The Fangs of Bloodhaven (14 page)

Chapter Fourteen

When Celeste finally spoke, her tone was level and didn’t give Everett any idea what she was thinking. “There are all kinds of monsters there, like the types Dad used to tell us about before...”

Everett nodded. “Before they found out I was a vampire,” he finished. His father’s stories used to thrill him. The thought that monsters were real and out there somewhere was exciting and scary at the same time. After his diagnosis, the stories had stopped altogether. When he had begged his dad late at night to tell him one, his dad merely shook his head and told him a story instead about bumblebees who shouldn’t fly because of their weight and the size of their wings, but did so anyway.

“Are there bad monsters?” she asked.

Everett thought of Dr. Transton’s words about the hidden floors being more to keep the inhabitants in than everyone else out. His experience with the elephants and almost being burned to death by a star made sense; yet there was only one answer for Celeste.

“Not that I’ve seen,” he said as truthfully as he could. Technically, the elephants hadn’t seemed intent on hurting him, and on the floor where whatever it was had gotten angry that he was there, he truly couldn’t see who was speaking.

“That’s good,” Celeste said. She was silent a moment, then continued, “Everett, it worries me. A building like that isn’t supposed to exist.”

“I know,” he answered.

“What if the government found out it was there?” she continued. “What if they’re watching it and they catch you on your way in? What if the DRAK take you away?” she concluded the last words quietly as though afraid of what they would mean.

Everett let the silence settle for a few minutes before he finally spoke up. “Celeste, I’m going crazy here.” Admitting it was harder than he thought. “Living in the basement, pretending like night is my day while everyone sleeps, it feels like being dead.”

“That isn’t fair,” Celeste replied with hurt in her expression. “We try hard to make sure you feel included. We have dinner late, Mom’s up most nights with her studies, and everyone goes to bed far later than anyone else at our schools—”

“That’s the problem,” Everett pointed out. He tried to keep his tone level, but the distress he felt crept in and his voice lifted. “You shouldn’t have to do that, any of you.” He waved a hand, indicating the house behind them. “It’s not right for any of them to have to do that. It’s not normal for a family to have a vampire as a sibling or child. Nobody should have to live like I do. I have no right to ask that of any of you.” He blinked quickly to keep back the tears that stung his eyes at his outburst.

Celeste set a hand on his knee. “Everett, we do it because we love having you as a brother. Vampires are awesome.”

Everett rolled his eyes, but couldn’t keep back a smile at his sister’s words. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You are, too,” she replied. “That’s why you fit in here so well. I mean, you’re going to a monster asylum at night. How ridiculous is that?”

“Pretty ridiculous,” Everett admitted with a grin.

She nodded. “Pretty darn ridiculous, even as far as vampires go.”

Everett chuckled. “Good to know. I guess I should keep an eye on that. I wouldn’t want things to get too far out of control.”

She nodded in agreement. “You do what you need to do to keep sane. That’s what all the rest of us do. Just remember that we’re a team. We do it together.”

Everett stood. “Thanks, Celeste.”

She rose and hugged him. “You are loved here, Everett. Just don’t forget that, k?”

“Okay,” he promised.

They walked into the house together. The light was on in the hallway that led to the sunroom.

“Heading to bed?” he asked Celeste.

“I made sure my errant brother got home safe, so I can sleep. How about you?”

Everett nodded toward the light. “I think I’ll go see what Mom’s up to.”

His answer brought a smile to Celeste’s face. “That’ll mean a lot to her.”

“’Night, Celeste.”

“Goodnight,” she replied with a tired wave before turning to her room.

Everett walked down the hallway. He leaned against the doorframe and smiled at the familiar sight of his mother leaning over the telescope. Her notebook lay open, filled with the sketches and notes she wrote almost nightly. It calmed Everett’s heart that despite all the craziness he had seen, monsters that shouldn’t exist in a world that he hadn’t known was real, things at home were the same.

“Hey, Mom.”

She looked up with a start. A smile spread across her face as soon as she saw him. “Everett, come see this.”

He walked over and put his eye to the telescope.

“That’s Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity,” she said.

“It’s dark.” He let his gaze focus on the view. “But I can see craters.”

“Good,” she replied. “If you look at the northeast rim, you’ll see the crater Posidonius.”

“It’d be neat to explore in there.”

He looked up to see his mom’s wistful expression. “Wouldn’t that be amazing? We used to have robots up there that would send back pictures. I wish we could still control them.”

Everett took a seat on the closest chair. “What do you think we would learn?”

“Anything.”

Her fast reply carried a note of longing. He knew how frustrated his parents became at the fact that the government refused to fund such research. Dad called it the Second Dark Age, saying that the Kingship feared losing control. In order to maintain peace, they limited learning and knowledge so that the remaining humans would be more manageable. From what Everett had seen, it made his parents frustrated instead of submissive.

“We’re meant to learn,” his mother said. “Imagine if we could figure out the link between the moon and the world. The research that survived from before the wars states that it is a far greater link than we ever imagined. What if it affects the plants or the bees?”

“What if it affects the monsters?” Everett replied.

“What do you mean?” she asked in surprise.

Everett didn’t want to say too much, but the fact that he knew his mother’s hypothesis was true ate at him. He chose a topic he felt he could talk about safely.

“I’ve heard that zombies change in the moonlight, that they’re not just mindless, flesh-eating creatures. The moon affects them.”

His mother gave him a fond smile. “Have you been listening to Donavan’s stories? I’ve got to ask him to stop filling his siblings’ heads with nonsense. Nobody has seen a zombie in years. The walls keep them out.”

“It’s not Donavan.” Everett took a chance. “I’ve seen a zombie, Mom.”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about?” All joking had vanished from her tone and it was replaced with worry. “We need to call the DRAK. Zombies are dangerous.”

Everett swallowed and lied, “It was outside the walls.”

She gave him a stern look. “Everett, what were you doing outside the walls?”

“I-I wasn’t outside.” His mind raced. “I was on top. I found a way up. I won’t go there again, I promise.”

She looked completely upset. Things were not going the way he had planned. He stood and set a hand on her arm.

“Mom, I was careful. I just wanted to see.” He gestured toward the moon. “But you’re right. The moon does affect them.”

She was silent for a moment. He half expected her to ground him for the rest of the week. Instead, she let out a small sigh and took a seat. “Alright, what happened?”

“The zombie danced.”

His mom’s mouth fell open.

Everett smiled. “You should have seen it, Mom. She was shuffling around and moaning, and then the moon came out. As soon as it touched the zombie’s skin, it was almost like a mirage of her old self fell over her. She danced so beautifully I almost forgot she was a monster.” A wave of sadness washed over him. “But as soon as the moonlight faded, the mirage was gone and she was back to being a zombie.”

His mother was quiet for much longer this time. He couldn’t guess the direction of her thoughts. When she spoke, there was horror in her voice.

“What if the moonlight brings them back?” she asked more to herself than to Everett. “What if that was the key? So many were killed. So many families brought down because they turned into zombies. Was it murder, then?”

Everett shook his head quickly. “No, Mom. It’s not like that. She wasn’t there, not really.” At his mother’s lost look, he tried to explain. “Even during her dance, I could tell she was just going through the motions. It was as if the moonlight awakened the memory of who she had been, not brought her back to herself. She was still a zombie, just...” He didn’t know how to finish. He thought of Dr. Transton watching his daughter transform every night. He had built the Asylum to protect her from those who would kill her on sight, yet he couldn’t save her from her cruel fate. She would always be locked away, merely a mirage. “She was still a monster,” he concluded quietly.

Everett felt as if he lost something at that moment. Maybe the government was right to keep the surviving citizens from delving too much into what had happened during the wars. Would it be worse to find out that they were the source of the monsters, or to realize that the monsters they killed could have been saved?

The more he learned of the creatures that haunted every child’s nightmares, the more he found out that perhaps it wasn’t the monsters that caused the fear. If humans created the monsters, humans were the source of the nightmares, and with that line of thought, what a human should fear was the capabilities of his or her own race.

That brought his thoughts back to Torrance. The human was right to fear him. He had only made it to the Asylum without drinking the boy’s blood by sheer strength of will. He had hurt Torrance by holding him down, and he couldn’t blame the teen for the accusation in his voice when he told Jeraldine Everett was a vampire.

“Do you think humans and monsters will ever learn to live in peace?” he asked quietly.

It was a topic of conversation they had spoken on occasionally. Usually it was just a hypothetical question, but this time, Everett was truly worried, not for himself, but for the monsters at the Asylum.

“I hope so,” his mother answered. “Maybe given a chance, people will start to realize monsters aren’t all bad.”

“You and Dad have really been amazing,” Everett said. They were words he didn’t say often enough. “I owe you everything.”

“You owe us nothing,” his mom replied. “You’re our son. Love needs no reason nor any payback. That’s why it’s love.” She pushed his hair back out of his eyes with a smile.

Everett decided something. “Mom, Adrielle’s a werewolf.”

Her hand paused in midair. “A werewolf?”

Everett nodded. “Yeah, and I’m going to see if she can help you with your studies, and Dad’s. Maybe you guys can help each other.” He stood and grinned at the shocked expression on her face. “I’m going to crash. I have some reading to catch up on.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Get some sleep, Mom.”

He left her sitting in the sunroom with the astonished expression on her face. Maybe Adrielle would be able to give his mother the information she was looking for; but if not, at least Everett was doing what he could to thank his parents for everything they had done.

He fell onto his bed and opened the book on vampires again. Though it was obvious some of the book had been written in ignorance, there were interesting facts that stood out.

‘Signs of vampirism usually surface around puberty. As the body undergoes its natural changes, others begin to take place. The body starts to attack its own blood supply and, for reasons that are unclear at this time, the individual is unable to produce more blood. If additional blood is not available, the organs will begin to shut down. It has been documented that this process is incredibly painful. As discovered in the studies of patients 72X and GN9, if the process is allowed to run to completion, the internal organs dry up completely, followed by the skin, saliva glands, and eyes. This process is so similar to mummification that the resulting creatures have been fondly named mummies.’

The thought that whoever had written the book had witnessed vampire test subjects who had been denied blood twisted Everett’s stomach in a knot. He shut the book and set it on his end table. Perhaps the less he learned of his kind, the better.

Only the thought that the government used ignorance as control made him reach for the book again. Everett opened it to a random page. He clenched his jaw and focused on the words.

‘If a vampire bites a human, the vampire’s saliva transfers a virus that attacks a human’s weaker cells. At first, the infected human will display symptoms similar to a cold, lethargia, unwillingness to participate socially, withdrawn from communication, and moody. As both the temporal and frontal lobes shut down, the human will begin to exhibit difficulty in following instructions, lack of understanding of language, decreased impulse control, increased forgetfulness, lessened reaction to stimuli, and the inability to solve basic problems.

As the infection spreads, the physical cells begin to break down, the skin loosens and sloughs off in places, and a smell of decay begins to emanate from the individual. The cerebellum is the next area to be attacked along with the medulla. With the thalamus destroyed, the infected individual is no longer able to understand speech, demonstrates a lack of balance, and a loss of most motor control. The resulting moaning sound emitted from the individual isn’t from pain as was initially thought; instead, it has been found that this is merely a reflex of the infected individual’s unnecessary breathing motion, sending air through the tattered trachea.