Chapter Eight
1
Ivan leaped up the staircase to Chad’s room in a single bound. His hand crashed down upon the doorknob and twisted vigorously... locked. He shook the door up and down with great vigor.
“Chad, Chad buddy, let me in, it’s Ivan, you know, me, Ivan Harvey,” he said. Ivan knew that something was seriously erroneous if Chad locked his door. Chad almost never locked his door. He was one of those hippy types, you know, those folks who believed that all doors should stay open so anyone and everyone can find their way in. Ivan rolled his eyes at the idea and shook the door harder, this time with both his hands.
“Go away!” Chad’s timid and scared voice came from behind the door, sounding small.
“It’s me, Chad!” Ivan proclaimed. “I’m your best friend. I’m here to help.”
“Something’s wrong with me!” Chad wailed. “You can’t be around me right now! You just can’t! It is dangerous, Ivan, I am crazy, and you cannot come in. Just go away, Ivan, go away.”
Ivan could hear Chad’s voice echoing the same words over and over again. “Go away, just go away! Go away! Just go away!” Each time, the words seemed to fade, with no meaning, into the darkness.
Ivan ran down the stairs, slowing his pace when he reached Chad’s parents.
“Going so soon?” Chad’s mother asked.
“Yep, I have school tomorrow, ma’am. I just wanted to drop off the homework assignments for Chad,” Ivan said with a tip of his hat, slowly backing out the door.
“Thanks for stopping by, Ivan, you’re a real friend to Chad,” his father called from the living room.
Yeah, sure, Ivan thought, a real good friend to him. Such a good friend, in fact, that he will not let me in the room when he’s gone crazy!
Ivan went around back, toward Chad’s bedroom window. It was up high, but thankfully, there was a huge oak tree right beside it. Ivan had sneaked into Chad’s bedroom on more than one occasion. Mostly it was because Ivan’s parents did not want them hanging out, and Chad’s parents couldn't know or they would say something to Ivan’s parents about it. So, they sneaked Ivan in and hung out together. Sometimes they would watch horror movies together because Ivan could not watch them in his house. But, that only lasted a while because Chad ended up not being a huge fan of horror. It scared him. Chad made Ivan promise not to tell anyone that. He was really self-conscious about that stuff. Therefore, he made fun of it at school, and people thought he was real tough.
Ivan made his way up the old, wrangled oak tree that stood in front of Chad’s bedroom window. After getting quite a few scrapes and what would soon be bruises, Ivan reached Chad’s window. He meant to knock on the window, but he lost his balance and his hand scraped down the window instead. Ivan caught himself and watched Chad jump and cup his hand over his mouth to prevent from screaming. Ivan, startled by Chad’s actions, stopped himself from falling out of the tree. Once he'd caught his balance, Ivan found himself amused by the fact he'd been so startled, after all, Chad was acting very strange before Ivan decided to sneak up to his window.
“Hey! It’s me, Ivan! Let me in!” he demanded, not exactly liking the raindrops that pelted him.
“I’m not letting you in,” Chad screamed at the top of his lungs. Ivan, worried that Chad’s parents might overhear, bit his cheek and started to talk calmly. After a few minutes – that seemed very long to Ivan, considering he was out in the rain for them all – Ivan sweetly talked his way into Chad’s room.
“Dear God, Chad,” he exclaimed, once finally inside. “I coulda died of pneumonia before you let me in here!”
“Sorry,” Chad muttered, but the apology did not mean much to Ivan. He could have sworn he was half-dead and partially frozen. He couldn't feel his fingertips, and his feet were ice blocks. Sorry did not make the team that time.
“Ivan, something’s real wrong with me, I swear it. I don’t know what’s going on, but something ain’t right,” Chad said, he was talking extremely fast. Ivan almost did not know what to do, but decided that talking about whatever it was that was wigging Chad out, was the best way to go about that whole thing.
“Okay, Chad, I want you to take a deep breath… there you go. Now, tell me exactly what is going on with you. You have to remember to be very, very, incredibly calm about it all so as I can understand it, okay? Can you do that, buddy?” Ivan asked, very worried about his friend at that point. Chad nodded vigorously.
“Good, now go ahead and start,” Ivan said, leaning back in Chad’s recliner that sat in his room, right in front of his school desk.
Chad told Ivan everything, starting with his odd sickness and continuing with every, last, detail down to his fingernails growing and turning yellow.
“Oh my God,” Ivan said, feeling his eyes become wider than they had ever been before... even wider than they'd gotten when he watched his first horror movie and tried to climb up the backside of the couch during some scenes.
“I know something is wrong with me, Ivan, I just don’t know what,” Chad said, gripping Ivan’s hands in his. “You have to help me, Ivan, help me, please!” The words echoed in Ivan’s ears as he came to terms with what was happening to his best friend, Chad.
“You know what’s wrong with me, don’t you?” Chad asked, leaning back a little ways. “I can see it on your face, you know. You feel terrified, and worried, and saddened, and maybe a little intrigued.” Ivan felt all those things, and Chad knowing that that was what he was feeling, made Ivan more sure of his horrifying suspicion.
“I think I know,” Ivan said, his voice barely detectable.
“Oh God! Ivan, what’s happening? What’s become of me, Ivan?” Chad asked, tears rolling down his face, hands trembling and gripping at the top of Ivan’s shirt, his fingernails scratching Ivan.
“You-you’re becoming a vampire, Chad, a full blown vampire,” Ivan admitted, slowly backing away from Chad, half way expecting him to freak out, half way suspecting that he’d kill him if he didn’t back down.
Ivan barely heard Chad’s scream. Ivan thought about that moment in E.T. when Eliot first saw the alien. That scene where Eliot tries to call to his mom, but only a whisper comes out. That is what Chad sounded like.
“Do you remember what happened last night?” Ivan asked, hoping to jog his memory and find out who did this to him. If Ivan’s theory was right, Chad was a mere half vampire until he killed someone. There could be hope for saving him. At least, that was what Ivan read about in books.
“Last night… last night… I-I- I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary happening,” Chad said, once he finally got a grip on himself.
“Nothing weird happened after we talked?” Ivan’s brain was twisting around, and fitting stuff together like puzzle pieces. Two vampires escaped Ivan’s stake and ran off into the night. One vampire had attacked Chad last night. There was no doubt about that in Ivan’s mind. But, the question that really bothered Ivan was not who this creature was but how many other people it got to. How many people in this town were going to cause Ivan even more worry? He decided that, for now, he was going to be aware of everybody, and worry about his friends getting changed or bitten. Latianna instantly came to mind. He needed to protect her. He needed to get her away from the madness that he foresaw was about to occur. He desperately felt the urge to warn her immediately. She may be the only one that would not think Ivan crazy. Even if they had known each other for just a small amount of time, she was his closest friend, and the one person on the face of this earth that seemed to attain the remarkable ability to understand him. Yes, she had to believe him. He would get to her as soon as possible. But for right then, Ivan had to figure out what to do with Chad... half-vampire Chad.
“After we talked?” Chad asked nervously, hugging his pillow tightly to his chest and rocking back and forth on his bed.
“Mmhmm,” Ivan said, urging him sweetly to talk to him, after all it was the only way to
figure all this out, and find out a solution.
“We-we didn’t talk last night, Ivan,” Chad replied, biting his nails.
“Yes we did! Think hard Chad, I called you, freaking out that there were vampires in Riverwolf Pass. I told you all about it, you called me crazy. I told you to lock your windows. You promised you would! Chad! You have to remember!” Ivan said, trying to keep the fear away from his eyes. He didn't want Chad to think that he didn't have everything under control. But try all he might, he knew that Chad could see the fear hiding behind his eyes. He knew that Chad could sense the fear as well, which only caused Ivan to have more fear rise up inside of him.
Chad shook his head slowly and made a funny rumbling sound. For a moment, Ivan feared he would barf all over his room. Lord knows he was pale enough to.
“That didn’t happen Ivan! Stop trying to freak me out. This is not the time for games,” Chad said. Ivan could tell that Chad wanted to punch him. He could not blame Chad either, he was scared… they both were scared.
“Chad, buddy, I’m not playin’ with ya. This is real. You’re a half vampire, and we have to do something about it,” Ivan said, taking Chad’s hand while concocting up a plan within his mind.
2
Mr. White came into the house with his hands away from his body and his palms faced upwards. Gracey almost fainted at the sight of his blood. She gasped and told him to get a move on to the bathroom when she saw it was dripping all over the dining room floor.
“W-what happened?” Gracey asked, trying her best not to look at the blood. She could tell that the cuts and scrapes were not that deep, but boy, were they bleeding like a stuck pig. Gracey knew it was a cliche phrase, but she could not help it from coming to mind, growing up in the south and all, attending a pig pickin' every summer of her life.
“Goddamn raccoon attacked me,” Mr. White said, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, clenching his hands. “I didn’t kill it, it got away. One thing is for sure, it will not be there long. I am gonna poison it! Tomorrow morning, just as soon as I can get around to it, that sucker is going to be dead as a doornail!” he proclaimed and made his way to the bathroom to clean up.
Gracey cleaned up the blood on the floor and then walked into the bathroom to help her fiancé clean up his battle wounds as he so insisted on calling them.
“You hungry?” Mr. White asked, just as soon as his arms were fully cleaned and bandaged. Gracey, having lost her appetite to the sight of his blood, shook her head and downed a few aspirin to take the edge off. She felt faint, and just wanted to sit down and watch some relaxing TV on the big screen in the living room.
Mr. White popped in his TV dinner, and they sat in front of the TV, watching in complete silence, before the phone rang and Alice came on the local evening news.
3
Ivan thought quickly and soon devised up a plan. He cleverly snuck Chad out of his bedroom and out of the house completely. God only knows how exactly Chad got past Ivan’s parents and into Ivan’s bedroom, where he flopped down on the bed immediately.
“I’m starving,” Chad whined, truly feeling ravenous.
“I can’t feed you. If you drink blood you become one of them,” Ivan said, with a horrified expression on his face.
“But, I thought I already was one of those vampire creature things. I was bitten by one, wasn’t I?” Chad asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. A book Ivan was holding hit the floor with a heavy thud, then all was silent. Ivan’s eyes suddenly closed and an expression of fear shown on his face. Not fear of the half vampire that sat on his bed in his room, but fear of his parents walking in and finding the book that was sprawled out open on the floor, lying just ahead of his feet.
“Ivan, it’s time to go to bed,” he heard his mom call from down the stairs. He knew that her yelling to him was a sure sign that she was not feeling up to walking up the stairs and telling him in person to hit the hay.
“Okay mom,” Ivan called back and swiftly swooped up the book that had fallen on his floor.
“What are you reading, Ivan?” Chad asked, inching toward Ivan so he could read the title.
“Anything I can find on vampires, which happens to be this book. Most of my material comes from the library,” Ivan admitted. He looked at Chad and felt tears rise to eyes. “I'm sorry I don't have more,” Ivan said, a rock rose to his throat... he knew this feeling. It was pure guilt.
“Well, what does it say? Don’t you have a vast knowledge about this sort of stuff?” Chad raised both his eyebrows when he asked this.
“All books are different. But, from what I can assume about your behavior is that you have control of yourself. You are only a half vampire until you make your first kill. Oh God, Chad, you haven’t killed anybody yet have you?” Ivan asked with a horrified expression across his face.
“Yeah, a jar of peanut butter, Ivan.”
“Good! Well, just do not kill a person. I am going to get this figured out. I have to talk to someone, I’ll be back before too long,” Ivan said, tossing on his raincoat again and opening up his window.
“You’re not leaving,” Chad said, snarling just a little. The snarl soon turned into a whimper and a short sobbing noise escaped Chad’s lips. “You can’t leave me alone. I'll go crazy. I don’t want to kill someone, Ivan, you can’t leave me alone. You just can’t do that to me,” Chad wailed, almost so loud that Ivan thought his parents might overhear and think something to be wrong.
“Shh, just calm down, Chad, calm down,” Ivan said strongly, but not harshly.
“Ivan, please explain to me what's going on. How, how do I become human again?” Chad asked, his tears slowing and his voice becoming more solid.
“Okay, you've been bitten by a full vampire, which now makes you a half vampire until you kill somebody.”
“Right, I got that part,” Chad said, picking at a hangnail.
“Once I find out who the head vampire is and kill him, you and all other half-vampires roaming around will be turned back to human... if they're full vamps, it'll be too late. They're stuck like that forever, no hope of becoming human ever again,” Ivan explained, trying to keep a level head about himself. All he could think of was Latianna's safety.
“So there's a head vampire? Only one in the entire world? Oh, God, Ivan, how will you ever find him, much less in time?”
“No, there are several head vampires. They travel in packs, families, a group, and one of them is the pack leader so to say. So he should be right here in this town. Somebody among us is a head vampire. It could be anybody... It could be any number of the hicks that live around these parts, off in the woods, preying on innocent children, coming to town only at night. This is going to take a lot of thinking... we're gonna need a lot of coffee.”
“Please hurry,” Chad wailed, not bothering to hold back his tears anymore. “We're all doomed.” The words echoed in Ivan's ears, and once again he thought about Latianna and her safety.
“I know what to do with you to keep you out of trouble,” Ivan announced, thinking that he could not possibly bring Chad along and put Latianna in danger like that. It was not that he did not trust his best friend, Chad. Ivan knew that Chad would not ever hurt Latianna on purpose or anything. But, Chad was a vampire, and Ivan could not take that type of risk with Latianna. His heart lurched when he thought of her in pain. He never knew one could care so much about another human being until then.
“I have to save her,” Ivan muttered to himself. But Ivan knew that before he could confront Latianna, he needed more information. He needed to go to the library. Maybe if he hurried he could catch somebody who was working late... really late... it was worth a shot.
“What?” Chad asked, not quite catching what Ivan had said.
Ivan took Chad’s hand, opened his closet door, and locked Chad inside, knowing that he knew better than to bang on the door and make a scene. Ivan took off out the window before Chad could say a muffled word of protes
t to him and soon Ivan found himself pulling into the library parking lot. There was one car there, and Ivan felt a tiny bit of hope spark in his heart. He ran up to the sliding doors and began to bang his fists against them, yelling for someone to come to the door.
A smile crept across Ivan's face when he saw Mr. White approaching the door. He smiled and waved as Mr. White motioned for Ivan to head to the back door, which Ivan quickly did. He waited there for a few seconds as Mr. White hurried along. Ivan shivered in the cold and goosebumps covered his body as the wild wind howled in the night and dried up dead leaves brushed against his legs. He heard a key in the door and it squeaked open as Mr. White appeared in the doorway.
“Come in, quickly,” Mr. White beckoned. “If someone sees me letting you in, I could get fired.” Ivan quickly came in and Mr. White shut the door with a heavy thud.
“What are you doing here so late?” Ivan asked Mr. White, knowing that normally he wasn't the one to stay late.
“I should ask you the same question,” Mr. White retorted, raising one eyebrow at the boy.
“I need a book,” Ivan stated, thinking quickly, wondering if Mr. White would call him crazy if he were to tell what all he'd been through that night.
“Don't lie to me, Ivan, I can see it in your eyes there is something else. Not to mention we already found you a good sized book today.”
“You'll call me crazy,” Ivan warned.
“So would you if you knew why I was here,” Mr. White admitted.
“Very well, I'll tell you if you'll tell me,” Ivan offered. Mr. White agreed and Ivan told Mr. White about meeting Alice and another person in the graveyard. He told about Chad. He told everything, all while Mr. White stood there and listened, expressionless.
“Hmm,” Mr. White said after a careful moment's consideration.
“You think all those books have gone straight to my head, don't you?” Ivan asked worriedly.
“No, no I don't, Ivan,” Mr. White said slowly.
“You don't?” Ivan asked, shocked.
“You and I are and a lot alike, Ivan. We think alike. I would've done the same thing in your shoes. Yep, I like you, Ivan, I like you a lot.”
“Uh, thanks, I like you too, but uh, I'm afraid I don't understand your thinking,” Ivan admitted. Mr. White chuckled.
“My thinking is just the same as your thinking, Ivan.”
“You think vampires have come to Riverwolf Pass too?”
“Yes, yes I do. And if there was any doubt in my mind, what you just told me put it out.”
“Why are you here, Mr. White?” Ivan asked, his eyes wide with anticipation.
“They found Alice's body.”
“Oh God!”
“She was drained of blood, there were wounds on her neck, bite marks, Ivan, four of them. These vampires have four fangs, two on top where the canine teeth are and then two on the bottom right below them. Her skin was tighter on her body than usual and she had suffered severe burns. The police say that's what she died from, but they still cannot conclude how she obtained the burns.”
“Sunlight, she died from the sunlight,” Ivan said, his heart thudding. He thought back to what Chad had said about Alice burning in the sun... he'd been right. Stupid arrogant Chad had been right about Alice. How did that happen?
“Now if what you say is true, I think it's a safe bet to say that Kurt was the one with her and he's still out there. Our town is still in danger,” Mr. White said, taking Ivan's hands.
“You're right. Now, hopefully we can stop this. All we have to do is kill the-”
“Head vampire, I know. If we do that, Chad will be changed back because he is only a half-vamp. But, if we say Kurt changed Chad, that means Kurt is a full vampire because he fed. So God knows how many full-vamps we do have on our hands,” Mr. White said, having to remember to breathe.
“First thing is first, who changed Kurt?”