With the new school year getting underway, it’s a great time to head back to Diane Hoh’s Nightmare Hall series. In The Initiation (1994) and Student Body (1995), classes may be in session, but the real action is in the woods of the nearby state park, a Gothic wilderness where students of Salem University go to break the rules, upset the social hierarchy, and go a bit wild.
In The Initiation, Molly Keene is a freshman at Salem and having a difficult time finding her crowd or where she fits in the larger campus culture. She’s still reeling from “the transformation from popular high school senior in June to lowly college freshman on an unfamiliar campus in September” (3). Molly is feeling self-conscious and vulnerable when an older student named Norman Oakes invites her to a meeting of a group called the Others, who gather in the woods of the state park just off campus. Some combination of desperation, misplaced trust, and poor judgment prompt Molly to follow Norman into the darkness, where she finds a gathering of other Salem University students who don’t quite fit in, though most of their identities remain a mystery to Molly, their features indiscernible between the darkness and the shadows cast by the flickering light of the fire around which they gather. Molly begins to have second thoughts as she joins them around the fire and she “wished she hadn’t come. She didn’t know any of these people. And she certainly wasn’t going to get to know them with their features so bizarrely distorted by the dancing orange-and-yellow flames from the fire. They all looked like jack-o’-lanterns. She wouldn’t recognize a single one of them on campus the next day” (8, emphasis original). Their shared loneliness and the characteristics that made them easy marks for Norman become clear as he tells them that “Every one of us is exceptional in some way. Superior. But we are not the ones getting the attention on campus. We are the Others, those whose talents have not yet been recognized … [But] From now on, we will be the ones who decide if those people on campus getting all the attention really deserve the accolades thrown their way” (10, emphasis original). The isolationism, the mystery, and the anger that thrums beneath Norman’s judgment convince Molly that she doesn’t want to be one of the Others and when the purpose of the meeting turns to the initiation of new members, she remains silent. Though she refuses to take part in this initiation, as far as Norman is concerned, she is still one of them, whether she likes it or not.
After the initiation meeting in the woods, Molly tries to shake off the unsettling interaction and distance herself from the Others, putting the whole unnerving experience behind her. She begins to make more friends and she is selected by her English professor, Dr. Theodore, to be the freshman writer for the campus literary magazine, Odyssey, which is a prestigious honor. When Dr. Theodore chooses her, Molly joins the ranks of the talented freshmen profiled in Odyssey’s first issue of the year, including pianist Phoebe Sayward, quarterback Boomer Sorenson, dancer Stacey Cotter, and artist Tony Scaparelli. While Molly is thrilled at being chosen, Norman’s response the news is abusive, possessive, and unsettling, as he tells Molly that she’ll never fit in at Odyssey, because the upper-classmen aren’t “going to let a nobody like you share in the glory” (20) and then reminds her that in joining the group in the woods, “Your special talent belongs to the Others now, Molly” (20). He preys upon Molly’s isolation, attempts to tear her down, and then offers her reassurance through inclusion in the Others. Thankfully, Molly has begun to gain some self-confidence and rejects the version of herself that Norman tries to force upon her, telling him that she never took the oath and doesn’t want to be part of the group, before enthusiastically embracing this new opportunity to make friends, express herself, and develop her talent with her Odyssey peers.
There are some complications, however: the upperclassmen who have been paying their dues and working for Odyssey for a few years to get their shot at feature writing aren’t all that welcoming to an upstart freshman with little writing experience–who has been somewhat arbitrarily given that privilege without having to go through the proving ground that they themselves endured. While this is definitely a hurdle, Molly commits herself to working hard and proving herself to the rest of the magazine’s staff.
When Molly begins to be targeted by pranks and sabotage—someone puts a whole bunch of gross river mud in her car and later, as the next issue of Odyssey is getting ready to go the press, the proofs for her feature article are destroyed—she isn’t sure whether she’s being targeted by fellow Odyssey staffers or the Others. At the same time, someone begins planning dangerous and potentially deadly “accidents” for the students profiled in Odyssey’s first issue, pushing Stacey off a ledge so she falls and breaks her legs, then rigging a massive lighting fixture to fall on Phoebe as she practices the piano on the stage below. Molly struggles to figure out whether these attacks are parallel or connected, whether she is being targeted because she’s considered a threat at the magazine or because she is now one of the “special” people on campus who the Others believe ought to be taken down a peg (or maybe even taken out).
When Molly finds out who’s behind these attacks, the rage of the Others is central to their motivation, with Donovan Capwell revealed as the mastermind. Donovan is peripheral to the story, mentioned in passing as a “copyboy” (28) for Odyssey, and while he is often included in the larger group of Odyssey staffers as they work and socialize, he never takes center stage until his final confrontation with Molly. When Molly tells Donovan that she didn’t know he was one of the Others and didn’t see him at the meeting, he tells her “You mean, you didn’t notice me. Which is not the same thing. I was there, all right” (176, emphasis original). This distinction between “seeing” and “noticing” feels like a fitting metaphor for Donovan’s role and representation throughout The Initiation: he has been there the whole time, but no one ever paid attention or figured that he might be “important.” Donovan is responsible for all of the attacks, but his targeting of the other talented freshmen was all designed to lay the blame on Norman. The only person Donovan really wants to hurt is Molly and as he prepares to kill her, he makes her take an oath of his own, forcing her to repeat him as he says “I, Molly Keene … Have no talent whatsoever … I have no business writing for Odyssey or any other publication, and I stole that job from someone who deserved it more” (173). Just like Norman, Donovan’s goal is to tear Molly down and make her feel worthless, to reestablish what he sees as their respective “rightful” places. Just as she had with Norman, however, Molly is able to reassert her identity and claim her own power and ingenuity, goading Donovan into attacking her before executing a quick sidestep that lands Donovan in the river, where he is captured, subdued, and taken away.
While the fire around which the Others gather at the state park in The Initiation is the first domino in a chain reaction of terror and largely peripheral to the action, in Student Body, the students’ fire in the park carries significantly more weight and has deadly consequences. The Initiation explored the ways that social isolation and not feeling seen can lead people to make terrible choices, but Student Body takes the opposite approach, foregrounding the ways in which the peer pressure of a close friend group can be just as destructive. Victory “Tory” Alexander, Natasha Moody, Bayard “Bay” Shaw, Mindy Loomis, Michael “Hoop” Sinclair, and Eli Segal are a close-knit group of friends who go just about everywhere together. Hoop is one of Salem University’s basketball stars, and after a big win the friends decide to celebrate by going to the nearby state park to have a fire in the woods. This would usually be a spot of relatively wholesome fun, but there’s a burn ban in effect and Eli objects to the plan, telling his friends “The winter’s been dry and the wind has been fierce for a week. It still is. Building a fire in the park is just too risky” (9). There are plenty of other places to go and things to do, and they could pivot their plans to join their classmates who are going dancing, out for pizza, or gathering at the fraternity house where Hoop is a brother, but Bay is insistent on having a fire, telling the others that they’ll take water along just in case and they’ll be really careful. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?
The worst that can happen, of course, is that they set the forest on fire, which is exactly what they do. The group flees the woods in a panic, desperate to be long gone by the time the firefighters and police arrive so they don’t get in trouble. It’s only when they get to Bay’s car and are making their quick getaway that they realize Hoop isn’t with them. Eli tells Bay to turn the car around, but just about everyone else manages to rationalize why they really shouldn’t do that. Hoop’s girlfriend Mindy tells them that Hoop runs in the woods all the time and knows all the shortcuts, so he probably just found another way out and is already back on campus, waiting for them to catch up. Natasha figures they don’t have much to lose by finding a phone and calling the fraternity house to see if Hoop is there, but when they find a phone, the friends reason that they’re so close to campus that it would really be quicker to just go to the house and see for themselves. Step by step, choice by choice, they leave Hoop behind in the fire, justifying their actions, convincing themselves and one another.
Of course, the main motivating factor is that they don’t want to get caught. They could be held criminally liable for the fire and they could be kicked out of school. They all have their own reasons for avoiding trouble: Bay has political aspirations and Mindy is a pageant queen, with both of them needing to maintain sparkling reputations and a clean slate to get where they want to go. Natasha has her sights set on medical school. For Tory, Salem University is a fresh start: she got in a lot of trouble in high school, running with a wild crowd. She has turned things around at Salem and isn’t willing to let one bad mistake derail her new life. Eli seems to be the conscience of the group, urging them to do the right thing, though the others convince him to go along with their plan and stay silent.
The friends tell themselves (and one another) that they’re making the right decision and by the time they find out that Hoop didn’t escape the fire, they figure it’s too late to come clean. Hoop is badly burned, hovering in a comatose state between life and death in the local hospital’s intensive care unit, and his friends anxiously wait to see if he’ll regain consciousness and tell the police what really happened, while also keeping an eye on another, worrying about who might crack and confess.
While they try to take their minds off their troubles with trips to the mall and campus parties, someone has it out for Tory and seems determined to make her suffer. Her mysterious stalker traps her in a tanning bed until she is badly burned and tampers with her car’s radiator, resulting in her being scalded by the steam when it breaks down outside Nightmare Hall. Eli convinces Tory to return to the scene of the fire with him to help him look for his keychain with his name on it, which he dropped when they ran, and in the woods, they fall into a trap, plunging into a hole where someone attempts to douse them with lighter fluid and set them on fire (though they escape through a branching tunnel). When the group goes to the hospital, the mysterious figure soaks bandages in gasoline, creating a rope that leads to Bay’s gas tank to blow up his car. Each time she is attacked, Tory sees a heavily bandaged figure at the scene, menacing and attacking her, though most of her friends don’t believe her, rationalizing that it’s just a hallucination created by her guilty conscience, with the figure mimicking Hoop’s bandaged state in the ICU. Only Eli listens—and he becomes entirely convinced when he finds a scrap of gauze left behind at the scene of one of the attacks.
Hoop dies as a result of his burns and even when faced with the fatal consequences of their actions, Natasha’s first question for the nurse is “Did he say anything before he died?” (183), as she remains focused on keeping their secret even in the face of their friend’s death. The friends’ story is rewritten to some extent when they discover that the bandaged figure that has been stalking them is Mindy, who knows exactly what happened in the woods the night of the fire, and has been keeping her own secret the whole time. When Tory and Mindy have their final confrontation, precariously perched on some construction girders of a hospital expansion after learning of Hoop’s death, Mindy tells Tory that “what happened to Hoop wasn’t your fault … It was mine. I can tell you that now, because you’re not going to leave here alive” (201-2). When the group was faced with a life-and-death situation and push came to shove, Mindy literally pushed Hoop, who fell to the ground and was trapped by a burning tree limb. Mindy tries to justify her actions to Tory, telling her “I wanted to stop and help him … I wanted to call the rest of you to come back and help me lift the tree limb … [But] I imagined myself with horrible, ugly scars all over my face, and I couldn’t stand it. I knew no one would ever want to look at me again … I’d never have a boyfriend again, never win another pageant, never get married and live in a nice house. I wouldn’t have any life at all” (203, emphasis original). So Mindy turned around, ran, and left Hoop behind to ensure her own safety, beauty, and idealized vision of the life she had planned for herself. When Mindy worried that Tory and Eli might not be able to keep their collective secret, she committed herself to doing whatever was necessary to silence them, saying “I couldn’t help it, Tory! You were going to tell … How could I let that happen? How could I let the whole, horrible truth come out? My life would have been over. And that wouldn’t have been fair, because I didn’t die in that fire. I saved myself” (204, emphasis original). As far as Mindy’s concerned, she did what she had to do and she doesn’t regret a bit of it, even telling Tory “You can’t blame me … You should admire me. Everyone thinks I’m so dumb, that I almost wish I could tell them all how clever I’ve been” (204). Tory’s cleverness wins the day in the end, however, as she knocks Mindy off balance and watches as she falls to her death below. Even in these final moments, Mindy’s beauty and vanity are at the forefront of how Tory thinks about the situation, as she notes that Mindy “had landed on that hard-packed ground on her face … When they turned her over, she wouldn’t look anything like the Mindy we had known” (210). As the book comes to a close, readers are left wondering which Mindy would have found more horrifying—death or disfigurement—and feeling pretty sure of the answer.
In both The Initiation and Student Body, the fire in the state park is the spark that sets all the other terrifying events into motion. Both the Others and Tory and her friends have gone to the woods to get away from campus and from civilization, to retreat to the shadows and free themselves from the expectations of others, whether that is the Others’ rejection of the hierarchy that separates the “special” from the unremarkable, or Tory and her friends’ desire to have a private celebration away from their fellow students and Hoop’s fraternity brothers. But the choices they make while gathered around the fire quickly escape their control, as Donovan subverts Norman’s intentions for the Others in his attacks on their fellow students, and Tory and her friends find themselves transformed by the choices they make as they flee the fire. These fires run wild, both literally and metaphorically, threatening to destroy everything in their path, creating an inescapable inferno.
