Chapter 40
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 a week?
“Okay, so the glossary says it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few months, depending upon how bad the infection is,” Emma explained to us.
“That’s not helpful,” I stated before I realized I was talking about vampire infection—how could there be trustworthy information about that?
“I’ve found a post that says this guy thinks his girlfriend was bitten and that she started acting weird a couple of days later and another one where the guy says his wife went to sleep and woke up after a week acting all weird.”
“What happens to these people?” I asked. “Do they just go off into the night?”
“No, their neighbors douse them with garlic salt,” Lucy replied, her face perfectly straight until I started laughing. “I don’t know.”
“That is a good question, though,” Emma pointed out. “Because… here’s the thing. If vampires are real—and obviously that’s a big “if”—wouldn’t they have to have been around for a very long time? Either that or they’re new and biologically engineered.” The last part seemed to be a whole new train of thought, and she shook her head, returning to the original idea. “What’s stopping them from just wiping out humanity completely?”
“Maybe there aren’t a whole lot of them?” Lucy offered. “Maybe there just aren’t enough of them to kill all the people.”
“Wouldn’t they just make more then?” Emma asked. “If all you have to do to make a vampire is bite someone, then that seems easy.”
“Unless it’s super hard to restrain yourself from just killing them.” Lucy shrugged, like we were talking about the rules of etiquette or how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of baby vampires.
