I nodded ever so slightly. “She could be the one who did this to me.”
It was right there in front of me. How did I miss it? If blond girl was DOUBLEHELIX1178, she could be the key to my existence. Granted, I wasn’t sure what the Norse ritual had to do with anything, but the puzzle pieces were starting to come together. I may not have known her name or where to find her, but for the first time since I had been turned, I had a glimmer of hope. And if she was the source of the voices I was hearing (which I figured she was), she had to be close by. This thought sent a shiver down my spine, almost as much from excitement as it was from fear.
I turned to Malcolm. “What are you doing later tonight?”
****
It was a damp, chilly night. Malcolm wore a thick sweater and a purple beanie.
“I hope you have a bonfire planned,” he said.
“Want to have some fun?”
“That sounds pretty cryptic, but I like it!”
“Do you think you can get away for a couple hours?”
“Sure thing. Where to?”
“Let’s go to the woods. Grab your phone, a baseball, a bat, and your dad’s hatchet.”
“Are you planning on killing me or something?” he kidded.
“Don’t kid about that.” I tried to conceal a grave seriousness in my voice, but I know Malcolm picked up on it. He nodded and I flashed my most reassuring smile.
I gave him a light shove. At least I thought it was a light shove—I accidentally toppled him over.
“Ow! What the—!?”
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to knock you down!” I went over and helped him up.
“You’ve got to stop doing that,” he said. “You’ve got to stop being such a baby,” I teased.
“Yeah, yeah, just wait here a second while I get the gear.”
“Will do.”
“And don’t eat any forest creatures while I’m gone!”
“No promises!”
As he darted back inside, I took a minute to take stock of the fresh night air. I closed my eyes, for once enjoying my heightened abilities. I savored the tang of chimney smoke rising into the cold night three blocks away. A thin layer of silky fog had settled just above the treetops. I could taste the moisture in the air. The earth smelled rich and dark like bitter coffee, mingling with the aroma permeating from the bark of the trees. And, then, out of nowhere…
“Noah!”
Startled by the harsh whisper of my name, I quickly opened my eyes and turned to face the house.
“Malcolm, you scared—”
But there was no Malcolm. I glanced around. The bright moon shone, casting my shadow. I couldn’t see anyone nearby, but could it be…her?
A clanking sound emanated from within the garage. Malcolm had knocked something over in his effort to collect all the items I had requested. He was such a klutz. I laughed softly to myself. And then I heard it.
A giggle.
I swore it was a giggle. Distinctly feminine. It had to be her.
I spun around again, this time facing the woods. I peered as hard as I could into the darkness but I could see nothing. “Hello?” I called out.
“Keep it down!” Malcolm shushed me. He had just emerged from his garage, hands full.
“You’re going to wake up my parents!” he said.
“It’s nine-thirty.”
“They’re old.” Malcolm cocked his head to the side and wiggled his eyebrows. “Did you eat a squirrel while I was gone?”
I shook my head. “You really need some new material.”
“Whatever, when else am I going to get the chance to make bloodsucker jokes?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t call me a bloodsucker.”
“All right, all right, no worries! So where are we going?”
I peered into the quiet dark of the woods. “Just far enough in there that we won’t be bothered.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to play a game.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but right now you sound kind of like a serial killer.”
“Kind of like Dexter?”
Malcolm shrugged. “I guess.”
I smiled, gleaming fangs and all. “Cool.”
Malcolm just shook his head. “You really are a freak.”
With that, we began walking into the peaceful woods. I was still somewhat on edge, expecting to hear another ghoulish giggle at any moment, but the forest was still. Quiet. Almost too quiet.
After we had walked for a few minutes, I stopped and quickly scanned our surroundings. The trees had thinned out a bit but not too much. I couldn’t see a house or a streetlight in any direction. Perfect.
“Right here will work,” I said. “Okay, now can you finally tell me what we’re doing?”
“I thought it would be fun to play a little game called What Can Noah Do.”
“I like the sound of that! How do we play?”
“I thought maybe you could help me test my abilities.”
“Ooh! Abilities! What abilities?”
“For one, I’m really fast.”
“I think I remember you mentioning that. How fast?”
“Fast.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to record it so I can see.”
“Wow, narcissistic much?”
“Oh, come on! How else am I going to enjoy this vampire thing?”
“I don’t know, you tell me?”
“How often do you get to have a friend with super-cool vampire abilities?” A mischievous smile spread across his face. It was easy to appeal to Malcolm’s bad-boy side. Although he worked hard to keep up an angelic persona for his parents, deep down he really loved trouble. He reveled in the subversive. He enjoyed flaunting authority. He craved the forbidden. He probably would have made a much better vampire than I.
Without a word he pulled out his iPhone and readied the camera.
“I’ll tell you when to start. Oh, and stay in a wide shot!” I told him.
He nodded.
I jogged away from Malcolm until he was only about an inch tall. I didn’t have an exact plan, only to run fast for a short stretch and see what it looked like on video. I hoped Malcolm could keep up with me.
“Ready!” I called to him. I waited eagerly for his response.
“Okay, GO!” Malcolm yelled.
Without a second thought, I burst forward with all my power. The world flew by me in an astonishing blur, and the wind whisked past my ears so fast the roar was deafening. I felt like a casual observer taking a ride in this incredible body. Before I’d taken off, I had picked a point to focus on in the distance: a tree. I zeroed in my focus, so that all I saw was that single pine.
Before long, I had arrived. I came to a sudden, almost shocking halt. The earth beneath my feet formed a six-inch-high pile where I’d dug them in to stop. I gingerly stepped out of the ruts I had created and looked expectantly at Malcolm.
He was jogging toward me, waving his iPhone in the air excitedly. It was taking him forever to get over to me so I (slowly) jogged over to meet him halfway. By the time I got to him, he was nearly out of breath.
“You really should exercise more,” I chided.
“Who are you, my mom?”
“So?” I asked, motioning to his phone.
He straightened up and looked at me with wide eyes. “Dude.”
“What? What did it look like? How fast was I?”
“See for yourself.” He scrubbed back on the recording and handed me the phone.
I pressed play and watched in quiet wonder as a distant figure made a dizzying dash to a faraway tree. It looked like some kind of amateur special effect. “That. Is. Awesome.” Maybe I could get used to this vampire thing. Malcolm nodded. “Let’s see what else you can do!” he added excitedly.
Next up was the hatchet. I tried my hand at throwing it at a tree from fifteen feet away. I was going more for power than accuracy. The hatchet lodged itself in
the bark so thoroughly it nearly went straight through the pine. Mission accomplished! I turned to Malcolm. “You got that?”
“Heck, yes!”
I high-fived him. He winced as he pulled his hand back and shook it out.
“Oops, sorry.”
“No worries,” he said through clenched teeth.
I walked over and wrenched the hatchet out of the decimated tree trunk. This time I tried throwing it from thirty feet away, aiming at a different tree. Same result. And then from one hundred feet away. I couldn’t try it past a hundred feet because there wasn’t a clear path to a tree that far away, but I was pretty satisfied with my performance so far. It was time to move on to catching.
It was a dangerous prospect, asking Malcolm to throw the hatchet at me as hard as he could, but I had confidence that my armor-like skin would protect me. My reaction time guaranteed that I wouldn’t make any mistakes. Malcolm wasn’t so convinced, however.
“I promise you, it’ll be fine,” I reassured him.
“But what if you catch the blade instead of the handle?”
“It’ll still be fine, trust me.”
“I don’t know. I know you’re immortal and everything, but you’re not indestructible.”
“Says you!”
Malcolm shook his head anxiously. “Okay. Don’t come crying to me though when you’re bleeding out in the middle of the woods.” With that, he wound up and threw the hatchet lightly.
It landed on the ground five feet in front of me. I picked it up and walked it back to Malcolm. “Come on, that was weak!”
“It’s dark! How are you even going to see it?”
“I can see just fine, Malcolm. Just throw the damn thing!” Once again I took my place about fifteen feet away. “Now give it to me hard!”
Malcolm shrugged. Without further hesitation, he hurled the hatchet with all his strength. It came flying toward me as though it were moving through water, slow and steady. Catching it was a breeze.
“See? Told you!”
“I stand corrected,” Malcolm acquiesced. “Let’s do it again!”
So we did. Again. And again. And again. Each time like the last—Malcolm letting fly with all his might and me catching each throw perfectly. Frankly, I could have gone all night, but Malcolm reminded me that he was, after all, only human. The baseball experiment would have to wait.
“I’m blaming you if I can’t stay awake in math tomorrow.”
“You hardly ever manage to stay awake in math as it is.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. It’s much more fun to blame you though.”
****
I’d started showing up later at school. There had been a time when I was punctual. There had been a time when I thought my punctuality would translate into a good attitude, thus into good grades, and thus into a good college. It was funny how much my perspective had changed once I realized that it all seemed pointless.
As I strolled up to the oppressive brick structure that was W. T. Whitehaven High School, I spotted Malcolm making a beeline toward me. It wasn’t the fact that he was rushing at me that struck me; it was the look on his face. His mouth was tight, drawn, and his eyes bore a mixture of trepidation and fire.
“Hi, Malcolm,” I greeted him with uncertainty.
He didn’t respond, intent on reaching me as fast as he could. My brow furrowed in confusion. He was making me nervous. The Malcolm who was almost upon me now was not a Malcolm I’d ever seen. When he finally reached me, he stopped for all of two seconds before he said, “Let’s walk.” Then he started into a hurried pace away from the school. It took me a couple paces to catch up to him.
“Whoa, what are you doing? We’re going to be late.”
“Just keep walking.”
“Where are we going?”
“Just far enough away.”
All at once he stopped and whirled around, checking our surroundings for company. Finding none, he finally spit it out.
“Was it you?” he asked in a harsh whisper.
“Was what me?” I was getting tired of so many weird questions all the time.
“The girl.”
“Excuse me?”
“If it was, just…please don’t lie to me, Noah. I just need to know.”
“Need to know what? I have no idea what you are asking me!”
“I’m asking you about the Arborville girl!”
“WHAT Arborville girl?!” We both took a good long moment and stared at each other, trying to figure the other one out. What was he getting at? Was this some sort of test? After a minute the fire faded from Malcolm’s face. I guess he found whatever answer he needed in my total ignorance, but I wasn’t satisfied since I still had no idea what was going on.
He let out a huge sigh, shook his head, and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I just had to know,” he said calmly.
“Would you quit speaking in riddles already?”
“I heard it on the radio this morning. A girl from Whitehaven, who was in Arborville, went missing late last night—a girl about our age.”
“So?” I still wasn’t putting two and two together.
“So…”
Suddenly Malcolm turned red with embarrassment. That’s when I figured it out. My jaw dropped open. “You thought I did it.”
Malcolm ran his hand through his sandy hair, scratching the back of his head like he always did when he got into trouble. “Well, I didn’t really think anything…but you know, you were out late last night in those woods, not that far from Arborville. Come on—you’re a vampire.” Malcolm paused and there was an awkward silence. “I hoped it wasn’t you, and I’m so glad it’s not!”
“Wow, Malcolm, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Come on, Noah. I’m sorry. Don’t be like that.”
“Be like what? Like my best friend just accused me of murder?”
Malcolm lowered his eyes.
“Just because I’m a vampire,” I continued, “does not mean that I’ve lost all sense of self control. I still have a conscience and a soul.”I think.
“I know. Listen, I’m sorry I even thought it was a possibility.”
“Thanks.”
“But you know what this means, right?”
“I’m not a sociopath?”
“It means there’s a serial killer in Whitehaven.”
“You think this is connected to Esther Jones? What makes you think the missing girl is dead? Maybe she just ran away,” I suggested.
“Nah, man, you’ll see. She may not be dead yet, but she will be. I have a feeling about this.”
I didn’t know how he knew, but he seemed pretty convinced. He flashed an apologetic smile, and a subtle sadness drew across his face. Then he halfheartedly slugged me on the arm and turned to head back to school, just as the alarm bell tore through the fresh warm air.
****
During chemistry, I couldn’t help but be distracted. I sat at the back of the class and took some half-assed notes to avoid scrutiny while I wallowed in my gloom.
I was a burden to my mother. Paige didn’t love me. My best friend didn’t trust me anymore. What was the point of all this? Then there was school in general. I mean, right now the whole point was to avoid unwanted attention by keeping up the charade of a normal routine, but what next? College? A career? Let’s be real, what would a vampire do with a career? I was facing an endless future with nothing to aspire to. Nothing to strive for. What kind of eternity was that?
I used to be conflicted about the fact that I didn’t know what to do with my future. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. I’d never had dreams of becoming a surgeon or a movie director or a business mogul. So it wasn’t like I would have to give up on some big aspiration I’d had since second grade. On the other hand, I always thought eventually I would find my way. Instead, I had found my way to eternal damnation. Not exactly anything I had imagined.
Through it all though, I had dreamed about Paige. In a small town like Whitehaven, it
wasn’t uncommon for high school sweethearts to end up in the local nursing home together. So while we were still pretty young, it didn’t feel ridiculous to dream of a future with her. Of course, that was before now.
I was busy moping when I heard Celia chirp in my ear. “So have you thought about it?”
She caught me off guard.
“Thought about what?” Death? Tattoos? Loss? Sunscreen?
“Please, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on, Celia, thought about what?”
“Gee, Noah, cranky much?”
“Just tell me what I’m supposed to have thought—or not—thought about.”
“The dance, you moron!”
“You mean prom?”
Celia let out a dramatic sigh. “Of course prom.”
“Oh.” With all the recent insanity, my plans to ask Paige to the prom had kind of fallen apart.
“It’s ONLY a month away!”
“I know.”
“So aren’t you going to ask Paige?”
I clenched my jaw. “I don’t know anymore.”
Celia gave me a look of disbelief. “Knock it off with the cool guy act. It’s not becoming.”
“It’s not an act!”
“Sure.”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”
“You mean like looooooooove?”
“You are ridiculous, do you know that?”
“Why? Because I called you out on being in looooooooove?”
“No, because you say ‘looooooooove’ in the first place.” She rolled her eyes at me, and then lowered her voice conspiratorially.
“Seriously though, you’re asking Paige, right?”
“I want to, but she just wants to be friends.”
“She doesn’t really.”
“Did Paige tell you that, or is that your own conclusion, drawn from your incredible psychic abilities?”
“Just ask her!”
“I would, but if we’re just friends I don’t know if she’d want to go with me.”
“How long have we been friends, Noah?”
I didn’t know where this conversation was going, but it made me uncomfortable. “Um, a long time?”
“Correct. And how long have Paige and I been friends?”
I waited for her to answer, feeling like whatever I said would be wrong. “Even lon—”
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