Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire (20 page)

“Oh hey, Josie. How’s it going?” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

“Oh really?” I said. “Wonder why.”

The others murmured behind us. Kevin held up his hand. “It’s okay,” he yelled. “I know her.” Then he looked at me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I can be wherever I want to be, jerkwad.” I walked around him and peered into the car. “Who else is with you?”

Kevin hung his head. “Aw, come on, Josie. Don’t.”

I turned and glared at him. “Scared I might hurt your pretty new car?” I ran my finger along the shiny black paint.

“Hardly,” he said, but the quiver in his voice and the fear in his eyes gave him away.

“You should be,” I told him.

“She’s not even here and you should leave,” he said. “This place isn’t safe.”

“Says who?” I asked.

“I have my sources.”

“Your sources are full of crap,” I told him.

“How would you know?” he asked then he paused. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“You’re one of them.”

I shook my head. “Don’t you read the news?” I asked. “I’m not a vampire.”

Byron grabbed Kevin by the arm. “Come on, man. Every time we follow a lead from that demon hunter listserv it turns out to be bogus. Let’s go to Steak ’n Shake already.”

Kevin stared hard at me for a moment. He lifted his arm and pointed at me. “Behold the wretch—the miserable monster I created!”

I rolled my eyes. “Save it for English lit, idiot. This has nothing to do with you.”

Byron grabbed Kevin’s arm and pulled him toward the car. “False alarm!” Kevin yelled to the crowd. The others got back into their cars and revved their engines. I stood my ground as they backed out. Their headlights swept across the love zombies who’d now formed a loose huddle off to the side. Kayla.

I knew I had to get to HAG before it was too late. I ran for my car but the love zombies stood in front of it. “Oh for god’s sake, get out of the way!” I yelled at them but they didn’t move. I yanked open all the doors. “Then get in you useless zombies!” I growled at them. “Get in before I kick your butts!”

As Gladys squealed out of the parking garage, we passed a long line of white, unmarked vans with tinted
windows driving in a slow procession down Jefferson Street. I watched them in my rearview mirror as they turned into the parking garage. “The Council?” I asked the six girls piled in my car. They all looked at me blankly, of course. “Isn’t there anything you guys know or can do to help me?” I yelled out of frustration but I got nothing in return. “Fine,” I muttered. “I guess I’ll still have to do this all myself.”

I parked in the alley behind HAG. “Does this place look familiar to any of you?” I asked, but the love zombies didn’t move, didn’t talk; they just sat there staring straight ahead. I had no idea what to do and no one to help me. For the second time in my life I felt completely and utterly abandoned. Only this time, I deserved it. I laid my head against my steering wheel and fought back tears that threatened to explode from my eyes like a stupid geyser, but then I heard a familiar loud squeak. I squinted out the window and saw the lid to the Dumpster in the HAG parking lot sticking up. A shadow tossed a bundle into the Dumpster then the lid dropped with a loud
thunk
. I watched the shadow go back inside HAG. Once I heard the door close, I got out of the car and ran, half crouched, across the parking lot, stopping once behind a smoky gray Prius for a moment.

Fearing that Maron or Ms. Babineaux would pop out of the back door and grab me any minute, I sprinted to the Dumpster and threw open the lid. Peering down, there was just enough light for me to see a pair of green
and blue Pumas, a duffel bag, and a tattered copy of
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
. “No,” I said aloud. “No, no, no.” I fumbled for my phone and punched in Kayla’s number. I heard the ring, muffled in the layers of trash. “No!” I shouted. “Oh, Kayla! No!” I heard someone wailing, the saddest cry of desperation I’d ever heard and then I realized that was me, crumpled on the cement with my head against the greasy side of the Dumpster.

I knew I had to shut up. I knew I had to leave, but I couldn’t. I cried for my friend. For how I had let her down. For all the problems I had caused to the few people who’d been decent to me lately. I cried loud and stupid, like a blubbering idiot, until I felt the cold grip of bony fingers on my shoulder and I froze.

g
et off me!” I yelled and thrashed, throwing wild punches into the air, but not connecting with anything.

“Mmmh,” the girl said. She tugged at me with the strength of a hummingbird trying to lift a dead horse. “Mmmh,” she said again.

I scrambled to my feet and looked into the face of Bethany, the love zombie Kayla had freaked out over. She put her bony hand around my wrist and led me to the alley where the other zombie girls waited in a huddle. They seemed agitated, shifting from foot to foot, and making little moaning noises until Bethany and I joined them. They surrounded me then all at once they started to walk, heading north.

“But Gladys,” I said, spinning around, trying to work my way against the tide of bodies. “We could just drive, you know!” They ignored me and continued walking, pushing me forward with their determined momentum.

We walked through alleyways and backyards, across railroad tracks, and under overpasses filled with trash. I had no idea where they were leading me and I didn’t really care because at that moment, they were literally the only friends I had in the world. Zombies.
Nice
, I thought,
real nice. One more rung down the social ladder for me.

After twenty minutes, I knew exactly where we were. The neat little houses and trim gardens filled with azaleas gave Lockerby away. “Oh no!” I said. “Are you taking me to Johann?” I tried to push my way out of the group, but they surrounded me again like we were a school of fish. Maybe Johann had been lying all along and they were his minions. “Are you doing his bidding?” I shouted, but of course, no one answered. They walked on, jostling to keep me in the center. “I won’t go,” I yelled at them. “You can’t make me.” I pushed hard against the girls until I broke their ranks and I slipped into the street. They stopped, cocked their heads to the side, and blinked at me with those horrible hollow eyes. I backed away, panicked, and scrambled into the shadow of a burnt-out streetlight then ducked behind a tall hedge in someone’s yard.

Once I was out of sight, the girls turned away as if I had never been with them and continued their slow silent march down the street. I watched from a distance as they turned a corner then I decided that I should follow them.

I kept ten feet behind, lurking along the edge of the
sidewalk, ready to run away at any moment, but they ignored me. We turned another corner onto a street lined with big, old Victorian houses, only half of which had been fixed up. They trudged forward to the most run down of the houses. A single bulb burned weakly on the dilapidated porch and half the windows were boarded over. They marched up the steps single-file and vanished inside. I stood in the weedy front yard for a few minutes then I circled the house to get a lay of the land.

Behind the house, I saw the gray Prius from HAG. “Aha,” I said, quietly confirming my suspicion that HAG and the love zombies were connected. But I still had no idea how. I thought of Kayla and Ellie and the girls.…Now I was too curious to let fear take over. I crept through the backyard, stepping over thorny bushes and patches of gravel to the back porch. The steps creaked under my weight, but I went slowly, sticking close to the rail that was protected by the shadow of a loose gutter hanging overhead. The porch ran the length of the back of the house and wrapped around the left side. I dropped to my knees and scurried up against the wall where I slunk from window to window, peering in each dark portal. The interior appeared to be black and empty until I got to the side of the house where a lamp burned in one of the rooms. I wrapped my fingers around the crumbling wood of the windowsill and very slowly inched up until I had a clear view of a large open space inside.

Love zombies filled the room. Some sat on ratty couches and ancient overstuffed armchairs. Others
leaned up against the peeling wallpaper. A few lay on threadbare Oriental rugs in front of an empty ornate fireplace. I squinted, trying to find Bethany and the others who had led me away from HAG. I scanned each vacant face then I landed on a girl with thick blonde hair half-covering her features, but the butterfly shirt and short shorts gave her away. I stood up and slammed my hand against the pane. “Kayla!” I called. I grappled with the bottom of the sash and lifted. The window flew open. “Kayla!”

Movement in the corner of the room sent me ducking down out of sight. It was stupid of me to shout out—I had to keep control. When I peered into the open window again, I saw Atonia Babineaux weaving through the bodies. She trailed her fingers through their hair and along their arms as she slithered across the room. She looked like a snake taking its pick of drugged up rats in a science lab.

“Who will it be tonight?” she asked in a singsong voice. She stopped in front of a dark-skinned bag of bones slouched against the mantel. “You?” she asked and reached out to lift the girl’s chin. Her cheekbones were as sharp as shale beneath a mass of unruly curls. She turned the girl’s face left and right then moved on. “Or you?” She knelt in front of a girl with dyed blue hair who slouched, knock-kneed in a chair. Atonia spun around and crawled cat like across the floor, picking her way over arms and legs akimbo. “Perhaps someone new?” She stopped at Kayla and brushed the hair away
from her face, which had been drained of all its vitality. Her blue eyes loomed large in dark sockets and her mouth looked like a gash across a stone. I didn’t know what Atonia had done to my friend, but I knew I could take that skinny freak out if it meant saving Kayla. Except for one thing. Maron.

Maron marched into the room, barking, “It’s all set!” She glanced toward the windows.

I jumped off the porch and sprinted across the yard. I had no idea if Maron had seen me half in and half out of the window or not, but I wasn’t going to stick around and find out. I tore through the yards of Lockerby, hurdling flower beds and avoiding snarling dogs for three blocks until I tripped over a sprinkler and fell to my knees, gasping for air.

I had nowhere to go. No one to help me. The paras didn’t trust me anymore. Neither did my parents for that matter. How long had it been since I snuck out? I was in way over my head. “What am I going to do?” I wailed up at the night sky, searching for some kind of answer but all I saw were the brightest stars glowing faintly through the haze of city lights. The Big Dipper, Orion’s belt, Betelgeuse. The vastness of the universe weighed down on me and I whimpered.

I was the tiniest speck. Alone on the Earth on a late summer night. As insignificant as any bug. I lay back in the grass. There were no lights on in the house. No one to see me or ask what I was doing on their front yard. I realized at that moment, I could either freak out and lose
my mind, or give up and crawl home to my parents who would surely be seething because by now they would have found the empty running shower and would be certain I was out trying to score some drugs for the half-zombie girl I dumped on them. Or I could I breathe like Charles had taught us in anger management.

After a few minutes, my heart had slowed and I could think again. Charles always said to break a problem down then deal with it step-by-step instead of rushing headfirst into more trouble. So. First step, I got up off the ground and brushed the grass off my knees and butt. Second step, I thought through all the people I could go to for help. Most of them I had to cross off. Tarren—she’d kill me. Helios—he would never have anything to do with me again. Avis—no matter how nice and chill he was, he would be loyal to Tarren and Helios. The Council—I had no idea who they were. My parents—they would never believe me, especially after I ditched tonight. Which left only one person who just might care enough to overlook what a jerk I’d been.

I got my bearings and headed for Johann’s house.

I might have been stupid enough to ask a vampire for help, but I wasn’t stupid enough to knock on his door and risk his mom taking a bite out of me. Instead I crept around the house, looking for a way to get his attention without disturbing his parents. I’d had plenty of practice sneaking around when Kevin and I first started dating,
so I figured it shouldn’t be too hard. I found a tree at the side of the house with some low branches. I picked up a handful of pebbles from the side yard and stuck them in my pocket.

“Jeez,” I muttered as I hung by one knee from the lowest branch and tried to swing myself up. “My butt is getting too big for this.” After about fifty tries I got on top of the branch. Then tree climbing came back to me like I was ten years old again. I worked my way from branch to branch until I was eye level with a lighted window. I straddled the branch and scooted forward so I could peer inside.

I don’t know what I was expecting—a sarcophagus and blood-red velvet drapes? But Johann’s room looked like every other guy’s room I’d ever seen. A mess of clothes, posters of 80s bands, a desk with a computer, shelves of books shoved in at awkward angles. Apparently thirty years of being eighteen hadn’t improved the slob factor much. I scanned the room for signs of life, or unlife I guess, and had almost given up when I realized that he was there, on the bed, lying so still that I had mistaken him for a mound of laundry. I took a pebble from my pocket and tossed it at the window. Nothing. I did it again. “Johann,” I whispered harshly and threw more rocks. “Hey, Johann!”

He opened his eyes and rose from the bed like Bela Lugosi out of a coffin. “Johann! Come to your window.”

Johann blinked a few times like he thought he’d
been dreaming, so I threw the rest of my pebbles, which startled him. He hopped up from the bed and thrust open the window. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Josie.”

He found me among the leaves and glared. “
Gott im Himmel
, Yosie! What are you doing?” He frowned, “In a tree? At night. There could be bats out there,” he said and squirmed.