You're in Vampire Country, Now

Chloe’s P.O.V.

Tater had “gone missing”. Frank spent everyday bawling his eyes out on the couch in the main hall. He would sit, curled up into a little ball, and stare at the blank television screen, occasionally blowing his nose in a tissue, for hours. I would have been more sympathetic toward the “poor guy” if I didn’t think it was a load of bull. Tater wouldn’t leave Frank, at least, not while she had Mikey to drool over. People just don’t go missing.

I had been spending a lot of time with Gerard since the “needle incident”. Mostly we were either outside or in his room, though. No one wanted anything to do with either one of us, and we really didn’t want anything to do with them. It was us two against the five of them, well, four if you didn’t count Tater. Mikey and Sorrow were both “neutral”, but I got the feeling they were on our side, Mikey being Gerard’s brother and all, and Sorrow just thought the entire thing was horrible, and I didn’t disagree.

Gerard’s room was especially hot that night. It could’ve been that he had every damned torch in the room lit. Or maybe it was just me. Anyway, we were lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, when he suddenly had this idea. “We could leave…” He said, his eyes fixated on this chunk of missing ceiling. I think we were both staring at it more or less. “We could get Mikey and we could go back home now instead of waiting eight more days. It’ll be just like old times.” He suddenly got really exited. He turned over on his side and stared at me. “We could leave, and then that Sorrow girl would be their problem, not ours. And mainly, she wouldn’t be Mikey’s problem either!” He was serious. He was completely and totally serious. I stared at him. This wasn’t the first time he’d had a somewhat crazy idea, but that was such a long time ago that…

“You’re crazy.” I said. But the notion was starting to grow on me. Gerard smiled.

“You know you love it.” He said. That made me laugh. I nodded.

“Yeah, you’re craziness really turns me on Gerard.” He laughed and shook his head.

“I knew it!”

“You know?” I said, sitting up and leaning my head against the wall. “That was the best conversation we’ve had in years.” I smiled a little. “It’s nice.” I sort of mumbled to myself.

“Yeah…” We sat in silence for a while. Just as I was regretting saying the whole thing about it being nice and all, the corner of a sheet of paper sticking out from under his beer bottle caught my eye. Usually I would have regarded it as a normal piece of paper, but something told me it wasn’t, something told me to lift the up the beer bottle and take a look. So I did. I could feel Gerard watching me the entire time. As soon as I lifted the bottle up I almost had a heart attack. I couldn’t believe he still had it. I just could not believe it.

“Gee…” I mumbled, grabbing the piece of paper. I lifted it up and did something that sort of surprised me. I started to cry.

“Chloe?!” Gerard asked, putting his hand on my shoulder and trying to get a look at the piece of paper. “Chloe what’s wrong? I-” He saw it. “I…I can’t believe I saved that…”

“C’mon, Chloe! Bo, for god’s sake, get over here! Mikey…stay where you are, that looks great!” Gerard yelled, laughing as he tried to draw Bo, Mikey, and I. We had been standing up for about an hour and were getting a bit antsy. “Assume your positions!” Gerard yelled. Poor guy, all he wanted to do was draw us. I couldn’t help but laugh. We “assumed our positions”. Bo, my older brother, put his arm around me, I leaned into him and smiled, and so did he. Mikey sat down at our feet, smiling wider than ever. He loved being drawn or painted. “Alright…”Gerard said, making sure we were exactly the way we had been before we started moving around. “Give me about 10 minutes.” Bo and I groaned at the thought of ten more minutes of this.

“Christ, hurry up Gerard!” Bo said after seven more minutes of standing. My legs were really starting to hurt, and I’m sure Bo’s were too. Lucky Mikey got to sit. By the time the ten minutes were up, my legs hurt like a sonuvabitch and felt like they were on fire.

“Done!” Gerard smiled triumphantly. We ran, well sort of ran on account that our legs were like noodles, over to the stump he was sitting on. I gasped as I looked at his picture; it looked exactly like all of us. He got Mikey’s glasses, Bo’s pendant, and my dress detailed perfectly.

“You’re amazing!” I said, hugging him.

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled and winked at me.

“Wow, good job Gerard!” Bo said, slapping him on the back. Mikey merely just stared at the picture in awe.

“Whaddya think, Mikes?” Gerard asked. Mikey looked up at him.

“It…it looks just like me!” Mikey grinned from ear to ear.

“Here,” Gerard said, holding his drawing out to me. “Take it.” I stared at him.

“N-no! I can’t, Gerard, it’s yours! You’ve done such a great job, I couldn’t possibly-”

“Yes, yes you can. I want you guys to have it. It’ll make me happy if you take it!” I took the paper from him and hugged him again.

“Thanks, Gee.”

“No problem.”

My brother died that summer. When he died I went to live with Mikey and Gerard and their grandmother. She was an extremely sweet lady and became like a real parent by the time I was fifteen. I was only eleven when he died though. Bo and I were extremely close, and I took it hard. I really, really loved him. He’d been my best friend from a young age and he took care of me when my parents died when I was six and he was twelve. He was the nicest and most honest guy you would’ve ever met. He was my role model in a lot of ways, and he didn’t put me down like most men did back then.

The doctors said he died from the black plague, but I didn’t find out until later, way later, that he died from a completely different cause.