Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire

by Heather Swain

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked and I shook my head.

  “Vampire,” he said as if it were no big deal. I tried to keep a straight face.

  “And you?” I asked Tarren.

  “A faerie, duh,” she said.

  I looked at Avis.

  “Shape-shifter,” he said.

  “You mean like a werewolf?” I asked, and fought back a smile because he seemed like the least menacing person I’d ever met.

  “What?” he asked, his mouth in a tight, angry line. “A brother can’t be a werewolf?”

  “No, no.” I shook my head and held up my hands. “Far be it from me to say what you can and can’t be. And you?” I turned to Helios. “Let me guess,” I said. “You’re the Greek god of the sun?”

  He frowned at me. “Many generations removed, but technically, yes.”

  “And is everyone in this place also in anger management?” I asked.

  “No,” Tarren said. “Only the ones who get in trouble. Like us.”

  I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or dive in and ask more questions. On the one hand, telling me they were vampires, werewolves, faeries, and Greek gods was capital C crazy, but on the other, it was fascinating. What would make a group of kids act like this? Boredom, drugs, too many bad novels and movies? Then again, they seemed so serious about it all.

  “So?” Tarren said, staring at me with those intense green eyes. “What are you?”

  I decided at that moment to go undercover because the truth was, I hadn’t had this much fun in months but I knew if I was going to stick it out with them, I would have to play along. “I’m a…” I glanced from person to person. Avis crossed his arms and stared hard at me. Johann frowned while I hesitated. “Werepire,” I blurted out.

  “A werepire?” Tarren said, drawing back. “Sounds like a word I would say.”

  “It’s a mix,” I told her, as if I were offended. “My mom’s a shape-shifter and my dad’s a vampire, so I’m a werepire.”

  They all looked at one another. “I’ve never heard of that,” Tarren said.

  “Can we interbreed?” Avis asked Johann.

  “What powers do you have?” Helios asked me.

  “None,” I said. “Because of the cross-breeding. I’m like a mule.”

  “Ah,” Helios said as if it all made sense now. “That’s probably why your parents haven’t told you about the Council. They probably thought it would never be an issue for you.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “And you really broke your boyfriend’s windshield with an actual baseball bat?” Avis asked.

  “You mean instead of sucking his blood or ripping his heart out with my claws?” I asked, enjoying myself immensely.

  Suddenly Johann sat up and said, “Wait a moment. Vampires can’t procreate.”

  “Don’t you have parents?” I snapped.

  “For societal purposes only,” he said. “They did not birth me.”

  “Well,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. My parents had me and…oh crapsicle!” I yelled and started digging in my pockets for my phone. “What time is it? I was supposed to be home for dinner at six.”

  “It’s past six o’clock,” Helios said.

  “Crap!” I hopped up from the table. “I’m so sorry. It’s been great meeting you all.” I checked every pocket on me and then realized that my phone must be in the khakis I left in the car. “But my mom is going to kill me. Not literally,” I said and laughed a little. “Because werewolves don’t kill their own children, right? Thanks for letting me join you!” I called over my shoulder as I hurried out the door.

  chapter 6

  running through the parking garage, I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but every time I turned around, I only saw shadows lurking. When I hit the street, the sun had started to set and the streetlights had come on. It was later than I’d thought and I knew that my parents would be livid. I ran all the way back to Illinois Street, glancing over my shoulder again and again because I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following me. But the only person out was the homeless guy who’d made his bed of cardboard on a park bench across the street.

  When I got to Gladys, I dove into the backseat. Sure enough, my phone was in the pocket of my khaki pants, but since New Josie didn’t believe in planning ahead, the battery was dead and I was screwed. “Crap!” I yelled as I scrambled into the front again. I jabbed the key into the ignition and Gladys did her usual wheezing and barking, but she wouldn’t turn over. “Come on, baby. Come on!” I pounded the steering wheel. I turned the ignition again and got the same sad response. “You can do it, Gladys. If there’s ever a time I need you to go, it’s now.” I tried and tried and tried, but Gladys just wouldn’t start. Defeated, I pounded my forehead against the steering wheel and yelled, “Crapitty crap crap!”

  I jumped when someone knocked on my window. My first instinct was to scream and my second instinct was to pound my fist down on the door lock. I looked out the window, expecting to see the homeless guy, or worse, but instead I only saw a looming dark shape.

  “Yosie?” I heard. “Are you alright?”

  I cranked the window down—another advantage of having a crapmobile, the windows actually rolled down even if the car won’t start. “Johann?” I asked, peering into the darkening night.

  He stepped aside so light from the streetlight came into my car. “Are you having car troubles?”

  “Uh, yeah, but what are you doing here?” I was really creeped out then. “Did you follow me?”

  He leaned down and stuck his head in my window, but then he reared back. “What’s that horrid smell? Has something died in your car?” He leaned forward again, sniffed, and licked his lips.

  “No, it’s just not very clean, but that’s beside the point! What are you doing here?”

  “I left after you. I live nearby. I heard you cursing in the car so I thought I’d see if you needed help,” he said. He stared into my eyes again. “Would you like my assistance?”

  I snorted. “Johann,” I said firmly. “Stop looking at me like that.” I was about to roll up the window, but then I realized that other than finding a pay phone that worked or a public bus, I was out of options. I sighed. “Do you have a phone?”

  Johann scoffed. “One of those pocket contraptions? Never! It’s a crime what they cost. But you can come to my house and call from there.”

  Maybe I should have found the guy scary. After all, there was the whole delusional vampire thing to contend with, but at that moment my choices were to walk the deserted streets alone or go to Johann’s house and call my mom. “How close do you live?” I asked.

  “A few blocks,” he said, pointing south. “In Lockerby.”

  It might not have been the smartest thing to do, but I got out of the car and walked with Johann anyway. There was just something about him that seemed utterly harmless and besides, if there was any neighborhood downtown that was safe and full of people, it would be Lockerby, so I figured I’d be okay. If he tried anything funny, I could run up on somebody’s front porch screaming bloody murder.

  But nothing happened. We walked silently through the quaint little streets, passing row after row of small wooden bungalows. I’d always loved this neighborhood because it looked like something out of a different time and a different place. The houses were small and packed tightly together, not like the gargantuan McMansions taking over the urban sprawl oozing from the borders of Indy. The whole area, with its white picket fences and blooming azalea bushes, was just so dang cute. I couldn’t imagine anything bad ever happening there. And then I wondered if Johann was like me. Maybe he was bored with his sweet little life and pretending to be a vampire was his out, just like quitting the cheerleading squad and becoming an angry blogger was mine.

  I followed Johann up the creaky front porch steps of his house. “After you,” he said and held the screen door open for me.

  The inside was nothing like I would have expected. Everything
was straight out of an old home ec textbook. Totally Leave It to Beaver. The carpet was mint green. The couches were low and covered with plastic and the walls were covered with hideous paintings of big-eyed children lost in alleys. Weirdest of all was a giant stereo with an actual turntable and humongous speakers taking up one wall of the living room. Soft instrumental music, maybe a bossa nova, hummed along in the background. Johann stopped and held out his hand to me. Awkwardly I laid my hand on his icy palm. He tried to pull me close, but I kept my distance as he tugged me across the carpet, stepping in time to the music. “The telephone is in here,” he said as he danced us through the living room and dining room, into the kitchen where I promptly wriggled away. God, he was wacko.

  He flicked on a round fluorescent light to reveal orange and brown linoleum and a seriously old-school green fridge, like the one my grandparents had on their farm before they moved to assisted living in Florida. The phone was even more of a relic. It was mounted onto the wall and had a rotary dial. I couldn’t hide my fascination.

  “Whoa!” I picked up the clunky handset. “This thing is an antique!” I started dialing while I chuckled. “It’s going to take me five minutes just to call my mom.”

  Johann leaned against the spotless yellow Formica counter. He looked tired and pale and I wondered if he could be sick. Maybe he had some horrible disease and pretending to be a vampire was part of his coping mechanism.

  My mom picked up on the third ring. “Mom, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t my fault,” I said before she had a chance to get mad.

  “My dad’s coming to get me,” I told Johann when I hung up. “But it’ll take about fifteen minutes. We live in Broad Ripple,” I explained.

  “Do you mind if I have something?” He motioned to the fridge. “I’m famished.”

  “Go right ahead,” I said and tried to suppress my grin. Guess vampires eat just like everybody else.

  As he crossed the kitchen to open the fridge, his mother rounded the corner and we both jumped. I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or her. The way she looked from me to Johann and back to me, I got the feeling that Johann didn’t bring home many girls. But I was too weirded out by her whole Donna Reed meets Morticia Addams vibe to say anything. The woman had a black bouffant hairdo with a tiny pink bow nesting on top of her head, which matched perfectly her crisp pink and white checked shirtwaist dress. And the weirdest part—she was actually wearing a little white apron tied in a neat bow around her waist. If it weren’t for her pale skin and gray half-dead eyes, she would have looked like she just stepped out of a 1950s sitcom. No wonder Johann was so messed up.

  “Johann?” she asked, her voice pitched an octave above any normal person. “Did you bring home a friend?” Then, I swear to god, she leaned forward and sniffed me!

  I stumbled back until I was pressed against the countertop. Did I reek or something? Yes, my clothes had been festering in my gym bag for a few weeks in my backseat, but I couldn’t possibly smell that bad.

  “Hello, Elaine,” Johann said from behind the refrigerator door. “This is Yosie.”

  Since good manners had been drilled into me since I was a toddler, I stuck out my hand and smiled politely. “Nice to meet you. I’m Josie,” I said, exaggerating the J.

  She reached for me shyly. When our hands met, I nearly jumped. She was freezing! Worse than my grandma who wore a cardigan even when it was eighty degrees outside.

  I glanced back at Johann who had pulled out a white carton from the fridge and was getting a glass from the cupboard. “She’s in my group and she had car trouble, so I told her she could use our telephone,” he explained to his mom as he pushed back the edges of carton’s spout.

  His mother let go of my hand and continued to stare at me, perplexed. “But…” she said and paused. “Is she…?”

  “Huh?” Johann asked, distracted by the stubborn spout that wouldn’t open. He glanced at her and then, sensing her discomfort, he shrugged. “She’s half,” he said. Then he looked at me. “What did you call it? Vampwere?”

  A surprised laugh popped out of my mouth. He was going to put on this show in front of his own mother! And she was going along with it? Wow. I pressed my lips together. “Werepire,” I said, and the blood rushed into my cheeks because, no matter how much I might have changed recently, I still hated to lie to adults, an Old Josie trait I’d probably never lose.

  His mother closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, then the tip of her tongue poked out and caressed her lips as she stood perfectly still two feet from me. Bizarre! I would never complain about my mom again.

  “Her mom’s a shape-shifter and dad’s a vampire,” Johann said, finally loosening the spout. “Did you ever hear of that before?”

  His mother had closed her eyes and didn’t seem to be listening, but still I sputtered, “Oh, well, I…” embarrassed by how far this had gone. It was one thing for me to make up stuff to a group of weirdo kids I’d just met; it was another to lie to someone’s mother, no matter how odd she might be.

  Elaine opened her eyes. Her pupils had nearly overtaken her green irises and she rocked back and forth as she stared at me. I wondered if she might be crazy. Maybe Johann had some kind of hereditary mental illness. I turned to him because his mom was freaking me out. “You know…” I started to say but then I stopped when I saw him pouring what looked like dark, thick tomato juice out of the carton into his glass. The smell, though, was not tomatoey. It was something else vaguely familiar. A metallic scent that curdled my stomach. My mind reeled, trying to place that smell, trying to put it all together, the color, the consistency, the slight stench of raw meat lingering in the air.

  Then it hit me. My head spun and my stomach squeezed. I tried to push the thought away but suddenly it all made sense and I couldn’t deny it any longer. He was pouring blood into that glass. This was real. It was not a joke. Johann was a vampire. His mother was a vampire. And she wanted me for a snack!

  chapter 7

  i grabbed onto the counter to keep my balance as I inched my way toward the kitchen door. Mrs. Bloodsucker stood on the threshold, eyeing me suspiciously. I scanned the room for some way to defend myself, but I didn’t know what I was up against. Was anything I’d heard and seen and read about vampires real? Did they have superhuman strength? Could they break my arm with one squeeze? Could they fly, turn into bats, and read my mind? Or had I lost my mind? Behind me, on the wall I saw a clock with a crucifix above the numbers. Jesus slumped against the cross. Was that a joke? Did they keep it for a laugh? Some sort of ironic pop art? Oh look, we’re vampires and we have a cross in our house? Har-dee-har-har. Who cared! Short of a silver stake, which I didn’t happen to have in my pocket, I had no other chance for escape.

  Just then Johann took a long swig of his bloody drink. He winced. “Ugh, animal blood. Pig, cow, chicken, all mixed together, bleck! Just never the same as a fresh kill, you know?” He held the carton out to me. “Is this what your dad drinks?”

  I saw the words pasteurized and fresh flash in front of me. For a minute I doubted myself. Was I imagining all of this? Was he really just drinking some kind of juice or was it milk and I’d gone nutty? Johann drained the last dregs from his glass. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and sighed. My fear must have been palpable because he cocked his head to the side and studied me for a moment. Then he glanced at his mother.

  “Elaine!” he shouted. “Snap out of it!”

  I whirled around in time to see her lips curling back, teeth exposed, a look of determination in her black flashing eyes. I ripped the clock off the wall and raised it above my head, ready to slam it into this vampire mama’s chest, but Johann stepped between us. He grabbed Elaine by the shoulders and gave her a firm shake.

  “I finally make a friend and this is how you act?” he shouted at her.

  She crumpled to the side and whimpered. When she looked up again her eyes were gray, her mouth was pressed into a tight line, and she seemed contrite. “So sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s j
ust that…”

  Johann turned to me, shaking his head. “How mortifying. My apologies, Yosie. She doesn’t get out much.” Then he stopped. “What are you doing?” he asked, pointing to the clock held high above my head, the long white cord trailing to the wall socket.

  I lowered it. “I, um, I was just…” I pulled it around in front of my face. “Will you look at the time? My dad is probably here, so I should, you know…” I set the Jesus clock gingerly back on the counter as Elaine shuffled out of the room. My heart pounded against my rib cage like a bird trying to escape, which was exactly what I needed to do. “I can show myself out,” I said, stepping away from Johann and inching toward the dining room, trying not to make any sudden moves. All I had to do was get to the front door. Then I’d take off running down the street until I found my dad and I’d promise I would never do anything bad ever again because if this was what I had to deal with after bashing in Kevin’s windshield, then it really wasn’t worth it after all.

  “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t show you to the door?” Johann asked, looping his hand through the crook of my arm. I cringed away from him, afraid that he might want a little nip, but he seemed uninterested as he walked me back through the house, which was eerily quiet. “We aren’t faeries, here. We do have manners!” He tossed his head back and laughed loudly.

  “Why?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me, despite how scared I felt. “Are faeries impolite?”

  Johann rolled his eyes. “You did meet Tarren, didn’t you? Dreadful manners I’m afraid. But what would one expect from woodland creatures?”

  My heart had slowed down and by the time we reached the porch I was beginning to question what just happened in the kitchen. Johann was so nice and calm. Maybe I’d misconstrued everything. We stood under the weak bulb attracting flitting moths. “Your mom…” I started to say.

  A pained look crosses Johann’s face. “Elaine?”

  “She is your mother, right?”