I promise. We raid her room for clothes, toiletries and a few things she says she can't live without before heading down to the first floor to the distant portion reserved for faculty. It takes some insistent knocking to get the Dean of Students, Natalie Harper, to come to the door. Her face flashes form sleepy annoyance to earnest concern.

The first time Bernadette goes through the story, Ms. Harper looks furious then things change. She has the scared freshman repeat her story several times then has me go back over my part in things a few more times. It begins dawning on me that we are well past the point where other educators should be involved and on their way. There is a soft knock at the door, the other four twins glide in sans permission.

"We heard there was a problem so we came to see what we could do to help," the lead blonde twin speaks up.

"That will be all, Richard," Ms. Harper orders me; "you may leave now. I'll deal with this." I look from her to the four other girls then to Bernadette who knows she is in the lion's den.

"Are you mental?" I shout at Harper. "Bernadette just told you that those four's best buddies engineered the attempted rape and you want me to leave her in a room with you and these freaks?"

"That's enough," Harper snaps. "Leave or face disciplinary measures." I am pretty sure Bernadette is going to lose it; the tears are already pooling in her eyes.

"Okay," I nod. "We are going. You five do whatever it is you do." I start heading out hand in hand with my new best friend.

"Don't you dare," Natalie thunders as she strides toward me.

"Bitch," I round on her. "Your authority ended with me the moment you refused to defend one of your students. Do you see the blood on my hands and pants? I'm willing to add a little more if that's what you want."

"Very well," she seethes. "You are expelled. Get out." She doesn't come any closer though.

"Cool," I shrug. "Bernadette and I will be out on the next ferry."

"Ms. Reardon (Bernadette) is not expelled; only you," Harper clarifies.

"I'm going with him," Bernadette insists desperately. I nod then head once more for the door.

One of the black-haired twins gets in my way, baring the door. At least these four have the decency to dress in support of the illusion they've been asleep, attired in night shirts plus bathrobes and cute slippers. Several options are available to me but the only real asset I have at the moment is strength. There are six of them plus at least twenty other students I'd seen in their orbit and now one member of the faculty.

I can see the wheels spinning behind their eyes, those evil twins. There is this absolute confidence about them, as if the rules of physic have changed and only I am ignorant of the fact. They are still working things out when I backhand the obstacle so hard she bounces off the wall next to the door. For a split second I feel an incredible hot flash but then it is gone. The others blink in shock. I lead Bernadette out of the room with Ms. Harper shouting my name.

"What do we do now?" Bernadette asks as we race back up the stairs to my room.

"I'm working on it," I mutter. We deviate from our normal path to swing by the East Tower. I pop a window and confine the two red-haired twins' cell phones to the crashing waves far below. My arm is good enough to clear the narrow bit of the grounds that separate the tower from the cliff side.

I am careful on my final approach to my room because there is every reason to believe that my foes of the evening know where I sleep. I creep into the room, Bernadette behind me, and look around. Two things quickly come to mind; my side of the room has been ransacked and Daniel, my roommate, is pretending to be asleep. I still bring Bernadette in with me because leaving her in the hallway is an even worse option.

I check around to see what is missing – like my phone – and if they have found my secret hiding place – found and looted. This last part is the most disturbing. I sit Bernadette down on the bed and put my hands on her shoulders; she is hanging onto the last threads of her bravery and I admire her for hanging on this long.

"Daniel, you snore when you sleep," I sigh as I turn around to face his bed, his back turned toward me. "Stop playing – who did this?" After ten seconds Daniel rolls over and gives me a rather blank look.

"I don't know," he lies.

"Bullshit; they knew about my hiding place," I accuse. "The only person besides me who knew was you." I walk over to him. "Tell me why? We were friends and now you are acting like I don't exist, or don't matter. What the fuck is going on?"

"You don't matter Richard," Daniel sits up. "If you had two brain cells in your thick skull you would be shutting up and keeping your head down before your turn comes up."

"I'm not sure what that means and I'm arriving at the point where I don't care. Start talking," I demand.

"What are you going to do Richard?" Daniel snorts in amusement. "They have the whole school and you have what; some freshman girl already scared out of her mind? Get over yourself."

"Pack up your shit, give me your key and get out of this room," I state evenly.

"No," Daniel defies me. I shrug, leap on him and we begin to wrestle. It takes about twenty seconds to lock his arm and drag him over to the dresser. I open the drawer, pry his fist open and place it on the open drawer and get ready to slam it shut. The irony is I stopped an upperclassmen from doing this to Daniel our freshman year.

"Your choice Daniel," I growl. "You can haul your shit with two hands or one; either way you are leaving this room." Daniel gives one final effort.

"Okay – okay," he gasps fearfully. I let go of his arm and watch him pack. I even throw out the few pieces he can't carry himself.

"Key," I demand. When he hands it over, I add this final warning. "Don't come back. If I find you in my room I will deal with how fucked up your betrayal is. Dude we were friends and I can't imagine what would make you ignore the fact that a girl was nearly raped, much less help the people who did it."

"They will get you too," Daniel spits back. I hardly care. I re-arrange our dressers so that there is a barrier between Bernadette and I; I feel she needs to be able to change clothing without me gawking. Finally I have to change the sheets on what has been Daniel's bed so she can sleep on clean smelling sheets.

Before I crash I race to the bathroom – the original purpose for me starting on this misadventure is has reasserted its urgency. This time I use the boy's bathroom, pipe squealing be damned. I had drifted off to sleep when I felt a disturbance beside me. Bernadette slipped under my covers, curls up and faces me. It isn't like I haven't broken so many other rules this night anyway. If letting her sleep next to me means she can keep the nightmares at bay, who am I to deny her?

Flames Licking At My Toes

I wake up to Bernadette sucking her thumb and mumbling against me. She is still asleep. I am about to check for my official expulsion notice on-line but someone stole my phone last night. I imagined that some official will hand me a written notice this morning. I nudge Bernadette awake and wait to see what her reaction will be. She starts crying and all I can do is hold her and pat her back.

"It really happened," she weeps. "Oh God, she must be dead and I'm stuck here."

"Well, I think we are getting out of here today," I point out. "That is if you still want to head out with me when I am officially expelled."

"I don't know what I can do," she stiffened. "This place is going to get nuts." Going to get?

"I swear it wasn't like this," I assure her. "How about we go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. I'll stand watch over you while you shower then you do the same for me. It's the men's room but I don't think we want to go back to your restroom, do we?"

"No – no I don't," she nods. Her stomach grumbles. "Maybe we can get some breakfast."

"Yes," I chuckle. "It would be positively rude to deny us food before tossing us out." It is a pretty bad joke but it still is rewarded with Bernadette's smile. We get cleaned up without drama though a few fellas give me odd looks for having girl in the men's showers this early in the semester – this is a college not a monastery after all.

I stop by the Office to get my Expulsion Notice but there is nothing.

"What's the plan now?" Bernadette whispers to me as we leave.

"We get a bite to eat, go back to the office and call for the bus around nine when the station opens," I suggest. "If we are careful we can be out of this madhouse by noon."

Events and conspiracy collided to make an easy exit impossible. As we enter the dining hall the most obvious thing is two male students tied back to back, blindfolded and wearing only their underwear set up on one of the dining tables closest to the door. A sign hangs around their necks which read: 'Insulted the Student Council'.

My first reaction was that the whole school had taken PCP; no one, not even the few instructors in the room, were doing anything to help these two. I have personally always considered the Student Council to be somewhat of a joke. I also considered most of my fellow students to be basically decent people. I also considered violence a poor excuse for conflict resolution until last night at least.

"Order has broken down," Bernadette mutters.

"No, it has been corrupted into something perverse and evil," I countered. "I know most of these people, or thought I did, and I can't imagine them not intervening in this."

"You are going to get involved, aren't you?" Bernadette asked me.

"I'm afraid so," I groan. With Bernadette close behind, I approach the two guys being made an example of.

"Don't," a fearful girl grabs my arm and warns me. "They are waiting for this." Her name is Georgia Norman; she has thin, shoulder cropped black hair; a bit overweight but she was much heavier last year. She is terrified for the three of us, which is more than most people were showing.

"Thanks Georgia," I mouth. I think she is surprised I even know her name – the whole Popular Kid/Geek thing. "Bernadette, jump under the closest table when the fight start and crawl for them." She nods. I don't want her crawling anywhere but I figure she'd try something like that anyway so the least I can do is take away those seconds of indecision so I'm know precisely where she is as she crawls about.

Sure enough, six students rise up from different compass points; all big strong guys and I know all but one of them. Two I would have considered friends yesterday. This morning, I didn't care what their fucking excuse is.

"There are four of them," Bernadette whispers as she tries to give me some space. She doesn't see the two coming up behind us.

"Six; but their general is Mickey Mouse," I sneer. My peripheral vision catches the six bitches scowl my way – they are way too far to have heard my hushed words to Bernadette with the unaided human ear so I am wondering what is going on. As for the whole MM- thing; my Father graduated third in his class at Annapolis – Dad was a renegade; when Vandemeyer men went into service, they went to West Point. Real men fought with mud between their toes, or so I was told.

Dad did a lot of stuff, most of which I knew not to ask about - we are quiet that way. I do know that when his helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan, he wasn't doing a late night grocery run. An unknown compatriot in the Pentagon slipped me the tape the Taliban made of his death. I watch it every few months.

My favorite part is when they cut his middle finger off half way up. While they were laughing at him, he stabbed the jagged bone into the chief interrogator's face. He missed the cocksucker's eye by 'this' much.

They killed him seconds later, which I know was his goal all along. I doubt a physiatrist would have anything good to say about me watching that, but it makes me proud. He got his slice of payback at the end. The only thing that makes me just as proud is a note an old Academy friend of his sent me. 'I went to Arlington to visit your Father's grave. I asked the Captain in charge to see the Vandemeyer grave site to which he responded 'From which war?'

It wouldn't feel natural to a Vandemeyer if we weren't forced to work for it, but military thinkers for millennia have being saying that numbers alone provide no advantage. Mickey Mouse has set things up so that they cannot easily support each other. Sure, I'm surrounded but I was expecting to be surrounded so that provides them no advantage.

I charge, not because I'm some berserker who has lost his mind. I'm running because I want them to run and we are in a cluttered cafeteria with only the guy behind me (the farthest) and the one directly in front (the closest) having an direct line of approach. That boy is expecting a punch; I put a shoulder to his diaphragm, pick him off the ground, spin and hurl him into the next closest guy who thought that jumping up onto the table to get at me is the smartest thing to do.

The guy I've thrown flies sideways into the shins of the guy on the table. Table guy gets flipped so violently forward that he can't get his arms up fast enough to stop his chin from impacting the 110 years old polished mahogany table top with a thunderous strum-thump they hear clear down to the Headmaster's office. The guy I threw can't be in that bad of shape but apparently he's had enough because I don't see him anymore when he falls off the far side of the table.

In armored warfare tactics this is where I turn back and smash another guy and even the odds out some more, but I'm not a tank. Likewise, when I put a foot on a chair and the next on the table to rescue those guys, I haven't lost sight on what's really going on here – they still have a twisted desire to grab Bernadette.

Mickey Mouse should have told everyone to go for Bernadette but she/they didn't. Two go for Bernadette and two come for me. They might as well put lambskin on their heads and bleat like little lambs. I'm not bragging and I'm not Billy Bad-ass. What I am is tough enough to walk into a gay bar on New Year's Eve wearing a ballerina's costume and come out unmolested.

I am not 'Jet Li' enough to take that same tutu, go into a biker bar and expect to face anything but a coroner or major reconstructive surgery by sunrise. The difference is? Know what the hell I can and can't do. I can take the pain and I can dish it out and all too often the fear of the former stops you from doing the latter.

In the balance, I wasn't afraid of them and they were afraid what I could do to them. The only thing that might have helped was massing those people they had left so that they could take courage in their numbers...thus their general was being Mickey Mouse yet again. I caught the third guy on the table top.

I faked a kick; he flinched then tried a kick of his own. I caught his leg mid-calf and before he could recover spun him head over heels off the table and onto the floor. You have to be a stuntman or Action Hero to get up after that.

I had only enough time to rip off the blindfolds, and undo the knot before events overtook me.

"This is all I can do right now," I slid off the table, "Some people here have an appointment with the Sandman." Overly dramatic; sure but right now those two need any thread of hope to hang on to. I take two steps toward the 'last to the last' guy coming my way when I slip on a wet spot on the floor I've totally missed.

Bernadette starts screaming while the dick-head attacking me appears above. I block two kicks with my shins so the guy moves forward and falls on me, fist ready to strike. I block the first strike and hit him as hard as I can in his sternum. I knock him off me – about fifteen feet into the air above me! WTF! He is so high up in the air I am able to spin up to my knees before the dummy hits face-first on the ground where I was on my back only seconds ago.

I will have to worry about whether I've killed him later. I'm up and running at the fifth guy who has Bernadette by the leg and is trying to drag her out from under a table. The sixth guy has crawled under the table on the other side and is starting to pry Bernadette's fingers from around the table leg she's clinging to.

Guy number five barely has the time stand before I'm on him. I take his hit to the shoulder to get my hand around the back of his head. I quick-step him the four feet to the table opposite Bernadette and pound the boy's face into the closest plate of food – twice.

The owner of the plate – recall, there are students all over the place either dispassionately watching or simply ignoring the beatings and humiliations that have been going on. Only the freshmen seem suitably horrified, though they don't know who any of the combatants are.

The owner of the food, Vicky Lennox, looks offended – with me! And there was a girl screaming her head off right behind her and she's offended by me spilling her fruit and candied rice all over the table. I'm reacquainting number five into the plate when Vicky puts her hand on the bicep that is attached to the arm slamming the douche.

I release the guy and backhand Vicky to the ground. I'm angry with her but really I just need her out of the way and to be sure she's not going to get on my back when I retrieve Bernadette. I rush to the only person here who is making any sense to me. If I am going to be forced to fight the whole way to the harbor; I am going to have to think of another plan to get us out of here – something more immediate and doable.

"Bernadette," I call out. "Grab my hand," I call out to my gal pal – fuck, maybe my only pal anymore.

"Vandemeyer!" hollers Ms. Janice Richman, our school's swim and yachting coach. I am a bit busy pulling Bernadette out from under the table and to my side. "Vandemeyer, put her down," she thunders next.

"What the hell is this?" I scream back, fueled by a sudden splitting headache. I'm pointing at those two poor freshmen who are only now succeeding in removing the rope that binds them back to back.

"That's not your problem," Richman furiously snaps. My headache graduates to a migraine so fast I think I might be having an aneurism. Bernadette is muttering something...in some language I've never heard before – Albanian maybe. I'm completely powerless to resist Coach Richman from grabbing me; it hurts so badly – then Bernadette says something loudly that sounds like 'dentate', touches me and the pain vanishes.

Coach Richman takes me by the arm.

"Come with me," she commands. Before she can move me, everything becomes crystal clear once more.

"Bitch," boils up from deep within me. Richman has half turned away when my curse causes her head to track back to my face.

I really don't care – again. My fist balls up and I hit her twice, rapidly in the stomach. I am way, way past losing my mind. I'm going to prison, I have no doubt. I shake my arm free from Janice's feeble grip. I grab a handful of her hair and drag her to the two freshmen on the table as tears start streaming down her face from the pain of my hair-pulling.

"Why aren't you angry about this?" I cry out. I'm about to slam her face into the table top when she goes 'Huh...'

"What?" I pull her head up to mine and her eyes are highly dilated and she looks stoned. I give a little 'huh' myself. I catch a flicker to my right – it is Bernadette and she looks like she's donated two too many pints of blood; she's so pale and swaying – barely able to stand. She's also looking over at those six wack-jobs.

I quick-step to her side once more and catch her as she collapses against my chest. A hodgepodge of disjointed visions floods my mind and I can now tell everyone what it feels like to have hot needles jammed into every joint of my body. Holy fucking hell...then the pain is gone. The world swirls and for a second I see looks of utter surprise on the three sets of twin's faces as they look at me.

"Let's get you out of here," I tell Bernadette. The sounds of the rest of the students returning to normal business as if nothing bloody, violent and uncalled for has happened in the past two minutes. Only the freshmen, Georgia and maybe a dozen other upperclassmen give me furtive, frightened glances.

"No, Richard," Bernadette rubs my upper arm, "let us stay and get some breakfast."

"Okay, did you also miss me beating five guys up and gut-punching a teacher?" I blink. Oddly, she looks totally fine now, even somewhat rejuvenated.

"No, but most of the students won't remember exactly what happened," she whispers.

"Excuse me," I growl under my breath. "What is going on? My old friends are with my new enemies and I'm being forced to use physical threats and violence to deal with teachers. Where I come from in Sanity Land, this is nuts. We need to leave this island and tell something about what's going on."

"What would you tell them?" she smiles with a sense of dark tragedy; "your friends are trying to hurt you so that they can kill me, and you don't even know me, really. That is all rhetorical because once we get on the boat I can't protect either of us – not from all six – and they will kill us both."

"You mean those six Kate Moss rejects?" I glare at the six and their court which has swelled to over thirty students now. "Let me go set them straight right then I'll be right back."

"Please don't," she tells me softly. "You can't fight them all, here - in the open. For that matter, do not let them touch you – ever." I'm starting to think that I'm that one in a million who isn't affected by whatever toxin or poison that is rotting the mind of everyone else on the island.

"Tell me what is going on; are they terrorists or is this some bad medical experiment?" I fight for understanding.

"I can't tell you anything that would make sense to you yet," she tells me. "I have not even figured out how we are still alive."

"They should have sent more people," I joke with desperate energy. She gives me a curious look.

"Do you often fight five guys...after the five you beat up for me last night?" she questions. Yes, I'm a raging asshole who constantly beats up anyone who steps on my blue suede shoes.

"I think I've been in five fights since kindergarten but my Dad taught me how to defend myself," I inform her then realize that doesn't explain anything.

"Have you ever kicked anyone half way to the ceiling before?" she keeps going.

"That was new," I admit. "But what does all of this mean?"

"I don't know," she nods. "Had they not been so invested in giving me a long and torturous death, none of this would have happened to you and for that, I apologize."

"You would be dead and that isn't an option for me," I confirm.

"You don't know me at all," she points out. "What if I told you that all this would stop if you let them kill me?"

"Do you deserve death at their hands?" I counter.

"I don't think so but I believe they would disagree," I can see Bernadette think things over. We've walked to a table and sit side by side when she continues. "They would think I deserved death for what was done to them to whit I would counter that they earned their punishments honestly."

"None of what you just said makes sense," I shake my head.

"It is not supposed to," Bernadotte sighs. We eat a few more bite-fills then Bernadotte stiffens and looks over her shoulder. It is the blonde Wonder Twins. I take my butter knife as well as Bernadette's then stand up.

"Don't," Bernadette cautions me. She's not touching me though. I don't 'know' most of the crap going on around me but I'm putting a few things together – I have to play to their delusions.

"Whatever you are doing – stop it," I demand. As far as I know there is a voodoo thing going on here and the Sextet has got poor Bernadette believing they have power over her.

I want to pinch myself because I suddenly feel as if hundreds worms are crawling around in my brain...and dying...I can almost hear their death rattles.

"Please," I plead through clenched teeth. I'm not begging and, if they are smart, they will know it. They don't. I give them five seconds then I hope that either touching their hair doesn't count or that I don't send Bernadette into some kind of psychotic break by touching them.

I introduce Blonde #1's left ear to Blonde #2's right by the simple expedient of pounding their heads together. I feel like my palms and fingers are on fire, but it passes.

"Ow!" they both gasp as they stumble back. Seven more guys and two girls are coming my way from their not so little pack.

"They take five more steps and I'm ramming the handles of these two knives into both your rectums," I seethe to the blondes. Fucking fantastic – the minions stop. If I could see any ear pieces on these chicks, or had I spoken above a seething whisper, or had either blonde said a word, I would be ecstatic. "Bernadette, what's going on here?"

"They have a Sympathetic mental understanding with one another which certain...rituals allow them to expand over...those they have subverted," she informs me.

"They have telepathy?" I shorten the bullshit. "Next time just tell me they have telepathy."

"Not precise but apt," Bernadette agrees. Okay, I'm going to play along with this fantasy environment because though this makes no sense it still makes more sense than anything I can think of.

"You don't understand this situation?" the blonde's go all-freaky girl-like. Oh, it gets better. Each twin looks at their opposite then back at me. The blonde's extend their left hands.

"Hello, I am Paradise/Eden," they greet me. I'm thinking about defusing the situation then I recall Bernadette's warning about touching these – witches. I rap their knuckles instead. I swear to God the metal sparks as the knife-handles hit flesh.

I'm starting to figure something else out and surprise, it makes as much nonsense as everything else. They don't think I can touch them, despite copious evidence to the contrary.

"If I have to touch any of you it will be to punch my hand through your skulls and walk you around like meat puppets," I threaten them. "Are we clear?"

They don't speak and I realize that Bernadette is remarkably silent as well. I know how this fantasy works.

"You have to a count of five before I kill one of you by ripping off your arms and legs then reducing your skull to pulp with one of those," I threaten softly. "5-4-3..."

"They are not really alive Richard," Bernadette breathes heavily. "You can't really kill them; nothing mortal can."

"They also didn't think I could touch them, or hurt them either," I grin evilly at the blondes.

"Point taken," Bernadette contemplates with a certain distant yet serene quality.

"What were they doing to you?" I play along. They have telepathy after all. Dr. Spock will be so pleased – or is that Mr. Spock; I am starting to get them confused.

"They were simply saying hello in the way of our people," Bernadette relates, "which means they were trying to get inside my mind. They caught me off-guard yesterday with my guard down. This was a trap meant to...umm...do things to me."

"What part of them being three sets of twins a la Children of the Damned did you miss?" I joked weakly.

"Richard," Bernadette laughs, "most people can't see what they really look like. They masked their taint from me by design. I can't explain you."