The Dorkiest Vampire

After the school dance, everything seemed to be going swimmingly. Galiene and Mick were now in a sort of weird love bubble. I went over Saturday afternoon to see Mick and Galiene and wound up trying to keep a straight face at their surreptitious but affectionate actions toward each other. Rather than be grossed out, I decide to roll with it since their budding crush on each other made the fight a whole lot less. I even found myself with a prospective romance in the form of Eldon, who not only called me early Saturday morning following the dance but set up to take me out for ice cream Sunday evening. The entire world seemed sparkling and perfect that weekend. I got ready for school on Monday morning feeling as though everything was right with the world, but I was dead wrong.

Literally.

I headed into the kitchen for breakfast to find my entire family sitting there stoically. And by entire family, I meant the entire family. I was thrown for a loop seeing my Uncle Joe there since, as principal of the high school, he always had to arrive at about six in the morning. Aunt Melanie was there with my two cousins, who were still in their pajamas even though the elementary school started in less than thirty minutes. Ritchie was there as well, but instead of wolfing down his cereal, he sat like my father, a pensive look across his face.

“What’s going on?” I asked worriedly.

“There’s… been a murder,” my grandfather said darkly, like something out of Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie.

“What?” I gaped.

“Hubert, don’t scare the girl!” my grandmother warned.

“But there hasn’t been a murder in Merridick since…” I began.

“In over a hundred years. Since the 1903 triple-murder suicide that happened in St. Françoise House,” Dad, ever the historian, supplied.

“What happened?” I wanted to know.

“No one really knows,” Mom said.

“Off the record, my good buddy Police Chief Harmon…” Grandpa began.

“Hubert, really…” Grandma sighed.

“Oh, she’ll find out in the newspaper or on that internet FacePage anyway,” Grandpa rolled his eyes.

“That doesn’t explain why everyone is here,” I replied.

“We’ve closed down all of the county schools for the day,” Uncle Joe explained. “Didn’t seem right to keep them open. Most parents are probably too scared to send their kids after what happened.”

“One murder and the whole town goes bananas,” Grandpa snorted.

“It wasn’t just a murder,” Dad argued. “It’s the first murder in a century…”

“It’s hard enough on the kids loosing a schoolmate…” Mom agreed.

“What?” I gaped.

“Ritchie, Riley, how about you take your little cousins to play?” Mom said, obviously wanting us kids out of the room so the adults could talk. I started to protest, but Ritchie grabbed me and guided the little girls into the media room, just as Uncle Joe said he was heading out.

“What happened?” I asked Ritchie as soon as we were out of earshot of the adults.

“Stacey Gatskill... Tristan’s older sister,” Ritchie replied quietly. “She told her parents she was going to the dance with some guy and never came home. Her parents thought she was spending the night with a friend. When she didn’t call or come home Saturday, they got worried. They found her body in a ditch early this morning. Passing motorist saw it. It was apparently dumped in the swamp behind the football field at school and the river washed it up in the ditch after it rained this morning.”

“Oh my god,” I gasped. Stacey was pretty popular, a cheerleader, and in Ritchie’s year at school. I knew she didn’t have a boyfriend or anything like that. Honestly, I didn’t remember her being at the dance at all. “Did you see her at the dance?”

“That’s the thing,” Ritchie grimaced, “no one remembers her being at the dance or what her date looked like. Her parents said she just rushed out to meet him in the car before they could say anything…Uncle Joe is leaving in a few minutes to go see her parents since she was one of his students and all…”

“How awful,” I shook my head.

“That’s not the worst part,” Ritchie said quietly.

“What? Was she… violated or something?” I asked worriedly.

“I don’t know about that…” Ritchie admitted, “but the creepy thing is… she was completely drained of blood…”

“What?” I sputtered.

“Yeah,” Ritchie said. “Some sicko, you know? Anyway, they’ve closed school since it’s sort of a crime scene. Don’t know how long they’ll keep it that way. And since our police force mainly works on getting kittens out of trees, they’ve had to call in outside law enforcement to handle this whole thing. I mean, you think something like this would happen in a big city like New Orleans, but not in little Merridick…”

“She was… seriously drained of blood?” I gaped.

“That’s what the newspapers said. And grandpa’s buddy the police chief confirmed it when Gramps made his nosy phone call this morning,” Ritchie nodded.

“This is really scary,” I admitted.

“It’s got everyone freaked out,” Ritchie nodded. “Both of Sue-Beth’s parents had to work today, so I invited her to come over and hang out with me all day. I just don’t like the idea of her being alone with that creeper still on the loose, you know?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I think… I think I’m gonna call Mick and Galiene… just to make sure they’re okay, you know?”

“I’ll probably be calling my friends after I go pick up Sue-Beth,” Ritchie nodded, taking his car keys out of his pockets. “If mom and dad ask, that’s where I went.”

I couldn’t be annoyed at Ritchie leaving me to baby-sit our cousins if he was just trying to protect Sue-Beth. While we were talking, Brianna and Jenna had started playing a video game we hadn’t even seem them set up. It was probably a mature rated game since the girls were still in elementary school and rowdy as can be. Since the adults were still having their powwow in the kitchen, no one was using the phone when I picked it up. I called the Vespasien household for Mrs. Vespasien to answer.

“Oh, Riley,” Mrs. Vespasien sighed. “I suppose you have heard the news, no?”

“Yes, it’s horrible, isn’t it?” she sighed. “I am very worried about the children…”

“Are Mick and Galiene there?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mrs. Vespasien nodded. “Galiene went back to sleep after school was canceled, but Michael is here…” She handed the phone to Mick, who sounded extremely upset on the other end.

“You know it wasn’t us, right?” Mick said.

“I wouldn’t have thought…I actually I was wondering…” I began.

“When the last time we saw Donny was?” Mick nodded. “My dad’s trying to figure out his whereabouts as well so all known vampires in this area were accounted for. The council wouldn’t stand for this, especially something so public and so obvious…”

“What does your dad think happened?” I asked.

“Dad thinks the vampire who killed Mr. Beliveau has tracked the family here and is trying to make himself known. Dad said he’s trying to show how dangerous he is,” Mick said. “Not just to us, but to all of vampirekind… This wasn’t a slip up. This was calculated and planned. Whoever did this was trying to send a message.”

“Do things like this happen often?” I asked.

“Sometimes in larger cities… there is a small group of fringe vampires who believe they need to feast on human blood… read to many books and watched too many Dracula movies, if you ask me,” Mick said. “But most of them are heavily monitored by the Vazatori…”

“The what?” I asked.

“It’s Romanian. Means ‘the seers.’ A hold over from when the council was centered in Romania. Now they’ve sort of moved to France. The Vazatori is sort of like the vampire Navy SEALS, CIA and FBI combined,” Mick said. “They’re a very elite police force that enforce vampire law on behalf of the council. That’s actually… my dad was one of them and so was Mr. Beliveau.”

“Oh, so… they’ve probably gotten this thing taken care of?” I asked.

“Hopefully,” Mick shrugged. “They’ll be arriving soon… attempting to mix in with out-of-town journalists and tourists coming to see the macabre. One or two might even infiltrate the police investigation somehow as well.”

“I hope they find out whoever did this,” I frowned.

“Me too,” Mick said. “If things get too dangerous for us or the Believeaus, they might make us move somewhere safe.” The phone started to beep and I sighed.

“Well, I’m getting another call. Probably some nosy person in town wanting to gossip with my grandfather about this,” I sighed. “He’s friends with everyone, so he knows details that probably didn’t even make it in to the police report…”

“Don’t be surprised if someone vampire-like comes knocking on your door in the next few days asking for directions then,” Mick snorted. We said our goodbyes and I answered the phone, surprised to find it wasn’t one of my grandfather’s busybody friends.

“Hey,” Eldon’s somewhat shaky voice came over the other end. “I was just checking to see everyone there was all right…”

“A little shaken up… Uncle Joe especially,” I nodded. “He’s headed over to the Gatskills.”

“We just got back,” Eldon agreed. “With Tristan being on the team and Stacey being a cheerleader… and his mom and mine are good friends… It’s really hard on them.”

“I would expect it,” I nodded. “I still can’t wrap my mind around all of this…”

“I know. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen here,” Eldon said. “People are going crazy, you know? Our neighbors were talking about moving because of this…I bet it’s hard on Galiene and her family. I mean, they moved all the way here from New Orleans to be safe, right? And now this…But I guess they’re probably more concerned about that gang who was after their dad…”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Of course, Mrs. Vespasien was pretty shaken up when I called to see how everyone was doing this morning. They all made it back safe Friday night. Mick said his dad is really worried too.”

“He’s an ex-cop, right? Like an ex-undercover gang cop, right?” Eldon verified.

“I think he did something like that. Whatever he did is pretty classified. Mick doesn’t really know what his father did,” I said cautiously.

“Well, if he’s like an ex-special forces guy and he’s worried, that has me worried…” Eldon shook his head. “I mean, you don’t think it’s someone from in town, do you?”

“It sounds like it was her date, but her parents never met him and no one ever saw them together,” I shrugged. “Maybe it was just someone passing through…”

“Well, hopefully they don’t stick around,” Eldon said. We were both quiet for a moment. “Do you know about school tomorrow?”

“Everything’s up in the air at this point,” I shrugged.

“Well, stay safe,” Eldon urged me.

“Of course. You too,” I said, feeling really lame afterwards. We hung up and I went back to watching Brianna and Jenna, who were violently killing 3-D zombies on the screen.
I really hoped this major incident wouldn’t change too much in our town. The last thing we needed was people getting paranoid over every little thing, especially with people like the Vespasiens and the Believeau living here and hiding a huge secret. Deep down, I knew it was a fruitless hope. I just wish I had known then how out of hand things would get before our mystery, murderous vampire was found.