The Punishment Club Read online

  “You see, the challenge is good; the challenge is fair. We’re going to unmute you now. As soon as we do, please repeat: ‘The challenge is good; the challenge is fair’.”

  The strike line through the mic icons disappeared. Twenty voices, male and female—including Cassidy’s—spoke as one:

  “The challenge is good; the challenge is fair’.”

  “Upon completion of the challenge, the first one chosen will then select the second. The second chooses the third, and the third chooses the fourth. If the first one chosen is female, her choice must then be male. If the first one chosen is male, he must select a female. This selection must be made within five minutes.”

  Twenty pairs of eyes darted all over the screen, much like the opening credits to The Brady Bunch, only with considerably more trepidation.

  “Speak the words.”

  By then, the congregation of pledges had been well trained.

  “The challenge is good; the challenge is fair.”

  “The four of you must complete the entire challenge by midnight for any of you to receive its benefit—total exemption from the hazing rituals you must otherwise face tomorrow morning for Hell Day. This will count as your trial. Complete it, and you are one of us.”

  Again, Cassidy turned to Toni. This time, Toni seemed unsure. She shrugged.

  She really hadn’t heard about this.

  “Fail,” the magic mouth went on, “and you fail not only yourself, but also the three others who might have been spared this tribulation with you.”

  As for Hell Day, Cassidy had no idea what to expect. Back home, her big sister Collette had laughed at her and promised she’d survive. Yesterday, Toni had shushed her on the subject permanently on her very first attempt to wheedle a hint out of her. None of the accessible search engines at Chesapeake U had been any help, either. Would she, say, have to serve breakfast to the upperclassmen while dressed in a bunny suit? Stand on a table and sing the national anthem while being pelted with eggs? Get mummified in toilet paper and lugged around the quad being laughed at?

  Paddled?

  Whatever it would be, the teachers, professors, counselors, even the CP—in short, every post-transitional adult on campus—would allow it. Classes were canceled to allow it. It was just the way things were. And part of her wanted to go through it. Everyone else had. She could, too.

  Or she could be chosen for this. If she was, she’d have to do it. Never mind what might happen to her as a result of not doing it. If she blew it for three other people, she’d become instant on-campus pariah, and that couldn’t happen. She’d just gotten here.

  10:59.

  And it was only a quick post-curfew dash to the stupid old tree.

  “It’s almost time,” the magic mouth said. “We are about to randomly select the first pledge. If you wish to prepare yourself in the event that you are chosen, we recommend you get undressed now.”

  Cassidy sat back in her chair, mouth open, aghast.

  Peter was already peeling off his shirt, shaking his head, laughing it off.

  The icons on screen started flashing randomly, no discernible pattern. Cassidy saw her own icon flash a few times before the magic mouth spoke again.

  “This is a streaking challenge. Chosen pledges are permitted shoes and socks, nothing else.”

  Behind her, from Toni, “Huh. That’s new.” She was clearly taken aback. “Well, better you than me, Cass.”

  Cassidy glared at her.

  Toni waved it off, brought her a pair of socks and her running shoes. “Just in case,” she said with a sly smile. “Oh, don’t look so scared. Bet you look great naked. Objectively speaking, of course.”

  On screen, kids were complaining. A couple threatened to leave the chat.

  “Speak the words.”

  Thirty seconds.

  Half of the boys had taken their shirts off for a start. A couple of the girls had as well and now were very careful to appear in frame only from the neck up. Stupid, Cassidy thought. Only makes it more likely someone will pick you.

  But then, a second thought: Maybe not. Maybe the opposite.

  There was no way she was stripping off until (more importantly, if) she had to. Emma Jo, among several others, seemed to be of similar mind.

  Over the pledges, the magic mouth repeated the command: “Speak the words.”

  Just to be safe, huffing indignation, Cassidy drew on her socks and shoes. Under the nightgown, she had only her underwear to bother with. It would be mortifying, but it would be quick.

  Somehow, doing it in front of Toni would be the absolute worst. She looked so darned happy with herself right now, her smile fit to split her freakin’ face. Cassidy hadn’t even been naked in front of her own mother since she was old enough to bathe herself.

  Summoning courage, she leaned in close to the screen and said, “The challenge is good,” infusing her voice with a bravado that was one hundred percent manufactured. “The challenge is fair.”

  And she had a way with tone, did Cassidy Harper. As the timer counted down the final ten seconds, first one, then another of the pledges followed suit. They all did—everyone, including the solitary doe-eyed innocent of a boy in the lower right corner who’d arrived last. His name, evidently, was Buddy, and he hadn’t needed a mute button at any point throughout the entire ritual.

  The flashing stopped. Time hung. The mouth disappeared. The middle of the screen, again, went blank.

  Should have stayed quiet, Cassidy thought. I drew attention to myself. Typical. Idiot.

  Slowly, the image began to refill, to resolve into a still shot of one of the pledges.

  Cassidy closed her eyes.

  Don’t be me. Please, please, don’t be me.

  Opened them again.

  And found that Peter, not her, had been chosen first.

  ****

  Prisoner Profile: Peter Alan Gravis

  Transitional Inmate #201

  Freshman, Chesapeake University, Maryland Chapter

  Age: 18

  Height: 5’10”

  Weight: 150 lbs.

  Eye Color: gray/pale blue

  Hair Color: blond

  Study Focus: Music Education

  Prisoner Class: Convicted, Non-Penitent, Protective Custody

  Sentence: 2 Years

  Consent for Alternative Punitive Plan: Given

  Approval Status: Pending

  Crime: …

  ****

  Peter stared at the screen for long seconds, as though he could blink the image away through an effort of sheer will.

  It’s a setup, he thought. Who the hell thought of this, anyway?

  He was down to his boxers, socks, and an old, comfortable pair of Journey shoes. If he was being honest with himself, he had to admit he’d enjoyed seeing the girls on screen shuck off their stuff. He hadn’t seen much, but it had been one hell of a lot more than he’d ever been allowed to lay eyes on before. Thank God for college, he’d thought, even though the girl he really wanted to see had kept herself covered.

  That had been sixty seconds ago. Peter found his mood had rather darkened since.

  In the upper left of the screen, superimposed over a chick in a sports bra, his timer was already counting down: fourteen minutes, twenty-eight seconds…

  That would be just under ten minutes to do his bit, to streak in all of his glory for what amounted to maybe a quarter of a mile in total, there and back. Then he’d have five more minutes to…

  Choose.

  His fellow pledge, Carlson Wade, had gone to bed right after study hours and was still asleep. He’d remained unconscious through the whole damned thing, resting up for Hell Day tomorrow with his headphones on and set to quiet mode. Carlson hadn’t gotten the letter. He didn’t know the letter even existed. Would Peter tell him about it tomorrow?

  Probably. Good a way as any to laugh it off. Build some fraternal trust, all that crap.

  Fourteen minutes, five seconds.

  “I can’t believe I�
��m doing this,” he muttered, then hurried—still in his boxers—for the door. The best thing that could be said of this, he thought, fairly sprinting for the elevator, was that his fellow pledges who had gotten the letter were pretty much nailed to their seats by order of the Great Androgynous Oz, as he thought of the digital warden of the Dare Dungeon. None of them would see a thing. She wouldn’t see.

  Nor, he decided—hammering the “down” button, hearing the lift rising up through the walls, though not nearly as fast as he would have liked—would he choose her. The young woman named Cassidy was someone he had known on sight he’d want to talk to, see if there were common interests. He didn’t want to wreck that by making her the next victim in this bullshit.

  Inside the elevator, he set his wrist com to stopwatch, gave himself thirteen minutes. He listened to his descent, felt the slowness in his very blood. When the door opened, he still had twelve and a half minutes to run the proverbial gauntlet.

  He found several of his fellow Delta Kappa Epsilons (“Dekes,” he reminded himself) fully dressed and apparently awaiting his arrival in the common room.

  ****

  Toni powered on her phone.

  “Don’t,” Cassidy groaned as, powerlessly, she watched her senior sorority sister go to the window and push it open. “Toni, please.”

  “Don’t be such a poop,” Toni chided, leaning out on her elbows over the sill. “Free country, Cass. You saw him. So cute. God, this is going to be funny.” Then, purring over her shoulder, “I’ll show you after, if you want.”

  Cassidy didn’t think she’d be interested. It would feel wrong, or she imagined it would. Hard to be sure. She wasn’t that far ahead in her thinking. Right now, she was only focused on one thing: How she wanted this night to be over. How she just wanted to go through her fair torture on Hell Day and be done with it.

  Not this. Anything but this.

  Also, she took objection to the words free country. She still had four more years to wait for that.

  ****

  One of the Deke-heads in the common room, Peter supposed, must have been dormed up with one of his fellow letter-receiving pledges.

  Word gets around quick.

  But he didn’t let it slow him down. Straight through them, ignoring the comments, the laughter, he hurried for the front door, flung it wide, took a breath…

  And hauled off his underwear, standing naked in nothing but his shoes and socks before no fewer than ten of his new frat brothers. He turned to them, just letting it wag, with his hands on his hips. He pointed to the discarded garment on the floor. “That better be here when I get back,” he said over the general uproar—none of which was mean-spirited, but still embarrassing as hell. “If I find these up a flagpole or on somebody’s head, there’s going to be a significant ass whuppin’.”

  One of them—was his name Ernie?—laughed good naturedly and gestured to the door. “Go, dude. There and back and you’re done. Just do it, man.”

  It was almost encouraging, the way he said it. Peter gritted his teeth, nodded, and dashed outside.

  At this hour, quite a lot of his fellow students—especially his fellow freshmen—would be asleep (or trying to sleep), same as Carlson. Or so Peter desperately hoped, resisting the urge to double-cup his privates as he made a beeline for the Tree of Knowledge. The mental image of doing that, of so clearly communicating his embarrassment to any who might see, was not to be borne. Also, it would slow him down. Instead, he leaned into a full sprint, pumping his arms in time with his legs, his penis bobbing up and down in time as well. It was a sizable unit, he liked to think, but it was hard to be grateful for that just now, feeling it slap against his belly in ridiculous synchrony with his footfalls.

  Why the hell was it hard?

  Wind, he told himself. It was a breezy, chilly evening for early September. Focus on the tree. See only the tree.

  Ahead of him, it grew as he drew closer. Beyond it, he wasn’t looking at the Alpha Chi sorority house. He wasn’t checking the windows, making sure the rooms behind them remained dark. And he was absolutely, definitely, and for sure not paying any attention to the young woman in the window frame of the third floor pointing her phone at him—the distant flash immortalizing his mad dash once, twice, over and over again.

  His first concern was the time. Now that he was committed, Peter had no intention of being the one to mess this up. People could say whatever they wanted after the fact, but they would not be able to say he had failed. Nor did he want the challenge to end with him being the only one made to do it. “Solidarity,” he had called for when this had begun. He could use a full plate of it right now.

  His second concern, as he finally made it to the tree, was the CP. Campus police patrolled the grounds after curfew, their electric security rovers making hardly a sound as they prowled the university property in search of offenders. The good news, such as there was to be had, was that there were two hundred and twenty acres to patrol—not counting the surrounding “village” of school stores and restaurants—and only five security officers. Chesapeake University didn’t need a lot of security. Character was a pillar here. They only accepted students who finished prep school with spotless behavioral records.

  Naked as a newborn, Peter circled the tree, mentally trying to block from his periphery the lights blinking on at either side of the quad. Once, he counted in his mind, noting one particular branch he had to duck under so that he could mark his progress. Twice.

  And no rovers anywhere.

  On the third pass, briefly, he stopped, facing his frat house, making sure his brothers—who had come out on the porch—could clearly see when he slapped the side of the tree so hard that it hurt. Fucking done, he thought, and bolted for home.

  They weren’t laughing at him. Not much, anyway. Silently, they were waving him in, cheering him on.

  The quad, Peter realized, had remained graveyard quiet the entire time. In the turmoil of his mind, it was hard to believe.

  ****

  “Toni,” Cassidy said, “tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

  She had withdrawn from the window. Her thumbs worked furiously over the top of her phone.

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  Cassidy’s lips thinned. Toni knew perfectly well what she meant. Nevertheless, Cassidy forged on, “I think you’re texting someone about this, but maybe I’m wrong, Toni, because that would be something only a real jerk would do.”

  Toni regarded her with upturned eyes. “If it makes you feel any better, you are wrong,” she said. “I’m not texting someone.”

  Cassidy returned her attention to the screen. She was completely unsurprised by what Toni said next.

  “I’m texting everyone. Welcome to college, girlfriend.”

  ****

  Claps on the back. Congratulations. Now that they were back indoors, whoops and cheers and general hullabaloo.

  And no immediate sign of his boxers anywhere.

  Peter checked his time. He had six minutes left.

  “Okay, okay!” he fairly roared, turning a circle. Brotherly support was all well and good, but damn it, he was still buck-ass naked, and he wasn’t much of a hugger in general. Also, he was still on the clock. “Who’s the damned joker?”

  Collectively, innocently, shrugging shoulders and feigning ignorance, they backed away from him—until the one he thought might be named Ernie finally pointed to the common room lamp with the Greek letters of their house on its side.

  Peter’s boxers were draped upside-down over the lampshade.

  “Just keepin’ ’em warm for you, bro.”

  Peter couldn’t help but let out just a slight, sheepish laugh as he yanked his underwear free. “Asshole,” he muttered as he hastily drew them back on. When he went to run for the elevator again, full tilt, his new fraternity brothers parted on either side, affording him a clear path.

  Helpful, he thought. Oh, sure, Peter. Yeah.

  When he found the elevator sti
ll on the ground floor and stepped back into it, he saw the whole lot of his brothers going back out onto the porch.

  “If the first one chosen is male, he must select a female.”

  The elevator door closed on him. In moments, it would be decision time.

  But Peter had already made his choice. It wouldn’t be Cassidy. He already felt guilty about the one it would be, but she had a kind face. A forgiving face.

  “Sorry, Emma Jo,” he said to the four walls, feeling the elevator car lift him, ferrying him back to the third floor. “Nothing personal.”

  ****

  Prisoner Profile: Emma Jo Swanson

  Transitional Inmate #202

  Freshman, Chesapeake University, Maryland Chapter

  Age: 19

  Height: 5’3”

  Weight: 125 lbs.

  Eye Color: light brown (wears glasses)

  Hair Color: dark blonde

  Study Focus: Marine Biology

  Prisoner Class: Convicted, Non-Penitent, Protective Custody

  Sentence: 2 Years

  Consent for Alternative Punitive Plan: Given

  Approval Status: Pending

  Crime: …

  ****

  “It’ll be her,” said Faye, leaning over Emma Jo’s shoulder and tapping the screen.

  Probably, Emma Jo thought with a sigh, pushing her glasses back up. She’d seen Cassidy Harper three or four times on move-in day, actually helped her lug up the microwave, then gotten help in return with her computer and scanner. They were almost friends.

  Cassidy was nice. And she was, like, runway model pretty. Guys who looked like Peter-Whatever-His-Last-Name-Is always picked girls who looked like Cassidy. Emma Jo already felt bad for her.

  But Theresa, also rudely standing over her from behind, pointed to another young woman Emma Jo didn’t know, even though she had to be sitting somewhere right here in this hall. Billie Somebody? Whoever she was, unlike Emma Jo, she was probably scared to death she’d be chosen.

  Possible. Billie of the straining, bright yellow sports bra was definitely top heavy enough.

  Then Faye tapped the icon for someone else. “Got my money right here.”

  Really? Emma Jo thought, suddenly more than a little offended. I’m right here, you know.