Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Vampire Summer ❯ Search for the Truth ( Chapter 4 )

 

Johnny didn't come in that night. I woke up in the morning feeling good for a change, with Crystal curled up beside me. That's probably why he left me alone—I had Crystal with me. My throat went dry. My `guests' had no such protection! I threw back the covers and bolted out into the kitchen. It was still early, and the floor was ice cold on my bare feet.

 

The boys were sound asleep in their sleeping bags in front of the fireplace, with the blue light from the TV casting shadows over their faces. I knelt over them and put a hand on each one's back until I felt their steady, even breathing. They were still alive. The door to Crystal's room was shut, so I turned the knob gently. Mary had pulled the shade down over the window and it was still pitch black inside the room. I heard rustling, and a yawn, and then my niece Karen poked her head up from behind her mother.

 

“Auntie?” she asked sleepily. “Is it morning yet?”

 

“Shh, go back to sleep. It's still early,” I told her, gently closing the door behind me. I was relieved. Johnny had left all of us alone.

 

I made pancakes for breakfast, and the smell woke everybody up. The boys couldn't wait to put on their bathing suits and go down to the beach. “Not until I'm ready,” their mother said adamantly. She took her coffee and joined me at the little table out on the porch. “They can wait a little longer,” she said with a smile. “How are you doing—really? You look a little pale.”

 

I barked a short, startled laugh. Pale, was I? “I'm doing ok,” I replied.

 

“How did it ever come to this?” Mary asked, talking more to herself than to me. “I thought you and Sam were great together. Why did you leave?”

 

“Is that what he told you?” I asked sharply.

 

“No, no, Sam didn't say much of anything, just that it was a mutual decision. But he told me you were spending the summer out here at the lake. I just figured it was your idea.”

 

I couldn't tell Mary about the years of loneliness I spent with Sam right next to me. I couldn't tell her that I had held onto my love for him, or my idea of love, for far too long as it was. Sam was Mary's brother. I shrugged my shoulders.

 

“Did you ever stop to consider Crystal?” she asked. She wasn't wasting any time getting to the meat of the matter.

 

Of course I had considered Crystal. She had been with me in that lonely house. Until this summer, the only contact she had with her father was when he told her to pick up her toys, or sent her to bed if she misbehaved. He never took her to the park, or played with her, or even talked to her except to give her orders. I was mother and father to Crystal. It broke my heart to see her rush up to him when he came home, to show him her artwork from kindergarten, or chatter about her day. Sam's eyes would glaze over, and he would look beyond her to the TV, or interrupt her to ask me how long it would be until supper. She never faulted him for it, or knew any better. So in a way, this break-up was the best thing that could have happened for Crystal. At least now her Daddy was paying attention to her.

 

“We both love Crystal. We want to do what's best for her,” I answered, not ready to have this conversation, and especially not with Mary. “Sam and I have a lot to work out still, but Crystal's well-being comes first with both of us.”

 

“Just remember, she needs both her parents,” Mary admonished me, and I nodded. “I'll have a talk with Sam when I get back.” She drained her coffee and stood up. “Ok, kids!” she yelled. “Get your stuff together. We're going to the beach in five minutes!”

 

Mary took all the kids down to the beach, while I straightened out the cottage. I had meant what I said. Crystal's well-being was paramount. I wanted her to grow up to have a full, happy, normal life. One without vampires.

 

Later, we had a cook-out with hot dogs and hamburgers, courtesy of the food Sam had sent. The kids ran around the back yard, spitting watermelon seeds at each other and crashing through the paths in the woods surrounding the cottage. There were other cottages on our road, but on the opposite side or further towards the main road. We were isolated where we were. In back, the woods dropped down to the dirt road which ran all the way around the lake. In the gathering dusk, you could just see little pinpoints of light from a couple of the lakefront cottages far below. I plugged in the bug zapper as the kids scrambled around searching for sticks for toasting marshmallows.

 

Mary kept up a steady stream of conversation as she doled out marshmallows. We had lit a charcoal fire in the old brick fireplace my grandfather had built outside years ago for family barbecues. The excited yells of the kids died down and I glanced up to see Johnny standing there, by the fireplace, with a faint smile on his lips.

 

“Johnny!” Crystal ran over to him and put a thin, green stick in his hand. “Come toast marshmallows with us.” She stuck two marshmallows onto the end of his stick and guided his hand so that the stick reached the fire.

 

Johnny obediently followed Crystal's instructions. The other kids quickly got over their initial shyness and soon all four kids were laughing and making noise again. Johnny didn't eat any of the marshmallows he toasted. Instead, he handed them to Crystal and watched avidly as she stuffed them in her mouth, getting sticky in the process.

 

“Who's that?” Mary whispered to me, nudging me in the ribs.

 

“That's Johnny. He lives around here,” I replied, hoping she hadn't heard about Johnny from Sam.

 

“That's the vampire?” she whispered back, laughing. “Crystal told us all about him on the ride up. Sam didn't think it was funny.”

 

I know. Sam didn't want him around. I didn't want him around. I dreaded what might happen next. But Johnny behaved. He sat with the kids around the fireplace as they told ghost stories. Karen, who was going to be ten on her next birthday, sat on one side of Johnny, while Crystal sat on his other side. Even the two boys seemed fascinated by the teenager. I helped Mary clear the table, but I kept one eye on the group by the fireplace.

 

“Tell us a vampire story!” I overheard Crystal say to Johnny.

 

“Yeah, tell us a vampire story!” Karen seconded. I didn't hear what Johnny said, but for a while it got very quiet in the corner by the outside fireplace.

 

When it got too dark, we called the kids inside, and I made a bold move. “Johnny, it's time for the kids to get ready for bed,” I said loudly enough for Mary to hear. He had been acting normal so far in front of them, so I hoped he wouldn't push the issue and expect to come inside with us. “Good night.”

 

Johnny stared at me until the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. He slowly smiled, gave me a small wave, and backed up into the woods until I couldn't see him anymore. I let out a shaky breath, and locked the porch door behind me.

 

“Mom, I'm itchy,” complained Danny a short while later, scratching his neck and shoulder. Mary pulled his pajama top down so she could slather calamine lotion all over the red rash that covered his neck.

 

“I told you kids to stay out of those woods,” Mary scolded. “You've probably got poison ivy. Don't scratch it!”

 

Poison ivy? The rash reminded me of my own mysterious rashes. How had he done it? How had Johnny gotten to Danny with all of us sitting right there? I was sure it was a vampire mark. I ran to the shower on the porch, where Karen and Crystal were both washing up. “Let me see if you have poison ivy too,” I said, turning both girls round and round to see if there were any strange rashes. Crystal was clear, but Karen had a small rash near the back of her neck. “Go get some calamine lotion from your mother,” I told Karen, as I helped Crystal to towel off, then sent her to our room to get in her jammies. My gaze drifted to the backyard, lit only by the glow of the bug zapper. I couldn't be sure, but I thought I saw two gleaming eyes at the far end of the yard, where Johnny had disappeared.

 

I tossed and turned all night long. I kept expecting Johnny to show up and attack us, and I listened for every little sound that might indicate his presence inside the cottage. Finally, around dawn, I fell asleep. It was mid-morning when I finally woke up, and I immediately checked myself for rashes or other signs that Johnny had been there, but I found nothing. I felt good, too. Not tired, not weak. Maybe the kids really had gotten poison ivy.

 

Crystal was already awake and watching TV with her usual bowl of cereal when I walked into the living room. The two boys were still wrapped in their sleeping bags, despite the fact that the cartoons were blaring two feet away from them. Mary and Karen hadn't stirred, either. “What is this?” I asked jokingly. “You're wasting valuable swimming time. Wake up!”

 

“They won't wake up, Mommy,” Crystal said. “I tried.”

 

Oh, no. Quickly, I knelt down and unzipped the sleeping bags, repeating my actions from the previous morning. Thank goodness, at least they were breathing. “Wake up, Danny. Wake up, Robbie,” I said, shaking them. Slowly, they began to stir. The rashes on both their necks were very red.

 

“I don't feel good,” said Robbie. He slowly got off the floor and joined Crystal on the couch, sitting cross-legged and still half-asleep. “I don't want to go swimming.”

 

I pulled Danny into my lap. His eyes kept rolling back in his head. “Wake up, Danny,” I repeated. Eventually, he blinked and seemed to recognize me. I put him on the couch next to his brother. “I'll get you some orange juice,” I said to them, hoping it would help. I didn't have the courage to go into Mary's room yet.

 

After they had some juice and some time to sit, the boys perked up a little, so I went in to see what had happened to Mary and Karen. The room was dark, as usual. I pulled up the shade and was relieved to see both Mary and Karen squint in the bright sunlight. “Are you okay?” I asked anxiously.

 

Mary swung her legs over the side of the bed and got up carefully. “What time is it?” she asked, putting a hand to her head.

 

“It's nearly eleven,” I told her, as I looked at Karen, worried because she was still lying down. “Karen? How's your poison ivy?”

 

Karen touched her throat, where the redness had spread much as it had with the boys. “It still itches,” she said, turning her face towards the wall. “I'm tired. Do I have to get up?”

 

Mary scratched absently at her neck. “Looks like I got it, too,” she said. “And I didn't even go into the woods.”

 

We decided, since most everybody didn't feel well, to spend a quiet day at the library instead of going to the beach. We all piled into my car, with the four kids crowding into the backseat. I planned to do my research while the kids searched for books. I felt terrible about what had happened. Of course, they didn't know that a vampire had attacked them. But I knew that's what had happened, and I knew that Johnny intended me to know it. This had been a lesson to me. Thwart Johnny, and somebody would pay.

 

The librarian was very helpful. She didn't often get visitors to her little library out in the middle of nowhere, and she was very proud of her town's history. She showed me where all the records were kept. “Of course, you would have to go to the Town Hall to get more detailed records,” she told me. “Go to the archives. They have birth and death records going back to 1686.”

 

She showed me the section which had local books, and I thanked her and pulled out the first one to start reading. I didn't want to ask her about vampire books. I figured I could find those on my own, if there were any in this tiny library. It didn't even have a computer. They still used the little cards to catalog their books.

 

No mention of Jonathan Price, no mention of Jon or Jonny either, but I did find an account of the accident which had killed Jonny Crew and his sister Emily. She had fallen into a well, and Jonny had gone down to pull her back up, but the walls had caved in and they both died. I put the first book down and picked up another one. This one had an account about the mysterious illness that had struck the town at the end of the 18th century. It was written about thirty years ago by a local author. It mentioned vampirism. I sat up straight and flipped through the pages. The writer recounted some of the old legends and superstitions surrounding what was commonly called `consumption,' but which was most probably tuberculosis. People in those days believed that vampires drained their victims of blood, who in turn became vampires themselves upon their deaths, and preyed on other family members unless they were stopped. This was how they explained the waves of deaths that periodically wiped out entire families.

 

I scanned the pages looking for information on where the vampires came from, and sure enough, there was a theory that the original vampire had come to this town from somewhere in Rhode Island. Jonathan Price had come from Rhode Island, according to his headstone. I felt chills run down my back.

 

This was more than I had hoped for! I only wished that I could find more information on Jonathan Price. I picked up the third and final book. It was older than the first two, and gave lists of prominent townsmen going back several hundreds of years. It wasn't exactly a census, more like someone's private compilation of town information. I skimmed over the pages, not really interested in a Who's Who of the town. Every time I saw the name John, in any of its variants, I would slow down and read more carefully. My heart stuttered the first time I saw the name Jonathan Price. That's all it said—Jonathan Price—in a listing of members of a shooting club—in 1803! But my Jonathan Price had died in the late 1600's, according to the marker in the cemetery! I found the name again, in 1860, and again in 1900. I was pretty sure it couldn't be the same guy—he would have been over 100 years old! Some of my enthusiasm waned. Jonathan Price was a fairly common name. Just because I had only found one `Price' in my cemetery didn't mean there were no other `Price's' in the area. I felt disappointed.

 

Mary wandered over, a romance novel in her hand. “The kids are getting restless,” she said, and I realized we had been in the library for several hours already. “I'm still not feeling all that great, or I'd volunteer to walk back. Would you mind if I took the kids back to the cottage in your car? That way you can stay a little bit longer and walk back when you're done.”

 

“All right,” I agreed. It was still early. I could check out a few more things, and still have plenty of time to get back before dark.

 

The library did carry books on vampires. There was a section on New England vampires in particular which corroborated some of the information I had found in the local book. In addition, they gave information on how the 17th and 18th century townspeople dealt with their vampire problem. In order to stop the vampire from rising from its grave, they would exhume the body, cut off the head or, in some accounts, cut out the heart, which was often seen to be filled with fresh blood, and burn it. Then they would rearrange the bones so the vampire could never rise again.

 

A bit drastic. I didn't even know where Johnny's grave was—unless he really was Jonathan Price, the first Jonathan Price, whose grave I had found in my cemetery. I guess my next step would be to go to Town Hall and try to find some record of Jonathan Price. I put the books back on the shelves, and realized I was the only person, aside from the librarian, still in the library. She was obviously waiting for me to finish so she could lock up.

 

“Sorry,” I said, as I left. I hadn't realized what time it was.

 

I followed the main road past the cemetery and down the hill. It was a beautiful day, and I felt better than I had in weeks. Instead of continuing along the paved road, I turned off just past the cemetery and took the dirt road around the back of the lake. It was the long way home, but I wanted to think about what I had learned. I was half-way around the lake when the dogs attacked.

 

They came from a house on the opposite side of the road from the lake, and obviously they didn't like the fact that I was invading their territory. Two big, black dogs rushed at me from behind the house, and growled at me as I stopped, so I slowly moved forward. I couldn't see any people around. Great. The homeowners probably let their dogs run loose to guard their house while they were at work. Didn't they know this was a vacation area for lots of people? What if the kids had been with me?

 

I got scared when they left their property and followed me on the road. Dogs can smell your fear, or so I'd been told, but I couldn't help it. I kept walking steadily, hoping they would back off once I was past their house. They didn't. I should have just gone home the regular way. I didn't know what to do, and kept hoping someone would come by.

 

Be careful what you wish for. Between one moment and the next, the dogs turned around and raced back up the hill to their house. My legs were shaking. I turned around, and there stood Johnny amid the shadows at the side of the road. And I had been afraid the dogs would bite me.

 

He matched his pace to mine and walked beside me. It wasn't even dark yet. What kind of vampire was he, that he could come out in late afternoon? “Thank you,” I said grudgingly.

 

“Don't thank me yet,” Johnny said. “Send them home.”

 

“What?” I stopped, and turned to look at Johnny. His face looked serene in the dappled sunlight.

 

“They will all die if they stay,” he said. I saw him come towards me and had just enough time to think `how can he do this in daylight in the middle of the road where anyone can see?' Then a wave of blackness slammed over me and that's all I remember.

 

Mary and the kids came looking for me in the car. It was full dark when I groggily sat up and pulled myself to the edge of the road. It was a wonder that I hadn't been run over. I started walking when headlights illuminated the road in front of me.

 

“Where have you been? We were worried sick!” Mary said, as I opened the passenger door and sank gratefully into the seat.

 

“I'm sorry. I lost track of time,” I lied, scratching absently at my neck.

 

Mary glanced over at me. “You got it too, huh?” she said. “Poison ivy?”