Leonard Palmer

The 47th Room Leonard Palmer

Halloween, 1977. Mayhem always seems to find Johnny Jump, and always when he least expects it. It found him the night he is pushing his hack with the vivacious Catherine Dupreesitting next to him, when he's flagged down by a fare. Mayhem's name was Rose MacMillan. She's young, no more than twenty, and she looks haggard in her torn shirt and scuffed jeans. She is bruised and bleeding. Somebody has obviously roughed her up. Catherine Dupree suggests they take her to the hospital to get her wounds treated. The girl reacts violently, demanding she instead be taken to Covington East, a sprawling complex of pre-Civil War buildings that once housed an exclusive girls' school but now stands abandoned. Tonight though, is the Saturday before Halloween, and Johnny knows that a huge party is being held on the school grounds, condoned by the city's political elites, who will be in attendance, costumed, drunk, and high. There will also be police; some as revelers, others as keepers of the peace. There is nothing...