by Mia Archer
I figured I didn’t need to go to the office or get a detention on top of everything else I had to worry about right about now.
“Something wrong?” Zach asked, swooping in and putting his tray down right where Luke’s head was. Luke shook his head like he was trying to clear it of the school pizza and fries, not exactly a healthy meal on Zach’s part, that’d just traveled through his head.
“Just waiting on Stacy,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Huh, haven’t seen her today,” Zach said.
I didn’t bother to ask him whether or not he was looking for her. I knew enough about how the mind of the teenage male worked to know that he’d probably been keeping an eye out for her because he enjoyed watching her walking the hallways. The male gaze would be enough that he was a reliable source about whether or not Stacy was here.
“Fucking great,” I growled. “Where the hell is she?”
“Where the hell is who?” Nicole asked, sliding into her usual seat.
“She’s worried about Stacy for some reason,” Zach said, talking around the fries he was stuffing in his mouth.
"You mean you have no idea where she is?" Nicole asked. “That’s weird. I thought the two of you were inseparable.”
"That's exactly what I mean," I said. "I haven't seen her at all today. Usually she’s waiting for me at the front entrance.”
"There's something going on here," Nicole said. “Spill.”
"Why would you think there's something going on here?" I asked, suddenly not wanting to pursue this line of questioning.
“Because Stacy missing a day of school isn’t the end of the world. Does this have anything to do with… The kind of stuff that happened around homecoming?" Nicole asked.
Now Zach was leaning forward. He seemed very interested. Interested and maybe just a little terrified.
Which was fair. The last time a bunch of weird stuff started going down he'd been right in the middle of it. Where "right in the middle of it," meant he'd had his soul sucked out by a necromancer who was trying his best to take over the school in a ridiculous attempt to be popular.
"Is there something I should be worried about?" Zach asked. "Like should I get the hell out of here or something?"
He hit the cafeteria with the kind of glance that said he didn't care for the idea of being around here if more supernatural stuff was going down. I couldn't blame him given his previous brush with the supernatural, but I also didn't have time to make him feel better about his chances in this latest supernatural dust up.
"There are a bunch of vampires hiding out somewhere," I said. “Haven’t found them yet, but I’m pretty sure they’re nesting somewhere in the school.”
"Vampires?" he asked. "Like bloodsucking sparkling vampires who don’t like garlic or Christian iconography?”
"Vampires don't sparkle!" I snapped.
"Well of course they don't," Nicole said. "Because they’re…"
She stopped. Looked at me. I knew what she was about to say. Vampires didn’t sparkle because they weren’t real. Only if I was sitting here telling them vampires were real and roaming the halls of our high school, well there was a good chance vampires were real and they were roaming the halls of our high school sucking the blood of anyone stupid enough to get caught in their fanged crosshairs.
"Does this have anything to do with what happened to Danielle last night?" she asked.
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.
"So like, she was a vampire?"
"She was attacked by a vampire," I said. "And then that idiot Stacy decided she was going to go after her even though it would've been better if she'd just waited around and…"
I stopped. Took a moment to read the mood at the table. It didn't look like either of them were in the mood to hear about anything having to do with vampires or an evil vampire spirit invading someone's body. So I sighed and shut my mouth.
"A vampire killed her, yes," I said.
"I wondered why they canceled practice tonight," Zach said.
"They canceled practice tonight?" Greg asked as he placed his tray down.
School pizza. The cafeteria offered healthier food for student athletes, but clearly he hadn't availed himself of that option today. Coach would have a heart attack if he could see it, but he worked in another building so it's not like he could keep tabs on his swimmers at lunchtime.
"Gwen here was just telling us about how Danielle was a vampire, and that's why they’re draining the pool. She probably got vampire juice all over the pool when she dropped in there."
"Weird," Greg said, picking up his pizza and taking a bite seemingly without a care in the world. "I never knew chlorine could kill vampires. It can sure as hell mess up a suit over time, but killing bloodsuckers?"
"Yeah, who knew?" Nicole asked.
"Damn it," Zach said. "I don't want to be around the school if there are vampires here! I already had to deal with this supernatural shit once, and I'm not doing it again!"
"Come on," Nicole said, waving a breadstick at him. "You're not really thinking this through.”
"I'm not?" he asked.
"Totally not," Nicole said. "Vampires can't come out during the day. Everyone knows that."
"But what if they’re like those sparkly vampires?" he asked. "That guy with the goofy Farrah Fawcett hair could come out during the day. He went to a high school, which was kind of creepy now that you think about it considering how old he was…”
"Don't be ridiculous," Nicole said. "Vampires don't sparkle."
"How do you know that?" he asked.
“Because Gwen just said they don’t sparkle,” she said, using an impeccable bit of logic that appealed to me. "I figure if she's saying something about the supernatural then it's true. Right?"
She looked to me for confirmation. I didn't want to give up anything more about the supernatural than I had to, mostly because there were huge holes in my own knowledge that might potentially get them killed if they took me at my word, so I shrugged.
Besides, I figured if Zach thought he wasn't in any danger during the daytime that might make it easier for him to go through life. It's not like he was going to be able to escape school, after all. I didn't think the office would see "potential vampire infestation" as a legitimate excuse for skipping.
Though honestly, who knew? Considering all the craziness that went down in this town, I guess it wouldn't be all that out of the ordinary if the schools were in on some of the craziness in addition to the local constabulary.
"I'm going to have to stop by the supermarket when I get out of school today," Zach said.
"What are you talking about?" Nicole asked.
"I have to get some garlic!" he said. Then he got an even more concerned look. "Do you think I need to get like the real thing? Like actual cloves of garlic? Or would I be able to get some of the minced stuff or powder or something?”
Nicole turned to me as though she expected me to actually have an answer for that ridiculously stupid question.
"I'm not talking to you guys about this," I said. "If you want to know anything about vampires then go watch The Lost Boys or something."
"You know for a creature of the supernatural yourself, you're not being all that helpful about telling us what we should or shouldn't be worried about,” Greg said.
"Because you don't need to be worried at all," I said.
"How do you know?" Nicole asked.
I was in an awkward spot. I didn't want to explain to my friends that part of the problem was vampires were only going to go after the most attractive people in the school to add to their coven, and everyone else was going to be so much food.
The fact of the matter was the people sitting at this table, with maybe Stacy as the exception when she actually sat here, probably wouldn’t meet the standards of a bunch of undead bloodsuckers trying to add pretties to their coven.
Sure there was the possibility some of them might end up as food, but that was a remote possibility since I di
dn’t see those vampires sticking around for longer than it took to add a new pretty.
The danger of being turned into a human Twinkie were pretty remote, basically.
"Look," I said. "Just stay away from school after dark. They mostly come at night, mostly, and if you're home safe and sound you don't have to worry about anything."
Zach looked at me as though he was having trouble believing it, but Nicole let out an almost imperceptible sigh. Like she’d actually been worried about the whole vampire thing, for all that she was trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal.
I shook my head and tried to concentrate on my food and not on their stupid questions. Idiots. All of them. And I still had no idea where Stacy was.
21
After School
"Do you really think you're going to find her out here?" Luke asked.
"I have no idea what I'm going to find," I said. "But I know that I have to look for her somewhere. She’s out there, and I'm worried."
Anyone suddenly not showing up when there were vampires working the school was bad. The person not showing up being my girlfriend who’d had contact with the vampires? Well that made me want to go on a rampage and ferret out every undead bloodsucker I could find.
“Maybe you'll get home and there’ll be a message on your answering machine or something," Arnold said. “Don’t you all have answering machines here in the future?”
I rolled my eyes. "How many times do I have to explain the concept of a cell phone and texting to you guys?"
"At least one more time," Luke said. "Sorry. But the idea of you carrying around a little communicator like Captain Kirk is wild."
"Because it's not a little communicator like Captain Kirk," I said. "I've explained this to you before. They don't flip up anymore. That kind of cell phone design is like nearly twenty years old."
"I always told you those were communicators," Arnold said, a triumphant note to his voice.
"And you were totally right," Jake said. "Good for you. Now please shut up."
"Whatever," Arnold said. "You're just mad that you lost a bet."
"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, checking my directions as I reached a cross hall. I was also checking to see if there were any vampires in that cross hall, but the coast was clear.
"I was sure people were using those things to communicate with each other," Arnold said. "It's the only thing that made sense. The way they held them up to their heads and spoke into them. These guys thought I was crazy. They said there's no way phones could work without a cord like that."
"You guys," I growled.
"What?" Jake asked.
"I keep forgetting you're from a time before anyone even knew what the Internet was. Let alone from a time when everyone had the Internet on their phones.”
"I wish we had the Internet back in the day," Arnold said with a wistful sigh.
Wistful sighs always sounded odd coming from ghosts considering they couldn't breathe. Or rather that they didn't have to breathe. They were still more than capable of making human sounds that were focused around breathing though.
"Why's that?" I asked, and then realized where this conversation was going even before I finished asking, and regretted asking.
"Well duh,” Jake said. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to steal porn rags from your dad's nightstand?"
"I found it some in a hollow tree in the woods back behind my house," Arnold said. “They were a little soggy, but they got the job done. Sure the pages were stuck together which was kind of gross, but the sogginess from the moisture helped with that oddly enough.”
“I could’ve lived a happy life not hearing that,” I muttered.
“We had access to bulletin boards you could dial into,” Luke said. “But even then the only good stuff you could get was stories and ASCII porn.”
“ASCII porn?” I said.
“Yeah, pictures that are put together by using text. Sort of like a mosaic with type,” Luke said.
“And you actually jerked it to that back in the ‘80s?”
They all stared at me with the sort of grin that said that was a question I would’ve been better off never asking in the first place. I rolled my eyes.
"Would you guys please shut the fuck up?" I growled, trying and not doing a very good job of purging those images from my mind. That was a bit of unspoken ‘80s history that was going to be stuck with me forever, damn it.
"What?" Arnold asked.
"Just shut up," I said. "You might treat me like one of the guys, but there are some things I don't need to know about you."
"Whatever," Arnold groused.
“Shut up," I said, coming up to the gym. "I need to be able to think."
I couldn’t see in there, but I could hear the sound of cheer practice going on and I knew if Stacy was in the building then she was in there. Though I was almost afraid to look. I’d gone the whole schoolday without seeing her, but that could be her avoiding me. She wouldn’t avoid practice.
"What makes you think you're going to be able to do much thinking with what's going on in there?" Jake asked, sticking his head through the wall to get his own look at cheer practice. He pulled back out with a goofy grin. "Oh yeah. There's some good stuff going on in there as always!”
“I need to get a look at this!” Arnold said, starting to wiggle his eyebrows as he moved to stick his own head through the wall.
I reached out with tendril of the old death magic and slapped him a couple of times in his ass which hadn’t gone through the wall yet. He yelled and tried to float away, but I wrapped tendrils of darkness around him and pulled him close.
I felt a strange pulsing as that magic surrounded him. It was the same thing that happened every time I had a spirit that needed to go to the other side in my clutches, but it was somehow more insistent now when I definitely didn’t want to be pushing Arnold to the other side.
Almost like taking over for my dad had been enough to make that magic stronger. More insistent on doing what it was intended for no matter what I wanted it to do. I fought the urge to pull him to the other side, and finally those tendrils let him go.
"Holy shit Gwen," he said, rubbing at the spot where the tendrils had wrapped around him, for all that ghosts couldn’t actually feel pain. "What the hell was that?"
"That was me getting pissed off,” I said, not mentioning the bit about having some control issues ever since taking over for dear old dad. “Remember that the next time you decide to make an off-color joke, got it?"
"Got it," he said. "Damn."
He glared at me, but I knew he wouldn’t stay mad for long. After all, aside from my father and the other two of the three stooges, I was the only other person he could talk to. Well, me and Stacy. Assuming I found her.
I figured if she was in the gym then Jake would've said something when he stuck his head through the wall. He was fond of looking at her, after all, and he wouldn't have been able to resist making some sort of crack.
"I really wish she was in there," I growled. "I don't know why I'm even bothering to come out here to her practice. If she wasn’t anywhere to be found today then why would she come to practice at the end of the day?”
"What are you talking about?" Jake asked. "Of course she's in there!"
I stopped in the process of turning and walking away. My eyes went wide. I whirled back around to face Jake.
"She's in there?" I asked. "Don't mess with me on this, or I swear…"
More tendrils of death magic rose up all around me. The meaning was clear. If he’d decided to mess with me then it was going to go very poorly for him.
"I swear!” he said. "She’s totally in there doing the whole cheer thing. The new chick in there is pretty hot too."
A cold chill ran down my spine. The new chick. The cheerleading squad had tryouts in the spring, Stacy had gone on about it and how weird it was going to be that she wasn’t doing the trying out this year since we were graduating, but we weren't close to Spring. If there was a
new chick in there cheering then she was either an alternate who'd been called up, or it was somebody who'd figured out another way to weasel her way onto the squad without having to go through tryouts.
Or at least she hadn't gone through tryouts in this decade.
I peered around the gym entrance. ure enough, there was Stacy looking beautiful as she did her thing. But more important than that was the other girl. The vampire from before. The one who'd been beating up on that geeky vampire.
Veronica.
"What the fuck is she doing in there?" I growled.
“You talking about Stacy?" Luke asked, pushing more of his body in and making an exaggerated motion with his head. Up and down to let me know exactly what he was doing with regards to my girlfriend’s body.
I couldn't help but let out a thin smile at that display. He could eat his heart out. It's not like he had a chance of getting with her considering his current deceased state of being, and it's not like he would've had a chance with her were he still alive. He would’ve been way too old at this point to get with a teenage girl if he was still alive. At least not a teenage girl of Stacy's caliber. Not unless he invested heavily in some Apple stock or something back in the early ‘90s when it wasn’t worth shit and then held onto it until it wasn’t.
Though of course no amount of money would’ve gotten him what he wanted from her considering she was into the ladies. She was all mine, thank you very much. At least she’d been all mine, but it was up for debate now whether or not that was still the case.
"Stop leering," I said. "And I'm not talking about Stacy. I'm talking about that vampire bitch!"
"Which one is the vampire bitch?” Luke asked.
“Since when can vampires come out and play in the middle of the day?” Arnold asked.
“Since I told you to shut up,” I said. “And she’s the one with the dark hair near the front! Veronica? Remember?”
“Oh, her,” Luke said. “She looks different dressed in modern clothes.”
“She is kind of hard to miss now that you’ve pointed her out though,” Jake said.