Vesper

by Jeff Sampson

  Chapter 15

  Communist Herrings, Huh?

  I snapped awake the next morning with a sharp intake of breath, adrenaline surging through my veins, certain that the shooter would be standing over me, gun pointing at my head, preparing to blow my brains out.

  I was, of course, alone. I was still in my pajamas, I wasn’t covered in mud or drool or scratches. For the first morning in several days, there was no sign that I’d run wild outside.

  The pills had worked.

  I got up from bed, almost stepping on the pile of DVDs and books I’d unceremoniously tossed to the floor last night. Talk about personal changes—movies and books are sacred to me, seriously. I’m the type of person who files my movies and books by title and/or author and keeps them in the most pristine of conditions. I even keep a little log of everything I own on my computer, from Books: Adams, Douglas all the way to Movies: Zodiac.

  Totally anal, I know. But I’ve always liked lists, even before my dad got married to Katherine the librarian, a lady with a serious crush on organization.

  For the first time in a week I felt rested, my head clear. What had caused overwhelming confusion the day before now seemed . . . almost normal already. Turning into a liberated party girl? Old hat. Werewolf? Who hasn’t changed into a mythical beast at least once? I could think about these things as though I was thinking about someone else entirely—as though I was watching a movie where some doppelgänger actress was the one teasing older men and running through the woods sniffing for her mate.

  But I couldn’t feel that way about the shooter. I was slightly less paranoid than the day before, but he was still out there, still waiting . . .

  I got on my computer and did another search: “Emily Cooke.” Maybe there had been a break in her murder case, a new article detailing some previously unreleased evidence found on the scene. Something that would connect her back to me. Or maybe I’d get lucky, find out they’d caught the shooter and had him behind bars.

  The only new article I found was an obituary. It said little more than who Emily C. was survived by and that she would be missed. And also that her funeral was to be held that day at noon.

  I looked at the clock. It was a little after eight thirty.

  I sat there, thinking about Emily Cooke. Here is the sum total of what I knew about her life before she died: She was pretty. Her parents were wealthy. A lot of people liked her. And she and I shared the same first name.

  That was a pitifully small amount to know about someone.

  It was strange, but I suddenly felt a deep, hollow loss. Nothing had changed about our nonrelationship in the past week, with the exception of the day I had feared she was hovering around me, waiting to possess me. But now I knew that even though it wasn’t what I’d originally imagined, there actually was some connection between us that went deeper than our names. Something it seemed only a handful of people had shared. And now I’d never get to talk to her about it.

  Maybe I was being presumptuous, I don’t know. Or just being overemotional because it felt like the only people who cared about me all hated me at the moment due to the way I’d been acting. But if I was right, if the reason Emily C., Dalton, and I had been targeted was something unique to us, something that caused us to change as night fell, our bodies to transform as we ran under the stars . . . then I’d missed out. I’d spent so much time being ignored by the other kids at school that I forgot that I was sorta kinda ignoring them, too.

  It was too late to get to know Emily C., to talk girl to girl about our shared, monstrous secret. But I could at least pay my last respects.

  After lunch, Dawn drove me to the church where Emily’s funeral was being held. She wasn’t exactly keen to go, but when I told her that I was going anyway, even if I had to walk there, she insisted on driving me.

  I was dressed in black slacks and a black blouse that billowed in unfortunate places—an outfit borrowed from my stepmom’s closet. I peered out the window of Dawn’s car as she pulled into the church’s parking lot. It was a clear, bright day. Next to the church was a park. It wasn’t a seesaw-and-slide park, just a nice, open field with evergreens and birches swaying in the cool breeze, flowers still in bloom around a latticed gazebo.

  The park usually hosted weddings, but I could see figures dressed in black sitting inside the gazebo, crying on one another’s shoulders. I guessed that Emily C.’s casket would be moved to a cemetery somewhere else after the ceremony.

  The church lot was so full of cars that Dawn had to park along the sidewalk out front. We filed through the square doors into the chapel, all the pews already filled with somber mourners. I saw teachers from school, including Ms. Nguyen, sitting side by side with friends of Emily’s, like Mikey Harris and Mai Sato. Mai cried openly, tears streaming down her cheeks. I don’t think I’d ever seen her cry, not even when she’d broken her leg the year before during a track meet.

  At the very front of the chapel, set atop a draped table beneath a modern stained-glass window, was a closed coffin. Emily C.’s coffin. Next to the coffin there was an easel set up with a blown-up black-and-white photo of Emily Cooke. It was artistic and incredibly well composed (says me, the girl who digs movie cinematography): She sat on a porch step, pensively considering a lake. Half her face was cast in shadow, as though the picture had been taken as the sun set, and she had a little half smile on her face, like she’d posed super serious but had started to crack up just as the camera snapped.

  Looking around at everyone sitting in the pews, I felt completely and totally out of place. I didn’t recognize a lot of the people there, but the people I did recognize—mostly the teenagers—had really known Emily Cooke. It was like I was invading another private party of theirs, and for a moment my heart fluttered, afraid that someone would turn around and see me, think I was going to ruin Emily C.’s funeral like I had Mikey Harris’s party.

  Ducking my head, I grabbed Dawn’s hand and led her to stand against the back wall. It was crowded enough that there were a few other people standing as well, so it didn’t seem that odd.

  The service began with a pastor talking about ashes to ashes, dust to dust—the sort of thing you hear on TV funerals. Guess those are true to life, after all.

  The sermon done, Emily Cooke’s friends and family stood up in front and talked about her life. Mikey Harris, wearing an ill-fitting suit and with his hair slicked down, nervously fiddled with note cards as he talked about how Emily Cooke was always trying to take everyone’s photo, that she dreamed of going professional. He revealed that the photo on the easel was actually one she’d taken with a timer—a self-portrait. So those photos I’d seen on her web page were ones she’d taken. She’d been talented.

  Mai went up next, tears making little rivers down her cheeks. She recalled how after she broke her leg Emily Cooke would write her long emails every single day, making up short stories about Mai gaining a bionic leg and beating everyone’s butt when she got back on the track, or just fabricating intricately long jokes with stupid punch lines to make her smile.

  More family and friends stood and shared stories, talked about trips they’d taken with Emily Cooke, about how funny she was, how creative. She wasn’t perfect by any means, her father was quick to point out—she was always so busy thinking of things she wanted to do, that Emily often forgot all about the things she was supposed to do, like the time she offered to give her little sister a perm, then went off to take photos, leaving her sister in the chair, a garbage bag over her clothes and chemicals in her hair. That year, Emily Cooke’s sister had to sport a really short haircut.

  I laughed along with everyone else at that story, and I realized something: Megan was wrong about Emily Cooke. And I’d been wrong too, thinking she was just about style with no substance. Emily Cooke wasn’t just some insipid rich girl. It was funny—I’d spent so long hiding from people like Emily Cooke that I never knew that she and I might actually have some things in common. That we could have been friends.

  I also
felt sorta guilty, you know? Here I was, meek little me, with no real goals beyond staying alive long enough to see the next Batman movie. The other Emily had real dreams, real talent. All taken away by two little bullets put into her by a man whose image was now burned into my brain.

  I couldn’t laugh or feel sad anymore, share in the stories everyone was telling. Standing in the church, behind rows of pews filled with black-clad mourners, I began to tremble with anger. It wasn’t right, not what happened to me, not what happened to Dalton, especially not what had happened to Emily Cooke.

  That man, that killer, had to be stopped.

  As Emily Cooke’s uncle took the podium and launched into a story, the glass door leading outside creaked open. I caught sight of new guy Patrick leaving the funeral early. I hadn’t even noticed him, I was so caught up in hearing about the death and life of Emily Cooke.

  He always seemed to be around at the wakes for Emily Cooke, despite being the new guy who shouldn’t have known or cared about her. And I was sure that he was the wolf I’d seen the other night, the one I was certain was my mate.

  I’d had so many opportunities to talk to him, find out what was going on. And I always lost my nerve.

  “What would Nighttime Emily do?” I whispered to myself.

  Dawn leaned over to me and said, “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Hey, I need to go talk with someone.”

  Before Dawn could protest, I speed-walked to the exit and followed after Patrick. He walked down the street at a rapid pace, cars zooming by on the busy road in front of the church. Shoving my hands in the pockets of my too-big slacks, I followed.

  “Hey!” Dawn called as the glass church doors slapped shut behind me. I peered back over my shoulder and saw her winding around parked cars, her expression stern, the way it had been in the car when she’d dropped me off at school Friday morning.

  Catching up to me, she grabbed my arm. “Look, dude, no more running off.”

  “Sorry,” I said, “it’s just, there’s this guy, and I really need to talk with him. And I’m gonna lose him. . . .”

  Dawn let me go, crossed her arms, and arched an eyebrow. “A guy, hmm? Is this what all your antics have been about?”

  I almost laughed, remembering the wolf-me’s thoughts—Find the mate. Maybe it was all about a boy after all.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. “I’ve gone all chick flick lately, I guess. But we have to hurry, I don’t want to lose him.”

  Rolling her eyes, Dawn actually smiled at me for the first time in days. “All right, girl, let’s go get him.”

  Half walking and half running, so that I looked like the geriatric speed walkers you see at the mall on Sunday mornings, I chased after Patrick, Dawn at my heels. He was at the end of the street now, entering a small convenience store on the corner, the kind that has had the same faded cigarette ads in its windows for decades and where the little wrapped sandwiches you can buy are all queasily green.

  Timidly I opened the door to the store and peeked in. It was empty save for the wrinkly Asian woman behind the counter reading a copy of Entertainment Weekly, and for Patrick, who stood in the center of the snack aisle, his face stoic and unreadable.

  “I’ll wait out here,” Dawn whispered, then patted me on my back.

  With a steeling breath, I stepped inside. The glass door shut behind me, a little dangling bell ringing out. I cringed, but neither the clerk nor Patrick bothered to see who’d come in.

  Trying to be nonchalant, I strolled down the aisles. I might as well have started whistling, I was so conspicuous. I dared a glance over at Patrick as I walked past a shelf stacked with little rolls of toilet paper, cheap razors hanging above them on hooks. He seemed to be having a dilemma choosing between a Butterfinger and a Snickers.

  This is so not what Nighttime Emily would do, I thought.

  I pulled my hands from my pockets, rounded the shelves, and came to stand directly next to Patrick. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Hi,” I squeaked.

  Blinking, he looked up, a brief expression of confusion crossing his face before it reverted to his default of stoic and broody.

  “Hello,” he said, eyeing me.

  There was a lilt to his tone. I’d been right, he had a definite accent. Which was way attractive. Wetness seeped over my palm and my heart pounded, and I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I was wearing a mourning outfit borrowed from an extremely nonfashionable forty-three-year-old woman.

  “So . . . ,” I said, kicking at the scuffed tile with my shoes, my arms pressed tightly against my sides, my fingers drumming against my thighs. “You were at the funeral too, huh?”

  He shrugged, then went back to rifling through candy bars. “Yeah.”

  My heartbeat seemed to rush into my ears, like there were drums pounding away next to my head. I was hyperaware that attractiveness-wise, Patrick was in a totally different league than me. I wanted to duck down and run out of the store, but I knew if I did I’d never figure anything out, so I forced myself to continue.

  “You’re new, though?” I asked. “I mean, I know you’re new, it’s just I saw you at the wake-slash-party thing at Mikey Harris’s house and now at the funeral. You couldn’t have known Emily Cooke, unless you knew her before you went to school with us, or . . .” I stopped and gulped in a breath. “Yeah.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Patrick asked, “Do I know you?”

  “No!” I said. “No, not really, I just saw you around, thought I’d say hi.” I stuck out my arm, my hand stiff. “I’m Emily. Uh, another Emily—Emily Webb.”

  He regarded my sweaty hand, making no move to take it. “Patrick,” he said.

  With a nervous smile, I lowered my hand and tried to casually dry it off on my slacks. This was so not going well. I longed for Nighttime Emily’s instincts to kick in and take over. If this guy was supposed to be my mate, shouldn’t she emerge and woo him? That would be so much easier.

  Wait. The musky odor . . . I didn’t smell anything. Patrick didn’t smell.

  As smoothly as I could—which was about as smooth as a jug full of gravel and broken glass—I stepped in closer, nostrils flaring as I took in a big sniff. Maybe I just wasn’t as sensitive to his scent as Nighttime Emily, and that was why I didn’t pick up the alluring musk. . . . Though that hadn’t seemed to matter in the cafeteria the first day I’d seen him.

  “Uh . . . ,” he said, taking a step back from me. “Do you want something? I want to buy a lolly and go, so if you don’t want anything . . .”

  Nervous giggling erupted in my throat. Gesturing at the shirt he wore beneath his black leather jacket, I said, “Communist Herrings, huh?”

  His shirt was red, with a little black fish wearing a tall furry hat beneath the band name.

  “Yeah, back in London, little band my mates formed,” he said. “Nothing big.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s cool.”

  He stared at me. I in turn stared at his shirt and wondered if maybe I could feign stumbling against him, get in a good whiff. Maybe there was something I could say to keep him from leaving until I could be sure he wasn’t who I thought he was.

  “So . . . you’re from London?” I rambled. “That’s really cool, I love British people. Doctor Who is awesome. I’ve seen, like, the whole series. Oh, and Spaced, too, and Skins is just the best thing ever and . . . Um, do you live on Orchard Road?”

  The street name from where I’d seen the other werewolf run Friday night popped into my head, and I said it before I could really think about how amazingly creepy it must be to have some strange girl come up to you, act all fidgety, try to smell you, ask a bunch of prying questions, and then name the street on which you lived.

  Patrick’s eyes darted between the front doors and me like he wanted nothing more than to flee the store. I laughed a little too loudly as heat flushed my skin, and I saw the lady behind the counter lower her magazine and give me the stink eye.

  “I’m not a crazy stalker or anything, I
promise,” I stammered. “Just, I’ve lived in Skopamish, like, forever, and I know someone moved out from there, so . . .”

  “Yeah,” Patrick muttered, his sharp eyebrows furrowed as he took a step back from me. “Orchard Road . . . I need to go, so I will see you at school, then?” He gave me one last wary look, then turned and hustled out of the store.

  Well. That went just swell.

  It wasn’t until a few hours later, when I’d had some time to dig into ice cream and beat myself up over being so massively lame, that I realized a couple of things about my little encounter with Patrick.

  Thing one: He most definitely did not have the smell. No musk, no pheromones, nothing. I wasn’t an expert on scentology or anything, but I was guessing your personal scent wasn’t exactly something you could shut off.

  Thing two: Patrick was tall, and Patrick had an accent. But . . . What would Patrick look like in a long coat and a brimmed hat? What would he sound like if he lowered his voice and faked an American accent?

  I sat at my desk chair, stiff, my hands shaking. Because: whoa.

  I’d been thinking about this all wrong. Patrick had appeared right after Emily Cooke was killed. Even though he couldn’t have known her, I kept seeing him at functions where people mourned her death. And there was that book he was reading in the library, the one about serial killers.

  The shooter had lured me from the club using a vial of the same type of scent I had smelled on Dalton. That meant that if he wanted, the shooter could slather that smell on himself like some sort of heavy cologne . . . maybe go to school, see what girls were drawn to him. . . .

  Maybe cute new guy Patrick wasn’t my “mate” after all. Maybe he was the killer.

  I sat at my desk for a long time, watching the screen saver on my monitor. It was there that I made a decision.

  Emily Cooke was dead. Dalton McKinney was in the hospital. And someone, maybe Patrick, was after me now. I couldn’t do much as Daytime Emily. Not when going up and talking to a very cute boy turned me into a jittery, frantic crazy person.