Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire (7 page)

Elaine opened her eyes. Her pupils had nearly overtaken her green irises and she rocked back and forth as she stared at me. I wondered if she might be crazy. Maybe Johann had some kind of hereditary mental illness. I turned to him because his mom was freaking me out. “You know…” I started to say but then I stopped when I saw him pouring what looked like dark, thick tomato juice out of the carton into his glass. The smell, though, was not tomatoey. It was something else vaguely familiar. A metallic scent that curdled my stomach. My mind reeled, trying to place that smell, trying to put it all together, the color, the consistency, the slight stench of raw meat lingering in the air.

Then it hit me. My head spun and my stomach squeezed. I tried to push the thought away but suddenly it all made sense and I couldn’t deny it any longer. He was pouring blood into that glass. This was real. It was not a joke. Johann was a vampire. His mother was a vampire. And she wanted me for a snack!

i
grabbed onto the counter to keep my balance as I inched my way toward the kitchen door. Mrs. Bloodsucker stood on the threshold, eyeing me suspiciously. I scanned the room for some way to defend myself, but I didn’t know what I was up against. Was anything I’d heard and seen and read about vampires real? Did they have superhuman strength? Could they break my arm with one squeeze? Could they fly, turn into bats, and read my mind? Or had
I
lost my mind? Behind me, on the wall I saw a clock with a crucifix above the numbers. Jesus slumped against the cross. Was that a joke? Did they keep it for a laugh? Some sort of ironic pop art? Oh look, we’re vampires and we have a cross in our house? Har-dee-har-har. Who cared! Short of a silver stake, which I didn’t happen to have in my pocket, I had no other chance for escape.

Just then Johann took a long swig of his bloody
drink. He winced. “Ugh, animal blood. Pig, cow, chicken, all mixed together, bleck! Just never the same as a fresh kill, you know?” He held the carton out to me. “Is this what your dad drinks?”

I saw the words
pasteurized
and
fresh
flash in front of me. For a minute I doubted myself. Was I imagining all of this? Was he really just drinking some kind of juice or was it milk and I’d gone nutty? Johann drained the last dregs from his glass. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and sighed. My fear must have been palpable because he cocked his head to the side and studied me for a moment. Then he glanced at his mother.

“Elaine!” he shouted. “Snap out of it!”

I whirled around in time to see her lips curling back, teeth exposed, a look of determination in her black flashing eyes. I ripped the clock off the wall and raised it above my head, ready to slam it into this vampire mama’s chest, but Johann stepped between us. He grabbed Elaine by the shoulders and gave her a firm shake.

“I finally make a friend and this is how you act?” he shouted at her.

She crumpled to the side and whimpered. When she looked up again her eyes were gray, her mouth was pressed into a tight line, and she seemed contrite. “So sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s just that…”

Johann turned to me, shaking his head. “How mortifying. My apologies, Yosie. She doesn’t get out much.” Then he stopped. “What are you doing?” he asked,
pointing to the clock held high above my head, the long white cord trailing to the wall socket.

I lowered it. “I, um, I was just…” I pulled it around in front of my face. “Will you look at the time? My dad is probably here, so I should, you know…” I set the Jesus clock gingerly back on the counter as Elaine shuffled out of the room. My heart pounded against my rib cage like a bird trying to escape, which was exactly what I needed to do. “I can show myself out,” I said, stepping away from Johann and inching toward the dining room, trying not to make any sudden moves. All I had to do was get to the front door. Then I’d take off running down the street until I found my dad and I’d promise I would never do anything bad ever again because if this was what I had to deal with after bashing in Kevin’s windshield, then it really wasn’t worth it after all.

“What kind of host would I be if I didn’t show you to the door?” Johann asked, looping his hand through the crook of my arm. I cringed away from him, afraid that he might want a little nip, but he seemed uninterested as he walked me back through the house, which was eerily quiet. “We aren’t faeries, here. We do have manners!” He tossed his head back and laughed loudly.

“Why?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me, despite how scared I felt. “Are faeries impolite?”

Johann rolled his eyes. “You did meet Tarren, didn’t you? Dreadful manners I’m afraid. But what would one expect from woodland creatures?”

My heart had slowed down and by the time we
reached the porch I was beginning to question what just happened in the kitchen. Johann was so nice and calm. Maybe I’d misconstrued everything. We stood under the weak bulb attracting flitting moths. “Your mom…” I started to say.

A pained look crosses Johann’s face. “Elaine?”

“She is your mother, right?”

“Well, you know how it is,” he said but then he shook his head. “No, I suppose you don’t because your parents are by birth. The rest of us, vampires anyway, form social bonds for show. Hasn’t your father taught you anything about our culture?”

I stood silently. What could I say? That I’d been lying? Then what would happen? Would he get the munchies?

“I’ve heard of this in families that choose to pass. Don’t worry,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “I can teach you everything. And look on the bright side”—he revealed a large gleaming smile—“maybe you will awaken your inner Dracula!” He tossed his head back and roared with laughter.

My dad pulled up to the curb. I’d never been so happy to see his gold Chrysler LeBaron in all my life. As I jumped down the steps and ran to the sidewalk, Johann called after me. “See you next week, Yosie?”

I didn’t answer. I just kept on running.

Before my dad had a chance to roll out the we’re-so-disappointed-in-you-Josie diatribe, I threw myself into the car and yelled, “Drive! Drive! Drive!”

“What? What’s wrong?” Dad yelled back, but he slammed the car in gear and laid rubber on the street. “What happened?”

I turned around in my seat and watched out the back window, making sure there was no one following us. The street was quiet, except for a group of girls shuffling down the sidewalk into the shadows. “Oh thank god!” I sighed and flung myself forward. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve had the creepiest night. Thank you so much for coming to get me.”

Dad did a double take, looking concerned. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You seem really shaken up.”

“Dad,” I said, laying my head back against the seat, “I’m way out of my league. If you think playing home run derby on Kevin’s windshield was bad, you should meet the kids in this anger management group.” Suddenly I was laughing. It was all so unbelievable. I went back over the afternoon and evening in my head. Half of what I remembered couldn’t actually be true, could it? All along I thought those kids were delusional, but maybe I was the one who’d lost my marbles.

“There’s no one dangerous is there?” Dad asked.

This cracked me up even more. “I don’t know,” I admitted between hiccups of laughter. I’d laughed so hard that my stomach hurt and I felt nauseated and then it occurred to me that I might be laughing so that I wouldn’t cry.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Dad said. “You know how these downtown kids are.”

“Believe me,” I told him. “You have no idea.”

When I got home, I immediately climbed in bed and logged on to JosieHatestheWorld on my laptop. Some of my blog friends had posted under the pix of me from earlier. SadSadie said, “Cute top!” and KKLaLa said, “Headbands are for a*holes!” Almost all of my readers were girls who’d been dumped. We were like a sad-sack sorority of heartbroken hellions. But truthfully, I was getting tired of all the whining about everybody’s love life. What had started as a way for me to cry and moan about how Kevin and Madison had mistreated me had become a blabfest for my readers.
Oh, boo hoo, I got dumped, too! He has a new girlfriend and she’s fat. I saw him the other night at Steak ’n Shake and I barfed up my French fries.

Which was why I was so excited to have something new and interesting to post tonight. My fingers flew over the keys as I recounted what happened in group therapy and at Buffy’s. As I typed, I tried to untangle all the knots in my mind and get every detail down, but I got stuck on what happened at Johann’s house. No matter what I said, it didn’t make sense. Finally, I typed:

I posted my entry but as soon as I reread the words, they seemed ridiculous. Who would believe what I
wrote? Faeries, vampires, werewolves! No one would buy it. I didn’t even really believe it and I was there.

I tried to think like a journalist. What would Graham Goren do if he was breaking a story? First, he’d do some research. I surfed the words
vampires
and
werewolves
and
faeries
on different search engines but all the usual stuff came up about books and movies and TV shows. How would you look up real monsters? Especially when Tarren said they kept their records off the Internet. I entered the words
Council
and
paranormal families
, which yielded nothing. I added
Saskatchewan
to my search because Avis mentioned something about it. A URL for a site called ParaHunt came up, but the link was broken when I clicked it.

Then I remembered a stupid listserv Kevin and some of his d-bag friends were part of called demon hunters. I typed it in and the site came up complete with melodramatic music and overdone fonts. Lists of weapons, supposed sightings, ghost-hunting phone apps, and pix from “hunts” populated the pages.

When Kevin was into it, I thought the info on the site was bogus. Just a bunch of crap for jackweeds in leather jackets who liked going on fake occult chases to amuse their tiny minds. Now I wondered if the supposed demon hunters were on to something. Even if they were, which was worse? People like Kevin who wanted to hunt down supposed demons, or the kids I hung out with today? Definitely the idiots hunting demons were worse because the kids I met weren’t out to hurt anybody. In
fact, they were some of the least judgmental, most accepting people I’d ever been around. Much nicer than the stupid cheerleaders I used to count as friends.

I felt kind of bad about the post I had written. I probably sounded like I was making fun of the paras, which wasn’t my intention. Then again, it was a great story and would probably get more traffic to my site. I could always change it later if I wanted. Besides, I was exhausted from such a crazy day. I decided to sleep on it then reread what I’d written in the morning. I closed my laptop and let my eyes drift shut. Only depressed girls with boy problems would read what I wrote, so I didn’t have to worry anyway. Besides I didn’t use anyone’s name, only initials.

As I lay there, something dawned on me. Despite how bizarre my day had been and how genuinely scared I was at Johann’s house, I felt happier than I’d been in months. Instead of Kevin and Madison staring at me from behind my eyelids, I thought of Tarren with her flaming red hair buzzing with excitement as she struggled to tell the story of the guy in the alley. The bizarre way she tripped over words. And I remembered Avis falling off the chair, which made me chuckle. Who ever heard of a clumsy werewolf? Then I saw Helios inviting me to go to Buffy’s. Beautiful, perfect Helios. Greek god was right.

l
ater that week, Sharon Osbourne pointed to the toilets. “Scrub brushes and cleaner are in the cabinet.”

Surely, I was in Hell. How else to explain a woman who looked exactly like Ozzy’s wife telling me and another girl to scrub toilets? Oh right, this was my community service.

“Any rubber gloves?” I asked, swallowing hard to keep my Nachos Grande down.

Mrs. Osbourne’s double glared at me. “No, there aren’t any rubber gloves. What do you think this is? Buckingham Palace?” she yelled over her shoulder as she stomped out of the bathroom.

I glanced at my cleaning partner and said, “You mean this squat cement block building on the south side of Indianapolis isn’t a sprawling British castle?”

She gave me a warning glance and jerked her head toward the door.

“Keep your comments to yourself!” Mrs. Osbourne reappeared then added, “And don’t use too much cleaner. One squirt per commode. Put some elbow grease into it.” She disappeared into the hallway again.

Sighing, I trudged to the cabinet for a toilet brush. “Never thought I’d be reduced to a toilet scrubber.” I handed the other girl a brush and a bottle of Mr. Clean.

She pushed her long blonde hair away from her face and I could see that she was pretty in that fresh farm girl kind of way with freckles across her nose and thick hair so shiny she must drink gallons of milk or something. “Have you seen Ozzy?” she whispered. “Because I think his wife is looking for him.”