by ID Johnson
I tossed my trash into the garbage can and stepped out of the way so other students could get by. I really didn’t want anyone else to overhear our discussion, so I thought about cooling it, but it really did irritate me that Lucy said I was prettier than her but still didn’t think Liam could like me. “Whatev,” was about all I could manage for the moment. I could tell Lucy wanted to say more, but she didn’t. Her eyes were wide in frustration, and maybe a bit of sadness. We hardly ever fought, and I didn’t want to let Liam come between us.
“Liam is a jerk.”
I turned and looked at Emma. She shrugged and headed off toward her next class without saying anything more or offering any sort of apology for her bluntness.
Catching Lucy’s eyes, I mumbled, “I’ve gotta go,” and headed toward Mr. Delgado’s World History class. I knew I’d see Lucy again for Biology later, and by then, we’d be back to normal. I just hated the thought of fighting with her at all, but now that she knew so much about what was going on with my family, it was even worse. It crossed my mind that she could start spreading rumors about me, about my sister killing Drew, or the fact that I thought Cadence might be a vampire, and in a matter of minutes, my reputation would be ruined. I knew Lucy Burk well enough to think she’d never do that, but it was just an illustration of how deeply I’d grown to depend on my two best friends, especially now that they were the only normalcy I seemed to have in my whole life.
When I was younger, I used to get so upset that Cadence always got to sit in the front seat of Mom’s van. Once she headed off to college, the front seat had finally become mine. Now, I gleefully climbed into the back and scooted all the way over to make room for Liam, and my heart was beating through my chest.
He’d come over a few times before to study, but the other times, his mom had brought him or he’d ridden his bike. He only lived about a mile away. Everyone in Shenandoah lives relatively close by; it’s a really small town.
Liam climbed in and shut the door behind him. “Cool van, Mrs. F,” he said, buckling his seat belt. I had mine on already and smiled over at him, not sure what to say.
“Why thank you, William,” my mom said, pulling out of the parent pick-up lane. There were not a lot of vehicles in line since most of the kids at my high school could either drive or caught rides with their friends who could drive, but I’d never been embarrassed by my parents, and I figured Lucy would have her license soon enough since she was several months older than me. Emma said she’d never learn how to drive because it was too complicated. I was determined to teach her. Once I knew how to myself.
Liam was looking at me and smiling, and I felt myself blush. “How was your day?” he asked.
“Great,” I replied, nodding. “How was yours?”
“Not too bad. Ben Jackson almost caught his hair on fire in chemistry, so that was cool.”
I laughed, and I heard my mom make a noise that let me know that she was either shocked, or annoyed, or both. A song I really like came on the radio. I began to bop along to it, and when I looked at Liam out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he was, too. Did this count as our first dance?
“I really love the guitar part coming up,” he said, and my mom, being the hip momster that she is, turned it up just a bit. “It’s totally rad.”
Trying not to look surprised at his word choice, I agreed. “I like it, too.”
“My brother’s going to teach me how to play guitar as soon as he gets his back from the shop,” Liam continued. “He broke it at their last gig.”
“Oh?” I knew Liam’s older brother was in some sort of a band, but I didn’t know they did gigs.
“Yeah, he wants to tell people he slammed it down at the end of a song, but really he didn’t buckle his strap correctly and it fell off.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just nodded. “Well, learning to play the guitar would be great.” I really did think it would be cool if Liam learned to play. Then, I could go to see his performances and maybe be the girlfriend of a rock star. I was getting ahead of myself, way ahead of myself. Chances were, his older brother, Chase, would never teach him how to play as he didn’t exactly have a reputation for doing anything he said he was going to do. He worked at my sister’s friend Jon’s parents’ plumbing company, having dropped out of college after one semester. But then… my sister hadn’t even finished that much.
“You okay, Cass?” Liam asked as my mom turned onto our street. “You look a little… distracted.”
I saw my mom’s eyes flicker in the rearview mirror as she decided whether or not she should be alarmed. “No, I’m fine,” I replied, forcing a smile. “I was just thinking about how cool it would be to learn the guitar.”
My mom pulled the van into the driveway and stopped. Since she’d be taking Liam home soon enough, there was no reason to bother with the garage. We climbed out. “You know, I could teach you, if you want,” he said, “once I know how to play.”
Explaining that I thought him learning to play the guitar was about as likely as me learning to fly seemed like a waste of air and time, so I only nodded and repeated his favorite word, “Cool.”
“You kids make yourselves at home in the dining room,” my mom said, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “I’ll go make you a snack.”
The smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies wafted through the open door, and I led Liam toward the dining room, not at all surprised my mom had done some baking. I was certain the moment I’d sent her a text to let her know Liam and I would be studying together after school she’d preheated the oven. I give my mom some grief sometimes for not being completely with it, or for treating my sister like she’s the princess and I am a house servant, but for the most part, she does everything she can to help us. And whether I like it or not, my mom is fully aware that I have a crush on Liam.
We sat down at the table and pulled out our algebra books. Soon enough, my mom came in with two plates, each containing three warm chocolate chip cookies. “Milk or water?” she asked Liam, setting the plates down.
“Whoa! These smell so good,” he said, smiling broadly. “Milk, please, Mrs. F.”
My mom smiled and disappeared, coming back a few minutes later with two tall glasses of cold milk.
We nibbled our cookies, and I tried to explain the algebra concept we were working on to Liam. He’s cute, but he’s not the brightest guy I’ve ever worked with, and sometimes it took me several tries for him to get it, but he smiled the whole time, and once he bumped my hand with his. I didn’t think it was an accident.
My mom headed upstairs, and we could hear her footsteps from time to time. I figured she was cleaning a room that was already perfectly tidy. Liam glanced up at the ceiling and then cleared his throat. “So, uh, it’s too bad about what happened with Drew,” he said cautiously.
“Yeah,” I replied, trying to keep my eyes on my algebra textbook. “She was a nice girl.”
“Totally.” He took a bite of his cookie and dusted his hands off on a napkin. “Did your sister say how it happened? How she fell?”
I glanced at him briefly, trying to figure out if his only purpose in being here was to find out more information about what happened with my sister. “Nope,” I replied. I double-checked that he got the same answer as me, saw that he didn’t, and tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong.
“I hear she got a job in Kansas City. That’s cool.”
“Yeah. Oh, I see. You forgot to divide by X,” I said, pointing to his paper. His fingertips brushed against mine as he began to erase.
“I heard the rest of her friends went back to school today. You seen Jack Cook?”
I raised my eyebrows and slowly shook my head. “Not for a while.”
Liam brushed the eraser shavings off of his paper. “I heard he’s not doing so hot. Like, he’s all grief stricken and paranoid and stuff.”
I stared at him for a moment. “I don’t know,” I finally said.
“Must be hard,” Liam continued,
as he fixed the math problem, “to see someone you’re friends with plummet to their death. Poor guy.”
“Yeah.” There was nothing much else for me to say.
“I feel bad for your sister, too.”
Having Elliott’s power of suggestion would’ve been handy right now. “She’ll be fine.” I didn’t know what else to say. “There you go,” I said, seeing that he had the right answer now. “Let’s go to the next one.”
We continued to work on algebra for the next half-hour or so, not saying much about anything at all, and definitely not about anything except for math. Once Liam was all caught up, I said, “I guess that’s that.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Do you think your mom would mind giving me a ride home, or should I call my dad?”
“She’ll give you a ride,” I said, sure that she would.
“Cool.”
I pushed my chair back, intending to hop up and go find my mom, when I felt Liam’s warm fingers wrap around mine where they lay on the table. “Thanks a lot for your help, Cass. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I looked into his eyes and saw a crinkled smile there. “No problem.” I felt heat rising up my neck, and he quickly released my hand, but I suddenly knew why all those girls who met their favorite rock stars always gush, “I’ll never wash my hand again!” Even when I reached the living room and found my mother sitting in her chair folding towels, I could feel the warmth radiating from my fingers.
“Hi, honey,” my mom said, glancing up at me between folds. “All done?”
“Yep. All done.” I could tell my voice sounded overly enthusiastic because my mom raised her eyebrows and appeared to be holding back a laugh. “Could you give Liam a ride home?”
“Absolutely!” My mother’s energy level matched my own, even though I could tell she was teasing me. “I’ll just get my keys!”
“Okay, Mom.” I tried not to roll my eyes at her. I headed back toward the dining room, but Liam was standing just inside the doorway to the living room. “Are you ready?”
It seemed like a dumb question since he had his coat on and his backpack flung over his shoulder. “I am.” He smiled at me, though, like I hadn’t just asked him something stupid.
“I’ll just grab my phone and my coat.” I’d left my phone on the table and my coat was over the back of my chair. I hurried to the dining room and fumbled to get my arms in the sleeves. I had no idea why I was acting so weird. I slipped my phone into my pocket and hustled to catch up with my mom and Liam who were walking out the front door. I heard them laughing and hoped it wasn’t at me or that my mom hadn’t told him some lame joke.
We sat in the middle seat of the minivan again, and I climbed in first so I wouldn’t have to get out when we got to Liam’s house. He lived in a smallish-sized ranch house with his parents and older brother. I had heard his dad worked in one of the factories on the edge of town and his mom was a clerk at the grocery store. I didn’t ask questions about his family, though. For some reason, it seemed like prying, even though everyone in the world seemed to be asking about my family these days—well, about my sister anyway.
Liam pointed out the van window. “It’s this one,” and my mom pulled to a stop, pressing the button to open the sliding door. “Thanks again, Cass,” he said, turning to me and smiling as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
I was caught in his eyes again and could only manage, “Yup.”
He slid out of the car calling, “Thanks, Mrs. F!”
“Have a good evening, William!” my mother called. As soon as he was out, she pushed the button to close the door, and we waited to make sure he got inside safely. Even though it was only around 4:30, it was starting to get dark outside, and the wind was blowing. Once she saw Liam’s mom open the door, my mom shifted into drive.
I unhooked my seatbelt and carefully slid between the two seats up front so I was sitting in the passenger side. “Thanks,” my mom said. “I didn’t really want to be the chauffeur anymore.”
Giggling, I said, “Thanks for that, Mom.” Even from up there, I could smell the scent of Liam’s body spray wafting from the back seat.
“Sure, honey,” she replied, taking a left at the next corner. “I think William’s a pretty nice young man.”
“You can call him Liam, Mom. Everyone else does.”
“Well, I’ve always known him as William. Sometimes change is hard.” She took a deep breath and let it out, and I realized we weren’t talking about my friend anymore.
I cleared my throat. I wasn’t sure if I should ask the question burning in my mind or not but ultimately decided I may as well say something. “Have you heard from Cadence?”
My mom’s eyebrows arched as if I’d mentioned a taboo subject. “She’s doing well. All settled in. She’s doing her training.”
Nodding, I tried to decide if I dared to ask a follow up question before my mom changed the subject. I dared. “Where is she living?”
“They have apartments, dorms, something like that,” she replied. We were almost back to our house.
“And what kind of training does she have to do?”
My mom pressed a button to open our garage and aimed the van for the door. “I don’t know.” She sounded genuine, but I doubted she didn’t really know. “What they do is pretty secretive.”
I decided that was probably enough for now. “’Kay,” I muttered as the van pulled to a stop. “Maybe I’ll call her later.”
If my mom thought that was a bad idea, she didn’t let on. “Pork chops for dinner?” she asked, pulling her keys out of the ignition.
“Yum.”
Chapter 18
The rest of the week flew by pretty quickly, and I didn’t really have too much of a chance to talk to my friends about what was going on except for at lunch. Since that was a public space, we had to be careful what we talked about, too. It wasn’t until Saturday that Emma and I met over at Lucy’s house so she could show us all the stuff she’d found on why people thought vampires might be real.
We were sprawled out on her sofa in her bedroom, Emma in the recliner nearby, and while the TV was on, no one was watching it. Each of us had our laptops. I had my notebook, too, and Lucy had hers.
“Okay, go to this website,” Lucy said, rattling off a web address. Emma and I both typed it in.
“Dark Shadows?” Emma said as the page loaded in front of each of us. “How did you find this?”
“I did a bunch of digging, and I found some forums where people talk about their experiences with vampires,” Lucy explained. “This is a website where they post their stories.”
I began to read through posts by people claiming to have encountered vampires. Most of them seemed really ridiculous, and some of them were very vague. Things like seeing figures in the shadows or watching someone jump off of tall buildings and then walk away. One person claimed he’d melted his neighbor’s face by dousing him with garlic salt.
We read on for a few minutes before Emma declared, “This is dumb.”
“Okay, I know a lot of the stories seem far-fetched,” Lucy nodded, “but some of them have details that seem similar to what Cassidy has experienced.”
I suddenly didn’t want to be associated with any of these ridiculous stories. “‘I stabbed my boyfriend in the heart with a wooden stake, and he died.’ Uh, you think?”
“Lol!” Lucy said, “Yeah, I’m sure she did that. And she’s not in jail. Okay, so they’re not all perfect, but let’s look at the similarities. We could tally how many of them talk about the different unexplainable traits you’ve witnessed between your sister, her work people, and Jack.”
Something about the mention of Jack’s name stirred me, and I felt my gut tighten. “Jack,” I said his name aloud and pulled my face to the side. “What about Jack?”
“Huh?” Emma asked, peering at me over the top of her computer.
“Well, I was just thinking, is there any information on here that says how long it would take for Jack to… you know… turn�
�� if he didn’t have the transformation thingy Jamie allegedly did to my sister?”
“I’m not sure I’m following you,” Lucy said, setting her laptop between us on the couch. “Are you saying, if Jack was infected by a vampire the night that Drew died, how long would it take for him to become a vampire?”
“Cause you think that your sister was infected the same night and that Jamie fixed her up so that she went ahead and went full-fledged vampire right then?” Emma concluded.
All of this sounded so stupid. “Sure,” I said.
“Well, let’s see. There’s a search function on this site. And a glossary,” Lucy explained.
“I’ll look through the glossary,” Emma said.
“And I’ll search.” Lucy typed furiously for a second and then began to scan.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I felt like I needed to call my sister. I had no idea what was going on, but I needed to talk to her. Had she heard from Jack? Could I just call Jack? I had his number. Maybe I could call Elliott. Something told me he’d have the answer to my question.
“What are you doing?” Lucy asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, but then I went to my contacts and clicked on Cadence’s name. I hadn’t really spoken to her since she’d left, just briefly, and a few texts. She wasn’t answering. It went to voicemail. “Hey, Sis. I just… wanted to see how things were going. Thought you might have the day off since it’s Saturday. Call me.” I hung up.
“It stinks we don’t have more time to work on this,” Lucy was mumbling as her eyes flitted across the screen. “Next Saturday is Wes’s birthday party.”
“Oh, yeah,” I mumbled, remembering how badly I’d wanted to go to that just a few weeks ago when he’d told us about it. Now, I couldn’t have cared less, even if it was going to be at the new roller rink they’d opened up in the neighboring town. Who knew what my life would be like in week?