by ID Johnson
“Are you okay?” Lucy asked, once she’d returned from walking the boys out. “You look… perturbed.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, squeezing a pillow against my stomach. “I guess Milo and Wes have just taken on new interests that don’t interest me.”
Lucy laughed, like she knew what I was saying. “Yeah, but they’re still cool.”
“I guess so.” I disagreed, but there was no use in saying that. “Should we head to your room?”
“Maybe we should straighten up a little bit first?” Emma suggested. There were pop cans and half-empty popcorn bowls everywhere.
“Nah, someone else will get it,” Lucy assured us. I thought it must be nice to be able to leave a pile of trash in your wake and not have to concern yourself with it, and I thought about the fact that I’d never seen Lucy do a chore in her whole life, even though Sandy didn’t live with them or come by every day. There was no sense in arguing, though, as they were already headed up the stairs to the main floor. I followed, whispering an apology to the universe for giving in to the temptation to be a slob.
Once we were upstairs, both of the other girls grabbed for their phones, likely checking their messages, which I thought was silly since we’d had our phones with us the whole time and pretty much everyone who would’ve messaged us was with us. So… I grabbed my phone out of my back pocket and slouched down on Lucy’s couch, about a foot from her. Emma took the chair as usual.
I had no messages, which didn’t surprise me, so I opened up one of my social media apps. I was scrolling through pictures of people’s dinners and a few friends’ shots of what they were wearing to go out with friends or on dates when an annoying news pop up got in the way. I realized pretty quickly, however, they were talking about the killings in the Caribbean, so I enlarged the news report and turned the sound on, not bothering to think about the fact that my friends had no idea why this would be of importance to me.
“A night club where two tourists were slain just days ago is now being reported as the last known location where nineteen-year-old Sandra Stephenson was seen last night. Stephenson was reportedly separated from her friends at around 11:00 PM local time….” I was no longer listening to the reporter, however, because in the background, they were showing some grainy footage from inside the club again, and something caught my attention once again. Only this time, it wasn’t just a feeling or an impression, it was a pair of familiar eyes. I screamed, and the phone slipped from my hand, landing on the floor between my feet with a thud.
“What is it?” Lucy asked, sitting up quickly and putting her arms around me. “OMG, Cass, are you okay?”
Even Emma was alarmed. “Cassidy? Are you all right?”
“No, I’m fine,” I said, taking a few deep breaths. “I’m fine. It’s just… one of those silly pop up things where you’re supposed to look closely at a car or something and then a ghost jumps out at you.” I tried to laugh, like it was all just a silly joke, but they were seeing right through me.
“Nuh uh,” Emma began as Lucy reached down and picked up my phone. “You were watching a story about the murders in Cabo. We could hear it, Cassidy.”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, pausing the video on my thankfully unharmed phone. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I replied, taking my phone out of her hand. “It’s nothing. I just…”
“Lied to us,” Emma shrugged.
“Well, that’s that I thought it was,” I said defensively. “I saw something weird in the video. You mean, it’s not one of those?” I had no idea where I was going with this. They could clearly tell I didn’t know either.
“Let me see it, and I’ll let you know,” Lucy replied.
“No,” I quickly said, stashing my phone in my back pocket. “It’s not a big deal. I just… I thought I saw something scary. It’s stupid.”
“Okay.” Emma shrugged again and looked at me like she was done talking about it.
Lucy looked more puzzled. She stared at Emma for a moment and then turned to me. “Whatev,” she said.
I took a deep breath, thinking about how glad I was that neither of them had pressed the issue when I saw both of them typing into their phones furiously and realized what they were going to do. “Oh, come on, girls,” I said, wondering which device I should lunge for first. “It really isn’t a big deal.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” Lucy replied, “so we’ll just have a look-see, umkay?”
“Fine. Cause it’s not,” I replied, leaning back into the cushions of her pink sofa like I didn’t have a care in the world. I tried to keep my breathing even. Chances were, they wouldn’t see what I saw anyway. They didn’t know what I knew, so there was no reason for them to be staring at the video like I was.
I vaguely recalled what the news report had been saying about the time that I’d flung my phone away from me, and even though the audio for both of their phones was playing at the same time but not saying the exact same thing, I tried to listen for it, hoping they’d pass right by it. They did. When the video ended, Lucy said, “Wow. That’s so sad. I hope they find her.”
“Yeah. Really depressing. What scared you?” Emma asked.
“Nothing. I just… it was sad to see her alive in the video and know that she’s probably not anymore.”
“Yeah, that’s awful. I agree.” Lucy put her hand on my shoulder sympathetically.
“Huh,” Emma said. She slipped her phone into her pocket and picked up her laptop.
“‘Huh’ what?” I asked.
“Nothing. That’s just not what I expected you to say,” she replied. Once again, she was typing like one of those ladies behind the counter at the airport. A second after her fingers stopped flying, the news reporter’s voice filled my ears again. I was getting a little tired of hearing that sound now, but I didn’t move. Was Emma on to something?
She watched the whole video again before she said, “Huh.”
By this time, I really wanted to see it again myself, because the thing that had scared me really had me worried, and I sort of wanted to see if I saw what I thought I saw, but I could hardly do that in front of them.
“‘Huh’ what?” Lucy asked, leaning toward Emma.
“Nothing,” she said again. “It’s just… that guy.”
In my mind, I muttered the word my dad says when a car cuts him off in traffic. “What guy?” I asked. “I didn’t see any guy.”
“You didn’t?” Emma asked, her forehead crinkled. “I figured that’s what you were screaming about. I might scream. If I was illogical and believed in ghosts.”
“Say what now?” Lucy asked, looking from Emma’s face to mine and then back. “Believed in ghosts?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said, thinking that was probably still true.
“I didn’t say that you did,” Emma replied, still using the same matter-of-fact voice she mostly always does. “But… if I did believe in ghosts, or I was illogical, I might look at the face of that man in the background and think, ‘Boy, that guy looks a lot like a guy I know that died recently.’ That’s all.”
“What the crap are you talking about?” Lucy asked. “I just got goosebumps. For reals.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, realizing that Emma had seen exactly what I saw. And as Lucy leaned over, and Emma started the video again, I realized she’d see it too.
“Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!” Lucy said, batting at the laptop like it was coming after her. “Turn it off!”
“Let me see!” I demanded, getting up.
“No, don’t play it again!” Lucy insisted.
“See. Illogical. Afraid of ghosts.” Emma looked at Lucy and then at me, but she handed her laptop to me, and I took it, sitting back on the couch as Lucy crowded into the corner of the seat away from me.
I already knew what I was going to see, and I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see it the first time, and I didn’t want to see it now. But I did. There, in the background, at least ten f
eet away from Sandra Stephenson, I am almost positive I saw a flicker of a familiar face. He was only there for an instant, and like I said, it was grainy, but that dude in the back of the bar sure looked an awful lot like Jack Cook.
Once that part was over, I handed the laptop back to Emma and said nothing for a long time. Tears began to sting my eyes, and I don’t think they had anything to do with whether or not that was Jack. They were for all of the changes, all of the lies, all of the loss that we’d suffered, and the fact that I couldn’t even tell them the truth. I hated it. I hated all of it.
“Cassidy,” Lucy said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders as I began to cry. “It’ll be okay. I know you miss Jack. But that wasn’t him. It creeped me out, too, but it couldn’t have been Jack. Jack’s dead.”
I continued to cry for a few minutes, thinking about her words and my own internal thoughts. Elliott had told me I couldn’t tell them, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t. I could do whatever I wanted. What was the worst that could happen? He could show up here and erase their memories, or send Hannah again? I didn’t think at this point he could rip my mind away from me. I thought it was too ingrained in who I was. I knew what I needed to do now, not just for my friends’ sake but for my own sanity, and if Elliott found out and couldn’t understand that, then he wasn’t as good a friend as I thought he was.
“You guys,” I finally said, swiping at my cheeks with my shirt sleeve, “I don’t know if that was Jack Cook or not, but… it might’ve been.”
“What?” Lucy asked, leaning away from me a little bit but not removing her hand.
“What do you mean?” Emma asked. “Jack is dead.”
“Yeah, I think he is,” I nodded. “But there’s a possibility he might actually be undead.”
Chapter 9
Both of my best friends were staring at me like I’d completely lost my mind, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew I sounded like a lunatic. But I did have the proof to back up everything we’d discovered together, everything they couldn’t remember. “Look, I know it sounds crazy,” I began, scooting around to face them.
“Yeah, it does.” Emma never missed a beat.
“But you guys used to know just about everything I’m about to tell you. You just don’t remember.”
“How’s that now?” Lucy asked, scooting back a bit and folding her arms. “What do you mean we don’t remember?”
“Yeah, how’s that possible? I remember nearly everything.” Emma pushed her glasses up with her index finger.
“I know you do, but Dr. Sanderson, Elliott, and one of his associates, have been wiping our minds clean. Recently, however, he’s allowed me to keep my memory. I think… once I start explaining everything, it’ll all come back to you.”
“Are you saying we’ve been convinced that Jack Cook is dead when he’s really not?” Lucy asked.
“No.” That would be the hardest part, and I didn’t think I should lead with that because I didn’t even know for sure if that guy on the video was Jack, though in my heart, I thought maybe I really did know. “Look, just let me start from the beginning, and when we get to the part about Jack, maybe that’ll be clearer.”
“Okay,” Lucy agreed.
“Doubtful.” At least Emma was honest.
I took a deep breath and started from the beginning, explaining how I’d overheard my sister talking about going to the Eidolon Festival. I told them both how they’d helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together, to figure out that vampires were involved, though I told them I was certain now that my sister is not actually a vampire but a vampire hunter. I even told them about the night that Hannah came over and wiped their minds clean, how she’d convinced them to tear up their notes and delete everything off of their devices, but Elliott had told me not to do that, so I had all of my stuff still.
“Elliott who was our sub in biology earlier this week?” Lucy clarified.
“Yeah, how else would he have convinced the entire student body that everything was great right after two students in our school died?”
She shrugged, and I turned my attention to Emma. Her face was scrunched up like she was trying to decide whether or not all of this could be true at all. I knew it would be harder to convince her. “Look, I still have the video on my phone,” I reminded them.
“Let me see,” Emma demanded, sticking her hand out.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone. I found the video and handed it over to her. Lucy got up and went to sit on the arm of the chair.
Emma pushed play, and even though I couldn’t see the video, I’d watched it enough times by now to know exactly what was happening just by listening. When it was over, they started it back from the beginning and watched the whole thing a second, and then a third time.
“What exactly does this prove?” Emma asked. “It could be a lot of things.”
“I know it could be,” I agreed. “But that girl in the video is my sister’s coworker, Eliza.” I took my phone back and showed her the social media pictures of the woman with the purple hair that Emma herself had found. “I’m positive that guy beside her is my sister’s boss just by the way he moves, even though I can’t really see him. I’ve seen him enough to know. And… they were supposed to be in Montana the night this video was recorded.”
“That’s so weird,” Lucy said, sliding back onto the couch. “It’s like… I want to remember what you’re talking about, like it’s on the tip of my consciousness, but I can’t quite reach it.”
“Not me,” Emma said with a shrug. “I think you’ve lost your marbles, Cass. Sorry. But I’ll do whatever I can to help you find them again.”
I slunk back across the room and perched on the arm of the couch, wondering if it would do me any good to try and pull up other pictures, the ones of Jamie, maybe, to prove to them that they had believed this all to be true at one point as well, but I didn’t go there. I didn’t see the point. “It’s okay,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, knowing what you know now about what I believe to be true, you can imagine my surprise at seeing someone who looks like Jack Cook in a video from a few days ago.”
“For sure,” Lucy agreed. “That would be scary.”
Due to the fact that I’d just spent twenty minutes trying to convince my two best friends that my sister was a vampire slayer of some sort, I hadn’t had too much time to reflect on the video I’d just watched. Was it possible that that really was Jack? The idea had my skin crawling. I couldn’t imagine how that could happen. Jack was such a great guy. Even if he’d somehow been turned into a vampire, would he be capable of killing all of those people? And how in the world would he have gotten to Cabo?
“Well, that we can test,” Emma offered after a few minutes. “I have facial recognition software. I can compare the picture from a still shot of the video to one from Jack’s social media. But that software is on my desktop computer at home, so I can’t do it from here.”
“Would you mind?” I asked. “I mean, I know you don’t think it’s him.”
“Oh, it’s definitely not him,” Emma spoke up quickly. “But if it makes you feel better, then, no, I don’t mind.”
“Okay. Great. Thanks,” I said, deciding now would be a great time to move on to happier topics. “So… our first cheerleading practice for the basketball squad is next Monday. Are you ready Lucy?”
Emma groaned a little, but we ignored her. We’d let her talk about her video games in a little while. “I hope so,” Lucy said, her face perking up. “I’ve been practicing my backbends, but it’s been too cold outside to practice jumps or cartwheels. My mom said if she catches me doing them in the house again, I’m grounded.”
I laughed. “Yeah, mine too. What about the garage?”
“Mine is too crowded with junk.”
“Mine is too crowded with cars.” My sister had left her car at our house, a constant reminder to me that she was gone, and about what she was doing. I had to shift my focus really quickly. “Maybe we can see if Jessic
a will let us come to her house this week to practice. They have that big, empty garage.”
“Good idea,” Lucy agreed, and I made a mental note to ask Jess. She was in my history class. Lucy started talking about how badly she hated our uniforms, and I let my mind wander back to less important things, high school girl things, and away from vampires. Hopefully, Emma would remember to run that software the next day, and she would call and assure me I had nothing to worry about. The more I thought about it, the crazier the notion was. There was just no way that my sister’s ex-boyfriend was a vampire. None.
Chapter 10
Sitting through church had been more than a little excruciating. My parents had been a little late to the service, so we sat in the back—right behind Jack’s parents. It was an hour of torture, watching his mother wipe at her eyes and his father hold back sobs as the pastor talked to us about not questioning God’s plan. How could they do anything but that when they’d lost their son to what they believed to be some sort of horrible disease? As far as I knew, that’s what had claimed Jack, but I had my suspicions it was something even worse, though I did my best to push those thoughts aside.
It was all I could do to fall asleep the night before. I was up thinking about Jack, what it must be like to realize one day that you’re not who you used to be. Had he been bitten by a vampire? Did it hurt? Did they drain him and leave him for dead? Had my sister and her friends swooped in in an attempt to save him but been too late? My mind was running wild and the sun was about to come up by the time I’d fallen asleep. Since my mom had a strict rule that I still had to get up in time for church even if I spent the night at a friend’s house, if it was one of the days she’d decided we were going, I wasn’t thrilled when my alarm had gone off at 8:00. Lucy and Emma hadn’t stirred as I’d walked around like a zombie getting ready to go and sneaking out. Luckily, I knew the alarm code, or I would’ve woken the whole house up.