The Dorkiest Vampire

Michael was in most of my classes, except for P.E. The lucky duck got out of P.E., apparently because of all of his allergies and medical conditions. Instead, he had to take human anatomy for his health credit. He didn’t really talk for the majority of the day, raising his hand whenever a teacher took attendance. He didn’t look anyone in the eye, nor did his eyes really stray from the floor or his desk in front of him. I noticed he preferred to be in the shadows, to remain completely invisible. He always took a seat in the back of the room as far from the windows as possible. The teachers allowed him to sit in the dark corners, apparently something he needed due to his allergies or something.

For lunch, he had brought cranberry juice, a weird sloppy joe looking thing, and a whole host of pills. Uncle Joe hadn’t exaggerated when he said Michael was a sickly kid. He had at least six pills he had to wash down with lunch. I felt pretty sorry for him. I was the only person who sat with Michael during lunch. I had seen him sitting alone at a small table in a corner, a bunch of kids on the opposite side of the cafeteria pointing and whispering about him. I knew Uncle Joe had asked me to be nice to him, so, I swallowed my pride and sat down across from him. He barely recognized my presence and continued eating his lunch.

“So, how’s your first day gone so far?” I asked him curiously. He was still for a moment then shrugged in reply.

“You’re lucky you get out of gym,” I sighed. “Made us do nothing but calisthenics today for the full fifty minutes. It sucked.” He divvied up his pills then swallowed them with a healthy swig of cranraspberry juice. When he had finally swallowed all of them, he turned back to the rest of his lunch.

“You’re lucky you have a packed lunch,” I mentioned to him. “I was too lazy to get up this morning and make one, so I had to get a dumb school lunch.” He nodded and kept focused on his meal.

“Is this place any like your old school?” I asked curiously. “Uncle Joe didn’t really tell us much about you. I know the kids here have been pretty mean, but they’re just a little nervous. I mean, I can’t remember the last time we had a new person move to Merridick. You’re probably the first new kid to start school here in a decade or so…” He just nodded. I knew he could speak, but for some reason, he just wasn’t opening up to me.

After that, I sort of gave up trying to start a conversation with him. We just ate together through the rest of the lunch period and then went to our next round of classes. Michael again said absolutely nothing for the rest of the day and everyone treated as though he had gotten even stranger since the first part of the day. When school let out, I headed out to the parking lot where Ritchie and his car would be waiting to take me home. Michael followed out behind me and I wondered if he thought he was coming home with us or something.

A sleek black SUV pulled up right towards the sidewalk near the school parking lot and I watched as Michael headed towards it, quickly opening the passenger side door and slipping into it. I couldn’t see anyone driving the car because the tinted windows were almost as dark as the car itself. When Michael’s door had barely closed, the car turned and quickly sped out of the parking lot. I wondered who was picking him up from school. I shook away my thoughts and found my way over to where Ritchie was waiting.

“Weird kid, huh?” Ritchie said, echoing my thoughts.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Didn’t say one word. And Uncle Joe wasn’t kidding about all those pills he has to take. He had like eight with lunch. One of them was the size of my thumb.”

“Poor kid,” Ritchie shook his head. “It’s not his fault he’s sick. I think it’s really lame that people are picking on him because of that.”

“I don’t think it’s just because he’s sick,” I said. “I mean, he’s really weird. He didn’t say a word at school today…”

“Probably just shy,” Ritchie shrugged. “Anyway, get in. I gotta take you home before I can meet some of my buds at the soda shop. Unless there’s somewhere you wanna hang out this afternoon?”

“Because I’m totally popular, Ritch,” I snorted. Ritchie grinned and ruffled my hair.

“Oh come on, you totally love being the spunky outcast,” he laughed. We both got into the car and he drove us home, nodding his head along with the radio. Everyone at school seemed to think Ritchie was the coolest person ever, but I knew he was never afraid to let out his inner-dork.

The rest of the week went pretty much as the first day as school did. Michael pretty much followed me around from class to class, like a creepy shadow, but he still didn’t say a word. He drank down his weird cocktail of pills every lunch period with his cranraspberry juice and hid his face under his long shaggy hair. Every morning and every evening, his parents dropped him off and picked him up in the same sleek black SUV.

When Friday rolled around, everything seemed to have gotten back into the school year routine. Ritchie had football practice after school and then was going out in the evening with whatever girl had stricken his fancy that week.

Though he was considered our school’s stud, my brother broke the convention in that he didn’t date bubbly, conceited cheerleaders. He preferred girls with actual substance. Through his high school days, he had dated the vice-president of the drama club, president of the science club, and his most recent girlfriend was a fellow National Honors Society member who had broken his heart over the summer by hooking up with a Norwegian guy she met at leadership camp.

This particular evening, Ritchie was going for dinner and a movie with Sue-Beth Howe, Sue-Beth was kind of a mousy girl who worked at the local library in the afternoons and read to small children and old ladies in her spare time. She volunteered for just about anything you asked her because she couldn’t say no. Most of all, Sue-Beth just wanted to do good in the world and for people to like her. From what I had heard around school, her jaw had practically dropped to the floor Wednesday when Ritchie asked her out since she typically only received passing yet longing glances from members of the A/V Club.

While Ritchie had left for football practice, Dad was on the phone in his office helping the principal of the local elementary school plan a trip to the local history museum, which Dad is curator of. Mom was still at the bridal boutique she runs, probably dealing with some whiny bridezilla and her mother. Grandma over at her friend’s house for their weekly card game and would come back around supper complaining about how Agnes Miller always cheats.

I was in my usual place, curled up in the library reading a book. My grandfather was in a similar position in his winged back chair. I had a copy of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury while my grandfather was thoroughly engrossed in his collection of Sherlock Holmes. He had read the collect of stories so often the cover was well-worn and the spine cracked every time he flipped a page, but my grandfather had always loved mysteries, even ones he’d read a thousand times before.

My grandfather and I were probably the most alike in our family, where no one really seemed to have anything in common. My dad was a complete history nerd, my grandmother was a gambler, my mother was a workaholic, my brother was the big man on campus, my uncle was everyone’s buddy, my aunt was snarky and selfish, and my two cousins were too young to have developed independent personalities yet. Only my grandfather and I had similar personalities. We were both well read, we both kept to ourselves and didn’t speak much, we were both smart but not smug about it, and we were both generally considered outsiders by polite society.

“So, how has school been?” my grandfather asked leisurely over the top of his tome.

“It’s been okay,” I sighed. “Just like last year, unfortunately.”

“What was wrong with last year? You made good grades and you did wonderfully on that history project…” Grandfather replied.

“I still haven’t made any friends,” I shrugged. “I guess I’m supposed to be a loner.”

“Ritchie said you’ve been hanging around with the new boy at school,” Grandfather said knowingly. “Your uncle told me his parents have taken up St. Françoise House.” Nothing really got by my grandfather, so I didn’t try to convince him otherwise.

“Not so much I’ve been hanging around him than he’s been following me around,” I shrugged. “He doesn’t even talk or anything. He just keeps his head down most of the time. He doesn’t eat much at lunch either, unless you count all those pills he has to take…He’s pretty weird.”

“Strange people would have to live at St. Françoise House,” Grandfather nodded. “After all, the house is pretty strange itself. When I was a boy, it was a challenge to spend a night in that old abandoned place. Well, for others but not for me. I made a habit of hanging out in that place. Eerie house. Secret passageways. There’s blood on the walls of the basement, you know.”

“What happened there?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. My grandfather had been the one to tell me about Jacques Marrioneaux and the Weeping Waters. He knew tons of old folklore and superstition, willing to tell me the most grotesque of ghost stories when my parents weren’t around the wag their fingers at him.

“They say the house drives people mad, though I think it’s the other way around,” my grandfather shrugged. “No one bought after the triple murder. That’s why it’s been vacant so long.”

“Triple murder?” I inquired.

“Yes,” Grandfather nodded. “Back in 1903, there were three people living there, a man, his young bride, and the bride’s spinster sister. Unbeknownst to the couple, the spinster had a lover on the side and he didn’t take to kindly when her brother-in-law wouldn’t give permission to marry her. So, being the sensible gentleman he was, murdered them with a hacksaw then tried to dismember their bodies in the basement and dump them in the river. No one really wanted the house after that.”

“Gross,” I muttered. “How come Dad’s never told us that story before?”

“Your father doesn’t like the darker side of history,” Grandfather shrugged. “Not many people in this town are willing to embrace nasty things like that. They want to keep things a secret. Of course, secrets always have their way of bubbling to the surface.”

“I wonder if anyone told the Vespasien’s that before they moved in,” I said.

“I bet they’ve seen worse down in New Orleans,” Grandfather shrugged, returning to his book. We both read in silence for a few minutes before my mother came bursting into the library.

“There you two are! Why aren’t you ready?” Mom huffed. “Didn’t John tell you we’re having guests over for dinner?”

“Must have slipped the poor boy’s mind,” Grandfather chuckled.

“Well, hurry up. They’ll be here any second now,” Mom said, ushering us up.

“Don’t worry Sylvie,” Grandfather smiled at her, “one bit of your Chicken Fricassee and they’ll forget the rest of us are here.” Mom beamed back at him. My grandfather had that affect on people. He could always put them at ease and make them feel confident.

“Who’s coming for dinner?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already knew.

“Our new neighbors,” Mom replied. “Now get dressed. The Vespasiens will be here any minute now.”

I grumbled, standing up and heading towards my room. I looked over my shoulder just before I passed through the door, receiving a comforting wink from my grandfather. I knew then whatever happened that night, things would probably be okay.