The beginning of March was mild. A long string of bitingly cold days was finally broken, thawing the ground and bringing the kids back outside after school and on weekends. The days were getting longer, and there was a feeling of coming out of the woods that accompanied the end of every winter. It was perhaps stronger this year; the lengthening sunshine seemed to be indicating that there would soon be a chance to leave all the awful events of the previous months in the past.
No one could have known how far away the end of the tunnel really was.
Shannon Malone found herself spending a great amount of time with Ginger, Jared, Ollie, and Dexter after the afternoon at McKenzie House. She did not see much of Toni after their fight, and Robbie had not wanted to get in the middle of it. An unspoken, unmentioned allegiance had been formed between herself and the other six people at McKenzie House that day in January, one that none of them even truly wanted to think about because of what it could mean. It hung around them with every word and every look and every gesture, constantly lurking in the back of each of their minds. It was strong enough, though, that Shannon was compelled to go to them following the split with her older friends.
The exception was Allison Groves. She had no scruples with thinking and saying what the others would not. The discussion she and her six classmates had had the day of the fight with Quintus Zima's gang was never far from her mind. By the beginning of March, Allison was already planning to do what no one else had.
The seven of them—Shannon, Allison, Caleb, Ginger, Jared, Ollie, and Dexter—met in Ollie's backyard one Friday afternoon after classes had finished. Allison had arranged the meeting, but Ollie's backyard was used because it was the biggest and her parents were once again not around. The last of the snow still clung to the ground in patches, but they were few and far between. The majority of it had melted, leaving the ground a wet, muddy mess to walk upon. McKenzie House had an expansive back patio, preventing any of them from worrying about that. They sat in a circle, some in the stiff patio chairs and some flat on the ground. Ollie's ginger cat trotted around the patio among them, pouncing at thin air. Ollie had produced Ockham's Guide to Vampires and Creatures of the Night from a large bag filled with a multitude of other books and had set it on the patio table in the middle of the group, barely looking at it. She'd also drawn out a small pouch of pretzels from the bag and was currently munching away at them. Allison had swooped in on Ockham's Guide, throwing it open to a random page and reading aloud the first thing she came upon.
"'A newly turned vampire had an insatiable appetite; it could take years for a new vampire to learn to control the bloodlust,'" she read, putting one finger into the air as if to add effect. "'As such, newly turned vampires were often much more savage than the older vampires, but far less dangerous.'"
No one was looking at her, but it was obvious they were all listening carefully to what she said. Ollie twirled a pretzel nervously between her fingers. Caleb rubbed the back of his neck.
"Is this why you wanted to meet up?" he asked.
"Past tense," Allison said, ignoring Caleb's question completely. "Past tense because vampires have been extinct for seventy years."
"That again?" Dexter asked. He looked uncomfortable. "I thought we agreed that the most likely option was vampires."
"But they're extinct," Allison said, an assertion she'd already made countless times. "It has to be something else."
"Of course vampires are extinct," Ollie said, speaking more to the pretzel in her hand than to anyone in the group. "All monsters are."
Six pairs of eyes snapped to Ollie, surprised that she had spoken at all. She stared at her pretzel like it was the most heartbreaking thing she had ever seen. Her ginger cat came over and began pawing lightly at her shoelaces.
"My parents have this enormous book on the War of 1886," Ollie said. "I found it a few days ago. It was shoved way in the back of one of the cabinets in the library, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know it's there or not. I read a little bit out of it though because I remembered the war being mentioned in Ockham's Guide." She pointed at the book Allison held but did not look at it. She said her next words as if reading from a script. "All monsters and demons were wiped out in the War of 1886. With the exception of a few isolated incidents, none have since been spotted."
"'With the exception of a few isolated incidents?'" Jared repeated, raising his eyebrows quizzically.
"I've gotta be honest: that's not really reassuring," Ginger said.
"No," Ollie agreed. She reached one hand down and absently scratched her fingers through her cat's fur.
"It's like she says, though," Allison said, nodding in a matter-of-fact and yet self-satisfied way. "Vampires are extinct. All gone. No more." She made a slashing gesture through the air with her hand to demonstrate her point. "Ever since 1886."
"Except for a few isolated incidents," Jared said under his breath.
"Something else must be doing all of this," Allison said assuredly.
"That wasn't really what I meant," Ollie said, a look painting her face that made it seem she was afraid Allison might suddenly start screaming at her. "All monsters are supposed to be extinct. So whatever you think is doing all of this shouldn't exist either. Unless you think a person is doing all of this. They still exist."
Allison opened her mouth immediately and then closed it again, frowning. She folded her arms moodily, glaring at Ockham's Guide like it had betrayed her.
"Why is everyone ignoring the few isolated incidents?" Jared asked.
"I'm not," Ollie said, sounding absolutely miserable. "That's the whole point."
Jared frowned at her, considering. The other five were at various stages of understanding as Ollie put a pretzel in between her teeth and just held it there, like she couldn't decide whether or not to eat it.
"The whole—oh." Jared's realization flashed across his eyes. "Oh. Just like Shannon saw a Follower."
Ollie nodded, opting to give her full attention to her cat instead of any one of them.
"They shouldn't exist either," Caleb said slowly, filling in the gaps. "No matter what, something is here that shouldn't be."
There were a few long, excruciating moments of silence. Allison fidgeted, her angry frown deepening with every second that passed.
"Seems pretty likely it's vampires, then," Dexter said. "You all heard about Officer Potts."
Much like Sarah Benadine, the details of the death of Rudy Potts had made their rounds through the town swiftly and thoroughly. He'd been found outside of the police station in the wee hours of the morning by Horace Strickland himself; the body had obviously been staged. All four limbs had been torn from the torso and left to lie next to it. All of the blood had been drained from the body. The man's face had been mauled with such brutality that he was nearly unrecognizable. The ring finger on his left hand and two of his toes on his right foot were missing entirely. His eyes had been clawed out. Such a display of unmitigated savagery had sent shockwaves all throughout the town.
"I don't see how it could be vampires," Allison said sullenly. "Shouldn't Officer Potts have turned into a vampire then? Isn't that how it works? A vampire bites someone and then they turn into a vampire?"
It was hard to tell if Allison asked out of genuine curiosity or just plain stubbornness. Her bottom lip was almost stuck out in a pout, making her look childish.
"Well, actually, a person only turns into a vampire if they die due to blood loss from the bite wound of a vampire," Ollie said hesitantly. Allison snapped her gaze to Ollie, and Ollie withered under its intensity. "I—I read it in the guide."
"If all the rumors are true, I doubt Officer Potts died from a bite wound," Ginger said. She looked somewhat queasy.
"Okay, fine," Allison snapped. "Let's say vampires killed Officer Potts. There's still gotta be something else. Something that called the Follower to go after Shannon—maybe Sarah, too. Hey, maybe someone called a Follower to go after Rudy Potts, too! That could be it, too, couldn't it? It doesn't have to be vampires."
She looked around at all of them expectantly.
"I don't know, Allison," Caleb said uncertainly, and that was all he needed to say. His doubts could clearly be heard in his voice, the doubts of the entire group, perhaps even Allison herself: the differences in Sarah Benadine's and Rudy Potts's deaths, the slew of animal attacks and disappearances that would still be left unexplained, the break-in at the butcher's shop that no Follower would have done.
Allison let out a 'humph' noise, hearing exactly what was unsaid. She looked to the girl who'd been mostly silent since they'd gotten there.
"What do you think, Shannon?"
"I don't know," Shannon said, looking down and hiding her eyes behind her lashes. "Seems like at least vampires to me."
Allison huffed and threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Is this why you wanted to meet up?" Caleb asked, the corners of his mouth twitching downwards. "So that you could tell us that you don't think vampires are here in town? Again?"
At that, Allison deflated immediately as if all the fight had gone out of her. She played with the corner of one of the pages to Ockham's Guide and drew circles on the ground with the tip of her shoe.
"No," she admitted. "I wanted to talk to all of you about something else."
The air grew stagnant as silence engulfed the group. It was evident that whatever Allison wanted to say was weighted, and, truth be told, no one was that anxious to push it.
"Whatever it is that's doing all this stuff," she said, choosing each word carefully, "no matter what it is...no one's doing anything about it. It's been almost seven months since Sarah was killed. Even longer since—" She broke off abruptly and cleared her throat. "Well, bad things have been happening in town for a long time now. No one's gotten anything done."
"How do you know for sure no one's doing anything?" Ollie asked. "I'm sure the people at the Administration are trying to figure it out. They were at Briargate after the cow head was found, and again when" –she shuddered— "we found Dougie Wein's skull. The Clearwater police came and talked to us after that, too. They must be doing something."
"Yeah?" Allison said. "And look what happened to Officer Potts. I think this is a little bit above the normal police's experience."
Ollie looked down, nodding, forced to concede that what Allison said was true. Her ginger cat stuck out its little pink tongue and lapped gently at her finger.
"And the Administration doesn't think vampires exist anymore," Allison said with a flick of her hand. "None of the teachers do either. Professor Nadig said so the day she talked to me about the cow head."
"You don't think vampires exist anymore," Caleb pointed out.
"I think something still exists," Allison said belligerently. "None of them do. They think all the monsters were wiped out in this war—the War of 1886, I guess. The people at the Administration aren't gonna do anything because they probably think a human's responsible for all of this."
"How could they think that?" Ginger asked hesitantly. "If Sarah really was killed by a Follower..."
She didn't finish. Allison looked at her intently.
"Maybe nobody's figured that out," Allison said. "We don't even know for sure if she was."
"Someone figured out Shannon was marked," Dexter said, nodding in Shannon's direction. "Someone—Dr. Kenfield, probably—you know, 'unmarked' her."
"Maybe they know, maybe they don't," Allison said, her voice exasperated. "The point is nothing's been done. Things still keep happening and nothing's changing."
"And you want to do something about it?" Caleb asked, half-joking, but the look on Allison's face told him she was serious.
The afternoon sunshine, which had previously been warm and comfortable, suddenly became cold. A gentle wind blowing across the treetops seemed nasty now. Allison's face was hard, unflinching. The other six looked at her with unabashed shock and surprise. Even Shannon and Caleb, who'd had a talk similar to this one with Allison all the way back in October, were taken off-guard. Up until now, all seven of them had only been doing amateur investigation, drawing conclusions and making assumptions based on what they saw and heard. What Allison was suggesting was something else entirely.
"Allison," Caleb said carefully, "what could we do?"
Allison made a noise of aggravation and fisted a hand in her hair. Her glasses slipped down to the end of her nose. "I'm not sure yet. If I knew for certain that it was vampires, maybe I could—"
"What else could it be?" Caleb asked sincerely.
"I don't know, all right?" There was disproportionate irritation in Allison's voice in reference to the situation. Sighing, she pushed up her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I just think—you know, all vampires do is kill."
"Which is kind of what's been happening," Jared said under his breath.
"I know, okay?" Allison said. She seemed to be dancing around some much greater truth, as if the words physically would not come out of her mouth. "I just—there has to be—I have to find—"
Allison stopped dead. It was not an embarrassed cessation, or a shocked one, like she couldn't believe what she'd said. It was more of a dejected silence, like no matter what she did the words were coming out all wrong. Shannon Malone looked at her sharply and in that moment realized exactly what she'd been missing. It should have been obvious; Allison had said it herself. Allison Groves was a very realistic girl on all accounts, except for one: she still, all these months later, believed Mabel Starkowski to be alive.
"Let's not worry about what exactly is doing this right now, okay?" Shannon said gently, looking at Allison but meaning her words more for the other five. "We know something is doing this, some monster. We know someone marked me, too. So obviously everyone—the teachers, the Administration, whoever—they're all wrong. Right?"
She looked somewhat uncertainly between all of them. They all nodded. Jared said 'yeah' quietly.
"So," Shannon continued, somewhat dubiously, "what do you have in mind, Allison?"
Allison pursed her lips and shifted in her seat. "I want to prove it. Something is out there and I want to prove it."
Something Shannon Malone still did not quite understand was that Allison Groves had, perhaps, been scared. In spite of her dedication to finding Mabel Starkowski, Allison had been unprepared for everything that had happened in the months since she'd first talked to Shannon and Caleb about her intentions. The cow head nailed to the wall, the skull in the basement, even Rudy Potts's death had all frightened her. It was maybe that she had not fully comprehended what was coming; she had had no way of knowing. Or maybe it was how close to home so much of it was: the cow head on her birthday, the skull she had been one to find, her best friend missing since last June. She was afraid, and that was what had halted her progress in her search for her friend and what had changed her trajectory just the slightest notch.
Little by little, her courage was returning.
"How do you want to do that?" Caleb asked. He was frowning thoughtfully, eyes cast towards the sky.
Allison took a deep breath. She looked at each one of them in turn with the face of a person who knows what is about to be said is not going to go over well. Flicking the pages of Ockham's Guide idly, she said quite calmly, "I want to find whatever monster is out there."
The reaction was not immediate. For a moment or two the six others simply looked at her as if she'd made a completely innocuous remark about schoolwork or the weather. Each of them knew exactly what she'd said and what she'd meant; that was not the question. The extra seconds were needed to put her words in perspective, register the consequences.
"You want to find it?" Ollie said finally, her voice very small. Allison nodded solemnly, and Ollie bit into a pretzel.
"Allison, that's crazy," Caleb said, as lightly as he could manage. "You'll...you'll get killed."
"Maybe not," Allison said without much conviction. "Not if I go about it in the right way. And all of you...you could help me."
Her eyes held a pleading kind of desperation. It was hard to behold.
"You want us to go hunting vampires?" Ollie asked. Her cat leaped into her lap and she flinched.
"N-no, not exactly," Allison said hastily. With a streak of stubbornness, she added, "And maybe not vampires, anyway. I'm not—I don't want to go hunting anything. I just think that maybe if we could—lure the monster out—"
"Lure?" Ollie said. Her eyes were wide and her voice was an octave too high.
"I've never really wanted to die at twelve years old, Allison," Jared said with a weak laugh.
"I'm not planning on getting killed," Allison said seriously. Her eyes flared. "I think maybe—if I used my astral projection, I might be able to keep myself safe."
"You aren't allowed to use your gifts, though," Shannon said. "Isn't that right?"
"Yeah, and Caleb throws snowballs at Jared in the middle of July," Allison said. Her voice was not accusatory. "Jared heals his cuts and bruises all the time. And Dexter probably uses his gift if he's running late."
Dexter half-shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.
"In my defense," Jared said almost sheepishly, "I can't really help it. It just sort of happens."
"Everyone does it," Allison continued with confidence that seemed manufactured. "As long as no one finds out about it, it's fine."
"But none of us have astral projection," Ollie said, twisting a pretzel in her hand. "Shannon and I don't have a gift at all."
"We could figure something out," Allison insisted. Her eyes danced around all of the surrounding area, through the trees, into the sky, across the grass. Everywhere but across the faces of the six before her.
"You're serious," Caleb said flatly. It wasn't a question. He'd known she was since she'd started talking.
"Yeah, I am," she said.
There was a long pause of silence again. Allison made pictures on the ground with her foot. Ollie's cat entertained itself by batting at one of Ollie's pigtails. No one made eye contact. They were all thinking variations on the same thing, and none of them needed to see it reflected back in someone else's eyes. The tension grew more uncomfortable with every moment that passed.
"This seems like a really bad idea," Jared said when it seemed to have become unbearable.
"You think so?" Dexter asked sarcastically, but the punch was half-hearted. Jared barely acknowledged him.
"We'd just have to do it right," Allison said, her eyes alight with determination. "If we used our gifts—"
"No offense, Allison," Jared said, "but we can barely control our gifts. You can't go for more than a few minutes without feeling sick. And I can't really heal myself if something...well, rips my limbs off."
Allison did a poor job of hiding her wince. She folded her hands in her laps and said, "We could practice our gifts. It can't be that hard, can it?"
No one bothered to answer that question
"Allison," Caleb said, "if we don't get killed, what are you planning to do once you've lured the vampire" –Allison shot him a look— "or the monster out?"
"I'm—I'm not sure yet," Allison admitted. "I'll figure something out. Maybe—if we just saw what it was and all of us said something, we could get the adults moving. You know, if we all said we saw a monster they wouldn't be able to ignore it anymore."
"I've already seen a monster," Shannon said thoughtfully.
"But you didn't tell anyone except us," Allison said.
"No," Shannon agreed, nodding, "but why don't I just tell someone now? Headmistress Lea or Professor Nadig or someone. Then we wouldn't have to do any of this."
"You saw a Follower." Allison suddenly seemed distracted, agitated. "I'm sure the Follower isn't the big problem. Besides, like Dexter said, someone 'unmarked' you. I guess they must know—about the Follower, at least. They know and they're not doing anything about it."
"Who is 'they?'" Jared asked, frowning.
"I don't know, the adults!" Allison waved her arms around widely. "The people who should be doing something about this!"
Shannon had the sneaking suspicion that this conversation was going in circles. It was plain to see that Allison was upset, but she thought perhaps that, besides Allison herself, only she and Caleb truly understood the gravity of it.
"Allison, this is way too dangerous," Shannon said. Her voice was soothing—calm, even. The last thing she wanted was another fight.
"She's right," Ginger said, just as cool and collected as Shannon was. "If you really don't believe it's vampires that are out there then you don't even know what you're up against. We'll all just get ourselves killed."
Ollie nodded slightly. She had given up on her pretzels and gnawed on her fingernails instead. Her face said she was terrified but didn't want to let on. A few seats over from her, Caleb pursed his lips and took a deep breath.
Allison's shoulders sagged. "Yeah. You're right. Forget it."
Her words seemed sincere enough but something still bothered Shannon. It settled in the pit of her stomach and held on tight. Something told her Allison was not done with this, not by a long shot.
She was right.
"We should probably get going," Allison said, looking at Caleb and then up and the setting sun. "It's gonna be dark soon. Nadig will have our hides if we come back after dark."
"Yeah," Caleb agreed, standing. The others began to rise as well, seeing their cues. Allison handed Ockham's Guide to Ollie, who took it with averted eyes.
"Thanks, Ollie," Allison said with a rare smile. Ollie gave her half a smile back. The group dispersed, Jared, Ginger, and Dexter going through the house, Allison and Caleb heading towards the street. Ollie gathered up her great book bag and slid Ockham's Guide back in. As she did so, just for a second, Shannon caught a glimpse of another title: Elementary Magic for Beginners. Ollie turned back to her and she pushed thoughts of the book away, filing them to puzzle out later. She smiled at Ollie, gave her a wave, and headed off the patio, back towards Minerva Boulevard. As she went, she thought, somewhat bizarrely, of Charlie Mouser's thick-rimmed glasses, broken, and then healed to perfection.
***
It was only days later that Shannon found herself alone with Allison Groves in the West Wing lounge. The conversation in Ollie's backyard had been bothering Shannon; she found herself thinking about it all the time. She found herself thinking about Allison and Allison's state of mind all the time.
"You think about Mabel a lot, don't you?" Shannon asked before she even realized she was going to. Now was as good a time as ever.
Shannon did not look at Allison. If Allison was trying to tell her something with the look on her face, Shannon did not see it.
"Yeah, all the time," Allison said after a pause that was almost painful. "She...she's my best friend."
Present tense.
"What was she like?" Shannon asked, well aware that she was dangerously close to dousing an open wound with salt. She risked a glance at Allison, but the other girl was not looking at her. Her eyes were cast off to the side. Her face was white and open.
"She's..." Allison spoke softly—almost reverently. "She's a lot like you, actually."
Shannon started, not expecting to hear that. She did not have enough time to decide how she felt about it before Allison was speaking again.
"Really smart, and she has a really good sense of humor that you don't really notice until you get to know her better. And...and she's the kind of person you can trust. The kind of person you can depend on."
Shannon thought there was something Allison was omitting but she didn't ask, afraid that that might be what it took to kick the bag of salt over right on top of the cut.
"She's why you don't think vampires are here in Clearwater, isn't she?" Shannon said, wincing with the knowledge that she probably just tossed in a handful of salt and rubbed it around a little bit anyway.
Allison opened her mouth to speak but seemed to think better of it. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. Shannon already knew.
It was like this: Shannon had seen Dougie Wein's skull. She'd seen the rotting flesh, she'd seen the shining white teeth stretched back in a permanent macabre grin, she'd seen the empty eye sockets and their sightless stare into nothingness. She'd seen it atop the last clothes Dougie had ever worn. And she'd heard the story; she knew Dougie just disappeared at the end of the '54 school year, never to be seen alive again.
She knew his story was very similar to Mabel Starkowski's, and she thought that perhaps that was all that needed to be said. Allison wanted to find Mabel, but Shannon didn't know what was left of Mabel to be found.
"She's my best friend," Allison repeated, and Shannon swallowed and nodded. Allison jerked slightly, as if shaking off a doze.
She was looking off to the side, and her thoughts were elsewhere. Somewhere dark and dangerous and frightening.
***This chapter displeases me. That's all I'm going to say about it. Thanks to everyone who voted and commented! It means a lot :)***