by ID Johnson
Lucy opened her mouth to say more when the bathroom door opened. I turned to see Jessica standing behind me, a sympathetic look on her face. “Hey, you guys. Mr. Horton sent me to check on you. Are you okay?”
The tears were long since dried up, as Lucy’s fake tears could come and go at will. “Yeah, we’re coming,” she said quietly. “Just a minute.”
Jessica nodded and headed back to class. Lucy went over to the sink and splashed some water on her face. “We are not done talking about this,” she said to my reflection.
“I know.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know!”
She spun and headed back to class and I followed, wondering how in the world I was going to get myself out of this one. If Elliott found out—or more importantly, if Aaron did—we would all be drinking the Kool-Aid again really soon, and I just wasn’t ready for that. No matter how mind boggling it was knowing what I knew, it was better than being oblivious.
Lunch was just as uncomfortable as the rest of biology had been. Lucy kept wanting to ask me stuff, and I kept silencing her with my stare. Finally, just before it was time to head to class, Emma said, “I don’t know what the big deal is. So, he faked his death.” She popped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth and shrugged her shoulders. “It all goes with the drug cartel idea I had earlier.”
I stared at her. “You remember that?”
“Sure,” she replied. “A few things have come back to me. He probably didn’t want his folks to be disappointed in him.”
“Emma…” I began, but then I remembered I’d promised Elliott not to say more. “Okay. Just… we need to keep this to ourselves, all right? I mean, I think the authorities will catch him anyway.”
“Okay,” Emma agreed.
“No, not okay,” Lucy protested, looking from her to me. “When are you going to tell her the truth?” Her voice was low, but her eyes were stern.
“I’m not,” I replied. “She doesn’t want to know the truth.”
“I already know the truth.” Emma gathered up her trash and put it in her sandwich bag.
“See?” I asked, hoping Lucy would drop it.
Instead, she growled at me. “What about Jessica’s house?” she asked. “Is there any reason why we couldn’t talk about it there?”
“You mean other than Jessica being there and Emma not?”
“I have my ways of discussing things without people knowing what I’m talking about. You’d know that if you didn’t keep shushing me.”
I tended to disagree with her, but I didn’t say so. “Fine. We can try it.”
“Great. I’ll see if she wants to go over some stuff for cheerleading practice tomorrow after school. Does that work for you?”
I made sure I understood what that had meant and then nodded. “Sure.” Tomorrow was Tuesday, and while I had piano lessons on Thursday afternoons, I would be available the next day. Even though I was the worst piano player in the world after five years of lessons, my mom insisted I not be a quitter. I wished Elliott could brainwash some musical ability into my head.
“Great,” Lucy repeated. She gathered up her trash and stomped off toward the trash can.
I looked at Emma who shrugged again. “She seems to be taking this information about Jack very poorly.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed, not sure what else to say.
“You think she’d just be happy he’s not really dead.”
I opened my mouth but closed it. There really was nothing that needed to be said. I gathered up my trash as well and headed toward the receptacle, Emma behind me, thinking we’d get ahead of the crowd. Lucy was already long gone. It was going to be a fabulous afternoon, I just knew it….
Chapter 12
Jessica Filbern lived about two blocks from the school. Her parents worked in a neighboring town and her younger sisters went to their grandma’s every day after school, so we’d have the house to ourselves. While we really did need to use her garage (which had been transformed into a game room of sorts but had a lot of unused space) to practice our jumps and cartwheels, it should also be a relatively safe place to have a discussion, if Lucy and I could find a way to talk without giving away too much information to Jessica. She was a cute blonde with curly hair, super tall, and while she did just fine in school, she was a little bit of a ditz, which should serve our purposes.
“Jess,” Lucy said, once we were in the garage and stretched out, “would you mind getting me a glass of water?”
“Oh, uh, how about a bottle?” Jess asked, one arm wrapped in front of her body as she pulled it back into a stretch with her other arm. “My mom doesn’t like it when I dirty up the dishes.”
“Perfect,” Lucy smiled. Jess returned the gesture and went into the house. I looked at Lucy’s water bottle sticking out of her backpack and raised an eyebrow. “It’s warm,” she replied.
I stifled a laugh. “Okay—quickly. Yes, Jack is a vampire. No, I don’t know how he got that way. Yes, my sister is a vampire hunter, and so are her friends—Elliott, Christian, Jamie, Eliza, Hannah, Meagan, and Aaron. I can’t tell you anything else, because I don’t really know anything else. Elliott said if I told you he’d get in big trouble, and he’d have to come up here and take away our memories again.”
“Wasn’t it Hannah who you said did that the first time, though?” Lucy whispered as we heard footsteps coming back.
“Yes,” I replied quickly as the door opened.
“Here you go,” Jess said, handing Lucy a room temperature bottle of water.
“Oh, thanks,” she said. “You didn’t have any cold water?”
“Oh,” Jessica shrugged, taking it back and heading inside again. Lucy rolled her eyes.
“Yes, Hannah did it last time, but Elliott can do it, too. He did it to me once before. I’ve seen him do it to other people. At school. Last Monday. He convinced everyone we were all happy even though Jack had just died and so did Drew.”
“Is Drew dead?”
“Yes!”
“How do you know?”
I had to think about that. I wasn’t sure. I mean, I was sure I’d asked if she was a vampire before, but I think Elliott told me Jack wasn’t either. “I don’t know,” I admitted. But then… Drew hadn’t been cremated. I was just about to say that when Jess walked back out with a cold water bottle this time and handed it to Lucy.
“Oh, uh, Jess, could I have one, too?” I asked.
Jess huffed and turned around to head back in as Lucy took a long swig of the water, presumably to make it seem like she’d actually wanted it.
I kept talking. “Look, I think this business is pretty serious, Luce. He said that Christian spends a lot of time taking down posts where people seem to know things they shouldn’t know. And he’s also told me before they send people over to erase people’s memories who post that stuff.”
“Christian seems like a real nerd,” she said, setting her bottle aside and continuing to stretch.
I remembered what Elliott had told me about him the other day. “I’ll say,” I agreed. “But seriously, if you want to keep your memories, keep your lips zipped.”
“Okay,” she said, more of an acquiescence than anything else. “It’s just… I keep having weird dreams.”
Jess was back. I took a deep breath and blew it out as she offered me the water. “Oh, this is really cold,” I said. “Do you happen to have any that are more like, room temperature?”
“Seriously?” Jess asked, but she took it and turned around and went back in.
“I won’t be able to think of anything else to tell Jess,” I said quickly.
“Me neither. Yeah. Bad dreams. About vampires. And your sister. I wonder… I mean… is Jack really killing all of those people?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. For some reason, I hadn’t asked Elliott the day before. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I didn’t want to know. “I hope not,” was all I could say.
A warm bottle of water was thrust in my gen
eral direction, and I looked up to see irritation written all over my friend’s face. “Thanks, Jess. You’re the best.”
Lucy cleared her throat as she slid down onto the ground in a near split. I knew she could go all the way down, but she was warming up. I followed suit. I wasn’t quite as limber as her, but I needed to work on it. Jess began to stretch her arms, likely glad we seemed to be letting her stay and practice now.
“Hey, I was just thinking,” Lucy said coming up to standing and switching legs, “you should ask your dad if that guy at work could tell him if that other guy really does drink a lot of tomato juice. I mean, if your dad says that he’s acting totally weird, maybe he’s got some sort of vitamin deficiency. You know?”
I knew. I wasn’t exactly sure how I knew, but I did know. She wanted me to ask Elliott if Jack was killing all of those people. Maybe we could figure out a way to talk in code from now on so I could keep my promise to Elliott and still let Lucy know stuff. And then… maybe she could get Emma on board, and she could be back in the loop, too.
“That’s a good idea,” I replied. “Maybe I’ll ask him tonight.” I decided to go a little bit deeper into my split and regretted it as my hamstring screamed at me.
“Tomato juice is so disgusting,” Jess said, and then she launched into a discussion about her favorite kinds of juices. Lucy and I did our best to tune her out, and I lost track of what she was talking about altogether until I heard her mention homecoming.
“What did you say?” I asked, suddenly interested.
“I said… doesn’t it stink that homecoming isn’t until almost spring break this year? It’s the last basketball game of the season. I’m used to it being around Valentine’s Day. I sure hope Jason Bronson asks me. He’s such a hottie.” Her mouth kept moving, and I slipped back into my mental coma. I did think it stunk that the dance was so late in the year but only because I, too, wished a certain guy would ask me out.
“I’m sure someone will have a Valentine’s party,” Lucy said, flapping her arms around like she was getting ready to do something really difficult. There was plenty of room in the garage for us to do whatever jumps we wanted and to do what little gymnastics we knew. I really wished I knew how to do a back handspring but had never learned. Lucy could do a walkover but not fast enough for it to be considered a handspring.
“A dance is totally different than a party, though,” Jess went on as Lucy took a few running steps and launched into a perfect cartwheel.
“Nice job, Luce,” I said, thinking there was no way in the world mine would be anything like that.
“Thanks,” she replied, standing. “I’m so sick of all of the guys at school anyway,” she muttered, coming back over to where she’d started. “They’re all so immature.”
“Not Jason,” Jess protested. She spent the next five minutes telling us why he was so awesome while Lucy and I practiced toe touches and pikes. When she was finally done, I decided it was time to try out my cartwheel.
“Wish me luck,” I said, and taking a few hurried steps, I threw my hands down on the ground and brought my feet over. It ended up being a sort of round-off, though not really round, and when I landed, my foot slipped out from under me, almost knocking me over. “Well, that was graceful.”
Lucy laughed at what I said, not my technique. “You just need to practice.”
“For sure,” Jess agreed, and then she tried one that ended up looking a lot like mine.
“Not bad for a week before practice even starts,” Lucy offered.
We practiced for another half hour or so before calling it quits and moving inside to watch TV for a few minutes before my mom pulled up to get Lucy and me. Mom had offered to give her a ride home. “Thanks a lot for letting us practice here,” I said to Jess as I grabbed my backpack and headed out the door.
“Anytime,” she said waving back at us. I couldn’t help but look up at the roof. I didn’t see anything, and I hadn’t heard anything while I was there, and since it was a ranch-style home, I felt like I would’ve known if Elliott had figured out what we were up to, but I knew we still needed to be cautious. I realized Lucy was right, and she and I were smart enough to speak in code and know what the other person was talking about.
On the way to her house I decided to try my theory, even though my mom was jamming to some Amy Grant tune on the oldies Christian radio station. “So… I’ll check into that stuff for class tonight and let you know.”
“Awesome,” Lucy said, nodding. “I’m sure I’ll rest a lot better if you can figure out the answer to that one problem that really stumped me.”
“Me, too,” I agreed.
“What class is that for?” my mom asked.
I decided it would be better if only one of us answered, so I waited. “Biology,” Lucy replied, leaning forward like my mom may as well know everything. “We had such a difficult lesson today,” she continued. “Human anatomy!”
“Ugh, that does sound hard,” my mom agreed. And actually, it wasn’t even a lie. Mr. Horton had covered the digestive system today—though Lucy’s answer also fit with our conundrum. Was Jack even a human anymore?
We pulled up outside Lucy’s house, and she said, “Thanks a lot, Mrs. F.”
“No problem, Lucy. We’ll see you later, dear.” My mom pushed the button that opened the slidy door, and Lucy jumped out. We saw Mrs. Burk waving from the front porch, and my mom closed the door and pulled away. “That Lucy sure is a sweet girl,” my mother mused.
“I concur,” I replied, looking carefully at her roofline. I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but she did have a large chimney which was situated close to her bedroom. Was it possible that’s where the hunter who’d been eavesdropping had been positioned?
“I heard from your sister today,” my mom said as I slid between the seats to take the front passenger one.
“Oh? How is she?”
“She’s doing well,” my mom said, but her voice seemed a little tentative, like there was something she didn’t want to tell me. What else was new? “I think… I think she might be happier somewhere else, though. I think she might not stay in Kansas City forever. It seems like this problem with Aaron is worse than I thought, and I think there’s… a lot going on otherwise as well.”
I didn’t let my mom know that Cadence and I had already talked about this twice. I figured she didn’t need to know that I was aware of more than she suspected. “Oh,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Well, I guess she just needs to figure out what makes her happy.”
“I guess so,” my mom said. I could tell, though, that something heavier was weighing on her mind, and I imagined she also knew about Jack, probably more than I did. My mom looked a little older than she had the last time I had really stopped to observe her. “I just hope… she is happy with this new situation.”
“Yeah, me, too,” I replied and then gave my mom a small smile. “It’s Cadence, though. I’m sure she’ll figure it out. She’s always good at everything.”
That got my mom to give me a genuine smile, and I was glad I was able to bring that out of her. She had to be worried; I was worried, and I didn’t know half as much as she did.
We pulled into the garage, and I told her I had some homework and headed upstairs. It wasn’t a complete lie, but the work I needed to do would only take a few minutes, and I needed to make a call.
I waited until my mom was safely in the kitchen working on dinner before I dialed Elliott’s number. I was very disappointed when he didn’t answer, though. I left him a message to call me and then grabbed my laptop, thinking I’d get my history out of the way before he called me back.
It wasn’t until after dinner, when I was sitting in my room looking at more news reports about the carnage down south, that my cell phone rang. “You just can’t leave me alone, can you, lil girl?” he joked.
I laughed despite the fact that I’d found some pretty graphic pictures of some of the bodies, ones I didn’t really need to look at. “I guess not,” I replied. “Sorry
to interrupt.”
“It’s okay. What’s going on?”
“Well, uh,” I began, not sure how to pose my question, “I just… Jack. I wanted to know about Jack. How is he capable of doing all of this? Has he killed all of those people by himself?”
“Cassidy,” I heard in his tone that he wasn’t happy with my digging, but he also wasn’t surprised. “I told you to leave it alone.”
“Actually, what you really told me was not to talk to anyone else about it.” Maybe that wasn’t completely accurate, but I thought it would do as an interpretation. “Look, I’m just trying to understand. It seems like a pretty basic question, doesn’t it? How can someone who was such a good person kill so many people?”
He was quiet for a few moments, and I couldn’t tell if he was just thinking or getting away from other people, though I couldn’t hear anyone in the background this time. Finally, he said, “There are a whole bunch of theories, but I think it’s safe to say that this isn’t actually Jack, Cass. This thing may still look and sound like the guy you used to know, might have the same mannerisms, but he’s not Jack.”
I let that set in. It made sense, but it begged the question of what was he now? Before I could ask it, Elliott offered, “Some people say they become demons. I don’t think that’s the case. But I think there’s something in the venom that causes their soul to leave their body, and something sinister to take over. That’s really all I know.”
“Wow,” was all I could say in response to that.
“Yeah, you’re getting into territory that’s probably a little deep for such a little girl,” he reminded me. “And as for all of the bodies, well, Jack has gotten himself tangled up with a couple of other Vampires. He’s not doing all of that on his own.”
“Other vampires?” I asked. “How does that work?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he repeated. “I am not a Vampire, after all. But in Jack’s case, I imagine this guy and his girlfriend came looking for him since they were created by the same monster.”
“So… whoever bit Jack or whatever bit this other guy, too?”