Found (Book #8 in the Vampire Journals) (27 page)

“I still don’t understand,” Caitlin pleaded. “None of this makes any sense. I thought you would be the one person who would explain it away, who would tell me to forget it. But it sounds as if you’re saying that it’s all true, that everything in this book is true. Is that what you’re saying!?”

“I know what you came here wanting me to say. But I’m afraid I cannot.”

Aiden sighed.

“Some history had been obscured. By design. I would venture to say that there was, indeed, a time when a race known as ‘vampires’ existed. And what if you were among them? What if you had traveled back in time? Had found the antidote, had wiped out vampirism for all time?”

Aiden paused.

“And what if there was one exception to the rule?” he asked, reflectively.

Caitlin stared at him, hardly believing what she was hearing. Had he lost his mind?

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The antidote. The end to vampirism. What if there was one exception? One vampire who was immune to the antidote? One vampire yet to come? Immune because she had not yet been born, was not yet born at the moment you chose to come back?”

Not yet born
? Caitlin wondered, racking her brain. Then, it struck her.

“Scarlet?” Caitlin asked, dumbfounded.

“You were warned you would have a very great choice to make, between your lineage, your legacy, and the future of mankind. I’m afraid that time has come.”

“Stop talking in riddles,” Caitlin demanded, standing, her fists bunched, red in the face. She couldn’t listen anymore; she felt as if she were losing her mind. Aiden was the one man in the world from whom she expected rational answers. And he was only making things much, much worse.

“Tell me what you’re saying about Scarlet?”

Aiden shook his head slowly, distressed.

“I understand you’re upset,” he said. “And I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you all this. But you must know. Your daughter, Scarlet, is the last remaining vampire.”

Caitlin looked at Aiden as if he’d lost his mind. She didn’t even know how to respond.

“She is coming of age,” he continued. “She will soon change. And when she does, she will unleash it on the world. Once again, our world will be under darkness, besieged by the plague of vampirism.”

Aiden took two steps towards Caitlin and placed a hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes, as serious as she had ever seen him.

“That is why this journal came to you now. As a warning. You must stop her. For the sake of mankind. Before it’s too late.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Caitlin snapped back, but feeling unsure. “Do you even realize what are you saying? My daughter is a vampire? Are you for real? And what do you mean, stop her? What is that even supposed to mean?”

Aiden looked down at the floor, grim, looking much older in that moment than Caitlin had ever seen him.

And then, suddenly, Caitlin realized what he’d meant: kill her. He was telling that she had to kill her own daughter.

The realization struck Caitlin like a knife in the gut. She was so horrified, so physically sick from it that she couldn’t bear to be near Aiden for another second.

Without a word, she turned and bolted out of Aiden’s office, running away, far away, like a madwoman down the halls, determined to never come back here again.

CHAPTER TWO

The entire drive home, Caitlin was sick with worry. She felt not only as if she were losing her mind, but also as if there were no rational person left in the universe. She had thought that driving into the city, speaking to Aiden, would calm her, would make her return home feeling better, with everything explained and back in rational order.

But seeing him had made things a million times worse. Caitlin wished she’d never visited him—and she wished she’d never gone to the attic. She wished she’d never had that dream. She wished she never saw the journal. She wished she could just make it all go away. Just yesterday, everything was perfect in her life; now, she felt that everything was upside down. She almost felt that, by going to the attic, and opening that box, and opening that book, she unleashed something horrible into the universe. Something that was meant to be kept locked away.

A part of Caitlin told her that all of this this was ridiculous. Maybe Aiden had lost touch with reality after all these years of teaching. Maybe that book was just some weird relic of her childhood, some collection of fantasies she had scrawled as a young girl. Maybe she would drive home, put that book back in the attic, put today out of her mind, and everything would be fine, go back to normal, just as it always was.

But another part of Caitlin, a deeper part, felt an increasing sense of foreboding, one she just could not shake. She felt that nothing would be fine again.

Caitlin’s hands were still trembling as she finished her two hour drive back from the city and pulled into her idyllic village, pulled down her quiet side street and into her driveway. She hoped the sight of her house would calm her, as it always did.

But the second she pulled into her driveway, she knew immediately something was wrong. Caleb’s car was in the driveway. He was home from work, in the middle of the afternoon. He never came home from work early.

Caitlin immediately checked her cell, to see if she had any missed calls from him, and that was when she realized, for the first time: her phone had been off all day. She looked down now and saw it flashing: 9 missed calls in the last two hours. All from Caleb.

Caitlin’s heart stopped. Caleb never used his phone. This could only mean an emergency.

Caitlin jumped out of the car, ran up the steps, across the porch, and burst through the front door—which was open and ajar, compounding her sense of dread.

“Caleb!?” Caitlin yelled, as she burst into the house.

“Up here!” he yelled back. “Come up here! Now!”

The tone of his voice set her into a panic. In all the years she had known him, she’d never heard him scream with that sort of urgency, never heard his voice filled with fear.

Caitlin’s heart pounded as she ran up the old staircase, yanking on the bannister, taking the steps three at a time. She raced down the hall, following the sounds, sounds like muffled cries.

“In here!” Caleb yelled.

Caitlin hurried right for Scarlet’s room. The door was ajar, and Caitlin burst in.

She stopped, shocked at the sight.

There, lying on her bed in the middle of the day, was Scarlet, fully clothed, and looking very sick. Standing over her, face grave with worry, was Caleb, holding a hand on her forehead.

Ruth sat by her bedside, whining.

“Where have you been?” he asked, panicked. “The nurse sent her home from school early. They said she has the flu. I gave her three Advil, but her fever’s getting worse.”

“Mom?” Scarlet moaned, weakly.

Scarlet lay there, twisting and turning, looking worse than Caitlin had ever seen her. Her forehead was damp with sweat and she groaned in pain, squinting with closed eyes as if fighting off some awful pain.

Caitlin’s heart broke at the sight, and she ran over to Scarlet’s side, sitting on her bed, placing one hand on her arm and the other on her forehead.

“You don’t feel warm,” she said. “You feel ice cold. When did this start?”

“That’s what’s weird,” Caleb said. “Her fever’s getting worse—but in the wrong direction. She’s abnormally low: 71 degrees, and dropping. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m freezing,” Scarlet said.

Scarlet was ice-cold and clammy to Caitlin’s touch. It was uncanny. Caitlin’s heart pounded, unsure what to do: she had never seen anything like this.

“Mommy, please. It hurts so much. Please make it stop!” Scarlet groaned.

Caitlin’s heart sank, wishing she could take the pain from her. She sensed this was no ordinary sickness.

Scarlet began to cry.

“What hurts, sweetheart?” Caitlin asked. “You have to tell me. Please, calm down, and tell me,” Caitlin asked firmly, feeling desperate. “Exactly what happened to you? When did this begin?”

“This morning, when I went to school. I was sitting in class, and my eyes started to hurt. They hurt so bad. The light—it was so bright. And then my head hurt. I went to the nurse, and she shined a light in my eyes, and it made it much worse. Everything is killing. They had to put me in a dark room.”

“I had to close all these blinds,” Caleb said. “She said the light was killing her.”

Caitlin surveyed the room, and noticed the closed blinds for the first time. Her heart dropped. Here was Scarlet, ice cold to the touch, unable to stand sunlight. Was there any truth to anything Aiden had said?

“And now, my stomach, it hurts so bad,” Scarlet said. “I can’t explain it. It’s like I’m hungry and thirsty at the same time. But not for food. For something else.”

“For what?” Caitlin asked, sweating.

Suddenly, Scarlet shrieked, and curled up into a ball, clutching her stomach. Caitlin was terrified. She had never seen her like this.

“We have to get her to a hospital,” Caitlin yelled to Caleb, hysterical. “Call 911. NOW!”

“Mommy, please, make it stop. Please!”

But as Caleb turned to get his phone, suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. And so did Caitlin.

Because at that moment, suddenly, there was a sound that shook the entire room, a sound that raised the hair on the back of both of their necks.

It was a roar.

They both stopped, frozen, and slowly turned and looked over at Scarlet.

Caitlin could barely process what was happening: Scarlet was now sitting bolt upright in bed, and right before her eyes, Scarlet was transforming. She let out a snarl so vicious and hair-raising that even Ruth yelped and ran from the room, tail between her legs.

Caleb, a man who Caitlin had never seen scared of anything, looked absolutely petrified, as if he were caged in the room with a wild lion.

But Scarlet ignored them both: instead, she looked towards the open door.

In that moment, Caitlin suddenly understood. Suddenly, she had a flashback to some place—she could not remember where—when she herself was feeling the same thing as Scarlet. A hunger pang. A need to feed. Not on food. But on blood.

As she saw that look in Scarlet’s eyes, that desperate look, the look of a wild animal, somehow she knew what she was thinking: she had to get out. To escape. Through that door. To sink her teeth into something.

It was at that moment that she knew, without a doubt, that Scarlet was indeed a vampire.

And that she, Caitlin, was once one, too.

And that everything that Aiden had said had been true.

Scarlet was the last remaining vampire.

And no matter what, Caitlin had to stop her from spreading it to the world.

As Scarlet began to get up, to go for the door, Caitlin suddenly screamed: “Caleb, stop her! Don’t let her out. Trust me, just listen to me: don’t let her out of this room!”

Caitlin didn’t want to think of the consequences if Scarlet got past that door, out of the house, roamed the streets. It could change the entire world.

Scarlet, with lightning speed, was on her feet in a single leap, bounding towards the door.

Caleb, to his credit, acted fast. He listened dutifully to Caitlin and jumped in Scarlet’s way, blocking her path. He managed to grab her from behind and held her tight, in a bear hug.

Normally, it would be no competition. Caleb, at six feet four, with broad shoulders, was twice the size of Scarlet, and it wouldn’t even be a contest.

But to Caitlin’s shock—and clearly, to Caleb’s too—it was a struggle for him to hold onto her. It was as if Scarlet were overcome with a super-human strength. As she swayed, Caleb was thrown left and right.

Scarlet suddenly leaned over and threw back her shoulders; as she did, to Caitlin’s surprise, Caleb went flying across the room like a ragdoll, propelled through the air and smashing into the wall with such force, his whole body left an imprint on the sheetrock. He slumped down to the floor, unconscious.

As Scarlet turned back to the door, Caitlin leapt on her from behind, grabbing her in a bear hug the same way Caleb had. It was like trying to hold onto a wild bull: Caitlin was thrown all over the place, and she knew she was no match for her. After all, Caitlin was human. And clearly, she was in the presence of someone that was not.

Scarlet leaned back and Caitlin went flying through the air, propelled, until she smacked into a wall herself, slamming the back of her head.

Scarlet turned and raced to the door, and in another moment, she was gone.

Caitlin somehow managed to get to her feet. Dizzy, she ran out the room, down the hall, breathing hard, determined. She raced down the steps, four at a time, slipping, and raced through the house.

In the distance, she saw Scarlet running towards the thick, oak front doors; without even pausing, Scarlet put her shoulder into them and smashed them to bits.

Caitlin ran after her, through the open front doors, and saw Scarlet bound across the lawn and without pausing, leap over the high bushes, a good ten feet.

She landed deftly in the middle of the quiet, suburban street. She stood there, and leaned back her head. As she did, Caitlin saw fangs begin to protrude from her teeth, saw her eyes begin to change from a blue to a glowing red.

Scarlet leaned back and roared, and it was a roar that shook the entire block, that reached up to the heavens themselves.

It was the roar of an animal that wanted to kill.