How to Train Your Vampire

I got to the police station shortly after.

Officer LeBlanc was waiting for me, but this time he was clearly stressed.

“Lexi,” he greeted me with a smile, but it still looked tired.

I went to follow him into his office, but he took an unexpected turn into another room I didn’t recognize.

My heart sank when I went in there. It looked like the kind of interrogation room you saw on cop dramas. They figured something out, and I didn’t know what that something was.

I sat down on the side with the odd loop sticking out of the table. I’d seen it in movies enough I recognized it. It was where they shackled suspects to the table so they didn’t get away.

A tiny light in the corner, blinking red, drew my attention. A camera stared at me. I swallowed.

Officer LeBlanc sat across from me.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked quickly.

“No, no,” he reassured. “At least, I hope not.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

He had some papers in front of him but he focused on a legal pad.

“Can you tell me everything you know about what’s going on in the asylum?” he asked.

“Huh? I’ve only been there the one time,” I said.

He watched me. The camera watched me.

I felt my will start to buckle, but I stayed silent.

“We know you’ve been there at least a few times,” he said. “Possibly more.”

I looked at my hands folded on the table. He knew a lot more than he was letting on.

“Do I need to call my Mom?” I asked.

His reflection on the table shook its head. “We’re not pressing any charges, we just want to know whats going on up there, and who’s been living in there.”

“I never— I never met anybody inside there. My friends and I went up there, but that was a one time thing. I’ve been going up there to take photos.”

“You’ve been taking photos?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I shrugged my camera bag off and pulled the camera out to show him. I scrolled through the photos of the dead rat and a bunch of the grafiti and our sunlit rusty old pipe. “That was why we went up there in the first place,” I mumbled.

He watched as each image flashed past his eyes and then sat back, more relieved than anything.

“Let me be blunt with you then,” he explained. “We found another body last night.”

My blood chilled. 

“A body?” I asked.

He nodded. “Same condition as that security guard. Same MO.”

I wanted to puke. Had Scarlet gone out last night without me knowing? Or was there another vampire around?

Had she really killed someone again so soon?

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded, but my head was spinning so fast I felt sick.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He stood and I stiffened, feeling like I should run but he just put a trash can by my feet.

I nodded the closest thing to a thank you I could and waited for the dizziness to slow down.

When  it finally had, I rested my head on the coolness of the table.

“I’m sorry to scare you,” LeBlanc said. “But its important we catch this guy.”

“What— what did the body look like?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you that.”

He waited for my response. I didn’t know what to say.

“Listen, Alexis, I need to know everything you remember about that person you encountered in the asylum. We want to stop this before anybody else gets hurt.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve been back to the asylum a couple times but I haven’t seen anybody else there,” I lied. “I know its trespassing but its also really important to me that I get some good photos for our— our thing,” I explained.

He didn’t question what our thing was.

“And what about the first time youwere there, you said you saw the man getting murdered.”

“No,” I said. “I heard him get murdered I didn’t see who it was.”

He pressed some more questions. I felt like he knew I was holding back, but I was not about to sell out my friend. It wasn’t her fault. If she was just a human killing for pleasure it would be different but I doubted she enjoyed killing people. She would’ve killed me by now if that was the case.

Finally, he let out a sigh. “If you remember anything please call me,” he said. His head hung exhaustedly. “If he’s killed before, he’ll kill again. That’s the type of monsters these people are.”

I held back a confused mix of anger and sadness and picked up my camera and silently got up and left.

The woman at the front desk wished me a good evening, but I didn’t even look back.