by Mia Archer
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s hit the library and then I guess we’re going to a pep rally that’s going down in the early hours of the morning?”
“The early hours of the morning is the middle of the day if you’re a bloodsucker,” Veronica said with a shrug.
34
Yearbook
“I’m still not sure about this,” Jimmy said, looking up at the quiet stone facade of the Carnegie library that sat just off the town’s downtown area. “I mean I always loved this place when I was growing up. Breaking something here feels sacrilegious.”
“Yeah, but this is the only place we’re going to find what I’m looking for in one place. Unless you want to go breaking into a bunch of old people’s houses and stealing their shit,” Veronica said.
“Seriously. This is the only way we’re going to get at whatever it is Veronica is trying to show us, so let’s do it.”
Still Jimmy hesitated. I rolled my eyes. This was just fucking great. He became a man of action back in the clearing when it meant he got to make out with his vampire lady friend, but now he was going back to his old dorky self?
“Couldn’t you do it for me?” Veronica asked, staring at him in the dark and batting her eyelashes.
The quiet night was filled with the faint tinkle of glass breaking as Jimmy shoved his hand through. It made a hell of a mess, too.
It turns out shoving your fist and hand through a window, even a small window attached to a side door leading into the old library, wasn’t quite as easy in the real world as in the movies. I knew because I’d bled out once going through a window I didn’t realize was there in one of my many unfortunate deaths before I came to the realization that I was a reaper.
We all held our breath. Waited to see if the place had an alarm, but nothing happened.
“Good,” Veronica said. “Guess they never decided to upgrade the security.”
“What was the security back when you were living around here?” I asked.
“None at all,” she said with a smile. “Now let’s go. We don’t have long before the pep rally starts.”
“Couldn’t you just tell me what you’re trying to get across here?” I said. “If there’s something terrifying going on down at the high school then I’d rather be there than fucking around here.”
“Nope,” Veronica said. “We’re doing this first, then the high school.”
We stepped into the library. There were a few lights on. Just enough to see by, thankfully. The last thing I wanted was to go turning lights on that might signal to anyone up late and watching that there were people doing a bit of breaking and entering in the town library.
Sure I’d probably be able to talk my way out of it if they involved the Chief, but I didn’t have the time to wait for him to show up right now if there seriously was about to be a scary vampire pep rally going down at the high school.
“Here we are,” Veronica said, moving to a section that was all about local history.
Mostly it was books that’d been self-published by local “historians” who were typically older people writing about how great the town had been when they were young and how shitty it’d gotten since they got older. I’d gone through them before because I was a dork like that, and it was a theme with those books whether they were written in 1909 when there was a gas boom going on around here but there were signs that the gas might be on its way out and the jobs right along with it or 1959 when there was a manufacturing boom going on but already there were signs that the cheap factory jobs might not stick around forever.
Veronica pulled out a few different books. I looked at them and was just a touch surprised.
“Yearbooks?” I asked. “That’s what we came here for? Yearbooks? Couldn’t we just go to the high school and get these from the library there?”
“We could,” Veronica said. “But then you’d be in the school when there were a bunch of vampires gathering and we can’t have that.”
Tendrils of dark death were gathering around me before I could think about what I was doing. Veronica looked at those tendrils of magic and seemed surprisingly unintimidated by them. It was a huge change from when she’d been a bloodsucking vampire.
“If you think you’re going to scare me away with that stuff then you have another think coming,” she said. “I just woke up from a forty year nightmare and I can remember every terrible thing I ever did while I was a bloodsucker. Next to being stuck with those memories, killing me would almost be a mercy.”
I pulled the tendrils back. Talk about your all time things I wasn’t expecting to hear from the girl who’d been my nemesis up until maybe an hour ago.
“Right,” I said, blushing just a bit. “So if you’re regretting everything that happened while you were a bloodsucking freak, why the hell are you trying to keep me away from the school while the vampires are gathering over there?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d think that’s obvious enough from what you just pulled with me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It means every time you have a problem with something supernatural you jump at it without thinking about whether or not attacking something is a good idea.”
“Whatever,” I grunted, crossing my arms. I really didn’t like her assessment of how I handled things. Mostly because it’d been true since Stacy got turned into a bloodsucker.
“The last thing I need is for you to go into that school with your magic blazing, trying your best to take out all the vampires before the big guy even has a chance to show himself. It’s rare that asshole actually shows his true form, and you don’t want him to go into hiding for a few decades,” she said.
“He’d really disappear for that long?” I asked.
“Yup. He’s had centuries to wait. A decade is a blink of an eye to him, and if someone like you comes along and tries giving him trouble then he might even disappear from the school entirely and never return,” Veronica said. “He doesn’t like reapers.”
“Fine,” I finally said. “So we need to kill some time while we’re waiting for all the bloodsuckers to show up. You clearly brought me out here for a reason, so what is it?”
“This,” Veronica said, pointing to a series of yearbooks she’d been getting out and putting down on the wood tables. “Take a look at this. The big asshole might be willing to go into hiding for a few decades at a time and pick off some pretties around the edges, but he’s not all that great at coming up with a new look when he does come out of hiding to do some serious collecting.”
I looked at the books and realized she’d opened all of them to the faculty page. Which wasn’t what I’d expected, but I figured I should give them another look anyway.
“The faculty?” I said. “You’re saying a bloodsucker has eternal life and they figured the best thing they could do with that eternal life was forever reliving high school as a teacher?”
“Teacher, administrator,” Veronica said with a shrug. “I suppose reliving your high school years as a teacher is better than reliving them as the students. I tried the whole going back to school thing a couple of times, and it turns out school pretty much sucks in all the same ways no matter what decade you’re in, even if some of the fashions change.”
“How would that even work?” I asked. “I thought bloodsuckers turned to dust or something when they were exposed to the sun?”
“Well yeah, but it turns out that’s more of a guideline than an actual rule. You can stay inside and not worry about the sun getting you. Put on enough SPF and you might be able to make it for a few minutes. Wear hoodies and cover yourself and you last even longer, there are lots of ways to get around if you know what you’re doing and avoid windows,” Veronica said.
“And a giant hunk of concrete that was built back when the world was more worried about students having to pull a duck and cover when the nukes started dropping is the perfect place to make a career like that while also having access to a bunch of gullible idiots you can slowly add t
o your undead army,” I muttered.
I’d heard some of the other reapers talking about how glad they were cooler heads had prevailed and the bombs hadn’t ended up dropping after all. Not because they were worried about the end of civilization as we know it like most people were when they thought about nuclear war so much as because none of them relished the idea of the overtime they’d have to put in tracking down hundreds of millions of souls and moving them to the other side.
I looked from page to page, and the identity of the head vampire seriously surprised me.
“Assistant Principal Lee?” I asked.
“It’s always the ones you least expect,” Veronica said. “Like I said, he comes out and assumes an identity every few decades to go collecting. I think he also does a circuit of a few different schools in the area so he’s alway staggering who might see him, but that’s only a guess since I’ve seen some vamps from other schools over the years. Either way, the social media era and facial recognition is about to seriously fuck with his MO. He wouldn’t shut up about it. I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s finally making a move.”
I shook my head. “The guy isn’t anything like I’d expect from a vampire. I mean I’m sure I’ve seen him outside and…”
I thought. Really thought about all the times I’d seen him around the school. Thought about how he’d been the one to conveniently show up when I was fighting off a bunch of bloodsuckers, for that matter.
I guess he never had been near a window or anything like that all those times.
“That motherfucker,” I said. “But wouldn’t someone look at these yearbooks and figure out what was going on? It’s pretty obvious when you look at these side by side and figure it out.”
“Well yeah, but have you ever heard of someone who was so nerdy that they went looking at a bunch of yearbooks that don’t feature them? Decades apart? Most people don’t even look at their own yearbooks,” Veronica said. “The only ones who look at these are librarians, and even they probably aren’t going through all of them.”
“I guess you’ve got a point there,” I said.
“Not to mention there have been plenty of bloodsuckers caught on camera over the years, some have even gotten pretty famous in the modern era, and everyone thinks it’s just a big joke or something because mortals don’t want to think about things like vampires actually being real and knocking them down a couple of pegs on the food chain. Though to hear this asshole talk it sounds like facial recognition algorithms are about to really start fucking with that and making people confront some uncomfortable realities about the supernatural.”
I thought about a couple of times I’d seen things like that on the Internet. There were always way more people in those threads making fun of people for believing in bullshit like vampires than there were people willing to admit they believed in vampires.
“Okay, point made,” I said. “Also, these names he’s picking are ridiculous.”
“They are?” Veronica asked.
“Mr. Schreck? Mr. Lugosi? Mr. Lee? Those last two are way too on point,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Come on. Those are all movies from before your time!”
“I mean it’s not like I’m going to sit around and watch old movies either,” she said with a shrug.
“When this is all over, and if we survive, we’re going to make sure to sit down and catch you up on all the pop culture stuff you’ve clearly been missing out on for the past few years,” I said.
“If we survive,” she said, staring off in the distance towards the school. “Considering everything I’m having to deal with remembering right now I’m not sure I want to.”
“Come on Veronica,” Jimmy said, putting an arm around her. “It can’t be all that bad, can it?”
“You have no idea, Jimmy,” she said. “You never did any of that stuff because you were always on the outs. I don’t want to think about some of the things I’ve done.”
“Well you can start to make it better tonight,” I said, looking at a clock on the wall. “Because we’re going to go out there, kick some bloodsucking ass, and save my girlfriend.”
That earned me a sharp look from Veronica. Maybe she’d been serious when she talked about wanting Stacy all to herself, but it wasn’t happening.
“Do we have to?” Jimmy asked.
“You found your balls out there in the clearing,” Veronica said, patting him on the cheek. “You don’t want to lose them now.”
“Damn it,” Jimmy said.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “With a little luck you’ll be human before the night is through.”
Jimmy looked to me, and then to Veronica. He seemed to be thinking the same thing I’d been thinking earlier from the way he deflated. Maybe he didn’t want to lose any of that vampire magnetism, but that was tough shit for him.
I was going to get Stacy back if it killed every bloodsucking bastard who may or may not be gathering in the gym right now to have the world’s creepiest pep rally, and Jimmy’s continuing ability to maintain an advantage with a girl like Veronica who probably wouldn’t give him the time of day otherwise was pretty far down on my priority list.
35
Pep Rally
“And when we go out there into the world what are we going to do?” the voice boomed over the PA system.
“Rustle some cattle!” the crowd shouted back in the sort of enthusiastic chant that was usually reserved for high school students talking about how they were going to beat the other team in some pseudo-warlike situation.
Nothing about this war sounded fake, though. The people in that gym were planning some shit, and I was the one who was going to have to do something about it.
“What the hell are they talking about?” I asked.
Veronica hit me with a look that said I was being an idiot. “Come on. Rustle some cattle? I’m sure you can figure that one out when we’re talking vampires and humans. That’s like one of the oldest cliches in the book.”
“Okay yeah,” I said. “Maybe I deserved that one.”
“I’d say you deserved that one more than a little,” Jimmy muttered, hitting Veronica with a smile and earning a smile right back from her.
I rolled my eyes. “Y’know this was a lot easier when you were afraid to so much as look at me because you thought I was going to do something to you.”
“You said you wanted me to help out,” he said. “Well this is my way of helping out.”
“You taking Veronica’s side on everything because you think it’s going to help you get into her pants when your vampire magnetism wears off is not my idea of helping out,” I groused.
“Hey!” Jimmy shouted.
“Would the two of you can it?” Veronica said. “Lee is getting to the good part.”
“And I can tell you when this is all said and done, we’re all going to be back at this wonderful school that made us what we are. We’re going to be back to what we were, because the whole town is going to be getting up at night to do their business and there’s not a damn thing they’ll be able to do to stop us!” the voice boomed through the PA system. “And the authorities are so busy in Starlight City that there’s nothing they can do to stop us!”
I rolled my eyes. “Is this guy serious?”
“He sounds pretty serious to me,” Veronica said. “The big guy was always pretty serious about trying to take over the world and make it a better place for vampires.”
“Yeah, but what the fuck does he think is going to happen when the world suddenly realizes there’s an entire town that’s been taken over by vampires? It’s not like that’s the sort of thing that the authorities are going to let slide,” I said.
“It worked in ’Salem’s Lot,” Jimmy muttered.
“Yes, but this isn’t a Stephen King novel where the bad guys win because he’s trying to prove a point about the scary dark things in the world pushing back against the technological advances of
the twentieth century as a sort of reverse Dracula!” I snapped.
They both stared at me blankly. I growled and rolled my eyes.
“The point is I’m the authority in this town when it comes to supernatural things, and I’m not going to let them get away with this. It isn’t happening on my watch. I don’t care if the rest of the world is in a tizzy because of whatever’s threatening to take over the world in Starlight City this week. Night Terror can worry about that crap. This is my territory.”
“Whatever you say Sheriff Gwen,” Veronica said, trying to stifle a giggle and not doing a good job of it, which I was pretty sure was totally intentional.
“This is just what I need,” I said. “Not only has my girlfriend been turned into a bloodsucking monster, but now I have to deal with the two sarcastic bloodsucking Wonder Twins on top of it.”
I crept forward. There were no vampires in the halls out here. Not even someone running the concession stands. I’d been to my fair share of games since basketball season started. Mostly because I was interested in watching the cheerleaders in general and one cheerleader in particular, and not necessarily because I was all that interested in watching the basketball team get the hardwood wiped with their losing record asses.
We reached the end of the second floor hall and I peered around the edge into the gym, trying to move slow so I wouldn’t be seen. I blinked at the sheer volume of asses filling those uncomfortable bleachers.
“Holy shit,” I said, turning back around and pressing against the wall.
“What’s wrong?” Veronica asked.
“They’ve filled an entire school’s worth of vampires in there!” I hissed. “I’ve never seen the gym that full before!”
“Well yeah,” Veronica said. “What part of them having a massive vampire pep rally did you not understand?”
“Probably the part where you made it sound like the whole gym was going to be full of vampires!” I said. “That’s a whole gym. Full of vampires! How are we supposed to get around that?”
