I jumped when I heard glass shattering. It appeared one of the girls had picked up a rock and had thrown it through a school window. It made everybody tense for a few seconds, but nothing else happened.
“Good thinking, Ellie,” my sister said to the girl who had thrown the rock. Ellie, a short, plump, blond girl beamed a broad smile back at us. Julie began to clear away the glass from the window frame, so we could climb through.
Never you mind, Ellie. It’s only Mr. Finkle’s room, and I am sure Charlie wouldn’t mind when I tell him you did this to his room. If I ever see him again.
Thinking about Charlie’s fate made Joy leave the building.
Once all the girls were inside, I showed them the way to my classroom. This meant we had to go through the hallway with windows letting through sunlight. I knew glass filters out UVB rays, but not UVA, and as such the windows formed a hazard. I guess Julie had already figured this out before and told all the new vampires, including myself, to keep our skin and eyes covered while walking past the windows. Of course, I couldn’t resist the urge to keep an eye on everybody, so I peeked between my fingers. To my surprise, some of the girls positioned themselves in front of the windows. They had their hoods over their heads, held their long coats open with gloved hands, and stood there with their backs turned toward the sun until the last girl passing pulled them along. I was actually glad they did this as seeing the sunrays further up the hall hurt my eyes after spending a whole night in the dark.
When we made it to my classroom, I hit the button to close the blackout curtains, turned on the neon lighting, and we all relaxed. We cleaned ourselves up at the sinks of the science desks. As I was waiting for my turn, my eyes fell on the door to the storeroom. My thoughts drifted to when I was here with Charlie. Thinking of him felt like somebody dropped a brick in my stomach.
Would he know I was still alive, and human? Did he find a way to escape the infected attack? Would he still be alive?
My breath turned shallow and unconsciously, I began picking a loose bit of laminate off a desk, something I always had stop the kids from doing. I was rescued from my thoughts by one of the girls when she tapped me on my shoulder.
“Here,” she said as she handed me something from a bag she was carrying. “I bet you forgot to bring one.”
I looked at the object in my hand. She had given me a roll-on deodorant.
That’s not the brand I normally use.
I was lost for words, so I just smiled at her in thanks and pocketed the deodorant.
Chapter 19
Once I had cleaned myself up and used the deodorant, I sat down next to my sister, who sat leaning against the front desk facing the room.
“I’m afraid there’s nobody in the building to feed on,” I said to her. I hoped she didn’t hear the tremor in my voice. As far as I knew, I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t sure I was right either. I didn’t want her to go looking, just in case someone was indeed hiding somewhere in the school that I wasn’t aware of.
I’m doing my best to help you, Charlie.
“It’s okay, sis. We had a drink on the bus on the way over.” Her own words made her giggle.
How can she live with herself?
I couldn’t understand how an average, peace-loving person like I knew my sister was, could turn into such a vicious killer. She had never hurt a fly. Sure, there had been the odd girlfriend bitchiness, but that was Julie for you. She never shied away from speaking her mind. Most of the time she was right, too. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t have a problem with ripping somebody’s neck open, all of a sudden. Why did all these girls, who seemed so nice, have no objections to killing others? I had to know. As I was too impatient to beat around the bush, I decided to get straight to the point. I figured I’d be safe with Julie being my sister and didn’t think she would bite my head off over a question. I hoped she hadn’t changed that much.
“Julie?”
“Ayuh?”
“Why don’t you have a problem killing people?” There, the question was out. I didn’t know if I should have known as I was supposed to be turned, but I had to find out.
“That’s quite a question you’ve got there.” She didn’t look at me at first, but after a few moments, she answered. “It’s something to get used to for sure, but you have no choice, really.”
I was relieved I hadn’t given myself away with the question. “What do you mean, ‘no choice’? Can’t you just not do it?”
What is it with these people and their catch phrase, ‘no choice’?
Julie stood up, and for a moment I thought I’d blown it, but she only took off her coat and sat down again. All the while, I could imagine the cogs turning in her head.
“Once you’re infected,” she said, “you’re not the same person anymore. The hunger takes over, and you must do it to survive. At first, your mind doesn’t want to. It’s the thirst that drives you. You’ll notice yourself when it kicks in. However, as soon as you sink your fangs into a neck and taste that sweet, sweet blood, it’s so fucking good.” Her whole face lit up, erasing the gloominess that was there a few seconds before. “And then when you’re changing, you just know you’re becoming a better person. The old you was weak and insignificant. We are a superior species, Kate.” She almost sounded like a preacher, having reached her revelation.
Um, no, you’re not. You need a change in your chromosomes to become a different species.
It was scary to listen to her, as if she was high on drugs. This drug, bug, or whatever was causing this pandemic, was eliminating rational thinking. It had to be. My sister had never believed in ‘better’ people. She had always gone by the motto ‘live and let live’ and had been dead set against those who thought they were better than others. I worked hard to get a smile on my face, to pretend I was looking forward to my change.
“Come, let me have a look at your marks,” she said out of the blue.
I nearly died.
She smiled the sweetest smile at me and put a gentle hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. It’s just that I have to make sure you don’t get an infection.”
As it was clear from her voice she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, I reluctantly resigned myself to the fact that I was surely going to be found out this time. But what else was I to do in this room full of infected?
From a pocket of her large coat, Julie retrieved a packet of sterile gauze swabs and a bottle of disinfectant. She told me to open up the zipper of my jacket.
I held my breath as I turned my head, so she could have a good look at my neck. I strained my eyes to watch her face, trying to detect the first hint of hostility.
“You were lucky. It looks like a clean bite,” she said and applied some disinfectant to my wounds. The sting of it made me gasp. “Alex there wasn’t so blessed.” Julie pointed to one of the girls in the far corner. “She nearly got half her throat ripped out by some idiot.”
I looked at Alex and saw she had a bandage around her neck. I couldn’t help thinking it was the result of an encounter with Mr. Ugly Sweater. He seemed to me a person who didn’t care about making wounds like that.
While Julie stuck two round Band-Aids on my ‘marks,’ I asked her why she was in Bullsbrook.
“I came looking for you, silly.” She had a huge grin on her face. “I wasn’t going to let you stay uninfected now, was I?”
I beamed an honest smile back at her. I couldn’t help but feel loved.
“Thanks so much for thinking of me, but you were too late,” I lied.
“Ayuh, but at least I found you. I hadn’t been able to find Mom and Dad. When I went to your house, I was afraid you had been taken when you weren’t there. I’m so glad I’ve found you alive … and not with any of the other packs …” She looked uneasy when she let those last words trail.
I was too eager to know more about how the girls were able to stand in the sunlight. As Julie prepared another gauze swab with disinfectant, I asked her.
“Jules,
about this sunlight thing. I saw earlier that it was possible for some of the girls to stand directly in the light. Why didn’t they have a seizure? Isn’t it true what they told us on TV?”
Julie treated my grazed hands and knees while she explained. I had to bite my lip when she put the disinfectant onto the wounds. When she wiped the graze with the gauze, touching every exposed nerve ending in the process, tears welled up in my eyes from the pain. Julie was too occupied to see it, and I refused to stop her as I was too eager to hear her explanation.
“Sunlight does have an effect on us, but it changes,” she said. “At first you are very sensitive, and you have a seizure as soon as you see daylight, you don’t even have to touch it. But as time goes on, your body adapts, and the effect gets less. The oldest of us, including me, are hardly affected by it at all now. When we get close to sunshine we slip into this aura and are slowed down, but it doesn’t make us have a full seizure unless the sunlight hits our skin. It serves as a warning sign and lets you get away from wherever you are, away from the light.”
My mind drifted off to Sasha, and how she had just stood there with sunlight on her clothing, frozen. I realized Sasha was one of the older infected, and that she must have stayed with us to warn Caleb of the coming sun instead of going off to feed as she was told to do. Then Julie’s words sank in.
“What? Wait. I don’t get it. You say you’re one of the older ones? But you live near here, don’t you? Did you move to Portland and forget to tell me about it?”
Julie’s eyes flickered up reproachfully as she pulled one leg of my jeans down again. “No, I didn’t move. I was on a business trip in the city with my boss when it happened.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you accompanied your boss on business trips.”
“I didn’t.” She yanked the other leg of my jeans down. “My boss had other reasons for bringing me, more to do with occupying his wandering hands. As soon as I was infected, I made sure they never wandered again. Not on me, not on anybody.”
I could tell there was no love lost there and that there was more to the story. However, it wasn’t a story I was interested in at the moment.
“Tell me more about what it’s like being bitten.”
“There isn’t much more to tell,” she sighed as she sat down again next to me, leaning against the desk.
“Are you superwoman now?” I joked.
“Yes and no,” she said.
I eyeballed her in disbelief.
“Get out of here! You can fly?”
Julie laughed.
“Of course not! At first, you will even be weak,” she said. “Your body needs time to adapt, and that’s why you have to feed a lot. Your muscles will grow at a rapid pace and to be able to do this, they need nutrients, lots of blood. You will also want to sleep for long periods, but, like the need for feeding, it will wear off. I’ve taken over this system I’ve learned from other packs. We hunt as a pack to provide for the young ones, who are too weak to hunt for themselves. We protect them during the day when they sleep to get stronger. I’m not sure when the transition is finished exactly, I’m still changing, but my body has adapted a fair bit. I’m as strong as an ox.” She beamed proudly and pumped her biceps for me.
I was in awe of the size of her muscles. Julie had never been one to hit the gym.
“How ‘old’ are you?” I asked her.
“I was turned just over a week ago. I am not one of the oldest infected around, but I am the oldest of this pack. I am the one taking care of these girls,” she said. She let her eyes wander around the room with a look I’d never seen on her face before.
“Why are there no men in your group, um, I mean … pack?”
She looked back at me and grinned. “Because I haven’t met a man yet who will take instructions from a woman.”
We both giggled.
She began to tell me how she was turned. How the infected had stormed the office building she was in, and how she had tried to protect the girls there while others just ran.
I think it took less than five minutes before my mind wandered off. She was still the same sister with the same storytelling habits she’d always had, drifting off into non-essential extras that made it hard to follow the storyline. Another few minutes passed before she patted my knee.
“Go and get some sleep. I can see you need it.”
“Thanks, Jules,” I said, followed by a weak smile. She got up, and I tried to make myself comfortable on the floor with my jacket under my head. My eyes followed Julie as she went through the room, making sure everybody was okay. A fuzzy feeling warmed my body. I felt proud she was my sister.
Chapter 20
Sleep didn’t come right away even though I was exhausted. There’s just no rest for the guilty. When I closed my eyes, I saw images of Sue and Charlie; Sue’s smile morphing into a scream as she was being dragged away by the infected, and Charlie tickling me, but when I turned around to laugh with him, he wasn’t there. The feeling it gave me was like falling into a bottomless pit. I couldn’t handle these images, so to escape them, I opened my eyes and looked around. Unfortunately, even awake, I couldn’t escape the feeling of how I wished I could have saved Sue. Whatever I did, I was reminded of the facts that I had survived and that she was gone.
I willed my mind to think of something else. So I wondered what had happened to Charlie. No, that didn’t help either. More guilt, more questions.
Why, oh, why hadn’t he followed me? Why hadn’t I followed him? Had he known a way out? Where is he now? Would I ever see him again? Is he still alive?
This brick in my stomach was getting really annoying. It also reminded me I needed food soon.
As I felt my limbs and eyelids getting heavy, I thought about the ‘we’ that my sister and Sasha had referred to. They didn’t call themselves ‘infected.’ They were ‘we’ or ‘us’ and unturned humans were ‘the others,’ ‘them,’ ‘the opposition.’ I was the one who made the distinction between infected versus humans, which was silly of course as the infected were still human. You didn’t lose or gain chromosomes by an infection. Or did you?
Could this be a case of extreme transduction, where new genetic material is introduced by viruses? I know it’s possible in bacteria, but I’ve never heard of it being reported on this level.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I willed my tired eyelids up, to defy my overactive brain which wanted to drown me in my sorrows and unanswerable questions. I watched the girls get ready for sleep. As I studied them, I realized not all infected were as I had thought them to be. There had been stories told on TV of ruthless killers who brutally attacked humans, leaving mutilated bodies behind. They were supposed to have no soul, no remorse, no feelings. Yet here I was, falling head over heels for a vampire and adopted as ‘one of the family’ by a pack of them. They all seemed so normal. This was not what I had expected. Julie was still the sister that I knew. She had even come looking for me and, what baffled me most, she had told me she loved me. I knew she had loved me when she was still uninfected, but she had never, ever, told me directly. Nor had I ever told her I loved her. That was just not done. I knew she loved me, and I guess she knew I loved her, but we had never, ever said it out loud.
That was probably what shocked me the most. These infected, these ‘wild, savage killers,’ had shown me more emotion than I had encountered in the uninfected. Even bad emotions, with Sasha being a good example of those.
Thinking of Sasha brought my mind back to Caleb. I was baffled by the deep longing I felt for him in such a short period of time. I wasn’t sure if it was love. I had been in love before, yet this was different.
The first time I had loved, it had been little more than a crush. Josh was a boy in my seventh grade, and he had never known I liked him. I had taken a photo of him with my brand-new camera; he had even posed for it. I had kissed that photo goodnight for weeks, never having the guts to tell him how I felt about him. After he moved to North Carolina, I gave up on boys f
or a while. A few years later, I had fallen for the attention I received from Peter, a fellow student. He made me laugh. We had kissed and made out for months before we had sex in his bedroom on an evening when his parents were out. It had been an exciting time, and we were good for a year or two until I went to college, and he dumped me. How heartbroken I had been. I’d had a few more flings during my university studies but was never in love with those guys. Yet, whatever I had felt with all of these boys combined was nothing compared to the feeling I’d had when I had looked into Caleb’s eyes. That intensity had been like being hit by lighting.
Not that I have any experience in that.
When he had been about to bite me, his body so close to mine … It had been so thrilling and overwhelming. His teeth on my flesh had been so … so …
Okay, let’s not go there now.
I embarrassed myself with my own thoughts. I knew I’d die a happy woman now that I’d met Caleb, for I reasoned this feeling for him couldn’t be anything else than true love.
I finally fell asleep, dreaming of drowning in Caleb’s eyes.
Chapter 21
Julie woke me when the sun had just set. I couldn’t believe I had slept the whole day.
“Hey, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?”
“Like a punching bag,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I hope the sleeping arrangements will improve.” I got up and stretched myself. My whole body literally felt beaten-up. All those falls and running last night added to the torture of sleeping on linoleum.
“One day it will, but for now we’ll have to do with whatever we can find,” Julie said, and she walked off again, waking the others.
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