17: Zero. Point. Zero. (Zeta House)

Billy Gorman woke up with the most blinding headache he'd ever felt. Jesus, I musta overdid it last night, he thought.

Billy tried to piece together what had happened the night before. There had been a party...and he must have crashed here overnight...wherever here was...and woke up on a filthy sofa.

“Breakfast, bitches!” someone called from the kitchen. Billy rolled off the couch, felt relief that the floor did not contain fresh vomit, and stumbled across the room.

In the kitchen, he found a man who was way too functional this early in the day. He had a bright red mohawk, red boxer shorts, and a gray sweater with Greek letters on it. Right, Billy thought. The initiation party. He remembered having a few beers, then repeating some stuff, then being taken to a secret room, then...not much after that.

“You look like hell, new kid. Here, get you some eggs and bacon. Fixes everything.” The mohawk guy—Ross or something, Billy recalled—handed him a paper plate with breakfast food piled on top of it. Billy wasn't sure if he could handle eating at first, but once he got a taste, he started wolfing it down.

“Eat while you can, before Hip wakes up,” Ross(?) said. “He's probably passed out on the lawn again. How you holding up?”

“Ugh,” Billy mumbled. His brain had conjured up the image of an enormous shirtless man, laying face-up in a kiddie pool and snoring. Billy did not appreciate it.

“Yeah, that'll happen. We do our parties right in Zeta, but you feel it for a while. Here, let me fix you a new plate.”

Mohawk guy grabbed a new paper plate. Billy was going to hand him his old one, but when he picked it up, he saw half of it was gone. “Wha--?”

They heard a stomping noise from above their heads. “That'd be Buzz,” Ross or something said. “How dude sleeps on the roof without falling off, I'll never know.” Billy nodded, and absentmindedly tore another piece from the plate and stuck it in his mouth.

They were joined by a new member—a shorter boy with buck teeth, shifty eyes, and a backpack—which, Billy remembered, he always had with him. “Mornin', Rooster. Mornin', Goat.”

Ross—no, Rooster—waved a spatula. “Mornin', Packrat.”

Goat? Billy thought. Who the fuck is Goat? He put his hands on his head; all this confusion was not helping his headache.

That's when he felt the horns.