Vesper

by Jeff Sampson

  “Okay, so, I’ll come here to pick you up right after school.”

  Dawn leaned against the steering wheel of her car, looking at me with a serious expression I’d never once seen from her. Grabbing my backpack from where it rested between my knees, I opened the door, then hesitated.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said without turning around.

  For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Finally she said, “I was really, really worried about you, dude.”

  “I know, I—”

  “Just don’t ever do that to me again. I want to help you break out of your shell and all, but not if it means you’re going to make me think you’re dead all night.”

  I turned to her. I smiled weakly. She did not return the expression.

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  She coughed and looked away. “All righty. So right after school, then. I need to go home and take a nap.”

  “Okay.”

  Clutching my bag to my chest, I surveyed the school. The brick buildings were quiet, seeming almost empty. The sky was a matte gray—it often was in the morning—and the cool wind blew through the towering evergreens that surrounded the school. Across the parking lot there were news vans, some preparing to pull away, others setting up cameras. The reporter from TV that morning talked with her cameraman, cradling a steaming cup of coffee and laughing.

  Near the front doors was a pile of flowers and teddy bears, ribbons tied to the pole they rested against. Last year’s school pictures of Emily C. and Dalton were pasted against the brick wall. They both looked so happy. At least maybe Dalton would get to take a new picture.

  I went to the front office and gave the secretary the note my dad had written, and she wrote something in her ledger and sent me on my way. Behind her the principal stood with the vice principal, the two women nodding solemnly while speaking to a pair of men I assumed were detectives based on the badges clipped to their belts.

  I took my time walking through the quiet, empty halls to my locker. First period was already halfway over, and the last thing I wanted was to walk in and have everyone’s eyes on me.

  Storing my backpack, I wandered past the lockers, past the half-empty classrooms where the kids who either weren’t close to Dalton or whose parents weren’t overprotective enough to keep them home sat, learning reading and writing and ’rithmetic. I stopped outside of room 113: Mr. Woods’s English class. Megan’s first period.

  I don’t know how long I stood there until the bell rang; I more or less zoned out, my back against the lockers by the door and eyes cast down at the green tile floor, my mind circling around the same things over and over. Finally the doors burst open and kids began pouring out. Megan was one of the first. She walked right past me.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out to touch her arm.

  She stiffened and spun around, ready to verbally smack down whoever had touched her. But her face softened—only slightly—when she saw it was me.

  Dragging me away from the door so we wouldn’t be caught up in the wake of chattering kids rushing into the hall, she put her head close to mine.

  “I heard what you did,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Oh crap.

  I looked away from her accusing gray eyes and bit my lip. “Uh, yeah, so what did you hear?”

  “Enough,” she said. “When someone like us makes a scene, word gets around fast. Even when one of their lunkhead boyfriends almost gets murdered, people still have plenty of time to make comments online all night laughing about you getting smashed and acting like a whore.”

  I glanced sidelong at the kids passing us as they went to their lockers and classes. A few glowered at me, their expressions judgmental, before whispering into the ears of whoever they walked with.

  I didn’t know what to say. I stood silent, then finally said, “Dalton isn’t a lunkhead. He’s a nice guy.”

  Megan threw her hands in the air. “You’re trying to become one of them, aren’t you?” she said. “Is that what this is all about? You’re pretending to have some sort of brain malfunction so, what, I wouldn’t be mad that I’m not good enough for you anymore? Is that it?”

  She crossed her arms and slammed back against the locker. Her lower lip trembled.

  “What?” I said. “No! Of course not!”

  “Right,” she muttered. “Whatever.”

  We stood there in silence for a few moments. More kids walked by, their eyes melting holes in my hoodie. I turned away, faced the lockers, my cheeks burning.

  “I promise you,” I whispered, “I’m not trying to ditch you, and I’m not going to turn into a Sarah Plainsworth. I would never go all Heather on you like that.”

  Megan looked at me blankly. “Go all what?”

  “You know, a Heather?” I said. “Like in the movie Heathers?”

  Megan’s look remained blank.

  “Oh, we need to Netflix that, it’s totally eighties and raunchy and great. There’s evil popular girls dying left and right, you’d totally love it.” The words left my mouth before I really thought about them—movies about dead popular girls probably weren’t the best thing to talk about—and I winced.

  Seemingly despite herself, Megan smirked and let out a sharp laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “You always know what I’ll love.”

  We stood there in silence. The first bell for next period rang, and the hall began to empty.

  “Look,” I said. “Something weird is going on with me lately, I know. Maybe . . . maybe you could come over tonight, like you were going to do last night. When I start acting strange, you can make sure I don’t run out and embarrass myself, or get myself shot.”

  “Your dad will be cool with that?” Megan asked me.

  “Uh,” I said. “I’m sort of grounded. But we’ll see.”

  Megan’s eyes went wide. “You’re grounded?”

  The second bell rang. The hall was completely empty.

  “Oh crap,” I muttered. “The last thing I need is detention.” Rushing down the hall toward my class, I waved at Megan. “I’ll tell you about it later,” I said. “Just make sure your mom doesn’t keep you home this time!”

  Megan waved and ran off to her own class. I was completely unsure if I was doing the right thing by asking her to guard-dog me, but I knew I probably needed her now more than ever if I had any hope of keeping from wreaking havoc as Nighttime Emily. Or getting drunk and turning into . . .

  I didn’t want to think about it. I skidded around a corner and ran to Mr. Philbrick’s biology class.

  I opened the door as quietly as I could. Mr. Philbrick’s expansive back was turned to me, and I peeked around him at the classroom. The first person I saw was someone I seriously did not expect to see at school that day: Amy Delgado.

  She caught my eye just as I caught hers. She slowly mouthed, Whore.

  I quietly shut the door. Guess there would be no science for me.

  I ended up in the library, sitting on the short carpet, hiding behind the stacks. I wanted to cry, but that felt so stupidly childish. Yet why shouldn’t I cry? I mean, I went from being completely anonymous to being called the “fat” Emily and the “whore” Emily, and Megan thought I was trying to drop her as a friend, and my whole family was mad at me, and because of me poor Dalton got shot, and there were my nighttime changes that had gone from being heady thrills to something completely out of control. . . .

  My eyes burned with tears, but I refused to let them fall. What would Nighttime Emily do? She would stomp into biology class like she owned the place, call Amy Delgado a whore right back, prop her feet on her desk, and get good and ready for some book learnin’. She’d tell Megan to stop acting all oversensitive and start being more supportive, like a best friend should be.

  Then she’d probably steal a car and go on a joyride down the freeway, maybe try to rob a bank to catch the attention of a cute guard.

  I laughed to myself. My life was rapidly becoming ridiculous.

  Grabbing the shelves, I hauled myse
lf to my feet. I read the title on the spine of the book in front of me: Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief & Folklore in Early Modern Europe.

  Well, that was a freaky coincidence.

  I hesitated for a moment, then grabbed the book off the shelf. There were a few more on similar subjects near it. I grabbed those, too.

  Finding a table in the mostly empty, quiet lobby of the library, I sat down with my pile of books and began flipping through the pages. There were reproduced engravings of werewolves rampaging through villages, eating pigs and chickens and the occasional unlucky human. There was the standard talk about werewolf lore, you know the drill: turned into one after being bitten by another person cursed with lycanthropy, transforming with the full moon, killed only by silver bullets.

  Well, none of that applied to me. The moon wasn’t in the sky at all last night, and I’d certainly never been bitten by anyone, let alone a wolf. That’s the kind of thing you’d remember. And I don’t really want to test the theory, but I’m pretty sure that any bullet would get me good and dead, silver or no. That’s what happened to Emily Cooke, at least.

  I slammed shut the book and slumped onto my arms. This was completely stupid. Werewolves don’t exist! They’re just fodder for movies and books, and besides, how could someone completely transform into another creature in the course of a few minutes? It didn’t make any sense. I had gotten drunker than a gutter bum the night before, that was all. Maybe all people saw things when they got drunk. I mean, why else would people talk about “beer goggles”?

  Sensing something, I glanced up. The librarian, a skinny woman with short white hair and wire-rimmed glasses, sat quietly at her desk, typing at a computer. I then realized that another student had come into the library while I’d had my nose in my book.

  Patrick.

  He sat across the lobby at another table, facing me but engrossed in whatever it was he was reading.

  I remembered the musk that had made me feel all fluttery at lunch the other day, the way I’d gone all boy crazy when I smelled it at the party last night, frantically chasing him through the woods. I couldn’t smell him from this far away, of course, but the memory of his scent had burned its message into some part of my brain that even Nighttime Emily had found strange: He’s the one.

  The one what?

  I had to get up, go talk to him. He was new, and right around the time he appeared, all of this epic weirdness began. And something about him, some pheromone or whatever, drove me even crazier than I already was at night. Maybe he knew something about what was happening to me. Maybe . . .

  I didn’t move. I held a book in front of my face so he wouldn’t see who I was, peeking over the top so that I could watch him. Every few minutes I tried to psych myself up to go talk to him. What would Nighttime Emily do? I asked myself. But it didn’t work. Because I wasn’t Nighttime Emily. I was just me, Emily Webb, average, everyday geek who didn’t have a courageous bone in her body.

  Eventually he set down the book he was reading, grabbed his backpack, and left. I watched his tall form head toward the door, telling myself, This is your last chance. Go talk to him.

  But I sat where I was, and then he was gone.

  Feeling defeated, I grabbed the werewolf books and took them to the librarian to get checked out. That done, I headed toward the door myself—it was almost time for third period. Maybe I could sneak into class without anyone else noticing me.

  As I passed the table where Patrick had sat, I glimpsed the book he’d been reading and had left behind. It was a large, black-covered book. Bold white letters read: Serial Killers in America: Inside the Mind of Fear Itself.

  Well. That was . . . interesting.

  Not sure what to think about Patrick’s choice in reading material, and still cursing myself over my complete inability to suck it up and talk to a boy, I headed off to face the rest of the school day.

  Chapter 11

  The Emily and Megan Milkshake Spectacular

  It was Friday night. Time for everyone to celebrate the end of their first week back at school by getting down, getting funky, getting their party on.

  That is, everyone who wasn’t currently preparing for the weekend funeral of a girl who’d died earlier in the week, or who wasn’t at a hospital waiting to hear about the condition of a boy who’d been shot, or who wasn’t cowering at home, afraid to go out because there was some crazy killer on the loose blowing away teenagers at random.

  Or, if you were me, who never had a party to go to on a Friday night anyway but who was so grounded that even if I did, it was definitely a no-go.

  I love my dad, but I’ll say this about him: Sometimes he can be completely clueless about how to be a parent. Most parents, upon discovering that their child had been out all night drinking, wouldn’t be inclined to let them have a friend stay over the following night, even under the guise of said friend coming to keep an eye on me. They also wouldn’t relent on the TV restriction, saying that they didn’t want their child’s friend to be bored, and they probably wouldn’t go out and leave their child home all alone.

  But I can’t blame my dad too much. In all my sixteen years, he’d never had to worry about punishing me. And I was his little girl; no matter how angry and betrayed he’d felt, I guess I was easy to forgive. I assume that my stepmother tried to explain to him how to correctly raise a teenage girl, but I’ll also say this about my dad: He can be incredibly stubborn when he wants to be.

  That was how Megan and I ended up alone at my house that Friday night, in my living room watching a horror movie from twenty years ago. Dad and Katherine already had plans for the evening long before my wild display at Mikey Harris’s party. Dawn, being an attractive young college student, was also out, shedding the usual jeans and casual tops she wore to school and working the crazy clubbing outfits I always ended up stealing whenever Nighttime Emily took over.

  It’s funny, but for some reason all three of them seemed to trust me not to act out again that night. If only they’d known I didn’t really have much of a choice.

  “This movie is horrible,” Megan declared, legs curled up under her on the couch. She grabbed the remote and flicked off the DVD. I didn’t try to stop her. I was distracted and not really paying attention to the movie anyway, but what I had seen of it was, indeed, horrible. We had better gore effects in the homemade movie Megan and I had made when we were twelve—I’d played the monster slayer, and she’d played the monster.

  It was only seven forty-five. Still a half hour to go before I transformed into Nighttime Emily and Megan would have to strap me to a gurney, or whatever it was she planned to do to keep me from going out.

  “So what do you want to do now?” I asked. “We could watch another movie, but we’ve seen them all . . . maybe a musical, get singtastic . . .”

  Megan shrugged. “I don’t feel like singing. We’ve only got a half an hour to go until your supposed ‘change’ anyway.” She flicked through channels until we ended up on a rerun of Ms. Nguyen’s talk show. Megan chuckled and kept it on, while Ms. Nguyen—dressed in a teal pantsuit—chatted away in Vietnamese, presumably about a grainy still image of a UFO that was in the top left corner of the screen.

  “I know,” she said, muting Ms. Nguyen and turning to face me on the couch. “Want to hear what Lucas told me earlier? About Emily C. and Dalton?”

  I hesitated, then said, “What about them?”

  “Well, Deputy Jared made photocopies of the police reports. Total inside knowledge about what went down.”

  I blinked. “Yeah, uh, that’s sort of morbid.”

  Megan shrugged and buried herself back into the cushions. She swirled her finger over the armrest. “Well, you know how they said Emily C. was walking alone dressed only in flannel pajamas? How she didn’t even have any shoes on? She walked, like, three miles barefoot. What they didn’t say is that she cut her foot three blocks before where she died, that she had a big gash on her heel. The forensics people said from the t
racks she made that it was like she didn’t even notice, just kept on strolling, leaving a bloody trail. After her parents said she had been acting strangely that night, they tested her blood and, get this, she wasn’t on drugs or drunk or anything either.”

  I shuddered, imagining it: Lithe, beautiful Emily Cooke walking trancelike down a dark street, her blond hair flowing behind her in the breeze, ghostlike. In her wake, a dark trail of red footprints staining the sidewalk . . .

  I remembered Emily Cooke’s stories, her photos, the funny notes she’d written to her friends. Imagining the way she’d been in her last moments bothered me, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.

  “Megan,” I whispered.

  She ignored me and kept talking, waving her hands animatedly as she described the scene. She was more excited and interested than I’d seen her in a long time.

  “Then the killer shot her. No struggle, nothing. He must have just stepped in front of her, raised the gun, and bam, bam—shot her once in the chest, once in the neck.”

  “That’s horrible.” I wanted to tell her to stop, but part of me needed to hear this, how it went down. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but maybe Emily Cooke had changed the same way I had—had longed for thrills so much that she hadn’t even bothered getting dressed before running around outdoors. That would explain why she’d seemed erratic to her parents, how she was able to walk so far without shoes.

  But I was pretty sure that even as Nighttime Emily I would have felt a cut on my foot and stopped to take care of it. So what did that mean about Emily Cooke? What was different about her situation?

  Shifting so that she sat on her other leg, Megan went on. “And Dalton—well, you were there. They said he had some crazy high alcohol level, but his friends told police he was acting crazy even before he started drinking.”

  Like I had.

  “They interviewed Nikki,” she went on. “You know, that snotty cheerleader?”

  “She’s not . . .” I stopped myself. “Yeah, I know her.”