As always, the punishment was brutal and relentless. The last thing I think I did before I passed out was scream for Alan. He didn’t come.
~ ~ ~
I was torn.
On one side was the fact that I’d been told about a world of Vampires and Helsings. A world of complete fantasy, which I had to agree, had some proofs lying around the place.
On the other, for the first time in my life, I had a cute girl on my arm, and I didn’t want to make fun of Mary-Christine by deriding anything she told me. She was the best thing to happen to me, and I could totally see the two of us doing it one day.
So, of course, I did what any red-blooded male would have done.
I went along with everything she said.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I analyzed every piece of proof she showed me. I didn’t swallow it without reservation. I was a science major at the Academy, and I knew how to look at experiments, and how to stack facts.
So I let her continue with her ‘evidence’, determined to either find absolute proof sometime in the future.
Before we’d left the library, I was up to date with five cases which, to be honest, fitted into Mary’s theories. I mean, they didn’t prove them beyond belief, or blow my mind or anything, but it was strange how the facts fit.
Then I suddenly realized that I had possible vampire facts of my own. We were standing outside, waiting for Mary’s mom, when I made the connection.
“The Seven.” I suddenly said out loud. “The Gregor Seven.”
“What?” Mary-Christine kissed me to shake me out of my stupor.
“Eh. Seven students, all seniors.” As I spoke, I couldn’t believe I was actually saying the words. “They all stuck their fingers into Alan’s blood and licked it.”
“When?” her eyes were wide and animated.
“After he died. After the ambulance had taken his body away.”
“Who were they?”
Slowly I closed my eyes, and ticked off the names in my head. “Sharon Jones, Jeff Fielding, Billy Tankard, Elizabeth Wanrowski, Jahred Sykes, Jim Creary, and of course Dorothy Squires.”
Mary-Christine’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She hugged me and we kissed some more. “Man, you’re a natural.”
I grinned and patted myself on the back just for noticing. But one thing was niggling at my subconscious. “So why were me and Alan friends?”
“That I don’t know.”
I had an idea. “‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’. That’s Sun-Tzu, from the ‘Art of War’. I dunno what class I learned it in, but I remember.”
So my journey home was sitting in the back, answering dumb questions from Mary’s mom, and dwelling on Alan’s friendship. It couldn’t have meant nothing at all to him, surely; he gave me his guitar, for goodness sake; he didn’t need to have done that.
When we got back to Gregor, Mary-Christine and I went up to her room, ‘to study’, and the weird thing was, we actually did. I mean, sure we fooled around as we did it, but we did study.
She had a huge computer, and between necking sessions, we looked into the backgrounds of ‘the Seven’, to little or no success.
“How about the girl who killed Alan?” I said, suddenly excited. “We’ve heard nothing of her since the incident. I assumed she’d been arrested, but we don’t know.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mandy something.”
“Oh, that’s great.” Mary-Christine chided, with a huge grin on her face. She tapped away at the keyboard, soon had the Everton High School roll on the screen. “Junior or senior?”
“Senior, probably.”
“Mandy something. Okay, Mandy Cross! Got her.” Mary’s fingers swept over the keyboard. “I’m doing a cross-reference. That’s funny; a ‘Cross’ reference.”
We laughed till the tears ran down our faces.
“No siblings, just an only child.” Mary wiped her eyes with her fingers. “Mother Sybille Cross is a housewife on the PTA. There’s a pic. Father is Harvey an attorney in a law-firm in Everton.”
So we checked the Everton Journal for Mandy Cross, but got nowhere. We even checked every edition since the murder, but there was no mention of it anywhere.
“That doesn’t make sense.” I said. “Alan was murdered. We all saw it. There were police on the scene. The ambulance took him away.”
“Hold on a second. I may have something.” She flipped open her cellphone. “Dad? Hi. Look, Lyman and I have a question for you.”
I couldn’t believe she was actually calling her father. I mean, I was still at the edge of this conspiracy; not committed and stuff.
“Why would there be no mention of Alan’s murder in the papers?”
My face was kinda red, just being there.
“Right, there’s also no mention of Mandy Cross anywhere, you know, in papers and online. Yeah, she’s the girl that killed Alan.”
Pause.
“Oh, ok. I’ll explain.” She hung up. “That makes sense. Ok, Lyman, dad says it’s simple. The vampire family tells the cops they’d like no publicity for scandal’s sake. The newspaper follows the family’s wishes; local papers can do that kind of thing much easier than national ones. That takes care of that part. Now, the Mandy Cross thing is explained by a ‘silent APB’. It’s an APB, but it’s done on the down-low, so the killers think they got away with it, but the APB is all secret and stuff. Dad says that the Cross house has been deserted for some time. The cops are round there now, still searching.”
“So your dad is a Helsing?” I said slowly, and somewhat reluctantly.
“Yeah. It’s why we’re here. Mom too, but she’s into the investigation side.”
“So you’re a Helsing from their genes?”
“Yes.”
I let my head slowly ask the question. My parents had moved here when I was ten. Before that, it was across state in Leverton. “So is Helsing-ness only transferred by birth?”
She shook her head, and I sighed with relief before she answered.
“No, some just happen. And it’s more than coincidence that Helsings happen in places of high vampire occurrence.”
I realized with a grim shake of the head that my girlfriend was Buffy the fricking vampire slayer. I didn’t know if it was scary or cool.
Or a bit of both.
I mean, Sara Gellar was hot stuff!
I ran away the next night. It was totally unfair; I mean- that was MY house. But Hannah and Barton had taken over. I needed to find Alan and tell him what they’d done to me. He’d make them leave. I hoped, at least.
There was only one place I could think of to go for help since I had no freaking clue where Alan lived. So, I jumped from my bedroom window and skulked behind the rhododendrons until I was sure Hannah wasn’t gonna pounce me or something. That crazy chick had me under like house arrest; after I brought the “unsuitable offering” home, she was super furious with me.
But, I was pretty sure the coast was clear so I made my way down the block- keeping in the shadows. Jackson’s house was a cookie cutter of mine and his room was on the second story, too. No prob. I could totally climb like a spider now; and so, I got to his window without breaking a sweat.
He was up. Duh. Vampires are pretty much always up.
Jackson was bent over his guitar, practically making love to the thing. A pair of gigantic headphones was over his ears, plugged into the amp. It took a few taps on the glass to get his attention. When he finally did see me, though- he really didn’t look that surprised.
Still, I flashed him my new fangs like they were some kind of backstage pass. Jackson shook his head at me, all disapprovingly, and came to let me in.
“I was wondering when you were gonna come by,” he said.
“So you know what happened to me then?”
Jackson totally scolded me, “Don’t give me that crap- what ‘happened’ to you. You made a choice, Mandy… a really stupid, fucked-up choice.”
I was shaking like I was col
d; but, it was August.
“Don’t be such a dick about it,” I said, “it’s not like you didn’t make the same choice.”
“No- I didn’t actually.”
Jackson was a big guy, kinda square-shaped. His face was cute, but a little pudgy. He had long, dark hair and kept it in a braided ponytail. A lot of girls at school really liked him; probably ‘cause he had that cool musician vibe. I always thought he came off as snobby, so we never totally connected even though we usually ended up in the same places at the same time. Right then I was wondering if I’d made a lame call, thinking I could go to him.
He just kind of left me hanging there while he poked around in his closet. After a few minutes, he brought out this ancient-looking box and handed me a yellowing newspaper from the 1960’s. It was call the Philadelphia Singer- looked like a tabloid-and the front page was headlined with: “Vampire Sightings Surge!”
At first I rolled my eyes at it; then I totally remembered- wait… vampires are real. Duh. So, I read the first few lines of the article.
“Missing persons reports continue to pile up as Philadelphia’s finest scramble to respond to nightly reports of vampire sightings. Terrified witnesses testify to spotting cloaked figures lurking in shadows, attacking pets and people alike. Bodies, drained of blood, have been found in rural fields as well as urban ally-ways. Nine people remain unaccounted for…”
“So, you were one of the nine?” I asked.
Jackson took the paper back, refolded it and placed it in the box so carefully it might have been a kitten, “Before it was all over they’d changed over two-hundred all together in Philly and surrounding towns. I was one of the last to be taken- and not by choice, Mandy. It was a case of wrong place, wrong time…”
“What? They just snatched you up?”
He plopped down on his bed. Jackson’s whole face changed then. He’d always been so superior (at least I thought so) but now it was like he just looked tired.
“Back then- late fifties into the early sixties- there was an underground movement within the vampire community. It wasn’t like it is now where you’ve got little cells of vampires, mostly broken down into nuclear families. It was more like the goddamn vampire mafia; one family in particular was led by Amos Blanche. And whatever you do- remember that name.”
“Amos believed that vampires had taken a back seat to humans and we should take our ‘rightful place’ as the dominant species. I mean- he had it all planned out with vampires taking over and breeding humans for food… like cattle. It would have thrown the whole balance off. There’s a reason there’re more lemurs than lions, Mandy. If predators ruled the world there wouldn’t be any world left-y’know. ”
“So, Amos failed. “I said. “I mean obviously… there’re still plenty of humans around.”
Jackson nodded sadly, “He failed. But not before putting up a good fight; part of which was recruiting new vampires and brainwashing them according to his agenda. Amos’ followers slaughtered humans left and right; most of them for food. But, those of us who were young and strong enough… and impressionable enough… were changed. Against our will.”
“How’d it end? How’d they stop Amos?” I felt like a kid hearing a scary bedtime story.
“Blanche shined a big spotlight on the vampire community; not a good thing. A bunch of the bigger families- we’re talking hundreds to each clan- rose up against Amos, put a stake through him and either converted or destroyed his recruits… depending on how loyal they were to his cause. Eventually, human-vampire relationship all went back into balance and the ‘Philadelphia Crusade’ is forever lost in the pages of that tabloid.”
It was hard to come up with something to say. I did my best but it felt wrong just coming out of my mouth, “At least you ended up okay…”
Jackson’s jaw got really tight and his eyes burned like miniature flames, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Mandy! I watched my ten-year-old sister and my mother as the life was drained out of them. Then I was dragged away from my home and Amos Blanche himself turned me. I spent the first two months of my vampire-existence being tortured under a whip because I refused to do his dirty work; I vowed before that son-of-a-bitch ever bit into me that I would never take a human life and I never have.”
I was floored, “You haven’t ever drank human blood?”
“Not a fucking drop.”
Jackson pointed over to a cage on his dresser; dozens of little white mice with pink eyes were crawling all over each other.
“And I won’t even take one of them until I absolutely have to.” he told me, all proud.
“What about Alan?” I asked carefully, “Was he around back then?”
“He was,” Jackson said with an angry clip to his voice, “we were both turned by Amos Blanche; him a little bit sooner than me.”
I knew the answer, but asked the question anyway, “Was he like you? Did he refuse to work for that guy?”
Jackson looked at me like I was stupid, “Give me a break- Alan had a fucking boner for Amos Blanche... and for killing. He didn’t just do it to stay ‘alive’… your buddy killed because he liked it.
“The only reason he wasn’t destroyed after Amos was taken out was because he gave an Academy Award worthy performance; he convinced the families that he was remorseful. Angela McCartney vouched for him and took him under her wing; It’s such bullshit; he’s never changed, Mandy. Alan and his cronies are a bunch of vampire thugs.”
“Cronies- what cronies?”
“His little followers at Gregor Academy… AKA Vampire High.”
“Vampire High?” now I was about to freak out.
Jackson looked like he felt sorry for me then, “He hasn’t told you dick- has he?”
“I’ve barely seen him since he changed me,” I started to tear up at that point, “he brought these horrible people to my house… Hannah and Barton…”
His eyes got big and alarmed, “Holy shit. I know those people- they were at Amos’ right hand through the whole thing… especially Hannah. We all thought they were destroyed along with him. You know what this means?”
I didn’t know. And I didn’t want to. But, Jackson told me anyway.
“Alan’s picking up where Amos Blanche left off. He’s recruiting.”
Chapter 5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
“Can’t I just call you Buffy?” I asked, my grin making the remark much worse. “I can be Angel, and we’ll take up kick boxing just for fun.” Mary-Christine gave me her ‘whatever’ shake of the head, then threw a tennis ball at me. To my immediate chagrin, it hit me directly on the middle of the forehead. “Damn it girl! I was joking!” I protested, but knew too well that I deserved it.
But regardless of what jokes I threw at her, the belief system stayed in place, and every single piece of evidence fitted the vampire mold.
I waited for a week, expecting the call every night to go round up vampires and go staking them or something, but it was just school. I did two hours every day on the school driving course, and passed my test first time. That got me my drivers permit, and I began to subtly hint at home about a car.
It had been promised.
Friday morning came. I did the shower, got ready for school, and went round for Mary-Christine- it was becoming a habit already. There she was, waiting by the gate, grinning, looking cute and waiting for me.
Me.
Man, I was on cloud nine. Strawberry Kisses. Bus-ride to school. Wonderful.
“What are you doing this weekend?” she asked, as soon as we’d gotten on board the bus.
“Duh, what I always do. Nothing.”
“Great, get on the phone now and tell your mom you’re coming to my Gran’s house for the weekend.”
“What?”
“It’s ok, it’s an excuse. We’re not really going. We’re off on an adventure, Lyman George Bracks.”
Now this was fun, but I did have a vision of cooking trout over a fire by the lake. Pine trees. Sunsets.
So I did what any red-haired loser would do. I phoned mom.
She asked for details, and I passed Mary-Christine the phone.
Man, she was superb; she said all the right things, I could imagine mom on the other end, gushing about her son’s new girlfriend. Grandma’s birthday. Just a couple of counties away. Family, cookies, yada yada yada.
If women could get hard-ons, mom would have had one, right then. Her red-headed son was going on a family trip with a girl.
Because of the impending excitement, Friday was a blur at school, and when afternoon bell rang, we were out of there with a vengeance.
“So where are we really going?” I asked, all excited and over-brimming with adolescent eagerness. I must have looked a mess.
“Surprise. But pack something just a little bit formal. And bring your Gregor Academy ID.” Was all she’d say.
I tried every way to question her further, but she was stoic.
So, to counter every eventuality, I packed kind of three of everything into my backpack, even my swimming shorts just in case, then I heard voices from downstairs.
I got halfway down when I recognized Mary’s mom’s voice. “We’ll take good care of him. And we’ll only be in Fisher County, so not that far, really.”
Mom was gushing approval when I entered the kitchen. Mary-Christine sidled up to me, but didn’t touch, and we all had a great leave-taking. I kissed mom goodbye, and walked down the path to my adventure.
My enthusiasm was slightly curbed once we’d gotten away from my house. Mary’s mom calmed down a bit and got kinda quiet. Mary’s dad was in the driver’s seat, and when we got inside, no one spoke.
For me, I was nervous.
It was my first time meeting her dad, and I felt nervous. I’ve kissed your daughter, nudged her tits a few times. I’ve even had wet dreams about doing it to her one day. Man I was in a cold sweat.
“You got your student ID with you Lyman?” were the first words out of his mouth.
“Yes, sir.” Gregor Academy. Go Hawks!
“Good lad. Nice to meet you by the way.” His smile didn’t pass his lips. I felt more nervous.
Vampire High School (Book 1: Gregor Academy) Page 6