Shame

Shamemurders and had no desire to open them. At the same time she had a proprietary attitude about anything having to do with Gray Parker. It was her beat, and she wanted to stake her claim.
    She wondered at the timing of the new murders. Parker had been executed over twenty years earlier, and copycat killers usually strike while the headlines are large, while they can be part of the notoriety. Old murders were yesterday’s news, forgotten by everyone save those close to the victims.
    Elizabeth closed her eyes, remembering the night Gray Parker had come into her life. She had awakened to him saying, “Don’t scream.”
    Her first thought was that her boyfriend, Dan, had come over to apologize. They’d had a fight the week before, and in that time neither of them had offered an olive branch to the other. But Dan wouldn’t have sneaked into the sorority so late at night. The room was dark, but there was enough light for Elizabeth to make out the shape of the man’s head. It definitely wasn’t Dan sitting on the bed next to her, but she was suddenly sure who it was.
    “I won’t scream,” she said.
    I won’t give you that satisfaction, Barry Gilbert, she had thought. But you’re never going to come into my room uninvited again. Whenever Barry came over to see Tracy his eyes always lingered on her, and though Elizabeth had tried to ignore his attentions, he had always made a point of seeking her out. Tracy seemed oblivious to his flirting, and Elizabeth hadn’t wanted to make an issue of it, so nothing had ever been said.
    “I’m tired,” he said. “I’ve never been so tired before.”
    Everyone was tired, Elizabeth thought. She had little sympathy for him. It was finals week, and she had allocated herself only four hours of sleep. “What are you doing in my room?” she asked.
    He didn’t answer her question. “All the other times were so exhilarating. They made me feel so...connected. The power went from my fingertips to my spine and then up and down my body.”
    Elizabeth had to will herself to continue breathing. Her chest felt frozen. It wasn’t Barry who was sitting on her bed. Barry was from New Jersey and sounded like it. This man had a Southern accent. Did she know him? Should she scream? She wanted to believe he was a drunken student just blowing off steam from the pressures of finals, a friend of Tracy’s or Paula’s.
    “I keep looking for bridges,” he said. “Something to get me over to the other land.”
    “What other land?”
    She saw his hand reach out, not to her, but into the darkness. “The land of the living.”
    Silence draped the room like a shroud. Elizabeth was sure she didn’t know this man, had never known him, and was afraid of knowing him. He turned to her and sensed her unease.
    “What are you thinking?” he asked.
    There was something invasive about his words and something angry. She didn’t tell him what she was really thinking or how she really felt. The only time Elizabeth could recall being this scared was the time she had gone camping and awakened to a big bear sniffing outside her tent. But this was even more frightening. The bear had only been rooting around for food. She wasn’t sure if this man even knew what he wanted.
    “I was considering what you said,” she said, her voice deceptively calm, as if to soothe a beast. “You’re right. All of us need bridges.”
    He appeared to relax slightly. He rubbed his chin and kept looking around the room. “You have a lot of books in here,” he said.
    The Kappa Omega sorority house had several wings. Elizabeth lived in the so-called nook section, along with Tracy and Paula. They all had their own rooms. Instead of the usual posters, Elizabeth had lined her bedroom walls with cinder-block bookcases filled with books. They cocooned her, keeping the noise of her sorority sisters, and the world, awayfrom her. She had always loved being in the isolated nook—until now.
    “I’m a literature major,” she said, as if apologizing for the books.
    “Have you read all of them?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “And have they made you smarter?” he asked.
    Through the sheets she could feel the heat of his body. Elizabeth found herself trembling. She didn’t know what to say but was afraid not to say something.
    “Not smarter,” she said, “but they helped me to understand things better.”
    “Understand what?”
    “People,” she said.
    “People,” he repeated, and with his echo was a sound that was part