The Lost Girls (Chris Cerulli Vampire Story)

Chapter 15

Despite how drained and sluggish I felt, I still got up to make the phone call. I worried that this might be pointless, what if the people looking for Chris had given up long ago and wouldn't tell me anything? Regardless, I rolled out of bed and pulled on a thin black hoodie, dragging the hood over my bedhead. I slipped on the sunglasses that now remained on my nightstand before making my way down the kitchen. As soon as Haylee saw the outfit I was sporting despite the heat, she clearly knew that I was still inhuman. She quickly grabbed her breakfast and hurried up to her room.

I sighed heavily before heading for the phone with my sticky note in hand. On the counter, I found a note from our grandma saying that she had went out to the grocery store and I knew that dad had went to work hours ago, so now was the perfect time to make the call. My fingers trembled as I dialed the number and after a few rings, a male voice picks up.

He sounded as hesitant as I felt, "Yes, hello?"

I cleared my throat before asking, "Um, is this the number to call if I have information about Chris Cerulli?"

"I-It is miss." The man stuttered, "What can you tell me?"

"I think I might have seen him at the fair in Scranton last night." I say, knowing that it would be a bad idea to mention that I've known him a bit longer.

"Could you describe him for me?" He questioned and I could hear the hopefulness he was trying so hard to mask in his voice.

"Sure, he was about 6'4", black hair, and he was really pale."

"Did he happen to have any tattoos?"

I bit my lip, I knew that what I was considering doing was wrong, but at the same time I knew it was the better thing to do. I couldn't honestly say that Chris was in fact out there when he was currently a vampire. I have a hard-enough time handling it myself, I couldn't imagine how someone that knew him before this would deal with it.

So, I lied, "No... he didn't seem to have any."

I heard him let out a defeated sigh and I instantly hated myself for what I had done, but I knew that I needed answers if I was going to help anyone.

"That definitely wasn't him then. Thank you for calling regardless. Keep him in your thoughts dear."

Trust me, lately he doesn't leave my mind, I think to myself. I cleared my throat before speaking, "Of course I will. I hate to ask this, but I was wondering, do you have any idea what happened with him?"

I was surprised that he seemed more than willing to tell me the story, "It's fine, hon. He disappeared about two years ago when he had just turned nineteen. He had been having a hard time coping with the passing of his girlfriend. He was convinced that it was all his fault."

"What happened to her?"

"No one is certain, she went out with some friends and they had gone on a hike. Chris was supposed to go, but he had gotten sick that weekend. Well, Carly got separated from the group somehow and she was attacked by an animal. There was so much blood loss that nothing could be done for the poor girl. Everyone in our town took it so hard, but Chris was taking it the worst. He and his friend Danielle were the ones to find her body after all. His mother and I barely saw him after that and when we did, we noticed that he looked sick."

"How did he look sick?"

"He had gotten much paler than normal, deathly pale. His weight dropped significantly and once his mother touched him and swore that he was as cold as ice. We had thought he was starving himself because of this and tried to get more involved, but he became very standoffish. His mother told him that she was going to send him to therapy and that seemed to send him over the edge, because the next day we came home to find his room emptied out and no sign of him. We never found out what happened to him after that."

"I'm so sorry." I say in a small voice.

"It is what it is, but none the less I appreciate you trying to help us. At this point I think Chris' mother and I would be happy with knowing what actually happened to him, just so we can try to move on."

I felt tears dampen my eyes, I was dying to just tell him the truth, to give him some relief. I silently vowed that I would do whatever I could to help Chris and his family, because they deserved to be whole again.

"I hope that you find him, sir. I hate that I couldn't have been more of help to you. Have a nice day."

"You too, sweetheart."

I hung up the phone, dropping my head in my hands. I wiped the water from the rims of my eyes before heading into my grandmother's office, planning to find out more about what happened to Carly. This didn't take quite as long to find, according to the several articles she had appeared to have been attacked by a black bear. Other's speculated that wasn't the case, since her wounds seemed be mostly centered around her neck. One in particular sent a chill down my spine, there was an interview from two girls named Danielle Caplan and Payton Munson. I knew that it had to be the girls that Chris and I had to deal with, the other vampires. Now I had a sneaking suspicion that Carly's death was one of the girl's faults.

I knew that this information wasn't enough for me to work with, it didn't tell me the one thing I really wanted to know. Was I in danger of Chris? What if he hadn't been sick that weekend and he was truly the reason Carly met her grizzly end?