Kissing Corpses (8 page)

“What?!?” she shrieked.

“Listen, hear me out. He's not what you think. He's not what I thought. He's insane.”

“Jesus Christ, Kendall.”

“He's--” I stopped myself. She wouldn't believe me if I told her. “He thinks he's a vampire.”

She stopped. She stared at me. She began to laugh.

“I'm not kidding,” I said. I started to cry.

“Holy sh...” she censored herself. “You're not kidding.”

Someone knocked on the door. Geneva jumped.

“It's daylight. It's not him,” I said, though I couldn't tell her what would happen to him in the sunshine. He hadn't told me.

I went to open the door. A uniformed police officer stood in front of me, holding up a badge. I sorely wished I hadn't been crying moments before. “Miss Marsh?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I'm her roommate.” I stepped back, “Geneva?”

Geneva looked at me, confusion apparent on her face. “Uh, hi. What can I help you with, officer?”

“I'd like to ask you a few questions.” The police officer looked at me.

“I can make myself scarce,” I said. I left the room.

In our house, if you go past the living-room, you can enter straight into the kitchen or take a left down the hall to the bedrooms. An immediate right at the entrance of the kitchen, however, will lead you down the stairs to the basement. Geneva has an office down there and we have another bathroom and a laundry room. The last room is large and damp and not used for much because of the constant fight with mold. Geneva owns the house and I pay rent, so I've never been much inclined to weather seal it for use.

The reason I headed down these stairs, however, was for the vent from the empty room to the living-room. Long before Geneva had bought the house, someone had installed a pellet stove to heat it in the winter. We didn't use it, but I knew that the vent installed would allow me to hear everything being said upstairs.

“You were acquainted with Jeremy Anders?” the officer asked. I pulled a Sterilite tub over to sit on and listened as Geneva answered.

“Wait, he's dead?”

“A co-worker reported him missing. Police entered the home last night. We believe he's been dead for nearly a week.”

“Oh my God, he's dead.”

“Miss Marsh,” he went on, “The bartender at Mike's reported you leaving with Mr. Anders Friday night. Is this true?”

“We played X-Box and then he drove me home Saturday morning.”

“X-Box,” he repeated. I think he thought that X-Box was a euphemism for something else. “And neighbors report someone fitting your description leaving the house Saturday night. They reported shouting and arguing.”

“He didn't turn out to be such a prince charming,” Geneva replied. “I left. I called for a ride, and I went home.”

I remembered Rawdon walking back to the car. No cloud of breath followed in him the cold night air, but his cheeks had been flushed. Dead men didn't blush. “Oh my God,” I whispered to myself.

“Who came to get you?”

“My roomie, Kendall, and this guy she's been seeing, Rawdon Hale. They came in his car.”

“Did Mr. Anders show any indication that he was waiting for someone else to arrive that night? Did you see any evidence of drug use in the home?”

“No. Listen, officer. When I left, he was alive. Rawdon went back to get my keys. He was healthy and just as much of an asshole when he opened the door as he was when he kicked me out of the house. I don't know any of his friends except that guy, Clay, that he was talking to at the bar. I just know that he wanted my company for one reason, so I left.”

There was a pause. I couldn't tell if their voices had gotten quieter or if they had stopped talking altogether.

“Alright, Miss Marsh. Stick around town, just in case we have any further questions.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

I heard footsteps and the door opened. I ran up the stairs just in time to see Geneva closing the door after him. Tears streaked her face.

“Gen,” I said quietly. “I think Rawdon might have killed him.”

Geneva and I quickly agreed not to stick around and wait for sunset. I ran back into my bedroom to pack a bag. When I threw open the closet, I realized that the UV gun had been removed in the night. Rawdon had taken it.

I shoved clothes and valuables into an old duffle bag that I had picked up at a career fair in college. It bore the stamp of some bank I had never stepped foot inside.

“You should call the police,” Geneva said to me.

“No,” I blurted. How did I explain to her, without telling her the truth, that he would likely slaughter the police? “I mean... he's friends with the police. He... donated money to the force so they wouldn't have to cut jobs. They won't believe me.”

Geneva followed me outside with her purple suitcase. We loaded our bags in the trunk of her car. “We need to stop at Target,” I said.

“Okay? What does Target have that the police don't?”

“I think I know how we can get help. I know of someone who will believe me.” Geneva believed that Rawdon
thought
he was a vampire. I doubted she would trust a man who
thought
he was Rawdon's hunter. “He was worried that his therapist had found him here.”

Geneva and I left our bags in the car while we went inside the store. I bought a yellow gift bag with a big red bow. I bought a prepaid phone with the cheapest card I could put on it and I programmed my phone number into it.

Geneva and I drove back by the house and I left it on the doorstep. “You know,” she said. “One of us should come back a good half hour before sunset and get that.”

“Yeah?”

“Think of how mad Rawdon will be if he figures out that you're trying to contact his shrink.”

I nodded. “I got us into this mess. I'll come back for it. Hopefully it will be gone by then.”

We pulled up outside Cody's house fifteen minutes later. He had bought the place this past summer, after the first ninety days at his new job had passed. Geneva knocked on the door. I stayed back and looked anxiously around the neighborhood.

Cody Hunt was very tall. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, but his resemblance to Rawdon stopped there. Where Rawdon was pale and thin, Cody was tan and built from playing Rugby in college. When he'd first asked me on a date, over three years ago, I had been reluctant. I thought he looked a bit too much like he'd fallen off of an Abercrombie & Fitch bag. He had to earn my trust.

Cody stood in front of us now, wearing an old UWYO T-shirt with blue jeans. He had grown a soul patch since I had last seen him. He looked surprised to see us.

“Kendall?”

“Nice to see you, too,” Geneva said. She was closer to him and she pushed her way into the house, despite Cody's protests.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as I followed her inside. The place was more furnished than the last time I had seen it. The walls were decorated with framed posters and he actually had lamps on his end tables. It hadn't turned into a total bachelor pad, after all.

“It's a long story,” I said.

“Kendall's being stalked,” Geneva blurted out. “And so we need a place to lay low for the night.”

“What? Being stalked? Who is this guy? Is that who did this to your face? I'll take care of this right now.”

“No, you won't,” I said. I set my bag down on the floor. “Trust me, Cody, I didn't want to have to come here.”

“It was her idea,” Geneva added. I shot a glare at her.

“I didn't want to involve you in this, but he doesn't know about you and I can't bring Noah into it. Oh, God. Noah. What if he shows up at the house?”

“On a Saturday night?” Geneva shook her head. “I'll text him and tell him to stay away anyway.”

“You brought me into this,” Cody said. His voice was getting louder and his face was red. “So tell me, who is he?”

“Cody, you can't take care of this,” I said. “You're used to being bigger than everyone else, but listen to me for once. You can't fight this guy.”

“He thinks a vampire,” Geneva said, looking up from her phone.

“What?”

“Vam-pire,” she repeated.

Cody stared at me. “You're fucking with me?”

“What?” I asked.

“A vampire. Did you two come here just to mess with me? What, am I gonna be on YouTube?”

“No,” I started.

“You think this is funny?”

“It's not a jo—”

“You tell me you have a stalker and you think that's funny, Kendall?”

“Will you shut up and listen to me?” I shouted. I brought my voice back down and tried to start calmly. “We're not messing with you, Cody. I started seeing this guy and then I found out he has a refrigerator full of human blood. I only met him a week ago but he's got it into his head that he's going to kill me and we'll be together forever. He's crazy.”

“So he thinks he's a vampire. Have you called the police?”

“Yes,” I lied. “So can we stay here? He killed this guy that Geneva was seeing,” I explained. “The police came to question her today.”

Geneva sat down on Cody's couch. A college football game between two southern schools was on mute. “So we're going to sleep here until we figure out what to do. Got it?” She turned the volume on.

“You see?” I asked. “Rawdon doesn't know a thing about you. So I'd rather stay here than put my parents at risk.”

“So you plan to live here forever?”

“We've reached out for help,” I said. “Just give us one night? We'll figure out a plan.”

“Fine,” he said. He shook his head. “But you two are paying for takeout and you're not going to leave a mess in my house.”

“Love you too, Cody,” Geneva said. I joined her on the sofa to watch football.

Rawdon stood over my bed, holding the yellow gift bag with the big red bow. He shook his head robotically, his skull isolated as it moved from side to side. No other muscle moved. He didn't breathe or blink.

I sat up. “Rawdon, I'm so sorry.”

“You betrayed me,” he said.

He was on top of me with his hands around my throat. I gasped and gagged, but could not cry out. His fangs slowly slid out. He lowered his face to mine. “I'm hungry.”

I woke up on the sofa in Cody's living-room. Geneva had taken the guest bed, because this whole situation was more my fault than hers. The house was a new construction with a vaulted ceiling, and the large windows high up were impossible to black out without getting a very tall ladder; the sun landed right on my face. I welcomed it.

I realized, in horror, that we hadn't gone to retrieve the bag with the phone in it. If Rawdon had found it, my only hope now was that he had no idea what it was for.

My phone vibrated. It spun in circles on the coffee table. I knew it couldn't be Rawdon after sunrise and, in my panic not to wake the rest of the house, I answered the phone before checking the caller ID.

“Kendall,” my brother said, “why was I not allowed to visit your house in until daylight?”

“Jesus, Noah. I thought you'd be someone else.”

“Well I'm not. Deal with it. What's going on? Why did I find a cryptic text from Geneva when I left the club last night?”

“It's... I'll explain it to you later.”

“How about you explain it to me now.”

“Noah, it's seven in the morning on a Sunday. Why are you awake?”

“Because I'm worried about my sister. What does 'don't come by our house until sunrise. It's not safe' mean?”

“Wow. Good job Geneva. Way to be subtle.”

“Kendall...”

“It means that Mr. Perfect turned out to be a clingy crazy person.” I wasn't sure if I should involve Noah in this, but Geneva had already made it impossible to gloss over. “We're staying with Cody until it blows over. There's nothing you can do. Just let me handle this. Okay?”

“He's dangerous. Have you told Dad?”