Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Vampire Summer ❯ Friend or Enemy? ( Chapter 20 )

 

 

My mind was still reeling from the implications of my discovery as Kenny drove us home. It was an innocuous picture, but it stood out in my mind because it showed the big purple house, before it was purple, with an old-fashioned car parked in front and two people, a man and a woman, leaning casually against the car. I'd looked at it briefly when I first opened Cara's packet of papers. When it had fallen to the floor, Johnny had picked it up with all the others and never given it back to me. Now that I knew what Amelia looked like, I realized that she had been the woman in the photo.

 

Had Johnny been in Betty's attic the night he got killed? Had he dropped the picture then? Was Betty somehow involved in Johnny's ultimate fate? I didn't want to believe that. I clutched my bag tighter to my chest. I never had gotten around to giving Cara back her papers, and they were still in my bag along with my empty salad bowl. When Kenny had found me, I was anxious to just get out of there and go home. He chalked it up to the late hour and was more than happy to bring me home.

 

“Are you cold?” he asked me as I shivered. No, not cold. Chilled to the bone to think that one of my relatives might be capable of cold-blooded murder. Or was it murder when the victim was a vampire? I shook my head. It was murder.

 

Kenny rolled up the car windows. “Are you up to meeting more relatives?” he asked me, as we turned onto the dirt road leading up to the cottage.

 

I looked at him in surprise. “More?” I asked. “I thought I met all of them tonight!” It sure felt like I had met them all.

 

Kenny laughed. “You haven't met my parents,” he said. “They live in Rhode Island.”

 

“Rhode Island? You're not from Lockwood?” Kenny was full of surprises. “Then how are you related to the Smythes?”

 

“It's a long story,” Kenny said. “My branch of the family is one of the original ones who came over on the ship from Scotland more than three hundred years ago. My ancestors settled in Rhode Island while the rest of the family spread out into Connecticut and Massachusetts.”

 

That was news to me. Somehow, I'd thought that the entire Smythe clan had settled in this one town. They certainly went on enough about it. “How did you ever come to live here?” I asked Kenny.

 

“There was always some contact between the different branches of the family,” Kenny said. “My grandmother came from here, and I grew up spending summers with her side of the family. It's a wonder I never ran into you when we were both younger. Didn't your family spend their summers up here too?”

 

Yes, but Grandpa purposely avoided the townspeople, I thought to myself. Now I knew why. He didn't want the rest of the family to find out about Dad. The blood relationship was too close. “Who was your grandmother here?” I asked, thinking about blood relationships. Kenny didn't know about Dad, so I had better make sure he was as distant a cousin as he thought he was. I hoped he was.

 

“She was called Alyce, Alyce Smythe.” Kenny grinned at me. “What else? She was a direct descendant of Robert's middle son, also a Robert. I live in her house now. It's a big old place, plenty of room.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

 

I laughed. “My cottage is plenty big for Crystal and me,” I said, relieved he wasn't closely related to either Amelia or Philip. “But ok, I'll go with you to Rhode Island. You can tell me more about where we all came from. Scotland?”

 

Kenny carried Crystal into the cottage for me and put her to bed in the front room then made a fire. I poured him a glass of wine. “Sorry, I don't have any beer,” I said, as I sat next to him on the couch. He put an arm companionably around my shoulders and pulled me closer. We sipped our wine and watched the flames crackle in the fireplace.

 

If Johnny were here, this would be the time when he would take my wine away and make me drink a glass of water before he drank my blood and made me forget everything until the next day. I sighed.

 

Kenny took my wineglass and put it on the table beside the couch. My eyes widened. He slowly leaned towards me and kissed me softly on the lips. I melted into his touch, and he probably could have done anything at that point, but instead he stood up, much to my regret. “I have to work tomorrow, but we could go on Thursday.” He bent over and gave me one last kiss. “Go to bed, Lisa,” he said, amusement touching his eyes.

 

That was what Johnny always said. I reluctantly said goodnight and went to bed. Alone. I couldn't wait for Thursday to get here.

 

Crystal cajoled me into going down to the beach with her the next day, but I refused to even put my feet into the water. That was Johnny's place, now. Not a place to swim or have fun. I said a little prayer for him, wondering as I did so if it was all right. He had told me himself that he was the cause of so many deaths in this town over the last few centuries. But the prayer made me feel better. I said a second prayer for all Johnny's victims, just to be on the safe side.

 

Crystal seemed to have forgotten all about Johnny. Kids adjust so quickly. She had accepted that he was a vampire just as quickly. I couldn't really fault her for it. As the days went by, it was becoming harder and harder to believe that any of it had really happened. The only thing that had me worried was that photo in Betty's attic. Why was it there? Was Betty involved? When we went back up to the cottage, I called Betty at the Town Hall. “I never gave Cara back the papers she had lent me the other night,” I said. “Do you think I could drop them off at your house later tonight?”

 

Betty agreed, and even said she'd feed us supper, so Crystal and I drove back down the road where Betty lived. Her car wasn't in the driveway yet, so I kept going, past the spot where we had stopped to look for Johnny. There were no other houses on that entire stretch of road. Eventually, it came to an intersection with another road, and I could see houses down that way, so I turned around and made my way back to Betty's lone house. Her car was there.

 

I wanted to go back upstairs to the attic and search that chest for more pictures. But I was scared. My heart pounded and my palms were sweaty just thinking about it. I had lived with a real vampire for over a month, and yet being caught snooping by my cousin Betty scared the life out of me. She was only human. What was I so afraid of?

 

I waited until after supper, when she and Crystal were washing dishes together, then I excused myself and left to use the bathroom. This time, I continued on up the stairs and into the attic. With the dim light from the hallway, I could just make out the old chest against the near wall, and I crept silently over to it, stopping in fear every time the floorboards creaked. From below, I could hear faint sounds of dishes clinking and occasionally I heard Betty's voice as she talked to Crystal in the kitchen.

 

I opened the chest, not sure where to begin looking. The thing was crammed full of stuff, like Aunt Beth's house had been. But this was all in one place, all closely stuffed one on top of the other. I hurriedly shoved some papers to one side, not wanting to take anything out of its place just in case Betty knew exactly what order the papers were supposed to be in. I found the pictures she had shown me the other night, including the one I had suspected might be one of Cara's missing photos, the one of Amelia and her companion leaning against a big old car. But I didn't recognize any of the other pictures in that group as the ones Cara had given me. I had only had a brief glimpse of them before Johnny took them, but I was sure I'd remember at least one or two of them if I saw them again. They weren't there.

 

In disappointment, I prepared to close the lid of the chest when a white envelope jammed the hinge on the left side. It looked newer than the other envelopes in the chest. I read the writing on the outside. `Proof.' I opened it, and had just enough time to recognize the shapes inside as photos when a voice from downstairs called out, “Mommy? Are you up there?”

 

“Coming!” I shouted, tiptoeing as quickly as I could down the top flight of stairs and pausing at the bathroom on the second floor. I gave the toilet a quick flush, stuffed the envelope underneath my shirt, and continued on downstairs. Crystal stood at the bottom of the stairs gazing curiously up at me. I didn't know if she had seen me come down the top set of stairs or not.

 

“We have dessert,” she told me, leading me back into the kitchen. Betty had put out strawberry shortcake for us. I couldn't believe I was sitting here, calmly eating dessert across from Betty, with the envelope I had stolen burning a hole in my chest. I felt braver, knowing I had gotten away with my snooping. But I needed to find out what, if anything, Betty knew.

 

“Thank Cara for me,” I began, referring to the papers I had brought back. “Amelia was a fascinating woman. She apparently kept in touch with my grandfather even after he moved away,” I said, glancing at Betty out of the corner of my eye.

 

Betty nodded. “We're all learning things about the past we never knew before” she said. “It's hard to think of our grandmothers—and grandfathers—as young men and women, isn't it? Since you've come to town, a lot of things have come to light.”

 

She knew. Or, if she didn't know, at least she suspected that Amelia's baby hadn't died. But did she know about Johnny? There was one way to find out. “Betty? You remember our babysitter, Johnny, who came with us to the Town Hall a couple of weeks ago? I haven't been able to get in touch with him lately. Have you seen him in town?”

 

Crystal's head came up suddenly at the mention of Johnny's name. She and I both looked expectantly at Betty.

 

“Johnny?” Betty spoke slowly, as if trying to recall the sunburned teenage boy who had been with us that day. “No, I haven't seen him,” she said, beginning to gather up the dessert plates. “If you need a babysitter, I'm sure Cara's daughter has some reliable ones that she uses.”

 

“That's not it. I just wondered what had happened to him,” I said, still watching her closely. I knew exactly what had happened to Johnny. I wanted to see if Betty knew, too.

 

“He's probably out with some of his friends, or maybe he's got a girlfriend,” Betty said with a little laugh. “I wouldn't worry about it. Boys will be boys.” She puttered over to the kitchen sink and Crystal followed her, ready to help with the washing again. She never wanted to wash dishes at our house, but here, she thought it was great fun.

 

“Johnny doesn't have a girlfriend,” Crystal said solemnly, sinking her elbows into the sudsy water. “He said when I grow up I can be his girlfriend.”

 

I heard the catch in Betty's breath. “Sweetie,” she said after a moment's pause, “don't you worry about that. He was too old for you anyway. You'll meet lots of nice boys when you get older, I'm sure of it.”

 

Crystal looked doubtful, but she didn't say anything more about Johnny as they finished up the last few dishes. Betty came over to me as I got ready to leave and gave me a quick, motherly hug. “You and Crystal should really consider moving here permanently,” she said. “You belong here, and you have people now who care about you and will protect you.”

 

I had a vision of sweet, matronly Betty with a vicious knife raised above her head as Johnny cowered in terror on her attic floor. It didn't seem possible. “I can't,” I said. “The cottage is only meant for summer, and Crystal has school.”

 

“Think about it,” Betty said, as she released me. “There's nothing stopping you now. And don't worry about a place to live. Aunt Beth's house is available, if you want it.”

 

My mind kept trying to put sinister meanings behind Betty's words. `Nothing stopping you now' could mean now that the vampire threat had been eliminated. I didn't know if I was reading too much into this. I still wasn't completely sure if Betty knew Johnny was a vampire or not. In any case, it was too late now. Johnny was gone. But I didn't want to live in a town of vampire killers either.

 

Later that night my fingers shook as I opened the envelope I had stolen. Proof. What did that mean? The photographs tumbled onto the kitchen table, and right away I recognized some of them as the ones Cara had given me that I hadn't really had enough time to study closely. Many of the shots showed people I now recognized as Amelia and Elizabeth Crew, and I could guess at the rest. The dark-haired man with the baby was definitely Charles, Amelia's husband. I remembered him from the photo Betty had shown me of the three of them sitting together on the beach.

 

One grainy photo showed a teenager who looked like he could have been my Grandpa, although I had never seen photos of him so young. He looked younger than Amelia in that picture, all gangly arms and legs. Amelia stood between him and the dark-haired boy, Charles, with one arm around each of them. The next photo showed Elizabeth and Amelia with the gentleman who had been leaning against the car with Amelia in the photo I had recognized in Betty's attic. I flipped it over, and three names were hand-written on the back: Amelia, Lizzy and George. I didn't know who George was.

 

I almost dropped the third photo. It was taken from a distance, and it showed Amelia with her arms around another slender youth, whose face was in profile. The youth was Johnny—no doubt about it. I quickly riffled through the rest of the photographs. Hidden in the background of at least two more I spotted Johnny, proving without a doubt that he had been alive in the late twenties when those photos were taken. Since Elizabeth was conspicuously absent in most of them, I guessed that it had been she who had taken the shots, probably at Amelia's request. It seemed my grandmother collected men, even vampire men, in her heyday.

 

Proof, indeed. Johnny must have seen those photos and realized his cover was blown, so to speak. A horrible thought occurred to me. If Betty found those pictures, marked `Proof,' were missing, she would know I took them, and she would realize that I knew more than I was letting on. As long as she thought I was an innocent victim in this affair, I was safe enough. I needed to get those pictures back before she noticed they were gone! I no longer had any doubt that Betty knew Johnny had been a vampire.

 

I couldn't go back the next day, as that was our scheduled trip to Rhode Island. Kenny picked Crystal and me up early in the morning. It really wasn't that far. We drove south a little ways, but stayed close to the state border. I was a little nervous at the thought of meeting his parents.

 

I shouldn't have been. They had a pool, which endeared them to me immediately. We sat out on the back deck and alternately swam and talked. Kenny's father worked in Providence. He looked like Kenny, with curly brown hair which was just going gray and a gorgeous smile. “Welcome to the family, Lisa,” he said, coming up to give me a welcoming hug. Kenny's mother was blonde, like me, and petite, which I was not. I wondered if she was `family' too, or had just married into it. I knew they didn't mean it that way, but I sort of felt like their welcome was more about me dating their son than me being a long-lost cousin.

 

Mr. Brown showed me his den, where he had the family coat of arms displayed proudly. He explained how the original Smythes had come from Scotland and settled in Rhode Island first, before moving onward to other areas of New England for various reasons. “We kept in touch over the years,” he told me. “We never completely forgot our heritage. You could say it's in our blood.” His eyes twinkled as I looked at him sharply. “I'm teasing you,” he explained. “Kenny told me what a hard time some of the family in Lockwood gave you about your ancestry. We're really not that bad.” He smiled at me.

 

I looked at the coat of arms hanging prominently above Mr. Brown's desk and had to disagree. They were that bad. “So you're a Smythe on your—mother's side?” I asked.

 

“In this generation. I'm also a Smythe on my father's side, several generations back. My father met my mother in your town. He had been called in on some family business, and they hit it off right away. They were third or fourth cousins, or something like that.

 

Later we looked through old photo albums and Kenny showed me his grandmother Alyce in her wedding finery. I realized I had seen a similar picture before, at Aunt Beth's. I studied the man next to her and realized with a start that it was the same man who had been leaning against the car in the picture with Amelia—George?

 

“This is your grandfather?” I asked. Kenny nodded.

 

“How did they meet?”

 

“My grandfather was in town on some family business, and he ended up staying there for a year or two. They fell in love, got married, and eventually ended up back here and had my father and uncle.”

 

“Family business?” I asked.

 

“Some legal business,” Kenny replied. “My grandfather was the family lawyer at the time. Now my father handles that sort of thing.”

 

“Not you?” I never did ask what Kenny did for a living.

 

“Nah, I don't have the patience for law,” Kenny said with a grin. “I'm more of a hands-on kind of guy.” He demonstrated by pulling me over for a quick squeeze. I forgot what we had been talking about.

 

We ended up staying overnight. Crystal and I shared the guest room, and I was very aware of Kenny sleeping just on the other side of the wall. The next afternoon, his parents kissed us good-bye and made us promise to come back soon.

 

On the way home, we passed by an old cemetery reminiscent of the one near our cottage. “Mommy likes cemeteries,” Crystal commented, looking out the window. Kenny pulled over to the side of the road.

 

“Shall we look?” he asked.

 

I got all red. “I don't like them that much,” I protested. “I liked ours, because that's how I found out about the family,” I said by way of explanation. I wished Crystal hadn't said anything.

 

“Then you'll love this one,” Kenny said. “Some of the family are buried here, too.”

 

We climbed over the low stone wall rather than go around to the entrance which was further ahead. Just like the other Rhode Island cemeteries I had visited, there were several `Smiths' but no `Smythes.' “Do they spell it differently here?” I asked.

 

“Yeah, out here we like to blend in, rather than stand out,” Kenny explained with a smile. We walked through the graves. “This one was a cousin of some sort,” he said, pointing out a thin slate headstone. “He died in the mid 1700's.”

 

I read the stone. `Jack Pryce-Smithe' it said. Pryce? “What happened to him?” I peered down to read the inscription, faded and worn, on the stone: `Ware the dark night and those that dwell therein for Death awaits even the undying.' I shivered. “Spooky.”

 

Kenny laughed and took my hand. “All these old cemeteries are,” he said, as we continued our walk. He showed me his great-grandparents' graves, and ones that were even older. His great-grandfather's inscription read: `Defend the defenseless.' I wondered if he had been a lawyer, too.

 

“Stay?” I asked Kenny, when he dropped us off at the cottage. Tomorrow was the weekend, so I knew he didn't have to go to work. I wasn't sure what I was asking. I was still very much married to Sam. Crystal was an impressionable young girl. I think I just didn't want the day to end.

 

Kenny came in with us, and I fixed him a late supper which we ate out on the back porch. Crystal hummed and drew pictures in her little book. She was in a good mood too, I was glad to note. I had half-worried that she might not like the fact that Kenny was staying over.

 

After I put her to bed, I sat with Kenny by the fireplace, a little unsure of the next step, but willing to see where it would take us. I laid my head against his shoulder and he put his arm around me, pulling me closer. Suddenly, we were kissing intensely, and Kenny had me laying back on the couch, and at that moment, I didn't care how far we would go. It felt so right.

 

One second Kenny was all over me, and the next second, he was gone. Just like that. I sat up, chilled without his body heat, to find him slumped in the middle of the floor with a dark shape hovering over him. The figure dropped him with a sickening thud, and turned to look at me, blood smearing his mouth beneath his black, black eyes.

 

I gasped. “Johnny!”