As it thickened into blackness, drawing even more heat away from the December air, it ultimately smothered the light from even the brightest stars. But mere dark couldn’t keep the town’s denizens inside, safe and warm, not on Hobson Night. As Derek and Chelsea drove through town after dinner, it seemed as if everyone under thirty was out having fun. Everyone except them. Groups large and small wandered the grassy commons, laughing drunkenly as they tromped the frosty grass. Banners and holiday lights hung from all the streetlamps. If you peered inside the garish fluorescent-lit windows of the supermarkets and convenience stores, you could see long lines of people with their IDs—both real and manufactured—already out as they bought cases and six-packs of beer. Hobson Street, three blocks of ramshackle off-campus student housing that lay just a quarter mile from Eve Mandisa’s, was the nexus for this dying-of-the-light debauch, but the party always spiraled out from there, sucking the whole town in.
