Night Runner (18 page)

“That was a lot of fun,” said Suki. Her voice was so loud, I noticed, that even the bats in the air turned away from us. Luna must have been worried about waking up the rest of the lake because she put her arms around her sister, then shushed her by lifting a finger to her lips.

Suki started giggling. “Sorry,” she whispered.

Charlie climbed out of the boat. I was amazed he didn't fall in. “Gonna get me some squirrel meat,” he said.

“What's with the squirrels all of a sudden?” Luna asked.

“We've run out on the island,” Charlie explained. “It's thrown off the whole food chain. We have to restock before the ecosystem collapses.” Then he burped, waved his hand in front of his face and walked into the dark.

“He's the one who should have been in the mental ward,” said Suki.

I was about to disagree. Then he came back to the dock with a trap in either hand. It would have ruined my argument. Inside one trap was a red squirrel. The other had a chipmunk in it. Each was trying frantically to find an exit. It sounded like a circus. Charlie held them up like trophies.

“You're taking our chipmunks, too?” said Suki. “You should be taking deer instead. They're all over the place this year.”

“No room for deer. Just rodents. Rodents of every variety.”

“Why?”

“I just bought a pet fox,” said Charlie. “You don't want him to starve, do you?”

“You're joking,” Suki shouted. “You wouldn't dare.” She tried to grab one of the cages. When she put her hands on it, the squirrel inside nipped her fingers, so she shrieked. That's when the light came on in the cottage.

“That's our cue,” said Charlie. “Time to run.” He yanked the traps away and scrambled into the boat. Then he leaned out to give Suki a kiss, which ended when Luna yanked her sister away by the arm.

“On behalf of the island, I thank you,” Charlie said. “In fact, the whole ecosystem thanks you. No, the whole
planet
thanks you.”

The two sisters were running away. Actually, it was more like Luna was dragging her sister away by the arm.

“See you tomorrow at the Yacht Club,” Suki said over her shoulder. “And bring your friend with you.”

I was glad she'd added that, even though I wouldn't be able to go.

As soon as Charlie sat down, I pulled the ripcord on the motor and we puttered away.

“So, what do you think?” Charlie asked me.

I was thinking that his pet fox was hungry, but that wasn't what he was really asking me.

“They're nice,” I said.

Charlie threw up his hands. “You say that about
everybody
!”

W
hen we got back to the island, Charlie went to bed straight off. Since it was at least four or five hours before sunrise, I decided to sit down on the dock and read more of my father's journal. The pages were all crinkled now because they'd gotten soaked from my first boat ride when I'd jumped into the lake escaping from the cabbie, but at least I could still read the writing.

My father talked about some archaeological work being done in England along the Fosse Way, which sounded like an old road. I was skim-reading at this point. Then a short entry caught my attention. I was pretty sure it had to do with another vampire, because my father stopped using proper names.

 

I received an urgent call from Dr. Q regarding one of his patients, a recent carrier named C. He is having difficulty adjusting to the contagion. I have called Max in for support.

 

My brain went into computer mode when I read this. Carrier? What did that mean? A vampire? Could it have been something else? I didn't think so. I quickly skipped ahead. After an entry about a trip to the Tower of London, the story continued.

 

C has gone missing. We suspect he is responsible for the recent deaths of two women near Hyde Park. We have several agents posted in the neighbouring boroughs. I hope this will be adequate.

 

Well, any doubts I had that C was a vampire were gone. And agents? Did that mean my father had people working for him? Perhaps he and Maximilian were part of a much larger organization. I read on. There was nothing for a week, then this.

 

Got a call from Dr. Q near midnight. One of our agents discovered C's body near the rail yard in Egham. Most of his bones are shattered. Suicide is the likely explanation.

 

I felt my stomach sink when I read this. Who ever heard of a vampire committing suicide? I started to close the journal, but as the facing page turned towards me, I noticed another entry with the initial
C
at the bottom. I guess the story wasn't over.

 

C is recovering well. His damaged tissues have completely regenerated. (Ratio 1kg:5L is consistent with past cases.) The process was completed in less than 2 days.

 

Two days. Wow! Vampires really could heal quickly when they got the good stuff. A person with shattered bones would have spent months in a hospital getting better, if he lived at all.

There was more on the following page.

 

With the hunger issue resolved, C's rationality is returning. It confirms my deep suspicion that without adequate nutrient and guidance, few carriers adjust well to the symptoms of their infection. C has agreed to assume a role in a donor clinic. Max is skeptical, but Dr. Q has every confidence that C will not regress.

 

And that was it. But it was plenty.

The first thing I thought was that my father was dead-on about feeding. It
was
difficult to be rational on an empty stomach. It explained why I'd been so angry eight years ago when I came out of my coma. And why I'd bitten that nurse when I was ten. My hunger issue hadn't been resolved. But that might not have been the most important idea buried in these entries. It was clear that my father didn't see himself as just a vampire hunter. He helped them find their way. I should have guessed as much. My uncle had suggested that not all vampires were bad. I guess this meant my father helped look after the good ones. It was comforting. And a bit alarming, because it sounded as if they needed lots of help. C had more or less gone off the deep end. It made me wonder how many vampires had similar problems. I suppose I should have been grateful that I'd been living at the Nicholls Ward. When I'd needed help, Nurse Ophelia and the rest of the staff had been there. I might not have managed so well anywhere else.

I decided to flip through the journal to see if there was anything else written with capital letters instead of names. I scanned each page as quickly as I could manage, but the writing was so messy, and the pages so wrinkled, it took a long time to find anything. Then about three months later there was this short entry.

 

Flew in to Heathrow. One of our agents is missing. There are three other victims in the Dartmouth area, all women. Evidence suggests possible WW.

 

“WW.” That had to be something special, or my father would have just spelled it out properly.

The next entry was short.

 

Met Max in Torquay. Tracks outside of Plymouth confirm our suspicions. We set bear traps and doubled the watch.

 

I skimmed a whole page that described a boat trip up the Dart, which I guessed was a river. Then I found this.

 

Success and disappointment. The bear traps have ended our hunt.

 

Bear traps
? I tried to imagine the kind of creature you would catch with one of these.

 

Identity of WW impossible to determine. Dr. Q determined his psychosis is incurable. Despite availability of nutrient, killing urge cannot be suppressed. Hemlock administered. Body cremated. Ashes scattered in the Dart.

 

Was this about a werewolf? I flipped quickly through the pages ahead, searching for another WW, but I didn't find any more. Then I put my hand against my forehead and closed my eyes. If only my father had told me what he was doing when he was still alive. If we'd just been able to talk about it. There were so many things I might have asked him that could help me now. But I guess I was way too young back then. And I probably wouldn't have believed him. Werewolves? It was nonsense. Then I laughed. I was a vampire now. It was sort of like a doctor not believing in a dentist. Of course, I
would
have believed my father.

I reread the last few lines: “
His psychosis is incurable . . . killing urge cannot be suppressed . . . Body cremated . . .
” I was noticing a very disturbing trend in these entries. Insanity. And death.

My father had had no way of knowing what I would become. And still, he had left a warning for me that was probably more important than anything he'd said to me when he was alive. If I wasn't careful, I might turn out like these others.

I started reading again, then my stomach grumbled. I was getting hungry. After all this reading about vampires going crazy, I wasn't about to let my belly complain without doing something right away. The journal would have to wait.

The squirrel traps were still in the boat. I reached in and lifted them onto the dock. Mr. Chipmunk was eyeing me from the farthest corner of the cage. He could probably guess what was coming. So could Mr. Squirrel. I don't think any of us were happy about the arrangement, so I opened the cages and let them go. There seemed to be no point in killing two rodents when an army of them wouldn't have satisfied my appetite for very long. And I didn't want to have to cope with the guilt of killing something so small and helpless.

Still, I had to feed. I didn't want to turn into a monster. I decided it was time to follow Mr. Entwistle's advice and test myself. And I needed to stretch my legs. I was used to burning lots of fuel every night. All this sitting around was making me restless.

I zipped on a life jacket. I felt a little nervous about being on the water by myself, so I put a second one on overtop. It was snug, but if the boat decided to flip over on me, I didn't want to end up as fish food. Then I untied the boat and pushed off. When I was far enough from the shore that the sound of the motor wouldn't wake anyone up, I pulled the ripcord and took off for Luna's cottage.

As I made my way past the lights along the shore my thoughts returned to the bonfire. What I'd said and heard. I forgot about carriers and agents and werewolves and psychosis and just enjoyed replaying the evening in my head. Then I started changing a few things. Mostly, I just stole a lot of Charlie's jokes and made myself a lot funnier. And I imagined supporting Luna in her argument with
the twins about revenge. I shouldn't have stayed so quiet when she was really arguing on my behalf. After all, both my parents were dead and I hadn't done a thing about it. By the time I was halfway down the lake, the whole episode was completely altered. I came out looking like a saint. And a genius. And a stand-up comedian.

Then I imagined telling Luna the truth about myself. Everything. In this version, everyone had left the island but the two of us, so no one got to interrupt. I started with my father's real profession. And my condition. Then Vrolok. I think a part of my mind was preparing me for when this conversation might happen for real. It was also preparing me for disappointment. It seemed that, even in my imagination, no matter how I sugar-coated things, she just wasn't going to be interested in a guy who got angry when there was no blood to drink and who couldn't go out in the sun. We could never be like Charlie and Suki, which was too bad. They obviously liked kissing a whole lot. But who would want to kiss a vampire? It was like I had fifteen diseases rolled into one.

I stopped the motor about fifty feet from the shore in front of Luna's cottage. The water made soft lapping noises against the hull as I drifted in. I took my life jacket off, tied up the boat and slipped quietly onto the dock. There was a gentle breeze blowing over the water. I put my nose to the air and stopped breathing to listen. It wasn't long before I heard something rustling just past the cottage. I snuck through the shadows and into the laneway. Then I discovered the source of the noise. A raccoon was nose-deep in a garbage can on the back of the porch. When it saw me approach it scampered off. There must have been no shortage of garbage cans on the lake, because this one waddled like an overstuffed house cat. It was lucky. I hadn't come all this way for blood that was made from recycled garbage. I had come because of what Suki had said about the deer.

I
followed the driveway from the cottage to the main road. Between domes of grey and pink granite, tall evergreens grew in clumps. Most of them were cedar, I think, and pine. Where it was rocky there were clearings, and it was in one of these that I picked up the scent of something wild. Fur, I guess. Then I saw the deer. A buck with arm-sized antlers.

I approached from downwind so it didn't hear me until I was close. It bolted just as I sprang. I was fast, but the buck was faster. He outdistanced me in a few seconds. Still, I wasn't worried. Way back before bows and arrows and farming and the wheel, our earliest ancestors practised exhaustion hunting. I'd seen it on a nature program once, and it worked like this. Your great-great-great-whatever-grandfather and his buddies followed an animal for six or eight hours until it ran out of energy. Then they stabbed it with sharp sticks. It apparently worked because running on two legs is more efficient
than running on four legs, so even though the animal was faster over short distances, in a long race it eventually ran out of juice and collapsed. Exhaustion hunting. Not a lot of fun. I think it was the main reason farms were invented.

Well, I didn't have six to eight hours. And I didn't have my friends with me, or a sharp stick. What I had instead was a running speed much, much higher than any ordinary human's. I was hoping this would matter, or I was going to have to consider putting rodents back on the menu.