The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.



-Emily Bronte



Pearl sat in front of the television, eating spaghetti with lots of sprinkle cheese. Her father was in the kitchen, cleaning the stove. He'd been cleaning since Tana left-doing laundry, scrubbing the inside of the microwave, even pulling out the refrigerator and getting down on his knees to wash the tiles by hand. He'd been at it so long that although it was after ten, he still hadn't eaten dinner. The only times he stopped were when the phone rang with calls from Homeland Security and, later, Aidan's parents.



On the television, a news anchor in a blue suit stood in front of the logo TEEN BLOODBATH with a big red spatter over the letters.



"Now for the latest update on the sundown party turned tragedy," she read off the teleprompter, "we go to Mitch Evans at the gas station off Highway Ninety-Three where a trio of teen survivors of the tragedy were spotted late Sunday night. Aidan Marinos and Tana Bach, along with an unidentified third young person, were caught on video, isn't that right, Mitch?"



Then the screen flashed to a newsman with an ill-fitting toupee standing in front of a gas station and holding a microphone on a bewildered-looking kid. "Absolutely, Tiffany," the man in the toupee said. "We're here with Garrett Walker, who's been working behind the counter at Global Gas for nearly a year. Can you describe what you saw last night?"



Pearl scooted forward on the sofa. "Dad!" she yelled. "Dad, they're talking about Tana on television."



"Sure I can," the kid with big red spikes in his hair, Garrett, said. "Two kids came into the mart. She was all scratched up, and the boy looked a little shifty, so that made me keep my eye on them. I thought maybe they were going to steal something."



"What do you mean, shifty?" Mitch Evans asked on the screen.



Garrett shrugged. "He was looking at things too long. Staring right through you."



"And how about the girl?" asked the reporter.



Garrett squinted at the sky, as if he was trying to remember. "She bought a sandwich, I think. Nice blue eyes. Short skirt. Honestly, I didn't pay much attention to her until after what happened out by the pumps."



Pearl reached out and picked up the cell phone resting beside her on the leather cushions of the couch. She'd looked at it about a hundred times since she'd seen the text from her sister that morning: a photo of a normal-looking street just after sunrise and the words Coldtown is crappy & I love you & I'm fine.



Every time Pearl looked at it, she could hear Tana saying the words, could hear her exact tone of voice. She even knew what they meant, because sisters spoke a certain kind of language so deep it was almost code. They meant that Coldtown was okay and not too scary, but also that Tana was teasing her for thinking of it as a romantic place. They meant that Tana wasn't a vampire yet because she could take photographs of sunrises. They meant that Tana was trying to hide how she really felt, which wasn't fine at all.



Pearl's dad walked into the room, sponge in hand. "What are you yelling about?"



She pointed at the screen. "Watch. They're talking about Tana."



"Turn it off," her father said, his voice hard.



"No, they're talking about Tana," Pearl repeated, because he must not have heard her.



"The police already explained what happened at the gas station. Now, do what I say and turn it off." He sounded stern, but Pearl didn't care. She wanted to hear.



On the screen, Mitch Evans looked very serious. "Tell us about that. You could see the whole thing?"



"Yeah, and I never saw anything else like it, neither," said Garrett. "The one boy looks like he's going to rip her throat right out when another boy comes out of nowhere. The new boy lifts the first one up into the air and bites down on his neck. Bites right down on it like no muss, no fuss. Just like on TV. The girl's lying there-doesn't even try to run. Then finally she gets up, brushes herself off, and the vampire-he must have been a vampire, right?-loads up the boy into the back of the car and they all drive off like nothing happened."



None of it sounded like Aidan, who was funny and nice and used to tease Pearl until she laughed. None of it sounded like Tana, who would have run or fought or something.



"The girl got into the car voluntarily? Was she cooperating with the vampire?"



"Looked like," said Garrett.



After she'd noticed the text that morning, Pearl had gone out to the kitchen and taken a picture of their dad, asleep at the kitchen table, and another picture of her mostly empty cereal bowl and sent those to Tana along with a message: Everything weird and boring here. U better have fun fun fun and send pix so i can be jealous.



She hadn't gotten any reply.



"Pearl," her father said warningly.



"No!" she shouted, hurling her plate of spaghetti at him, the sauce spattering across the wood floor and the plate shattering. "No! I want to hear about Tana."



"And you couldn't tell if the girl was Cold?" asked Mitch Evans on the television.



Some of the spaghetti stuck to the wall and other pieces fell. They all looked like worms.



"I couldn't tell nothing. You saw the footage, didn't you?" asked Garrett, the gas station guy.



"Unfortunately the police haven't released the video to the public yet, but we hope to show clips of it to our viewers soon. But I can say that Tana Bach, Aidan Marinos, and their unidentified companion are the only survivors of the massacre that left us with forty-eight teens dead, snuffed out at a party that should have marked one of the happiest times in their lives. The police are left asking how did three teenagers escape, what horrors did they endure during the seventeen hours they were held captive in that farmhouse, and where are they going now?



"Viewers, we want you to call the number flashing at the bottom of the screen if you see anyone matching their description or spot a gray 1995 Ford Crown Victoria with green patches. Remember, do not approach them. At least one has already been turned, the other two are probably infected, and their state of mind is unclear. They are considered highly dangerous. Back to you, Tiffany."



They returned to the newsroom. "Thank you, Mitch," said Tiffany with a stiff smile. "And remember, if you do come into physical contact with a vampire, you are legally obligated to report yourself to the authorities. Do not attempt to wait to see if you've become infected. Do not attempt to self-quarantine. Call 911, explain the nature of the attack, and wait for further instructions.



"Next up, we'll hear from an expert who will go over the best way to vampire-proof your house and after that we have an exclusive interview with the bounty hunter who claims to have details on one of the three vampires who perpetrated this slaughter. But first, a word from our sponsors."



Her father hadn't moved from where he was standing in front of the television. Even though he'd told her to turn it off, he'd watched until the end.



Pearl thought about finally saying the words she hadn't said all day long, ever since she saw the message from Tana: I know where she is, Dad.



But didn't say those words or any others. She picked up the remote, solemnly clicked off the television, and went upstairs to put on her pajamas for bed.