Bring On the Night (12 page)

I followed him, stopping in the doorway as he eased himself into his office chair. “If you won’t take time off, then let me do your appointments the next few days. Or longer.”

“No!” He jerked up his head. “You can’t go out in public. The doctor said anyone without immunity was in danger.”

“But Aaron didn’t cough or sneeze on me. Shane said that with chicken pox—”

“Ciara, this isn’t normal chicken pox.” Franklin’s voice cracked as it rose. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, but it’s serious. It could be some kind of supervirus.” His elbow on the desk, Franklin pointed a shaky finger at me. “And you could be next.”

Dear Mr. Fantasy

I’d expected the county health department’s decor to match its 1970s utilitarian exterior. Dull green linoleum floors, mustard yellow doorframes, beige walls covered with cracked-framed motivational posters exhorting employees to “Persevere.”

Instead, the place where I was facing my biggest phobia radiated a contemporary touch. Soothing pastel walls conversed with freshly buffed, cream-colored floors. It almost looked like a hotel.

“Which room is it?” Lori asked as we stood before the building’s directory.

I unfolded the sweat-dampened paper I’d been clutching. “106. Oh no, that’s on this floor.”

Lori seized my elbow before I could run. It had taken half an hour of pleading and ridiculing to get me out of the car.

“It’s almost five o’clock,” she said. “They’ll be closing soon.”

“Then we should come back tomorrow. I don’t want to bother them. Remember when you used to work at the bar, how much you hated people who came in two minutes before closing?”

“I was serving drinks, not saving lives.” She tugged harder on my sweater, and I finally relented so that it wouldn’t rip.

At 2 p.m., Sherwood College had sent an e-mail to all the students, faculty, and staff, notifying them of Aaron’s death. The message implored those of us without chicken pox immunity to make tracks for the county health department, where medical staff would be giving out free varicella vaccines. Getting an injection within seventy-two hours of exposure was supposed to provide seventy percent immunity against the disease, and ninety-five percent immunity against a severe attack.

Of course, that applied to normal chicken pox.

As we walked down the shiny hall, I rubbed my shoulder, where I imagined the needle would stab me. “What if I have another allergic reaction?”

“The doctors can take precautions,” Lori said. “Worse comes to worst, the hospital is next door.”

“Great.” I crumpled the e-mail message in my pocket, trying to think of anything but the sensation of a long, sharp implement penetrating my skin.

Just before we reached room 106, its door opened slowly. A young man with scraggly dark curls shuffled out, trailing a backpack listlessly behind him.

“Turner?”

My classmate saw me as he let the heavy door slam shut behind him. “Hey, uh… is it Kara?”

“Ciara, whatever.” I looked at the door. “Chicken pox shot?”

“Yeah.” He leaned his shoulder, then the side of his head, against the wall. “I figured after what happened to
Professor Green, I better not take any chances.” Turner swiped his sweaty hair back from his face. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“He was one of the best,” Lori said. “All the history majors loved him, even though he gave such hard exams.”

“I really wanted to take his fall course on…” Turner ran a finger under the collar of his polo shirt. “On… uh… the Crimean War.”

Lori whimpered. “That was my favorite class ever.”

I stepped closer to him. “Turner, are you feeling okay?”

“I was.” He put his hand on the brass plaque next to the door and traced the numbers 106, his eyes glazing over. “When I came here I was fine. Then I got the shot, and now I feel like utter crap.”

I touched his arm. “Maybe you’re allergic? I had a reaction when I was a kid.”

“No, they tested me first.” He leaned his forehead against the plaque. “I actually got the shot like… two hours ago, but I forgot my phone here and… had to come back. To get my phone. I forgot… I forgot my phone.” Still slumped against the wall, he turned to me. “Do you think I’m hot?”

Lori reached out and felt his forehead. “My God, you’re on fire.”

Turner’s lashes fluttered as he closed his eyes. “I thought so.” He swayed, staggered one step to the left, then collapsed.

“Turner!” I caught his upper body before his head could hit the hard floor. “Lori, get the doctors!”

“Ciara?” Her voice pitched high with fear as she pointed.

Turner’s shirt was riding up, revealing a band of lesions crawling across the pale skin of his abdomen.

I leaped back, my hands high in the air.

“Get out of here!” Lori whispered as she dug in her purse. “Here’s my keys. Go wait in the car and use the wet wipes in
the glove compartment. Don’t touch your face!”

I took the keys from her trembling hand. “What about him?”

“I’ll get the doctor. Run!” She jerked open the door to room 106.

As I backed away, Turner started to convulse.

I ran for my life.

Fifteen excruciating minutes later, Lori sank into the driver’s seat next to me.

“What’d they say?” I asked her.

She spoke slowly, as if the words prickled her tongue on the way out. “That guy from your class had no symptoms of chicken pox when he walked in, but two hours later he’s on his way to ICU. Just like Aaron.” Her voice choked on our professor’s name.

“So what does that mean? Did the vaccine give him the disease, or did he already have it and the shot made it worse?”

“They don’t know.” She shoved her hands against her face and swept her hair up off her temples. “They don’t know anything, and that’s what’s so scary. They’re calling the state health department and then maybe the CDC.”

My heart felt like it was trying to kick out my ribs. The federal Centers for Disease Control would want Aaron’s class roster, would maybe even quarantine all of us who couldn’t prove we’d either had chicken pox or the vaccine. And now the vaccine not only couldn’t help but maybe even made the disease strike faster and harder.

My options were limited, to say the least. All I had left were hope and luck. And the beginnings of a plan.

My voluntary quarantine forced us to move Lori’s Friday night bachelorette party to my apartment. After Aaron’s death, we weren’t in a festive mood, but her wedding was in a week, so there was no room for postponement

Turner was in critical condition, according to the hospital, but still alive twenty-seven hours after collapsing—much longer than Aaron had lasted. Maybe Turner’s vaccine was working. If so, maybe the first dose of vaccine I’d gotten fifteen years ago would be enough to fight it off.

Shane’s online research suggested that this was no ordinary chicken pox. The incubation period should have been ten to twenty days, but Turner had gotten sick only a day after exposure. Then again, he and Aaron could have gotten it from the same source, someone they’d been around while I was off in the mountains playing Control agent.

I was confused, and tired of making conjectures based on crap information. I was ready to get drunk and be a girl.

“I love you.” Shane attached Dexter’s leash to the dog’s collar and kissed me good night. “Now eat, drink, and be merry.”

“For tomorrow I will die? Isn’t that the rest of the quote?”

He blanched. “Oh. Uh, well, I think it’s—”

A knock came at the door. He opened it to reveal Regina, who held up her hand and said, “Tag team Ciara supervision.”

He slapped her palm as he and Dexter escaped to an allegedly low-key bachelor party for David.

At the kitchen counter, Regina picked up two multicolored penis straws and butted their heads. “So lifelike.” She poured herself a glass of tequila.

I pointed to the fridge. “The margarita mix is—never mind,” I added as she downed the tequila in one gulp.

She smacked her lips. “I’m taking notes for your bachelorette party. Assuming you survive to see it.”

My chest tightened, but I emitted a shaky laugh. “That’s not much incentive to live.”

Another knock. I hurried to answer it, relieved to avoid the subject of my mortality. “It’s probably Tina. Be nice.”

Sure enough, my recent roomie gave a forced smile when I opened the door. “Hey.”

“Hey! It’s great to see you again.” I stepped back so she could enter. “How have you been since orientation?”

“Indoc,” she corrected. “It’s only been five days. How do you think I’ve been?” As Tina stepped across the threshold, she fixed her eyes on Regina. “You’re kidding me. A yoosie bridesmaid?”

“Don’t worry.” The DJ lifted her glass, newly tequilaed. “I’m only drinking booze tonight.”

“Speaking of which, what can we get you?” I tugged off Tina’s fur-lined suede coat to encourage her to stay, despite the undead presence. As her arms slipped out of the sleeves, I saw a long bandage running up her inner forearm. “Did you cut yourself?”

“No.” Tina pulled down her shirtsleeve, then folded her arms over her chest. “I’ll have a white wine spritzer.”

“Brilliant.” Regina picked up four bottles in two hands. “Zombies all around!”

Tina sighed and turned to me. “I’m sorry about your professor. Lori said he was great.”

“He was. Chicken pox, of all things. Lori told me you’ve already had it.”

“My adoption papers said I had immunity, so I guess I caught chicken pox when I was little, back in Romania.” She smoothed the static out of her long dark hair. “Lori said
Aaron was in Hungary last week for research. He probably caught it there. I’ve heard it’s a filthy place.”

Clearly the Romania/Hungary rivalry was alive and well in the twenty-first century.

“The state health department says it’s investigating,” I told Tina, “which probably means they’re as clueless as we are.”

“Don’t think—drink!” Regina scooted to the other side of the breakfast bar and passed out her cherry-garnished concoctions. “That’s tonight’s motto. Now pick your penis straw, and we’ll toast Aaron’s spirit.”

I examined the tall glass, wishing I was in the mood to drink. Someone knocked on the front door. Reminding myself of my duty to show Lori a good time despite the circumstances, I hurried to the door and swung it open with a flourish. “Surprise!”

Lori laughed through her gauzy white veil. “You remember Maggie, one of my friends from SPIT? She’s my vice president now.”

“Congratulations.” I hugged the thirtyish woman and planted a kiss on her perky red bob of hair. “I’m glad that if anything happens to Lori, someone will be there to step in. Constitutionally speaking, I mean.”

Regina was already lining up three more glasses. She gave Maggie a “Hey” when introduced but looked slightly past the newcomer instead of meeting her gaze. Direct eye contact with vampires can throw the uninitiated off balance.

“How was Aaron’s funeral?” I asked Lori.

“Very sad.” She slid off her coat and straightened her veil. “The History Department canceled class and chartered a bus to take students and alumni down to the burial in Baltimore. Franklin held it together, but you could tell he was
heartbroken.”

The thought of his pain produced an ache of my own. “I wish I could’ve gone to the funeral without endangering the world.”

She pulled back her veil to examine my face, as if looking for the Grim Reaper’s shadow. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” I waved my hand at the clock. “It’s been forty-eight hours. I bet I’m safe.” I grabbed her hand. “Help me celebrate life and shit like that.”

I cranked up the music, and we all danced like a bunch of death-defying freaks.

Lori and Maggie were jamming on the couch, halfway through their second zombies, when a knock came at the door.

“Pizza!” I seized the remote control, switched CDs, and pressed Pause. “Lori, answer that while I put out plates. It’s all paid for.”

She boogied over to the door and opened it to a man who looked like a younger, cuter Keanu Reeves. He held a pair of pizza boxes in a insulating red bag.

He glided in, casting a smile over Lori on his way past. She returned it, smoothing her hair in an unconscious gesture of
OMG hot!

Ken—for that was his name—deposited the pizza on the table and winked at me. I hit Play on the remote control.

The opening guitar riff of Prince and the Revolution’s “When Doves Cry” squealed out of the speakers. Ken turned to Lori with an intent gaze.

She took a step back, eyes crinkling in confusion. “Didn’t Ciara pay you?”

He circled her like a cat with its prey, stalking in time to the music. I snuck up behind Lori and shoved a roll of dollar
bills into her hand, which was already damp with sweat.

She looked down at the bundle of ones, then at Ken as he tore open his plain brown delivery shirt to reveal a tight red silk vest.

Lori’s eyes grew wide as softballs. “You got me a private stripper?”

She looked horrified. My mind played back our entire friendship in one moment, like a drowning person’s life. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought.

Lori threw her arms around my neck. “I love you!” she shouted over Prince’s moans.

I grabbed the zombie out of her hand so she could dance with Ken without spilling. When I set the drink on the counter, I noticed Regina watching the spectacle from the kitchen. Her eyes never left Ken, and the hunger within them made me shiver.

Then he was in front of me, naked but for a dark blue G-string that set off his tan. As we began to dance, I couldn’t help thinking that Aaron would definitely approve.

“You’re the best idea I ever had.” I trailed the end of a rolled-up dollar bill down the glistening skin of his chest, finally folding it into his G-string.

He spun me around to face away from him. We bumped and ground for another verse of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” and I took mental notes for my next striptease for Shane.

All too soon, Ken moved on to perform a lap dance for Maggie, whose face turned as red as her hair. Then Ken proceeded to Tina and held his composure in the face of her seizure of giggles.