CHAPTER 12
A woman in a white coat leads us to a room that looks like a recreational suite in a college dorm, complete with cots for napping. There is a pool table, Ping-Pong and plenty of reading materials to help us pass the time. I would rather sleep the time away so I plop down on the second cot. Rick is busy looking around the room, which gives me time to observe everyone else. Bree is also checking things out while Tucker and Abe are on the couch talking. Ms. Montgomery is sitting at one of the tables reading an academic journal. We are definitely a rockin’ fun group.
I rub my eyes, still trying to determine if I had heard Mr. Caulfield correctly. Because Thalia had killed humans, she is being caged like an animal and the government is taking advantage of that fact by using her as a guinea pig. I would never suggest that a murderer shouldn't be punished, but going to the extent of using alleged perpetrators for scientific experiments doesn’t seem moral to me. I say “alleged” because how many others are there? And how are we certain that they're guilty? I guess the moral compass depends on whose ethics are turning the dial.
And those poor families who lost loved ones. First having to deal with the heartache that substance abuse causes, only to lose them because a hungry vamp wanted a five-star meal instead of the furry wilderness equivalent of fast food.
As if listening to my thoughts, Bree says, "Well, look at it this way, at least those humans didn't die in vain. I mean, they were drug addicts, but now their lives have meaning."
I practically snort. "That's rather elitist and uncompassionate."
Bree’s head twists around as her fangs jut out. She retracts them and says, "Hey, I'm here to stop, possibly annihilate, the worst of my kind. The least you could do is be honest about the worst of yours."
Okay, I see fang so I do not want to get into an argument with her. For one, I didn't realize that she’s a vampire. My radar is still off. Secondly, if my observation unnerved her to the point that she seemingly wants to sink her teeth into me, I think I'll leave that battle for another day.
Rick comes over and sits on the first cot, facing me, hands folded in his lap. I take a deep breath and frown at him. "You know how the female in each species tends to be very dangerous, especially when there is a threat to her young or herd?"
I nod.
"It's the same with vampires," he says, "only in stereo. Don't be upset about it. For her it was a natural reaction, being the predator she is. You thought it elitist and uncompassionate and from your view it was. But from Bree's view, from a predator speaking of their prey, it was rather benign and almost...cuddly."
Bree whips her head toward us. "You don't need to explain me to her."
Rick turns to address her. "With all due respect Dr. Vinh, not all humans understand the subtle, yet very important, differences between humans and vampires. I would think that we would all benefit from an open discourse to make working together on the project less of a struggle than it has to be."
Bree tilts her head. “Funny. Abe and I don’t have such issues.” She turns and walks out the door.
Rick shakes his head and turns back to me. He tries to smile. “Don’t let her get to you.”
“Are you saying that to me or yourself?”
“A little of both,” he admits.
I look over his shoulder and notice that Tucker and Abe are apparently trying to act like they hadn’t witnessed our mini-drama. They go back to their conversation and I try to think of what to do with the next couple of hours. Something that wouldn’t draw unwanted attention from obsessive humans or pissy vampires.
“Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” Rick asks.
My face scowling I say, “What is up with you all? Can you read my mind?”
“No, but I told you about our special brand of empathy. You’re projecting pretty loudly.”
“Well, I’m sorry for the radio noise,” I say as I run my fingers through my hair, trying not to scream at the top of my lungs.
“Let’s check out the vampire sleeping quarters downstairs. You can rest peacefully there for a while until we need it.” He stands up and holds his hand out to me. I just stare at his open palm. “Come on. The rest will be good for you. Remember that when the experiment happens, I won’t be there with you so I need you at the top of your game.” I look sharply at him. “WE need you at the top of your game.”
I stand up, ignoring his hand. “Okay, lead the way ole wise one.”
“Hey, just because I’m old enough to be your grandfather doesn’t mean you have to throw it in my face.”
I tremble slightly. I have not even thought of things like that and now I feel a little gross at the subtly romantic feelings I’ve had toward Rick. Some people rob the cradle, Emma Burcham robs the grave. Lovely.
“It was a joke,” he says as we walk to the door to the basement stairwell.
“Well, thank God you weren’t serious because it doesn’t make sense at all,” I respond sarcastically.
He looks back at me, smiling. “My chronological age has nothing to do with how hot I am.”
“Keep telling yourself that and maybe one day it will come true. I mean, you have all of eternity. Right?”
He opens the stairwell door, grinning. “If I were only so lucky.”
When we get to the bottom of the stairs Rick flips the light switch to reveal a couple of rows of cots in an underground vampire sanctuary that makes the amenities at a two-star hotel look respectable. And I thought our initial meeting room was minimalist.
“Home sweet home?” I ask.
“It will do for the day,” he responds.
I grumble as I sit on one of the cots. “Well, there better not be any rats in here. I can’t deal with beady-eyed creatures. Must be the reason why Dr. Vinh rubs me the wrong way.”
Rick sits down beside me, slightly nudging me. “Passive aggressiveness is really not becoming of you.”
I sneer at him, feeling like a dejected Elvis impersonator. “It’s not like I could say such things to her face. She would eat my face off.”
He laughs heartily, “True, but there are other ways to express your discontent.”
“Well, you’ll have to teach me those other ways when it comes to dealing with vampires.”
“I will,” he says, “Right now, try to get some rest.” He pats the cot then stands up to leave. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the basement rats bite.”
I throw a pillow at him as he heads up the stairs while laughing.
I lie down and fall asleep quickly as I find myself in a parallel world where for some reason, I am intimately interacting with Tucker. It isn’t a sexual dream, although he seems to be so close that I can smell his cologne. We are in a dark theater, watching a movie, but we are the only ones in the audience. A private screening. So talking doesn’t bother anyone else.
“I know you told me to stay away for a while. But I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine,” I respond. “I’m just distracted with this project.”
He nods, “I think we all are. Still, I do think about you irregardless. I hate that things went bad so quickly.”
I look away. “Tucker, I would have loved it if we would have met under different circumstances and you had approached me differently, but what’s done is done. We need to move on.”
“But moving on doesn’t mean moving away from each other.”
I take a deep breath, weighing my words very carefully. “True. But I don’t know where to go from where we’ve been. Is there a map for leaving psycho-ville?” I look at him.
He becomes very serious and turns in his chair toward me, “I’m sorry that you got that impression of me. Aside from the stuff when I called your home, I thought I was just showing how much I liked you. I didn’t realize that I was being scary stalker-guy. I’m really not that way. I haven’t done anything since, have I?”
I continue looking at him, taking in the fact that he hasn’t done anything else since. And here we are, sitting in a dark room alone and he hasn’t even tried to hold my hand or lean against me. His eyes have the saddest look in them as if the despair that he was feeling is the same as someone lost in the mountains, knowing they were never going to make it out alive. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or be completely creeped out by his level of emotion.
I decide to take the middle path. “We can talk. We can be friends. Let’s just start there.”
He visibly relaxes. “That’s all I ask.” He places his hand on mine.
I jerk awake, nearly falling off the bed. Tucker stands up and comes around the side of the cot, “Are you alright?”
“Ouch. I scraped up my hands pretty good.” I sit up on the cold floor. “What the hell are you doing down here? Were you watching me while I slept?” A sick feeling begins to wash over me.
Tucker kneels down, looking at my hands, “Um, no. We were talking. You were answering. I thought you were just resting your eyes. Since you were responding, I didn’t realize that you were actually asleep.”
My eyes narrow. “What were we talking about?”
As he recounts the entire conversation that I had thought was a dream, I completely miss the fact that he has taken my hands into his and is looking at the damage done.
“We should go upstairs and get these cleaned up and bandaged before the Bree and Rick get back,” he says.
I pull my hands free. “Where are they?”
Tucker leans back on his heels. “They went for dinner,” he says, making quotation marks with his fingers when saying the word dinner.
I struggle to get up and Tucker leans in to help me to my feet. My back goes rigid, as I don’t know whether I should let him help me or not.
“This would be easier on me if you could relax,” he says.
I allow Tucker to help me up and follow him up the stairs. Abe is snoring softly on the couch, wrapped up in adult-sized fetal position. We walk across the room to the back corner where there is a bathroom. He flips the light on, turns the faucets on and waits for the water to get lukewarm. He turns to me with a very serious look on his face, as if he is daring anything to break his concentration. He gently takes my hands and holds them under the water, then begins to wash them with the bacterial soap. He takes such gentle care, cautious not to hurt me again, that it makes me wonder if everything that had happened was just a hiccup in his behavior. Could he like me so much that he actually didn’t know what to do, how to act? Surely a guy couldn’t like me that much. It’s like a twisted version of my high school fantasies.
As he washes and dries my hands, I try to really look at him, to see past his previous actions. He definitely isn’t unattractive. And he has pulled himself together, his clothes are no longer disheveled and his hair is properly placed in its neat ponytail at the back of his neck. So shiny and healthy looking. Maybe he uses Pantene. I shake my head.
He looks at me as he rifles through the medicine cabinet for gauze and medical tape. “What? You don’t want them bandaged?”
I half smile. “No, they need to be bandaged. Don’t want to get infection.”
He smiles and begins wrapping my hands. Once he finishes taping the gauze, Rick slams against the doorjamb, a panicked look on his face. I jump and squeal. His fangs are extended and he is glaring at Tucker.
“Horse piss and apple butter, Rick! You scared me half to death.”
He snarls, looking at my hands. “What happened?”
“I fell and scraped my palms. Tucker was being nice enough to help me bandage them. Why did you come rushing to the bathroom? Too much to drink at dinner?”
He looks at Tucker, and then looks at me. His teeth retract as he stares into my eyes. “I smelled your blood.” He turns and walks away.
I look after him for a moment then turn to Tucker, a questioning look on my face. He shrugs and says, “Vampires. What are you going to do? They hear everything, smell everything. Hell, when they went public, it even put an end to crop-dusting.”
“Crop-dusting?” I ask.
He grins, “Yeah, you know. Subtly passing gas in a public place then quickly walking away to divert blame.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes, “God. No more boy-secrets, okay? With things like that, it’s no wonder that West Virginians are regularly featured on PeopleofWalmart.com.”
Tucker laughs as we walk back into the main room. Rick and Bree are nowhere to be found, Abe is still sleeping and Ms. Montgomery is still reading at the table. I hadn’t even noticed she was still there when we passed by. Sometimes she melds with the scenery.
“Ms. Montgomery?” I say as I approach the table. “Did you by chance see which way Rick went?”
Without looking up from her journal she says, “He and Bree went downstairs for the day.” I can’t figure it out. How does she do that? I’m beginning to think that she had eyes on the sides of her head, more like a bird than a human. A big, scary bird. Like a buzzard waiting to feed on the carcasses of the unfortunate. Yuck.
I look at my watch. 5:00 a.m. Three more hours and we will be meeting for the experiment. My stomach gurgles in bile-worthy anticipation. I should probably eat before we do this. A little food will help to settle my stomach. I turn to see Tucker sitting on the first cot. He is watching me like he isn’t sure what I am going to do next. I walk over and sit on the second cot, lowering my eyes a bit.
“I figure we should probably rest for a couple of hours before we have to, well, you know,” he says.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. And my sleep was interrupted.”
“I said I was sorry. I really did think that you were awake.”
I smile at him, lifting my eyes ever so slightly, “I know. I was just teasing you. Let’s get some sleep.”
I lie back on the cot and stretch out on my side, my face toward Tucker’s cot. He also rests on his side, facing me. He smiles brightly before closing his eyes.
I take a deep breath and wish that I could sleep through the day. I don’t know what to expect and my stomach spasms tell me that I’m not going to like it. Maybe they’ll cancel it at the last minute. I tremble as a creepy-crawly sensation moves in waves across my skin. I take a deep breath. What I’m willing to do for a little money to pay off some student loans. I just hope I’m not emotionally scarred in the process.