by ID Johnson
Lucy’s face showed confusion still, even though I was pretty sure she was following me. After a very long pause, she slowly asked, “So, you think your sister’s a… vampire?”
My hands were literally shaking, but my head was nodding up and down. “I think she could be.”
“Huh?” Emma asked, her head swiveling from me to Lucy and back again. “What’s Twilight?” she asked again.
Neither of us answered, only stared at each other with our mouths open. I heard Emma’s fingers flying over the keyboard, and a few seconds later, she said, “Oh.” A minute later, she said, “I don’t think they look that much alike.”
“That’s not the point, Em!” Lucy exclaimed. “She doesn’t think that Eliza is Alice. That’s just what made her think of it. I totally get the connection. And what you said makes totes sense, it’s just…. You do realize what you’re saying, right Cass?”
I stood up then, needing to pace. “Yes! I know exactly what I’m saying! I know it’s insane. I know it doesn’t make any sense when one considers the laws of nature and everything we’ve ever known about what is real and what is make believe.” I turned to face them before I continued, “But I’m not crazy to think that explanation… fits… am I?”
“No, no you’re not crazy.” Lucy pulled herself off of the bed, her laptop sliding onto the comforter and a notebook slipping onto the floor. She took a few steps so that she was standing right in front of me and took both of my upper arms in her hands. “You’re not crazy, Cass. I totally get why you would say that.”
“I think you might be crazy.”
We both turned and looked at Emma. She had a pen in her hand and was resting the end of it against her chin. She just shrugged.
Lucy turned back to me. “When you put it like that, it does sort of seem to fit. Let’s just go back over everything from the context of ‘what if Cadence is a Vampire’ and see if we can come to a logical explanation for what might’ve happened.”
Her blue eyes were still wide, but I saw the complete confidence in them that I hadn’t lost my mind. Lucy was going to help me. I knew Emma would, too, though I wasn’t surprised to hear her say she thought I might be nuts. Emma is not only overly analytical, she also calls it like she sees it with no filter.
We sat back down on Lucy’s bed, and she pulled out her notes. “Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. Your sister and her friends were talking about going to an Eidolon Festival, which we weren’t able to find too much information on, but based on the name, we can establish that this is some sort of a creepy festival. Is it possible that there could’ve been vampires there?”
“No, because vampires don’t exist,” Emma said, crossing her arms.
Lucy let out a loud sigh. “If vampires do exist, is it possible that there was one at the festival?”
“No, because it is impossible to assume vampires exist when they don’t.” Emma’s voice didn’t change in intensity as she reasoned through the unreasonable.
With an icy stare, Lucy said, “Sheldon Cooper, much?”
That got Emma’s attention. She knew when Lucy said something about the popular character from The Big Bang Theory that her autism was getting the better of her. “Fine. Let’s pretend that in a parallel universe where it is possible to transform into an undead creature that lives off of the bodily fluids of humans, there was a vampire at an Eidolon Festival and alternative reality Cadence J. Findley attended said festival.”
“OMG! You said ‘transform!’”
“I heard it, too,” I exclaimed. I had chills again.
“It’s just a word that means to change, to go through a metamorphosis,” Emma said shrugging like she didn’t get the significance.
“Yes, but that’s the word everyone keeps using to describe what’s going on with Cadence,” I reminded her.
“Maybe I should’ve used a different word.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have,” I argued.
“Okay—let’s get back on track,” Lucy said, shaking her head to clear it. “If there was a vampire at the festival, it could’ve infected your sister.”
“And killed Drew,” I said quietly.
Lucy’s face went ashen and her mouth dropped open. I knew what she’d say next, but it was a soft whisper, not the usual declaration. “OMG. You’re right. That explains the ‘cut her neck’ explanation everyone keeps using that doesn’t make any sense.”
“You think a vampire stuck its fangs into her neck, drained her of blood, and then slashed her throat so that it looked like a rock cut her?” Emma didn’t seem to think that was very logical.
“Maybe,” Lucy replied. It was a possibility. “Or maybe it wasn’t the vampire who slashed her neck.”
“It could’ve been her friends.” I didn’t want to say the words aloud, but it made sense. “If they saw what had happened to Drew and were nervous that no one would believe them….”
“Or if one of them did it….” Lucy said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling my pulse increase again.
“What if one of her friends is the vampire?” Lucy asked.
“Okay, now I think you’re stretching this theory,” I said, not sure how that would be.
“Why not? Jack is acting weird. Something has happened to your sister.”
“Whatever happened to my sister, happened afterward.” Of that, I was sure. Cadence was fine, perfectly normal, until after she went to the Eidolon Festival.
“It could be alternative universe Jack, though,” Emma agreed. “It might explain why he’s afraid someone’s coming for him, too. If he killed Drew, he might think he’ll get in trouble.”
It was hard for me to imagine Jack was a vampire or that he was capable of killing Drew. “Do you think Jack could do that?”
“No,” Emma answered quickly. “I don’t think anyone could do that. Because I don’t think there’s any such thing as vampires.”
Lucy groaned. “I can’t imagine Jack hurting a fly, but if something got to him before the festival….”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I think it’s more likely that the vampire met them at the festival.”
“And maybe it didn’t mean to kill Drew, just turn her, but she died. And it got the rest of your sister’s friends, too, and her, apparently.” Lucy was clearly thinking out loud as her statement was a little disjointed, but I still managed to follow.
“All those other people, Aaron, Dr. Sanderson, Jamie, Eliza, Christian… they’re also vampires?” Emma asked.
“I guess so,” Lucy shrugged.
I thought about it for a few moments. “I guess… they showed up when they found out my sister had been bitten and decided she’d need help transitioning to a full-fledged vampire?” The word bloodsucker had entered my mind, but I didn’t say it because I couldn’t associate something so terrible with my big sister.
“Do they look like vampires?” Lucy asked.
“How they heck do I know?” I blurted back, exasperated. “I’ve never seen a vampire before. At least not that I know of.”
“You haven’t,” Emma assured me. “Because they don’t exist.”
I knew she wouldn’t stop, so I decided to ignore her. She wasn’t really capable of playing along with our theory when it broke some of her rules of logic. “All of this sounds so absurd.”
“It is absurd.”
“Thanks, Em.” I shook my head at her.
“It does sound cray cray,” Lucy agreed. “But… unfortunately, given the facts that we have, it also makes sense.”
“I will come up with an equally logical explanation that is scientific,” Emma declared.
“Go ahead,” I replied, settling back against the wall and grabbing a pillow and squeezing it.
Emma thought for a few moments. “Okay, your sister went to this festival, and her friends were approached by a group of strangers wearing all black. They have access to a drug that gives them superhuman speed, and they feel no pain, so leaping from heights really isn’t a proble
m so long as they don’t break any bones. Your sister and her friends all try it. Drew takes too much and dies. They want to cover it up, so they slash her throat.
“The strangers panic, but luckily, one of them is a doctor. He bluffs his way through the emergency room at Shenandoah Memorial, and the doctors there don’t bother to do a blood screen. They are satisfied with his answers because, as we know, he is capable of brainwashing people.
“Jack’s symptoms are due to withdrawal as he also took the drug, too much of it. He is paranoid, cold to the touch, and unsettled.
“Cadence isn’t going through withdrawal because she has decided to keep taking the drug. Aaron is her dealer. Eliza can drive such a fancy, expensive car because of the drug money. We haven’t heard of the drug yet because it’s pretty new to the market. Your sister has dropped out of school to be a drug dealer.” Emma finished with a shrug, her face completely serious.
I stared at her for a moment, not sure whether her theory made me feel better or worse. Thinking of Cadence addicted to a new street drug that killed her friend was disturbing, but not as disturbing as the idea that she might be a vampire. I still couldn’t get my thoughts into a complete sentence by the time Lucy spoke.
“I guess that is also a possibility.”
“There is no ‘also,’” Emma replied. “Because ‘also’ implies that your vampire theory is a possibility, and it’s not. There are no such things as vampires.”
“I agree that Emma’s theory also sounds plausible.” Before Emma could mentioned that I said ‘also’ I pointed at her with one finger. “Did you have a chance to look at Eliza’s friends on that social media site?”
“Not yet.” This had her refocused, and I hoped she would let both of our theories go. I took a deep breath as Emma began to concentrate on her laptop again.
Lucy wrapped her arm around me. “I’m sorry all of this is happening, Cass.”
Part of me wanted to bury my face in her shoulder and have a good cry, but I felt selfish crying over mere possibilities when, somewhere across town, my sister was watching them lower her good friend into the cold, dark earth. What did I have to cry about in comparison? My sister was alive, even if she was acting odd. There had to be a logical explanation for what was happening, one that didn’t involve the undead or drugs. I just hadn’t figured it out yet.
“Hmmm,” Emma said, jarring me back to reality.
“What is it?” Lucy asked, scooting closer to her on the bed.
“I went down a rabbit hole for a minute,” Emma said, and I exchanged glances with Lucy, wondering where that passage might have led our friend. “I checked the names you said and didn’t find anything, so I checked for anyone whose name was related to medicine.”
“Did you find something?” I was at the other end of the bed, and as much as I wanted to scoot over where I could see the laptop, I felt paralyzed.
“Maybe,” Emma said with a shrug.
Impatient, Lucy grabbed Emma’s laptop out of her hands and stared at it for a moment. “That’s… unexpected.”
“What?” I asked.
“Well, Eliza has a friend on this site who appears to be a doctor, but it isn’t Elliott.”
“Who is it?”
Lucy swiveled the laptop around and handed it to me.
I didn’t recognize the guy at all. He wasn’t necessarily attractive like Aaron but wasn’t goofy looking like Elliott either. He had spiky hair that was frosted on the tips and the kind of smile I can see winning a lot of people over. His profile picture showed him standing in front of a building and it was narrowed in close enough so it was impossible to tell how tall he was. And he wasn’t wearing black leather like Eliza. At first, I thought he was just a random friend, like all the rest of her followers on the page happened to be. He didn’t even have a lot of friends or seem to follow anyone. At first glance, there were less than a half-dozen posts over the last three years.
Then I realized what had caught Emma’s attention. His user name was @DocJop, and his name was Jamie Joplin. “Jamie?” I said, confused. “Jamie’s a doctor, too?”
“Apparently.” Emma’s voice was dry, not unusual.
“Doesn’t that make sense, though?” Lucy asked, taking Emma’s laptop from me and handing it back to her before I dropped it. “Didn’t someone mention that Jamie was doing the procedure?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I admitted. “I guess… I don’t know. I just wasn’t expecting that. It’s like pulling on a loose thread until your sweater is a ball of yarn”
“And an army of alley cats is all up in it,” Lucy agreed.
“Yep.”
“Hey, but on the bright side, we’ve established a few things.” Emma scooted forward a little bit, like she was actually trying to connect with us. “We know what Eliza and Jamie look like. We know that they exist now.”
“Didn’t we know that before?” I asked.
“I didn’t.” She was being blunt again, and I realized that meant she hadn’t been sure she could believe me. “I can assume that since you’ve actually met Aaron and Elliott they are also real.”
At this point, I wasn’t sure of anything, so I just nodded. “They seemed pretty real.”
“So… we just keep working on trying to figure it out. Now that we have last names for everyone, we can see if we can find anything else online for any of them. I might be able to access public records. Their profiles might lead us to birthdates, hometowns, etc. and then we can try to find out more information from there.”
Emma’s plan seemed to make sense, and at least we’d be moving in the right direction. Anything but staying stagnant at this point worked for me.
“While Emma is going down her path of logic, I will start to research the alternative,” Lucy said, her eyes squinting as she was clearly thinking about the paranormal. “I’ve never done a serious search for information about the existence of vampires. Maybe there are more people out there who think that they have a family member who has turned into… the undead.”
“There are. And you can find them in institutions across the country.” Emma wasn’t letting up.
“Thank you both for your help,” I said, and they smiled at me. Even if Emma didn’t always believe everything I said, at least she supported me. “What do I do?”
“Keep listening in, taking notes,” Lucy shrugged.
“But don’t let them know what you know,” Emma warned. “If this is some sort of a drug cartel, you need to not be caught up in it.”
I nodded, but I was confused. “You guys don’t think I should just ask some questions of my sister, like ‘Who are these people?’”
“She won’t tell you the truth,” Lucy reminded me. I knew she was right. “Even your parents seem to be wanting to shelter you from whatever this is for some reason.”
It was true. My parents knew a lot more than I did. “What about my grandma?” I asked.
They exchanged glances. “Do you think she really knows Aaron?” Lucy asked me.
“It seems sort of risky that my parents would mention that if it isn’t true.”
“That’s a loose end I don’t know how to tie back into either story,” Emma admitted. “In the parallel universe where vampires exist, is your grandma one? I can’t imagine she’s a drug dealer.”
“I can’t imagine she’s a vampire either.” None of this made any sense.
“How did your sister just happen to meet Aaron, a guy who knows your grandma, on the same night that Drew died?” Lucy asked, thinking aloud.
“I don’t know, but I do know for sure that it was Eliza who drove Cadence to my grandma’s house. So, she had to have met them before she left for Grandma’s.”
“You heard Aaron in your sister’s room before she left with Eliza, right?” Emma clarified.
“Yes.” It didn’t help any of us figure out the connection. “Maybe I could call my grandma just to see how she’s doing and see if she will tell me anything.”
“Maybe,” Lucy said, stoppin
g for a second to chew on her bottom lip. “But be careful. Your grandma could tell your parents you’re nosing around, and they could shut this whole investigation down.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “How’s that exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted, “but parents seem to have a way of doing that.”
“If my sister really is a vampire, or a drug addict, I’m going to have to find out eventually, aren’t I?”
“What if she tries to turn you?” Lucy asked, her eyes wide.
I almost laughed. If she hadn’t looked so frightened, I might have. “Don’t worry, Lucy. Cadence isn’t going to turn me into a vampire. She would never hurt me.”
Lucy nodded, but she didn’t say more, which made me wonder, if Cadence really was a vampire, was it possible she could infect me? Suddenly, I felt unsettled, like maybe I needed to stay away from my own sister. Could the rest of my family be at risk? The thought of turning into a vampire was revolting to me. I couldn’t even imagine—sneaking around at night, finding people in dark alleys, drinking blood. No thank you.
The doorbell rang, and I assumed that was one of my parents there to pick me up. It seemed like the funeral would be over by then. A few seconds later, Daniel yelled up the stairs, “Cassidy! It’s your mom!”
“I’ve gotta go,” I said as I gathered my stuff up. “I’ll see you both at school tomorrow.” I didn’t even want to think about what the atmosphere would be like at SHS the next day. I shoved my notebook and laptop into my backpack.
