Night Canings
A story from Janus 32 by R.T. Mason & The Editor, illustrated by Paula Meadows 10.30 was zero hour. That was when they always started. 10.30 as you lay in your bed in the darkened dorm, half an hour after Lights Out, and everyone on edge, on tenterhooks, even Lisa Howard who could put on an air of bravado about the whole thing. Everyone wondering if the dorm door was going to abruptly open. For your name to be called out. Not every night of the week of course. The other nights you could be reasonably relaxed, getting off to sleep or having a quiet conversation with the girl in the next bed or just lying still thinking your private thoughts, But on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays you wouldn’t be doing any of those things, not from 10.30 till about 11.30. Then you were wide awake with every nerve alert. Tonight was a Monday — the second Monday of term in fact — and so everyone was taut and still… and listening. Because in D