I looked at her with a very blank expression. I felt emotionally numb. “I sat through it all. But I still don’t get it.”
“I did tell you not to let her kiss you,” she crossed her legs and kicked the top one in some kind of weird rhythm, “didn’t I?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I wasn’t really interested in her thoughts on the subject. If it wasn’t for the fact that I felt physically listless, I would have stormed away. As it was, my stomach began to bubble, and I felt a hurl coming on.
I looked at Mary-Christine, and she nodded in the sure knowledge that she knew what was happening.
“Turn your head left.”
I did so.
“Throw up.”
Oh, boy. I did that, too.
It seemed to come from my toes, one huge gutful of everything I’d eaten that day, straight onto the beautifully manicured grass at the side of the bench.
“How did you know?” I asked, but Mary-Christine had already grabbed me by the arm and guided me to the path.
“We have to walk.” She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a can of what could have been cola.
I looked at it groggily. I still managed to walk, but began to struggle after a few moments; a headache was developing quickly, and I felt decidedly dizzy.
Mary-Christine opened the can, then forced it to my lips. “Drink. Trust me.”
I chugged the first mouthful, then almost spat it back out again. “It’s beer!” I protested. I had tried the usual American beer, but this tasted different; very thick, very creamy. I went to hand it back to her, but the gremlins inside my body had other ideas; for some reason, I suddenly decided that I needed it, for whatever purpose. I gulped it like the sweetest nectar.
Daylight, seventeen years old, and I was drinking BEER in public. In the arms of a cute sixteen-year-old girl, after making out with another one! Man, my life had changed.
“It’s the yeast,” Mary-Christine informed me. “We found it real good for settling you down after what you went through.”
I turned to her as I tossed the can into a nearby trash can. Bang center - three points. “What I’ve been through?”
She turned me towards the exit of the park. “That’s for another day,” With a shake of her head she closed the subject.
“No, no, you don’t,” I stamped my foot into the pavement and attempted a halting maneuver, but she just simply walked on, dragging me with her. She had some considerable strength in her small frame. “Ok, I’ll walk with you.”
“I’m taking you home,” Mary-Christine said simply. “There’s no time to explain now, it’s almost seven, and I have to get home. Mom will be pissed if I don’t.”
“Explain?” I asked, trying to get back into the script, but feeling overwhelmed.
“Tomorrow, be at my house at nine.”
“But tomorrow’s Saturday!” Although I didn’t like sports, I still kinda watched football on silent television as I played music, played computer games and vegged.
“You want me to explain, don’t you?” she grinned, and I lost all will to protest further. She was cute. And it wasn’t just the alcohol talking.
We walked a fair distance in silence, then turned the corner to her house. She did the same step up onto her path and turned.
This time her tongue slipped into my mouth much quicker than before, and it lingered. Mine snaked round hers like two eels in an oily bag.
Tomorrow, nine o’clock.
When I got home, I felt so exhausted; I fell asleep on top of the bed.
Mom came in when it had gotten dark and cajoled me to strip and get under the comforter.
No dreams.
Up like a lark at seven.
Mom gave me the weirdest look over my cornflakes, but just watched me leave.
Mary-Christine stood waiting by the gate when I arrived, just three minutes past nine, and with her infectious smile, I felt instantly invigorated. The family SUV stood in the drive, and we both got inside.
“Where are we going?” I asked, not altogether comfortable meeting one of her parents.
“Flagstaff,” she said as her mom approached with her handbag, ready for shopping.
“What’s there that’s so important?”
“Nothing really, you’ll have to wait and see.”
Oh, wonderful.
The next twenty minutes seemed like an interrogation. I sat in the backseat, and there were no lights trained onto my eyes, but it seemed like an interrogation all the same. Her mom smiled, but behind the façade, the questions were solid.
What subjects? What music? How old? What do I want to be? My majors? What college? Alan McCartney? Dorothy Squires? Guitar? My dad in Unicorps?
Boy, was I glad when we got to our destination in Flagstaff, and the SUV pulled up downtown at the old library.
I followed Mary-Christine inside and I quickly found myself at the microfiche section. She pulled a chair over so we could share a screen. It had been frustrating not being able to talk in the car, and I looked forward to some kind of explanation.
“Let me do it my way,” she said. I nodded, just happy with moving forward, no matter at what speed.
She selected our local paper, the Gregor Newsletter, and began to flash through the issues. Slowing down, she lingered on a headline.
Local Student Drowns in Fishing Hole
“March, 2010,” Mary commented. “Do you remember?”
“I remember it pretty well,” I said. “Quite sad really. Only child; Billy something. But he was two years above me, it didn’t mean much at the time.”
“William Reid,” she said. “The parents left Gregor just days after; seems they couldn’t take the media hype.”
The next headline.
Reid Family in Tatters, Head for New Life in Nebraska
“So what am I taking from this?” I asked.
“Just remember the basics facts right now; you’ll be taking a test later,” she grinned and spun the dial as the screen raced past my eyes again.
Drunk Teens in Highway Collision
I’d almost forgotten about that one. “Yeah, nasty business. Car went under a semi. If I remember correctly, they were in a bad way.”
“That’s one way to say it.” Mary-Christine spun the control.
Highway Crash; Parents Ban Press from Details
“The parents decided not to talk to the press in any way.” She put her hand on my knee. “The families both moved away immediately after the incident.”
“And what am I looking at here?” We were sitting very close, and her perfume had been blowing me away all morning. She had her hand on my knee. I looked down, her fingertips were literally twelve inches from my boner, and she wanted me to have cogent thought processes? “I’m finding it hard to concentrate.”
This was going to be a difficult morning.
At the time, it didn’t matter that they had been my parents. Just like Alan said about the amoeba thing…
I mean, if you’re rolling down the highway and see some dead deer off in the shoulder, you might think, “Aw, poor thing.” But, you’re not gonna pull over - shovel in one hand, rosary in the other - and give it a proper burial. If anything, you’d tie it to the roof of your car and cart it off to make venison. That’s how it is. Vampires see dead humans the way humans see road kill.
Except without the “poor thing.”
So we gorged ourselves on what had remained of Sybille and Harvey Cross. Alan even made it seem like a cool circle of life thing. Just like they’d brought me into my human life, their blood now transitioned me into my new form as a vampire. He’d gone so far as to call my mom’s blood “mother’s milk.”
We didn’t stop until we’d drained both corpses of every drop. You know how you get all tired and bloated after you’ve eaten way too much? It’s not like that for a vampire when we drink blood. I felt totally alive, more energetic, more fit than ever before.
And I was strong. Really strong. Alan and I got two big duffel bags that my family
used when we went camping. We put Sybille’s parts in one bag and Harvey’s in the other. I could lift them both with no problem. I could’ve held them over my head and thrown them like a mile down the street. But, Alan was being all sweet so he carried one bag and gave me the other.
We took them down to the lake and weighted the bags with heavy stones. And with not a word spoken, we threw them into the water and watched them sink.
Afterwards, we climbed up the cement incline under the pier and just kind of watched the water rippling under the moon. Out of nowhere I got hit with this overwhelming remorse, thinking how I’d never see my mother again, never hear any more of her lame advice. I started to cry then - hysterically.
Alan just leaned in until I caught another whiff of his sweat. Yeah, I was a vampire too now; but that stuff still worked on me. I went calm again. Super calm, to the point where I couldn’t figure out why I’d gotten so upset. Then he walked me home.
“It’s a new life for you, Mandy Cross. Don’t waste your time mourning the old one.”
Those were the words he left me with at my front door; I begged and pleaded but he refused to stay with me. He said it was important I learn to let go of my human “inclinations,” including the need for constant company. Whatever.
I spent the whole night all alone in the house my parents had been murdered in. Several nights, in fact, waiting for Alan to show up again. Without his sweat to calm me down, I was a wreck the whole time.
Alan did come back. But he wasn’t alone.
Hannah and Barton. I never knew their last name. According to Alan, all I had to know was that they were my new mommy and daddy.
The only thing they had in common with my parents was age. Both my parents had been blonde, tall, and thin. Hannah had stringy, icky-brown hair and was shaped like a muffin. Barton was thick, short, and bald. So much for the idea that all vampires all beautiful. These two were butt-ugly from top to bottom.
Alan moved them in like he owned the place. Oh - and of course he had an air-tight explanation for the whole thing.
“This is how vampire families are formed; you can ask Jackson if you don’t believe me, same thing happened to him some sixty years ago,” he said. “Hannah and Barton were both turned before they had any kids. Since vampires can’t procreate, when a young vampire ends up orphaned, couples like them just go in and take their parents’ place. Instant family!”
I didn’t like the idea at all. I didn’t like Hannah and Barton and I REALLY didn’t like Alan just assigning a family to me. It’s not like I was some lost puppy that you could just adopt out.
“I don’t want them here! This is MY house and I get to say who lives here.”
Alan treated it like it was totally no biggie. “Would you relax? It’s just for appearances! It’s not like these people give a shit what you do or where you go. You’re still a free agent, Mandy Cross; but you can’t be a seventeen-year-old, living alone, with no adult supervision, and not raise any eyebrows.”
“You’re worried about raising eyebrows?” I roared at him. “My mother has been in the PTA since I started Kindergarten! Everybody knows Sybille Cross. Everybody! I’m pretty sure when that little wart-looking woman shows up trying to impersonate her, someone will notice.”
He got all rude on me then. “Duh. Hannah’s not going to go around saying she’s your mom. You just need to invent a story that explains why your parents aren’t around. You can say they went to Africa to do missionary work for a year…and Hannah’s your aunt. People will believe it.”
“She doesn’t look anything like my mother, you ‘tard!”
Alan laughed, which made me feel totally stupid. “Every beautiful woman has an ugly sister. Trust me - it’s not that far-fetched.”
I could tell he’d already worked that whole lame story out in his head. That made me crazy irate, like Alan had planned this whole thing out the night he killed Mr. Stinky (remember - that’s my cat), and I was the pawn in his game.
Even though I was spitting-mad (like my mom used to say), I tried to be reasonable with him.
“Shouldn’t becoming a vampire come with some amount of independence? I mean, I can do anything I want now, go anywhere. To heck with sticking around this crappy town, going back to that crappy school. What does a vampire need with a high school diploma? Besides, I can’t be in this house anymore, Alan…it’s too…heavy…”
All that got me was another round of him laughing at me.
“C’mon, Mandy Cross,” he said, stepping up real close so I could smell him. “You don’t want to run off and be one of those weird nomad-vamps, no connections, no home base. That’s not a solid life; believe me - I know.”
“So, what? Those strangers you have squatting in my living room are suddenly my family now?” I pouted, big time.
“We all are. All the vampires in this community - we’re all family. I’m practically your brother now.”
I did not like the sound of that at all. I mean, I’d been waiting all this time just to get Alan’s tongue in my mouth. Even just standing near him made me crazy-hormonal. Forget Craig - Cami could totally have that loser. But Alan…he made my head swim.
Brother? I don’t think so…
Just to remind him that we were, in fact, not related, I stepped up a little closer to him. I hoped my vampire-sweat would affect him the same way his did me. I put my mouth right up to his and pressed our lips together. The second we had contact, I was desperate to get all of him.
He let me run my hand over his chest, then down to his pants. He let me undo the button and zipper and exhaled like he was excited when I dropped down to my knees. I didn’t even get to see it before he yanked my head back by my hair.
He was breathing hard even though I hadn’t even started yet. “I think I hear your mother calling you.”
I looked over and Hannah stood in my doorway. Like any guy who’d just got caught about to get a BJ, Alan went for the window and was gone in a flash.
I was pissed.
“What do you want?” It sounded more like a cat’s hiss than my actual voice.
Hannah came at me like an attacking lion. She smacked me so hard I rolled onto my side. Her eyes were red and ferocious. I may have been a vampire too, but I knew she could tear me apart if she wanted to.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, little girl.” Then she smacked me again.
The Myth Takes Hold
After another three cases, I sat and looked at the screen. “So there’s a pattern.”
“Very much so.”
It felt difficult to concentrate with Mary-Christine so close, but I did my best. I put my analytical brain in gear, knowing that while Mary-Christine constructed a case around Gregor students, she was also talking about Alan; my friend.
I narrowed my eyes, and put the facts together. “Okay, this is how I see it; teens come here, attend Gregor Academy, then if they die - which it seems there is a huge pattern of - the families leave in a heartbeat.”
Mary-Christine’s face lit up like a beacon, and like every dog that’s done good, I would have accepted a treat from her fingers.
“That is lesson one,” she said. “Now I’ve got to take you to the next level.” Mary-Christine stood up and dragged me to the reference section. She sat me down at an empty desk, and returned moments later with a thick volume: Encyclopedia Britannica, V-W.
“Can’t we use a computer?”
“Not today.”
She snuggled beside me and flipped the pages.
Vampire, Vampirism.
I looked at the page in disbelief, then at the solemn face beside me. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly.”
“It’s a novel, for goodness sake; Mary Shelley.”
“Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, Lyman,” she chided. “Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. But he didn’t write it just from his head. He took the idea from myths and legends, hundreds of years old. Read.”
I didn’t want to actually give the idea any credenc
e, but Mary-Christine sat beside me, all cute, and her leg was touching mine. All the way along the thigh.
So I read some more.
About the myth, the legends, the immortality, the curse, and the cures and protections.
The article went into Slovak and Russian legends of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, then some cases, the eighteenth century.
I sat there, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t denounce Mary-Christine as a nutcase, she was far too important for that, but I couldn’t exactly believe her, either.
“Well?” she asked. Her wide-eyed expression looked full of hope, expectation, but she did frown when I didn’t immediately take up her gauntlet.
I tried hard to come up with an argument that wouldn’t send her running away from me. Then it came to me in a flash of pure genius. “I’m not convinced.”
I sat for a second, half expecting her to storm out. But she smiled. “Ok, mister hard-to-convince skeptic. Let’s ramp this up a notch.”
This time we did go to the computer section.
“Tell me the only way to kill a vampire,” she said. “Come on, tell me. Let’s see if you’re paying attention.”
I easily remembered the encyclopedia articles; I really am a good student. “Wooden stake through the heart, head chopped off and never returned to the body, or complete incineration.”
Mary-Christine nodded her head. “I’m impressed, Lyman Bracks. Impressed.” She leant over, looked from side to side, and then gave me a kiss. I’d never had a kiss in a library. It felt kinda secretive, almost forbidden. I decided right away that I liked it.
She started into the internet, looking at a copy of the Manchester Review.
March 16th, 1996. Manchester, New England. Michele Newman Killed in a Car Crash with Two Other Teens.
Michele looked a kind of mousey sixteen-year-old.
“Pay attention, Lyman. When vampire families lose a member of the family publically, they can’t just pop up the next day saying, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake, all the witnesses were wrong, our kid actually made it through those bone-breaking injuries, and here he is, fit for school on Monday.’”
The next newspaper dated from 2005, Washington state.
Eugene Herald, July 23rd, 2005. Eugene, Washington. School Camp Tragedy: Six Killed in Cable Car Collapse.